Force Field Overpowered? Or I miss some good counters?

Looks to me like that's an awfully small sample then. Obviously the expansion has been out in the wild for only a small amount of time, so people still need to put the right items together and acquire the right amount of experience with the new cards.

Just try and approach this from as much of an objective angle as possible though. Sometimes the odds play against you, and the enemy seem to draw the right card at the best, most decisive time possible. Those tend to be pretty frustrating moments, and our judgement of how bad or good a card is gets inevitably influenced by those occurrences. But it is important to realize that while we're all bound to lose a few matches because somebody got to draw the good cards at the right time, our deck-building decisions should be informed by the remaining 99% of games we play.

You don't want to be the guy who tosses an otherwise solid build out the window because he got an unlucky lose streak

So, in a way, I'm not ruling out the possibility that FF might indeed end up proving to be OP, in the right build. Nor am I advocating FF can be easily countered regardless of what cards are available to you. With enough time, people will gradually learn both how to best use the card and how to properly deal with it. But I think it's still way too early to call out any of the new cards as OP, or assuming no viable strategy can be adopted against them.

Until then, we can just try and do our best to react to whatever might be hot (and annoying!) in the current meta.

 

Since the season started, I've been floating around in the 1400's. It's totally anecdotal, but my rating shot up to 1600 very quickly after swapping Bubble Helmets and Shielding Warp Boots onto my warriors. Since you save the Force Fields until you're low on health, I've found that it's actually not too uncommon to have two saved up by the time you actually need them. At that point, it can take as many as seven attacks to kill a warrior that should have been dead six attacks ago, and most opponents simply aren't equipped to deal with that (as this thread suggests, it's not easy). Since you use it one hit from death, it doesn't even interfere with Elven Maneuvers, making arguably the most mindless strategy in the game even easier to pull off (now they're mobile and tanky).

From my first impressions, I'd suggest either lowering the duration to 2 or making it a Mandatory Action to help balance it. The former would make waiting it out a more viable strategy (one strike and pass), while the later would disallow hoarding them until right before death and cause it to conflict with Martyr Blessing and Elven Maneuvers.

 

I faced a guy with rating ~1400 using that build just now. (he must read this post!! )
Two elf warriors with one human priest.
The key cards are the defensive blocks, Elven Maneuvers and FF, and some weapons with big damages.
The priest is loaded with some Cause Fumble as well.
It's so difficult to beat which I can hardly do ANY damages on his warriors.
He did several big mistakes so I won the game at end for 6 vs 5.
But honestly if he played a little better I should have lost straightly for 6 vs 0.

 

This is interesting. Would you post the full build @Xayrn ?

Since you're spending at least 1 major + 1 minor tokens onto FFs, I'm wondering what weapons are you going for. 1 Bejeweled + something else? Double-Edged swords?

I.e. aside from the FFs, what are you spending your tokens on?

 

you can use Purge or purge field too.

 

Use wizards!

 

That was propably me.
In fact I was inspired by this thread and I wanted to try a Force Field build by myself to see if its really so powerfull.
It was my 3. or 4. game with it so I am still learning how to use it for the best.

Now after like 5 games (2 lost 5 vs 6) I can tell that the build is quite strong but not unbeatable at all.
On the other hand this rotation doesn't favor warriors so much. Some other month this build could be really leading the field.

If you can tell me how to do it easily than I can post the build here.

 

Bejeweled Shortswords won't do you any good with everyone running around in Cushioning Armor. To get by in today's meta of tomorrow you need:

Stabotron3000
Level 18 Elf Warrior

Double-edged Sword
Double-edged Sword
Double-edged Sword
Dependable Mail
Twisting Shield
Bubble Helmet
Shielding Warp Boots
Cautious Mobility
Novice Impaling
​

The bejeweled cultist of the future!

 

So here it is:

Leaf
Level 11 Elf Warrior

Nova Axe
Rageblood Dagger
Blazing Shortsword
Perilous Ringmail
Aegis Of The Defender
Bubble Helmet
Shielding Warp Boots
Cautious Mobility
Savvy Attacker
​

Branch
Level 1 Elf Warrior

Bejeweled Shortsword
Rageblood Dagger
Blazing Shortsword
Perilous Ringmail
Aegis Of The Defender
Bubble Helmet
Shielding Warp Boots
Cautious Mobility
Savvy Attacker
​

Heala
Level 19 Human Priest

Healing Hand Mace
Vampire's Blade
Ritual Straps
Aegis Of The Defender
Wlakwa's Boots
Oak Roots
Spellstripper Relic
Crespin's Shroud
Command
Novice Ablution​

• The build is highly mobile, almost unvulnerable and it manages opponents attachements very well.
• Sometimes you miss higher damage attacks due to removed Bejeweled Shortsword.
• Some of the new armours could be problematic because this build has no way how to get rid of them.
• Bubble Helmet is definitely good. I am not so sure about Shielding Warp Boots though. There could be a better option for minor token.
• Experimenting with Entangling Roots...

