About counterstrike

[Halewijn]

Counterstrike is a very curious and amusing trait. It represents a creature that is very defensive and will attack anything that even comes near it. Untill today we only have a very few selection of creatures that have this trait being the [mwcard=MW1C09]Darkfenne Hydra[/mwcard], [mwcard=MWSTX2FFC08]Infernian Scourger[/mwcard] and the porcupine in academy.
When do you get an advantage out of this trait? When the opponent is melee attacking your creature while it is not guarding.

Hydra: This bad-ass rarely sees play and that is mainly because he is slow and because agony can ruin his day. Apart from that I think the trait works best with him. If the opponent wants to kill it he'll want to attack him as much as possible in 1 turn because he regenerates, giving you the counterstrike advantage. In practice, those few times someone actually does summon him they would rather work around him than kill him. thus never attacking the hydra.

Porcupine: This creature is no danger at all for your opponent. Why would anyone ever attack it while it is not guarding? It's a decent guard but the skunk outshines him and is even cheaper.

The infernian demon: He is pretty vulnerable in arena and is a huge target for hurl rocks and such, granting no counterstrike. theoretically, I can see him being melee attacked but I feel this demon is just overpriced for most warlocks. How I see it, the arraxian crown warlock wants something stronger and the adramelech warlock needs something that can burn stuff down.

My conclusion is that I think the trait has not seen good use yet even though I think it could be very amusing. I think the trait could work when the creature is:
- A real danger for the opponent (decent attack)
- not too vulnerable, but maybe more importantly, not too strong either. The opponent will have to want to attack it. (level 3 creature)
- maybe the actual counterstrike should be a weak quick attack and the "normal attack" a decent quick attack.

I think the counterstrike would work when the creature is the opposite of the porcupine. A weak counterstrike attack and a strong normal attack.

[RomeoXero]

I actually think the biggest benefit from having the counterstrike trait is that the opponent needs to spend resources and time, NOT attacking that creature in melee. The scourgers counterstrike trait is a little weak untill its got bear strength. then you dont want to hit it with melee cuz its going to hit you back hard, every time. and thats why is gathers all those rocks and such, because its threat is much higher to a melee fighter. it makes your opponent play a different way  or at the very least gets you and attack or two in return.

[SharkBait]

The infernian demon: He is pretty vulnerable in arena and is a huge target for hurl rocks and such, granting no counterstrike. theoretically, I can see him being melee attacked but I feel this demon is just overpriced for most warlocks. How I see it, the arraxian crown warlock wants something stronger and the adramelech warlock needs something that can burn stuff down.

A fun combo with the scourger: Vampirism on a Blood Reaper Infernian Scourger. If you want to go extra support, give him brace yourself or rhino hide too. Really tough to take down and a high threat creature that has to be dealt with

[bigfatchef]

A creature that is a threat you would want to kill quick with a build-in ranged-only-defense would benefit the most from a counterstrike trait.
To not overpower it it's melee attack should be decent but not too crazy, maybe even mainly annoying (weak, stun, stagger) and it should be killable in 2 or 3 average attacks. Would be level 3 I guess...