Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Mages => Topic started by: Sailor Vulcan on April 14, 2016, 11:35:30 AM
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Are there any mages that are not at a disadvantage against the wizard? If so which are they? I've suspected for a while now that Domination and Academy would make the wizard no longer OP, at least for some matchups. And yet the general perception that the wizard is OP just isn't going away. Because of that people are either using wizards competitively too much or they're avoiding him altogether because they think he's unfair. This reinforces the perception that the wiz is OP, and it also makes it hard to determine if the wizard is actually still OP or not.
So let's get to the bottom of this. Is the wizard still OP? If yes, has Domination or Academy made him less OP? If no, Was it because of the addition of domination or academy, meta game shift from creative spellbooks, or some combination of the two?
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My Druid made plant-food out of the wizard in my last match-up. ;)
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They are not unbeatable, but yes, they are significantly stronger than the next best, they are the top Tier all on their own.
Nothing in Academy, or Domination has remotely affected that, in fact Wizard has gained more than many from them.
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Also, Earth Wizard does anything earth better than Warlord even though Warlord can't choose his elemental minor school, or dip into Arcane school for utility without a triple cost. Exacerbated considering the earth creatures are slow and need teleport to be mobile enough for any strategy.
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If the Wizard was ever overpowered (under heated debate apparently), then not much has changed. The Arena Wizard still has the best mage abilities, the best training (e.g. no triple-cost, and cheap access to arcane and his choice of element), and the best (only) built-in ranged attack spell - which happens to also be the only built-in ethereal attack, and can't be removed if you want to protect your Incorporeal creature (e.g. Invisible Stalker). None of that changed with Domination or Academy.
I did notice that Academy cards that are most useful in Arena tend to help the Beastmasters more than the Wizard (e.g. lots of useful creatures and Beastmaster-specific equipment). This helps the Johktari Beastmaster in particular become "less bad," but doesn't make the Wizard worse. So, sure, the Beastmasters have been pushed in the right direction relative to the Wizard, but the Wizard hasn't really gone anywhere, and the problems (if any) with the Wizard are still there.
Now, before we say that the Wizard can do everything better than any other mage, that isn't quite true. There are some things that some other mages can do better: the Straywood Beastmaster and Necromancer are better at summoning swarms; and the Druid is better at controlling the board state through hindering and the "stuck" condition, and can extend her spell range so she can turtle in a corner while affecting the other side of the arena. But the Wizard can trump any other mage at solo (e.g. armour up and go melee), "one buddy", and "burn" (e.g. hurling attack spells while pinning the opposing mage), plus has exclusive access to mana/action denial, and can build the ultimate toolbox of incantations, enchantments and attack spells at standard and/or discount cost (e.g. can include more "staple" utility spells than any other mage). So... basically, the Wizard has none of the drawbacks that other mages have. That will never change unless it is added to the Wizard's mage card (e.g. make something cost triple, or add a drawback to Voltaric Shield or Arcane Zap).
And all of that ignores any imbalance with Wizard's Tower. If you gave every mage a "mage type only" card that was on the same power level as Wizard's Tower, that's fine... but the Wizard still gets all the other advantages above, so it still wouldn't be even.
I think the only thing Domination did was add [mwcard=MWBG1E01]a counter to Teleport[/mwcard], meaning Teleport isn't quite as powerful as it was pre-Domination. Since Teleport is level 2 Arcane, it gave more advantage to Wizards than other mages - so I guess that pushed things slightly towards balance. But Domination also brought [mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] and [mwcard=MWBG1A02]Dragon's Breath[/mwcard]... so... it's probably a wash.
In other words it's hard to balance mages through adding cards when the out-of-balance aspects are written on the mage card unless those spells are "mage type only." And adding a bunch of "mage type only" spells hurts the overall flexibility in spell book building because it means those new mage type only cards are intentionally overpowered by design and become must-includes in order to make a mage competitive relative to the Wizard.
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Right! I also wanted to touch on the Wizard's tower and how it's OP compared to equally functioning cards.
Swapping spells: Wizard Tower doesn't cost a quick action to change the bind spell, nor any mana. Unlike Elemental Wand, which takes up both an action and 3 whole mana to swap. Helm of Command also takes up an action and mana to swap spells to bind.
Conjuration Reload: Wizard tower doesn't have a limitation on how many rounds it can attack. Again, comparing an Earth Wizard to a Warlord, the Warlord's attacking conjurations are slow and can be 'shot' only once every other turn. Sure, the Wizard tower does dip into mana, but a low cost spell freed up off the Wizard's hand every turn can be quite advantageous. Maybe if Wizard tower had a two-mana limit before being able to take its action like the War conjurations or most spawnpoints.
I feel the Wizard Tower could be balanced by a combination or tweaks to its level (only 2?!), changed from unique to Epic, and a sort of 'cooldown' between its activations, or if not, then it takes an action+mana to swap the bound spell.
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The Wizard also is deceptive because if you are only playing with one base set or sharing a somewhat small collection, his full advantage is less apparent. The Wizards big strength is spellbook design advantage... but his ability to cheaply run 4-6 copies of Dispel, Dissolve, Jinx and Nullify and teleport doesn't show up if you don't actually have enough copies of those spells one book can monopolize. If you only have 5 dispels/dissolves/etc and those have to be rationed for multiple mages/books/players to access then the Wizard never gets to be maximized, which is one of the reasons the Wizard doesn't always seem as powerful right out of the box for beginners.
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Wizards strong but by no means unbeatable, nor does it take luck to bring down an equally skilled player running a strong wizard book if you're on your A Game. Not a certainty but it's do able.
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I would say wizzard, Mr beastmaster and druide are stronger than the others.
But the wizzard has advantages (two x1 school including arcane, no x3 school, arcane zap, 10 channel, wizzard power-tower,...) that makes him easy to be stronger!
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No and he never was.
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No and he never was.
Exactly my point: Domination and Academy haven't changed anything regarding the perceived power level of the wizard. Both camps of "Wizard has always been overpowered" and "Wizards have never been overpowered" are still present and well populated.
"Wizards are strong but by no means unbeatable" is the same as saying "Wizards are overpowered."
Overpowered =/= unbeatable. It just means they have inherent advantages over everything else. I've beated a Wizard, and I've lost when playing a Wizard. But people in my group tend not to play Wizard often because it feels like playing (and spell book building) in "easy mode" - like a win using the Wizard is assumed unless proven otherwise. ... Unless you're trying a particularly unorthodox Wizard, like my Mana Worm / Mana Leech swarm featuring [mwcard=MW1J14]Mana Siphon[/mwcard] and more than enough Minor and regular [mwcard=MW1E15]Essence Drain[/mwcard]s along with Sistarran Robes, which tries to do something exclusively Wizard-y (e.g. get the opponent down to 3 or 4 mana per round while channeling 12 or 13 myself - very NPE, but spends a lot of time doing things that don't directly help you win) rather than just using an existing strategy and doing it better than the mage that's supposed to be best at it (like "burn" or "solo with tons of armor" or a "heavily buffed Grizzly buddy" or whatever).
And it's easy to see why the Wizard is better in general than any other mage: all other mages have abilities that depend on having certain types of spells (often creatures with specific subtypes) in your spell book and in play, and even those have drawbacks and triggers (see Malakai Priest's "Holy Avenger" for an extreme example; or Johktari Beastmaster's "Wounded Prey" ability, which is almost useless under many situations). Meanwhile, the Wizard's abilities work just as well if he has no other cards in play, no armor, no weapon, no other cards of a particular type in his spell book, etc. He is completely free to build his book however he wants, and effectively gets to put more cards in his spell book than any other mage.* If every other mage had a spell book with 140 points (about equivalent to having Arcane + an element cheap and no triple cost school), and got to have a built-in 1-mana 3-dice ranged attack with a powerful trait (like also assigns a Burn/Rot/Stun token, or deals Critical Damage, or whatever makes sense thematically and is similar in effectiveness as Ethereal) and got to ignore some amount of damage (or had built-in armor) every round, then it might be an even playing field.
Looking at the other mages, there are definitely some good abilities that are on par with any 1 of the Wizard's abilities: Druid's "Treebond" is similar to Voltaric Shield in terms of damage absorption, but requires a tree and is negated if the tree is destroyed; Forcemaster's defence is similar, too; the Beastmaster's quick-summon is very good for one particular strategy, and has some neat combos with Packleader's Cowl, and is further enabled by all the new level-1 animals that showed up in Academy; and Battle Skill (+1 melee) is generally a good mage ability, as it can be useful even without a weapon. But few mages have combinations of these.
* Of all the books I currently have built and have built in the past, only one Druid book has more total cards than my typical Wizard book (65-70 cards). Most of my books for other mages only have 50-55 cards because they have to pay double for a lot of out-of-school spells.
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No and he never was.
Please explain.
If the Wizard was ever overpowered (under heated debate apparently), then not much has changed. The Arena Wizard still has the best mage abilities, the best training (e.g. no triple-cost, and cheap access to arcane and his choice of element), and the best (only) built-in ranged attack spell - which happens to also be the only built-in ethereal attack, and can't be removed if you want to protect your Incorporeal creature (e.g. Invisible Stalker). None of that changed with Domination or Academy.
I did notice that Academy cards that are most useful in Arena tend to help the Beastmasters more than the Wizard (e.g. lots of useful creatures and Beastmaster-specific equipment). This helps the Johktari Beastmaster in particular become "less bad," but doesn't make the Wizard worse. So, sure, the Beastmasters have been pushed in the right direction relative to the Wizard, but the Wizard hasn't really gone anywhere, and the problems (if any) with the Wizard are still there.
Now, before we say that the Wizard can do everything better than any other mage, that isn't quite true. There are some things that some other mages can do better: the Straywood Beastmaster and Necromancer are better at summoning swarms; and the Druid is better at controlling the board state through hindering and the "stuck" condition, and can extend her spell range so she can turtle in a corner while affecting the other side of the arena. But the Wizard can trump any other mage at solo (e.g. armour up and go melee), "one buddy", and "burn" (e.g. hurling attack spells while pinning the opposing mage), plus has exclusive access to mana/action denial, and can build the ultimate toolbox of incantations, enchantments and attack spells at standard and/or discount cost (e.g. can include more "staple" utility spells than any other mage). So... basically, the Wizard has none of the drawbacks that other mages have. That will never change unless it is added to the Wizard's mage card (e.g. make something cost triple, or add a drawback to Voltaric Shield or Arcane Zap).
And all of that ignores any imbalance with Wizard's Tower. If you gave every mage a "mage type only" card that was on the same power level as Wizard's Tower, that's fine... but the Wizard still gets all the other advantages above, so it still wouldn't be even.
I think the only thing Domination did was add [mwcard=MWBG1E01]a counter to Teleport[/mwcard], meaning Teleport isn't quite as powerful as it was pre-Domination. Since Teleport is level 2 Arcane, it gave more advantage to Wizards than other mages - so I guess that pushed things slightly towards balance. But Domination also brought [mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] and [mwcard=MWBG1A02]Dragon's Breath[/mwcard]... so... it's probably a wash.
In other words it's hard to balance mages through adding cards when the out-of-balance aspects are written on the mage card unless those spells are "mage type only." And adding a bunch of "mage type only" spells hurts the overall flexibility in spell book building because it means those new mage type only cards are intentionally overpowered by design and become must-includes in order to make a mage competitive relative to the Wizard.
You might be right, but merely listing all of the things that the wizard can do that other mages can't doesn't necessarily prove anything and isn't really useful. For instance, look at what happens when I take your post and switch out the word "wizard" for "priestess", and the wizard's capabilities to that of the priestess:
If the Priestess was ever overpowered (under heated debate apparently), then not much has changed. The Arena Priestess still has the best mage abilities, the best training (the Holy school has creatures with higher attack and more natural staying power than most other schools, plus superior access to daze and stun, all of which is more than enough to make up for the triple-cost for dark) the best (only) built-in way to increase her life indefinitely - and she also has the only built-in way to remove ALL condition markers from any living creature-and this ability can't be removed or countered in an way. If the priestess wants to remove condition markers, she WILL remove as many of them as she wants as long as she has the mana. None of that changed with Domination or Academy.
Now, before we say that the Priestess can do everything better than any other mage, that isn't quite true. There are some things that some other mages can do better: the Straywood Beastmaster and Necromancer are better at summoning swarms; and the Druid is better at controlling the board state through hindering and the "stuck" condition, and can extend her spell range so she can turtle in a corner while affecting the other side of the arena.
But the Priestess can trump any other mage at "few big" (e.g. summoning a squad of 3-4 creatures to work together to take down the enemy mage), "turtling" (yes even the druid, while the druid has superior position control I admit, the priestess has superior access to healing, and Divine Intervention can allow her to get a powerful creature like Brogan to attack and destroy the Druid's tree very quckly.), and even defensive swarms (summon a swarm of lv1 creatures that are more durable but have lower attack, keep them alive as long as possible so that they can attack over and over and over again. It's a pretty new playstyle, and before Academy cleric swarm was probably the only viable way to do it.)
She also has "exclusive" access to Angels, especially Guardian Angel, which is one of the if not THE most powerful defensive creature in the game, and can build the ultimate toolbox of enchantments, incantations and creatures at standard and/or discount cost (while her spells aren't all widely used by the other mages, those that do use them oftentimes really need them just as much as if not more than the Arcane metamagic staples.)
So... basically, the Priestess has none of the drawbacks that other mages have. That will never change unless it is added to the Priestess's mage card (e.g. make her channeling 9, or add a drawback to restore or divine reward.)
I think the only thing Domination did was add [mwcard=MWBG1E01], a counter to Divine Intervention[/mwcard], meaning DI isn't quite as powerful as it was pre-Domination. Since Divine Intervention is Priestess-only, it gave more advantage to Priestesses than other mages - so I guess Astral Anchor pushed things slightly towards balance. But astral anchor only works on a zone. If the creatures move before they teleport than astral anchor poses no danger, especially if you're using Temple of the Dawnbreaker to reroll escape rolls, which the Priestess can use at discount spellbook cost, and a lot of her creatures are powerful enough to destroy tanglevines and stranglevines pretty easily on their own anyway... so... it's probably a wash.
In other words it's hard to balance mages through adding cards when the out-of-balance aspects are written on the mage card unless those spells are "mage type only." And adding a bunch of "mage type only" spells hurts the overall flexibility in spell book building because it means those new mage type only cards are intentionally overpowered by design and become must-includes in order to make a mage competitive relative to the Priestess.
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A couple of Wizard builds are still completely unbeatable by certain mages (both priests', both warlocks, forcemaster, both beastmasters).
those couple of wizard builds can sometimes struggle to some extend against druid and necromancers.
Voltaric shield + veteran belt + armor stacking is a combo that is so incredibly strong so when you add in regenerate and Divine protection its a nearly untouchable wizard.
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You might be right, but merely listing all of the things that the wizard can do that other mages can't doesn't necessarily prove anything and isn't really useful. For instance, look at what happens when I take your post and switch out the word "wizard" for "priestess", and the wizard's capabilities to that of the priestess:
You can't. You would have to remove about 5-10 cards from the book.
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You might be right, but merely listing all of the things that the wizard can do that other mages can't doesn't necessarily prove anything and isn't really useful. For instance, look at what happens when I take your post and switch out the word "wizard" for "priestess", and the wizard's capabilities to that of the priestess:
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My post immediately above yours serves as a good response to your post. You can't just swap "Priestess" for "Wizard" there, as the Priestess's abilities either requires holy spells to gain life, or requires the opponent to put condition markers on her or her creatures. If you don't build around them, her abilities do nothing. Besides, Divine Intervention aside (an Epic mage-type only card; Wizard can pack 3 or 4 Wizard's Towers instead...), the Wizard could build a "summon a few big" book that is better than any "summon a few big" that the Priestess can build, including a [mwcard=MWSTX1CKC06]Guardian Angel[/mwcard] if desired - or stay in school and go with the [mwcard=MWSTX1CKC08] Gargoyle Sentry[/mwcard], who does the same thing and is nearly as good. Besides, a Wizard could duplicate (or come up with similar enough substitutions, like Gargoyle for Guardian Angel) to build the same book as a Priestess and likely do it cheaper (or better in some other way).
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When you can lose in 4 rounds to a mage, its OP. And I don't want to hear I could have played better because the only way to play better is to specifically design an anti-wizard book which is dumb and completely defeats the point of the game. The fact that a wizard can get in range by turn 1 if they wanted to and now start throwing 9 dice meteorites at you and there's nothing you can do about it is a joke. Then if they want to add insult to injury, they can put it on a wand, add in a wizards tower with an boulder, acid ball, fireball, anything with a 2 range and you are completely cornered and there is NOTHING you can do to stop before they have the chance to at minimum, with their channeling and maybe 1 crystal fire off 3 or 4 nasty attacks with something like 30 dice. Thats OP.
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When you can lose in 4 rounds to a mage, its OP. And I don't want to hear I could have played better because the only way to play better is to specifically design an anti-wizard book which is dumb and completely defeats the point of the game. The fact that a wizard can get in range by turn 1 if they wanted to and now start throwing 9 dice meteorites at you and there's nothing you can do about it is a joke. Then if they want to add insult to injury, they can put it on a wand, add in a wizards tower with an boulder, acid ball, fireball, anything with a 2 range and you are completely cornered and there is NOTHING you can do to stop before they have the chance to at minimum, with their channeling and maybe 1 crystal fire off 3 or 4 nasty attacks with something like 30 dice. Thats OP.
Wouldn't they run out of mana very quickly? Even at 11-12 mana a turn. Meteorite costs 12 and boulder costs 8. It would be hilarious to stick a reverse attack on for that, though.
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Just running in and using attack spells to damage the opponent is ridiciously easy to counter. That is not very advanced gameplay at all.
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[mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] is a Full Cast spell and cant be bound to a Wand. You can only carry 4 in your book. You couldn't cast Meteor and the Wizards Tower in the same turn after previously casting meteor in the previous round and even if you did you wouldn't have the mana to cast whatever is bound to the WT.
Meet cheese with stinker cheese, move a couple of zones cast Wall of Thorns and push the mana depleted Wizard through it a couple of times and you will win. Its cheesy and it stinks but you will break that Hurl Meteorite habit real quick.
But it does make a fantastic "surprise" long range finisher.....
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[mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] is a Full Cast spell and cant be bound to a Wand. You can only carry 4 in your book. You couldn't cast Meteor and the Wizards Tower in the same turn after previously casting meteor in the previous round and even if you did you wouldn't have the mana to cast whatever is bound to the WT.
Meet cheese with stinker cheese, move a couple of zones cast Wall of Thorns and push the mana depleted Wizard through it a couple of times and you will win. Its cheesy and it stinks but you will break that Hurl Meteorite habit real quick.
But it does make a fantastic "surprise" long range finisher.....
Why can't Hurl Meteorite be bound to an elemental wand?
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Why can't Hurl Meteorite be bound to an [mwcard=MW1Q08]Elemental Wand[/mwcard]?
Perhaps he meant it can't be bound to [mwcard=MWSTX1CKJ02]Wizard's Tower[/mwcard], which can only cast quick attack spells.
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[mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] is a Full Cast spell and cant be bound to a Wand. You can only carry 4 in your book. You couldn't cast Meteor and the Wizards Tower in the same turn after previously casting meteor in the previous round and even if you did you wouldn't have the mana to cast whatever is bound to the WT.
Meet cheese with stinker cheese, move a couple of zones cast Wall of Thorns and push the mana depleted Wizard through it a couple of times and you will win. Its cheesy and it stinks but you will break that Hurl Meteorite habit real quick.
But it does make a fantastic "surprise" long range finisher.....
Why can't Hurl Meteorite be bound to an elemental wand?
[mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] can be bound to an [mwcard=MW1Q08]Elemental Wand[/mwcard]. It cannot be bound to a [mwcard=MWSTX1CKJ02]Wizard's Tower[/mwcard].
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[mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] is a Full Cast spell and cant be bound to a Wand. You can only carry 4 in your book. You couldn't cast Meteor and the Wizards Tower in the same turn after previously casting meteor in the previous round and even if you did you wouldn't have the mana to cast whatever is bound to the WT.
Meet cheese with stinker cheese, move a couple of zones cast Wall of Thorns and push the mana depleted Wizard through it a couple of times and you will win. Its cheesy and it stinks but you will break that Hurl Meteorite habit real quick.
But it does make a fantastic "surprise" long range finisher.....
Why can't Hurl Meteorite be bound to an elemental wand?
[mwcard=MWBG1A03]Hurl Meteorite[/mwcard] can be bound to an [mwcard=MW1Q08]Elemental Wand[/mwcard]. It cannot be bound to a [mwcard=MWSTX1CKJ02]Wizard's Tower[/mwcard].
This is what I meant....
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And the mate totally works: 20 (Crystal/Double move) -> 15 -> 26 -> Wand/Tower (Acid Ball) to 9 -> 20 (Metrorite/Acid) leaves 6 so even if I tried moving up and casting a dissolve or anything, the Wizard still had enough actions and mana to save it with a nullify or jinx or anything. I would have specifically needed to make sure my book includes enough anti-wizard strategy that my own strategy becomes useless. You can think its not OP...I won't change your mind, but you won't change mine either until they figure out a way to fix the amount of cheap spells he can carry and the ease in which if he wanted to get off a triple action, theres nothing I could do to change getting hit with 3 attack spells in a row. Especially that early in the game.
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When you can lose in 4 rounds to a mage, its OP. And I don't want to hear I could have played better because the only way to play better is to specifically design an anti-wizard book which is dumb and completely defeats the point of the game. The fact that a wizard can get in range by turn 1 if they wanted to and now start throwing 9 dice meteorites at you and there's nothing you can do about it is a joke. Then if they want to add insult to injury, they can put it on a wand, add in a wizards tower with an boulder, acid ball, fireball, anything with a 2 range and you are completely cornered and there is NOTHING you can do to stop before they have the chance to at minimum, with their channeling and maybe 1 crystal fire off 3 or 4 nasty attacks with something like 30 dice. Thats OP.
Obscured, reverse attack, cheap wall to block LoS, there's plenty of cheap ways to stop such strategy. Even moving one or two zones after they use range 3 attack will force them to use teleport again.
Besides every mage can do teleport + range 3 attack (though only Wizard can have all required spells in-school). Holy mages and Johtari can attack with range 1 attack spells on first round even when enemy stays in the corner.
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People seems to have forgotten or ignoring that a Beastmaster recently won Gencon. (before Academy release)
I'm not saying Wizard is on par with every other mage out there but Over Powered?
"People" seems to take every event were Wizard do well as proof on Wizard being OP and just choose to ignore event where Wizards doesn't win.
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Everyone please make sure you're familiar with the arguments of both sides before continuing. Otherwise we could be stuck pointlessly rehashing the exact same argument instead of having a productive discussion.
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People seems to have forgotten or ignoring that a Beastmaster recently won Gencon. (before Academy release)
I'm not saying Wizard is on par with every other mage out there but Over Powered?
"People" seems to take every event were Wizard do well as proof on Wizard being OP and just choose to ignore event where Wizards doesn't win.
Just because Superman isn't OP where there's specifically kryptonite doesn't meant he's OP where there isn't such a rare mineral available on hand.
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There have been many pages written how exactly wizard is overpowered. It has been calculated through from different persons in diefferent threads. There was even a poll about it.
What has happened is not that academy or battleground changed a lot. As mentioned no card can change problems based on magestats (paying no tripple price and having a built in shield+ranged-ethereal-weapon and getting 10 channeling anyway).
What could change with some effort is that auto-includes spread over more different schools.
After reading this again and again you cannot just ask for more reasons! There are plenty and they are all written down perfectly understandable and mathematically true.
What we see at the moment is that some coreplayers/organizers start errata wizard themselfes by
- errata zap
- letting him play only one in a tournament
- even excluding him completely from a tournament.
There are good reasons to not errata too much (keep rules and cards correct) but in this particular case it seems like there is a wizard fan at arcane wonders who just blocks it. When (good) players start so many actions and discussions a reaction should be the answer.
* not to mention tower needs errate, too. This also has been calculated through excessively
** just an idea: what about changing wizards possible spellpoints to 100 instead of 120? So he actually would NEED his cheap conditions for cards to get around the same amount of cards as everybody else. Taking 10 is for that, the other 10 is for build-in weapon+shield+good channeling. And a bit for having the tower as well.
Changing only this 1 number seems a good way to me to change all his „problems“
*** what I say is that errara seems proven as needed and by not reacting players will continue to work against arcane wonders in that point. And they should better work together to enjoy the game
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There have been many pages written how exactly wizard is overpowered. It has been calculated through from different persons in diefferent threads. There was even a poll about it.
What has happened is not that academy or battleground changed a lot. As mentioned no card can change problems based on magestats (paying no tripple price and having a built in shield+ranged-ethereal-weapon and getting 10 channeling anyway).
What could change with some effort is that auto-includes spread over more different schools.
After reading this again and again you cannot just ask for more reasons! There are plenty and they are all written down perfectly understandable and mathematically true.
What we see at the moment is that some coreplayers/organizers start errata wizard themselfes by
- errata zap
- letting him play only one in a tournament
- even excluding him completely from a tournament.
There are good reasons to not errata too much (keep rules and cards correct) but in this particular case it seems like there is a wizard fan at arcane wonders who just blocks it. When (good) players start so many actions and discussions a reaction should be the answer.
