The issue: Burfft is cheap token-wise and has no proper counters. Really, if you can imagine a counter strategy, please describe it, and I will explain why it's nonsense. Simple suggestion: Savage Curse from paper quality -> bronze quality. Justification: Just consider other bronze quality cards found on divine items. Mind Worm, Twin Heals, Healing Pulse, Help Weak, Avenging Touch, Entangling Roots. Let me pose a sarcastic rhetorical question: clearly Savage Curse should have a lower quality than the listed cards, because it has a far less significant impact on the course of a game, right? Implications: Skull Of Savage Illjin -> Darkblood Glaive -> Glasod's Dark Eye and Chaos Hammer will be pushed over the lvl 21 edge, so they will have to be redone a bit. Please vote on the poll and provide your input. EDIT: This suggestion by Scarponi is another possibility.
While I do think the current Savage Curse could definitely be a bronze card, I think that changing the card itself instead of the quality would be a much easier way of managing it. Perhaps changing it to duration 2, +3 boost?
It definitely is more Savage than Curse -- more Assist than Attack. I've put it on enemies, but it's extremely situational (I'd say even more so than Misguided Heal), and it almost always ends in failure. Since there's a gigantic rebalance planned, I hope this card can be included. Meanwhile, here are a bunch of (related-only) thoughts from World. This barely catches the last of the burfft topic really, then it pretty much meandered elsewhere: Fwiw, in my own opinion of burfft, I'm at odds with myself. As far as the topic of legendaries goes, I think it's cool that ppl who've been playing for awhile and have amassed a sweet horde can feel like they're really able to put their previous hours of play toward good use (as far as more play goes). I'm not really there yet myself; I speak mostly as a bystander. As far as Savage Curse goes, it is not mindless burffting. Unholy Wellspring might be moreso, but with Savage Curse, you do have to consider what in the world to play next because you want to play your best attacks, but you also want to keep your cards that rescue you from attackers. There's a lot of calculating that goes into that. I have played some burfft. However, I can see how the Skull (plus Altruism, çoitainly♪!) could ease calculation somewhat as at least you're probably drawing more attacks -- be that Gusts Of War, Fireball, Flash Of Agony, Radiation Bomb, or even Unholy Energy (plus potentially nabbing more Inspiring Presence, other draws, or even more Radiation Bomb -- Keep Unless 4). I wish there were easier answers to this. You need some pretty expensive wizard gear to put up Illusory terrain reliably. Smoke has pluses and minuses.We all know Auto Block works, but I've found most burffters have ways to target you until it's gone, then go back to burffting; Wandere has seen success with Laser Block which is funny and cool, but of course a token-heavy way to deal with it; why Catch Arrow is 4+ is (mostly) beyond me ...because if a meleer is at range and catches an arrow, there's a great chance the melee-er is gonna still be a sitting duck, albeit it now with a Mighty Hack in hand. $;^ b (However, I recognize that -- at least historically perhaps? -- if the meleer is already ontop the Magicker $:^ P then the meleer already has supreme advantage. But ugh, 4+ ? Not even 3? ~sigh~ Especially with Electroporter Novice existing? ~more sigh~ Even Shield Block is 3+, but that's its own gold-quality melee-biased can of worms.) I'd said in chat up above, "the" big issue is gold cost, but nah, after discussing more, I see it's more about certain items' power costs combined with encapsulated synergies. I don't want to get rid of burfft. I do find it interesting. I find it a rush to beat. (With my limited set, I find it a challenge to play.) But, it is noticeable how the successful burfft builds are both extremely high in rank and extremely high in legendaries. I'm sincerely curious to see what AI brings to the table -- to see if burfft gets intentionally dealt with (like Elven Maneuvers (and Cautious Mobility!) giving scariness to what I understand was the weakest race at the time) or unintentionally dealt with (like priests accidentally getting nearly irremovable handicap attacks close to a year ago -- which AI shall apparently repair). Clearly, Citadel's Auto Block was given to help against burst, and boy, does it work! $:^ b (I've had league opponents resign on the first Auto cancel! lol) Point being, perhaps AI will introduce something that will make a Savage Curse + Legendary Burst 2 build still strongly playable but more counterable -- without ppl clamoring for the major rebalance to muck into it ... at least too much. That's it. I'm done. Regards. ~nodnod~
@Bob - when a wiz gets one card, just one, from inspiration or inspiring presence, he doesn't have to think at all - just use whatever he gets. Which is why Iljin is absurd at tokenless. Savage Curse itself isn't that bad. If you want to attack with something like Little Zap or Penetrating Zap. Then it's a fair 4 damage for a discard. Hell, even Arcing Spark and linear attacks can be justified, because they award positioning. But burst? It's the easiest thing to use. You take away something that should be a problem for them - no line of sight - and you get +12 damage for it?