 

On another note - has anyone tried experimenting with this item?

http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Items/Overheated_Force_Suit

It's the only item that allows you to play Lava Pool, and it also has a Force Field on it!

If you're going to build an accelerate time wizards team, maybe this has some key role in that build.

 

Arcane feedback good for removing a forcefield? XD

 

I believe that there many cards from expansion which more powerful in MP than they should, considering their quality, for example: Cushioning Armor, Accelerate Time , Mimetic Crown and Force Field. However, I think that current less than stellar balance in MP is caused mainly by increase of items' maximum levels to 20,21 which may be too much in my opinion. Suddenly many items were made obsolete and I see less diverse builds on battlefields.

 

I like the idea of it being a Mandatory Action.

 

I noticed this, too. The new items make a great deal of the level 16-18 items look bad. For instance, you have Spatiomancer's Sidearm, which has emerald, gold, and paper quality cards on the same item. Previous offerings only gave you up to 2 gold and 1 paper or 3 silver. The shift from gold to emerald has a very significant impact in some builds. Those extra 3 points you get from the higher level make a significant difference when you use 4 majors on capped EttSC items.

I personally don't run into any problems when I'm faced with Force Field, but that's probably because I've been doing almost all of the above suggestions by default (burning wiz, control wiz, purge if I draw it, ignore target, etc.)

 

I don't know, I haven't had a chance to play as many MP games as I'd like since the new expo was released.

Still, being an emerald card, I think Accelerate time isn't too crazy.
Cushioning armor, I've had to deal with in a handful of games, and interestingly enough I found out I could just pretty much ignore it altogether. But I do see it could give the opponent serious problems if you can draw it very early on in the game.
Similarly Mimetic Crown, while annoying, looks way more scary than it actually is (avoid hitting its user with multiple low-dmg attacks and he will likely be dead way before he can put all those bludgeons to good use).

In a way, I have the feeling BM purposefully opted to introduce these new cards in order to swirl a meta which (quite frankly) has been moderately stale for quite a long time.

I.e. Armor never really was a slot most people were happy spending tokens on, and for good reason. Furthermore, the most effective strats (prior to EttSC) overly revolved around maximizing the team's ability to deal tons of damage in relatively little time. Aggro warriors, maneuvering elves, bejeweled cultists, burrfters, AoA, Sprint, Teammers, etc. etc. Exceptions to the average Hulk-Smash builds could certainly be named (blesscano, multiple flavors of control wizards). But, if you look at the trends over long periods of times, the advantage has always been in favor of the most capable attacker, so to speak.

In a way, I feel cards like Cushioning Armor and Force Field have been introduced specifically to help players deal with the most in-your-face sort of builds. I'm not at all sure these cards alone will be able to make the aforementioned builds less prominent, but I do appreciate the effort.

In a way, I do welcome that, as the new cards (as OP as they might seem) are bound to shake up the meta in a very welcome way.

Do keep in mind, Armor can be removed in many different ways. Alternatively, you can sidestep it entirely with penetrating attacks. In short, it's not like you don't have options for dealing with Cushioning Armor or the Mimetic cards. Similarly, as annoying as FF might be, it can still be purged or chipped away relatively easily.

In short, I think these new cards are meant to be used as a very viable tool against those players who go all-in with pure damage without including at least some tech into their decks. That's something which wasn't overly abundant in pre-EttSC CH, so I do expect more players will include at least a dash of armor and attachment removal tools in their decks as a consequence of the newly introduced cards.

 

A great analysis, Bandreus! I agree completely.

 

It must be you!
I still remember my Purging burst on the FF got blocked by your def. block!!!

Some ideas ...
Try to use Eixocl's hammer instead of Rageblood Dagger.
Save the token on Savvy Attacker as you already have enough movements.

Not sure about the build for the priest.
Perhaps a standard priest loaded with Mass Frenzy?

 

A little off topic, so I apologize, but you know what works well against Cushioning Armor?

Arcane bursts. Unbuffed.
#morewizards #lesspriests

 

I'm a little surprised, given that this has devolved into a general discussion of the new cards, that no one has mentioned how running Mimetic Armor or Mimetic Crown would help against Force Field. Why waste your attacks, when you have a Spark or a Bludgeon or two?

 

Having just faced FF in three of my last four matches (all losses, for the record), I'd say there's actually some effort involved, and it's not very preferable.

1. It's not like I usually have 3 spare attacks around to spend on a FF.
2. If I do, the character's blocks and armor (if present, of course), get first crack at nullifying the attack. I actually had 1 or 2 instances attacks defended in this manner that allowed the FF to stay on with a 1 on the counter. That's a double waste of attacks, in my opinion, and doubly frustrating.
3. Sure, I could not attack that enemy and work on the others....but when 85% of my enemies are still maneuvering elves, that's usually not an option as well. I don't feel like these cards are shaking up the meta at all.

I get why there is invulnerability items in SP; I have no clue why they are in MP. But that's just my opinion. Nimbus, FF, Resistent Hide, Grounding Plates, whatever....I just feel they dumb down the strategy. Again, just my opinion.