* not to mention tower needs errate, too. This also has been calculated through excessively
** just an idea: what about changing wizards possible spellpoints to 100 instead of 120? So he actually would NEED his cheap conditions for cards to get around the same amount of cards as everybody else. Taking 10 is for that, the other 10 is for build-in weapon+shield+good channeling. And a bit for having the tower as well.
Changing only this 1 number seems a good way to me to change all his „problems“
*** what I say is that errara seems proven as needed and by not reacting players will continue to work against arcane wonders in that point. And they should better work together to enjoy the game
So just because enough players complain about a Mage being OP enough times, that automatically makes their theory about why that Mage is OP true?
Someone else in this thread has claimed that it's only a few particular wizard strategies that are OP. I'm not entirely certain whether that's true, but I do know that the Frugal Fire Wizard, which only includes cards from one copy of the core set, is not OP in the current global meta, because I've tested it.
As I've pointed out before, the wizard is meant to be a trickster and master manipulator. He is not meant to just overwhelm the enemy Mage with brute force. I know this because it says so right in his description on the website.
The Frugal Fire Wizard does not win by overwhelming opponents with brute force. He is a trickster and master manipulator, like wizards are supposed to be. So either some card(s) introduced after the core set broke him, or he was already OP in a core set-only meta and people weren't skilled enough to take advantage of it, or both.
To test this, I propose we have a few core-only OCTGN tournaments and keep track of how well the wizards do in each one compared to other mages, as well as what their elements are. Then repeat the whole procedure with the core set and the first expansion that was released. Then repeat the procedure with the core set and the first two expansions that were released.
Continue like this until you've added all of the expansions.
-If the wizard is broken in a core only metagame, then either some card(s) in the core set broke him, the Arcane school itself was superior to all the other schools, or the problem was something in the wizard's ability card.
-If the wizard isn't broken until a certain expansion is introduced, then card(s) in that expansion broke him. His elemental training cannot be one of the main issues here because each wizard can only be trained in one element, and those elements are shared by other mages, namely the Druid, Warlord, and Warlock.
-If the wizard breaks in a particular metagame and then breaks even more in a later metagame, then the first break is caused by one of the reasons listed above, and the second break is caused either by his training in Arcane or by his elemental training. If it's the former, then the breaking points after the first breaking point should tend to be sets which introduced arcane spells. If it's the latter then the breaking points after the first breaking point should tend to be sets which introduced elemental spells, and mages that share those elements should gain a corresponding increase in power level.
We're not going to settle this debate by merely arguing theory. We've tried settling it that way several times already and it didn't work. If you all really care about this issue and want the best outcome for the game, then you guys should all just stop arguing and actually test your assertions.
There's no need to be aggressive. Please calm down and discuss this rationally everyone.
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The Frugal Fire Wizard does not win by overwhelming opponents with brute force. He is a trickster and master manipulator, like wizards are supposed to be. So either some card(s) introduced after the core set broke him, or he was already OP in a core set-only meta and people weren't skilled enough to take advantage of it, or both.
To test this, I propose we have a few core-only OCTGN tournaments and keep track of how well the wizards do in each one compared to other mages, as well as what their elements are. Then repeat the whole procedure with the core set and the first expansion that was released. Then repeat the procedure with the core set and the first two expansions that were released.
Continue like this until you've added all of the expansions.
-If the wizard is broken in a core only metagame, then either some card(s) in the core set broke him, the Arcane school itself was superior to all the other schools, or the problem was something in the wizard's ability card.
-If the wizard isn't broken until a certain expansion is introduced, then card(s) in that expansion broke him. His elemental training cannot be one of the main issues here because each wizard can only be trained in one element, and those elements are shared by other mages, namely the Druid, Warlord, and Warlock.
-If the wizard breaks in a particular metagame and then breaks even more in a later metagame, then the first break is caused by one of the reasons listed above, and the second break is caused either by his training in Arcane or by his elemental training. If it's the former, then the breaking points after the first breaking point should tend to be sets which introduced arcane spells. If it's the latter then the breaking points after the first breaking point should tend to be sets which introduced elemental spells, and mages that share those elements should gain a corresponding increase in power level.
We're not going to settle this debate by merely arguing theory. We've tried settling it that way several times already and it didn't work. If you all really care about this issue and want the best outcome for the game, then you guys should all just stop arguing and actually test your assertions.
There's no need to be aggressive. Please calm down and discuss this rationally everyone.
This seems like a systematic approach to testing the hypothesis. I like it.
Another approach that anyone can do in their local meta is to have one player always play the Wizard and each other player use other mages and modify these spellbooks in successive matches until they are able to beat the Wizard player consistently. By comparing pairs of spellbooks from individual matchups along with the results it will help the community understand if there actually is a problem and whether it is happening during spellbook design or during the battle.
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I don't think anyone is saying it's impossible to build a spellbook specifically designed to beat a wizard. The problem arises because that's not a fun way to build a book and that book won't be as good against other mages. There are just certain aspects of the wizard with regards to his inherent powers and his ability to put together a book that are just superior to all other mages. And that's not counting the absolute joke that is the Tower.
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The Frugal Fire Wizard does not win by overwhelming opponents with brute force. He is a trickster and master manipulator, like wizards are supposed to be. So either some card(s) introduced after the core set broke him, or he was already OP in a core set-only meta and people weren't skilled enough to take advantage of it, or both.
To test this, I propose we have a few core-only OCTGN tournaments and keep track of how well the wizards do in each one compared to other mages, as well as what their elements are. Then repeat the whole procedure with the core set and the first expansion that was released. Then repeat the procedure with the core set and the first two expansions that were released.
Continue like this until you've added all of the expansions.
-If the wizard is broken in a core only metagame, then either some card(s) in the core set broke him, the Arcane school itself was superior to all the other schools, or the problem was something in the wizard's ability card.
-If the wizard isn't broken until a certain expansion is introduced, then card(s) in that expansion broke him. His elemental training cannot be one of the main issues here because each wizard can only be trained in one element, and those elements are shared by other mages, namely the Druid, Warlord, and Warlock.
-If the wizard breaks in a particular metagame and then breaks even more in a later metagame, then the first break is caused by one of the reasons listed above, and the second break is caused either by his training in Arcane or by his elemental training. If it's the former, then the breaking points after the first breaking point should tend to be sets which introduced arcane spells. If it's the latter then the breaking points after the first breaking point should tend to be sets which introduced elemental spells, and mages that share those elements should gain a corresponding increase in power level.
We're not going to settle this debate by merely arguing theory. We've tried settling it that way several times already and it didn't work. If you all really care about this issue and want the best outcome for the game, then you guys should all just stop arguing and actually test your assertions.
There's no need to be aggressive. Please calm down and discuss this rationally everyone.
This seems like a systematic approach to testing the hypothesis. I like it.
Another approach that anyone can do in their local meta is to have one player always play the Wizard and each other player use other mages and modify these spellbooks in successive matches until they are able to beat the Wizard player consistently. By comparing pairs of spellbooks from individual matchups along with the results it will help the community understand if there actually is a problem and whether it is happening during spellbook design or during the battle.
Thanks! Your procedure is pretty cool too. +1 to each of us for coming up with a way to apply the scientific method to a card game! :D
Also, @DevilsVendetta, you're completely misunderstanding Wtcannonjr's idea. He's not saying to just build hate books against the wizard. He's saying to use your regular books and to gradually modify them until they're doing well against the wizard consistently, and then to record how much the non-wizard spell books had to change in order to do that. Doing this should help make it more clear to everyone whether the wizard is OP or not, and why.
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wtcannonjr's suggestion has some important flaws:
Player skill generally trumps mage type. We have a player who is undefeated and generally plays Necromancer. None of us think Necromancer is particularly overpowered (because several of us have lost while playing Necromancer, and find that building and playing a Necromancer is a challenge) - but beating that player is very difficult. He builds strong books and he seems to always be one step ahead in his strategy when playing. This makes sense given he "wrote the book" on several strategies in the very early days of Mage Wars, publishing "how to" videos online for various openings and what makes them good.
How would you ensure that the winner of a given "X vs. Wizard" match isn't just the better player? Perhaps randomize who plays Wizard and who plays X each time.
Similarly, how would you ensure the Wizard player's book is a strong Wizard book?
Perhaps the best thing to do would be to have every player build a Wizard book plus whatever else they want, roll off to see who gets to play as the Wizard that time, and then track each player's stats and perform a significance test on the data to see if players are statistically better with Wizards than non-Wizards.
But there's still the flaw that everyone knows that their non-Wizard is going to be paired up against a Wizard, and will build an "anti-Wizard" book, whereas each Wizard book doesn't know what it's going to be up against and has to build something that can beat the other 11 mage types - which still isn't a fair test.
As you can see, the problem in proving that Wizard is or isn't overpowered through an experiment like this isn't an easy one.
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Another way to look at it:
Let's assume that the Wizard isn't overpowered. What would it take to make each of the perceived underpowered mages as good as the Wizard?
- Give the each a channeling of 10 (except perhaps the Druid since treebond accomplishes this).
- Remove triple-cost schools (personally I think this would be a terrible idea as it would make even less distinction between mage types, as all mages would become "jacks of all trades" - but this is simply demonstrating an alternative to nerfing the Wizard).
- Give each mage full training in a primary school and either an elemental school (e.g. Warlocks and Warlords are fine; Beastmasters and Priest(esse)s and Necromancer (Air for poison clouds!!) need an element; Druid needs full Water training) or another primary school (presumably the Paladin will be Holy/War; Sorcerer might be Arcane/Dark; Forcemaster would like to be Mind/War - see spawn point discussion below; etc).
- Give each mage an intrinsic way to negate damage or heal or gain life or other some defensive ability (e.g. Forcemaster, Druid and Priestess already have this and are probably OK; perhaps one Warlock could have a "reflect damage" ability that, once per round at a cost of 1 mana, when suffering damage from an attack transfers 1 damage to the attacking enemy non-mage creature (similar to a damage barrier but also reduces the damage taken in that attack); The other warlock could, for a quick-spell costing 1 mana, transfer 1 damage from itself to a target enemy non-mage creature at range 0-2; Warlords could have built-in armor value of 2; Malakai Priest and both Beastmasters need something similar that's thematically relevant; Necromancer has built-in poison immunity, which might be enough (?)).
- Give each mage a built-in attack enhancement (e.g. Battle Skills (+1 melee) is fine for those that already have it; Necromancer's direct poison damage ability is OK; Druid's vines and stuck abilities might be enough since it indirectly assists damaging creatures by hindering/pinning them down; Johktari Beastmaster needs a built-in quick-spell with range 0-1 called "Hunting Darts" that costs 1 mana that deals 2 dice + chance to Bleed (further enhanced by her +1 ranged bonus) possibly replacing her built-in basic melee attack - which is about equivalent to the Wizard's Arcane Zap, since it could be used twice per round (quick-cast and regular action), just like the Wizard; I can understand why they might have decided not to give the Forcemaster the Battle Skills +1 melee (more incentive to cast Galvitar), but she could either use it or perhaps a "force choke" quick-spell costing 1 that deals 1 direct Psychic damage (useful when your Galvitar attack comes up 1 short of a kill and you need that extra 1 damage to finish off the target); something similar for any mage I might have missed (Priest/Priestess?)).
- Give each mage a broken mage-type-only Familiar or Spawnpoint on the power level of Wizard's Tower; e.g. cheap in mana and point cost, non-Epic, non-Zone Exclusive, doesn't cost an action to use, has built-in channeling, can bind spells (e.g. doesn't use them up - maybe gets creature from outside your spell book (token creatures?)) and can switch out its spell for free, etc, etc.
I think that's about it. Feel free to add anything I might have missed.
*edit*
On the idea of familiar/spawn points, what if Battle Forge were War Mage only? That would nerf all other equipment-heavy mages/builds. Forcemaster might need a similar equipment or enchantment spawn point (or training in War would be nice, instead of an elemental training). And Warlocks might cry foul and need something too (or realize that they're more about "burn" than "armor-up and go melee").
Net outcomes:
- Druid doesn't change much at all, only gaining full Water training. She even has a "broken" spawn point in Vine Tree, so she's totally good to go, and will benefit from higher level water spells as they become available in Siren expansion. Oh, and doesn't pay triple for Fire (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Necromancer gains Air training, but is otherwise unchanged. Oh, and doesn't pay triple for Holy (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Forcemaster either gains Battle Skill (+1 melee) or a Force Choke ability (similar to Necreomancer's poison ability but Psychic), and gains War training (and thus retains access to Battle Forge), but still pays triple for non-Mind creatures (eg no cheap access to War creatures).
- Warlords gain built-in Armor 2 and Channeling 10, and retain access to Battle Forge. Oh, and no longer pay triple for Arcane (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Priestess needs a built-in attack bonus of some kind. Perhaps when she attacks as her action, she may also quick-cast a holy spell (?). And elemental training (Water?). Oh, and no longer pays triple for Dark (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Priest needs a built-in defense or damage negation or healing/regen or something. And Channeling 10. And elemental training (Fire). Oh, and no longer pays triple for Dark (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Straywood Beastmaster gains a built-in damage negation or regen or something, and an elemental training (Air for Galador?) and Channeling of 10. Oh, and no longer pays triple for Fire (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Johktari Beastmaster gains a built-in 2-dice quickcast attack spell with chance to bleed, and Channeling of 10, and some sort of damage negation, and elemental training (Earth?). Oh, and no longer pays triple for Fire (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Arraxian Crown Warlock gains a damage reflection ability and Channeling of 10. Oh, and no longer pays triple for Holy (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Adramelech Warlock gets a direct damage transfer ability andChanneling of 10. Oh, and no longer pays triple for Holy (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
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Another way to look at it:
Let's assume that the Wizard isn't overpowered. What would it take to make each of the perceived underpowered mages as good as the Wizard?
- Give the each a channeling of 10 (except perhaps the Druid since treebond accomplishes this).
- Remove triple-cost schools (personally I think this would be a terrible idea as it would make even less distinction between mage types, as all mages would become "jacks of all trades" - but this is simply demonstrating an alternative to nerfing the Wizard).
- Give each mage full training in a primary school and either an elemental school (e.g. Warlocks and Warlords are fine; Beastmasters and Priest(esse)s and Necromancer (Air for poison clouds!!) need an element; Druid needs full Water training) or another primary school (presumably the Paladin will be Holy/War; Sorcerer might be Arcane/Dark; Forcemaster would like to be Mind/War - see spawn point discussion below; etc).
- Give each mage an intrinsic way to negate damage or heal or gain life or other some defensive ability (e.g. Forcemaster, Druid and Priestess already have this and are probably OK; perhaps one Warlock could have a "reflect damage" ability that, once per round at a cost of 1 mana, when suffering damage from an attack transfers 1 damage to the attacking enemy non-mage creature (similar to a damage barrier but also reduces the damage taken in that attack); The other warlock could, for a quick-spell costing 1 mana, transfer 1 damage from itself to a target enemy non-mage creature at range 0-2; Warlords could have built-in armor value of 2; Malakai Priest and both Beastmasters need something similar that's thematically relevant; Necromancer has built-in poison immunity, which might be enough (?)).
- Give each mage a built-in attack enhancement (e.g. Battle Skills (+1 melee) is fine for those that already have it; Necromancer's direct poison damage ability is OK; Druid's vines and stuck abilities might be enough since it indirectly assists damaging creatures by hindering/pinning them down; Johktari Beastmaster needs a built-in quick-spell with range 0-1 called "Hunting Darts" that costs 1 mana that deals 2 dice + chance to Bleed (further enhanced by her +1 ranged bonus) possibly replacing her built-in basic melee attack - which is about equivalent to the Wizard's Arcane Zap, since it could be used twice per round (quick-cast and regular action), just like the Wizard; I can understand why they might have decided not to give the Forcemaster the Battle Skills +1 melee (more incentive to cast Galvitar), but she could either use it or perhaps a "force choke" quick-spell costing 1 that deals 1 direct Psychic damage (useful when your Galvitar attack comes up 1 short of a kill and you need that extra 1 damage to finish off the target); something similar for any mage I might have missed (Priest/Priestess?)).
- Give each mage a broken mage-type-only Familiar or Spawnpoint on the power level of Wizard's Tower; e.g. cheap in mana and point cost, non-Epic, non-Zone Exclusive, doesn't cost an action to use, has built-in channeling, can bind spells (e.g. doesn't use them up - maybe gets creature from outside your spell book (token creatures?)) and can switch out its spell for free, etc, etc.
I think that's about it. Feel free to add anything I might have missed.
*edit*
On the idea of familiar/spawn points, what if Battle Forge were War Mage only? That would nerf all other equipment-heavy mages/builds. Forcemaster might need a similar equipment or enchantment spawn point (or training in War would be nice, instead of an elemental training). And Warlocks might cry foul and need something too (or realize that they're more about "burn" than "armor-up and go melee").
Net outcomes:
- Druid doesn't change much at all, only gaining full Water training. She even has a "broken" spawn point in Vine Tree, so she's totally good to go, and will benefit from higher level water spells as they become available in Siren expansion. Oh, and doesn't pay triple for Fire (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Necromancer gains Air training, but is otherwise unchanged. Oh, and doesn't pay triple for Holy (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Forcemaster either gains Battle Skill (+1 melee) or a Force Choke ability (similar to Necreomancer's poison ability but Psychic), and gains War training (and thus retains access to Battle Forge), but still pays triple for non-Mind creatures (eg no cheap access to War creatures).
- Warlords gain built-in Armor 2 and Channeling 10, and retain access to Battle Forge. Oh, and no longer pay triple for Arcane (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Priestess needs a built-in attack bonus of some kind. Perhaps when she attacks as her action, she may also quick-cast a holy spell (?). And elemental training (Water?). Oh, and no longer pays triple for Dark (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Priest needs a built-in defense or damage negation or healing/regen or something. And Channeling 10. And elemental training (Fire). Oh, and no longer pays triple for Dark (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Straywood Beastmaster gains a built-in damage negation or regen or something, and an elemental training (Air for Galador?) and Channeling of 10. Oh, and no longer pays triple for Fire (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Johktari Beastmaster gains a built-in 2-dice quickcast attack spell with chance to bleed, and Channeling of 10, and some sort of damage negation, and elemental training (Earth?). Oh, and no longer pays triple for Fire (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Arraxian Crown Warlock gains a damage reflection ability and Channeling of 10. Oh, and no longer pays triple for Holy (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
- Adramelech Warlock gets a direct damage transfer ability andChanneling of 10. Oh, and no longer pays triple for Holy (unless Wizard starts paying triple for something).
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All those tests you just proposed can come later. The first thing we need to do is to determine whether the wiz is OP or not, and if he is then by how much and when exactly he became that way. Now that I think of it, it probably would make sense to measure power level of any spell and ability in the game in terms of change in win-frequency per spellbook point.
The way the game was originally going to be, players would start with nothing but points and spend those points to make their spells and abilities before the fight. That was too complicated of course so Mage Wars instead became what we have today. But the principle still holds that everything can be worth spellbook points at least in theory.
Another way to say this is that, given a sufficiently large sample of players of approximately equal skill level (both at book-building and playing) playing a sufficiently large sample of games:
the wizard's power level is the number of spellbook points that must be added to a non-wizard in order to change his win-frequency in that matchup to approximately 50%.
This value can vary between matchups of course.
As for the issue of ensuring that skill levels of the participants are approximately equal, that could definitely be a weakness to such a study. But I don't think it's a fatal weakness. Usually the difference in player skill levels can be determined by how easy it is for the winning player to win against the losing player, or simply by doing some preliminary rounds to weed out the less skilled players from the study. Or just having a sufficiently large sample of players might suffice too.
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I'm not a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure you need a pretty big sample of matches if you really want to test this.
That said you could play 2x10 matches (which hopefully will take care of difference in player skill)
Hanma´s Wizard
Alexander West's Beastmaster
Tarkin 84´s Priestess
and piousflea´s Warlock all won an event.
So that would make an easy starting point for the 4 core set mages.
You might allow updates to the 3 non-wizard books and allow all current tourney legal cards. A lot of us assumes there's something wrong with Wizard Tower - but we might be wrong. I'm saying there's no reason to test core set first and then move forward if there's nothing wrong with the current card pool.
You also need to find a number that confirms the hypotheses: "Wizard is OP".
Id say superman would win at least 90% of all matches vs. ordinary men, but you might settle for 8-2 or 7-3.
Nobody is disagreeing with Wizard is the strongest or one of the strongest mages I'm assuming?
It might still show something's "wrong" if players A beats player B 7-3 with Wizard vs. lets say Beastmaster and when the roles are switch the result would be 5-5.
Playing a large number of matches like that will most likely take lace at OTCGN and then it won´t show much about live tourney mages with the 75 minutes timelimit.
You can sign me up for playing at least 20 matches in a study like this, but it is a lot of time so it might not be easy to get enough people for something like this.
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I'm not a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure you need a pretty big sample of matches if you really want to test this.
That said you could play 2x10 matches (which hopefully will take care of difference in player skill)
Hanma´s Wizard
Alexander West's Beastmaster
Tarkin 84´s Priestess
and piousflea´s Warlock all won an event.
So that would make an easy starting point for the 4 core set mages.
You might allow updates to the 3 non-wizard books and allow all current tourney legal cards. A lot of us assumes there's something wrong with Wizard Tower - but we might be wrong. I'm saying there's no reason to test core set first and then move forward if there's nothing wrong with the current card pool.
You also need to find a number that confirms the hypotheses: "Wizard is OP".
Id say superman would win at least 90% of all matches vs. ordinary men, but you might settle for 8-2 or 7-3.
Nobody is disagreeing with Wizard is the strongest or one of the strongest mages I'm assuming?
It might still show something's "wrong" if players A beats player B 7-3 with Wizard vs. lets say Beastmaster and when the roles are switch the result would be 5-5.
Playing a large number of matches like that will most likely take lace at OTCGN and then it won´t show much about live tourney mages with the 75 minutes timelimit.
You can sign me up for playing at least 20 matches in a study like this, but it is a lot of time so it might not be easy to get enough people for something like this.
I kinda figured that the wizard being overpowered could be determined by whether his power level is an outlier or not compared to the other mages.
You think 20 games per participant, each one gets assigned to be a wizard or a non-wizard?
Yeah. To be honest I'm not entirely sure exactly how big it needs to be. Maybe 30 times the number of non-wizard arena mages? So like 360 games?
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To put things in perspective, there's a game that's become rather infamous for a balance issue.
A Few Acres of Snow is a war game by Martin Wallace that uses a deck building mechanic. It's an assymmetric game where the English battle the French for control of North America. A prominent member of the board gaming community, the late Tim Seitz (aka "out4blood") determined that the game was broken. He proposed that if the British performed a strategy he named the "Halifax Hammer" and executed this strategy flawlessly, that the British would always win. He described and demonstrated the strategy a few dozen times, but the designer refused to admit that the game was broken, claiming the strategy was not infallible and that the French had options that could win. Tim believed otherwise, and went on to prove that the English could always win by going undefeated as the English after several hundred online plays against the (next) best players from all over the world. After about a year of this, the designer conceded the fact that the game was indeed broken and that the English could always win if they executed this strategy perfectly. Some rules were errratad and some cards were removed from the starting decks to prevent this strategy from being infallible, but the damage was done. The game got a lot of negative attention for being "broken".
What's less well known is that, even after publishing this strategy, Tim had a 100% win rate as the English but also had something like a 90% win rate as the French, even against players who tried to execute the Halifax Hammer strategy (but were unable to do it perfectly). A superior player could generally win even when taking the "inferior" side, even against someone trying to use the "broken" strategy.
It's similar to Go and Chess. The player who goes first in either of those games has an advantage over the player who goes second. Elite players at these games will add a disadvantage to the player going first (or advantage to the player going second) to account for this imbalance. However, it only matters at the extreme Elite level, as generally a superior player will win regardless of who goes first. But inherently, the game is imbalanced favouring the player who goes first.
So we're back to Mage Wars, where there's enough luck and plenty of deck building variety and counters to make it difficult to prove that one Mage is significantly better than others. A superior player with a well-built book will generally defeat an inferior player with a similarly strong book, or a similarly skilled player with a poorer book. But that doesn't mean that there isn't an inherent advantage to playing the Wizard (or inherent disadvantage to playing another Mage).
We could run a big experiment to prove through simulation and statistics that the Wizard is overpowered (or not), but it would take a large sample size to show that it's significant (like Tim Seitz did for A Few Acres of Snow). Or you can look at the problem analytically and see that the Wizard has superior training (Arcane + Element and no triple cost), superior stats (eg 10 channeling), and superior abilities (built-in damage negation; built-in powerful ranged attack; no conditional abilities) as I've already done.
Yet another way to look at it:
Let's strip all mages of their abilities and just look at stats: those with 10 channeling are at an obvious advantage over those with 9, even accounting for differences in life total.
Then let's strip all mages of abilities and stats and look at training: those with 2 schools are at an advantage over those with 1 - and having no triple school penalty puts the Wizard above all others. And anyone who suggests that Training in Arcane isn't superior to training in any other single primary school is delusional or simply playing devils advocate.
