November Balance Changes: Priests, Racial Skills, and more!

Most of the changes look good.

However, I do have fond memories during my low level adventures of using both Bad Medicine and Misguided Heal. Bad Medicine I would pick one poor (full health!) Kobold who would slowly gurgle to death in the background while I used my maces on his friends (or Golems, however the heck poison works on them. Sugar in their gas tank?), and Misguided Heal saw a mix of FINISH HIM and “ok Mr Warrior I know you’re at 1 health but iiiif your Mail procs this will heal you. Hold still!”

Both led to very fun moments, to the point where I would like to see higher versions of them exist, like “Overdose” as a 5 damage version of Bad Medicine and “Do No Harm” has a 4/8 version of Misguided Heal. Clerics would still lean more Warrior than Wizard, but it would add some welcome variety.

Seeing Bad Medicine removed makes me sad. The new card is probably *stronger*, but the playstyle is very similar to Frenzy; you cast it then use your other attacks, unless you drew nothing but moves and armor this turn in which case it sits in your hand, just like Frenzies. Bad Medicine was unique and fun.

 

Sorry, I was not actually advocating making it always trigger, just trying to demonstrate that allowing the attacker to keep their card does not automatically make it weak.

My main problem with the new dodge is not its strength, but the fact that it is interchangeable with other block cards now. Having a block you can keep, even if it is weak, allows you to make builds around the card.

 

I had this same reaction. I felt smart and strategic when I figured this trick out when I first started playing. Funnily enough, it's most effective on very slow enemies, so in addition to the golems you metion, my poison targets of choice were things like zombies and various other opponents who, thematically, shouldn't be affected by poison at all.

 

But that's the beauty it is NOT a block. It is not subject to War Cry, it is not subject to Sure Strike Blessing (if it makes it out of testing) and as a small benefit (tiny really) it is not subject to Dropped Guard (which I think has one of the funniest pictures in the game), which is NEVER relevant outside of Quick Draws.

What I think the logical middle ground is (which might be a bit trickier to program), granted I LOVE the new version assuming it doesn't change facing on the attacker (which I really believe it didn't but my memory is well suspect)... wait what were we talking about... oh yeah... would be to have a conditional keep.

Worded something like if dodge is triggers and the player receives damage keep. BUT I AM NOT in favor of this. I think the new incarnation is great and this is even after I recently acquired a shield of ultimate dodging (assuming the attacker can't change facing). This gives the chance to accept the hit and keep the card (and can be like sparkling for ranged attacks) or to lose the dodge without taking damage... oh but then there is the issue of does it trigger for non damaging attacks.
hmmmmm maybe ignore my idea and just go with the proposal (yeah yeah that sounds good).

 

Perhaps this is a slippery slope you don't want to venture down, but playing on the test server in this brave new world where priests can self-target their assists, I was surprised to find that I couldn't cast Purge on myself when I got poisoned by a spider. I realize it's not technically an assist card, but now that priests can self target their healing, it felt weird not to be able to do that.

 

http://forrestthewoods.com/unbalanced-design-of-super-smash-brothers/

 

Oblit bludg. will be useless, like almighty hack (so the only weapon for warriors will be the bejeweled?) Dodge will be completely useless. Team run will be crap. MF will be a joke. Wizards will be op, UW 4 dmg? Warriors nerfed? MF affect magic atacks? Obviously the only and the best build will be 2 wiz and 1 priest with AoE spells...

 

I've never felt OB and AH did too much damage either but I really don't know how good or cool are they now in pulverizing form. Maybe even better?

 

Just because I'm interested in factuality I'll point out that the wellspring change is actually a warrior buff because the 4 applies only to melee.

 

The whole deal about wellspring might seem confusing now, but I think it'll actually be less confusing in the long run to the new players, with it functioning as a frenzy and the weird all around damage buff role being filled by the rarer Savage Curse. It's good to see that the plan of making rare cards more complex over being more powerful is still being used!

 

Gonna step in to say another thing about Dodge, a clarification on how the new version works because some confusion has been expressed.

If you are attacked in melee, and your Dodge triggers, you can often move behind your enemy because of Free Move. You will still be affected by the attack—as you are still in range—but your opponent will not turn to face you, so you can now attack from behind on your turn.

(And also confirmed that buffs and All Out Attack don't apply to the Pulverizing damage-if-blocked, as expected.)

 

So if you block 14, you take 6. If you block 28, you take 6. If you block 36, you take 6.
I'm at a loss as to why this would be "as expected." I would expect the buffs to apply to the "6" in some fashion.

 

It seemed expected by most people who've talked about the card, based on how similar effects operate in the game. That is to what I was referring.

 

That works for games that are real time and require reflexes to optimize things -- but it is less so with a turn based game with fewer moving parts in each game. There is definitely some things to take from it, but I wouldn't say they are directly comparable.

I can see a rational for both cases. Not sure which would be "better" though -- since AOA + AOA + OB could instantly kill some targets with no real counter ability.

 

There's a typo with "Help The Weak" -- it says "favour" but it should be "favor" to fit with "armor" over "armour."

I'm working on making a build now that I'll test out for a few games.

 

I am very confused as Purge has always been able to self target....

 

Well Dodge and Jump Back would still work.

 

We probably just need to put "May self target" back on Purge; I think we removed all instances of it with the assist targeting change. Should be easy enough to get the old functionality. @Jon ?

 

Or purges could be properly classified as assists, rather than utilities? no i'm totally not being ocd at all >_>

edit: According to the wiki (search cards for keyword "self target"), Redistribute and Swap will actually need the self target keyword, since they're not assists.