Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Mages => Topic started by: Nealo on September 15, 2015, 04:35:09 PM
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I've heard whispers here and there about certain mages being too weak to be viable against top-tier players/spellbooks (so far). I am wondering what people feel are the top tier mages and which mages are currently struggling to be viable in top-tier play.
From what I've heard, it seems that both Warlords are struggling, Priest is potentially the weakest at the moment, and that Arraxian Crown Warlock is not in a great spot either. I know that Hanma mentioned on Mage Wars Mondays that making Ballista Warlord Only could potentially bridge the gap for Warlord.
From what I can tell, it seems that Wizard, Forcemaster, and Priestess are the strongest. That's basically just cobbled together from reading forum posts and seeing conversations on octgn. What are your opinions of what's viable and what's not? More importantly, why or why not?
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1. Druid
2. Priestess
3. Necromancer
4. Wizard
All 4 very strong mages, with Wizard being the most versatile (which makes him a really good tournament choice)
Necromancer absolute unbelievable - rocks vs. Beastmaster small swarms and Curse Warlocks not so hot vs. people who run non-living creatures.
Priestess, pretty strong, good counters to almost everything, excellent late game - which makes it a pain to get unmodified win in standard tournament time. On the other hand she might be "broken" if someone someday put a spellbook together planning winning on time.
Druid - WOW! Unbelievable hard to kill, spellbooks almost as good as Wizard. Can summon vines everywhere. Hinders elusive/fast creatures like Cervere..
Luckily unlike frostspells, there's a ton of Firespells :)
I don´t think Forcemaster is up there - just to weak vs. psychic immune creatures I guess.
Both Beastmasters are pretty good but not vs. Druids or Necromancers.
If everybody else wood play Priesstress/Wizard or Druids id be fine playing Warlock.
This is all just my opinion of course.
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top tier eh? that's a tough call considering that there are only what, 12 mages? 15 if you count all the wizards? I suppose I should pick the top third, (4 or 5 mages).
1. Wizard (water) = Just too good at the undoing game. whatever you do, he can undo, twice. I wont get into why Wizards of all sorts are superior (perhaps unfairly so) as that topic has been destroyed here, but with all the options open to them wizards are probably the reason for this topic in a roundabaout way. nuff said.
2. Druid = My personal favorite mage. i think she handles the nature school so much better than the beastmasters. add her super efficient creatures, and her unique vine abilities (extended summon range, hinders the unhinderable etc) she currently has almost as much versatility as a wizard, and that's with TWO 3x schools. awesome mage.
3. Priestess = She probably has the strongest mage abilities (read consistently useful) of any of the mages. the ability to remove conditions without having to book anything for it is AMAZING! even of the spells that remove conditions are in school (purify, healing wand) you don't need them and that makes room for another enchantment (i like enchantments, and parentheses which, at this point, should be blatantly apparent) or what have you. her late game is incredible, and even if your games go to time she can burst heal for ridiculous amounts reliably, making it difficult to attrition your way to a win there. as a side note i really like the priest, i am dedicated to making him a viable choice! he just feels so badass and i wish i knew why most people find him to be one of if not the weakest mage.
4. Forcemaster = Personally i don't agree with this. but her results in the hands of other (likely vastly more skilled) pilots is impossible to argue with! if you completely ignore the creatures in the mind school, her spell selection is pretty awesome. if you can somehow keep the enemy mage as action starved as she is likely to be then you might be in business. she is the absolute queen of the aggressive rush, with a unique weapon that never really goes away, and a potentially amazing familiar (they are damn squishy though,them thoughtspores), and you can splash for a good buddy out of school and it doesn't hurt TOO bad. i cant make one work to save my life, but that's a personal failing i guess. shes tricky, but definitely powerful if done well
Honerable mention: AC Warlock. = If the forcemaster is the queen of the aggressive rush, this guy is the smoldering, angsty king. hes not top 4 in my case because fire is, almost by default, teched against in every build. its almost stupid not to. but sometimes, even when you are ready for the assault, those fireballs and curses make too steady a damage stream to overcome. escalating damage is his specialty, but just like any good bonfire eventually he runs out of fuel. His bet is that hes got you reduced to a heap of ash before he runs out of resources. and hes tough enough to continue to press the assault even if you match him point for point. hes got more life than you. Couple that with the dark school being freaking awesome and he is a very fun mage to play! thats probably why he didnt make top 4, hes more fun to use than reliably victorious.
Anyway thats my take. hope it was useful! i know these are kind of general descriptions but that was kinda the idea. I love this game. Its awesome.
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Romeo's list is a very accurate (and parenthetic(!)) description of the general consensus. Necromancer is probably somewhere near the top, too. The 10 channeling mages are generally perceived to have an advantage over the others. Though a Straywood Beastmaster with Lair and Swarm of Thunderift Falcons (known as Aviary) is also a potential contender if the metagame gets complacent.
There's much less agreement about how far apart the tiers are. Some people think Wizard dominates, while others think that the difference between mages is minor compared to player skill.
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Figured I might as well chip in.
I disagree that the AC Warlock is in a bad place, and I'm not sure why people would think that in the first place. He's not absolute top-tier or anything, but he's still solid and has a nice niche. The Anvil Throne (AT) Warlord has some really good abilities, but the war school is still a tad lacking in areas. The Bloodwave (BW) Warlord is kind of a different story. His battle orders are roughly as good as the AT Warlord's, but his veterans ability is really, really bad. It's extremely limited (doesn't apply to ranged units, doesn't stack, and requires both players to summon lots of creatures), and it doesn't synergize well with most of the units that he is supposed to use thematically (like goblins) because they can be killed off pretty easily. In short, there's no reason to use him over the AT Warlord. I can't comment very much on the Malakai (MK) Priest because I haven't played much with him, but what I can say is that the Adramelech (AM) Warlock can actually make his malakai's fire ability work against him, so you have to be careful with that. Otherwise, he seems decent. Holy avenger is a really good buff, especially if you also have some good guarding creatures available.
