What do you think about Ballista?

[Enti]

I think the Ballista is a bit too strong too.

Normally you would have to pay 7-8 mana for an attackspell that has 5 dice and 3 piercing.

And if you time it a bit, you can use the ballista nearly as good as an attack spell. Final quickcast phase you could play it and use it right in the beginning of your next Action phase.
The problem is, the enemy has so respond immediately to this threat, somehow. Because otherway you get a 7-8 mana attackspell for free in 2 rounds.

I think starting with 0 load tokens would really decrease the pressure these ballistas can generate. Because one round of preparation really makes a difference.

And I also liked the idea of a Goblin worker who can charge the Ballista faster. If there are 2 goblin workers and they both spend their full action charging the Ballista, then I am fine with it shooting every round. It is kind of exactly what these small Goblins are good for. Nocking arrows in a warmachine and maybe even taking damage by doing it ^^

Because the Ballista is still a promo I hope it is okay resurrecting this thread.

[Boocheck]

I would really like to see a chance (dice roll) that Goblin will mistakly load himself

[V10lentray]

I would really like to see a chance (dice roll) that Goblin will mistakly load himself

http://www.rmichelson.com/Artist_Pages/Diterlizzi/Magic-Cards/Fodder-Cannon-8x10.jpg

My Favorite Flavor Text from a Magic the Gathering Card -

Step 1: Find your cousin.
Step 2: Get your cousin in the cannon.
Step 3: Find another cousin.

[kailas]

The cost should be higher and level 3 spell.

[kailas]

Yesterday played two times aggro Forcemaster with battleforge and 4 ballista in deck (2 on the board) vs female warlock
My initiative run two spaces, and put one space away battle forge (into opponents side side of the board, i forgot how to say two letter board spaces if anyone could link me there i would appreciate). Next turn, dancing scimitar from forge, summon two ballista. Third turn, with quick cast plant jinx and before action phase melt faces with 10 dice attack, run into him if he moved from starting zone add another 6 dice attack. Followed the opponent with casting dissolve and dispel/seeking dispel, and slashing the back, using FM ability to pull them into ballista's range.
Those were my fastest matches, lasting 15 min, opponent knew that i'm gonna use ballista, even fireball couldnt one shot ballista. I know my opponent could have played better we never had such one sided match.

Two well placed ballista can cover the whole arena. Imho it's too durable or too cheap.

[ringkichard]

Balista is a great lesson in the whole being stronger than the parts. It's only when you consider Balista in the context of tempo and inevitability that you can see why it's so good.

Balista is good for the same reason Aviary Beastmaster is good, but it doesn't require spending 3/4 of your starting mana on Lair, and any mage can play it.

[BoomFrog]

I haven't tested it but I believe the counter to ballista is walls. One wall of earth cost 5 mana and will block a ballista twice or at least once and absorb an enemy creatures melee attack. For 5 mana you've negated an 8 mana thing for 3 or so rounds. That's a good deal.

The unfair part of ballista is that is can attack instantly as a combo with another creatures move. Movement control like teleport usually only lets you force one positional dependent hit. If you teleport your opponent you only get to hit him with one hydra not all your hydras. You have to have an elaborate pit to keep him in position to have all your hydras attack. But for a single teleport or force push you get to have one hydra and all your ballistas attack. You get too much benefit.

Fundamentally conjuration attacks should have used action tokens and taken turns, but it's too late for that. A reasonable fix would be restricting the ballista to only attack before a friendly action and before quick cast, but that's an awkward rule. The problem is the chain of actions in a row, it has to be broken somehow. Or simply raise the cost of ballista.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Or limit the number of balistas you can have in play. Maybe give it the unique trait, and if that's too much, invent the unique 2 trait?

[krj]

i've also didn't play with/against Ballista, but have same feeling that it can be too powerful. Make it full action to cast can slow down this tactics a bit. i'm wondering if in the future there will be some spell (incantation / creature) or mage ability which will allow to add token for War Machine subtypes conjurations

[kailas]

Just proxy them. I think your results and opinions will help this card to be balanced.

