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Armor pierce went too far

AuthorMessage
A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
seethe42 on May 15, 2014 wrote:
" they have Shrike+Infallible+gear armor pierce+their 4 pip bubble"

And what part of 15, 30, 35, 50, 70, 70, 75, 75, 80, and 85 shield/aura stacking did you miss to counter that whopping pierce that only removes one shield?
What part of removing the shield do you not understand? I'm sure nobody would be insane enough to use all their pips and hit on 10 different shields. They'd remove it (their armor pierce stays the same) but the shields are gone so the next turn they can blast full power right away, with no resist to stop it.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Eric Stormbringer on May 15, 2014 wrote:
Yes if they have shrike and infallible and a bubble... a multi round setup that costs 4 regular pips and a shadow pip, can be counterered in numerous way and is completely negated by a single shield. Damage boost and resist increased with the crafted gear. Not everyone has 50% resist and not everyone has 100% attack boost. Critical is addressed by critical block and hence is where the play and counterplay come in. Pierce on base(average 20%) is less than resist on base(average 42%). The spells utilized to increase and decrease it are completely at the players prerogative and open play and counterplay options. Wild bolt criticalling, not getting blocked and hitting 1000 is an extremely small chance and hardly makes any case for lowering armor pierce.
Wild Bolt was an example. There are spells like Loremaster, Krampus, Winter Moon, Ice Wyvern, Seraph, Luminous Weaver, Ninja Pigs and so on that can be spammed thanks to armor pierce. The reason why there are "spammers" is because armor pierce is so high that it's hard to block it. There are also spells such as Link, Fire Elf, Power Link, Scald, Rain of Fire, Heckhound, Storm Hound, Ice Hound (from the Rescue Rover pet), Frostbite, Poison, Minotaur, Orthrus, and the list could go on where a shield simply isn't enough. You can't stack 2 of the same shields and 2 other pairs of shields (or a third/fourth pair if a damage over time is being used) to fully block the hit, so armor pierce will negate your resist to nothing easily. It's hard enough to find 2 pairs of shields and armor pierce can be added up far easier than you could defend against those spells. Single hits are easier to shield, yeah, but not if they spam. So again, armor pierce is reducing resist and damage boost + armor pierce is making it completely unfair for the defender, while there's no piece of gear that gives strong stats with 50% resist. If armor pierce hasn't gone too far, go watch a Waterworks vs Hades gear user, see who wins. The one with armor pierce or the one without?

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
PvP King on May 16, 2014 wrote:
What part of removing the shield do you not understand? I'm sure nobody would be insane enough to use all their pips and hit on 10 different shields. They'd remove it (their armor pierce stays the same) but the shields are gone so the next turn they can blast full power right away, with no resist to stop it.
It's about counters. You keep complaining that there is no counter to pierce, yet when everyone tells you the counters, you only see the counters to the counters. Yes EVERY move in the game has counter moves. That's how it should be. You seem to want it so that nothing counters resist. Shields counter pierce, it's that simple. Yes you can shatter shields but it also requires another turn and they can still add another shield. Dueling is point and counterpoint. Every move has it's counter, that's how it's supposed to be.

Mastermind
Mar 16, 2010
346
Ice people could get over 100% fire resist, and without pierce, ice people would be unbeatable! This is why armor piercing exists.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
seethe42 on May 16, 2014 wrote:
It's about counters. You keep complaining that there is no counter to pierce, yet when everyone tells you the counters, you only see the counters to the counters. Yes EVERY move in the game has counter moves. That's how it should be. You seem to want it so that nothing counters resist. Shields counter pierce, it's that simple. Yes you can shatter shields but it also requires another turn and they can still add another shield. Dueling is point and counterpoint. Every move has it's counter, that's how it's supposed to be.
Look, when somebody takes off 20% of your Tower Shield for example, it's down to -30%. So basically you're using a treasure card Weakness. If they armor pierce say, 35% because of Infallible, it's -15%. So your -50% shield is going to be -15% and then it's going to hit on your base resist. Nobody had a problem with a 50% Tower Shield being 50% before, so I don't get why they should add massive amounts of armor pierce to take it off.

