[Feedback] Lava Terrain too powerful

Lava terrain is not game breakingly powerful, it's the encumber cards that are game breakingly powerful.

 

After several other games I must agree. I think Lava is OP (I use it a lot by now anyway), its damage should be lowered but encumber cards are the worst.

 

Priests are very awesome at clearing up terrain and while wizards are not as awesome remember that new terrain replaces the old one so acid might be preferable to lava or mud and so on. This obviously only works if people as some people have claimed are in to a lava fire meta but it should just flat out win than. Combine it with push and slide cards for even more fun and countering encumber effects.

 

The ultimate counter to lava is not cleansing pressence; It´s Smoke Bomb

Regardless, Lava makes wizards slightly more viable because they are short of damaging options, specially with Arcane Items. You CAN win a game with all utility, but you will take your dearly time and the enemy warrior can Nimble Strike/Obliterate you pretty easily if you are careless. Lava is either the nail in a coffin or a swift deterrent to a stall-heavy team that likes to camp the VPs, their interaction with encumber, however, IS dreadful, as it can´t even be blocked (If i recall correctly, it also goes through Shimmering Aura). It is almost entirelly made to punish unprepared or otherwise empty handed opponents

However, here´s the deal breaker. In order to escape Lava, you have to move out of it or cleanse it. If you are encumbered, one of these is a non-option. For the sake of this example lets say you are Halted. The mages way out of this is casting Whirlwind or any terrain attachment like Smokebomb. The Priest´s way out is Purging the Halt or Cleansing the floor around them, they can also use Consecrate Ground to reeplace it. Warriors DONT have a way out; they rely entirelly on a teammate to get them out of the mess (At least non Dwarf ones. Shrug it Off be damned).

So Lava counters warriors, therefore Lava is too powerful

 

The warriors response, while not as good as the other classes, is to have the best armor available and highest hit point limit. Asking for more really would make it an overpowered class.

 

What teams are doing nowadays is running all human teams so they can use "run team" cards, which go straight through encumber cards. Encumber needs nerfs and buffs all at the same time.

 

Humans aren't the only ones with those skills though. Warriors get them in their Helmet slot, and there are Boots with those effects too. Elves have their own team move, too, and I've often used my Wizard's force bolts or Winds of War to move my characters around. And then Clerics can just outright purge it. Every class and almost every race can handle it in some form.

 

And don't forget you can also ctrl-click to Maze your allies.

 

Maze is super unreliable though.

 

After a lot more games I changed my mind: probably the only cards really OP are the encumber ones, way too powerful, you can make a warrior useless for a lot of turns. Besides lava is probably nothing in comparison with all that weapons that deals 10+.

 

Part of the argument moved to Encumber, and just to clarify that Elvish Mobility doesn´t handles Encumber very well. Just a footnote

Anywhere but that spot you are standing on is acceptable ;P Maze is like a Weak Strike as far as it being on items goes, you probably have one or two cycling in your deck

Encumbers deal very low damage and can only stop you for so long. If you are a well prepared warrior, a Sprint or an X, Team of your allies should be able to surprise the ice mage. I´ve had wizards arrogantly approach my Frozen, Frost Bolted Elf Warrior just to look closer at the Purge that´s targetting her.

I think Encumber is a healthy thing, it creates a "Mini-meta" and makes you wiser than relying entirelly on running warriors with 2 Rageblood Dagger and 1 Vibrant Pain

 

Wow vibrant pain is awesome.

 

There's a reasonable critique of the lava/encumber build in MP, but it's not that it does too much damage, it's that it encourages passing. Multiwizard lava teams can be countered by a dedicated support/heal cleric, arrogant armor, scads of move cards (especially XXX team, which are slides, not steps currently), smoke, and running a wizard blaster team yourself.

The problem is that even in those scenarios, the game becomes quite a bit about watching your sightlines and waiting until you draw what you need. As long as you have a movement card in your pocket you're mostly ok, but as soon as you use up that last move you are in trouble. So it encourages lots of pass/pass play, which is dull.