Then let's strip all mages of stats and training (eg everyone pays double for everything; same life and channeling) and look at Mage abilities. Having a way to reduce damage / regen / life gain is ALWAYS useful in a game about killing the other Mage. Having an ability that increases damage dealt or grants another way to deal damage to the other Mage is almost always useful (unless you exclusively use other creatures/spells to deal damage). Conditional abilities that require another creature with a specific subtype is less useful but might be OK - unless it only does something under very specific circumstances (like "Holy Avenger" which is ridiculous; and Wounded Prey doesn't work against the opposing Mage so is completely useless against a solo Mage) in which case it's very weak.
The Wizard is the only Mage that has (1) best stats (channels 10) AND (2) double training AND (3) (a) damage negation ability with no drawbacks or conditions AND (3) (b) attack enhancement ability (Arcane Zap is at least as good as Battle Skill) with no drawbacks or conditions, which can be used for both/either main action and/or quickcast (!). Druid is close (partial training in second school; gets Channeling 10 and built-in Regen as long as her tree is around and barring Deathlock/Poisoned Blood; has Vine markers to mess with the opponent, which is like an indirect damage enhancement through spell range and hindering of non-flying enemies). But the Wizard also gets training in the most important school for toolbox spells (Teleport, Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Nullify, Jinx, Mordok's Obelisk, Harmonize/Mana Crystal/Amulets, Purge Magic, Mage Wand) and no triple cost school so he can have unlimited options for the most diverse selection of tools (holy healing, dark curses, mind incantations, nature enchantments, war equipment, fire/water/earth/air utility and attack spells... the best of all schools!). And he also gets some of the best spawn points and familiars (including Wizard's Tower) - but his advantages go way beyond any single card. You can see that analytically; no need for simulations and statistics.
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To put things in perspective, there's a game that's become rather infamous for a balance issue.
A Few Acres of Snow is a war game by Martin Wallace that uses a deck building mechanic. It's an assymmetric game where the English battle the French for control of North America. A prominent member of the board gaming community, the late Tim Seitz (aka "out4blood") determined that the game was broken. He proposed that if the British performed a strategy he named the "Halifax Hammer" and executed this strategy flawlessly, that the British would always win. He described and demonstrated the strategy a few dozen times, but the designer refused to admit that the game was broken, claiming the strategy was not infallible and that the French had options that could win. Tim believed otherwise, and went on to prove that the English could always win by going undefeated as the English after several hundred online plays against the (next) best players from all over the world. After about a year of this, the designer conceded the fact that the game was indeed broken and that the English could always win if they executed this strategy perfectly. Some rules were errratad and some cards were removed from the starting decks to prevent this strategy from being infallible, but the damage was done. The game got a lot of negative attention for being "broken".
What's less well known is that, even after publishing this strategy, Tim had a 100% win rate as the English but also had something like a 90% win rate as the French, even against players who tried to execute the Halifax Hammer strategy (but were unable to do it perfectly). A superior player could generally win even when taking the "inferior" side, even against someone trying to use the "broken" strategy.
It's similar to Go and Chess. The player who goes first in either of those games has an advantage over the player who goes second. Elite players at these games will add a disadvantage to the player going first (or advantage to the player going second) to account for this imbalance. However, it only matters at the extreme Elite level, as generally a superior player will win regardless of who goes first. But inherently, the game is imbalanced favouring the player who goes first.
So we're back to Mage Wars, where there's enough luck and plenty of deck building variety and counters to make it difficult to prove that one Mage is significantly better than others. A superior player with a well-built book will generally defeat an inferior player with a similarly strong book, or a similarly skilled player with a poorer book. But that doesn't mean that there isn't an inherent advantage to playing the Wizard (or inherent disadvantage to playing another Mage).
We could run a big experiment to prove through simulation and statistics that the Wizard is overpowered (or not), but it would take a large sample size to show that it's significant (like Tim Seitz did for A Few Acres of Snow). Or you can look at the problem analytically and see that the Wizard has superior training (Arcane + Element and no triple cost), superior stats (eg 10 channeling), and superior abilities (built-in damage negation; built-in powerful ranged attack; no conditional abilities) as I've already done.
Yet another way to look at it:
Let's strip all mages of their abilities and just look at stats: those with 10 channeling are at an obvious advantage over those with 9, even accounting for differences in life total.
Then let's strip all mages of abilities and stats and look at training: those with 2 schools are at an advantage over those with 1 - and having no triple school penalty puts the Wizard above all others. And anyone who suggests that Training in Arcane isn't superior to training in any other single primary school is delusional or simply playing devils advocate.
Then let's strip all mages of stats and training (eg everyone pays double for everything; same life and channeling) and look at Mage abilities. Having a way to reduce damage / regen / life gain is ALWAYS useful in a game about killing the other Mage. Having an ability that increases damage dealt or grants another way to deal damage to the other Mage is almost always useful (unless you exclusively use other creatures/spells to deal damage). Conditional abilities that require another creature with a specific subtype is less useful but might be OK - unless it only does something under very specific circumstances (like "Holy Avenger" which is ridiculous; and Wounded Prey doesn't work against the opposing Mage so is completely useless against a solo Mage) in which case it's very weak.
The Wizard is the only Mage that has (1) best stats (channels 10) AND (2) double training AND (3) (a) damage negation ability with no drawbacks or conditions AND (3) (b) attack enhancement ability (Arcane Zap is at least as good as Battle Skill) with no drawbacks or conditions, which can be used for both/either main action and/or quickcast (!). Druid is close (partial training in second school; gets Channeling 10 and built-in Regen as long as her tree is around and barring Deathlock/Poisoned Blood; has Vine markers to mess with the opponent, which is like an indirect damage enhancement through spell range and hindering of non-flying enemies). But the Wizard also gets training in the most important school for toolbox spells (Teleport, Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Nullify, Jinx, Mordok's Obelisk, Harmonize/Mana Crystal/Amulets, Purge Magic, Mage Wand) and no triple cost school so he can have unlimited options for the most diverse selection of tools (holy healing, dark curses, mind incantations, nature enchantments, war equipment, fire/water/earth/air utility and attack spells... the best of all schools!). And he also gets some of the best spawn points and familiars (including Wizard's Tower) - but his advantages go way beyond any single card. You can see that analytically; no need for simulations and statistics.
That sounds a bit like Aristotelian-style deduction. Pure probabilistic reasoning from
priors can only take you so far. If we don't get enough actual, you know, evidence that can be observed rather than just theorized, then this debate will never be resolved.
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
It's not just to prove a point. I actually am not entirely certain whether the wizard is still OP or not and would like to know. And you mean to tell me that playing 20+ games of Mage Wars isn't fun?
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
It's not just to prove a point. I actually am not entirely certain whether the wizard is still OP or not and would like to know. And you mean to tell me that playing 20+ games of Mage Wars isn't fun?
So it's about proving the obvious that is obviously hard to prove ;)
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
It's not just to prove a point. I actually am not entirely certain whether the wizard is still OP or not and would like to know. And you mean to tell me that playing 20+ games of Mage Wars isn't fun?
So it's about proving the obvious that is obviously hard to prove ;)
No it's really not. My current best hypothesis is that the wizard is overpowered and that his tower is the sole cause, but I'd only give that maybe a 60-65% probability and it's based only on my own experience/intuition and the opinions of other competitive Arena players, plus a little bit of background knowledge. That's not the same as being "obvious". And if it were obvious there wouldn't be so much disagreement about it.
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
And certainly didn't seem fun when Tim Seitz did it to prove that A Few Acres of Snow was broken.
Hmm....
One last try at convincing people with an analytical argument:
Consider playing a Mage Wars format where every mage has 0 sbp (e.g. no spell book at all). The Wizard is obviously superior in this play mode because all other mages can only make 1 melee attack per round, whereas the Wizard can either perform melee + Arcane Zap, or 2x Arcane Zap. Also, only the Wizard and the Forcemaster get to negate damage; the Wizard negates 3 damage per turn, which is about the expected value of most mage's lone melee attack, while the Forcemaster has a 50% chance to dodge 1 attack - but against the Wizard, even if the Forcemaster is extremely lucky and rolls a 7+ every time, that's only canceling 1 of the Wizard's 2 attacks per round, so the Wizard even wins that match-up. In fact, the Wizard can try to stay a zone away from his opponent for the entire match, whereas ALL other mages have to be in the opponent's zone in order to attack at all. So, in such a format, the Wizard would easily be the best mage hands-down. (Please feel free to dispute this, but 2 attacks > 1 attack and canceling 3 damage > canceling 0 damage, so... pretty obvious, right?)
Now consider a format where every mage gets only an Elemental Wand with an attack spell bound to it that is a FULL action attack that rolls 5 dice of damage with range 0-1 that costs (a) 10 mana, (b) 9 mana or (c) 8 mana. Also, lets shrink the Arena to 3 zones because otherwise it's to the Wizard's advantage (as you'll see).
- (a) Only the mages with Channeling = 10 can cast their attack spell every turn. That means the Necromancer, Priestess, Wizard and Forcemaster are the only Mages you'd want to use in such a format, as all other mages have to alternate between their attack spell and melee attack. Otherwise it's pretty even assuming every mage gets a chance to attack every round (e.g. at least 1 mage is in the middle of the 3 zones) ... but if there's a round where the mages don't attack each other (e.g. they're at range 2 of each other), then the Wizard can bank mana to use both his attack spell AND Voltaric Shield ability AND Arcane Zap (as quick-cast) for the next 5 rounds - so the other player had better make sure that never happens! (The Forcemaster could charge his Shield, but still can't get 2 attacks in a round).
- (b) While all the mages summon at least 9 and thus can cast their spell every round, both the Wizard and Forcemaster are superior here, because they can each use a defense/damage reduction for 1 mana each turn to negate a lot of that damage. Moreover, the Wizard can both cast their attack spell PLUS use Arcane Zap as a quick-cast if desired! Again, the Wizard is the only mage that can attack twice in a round, and one of only 2 that can negate damage.
- (c) Here, the Wizard can cast his spell AND power his Voltaric Shield AND quick-cast Arcane Zap, so this is the ideal situation for the Wizard. No other mage comes close. Wizard wins easily.
OK, now let's add spell books, because surely that's a more fair format. Let's omit any "mage type only" spells to make it simpler (because otherwise it's more of an argument about which spells are best, not which mages are best) and omit "Novice" spells 'cause they're a wash anyway. Things should be fair now, right?! ... Except - as people point out time and time again - the Wizard can *usually* build the same spell book cheaper than any other mage (unless the other mage makes tremendous effort to stick with in-school spells). That's because he pays single for 2 schools and never pays triple. If you want to build a book that uses at least a few spells from every school, the Wizard could probably build it cheaper. There are exceptions: it's not hard to intentionally build a build a book with level 1 of, say, 1 each of out-of-school spells and spend everything else on non-elemental in-school spells - e.g. a Necromancer building a nearly all-Dark book with no elemental spells at all - and the Wizard would pay more for the same book... But pretty much all competitive players will agree that you need at least a few of each of Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Teleport, Dissolve, Nullify, Force Push, perhaps Jinx, ... maybe Surging Wave (for dealing with Guards and Battle Forge) and maybe Flame Blast (for testing for Block/Reverse Attack) and probably Acid Ball (because armor)... so by the time you've built your basic toolbox that nearly every mage uses, the Wizard's discount is HUGE!
So we've shown that without a spell book, the Wizard dominates. And the Wizard is generally better at book building ("can do it cheaper" or can include more spells after the standard toolbox) than any other mage as well. What's left? Mage-type-only spells? Wizard is pretty solid in that respect too. About the only thing the Wizard isn't best at is action economy compared to a Swarm (like Beastmaster or Necromancer) - but Wizard's Tower and Gate to Voltarii and Huginn all help with that if the Wizard felt action-starved. That said, you rarely see either of the Gate or Huginn because they aren't usually necessary; the Wizard can win without them.
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
And certainly didn't seem fun when Tim Seitz did it to prove that A Few Acres of Snow was broken.
Hmm....
One last try at convincing people with an analytical argument:
Consider playing a Mage Wars format where every mage has 0 sbp (e.g. no spell book at all). The Wizard is obviously superior in this play mode because all other mages can only make 1 melee attack per round, whereas the Wizard can either perform melee + Arcane Zap, or 2x Arcane Zap. Also, only the Wizard and the Forcemaster get to negate damage; the Wizard negates 3 damage per turn, which is about the expected value of most mage's lone melee attack, while the Forcemaster has a 50% chance to dodge 1 attack - but against the Wizard, even if the Forcemaster is extremely lucky and rolls a 7+ every time, that's only canceling 1 of the Wizard's 2 attacks per round, so the Wizard even wins that match-up. In fact, the Wizard can try to stay a zone away from his opponent for the entire match, whereas ALL other mages have to be in the opponent's zone in order to attack at all. So, in such a format, the Wizard would easily be the best mage hands-down. (Please feel free to dispute this, but 2 attacks > 1 attack and canceling 3 damage > canceling 0 damage, so... pretty obvious, right?)
Now consider a format where every mage gets only an Elemental Wand with an attack spell bound to it that is a FULL action attack that rolls 5 dice of damage with range 0-1 that costs (a) 10 mana, (b) 9 mana or (c) 8 mana. Also, lets shrink the Arena to 3 zones because otherwise it's to the Wizard's advantage (as you'll see).
- (a) Only the mages with Channeling = 10 can cast their attack spell every turn. That means the Necromancer, Priestess, Wizard and Forcemaster are the only Mages you'd want to use in such a format, as all other mages have to alternate between their attack spell and melee attack. Otherwise it's pretty even assuming every mage gets a chance to attack every round (e.g. at least 1 mage is in the middle of the 3 zones) ... but if there's a round where the mages don't attack each other (e.g. they're at range 2 of each other), then the Wizard can bank mana to use both his attack spell AND Voltaric Shield ability AND Arcane Zap (as quick-cast) for the next 5 rounds - so the other player had better make sure that never happens! (The Forcemaster could charge his Shield, but still can't get 2 attacks in a round).
- (b) While all the mages summon at least 9 and thus can cast their spell every round, both the Wizard and Forcemaster are superior here, because they can each use a defense/damage reduction for 1 mana each turn to negate a lot of that damage. Moreover, the Wizard can both cast their attack spell PLUS use Arcane Zap as a quick-cast if desired! Again, the Wizard is the only mage that can attack twice in a round, and one of only 2 that can negate damage.
- (c) Here, the Wizard can cast his spell AND power his Voltaric Shield AND quick-cast Arcane Zap, so this is the ideal situation for the Wizard. No other mage comes close. Wizard wins easily.
OK, now let's add spell books, because surely that's a more fair format. Let's omit any "mage type only" spells to make it simpler (because otherwise it's more of an argument about which spells are best, not which mages are best) and omit "Novice" spells 'cause they're a wash anyway. Things should be fair now, right?! ... Except - as people point out time and time again - the Wizard can *usually* build the same spell book cheaper than any other mage (unless the other mage makes tremendous effort to stick with in-school spells). That's because he pays single for 2 schools and never pays triple. If you want to build a book that uses at least a few spells from every school, the Wizard could probably build it cheaper. There are exceptions: it's not hard to intentionally build a build a book with level 1 of, say, 1 each of out-of-school spells and spend everything else on non-elemental in-school spells - e.g. a Necromancer building a nearly all-Dark book with no elemental spells at all - and the Wizard would pay more for the same book... But pretty much all competitive players will agree that you need at least a few of each of Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Teleport, Dissolve, Nullify, Force Push, perhaps Jinx, ... maybe Surging Wave (for dealing with Guards and Battle Forge) and maybe Flame Blast (for testing for Block/Reverse Attack) and probably Acid Ball (because armor)... so by the time you've built your basic toolbox that nearly every mage uses, the Wizard's discount is HUGE!
So we've shown that without a spell book, the Wizard dominates. And the Wizard is generally better at book building ("can do it cheaper" or can include more spells after the standard toolbox) than any other mage as well. What's left? Mage-type-only spells? Wizard is pretty solid in that respect too. About the only thing the Wizard isn't best at is action economy compared to a Swarm (like Beastmaster or Necromancer) - but Wizard's Tower and Gate to Voltarii and Huginn all help with that if the Wizard felt action-starved. That said, you rarely see either of the Gate or Huginn because they aren't usually necessary; the Wizard can win without them.
Your method is flawed right from the beginning. You let the wizard keep one of his abilities, the arcane zap for the sake of your argument. Why doesn't the Forcemaster keep force pull then? Or the priestess keep restore? You do know those are all spells that are on the mages' ability cards, two of which can be used on themselves. There's more to Mage Wars than offense. Defense also plays an important role. Why include arcane zap in the first step at all? Why evaluate how good a Mage is purely on the number of attacks they can make per round? That doesn't make sense.
To be frank, conclusions need to be drawn from premises, not the other way around. No matter what sort of good sounding arguments you make, when you state your conclusions about whether the wizard is overpowered or not, he already is or is not overpowered. You could write down the conclusion "and therefore the moon is made of cheese!" and then cleverly justify the claim after the fact. But the moment you wrote down "the moon is made of cheese", the moon already was or was not made of cheese regardless of what you said.
So...
1. If you think that arcane zap is overpowered, and
2. because you think it is overpowered you decide to keep it in the first step of your thought experiment in order to
3. show how overpowered it is compared to the other mages who have been stripped of ALL their Mage abilities and
4. you think this comparison proves that the wizard is stronger than those other mages even when they DO have their Mage abilities, because
5. the arcane zap is much more powerful than those other mages' abilities and therefore the comparison between the wizard with only arcane zap and basic Melee and the other mages with only basic melee must be valid enough
Then you've just done some pretty circular reasoning. To summarize, you seem to be saying that arcane zap is overpowered because when the other mages are stripped of all their abilities except for basic melee, and the wizard is stripped of all his abilities except for basic melee AND arcane zap, the wizard wins. And you've set up the thought experiment this way because you think it's so inherently obvious that the wizard is overpowered because of Arcane Zap.
No offense, I'm sure you meant well, but maybe you should consider the possibility that maybe even if something seems obviously true to you it might not be true, and if something seems obviously true to someone else it also might not be. People aren't necessarily disagreeing with you because they're stupid or not thinking it through. They're disagreeing because it's really not as obvious as it seems to be to you.
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2 advantages:
the wizzard beeing op is a cool forum subject.
people thinking the wizzard is op is a good way to know what they will play.
and 1 sollution:
we think the tower is op (and boring) so we banished it from our games, not beeing sure that we are right!
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2 advantages:
the wizzard beeing op is a cool forum subject.
people thinking the wizzard is op is a good way to know what they will play.
and 1 sollution:
we think the tower is op (and boring) so we banished it from our games, not beeing sure that we are right!
Except if the tower wasn't overpowered than you would have banned a good card for nothing. It's all well and good if you only take this approach once. But what if more cards get accused of being overpowered? Are you going to ban them all too?
Although if you get lucky and this solution does actually fix the wizard completely, then that probably would save us a lot of time. Did you record the win ratios before and after you guys banned the tower?
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2 advantages:
the wizzard beeing op is a cool forum subject.
people thinking the wizzard is op is a good way to know what they will play.
and 1 sollution:
we think the tower is op (and boring) so we banished it from our games, not beeing sure that we are right!
Except if the tower wasn't overpowered than you would have banned a good card for nothing. It's all well and good if you only take this approach once. But what if more cards get accused of being overpowered? Are you going to ban them all too?
Although if you get lucky and this solution does actually fix the wizard completely, then that probably would save us a lot of time. Did you record the win ratios before and after you guys banned the tower?
no reccording, and we don't play enough to have statistically valuable numbers!
but the sensation is good and, since we are not play testers, that's what we are looking for!
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Going to one of the points made, the Forcemaster's Force Pull and Priestess's Restore have no effect on the simple hypothesis he was testing. In a 1 zone arena, the Wizard can attack twice per round, no one else can. And there's no conditions being place by anyone's base attack so, the restore is useless. What this proves is that in a head to head slugfest, the Wizard is throwing 6 dice every round AND has an innate ability to block 3 damage every round for a combined 3 mana. Yes it costs him a bit while the other mages don't have to spend mana except the Forcemaster dodge ability. While other mages at most throw 4 dice and have 0 defensive ability or in the Forcemaster's case throws 3 dice and 50% of the time can avoid 1 attack.
Inherently, therefore, a Wizard is better at a straight fight. And then as I think it's been said and at least opinionated by enough people, it is a lot easier to build a wide-ranging book of strategies as a Wizard compared to all other mages. To me, one of the biggest problems I see at the moment is that a Wizard can spend 100-120 points of their spellbook to create their own strategy and play that way. Most other mages can only spend 80-100 of their points on their own strategy and 10-20 points HAVE to be put in the book specifically to stop certain Wizard strategies. Other points need to be used to stop other aspects, but the Wizard defense alone is really hampering the ability to run your own specific strategies you might want to use that would make the game fun for you.
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Your method is flawed right from the beginning. You let the wizard keep one of his abilities, the arcane zap for the sake of your argument. Why doesn't the Forcemaster keep force pull then? Or the priestess keep restore? You do know those are all spells that are on the mages' ability cards, two of which can be used on themselves. There's more to Mage Wars than offense. Defense also plays an important role. Why include arcane zap in the first step at all? Why evaluate how good a Mage is purely on the number of attacks they can make per round? That doesn't make sense.
I think you misread my post. Look again. All mages keep all their abilities in my made-up formats. The problem is that all other mage abilities require something to trigger them. Priestess can have her restore ability, but it doesn't do anything if she doesn't have any Holy spells. Druid can have her treebond, but it doesn't do anything (e.g. no channeling +1 and lifebond +2) if she doesn't have a tree. Forcemaster can user her Force Pull, but how is it an advantage when all she can then do is basic 3-dice melee attack (and Wizard gets 2 attacks)? That's my whole point (and the main reason the Wizard's mage abilities are stronger than all the other mages' mage abilities. That's what I've been saying all along in different ways. In a format where all your mage can do is use what's on its ability card, then the Wizard triumphs easily. Add spell book points and you're only giving the Wizard another advantage, since the Wizard dominates at that, too (e.g. spends sbp's more efficiently than any other mage). No matter what you look at (aside from perhaps action efficiency), the Wizard does it better. That's the definition of imbalanced (aka overpowered).
To be frank, conclusions need to be drawn from premises, not the other way around. No matter what sort of good sounding arguments you make, when you state your conclusions about whether the wizard is overpowered or not, he already is or is not overpowered. You could write down the conclusion "and therefore the moon is made of cheese!" and then cleverly justify the claim after the fact. But the moment you wrote down "the moon is made of cheese", the moon already was or was not made of cheese regardless of what you said.
I'm not starting with the premise that the Wizard is overpowered (although that would make a fine hypothesis to prove or disprove). Have you wondered why people "assume" the Wizard is overpowered? Do you think it might come from personal experience whereby players have found that playing against - or even as - the Wizard seems unfair? Have you ever noticed that building spell books seems particularly easy as the Wizard because you can include more of everything (e.g. counters and threats)? Have you ever noticed that the Wizard tends not to run out of options as quickly as other mages in "war of attrition" matches? Or that the Wizard can become nearly unhittable by armouring up and using Voltaric Shield, and has more (e.g. more sbp to spend on) ways to protect said armour? These are the pieces of evidence collected over many matches and match reports that often lead people to wonder "Is the Wizard overpowered?" and "If so, what makes the Wizard overpowered?" And then you can form a hypothesis and compare mages and make observations and even test them in both gedanken experiments and real-life play tests if you like. The problem is these things take considerable time. Do you think it's more useful to play hundreds of matches designed to test a hypothesis and in a few years determine if the Wizard is overpowered, or to make simple comparisons to each other mage and note the obvious imbalances?
So...
1. If you think that arcane zap is overpowered, and
2. because you think it is overpowered you decide to keep it in the first step of your thought experiment in order to
3. show how overpowered it is compared to the other mages who have been stripped of ALL their Mage abilities and
4. you think this comparison proves that the wizard is stronger than those other mages even when they DO have their Mage abilities, because
5. the arcane zap is much more powerful than those other mages' abilities and therefore the comparison between the wizard with only arcane zap and basic Melee and the other mages with only basic melee must be valid enough
Then you've just done some pretty circular reasoning. To summarize, you seem to be saying that arcane zap is overpowered because when the other mages are stripped of all their abilities except for basic melee, and the wizard is stripped of all his abilities except for basic melee AND arcane zap, the wizard wins. And you've set up the thought experiment this way because you think it's so inherently obvious that the wizard is overpowered because of Arcane Zap.
No offense, I'm sure you meant well, but maybe you should consider the possibility that maybe even if something seems obviously true to you it might not be true, and if something seems obviously true to someone else it also might not be. People aren't necessarily disagreeing with you because they're stupid or not thinking it through. They're disagreeing because it's really not as obvious as it seems to be to you.
This isn't true. Again, reread my post. You seem to have missed what I was saying. All the mages get all their abilities all the time. I suggested changing the format so no mages have spells, but they still have their abilities on their mage card. And in that case, both the Wizard's abilities are useful and few other mage abilities are useful (the Forcemaster's defense and several mages' +1 melee being the exceptions).
In a previous post a while ago, I suggested the opposite: If they don't already have it, give each other mage additional abilities that are comparable to the Wizard's; e.g. 10 channeling and a damage enhancer and a damage negater that don't depend on having particular spells in play (perhaps with the exception of the Druid, since her tree is part of her, so to speak). Then they might all be balanced (with the Wizard keeping his spell book building abilities instead of gaining additional abilities like the Forcemaster's pull or the Beastmaster's pet or Warlock's reaper or Priest's avenger or Priestess's purify or Warlord's commands/vets/runes or J-beast's crappy Wounded Prey or Necromancer's reanimatable dude with piercing +1, etc).
