Do you think "Frost Jolt" is Over Powered?

Hi all

This is specifically for the Frost Jolt Card.
I think it is slight OP because it is 5 damage AND duration 2 AND encumber 2
I have no problem with Cold Snap or Chilling Rime, but I am undecided on Cone Of Cold

Not calling for a nerf, but would like to see how other people think of the card.

 

It's tough to say that a single card is OP or not, because you aren't building with single cards, you're building with items.

That said, Frost Jolt is pretty darn strong, and Staff Of Winter (for instance) has FOUR of them, along with a Cold Snap and a Chilling Rime, while Frosty Staff swaps two Frost Jolts for two Cone of Cold. Both of those items should be on the "this might be too good" watchlist.

 

I think it's fine. It's only single target, unlike Cone of Cold, and comparing it to Cold Snap I'm not sure is fair (It would be like comparing Mighty Hack to Powerful Hack; they are different tiers of the same attack type)

 

Considering you have to have a pretty powerful item to get the card, I don't think it's OP.

 

Encumber doesn't really affect me since I use command skills and telekinesis a lot, and encumber doesn't affect those since they're slides. I never had any problem since I LOVE to encumber myself with heavy armor. it doesn't seem op, since cold is the least damaging out of the 3 elements a wizard can use (since acid is not developed yet).

 

Cone of Cold is a really cruel card, but Frost Jolt adds insult to injury by actually doing decent damage. Still, it doesn´t instantly destroys your team even in the items in which it is repeatedly, unlike Staff of the Million Fireballs....

Regardless, most of the time you actually have to plan around using your own Ice spells, as in finding ways to capitalize them, such as using Lava or Smoke or whatnot. Most of the things you can use against Ice you can use with it. More than it being a matter of being prepared for it, it is a matter of not being hit by it at the wrong time. For instance, when my warrrior got hit with freeze, which revealed a Raging Strike in his hand, things quickly grew dire because i couldn´t squirm out that far with only one Team Shift in my wizard´s hand.

Anything that restricts what your opponent can do is powerful, Encumber spells are no exception, mainly because of the prevalence of Step cards, but also because it can straight-down neuter the one card you know you are getting each turn.

I should know; i won a game by using Soothing Darkness offensivelly

 

No. That's faulty logic. Something that must be planned around might be OP, dependent on a lot of other factors, of course.

Hypothetical: Say there's a card that says, "Unless your opponent's priest immediately discards Elvish Insight, you win." Suddenly every team must contain an Elf Priest and probably ways to ensure that they can reliably draw EI, and smart players will start playing with as many copies of the I-win card as they can as well. It's clearly OP even though it can be planned around.

 

Wanted to add my two cents on this card since it gets a lot of play, especially in two Wizard decks. There are already a sufficient amount of cold encumbering cards in existence, and frost jolt is nice in theory since it is a cold card that deals a bit of damage. I think it is OP when it comes to the encumbering factor. Consider hitting a warrior with this card. You just knocked off roughly 1/6 his/her hit points and now have them probably locked down for the next two turns, especially since are likely to follow this up with more encumbrance. My suggestion would be to scale back the encumbrance to only the current turn, and not follow you into the next round, or at least make it 1/1 encumber.

For what it is worth, of course a deck can be built to counter act this card, but that is true for any effect.

 

I am surprised that encumber effects stack as they do, i.e. two Encumber 2s lock out Dash. I would think only the biggest Encumber effect would apply at once.

 

It's just another aspect of the game that a good build will keep in mind when choosing what counters to use. Just as you use blocks to counter 30+ damage melee attacks or slides/moves to counter damaging terrain effects, there are cards that boost movement and cards that remove enemy effects.

Since the game has not been in open testing for that long, we should keep in mind that once it is released and there is a much larger playerbase, then a metagame will form around multiplayer that will probably include using available counters for the most common offensive tactics (such as encumber as we see it now).

Just my 2 cents on this one.

 

What I was getting at is that there are cards that counter encumber, just as there are cards that counter damage, terrain effects, other debuffs, forced moves, and so on.

Why do people seem to have big problems with encumber, but I don't see a whole lot of forum posts talking about how a warrior hitting for 34 damage in melee is a big problem in the game? Personally I think this is because almost everyone is using cards to counter an all-out overbearing bludgeon and so it's viewed as a balance between offense and counters, but not many people include cards to counter encumber. The same could be said about terrain effects, as more people include cards to counter lava less comlaints about it arise.

 

I personally have a problem with warriors, more so now that I've started playing one. I don't think people see it as a huge problem in the current meta because of encumber. Without it I think you'd hear a lot of complaints about warriors killing 2+ characters a turn with no way to stop them.

 

I would don the armor and lead the charge for that complaint campaign.

Encumber is frustrating, but so is any ability that prevents you from doing exactly what you want. If Taunt were on MP cards, we would have a lots of players cry out against it regardless of counters.

I've played multiple games vs people who simply can't get enough of Vicious Thrust and other step cards. Even running Elven Wizards with multiple Elvish Mobility + Dimensional movement cards, I still find myself getting step attacked to death if I run anything other than multiple Encumbrance Staves.

In a game where Mobility is important due to the amount of potential burst damage available, Encumber is one of many checks required for that balance.

Remove step attack cards from the game and frost is no longer a check, it's merely OP. Remove frost from the game and step attacks would be solidified as the de-facto baseline item for warrior success.

 

That's the crux of the problem. Without Frost, step cards are too good. Without good step cards, frost is too good. As it is, you pretty much have to play at least one of those two things to be successful and most of the best decks use both.

 

Play elfs lol at frost jolt problem solved! Play only dwarfs and keep thinking its op. Pretty much sums it up.

 

Deep insight there. A set of cards that makes an entire race nearly unplayable is fine because another race is slightly better at dealing with those cards.

 

Dwarves can use sprint, purge, traits that bump off the debuff, slides. All these cards are available to all races.

Saying encumber makes dwarves "nearly unplayable" would only be accurate if you ignore all the cards that can counter-act the debuff. Given that the majority of those options also help overcome the low base movement of dwarves it's not like they are wasted when you come up against a non-encumbering opponent.

 

Yeah. That's why they're only "nearly" unplayable.