Stormy

[Renfrew]

I am GM in Top 150 (as of the time of writing this post because ranks can change... Also inb4 Elitists decide to appear, more than happy to give you a screenshot to prove my rank)

Moving on...

What are the problems with Stormy?

1) Can be healed
2) Has a special ability "Zen-Chi Flow" (which the devs have added to lots of cards play X card to gain Y benefit on another card, you get entire decks built around this, which gives the player stupidly good mana value especially when combined with a Future Past or Present, but that's a separate debate about silly ideas...)
3) Shoots out Chain Lightning (Chain Lightning underwent a change that gave it Stun, which is why this is a problem)
4) Range 8

Why are they problematic?

On their own these are not problems and are easy to deal with it's when they are combined that it becomes obvious that being P2W is more important than balance in the eyes of the devs.

Stormy's Zen-Chi Flow was most likely originally intended to allow Stormy to do Three Chain Lightnings instead of two however it makes Stormy near undefeatable using spells. Ranged minions that should have no trouble killing Stormy are prevented by the stun of Chain Lightning, when combined with a Healing Shrine or Priestess, Stormy is free to strike over and over until the attacking minions are dead. That's not all, playing anything that could kill Stormy will just result in the Chain Lightning Spreading and dealing a ton of damage to everything. This effect is worsened when combined with Stormy's range of 8, if he is played with Stormbringer then the problem becomes even more apparent.

"Counters" to Stormy:

"He can be killed instantly by fireball"

Unless you are playing in the lower leagues, you would never encounter someone who plays Stormy without first activating Zen-chi Flow, as two chain-lightnings from ma Stormy won't do much, even if the Master Tower is under attack. Zen-Chi Flow gives it tons of value As not even Magma Storm can kill it (unless you are lucky enough to get two magma rocks to strike close enough to the same area, but your opponent probably runs Black Hole AND Guardian, so good luck with that...)


"Take Beam"

6 mana was a sweet spot for Beam, now it costs 7... 7 mana is horrible value if you use beam for killing a stormy (2 mana gain to your opponent), and again black hole and Guardian are typically run in stormy decks.


"Stormy and Priestess (or Healing Shrine) are killed by fireball"

Zen-Chi Flow... Black Hole... Guardian... Stormy is perfect spell bait because of how much of a threat it is. The fact that it can be healed is ridiculous


"Harbinger/Sniper scrats"

Sniper scrats die too easily (and most likely will be killed by the chain lightning spread, and Harbinger will be locked in a stun chain

Suggestions:

- Cannot be healed or receive spirit infusions (same way Mordar's tombstones are unable to be protected by Guardian or be activated by Call to Arms)
- Range 6 (Similar to Ghost Turret nerf)

Suggestions (if healing won't be removed)
- Range 6
- No Guardian protection
- Remove Stun



We understand that devs need to make money because the game is F2P, but seriously where is the balance?

Edit:

Might have been a bit harsh with some of my comments, just frustrated. Anyway Leto made a good point, removing stun is also a viable option!

[Leto]

I agree that removing the option to heal it would be the best thing to do here. However, I would also like to point out that removing the stun from chain lightning completely would also be a way to make it much less frustrating to play against.

[Renfrew]

Originally posted by Leto:

I agree that removing the option to heal it would be the best thing to do here. However, I would also like to point out that removing the stun from chain lightning completely would also be a way to make it much less frustrating to play against.

Very true!

[Last_Elf]

I think that removing heal/health buff will be enough and I've already suggest this on Discord ;-)

[Renfrew]

Originally posted by Basan™:

Alas, I must agree with this altogether. Atm, I'm more leaned towards removing the healing part because as we've noticed until somewhat recently far too many units / cards with similar effects had the same attack speed (AS), like the Sniper or its plural, B.Sniper and Styxi.

Agreed, it's the reason why a card as expensive as Cragkul is almost worthless, requiring a minimum of three hits to pay-off and that's if the stacks actually go to useful cards instead of the same card, which they can do. This can be observed by having more than one voidborne card in hand, three illusory cleavers is a great way to test this. Sometimes you will see Cragkul kill or hit the master tower and it seems the stack tried to apply to an illusory cleaver that already had a stack and so the mana-gain is just not there.