When I say there's no counter, I refer to stats. Damage's counter is resist, critical's is critical block, accuracy's counter is the spell's fizzle chance itself, and resist/heal boost's counter is damage boost. What's armor pierce's counter? Nothing. Resist isn't a counter to armor pierce, but you have to cast a spell to stop armor pierce from biting off your resist each turn. You can't keep up a shield every turn, but armor pierce lasts because it's part of your stats. There should be a stat or spell to reduce armor pierce, because even shields don't reduce it. Your 70% shield is reducing armor pierce, your Fortify isn't reducing armor pierce, your resist isn't reducing armor pierce, it's actually getting reduced by armor pierce.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Belgrim MoonDreame... on May 17, 2014 wrote:
Ice people could get over 100% fire resist, and without pierce, ice people would be unbeatable! This is why armor piercing exists.
I never said take out armor pierce, but it's definitely gone out of control. Shrike itself gives 50% armor pierce, so ok, that 100% immunity is going to be 50%, if there's an Infallible that immunity is going to be 35%, add the 20% armor pierce average and that immunity is going to be a lame 15%. What good is that going to do? Yes, you can use your shields to protect your resist from getting eaten off by armor pierce, but you can remove the shields easily by a minion or a DoT, leaving the resist going down to 15% again. If immunity can get decreased that easily, just imagine somebody with 42% resist.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
PvP King on May 16, 2014 wrote:
Wild Bolt was an example. There are spells like Loremaster, Krampus, Winter Moon, Ice Wyvern, Seraph, Luminous Weaver, Ninja Pigs and so on that can be spammed thanks to armor pierce. The reason why there are "spammers" is because armor pierce is so high that it's hard to block it. There are also spells such as Link, Fire Elf, Power Link, Scald, Rain of Fire, Heckhound, Storm Hound, Ice Hound (from the Rescue Rover pet), Frostbite, Poison, Minotaur, Orthrus, and the list could go on where a shield simply isn't enough. You can't stack 2 of the same shields and 2 other pairs of shields (or a third/fourth pair if a damage over time is being used) to fully block the hit, so armor pierce will negate your resist to nothing easily. It's hard enough to find 2 pairs of shields and armor pierce can be added up far easier than you could defend against those spells. Single hits are easier to shield, yeah, but not if they spam. So again, armor pierce is reducing resist and damage boost + armor pierce is making it completely unfair for the defender, while there's no piece of gear that gives strong stats with 50% resist. If armor pierce hasn't gone too far, go watch a Waterworks vs Hades gear user, see who wins. The one with armor pierce or the one without?
Well of course they can spam spells, just as how you can spam shields. Spammers existed before armor pierce. Personally I see nothing wrong with spamming. If someone wants to repeatedly use a spell then go right ahead. DoT's are counterable by triage and the base pierce from DoT's are counterable via fortify. Armor pierce is not more easily added up than shields. Shields are 0 pips and a 1 turn cost. Building up enough armor pierce to bypass shields requires multiple pips and turns. The reason Hades Gear will beat ww gear(besides being 30 lvls higher) is because of it's ultra high critical that waterworks gear simply cannot block.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
PvP King on May 17, 2014 wrote:
Look, when somebody takes off 20% of your Tower Shield for example, it's down to -30%. So basically you're using a treasure card Weakness. If they armor pierce say, 35% because of Infallible, it's -15%. So your -50% shield is going to be -15% and then it's going to hit on your base resist. Nobody had a problem with a 50% Tower Shield being 50% before, so I don't get why they should add massive amounts of armor pierce to take it off.

When I say there's no counter, I refer to stats. Damage's counter is resist, critical's is critical block, accuracy's counter is the spell's fizzle chance itself, and resist/heal boost's counter is damage boost. What's armor pierce's counter? Nothing. Resist isn't a counter to armor pierce, but you have to cast a spell to stop armor pierce from biting off your resist each turn. You can't keep up a shield every turn, but armor pierce lasts because it's part of your stats. There should be a stat or spell to reduce armor pierce, because even shields don't reduce it. Your 70% shield is reducing armor pierce, your Fortify isn't reducing armor pierce, your resist isn't reducing armor pierce, it's actually getting reduced by armor pierce.
It's a counter to it because it preserves your natural resist. If you have 45% resist and they cast Shrike, you have a Tower in place, you still have 45% resist. You have multiple higher % shields available too. You keep using the single shield scenario also. If there is only one tower shield, why bother piercing it with shrike, just wand it away so the shrike pierces the resist instead. Shields are most definitely a counter to pierce.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Eric Stormbringer on May 17, 2014 wrote:
Well of course they can spam spells, just as how you can spam shields. Spammers existed before armor pierce. Personally I see nothing wrong with spamming. If someone wants to repeatedly use a spell then go right ahead. DoT's are counterable by triage and the base pierce from DoT's are counterable via fortify. Armor pierce is not more easily added up than shields. Shields are 0 pips and a 1 turn cost. Building up enough armor pierce to bypass shields requires multiple pips and turns. The reason Hades Gear will beat ww gear(besides being 30 lvls higher) is because of it's ultra high critical that waterworks gear simply cannot block.
I can get over 300 block with Waterworks gear, so critical isn't the issue. Armor pierce is, and armor pierce can be added a lot easier than shields can. You have 20% base armor pierce, and don't bring up the fact that resist is higher, because that's damage's job to counter, and damage already well over counters resist. Most level 96+ wizards have damage boosts extremely close to 100%, so you need 50% resist while you're stuck at 42%. With that, armor pierce cuts down resist and makes the spell do far more damage than the base card description, and again like I said before, that's without applying critical or the damage enchant.

