Shadow Magic hits live realm soon. As KI stated in an official announcement shadow spells won't be PvM only as the new minion spells were, so they will change PvP a lot.
One of the new shadow spells give you +50% pierce for three rounds. The spell has some disadvantages, but let me ask you something... Who cares about disadvantages if you can finish your opponent in a few rounds?
How can you stand your ground against a fire or storm wizard with 75% pierce 500+ critical 100+ damage boost?
Will you start using the same tactic or find a way to defend yourself? (i don't know any defensive tactic that should work against a wizard with offensive stats mentioned above)
Shadow Magic hits live realm soon. As KI stated in an official announcement shadow spells won't be PvM only as the new minion spells were, so they will change PvP a lot.
One of the new shadow spells give you +50% pierce for three rounds. The spell has some disadvantages, but let me ask you something... Who cares about disadvantages if you can finish your opponent in a few rounds?
How can you stand your ground against a fire or storm wizard with 75% pierce 500+ critical 100+ damage boost?
Will you start using the same tactic or find a way to defend yourself? (i don't know any defensive tactic that should work against a wizard with offensive stats mentioned above)
I completely agree with this, I think it is a little bit too much.
I dont see any major decreases in match lenght for 2 main reasons 1)You must gain a shadow pip before any of these spells are cast, with Shadow Pip chance somewhere around 20% you could potentially be waiting for a large number of rounds before activating shrike 2)You must draw the card before casting it- Unless your deck is filled primarily with this card, then there is no guarantee you will draw it as soon as possible.
As for the defense against this, for a low resist glass cannon there is no defense as shields will prove to have very little effect. However for a high resist class such as ice simply shielding will provide an adequate defense since the shield will absorb most of the pierce and then the attack will hit your gear resist. Other defenses include negative charms, healing off the attacks until the spell is removed or simply dialing up the offensive to kill them before they kill you.
I don't see anything overpowered about shrike and I fully support it coming to live in its current form.
The PvP Devs are out of their minds, plain and simple. At least I got to enjoy Age 1 quite a bit.
The All out Attack or Die strategy holds no interest for me. Might as well just have each player roll 2 sided dice and move on to the next match.
I think successful PvP can be measured by the variety of winning tactic available to wizards. And they have have whittled that variety down to just about one tactic left.
An easy 50% pierce is ridiculous. Along with the pets with may cast enfeeble, ice is not going to be even a half decent pvp school any more. I have a fire, an ice, and a myth at high level. This will not be good for my ice or myth. All will be effected by this. The age of tanking has come to an end.
I think spell like this had to happen sooner or later. 50 % peirce with infallible at 15%, and then a gear of another 15% or more, your sitting at about 80% plus pierce. Take the average Jade and it brings down their defense from 80% resist to about 16, something anyone can handle.
The bad side of this, it takes out the only real defense that Ice had with it's weak hits. (Before anyone jumps on Ice's weak hits, think about it).
If you really don't like the new spell, or how the Meta is headed, just thank your local Jade player for bringing it on us..... I see this as another fix to just another oversite.
The Test Realm was designed to see issues like this, but KI needs to supply us the Gear ahead of time to see issues that will show up later. All of these issue could be avoided and a better designed game would be there for all.
An easy 50% pierce is ridiculous. Along with the pets with may cast enfeeble, ice is not going to be even a half decent pvp school any more. I have a fire, an ice, and a myth at high level. This will not be good for my ice or myth. All will be effected by this. The age of tanking has come to an end.
Actually Ice is going to remain a top PvP competitor. I think I will simply quote a segment of my Duelist 101 commentary
"The other school that I see taking advantage of Shrike is Ice. While many think that Shrike “ruins” Ice, nothing could be farther than the truth. Keep in mind that Ice still keeps its massive resist until Shrike is played, meaning that the meta is the exact same until Shrike is played. Since shadow pip chance is the exact same across schools there is a good chance Ice can pull out shrike before its opponents, turning it into an offensive powerhouse without sacrificing its defensive traits. Couple this with the multiplicative nature of boosts, Ice’s powerful blades and bubbles, and its phenomenal health and block – and a Ice with Shrike is a force to be reckoned with. Even if Ice doesn’t win the Shrike war it can still retain its large defensive advantage. If an Ice shields from a Shriked Storm’s attack, the shield will absorb the 70%+ pierce and then the attack will hit Ice’s 70%+ resist. This means that Ice (and by extension Jades) will be the only school for whom shields will still retain a large defensive value."