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iNano78 makes a really solid case for proving the wizard is OP without spending tons and tons and tons of time trudging through forced game-play. When you look at his case, it's very well thought out and uses complete logic. Also, I would agree- this whole discussion is based on a hypothesis- which are often developed by anecdotal experience.
One of the first rules of philosophy is asking the question- what does the majority believe to be true about X? Granted, this isn't an empirical basis for finding truth, but it is a starting point. My point: In reading these threads, I haven't seen one person argue AGAINST the wizard being OP, yet most seem to agree that he is.
So maybe the solution in determining whether the Wizard is OP or not is as simple as what iNano78 proposes.
I for one think it is.
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I did miss something in my slugfest example: the Malakai Priests's Holy Fire ability is useful to him in a cardless match, and his "basic" attack can cause the Daze condition, so if he rolls above average, he has a chance to beat a Wizard in a melee duel. Of course, the Wizard can still hit him from a safe distance if played well, and average rolls on Burn markers and the effect die probably isn't enough for the Priest to overcome double-Zap + Voltaric Shield.
Similarly, the Adramelech Warlock can deal Burn tokens with her 1-die melee attack... but it would take ridiculously good luck for her and ridiculously bad luck for the Voltaric Shield / Arcane Zapping Wizard for her to win that battle. Her attack itself can never damage the Wizard, but if she always rolls 5+ on the effect die and nothing but 2's for the Burn tokens, she has a chance.
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In reading these threads, I haven't seen one person argue AGAINST the wizard being OP, yet most seem to agree that he is.
Biblo does on the first page, others have before in previous discussions. I'm in the camp that he's not OP, but I don't feel like rehashing the same discussion with the same logic presented from both sides for no reason. For now, I think a respectful agreement to disagree is how much of this community operates in regards to the wizard. :D
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In reading these threads, I haven't seen one person argue AGAINST the wizard being OP, yet most seem to agree that he is.
Biblo does on the first page, others have before in previous discussions. I'm in the camp that he's not OP, but I don't feel like rehashing the same discussion with the same logic presented from both sides for no reason. For now, I think a respectful agreement to disagree is how much of this community operates in regards to the wizard. :D
Unfortunately that probably isn't very sustainable in the long run. Either he is OP or he isn't. I for one don't like having to ask my opponent for permission every time I want to play a particular Mage.
And even if the wizard isn't overpowered, there still could be the problem of his natural, as-intended trickstery play style being usurped by the brute force style everyone has grown accustomed to from him. Unless Academy and Domination did something to fix that.
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If we don't get enough actual, you know, evidence that can be observed rather than just theorized, then this debate will never be resolved.
Personally, I wouldn't be convinced by any kind of anecdotal evidence or 'statistics'. To convince _me_ you'd _have to_ to come up with an analytical proof of some kind.
However, I already _believe_ that the Wizard has an advantage over all other Mages. Everything that one of the other Mages can do, a Wizard can do better. The only exception are things that aren't directly relevant to win a game.
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iNano78 has presented us some very well thought through analysis for the Wizard. He showed in different ways how the Wizards build-in powers (weapon+shield+channeling+bookbuilding) set him in a better starting position than every other mage. All points are clearly understandable and simple logic.
There are players that say wizard is fine. It would now be a good point to hear some very good points from this other side of the table. Can somebody counter iNano78's review in a comparable rationell thinking?
If he really has some disadvantages that set his advantages in perspective, then they should be easily written down.
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My feeling has always been that The Wizard is tricky because he doesn't have one single obvious advantage to say "that's the primary issue." When I look at the The Wizard what I see is a perfect storm of small overlapping advantages that just kind of add up to what I consider to be an over-effective mage:
A. Spell book construction- Before even looking at what the spells do, he has two important notes at this phase of the game:
1) He has no penalized school. This doesn't ALWAYS cause a major impact (Nature mages don't really suffer too hard from 3xfire. Necromancers non living forces don't mind his 3xholy), but it does come into play and particularly so at meta shifts. For example, whenever Frost comes out, there might suddenly be a very real need to have some burn spells on hand for that Defrost trait...suddenly the meta is a little harsher on those Nature mages than it currently is. Being the only mage who has no triple cost means he will always have a pretty good ability to evolve with future releases, he wont always be able to take maximum advantage but will never be the worst. When Necromancer came out, obviously the Warlock benefitted because of Dark training..Priestess benefitted the least from that due to Dark triple cost. Wizard stayed in the middle of the pack and always will at least be there because he doesn't have an unfavored school for a new set to put him in the "favored least" category.
2) that leads to his next spellbook advantage. He not only has a second full training (something some mages don't even get at all) but he gets to CHOOSE it. So, again, as the meta evolves and new cards come out the Wizard can evolve with it. If fire becomes the new thing, Warlocks benefit and Nature mages frown, but Wizards can opt in. If Earth suddenly sucks, Wizard can opt out of it and let Warlords bemoan it. Siren comes out.. Wizard can take a gander at her Water toys and see what hed like to borrow. Some mages have that ability (like Warlocks and Warlords) but its static, they cant swap it out for something more optimal at any point in the games life.
So, for all of the above he maintains 10 channel and while he doesn't have the highest health total he still has comparable health. Now, this is all just looking at a pure strength of spellbook design.. this isn't even factoring in that his core training is one of the most important schools, or the strength of his own restricted cards or even his own abilites. That's a totally different matter.
(Personally I have always felt Wizard should pay triple for Nature and War to offset his multi-faceted spellbook advantage. Nature because it seems thematically aproprate to put it opposite the Voltaric otherworldy flavored magic of Arcane school, and so that he has to pay more for things like creature buffs, tanglevines, grizzlies, wall of thorns, and so on. Then War because it makes him favor Arcane equipment like wands and elemental/supression cloak and discourages him from gearing up in heavy armor and morning stars and not favoring battlefield command style cards rather making him opt for more magical flavored schools like mind, dark and holy for support if not his chosen elemental. that's just my take on his training though)
B. Then there is his general action efficiency advantage. When preparing spells, you generally want to have as many options available to you as possible. You usually have 2 actions and 2 possible spells.. if your round is contengint on both, and one is botched sometimes it trainwrecks your entire round. Wizard has a pretty subtle and useful strength here:
1) Arcane Zap is easy to overlook, but the major advantage of it is that its effectively a third prepared spell every turn. If you think you "might" need to shoot something this round, you don't have to give up the Dispel or Teleport you wanted to prepare this turn just in case you need a hurl rock because you have Arcane Zap in your pocket. Did the opponent drop a Jinx on you or give himself a Block? You can just fire an Arcane Zap without wasting that prepared spell to open it up.
2) Voltaric Sheild is the same deal, if you want to cusion yourself defensivly there are good tools for it.. Block, Brace Yourself, etc. But those have to be prepared and cast, Voltaric Sheild lets you brace for damage without committing one of your prepared spells or spending actions to doing so. So the passive nature of these two abilities helps augment your options every turn while prepping spells that offer a broader options and more fluid strategies. This lets the Wizard be conservative with his spells, and always seem prepared for more options.
As mentioned before, this efficency exists on its own without factoring in his above spell building flexibility nor the strength of his tools and schools.
C) Then, there is the advantage any mage has simply by having access to the Arcane school. Setting aside the Wizard-only aspects or his secondary training, its a big deal to have premium access to all the core functions of this school. You save spell points from obvious things like Dispel, Nullify, and Jinx to other staples like Mana Crystals, Elemental Cloak, and Spell Wands. While most major schools have "must haves" Arcane seems to have the most important, and the ones that are most important to have in multiples. Not only that, the cards for combating the Arcane school are primarily contained... in the Arcane school. Denying/Draining mana, and sources of boosting/protecting mana are both arcane. Magic utility and Metamagic counters are both Arcane. So, when these core elements are used by all other mages an Arcane trained mage is in the best position to counter his opponent out without as much spellbook compromise. As previously stated.. regardless of the mage abilities and spellbook design perks.. this training is strong on its own. A mage with weak abilities would still have a good spellbook situation by having Arcane training.
D) The Wizard uniquely has some potent cards that are restricted just to him. Ignoring his mage card, ignoring his trainings, for example I think Gate to Voltari is the best spawnpoint in the game. Its durable, it triggers mana without requiring a gameable gimmick...you get mana by the opponent playing the game, and it summons creatures from a wide spread of strong options. Wizard Tower is one of the most flexible support cards a mage can run, even Huugin is a strong familiar. (Though other familiars like Gurmaash, Fellelia and Serseryx are also strong in their own contexts) So on top of being trained in a good school, the Wizard has some strong tools that would be potent regardless of his spellbook constraints.
That's all a pretty basic and general overview without going too hard in depth. Taken individually, none of those advantages are a smoking gun to say "this makes him broken!" nor are they individually without some degree of tit-for-tat against other mages. But they compile in a way that is hard to pinpoint the cleanest way to prescribe a clear picture of why the Wizard is so strong and how to easily tailor him down or to tailor other mages mages/schools up to close that gap.
That's just my general overview on why he seems stands out among other mages anyway.
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(http://i.imgur.com/1TGr3YS.jpg)
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Personally i think it's kind of odd (nothing wrong with it cuz i likely see why) that whenever we open up and start firing away at the wizard and the myriad of reasons why he collectively chaps the assess of mage wars players, that the official reps from arcane wonders never tend to pipe up. I mean we literally go off about this guy for pages upon pages and the only time we hear from laddinfance is when someone asks a specific rules question.
It makes me wonder if we are actively pissing off the creators when we talk like this. And just for the record im in the camp of the broken wizard as well. I think the most glaring problem is his lack of a triple cost school. That having been said i still wonder if Aaron is just behind his computer screen, face palming and drinking scotch because of our angry, cage rattling, crabby rants. Just a thought. But one again... wizard is at least unbalanced.
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My feeling has always been that The Wizard is tricky because he doesn't have one single obvious advantage to say "that's the primary issue." When I look at the The Wizard what I see is a perfect storm of small overlapping advantages that just kind of add up to what I consider to be an over-effective mage:
A. Spell book construction- Before even looking at what the spells do, he has two important notes at this phase of the game:
1) He has no penalized school. This doesn't ALWAYS cause a major impact (Nature mages don't really suffer too hard from 3xfire. Necromancers non living forces don't mind his 3xholy), but it does come into play and particularly so at meta shifts. For example, whenever Frost comes out, there might suddenly be a very real need to have some burn spells on hand for that Defrost trait...suddenly the meta is a little harsher on those Nature mages than it currently is. Being the only mage who has no triple cost means he will always have a pretty good ability to evolve with future releases, he wont always be able to take maximum advantage but will never be the worst. When Necromancer came out, obviously the Warlock benefitted because of Dark training..Priestess benefitted the least from that due to Dark triple cost. Wizard stayed in the middle of the pack and always will at least be there because he doesn't have an unfavored school for a new set to put him in the "favored least" category.
2) that leads to his next spellbook advantage. He not only has a second full training (something some mages don't even get at all) but he gets to CHOOSE it. So, again, as the meta evolves and new cards come out the Wizard can evolve with it. If fire becomes the new thing, Warlocks benefit and Nature mages frown, but Wizards can opt in. If Earth suddenly sucks, Wizard can opt out of it and let Warlords bemoan it. Siren comes out.. Wizard can take a gander at her Water toys and see what hed like to borrow. Some mages have that ability (like Warlocks and Warlords) but its static, they cant swap it out for something more optimal at any point in the games life.
So, for all of the above he maintains 10 channel and while he doesn't have the highest health total he still has comparable health. Now, this is all just looking at a pure strength of spellbook design.. this isn't even factoring in that his core training is one of the most important schools, or the strength of his own restricted cards or even his own abilites. That's a totally different matter.
(Personally I have always felt Wizard should pay triple for Nature and War to offset his multi-faceted spellbook advantage. Nature because it seems thematically aproprate to put it opposite the Voltaric otherworldy flavored magic of Arcane school, and so that he has to pay more for things like creature buffs, tanglevines, grizzlies, wall of thorns, and so on. Then War because it makes him favor Arcane equipment like wands and elemental/supression cloak and discourages him from gearing up in heavy armor and morning stars and not favoring battlefield command style cards rather making him opt for more magical flavored schools like mind, dark and holy for support if not his chosen elemental. that's just my take on his training though)
B. Then there is his general action efficiency advantage. When preparing spells, you generally want to have as many options available to you as possible. You usually have 2 actions and 2 possible spells.. if your round is contengint on both, and one is botched sometimes it trainwrecks your entire round. Wizard has a pretty subtle and useful strength here:
1) Arcane Zap is easy to overlook, but the major advantage of it is that its effectively a third prepared spell every turn. If you think you "might" need to shoot something this round, you don't have to give up the Dispel or Teleport you wanted to prepare this turn just in case you need a hurl rock because you have Arcane Zap in your pocket. Did the opponent drop a Jinx on you or give himself a Block? You can just fire an Arcane Zap without wasting that prepared spell to open it up.
2) Voltaric Sheild is the same deal, if you want to cusion yourself defensivly there are good tools for it.. Block, Brace Yourself, etc. But those have to be prepared and cast, Voltaric Sheild lets you brace for damage without committing one of your prepared spells or spending actions to doing so. So the passive nature of these two abilities helps augment your options every turn while prepping spells that offer a broader options and more fluid strategies. This lets the Wizard be conservative with his spells, and always seem prepared for more options.
As mentioned before, this efficency exists on its own without factoring in his above spell building flexibility nor the strength of his tools and schools.
C) Then, there is the advantage any mage has simply by having access to the Arcane school. Setting aside the Wizard-only aspects or his secondary training, its a big deal to have premium access to all the core functions of this school. You save spell points from obvious things like Dispel, Nullify, and Jinx to other staples like Mana Crystals, Elemental Cloak, and Spell Wands. While most major schools have "must haves" Arcane seems to have the most important, and the ones that are most important to have in multiples. Not only that, the cards for combating the Arcane school are primarily contained... in the Arcane school. Denying/Draining mana, and sources of boosting/protecting mana are both arcane. Magic utility and Metamagic counters are both Arcane. So, when these core elements are used by all other mages an Arcane trained mage is in the best position to counter his opponent out without as much spellbook compromise. As previously stated.. regardless of the mage abilities and spellbook design perks.. this training is strong on its own. A mage with weak abilities would still have a good spellbook situation by having Arcane training.
D) The Wizard uniquely has some potent cards that are restricted just to him. Ignoring his mage card, ignoring his trainings, for example I think Gate to Voltari is the best spawnpoint in the game. Its durable, it triggers mana without requiring a gameable gimmick...you get mana by the opponent playing the game, and it summons creatures from a wide spread of strong options. Wizard Tower is one of the most flexible support cards a mage can run, even Huugin is a strong familiar. (Though other familiars like Gurmaash, Fellelia and Serseryx are also strong in their own contexts) So on top of being trained in a good school, the Wizard has some strong tools that would be potent regardless of his spellbook constraints.
That's all a pretty basic and general overview without going too hard in depth. Taken individually, none of those advantages are a smoking gun to say "this makes him broken!" nor are they individually without some degree of tit-for-tat against other mages. But they compile in a way that is hard to pinpoint the cleanest way to prescribe a clear picture of why the Wizard is so strong and how to easily tailor him down or to tailor other mages mages/schools up to close that gap.
That's just my general overview on why he seems stands out among other mages anyway.
Okay, that was the simplest and most intuitive way that anyone's explained it to me so far. You've got me convinced. It's been pointed out to me that I was setting up my standard of evidence too high. I was underconfident and should not have dismissed all the evidence because it wasn't a controlled experimental trial. While such a method would help settle the argument more definitively, it isn't necessary for me to make up my mind. The Wizard is overpowered.
The question that I'm wondering now is this:
Has the wizard always been overpowered? The Frugal Fire Wizard seems to hold its own just fine without being OP in the current global meta or at least before Domination/Academy as far as I can tell, but then so do the other Core set x1 only mages I've made (although I'm not entirely sure how viable the beastmaster build is yet). So how much of the problem is the wizard's abilities and how much is the arcane school?
Paying triple for nature and war...hmm. I think part of the thematic dillemma here is that the wizard is presented as the "science/research mage", but science includes things like biology (study of life), neuroscience/psychology (study of the brain/mind), chemistry (the study of the elements)...
Ideally magical zoologists would tend to be beastmasters and magical botanists would tend to be druids. Ideally magical medical doctors would tend to be priestesses and magical pathologists would tend to be necromancers.
Of course, in this hypothetical scenario, the people who diagnose a disease (necromancers) are not the same as the people who treat the disease (priestesses). This probably makes sense in Etheria because this way no one has to be cut open in order to treat whatever is ailing someone. How does the priestess know where to direct her healing magics in a patient's body if she can't sense the disease or the internal wound? If it's an open external wound she has no problem, but if it's anything that you can't see without cutting someone open, you would need a necromancer.
And of course, the magical equivalent of neuroscientists and psychologists would tend to be forcemasters or other mages from the mind school.
Having arcane school be the "science" school doesn't really work, and only serves to justify imbalances like what we're seeing now.
A wizard is the magical equivalent of a physicist/chemist. He shouldn't pay triple for war, physics and chemistyr is very useful for making weapons--just look at Goblin Alchemist!
He shouldn't pay triple for nature. There is no reason someone who is a physicist can't also be good with animals or grow a pretty good garden of his own.
So what are physicists and chemists bad at?
Well, stereotypically, physicists and chemists tend to have trouble communicating their findings to regular people, and they're so engrossed in their studies of the deeper more fundamental nature of reality that they sometimes are a bit out of touch with everyday surface phenomenon (or maybe they just forget sometimes that most people don't know anywhere near as much as they do about the fundamental nature of reality, and that they're operating from a completely different frame of reference.)
Furthermore, being smart, sensible, methodical and curious is not the same thing as having a good understanding of one's own mind or of minds in general. And a person can be good at the former things and still be bad at the latter things.
Maybe wizards should pay triple for mind.
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Paying triple for nature and war...hmm. I think part of the thematic dillemma here is that the wizard is presented as the "science/research mage", but science includes things like biology (study of life), neuroscience/psychology (study of the brain/mind), chemistry (the study of the elements)...
Forgive me for cutting your quote down.
In the organized play stories, the Beastmaster and Druid are interested in preservation of the natural world. They might be happy to study it, but not to upset the delicate life balance of their environments. They're more about ecology than experimenal biology.
Looking at the non-orc/goblin War creatures shows that the War mages are more into physics and engineering. You have Otto Kronig and Grimson Deadeye and Ludwig Boltstrom, who are obviously quite inventive. You have war machines like Akiro's Hammer and Ballista. Even Goblin Alchemist and Goblin Bomber are into physics and chemistry... but more on the destructive side that goes along with the Bloodwave. War is the (non-life) physical sciences and engineering.
Back to the organized play stories, Wizards are blamed for the abominations in the Darkfenne (e.g. hydras and various other abominations). Arcane creatures are considered "unnatural" experiments by the Nature mages, upsetting the environmental balance and rather performing gene-splicing and creating golems and gargoyles through unnatural magic... more like Dr. Frankenstein "what can I create today?" (but not quite to the typical dead-raising tactics of the Necromancer). They lust for more and more power and do things selfishly, rather than for the good of Etheria. They want to connect to Voltarii and want V'tar, etc. There are exceptions (e.g. Wizards that aid Westlock and Straywood), but in general they do things for their own purposes. So they might seem to use science, they only use it as a tool to upset balance and manipulate nature to do their bidding - tricksters to their cores. So I don't have a problem with them paying triple for Nature and War. It makes sense for Arcane and War to be opposites (and those mages paying triple for the other) just as Holy and Dark are opposites. That might imply that Nature and Mind might also be opposites, though... Perhaps War and Mind should be opposites instead and have Nature and Arcane be opposites, but the the opposition between War and Arcane was already made precedent with both Warlords paying triple for Arcane rather than Mind.
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Personally i think it's kind of odd (nothing wrong with it cuz i likely see why) that whenever we open up and start firing away at the wizard and the myriad of reasons why he collectively chaps the assess of mage wars players, that the official reps from arcane wonders never tend to pipe up. I mean we literally go off about this guy for pages upon pages and the only time we hear from laddinfance is when someone asks a specific rules question.
It makes me wonder if we are actively pissing off the creators when we talk like this. And just for the record im in the camp of the broken wizard as well. I think the most glaring problem is his lack of a triple cost school. That having been said i still wonder if Aaron is just behind his computer screen, face palming and drinking scotch because of our angry, cage rattling, crabby rants. Just a thought. But one again... wizard is at least unbalanced.
(http://i.imgur.com/8cYsY7p.jpg?1)
I couldn't get myself facepalming in the frame.
Yes, I do read all of these. No, I'm not "pissed". Often I don't say anything because I have nothing to add. I don't want to hijack your conversation, and frankly these conversations help me keep pulse on our playerbase. Lastly, I don't want to promise what I can't deliver or veto things that out of hand.
Basically, it's the old adage, "You have one mouth and two ears, so you can listen twice as much as you talk." But that's me. Now, back to your regularly scheduled thread.
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Well at least you've got excellent taste in scotch. I suddenly feel a kinship with you sir! Cheers!
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It makes sense for Arcane and War to be opposites (and those mages paying triple for the other) just as Holy and Dark are opposites. That might imply that Nature and Mind might also be opposites, though... Perhaps War and Mind should be opposites instead and have Nature and Arcane be opposites, but the the opposition between War and Arcane was already made precedent with both Warlords paying triple for Arcane rather than Mind.
I don't think it should be looked at as the schools themselves are opposites, but rather the mages archetypes or discipline themselves fill in that element with their own personality or tenants.
Like, not a flat rule that "knowing War means Arcane is triple" but rather "Warlords study war with no interest in studying the Voltari" That leaves the door open for mages who are flavored to be War mages, but don't end up paying triple for Arcane for arbitrary purposes when other triple costs make more rational sense.
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Well at least you've got excellent taste in scotch. I suddenly feel a kinship with you sir! Cheers!
I'm saving that bottle for something special. Not sure exactly what at the moment.
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Well if you'll take some friendly advice,don't save it for the day folks stop whining about the wizard. Looks like that day is a long way away. It's definitely worth saving for something though. That's good scotch!
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Well at least you've got excellent taste in scotch. I suddenly feel a kinship with you sir! Cheers!
You just reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PeKcWCC-tw
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Paying triple for nature and war...hmm. I think part of the thematic dillemma here is that the wizard is presented as the "science/research mage", but science includes things like biology (study of life), neuroscience/psychology (study of the brain/mind), chemistry (the study of the elements)...
To this I can only say: In game design, fluff (theme) should never take precendence over mechanics, or in this case balance.
If you create a game in which several different specialist mages are supposed to be on an equal footing, you cannot have a Mary-Sue mage, no matter how justified it may seem because of its theme. It must have a set of disadvantages to balance it with the other mages.
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...then this debate will never be resolved.
Quoted for truth. I don't see this being resolved, regardless of any of the above suggestions.
All the testing required to just prove a point. Whatever happened to just having fun? ;) Playing 20+ structured games to prove a point does not sound like fun at all.
It's not just to prove a point. I actually am not entirely certain whether the wizard is still OP or not and would like to know. And you mean to tell me that playing 20+ games of Mage Wars isn't fun?
20 forced/structured games of anything does not sound fun at all. It takes away the fun of choice. Who I want to play, how I want to play, who my random opponent might be. When I'm forced to play this or that mage, and my opponent is forced to play this or that mage, over a schedule of multiple games, then suddenly, I lose interest. Part of the fun of mage wars is building my spell book how I want and playing what mage I want!
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Paying triple for nature and war...hmm. I think part of the thematic dillemma here is that the wizard is presented as the "science/research mage", but science includes things like biology (study of life), neuroscience/psychology (study of the brain/mind), chemistry (the study of the elements)...
To this I can only say: In game design, fluff (theme) should never take precendence over mechanics, or in this case balance.
If you create a game in which several different specialist mages are supposed to be on an equal footing, you cannot have a Mary-Sue mage, no matter how justified it may seem because of its theme. It must have a set of disadvantages to balance it with the other mages.
I can tell you that Mage Wars is all about theme first and then mechanics are made to fit the theme (most of the time but not all of the time.) This is what I love about the game, most of the time you can close your eyes and see what happened. A creature with sharp claws slashes you across your stomach and your innards fall out and you are Bleeding to death(Bleed Marker 1 dmg during upkeep) vs. a minecraft block axe that strikes you and you get a damage over time marker 1 dmg during upkeep.
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Paying triple for nature and war...hmm. I think part of the thematic dillemma here is that the wizard is presented as the "science/research mage", but science includes things like biology (study of life), neuroscience/psychology (study of the brain/mind), chemistry (the study of the elements)...
To this I can only say: In game design, fluff (theme) should never take precendence over mechanics, or in this case balance.
If you create a game in which several different specialist mages are supposed to be on an equal footing, you cannot have a Mary-Sue mage, no matter how justified it may seem because of its theme. It must have a set of disadvantages to balance it with the other mages.