One shield isn't enough to stop armor piercing anymore, because a shield is just as weak as a Fortify now. You need to use two shields for them to actually be effective, and that means that armor pierce can bypass shields easier than you can put them up. It's gone to insane amounts, one Infallible costs one turn, but a 50% shield being reduced to 10-15% if you even have one up isn't right. It never should've gone this high, even if Ice wizards decide to get "immunity".

Also, yesterday, I fought a wizard who came in with Balance immunity against my Balance wizard and I decided to test out if immunity really does stop Fire and Storm wizards from winning. I discarded my Spectral Blasts, Chimera, Infallibles, and Counterforce and went head-to-head with his resist. In 20 minutes, I won the match. He used heals, shields, and everything to stop me from taking down his immunity and health. I didn't have a DoT to remove the shields effectively, but I was still landing over 500 damage on him from Loremaster against immunity with gear piercing alone. If I didn't have trouble at all taking him down, then I don't know why Fire or Storm wizards should either.

If you were about to say he dropped all his damage boost and critical for it, he still had 322 critical and 82% damage, enough to take me down easily. Ice wizards can't do that however, they risk everything for immunity. So if you think armor pierce isn't out of hand, then I don't even know the meaning of overpowered anymore.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
Another thing. Damage is not really the counter to resist, damage is the counter to high health. Pierce and resist/shields are opposites. I don't understand why you think that 0 pip shields are harder to place than all the pierce spells that you keep stacking to make a false point of it being OP. You've failed to make a single valid point on how it's overpowered, you just keep repeating the same argument that has already been refuted by multiple other posters.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
PvP King on May 18, 2014 wrote:
I can get over 300 block with Waterworks gear, so critical isn't the issue. Armor pierce is, and armor pierce can be added a lot easier than shields can. You have 20% base armor pierce, and don't bring up the fact that resist is higher, because that's damage's job to counter, and damage already well over counters resist. Most level 96+ wizards have damage boosts extremely close to 100%, so you need 50% resist while you're stuck at 42%. With that, armor pierce cuts down resist and makes the spell do far more damage than the base card description, and again like I said before, that's without applying critical or the damage enchant.

One shield isn't enough to stop armor piercing anymore, because a shield is just as weak as a Fortify now. You need to use two shields for them to actually be effective, and that means that armor pierce can bypass shields easier than you can put them up. It's gone to insane amounts, one Infallible costs one turn, but a 50% shield being reduced to 10-15% if you even have one up isn't right. It never should've gone this high, even if Ice wizards decide to get "immunity".

Also, yesterday, I fought a wizard who came in with Balance immunity against my Balance wizard and I decided to test out if immunity really does stop Fire and Storm wizards from winning. I discarded my Spectral Blasts, Chimera, Infallibles, and Counterforce and went head-to-head with his resist. In 20 minutes, I won the match. He used heals, shields, and everything to stop me from taking down his immunity and health. I didn't have a DoT to remove the shields effectively, but I was still landing over 500 damage on him from Loremaster against immunity with gear piercing alone. If I didn't have trouble at all taking him down, then I don't know why Fire or Storm wizards should either.

If you were about to say he dropped all his damage boost and critical for it, he still had 322 critical and 82% damage, enough to take me down easily. Ice wizards can't do that however, they risk everything for immunity. So if you think armor pierce isn't out of hand, then I don't even know the meaning of overpowered anymore.
Well congrats on getting 300 block with ww. If so, and waterworks stats were updated to lvl 90 then guess what? WW would have a huge advantage. What is wrong with a spell card doing above base damage? You seem to think this is a problem, I dont. One shield is enough to stop piercing(simple math). A shield is only as weak as a fortify IF they have multiple armor piercings being stacked. The reason balance didn't have as much trouble is because 1) you have a higher health buffer b)more reliable heal c)more disruptive moves(mana burn, loremaster) d)aura denial. Even if you had 100% attack boost and 20% pierce your loremaster isnt dealing 500 at base against immunity(it is dealing 300 AT MAX with those stats). No I don't think armor pierce is out of hand. With multiple 0 pip, 1 turn answers to it, it is very counter-able.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Eric Stormbringer on May 19, 2014 wrote:
Well congrats on getting 300 block with ww. If so, and waterworks stats were updated to lvl 90 then guess what? WW would have a huge advantage. What is wrong with a spell card doing above base damage? You seem to think this is a problem, I dont. One shield is enough to stop piercing(simple math). A shield is only as weak as a fortify IF they have multiple armor piercings being stacked. The reason balance didn't have as much trouble is because 1) you have a higher health buffer b)more reliable heal c)more disruptive moves(mana burn, loremaster) d)aura denial. Even if you had 100% attack boost and 20% pierce your loremaster isnt dealing 500 at base against immunity(it is dealing 300 AT MAX with those stats). No I don't think armor pierce is out of hand. With multiple 0 pip, 1 turn answers to it, it is very counter-able.
No, Waterworks gear has no advantage because of no armor pierce. I also fought the guy with 19% armor pierce and I kept criticalling my hits, making my Loremasters do 500-600 damage with no buffs and my Judgement did over 800 damage. That's against immunity with no buffs, no pierce blades, just simple attacking. I took the shields off with low pip attacks because it was easy, and then I started hitting harder when he didn't have shields up. You can't keep shielding forever just to protect your resist, because 1) Your health is getting taken down considerably still, you're going to have to heal 2) The shield is being reduced to -15% if they use Infallible, which most people can't stop, and most people don't stack 2 different shields to save their resist from one hit.

