How to nerf Talented Healer

I have a somewhat different solution that I think would solve the card cycling problem, not require a die roll so there's no RNG, and would give some love to lifesteal priests! I suggest the Talented Healer effect be changed to:

For each ally, the first time each turn you play a Heal card that targets an ally whose health is not already at maximum, draw a card.

This would do several good things. It would limit the number of cards drawn each turn to 3, and it would make it so that you can't heal a single character to full with multiple heal cards and draw a new card for each heal (as only the first heal played on that ally would cause you to draw a replacement). This would lead also lead to more interesting gearing/card selection for heal cards, as you'll want big heal cards like Greater Heal to be able to heal your tanky characters, but also want weaker heal cards like minor heal to heal your other allies and proc card draws.

Furthermore, since lifesteal cards like Enervating Touch would no longer let the caster cycle through their deck (as they'd only draw a card the first time the priest playing them was healed), Talented Healer could be changed back to proc off of lifesteal cards, potentially making lifesteal priests viable again.

This would also add additional utility to cards like Team Heal, which would cause you to draw 3 cards at once if everyone on your team was damaged.

If this was still too strong, it could be changed to something like "The first 2 times each turn" or "on an ally other than yourself".

 

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On a quick read (which turned out to take a long time on a very large thread), it is obvious that talented healer is not so much the issue as the counter to it. If the game is a 'borrow-ness' from Tactical RPG, then LOS is more the significant issue. Firestorm decks (and to a certain degree even whirlwind decks) stop the necessity for movement. I can understand why classically overplayed Frost Jolt designed decks get over frustrated by decks designed around less movement.​

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However, the answer to such a quirk in my opinion would be to allow items such as Purge to also ignore LOS, thereby becoming more effect counter. The interesting thing about such cards is the amount available at this stage is lower, so it is not an OP strategy against things like Freeze decks, but has a distinctive advantage if they occur.​

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My gut instinct to this all tells me though, that this is a slippery slope, and really is how far the designers want to go down this pathway.​

 

That will do nothing to combat the infinite turns if you don't happen to have a purge.

 

Well, there are alternatives to a purge strategy such as Whirlwind Enemies . What I am specifying here is the fact that there is a lack of counters towards cards that ignore LOS, in the overall scheme of things, you would expect such a thing, but such a thing in a small dose.

 

But technically, talented healer churn doesn't require LOS. You may very well be able to do it based off of a lot of Demonic Pain and self heal for instance.

 

The thing which always confused me on this is how it is an INFINITE draw.

I had assumed that once you ran out of cards in your deck, all you would get is 1 free racial move card per turn.

But from reading these threads about Talented Healer, it would appear your deck will re-shuffle if you run out of cards?

If so... THAT is the mechanic that needs disabled to solve everything. Sure, for a few turns the priest keeps his party near immortal. But eventually the priest is nothing more than a mobile speed-bump because he has expended his use.

Personally, I haven't seen a deck get under 10 cards yet, so it would seem that only stall decks face the possibility of running out of cards to play. And with Victory Squares, it isn't like you enter a stalemate when you get down to no cards remaining. Tactical bonus to the guy who sees that cards are running out and keeps a Push available to secure the Victory Square for his team.

 

Nah, that would break the game. If that was the case you'd see a bunch of Traveling Curse decks around and you'd get to a point where all you could do was move so whoever had victory conditions or could get there faster wins. That's not very fun...

 

Xienwolf, you've *never* made it through a deck? You play differently (or less) than I do.

 

Yeah, I haven't played much MP recently, but today half of my matches were losses due chiefly to Talented Healer. Essentially, causing the necessity of playing Talented Healer in order to contend with an opponent who is playing Talented Healer. This has resulted in a steep disinclination in playing MP indefinitely.

Edit: I seriously considered rage quitting. I didn't, but I considered it.

 

Only up to 1200 in MP ever, and just 1 or 3 wins a day, with enough SP to hit level 9. So I'll say I just don't have the experience of playtime to have run my deck out yet.

Pity, seemed elegant.

