[Feedback] Level 12: why are my humans still so bad at being humans?

Really fun, really balanced game so far, I'm really enjoying the interplay of attacks and defenses and defense counters.

I'm baffled by human skills though: I'm at level 12 and I'm still waiting to see decent ones. I have access to Battlefield Training/Shuffle Team/ Shuffle and Forward Thinking/Walk/Shuffle, both of which are maybe, *maybe* better than 3 walks, but its super marginal, and both use a blue. Shuffle Team/Walk/Flimsy Block just seems like an outright net loss. I'm not finding any in chests, and the shops don't sell anything but these, so I'm walking around with 3 walks from the empty slot, level after level after level. It's maddening!

What sticks in my craw is how out of line it is with every other slot in the game. I have no trouble finding *something* interesting for all my other slots, even if its marginal, but there's *nothing* in the human skill slot I can justify. Can't these shops stock anything of interest ever?

The rest is great though - interesting level design, fun card design, slow-but-tantalizing progression. Dig it.

 

Interesting. I'm level 9, and my human's got a skill (from a loot drop, I think) that seems OK--Untrained Flexibility. I'm not ecstatic about it, but I'm not tempted to replace it with 3 walks.

Conversely, my elf wizard has been walking around with an empty skill slot for 2-3 levels. I haven't found any elf skills as loot, and the only ones I've seen in shops are Untrained Evasion (which I rejected because Superstitious looks intolerably bad), Apprentice Footwork (expensive because it's above my level, and uses a power token), and Novice Insight (too expensive, and questionable whether it's better than 3 Walks).

 

I have http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Items/Advanced_Flexibility and let me tell you, having double Leadership is very useful. Being able to toss away a bunch of useless move/parry/block cards and having the chance of getting new attack cards is fantastic.

 

Level 15 skills are not much help to people trying to fill the skill slot when it first unlocks at (level 8, I think?)

 

Race skills don't seem to drop nearly as often as other equipment types (and some of the rarities are insane). And because they unlock so late, nearly all of them are going to require a power token.

Human skills I've seen in the shops:
Apprentice Tactics
Command
Flexible Command
Flexibility
Novice Command
Tactics
Novice Flexibility
Novice Tactics
Untrained Command

 

I tend to think that most of the racial skills are mediocre until the higher levels. Dwarves are a bit of an exception, depending on the items, but they tend to luck out in the racial skill department.

For humans you want to start looking for Forward Thinking or Leadership . There are other options at higher levels, but worry about those until later.

Forward Thinking does a pretty good job of shrinking your deck. It's not outstanding, and later you can find items with Inspired Thinking which is much better, but it's not bad.

Leadership is the best option. It improves your entire team when you play it.

Based on that, be on the lookout for Novice Flexibility or Novice Tactics at your level.

 

The lack of good racial skills at low level is something all races share, probably due to the fact that negative traits are too heavy handed on a lot of low level gear.

 

It's absurd, really, seeing that some items which require power tokens are only marginally better than the stock skills your character starts with. Perhaps racials are special? As in: even the bad ones are pricier and have higher requirements? That's all the more reason to ignore racials unless you get lucky in that department.

 

Racial skills are the only item I ever went with any empty slot for: they seem to drop rarely at low levels. Perhaps they should start dropping earlier even if you can't use them yet. As time goes on you will see plenty.

Leadership is huge - I have a dwarf warrior and human wizard and priest, and both humans carry it.

 

Racial skills are SOO fun for me. I have discovered so many strategies messing around with these. Do not think leadership is the only skill you want for humans, there are a lot of strategies with the other human racial skills.

Example:

1. I play a super tank dwarf (2x heavy armor + massive amount of hit the deck). You ask "okay, you put encumber on a dwarf who is already slow?" YES!!!!! This is because humans have all these tactical movement racial skills that just let me move freely, because they have the push effect, and not a movement effect (meaning these are NOT move cards). Also, combine this with telekinesis and whirlwind has made it so fun to have my giant dwarf sit there and truck through every single enemy (pve and pvp).

2. Pathfinding is a really strong card (and well worth the price), and from what I see, people are underrating mobility cards. I rarely see people play DoT, nor do I see kite mages. I am pretty sure all I have seen are the high damage spark mages. I think people should discover more strategies. I play kiters a lot in various games, so I actually these some of these mobility runes are a bit too powerful.

 

I think Advanced Flexibility is the best item among all skill items, and surely the best of human ones. It's an Uncommon, so it should be attainable in the shops. I put 3 of these on my characters and forget about bad draws.

Human skills are especially good in MP, whereas elf and dwarf skills may benefit your opponent's characters, you shouldn't worry about it when you play humans. But in the Campaign, I'd rather play 3 dwarves with their Dwarven Battle Cry.

 

Awesome, thanks for the tip - this is actually the part that bugged me the most: I can accept that there's weak versions of everything, but this is the one slot where I couldn't even buy anything worthwhile and got stuck with an empty slot. Still think some of those extra weak ones shouldn't cost a blue, but I can see how racial skills might have to be balanced extra carefully.

 

let's just say......all the command team move skills are extremely EXTREMELY powerful. So all those you found are actually really good. Perhaps it is time to say "I don't like these human skills", and not "these skills are bad." Those cards are extremely useful in many situations than 3x walk, and from my view they are great.

 

Sorry if I offended your sensibilities my friend, its all just my opinion. It's not like I'm trashing Sprint Team, or even Walk Team, but if you want to downgrade Walks into Shuffles and use up some blues just to get at a Shuffle Team or two, that's cool with me. I'm just gonna wait until I find something better for that slot. Any chest now. I can feel it comin'

 

I constantly find myself in situations where I wish one of my team members was one square closer or one square farther away from an enemy...would sure be handy to have Shuffle Team then! I'm sure there are some silly combos possible through clever Battlefield Training, although that's obviously going to be inconsistent. Still, passing a Lifesaving Block to your wizard or passing a Bash to another guy with a hand full of Bashes is pretty sweet.

 

Ah! Sorry to hammer this thread, but the key is that the Goblin Bazaar didn't open until just now (after The Pools of Slime). It has some good options (Advanced Flexibility!): so it seems like my issue was the (pretty long) phase of the game where you're stuck with Kyburz Market, which via the levels / algorithm has some pretty uninspiring options.

 

Same experience here. Levels 8-12 were a huge slog item-wise, but when the new market opened, it was kid-in-a-candy-store time. I bought 105 gp worth of 5-10gp cost items, because there were SO MANY that were good and that I had never seen before.

 

Did I hear someone say silly combos using Battlefield Training? Have you seen what Lance has been using it for?

Also, I found my elves were much worse at being elves than my humans were at being humans in that part of the game.

 

Which is exactly why I said you should say " I don't like these skills." It is hard to argue when you don't state your intentions correctly. By outright saying "these skills are bad", you are telling me that this is a fact, which would just lead me to argue that it is not, because those skills are very useful to some. I was stating my confusion on whether I am responding to a general fact, or just your thoughts.

For starters, it is shuffle team + battlefield training. Battlefield training to me is the best human skill, better than any draw card human skill (seriously, the human draw card skills are bad in this type of game). I always throw on my warrior a whole bunch of frenzies (sometimes up to 4). Battlefield training allow me to pass on any extra melee attacks I got to my warrior, and passing on an extra all-out-attack is just fantastic. At low levels, passing on a key melee to frenzied warrior is often the key extra damage you need. I also love to play human wizards because battlefield training just increases the range of my spells (I can pass it on to someone closer).

Elves by far got the worst low level racial skills. All they got are some terrible move skills, and they aren't even useful.