I can tell you that Mage Wars is all about theme first and then mechanics are made to fit the theme (most of the time but not all of the time.) This is what I love about the game, most of the time you can close your eyes and see what happened. A creature with sharp claws slashes you across your stomach and your innards fall out and you are Bleeding to death(Bleed Marker 1 dmg during upkeep) vs. a minecraft block axe that strikes you and you get a damage over time marker 1 dmg during upkeep.
I think "Rot" and "Bleed" could both have been called "Infected Wound" (or simply "Infection") and had both the poison trait and the way to remove it as per Bleed rules, and it would have functioned perfectly well for all purposes; e.g. thematically fits for the Tegu, Bloodspine Wall, Darkfenne Bat, Dire Wolf, Necromancer's "Poison Master" ability - even Plague Zombie, if you assume his stench/slime/disease ends up on all the cuts on all the living creatures in his zone.
"Tainted" is a little different, but I'm not convinced it's necessary. It could have been 2 "Infection" markers, which are more annoying to remove - and more lethal if ignored - than a single "Infection" marker.
Can you justify the need for "Daze" / "Stun" / "Slam" / "Stagger" / "Sleep" / "Restrained" / "Incapacitated"? I was pretty surprised to see the introduction of Stagger in Academy, which is basically Incapacitated (Stunned) for Minor creatures and a mini "Weak" for Major creatures, added to Academy - which also includes "Weak" as well (e.g. "more Staggered"). It feels like 2 flavours of Weak. They could have done the same with just Weak and Daze and I don't think it would have made Academy any less good.
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This last post would be better over in the Mage Wars v2 thread, but you are mixing conditions with effects here.
Thematically:
Daze - blinded hard to see
Stun - knocked out for a 10 count
Slam - knocked down to the ground
Stagger - breath has been knocked out of you
Sleep - you ate the apple
Restrained - you are tied up
Incapacitated - you cant do anything
Really flip through the codex combine what you think are over lapping entries in the codex, once you get that done, you might have removed one page of entries and it might (just maybe) be a bit simpler. But no, the game in and of itself is rules intensive and efforts to make it simple are really just theme killers with little effect on the size of the overall rule set.
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Has anyone considered what the wizard would be like if he had 9 channeling instead of 10? Since he can increase his mana generation pretty easily already, maybe he doesn't need to have 10 channeling at the start?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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This last post would be better over in the Mage Wars v2 thread, but you are mixing conditions with effects here.
Thematically:
Daze - blinded hard to see
Stun - knocked out for a 10 count
Slam - knocked down to the ground
Stagger - breath has been knocked out of you
Sleep - you ate the apple
Restrained - you are tied up
Incapacitated - you cant do anything
Really flip through the codex combine what you think are over lapping entries in the codex, once you get that done, you might have removed one page of entries and it might (just maybe) be a bit simpler. But no, the game in and of itself is rules intensive and efforts to make it simple are really just theme killers with little effect on the size of the overall rule set.
Oops, I thought that's where this was posted. Oh well. Just to finish off the argument...
I understand the intent. And I love that Mage Wars is dripping with theme. But I'm not sure it's worth the number of hours I've personally spent looking up each one over the past several years - and the daunting task of teaching the game and having to look up each effect while a new player looks on with eyes glazed over as they see just how many effects and markers exist that would have to be explained if they were to come up in a match.
Just because you could have 6 or 7 flavours of slightly different effects representing different thematic situations doesn't mean you should. At some point, you have to say "Do we need yet another condition that Incapacitates a creature for some length of time, or should we just use Stun because it already exists?" I think keeping just Daze, Stun, Sleep and Weak are PLENTY to not also need Slam and Stagger.
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This last post would be better over in the Mage Wars v2 thread, but you are mixing conditions with effects here.
Thematically:
Daze - blinded hard to see
Stun - knocked out for a 10 count
Slam - knocked down to the ground
Stagger - breath has been knocked out of you
Sleep - you ate the apple
Restrained - you are tied up
Incapacitated - you cant do anything
Really flip through the codex combine what you think are over lapping entries in the codex, once you get that done, you might have removed one page of entries and it might (just maybe) be a bit simpler. But no, the game in and of itself is rules intensive and efforts to make it simple are really just theme killers with little effect on the size of the overall rule set.
Oops, I thought that's where this was posted. Oh well. Just to finish off the argument...
I understand the intent. And I love that Mage Wars is dripping with theme. But I'm not sure it's worth the number of hours I've personally spent looking up each one over the past several years - and the daunting task of teaching the game and having to look up each effect while a new player looks on with eyes glazed over as they see just how many effects and markers exist that would have to be explained if they were to come up in a match.
Just because you could have 6 or 7 flavours of slightly different effects representing different thematic situations doesn't mean you should. At some point, you have to say "Do we need yet another condition that Incapacitates a creature for some length of time, or should we just use Stun because it already exists?" I think keeping just Daze, Stun, Sleep and Weak are PLENTY to not also need Slam and Stagger.
I get the point and the idea behind your thinking, the answer for this line of thinking is Academy. A game with a much smaller rule set with many of the conditions written down as card text. I think this is more of what you are thinking/looking for.
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Adding fuel to this fire.
Wizards have one glaring weakness no one has mentioned yet: they have the worst creatures in the game. This fact counters the argument about their spellbooks being too flexible. How many good, solid, universally useful creatures does Arcane have? Gargoyles and Gorgons are about it. Jellies and Hydras are ok but the slow trait is particularly crippling. The Elemental creatures are no better: fire elemental, earth elemental, and iron golem are more of the same - huge guys with slow. Whirling Spirit is interesting but I'm not convinced. Every other school has a pool of at least a dozen good creatures and Arcane can't hold a candle to the likes of Steelclaw Grizzly, Zombie Brute, Panzerguard, and any of the other top tier critters.
So its true that wizards don't pay triple for anything and a lot of the 'core spells' are in school, but they pay double for any creature besides GnG. This will not settle the argument, but I never believed their spellbooks were OP.
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Blue gremlin are easily the best creature on game, and gargoyle and Gorgon Archer are both pretty good, I wouldn't call that a "weakness"
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Adding fuel to this fire.
Wizards have one glaring weakness no one has mentioned yet: they have the worst creatures in the game. This fact counters the argument about their spellbooks being too flexible. How many good, solid, universally useful creatures does Arcane have? Gargoyles and Gorgons are about it. Jellies and Hydras are ok but the slow trait is particularly crippling. The Elemental creatures are no better: fire elemental, earth elemental, and iron golem are more of the same - huge guys with slow. Whirling Spirit is interesting but I'm not convinced. Every other school has a pool of at least a dozen good creatures and Arcane can't hold a candle to the likes of Steelclaw Grizzly, Zombie Brute, Panzerguard, and any of the other top tier critters.
So its true that wizards don't pay triple for anything and a lot of the 'core spells' are in school, but they pay double for any creature besides GnG. This will not settle the argument, but I never believed their spellbooks were OP.
While I disagree that Arcane and elemental creatures are generally weak, even if that were true, there's nothing preventing a Wizard from playing Grizzlys or Brutes or Panzerguards. He only pays the standard double for them. Compare to a Forcemaster who is willing to pay triple for a Steelclaw Grizzly or Devouring Jelly or Necropian Vampiress, etc. Besides, the Wizard has cheapest access to [mwcard=MW1I28]Teleport[/mwcard] and [mwcard=MW1E38]Teleport Trap[/mwcard] (the former can even be cast by Huginn), so Slow isn't as limiting as it might be for another mage, like a Warlord or even a Warlock, who generally have a harder time moving creatures around the arena.
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Siren and many waterspells and creatures will definitely add even more variety to water wizard.
In my eyes the build-in advantages of never paying triple AND channeling10 AND arcane-zap AND shield cannot be changed through added cards. Compare that to priest with holy avanger conditional help and channeling9 without shield or zap and paying triple for dark.... How could this ever be fair?
All general cards are good for wizard as well. Only restricted cards could change that a little.
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Totally agreed, to the bare minimum, the tower should be epic. Although I think more restrictions would be very justified. Then there would be a reason to destroy it.
Just as the druids tree is extremely strong, but at least she cannot summon a second one with treebond.
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Alright, i want to know if we are just shouting at the wind right now. I mean this discussion and others like it have been so common on these forums practically as long as they have been out. This wizard issue started forever ago and despite the fact that it makes players unhappy with his wildly superior mage ability card, even before you add in the rediculous cards he (and currently only he) gets to use. Now were going to make him even MORE powerful with cards like mordoks tome, and almost anything that comes out for any school ever because he has no penalty school. Someone needs to assighn point values to the potency of mage abilities so that it becomes a bit more plain that every single tool the Wizard has is an absolute BALLER. personally i get upset when i see a wizard pop up accross the board, i literrally fill with rage. Some people like the challenge of under dogging, but its just not fun playing against wizards.
No trip school, no useless abilities, best school to be 1X, tower, best spawnpoint (except maybe lair), best familiar, choice of training in 2nd school.
Bottom line is its not fair. Put one mage next to another and it all comes up fair, untill you stick a wizard in the mix. Its so blatantly unfair that folks like us continue to point it out time and time again! Im starting to think that they just don't care. And thats a shame. Because when the priestess was overpowered they nerfed her cards, when the olf aggro Forcemaster was broken they nerfed battle fury and melle bonuses so they dont twice and fixed her. And yet they vehemently REFUSE to fix the wizard! Why? You guys errata cards every once in a while, why not fix the wizard? Bottom line is he's not a fair mage. I wonder what the wizards stat card would have looked like under Brian's initial module concept. I bet youd be left with like 90 SP after everything he has. Its straight up not cool guys.
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I love the wizard as he's meant to be. I hate what the wizard has become. As I've said time and time again, he's supposed to be a trickster and master manipulator, not a brute force Mage. After all this time I think we deserve to know what is being done to fix this problem. I suspect the problem before conquest of kumanjaro was the lack of alternatives to arcane metamagic and teleport. Then after Conquest of Kumanjaro we got wizard's tower. My core set x1 only fire wiz is actually more fun to play and play against than the typical wizard, and probably not just because it's less powerful but because it plays differently. It does not have wizard tower.
It's been a really long time since conquest of kumanjaro, and i would really like to know what is being done to fix the wizard. If he played as intended he would probably be my all-time favorite Mage.
Do you guys even have any intention of fixing this problem? I vaguely recall hearing Laddinfance describe the wizard as a "generalist Mage" in an episode of Mage Wars Monday's at some point, which blatantly contradicts the original description of his play style that has been on the website since the beginning.
Please clarify this for us. Thank you!
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Many of the Arcane Wonders people are at Origins this week. So don't expect a brilliant response right now.
Now, I'm not an authority on the subject, but I can tell you to not give up hope. These issues are extremely complex and, as Mr. Laddinfance has said many times before, everyone has their own idea of how to "fix" the wizard. I am confident that it's being investigated. Rest assured that everyone involved wants the game to continue to be fun and competitive for years to come.
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Rest assured that everyone involved wants the game to continue to be fun and competitive for years to come.
+1, put away the torches. There are things being done to examine the issues, but this isn't something that can just be done overnight or on a whim. It'll take a lot of work
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It is being reviewed, and yes that review will take time. As mentioned it is a complex issue. Further, it is likely that it will be an iterative process. Potentially some change after much testing, and then see how it goes more generally. Then apply another fix if needed.
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It is being reviewed, and yes that review will take time. ...
+1, put away the torches. There are things being done to examine the issues, but this isn't something that can just be done overnight or on a whim. It'll take a lot of work
Now, I'm not an authority on the subject, but I can tell you to not give up hope. These issues are extremely complex and, as Mr. Laddinfance has said many times before, everyone has their own idea of how to "fix" the wizard. I am confident that it's being investigated. Rest assured that everyone involved wants the game to continue to be fun and competitive for years to come.
While I appreciate the playtesters weighing in on this, I feel a need to point out the following:
Wizard release: 2012 (core set)
Wizard's Tower release: 2013 (CoK)
Current year: 2016
First Wizard-related fix: ????
From your posts, I get the feeling there is more work left to do than has been done, implying we can expect to wait at least as long yet as we have waited to this point. So... 2020 at the earliest? I assume a Wizard fix would come after the app update, spell book builder / card database update, codex update, rules supplement update, etc., most of which are ~ 2 years behind schedule (i.e. haven't been updated since Forged in Fire, Domination, Academy core, soon to have Academy expansions 1 & 2, Lost Grimoire 1 and Paladin vs Siren).
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At the risk of sounding salty ...you COULD choose to look at it this way:
Core Set release 2012: "Priestess OP"
--fix priestess
2013 FvW release: "Forcemaster OP"
--fix FM
2014 Wizard dangerous? Straywood takes GenCon
--Wait and see
2015 Will Acid Ball beat armored Wizard? Jinx/Tower Wizard takes GenCon
--Need to review Wizard
2014-2016: OMG WHERE IS PVS?!!! U YOU NO GIVE US MORE SETS?!
2016 PVS! LG! ACADEMY!
2016 Wizard review underway!
Progress is being made. I'm sorry it's not as fast as anyone would like it to be.
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Since I wasn't that into the game back then, what made the Priestess and Forcemaster overpowered?
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Temple of light was free to fire and hands of bim shala wasn't unique. She fired 5 dice stun lasers for free every turn as as a result. The forcemaster had a double strike attack that with battle fury let her swing 18 dice plus three with galvitar since battlefury at the time counted as a new attack and mellee +X would apply once again. Those got fixed pretty handily and pretty fast. Though it was not done flippantly. I get what the playtesters are saying, guys i really do, it just seems off to me that the most common complaint is the one that's recieved the least (visible) attention. And by visible i mean anyone, saying anything that's not "we're looking at it". What are you looking at? Have any ideas as to what might help? Can WE help (the gen pop players)? Are ANY of the points we've stated even in the running for fixes? Seems like every time we turn around there's new toys and such for the wizard to play with making the gap even larger than it was before. I know you can't tell us today that it will be fixed tomorrow, but come on give us something! Its making me go sour on the game that i love. And That's not cool.
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Change voltaric shield to absorb only 1 damage but cost only 1 mana.
Change arcane zap to 0-0.
Opposite elemental school costs tripple.
There you go. Still a VERY playable wizard but he can actually die now.
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I think the changes I'd make are Arcane Zap is no longer etheral and 0-0 or 1-1 range, not both. Triple for opposite element (Fire/Water, Air/Earth) and here's the biggest ones to me; no free change on Wizard's Tower spell AND does not come in ready. I actually feel the same way here about the Nature conjurations as well, if a creature can't come in active, neither should an attacking conjuration. Akiro's Hammer and Balista take at least 2 rounds, wizards tower should have to have at least 1 mana on it to cast a spell.
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I think the changes I'd make are Arcane Zap is no longer etheral and 0-0 or 1-1 range, not both. Triple for opposite element (Fire/Water, Air/Earth) and here's the biggest ones to me; no free change on Wizard's Tower spell AND does not come in ready. I actually feel the same way here about the Nature conjurations as well, if a creature can't come in active, neither should an attacking conjuration. Akiro's Hammer and Balista take at least 2 rounds, wizards tower should have to have at least 1 mana on it to cast a spell.
I agree on most of it but personally, I would allow the Wizard to change the spell for free every round (let it keep the flexibility) but it should actually use the attack spell and put it in the discard pile. Even if a water wizard would need to pay triple for fire, it could still use one fireball/flameblast dozens of times without any issue.
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further, you need to understand that not everyone believes the wizard is op, despite the feedback here. I do not believe the wizard is op and I know a lot of others who feel the same. these are tournament caliber players too. is the wizard powerful, sure. he is top tier mage along with a few others. now, I will not get pulled into the circular argument here and will stop responding to this thread after this post.
but the aw folks do take the feedback here very seriously, and are indeed looking at many ways to improve the experience for everyone. thus, they are reviewing the wizard. they will be testing the fixes they are coming up with. that takes time. errata frustrates players. so they try hard to limit it, and make sure it is needed, rare, targeted and successful if implemented. regardless of any fix that gets implemented(if any), not everyone will be happy with it. Not far enough, or too much most likely.
the aw folks also want to be responsive to the player base too. be aware the feedback here is not the entirety of the feedback they get. it is merely one source. so your opinions while shared with some others is just part of a much larger audience.
the timeline previously posted is a very good list of how things have gone.
please note also that while I am a playtester, I am in no way representing aw with this reply. the only things I know for facts are that aw values and takes seriously feedback from all sources (not just this site). that they want everyone to have a great time playing an awesome game. that they are in fact reviewing the wizard, and testers will be testing various fixes. all else is my personal opinion.
I do believe wizard tower has to be fixed and that is on the list of things being reviewed too. I was not in the playtest group for that set.
I hope this helps you feel that your concerns are taken seriously and are being investigated. so at a later time some fix does come out, you will know that aw put a lot of time and effort into testing many options for an extended time.
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There have been a great many suggestions about what to do with the Wizard. I've made some myself as well. This is all very good information and helpful to making a decision.
I do know that the design team is listening and taking these ideas to try and not only balance the current game, but the future game as well and that is something that many of us who aren't privy to what's coming cannot really take into account in our proposed fixes. Both the Wizard and his Tower are under the microscope.
I can also assure you that it won't be a vote to decide what the fix is. None of us are designers or employees. Arcane Wonders is not bound by any agreement to tell us what their current thoughts are on the fix. However, they have been forthright with information on several occasions. No one is trying to destroy the game we love.
I understand the desire for balance, especially in league and tournament play. In other situations, I would suggest that if the Wizard is making you sour tell the offending PLAYER to play something else. The Wizard doesn't choose you...you choose the Wizard.
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I understand the desire for balance, especially in league and tournament play. In other situations, I would suggest that if the Wizard is making you sour tell the offending PLAYER to play something else. The Wizard doesn't choose you...you choose the Wizard.
From what I see that is what is happening. I know enough people who don't play wizard any more cause it feels like cheating. There are tournaments with edited rules around it (thunderdome g, admw). After years of waiting players arrange with the situation by personal errata.
It is good to here that wizard is under the microscope, but the serious question here is how long does it take. Years have passed! Even if it would maybe not be the best errata there could be, all proposed changes would be better than testing ideas some more years. I really ask myself how hard it is.
On the other hand making him a little underpowered could flatten out his advantage until now and melee him the creative players choice :)
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TL;DR?
The determining factor is whether or not his advantages create an unfair advantage; not whether he is or isn't more powerful. I think the wizard is ahead of the game / would like to see a change to his mage card.
Is the wizard "overpowered"?
Yes, when the wizard sits down, to a non-mirror match, at the beginning of the game he has statistically better odds of wining that match.
The real question, and it has been since at least 2013 when I first entered these conversations about this topic, has always been:
"Is it such a huge advantage that it makes the game unplayable and/or gives him an UNFAIR advantage?"
Well that's what we call a Dez Bryant catch.
If you look at all the mages and say "the wizard is totally balanced" you don't understand how this game works. Sorry if that offends but its not even a defendable position. Voltaric shield, arcane zap, and no triple cost? Yes in the scope of the original set it's a more even playing field; in 2016 its not even a contest. Top-tier is one thing but he is the best mage to choose from any lens outside a specific book vs book scenario. Mage Wars is a game about building one book to battle a number of different books, which he does better than anyone else.
It was a catch. :D
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As I've said time and time again, he's supposed to be a trickster and master manipulator, not a brute force Mage.
I like this definition.
a mage that like his inteligence and his closed library should pay tripple for war and nature!
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As I've said time and time again, he's supposed to be a trickster and master manipulator, not a brute force Mage.
I like this definition.
a mage that like his inteligence and his closed library should pay tripple for war and nature!
Or thinking thematically of a "wizard" from pretty much any RPG (pen & paper or video game), why not something that makes him more inclined to wear lighter armour, like:
"Wizard pays triple for non-Arcane Equipment spells."
This way, he's more dependent on Enchantments (and his Voltaric Shield of course) for Armor, and less likely to go with Battle Forge (and if you make him pay triple for War as well, then he'll really think twice about a Forge). This means a big penalty for a Veteran's Belt-based turtle/tank Wizard... which doesn't make sense thematically anyway. He still has some good equipment options in-school - for example, a choice of 3 Rod/Staff weapons + Dispel Wand + Mage Wand, 3 cloaks (Suppression Cloak or Elemental Cloak or the cloak from Academy), Sistarran Robes, 2 mana amulets, several rings including Enchanters, etc. The biggest change would probably be that Dragonscale Hauberk and other elemental-based chestpieces would cost 3 sbp, even if he chooses that elemental school (!)... but 3 sbp isn't really a lot to pay (I've always felt they should have cost 2 sbp instead of 1). Oh, and Elemental Wand would cost him triple... which is weird, but probably less weird than a Wizard sporting all the heaviest armours in the game. Besides, he could still exclusively use Mordok's Tome for cheap, which is sort of similar (minus the Spellbind trait). In other words, it really makes him want to focus on Enchantments, Incantations and either hard-casting or Wizard's Tower'ing his attack spells.
*edit*
Might have to be "triple for out-of-school Equipment" since otherwise it punishes using Fireshaper Ring, Lightning Ring, Gale Force Ring, Staff of Storms, etc., which would be weird and counter-productive. But that puts Dragonscale Hauberk and other in-school Elemental chestpieces back to being cheap.
Hmmm... No chance of errata'ing all chestpieces with +2 Armor to level 2 (or higher), eh?
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As I've said time and time again, he's supposed to be a trickster and master manipulator, not a brute force Mage.
I like this definition.
a mage that like his inteligence and his closed library should pay tripple for war and nature!
Or thinking thematically of a "wizard" from pretty much any RPG (pen & paper or video game), why not something that makes him more inclined to wear lighter armour, like:
"Wizard pays triple for non-Arcane Equipment spells."
This way, he's more dependent on Enchantments (and his Voltaric Shield of course) for Armor, and less likely to go with Battle Forge (and if you make him pay triple for War as well, then he'll really think twice about a Forge). This means a big penalty for a Veteran's Belt-based turtle/tank Wizard... which doesn't make sense thematically anyway. He still has some good equipment options in-school - for example, a choice of 3 Rod/Staff weapons + Dispel Wand + Mage Wand, 3 cloaks (Suppression Cloak or Elemental Cloak or the cloak from Academy), Sistarran Robes, 2 mana amulets, several rings including Enchanters, etc. The biggest thing would be that Dragonscale Hauberk and other elemental-based chestpieces would cost 3 sbp, even if he chooses that elemental school (!)... but 3 sbp isn't really a lot to pay (I've always felt they should have cost 2 sbp instead of 1). Oh, and Elemental Wand would cost him triple... which is weird, but probably less weird than a Wizard sporting all the heaviest armours in the game. Besides, he could still exclusively use Mordok's Tome for cheap, which is sort of similar (minus the Spellbind trait). In other words, it really makes him want to focus on Enchantments, Incantations and either hard-casting or Wizard's Tower'ing his attack spells.
That seems a bit over the top. I originally thought that viable alternatives to dispel and teleport for other mages, combined with fixing the tower might be enough. But I'm not so sure now. Maybe should make wizard pay triple for something, but I'm not sure what. He generally doesn't tend to use war spells much, and it wouldn't really make sense for him to pay triple for nature when he understands nature well enough to do experiments on it. Making him pay triple for opposing elemental school doesn't make much sense either. I suppose one could sort of argue that holy and dark are less "rational" and therefore arcane should be opposed to it, except that in the world of etheria the gods actually do exist and this can be demonstrated experimentally. One of them even lives on the moon! So paying triple for holy or dark doesn't work either.
So thematically, what should the wizard's main strengths and weaknesses be?
I'm thinking he shouldn't be super muscular, since he spends so much time researching rather than working out, and he usually wins his battles with his magic, his wits and his strategy rather than his physical strength. He already has only 32 life, the same as a priestess and a force master, which makes sense because the forcemaster uses her mind to fight, and the priestess uses the help of her goddess to fight.
The wizard should not be iron man. He generally doesn't need to wear as much armor as other mages because of voltaric shield. He usually doesn't even use the voltaric shield until nearly the end of the game. So for most of the game one of his main abilities does not see use at all.
The wizard as he is now tends to overpower people through sheer inevitability. He overpowers them by building up a huge mana and action advantage for a relatively low cost compared to other mages. Most effects that raise channeling or mana are in school for him. Most effects that lower opponent channeling or mana are in school for him.
In short, he has a built in mana advantage over other mages. This built in mana advantage should not exist for no reason. I propose that the reason he has a mana advantage is to pay for the voltaric shield, just like the reason the warlock has such a high starting life is to pay for blood reaper. The fact that the wizard can put on so much armor so easily means he rarely has to use voltaric shield, so he has extra mana to spend on other things.
Maybe making him pay triple for out of school equipments is a good idea after all?
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Breaking this off as a separate post since you replied before the edit might have updated:
Actually, paying triple for out-of-school Equipment may not make much of a difference since he can still use Gator Toughness + Rhino Hide + Leather Gloves/Boots/Chausses for regular price, plus has a cheap Cloak + Sistarran Robes, which still adds up to a ton of Armor (e.g. "more than enough" - especially when combined with Voltaric Shield). The only really expensive part sbp-wise would be Veteran's Belt, which might make it that he doesn't pack 2-3 of them anymore - or as many back-up Regen-based belts, for that matter, since they're all out-of-school. The only cheap belt he would have access to is Leather Belt (promo). And he's unlikely to pack any other utility equipment (e.g. Eagleclaw Boots or Wand of Healing, etc), nor ones that grant Defences (e.g. Reflex Boots, Bracers, Dancing Scimitar).