Think about it, you use Tower Shield and I use Infallible with 20% armor pierce. You use another Tower Shield but that doesn't matter, because your first Tower Shield would be reduced to -15% (10 if I used TC Infallible), so test it out with 1000 damage. Add 275 with Colossal, so that's 1275. Add 100% damage boost, so that's 2550. Now include -15% and -42%, that's 1256 with a Tower Shield. That's honestly not fair at all in my opinion that a spell is doing over its base damage while a shield is up and without critical.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
PvP King on May 19, 2014 wrote:
No, Waterworks gear has no advantage because of no armor pierce. I also fought the guy with 19% armor pierce and I kept criticalling my hits, making my Loremasters do 500-600 damage with no buffs and my Judgement did over 800 damage. That's against immunity with no buffs, no pierce blades, just simple attacking. I took the shields off with low pip attacks because it was easy, and then I started hitting harder when he didn't have shields up. You can't keep shielding forever just to protect your resist, because 1) Your health is getting taken down considerably still, you're going to have to heal 2) The shield is being reduced to -15% if they use Infallible, which most people can't stop, and most people don't stack 2 different shields to save their resist from one hit.

Think about it, you use Tower Shield and I use Infallible with 20% armor pierce. You use another Tower Shield but that doesn't matter, because your first Tower Shield would be reduced to -15% (10 if I used TC Infallible), so test it out with 1000 damage. Add 275 with Colossal, so that's 1275. Add 100% damage boost, so that's 2550. Now include -15% and -42%, that's 1256 with a Tower Shield. That's honestly not fair at all in my opinion that a spell is doing over its base damage while a shield is up and without critical.
Waterworks has no advantage over Hades Gear? Only armor pierce matters. Compared to the offensive Hades Set Waterworks offers: More resist, More accuracy(for elementals), More attack boost. As I said if waterworks gear was adjusted to lvl 90 it would offer a pretty competitive set. As for your battle...exactly you kept criticalling your hits, doubling your damage output. I don't know why most people can't stop infallible considering it has a direct counter in fortify and if people choose not to double shield that is their perogative.

Ok lets look at your scenario, why is he only using tower shield? Why not a school specific shield. Heck why not weakness in conjunction with the tower. If he used fortify to cancel infallible then the tower is deflecting 35% of the damage. I see nothing unfair about you hitting above your base against the weakest single shield in the game while you have an armor pierce card up. Assuming they are wearing the Hades set with little to no resist then your attack will similarly do above base damage to them. What's unfair about that?

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Eric Stormbringer on May 21, 2014 wrote:
Waterworks has no advantage over Hades Gear? Only armor pierce matters. Compared to the offensive Hades Set Waterworks offers: More resist, More accuracy(for elementals), More attack boost. As I said if waterworks gear was adjusted to lvl 90 it would offer a pretty competitive set. As for your battle...exactly you kept criticalling your hits, doubling your damage output. I don't know why most people can't stop infallible considering it has a direct counter in fortify and if people choose not to double shield that is their perogative.

Ok lets look at your scenario, why is he only using tower shield? Why not a school specific shield. Heck why not weakness in conjunction with the tower. If he used fortify to cancel infallible then the tower is deflecting 35% of the damage. I see nothing unfair about you hitting above your base against the weakest single shield in the game while you have an armor pierce card up. Assuming they are wearing the Hades set with little to no resist then your attack will similarly do above base damage to them. What's unfair about that?
Nobody uses the full out offensive Hades set, you even know that, so don't even bring it up. If both sides used the defensive set like most do, the Hades set would be offering more damage in the sense that they have armor pierce. For me, I only lost 11% damage boost to switch for Hades gear, and I gained 5% armor pierce (worth more than losing 11 damage on 42% resist), gained critical for my Availing Hands, gained power pip chance, resist remained the same, I gained block rating, and lost a little health that doesn't even matter. Most people can't stop Infallible with Fortify because people want to deal damage themselves, not sitting there doing nothing but shielding. Do you not get it? How many shields do you exactly think you can put in your deck? You have 64 cards, 6 of those are going to be Colossals, at least 5 of those are going to be heals, some more could be Cloaks, Primordials, Reshuffles, attacks (big and small; damage over time and single hits), Infections, dispels, minions, Infallibles, maybe some more damage enchantments, blades, so where's the room for those 50 turns of Fortifies you're always going to have and those double shields you're always going to find in your hand?

