[BALANCE] Balance Suggestion List (January 2014)

How many people have you seen running this? People prefer to run lightness robe and from what I have seen even you posted and run lightness robe. So if its not even good for you to wear what is the problem ? Do you want everyone to run the same wizard build with trade cycling! having just 1-2 reliable armor which is soo common is way more devastating for wizards than a resistant hide that might come up! Actually at top rating only me and maybe 1 more ran resistant hides on wizards as I did not want to trade cycle. I seriously don't think resistant hide is a problem and if you are ruining a s[specific line up you should learn to get some armor removal as any person with 2 cents of brain doo. It help against not only resistant hide but all other armor types that are devastating for wizards.

On otehr items!
Nimble strike:- reduce the step to step 3 or make sure darfs get step 2 humans setp 3 and elfs step 4 for obvious reasons. If you must keep step 4 , reduce damage to 2.

WWE,WW:- People REALLY hate it because its not random but because they can be out of LOS and still get out in to the open for step warriors to wack away! Same this for FIRESTORM also. Remove the dam no line of sight rule and make sure WWE, WW and Firestorm all need line of ligth to hit a person. IF remove WWE and WW all firestorm decks with decent items will hide behind and just cast away to 1.8k without having to do anything! Its a combined problem that has to be looked at.

WOW:- need to make the range reduced to 4 or distance moved to 2. currently seemed too good although it is a Gold level card so can't complain a lot.

SPR:- IT seems fine all honesty and in old days when I ran 3 Darwf wizards I never used SPR even though i had a perplexing horn. seemed its always better to have a WOW than a SPR. Its also rare enough and I don;t beleive its that big of a problem. IF anything change it's range to 2.

 

lol, You really need to use spell check... :-P

The problem with Resistant Hide isn't typically found in 3DC (they want to trait cycle as much as possible). It is more a problem with Firestorm users, and non-3DC builds. It is best boiled down to (what one of my opponents said once when he "got it" and won): "res hide lottery." Those who get it early in the match do significantly better than those who don't to a *huge* degree. It effectively shuts down nearly 2/3rds of Wizard builds (Lightning and Fire) and is just obscenely strong for a card that is a Silver Common. Compare it to other Silver Common (or even Gold) armor cards and you'll see it outshines all of them by far.

Another thing, just saying "run armor removal" is problematic. First, you'd have to run a decent amount of armor removal to counter it -- enough so that you can reliable draw it in case they do get Res Hide. Next, you'd have to know the enemy has Resistant Hide, which typically means you're going to lose a card to it (either through it completely negating a Fire or Lightning card or some minor WoW damage). That means Resistant Hide is easily a 2 card advantage and forces the enemy to build a large part of their deck around to counter it. If there were more armor removal cards that did additional things I might agree, but at the moment it is super problematic.

Yes, I've talked about changing NS to a "move base on basic race speed" but that could be problematic from a card description point of view, as well as problematic if they introduce new races that have different forms of movement (like using Scuttle or something as a basic -- does that mean NS also gets Free Move?). I'd be happy if they just reduced it to Step 3 and made it a slightly better version of Dancing Cut -- it would still be one of the strongest cards in the game, but you wouldn't be able to go from front facing to completely flanking the target in a single card.

Making WW/WWE require LoS doesn't really help the issue. It just means it is going to hit one of your guys and split them from the rest of the pack -- which is really what WW/WWE users want. I do not think FS would "reign supreme" or whatever if WW/WWE was changed to a Mass Maze. And if that became a problem they could also take a look at rebalancing FS. Simply saying "then this will become OP" isn't really an argument since you don't balance cards in a pure vacuum.

WoW is a Gold card, but so is Improved Telekinesis and it is just far worse in nearly every way. Having WoW be a "move 2" would fit with the other forced movement cards and still be good. I've also considered maybe having it changed to "move 3 but in a straight line" if people *really* wanted to keep it move 3.

SPR is really, really strong. If it wasn't for the fact that nearly everyone runs Step Attacks (which are like 2 cards in one), SPR would be the best card in the game. As it stands now it is still one of the best and reducing the range from 3 to 2 would definitely make it a high defensive card instead of the possible offensive use it is now -- which is a good thing.

 

I'm updating my list to include Hard To Pin Down (HtPD) and Mass Frenzy (MF) as these cards are overly problematic to the game. I'm also adding Martyr Blessing to the watch list (it is extremely strong, but one of the few reasons people should run Priests currenly -- if it is nerfed I'd say that Priests need to get strong buffs in other areas so they remain viable).

HtPD is insanely good, especially when compared to the "equally valued" Surging Shield Block, which is just horrible in comparison. It is essentially a 1 to 2 card advantage (dodge enemy attack and then free move) and with an item like Slippery Shield there is not much of a choice for other 1 Gold Token Shields. Lack of choice for any specific thing is detrimental to the game.

