Precursor: Sorry if this has been spelled out before! To begin: There are 3 classes (obviously), Wizard, Warrior, and Priest. Wizard has 3 Trait "lines," that basically amount to "+fire damage," "+lightning damage AND block reduction," and "teleport at start of turn" Warrior has 3 Traits that basically amount to "+ bash damage," "+piercing damage," and "+chop damage" Priest has 4 traits that do the following "heal adjacent allies and remove negative effects," "Card Draw," "healing self and cantrip on heals," and "+ heal" What conclusions does this lead to? Warrior has the most narrowly focused traits. All require a subset of cards and collectively they don't cover all types of warrior damage cards. They also all deal entirely with boosting damage Wizard has the only traits with "tiers," as you can boost fire by +1 or +2, and the same with Lightning (although it's worth noting that the lightning boosts also add a bonus that decreases blocks on All Block against your Arcane Attacks). Similarly to the Warrior, the damage boosts only cover a subset of damage types, and the only non-damage boost comes from Dimensional Traveller. Even still it's tough to call that trait "generally useful." More generally useful are the lightning bonus cards, because they also boon all arcane attacks by making them tougher to block. Priest traits have the most variance. All of them do something distinct, and while it's clear that some are better than others, it's highly unlikely to be unable to find use for some of them for a priest build. To put it in another light, many builds simply use warrior/wizard traits for card cycling. The Specific trait doesn't matter, only that it doesn't take up space in the deck. On the other hand, priest traits in general have noticeable effects, and can improve or even change how a deck is played when they're attached. It's card cycling AND useful effects. tl;dr-Warrior and Wizard traits end up being similar, whereas Priests have a unique array of traits. Warrior's are stuck either building around the traits or ignoring them entirely, Wizards gravitate towards the lightning damage increasers, generally to make blocking any arcane attack, regardless of damage type (or damage at all) harder. Priests generally have choices but gravitate towards either increased card draw or card efficiency ( Altruism or Talented Healer) My opinion? Priests traits embody what traits SHOULD be. Not just deck change fodder, but interesting and helpful boosts that at worst provide a numerical boost and at best change deck construction and play. Warrior and Wizard traits merely at BEST provide a numerical boost.
The Block Reduction for Arcane spells on the "Lightning" trades is actually pretty huge for wizards. This is one reason Electroporter Novice is perhaps the strongest wizard trait.
I feel wizard have decent flexibility with their trait lines, the problem is that electroporter novice dominates the slot. Other than that there is quite a bit of choice there. The real problem are warriors where all traits are utterly marginal for mp. The only choice there is whether you want to spend a token for a team run/allout attack or not. That is one slot in the game that could do with a major rework to make it interesting e.g. by adding movement traits/block traits/armor traits.
That's interesting. Dimension Traveller can be pretty big. It takes place immediately before you check damage for terrain effects, so a wizard with dimension traveller is very tough to kill with a hot spot or acid spray. I'm pretty sure there's more than one way to get All Out Attack, but I think the easiest way is Warrior Traits. It's about as much of a game changer as Talented Healer can be. Your point is taken, though, that priest talents are interesting in a way warriors and wizards abilities aren't. It'd be cool to see extra range (perhaps often coupled with 'defensiveness' and 'loner' to force you to use that range). I'd like to see warriors with bonuses to either armor or block die rolls. A damage bonus every time you switch targets (if your last attack was a chop, you'd have to hit a third target to get the bonus) would be interesting for a warrior.
My priest has All Out Attack, for some reason. Can't remember what it's from. Why doesn't it work on itself? First time I used it I expected it to do 8 damage.
It does work on itself, but you need to Get two AoA in your hand at once. Then you can truly maximize your wastefulness. If you've got a human priest you may be getting it off of Superb Command. The way that D. traveler is frequently paired up with surging attacks, I keep feeling like there's meant to be some more synergy there. If D. traveler also granted one more move to surging, it would feel a lot more useful to me than just an end of round attachment avoider. In fact, I usually just stack it with slippery or nothing at all, in essence making it the cycler you describe. I'd like to feel more pressure to chose taking it than I do now.
I'm not sure if that's more wasteful, or having an Obliterating Bludgeon and 2 AoA and using it on a 12 hp monster... Yes, I totally did the latter
hence why a team of priests would be quite dynamic. not that i have tried. if anyone has, what is the short coming of a team of priests each specialising a different trait?
To a dwarf wizard it is more, it's +50% to normal movement. This is quite nice, because when you're a dwarf everything is so far away.
That's a good point, if you want your dwarf wizard moving at all. I personally don't, since I don't usually pick him when I want a wizard that's supposed to be moving around... I figure that's why dwarves have charge, though. This is a wizard trait, so it's great if it synergizes with one of the races but that's hardly as universal as something like boosting any race's fire or electrical damage, you know?
Well, it's also useful for lining up a charge, but that's another dwarf thing. True dat. The way it has synergized with surging attacks for me is that I can move one step from melee range with a Big Ugly before the start of the round. If the Big Ugly closes to melee I can surge another step away when I blast him. This leaves my normal move for further retreat. Not the greatest synergy perhaps, but it saved my wizard's butt several times.
Well, one square is the difference between life and an Almight Hack induced death. D.Traveller and surging attacks both let you keep dancing just slightly out of reach. Even if there is no direct boost, they share a common theme (That being, making a wizard who is REALLY difficult to pin down. Or at least, it would be hard to pin down if warriors didn't move further with their own step attacks and also weren't able to put many more in their deck than a wizard can)
