Vibrant Pain.. and how to fix it

Yay, back on topic!

@Yoyo: Your arguments are fine. Yes, Nimble Strike can be countered. But the fact that it can be countered doesn't mean it's not overpowered. It's not game breaking overpowered, but definitely fix this already overpowered. Let's get back to where we were before the thread broke down in shouting and accusations:

The problem with Nimble Strike, which has been mentioned in this thread before, is that it is a lot better than any other attack in Category:Silver Quality Card. The closest similar cards, Dancing Cut and Vicious Thrust simply can't compete with it. So, as soon as you get Vibrant Pain, you get a legendary level 18 weapon that makes all other level 18 weapons obsolete.

YMMV, but I would consider Nimble Strike balanced if it was a Category:Gold Quality Card. There, it would compete with Impaling Stab, Mighty Hack, Obliterating Chop and All Out Attack. Similar to Sword Of The Lion, VP would have to take on 3 Bronze cards, something like Penetrating Lunge, to even it out.

 

You got it backwards. 2 war/1 wiz teams are popular at the higher ranks, because they are the counter to control wizards. The wizard exploits the control team's lack of movement with whirlwind/whirlwind enemies and gets rid of toughness with AoE effects. If control wizards would not exist, some warrior/cleric combination should be best, but that combo loses hard vs control wizards, so you rarely see it anymore.

 

Since I'm still hoping to hear any official word on the entire nerfing subject two very important things have to be addressed in the meanwhile...

He? this only proves one thing, my friend - you haven't clicked on SLG's name...
Secondly, and more importantly, @yoyotheassyrian, WHY ARE THE QUOTES ON YOUR REPLIES MISS THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO SAID THEM?
Am I to remember everything that was said by everyone on this post or just assume you're always reacting to SLG? Don't delete the part of who's quote it is when you reply! sheeesh.
That's it, these points will surely lift our discussion to new heights... you're welcome (I looked for an icon that says "crazy person" and this was the closest I found).

 

Wow.... lot of trolling going on. Can someone just close this thread already before it devolves further?

 

Just report people you think are trolling. Some of us are trying to have a serious discussion, and closing a thread because a few people are trolls is not smart. Let the mods moderate.

 

Just to be clear, I wasn't trolling.
This discussion is already 7 pages on this thread alone (many threads talk about the same subject) and some of the recent posts had bad vibes and personal attacks between members so I was clowning around a bit trying to make light of it.
Sorry if in a rare post of mine that isn't strictly serious and on-point I offended anyone.

 

My statement was directed at the mods.

Don't worry, my post wasn't directed at you.

 

Because I haven't been using the reply button, been ctrl c ctrl v-ing and using the quote function. Thanks for pointing it out though, I predict a stratospheric level of discussion now! :-D

 

Same goes for Toughness, it allows a wizard to have a warriors ability of neglecting damage AND a priests ability to trigger a card draw. Until WoW is no longer an uncommon card with so much to offer Nimble Strike is an equalizer, however it falls short of making the game balanced versus your 3DC build.

The fact that it can only be obtained from an epic or legendary item (except for excellent rapier and a mage sataff, but the rapier is really to lame to mention) means that it is hard to get a lot of and the card is rare. Vicious strike and dancing cut are both uncommon cards which should explain why nimble is more powerfull. Furthermore, equipping a lot of nimble strikes means your avrg dmg suffers, you spend half your major power tokens on a weapon that does 6 dmg on avrg if you go for VP. Yes you get mobility which is priceless in the current environment in multi but only because board controll cards are powerful enough to allow for a build based 50% on them to be a consitent winner. When fighting with nimble against offensive builds based on warriors you are in a tough spot due to the lowered dmg - yes you can hit someone in the back with nimble, but then they turn back and smack you with a much stronger attack.

To wrap-up - the only possibly slightly OP item/card for warriors is VP/nimble strike. VP is a lvl 18 legendary weapon and does not in any circumstances guarantee a victory against ANY build, in fact against some warrior builds it may be a bit of a hindrance - VP versus Bejeweled is a tough match for your nimble warrior. In contrast, wizards have WoW which you can buy in shops by the dozen for 5 gld each (runestone), deck compression through skill cycling, toughness...

IMHO - let's focus on the TRULY and EVIDENTLY OVERPOWERED cards/set-ups for now, i.e trait cycling your deck to an effective 20 or something cards you play which over 3 wizards gives you a 95% or better chance of getting the cards you aim for EVERY turn, toughness and WoW. When these are cut down to realistic proportions compared to other cards, let's play a month or two as we have had to against 3DC and THEN we will truly see whether nimble/vibrant pain are TOO GOOD or just REALLY GOOD.

 

1 more thing:

A lvl 18 legendary with a bad trait card? c'mon... You really have an opinion - good, but you go from changing game mechanics with card rarities and colours, through creating virtual items to prove your point to adding bad traits to high-lvl legendary items - all to make your deck harder to beat? If any changes were to be made on VP, two nimble strikes should be replaced with other rare attacks.

 

Have a fat and jolly Christmas Pengwin!

 

It is easy (intuitive even) to make the argument that VP is hard to get so its a not a problem in the big scheme. However, it's very counter-intuitive to base your opinion of what is balanced on how rare an item is. If the goal is to balance the game, all that really matters is that the item exists. If you let any bias (in this case card rarity) affect your judgement you will not have a balanced game. You will have a game where the goal is to get a VP for your warrior(s).

On the surface, the bejewelled warrior vs the VP warrior argument might make sense, but a good point has already been made by Aldones and I think its worth repeating now. The VP warrior does not care about going toe to toe with the enemy warrior. By equipping VP he becomes more of an assassin for the squishier targets. You could send your bejewelled warrior charging after the VP warrior but he is going to win the mobility game.

I think the point with the suggestion about adding trip to VP is that it is currently too consistent. You are right though, there is more than one way to do this, we just want it done one way or the other. I agree that there are many cards that need balancing besides VP/nimble strike and they should all be addressed.

There is no way to say this without coming off as bashing the devs, but until they increase the amount of end game strategies available by reducing the power of a handful of cards, to me this game is just not worth investing the time into. This might change when they add more cards but I can only base my opinion on what is OP in the game right now.

 

I think it is nowhere near the consistency of a WoW build.

An item like runestone actually gets more power by having the squeamish trait - replace it with say ember spray and let's see how fun it is then. While VP as an 18 lvl legendary item would just be absurd to have a trip on it. If any change is to be made, first the trait cycling and WoW need to change as well, and second, 2x nimble should be taken off of VP and replaced with say 1x vicious strike and 1x dancing cut.

Sadly, I have to concur, a biased game looses much of it's charm, even as great in general design as Card Hunter.

Let's hope new year brings new developments and a more energetic approach from BM team.

All the best Cardhunters! Have a vibrant Xmas and an overpowered New Year.

 

Very much agreed, and I had a little chuckle at the vibrant xmas. May you have a New Year that causes you to wow.

 

See I would say that balance is affected more than anything else by the statistical effect a card or item or build is having on the game. We don't have those figures, though with the new api tools we should be getting them pretty fast. Once we have some hard data to crunch, this argument is going to get a lot better. In any event, the amount of people running 3DC far outweighs the number of people who happen to have vibrant pain.

 

Not until the next API update, at least. Only the test API is working, anyways, and the rate-limit prevents retrieval of sufficient data for a broad analysis.