Holy Nimbus is the item: http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Items/Holy_Nimbus Impenetrable Nimbus is the card: http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Cards/Impenetrable_Nimbus
Just had the "pleasure" of facing mom, I don't have the gear for that yet...it feels like a punishment for getting AI as an opponent. Way, way, way too ridiculous.
Mom likes feeding her boys and they've become fatties, but a good set of freezing magic can usually nail them down to earth. I don't find her excessively difficult, otherwise she'd have had a higher rank (her 1100-1200 shows that many players beat her on a regular basis). I think some arrogant armor should have been given to the boys to wear, inusmuch as they aren't arrogant enough. But overall, it's a great addition to multiplayer. Moms rule
The thing about Mom is that if your deck is a good counter to hers you have a fair chance of winning, but if it's not, you don't. You have to have mobility to get past the blocks and avoid the big hits. Almost any caster deck should find them to be pretty easy to beat, lava decks especially.
The thing with these unbalanced ai decks is that they could actually help balance a meta game without having to nerf specific cards - BM could introduce ai's that are better vs builds that are heavily adopted to stir things up, then and again.
If you're running a warrior/priest deck against mom, you have absolutely no chance. Once you get into close range with her, it's impossible to keep up with her damage or her damage mitigation because it's insane. If you're using a deck with a lot of control, then mom is easy to deal with because she's stupid when she isn't given the opportunity to rape your face. I played against mom with a deck that had two warriors and priest. I couldn't kill a single character. Then I played against mom with a warrior/mage control deck (Encumber, Whirlwind Enemies, Bash, Force push, Winds of War, Lava, etc). I hugged the victory square and literally didn't take a single point of damage until the very last round of the game, in which I intentionally engaged the elf because I knew I could kill him and end the fight. Like I said, I appreciate the fact that mom isn't necessarily a free win anymore, but this is a really poor way to make her stronger. - She doesn't even use items that other players have access to. It makes no attempt to emulate another player, and its basically a campaign fight. - Her cards are insanely strong, and if your deck isn't built to counter her by incapacitating her warriors somehow, then you don't have any realistic chance to beat her up close. - The AI is still incredibly stupid, and will give away a free win by doing something as silly as throwing all of its attacks into an Impenetrable Nimbus. I've even seen the AI pass the turn on top of lava, despite the fact that they have a movement card.
No, its not true at all. You shouldn't have counter something directly just to have a chance at winning. Not in PvP, at least.
My warrior + 2 priests combo works decently. Not a guaranteed win, but wins more than loses. There's some nasty surpises, but generally their damage output isn't that high. Might be because Mom tends to play All Out Attack first. Instead of letting them buff other attacks.
That's the entire PvP meta-game though. If you know lots of people are playing buff the warrior and let him rampage on the other team, you take things to at least defend against that. If you know there are a lot of 3 Wizard firewall builds around, you build to deal with that. There are very few (if any) builds that can deal with all other builds equally, and those are the ones that get labeled OP and changed.
Yeah, if I can't counter your warrior with Blind Rage, Frenzy, Mass Frenzy, Demonic Frenzy, and whatever other boosts on their high damage cards then your warrior is going to murdalize my team. In more than a few situations the loss of a single character can change the course of a whole game. I haven't played Mom yet but I don't see how having to counter her build or die is different than having to counter another players build or die.
Mom has a distinct card advantage that the other AIs don't have and that makes her tougher than the other AIs despite her predictable play. Mom has a damage output without buffs that meets or exceeds the damage output of most buff-the-warrior decks and has it on at least 2 of her three guys, and they all have strong defense right alongside it. If you try to go man-to-man with her you'll probably lose. The problem with having Mom be so tough is that she acts as a gatekeeper for higher-ranked competitive play. You have to build to beat her and whatever the higher ranked players are playing, which is usually a more balanced team. It artificially skews PvP and makes it harder for people to run a straightforward, hard-hitting deck because everyone now knows it's not just a few high-ranked players that they will have to face with that - it's those players and every AI game. The fact that you can turn off AI matches makes up for this a little, but it also severely limits your play options. It's not just whether or not Mom is beatable - it's how having to be able to beat her changes the metagame. Two things MoM makes clear: AI opponents should not affect your rank if you're above 1000. Lower level players can then use them to learn and rank up to a competitive level but higher-level players can't farm them for rank or be forced to account for Mom in deckbuilding. It would be great to be able to enter a no-loot, no-rank, practice match against specific AIs (Mom) to test your decks. (Maybe you can do this now with custom games, but i couldn't figure it out. If anyone knows how i'd appreciate a hint and the devs should probably make it clearer.)