MF is easily acquired on Divine Items like Shuddering Relic (0 Tokens) and in mass with Bleneth's Skull (1 Gold Token) and a few others (Bleneth's Frenzy Medallion, Bleneth's Frenzy Tome, and Olf's Fiery Pike). Compared to other Frenzy granting cards (like Righteous Frenzy and Unholy Frenzy) it not only gives *more* Frenzy damage (3 vs. 2) but is applied to your whole team. The suggested nerf is minor (Frenzy 3 to Frenzy 2), but should help reduce its strong presence as a go-to card for Nimble Strike decks.

As for my buff list, that should be coming soon. I'm putting some final touches on my first draft and will be opening it up for discussion soon to see if I missed anything.

 

As someone who runs both these cards, I agree with nerfing them. One nerf for HtPD that Jon himself suggested at one point was to switch the die rolls on it and Surging Shield Block, so that the latter blocks on a 3+ and the Hard to Pin only triggers 50% of the time.

 

One thing is for sure, any nerfs to priest abilities will make priests even further down on the scale of balance (already being the lowest overall class). Nerfs to some abilities are fine, but absolutely must accompany meaningful buffs

 

Definitely. And honestly, just giving priests more viable cards (or better itemization for their extant cards) might be enough to decrease Mass Frenzy prominence.

 

Completely agree. That's why outside of nerfing Mass Frenzy to "Frenzy 2" from "Frenzy 3" any changing to Priests (Impenetrable Nimbus and Martyr Blessing) should only be accompanied by much larger changes (buffs) so Priests are still viable.

 

I've posted my first draft of the "cards (and items) to buff" list up for discussion. Would love to hear back from people on it! http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/discussion-cards-and-items-to-buff.5319/

 

Make priests cast all of the buffs on themselves and make frenzy 2! Class should be more than balanced and i will definitely play 1 or more in my current rotation.

 

If Martyr Blessing could be self cast it would make Priests skyrocket in strength and make that card a 100% must on every deck. I don't think that would be a good thing. Heck, I'm not even sure Impenetrable Nimbus should be able to be self cast, but Priests are really weak as is.

 

Ok so far from the amateur hour here , Half the cards in game should be nerfed in some way. Out fo the rest half of them should be buffed. Then we can moan to buff those nerfed stuff and nerf the buffed stuff next round

 

For those interested in balance here is an interesting write up just released by David Sirlin: http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2014/4/18/game-balance-and-yomi.html

While I don't agree with all of it, there are a lot of interesting points he makes and definitely good information for anyone curious about balancing.

 

Okay. too much text, sorry if i seem ignorant. But what if the solution would be to have a limit per character on these items? Some of these cards do not belong in pvp at all imo, like SPPray, Nimbus, WoW and WWe. However, if we took them out completely there would be a huge wall of whining people which normally use these things in their decks. A counter to these items would also not be a good idea, since then we have to build teams targeting a specific deck, and it would still be pretty useless if you meet people that did not have the build you have targeted. Unless they make something equally nasty in response to these items, which would be useful for targeting any build. However, that would just cause another problem, because people would start whining about it, just like they are whining about these items.

Idea on limits (per character):
1 sppray (because PPRAY should be used as a defense, not as a tactic imo)
6 nimble strikes (otherways VP would be useless)
2 nimbus (again, it should be used as defense, and not a tactic)
3 WWe/WoW per team (again, defense, not tactic)

I also think most freezes should be limited to 1 round. Maybe keep 1 that still is valid two rounds. Freeze would still be useful, but it would not be locking a whole team. As it is now, melee teams are totally locked for a whole game if they meet the wrong mage.


Not sure if this suggestion was already posted, because, you know TLDR the whole thread.

Edit: Make Frenzy Aura hit through Toughness

 

I'm not saying that your idea isn't possible; and I am not saying your idea is bad; I am saying your idea is kind of pointless.

A good warrior only needs one Vibrant Pain or two Lochaber Axes anyways. The problems isn't a dozen people with 15 Nimble Strikes in their deck. Of course, if you have 12-15 Nimble Strikes in your deck I can imagine how OP that is.
A good wizard won't use more than 1-4 Short Perplexing Ray either; the range is too short to be abused, although SPR is still a problem for many people. It is very strong.
Impenetrable Nimbus is arguably broken; it makes single player really easy but in MP it isn't easy for most decks to deal with. IMHO it is too powerful, negating ALL damage for a turn, but then again Priest needs some good cards.
Whirlwind and WWE have been discussed at length in various threads; again it is quite useful in single player, however many players agree that it ruins the game for them, while others insist that it is a necessary evil to deal with many builds.
The effectiveness is not a question; however I for one would be happy knowing that only one Whirlwind could show up per game, per enemy wizard. For me, Whirls are just stupid and they make the gameplay frustrating.

As for Encumber, I think at this point it has simply become a part of the game. Maybe Duration 2 is still too much; however in any given game a good player should come to expect Cold spells from wizards and be prepared to deal with them.

As for Toughness it has been suggested again and again (by me too!) that it shouldn't stop Penetrating damage and unpreventable psychic damage. Why it hasn't been fixed IDK.

