[Balance] Card Discussion

Succes rate increase maybe? By 1 dice value? :3

 

I totally agree with jade here. 50% change to reflect attachments is NOT worth 9 points.
This card, along with mystical drakehide should get 100% change to trigger.
The only common effect that can be reflected are burns anyway.

 

In my opinion, the success rate is too low. I'd actually go as far as to say it should be 100%. Aside from burning, there aren't actually many cards that get attached to enemies; and since we're talking about a card that's rated higher than Resistant Hide, I don't think it would be crazy to have it reflect all attachments. Resistant Hide provides 100% immunity to all fire damage, as well as immunity to lightning and poison. Compare to that Mystical Wyrmhide - which provides very little damage protection against anything, but which can reflect burning attachments and a handful of other less-common effects. To be frank, even if Mystical Wyrmhide had 100% reflection, I'd still prefer Resistant Hide in most situations. In multiplayer, as soon as the enemy sees you have Mystical Wyrmhide, they're going to know not to use things like Mind Worm or Path Of Knives on that particular character until they can remove the armour - they'll just use those cards on someone else instead. So buffing it to 100% reflection wouldn't result in very many more reflected attachments anyway.

That said, I'd be happy enough with a more cautious and conservative buff, from 4+ to 3+ or something like that.

 

There's more attachments in single player, like poison, but not enough to make this very useful. I looked at it a few times, it seemed neat, but every time I can remember, I ended up going with Imp Proof Robes or something else with Resistant Hide.

 

As a player I definitely think the dragon hide armors could see a buff.

 

They do seem pretty unplayable.
I think 2+ for drakehide's discard would be good. Drakehide would be an improved version of the Arrogant Armor effect, so a small chance of failure would help balance it.
3+ for wyrmhide's reflection should make it playable. 2+would make it worth its gold rating.

 

These changes would certainly make my three wizards wear their Meztis Wyrmhide Robes. They are just collecting dust in the closet these days. Although they are quite fashionable with Absolem's Leather Shoes. That being said, I think Hutul's Robes are going to get a lot more play, for me at least, right now. The guaranteed 1 armor is worth it.

I think the 2+ for Wyrmhide is good, I'd take 3+. Anything that helps my wizards clear attachments off opponents is a-ok in my book, even if it's using their own.

 

Yeah, +1 to all what's been said about those hides.

 

The one thing this analysis misses it the fact that the additional damage is from an attachment which has 1 plus and 3 minuses. The plus is this could help knock off a buff. The minuses are: it can get knocked off via trait cycling or from buffs and can be purged and the most important it can only be attached one at a time. This reduces the utility of multiple Fiery Stabs on 1 weapon such as the popular Blazing SS.
I would take an impaling over a fiery every time, but I would a fiery over almost every other range 2 attack (spear of darkness really depends on the build and potent stab is a coin flip).
Over the long term of playing I have found it is the most variable of attack in utility from awesome with no armor and combustible to disappointing on heavily armored or resistant hide wearing opponents.
The values of Strong Stab and Fiery are clearly backwards... but I don't see a need for a change.
I do think Penetrating Stab is in need of a buff, I would take a potent stab or fiery over a Penetrating 9 out of 10 times.

 

Warning: Posting off-topic or any discussion about an old card will get you banned from my thread.

To clarify, if you missed an opportunity to mention that you support a +1 attack buff or something similar, fine, but no more analysis or opinions or personal experience for that card, unless it has something directly to do with the current card. There was plenty of time to discuss previous cards and from this particular post doog37, there is nothing that hasn't been said already, so it isn't really even a contribution to the discussion. I do look forward to your insight on future cards, however.

Everyone, please try and stay on point with the most recent Card of the Day. Thanks!

 

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Card of the Day: Hot Flames
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Once upon a time, in the land of Cardhuntria, burning cards and traits were a little different. Essentially the order was Burning >Armor>Firestarter. Currently, it is Burning>Firestarter>Armor.

Spoiler: Explanation

The way that Firestarter and Kindler worked was, when a burning card burned for damage, they add 1/2 damage to the effect. Well, Armor used to trigger before your Firestarter trait in such a way that if a Burning 2 attachment had 2 damage prevented by Reliable Mail or other armor, ALL of the damage was prevented. So a single Reliable Mail would prevent up to 4 damage from any burning 2 or less card. If the armor (say Mail) failed to prevent all of the base burning damage, Firestarter would automatically trigger and increase the damage by 2.

In the time of yore, the time that AotA was released, a new trait was introduced: Hot Flames. This card ignores all armor when a burning card burns.

So instead of a Firestarter > Ember Burst attached+ Instant Burn combo dealing 0 damage to a target with armor 2, Hot Flames > Ember Burst attached + Instant Burn would deal 2 burning damage. Nifty!