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Unless you added a clause like in Academy Priestess/Warlock where you even pay triple for Novice non-Arcane Equipment. (!)
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I have thought about banning the wizard from wearing any equipment that gives him +armor. then increase voltaric shield to block 4 damage since it's really a mana shield. however I think this sort of change is too drastic and makes many cards obsolete.
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Breaking this off as a separate post since you replied before the edit might have updated:
Actually, paying triple for out-of-school Equipment may not make much of a difference since he can still use Gator Toughness + Rhino Hide + Leather Gloves/Boots/Chausses for regular price, plus has a cheap Cloak + Sistarran Robes, which still adds up to a ton of Armor (e.g. "more than enough" - especially when combined with Voltaric Shield). The only really expensive part sbp-wise would be Veteran's Belt, which might make it that he doesn't pack 2-3 of them anymore - or as many back-up Regen-based belts, for that matter, since they're all out-of-school. The only cheap belt he would have access to is Leather Belt (promo). And he's unlikely to pack any other utility equipment (e.g. Eagleclaw Boots or Wand of Healing, etc), nor ones that grant Defences (e.g. Reflex Boots, Bracers, Dancing Scimitar).
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Unless you added a clause like in Academy Priestess/Warlock where you even pay triple for Novice non-Arcane Equipment. (!)
Not non-arcane, doesn't make sense if he pays triple for elemental equipments even when he's trained in an element.
Not so sure about that. If the out of school equipments cost triple, wizard won't have as much incentive to use battle forge, so any armor he wants on himself he'll have to cast himself. And it will make regrowth belt and veteran's belt and eagleclaw boots and wand of healing etc cost triple.
@puddinghead not necessary to increase power of his voltaric shield. Just decrease his armor so he has more reason to use the shield more often. I suspect that with voltaric shield on he only needs to be wearing 3 armor at a time. Then again, if he pays triple for wand of healing, then he can probably put on more in case of corrodes.
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While skimming through Wizard spell books posted on the forums that include 2+ Veteran's Belts, I came across this *page* of really good discussion in the (in)famous "Blasting Banker" thread - which has apparently been viewed over 15,000 times!
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13742.msg31646#msg31646 (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13742.msg31646#msg31646)
In summary, top-tier MW players Charmyna and Alexander West discuss how/why the Wizard is the strongest mage (perhaps with the Druid and the Straywood Beastmaster close behind, perhaps followed by the Priestess). Meanwhile, relatively new players sshroom and Dr.Cornelius basically take it as a fact that Wizard is the most powerful (just by comparing ability cards - it doesn't take a genius to figure it out). Meanwhile, Laddinfance teases Mr. West and silverclawgrizzly about [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC02]an upcoming creature that will make a better Blood Reaper for the Arraxian Crown Warlock[/mwcard] (because cards from Forged in Fire hadn't been spoiled yet). Oh, and Laddinfance mentioned that balancing the mages was a priority and that he'd love to hear suggestions from the experts... all this a little over 2 years ago. An interesting read at the very least.
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I really like some of your idea's Inano.
Maybe triple for non-arcane cards that give armor +x is not bad... I also still like triple for the opposed elemental school since their would be a much bigger difference between water and fire wizards.
@Vulcan: Triple for nature since he's a nerd and never goed outside to actually create a bond for nature. Yes, he studies dead or caged animals or plants in a pot for science, but this does not allow him to connect with nature. The beastmasters and the druid have a very deep connection with nature and are as a result good in nature magic.
Triple for war (apart from armor) seems weirder to me. I can understand that he's not the best general with charisma, but opposed to that, he does have great tactical insight.
he'd love to hear suggestions from the experts... all this a little over 2 years ago. An interesting read at the very least.
Yeah, I also don't understand that this has been taking so long. I mean, it has been obvious for years that there are serious problems with the wizard. How hard can it be?
- give some penalties on spellbook creation
- Remove ethereal on the zap. (it is thematic, but it just destroys the use of all incorporeal cards)
- Seriously nerf the tower
Voila, 90% of all wizard frustrations are fixed. >:(
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Yeah, I also don't understand that this has been taking so long. I mean, it has been obvious for years that there are serious problems with the wizard. How hard can it be?
- give some penalties on spellbook creation
- Remove ethereal on the zap. (it is thematic, but it just destroys the use of all incorporeal cards)
- Seriously nerf the tower
Voila, 90% of all wizard frustrations are fixed. >:(
What penalties? How to nerf the tower? The above quotation contains no actual fixes. There are, even in this thread alone, 3-4 different suggestions for how to fix spellbook points for the Wizard. There are at least 3-4 different suggestions floating around for how to fix Wizard's Tower.
Which one is correct? How much testing can be done while working on other sets and trying to update everything that needs updating?
It is also entirely possible that the first attempt to fix the Wizard was to increase the card pool in a way that would bring balance. Increasing the card pool hasn't worked as well.
I think the classic problem of not enough hands to get the work done is contributing to a large portion of the perceived slowness.
And now, we've all been told that the Wizard complaints are being attended to. More yelling isn't going to make it happen faster.
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Yeah, I also don't understand that this has been taking so long. I mean, it has been obvious for years that there are serious problems with the wizard. How hard can it be?
- give some penalties on spellbook creation
- Remove ethereal on the zap. (it is thematic, but it just destroys the use of all incorporeal cards)
- Seriously nerf the tower
Voila, 90% of all wizard frustrations are fixed. >:(
What penalties? How to nerf the tower? The above quotation contains no actual fixes. There are, even in this thread alone, 3-4 different suggestions for how to fix spellbook points for the Wizard. There are at least 3-4 different suggestions floating around for how to fix Wizard's Tower.
Which one is correct? How much testing can be done while working on other sets and trying to update everything that needs updating?
It is also entirely possible that the first attempt to fix the Wizard was to increase the card pool in a way that would bring balance. Increasing the card pool hasn't worked as well.
I think the classic problem of not enough hands to get the work done is contributing to a large portion of the perceived slowness.
And now, we've all been told that the Wizard complaints are being attended to. More yelling isn't going to make it happen faster.
There will always be many ideas what should be changed or nerfed. We alreaedy have a poll about that here: http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=15896.0
We have been told that a solution will come since years, so I guess trust in this words are broken here.
It would need Laddinface and all other ArcaneWonders guys one collected view on those threads and Ideas to announce a proposal change (maybe chosen from all ideas). They should take advantage of the knowledge in this forum if they don`t have enough manpower.
That proposal should not be discussed but tested for a good amount of times with feedback written down. If needed there could be a changed proposal some months later and than it is done.
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Yeah, I also don't understand that this has been taking so long. I mean, it has been obvious for years that there are serious problems with the wizard. How hard can it be?
- give some penalties on spellbook creation
- Remove ethereal on the zap. (it is thematic, but it just destroys the use of all incorporeal cards)
- Seriously nerf the tower
Voila, 90% of all wizard frustrations are fixed. >:(
What penalties? How to nerf the tower? The above quotation contains no actual fixes. There are, even in this thread alone, 3-4 different suggestions for how to fix spellbook points for the Wizard. There are at least 3-4 different suggestions floating around for how to fix Wizard's Tower.
Which one is correct? How much testing can be done while working on other sets and trying to update everything that needs updating?
It is also entirely possible that the first attempt to fix the Wizard was to increase the card pool in a way that would bring balance. Increasing the card pool hasn't worked as well.
I think the classic problem of not enough hands to get the work done is contributing to a large portion of the perceived slowness.
And now, we've all been told that the Wizard complaints are being attended to. More yelling isn't going to make it happen faster.
I know these are no solutions, I just meant they should discuss it, test it and pick one. It has been going on for years and there have been suggested dozens of decent changes.
A sub-optimal fast solution is much better than an optimal solution in another 3 years.
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A sub-optimal fast solution is much better than an optimal solution in another 3 years.
No offense, but i sincerely disagree with this. It'll just cause the same problem years down the line. I'd rather take the time to get it right.
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A sub-optimal fast solution is much better than an optimal solution in another 3 years.
No offense, but i sincerely disagree with this. It'll just cause the same problem years down the line. I'd rather take the time to get it right.
100% this. I'd rather them get it right however long that takes then to throw something together that is a band-aid on a larger problem. I'm a big proponent of the Wizard is OP camp, but even with that...I much prefer new sets and cards come out before a fix is done if it's one or the other. I play tournaments and I both play Wizards and against Wizards...I don't love doing it, but I'd rather deal with it on a smaller scale than have the game's expansion slow down once again. Once PvS comes out, if Wizard is still an issue, I'd still prefer the people at AW work on the next expansions instead of testing Wizard solutions over and over again. If the Wizard is really that big a deal to your games, house rule him or ban him. It's that simple.
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While skimming through Wizard spell books posted on the forums that include 2+ Veteran's Belts, I came across this *page* of really good discussion in the (in)famous "Blasting Banker" thread - which has apparently been viewed over 15,000 times!
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13742.msg31646#msg31646 (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13742.msg31646#msg31646)
In summary, top-tier MW players Charmyna and Alexander West discuss how/why the Wizard is the strongest mage (perhaps with the Druid and the Straywood Beastmaster close behind, perhaps followed by the Priestess). Meanwhile, relatively new players sshroom and Dr.Cornelius basically take it as a fact that Wizard is the most powerful (just by comparing ability cards - it doesn't take a genius to figure it out). Meanwhile, Laddinfance teases Mr. West and silverclawgrizzly about [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC02]an upcoming creature that will make a better Blood Reaper for the Arraxian Crown Warlock[/mwcard] (because cards from Forged in Fire hadn't been spoiled yet). Oh, and Laddinfance mentioned that balancing the mages was a priority and that he'd love to hear suggestions from the experts... all this a little over 2 years ago. An interesting read at the very least.
To be fair this forum thread is before Alexander West won with the Straywood Beastmaster against 2 wizards in the finals round at Gen Con 2014. One of them myself and the other Hanma (Gen Con 2015 Champion) running a Blast Banker book the he learned from Charmanya.
At the time most players had no idea the Beastmaster could pull something like this off. Here is a link to the thread that really shows how many people questioned the Wizard OP line (this appears after the link you posted where Alexander discusses the wizard you posted). I can understand why Arcane Wonders moved on to other matters after this since most players weren't convinced a change was needed. So while i'm not saying whether or not the wizard needs an errata in this post, I hope this can give you an explanation on how it possible Arcane Wonders has been delaying the errata (unlike other erratas that have been made in the past).
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=14540.msg41098#msg41098
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That's meta, though. Alex West specifically built a Beastmaster to counter Wizards, knowing that (1) the best books were Wizards and (2) the best players would likely be running Wizards (perhaps with a few Druids and Forcemasters and Necromancers sprinkled in the mix). The only bad thing about his win is it gave ammo to the "Wizard isn't OP" camp. If a Wizard had won (again), then perhaps we might have seen a fix by now. But alas, in a meta where nobody expected to face a Beastmaster (and thus, few players brought Suppression Orbs, Mordok's Obelisks, Suppression Cloaks, Chain Lightning, and other area-effect Attack spells), a Beastmaster who planned for Wizards ended up being successful against Wizards (with the help of a clutch Chain Lightning whiff).
This has been rehashed over and over, and around and around the circle we've gone, but:
- YES, it's possible for a Wizard to lose a match, and
- YES, if you build a book specifically to beat a Wizard you might be successful, and
- YES, if the meta brings nothing but hate for Wizards then a (half-decent) Wizard player might even end up with a losing record in a given tournament,
etc, etc, etc...
But that doesn't mean that the Wizard isn't inherently overpowered. In fact, it suggests there is a problem, since everybody has to ask "how will I beat a Wizard" (or more likely, "how will I win > 50% of my matches given that a disproportionate number of my toughest matches are likely to be against Wizards 'cause all the best players know that Wizards are best and will likely be playing them").
All you need to do to prep for Warlocks is bring Dragonscale Hauberks and Dispels. Fire goes a long way against Druids. Anti-swarm cards will work wonders against Beastmasters and Necromancers (and conversely, a Beastmaster will do well if nobody brings anti-swarm cards because everybody is convinced that nobody will play a a Beastmaster because anti-swarm cards exist, and besides, "Wizards"). Anti-aggro cards (e.g. walls, Vines/Holds, various Push/Teleport effects, etc) work wonders against Forcemaster (and anyone else going solo/aggro). But it's tough to plan for a Wizard because he can do just about anything and do it better than just about anybody. You might face a Blasting Banker or you might face a completely different looking Wizard (curses, tank, mana denial, Jinx-undo).
I'm finding myself traversing the circle again, so I'll take a break.
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- give some penalties on spellbook creation
i think that's the center of the question
- Remove ethereal on the zap. (it is thematic, but it just destroys the use of all incorporeal cards)
i think that's secondary
- Seriously nerf the tower
i think that's unnecessary if the spellbook point is solved... but it would be more interesting for the game to make this card more complicate to use!
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But that doesn't mean that the Wizard isn't inherently overpowered. In fact, it suggests there is a problem, since everybody has to ask "how will I beat a Wizard" (or more likely, "how will I win > 50% of my matches given that a disproportionate number of my toughest matches are likely to be against Wizards 'cause all the best players know that Wizards are best and will likely be playing them").
All you need to do to prep for Warlocks is bring Dragonscale Hauberks and Dispels. Fire goes a long way against Druids. Anti-swarm cards will work wonders against Beastmasters and Necromancers (and conversely, a Beastmaster will do well if nobody brings anti-swarm cards because everybody is convinced that nobody will play a a Beastmaster because anti-swarm cards exist, and besides, "Wizards"). Anti-aggro cards (e.g. walls, Vines/Holds, various Push/Teleport effects, etc) work wonders against Forcemaster (and anyone else going solo/aggro). But it's tough to plan for a Wizard because he can do just about anything and do it better than just about anybody. You might face a Blasting Banker or you might face a completely different looking Wizard (curses, tank, mana denial, Jinx-undo).
I don't see this as a problem. Every good player should be asking this question for each mage. That is the nature of spellbook design. Just because it is a harder to answer for the Wizard doesn't equate to overpowered for me. It may be asymmetrical, which many people don't enjoy in a game design. However, I really like the different challenges this presents.
I like Coshade's point that other strategies are out there to counter Wizard's and other mages. That type of conversation is not circular and leads to improved play across the community.
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Question is that in a pursuit of being able to counter wizard, i am not shutting door for an option to be able to counter other mages. Especially as a warlord that is penalized in Arcane :)
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I don't see this as a problem. Every good player should be asking this question for each mage. That is the nature of spellbook design. Just because it is a harder to answer for the Wizard doesn't equate to overpowered for me. It may be asymmetrical, which many people don't enjoy in a game design. However, I really like the different challenges this presents.
I like Coshade's point that other strategies are out there to counter Wizard's and other mages. That type of conversation is not circular and leads to improved play across the community.
I'm a playtester for another popular asymmetric game where 2 players square off in a competitive match-up. In that game, upon an expansion's release in 2014, a particular component was found to be overpowered. Let's call that component the "TIE Phantom." It warped the meta in such a way that, in a tournament, you had to build your "squad" to explicitly counter the "TIE Phantom" - and if you didn't, you would pretty much auto-lose if you faced a "TIE Phantom" (unless the dice were particularly biased in a given match - and they'd have to be ridiculously so in order to win). Basically, the meta became polarized to "TIE Phantom" and its direct counter "Fat Han" (which was excellent against "TIE Phantom" and pretty good against anything else that could realistically counter a "TIE Phantom") until the designers recognized the problem and errata'd the "TIE Phantom" to bring the game back into balance and allow the competitive meta to flourish again.
As I mentioned, I realize that MW is an asymmetric game, and I realize that counters exist to various mages and strategies (e.g. Dragonscale Hauberk vs Warlock). And I recognize that in a competitive environment, you should either strategically build counters to opposing mages into your spell book and/or have a tactical plan for if you face a given match-up. And that isn't a problem. That's part of the game. The problem is, the Wizard is so far superior to other mages that it biases the meta to either "play Wizard because it's best" or "build something specifically to beat the Wizard" - not unlike the "TIE Phantom" menace experienced in this other game (which shall continue to remain nameless...). It's relatively easy to include a counter or two for each other mage (e.g. Mordok's Obelisk or Suppression Orb to counter swarms, etc), but in preparation for a tournament, the big question every player must truly ask is "How the heck am I going to beat a Wizard?" - not to mention, "Am I going to play a Wizard myself?" All other mage considerations (both in terms of dealing with opponents or choosing for yourself) are trivial by comparison.
Of course, if the Wizard didn't exist, another question might be whether or not we'd be asking the same question with regards to the Druid. Or perhaps the Beastmaster, or Necromancer, or Forcemaster. But at least in those cases, there seem to be 4+ mages that are all close in strength that are pretty strong (although this perception might be influenced and/or dwarfed by the strength of the Wizard relative to each of them). So... "fixing" the Wizard may only reveal other problems beneath the surface.
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I just had a nice long conversation with sharkbait today in which he explained a very interesting idea about why people haven't been playing the wizard as intended.
1. Wizard pays x1 for most mana and channeling modifiers. Anything that increases his mana or decreases his opponent's mana he is probably able to access more easily.
2. That gives him a built-in mana advantage over other mages. Why does he have this built-in mana advantage? Why would he even need it?
3. Why? To pay for voltaric shield. But usually the Wizard doesn't use the shield at all until very late in the game. Most of the game he never uses it. This allows him to build up an extra mana advantage that would otherwise be used on the shield. And more mana also means he can cast more creatures, spawnpoints and familiars, and that means more actions. So why doesn't he need to use the voltaric shield very much at all?
4. Because he has too much armor. But there are counters to armor! Isn't using acid ball on him, or rust, or piercing damage enough to deal with that?
5. No it's not. Why not? Because of his action and mana advantage. He can just cast more, and he's not worried about the mana and quick action needed to do that. But he wouldn't have that action and mana advantage if he used the shield more, and he would use the shield more if he had less armor, right?
6. Wrong. It's not a matter of how much armor the Wizard has alone. It's a matter of how much more armor he has on than you do. The Wizard can get rid of your armor too, with dispels and dissolves and acid balls, etc. But then what's the difference between wizards and other mages here? Everyone can use acid balls and dissolves and dispels! And acid balls and dispels are not even arcane spells! What gives the wizard his special advantage even when he's not trained in water?
7. There is a limit to the number of copies of a particular spell that you can include in your spellbook. 6 copies max for lv1 spells, 4 copies max for everything else. During a game, this usually means that a Mage can cast at most 6 dispels and 6 dissolves and 6 acid balls. But there are exceptions to this. Four of them, in fact: any spell that's bound to an elemental wand, mage wand, wizard tower or thoughtspore, can be cast more times than the maximum number of copies of that spell which can be included in your spellbook. Out of these four cards, the wizard pays x1 spellbook points for three of them, one of which he has exclusive access to. But then why does thoughtspore not cause the same problems in the forcemaster that the tower and wands cause in the wizard?
8. Probably because the tower and wands are undercosted and the spores are not. Thoughtspore is level 2, costs 8 mana and a full action. The spore is easy to kill and expensive to replace. Protecting the spores costs additional mana and quick actions. Mage Wands and Elemental Wands only cost 5 mana and a quick action each, and can be replaced so easily that you don't need to invest very much if anything in protecting them. With a battle forge they can keep replacing each other for as long as the Forge is in play. In fact, the wands have an ability to switch their bound spell for a quick action and 3 mana. No one uses this ability because it's so much more efficient to just deploy another wand from the forge.
The Wizard Tower costs 7 mana, has 1 channeling, and can change its bound spell for free. It only costs 2 more mana than a wand. By itself, Wizard Tower isn't very hard to destroy. It only has 3 armor and 7 life, so it has the same armor and less life than an emerald tegu. However, it is so crazy efficient that you generally don't need to protect it at all. If the first one dies you just summon another one, and there's no need to do things like guarding it with a gargoyle sentry or something.
But couldn't you just destroy their wands and tower? Why wouldn't that be enough?
9. There are limited number of crumbles and dissolves in your deck, and if you use them to destroy the opponent's wands and tower, they'll just bring out more wands. If you ignore their wands and just acid ball them, they'll just bring out more armor. Therefore you need to destroy all of their wands and tower, and if you do not or cannot have enough copies of dissolve, crumble or corrodisve orchid in your spellbook to get rid of all their wands, then you will need wands of your own. In other words the only answer to spellbind is spellbind. This doesn't seem to be a problem for the thoughtspore of course, because the thoughtspore costs a full action and therefore isn't so easy to replace.
-Wizard Tower costs 7 mana and a quick action. Maybe it should cost 2 more mana, and be one level higher?
-The wands each cost 5 mana and a quick action. Maybe they should cost 1 more mana and be one level higher?
So ultimately the reason people have been playing the wizard like a brute force Mage rather than a trickster and master manipulator, the reason they've been able to run the brute force wizard at all, is probably because he spams objects with spellbind and pays x1 spellbook points for them.
EDIT: accidentally posted this before I was done.
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I'm sorry Sailor, but you've missed the point about what I was saying.
Just for clarification, my idea is about what the actual problem is and nothing about playing the wizard "as intended." I think however you want to play the wizard is playing him "as intended". I don't think the wizard is a problem so much as a symptom of the actual problem. That problem being 4 + hr matches that only conclude when one player dies of boredom instead of damage.
That being said, Sailor did vaguely allude to what I think the solution is/where the real issue that encourages the problem lies. That issue is the spellbinding wands, and Mage Wand in particular. I'll go into more detail once I've had time to gather thoughts and data on it, but the short of it is that I think that the 4 hr, drawn out games are strictly dependent upon how many mage wands are brought into a fight. This type of build can be done with multiple mages, not just the wizard, and is TERRIBLY dull to watch, play with, and play against. Ultimately, I propose that the spellbinding wands (Mage Wand for sure, the rest I'm fairly indifferent about) should also have the Epic trait.
Just clarifying my idea and separating it from that listed above.
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Of course, if the Wizard didn't exist, another question might be whether or not we'd be asking the same question with regards to the Druid. Or perhaps the Beastmaster, or Necromancer, or Forcemaster. But at least in those cases, there seem to be 4+ mages that are all close in strength that are pretty strong (although this perception might be influenced and/or dwarfed by the strength of the Wizard relative to each of them). So... "fixing" the Wizard may only reveal other problems beneath the surface.
This is an interesting line of inquiry. One aspect to the Wizard decision is not only whether to play one, but which element to specialize in. As expansions continue to add and enhance the pool of spells in each elemental school we could find new specialized mages that counter certain flexibility in the Wizard choice of specialization. So for example a Siren may have additional counters to a Fire Wizard.
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I'm sorry Sailor, but you've missed the point about what I was saying.
Just for clarification, my idea is about what the actual problem is and nothing about playing the wizard "as intended." I think however you want to play the wizard is playing him "as intended". I don't think the wizard is a problem so much as a symptom of the actual problem. That problem being 4 + hr matches that only conclude when one player dies of boredom instead of damage.
That being said, Sailor did vaguely allude to what I think the solution is/where the real issue that encourages the problem lies. That issue is the spellbinding wands, and Mage Wand in particular. I'll go into more detail once I've had time to gather thoughts and data on it, but the short of it is that I think that the 4 hr, drawn out games are strictly dependent upon how many mage wands are brought into a fight. This type of build can be done with multiple mages, not just the wizard, and is TERRIBLY dull to watch, play with, and play against. Ultimately, I propose that the spellbinding wands (Mage Wand for sure, the rest I'm fairly indifferent about) should also have the Epic trait.
Just clarifying my idea and separating it from that listed above.
I didn't think any of what I said had contradicted anything that you said. To be clear, I thought we had the same understanding of what has been happening with the wizard, and what you were saying simply explained more comprehensively why and how it was happening. But there are two things that I would like to point out here that I now realize that you are probably overlooking.
1. While technically any mage can play the boring high armor plus multiple wands game, ultimately the wizard and the druid can play it for the lowest cost in spellbook points. The druid because of her corrosive orchid and water training (acid balls, dissolves) and the wizard because of his wizard tower and training in arcane and sometimes water.
2. While what has happened to the wizard is probably only a symptom of the actual problem with spellbind, it still has happened to the wizard in particular. Maybe that's because charmyna decided to do it with the water wizard first, even though it is just as possible to pull it off with another mage, and it just never occurred to most of us to try it with another mage. Regardless, it is the diversity of wizard spellbooks and the public perception of wizards that has suffered for it, far more than that of any other mage. And as I've pointed out before, a lot of people might not even realize the problem in the first place.
The majority of wizard spellbooks I remember having ever seen anyone play were variations of four particular strategies that use high armor and multiple wands: Telepit, Watergate, Blasting Banker, and attack spell wizard tower rush. We need more original wizard spellbooks to demonstrate how fun and interesting the wizard can actually be.
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When i look a the Wizard abilities (Voltaric Shield and Arcane Zap) and compare them to say the Johktari Beastmaster (Wounded Prey, Sprinting and Archery Skill) it seems obvious to me that Wizard got the better deal.
Abilities that can only be used in some situations like Wounded Prey seems clearly inferior to something like Voltaric Shield.
