Upcoming Balance Changes: Card Tweaks

July 29th, 2014 at 7:02 am

Last time we discussed a set of cards that were getting some major changes, with the goal of improving the meta-game. In this post, let’s take a look at a bunch of under-powered or under-utilized cards that are getting buffed or changed in a more minor way. Cards that you’ve been ignoring now might make it into your deck!

Why?

There are plenty of weaker cards in the game that are unlikely to see play in a competitive multiplayer deck or even in a long-term campaign build. These cards are generally only useful when starting the campaign or as you build up your collection.

However, we think there are too many of these cards and we’re particularly concerned about the large number of rare cards that are either under-powered or just uninteresting.

Card Hunter is designed so that you can be competitive without having the rarest cards (and items) in the game. Some common or uncommon cards are among the most powerful – and we don’t intend to change that. Parry is always going to be a great Block and Powerful Hack a great Attack. That said, there’s a problem when a lot of rare cards are disappointing to collect.

Epic and Legendary items should be exciting to find and they sometimes aren’t. For example, Sander’s Force Mirror just isn’t very exciting when Force Cone has so few uses.

So, we’re improving or making more interesting, a bunch of cards. Many, but not all, of these cards are rare. Some are just cards that we think will help expand the range of items that can form part of a viable build (in campaign or in multiplayer).

Telekinesis and Winds of War

TelekinesisCurrently, Winds Of War is far better than either of the Telekinesis or Improved Telekinesis, making the latter rather uninteresting choices. To remedy this, we’re making the following changes:

  • Telekinesis will now move by Teleport, allowing it to ignore enemies, difficult terrain and so on. Its range will be increased from 2 to 4.
  • Improved Telekinesis is being renamed to “Gusts of War”. This will now slide 3 (instead of slide 2) and will do 1 damage to the targets, much like Winds of War.
  • Winds of War will now only slide 2 (reduced from 3).

So, Gusts of War and Winds of War will trade-off slide distance and range with each other. Telekinesis will, uniquely, allow you to teleport your target, as befits a rare card.

Surging Shield Block and Hard to Pin Down

Surging Shield BlockCurrently, Hard To Pin Down is much better than Surging Shield Block – it has a lower blocking roll and allows the blocker to move on a successful block. To make both cards viable, they’ll be changed as follows:

  • Surging Shield Block will allow the blocker to Move 2 on a successful block. It will still block on a 4+.
  • Hard to Pin Down will no longer allow the blocker to Move on a block. It will still block on a 3+.

So, both cards will continue to act as Move cards if played. However, Hard to Pin Down will now become the superior block and Surging Shield Block will allow an extra move if and when it does block.

Forgetfulness and Counterspell

Here’s another case where one card (Counterspell) is much better than the other (Forgetfulness). Currently, both cards force the discard of two Magic cads, but Counterspell has the longer range and can block Magic attacks.

Hang on, because this may get confusing: the solution is that we’re swapping these two cards, however, the new cards’ ranges and rarities will remain the same. Confused? Here’s the summary:

  • All items that had Forgetfulness will now have Counterspell.
  • All items that had Counterspell will now have Forgetfulness.
  • Counterspell becomes a rare card with range 6 which causes the target to discard two Magic cards. It also blocks Magic on a 3+.
  • Forgetfulness is an uncommon card with range 8 that causes the target to discard two Magic cards.

So, Forgetfulness will have the greater range, but gives up the block functionality of Counterspell. Makes sense, right?

Bashes

BashAll Bash cards are under-performing and will get one additional point of damage. Specifically:

Sparks

The three rare spark cards (Potent Spark, Deadly Spark and Jumpspark) are all rather uninteresting compared to the other sparks. To make up for this, they will now all have Penetrating (they ignore armor).

Harnesses

All the harnesses (Leather Harness, Enchanted Harness and Chain Harness) have interesting effects but are difficult to justify including in a build since they occupy a slot in your hand when it comes to discard time. To correct this, these cards will now all have the same benefit as an Officer’s Harness – they will not count towards your hand limit when discarding. Stacking these should get interesting!

Scuttle

Quick ScuttleScuttle is not a particularly useful card, since the Free Move component has low value when only moving two. To pump it up a bit, Scuttle will be replaced by a new card: Quick Scuttle. Quick Scuttle adds Cantrip to the original, allowing it to be used to close to attack range and then an attack played immediately. Monsters that use the original Scuttle will continue to do so.