[BoomFrog]

Making it unique only pushes the problem into the future. Now they can't release any future conjurations with a creature targeting ranged attack. That seems like a design space they would like to explore more.

Anyway, even devouring ooze plus one ballista is really strong.

[reddawn]

Putting class and unique limitations on conjurations that are independently very good seems like the best solution and would make the game more thematic. 

With the corrode creatures and Acid Ball and Lion Savagery out, though, I don't think destroying conjurations is the hassle it once was.  I do feel like some cards that seem to specifically address them, particularly Earthquake and Force Hammer, are lost opportunities. 

Both cards can be used in difference circumstances but they aren't that great in either situation. 

For its cost of 9 mana and a full action Earthquake should deal direct damage to conjurations, but instead the attacks have Unavoidable, which is completely irrelevant.  A good chance to Slam a lot of creatures is fine, but you can probably get the same effect for less mana and as a QC in Force Bash and with a push effect. 

Force Hammer is, at best, mediocre.  8 dice for 9 mana is a good ratio against conjurations, but with how much armor most conjurations naturally have, a 1:1 ratio of dice to mana seems more appropriate.  Granted, it has ethereal, so maybe that would be too much utility.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Putting class and unique limitations on conjurations that are independently very good seems like the best solution and would make the game more thematic. 

With the corrode creatures and Acid Ball and Lion Savagery out, though, I don't think destroying conjurations is the hassle it once was.  I do feel like some cards that seem to specifically address them, particularly Earthquake and Force Hammer, are lost opportunities. 

Both cards can be used in difference circumstances but they aren't that great in either situation. 

For its cost of 9 mana and a full action Earthquake should deal direct damage to conjurations, but instead the attacks have Unavoidable, which is completely irrelevant.  A good chance to Slam a lot of creatures is fine, but you can probably get the same effect for less mana and as a QC in Force Bash and with a push effect. 

Force Hammer is, at best, mediocre.  8 dice for 9 mana is a good ratio against conjurations, but with how much armor most conjurations naturally have, a 1:1 ratio of dice to mana seems more appropriate.  Granted, it has ethereal, so maybe that would be too much utility.

Maybe defenses will become used more in the future. That would be nice. I like defenses. It's awesome to be able to avoid an attack altogether, but unfortunately in the current meta their usefulness tends to be rather limited.

I used to think that a defense is to unavoidable as 1 armor is to 1 corrode and a failed defense roll against 1 defense is akin to 1 critical damage rolled against 1 armor. There are plenty of ways to deal with corrode, but the only current counters to unavoidable are: Forcefield, fumble, jinx (for attack spells), helm of fear, and intercept. If I've forgotten any if them old let me know.


If defenses were used more then maybe earthquake would be used more. I've only come up with a single spellbook list that includes earthquake, and it's specifically for Druid matchups. And even then I'm not positive how useful it will be.

I wonder if maybe there will eventually be a possible way to give a defense to conjurations like ballista. Not sure how powerful that would be though.

[reddawn]

I find defenses very good, especially if they're just a natural part of a creature's stats (can't be dissolved/dispelled).  Your mage should probably get some armor on first, but in builds that build up a bit before going on offense, they can be invaluable.  Even though there are answers for defenses, the opponent still has to spend mana, if not mana and a QC/action, on doing something that isn't increasing their dice count, which likely means more turns and more advantage for you.  And if you have more answers for their Unavoidable than they have cards that give Unavoidable, they're in deep trouble if your mage isn't close to dead.

Also, you can use the defenses that can block ranged attacks to protect your armor from Acid Ball (if your build is very defensive), which is something I don't see most players do even though giving ranged attacks Unavoidable is significantly more difficult.