Originally posted by Basan™:

My main fear to defend this is that removing Stormy's Chain Lightining stun effect will also impact upon the spell card (similar to that past Prowler bug, for instance). And please don't consider making it a 6 mana card simply because of the D.Ball chaining crap that would still grant it awesome return value as well is its skills aren't tweaked a tad.

6 mana is definitely a no-no. Driving up the cost of a card is not a solution it is a temporary fix, just look at black hole and how many times it has had its mana cost changed. Stun should only be removed if healing isn't removed, and if it applies to the spell too, then I can't say I care too much. The stun from Chain Lightning is quite overkill in the hands of control masters such as Storm and KP.

Originally posted by Basan™:

Aside ranks and all that sort of similar jazz that, apparently, many adhere to, the playing community's claims should at least be looked upon if well supported by logical arguements. And, imho, we probably should take this thread a notch further and debate upon the main issues with some of the cards' balance as a whole. And taking this chance, allow me to ensue.

• Stormy: Detailled reasons just above;
  
• Shield Guard: Currently this card's awesome skill set is simply too darn good on its own to be ignored and needs a balance tweak, particularly when considering it's moving speed that allows an eased and even better synergy with D.Ball (and sometimes even into Twins, even if aren't Ravagers using this combo);
  
• Combustion: I admit it, it wasn't exactly perfect as it was but the previous 2 seconds before it activated were just fine. Currently around M. level there's still a lot of abuse due to its activation time that makes it even harder to counter despite the damage to the MM's Tower HP's being lessened;
  
• Sniper, B.Sniper and Sniper Squad: The forking current AS from these cards makes it net an awesome return value provided that a tanky unit is in far front, particularly if coupled with Shield Guard. And even more if you set the somewhat usual Banner's combo to protect those from the 1st spell hit... *Sighs* If they made around 65 damage or so instead of the current 100 it might work the quirks out, imho. And eventually 70 for the B.Sniper.
  
• The upcoming new Zen-Chi (tank) card: A tank that stuns when hits for 100 damage (ain't sure of the exact number) and that has a 2 secs AS? This one's screaming to be the next OP unbalanced abuse similarly to what I've began to call 'Pandora''s combo. Once you 'get it out of the box', that freaking Stormy's + Priestess 9 mana combination is too damned nasty... >_<

Those cards definitely need some more thought into them. Shield Guards are seen so often, because they offer a ridiculously large amount of value. Combustion pretty much requires you to run a black hole in every deck you play in case of a combustion -> scrat horde combo, which is broken and is basically a stronger magma storm. I suggest that it has a similar effect to Banner Man (maybe applies to 4 minions only? -> 600 damage). I'm personally fine with sniper cards, but can agree that tanks are a problem. Snipers have become bait for pushes now, place them in middle between the bridges, you retaliate, then your opponent plays shield guard. So toning down the damage is definitely a good idea (except for Styxi of course). Soon it will become Stormy + Priestess + new tank, stun is an OP mechanic and for whatever reason the devs seem to want to put it onto every single card they can lately, which is deeply frustrating.

Originally posted by Last_Elf:

... and I've already suggest this on Discord ;-)

That's nice, but I'm not on the Discord server (nor do I care about it...). A message saying "remove healing" is hardly the same as a thread extensively explaining its reasoning.

[Last_Elf]

I have the opposite feeling. Here are no responses from the devs. On Discord they are answering at least sometimes :-D

[Renfrew]

Originally posted by Last_Elf:

I have the opposite feeling. Here are no responses from the devs. On Discord they are answering at least sometimes :-D

The devs don't HAVE to respond, but they are here. You must not be on the forums much, because the devs do respond to people, and have responded even to me on some occassions. On Discord it's far worse, whatever you say gets lost in a long line of chat spam, so whatever the devs acknowledge in Discord is highly unlikely to even be remembered.

[Kuro]

The biggest problem is that there is TOO MUCH area of effect elements in the game, it makes multi-minion options more and more redundant. Weak minions that do not have massive range are pointless other than quickly taking bridges.