I still think the itemizations are the bigger issue and devs shouldnt be afraid to touch those weapons with multiple burst 2-spells, tone them down instead of introducing more. Smoke on the water has held PvP hostage long enough. In all seriousness, while fireballs are a powerful card, its that crazy, crazy pairing of 3 copies with 3x flash of agony that makes it overwhelming atm. Skull is another piece of the problem build - one heavily powered by synergetic legendaries, not even remotely matched by anyone whos fresh and wants to get a foothold in PvP. And my last bit of discontent is as old as the game, the dwarf mage hp. It is immensly blown out of proportion, on top of excellent tokenless options for the racial skill slot. These current maps are huge, and yet, them being "slower" is absolutely inconsequential. To reach them you may have to utilize faster races, and hp disadavantage matters a ton for the ones sticking their neck out in hopes to oppose a setup that IS cheap and that IS hurting the multiplayer experience. Maybe burffters are skilled players on top of it, but i guess you grow to be one before you can gather the gear, also it is beside the point. What makes a good player? Not finding and exploiting the max out of slightly inbalanced mechanics, but being playful. We are players, we gather for entertainment. You got a tiny bit of responsibility not to value your wins over everyones experience.
This is probably disjointed. Sorry. Spent way too long on this. Lots of back-and-forth editing, too. Might just bow out and watch everyone else's discussion unfold after I put this out there. (Might.) ~~ Some poor sap named Bob who joined the forum and left the same day over three years ago without a single public interaction just got notified to this thread. Lol. $E^ D Lucky, just to make sure we're on the same page, yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement. Savage Curse is an interesting card. Pairing it with mutli-victim attacks is efficient, smart play. Pairing it with a card that burst-draws Attack cards with no line of sight for no token, letting you stockpile that pairing at least thrice, letting you dump all your tokens into every-single-other priest slot available except one, and making this item as rare as rare can be -- as well as all the attacking items that would most benefit from it? ~exhale~ However, I won't say there's no calculation because deciding when to use the Inspiring Presence for biggest effect (including whether the attacker's hand is empty or not), and being in position to use the one card you get, and deciding whether to use it or wait (depending on what card it might wipe from your hand, depending where the enemy is for maximum burst effectiveness and if there's any reason for the enemy to group more together for you vs. be able to scatter all over the place) -- does take thought, especially if your gung-ho enemy has approached you with melee. Of course, once again, Burst 1 isn't Burst 2, either. I've played shut-down parties (of various stripes), and maybe I'm "doing it wrong," but I'm always on my toes wondering when my opp will cut through my shenanigans and tear me apart. ~~ Right. When you put it that way, very succinctly like that, this new thought comes to mind. "Burfft (esp Burfft 2) counters everything." It counters everything from Volcano builds to Cult of the Bejeweled -- from 17+ damage Sparkers to "lawl Nimbus" (at least if the Burffters use Rad Bomb, multiple Burning sources, and/or the ever-defensive Purging Burst). I don't think I've met a wizardly burfft team yet who didn't have control magic, too, to keep the approachers away. It just seems to be an assumed part of the build. ~~ In contrast, Accelerate Time + Volcano (and AT+Volc+Laser Beacons for that matter) is astounding, but you don't need any items higher than Rare to pull it off, and it takes skill and patience to manipulate your opponent's and your own positions at the same time to take full advantage of it -- and it takes lots of tokens to do this, too. Can be all Rares. (I'm now tempted to build this just to see how it does. I'd probably do somewhat poorly since I'm probably not the best Volcano player. But hey, if anyone else wants to take the mantle, have at it.) That torn part of me "at odds with myself" just basically wants to see burfft as an