In my scenario, the reason why I said Tower Shield is because you don't use a Volcanic Shield to shield against Balance attacks, that's kind of obvious. Why am I saying it from a Balance's point of view? Because I mostly play on my Balance wizard. You could use a Weakness, yes, but the next turn you wouldn't have a shield or Weakness to save your resist from my attack, nice, you're definitely getting somewhere. But no, armor pierce is overpowered, and get over the fact that you can't pull a shield out of thin air every turn you want. Either you have a deck to defeat the opponent, or you're just trying to stall out.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
PvP King on May 21, 2014 wrote:
Nobody uses the full out offensive Hades set, you even know that, so don't even bring it up. If both sides used the defensive set like most do, the Hades set would be offering more damage in the sense that they have armor pierce. For me, I only lost 11% damage boost to switch for Hades gear, and I gained 5% armor pierce (worth more than losing 11 damage on 42% resist), gained critical for my Availing Hands, gained power pip chance, resist remained the same, I gained block rating, and lost a little health that doesn't even matter. Most people can't stop Infallible with Fortify because people want to deal damage themselves, not sitting there doing nothing but shielding. Do you not get it? How many shields do you exactly think you can put in your deck? You have 64 cards, 6 of those are going to be Colossals, at least 5 of those are going to be heals, some more could be Cloaks, Primordials, Reshuffles, attacks (big and small; damage over time and single hits), Infections, dispels, minions, Infallibles, maybe some more damage enchantments, blades, so where's the room for those 50 turns of Fortifies you're always going to have and those double shields you're always going to find in your hand?

In my scenario, the reason why I said Tower Shield is because you don't use a Volcanic Shield to shield against Balance attacks, that's kind of obvious. Why am I saying it from a Balance's point of view? Because I mostly play on my Balance wizard. You could use a Weakness, yes, but the next turn you wouldn't have a shield or Weakness to save your resist from my attack, nice, you're definitely getting somewhere. But no, armor pierce is overpowered, and get over the fact that you can't pull a shield out of thin air every turn you want. Either you have a deck to defeat the opponent, or you're just trying to stall out.
That's right no one uses full offensive Hades, the set with the highest level of pierce....does that not tell you something? If some one chooses not to counter infallible then that is their prerogative and the opponent deserves to hit directly.I can put in as many towers as infallible, as many fortifies as infallibles. Just as you cant magically pull out a shield all the time, neither can our opponent magically have multiple pierce buffs stacked at the same time. Yes you will be defenseless the next round unless you put up another shield. However your opponent will have lost pips, lost time on their infallible. Sorry you saying that armor pierce is overpowered when 1) You have more base resist than base armor pierce b)Its much easier to mitigate pierce than to build pierce is simply not convincing. Having a solid defense does not mean you are trying to stall out your opponents.

Champion
Oct 30, 2011
449
Eric, I think you're forgetting, or at least not mentioning something important-Shields really don't work very well against damage over time spells. All schools but balance and storm get these just as trained spells, and storm and balance can easily get fire elf. With DoTs, shields are removed while still getting 3 hits of damage with one shield on the opponent. With multiple attacks in a row, armor piercing without shields can be applied for massive amounts of damage. Sure, you can weakness, but a 25% debuff is not really going to stop someone with 80-100% damage and several attacks in a row. A four pip spell can often do up to 2000 damage with no shields or critical, often over half the health of the opponent, because of armor pierce and high damage. From first, the advantage of DoT spells and armor piercing can be exploited even more, allowing players to remove shields while forcing their opponent to wait a round to respond. With infallible and/or shrike, an opponent can be attacking for twice the damage of a spell, not just over the base damage. Finally, fortify is not really a logical counter to armor pierce. It's only 15-20%, and only lasts four rounds. Base armor pierce can take most of that out, not even including infallible, spears, or shrike.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Eric Stormbringer on May 22, 2014 wrote:
That's right no one uses full offensive Hades, the set with the highest level of pierce....does that not tell you something? If some one chooses not to counter infallible then that is their prerogative and the opponent deserves to hit directly.I can put in as many towers as infallible, as many fortifies as infallibles. Just as you cant magically pull out a shield all the time, neither can our opponent magically have multiple pierce buffs stacked at the same time. Yes you will be defenseless the next round unless you put up another shield. However your opponent will have lost pips, lost time on their infallible. Sorry you saying that armor pierce is overpowered when 1) You have more base resist than base armor pierce b)Its much easier to mitigate pierce than to build pierce is simply not convincing. Having a solid defense does not mean you are trying to stall out your opponents.
For your first line, it's only 4 or 5 more armor pierce for the loss of every other stat in the game. Your point, still, is proving nothing right now. And no, if somebody chooses not to counter Infallible, it's because they can't. Like I said, in PvP, you're trying to win the match, not stalling out for hours. If you put as many shields as armor pierce spells and attacks your opponent has, you won't have room for attacking in your deck. What a shame.