 

In order to limit Talented Healer, I vote that when triggered its duration decree. Additionally, I believe that more than 2 in a deck is too much. Attachments or any card that can be used multiple times needs to be carefully monitored. Talented Healer not only is such a card, but it provides card draw (hand advantage) which is, "the engine that drives Card Hunter."

I eagerly await its revision.

 

I actually really like that. Start it out with a duration of 3, and it's duration is reduced by 1 for each card drawn in this way. If it's duration is reduced to 0 talented healer is discarded. So, a max of 3 cards could be drawn from it ( two from heals, one from it being a trait), but you have 2 rounds to use them.

 

Why not simply change it to only draw once per turn (Just add "The first time each turn" to the start of the card text)? That way you wouldn't be able to play 3 heal cards, reduce its duration to 0, and potentially draw another Talented Healer and do it again. Locking it at 1 card per turn would permanently fix these infinite card draw decks that keep popping up.

EDIT:

Wouldn't that actually be 4 cards then? You draw a card to replace it becaues it's a trait, and it's attached with a duration of 3. Then you heal and draw, so it's 2. You do it again, so it's at 1. You do it one last time, and it drops to 0, for a total of 4 cards.

 

Adding a die rolls looks like the simplest solution to the problem to me, but out of curiosity I've been trying to think up other solutions.

1) I like this for its elegance. When I was thinking along these lines I was going to suggest the same thing as Neofalcon. You could have the duration counter in the top right of the card (as it is at the moment) and a "number of times used this round" counter in, say, the top left corner. Then add "Maximum X times per round." to the end of the talented healer effect box.

2) An alternative could be to change the end of the rule to "and you have fewer than X cards in your hand, draw a card."

3) Would easier access to Purge help? Or new types of purge cards? Something along the lines of a burst/pulse effect Purge, a purge on all character in LOS, or even a board-wide purge.

4) More keywords. An offensive attachment with a keyword that either prevents healing to a character or prevents a character from drawing cards.

5) An extension to the Perplexing Ray line of spells. A card that says "discard at random until you have X cards in your hand."

As far as I can see Talented Healer probably does need a rule change, all the other possibilities suggested would rely on having having the counter card in your hand on the first turn and being able to use it. Of course the only way to guarantee that you have said card would be via an infinite draw deck...

Anyway, I thought I'd just throw all my random thoughts out there. Maybe they will inspire someone else to come up with something good.

 

That certainly does NERF the card.

Isn't creating a trait with this sort of behavior a bit unique, slightly odd and ill-fitting with the rest of the cards available? For example, would you do the same type of thing to
Unholy Wellspring? Three strikes and you're out!

 

I like that too! I would rather that then the recent reduction in damage on Unholy Wellspring. Although, it is a card that I seldom use.

Yes, it would be a, "unique" mechanic for trait cards. No, it is not as, "odd and ill-fitting" as you may think. Here, let me explain why.

There exist cards that effectively reduce and extend attachment duration. However, these cards are not currently on any available items. The cards to which I am referring are: Accelerate Time and Time Snap. This shows that the duration is, and will be more variable then it is currently. Now, while I strongly question the likelihood that such a change will be made. I do feel it is worth mentioning, and looking into.

 

If I may, offer a small nerf to talented healer. Instead of drawing a card if the target is less than maximum health, only draw card if target did not reach maximum health after heal. This is the behavior I thought the card would work the first time I saw it. It's a very small nerf, but I'm just throwing it out for discussion.

 

The problem I see with this is that it punishes you for bringing more powerful heal cards, as you wouldn't ever want to heal someone to full, which is very counter-intuitive.

 

It does nerf it, but does it make it a bad card? As Lance said, there are cards that mess with durations, and even AOEs currently so the mechanic itself is not so odd. It is different for the current card pool that we have access to, but does go with the standards of other games that use timers/counters on cards. It's also an easy to grasp concept that plays with a current game resource.

Would I do it to wellspring? Perhaps. More importantly, there's no reason it wouldn't work with Wellspring.

 

Another smaller tweak would have the card activate only on healing-only cards (ie not misguided heal or bad medicine).