Extinction of the Acid Mage

Discussion in 'Card Hunter General Chat' started by cycosurgeon, Jan 6, 2017.

  1. Acid Mage, my favorite class for years is now going the way of the Dodo, it was always hard to play and the itemization for it always blew, but I had fun with it and it was usable to me.

    I wanted it to be more usable and fun so I finally logged on to the forums after years of just being a player and *****ed and complained about it at times, championed for it at other times and even at times I sadly admit my frustration at times caused me to be trollish about balance issues. Because I was tired of always getting crushed by the same few builds over and over that got all the attention and items.

    After years the Acid Mage got some love after in the new items expansion and at first I was so happy I didn't really care that I was still getting my ass kicked with my Acid Mage, I had new items and new cards finally after years of enduring nonstop ass kickings by flying Dwarves, endless move Elves, tokenless item control wizards, turn spamming Vamps and buffed burst spamming wizards.

    Nowadays with Vengeance, Vanguard, Delegate, Daylight and even more control wizards and Greater Heal or Nimbus spamming Clerics than ever before! Add the fact that Acid Mages now have a random chance to acid their own teammates, the build is harder and more frustrating to play than ever before.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2017
    mckeen and SceoMyntan like this.
  2. mckeen

    mckeen Hydra

    I played around with it a bit after the CM release but the only way I saw it as being playable is with at least two acid mages and a focused build with as many Caustic Pain as you can get your hands on. I understand that for Hex Of Dissolution it was originally one to one in stead of three to one on the test server but it was changed for being too powerful? This may be the wrong forum but, to make it playable I would suggest the following:
    • Acid leak only targets the enemy
    • Make Hex of dissolution one-two wrt acid terrain
    • Look at a better itemized staff that has more that 4 acid attacks on one staff, I am not aware of one but I may be wrong... Compare this to arcane, fire or electrical....
    On this topic I also have to highlight how bad Staff Of Dissolution is! Who wants Boiling Armor if they are running acid! Even replace with Acid Blast and it is a playable staff for a class that has very few of them...
     
  3. Maniafig

    Maniafig Thaumaturge

    Hex Of Dissolution was definitely overpowered before it got nerfed on the test server, spamming Acid Spray/Jet and Hex means throwing around >10 damage Hexes was the norm in Acid Mage decks and you pretty much had to pack a ton of Nimble Strikes, Daylights or your own Acid to have a chance of countering it. It only made the play of triple Dwarf Wizard more prominent and made the HP difference between the races stick out all the more since these Hexes could easily kill any Elf in two shots while removing the use of their racial Dashes. It also still tears through armor, if you battle someone who spends tokens on high-end armor then you've pretty much made them waste a token.

    I would also not underestimate Staff Of Dissolution since Acid Jets are very useful for placing a lot of Acid tiles and allows for trickier terrain to get around than Acid Spray and is generally also better at blockchecking.

    I don't have the items to try it out on the live server since the build requires some legendaries, but on the test server playing focused triple Dwarf Wizards generally worked out rather well so I'd like to know how well the build works before it's dismissed as totally unplayable.

    Old Fart
    Level 21 Dwarf Wizard

    Senile Coot
    Level 21 Dwarf Wizard

    Who is this even I dunno
    Level 21 Dwarf Wizard

    I would say the biggest problem with the additions to Wizards in the Staff/Arcane Item slots is that Hex requires a very synergistic build while Boo! is too annoying to make it viable and Ancient Grudge quires a stalling or heavy cycling deck so they're hard to put into old and conventional builds like you can with most new Warrior stuff.
     
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  4. No build should require multiple versions of the same build in a group to be valid in my opinion.

    A bunch of other builds of mine that are going extinct due to the crap ton of move and slide cards. Force Cone Mage, Radiation Spray Cleric, Stone Spikes ( Doo Doo Flinger ) Mage, Bash and Barge Warriors. Even my Roots Cleric is nearly worthless since Vengeance lets you move before the roots kick in. Even my Cold mage feels more useless than usual.

    You know it is pretty bad when a Boo Wizard and Melee Mages feels more useful that any terrain based builds.

    For years I could use these weird builds and win around 50% of my matches and have fun most of the time, but it seems those days are over.
     
    Robauke likes this.
  5. Let's not forget the complete BS fact that clerics can get more Nimbus or Greater Heal cards than an Acid Mage can get Acid Jetz!
     
  6. Deepweed

    Deepweed Thaumaturge

    There's actually truth in this. I did testing with an acid build and I found that investing in too much Acid Spray makes you lose out on control, and you have so little direct damage with Caustic Pain. When I successfully filled a huge portion of the enemy's side of the board with acid, I still only got a 9 damage attack, which is too low for all the risk, effort, and cards spent to achieve 18-20 Acid tiles. The 2:1 ratio of Acid tiles and damage bonus for Hex Of Dissolution sounds like a good buff.
     
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  7. HisRoyalHygiene

    HisRoyalHygiene Guild Leader

    I was very excited when I saw acid mages were getting some supreme love in CM but playing with Hex Of Dissolution on the test server before it was nerfed was like a stronger, more powerful burrft. Naturally, I loved it. But it was terrible for game balance. The other problem is that, as stated above, it does best in a build with 3 mages spewing acid which is a bit of a boring build imo. I'd like to see it revert to a 1:1 damage ratio but its damage is only boosted by terrain that that mage has placed, similar to instant burn only affecting that character's fire attachments.
     
    FDrybob, Darkgryf and Maniafig like this.
  8. Maniafig

    Maniafig Thaumaturge

    A single Acid Spray or Acid Jet can create up to 8 or 9 tiles of acid, that paired with an armor removing effect is a ludicrous amount of damage at 6 range for a silver card, so a 1:1 power conversion is way above silver levels of power IMO and closer to emerald/amethyst. A 2:1 conversion for every tile put down by the Hex user is more sensible and a nice compromise between the old and current version of Hex.

    That would solve the problem of three Acid Wizards being able to two shot anything short of a Dwarf Warrior and opens up the card for use in a bigger variety of builds. The only problems would be that it gets confusing when you have multiple Acid Wizards or your opponent is also putting down Acid, but the same can be said for Instant Burn. It does seem like an interesting idea, and I'm curious how much more/less balanced it would be in practice.
     
  9. The Acid Mage damage has never really been an issue with me much. I always just accepted that acid mages weren't damage beasts, they were trap masters, but nowadays it is practically impossible to trap someone on an acid terrain, just too many move,slide or step cards flying around. If I do happen to trap someone on an acid terrain square nowadays, it feels like a miracle.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2017
  10. tolkien

    tolkien Thaumaturge

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