Balancing and state of the game

[predatoryflatworm]

Firstly, I want to say Thank You to BetaDwarf for this awesome game and pay model. F2P with optional (non-P2W) season passes/vanity stuff is the way to go. I would love to see more skin/emote/arena availability but otherwise it's solid!

Some balancing acts we have not really seen changes to..
1-Nyrvir the Fallen has two complaints from me that are tied together. As far as its damage and the ability to counterplay it, I feel it is fair. However, the most powerful things about Nyrvir are its insane health pool (requiring two people to dump almost all mana towards dealing damage to it/kiting its aggro around), and how slow it moves. This slowness basically means "10 mana: you control this lane for the next 2 minutes" leading to a guaranteed mana frenzy, even while opponents are playing well against it. The health guarantees the opponents mana is being directed towards dealing with it, and therefore unable to really counterpush (since the Dragon's team can simply devote mana to stopping a counterpush - no need to really support the dragon until it is over the bridge.) To this end, I think the dragon could use 100 less HP and a slight movement speed increase. Nothing HUGE, just to test the waters - I'm sure you guys have data to show how many games when Nyrvir hits play cause mana frenzy for the dragon's side / wins for the dragon's side.

2-Stun. This mechanic is across the board stronger than all other CC and direct damage by comparison. Don't look at just one card - look at 'stun' and you'll see nearly every deck in 1s, 2s and premade 2s carries at least one if not two forms of stun. It is the answer to everything. Why spend 5 to fireball when you can spend 2 to stun and have an existing minion kill the threat? Why pay 5 to fireball when you can pay 4 to have chain lightning stun master tower dps/deal master dmg/instakill small mobs that are otherwise huge threats [mana chasers, gn4ts, R4z0rs, vultures, etc.] Additionally, you guys have stuns of varying lengths across many units - I'm sure most players don't realize Defenso Chopper stuns for 3s, Chain Lightning for 2s, and Stun Blast for 0.5s. I would suggest lowering the stun duration of everything beneficial except Stun Blast by 10-15% as its just a guaranteed inclusion in every deck. Unless you intend for people to just play stuns instead of direct damage in all decks but rush decks.

3-Unloved strategies. Could you please take a look at buffing/correcting/changing some of the totally unused strategies and cards you already have in game?
3a-Call to Arms is nearly useless since everyone hard targets spawners. Making your "wall" have longer duration is moot.
3b-Demon Warrior is absolutely horrible... Yes, spend 5 mana for a bad card (1 less mana than cleaver, HALF cleaver's HP, HALF cleaver's hit damage - dps doesn't matter here because neither DW nor Cleaver is used for DPS and rather for BIG HITS) FIVE TIMES - meaning you've basically wasted 20ish mana depending on how much use your terrible demon warriors get, and then you can have OP units. Okay, great.. or I could play literally anything else and my strategy could just be to mana frenzy, since you're going to be at perk 3 by the time you play your 6th DW anyhow. A similar but slightly better card is
3c-Shield-Captain Avea. She's likewise expensive for minimal use until you get her third quest. How about...
3d-Lord-Sentinel Thelec? You see nobody but newbs play him. Why? Because they spend 10 mana and immediately all of the Crystal Archers get killed by one spell - take your pick, they all kill them. (40hp, Daggerfall does 50dmg. Fireball/Dragonball/Scratillery/Chain Lightning/Arcane bolt/Vortex/Sunburn/Bearvalanche/Poison Strike/Harmful Souls/etcetcetc ALL kill the archers, leaving you with a 10 mana Thelec to die). Oh and guess what? Once they see you're stupid enough to have Thelec in your deck, you can guarantee every single cast will eat a spell for the rest of that game.

4-Faction strategies. I see you guys have been working at these and I think that's awesome, but they still need some love. Slither's changes made playing Slitherbind/Sac absolutely horrible. The only thing that was working previously was 6mana: Impatient Statue, which Slitherbound 3 on any one card - and you could strategize to land this on a Gambler's Ball/Slithering Summons/Rabid Prowler. Now that slitherbind goes randomly to whatever, it's actually beneficial to only run a few Slither cards because you dont want the slitherbound going all over the place. Why did you make them split up amongst cards?? Why do Slither have to jump through seven hoops just to get a MAYBE decent play, where scrats can just play scrats -> get bonuses. Empyrean Army? Play 7 empyrean in deck -> get bonuses. No hoops required. Outlander? Play lots of outlander in deck -> free stuff. Accursed Ascension? Put more Accursed in deck -> get free stuff. It's like you hate slither for some reason.. either simplify it to "play more slither, get free stuff" (I hate that idea) OR make it more synergetic to play slither units together. Half of slither's units are terrible or janky as hell to get to work... the others are SUPER powerful like Prowler/Caged Prowler and see nearly all their play in non-faction decks.

Just my two cents having played this past year. Now go ahead, community, and bash everything I said. :)

[Arcane Madcap]

Thelec could be worse, he could have blood pact. Every time I see someone spawn blood imps, I chuck a fireball for 765 damage to the tower

[Darknessbird]

should we speak about settsu who can solo a buff red golem just with this stupid perma stun and still no nerf no rework since laucn? dont speak about people spamming every scrat / skeleton garbage deck who make impossible game to win

[BadAsAFish80]

The fact that you think Avea is underpowered is worrying. There is a reason she is constantly banned in the 1v1 tournaments.

