Level 2 Demon/Holy Creature

[reddawn]

Bloodreaper and Holy Avenger add a lot of flavor and strategy to the Warlock and Priest; however, I see some problems with the viability of these abilities given each mage's limited or non-existant access to level 2 creatures.

In the case of the Warlock, I'm finding it difficult to actually use Bloodreaper for 2 main reasons; no level 2 demon to round out the retinue of demons, and the fact that Dragonscale Hauberk, a very popular equipment, completely defeats 2 out of the 3 demons available to be Bloodreapers.  This leaves the Dark Pact Slayer, which is a very good creature to be sure, but given the Warlock's naturally lower channeling, is not always a reasonable choice.  I don't feel that Warlock players should be pigeon-holed into playing a Dark Pact Slayer every game, nor do I feel that they should be required to look outside the Dark/Fire schools for a Living level 2 creature.

I would like to see some kind of level 2 demon, and preferably one that does not deal Flame damage.  The Warlock's weakness to Flame resistance is so pronounced that I don't think another demon with a Flame attack is really necessary. 

For the Priest, I understand that there is technically a level 2 Holy creature available, the Asyran Defender, but I think it needs to be officially made tournament legal so that people don't feel discouraged to play with it.   This is less of an issue, since Priest players have a larger card-pool of potential Holy Avengers, but nearly all of them are relatively expensive level 3 creatures. 

I think this is important concern for the balance of the game, because other mages are not limited like the Warlock and Priest are.  The Beastmaster and Warlord, the two other mages with Pet (or pet-like) abilities have lots of creatures to choose from in the level 1, 2, 3 and even 4 range, and thus don't struggle at all to find the proper pet or just creature for a given situation.  Furthermore, the Forcemaster, Wizard, Johktari Beastmaster, and Priestess all have abilities that do not rely so heavily on their cardpool to actually make use of their abilities.

Hopefully there are level 2 creatures in the works, so that these abilities can be more flexible.  Thanks!

[ringkichard]

What you're asking for is the elimination of a weakness for those two mages. Do you think that mages should have no weaknesses? Is it always good to eliminate a mage's weakness? Should other mages lose their weaknesses?

[reddawn]

Uh, what?  I'm not asking for the elimination of a "weakness," I'm asking for a proper card pool.  If you're going to give a mage a card-pool centric ability, you need to support it so it can compete well. 

I see no reason why there cannot be a level 2 demon and a level 2 holy creature, nor how that would somehow imbalance the game, especially considering there are other similar abilities which ARE provided for at the level 2 range.

[Moonglow]

And cold damage seems just as thematic for demons as fire... I mean at least let us try some other stereotypes occasionally

Im getting a bit of an impression that there is a larger game space/card set that the play testers have been trialling (I don't know if this is true), and so while they're releasing expansions that are balance, thee are also further balance issues they know about which are still to be revealed...

Like in the other thread, about mana crystals vs flowers, it seems likely that there are 'flower' enhancing cards coming, and more hydro attacks etc...

Again, thinking a bit like Dominion, where they were from quite early on, playing with a card set of about 500.  The exact set of cards in each expansion changed a bit over the history, and wording on cards evolved a little, but the basic idea of the themes and mechanics were tested together right from the start.

No idea if this is the case with MW, but there are some things emerging that suggest there might be a similar ethos in the development.

[reddawn]

Cold damage would be a great idea.  It would at least actually make the resistance on Bearskin relevant...

Besides, demons are actually more traditionally "cold" beings than "hot" beings.  The lowest terraces of Hell in Dante's Inferno and European folklore were more thought of as frozen wastelands rather than lakes of fire.

[ringkichard]

Uh, what?  I'm not asking for the elimination of a "weakness," I'm asking for a proper card pool."

Those are the same thing.

Similarly, A weak cardpool for Beastmaster at level 3 was part of his balance. If you wanted a level 3 animal, you had to take the Unicorn. And when that hole was filled by the Dire Wolf, it was done at the cost of other potential cards like an intercept creature.  Not every mage will be equally good at all things. That's not a spotty cardpool, thats game design. It's the reason Fire doesn't have creatures yet (other than part of Adramelech ), even though Fire Elementals are an obvious concept.

To put it another way, It's no accident that fire protection is so good against the Warlock: that's a weakness of the mage. If your book is having a hard time against Warlock you're supposed to be able to add in anti-fire cards to improve the matchup. And it's a good thing, too, because Warlock may be very good this upcoming weekend.

