Do I really need to put forth an argument here? This was a horrible choice. "Fireball is too powerful" "There's a staff with 3 of them on it!" "What are the other 3 cards?" "Flash of Agony, very useful in 1 HP quests" "Let's nerf that instead, can't touch my precious fireballs" "Yea, that's why you became a wizard, after all" I would actually like to be able to use Staff of the Misanthrope that's been sitting in my inventory ever since. This little change (Because Fireball is sacred?) has a minor effect on high level MP PvP because Rad Bomb items don't have the card in the first place and a very big effect on CoC and low level SP items. The problem is not FoA. The problem was never FoA. The problem was never ANY spell that requires LoS. The problem has always been the fact that Burst hits without LoS. And all the "Armor against effects that didn't target you" are stupid as well. But let's start with small steps. I assume everyone agrees with me, but if you don't I would love to hear it.
Staff of the Misanthrope is still a very good staff for farming some levels. The thing is Flash of Agony is a paper card, it is not supposed to be that good.
One fix you might recommend is to bring back the old Flash of Agony with the keyword unbuffable added. I don't really have a dog in this fight though.
Flash Of Agony isn't good... but I'm fine with that because it's a paper. It should be compared with cards like Zap and Spark. Flash of agony is still situationally useful, and so I'm happy enough with that. (eg. when there are lots of enemies; or when you have some armour on your wizard.) If there's one nerfed card that was going to reverted, I'd vote for Accelerate Time. That card is meant to be high quality. It only appears once on each item, and so it's not easy to get a lot of them in a deck. It wasn't commonly used. I'd seen no complaints about it... but yet it was hit hard by the nerf hammer. I don't really understand the motivation for that change!
So, I gotta say, I understand both of the nerfs made here. Back when FoA was nerfed, it was possible, with good positioning, to do as much as 21 damage to the enemy team, and none to yours, with good buffing, using only a paper card as the attack. And a paper card that was VERY well itemized, too. Similarly, Accelerate Time was entirely capable of netting me about 20-25 damage to my enemies, a card draw or two, and 3-6 healing for my team. Both of these cards worked really well, either as the base upon which force multipliers were stacked, or as the force multiplier itself. Now, when I run Accelerate Time, I have to be careful of my positioning, and buffing Flash Of Agony actually hurts me more too, because then you can't use armor to mitigate it that easily. Its taken cards that were no-brainer picks and made them choices again. And I'm good with that. Fireball? You're better off going for the much better-costed Flame Jet, and stacking Firestarter and Accelerate Time on top of that. You'll get more damage overall.
Compare Flash Of Agony pre-nerf to Arcane Burst. That's why we can't go back. Quality: Paper vs Silver Damage: 4 vs 4 Range: Infinite vs 6 Arcane Burst gets the benefit of not always requiring LoS, but Flash of Agony gets the benefit of hitting enemies even when they are far apart. Ultimately the only strict advantage Arcane Burst has over pre-nerf Flash of Agony is that it's easier to avoid damaging your own team with it. However, on the right map (competitive catering) that is a non-issue and Flash of Agony pre-nerf becomes a much more powerful, paper, Arcane Burst. Now compare that potency to another strong paper magic card... Big Zap...