Like everyone else here, I'm going to list the Wizard as a top-tier choice. He possesses an insane amount of flexibility, cheap access to most work-horse cards, and Wizard's Tower is an extremely good card.
Everything after that gets a bit hazy and more open to argument. The druid in general is very good, but fire (ie, both warlocks) absolutely destroys her. Priestess is also very good, but she has a harder time than usual in tournaments due to time constraints, which make her late-game emphasis a liability. Forcemaster is fantastic early-game but really suffers against psychic-immunity and opponents who can control her. The devs have done a surprisingly good job of making the mages feel different but being balanced overall, so it's basically impossible to make a single chart of mage strength and have it be reliable.
That being said, there are a couple mages that stand out to me as being less effective than most. I firmly believe that the Johktari (JT) Beastmaster and the Bloodwave (BW) Warlord are the worst mages in the game at the moment. I've already been over the BW Warlord, but the JT Beastmaster might be even worse. Her primary ability is actually functionally useless a decent amount of the time, since it requires a living target to work. Having innate fast and ranged +1 would be nice, but her signature bow also kind of sucks. She might get a much-needed boost from some cards in Academy, but at the moment the Straywood (SW) Beastmaster can pretty much do everything better than the JT one if you pack a cheetah speed into your spellbook.
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Hm...I was hoping AW had improved the balance since last I played. If the consensus is that Wizard is still the best, I'm very disappointed.
I get that balancing asymmetrical games is inherently difficult, especially with a small company, but if there is consistent community consensus that something is fundamentally wrong with a key hero in a game, and AW doesn't do anything to address that problem, I place full blame on AW.
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When's the last time you played? Forged in fire helped Warlock and Warlord up some, and the release before that was DvN, I think? The release schedule has been sluggish, it's true, but every set since Conquest of K has eroded Wizard's raw power some. And now we're looking at Domination and Academy coming very shortly, so things seem likely to improve some in the next couple months.
Also, community consensus is more coherent and better informed now; there's better data available now than there was up until recently. The recent Gencon winner is a playtester now (Hanma), and OCTGN tournaments have really been picking up steam. Charmyna's back playing again, and the Arcane Duels podcast folks are doing good work.
I realize that you're not asking for instant gratification, but your conclusion is very unfortunately timed.
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I'm going to have to completely disagree with any tier list of any type. I do not believe that the wizard is as unbalanced as a large amount of people make it out to be, and I disagree that any particular mage is actually legitimately better than the others. The wizard has been WAY more developed than any other mage to this point, but I believe that there are strategies that can make every mage viable. Even the mage I see as the weakest (the forcemaster) has plenty of competitively and non-competitively viable ways to play. It's more a matter of someone (or multiple people) taking the time to develop how to play a mage than it is the mage's inherent abilities.
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I should also note that there are Druid, Priestess, and Necro builds within striking distance of Wizard. It's not a blowout. There's more work to be done, of course, but it is in fact *being done*.
So blame AW if you like. It's not like there's some other company sabotaging the game while Bryan and Aaron are in a meeting down the hall and can't observe. I'm sure they'd both very willingly take responsibility for the current and future condition of the game, as they do every workday when they design and execute that future.
But that's my point exactly: yes the game is their responsibility, and they'e been chipping away at that rock--living that responsibility--every day you've been gone. It sounds like that's not enough to satisfy you, and I'm sorry to hear it. But please don't hastily judge that nothing has been done.
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I left after playing Forged in Fire (great expansion) frequently, and while Domination/Academy looks interesting, I would have liked there to have been some decisive balance changes to address the Wizard.
I'm not convinced that the Wizard is somehow going to be brought in line as the card pool grows, at least considering the current pattern of releases; the problem is that he can, through his training, just adapt to best suit the current card pool.
For the Wizard to be balanced via new releases, those new releases, maybe a couple or so, would need to stop introducing important cards that the Wizard can include at base spellbook point cost...which is pretty limiting from a design perspective, considering that would include all of the minor schools (and Arcane). But as Academy gives the Wizard lots of new toys, such as a level 1 Arcane creature (the Wizard used to be the only Mage with a Spawnpoint without that, IIRC), I just don't see that happening. I'm not sure why the first set of Academy was Wizard v. Beastmaster and not Priestess v. Warlock, to be honest.
I hope that as I play these new releases, I'll see yet more improvement in terms of balance, but I really see the problem with the Wizard based in his mage stats card (primarily) and the unyielding expansion of the Arcane/Minor schools, not necessarily the lack of options for other mages.
Here's to hoping I will be pleasantly surprised in the coming months.
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I left after playing Forged in Fire (great expansion) frequently, and while Domination/Academy looks interesting, I would have liked there to have been some decisive balance changes to address the Wizard.
I'm not convinced that the Wizard is somehow going to be brought in line as the card pool grows, at least considering the current pattern of releases; the problem is that he can, through his training, just adapt to best suit the current card pool.
For the Wizard to be balanced via new releases, those new releases, maybe a couple or so, would need to stop introducing important cards that the Wizard can include at base spellbook point cost...which is pretty limiting from a design perspective, considering that would include all of the minor schools (and Arcane). But as Academy gives the Wizard lots of new toys, such as a level 1 Arcane creature (the Wizard used to be the only Mage with a Spawnpoint without that, IIRC), I just don't see that happening. I'm not sure why the first set of Academy was Wizard v. Beastmaster and not Priestess v. Warlock, to be honest.
I hope that as I play these new releases, I'll see yet more improvement in terms of balance, but I really see the problem with the Wizard based in his mage stats card (primarily) and the unyielding expansion of the Arcane/Minor schools, not necessarily the lack of options for other mages.