On top of that Wizard has more channeling and cheaper spellbook creation.
So yes Wizard is stronger than Johktari Beastmaster.
I have seen a couple of post were people have written something like "its easy enough to build a counter to Wizard, but in the long run its boring"
I don´t believe it to be true. There is no real good counter to Wizard - his way to versatile for that. Yes you can build a counter to tank Wizard/Mage like Mystery has done with various DoT builds but its not the same as vs Warlocks it be a good counter to bring Dragonscale Hauberk+Dispel.
Some of the Wizards powers come from the "necessary" spells like Dispel, Seeking Dispel, Nullify and Enchantment Transfusion.
One easy counter to Wizard could be to let all mages being trained in arcane level 1 spells, or something a long those lines.
Wizard is one of the best available mages (if not the best) and the better Dispel becomes (by releasing more nasty enchantments) and releasing something like Enchantment Transfusion which makes multiple Seeking Dispels good.
Some of the new cards really help: Remove Curse - level 1 holy - remove as many revealed curse enchanments from the target as you wish, paying the total mana cost (casting and reveal) for each one. Then gain 2 mana.
Other new cards makes matters "worse" making Dispel/Seeking Dispel/Nullify better, more needed.
@Sharkbait yes Magewands makes games go on longer - even forever. I am a big mage wand fan, the things you can do. Still it would be a small stab to Wizard as it is arcane level 2.
I don´t believe that Wizard is overpowered, because i believe Necromancer (no counters, awesome abilities) and Druid (awesome) are at least as good. Nerfing/banning Wizard would just let the hate pass on to one of those, i think.
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@Sharkbait yes Magewands makes games go on longer - even forever. I am a big mage wand fan, the things you can do. Still it would be a small stab to Wizard as it is arcane level 2.
I don´t believe that Wizard is overpowered, because i believe Necromancer (no counters, awesome abilities) and Druid (awesome) are at least as good. Nerfing/banning Wizard would just let the hate pass on to one of those, i think.
I tend to be in the same school of thought about the wizard. That's another reason I hadn't really jumped into this thread much. However, since the mage wand can extend the game forever, at the highest level of play you have to run 4 dissolve effects to be rid of those wands to even give a chance of the tank mage running out of dispel and dissolve resources. When those resources are infinite, there is far less skill to use those resources than when they're finite and knowing how to use them properly.
Essentially, I'd like to skip the 2 hrs of boring undo gameplay that can literally go on forever until someone gets rid of every mage wand and limit the wand to just 1. It makes it take actual skill to protect it instead of casting a new one, it doesn't require EVERYONE to take 4+ dissolves, and generally allows more freedom and fun gameplay to emerge. It's also not mage specific
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The necromancers main "he's broken" trait comes mainly from zombies being rediculously hard to kill due to the resilient trait. Poison immunity sucks yeah but if his creatures died as easily as everyone elses it wouldn't be a big issue. The fact is that anyone can use zombie brutes goth, even wizards. The druid on the other hand is very pocketed in the nature school, and she already pays triple for 2 schools! She only gets one tree bond, so a lucky force hammer or fireball, or a will planned conquer puts her I iredeemably behind the stick as her marker goes away. Neither of these mages are anywhere near as potentially unassailable as the wizard, and neither of them have the unfettered access to the arcane spells that everyone needs. They aren't anywhere near as bad as the wizard is.
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The necromancers main "he's broken" trait comes mainly from zombies being rediculously hard to kill due to the resilient trait. Poison immunity sucks yeah but if his creatures died as easily as everyone elses it wouldn't be a big issue. The fact is that anyone can use zombie brutes goth, even wizards. The druid on the other hand is very pocketed in the nature school, and she already pays triple for 2 schools! She only gets one tree bond, so a lucky force hammer or fireball, or a will planned conquer puts her I iredeemably behind the stick as her marker goes away. Neither of these mages are anywhere near as potentially unassailable as the wizard, and neither of them have the unfettered access to the arcane spells that everyone needs. They aren't anywhere near as bad as the wizard is.
I agree in general, but I also fear that a heavily armoured Necromancer would be tough to beat given DoT strategies don't work on him. And he has access to good anti-swarm (Idol) and can still heal through Regen spells (although Deathlock is usually a better strategy). Honestly, I've found Skelly Necros tougher than Zombie Necros, partly because they're immune to Idol + Deathlock and can still Reconstruct.
(Yes, Zombies are also immune and Brute is a brute, but Zombies can't reconstruct... yet...)
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I just realized that the warlord could probably do this too with piercing strike on helm of command...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The necromancers main "he's broken" trait comes mainly from zombies being rediculously hard to kill due to the resilient trait. Poison immunity sucks yeah but if his creatures died as easily as everyone elses it wouldn't be a big issue. The fact is that anyone can use zombie brutes goth, even wizards. The druid on the other hand is very pocketed in the nature school, and she already pays triple for 2 schools! She only gets one tree bond, so a lucky force hammer or fireball, or a will planned conquer puts her I iredeemably behind the stick as her marker goes away. Neither of these mages are anywhere near as potentially unassailable as the wizard, and neither of them have the unfettered access to the arcane spells that everyone needs. They aren't anywhere near as bad as the wizard is.
If the zombie brutes was easy to kill year id agree the Necromancer wasnt "OP" - but they are exactly that.
A Wizard could take 4 zombie brutes i guess but i would be 24 spellpoints - so his not really ahead of the Necromancer there.
4 Zombie Brute
4 Dispels
4 Nullify
4 Seeking Dispel
would be 36 spellbook points for both Necromancer and the Wizard.
normally Necromancer doesn't need as many dispels because of his poison immune trait.
Killing the Druids tree isn't always easy. But yes its a really good counter.
Druid still have awesome abilities and an spellbook creation thats almost on par with Wizards.
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Exactly right. My point is that the workarounds for necro and did both already exist, and the power they hold is paid for in spades by the druid with two trip schools and the necromancers only have one in school and paying triple for holy sucks, that's where the most effective healing is. So though they are top tier mages the wizard can still pack answers for both of them without abnormal detriment. And to me that's just lame
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Wizard is way more universal than necro or druid. Those two are very strong but can still fight on a fair level against forcemaster or themselves. I would not call them OP just cause they are good.
I think that not only the Wizard is too strong by his abilities, some other mages are too weak by their abilities. Johktari and Priest the worst. Both only channel 9 (that is always bad. Only the beastmaster and dwarf warlord seem to run smooth without 10) and holy avanger and wounded prey are both very situational. Also both pay triple for other schools. I would call them underpowered.
If the Wizard is meant to be a universal trickster, he should not be a specialist as well. As a Universalist with access to all schools without paying triple he should pay double for really all. That would mean also double for arcane.
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I think turning the Wizard into a "trickster" is impossible st this point without making a completely new Mage. His abilities are (1) cheap access to spells, (2) a built-in Ethereal ranged attack and (3) built-in damage negation. This makes him predisposed to (1) having an unprecedented flexible toolbox of spells including answers to opponent strategies, (2) unrelenting firepower (Hawkeye gives him a 4-dice attack that he's never without that crushes Incorporeal objects and can target flying creatures and ignore guards; a choice of Elemental school means an abundance of his choice of attack spells) and (3) resilient defense with the ability to use defences and armour as normal plus ignore damage that does manage to get through. All this with no triple cost to rein him in to a focused strategy, so while there are a lot of mana denial and "trickster" spells in the arcane school. The Wizard has no incentive nor need to use them. Instead, he can go all-out control/undo and/or all-out attack and/or all-out defence/tank as well as or better than his opponent.
Compare to other mages, whose ability cards dictate (to some degree) what they're best at:
- Straywood: easily best at summoning Level 1 creatures (and not bad at melee); not good at attack spells
- Priestess: best at healing and good at just staying alive; not good at DoT and susceptible to Poison Blood/Idol
- Arraxian Crown Warlock: designed for "buddy"; great at curses and fire spells; struggles at healing, and rather predictable (e.g. countering fire and curses is how to deal with him).
- Forcemaster: terrible at creatures (eg limited to buddy or solo); doesn't have much diversity within in-school spells, so tends to have a smaller spell book due to requiring a lot of out-of-school spells
- Bloodwave Warlord: good at Command Incantations and needs to use his built-in commands well on several creatures or else he's basically a Mage with nothing but handicaps (triple arcane, none of his abilities directly help him win); a Wizard makes a better Warlord
- Priest: abilities are so specific that he's pretty Miche required to have a strong non-legendary holy creature plus a bunch of other creatures to try to get the former to "avenge"; and he needs to use attacks that deal Light damage, which means as many Staff of Asyra as he can afford. If you aren't doing these things, you should play a different Mage.
- Johktari Beastmaster: good at getting her creatures to kill enemy creatures... so only "good" if your opponent cooperates. Katarah finally lets her run'n'gun... but it's still worse than Arcane Zap. In other words, a Wizard is a better Johktari Beastmaster.
- Necromancer: immune to most DoT, and this gets a lot out of Arena-wide DoT; pretty much must use Undead creatures, which means he can't buff his creatures very much (since most buffs need a Living target).
- Druid: Must use plants/vines. Pays triple for 2 Schools. Kill her tree and she goes from very strong to very weak.
- Anvil Throne Warlord: good with Equipment; good with Commands (see other Warlord). Thus, he wants to Battle Forge and/or Buddy, and that's about it.
- Adremelech Warlock: All her abilities are about curses, fire and demons... so she needs to Ignite things, summon Demons, and get at least a curse or two out there. She could speciallize in one of these three more than the others (and there's some choice as to which you choose) but it's one (or more) of these 3. Otherwise, another Mage might be better.
Tl/dr: all non-wizards are forced into one of a few strategies; if you play a Mage and don't use those strategies, then you'd be better off with a different Mage. That is, except the Wizard. He can do any strategy, because his anilities (1) let him do so cheaply, (2) give him an advantage on offense, and (3) give him an advantage on defence. No need for "trickery." Thus, it's too late to figure out how to turn him into a "trickster" unless you give him a completely different ability card.
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I would like to bring up that the Wizard as we know him is not your basic Wizard but a type of Wizard.
A Basic Wizard ( as I see it ) is a Mage who's trained in the Arcane school, nothing else, just like all Beastmasters are trained in Nature.
Besides this standard Arcane training, which defines him as a Wizard, he ( or she ) however will also specialise in another aspect of the game, making that Wizard a certain type of Wizard.
Other possible Wizards could include for example :
- Enchantress : Wizard, trained in Arcane and Enchantments
- Swordmage : Wizard, trained in Arcane and War school
etc
The Wizard as we know him is actually an Elemental Wizard, a Wizard trained in Arcane and an Element of choice.
The problem I see however is that his play is more that of a Swordmage, a Wizard who's trained in Arcane and War.
The fact that he has such easy access to all the war equipment makes him play out of character and I'm convinced that was not as intended.
Just look at his ability card for proof of that.
He's been given the Voltaric Shield ability for a reason.
This was supposed to be an Elemental Wizard like we know from D&D.
You know, Low Strength, low Armor, high intelligence, powerful attack spells with an added ability to give him some magical armor because he might need it.
However, since he's played as a Tank, the Wizard doesn't need his Voltaric Shield at all, it just makes him even harder to hit.
So I think that to make the Elemental Wizard "play as intended" his Training section should also contain
" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
So he still would have access to all the Arcane staples like Mage wand, Rings, Suppression Cloak, as well as the Elemental Wand and Elemental Cloak but this would mean all Wizards would now have to play without Leather Gloves/Boots/Chausses, Reflex Boots and Veteran's Belt, Regeneration Belt to name a few.
These are exactly the cards which make him play out of character imo and who don't belong in his arsenal.
(They certainly don't belong to the Wizard in a lot of other fantasy games where armour gives a penalty when casting spells or is simply outright forbidden to Wizard types ... )
Nevertheless, the Fire Wizard would still have access to a Dragonscale Hauberk while an Air Wizard would have the choice between a Wind Wyvern Hide and a Storm Drake Hide and all would have access to the Elemental Cloak but I'm sure you would see different strategies come to the forefront as they all would have to search for alternative ways to prevent damage. The Wizard would likely be played more like he was meant to be played and not as a Tank.
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" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
This would be a very elegant fix that stays true to the lore.
It would also have a reasonably impact to the rock wizard.
No more resilience from acid balls ( Chitin Armor) , and no more Iron Mountain Rock Steel Plutonium durability combining Veterans Belt, high armor and voltaric shield (possibly with aegis 1).
And it would actually be possible to poke the wizard with a 3 or 4 dice creature to trigger voltaric without that stupid belt. And i remember somebody from AW advising this trick a long time ago in a thread about how to handle voltaric shield.
Even more so it would less the forge less useful for him since the 3 leathers (gloves, boots, pants) are no longer available to him.
Is it enough? not sure... But its definitely not too much.
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I would like to bring up that the Wizard as we know him is not your basic Wizard but a type of Wizard.
A Basic Wizard ( as I see it ) is a Mage who's trained in the Arcane school, nothing else, just like all Beastmasters are trained in Nature.
Besides this standard Arcane training, which defines him as a Wizard, he ( or she ) however will also specialise in another aspect of the game, making that Wizard a certain type of Wizard.
Other possible Wizards could include for example :
- Enchantress : Wizard, trained in Arcane and Enchantments
- Swordmage : Wizard, trained in Arcane and War school
etc
The Wizard as we know him is actually an Elemental Wizard, a Wizard trained in Arcane and an Element of choice.
The problem I see however is that his play is more that of a Swordmage, a Wizard who's trained in Arcane and War.
The fact that he has such easy access to all the war equipment makes him play out of character and I'm convinced that was not as intended.
Just look at his ability card for proof of that.
He's been given the Voltaric Shield ability for a reason.
This was supposed to be an Elemental Wizard like we know from D&D.
You know, Low Strength, low Armor, high intelligence, powerful attack spells with an added ability to give him some magical armor because he might need it.
However, since he's played as a Tank, the Wizard doesn't need his Voltaric Shield at all, it just makes him even harder to hit.
So I think that to make the Elemental Wizard "play as intended" his Training section should also contain
" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
So he still would have access to all the Arcane staples like Mage wand, Rings, Suppression Cloak, as well as the Elemental Wand and Elemental Cloak but this would mean all Wizards would now have to play without Leather Gloves/Boots/Chausses, Reflex Boots and Veteran's Belt, Regeneration Belt to name a few.
These are exactly the cards which make him play out of character imo and who don't belong in his arsenal.
(They certainly don't belong to the Wizard in a lot of other fantasy games where armour gives a penalty when casting spells or is simply outright forbidden to Wizard types ... )
Nevertheless, the Fire Wizard would still have access to a Dragonscale Hauberk while an Air Wizard would have the choice between a Wind Wyvern Hide and a Storm Drake Hide and all would have access to the Elemental Cloak but I'm sure you would see different strategies come to the forefront as they all would have to search for alternative ways to prevent damage. The Wizard would likely be played more like he was meant to be played and not as a Tank.
Hmm. Maybe. Don't think the problem is that wizard can tank at all, it's really more of the way he tanks when people use him to tank. Wizard should be a bit more fragile. It should be easier to keep his armor low so he actually has a need for voltaric shield. And this way he actually has more reason to use gargoyle sentry if he does end up wanting to tank. Gargoyle can absorb more of the damage so that it doesn't hurt the wizard himself so much.
I'm not sure if you saw the part of this discussion where sharkbait and I were discussing how the lack of sufficient counters to spellbind besides spellbind might be the main issue here that's causing all these other problems, rather than something inherent to the wizard himself.
Maybe if mage wand elemental wand and wizard tower got epic, then the wizard wouldn't be able to spam acid ball and dissolve indefinitely, so his opponents would not become forever behind on the armor/armor removal game. Then the wizard wouldn't be able to replace his armor so much more easily than his opponents replace theirs, so the wizard would actually need to rely on voltaric shield more. Using the shield more would get rid of the unfair mana advantage he gets when he tries tanking, which means he would have to rely more on tricks manipulation and control to win, rather than overwhelming the enemy with super-efficient brute force made possible by huge mana and action advantage.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
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" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
This would be a very elegant fix that stays true to the lore.
You're kidding, right? More and more equipment is going to be added to the game over time. Even now, who cares if the Wizard is restricted to other school's equipment? So, no War school armor pieces... but he still gets the torso piece that is attuned to his element (Leviathan Scale is coming, and I'm guessing Earth will also get a chest piece as well at some point), plus one of the arcane Cloaks... and then any of the enchantments that add armor.... What do you gain? He has several wands in school, and probably doesn't need any others. What rings does a Wizard usually use that isn't in school? Weapons? OK... so he can't use Eagleclaw Boots... what a loss. If absolutely needed, he can Tanglevine himself. Want a Regen Belt? Use Regrowth instead. There are plenty of alternatives that give equivalent effects for the lack of the few pieces of equipment to which he might actually care about losing access.
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The necromancers main "he's broken" trait comes mainly from zombies being rediculously hard to kill due to the resilient trait. Poison immunity sucks yeah but if his creatures died as easily as everyone elses it wouldn't be a big issue. The fact is that anyone can use zombie brutes goth, even wizards.
Someone showed four Brutes plus Arcane staples as being equal spellbook points. I am sure that the Necromancer will have plenty of other spellbook points dedicated to Zombies where the Wizard would pay double and not the Necro.
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I just returned from Origins this weekend, so I'll keep my response brief. I've tried to have a "measure twice, cut once" mentality about errata. I would rather wait and make the better call, then race forward and make the wrong one. That said I'm looking at a few changes right now. I know that I am not going to please everyone, but I'm going to push for what I feel is in the best interest of the game. That's my burden, and agree or disagree you all will have your own opinions on it, and that is fantastic.
On the subject of why things take so long: Making Mage Wars is always a balancing act. There is always too much to do and not enough time to do it. Right now my focus is going be on getting all of you new product. It's going to be on making the next set or designing the next Mage. To me this is the lifeblood of the game. If there isn't something new and cool to customize your spellbook with, then you stop customizing. In the past year, we've released Domination, Academy, and now Academy Priestess and Warlock. We have PVS this year as well. I know that not all of those products have appealed to all of our players, but I point them out because before Domination it was at least a year wait for a Mage War product at all, and now we've had 4 come out in a year, with PVS on the way. So we're getting back on a rhythm. I know that making the next set in that rhythm is of paramount importance as well.
None of that was meant to take away from the needed updates to the various documents and software packages. I'm excited. Several playtesters have stepped up and will be helping me clean up these items and hopefully we'll get it all in a good space. This also goes back to that matter of balance, and with the extra help, I'm hoping to find that balance.
I've rambled too much already, but I wanted to let you all now at least some of where I was coming from and what I'm doing to try and move things in a good direction. Origins was fantastic and uplifting. I want to thank everyone who came and visited me at the booth. Your encouragement means a great deal to me.
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" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
This would be a very elegant fix that stays true to the lore.
You're kidding, right? More and more equipment is going to be added to the game over time. Even now, who cares if the Wizard is restricted to other school's equipment? So, no War school armor pieces... but he still gets the torso piece that is attuned to his element (Leviathan Scale is coming, and I'm guessing Earth will also get a chest piece as well at some point), plus one of the arcane Cloaks... and then any of the enchantments that add armor.... What do you gain? He has several wands in school, and probably doesn't need any others. What rings does a Wizard usually use that isn't in school? Weapons? OK... so he can't use Eagleclaw Boots... what a loss. If absolutely needed, he can Tanglevine himself. Want a Regen Belt? Use Regrowth instead. There are plenty of alternatives that give equivalent effects for the lack of the few pieces of equipment to which he might actually care about losing access.
Here is a list of all the equipment the Wizard can currently equip that he would lose access to with this change (including promos, since these will presumably matter down the road, let alone online):
[spellbook]
[spells]
Ankh of Asyra
[mwcard=mw1q02]Bearskin[/mwcard]
Chitin Armor
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ03]Colossus Belt[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWQ01]Dancing Scimitar[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q27]Dawnbreaker Ring[/mwcard]
[mwcard=FWQ02]Defense Ring[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q04]Deflection Bracers[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ06]Eagleclaw Boots[/mwcard]
Elfric's Life Ring
Eye of Bael
Faith Healer's Staff
[mwcard=mw1q11]Gauntlets of Strength[/mwcard]
Gloves of Skill
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q13]Ivarium Longbow[/mwcard]
Leather Belt
[mwcard=mw1q15]Leather Boots[/mwcard]
Leather Chausses
[mwcard=mw1q16]Leather Gloves[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNQ10]Meditation Amulet[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX2FFQ06]Morning Star[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ04]Reflex Boots[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q23]Regrowth Belt[/mwcard]
Resplendent Bow
Ring of Healing
Spiked Armor
Spiked Buckler
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ01]Sunfire Amulet[/mwcard]
[mwcard=DNQ07]Veteran's Belt[/mwcard]
Vorpal Blade
[mwcard=DNQ09]Wand of Healing[/mwcard]
Wychwood Ironvine
[/spells]
[/spellbook]
And he would still have access to:
[spellbook]
[spells]
[mwcard=mw1q01]Arcane Ring[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ05]Dispel Wand[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q07]Elemental Cloak[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q08]Elemental Wand[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q09]Enchanter's Ring[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q18]Mage Staff[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q19]Mage Wand[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q22]Moonglow Amulet[/mwcard]
Mordok's Tome
Repulsion Cloak
Rod of the Arcanum
Sistarran Robes
[mwcard=mw1q31]Staff of the Arcanum[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q32]Suppression Cloak[/mwcard]
Wispwillow Amulet
[/spells]
[/spellbook]
And depending on his choice of element, he could still have access to some of:
[spellbook]
[spells]
Cloak of Fire
[mwcard=mw1q06]Dragonscale Hauberk[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q10]Fireshaper Ring[/mwcard]
[mwcard=MWBG1Q01]Gale Force Ring[/mwcard]
Leviathan Scale Armor
[mwcard=mw1q17]Lightning Ring[/mwcard]
Staff of Storms
[mwcard=FWQ10]Storm Drake Hide[/mwcard]
[mwcard=mw1q33]Wind Wyvern Hide[/mwcard]
[/spells]
[/spellbook]
And of course, only a Fire Wizard would have access to Dragonscale Hauberk, which makes the Wizard's choice of school actually relevant - as compared to, say, some cases where the Elemental School choice was arbitrary (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=16741.msg68569#msg68569).
I think the biggest impact this proposal alone would have is preventing a Wizard from wearing (1) Veteran's Belt or one of the regeneration belts, (2) All the Leathers (!), (3) Gloves of Skill (like a mini Akiro's Favor for ranged attacks), (4) Chitin Armor (no Acid resistance for the Wizard), (5) Eagleclaw Boots (Wizard becomes easy to push around), (6) Reflex Boots/Bracers of Defense/Dancing Scimitar (no equipment-based defense for the Wizard), ... and probably most importantly, only a Fire Wizard can bulk up on Dragonscale Hauberks (although all but Earth Wizards have at least one +2 armor chestpiece available, and even the Earth Wizard can wear Sistarran Robes and Elemental/Suppression/Repulsion Cloak).
So while this proposed "fix" is thematic and does something to make Wizards at least slightly less tanky by adding a drawback, I'm inclined to agree with DaveW that it may not do enough. Perhaps if this "fix" were approved, it might be accompanied by other "fixes" - like (1) cutting the Wizard's channeling to 9 (since he still has cheap access to more +Channeling spells than any other mage - might as well have incentive to use them), and (2) slapping "Epic" on the Wands (which hurts everybody to some degree but at least makes matches end eventually) and Wizard's Tower (...), and (3) making Arcane Zap a little less good (e.g. either costs more mana or loses Ethereal or has a 1-1 range restriction or can't target flying creatures or something so it isn't so darn good).
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I think the best option is to errata the least amount of cards possible and the best way to do that to me is to errata the Wizard's card itself. The wands are too prevalent to have to re-issue those. What makes the most sense to me is one, to errata the tower so changing the spell costs an action & mana, add a triple cost opposite elemental school, and possibly triple cost all out of school equipment. It stops I think the bulk of the issues.
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I think the best option is to errata the least amount of cards possible and the best way to do that to me is to errata the Wizard's card itself. The wands are too prevalent to have to re-issue those. What makes the most sense to me is one, to errata the tower so changing the spell costs an action & mana, add a triple cost opposite elemental school, and possibly triple cost all out of school equipment. It stops I think the bulk of the issues.
I can't see the wizard getting an errata. The game has been out since 2012 with those abilities and there have been a number of printings since then. it feels like an "in too deep" situation.
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I see it. It both can and should happen. Changing one card for future printings is no different for mages or other cards. They released altered versions for battle fury hobs and Tol. Why not the wizard? I know they don't happen fast or flippantly but the topic is very hot, and deserves some extra attention. Which according to laddinfance, it is actively receiving said attention right now. Thank you aaron for the response and im sorry there was this much drama right after origins.
My biggest peeves are the tower and his lack of a trip school. Tag the tower with epic and ill be appeased, give the mage either one major school to pay trip for or give him an assortment of the minor (read elemental) schools at triple and ill be entirely happy.
For whatever that's worth lol
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" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
This would be a very elegant fix that stays true to the lore.