Draining Attacks

Draining attacks, that Heal you when you do damage, are the basis of Vampire builds. Sapping Touch and Consuming Touch, the rare draining attacks, are a little disappointing in that they are no better than the others. To fix this, we’ll make the following changes:

  • The range of Sapping Touch and Consuming Touch will be extended to 2.
  • Like Spear Of Darkness, these range 2 attacks will now be known as Sapping Spear and Consuming Spear respectively.
  • The damage of Consuming Spear will be reduced to 3 (from 4).
  • The damage of Spear of Darkness will be increased to 4 (from 3).
  • The damage of Invigorating Touch will be increased from 6 to 7.

Non-Trait Drawbacks

Arcane FeedbackThere are a variety of non-Trait drawback cards (black titled cards that don’t draw another card to replace themselves). These are very weak cards that tend not to be played. To bring them more into line with the other drawbacks, these will be changed so that they can be played out for a minor effect, much like the existing Arcane Curse. Arcane Curse itself will get a small buff to its damage.

  • Arcane Curse: damage increased to 3 (from 2), range increased to 2 (from 1).
  • Arcane Feedback: now a Magic Attack card that does 1 damage at range 4.
  • Demonic Miasma: damage increased to 2 (from 1), range increased to 3 (from 2). Encumber saving roll is now 4+ (was 5+).
  • Slowed: now a Move 0 card (allows turning on the spot). Encumber saving roll is now 3+ (was 4+).

Other Changes

Here’s a list of all the other changes we’re making. If you want to know why, post a comment or (better), post in the forums and ask!

  • Advanced Battlefield Training: transfers two cards instead of one.
  • Arcane Shell: this card will now not count for hand size when discarding (like Officer’s Harness).
  • Grounding Plates: changed to trigger on a 3+ (from 4+).
  • Unholy Energy: range increased to 6, now does 1 damage for each non-Attack card drawn.
  • Stuck Arrow: changed to trigger on a 4+ (from 2+). Blocker draws a card when it is successful.
  • Cause Fumble:  changed to trigger on a 4+ (from 5+). In addition, you (the card owner), do not need to be facing the attacker.

Defender's Block

  • Defender’s Block: if this succeeds, the ally blocked for now draws a card. In addition, you (the card owner), do not need to be facing the attacker.
  • Twin Heals: now heals 4 to 2 targets (used to be Heal 2). In addition, it may self target.
  • Triple Heals: now heals 3 to 3 targets (used to be Heal 2). Range is reduced from 6 to 5.
  • Soothing Darkness: healing is increased to 5 (from 4) and the range to 6 (from 5).
  • Acrobatic Flip: now blocks any type of attack, not just Melee.
  • Mind Worm: range increased to 8 (from 4).
  • Force Cone: range increased to 4 (from 2), Slide Back increased to 2 (from 1). Damage reduced from 2 to 1.
  • Shrug It Off: this card now has Cantrip.
  • Flame Spit: Burning increased to 3 (from 2), duration reduced from 3 to 2. Ranged increased to 5 (from 4).
  • Toughened Hide Strips: Armor increased to 2 (from 1). Heal on discard increased to 2 (from 1).
  • Mighty Hack: damage reduced from 14 to 13.
  • Mighty Bludgeon: damage reduced from 14 to 13.
  • Weak Parry: now draws a card for the blocker when blocking an attack that does 4 damage or less.
  • Energizing Move: this now adds 2 move points to any move (increased from 1).
  • Reaching Swing: damage increased to 6 (from 5).
  • Ill-Fitting Armor: Encumber decreased to 1 (from 2).
  • Defensiveness: range that triggers this decreased to 2 (from 3).
  • Vulnerable: now adds 2 additional damage (from 1).
  • Wimpy: now reduces damage by 2 (from 1).

Up Next

Next up, we’ll be talking about item changes. Don’t forget that you can try out these changes now on the test server!

5 Responses to “Upcoming Balance Changes: Card Tweaks”

  1. huge fan of these changes
    scared about all the new blocks but we’ll see.

  2. Please don’t do the enchanted harness thing, it will ruin everything becoming a no brainer using that… It doesn’t look quite fun playing against someone that has stacked 17 armor without rolls, and even a punishing bolt wouldn’t work in that case. Just do it for chain harness and leather harness which are a little bit useless as they are right now, but enchanted harness is already enough powerful

  3. Updated to show Vulnerable now adds two additional damage.

  4. Updated to show Wimpy now subtracts two damage.

  5. Enchanted harness isn’t as much of a problem as Chain Harness in my opinion, simply because of the insane amount of chain harness that you can get.

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