"Just as you can't magically pull out a shield all the time, neither can our opponent magically have multiple pierce buffs stacked at the same time." No, actually, they can. Infallible + their gear pierce = problem solved. Offense beats defense in any form you think about. One side is getting somewhere, the other is getting nowhere.

Having more base resist than base armor pierce means nothing to anybody. It's been that way the whole game, spells have been killing the opponent with or without armor pierce the whole game, spells have been doing thousands of damage far before armor pierce came out. Now, doing thousands of damage is as easy as getting 2 power pips and using the spell you want. Why? Because armor pierced ruined it.

You can boost armor pierce far more easily than boosting your resist. One, I have damage boost. That itself already counters resist. Two, my armor pierce makes my opponent's resist not even matter all that much (less than a Weakness or Fortify), three my damage enchant puts my spell far beyond the base damage already, and four critical can always help the hit do a lot more damage. If you critical, that shield is doing absolutely nothing. If your opponent spams and you keep shielding but not healing, then you're done. If you're shielding constantly and not attacking, then you're done. So what's the option now? Just stacking armor pierce and killing your opponent. Why do you think Shrike is so much more important than block rating from Shadow Sentinel, because critical is weaker than armor pierce? Look, critical was complained about being overpowered for years, and now people are choosing to use armor pierce rather than saving themselves from a devastating critical hit? Does that not mean anything to you?

With armor pierce, the only way you'd survive is if you double shield, and I'm sorry for not being able to cast 2 spells every turn, but I can't. I can't cast 2 shields every turn to save my resist, I can't save my first shield from armor pierce every turn, and I can't use Fortify and forget about block+stun resist at the same time, I can't use 5 billion spells in one turn Eric, so you explain to me how I'm supposed to manage healing, blocking criticals, attacking, shielding, resisting stuns and combos all at the same time with having to worry about my opponent reducing my resist to nothing. Armor pierce put a huge unbalance between offense and defense, and we need a stat or spell to even it out, because offense is too much right now.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
Aaron SpellThief on May 22, 2014 wrote:
Eric, I think you're forgetting, or at least not mentioning something important-Shields really don't work very well against damage over time spells. All schools but balance and storm get these just as trained spells, and storm and balance can easily get fire elf. With DoTs, shields are removed while still getting 3 hits of damage with one shield on the opponent. With multiple attacks in a row, armor piercing without shields can be applied for massive amounts of damage. Sure, you can weakness, but a 25% debuff is not really going to stop someone with 80-100% damage and several attacks in a row. A four pip spell can often do up to 2000 damage with no shields or critical, often over half the health of the opponent, because of armor pierce and high damage. From first, the advantage of DoT spells and armor piercing can be exploited even more, allowing players to remove shields while forcing their opponent to wait a round to respond. With infallible and/or shrike, an opponent can be attacking for twice the damage of a spell, not just over the base damage. Finally, fortify is not really a logical counter to armor pierce. It's only 15-20%, and only lasts four rounds. Base armor pierce can take most of that out, not even including infallible, spears, or shrike.
I agree that DoT's easily take care of shields. Luckily DoT's have their own natural counter in the for of triage. A 25% debuff (along with a 30% debuff tc weakness) does wonders to slow down your opponent which is why weakness is a staple spell in pvp. Yes with infallible and shrike they can achieve large offensive momentum. Shike has its own counters and infallible is addressed via fortify. Fortify is perfectly logical as a counter to armor pierce. While gear pierce does remove it, it leaves your shields and resist safe from pierce. As for the 4 rounds, infallible lasts 4 rounds, shrike lasts 3....

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
PvP King on May 22, 2014 wrote:
For your first line, it's only 4 or 5 more armor pierce for the loss of every other stat in the game. Your point, still, is proving nothing right now. And no, if somebody chooses not to counter Infallible, it's because they can't. Like I said, in PvP, you're trying to win the match, not stalling out for hours. If you put as many shields as armor pierce spells and attacks your opponent has, you won't have room for attacking in your deck. What a shame.

"Just as you can't magically pull out a shield all the time, neither can our opponent magically have multiple pierce buffs stacked at the same time." No, actually, they can. Infallible + their gear pierce = problem solved. Offense beats defense in any form you think about. One side is getting somewhere, the other is getting nowhere.

Having more base resist than base armor pierce means nothing to anybody. It's been that way the whole game, spells have been killing the opponent with or without armor pierce the whole game, spells have been doing thousands of damage far before armor pierce came out. Now, doing thousands of damage is as easy as getting 2 power pips and using the spell you want. Why? Because armor pierced ruined it.