Here's to hoping I will be pleasantly surprised in the coming months.
The problem seems to primarily be the combination of his training and the wizard tower. I'm pretty sure that one or both of those will need to be errata'd. Several people on here have suggested making him pay triple for the opposite elemental school which he did not pick. Like if he's trained in earth, make him pay triple for air, or something. I'm not sure how that can be justified thematically, unless all of the spell book point multipliers are just "arena rules" in Etheria.
Some potential solutions that address the wizard tower include making it epic, increasing its mana cost to 10 or so, making it cost mana and/or quick spell to replace the spellbound attack, or simply taking away its spellbind ability, since it might be good enough as just a familiar.
One thing I've noticed is that I have not seen a wizard running any of the big arcane creatures or a mana denial build for a pretty long time. Wizards seem to have become somewhat stale, strategically speaking. I rarely see any unique wizard builds anymore. It's always mana crystal(s), wizard towers, a ton of attack spells, leveraging extra dispels, dissolves, and teleports, and sometimes using a spawnpoint.
Oh, and I mostly agree with RomeoXero's tier list. I think Necromancer should be on there, probably right below Priestess or Forcemaster. Not sure if the AC Warlock should only be an honorary mention. He's pretty powerful.
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Wizard's Tower :
Remove Spellbound and you've got a balanced card imo.
This way you can't use each and every toolbox attack spell over and over again.
Thus, removing Spellbound would remove the toolbox ability for the largest part.
Wizard :
Tripling the cost of one opposing elemental school is not enough imo.
Triple cost for all three non proficient elemental schools is.
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A month or 2 ago there was a hugh discussion about it. Some people were against changing anything. It should be easy to find the tread.
imo, Borg is saying exactly what I think and why those things should change.
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Wizard :
Tripling the cost of one opposing elemental school is not enough imo.
Triple cost for all three non proficient elemental schools is.
I agree with this, however I do think the Wizzard's Tower should be left the way it is now.
The only time I feel that the Wizzard's Tower is extremely strong is when it's combined with the Ballista.
If the Wizzard's Tower gets hit with the nerf hammer I feel that they lose the mobility of being a Wizzard.
Increasing spellbook construction cost seems to be the best way to potentially "fix" the Wizzard. Having to many tools in his toolbox is the biggest issue for me, limiting them would be a great way to deal with the issue.
I'd like Ballista to follow Akiro's Hammer and become Warlord only, I dont find any reason behind making it aviable to other mages since it's a war machine!
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agreed with the warlord only.
However, I do feel like the wizard has so much spellpoints left he can afford to use the perfect attack spell vs each different opponent.
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.... Even the mage I see as the weakest (the forcemaster) has plenty of competitively and non-competitively viable ways to play. It's more a matter of someone (or multiple people) taking the time to develop how to play a mage than it is the mage's inherent abilities.
Wow, so you really think forcemaster is the weakest? That means you think there is a good way to play the malakai priest? I would love to see that :) ! For my opinion his holy avanger is very situational and there are not strong enough light attacks out so far.
Too the topic
Wizard tower: spellbound would fix it in my eyes, too.
Wizard hinself: I also don't understand that AW starts acadamy with him. Feels unlucky. But making him pay more for untrained schools could fix it. The point really is, that he can use nearly all new cards and strategies coming.
TopTier and the domination of wizards are 2 topics in 1. For tournaments aggro wizard seems super efficient. But for creative fun play without time limit others are way better. Looking at late game strategies
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Wow, so you really think forcemaster is the weakest? That means you think there is a good way to play the malakai priest? I would love to see that :) ! For my opinion his holy avanger is very situational and there are not strong enough light attacks out so far.
Weakest is not the correct word, but the only one I have at the moment. I still think every mage has a viable build, there just seems to be a TON of group think going on about the wizard and no one putting any actual effort into figuring out new builds with other mages.
For a great (albeit not flashy) priest build, see Coshade's priest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoTS1G46YM4&index=1&list=PLKFenfrT4VG9YYcIHXsM_4LpQy0tjYSVo
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Wow, so you really think forcemaster is the weakest? That means you think there is a good way to play the malakai priest? I would love to see that :) ! For my opinion his holy avanger is very situational and there are not strong enough light attacks out so far.
Weakest is not the correct word, but the only one I have at the moment. I still think every mage has a viable build, there just seems to be a TON of group think going on about the wizard and no one putting any actual effort into figuring out new builds with other mages.
For a great (albeit not flashy) priest build, see Coshade's priest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoTS1G46YM4&index=1&list=PLKFenfrT4VG9YYcIHXsM_4LpQy0tjYSVo
It's not just group think. Every mage is at least viable, but wizard is still OP. People are totally putting in a lot of effort to new builds with other mages. We've been doing it all along. It just so happens that between two equally skilled players, if one of them is using a wizard and the other isn't, that player has a big advantage. How big? That's hard to determine precisely, but I would expect the wiz player to win that matchup somewhere between 5 and 8 times out of 10, based on my own experience, tournament results, and the consensus of many of the best players in the game.
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Basically what it comes down to is Wizard's tower does something almost no other card in the game can do, at a ridiculously cheap price.
Lets start with it's channeling 1 trait. It's comparable with a Mana Crystal in that regard. So that accounts for 5 out of its 7 point mana cost. It's also an Elemental Wand, so that's worth another 5 mana. It also lets you prepare a different third spell each round, so that's Mordok's Tome, which is another 5 mana. But maybe we'll call it 4 since it can only be an attack. It's also an extra action, the going price of which seems to be about 5 mana or more (see spawnpoints e.g.) And finally, it's a Ready Marker Conjuration, so it can act in combo with your other actions. I don't know how much that's worth, but using the Druid's flowers as a guideline I'd guess at least 3. We'll also say that those three flower points include the cost of avoiding Zone Exclusive. I'd also want to charge at least 1 mana for the superior armor and health it boasts, compared to Mana Crystal.
