Druid: Weak to Fire?

[Reddicediaries]

At first glance, the druid and her plants seem very weak to fire. However if you actually think about it, 1 fireball already puts you behind MANA wise since snappers and lasher's are so cheap. And even 8+ dice fireballs are not guaranteed to kill the plants. The ring and gloves of skill help this, but those can easily be dissolved or dispelled.

[Halewijn]

Druid is not weak to fire since she has all level 1 water spells in school. Thus she can easily get rid of burns and protect herself with waterfall cloak.
However, If the warlock has creatures with a fire attack, they all can roll +2 dice against plants. Lash of hellfire (or adramelech warlock base melee attack) is also getting a nice boost in combination with often used cards like fireshaper ring.

I think druid/warlock are opposite poles with each having counters against each other. This creates pretty interesting interactions. Both mages rely a lot on passive healing too. (regenerate, vampirism, ..)

Just as necro/priest(ess) feel like opposite poles. Holy school has a TON of +2 vs undead and high armor creatures but the necromancer has deathlock, poisoned blood, tainted, idol of pestilence, and other stuff that goes right through a knight's armor.

[Phillus]

I think druid/warlock are opposite poles with each having counters against each other. This creates pretty interesting interactions. Both mages rely a lot on passive healing too. (regenerate, vampirism, ..)

Just as necro/priest(ess) feel like opposite poles. Holy school has a TON of +2 vs undead and high armor creatures but the necromancer has deathlock, poisoned blood, tainted, idol of pestilence, and other stuff that goes right through a knight's armor.

Meanwhile Siren vs Druid...

[Reddicediaries]

I think druid/warlock are opposite poles with each having counters against each other. This creates pretty interesting interactions. Both mages rely a lot on passive healing too. (regenerate, vampirism, ..)

Just as necro/priest(ess) feel like opposite poles. Holy school has a TON of +2 vs undead and high armor creatures but the necromancer has deathlock, poisoned blood, tainted, idol of pestilence, and other stuff that goes right through a knight's armor.

Meanwhile Siren vs Druid...

Siren is really really bad vs druid.

[iNano78]

My experience tells me Druid is at a big disadvantage vs Warlocks. Sure, Druid has some hydro spells and has new ways to cheaply get rid of Burn tokens (e.g. Extinguish, Raincloud, Meredia's Blessing), but how many is she typically running? Meanwhile, most plants have Flame +X, whereas few demons have Hydro +X (although Battle Forge and Fire Elemental don't want to see a Druid across the table). Also, Warlocks often run Deathlock, and that negates all the Regen that a Druid and her plants depend on. I don't think I've ever seen a Druid win an Arena match against a Warlock when the Warlock has played Deathlock.

Generally speaking,
Plant (Druid) > Water (Siren) > Flame (Warlock) > Plant (Druid)...

[Pritoos]

I see two main advantage for warlock: the fire attacks in permanents (creatures and equipment), and the unmatched ability to kill the treebond at the beginning of the game.

Sure, killing the tree may be more expensive than the tree itself at first glance, but I use to play druid and you don´t see it that way from the green side.

[Beldin]

Druid is not weak to fire at all. It is actually quite hard to burn down the tree. It regenerates quickly and damage from it can be moved to the mage, via treebond. This means it has Regenerate 4 effectively. Also if the warlock is not directing fire at the mage and focusing on the tree then this is also a win for for the druid.

This is very much like Surging Wave vs Battle Forge. You are damned if you do and damned if you do not.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Akiro's favor and Hawkeyes with swells might be better against forge imo. Surging wave x2 alone only does about 4 damage to forge on average.


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[Beldin]

Akiro's favor and Hawkeyes with swells might be better against forge imo. Surging wave x2 alone only does about 4 damage to forge on average.


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I disagree. 12 dice for 2 surging waves.  Surging wave has 3 dice and Battleforge has Hydro +3. Each dice does 0.5 damage on average so thats perfect for Battle Forges 6 Life. I have easily taken one out with a really well rolled Surging wave, but on average it dies with 2 Surging waves.

[iNano78]

Druid is not weak to fire at all. It is actually quite hard to burn down the tree. It regenerates quickly and damage from it can be moved to the mage, via treebond. This means it has Regenerate 4 effectively. Also if the warlock is not directing fire at the mage and focusing on the tree then this is also a win for for the druid.

This is very much like Surging Wave vs Battle Forge. You are damned if you do and damned if you do not.

This argument doesn't make sense to me. If not fire, then what is a Druid/tree weak against? Trees have Flame +X. It's going to take more Hurl Boulders than Fireballs to take one down. Adramelech is a better tree killer than a Steelclaw Grizzly. And as stated above, a tree can't regenerate with Deathlock in play. Even without Deathlock, Fireball + Flamblast in a single round should take out a Vine Tree, and a Druid only gets to Treebond once.

As for the Surging Wave (or Swell) discussion, an average roll will give you 3 regular and 3 critical damage vs the Forge. 2x Swell should do it on average, and that's 2 quick actions and 8 mana.

[Beldin]

As for the Surging Wave (or Swell) discussion, an average roll will give you 3 regular and 3 critical damage vs the Forge. 2x Swell should do it on average, and that's 2 quick actions and 8 mana.

