I think you might not have to buff the damage of electric attacks, but instead make available some of the cards that are only available to monsters at the moment. I think mixing in cards like Wild Spark and Arcing Spark would make for more strategic options for an electric wizard. Also there do need to be some arcane items with electric attacks. Adding "Hard to Block" to arcane attacks is not the same as making it an electric attack and the highest damage arcane attack I've found on any arcane item is Big Zap, which only does 5 damage at Range 2. Not really a great option considering how prevelant step attacks are and how squishy wizards are, though not the worst either. There really needs to be more variety given to arcane and electric wizards and I don't think you would even need to change any current cards or make new ones, necessarily. Give us items with Force Choke (The spell Morvin, or whatever his name is, uses when you fight all the cockroaches.) or other spells we've seen in the campaign and I think electric or arcane wizards would be more enjoyable to play. Imagine a Poison/Acid wizards. Hmm. After a bit of checking of the wiki, I found that there are/were items in game with some of the spells I've suggested. I'm curious to know why they are no longer in the game (or unattainable in some fashion).
Just having a quick look at Martial there are no skills like that is more of a warrior or class based skill. This was just spin off idea from Pengw1n's post on that skill, and I would expect there are other or maybe there could be a Tank option in the Martial skill set as well as the Bruiser, Impaler and Slicer. I don't know if or for that sake Tank/Defender Skills would or could be. Maybe along the lines of Cause Fumble, Meat Shield could have the Warrior stop damage from the nearest ally but take some or all of that damage if ally is within a given range.
I like the sound of all these changes. I particularly like the Pathfinding change. I reckon that's a really good idea which adds some utility value to an otherwise highly situational card. One change I'd like to see which isn't here though is a range reduction on Frost Jolt. I think Frost Jolt currently is too powerful for a silver card, and long-range encumber in general is very powerful for completely zoning characters out of the game (in addition to shutting down step-attacks and so on). So I reckon Frost Jolt should have lower range, maybe even as low as 5, although even just a reduction to range 7 would be a bit better. (I reckon Freeze deserves to keep it's full range 8, because it's a rare green card.) On the other hand though, I don't think wizards themselves are too powerful - so I guess we have to be careful about nerfing all of the best wizard cards...
Ah, but I find myself actively seeking out Arcane spells because of how hard it is for the enemy to stop them (no Resistant Hide, and Arcane has the only Penetrating cards). And then "max damage" isn't the only thing if you can get other features like the Cone on Arcane Spray. Still, I would in fact like to get Sorcerous Bolt (higher range), Sorcerous Blast (higher range and damage), and so on from Arcane Items.
I think this is what makes me undervalue arcane spells. The ones found on arcane items all tend to be of short range and low damage which is a poor combination for a squishy wizard. I don't think the arcane spells need to be changed or new ones created, but just make more variety of composition in the spells that already exist by, as you said, making surging bolts and the other arcane spells available on arcane items.
They haven't nerfed Fireball. They have upgraded it's quality to Gold and have replaced all current instances with another card called Ember Burst. It is a little different from nerfing. Hopefully they can figure out where/how to insert a few copies into existing/available items once they see how this set of changes goes.
Yes, and this "Both Fireball and Ember Burst will have a range of 6". So now it's rarer and less effective.
Disappointed with these nerfs. Fireball's blast was a balancing drawback; on many maps, it was difficult to target more than one enemy without also targeting yourself. The elf upgrades are welcome, though.
On two of the old MP maps it was difficult, but on the new maps it was easy. Fireball needed some sort of nerf due to it's dominance in all levels of MP.
For me it's that electric spells start out doing more damage than arcane, and then the electrical spells get further improved with traits. Heck, arcane spells do around the same damage as a frost bolt, and frost bolts add encumber for 2 turns. The one thing arcane has going for it is that they have step attack cards, but those are much more situational on a mage than a warrior. I find the main use of step attacks on a mage is to move off of lava, rather than issues with range or LOS.
Doubtful, as monster decks are not dynamic like items. Check a Fire Spirit to make sure, but I'd be very surprised if anything's changed for monsters. Then again, maybe all fire based decks would benefit from a change up if a new fire based card is introduced.
I'm wondering if perhaps to up the Elvish population, there could be a trait or skill that allows them to "sneak". For example if you play the Sneak card, you pick where you want your elf to go, but it doesn't move until your next turn. On that turn, you are allowed to play a card, like normal, but you've also got the move in for your Elf. I hope I'm explaining it clearly. Apologies if I didn't.
I think if it was "dominant at all levels of MP" we would see everyone running mages with the Staff of a Million Fireballs. Instead, we see many teams with encumber builds, electric builds, whirlwind builds, or no wizards at all. And yet, a single Resistant Hide renders all fire attacks 100% ineffective....
Also, (I apologize in advance, but I have to half-troll for a minute): No one likes the new maps and we are all waiting for the old maps to come back.