I'm not sure how well a defense would translate to a conjuration, even though conjurations will probably have them in the future.   Right now only the Intercept creatures and I guess walls can give conjurations a pseudo-defense.  Being able to give epic conjurations like Spawnpoints a defense feels off though, so going non-epic with the target line should be considered.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I find defenses very good, especially if they're just a natural part of a creature's stats (can't be dissolved/dispelled).  Your mage should probably get some armor on first, but in builds that build up a bit before going on offense, they can be invaluable.  Even though there are answers for defenses, the opponent still has to spend mana, if not mana and a QC/action, on doing something that isn't increasing their dice count, which likely means more turns and more advantage for you.  And if you have more answers for their Unavoidable than they have cards that give Unavoidable, they're in deep trouble if your mage isn't close to dead.

Also, you can use the defenses that can block ranged attacks to protect your armor from Acid Ball (if your build is very defensive), which is something I don't see most players do even though giving ranged attacks Unavoidable is significantly more difficult.

I'm not sure how well a defense would translate to a conjuration, even though conjurations will probably have them in the future.   Right now only the Intercept creatures and I guess walls can give conjurations a pseudo-defense.  Being able to give epic conjurations like Spawnpoints a defense feels off though, so going non-epic with the target line should be considered.

The problem is that it's really difficult to have more answers to their unavoidable than they have cards that give unavoidable. Forcefield is Forcemaster only. Helm of Fear is warlock only. Jinx gives them their card back and doesn't work against non-spell attacks. Fumble gets discarded after use. There are currently only four sources of intercept in the game, and they all cost a full action and at least 11 mana to cast.

Every flameblast costs 5 mana and quick action. 6 flameblasts costs 30 mana. 6 fumbles used against flameblasts costs either 18 mana (if thoughtspore is the flameblast-caster), 24 mana (if sersyrix is the flame-blast caster) or 42 mana (if the flameblast-caster is the mage)

6 jinxes costs 18 mana in total, but it refunds both the flameblast cards and the mana spent on them, and requires perfect prediction of the flameblasts.

All currently existing intercept creatures can only stop 1 flameblast per turn, and they all cost at least 11 mana to summon.

Forcefield and helm of fear are only forcemaster only and warlock only respectively.

Falcon precision is relatively easier to counter by destroying the enchantment, but innate unavoidable is much more of a problem.

Oh wait, I just remembered 3 more counters to unavoidable: daze, stun, and disable. Unfortunately extra daze conditions does not mean extra daze rolls, and disarm only works on equipment.

So we have helm of fear (warlock only), forcefield (forcemaster only), jinx (which refunds everything so they use the same attack again), fumble (which gets discarded after use and is too mana intensive to use that many times against the mage or brogan or similarly high-level creatures), intercept (only 4 creatures in the game that have it, all of them can only stop one unavoidable attack per round, all costing at least 11 mana).

With 3 fumbles (21 mana and 3 mage's quick actions against unavoidable mage attack), 3 jinxes (9 mana and 3 mage's quick actions), 1 intercepting creature (11 mana and one full mage's action), you've used 41 mana and about 8 quick actions to block (6 unavoidable attacks +1 unavoidable attack per round after intercept creature is summoned)

6 flameblasts costs 30 mana, 6 quick actions and about 12 spellbook points if you're not trained in fire.
3 jinxes and 3 fumbles costs 30 mana, 6 quick actions, and 12 spellbook points if you're not trained in arcane or mind.

However, many flameblast users will be trained in fire, so 30 mana, 6 quick actions and 6 spellbook points.
If you are trained in arcane but not mind or mind and not arcane, you pay 30 mana, 6 quick actions, and 9 spellbook points.

So being trained in the school of an unavoidable-counter is helpful, but it's not necessarily enough. Not unless you are trained in both mind and arcane, or dark and arcane/mind (since helm of fear)

So even though they seem to cost about the same, having to pay more spellbook points for the same amount of resources means you will have less of them than you're opponent would per spellbook point. I suppose the question then becomes a matter of whether conditions like daze, stun, and disable even out this inequality.

I'm guessing that they don't in the current meta, and your statement that defenses are better for strategies that want to take a bit of time to setup before going on the offensive as opposed to the more defensive strategies (pun intended) seems to support this.

Also, you're right that ballista can be taken down with acid ball and melee attack(s). Ballista's attack range is 1-2. The build I made that has an earthquake in it might like stomping all over some poor mage's ballistas.