You aren't forced to account for Mom or any other AI in multiplayer. With one of the newer updates you have the option to turn off matches against AI opponents. edit: Same build that added Mom as a matter of fact.
I just faced Mom for the first time and I'm not surprised that she's OP judging by the campaign difficulty. The devs really love to give you a hard time, I mean...challenge. I'm not even gonna bother facing her until I have better gear.
Face Mom for the first time yesterday. Took out one of her characters before she wiped the floor with me. Might have done better if more of my defenses had activated.
My record now stands at 2 wins, 1 loss. They've all been very close games, even considering that I've been exploiting the AI a little by using 6 copies of impenetrable nimbus. I just faced Impenetrable Block for the first time, which blocked all 3 attacks I threw at it (it was a case of use the attacks or discard them, and I didn't have the movement to bypass it) - Bad Luck seems like a decent card against these guys.
I have an all warrior party (one of the few on here i think) and i beat mom probably 4 out 5 times. I play her a lot since my rank is around 1300 most of the time. Trick is to try and draw the elf out, gank him and then sit on the vp. My warriors have great mobility and some big hits themselves, combined with one warrior specialising in parries it isn't too bad with anything other than a really poor draw. Mom's dwarf is the biggest threat to my team, those shambling bashes really make it hard for me to keep fighting toe to toe. Mom's biggest flaws so far is that she doesn't realise the value of some of her cards. Often she will throw away impenetrable block for example. Also sometimes she attacks with her 'all out attack' card despite having another attack card in her hand that does more than 4 damage.
I think that Mom's party warps MP. It certainly makes MP less enjoyable for me. Once you reach a higher rating, you have to either build your party to beat her group or not play the AI. Given the current state of MP, removing the AI option makes MP even more tedious IMO. ( I don't personally take much enjoyment wrecking new players with the starting MP deck) So, to me it seems like MP decks have to be designed to beat Mom, and hopefully also be competitive against the field. It's that combination which so further limits options in MP. It's not that Mom is impossible or even that hard to beat, but your deck requires certain abilities to beat her high damage, high armor, stupid block warriors. Case in point, I built a party that I was having fun with in MP (winning some/losing some), but it really struggled to beat Mom. Given my rating, I will only get matched with her AI, and so I dropped 3 or 4 games in a row seeing how the deck would work against her (not that I care but that dropped my rating by about 100). An otherwise enjoyable deck get's scrapped because I have to be able to consistently beat Mom, so it's back to to my old party. Further, I really dislike the way the AI decks are designed. To my knowledge none of us could put together a party like Mom's. We could build a similar party perhaps, but not with the same high powered cards. I think this is a horrible example for players, having AI players in MP beat them with cards they don't have access to. It's fine in campaign where the point is to figure out how to beat each level, but that creates a warping experience in the MP queues. All the parties should be following the same build rules.
I generally don't find Mom all that tough. As mentioned in previous posts she does tend to play rather poorly despite having good cards. I'm using the adventurer's pack team since i can't afford to buy more packs. My warrior is all about damage output. My wizard is frost magic, fire walls and a little bit of utility. My priest is buffs and life steal with a little bit of party mobility. If i lose it is usually due to bad draws on my end or exceptional draws on her end, otherwise she is fairly exploitable.
Yes, encumber will stop her warriors in their tracks. That's part of my issue with it. Encumber should just be part of the metagame; some play alot of it, others can play to beat it. I like that aspect of the game, but when you throw in an AI team like Mom, it warps those choices. You end up needing to build a party that can both beat the actual player metagame and Mom, that leads players to favor encumber builds. (well, let's be honest, there would still be a ton of encumber wizards as it's one of their best uses, but Mom makes encumber an almost must have) I'm bothered when the AI teams are good enough and focused enough that they require you to either build around them or completely avoid them. Because of how often players face the same AI builds, having a plan is a (semi) requirement. Previously the AI teams seemed more like learning tools. Gary and Amy do a good job of showing players to look for synergy among their teams cards without being incredibly difficult. Melvin's dwarves are a bit harder, but there are many ways to beat him (and he represents a common strategy you'll face from actual players aka lots of Dwarves). Mom takes it in a different direction. It would be different if Mom represented an actual party you could face from live players, but that really isn't the case. Instead facing her is more like a campaign level; using cards you don't see anywhere else and requiring specific strategies to beat. Players have clearly learned her tricks, her rating is more than enough evidence of that. I just don't feel that players should need to adapt to the AI builds as much as they seem to need to for Mom. I think that's a bad fit for MP, which I think should be encouraging as many different party builds as possible. The AI teams shouldn't become a blocking point for the decks or players above that rating threshold.
