Okay the major balance and the recent economy change have been in place long enough to give informed feedback from a MP perspective. Positives: All very BIG positives WW/WWE are novelties that can be used but are not a dominant strategy. FS is no longer a strategy, but still can be used for fire wiz. Encumber + terrain attachment is no longer a way to dominate melee characters. Mostly Positive: SPR is still usable but not the huge advantage it was, not sure if the step 1 is as useful as intended. Wall of Stone cannot be used to dominate a board, but Flash Flood is valuable for different reasons. The linear sparks make them much more viable although the electricity immunities make a pure electro deck very risky still. Slow being playable is good, but it is still a disadvantage that it can't be used for cycling. Elven Trickery being only 1 card makes it a much more balanced card. Mixed: Step attack nerfs have given more viability to Elf Melee builds, but makes long range wiz strategies hard to overcome (especially with D-wiz). The nerf to NS specifically seems too severe and turned it into a novelty from a highly sought after card, in most cases Fly doesn't make it any better than Dancing Cut. Draw limits are a good idea but 10 is not the right number, I haven't seen a limit hit more than once or twice and it doesn't discourage drawing and trait cycling at all. While protecting a movement of 1 eliminates the ability to dominate with encumber, this rule favors Dwarves a lot since they can only be reduce by 50% of base movement versus 67% or 75%. Additionally Freeze an Emerald card is now barely more useful than Frost Jolt, perhaps changing to Halt 1 (or 2) or increasing the duration would give it a higher utility worthy of it's quality. Vulnerable going to 2 additional damage is too severe and turns a minor penalty into a potentially crippling one. No suggestions since 1 additional is not much of a penalty but 2 is too much. No change to Impen. Nimbus, I don't see the need but it has been creeping up in usage and utility lately. I think a reduction of all damage to 1 point per source would be a more elegant feature but not a critical need... yet Negative: Basically things that were not addressed Toughness is extremely advantageous especially for Wizards. Making it subject to penetrating or only protect from melee damage would make it fit better into game play. Mass frenzy is a huge advantage for it's quality. While I like it and don't want it to change it is a bit out of balance. Either changing it to duration 1 or frenzy 2 should do the trick, perhaps even D1 frenzy 4. Dwarven wizards are just too strong in terms of hit points and access to Toughness. I think lesser hps for d-wiz would make sense, perhaps 17 elf 19 human and 21 dwarves for wizards. Trait Cycling was not addressed. I don't think trait cycling really fits into the spirit of the game. Other than the change to Trembling nothing has slowed down the reducing of deck size trait cycling provides. Humans could use a trait that gives them an advantage. There are more movement and Leadership is useful but there isn't something as good as Blind Rage or Slippery etc. There are things I haven't thought of I am sure, but wanted to give my thoughts now. Additionally I am a big fan of the additional rewards for MP wins. I still like leagues and think the reduced price for pizza chests is good but not quite enticing. I think 10 Legendaries for Randi's is a lot but I wouldn't change I like the daily deal and more treasures being in chests.
Draw limits were introduced to protect against fringe builds that can outright abuse card draw (i.e. Squiddy's "Toy Story" deck), it was not meant to come into play on a regular basis.
I don't agree that trait cycling is something bad. With encumber yeah, dwarves got an indirect buff and Freeze got a nerf. I had suggested before that it could get +2 damage to compensate because encumber 3 is quite the same as encumber 2.
With that, the ones with the best MF items are gonna have a field day. I would much rather see it going to duration 3, frenzy+1. That way you will only see it in a full melee character deck, and it won't be as overpowered but much more reliable. That way its brother unholy frenzy will be more powerful too. But this is probably just a change that would make wizards overpowered.
Holy and Unholy Frenzy are paper, and Mass Frenzy is silver. I don't see MF as a real problem, but a reversal (duration 3, frenzy+2) might also be a good option.
Hey, I just recently came back to CH (been playing again for a few weeks) and discovered my Freeze is utterly borked. Posted here because searched and noticed it was mentioned in this thread. Agree with OP. What about changing it to Halt 2 instead of of encumber?
Yes, but the bottom line is it's not really playable. Sadly, the three staves it comes on don't offer any additional reasons to spend tokens on them.
You'll find a lot of discussion on these forums about this suggestion. Short version: it'd be busted and unfun to play against. Cheers.
Ok. But that still doesn't address the fact that it went from a great (green) card to a useless card that's locked up in items that are arguably not worth running. I'm sure there's a way to make it playable again without unbalancing the game. Sounds like what's done is done tho...
One problem with Freeze is that it's only on items that are basically bad except for Freeze. If it weren't paired with Maze and Force Bolt, for instance, the current version of the card would almost certainly be fine. For whatever it's worth, we spent quite a bit of brainpower on the issue of Freeze, and the damage buff was the cleanest improvement we were able to make. That said, we're always open to new suggestions on card changes. We don't implement them willy nilly but we collect them and consider them and who knows, maybe someday your Freeze items will be up to your standards again. Halt is not something that we're going to be working with; feel free to make alternate suggestions. Cheers!
Have you considered... halt? I know how about instead of encumber it adds 2 damage to all other cold attacks? Or it makes armor lose keep while it is attached? Or all movement is reduced to 1 including slide, push and step? Or just use any of these ideas for future cards.
Encumber 3 is moot. You might as well make it Encumber 8. Flax already said that Halt is off the table no matter the duration (though a duration 1 does not seem likely overkill) Given the constraints, I thought at first you might simply change the other cards on the staff to offer better synergy with Freeze. But frankly, the way encumber works now, I'd argue that the encumber mechanic only remains interesting in an SP environment. I think the bottom line is that Freeze is a curio fit for display but not fit for play.