You can boost armor pierce far more easily than boosting your resist. One, I have damage boost. That itself already counters resist. Two, my armor pierce makes my opponent's resist not even matter all that much (less than a Weakness or Fortify), three my damage enchant puts my spell far beyond the base damage already, and four critical can always help the hit do a lot more damage. If you critical, that shield is doing absolutely nothing. If your opponent spams and you keep shielding but not healing, then you're done. If you're shielding constantly and not attacking, then you're done. So what's the option now? Just stacking armor pierce and killing your opponent. Why do you think Shrike is so much more important than block rating from Shadow Sentinel, because critical is weaker than armor pierce? Look, critical was complained about being overpowered for years, and now people are choosing to use armor pierce rather than saving themselves from a devastating critical hit? Does that not mean anything to you?

With armor pierce, the only way you'd survive is if you double shield, and I'm sorry for not being able to cast 2 spells every turn, but I can't. I can't cast 2 shields every turn to save my resist, I can't save my first shield from armor pierce every turn, and I can't use Fortify and forget about block+stun resist at the same time, I can't use 5 billion spells in one turn Eric, so you explain to me how I'm supposed to manage healing, blocking criticals, attacking, shielding, resisting stuns and combos all at the same time with having to worry about my opponent reducing my resist to nothing. Armor pierce put a huge unbalance between offense and defense, and we need a stat or spell to even it out, because offense is too much right now.
I don't see why putting in a relevant defense to your opponents spells is stalling and trying to not win the match. No one ever said to put in as many shields as attacks. How to balance your deck has become an art and managing when and how to apply both offensive and defensive spells is a must.

You can indeed boost armor pierce with spells far easier than you can boost resist with spells. However you can negate armor pierce far more easily than you can build it. One shield counters shrike and gear pierce, fortify counters infallible.

Wait your opponent can have up shrike and infallible at all times? Wow, that's impressive. Does shrike not have counters, drawbacks and costs? Is infallible not negated by fortify?

Resist is a counter to damage boost not the other way around. As I have already explained as resist rises linearly damage must rise exponentially to keep up with it. This is exactly why armor pierce was invented in the first place. As for your resist dilemma: Average resit is at 42%, average pierce is at 15% 42-15= 27% which is more not less than weakness or fortify. Critical is addressed by critical block(although I do agree that their should be more viable options to increase block). As for sentinel, people don't use it because it adds less block than conviction and forces you to play shields and only shields. It dislikes both heals AND attacks making it far more limiting than shrike. Of course if you're shielding and not healing you are done but why aren't you healing? Why aren't you mounting a counter offensive when your opponent is open. Simply having the options to play a strong defensive game does not mean that you have to play ONLY a defensive game.

Actually since one shield negates 70+% of armor pierce you don't need a double shield to save your resist. The only time you would need a double shield is if you are low on resist and your opponent has shrike up. You cant use fortify and stun block at the same time? Their is a handy spell that's called "Stun Block" that you can play that will shut out 2 stuns and let you play fortify. Managing healing, blocking, attacking, shielding, resisting stuns and combos is EXACTLY what PvP is about. Yes currently offense is dominant just as in the last meta defense was dominant. This is called a meta shift and does not indicate an imbalance.

Champion
Oct 30, 2011
449
Eric Stormbringer on May 23, 2014 wrote:
I agree that DoT's easily take care of shields. Luckily DoT's have their own natural counter in the for of triage. A 25% debuff (along with a 30% debuff tc weakness) does wonders to slow down your opponent which is why weakness is a staple spell in pvp. Yes with infallible and shrike they can achieve large offensive momentum. Shike has its own counters and infallible is addressed via fortify. Fortify is perfectly logical as a counter to armor pierce. While gear pierce does remove it, it leaves your shields and resist safe from pierce. As for the 4 rounds, infallible lasts 4 rounds, shrike lasts 3....
Infallible lasts 4, fortify lasts 4, shrike lasts 3, gear lasts forever. Fortify is not a logical counter to armor pierce when it is almost always more logical to use conviction, and as balance is a common school to battle, fortify is often removed with supernova. A 25% weakness vs 80-100% damage and possibly critical normally does not end well, as it hardly slows the opponent down and uses a turn you could have used for an attack or heal. As for your other post, yes, resist and damage do both rise linearly, but resist has not risen much in the past several worlds, while damage, critical, and armor pierce have grown extremely quickly. This rapid growth unbalances the system, especially for lower level and higher rank players.