If you're going to give a mage a card-pool centric ability, you need to support it so it can compete well. 

The other way of saying this is that Blood Reaper would be better if you could apply it to more creatures. No kidding!

I see no reason why there cannot be a level 2 demon and a level 2 holy creature, nor how that would somehow imbalance the game, especially considering there are other similar abilities which ARE provided for at the level 2 range.

I'm not saying There Must Never Be such a creature. I'm saying it's probably not an accident that the card pool is sparce there because that may very well be the sweet spot for the power of the ability.

Brian Pope left himself a lot of places in the design where he can increase the power of mages in forthcoming expansions, if required. Warlock doesn't seem like it needs an improvement right now.

[Wiz-Pig]

And cold damage seems just as thematic for demons as fire... I mean at least let us try some other stereotypes occasionally

If we start seeing demons with other elemental abilities and or weaknesses it is likely that they will be at least partially out of school for the Warlock. He is after all trained in Fire.

[reddawn]

I don't really get the argument that somehow intercept creatures "were the cost of" Dire Wolf.  Intercept creatures don't interact with Dire Wolf anymore than normal creatures do.  They have some good defensive abilities, but those abilities already existed elsewhere and on non-living (the most relevant trait vs bloodthirsty) creatures anyway by the FM vs Warlord release.  So yeah, I don't follow that line of reasoning at all, honestly.

And really, I don't have a problem with Slayers; besides Knights and maybe Trolls, they're insane for their cost.  But to somehow speculate that the "sweet spot" for Bloodreaper is not to have a level 2 creature seems pretty arbitrary.  I mean, there are plenty of abilities in the codex, like Frost, that don't exist in the cardpool yet either...to say that that somehow reflects the designer's intent at balance seems unrelated.

And considering that you're neither a playtester nor a designer, I just don't know how you can make that kind of claim.  Your argument seems less like a conservative estimate and more like straw-man fallacy.

[ringkichard]

I don't really get the argument that somehow intercept creatures "were the cost of" Dire Wolf.  Intercept creatures don't interact with Dire Wolf anymore than normal creatures do.  They have some good defensive abilities, but those abilities already existed elsewhere and on non-living (the most relevant trait vs bloodthirsty) creatures anyway by the FM vs Warlord release.  So yeah, I don't follow that line of reasoning at all, honestly.

What I mean is that when an old hole was patched (no level 3 nature creature) a new one was created (no intercept nature creature). And the other level 3 nature creature in the set, Bridge Troll, was created in such a way that it was 13 mana, but functionally level 4 for Beastmaster, and couldn't be a pet or lair summoned. Beastmaster remains weak at that level, possibly to encourage a sharp delineation between swarm strategies and Few Big strats.

And really, I don't have a problem with Slayers; besides Knights and maybe Trolls, they're insane for their cost.  But to somehow speculate that the "sweet spot" for Bloodreaper is not to have a level 2 creature seems pretty arbitrary.  I mean, there are plenty of abilities in the codex, like Frost, that don't exist in the cardpool yet either...to say that that somehow reflects the designer's intent at balance seems unrelated.

What I meant about the sweet spot of power level is that Pet, for example, is most efficient on Falcons. 2 mana for the pet bonus attack, HP and Armor on a falcon is just a much better deal than on a Griz.

But because Blood Reaper doesn't provide Armor or HP, the creature must provide its own survivability, and that may mean that level two creatures would be better blood reapers than level ones. But this is just speculation, I'd have to try it. Maybe unlike Pet, Blood reaper would be best on something like a non-legendary Lord of Fire.

Also, Frost is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say that Brian left himself a lot of outs: how good should Frost be when it's finally released? That depends, in part, on how good Defrost needs to be. Defrost is a built in opportunity to improve Warlock and Fire Wizard, if that's ever required.

You see those cards and see an incomplete card pool. I see in built expansion slots for future balance adjustment.

And considering that you're neither a playtester nor a designer, I just don't know how you can make that kind of claim.  Your argument seems less like a conservative estimate and more like straw-man fallacy.

Well, you're right about my lack of credentials. For all I know, Brian really wanted a whole bunch of level 2 demons instead of what he gave us, but he didn't have the art assets so we got these instead. Or, given the extremely high quality of the rest if the game design, we can assume Arcane Wonders knows what it's doing.