interesting, viable option, but not the be-all-end-all it sadly seems to have become. Meanwhile, I somehow doubt that most of the absolute top burffters in the entire community really want to sit down and say, "Okay, here's what we're most afraid of, our utter weaknesses that will destroy us." I also somehow doubt the same would want to say, "Our builds don't have a weakness. There is no counter. That's why we play them." ~exhale~ See, part of me would feel bad for the burffters if their legendaries get nerfed in conceptual entirety (aside from introducing new cards that let non-burffters handle it better) -- but then, that's what happened to Vibrant Pain dwarves (and non-legendary Whirlwind/Enemies disrupters), and the game improved from there. I started to say that might be the key argument for nerfing burfft -- Burfft 2 removes the line-of-sight importance for pot-shotting wizards -- but when I found http://www.cardhunter.com/2014/07/upcoming-balance-changes-the-big-stuff/ again, I see that WW/E and FS got called out for the total lack of handling distance plus line of sight. Burfft needs some distance handling and a little bit of line-of-sight handling. Back to looking at the tokenless attack->discard->heal->draw Skull in particular...
honestly always thought it should only affect melee characters as its a curse of savagery, generally speaking, savage people don't shoot fire from their nostrils and control time. If it only affected melee it would be fine
The Reason Savage Curse is Paper It's immediate card disadvantage. You get +4 damage, but at the cost of another card. For a typical attack, spending a second card to add 4 damage is a high cost. And if it's blocked you've spent 2 cards and gained nothing. What Makes It Exploitable If you can spend that extra card to add 4 damage to two, or even three, targets at once, then that spent card gets you plus 8 or 12 damage and gains you tempo, now that's way better than a Paper quality card. The Simple Solution IMO Simply change Savage Curse to only add damage to attacks targeting a character. This means it can't be used with burst, linear, cone, or any other area of effect card. Simply put, with the exception of Gusts of War and Chops you would never be able to get a multi-target bonus. IMO this would also be all that is needed to tone down burst from dominating (and even currently, only on some map rotations) to balanced but still viable.
Thanks, Scarp. That idea passed through my head, but it was fleeting, and I forgot. Chop (+ Weak, Clumsy, Strong, Massive, Obliterating, Staggering, Unstoppable, etc.) Gusts of War Arcing Spark Jumpspark Scatter Laser Any others?
I kinda dislike your solution, because both linear and cone kinda require positioning. Taking curse from the equation for these is just unnecessary nerf for these two types of attacks.
I think from a programming standpoint his solution is easier to do, basically what you can kill with squemish (burst, linear, cone) you can't get the buff for from savage. As for scatter still being able to get the boost, I think that's perfectly fine because it is an, in my opinion, overvalued emerald card, so this nerf would help it be a little less undervalued, although I doubt people will use scatter laser items for this reason specifically. Ice Bolts comes to mind, although it's only the 1 card, on the 1 item.
Imo it's easier and more effective just to nerf it through bonus/duration than changing game mechanics.
I would say that in terms of positioning, the order is as such: Cone < Direct <= Linear < Burst (1<2), though cone has the added benefit of passing through smoke and barriers. While it's not necessary to weaken conefft and linearfft, I still like Scarponi's solution as it creates an anti-synergy between Savage Curse and the standard wizard cycling trait, Squeamish--which is fitting for a card of paper quality. With this modification, burfft would still be possible through Unholy Wellspring, but that being a gold card, its impact on the course of a game is justifiable. I'm wondering though, would Savage Curse still discard 1 when an attack is played that doesn't get boosted?
As I envision it, no. It would work as it does now: only when buffing it discards. Remember, as much as everyone hates burfft at the moment the goal is to bring it into balance, not make something unplayable.