Champion
Oct 30, 2011
449
Eric Stormbringer on May 23, 2014 wrote:
I agree that DoT's easily take care of shields. Luckily DoT's have their own natural counter in the for of triage. A 25% debuff (along with a 30% debuff tc weakness) does wonders to slow down your opponent which is why weakness is a staple spell in pvp. Yes with infallible and shrike they can achieve large offensive momentum. Shike has its own counters and infallible is addressed via fortify. Fortify is perfectly logical as a counter to armor pierce. While gear pierce does remove it, it leaves your shields and resist safe from pierce. As for the 4 rounds, infallible lasts 4 rounds, shrike lasts 3....
Infallible lasts 4, fortify lasts 4, shrike lasts 3, gear lasts forever. Fortify is not a logical counter to armor pierce when it is almost always more logical to use conviction, and as balance is a common school to battle, fortify is often removed with supernova. A 25% weakness vs 80-100% damage and possibly critical normally does not end well, as it hardly slows the opponent down and uses a turn you could have used for an attack or heal. As for your other post, yes, resist and damage do both rise linearly, but resist has not risen much in the past several worlds, while damage, critical, and armor pierce have grown extremely quickly. This rapid growth unbalances the system, especially for lower level and higher rank players.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
Aaron SpellThief on May 24, 2014 wrote:
Infallible lasts 4, fortify lasts 4, shrike lasts 3, gear lasts forever. Fortify is not a logical counter to armor pierce when it is almost always more logical to use conviction, and as balance is a common school to battle, fortify is often removed with supernova. A 25% weakness vs 80-100% damage and possibly critical normally does not end well, as it hardly slows the opponent down and uses a turn you could have used for an attack or heal. As for your other post, yes, resist and damage do both rise linearly, but resist has not risen much in the past several worlds, while damage, critical, and armor pierce have grown extremely quickly. This rapid growth unbalances the system, especially for lower level and higher rank players.
Exactly, gear lasts forever while the others are limited. Fortify is a direct counter and whether you fortify or conviction is a player decision. Balance's aura denial is one of the reasons it is the current top PvP school at nearly every level. Weakness is useful for damage mitigation not negation and I think that is what throws off a lot of people about this meta. Prior defenses that tacit negation moves(lowering the attack so much it could easily be recovered from at much less pip cost) have become damage mitigation moves. The low level vs high level issue will continue to rear its head and will only get worse as levels increase. The only viable fix is a matching system fix.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
seethe42 on May 18, 2014 wrote:
Another thing. Damage is not really the counter to resist, damage is the counter to high health. Pierce and resist/shields are opposites. I don't understand why you think that 0 pip shields are harder to place than all the pierce spells that you keep stacking to make a false point of it being OP. You've failed to make a single valid point on how it's overpowered, you just keep repeating the same argument that has already been refuted by multiple other posters.
No, because shields aren't a logical defense against armor pierce. Shields defend against attacks, not a stat. I don't go shielding to say "Okay so I can use Tower Shield to stop armor pierce and my health is going to be all fine." No, I shield to stop the attack itself, not to get it pierced so the attack hits on -42%. If I use a turn to shield, it shouldn't be able to be taken off. You keep pointing out the useless argument of using Fortify. No, you have 64 cards, the aim is to defeat your opponent. You can't have a well constructed deck with Fortify and Infallible to defeat your opponent. Resist was always the counter to attacks and damage boost, not to armor pierce. But, if you lose your defense and the attack hits straight on through your shields and resist, it's basically game over. You clearly haven't added up what I said. One, the opponent can use DoT's (Triage is a lame spell to use against a 2 pip Fire Elf that the opponent can simply use again). Two, you can't stack two shields at the same time in one turn, while your opponent can attack with a DoT, double hit, or simply decide to pierce the one shield you have on. Tell me, in any of your matches, do you always have 2 different shields up? The answer for most people would be no.

Most pets have MC Infallible, probably the biggest trend in PvP talents today. They don't even need to use up a turn to increase armor pierce, it's already there. Most pets also have MC Spear talents, and they react just as often as MC blades. With that, the opponent can simply blade stack and their pet builds the armor pierce for them. You can't always put up a Fortify every time your opponent's pet casts Infallible/[school] Spear, while most shield talents never react until every 3 or 4 matches. With that, if the opponent does decide to use their own pierce blade, Shrike, and a couple other spells, then your shields would be doing nothing. Add it all up, 15% from pet, 20% from gear, 10 from pierce and another 10 from pet pierce, plus shield removal spells, and your resist can be gone in two turns. Have you done ranked PvP recently? Tell me who wins, the person who defends or the person who takes down the opponent's resist? Go do a match yourself with somebody who has these talents plus the ability to damage over time, you'll find your arguments wrong.

Champion
Mar 27, 2011
405
"No, because shields aren't a logical defense against armor pierce. Shields defend against attacks, not a stat."

This may be the fatal flaw in your strategy. When attacking, anything that adds damage helps. When you are not attacking, anything that reduces damage to you helps. Using only some counters is unnecessarily limiting your options. Shields, aurae, and resist all have value.

A+ Student
Mar 02, 2010
1643
Dakota Death on May 26, 2014 wrote:
"No, because shields aren't a logical defense against armor pierce. Shields defend against attacks, not a stat."

This may be the fatal flaw in your strategy. When attacking, anything that adds damage helps. When you are not attacking, anything that reduces damage to you helps. Using only some counters is unnecessarily limiting your options. Shields, aurae, and resist all have value.
No, shields defend against attacks. I use all forms of defenses: Weakness, Loremaster, Elemental Shield, Thermic Shield, Volcanic Shield, Dream Shield, Tower Shield, and Conviction. I don't have any "flaws" in my strategy, but armor pierce has gone too far now and it's becoming obvious.