You're kidding, right? More and more equipment is going to be added to the game over time. Even now, who cares if the Wizard is restricted to other school's equipment? So, no War school armor pieces... but he still gets the torso piece that is attuned to his element (Leviathan Scale is coming, and I'm guessing Earth will also get a chest piece as well at some point), plus one of the arcane Cloaks... and then any of the enchantments that add armor.... What do you gain? He has several wands in school, and probably doesn't need any others. What rings does a Wizard usually use that isn't in school? Weapons? OK... so he can't use Eagleclaw Boots... what a loss. If absolutely needed, he can Tanglevine himself. Want a Regen Belt? Use Regrowth instead. There are plenty of alternatives that give equivalent effects for the lack of the few pieces of equipment to which he might actually care about losing access.
If you want to post something serious do so... but stop trolling please.
Alone removing veterans belt, healing wand and Chtitin armor will make a significant difference... comboing these items with voltaric shield is basicly what turns him into an unkillable thing when adding a noticiable amount of armor and aegos 1 into the mix.
Regarding future releases.... are you joking or what? do you expect that armor goes to infinity or what???
Your post smells bad dude...
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" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
This would be a very elegant fix that stays true to the lore.
You're kidding, right? More and more equipment is going to be added to the game over time. Even now, who cares if the Wizard is restricted to other school's equipment? So, no War school armor pieces... but he still gets the torso piece that is attuned to his element (Leviathan Scale is coming, and I'm guessing Earth will also get a chest piece as well at some point), plus one of the arcane Cloaks... and then any of the enchantments that add armor.... What do you gain? He has several wands in school, and probably doesn't need any others. What rings does a Wizard usually use that isn't in school? Weapons? OK... so he can't use Eagleclaw Boots... what a loss. If absolutely needed, he can Tanglevine himself. Want a Regen Belt? Use Regrowth instead. There are plenty of alternatives that give equivalent effects for the lack of the few pieces of equipment to which he might actually care about losing access.
If you want to post something serious do so... but stop trolling please.
Alone removing veterans belt, healing wand and Chtitin armor will make a significant difference... comboing these items with voltaric shield is basicly what turns him into an unkillable thing when adding a noticiable amount of armor and aegos 1 into the mix.
Regarding future releases.... are you joking or what? do you expect that armor goes to infinity or what???
Your post smells bad dude...
I guess I don't know what you mean by "trolling," but I assure you that it was entirely serious. I was pointing out that restricting out-of school equipment did very little to a Wizard, along with examples.
iNano got it... I'm not sure why you didn't. Regardless, I do take offense to your presumption and declaration that I am not taking this seriously (and probably that I was "trolling," whatever that is).
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Regarding future releases.... are you joking or what? do you expect that armor goes to infinity or what???
I wonder who's the troll here...
The point and the example given was that eventually, there'll be great equipment for each of the elemental schools.
Also, no game is safe from power-creep. The internet hivemind has a tendency of quickly figuring out and abusing the 'best' cards in new sets. Usually, they turn out to be the 'best' because of unforseen interactions with other cards. No amount of careful design and playtesting can fully prevent this. It's in the very nature of customizable games following an exception-based design principle.
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I still haven't read anything in this forum that convinces me there is a problem that needs fixing. An overpowered mage for me would need to be able to win each match regardless of player skill. An example of something like this from another game was provided earlier for A Few Acres of Snow. A game strategy was discovered that every player could use to ensure a victory.
I haven't seen that discussion here. Players recognize that player skill more than spellbook designs will win the day in the end. Instead I read that yes, we have counters to each spellbook choice the Wizard can make, but we feel that having so many choices during spellbook design for one mage is overpowered for reason X, Y, and Z. My experience has been that for any given match the Wizard must still make choices among all the options. So if he decides to be a fire wizard any spellbook designed to counter Warlocks and fire should be easy to include counters for a fire Wizard. This is the nature of spellbook design. As more spells are added to each school the dynamics of choices will change and if done in a balanced way keep the overall game design balanced. As long as the schools remain specialized in some way this will provide the generalists with choices and provide a trained mage the option in spellbook design to craft strategies to defeat a generalist.
One more thought - when we make comparisons of various abilities and spells in the game we should be sure to include all costs and benefits in the analysis. For example, the Wizard shield provides flexibility to prevent damage each round that other mages require a spell to get a similar effect. This benefit comes with a cost that it must be committed to in the planning phase at the cost of 2 mana. So the mage receives this benefit only if he spends the 2 mana that turn. In effect an opponent can lower the Wizard's channeling to 8 a turn if threatened to commit to using the shield each turn. Thus, for the Wizard to receive this benefit each turn the Wizard drops to channeling the lowest amount each turn of any mage. In effect using the ability lowers a recognize strength of the mage (channeling 10) to a weakness. This cost to using the ability is often overlooked in the earlier posts. Other mage abilities don't have an ongoing cost or only have a one time cost to receive the benefit each round. These costs have subtle effects on play and should be considered when comparing abilities across different mages.
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I still haven't read anything in this forum that convinces me there is a problem that needs fixing. An overpowered mage for me would need to be able to win each match regardless of player skill. An example of something like this from another game was provided earlier for A Few Acres of Snow. A game strategy was discovered that every player could use to ensure a victory.
^^ here is your problem. Overpowered =/= "cannot lose." We're not talking about one mage playing in "god mode" that literally cannot not win; we're talking about a mage that has inherent advantages over other mages in an unbalanced way.
Let's assume we agree that the Forcemaster and the Arraxian Crown Warlock are currently balanced relative to each other. That is, if two equally skilled Mage Warriors choose either of these mages and build books for them and play each other - and repeat this many times, building new books from scratch each time - that they'll each have close to a 50% win record on average. Then, let's give the Forcemaster 42 life instead of 32 life and repeat the experiment. The Forcemaster will still lose some matches, because quite often an extra 10 life wouldn't have mattered (e.g. some matches are more lopsided than others). But by making one mage inherently better than it was before, we've shifted the balance between these mages, and we might now expect the Forcemaster to win 50+X%, where X>0. Thus, the Forcemaster is now overpowered to some extent relative to the Warlock.
This is what we're talking about with the Wizard. The Wizard has inherent advantages (mage abilities, a particularly powerful Familiar with Spellbind etc, no triple school... basically a bunch of really good stuff and no drawbacks). Because it is stronger than other mages in virtually every head-to-head situation, between equally skilled players, it is likely to win 50+X% of the time where X>0. X isn't 50; e.g. the Wizard can lose. But it's generally better on average than other mages. And so much so that the metagame is shifted towards "Wizard or something that has a chance to beat a Wizard" - at least to some degree. Imbalance like this is generally bad for the game, either because it skews the competitive scene, and because it gives a negative perception to casual players.
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" Can only use Equipment from schools he's trained in "
This would be a very elegant fix that stays true to the lore.
You're kidding, right? More and more equipment is going to be added to the game over time. Even now, who cares if the Wizard is restricted to other school's equipment? So, no War school armor pieces... but he still gets the torso piece that is attuned to his element (Leviathan Scale is coming, and I'm guessing Earth will also get a chest piece as well at some point), plus one of the arcane Cloaks... and then any of the enchantments that add armor.... What do you gain? He has several wands in school, and probably doesn't need any others. What rings does a Wizard usually use that isn't in school? Weapons? OK... so he can't use Eagleclaw Boots... what a loss. If absolutely needed, he can Tanglevine himself. Want a Regen Belt? Use Regrowth instead. There are plenty of alternatives that give equivalent effects for the lack of the few pieces of equipment to which he might actually care about losing access.
Hi DaveW,
Of course the Wizard could use Enchantment alternatives for the equipment he's lost ( Regrowth, Rhino Hide, Force Orb, Force Sword etc) but there are a few important differences you're overlooking here imo.
1/ all this equipment is put on by the Battleforge, costing the Wizard only 1 QA to set up and then let the BF do the equipping while he keeps his A's & QA's doing his business.
2/ using enchantment alternatives for this equipment would mean the Wizard has to tap into his own QA's rather than relying on the extra action gained by the Battleforge meaning his Tanking strategy just won't be as effective by going from 3 actions to just 2 actions per round.
3/ removing the 3 leathers equals 3 less potential armor, any which way you look at this. Rhino Hide is not an "alternative" in the strictest sense since it's available to him now as well. It can be played on top of the leathers for a total of 5 armor. Removing the leathers would thus be a "net loss" of 3 possible armour for the Wizard.
4/ you don't seem to think highly of spells like Veteran's Belt and Eagleclaw Boots but imo not having access to these spells would have a serious impact on how he's played - without the Boots he's open to all kinds of push and pull effects and tricks ... and without the Belt, well ... I thought that one was obvious.
5/ and a minor but nevertheless important aspect imo, it's much easier to get rid of Corrode counters when your armour is provided by equipment ( by just changing or disabling it ) than when your armour is provided by an enchantment making Corrode markers somewhat "stickier" as well.
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I haven't lost to a Wizard somewhat since ages, and the last won I didnt win was the won against Charmyna. And even more with my other mages competetive book, without sounding offensive 90% of all decks I see I can see have large development potential and quite same I would consider even causual decks. And with Vet-Belt chitin and so on Wizard.
We all lack mileage on games. Im currently sitting in middle of nowhere and have almost no internet acess but there will be a long post about latest tournament experiences, Decks, Startegy and so on coming. Including the lastest discussions on epic mage wand, wizard and so on.
It is hard for me to say Wizard is overpowered if I have beaten all wizards lately. It is probably necessary that i face those extremly good tank wizard books with all my highly competetive books against equally skilled players to get anything out of it.
I can tell you how hard my decissions of that defense deck wizard are, and independent how you do it there will be a weakness somewhere, question is if you know it when you play against it.
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I haven't lost to a Wizard somewhat since ages, and the last won I didnt win was the won against Charmyna. And even more with my other mages competetive book, without sounding offensive 90% of all decks I see I can see have large development potential and quite same I would consider even causual decks. And with Vet-Belt chitin and so on Wizard.
We all lack mileage on games. Im currently sitting in middle of nowhere and have almost no internet acess but there will be a long post about latest tournament experiences, Decks, Startegy and so on coming. Including the lastest discussions on epic mage wand, wizard and so on.
It is hard for me to say Wizard is overpowered if I have beaten all wizards lately. It is probably necessary that i face those extremly good tank wizard books with all my highly competetive books against equally skilled players to get anything out of it.
I can tell you how hard my decissions of that defense deck wizard are, and independent how you do it there will be a weakness somewhere, question is if you know it when you play against it.
A superior Mage Wars player can still beat an inferior player, regardless of the mages they choose. I'm sure if you ran a Malakai Priest, you could beat me playing a Wizard. This is analogous to Tim Seitz playing A Few Acres of Snow; he still had something like a 90% win record as the French despite the fact that the "Halifax Hammer" was a broken strategy "guaranteeing" an English victory (and Tim had a 100% record as the English, but he was also the best player on the planet and could even beat people trying (unsuccessfully) to use the Halifax Hammer against him). But that was a different situation in a different game. In A Few Acres of Snow, an expert player could indeed guarantee a win as the English. In Mage Wars, a Wizard has inherent advantages against a non-Wizard. That doesn't mean it can guarantee a win. An expert player can beat an inferior player. It's like an expert chess player taking a 3-pawn handicap against an amateur and still beating him in 20 moves. The handicap can be overcome. That doesn't mean the game isn't imbalanced.
I think this is becoming a political argument. Republicans can't understand how someone could support a Democrat, and a Democrat can't understand how someone could support a Republican. "Wizard isn't OP" people don't see what seems to be obvious to "Wizard is obviously OP" people. It seems to be subjective, even though both sides believe wholeheartedly that it is objective. But to me, it really says something when even new players look at the Wizard's ability card and say things like "the Wizard is obviously the strongest because his abilities are really good and he has no drawbacks, whereas all the other mages have weaker and/or conditional abilities that lock you into a particular predictable strategy and come with various drawbacks."
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So while this proposed "fix" is thematic and does something to make Wizards at least slightly less tanky by adding a drawback, I'm inclined to agree with DaveW that it may not do enough. Perhaps if this "fix" were approved, it might be accompanied by other "fixes"
Hi iNano,
I agree this wouldn't be enough.
I was just making a suggestion that could possible be added to a lot of other suggestions.
Like many of us, I've read a lot of posts about this subject through the years and I've seen many good suggestions on how to balance him.
If you'd ask me however, this is what I would currently suggest.
Training :
- Arcane plus one Elemental school of Choice
- Triple cost for Nature spells
- Can only use equipment from schools he's trained in
Voltaric Shield : no change ( he'll need this now )
Arcane Zap : 2 mana - Range 1/1 - 2 dice - ( NO ethereal )
The Wizard Tower and Wands are another discussion.
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One problem is that when for example, a swarm beastmaster faces an armor wizard, he will have almost 0% chance to win unless the wizard makes some ridiculous mistakes or the dice are out of proportion.
Round 1:
Beastmaster: lair and something (spending most of his mana)
Wizard: battleforge and something
From this moment on, the wizard can very quickly armor up. The beastmaster will nor have the mana, nor the actions to effectively reduce this armor. His small creatures will not be able to deal any damage at all. The wizard is basically invulnerable and can start to use all his innate strengths to easily deal with everything the beastmaster trows at him.
Of course you can argument that the beastmaster should not have cast a lair in round 1 and go for the attack (maybe to kill the battleforge). Against that argument I say:
1) The deck was not designed to rush, and will probably do a horrible job at it.
2) A "mistake" like that should not have to mean a loss in round 2.
3) EVEN if he is able to be a treath, the wizard will start to use his shield. Combined with the armor it will be enough to survive the "weak" beastmaster rush.
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I see that Borg elaborated the point of my post.
To comment further on Hajewins post:
I also think its even worse than that.
Solo mages cannot do much either. They may be able to get a bit of damage on him before he turns from rock to Iron Steel plutonium but it can simply not be done fast enough.
And the clock really IS running against that type of wizard. once he is done spending actions on building up defenses he will start undoing everything you do.
The solo mage will also have to spend some of his actions on positioning (teleport, push, pull) or he will not even be in range part of the time.
Result: The solo mage starts spending actions on swinging a weapon and he is essentially losing the 'Do / Undo war' while dealing less and less damage.
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One problem is that when for example, a swarm beastmaster faces an armor wizard, he will have almost 0% chance to win unless the wizard makes some ridiculous mistakes or the dice are out of proportion.
Round 1:
Beastmaster: lair and something (spending most of his mana)
Wizard: battleforge and something
From this moment on, the wizard can very quickly armor up. The beastmaster will nor have the mana, nor the actions to effectively reduce this armor. His small creatures will not be able to deal any damage at all. The wizard is basically invulnerable and can start to use all his innate strengths to easily deal with everything the beastmaster trows at him.
Of course you can argument that the beastmaster should not have cast a lair in round 1 and go for the attack (maybe to kill the battleforge). Against that argument I say:
1) The deck was not designed to rush, and will probably do a horrible job at it.
2) A "mistake" like that should not have to mean a loss in round 2.
3) EVEN if he is able to be a treath, the wizard will start to use his shield. Combined with the armor it will be enough to survive the "weak" beastmaster rush.
If i play a fireball shooting adramlech warlock I have no chance against another Warlock that has 3 dragonscale and even an elemantal cloak. A mage with 3 dispels in a buddy build will probably never beat a forcemaster with 4 forcefields.
Swarm is not in particular viable in my point of view still. So you compare one of the weakest with one of the best, if not the best. And why focus on the shielded armor uped wizard kill that BF... Not that you will then win but have an easier time.
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I see your point. It's just stupid that a setup like that gives you around 0% chances to win. Even 25% would have been ok.
btw: My aggressive Adramelech warlock always runs around 4 dissolves and 4 explodes! And I almost always take one during the planning phase depending on my mana. If he decides to equip himself, I take it off a second afterwards.
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I see your point. It's just stupid that a setup like that gives you around 0% chances to win. Even 25% would have been ok.
btw: My aggressive Adramelech warlock always runs around 4 dissolves and 4 explodes! And I almost always take one during the planning phase depending on my mana. If he decides to equip himself, I take it off a second afterwards.
nor the bm will have the actions nor the mana to remove the wizards armor, where does your warlock get it them from (even more so with expensive explode? like to see that warlock book
To be honest I don't see 25% for a swarm build against almost all competetive books
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nor the bm will have the actions nor the mana to remove the wizards armor, where does your warlock get it them from (even more so with expensive explode? like to see that warlock book
To be honest I don't see 25% for a swarm build against almost all competetive books
The basic idea is a warlock with a battleforge charging at you from round one. She wants to melee attack the opponent every round and use the quickcast for everything else.
In the beginning she does not have a lot of mana because the battle forge uses most of it, but after a couple of rounds she doesn't need much mana anymore. (eg. some rounds consist of a force push (3 mana) and a melee attack) During the planning phase, I always need to choose between positioning, dissolve/explode or an enchantment. In most rounds, I thus plan a dissolve/explode. She is action drained though, I have a variant build with [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC11]Sersiryx, Imp Familiar[/mwcard], but for some reason I have had better succes without him.
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@Borg: By no means do I undervalue Veteran's Belt or Eagleclaw Boots. I have books where these two are important parts of the win strategy. None of those books, however, are Wizard books. Perhaps I just play a Wizard and design his spellbook differently, but I just try to keep one or two points of armor on my Wizards and spend more mana and time focusing on ranged combat and removing my opponent's defenses.
Certainly, my melee-type mages use the spells that you mention (though I was convinced to switch the FM to a Colossus Belt recently). I don't see the Wizard as a melee type is all, and I value these spells a bit less for him than from some others. Therefore, I didn't see the loss of access to these spells as being particularly dreadful.
Also, I am not a big fan of swapping torso armor (though I do it once in a while). Since the introduction of Acid Ball, probably only about half of the books I put together actually have had more than one torso piece. I tend to use Rust and Shift Enchantment more often, and I've been thinking about packing a Raincloud in a book or two for Corrode/Burn removal, etc.
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I still haven't read anything in this forum that convinces me there is a problem that needs fixing. An overpowered mage for me would need to be able to win each match regardless of player skill. An example of something like this from another game was provided earlier for A Few Acres of Snow. A game strategy was discovered that every player could use to ensure a victory.
^^ here is your problem. Overpowered =/= "cannot lose." We're not talking about one mage playing in "god mode" that literally cannot not win; we're talking about a mage that has inherent advantages over other mages in an unbalanced way.
Let's assume we agree that the Forcemaster and the Arraxian Crown Warlock are currently balanced relative to each other. That is, if two equally skilled Mage Warriors choose either of these mages and build books for them and play each other - and repeat this many times, building new books from scratch each time - that they'll each have close to a 50% win record on average. Then, let's give the Forcemaster 42 life instead of 32 life and repeat the experiment. The Forcemaster will still lose some matches, because quite often an extra 10 life wouldn't have mattered (e.g. some matches are more lopsided than others). But by making one mage inherently better than it was before, we've shifted the balance between these mages, and we might now expect the Forcemaster to win 50+X%, where X>0. Thus, the Forcemaster is now overpowered to some extent relative to the Warlock.
This is what we're talking about with the Wizard. The Wizard has inherent advantages (mage abilities, a particularly powerful Familiar with Spellbind etc, no triple school... basically a bunch of really good stuff and no drawbacks). Because it is stronger than other mages in virtually every head-to-head situation, between equally skilled players, it is likely to win 50+X% of the time where X>0. X isn't 50; e.g. the Wizard can lose. But it's generally better on average than other mages. And so much so that the metagame is shifted towards "Wizard or something that has a chance to beat a Wizard" - at least to some degree. Imbalance like this is generally bad for the game, either because it skews the competitive scene, and because it gives a negative perception to casual players.
I understand this point of view, but I think you are placing too much weight on the possibility that any given Wizard book can include a more cost effective set of spells compared to another mage. For any given match or tournament it only matters what choices were made by each player when designing their specific book. Players must fight matches with a limited set of spells from an increasing wider set of choices in the spell pool. Even the Wizard must make choices on the number of copies and range of out of school spells to put into a book. This makes it possible for any mage to find an advantage during the match based on the choices they made in putting their spellbook together.
It seems to me that you are focused on the wider opportunity space the Wizard has during spellbook design compared to other mages and believe this to be an unfair advantage. I actually see this as an advantage to having the Wizard training as broad as it is. This forces players to consider at least one mage that they cannot simply optimize a spellbook design that they know has a good chance to defeat that same mage in most situations. i.e. If you see most mages as constrained to a smaller set of strategies based on their training and abilities, then the Wizard becomes a benchmark for everyone to use when innovating new spellbook designs.
A key point that I try to remember is that in any given match a player doesn't know what spells you are bringing in to the arena. So whether or not you have easy access to one school or the other doesn't ultimately matter. If your design philosophy is to try and counter every possible strategy, then the Wizard has a more cost effective way to do this. But then that is what he was built for - flexibility and counters. When you compare this design philosophy across mages I can see where you might find the Wizard a stronger mage than the rest. This type of design philosophy seems to have the goal of lowering your risk in any given match up by ensuring a counter to opponent strategies. I think other design philosophies might look at the challenge the Wizard presents and find other solutions.
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Only looking at the mage abilities card, the wizard has an advantage over all other mages. Over some more than over others. I think there is no discussion here. And nobody says he is unbeatable, just better.
Questions are:
1) how big is this advantage?
What amount of skill and match-up-luck is needed to have a 50% chance to win (average value after several games)
2) how is the setup of mages meant to be?
By creating a spellbook you need to think of your own win strategy as well as of counters to possible foe-strategies. Is it intended, that some counterstrategies are totally the center of thoughts of every spellbookcreation?
After that: what space is left for win-strategies and does this provide a huge impact on some advantage in 1)?
In other words: is it a wanted part of the game to think a lot of “how do i get through a bomb-safe wizard?“. Or is mage wars losing some original variety of spellbooks by this?
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Certainly, my melee-type mages use the spells that you mention (though I was convinced to switch the FM to a Colossus Belt recently). I don't see the Wizard as a melee type is all, and I value these spells a bit less for him than from some others. Therefore, I didn't see the loss of access to these spells as being particularly dreadful.
There you have the problem.
1/ He's not a melee type, as you say, but he builds up like one, and he spends no more than 1 QA on it ( BF ) to make matters even worse, leaving him all his QA's to play as he likes while he becomes more invulnerable with each passing round.
2/ Therefore you shouldn't value these spells less for him but actually value them higher because he can build up like a melee type, while the melee types in turn cannot play like him.
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Certainly, my melee-type mages use the spells that you mention (though I was convinced to switch the FM to a Colossus Belt recently). I don't see the Wizard as a melee type is all, and I value these spells a bit less for him than from some others. Therefore, I didn't see the loss of access to these spells as being particularly dreadful.
There you have the problem.
1/ He's not a melee type, as you say, but he builds up like one, and he spends no more than 1 QA on it ( BF ) to make matters even worse, leaving him all his QA's to play as he likes while he becomes more invulnerable with each passing round.
2/ Therefore you shouldn't value these spells less for him but actually value them higher because he can build up like a melee type, while the melee types in turn cannot play like him.
I suppose he could build up like a melee mage, but I'd rather invest that eight mana on a Tower and attack the opposing mage with it instead. You still get the extra quick action, but are trying to kill the enemy at the same time. I just never play a Wizard with much armor is all.
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I still haven't read anything in this forum that convinces me there is a problem that needs fixing. An overpowered mage for me would need to be able to win each match regardless of player skill. An example of something like this from another game was provided earlier for A Few Acres of Snow. A game strategy was discovered that every player could use to ensure a victory.
I don't think that's a useful definition of 'overpowered'. Its an even stronger requirement for something I'd consider 'broken', not just 'overpowered'.
To me, 'overpowered' just means that something is a stronger option than any other option. E.g. imagine two Mage Wars spells with identical costs from different schools, except one is dealing an additional die of damage. That's for me an example of 'overpowered', i.e. it's strictly better than a comparable option, but you still may prefer the weaker option because it provides better synergy with the rest of your spellbook.
Regarding your comparison with 'A Few Acres of Snow', the story I heard about it was a bit different:
A top player had discovered a strategy that he claimed would always result in him winning. While the designer didn't believe it, the player kept winning almost every game. Other players tried to adapt the strategy and found it to be very strong but weren't nearly as successful, because the strategy actually also required skill.
Also, said top player typically still managed to win if other players tried to use his strategy against him.
As I said, that's just the version I heard. I haven't been that interested in the game, so I don't know which version is closer to the truth.
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If you look at the wizard's schools pre-nerf then you'll see he was not that powerful.
-Earth: The warlords tend to play the earth spells more effectively then the wizard.
-Fire: The warlocks tend to be better with fire. (possible exception for the fire elemental)
-Air: I see air as a strong school that no one plays, or they misplay it.
-Water: The Siren should replace the wizard in this school. This is the only school I think is OP. As a druid player, I would have perfected to fight a fire wizard over a water wizard any day of the week. The utility of the water school can make it hard to counter.
-Arcane: This the best school for the wizard, mana drain, powerful spells, powerful creatures. Like the necro & druid, the wizard is powerful late game but vulnerable to early melee rush builds.
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Warlords didn't tend to play better with Earth spells than Wizard. Earth creatures are slow and unmovable so You either want to use Summoning Circle or Teleport on them, both arcane spells.
When it comes to elemental attack spells Wizard had action advantage over Warlords and Warlocks thanks to Wizard Tower. Only Adramelech Warlock had some advantage over Wizard because she could give flame+1 to her enemies.