Versus the 1 quick action and 7 mana to create. Sure take it down, I may not put up another one but you are an action down, and that's two actions also not used productively. I am making you play my game, and in control builds that is exactly what I want for you to do.

[bigfatchef]

As for the Surging Wave (or Swell) discussion, an average roll will give you 3 regular and 3 critical damage vs the Forge. 2x Swell should do it on average, and that's 2 quick actions and 8 mana.

Versus the 1 quick action and 7 mana to create. Sure take it down, I may not put up another one but you are an action down, and that's two actions also not used productively. I am making you play my game, and in control builds that is exactly what I want for you to do.

That might be true for the forge in many cases, but it's different for the tree. A druid without her tree is only half a druid. She loses so many benefits.

[iNano78]

[mwcard=MW1J04]Battle Forge[/mwcard] costs 8 mana, so 2x Swell is same mana cost, albeit you would be 1 action behind if you take it out. Conversely, if you don't take out the Forge immediately, you'll quickly find yourself down several more actions and mana. Most books running Forge would ideally like to get 6+ uses out of it, and if you leave it alone, you might be paying a much bigger price than 1 quick action.

As others have mentioned, taking out a Treebonded Vine Tree is worth a lot more than it's mana cost. It's more like taking out a Regrowth and a Mana Flower, along with the a powerful spawn point.

[Beldin]

The win against the Warlock is not won in the arena. It is won in the building of the book, in the hours put in honing the win conditions and making sure that if the Warlock is the major threat then the tools to defeat it exist for when my books faces this mage. The only time that the 120 points matter and you are locked into that configuration is once you play the game against someone. The arena is only 1/3 of the game for me.

So what does a warlock need to beat me? Positioning and Range. He has cheaper access to Deathlock as well. Is this a warlock only spell? No, so I prioritise options to destroy that over the warlock mage as that hurts me more.

Now as I said the Warlock needs Range 2 for his Fireballs and Range 1 for all his other attack spells. Range 1 is moot as ~90% of all effects "hit" at this range. Elephant Grass turns off anything other than range 0-1. Tanglevine stops a mage from achieving range 1. Tanglevine is also a Vine subtype spell, so the tree can cast them just as fast as the opponent rips them down. The counter to this is teleport. But that's not playing your game,it is playing my game. Every action/mana to counter my plan is an action not used on attack spells. Clever uses of Final QC positioning and deployment speed tanglevines to play the longer game that blunts the Warlocks attack.

Remember also a Tanglevine costs the Druid 1SBP vs 4SBP to teleport out of it. 4 Tanglevines, 3 force Pushes, 1 swamp and 1 Teleport = 14 SBP. That's all toolbox as well and has other applications other than just the Warlock.

This equates to the warlock getting a single fireball off and the tree can weather that. So to answer the question to if Druid is weak against fire. No, I think the druid is fine.

[iNano78]

The win against the Warlock is not won in the arena. It is won in the building of the book, in the hours put in honing the win conditions and making sure that if the Warlock is the major threat then the tools to defeat it exist for when my books faces this mage. The only time that the 120 points matter and you are locked into that configuration is once you play the game against someone. The arena is only 1/3 of the game for me.

So what does a warlock need to beat me? Positioning and Range. He has cheaper access to Deathlock as well. Is this a warlock only spell? No, so I prioritise options to destroy that over the warlock mage as that hurts me more.

Now as I said the Warlock needs Range 2 for his Fireballs and Range 1 for all his other attack spells. Range 1 is moot as ~90% of all effects "hit" at this range. Elephant Grass turns off anything other than range 0-1. Tanglevine stops a mage from achieving range 1. Tanglevine is also a Vine subtype spell, so the tree can cast them just as fast as the opponent rips them down. The counter to this is teleport. But that's not playing your game,it is playing my game. Every action/mana to counter my plan is an action not used on attack spells. Clever uses of Final QC positioning and deployment speed tanglevines to play the longer game that blunts the Warlocks attack.

Remember also a Tanglevine costs the Druid 1SBP vs 4SBP to teleport out of it. 4 Tanglevines, 3 force Pushes, 1 swamp and 1 Teleport = 14 SBP. That's all toolbox as well and has other applications other than just the Warlock.

This equates to the warlock getting a single fireball off and the tree can weather that. So to answer the question to if Druid is weak against fire. No, I think the druid is fine.

I agree with everything you said here. I think the Druid is among the very strongest mages in the game. But she has her incredibly easy/strong match-ups (Siren, especially a Water Elemental buddy book) and she has her tougher matchups (Warlocks).

It isn't just her Treebond. You mention how Tanglevine is really good for a Druid. And you mention that Teleport is needed for a Mage to get past Tanglevine. Well, a Warlock doesn't need  to waste a Teleport; a Flameblast will take care of a Tanglevine... as might his Lash (if already equipped).  And similarly for all the other plant creatures and conjurations: they all have Flame +X, so a Warlock is generally going to have an easier time tearing through them than any other Mage, whether it's using Attack spells, creatures with Flame attacks, or melee attacking with a Lash of Hellfire.

I'm not saying a Druid can't ever beat a Warlock. And a good Druid player will certainly have planned for Fire mages and Deathlock. Overall, a Druid might even be better than 50:50 in that matchup... but she's probably 60:40 against anybody else.