Is the arena wizard still OP?

[iNano78]

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.

[sIKE]

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.

[BrainJuggler]

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.

[gaspode77]

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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[iNano78]

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.

[bigfatchef]

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.

[Halewijn]

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.

[RomeoXero]

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.

[Sailor Vulcan]

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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[Puddnhead]

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.

[SharkBait]

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

[zot]

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.

[iNano78]

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).

[Puddnhead]

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.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

Since I wasn't that into the game back then, what made the Priestess and Forcemaster overpowered?