To be fair, it is immobile, which is probably worth a discount of some kind since it does attack. Slow seems to be worth about -5 on an Iron golem, but maybe only -3 on Gorgon Archer. I'm comfortable saying total immobility is worth -5 points on a ranged attacker. I think I'm being pretty generous here, actually, because it's not like Mana Crystal can get up and run away when attacked, so that should be baked into the base price; but why quibble?
That puts the Frankenstein cost estimate of Wizard's Tower at approx 18. It costs 7.
Is it any wonder there's a lot of groupthink about how to play the only mage allowed to use it? It could lose both Spellbind and Channeling and still be cheaper than par.
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It's better than Elemental Wand, because You don't pay for changing spells and it doesn't block any slot (item/zone exclusive). Also since it's conjuration there's only one spell that can undo it and it's level 4 mage exclusive - Conquer.
I would compare Wizard's Tower to Battleforge. Excluding spellbind and working in different phase WT works like any Spawnpoint.
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the direct-attack / constructed-game problem is found in a lot of games!
the wizard, with his acces to basic spells (mana, disenchant, etc.) and to attack spell (fireball, tower, etc.) is a perfect direct-attack mage, he will bring a lot of constructed-game mages to a Negative Play Experience.
solution?
first:
why has he 2 schools x1 and 0 school x3?
and nice personnal characteristics?
and private acces to tower?
and a lot of new cards in academy?
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Another idea I have never read so far (I think) is removing the “wizard only“ trait and make wizard tower accessible to all mages. The bad thing is that this would make WT an auto-include in every book. That would mess up the whole game.
And still Wizard would need a tripple-paid school to be more balanced.
By the way because it was mentioned before: making ballista warlord only would make totally sense in my eyes! He is THE controller of war machinery and no one else.
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removing the “wizard only“ trait
I would cry, close the forum and never come back :P
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Another idea I have never read so far (I think) is removing the “wizard only“ trait and make wizard tower accessible to all mages. The bad thing is that this would make WT an auto-include in every book.
Your suggestion has glaring flaws (which you highlight wrt breaking the game), but don't sell it short. It's an original idea with two critically necessary merits:
1. It's simple
2. It works
I think testing this change would teach us a lot about the problem.
Which mage would like Wizard's Tower better than Wizard, I wonder? Forcemaster would love it. Warlord might not be able to run it, or want to. Which says something about Warlord more than Wizard's Tower, I think.
That'd be an interesting tournament mode: Training still applies, but everyone can take everything. Do Wizards still have the perceived advantage?
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That'd be an interesting tournament mode: Training still applies, but everyone can take everything. Do Wizards still have the perceived advantage?
It could turn out to be pandemonium :)
Forcemaster with a Lair or Animal Kinship ?
Wizard with Barkskin or Forcefield ?
:)
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Luckily Forcefield can only target a FM, so that wouldn't be as bad.
Most Mage only cards require other cards to function properly. Spawnpoints and discount rings for example. Most of them will be out of school, if the main cards is as well. FM with Lair will still have to invest in animals at triple cost to make it work.
But I'm sure a lot of mages would love Galvitar, especially in Domination
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Barracks and General's Signet Ring with the Priest wouldn't be half bad :D
Harshforge Plate would probably get used by most mages
Druid with the Lair would be terrifying
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My idea was to make only wizard tower accessible to all mages to make his overpowering shared fairly. Mixing it all would be out of any theme.
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My idea was to make only wizard tower accessible to all mages to make his overpowering shared fairly. Mixing it all would be out of any theme.
Shouldn't do that. Then everyone would run it, similar to how many people will run Ballista if given the opportunity. It's perceived as a powerful card by most players and at this point even an optimal strategy. If that's the case then you don't want MW to become "Wizard's Tower" Wars by having every class be able to use one.
Also some fun statistics.
- There are 383 cards in the game, according to the Spell Book Builder, including Domination. More to come with Academy.
- By typing in "Wizard's Tower" correctly in the search bar in the forums I'm getting 5 results with those exact words in the thread name. When misspelled I'm getting 5 pages (30 a page) worth, although that includes the word "wizard" by itself too. Finally 19 pages if you type in the word "Tower", however that does also include posts about Dice Tower.
- At GenCon last year there were 3 wizards who made the top 4, this last tournament there were two. Before Wizard's Tower Came out the numbers were a little less skewed.
- In this thread titled "Top-Tier viable mages?" 10 out of 28 posts have the word "Tower" posted in them. This is of course not including my own yet, and anymore to come.
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I totally agree about WT is too much a topic. My idea was not a realistic one as I mentioned. Making him usable for all Mages would destroy Mage Wars quite a bit. As Ballista does a bit in it's actual version.
Making Ballista with its power Warlord only and reducing Wizards Advance in any way (or doing this by errataing the tower) could change the Top Tier MageList. That brings this Topic back to the question by the way :D
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That brings this Topic back to the question by the way :D
;)
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I don't think that Wizard is going to fall out of favor when Academy snaps its bonds and escapes into the wild, but I know there's a million different books I can't wait to try in public. It's not a total overhaul of the old order where "the first shall be last and the last shall be first," but there are so many individual cards in the set that do *that one thing* a spellbook needed to be playable. It really widens the game up, and I think the meta will change, even if the relative mages' powers stay where they are mostly.
Mostly :)
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I am really curious, what academy will do with current position or style of play of Johktari Beastmistress :)
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I am really curious, what academy will do with current position or style of play of Johktari Beastmistress :)
As other people have mentioned, the quick attack boomerang should give her quite the boost. (Now she can make decent use of both her abilities.)