Stormy would've been perfect as a ranged, single-target flying stunner. The same high damage but no longer chains and he doesn't lose health any more. Reduce the buff he gets from zen chi flow to 50%, then the card would've been perfectly balanced. The constant addition of more and more AoE options disturbs the game balance too much.

[Smokin Zero]

if you remove healing for the cloud its useless basically. since it kills itself you can bait the chain lightning with low cost minions and just wait. fireball is fine as counter against stormy tbh since it kills priest etc. at the same time.

if I want to protect my priest / stormy combo I have to play banner man as well if not stormy gets countered by fireball like crazy and you have to have a specific rotation which enemies can preditc easily since you also need an activation card

[Renfrew]

Originally posted by Smokin Zero:

if you remove healing for the cloud its useless basically. since it kills itself you can bait the chain lightning with low cost minions and just wait. fireball is fine as counter against stormy tbh since it kills priest etc. at the same time.

if I want to protect my priest / stormy combo I have to play banner man as well if not stormy gets countered by fireball like crazy and you have to have a specific rotation which enemies can preditc easily since you also need an activation card

The card is not useless without healing, if properly protected it offers two chain lightning strikes (a 4 mana spell, so the mana value is 8 vs 5, so you gain 3 mana) and three chain lightning (12 vs 5, so you gain 7 mana) if you activate zen-chi flow. It's maths, and I already discussed this in my original post.

Baiting chain lighting is only an option if your opponent is running Stormy without healing or if they don't play their priestess properly (the former is very rare, and the latter is just down to how much your opponent is paying attention), and as such baiting it with healing present is not an option. Healing is faster with a healing shrine, but those are less common, because spells counter them.

No one plays Priestess and Stormy on their own (unless they are a fool), so hoping that your opponent makes a mistake and leaves you free to use a Fireball is not a solution to the problem, having a card that is only countered by one specific card, in a very specific situation is unbalanced, and this is while I'm ignoring the fact that fireball is so easily countered, with the cheapest option being blackhole, when that is factored in it is unquestionable that the card offers far too much.

[Smokin Zero]

stormy is pretty easy to counter tbh. every direct dmg played directly after she used her chain lightning kills it basically. additional let it walk on your side and then kill the healer while stormy targets the hero. lightning dmg does barely any dps.

i think its fine tbh

[Renfrew]

Originally posted by Smokin Zero:

stormy is pretty easy to counter tbh. every direct dmg played directly after she used her chain lightning kills it basically. additional let it walk on your side and then kill the healer while stormy targets the hero. lightning dmg does barely any dps.

i think its fine tbh

Where do I even begin?

Originally posted by Smokin Zero:

every direct dmg played directly after she used her chain lightning kills it basically.

Wrong, as explained earlier and as pointed out in my original post, you are assuming that Stormy has 125HP, I don't know what league you are in, but at GM no one plays Stormy without zen-chi flow, 150HP Stormy is very difficult to kill, and you have to be careful how you time your next move, because if you do try to kill it, then it's very likely you will just make the chain lightning spread.

Originally posted by Smokin Zero:

additional let it walk on your side and then kill the healer while stormy targets the hero.

Have you even played the game? Stormy unlike other minions will attack whatever is closest to it, because its aggro resets every time. This means that whatever you play to attack Priestess will be instantly targeted by Stormy. Secondly, the same problem arises of whatever you play causes the chain lightning spreading resulting in either the minion dying or taking 100 damage and being stunned.

Originally posted by Smokin Zero:

lightning dmg does barely any dps.

Seriously? 30 hits can destroy your master tower, because of how chain lightning spreads, it is very easy for Stormy to get in those 30 hits. Furthermore you forget the STUN is the real problem, anything that could kill Stormy is stuck in a stun-lock, so Stormy takes some damage, but does damage in return stunning the attacking minion in the process, Stormy heals up, stun wears off, cycle repeats.

[devildrey33]

Maybe a solution could be some minion that absorbs chain lightning and makes it more powerfull for each chain recived?