Your ideas for tweaking/nerfing some cards?

I agree with Kalin. In MP I feel it could be just as OP. Sure, you could whiff, and just snag a little zap, but the more copies of a card they have in hand, the greater chance it has to hit, and be a total blowout, in the vein of Superstitous trait.

Props for thinking of injecting some life into perplexing ray though. Guess it's an aptly named card!

Maybe if it was simply increased to range 10? Some long range discard, you could combine with sizzling bolts and dissolve armorers so opponent never feels safe

 

How about perplexing ray changes the facing direction of the target in addition to the regular discard a random card effect.

 

I'm referring to the MP context, of course. Making it different between SP and MP is not that hard to do, or you could just add a line exception for monster groups.

 

Perplexing Ray is not "so bad" -- you're trading 1 card for 1 card. If you know they have stronger cards in their hand you're profiting from it. It is an average card, but anything from bad.

 

I disagree. It's a really bad card at its current state, especially from my wizard-based POV. Trading one card for a RANDOM card of the opponent is usually bad because (a) the chance of discarding a card of Gold quality or higher is always less than 1/3 or 1/4 (because of token restrictions on total card strength and the chance to discard the racial move) and (b) you have no control as to what card gets discarded (which is why Memory Loss is considered much better and actually in competitive builds). Granted, you can boost your chances of making a good pick by revealing the opponent's hand (which is hard in itself) and/or reducing the opponents cards to 2 or less, but by then it's already too late because if warriors get to dish out that many cards it's near pointless to discard and Short Perplexing Ray becomes entirely superior in comparison.

I'm of the belief that the best builds out there always try to use cards and card combinations that will net you an advantage. Buff + burst, Martyr's/Maneuvers draw, FF/Nimbus denial -- you get the point. Perplexing Ray is very perplexing for a good build; you're settling for winning on a small chance, drawing even, or getting less. Its directed use is so situational because of the "random card" aspect.

I really don't think the "discard all copies of this card" effect is overpowered. Aside from this having a medium-low chance to occur, you can easily play against it, bait it out, or just take it. Harnesses also absorb it pretty well. The worst case scenario for the opponent would be discarding 3 or more cards of a type, but how often will that occur? Isn't it the mistake of the player if he knows that his opponent is playing Perplexing Ray, and so he should enforce good counterplay?

I think the beauty of this concept is that it counters builds that homogenize card selection too much, and there are lots of builds like that, that stomp *cough* Nimbus spam, Burst spam, Nimble Strike spam *cough*. It makes you think twice about which card to use if the opponent has Perplexing Ray, which in my opinion, adds depth. It provides one solution for wizards to face builds like that (and wizards don't do good against those builds at all). If you contend that you can abusively spam it, think twice. It can only create card advantage, and it's situational at that. You would spend a major token to get 2 copies of these with the existing items, and the max you can get is 12/29+, but with a slew of random cards with it.

I could also argue that the possibilities it creates generates a feeling of excitement for the user and strategic thinking for the opponent, but that would be proving to obscurity.

If you still don't agree, then fine. I honestly believe that there are so many obstacles for it to become a good card right now that giving it a boost like this won't be overdoing it at all.

That could be useful. I'm assuming the change of facing is in a random direction. I don't think it fits the whole theme of "discard for advantage" and "perplexing the opponent" (despite the facing change) that the Perplexing cards have, though, and that alone is not enough to warrant its use given the items it's on right now (unless you can control the change of facing, which won't make sense thematically).

 

The only thing keeping Short Perplexing Ray from being played is it's quality rating. If Bewlin's Baffling Bauble only cost a minor token and there were a tokenless option in the same vein as Asmod's Telekinetic Chain, I'd be willing to bet it'd see a whole lot more play. It's a control card that does actually does something against other wizards. On a similar note, Memory Loss doesn't see more play because it's more powerful (though it does tend to hit something more spicy after the first round) but rather because it's on Armorbane Pendant, the only tokenless armor removal arcane item. Take that out of the equation and Memory Loss is just as unplayable due to itemization.

 

If it changed facing to away from caster, I might play it even without a discard effect.

 

Would Lateral Thinking / Battlefield Tactics / Advanced Battlefield Tactics be too strong if they remained the same, but replaced cards as well?

For example, lateral thinking would give you one card for each handicap you remove from your character. A potential for a big draw, but you'll have to be in a sorry state to receive it. For BT / ABT, if you give your ally one/two cards, you draw one/two to replace them. Just some ideas to perhaps have them more in use and such.

Another idea for ABT would be to allow you to send one card to each ally if they are in range/LoS. Might not be that applicable, but might still be a nice use if possible.

Again, this might make the cards too strong, but just a thought I had today.

 

What if Memory Loss, instead of discarding a card, created another type of memory loss? Like the memory of being able to walk correctly, or attack correctly, or block correctly? It could do so at random perhaps. Like a one-turn Hypnotic Beacon exclusive to one character? Might get it more use.

 

digging deep for my thread

So Dodge and Reflexive Teleport (as well as Jump Back) are currently pretty weak if you're not facing warriors for one reason.

The attacks that trigger them must be targetable.

Guess what's not targetable? Burst, exactly.

So how about they start proccing even on non-targettable attacks. After all, logically, you can dodge a thrown bomb when you see it, right?

 

Smashing Spin was mentioned earlier as being too weak, so what if the 2 damage to the surrounding units was changed to move 1? A weaker, lower costed version of violent spin could be a handy card at times.

 

Way too good, you cant truely believe that change is likely, even if it was "slide".
Best course of action i see is to replace smashing alltogether.

 

Subtle parry draws a card if the base damage of the blocked attack is 4, currently any buff on an attack in mp makes this parry useless.

 

Here's a possible buff to Smashing Spin.
Smashing Spin
Do 1 Crushing Melee damage to every enemy adjacent to you. Draw a card if any damage is dealt to any enemy character. Then you Move 2. Unblockable

So this is hard-countered by armor. It also can't be used to cycle cards by hitting your allies.

 

making it trigger blocks already would be a hard buff.
Wasnt elven maneuvers for a short period of time blockable on the test server during the balance rounds?

 

I wouldn't call it useless. It's still a 3+ melee block, no questions asked. Paper quality too.

 

Paper+(D+ or 1)

 

Some costs for low quality blocks:
0 - Unreliable Block (trigger 6)
0 - Flimsy Block (trigger 3)
1 - Subtle Parry (trigger 3)
2 - Weak Block (trigger 3)
3 - Parry (trigger 2)
3 - Block (trigger 4)

Parry is under-costed, but probably too entrenched to change at this point. I think subtle parry measures up well to the field for cost/performance.

 

I thought for some reason Unblockable also meant Penetrating for some reason. Brain fart. Editing original post.

 

Maybe Shield Block could have a Surging Shield Block effect when blocking a ranged attack, so it would not be completely wasted.