Make her elusive and she can always run anywhere and throw that thing around. It shouldn't be too hard stacking a bunch of dice on the boomerang...
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Throwing Everything, Forever, Always.
That just sounds objectively better, how could it go wrong?
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I think with the Academy release we are going to start seeing a lot of different plays from the Beastmasters. The Cowl allows for fun free actions. Certain totems become a lot more powerful with the cheap new creatures. And overall the enchantment pool might be harder to predict. I love that boomarang, but if you manage to make the hunting bow work right now, it can do some serious damage.
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I think with the Academy release we are going to start seeing a lot of different plays from the Beastmasters. The Cowl allows for fun free actions. Certain totems become a lot more powerful with the cheap new creatures. And overall the enchantment pool might be harder to predict. I love that boomarang, but if you manage to make the hunting bow work right now, it can do some serious damage.
The key is Bleed.
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I'm not convinced that the Wizard is somehow going to be brought in line as the card pool grows, at least considering the current pattern of releases; the problem is that he can, through his training, just adapt to best suit the current card pool.
For the Wizard to be balanced via new releases, those new releases, maybe a couple or so, would need to stop introducing important cards that the Wizard can include at base spellbook point cost...which is pretty limiting from a design perspective, considering that would include all of the minor schools (and Arcane). But as Academy gives the Wizard lots of new toys, such as a level 1 Arcane creature (the Wizard used to be the only Mage with a Spawnpoint without that, IIRC), I just don't see that happening.
I hope that as I play these new releases, I'll see yet more improvement in terms of balance, but I really see the problem with the Wizard based in his mage stats card (primarily) and the unyielding expansion of the Arcane/Minor schools, not necessarily the lack of options for other mages.
I completely agree. Back with only the base set, there were still arguments that the Wizard was slightly more powerful than the other 3 mages, but it was generally considered a very small difference in power. From what I've seen, the wizard has actually gotten more powerful with almost every expansion due to his deck-building options. Forcemaster vs Warlord made Earth Wizards more viable, Forged in Fire gave Fire Wizards a lot more tools, and Paladin vs Siren is almost definitely going to give the Wizard lots of Water cards he can make use of.
Long story short, without an errata of some kind, the Wizard is always going to remain one of the most powerful mages. He can make too much use of the overall card pool, so he's not going to ever fall behind (unless Arcane Wonders releases an expansion with practically no elemental or Arcane cards, and even then he can just pay double for any other stuff he's really interested in). But if Arcane Wonders is going to errata the Wizard himself, they really need to do it before they release Alt Wizard vs Alt Forcemaster, which is going to be their next minor Arena expansion.
I'm not sure why the first set of Academy was Wizard v. Beastmaster and not Priestess v. Warlock, to be honest.
While it is a bit awkward, I do see the logic in having Beastmaster vs Wizard be the first release. The latest release was Forged in Fire, which helped out Warlocks. The next Arena release is going to be Paladin vs Siren, which is obviously going to help out the Priestess as well with new Holy school cards. So Arcane Wonders kind of had to give the Beastmasters something to prevent them from getting stale.
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I'm not convinced that the Wizard is somehow going to be brought in line as the card pool grows, at least considering the current pattern of releases; the problem is that he can, through his training, just adapt to best suit the current card pool.
For the Wizard to be balanced via new releases, those new releases, maybe a couple or so, would need to stop introducing important cards that the Wizard can include at base spellbook point cost...which is pretty limiting from a design perspective, considering that would include all of the minor schools (and Arcane). But as Academy gives the Wizard lots of new toys, such as a level 1 Arcane creature (the Wizard used to be the only Mage with a Spawnpoint without that, IIRC), I just don't see that happening.
I hope that as I play these new releases, I'll see yet more improvement in terms of balance, but I really see the problem with the Wizard based in his mage stats card (primarily) and the unyielding expansion of the Arcane/Minor schools, not necessarily the lack of options for other mages.
I completely agree. Back with only the base set, there were still arguments that the Wizard was slightly more powerful than the other 3 mages, but it was generally considered a very small difference in power. From what I've seen, the wizard has actually gotten more powerful with almost every expansion due to his deck-building options. Forcemaster vs Warlord made Earth Wizards more viable, Forged in Fire gave Fire Wizards a lot more tools, and Paladin vs Siren is almost definitely going to give the Wizard lots of Water cards he can make use of.
Long story short, without an errata of some kind, the Wizard is always going to remain one of the most powerful mages. He can make too much use of the overall card pool, so he's not going to ever fall behind (unless Arcane Wonders releases an expansion with practically no elemental or Arcane cards, and even then he can just pay double for any other stuff he's really interested in). But if Arcane Wonders is going to errata the Wizard himself, they really need to do it before they release Alt Wizard vs Alt Forcemaster, which is going to be their next minor Arena expansion.
I'm not sure why the first set of Academy was Wizard v. Beastmaster and not Priestess v. Warlock, to be honest.
While it is a bit awkward, I do see the logic in having Beastmaster vs Wizard be the first release. The latest release was Forged in Fire, which helped out Warlocks. The next Arena release is going to be Paladin vs Siren, which is obviously going to help out the Priestess as well with new Holy school cards. So Arcane Wonders kind of had to give the Beastmasters something to prevent them from getting stale.
The wizard can only be trained in one elemental school at a time. The warlock is also fully trained in fire as well as a major school, just like the wizard. Unlike the warlock, wizard is trained in arcane, not dark.
This means that if the problem is with the wizard's abilities it's probably either that the arcane school itself is too powerful, or the wizard tower is OP, or some combination of the two.
Personally I'm thinking possibility #3 is most likely. Dispel is still too often an auto-include in so many spellbooks. It's not as bad as it used to be for the warlord now that we have harshforge, and astral anchor should help against teleport a lot. Therefore, fleshing out the other schools more might go a long way towards fixing the wizard.