But here is the problem. Afterwards, with The Change to how attachments and Armor interact (this also affected Vulnerable/Combustible Traits), Hot Flames has more or less become useless.

The same old Firestarter > Ember Burst attached+ Instant Burn combo would not only deal 2 damage to an armor 2 enemy but it would also deal 4 damage to an unarmoured opponent.

In my experience, the most common armor cards prevent 2 damage. There are a few rarer cards in decks that prevent more, and sometimes you can even get 2 armor cards in hand. Still...

So my question is, is the penetrating effect of Hot Flames actually worth anything? Are there enough enemies (in SP and MP) with high enough armor to actually make this card worth playing? Or is this card too nichey?

Discuss!

 

As a card, I like Hot Lips, I mean Flames. Too bad there aren't that good items with it. These are the best ones to me:

1) Molten Pyromancy - is it better than Novice Pyromancy? I really can't say...
2) Varied Combustion - this one has it all, but I still prefer Focused Pyromancy.

The main reason why I don't use Hot Flames is because I play SP with a very motley crew. Therefore I always bring with me armor removal cards to those adventures that have enemies with armors. This ensures that everyone can make the most out of their attacks.

 

It's definitely a nichey card, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In MP, it is usually ignored, as TONS OF armor is not that usual. Or, at the very least, not that usual for Hot Flames to be considered a superior alternative to Firestarter. I.e. the current meta makes it a bad pick for MP.

Hot Flames is great if you know in advance you're gonna face tons of armor, meaning SP. And, ofc, as @j3st3ri mentioned, you might also skip it entirely if you rely on other means for overcoming armor.

Other than that, I don't think anything's inherently wrong with Hot Flames from a game-balance perspective. Not every card is useful in all instances, and some are definitely more useful in SP then they are in MP, or vice versa. Just as well, some cards can be the right pick for you or be entirely useless depending on what your strat/play-style is. Nothing bad with that.

 

The problem with Hot Flames is that it doesn't ignore armor, it just adds Penetrating, which will still be blocked by Immunity. And since the armor you most want to ignore is Resistant Hide, giving your wizard armor destruction is much more useful. Having the card add "Unpreventable" instead of "Penetrating" would make it worth using.

 

Would that make it too strong, though? I wrote it off when I found out it wouldn't go through Resistant Hide, but if you make that change, suddenly you go from burning wizards not necessarily using it to almost all burning wizards using it.

 

Resistant Hide is max 1 per entire deck,and only on wizards. Even if 100% of wizards had it,they would not draw them in most games. Is it worth giving up 2 extra damage each burn to counter such a rare card when you can have a few armor removal cards instead? I would still go for pyromancy but at least, hot flames become an viable option. Right now, nobody use it(at least, I never encountered any since I climbed up the rankings).

 

Eh, Hot Flames is alright. I suppose the real thing holding it back is the fact that there aren't a lot of good traits with it.

 

Interesting. Now, Resistant Hide is a whole new can of worms, which I would be glad to discuss later.
Going slightly off the topic of Hot Flames here...don't worry, these cards will be discussed in time...

I'm not a fan of the Immunity mechanic, period. Whether it's Only Bones, Toughness, Resistant Hide or Grounding Plates, it's a really stupid interaction and it is frustrating that Penetrating (EG Hot Flames) doesn't counter it (The only reasonable card for that is Only Bones). Actually, I suppose if Frenzy Aura overcame Tough Bark /Amorphous Body/Only Bones that would be way too OP. But there is certainly a problem here with the extreme immunity. In most games, you can expect some form of damage type/elemental resistance that makes it smart to switch out your items/strategies. But enemies with 100% immunity were special exceptions, that usually had a higher level, or a gameplay purpose where it was necessary or there is an interesting way to beat that enemy.

I feel that giving monsters/players easy access to cards that completely, 100% shut down damage are boring, and one of the most frustrating parts about the first run through campaign.

It would be great if the Immunity mechanic was limited only to certain, high cost cards, and other cards prevented a high amount of damage, but not 100% protection.
Maybe Immunity needs a thread of it's own.

PS: Please feel free to add anything you want to say on Hot Flames and/or Immunity today. Tomorrow's Topic: Resistant Hide.

 

"Unpreventable" would also go through Impenetrable Nimbus, which I feel could use another counter.

I think it would be a tad too strong for Bronze Common (if I was making it as a new card, I'd probably value it as Silver Uncommon like Talented Healer) but current strategies for dealing with burn wizards would still work against it.

As for Immunity, I'm mostly okay with it but think that Tough Bark should be immune to Crushing and Piercing and useless against Fire (and make the card more interesting than just an improved Only Bones). Trees that are immune to axes don't make any sense at all.

 

The first time I went to the tree levels, I loaded up on access, because trees, right? Wrong.

What if instead of unpreventable, hot flashes got the "cannot be prevented by armor" like some of the traits?