 

I think it's important (though at times difficult) to differentiate between cards that are actually overpowered to a point of being always and in every case the winning play, and cards that just give a certain build or a certain style of play frustration. If the only point was perfect balance, we should eliminate Wizards and Priests, let Warriors only use Bludgeon as their only attack card and then be happy that it's a perfectly balanced and perfectly boring game.

The fact is this game is fun because there are multiple viable builds. That is what balance should be about. I for one don't see SPR, Nimbus, WWE, WoW or encumber effects as overpowered. Annoying as all get out? Sure! Overpowered? No. The fact is decks that have those cards are regularly beatable, and they force players to come up with their own creative builds either including counters, or to figure out how to build a deck that isn't effected by them. I don't think either of those results are a bad thing.

 

The things i used was a suggestion or example. My point was that people need to stop using these items as an offense instead of defense (which im sure they are intended to be). Yeah people do build ppray mages. If you have not encountered mages which will strip you from your gear/weapons/movement, and then forward something that will kill you, then you are lucky. IDK if its a new thing, but ive seen it lately. And yes, it is used in offense.

And the best players DO actually use both VP and lochaber. Maybe even 2 VP and 1 lochaber. Thats also why they are in top. There is no other reason why they win. Thats the truth. Good warriors = good weapons + know where to place your characters. Your warrior will sure as hell not win because they had the best mediocre weapon.

As i said, I think the solution is to put a limit on how many of each they are allowed to use (so they are used the right way!), instead of making new nasty attacks or nerfing.

 

The thing is though, when they are abused they are overpowered. And as many people have mentioned, there is not really any good counter to them. For example, if someone put 8 nimbus on one of their priests, you cant do something about it, its basicly a one way fight. UNLESS you build a priest with only purges on it/use mages which will lock the nimbussed player. But for a melee team, its impossible to win a match like that. I should also mention that 2 of 3 classes are in fact melee.

Im sure i dont have to mention that a purge priest wont actually be useful for anything else.

Im not saying they should ban the cards, im saying they should put a limit on how many is used on these "problem cards". People can still build a good deck, but abuse is not good.

 

I agree that cold attacks should last one round. Also, I don't think there should be a whirlwind that only works on enemies. If you use whirlwind, all players should be affected! My last suggestion is to get rid of elvish insight. It's no fun to play any card based game while looking at the other players hand. Make a different elf skill.....like pointy-ear attack or something. It would be penetrating, 'cause they're pointy....lol

 

In most ccg, there are cards that reveals opponant's hand. It has never been a problem and usually those cards aren't played. Reason is it either costs a card (the card doesn't replaces itself as it is played) or if it doesn't it costs ressources that could have been used for something else. In CH it only costs one action, which isn't such a big issue.
Strongest point to me of the card is that it triggers all ennemies block cards. And I won't complain about the card caus it's only fair that elves has some playable racials. Anyway with incoming AotA racials you won't probably see elves insight anymore but people will probably whine on how elves has become too powerful lol.

Otherwise and unrelated, I am assuming that the word "it" does nothing to you. What is your weakness?

 

The debate about what is more important in the game (gear, luck and player's skill) is a long one, but I think that it is a mix of the three of them. Not all players that have amazing gear are on top, and not all players that are on top have amazing gear, so I conclude that the player's skill is also very important. Not rushing, thinking your moves, predicting your opponent's movements and that kind of stuff. If gear was the most important aspect of the game, not only it would be a very predictible, boring game, but you also couldn't explain why there are players with VP or multiple lochabers that are in the mid-low rank. And I don't know every top player's gear, so I will just speak for myself here: I have only 1 lochaber, the only legendaries I use in my build are 2 Xender's Mail that barely make a difference with any other armor like Dependable Mail. Of course that I can't have the consistency of those who have Vps or more lochabers, and that leads to some instability in the ranking, but to sum up and answer to your previous statement, not all the players that win have amazing gear.

As far as balance concerns, for wwe one simple solution would be to make it only appear once for arcane item. Rod Of Winds is the problematic item here, because packing 3 of them lets you have 6 wwe, 3 ww and still have room for another arcane item (for WoW or SPR, for example). Add this to the big amount of traits you can put in a wizard at very little cost and you have a very consistent wwe spammer. If we change one of the wwe for another bronze card in Rod of Winds, then the wizard will be forced to have 4 of them to have only 4 wwe (1 more if you include Tempest Robes, but that would reduce your trait-cycling), reducing the overall efectiveness, not only because wizards would have less wwe, but because they would have to spend all of the arcane item spaces if they want to rely on wwe, so they wouldn't be able to pack some op cards like SPR.

Elvish insight: it's annoying but not broken or op, imo. The problematic thing is that you can remove 3 blocks using just one card, the same as wwe and FS.

And well, of course that also NS and Toughness need a nerf, but that is something that was said hundreds of times, so I don't think the devs are going to change them at this point.