Another good idea might be to give errata to wizard tower. If we give errata to the tower, I'm thinking the best option is to make it epic or increase its mana cost to 9 or 10. I've already discussed the reasons I think increasing the mana cost will help but just in case it was forgotten, wizard tower as it's priced right now pays itself back in 7 rounds, and he can use it to throw a boulder at the enemy Mage in the very first round even if they never leave their starting zone. No other Mage has the ability to do this. Even if you do go for an attack spell opening in the first round, you will usually be leaving yourself open to things like wall of thorns push, or the enemy will simply outlast your early aggression. However, the wizard tower allows you to use this exact same early aggressive opening, but without any of the drawbacks because it doesn't take any of your mage's actions to cast each attack, and it even gives you extra mana too, allowing you to continue this same exact strategy from the early game long into the late game.
Additionally, for gate wizards, increasing the mana cost for wizard's tower means that if they want to keep deploying lv2 arcane creatures like gremlin and leech, he'll have to wait at least one more round before casting the tower.
Other options include increasing the level of the tower to 3, making it a full action to cast, and taking away its channeling. I think that last one might also be a good idea, but I am skeptical that it will be enough by itself.
Back when it was just the base set, I suspect that his superior access to dispel and teleport was what made him slightly more powerful back then. It wasn't the number of elemental spells.
At the moment all the mage's are at least somewhat viable, but they are not all competitive, and they do not all have as many viable options for spellbook design. Ironically, Wizards seem to have been rather lacking in viable spellbook diversity for a while simply because the strategy of putting in the Wizard tower and loading up on attack spells and meta magic (plus maybe a battle forge or gate), is so powerful that no one ever does anything else with him.
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At the moment I don't see why Arcane Wonders is acting like they are, but I guess neither the wizard himself nor the tower will get errataed. The topic had been discussed a thousand times with very good ideas and simple solutions (like spellbind or epoc on WT, or triplepay for one school) and the tournament results are pretty solid wizardish. In nearly every post or interview in this forum the Wizardquestion is asked or discussed. Players start to not play him for it is getting boring. The new focus seems to be more in playing creative.
And this is where I think we will end. The wizard will get stronger and stronger and it is not gonna change. The players will change around it and accept it as a challenge.
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At the moment I don't see why Arcane Wonders is acting like they are, but I guess neither the wizard himself nor the tower will get errataed. The topic had been discussed a thousand times with very good ideas and simple solutions (like spellbind or epoc on WT, or triplepay for one school) and the tournament results are pretty solid wizardish. In nearly every post or interview in this forum the Wizardquestion is asked or discussed. Players start to not play him for it is getting boring. The new focus seems to be more in playing creative.
And this is where I think we will end. The wizard will get stronger and stronger and it is not gonna change. The players will change around it and accept it as a challenge.
I assure you, there is a plan. You may not like it, or think it'll work, or even be allowed to know it, but there is a plan. From what I've seen, AW doesn't like this situation either, and they're trying to solve it in a careful and effective manner. As always: effective, fast, safe; pick two.
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The wizard can only be trained in one elemental school at a time. The warlock is also fully trained in fire as well as a major school, just like the wizard. Unlike the warlock, wizard is trained in arcane, not dark.
Yes, but the warlock can't suddenly decide to include a ton of water or earth spells when those sets get expanded without investing a lot in them, while the wizard is completely free to change to fit the current meta. Additionally, the wizard doesn't pay triple price for ANYTHING. He is basically the jack of all trades, while simultaneously having his own area of mastery.
This means that if the problem is with the wizard's abilities it's probably either that the arcane school itself is too powerful, or the wizard tower is OP, or some combination of the two.
Personally I'm thinking possibility #3 is most likely. Dispel is still too often an auto-include in so many spellbooks. It's not as bad as it used to be for the warlord now that we have harshforge, and astral anchor should help against teleport a lot. Therefore, fleshing out the other schools more might go a long way towards fixing the wizard.
Another good idea might be to give errata to wizard tower.
Back when it was just the base set, I suspect that his superior access to dispel and teleport was what made him slightly more powerful back then. It wasn't the number of elemental spells.
Don't get me wrong, I do agree that the Arcane school is too powerful and that the Wizard's Tower needs to be changed somehow. I just also think the Wizard himself is too flexible as well. I also agree that back in the base set, the reason the Wizard was arguably more powerful was his easy access to dispel and teleport, but that has slowly changed to some extent with the continuous addition of new elemental spells.
I assure you, there is a plan. You may not like it, or think it'll work, or even be allowed to know it, but there is a plan. From what I've seen, AW doesn't like this situation either, and they're trying to solve it in a careful and effective manner. As always: effective, fast, safe; pick two.
Based on their past actions, my best guess is that they plan on fixing the wizard by slowly introducing new cards which counter his mainstay cards. Astral Anchor to counter Teleport, Harshforge Plate to counter Dispel, Rolling Fog to counter Wizard's Tower. While I think that can and will work for the arcane school as a whole, I'm not sure that will work for the wizard himself or for the Wizard's Tower. Like I've said previously, the wizard's training gives him too much flexibility, and the Wizard's Tower simply has too many upsides with almost no downsides. Countering the wizard's training would require making a LOT more cards mage and school specific, and introducing hard counters to the Wizard's Tower would also heavily nerf other conjurations or ranged attacks which are not overpowered. I appreciate Arcane Wonder's desire to not errata cards unless they absolutely have to, but it would honestly be the easiest and most sure-fire way to fix the problem in this particular case because it would ensure there were no collateral side-effects.
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The wizard can only be trained in one elemental school at a time. The warlock is also fully trained in fire as well as a major school, just like the wizard. Unlike the warlock, wizard is trained in arcane, not dark.