[(*'-')]

Is there some way to see the winrates on cards in 1's and 2's etc.? Just off his examples alone, I also have a hard time believing demon warrior and Thelec are anywhere near 50% winrates in 2's. Avea I know is no big deal in 2's, so I had no idea she was that good in 1's.

Just like when I was surprised by all the Coax nerfs when I never found him all that imposing even on day 1. But a dev in chat said something about how good he is in 1's so it was necessary.

[smokratez]

no balance and it's a joke

[done87]

excuse me but do you have any grey poupon?

[Blogg]

Originally posted by done87:

excuse me but do you have any grey poupon?

a man / woman of taste I see

[Semorel]

The dragons can all be countered with a single 3 mana {editted spell} card. Other spells make them die faster, but a single 3 mana spell can beat them one on one. While dragons can be devastating to a team that does not have a good response, they generally are not as devastating as people seem to think.
Stun is tough, but it does not kill on its own.
Slitherbind is not worthless now. While it was easier to get exactly what you wanted in the last version, you can now have 12 slithers bound to a single card (I have done this several times).

[BadAsAFish80]

Originally posted by Semorel:

The dragons can all be countered with a single 3 mana spell. Other spells make them die faster, but a single 3 mana spell can beat them one on one. While dragons can be devastating to a team that does not have a good response, they generally are not as devastating as people seem to think.
Stun is tough, but it does not kill on its own.
Slitherbind is not worthless now. While it was easier to get exactly what you wanted in the last version, you can now have 12 slithers bound to a single card (I have done this several times).

Which 3 mana spell can kill a dragon?

[Semorel]

Originally posted by BadAsAFish80:

Which 3 mana spell can kill a dragon?

Snake druid

[BadAsAFish80]

Originally posted by Semorel:

Originally posted by BadAsAFish80:

Which 3 mana spell can kill a dragon?

Snake druid

This is a fairly silly, albeit accurate example. For reference a Snake Druid is a Minion not a spell hence my questioning of you. I have seen a Snake Druid basically solo a Nyrvir before but it is very very rare since it requires the Snake Druid to be played appropriately and for your opponent to have no other way to deal with the Druid, which is unlikely. So saying the Dragons can be countered by a 3 mana Minion is fairly nonsensical since it will almost never happen.

Back in the day Jolo with his flat 50% dodge could, according to your logic, solo almost any ground unit in the game which is course is just not true except in the most absurdly lucky scenarios.

[Semorel]

Originally posted by BadAsAFish80:

Originally posted by Semorel:

Snake druid

This is a fairly silly, albeit accurate example. For reference a Snake Druid is a Minion not a spell hence my questioning of you. I have seen a Snake Druid basically solo a Nyrvir before but it is very very rare since it requires the Snake Druid to be played appropriately and for your opponent to have no other way to deal with the Druid, which is unlikely. So saying the Dragons can be countered by a 3 mana Minion is fairly nonsensical since it will almost never happen.

Back in the day Jolo with his flat 50% dodge could, according to your logic, solo almost any ground unit in the game which is course is just not true except in the most absurdly lucky scenarios.

I have done it on a number of occasions. Yes, you have to play it correctly and no, it does not work 100% of the time. This was a simple and quick example of how you can counter those cards. There are many more ways. I could list them, but that is not the point. The point is that every card can be countered.

Sorry I called it a spell, but the point stands. You can indeed counter a 10 mana dragon card with a 2 mana card.

[predatoryflatworm]

Originally posted by BadAsAFish80:

The fact that you think Avea is underpowered is worrying. There is a reason she is constantly banned in the 1v1 tournaments.

Admittedly, I'm not a 1v1 player. She's "okay" in 2s but I don't see her get her bonus online in 2s ever... maybe it's different up in GM.

Originally posted by Semorel:

The dragons can all be countered with a single 3 mana {editted spell} card. Other spells make them die faster, but a single 3 mana spell can beat them one on one. While dragons can be devastating to a team that does not have a good response, they generally are not as devastating as people seem to think.

I have no problems killing dragons. The problem is the huge health pool, slow walk, stopping every time it attacks... combined with the fact that you can't cap bridges behind it because everything aggros to the dragon. It gives the Dragon's team the bridge for a huge amount of time, almost always leading to that team gaining the upper hand on mana JUST by having a dragon.

[Semorel]

The living statue or any other creature that does not attack can grab the bridge behind them. I guess I just do not see this as a big issue like you do.

For the most part, I see dragons as something that has to be dealt with, but less concerning than something like an 11 mana bats bats bats cast.

[|UDG| Maybe Your Doom]

Was this post made before or after the changes to where stun only works on first hit? Also, I just find that laser turret/cursed skele is mandatory in any deck I play. Really I feel like every deck has to choose if they are going to counter niche things or not. You could add wheel to your deck but what about flying minions? You could add a great combo card but you are leaving yourself vunerable due to not having laser turret, etc.