Yes, but the warlock can't suddenly decide to include a ton of water or earth spells when those sets get expanded without investing a lot in them, while the wizard is completely free to change to fit the current meta. Additionally, the wizard doesn't pay triple price for ANYTHING. He is basically the jack of all trades, while simultaneously having his own area of mastery.
This means that if the problem is with the wizard's abilities it's probably either that the arcane school itself is too powerful, or the wizard tower is OP, or some combination of the two.
Personally I'm thinking possibility #3 is most likely. Dispel is still too often an auto-include in so many spellbooks. It's not as bad as it used to be for the warlord now that we have harshforge, and astral anchor should help against teleport a lot. Therefore, fleshing out the other schools more might go a long way towards fixing the wizard.
Another good idea might be to give errata to wizard tower.
Back when it was just the base set, I suspect that his superior access to dispel and teleport was what made him slightly more powerful back then. It wasn't the number of elemental spells.
Don't get me wrong, I do agree that the Arcane school is too powerful and that the Wizard's Tower needs to be changed somehow. I just also think the Wizard himself is too flexible as well. I also agree that back in the base set, the reason the Wizard was arguably more powerful was his easy access to dispel and teleport, but that has slowly changed to some extent with the continuous addition of new elemental spells.
I assure you, there is a plan. You may not like it, or think it'll work, or even be allowed to know it, but there is a plan. From what I've seen, AW doesn't like this situation either, and they're trying to solve it in a careful and effective manner. As always: effective, fast, safe; pick two.
Based on their past actions, my best guess is that they plan on fixing the wizard by slowly introducing new cards which counter his mainstay cards. Astral Anchor to counter Teleport, Harshforge Plate to counter Dispel, Rolling Fog to counter Wizard's Tower. While I think that can and will work for the arcane school as a whole, I'm not sure that will work for the wizard himself or for the Wizard's Tower. Like I've said previously, the wizard's training gives him too much flexibility, and the Wizard's Tower simply has too many upsides with almost no downsides. Countering the wizard's training would require making a LOT more cards mage and school specific, and introducing hard counters to the Wizard's Tower would also heavily nerf other conjurations or ranged attacks which are not overpowered. I appreciate Arcane Wonder's desire to not errata cards unless they absolutely have to, but it would honestly be the easiest and most sure-fire way to fix the problem in this particular case because it would ensure there were no collateral side-effects.
I think you completely missed my point. There is not a single wizard adapting to the meta based on what element has gotten the latest boost. There are technically FOUR wizards, one for each element. Right now there is not enough diversity between the spellbooks of the four wizards because they all tend to run the same couple of dominant strategies. It seems unlikely that arcane zap or voltaric shield are significant factors in all this. That leaves us with the wizards' training (including their superior access to dispel and teleport) and their tower.
I don't like the tower being an auto include in all good wizard books. It seriously limits the variety of wizards out there.
Also, according to their description on the main site, wizards are supposed to be tricksters/master manipulators. However, they generally don't play like that. Right now they're all clearly more of the "overwhelm you with superior mana supply and action advantage for as little cost as possible" kind of mage. If there was a trickster or master manipulator of any kind I would totally play it.
If the description on the main site describes the wizards' intended playstyle, then wizards have NEVER played as intended. They were probably OP since the very beginning, first because of their superior access to dispel and teleport, and now because of wizard's tower. The fact that they don't pay triple for anything either exacerbates these issues that already exist, or it allowed them to be problems in the first place. I'm not sure which.
The way the wizards play now is unthematic, unfun, and unintuitive to new players, especially since the style of a lot of arcane spells and the description of the wizard on the main site give him the illusion of a playstyle that he SHOULD have but doesn't because it was hijacked by a combination of dispel and teleport not having any counters in the base game and wizard's tower plus not having to pay triple for anything.
Moving forward, I really think the wizard needs to be able to have his original intended playstyle, and that we should not try to preserve his current playstyle that only came into existence by accident as a result of a few imbalances that took way too long to start being addressed. If this is possible with new cards then I'm all for it. If his original intended playstyle is not fully restored by the new cards, then I think an errata is the best option. While errata is not ideal, I think it's better to admit and fix your mistakes instead of continuing to make the same mistake. See the sunk-cost fallacy.
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See the sunk-cost fallacy.
My favorite!
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See the sunk-cost fallacy.
My favorite!
People have favorite logical fallacies? I didn't even know that was a thing... :o
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If the description on the main site describes the wizards' intended playstyle, then wizards have NEVER played as intended. They were probably OP since the very beginning, first because of their superior access to dispel and teleport, and now because of wizard's tower. The fact that they don't pay triple for anything either exacerbates these issues that already exist, or it allowed them to be problems in the first place. I'm not sure which.
I played a long time with only the core set before buying an expansion. Back then I used the wizard for mana denial and teleport/dispel supporting the slow, strong creatures. The training in air/fire was just there for the ocassional attack spell and nothing more. I think that was his initial intend. It's only after the expansions that he became the boss he is right now.
Also, there weren't that many attack spells in the core set. No forcehammers/hurl rocks/hurl boulders/acid balls/... Fire/lightning was the only thing in there and knights were the only guys with +2 for lightning so there was no real reason to use fireballs when you were an air wizard. When playing the wizard you had a 1 in 3 chance your opponent was a warlock, who's creatures can handle fire, so actually there wasn't even a good reason to use the fire wizard in general.
So, no, the wizard was really not overpowered in the core set. His spawnpoint was already very strong but really nothing that breaks the game.
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As said, I really hope and I am willing to believe AW has a secret masterplan for wizard. I would love to see him as a flexible trickster rather than a brutal attacker with tower-autoinclude.
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Wizard being the best at magic, seems very thematically :)
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Wizard being the best at magic, seems very thematically :)
Um, there's a difference between being the best at magic and being the best at magical combat. The wizard understands magic so well that he can control it, hence his great access to mana and metamagic spells. That's not the same as having a ludicrously high innate channeling, for instance, or being overpowered in arena duels in general. Fortunately the Wizard does not have ludicrously high innate channeling, and I have myself narrowed down the culprit to the wizard's OPness. Turns out it is the tower. I'll explain in a couple paragraphs.
If the description on the main site describes the wizards' intended playstyle, then wizards have NEVER played as intended. They were probably OP since the very beginning, first because of their superior access to dispel and teleport, and now because of wizard's tower. The fact that they don't pay triple for anything either exacerbates these issues that already exist, or it allowed them to be problems in the first place. I'm not sure which.
I played a long time with only the core set before buying an expansion. Back then I used the wizard for mana denial and teleport/dispel supporting the slow, strong creatures. The training in air/fire was just there for the ocassional attack spell and nothing more. I think that was his initial intend. It's only after the expansions that he became the boss he is right now.
Also, there weren't that many attack spells in the core set. No forcehammers/hurl rocks/hurl boulders/acid balls/... Fire/lightning was the only thing in there and knights were the only guys with +2 for lightning so there was no real reason to use fireballs when you were an air wizard. When playing the wizard you had a 1 in 3 chance your opponent was a warlock, who's creatures can handle fire, so actually there wasn't even a good reason to use the fire wizard in general.
So, no, the wizard was really not overpowered in the core set. His spawnpoint was already very strong but really nothing that breaks the game.
Yeah you're right, my bad. Also, I have completed my Frugal Fire Wizard (core set x1 only) and will be posting it soon. I think it's at least fairly viable, but I don't think it's OP. And it doesn't seem like his access to elemental attack spells is really a big issue without the wiz tower. The Frugal Fire Wizard does not have acid ball or surging wave, and he only has 2 flameblasts. He has 3 fireballs and a single geyser though, and he has two zone attack spells which are full actions and therefore wouldn't be usable by a tower. Aside from that he's not missing any important utility spells. Acid Ball and Surging Wave are pretty good, but those two spells are not powerful enough to make wizard OP on their own. In addition, most of the fire attack spells that wizards use come in the core set, now that I think of it. And teleport and dispel also come in the core set. Therefore, his not paying triple for anything isn't the problem, and his superior access to dispel and teleport isn't the problem. I don't think it's the number of attack spells he has access to either, since his spellbook points are still 120, and the Frugal Warlock probably devotes a fairly normal amount of spellbook points to attack spell (15 points; if I had included 2 acid balls, 2 surging waves and another 3 flameblasts and taken out the third fireball it would have been 24 points). That leaves the tower. I'm thinking that the best option would be to pick at least 2 of the following options: make the tower epic, increase its level to 3, increase its mana cost to 8.
I predict that if you just make it epic, that will make the card no longer OP. It might still be an autoinclude though. If you increase the mana cost to 8 or the level to 3 on top of making it epic, I predict it will no longer be an autoinclude for wizards. Still will be a good card though.
I'm actually kind of hoping for an errata to the tower, since it's made the wizard OP for way too long, and any block format that uses Conquest of Kumanjaro is going to be dominated by wizards forever if they don't. Furthermore, I'm not sure it's a good idea to keep the wizard OP for much longer. I don't know how many sets it will take to make the tower no longer such a problem, but this has been going on almost since the beginning of the game...
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I've said this waaayy to much by now but in an ideal world I would make it epic + remove the spellbind. Even then the tower would be an amazing card (but just maybe not an auto-include):
- Mana generation
- extra action efficiency + you don't even need a turn to make it active like creatures
- combo attack spell + creature attack + arcane zap to finish something off. This way you can be certain something is dead without spending too much mana/actions.
- a survivable tower with 3 armor.
But you lose:
- extreme spellbook point efficiency
- a ragequit when you recast a second one after somebody manages to destroy the first one.
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I've said this waaayy to much by now but in an ideal world I would make it epic + remove the spellbind. Even then the tower would be an amazing card (but just maybe not an auto-include):
- Mana generation
- extra action efficiency + you don't even need a turn to make it active like creatures
- combo attack spell + creature attack + arcane zap to finish something off. This way you can be certain something is dead without spending too much mana/actions.
- a survivable tower with 3 armor.
But you lose:
- extreme spellbook point efficiency
- a ragequit when you recast a second one after somebody manages to destroy the first one.
Actually, I think I probably like your solution better than mine.
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I recently realized that what I originally thought was impossible was possible, and actually even probable: that tower might be effectively nerfed without an errata to the point where it is no longer autoinclude. In order to lower the power of the tower, some of the following would need to be more powerful.
1. walls (these often feel way too vulnerable, and can get destroyed very quickly. Otto Kronig helps. Reinforce can be used on walls! And from what I've heard, arcane Ward can be cast on another enchantment to protect it!
2. obscured (one word: blur.)
3. Conquer (make it easier for soldiers to reach the tower without being killed or otherwise stopped, so that conquer can be used on it. Hidden Tunnels helps with this. And it's invisible, so the tower can't target it.
4. Arcane Ward can be used to protect forcefield! It can also protect an enfeeble! This card is going to be so good for enchantment mind games, since making it possible to protect enchantments directly means that using enchantments to counter enchantments is going to be much more viable.
I expect that the tower, and by extension the wiz will no longer be OP after PvS at latest. Otherwise it seems like it will be way too long and an errata would be better then. I'm hoping this means that the wizard's original trickstery playstyle will be restored.
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Top Tier in Arena:
1- Wizard
2- Druid
3- Necromancer
Top Tier in Domination:
1- Wizard
2- Warlord :o
3- Druid/Beastmaster