The Spartans were the elite warriors of their time, no question. When the Bow and Arrow came out, they wouldn't use them, and called those that used them cowards. Afraid to fight as men, afraid to fight as warriors, the Archer stood in the back and shot arrows.
The Archers couldn't understand the Spartans, and couldn't understand why they wouldn't adapt to the new idea of using a Bow and Arrow. The Archers were a valuable tool in battle, and won many battles. Why use a sword, when I could defeat the enemy from a distance.
After all, a posion arrow defeated one of the greatest warriors of all time, Achillies. (By the way, Achillies was shot in the back, no in the heal of the foot. "The Heal" during that time frame meant, "the back").
Two different idea's of how a fight should be won, no different that the ideas that are being passed here in this discussion. Some would like the game to stay, sword to shield, both on equal footing.
Others would like to see it Bow and Arrow to Sword and shield. If the advantage is there, why not use it to the full advantage.
The problem here is plain, there are many that still believe the concepts of the Spartans, that play this game. I firmly believe this is why some dislike the Jades, and why some dislike the new Shawdow Magic.
Shadow Magic hits live realm soon. As KI stated in an official announcement shadow spells won't be PvM only as the new minion spells were, so they will change PvP a lot.
One of the new shadow spells give you +50% pierce for three rounds. The spell has some disadvantages, but let me ask you something... Who cares about disadvantages if you can finish your opponent in a few rounds?
How can you stand your ground against a fire or storm wizard with 75% pierce 500+ critical 100+ damage boost?
Will you start using the same tactic or find a way to defend yourself? (i don't know any defensive tactic that should work against a wizard with offensive stats mentioned above)
edit:
A good compensation, if backlash damage would be based upon the total health points, so there would be possible to die from it. This still not solve the problem of immense power that this shadow spell holds, but can make storm and fire wizards (with the least hit points) think twice to use it.
The Spartans were the elite warriors of their time, no question. When the Bow and Arrow came out, they wouldn't use them, and called those that used them cowards. Afraid to fight as men, afraid to fight as warriors, the Archer stood in the back and shot arrows.
The Archers couldn't understand the Spartans, and couldn't understand why they wouldn't adapt to the new idea of using a Bow and Arrow. The Archers were a valuable tool in battle, and won many battles. Why use a sword, when I could defeat the enemy from a distance.
After all, a posion arrow defeated one of the greatest warriors of all time, Achillies. (By the way, Achillies was shot in the back, no in the heal of the foot. "The Heal" during that time frame meant, "the back").
Two different idea's of how a fight should be won, no different that the ideas that are being passed here in this discussion. Some would like the game to stay, sword to shield, both on equal footing.
Others would like to see it Bow and Arrow to Sword and shield. If the advantage is there, why not use it to the full advantage.
The problem here is plain, there are many that still believe the concepts of the Spartans, that play this game. I firmly believe this is why some dislike the Jades, and why some dislike the new Shawdow Magic.
Justanoob.
That is a good point that you made. But you need to realize that this new strategy of killing your opponent quickly is much better than any other strategy out there at the moment because of this new gear and spells. None of the variety of strategies that were used at level 50 when the game first came out are ralevant anymore. PvP as become very plain and boring, you can always expect the same thing from a level 90 match. And if your opponent is not trying to kill you quickly or is still using jade gear then it will be an easy win for you.
At least it took skill and planning to kill your opponent when jade gear the best gear. Now it is just attack attack attack and there is a huge element of chance to the match with all of this criticl being thrown around. You might as well just role a dice sometimes. I agree that jade gear was over powered ad needed a counter but I aslo think that KI over compensated way too much. They went from one extream to the other, when really they should have found a balance somewhere in the middle. Even the most defensive Ice wizards cannot hold their ground to this new onslaught.
Level 50 PvP was and still is a close to perfect balance. There are a huge variety of strategies that are all effective if pulled off correctly. Some strategies were better than others but at least every strategy has a counter. This new strategy of kill or die does not have a counter. The only way to beat it is to adopt the same gear and strategy and hope that you kill them before they kill you.
The so called Spartain players in this game are not upset that their strategy has been trumped. They are just annoyed that it is now the only way to win, and that this new method of winning is exactly the same thing over and over agian with no variety.
I agree that level 50 PvP is the only PvP level where you can still have a variety of winning strategies, and a chance to actually have a fun match. The problem is once you reach warlord, the odds are you are going to start facing only level 90 wizards. And to be honest, I'm tired of fighting level 90s on my level 54 wizard. Even if they have low skills, they have huge criticals and our block is not so good at our level.
P.S. My Promethean Balance wizard is sadly just collecting dust. Somebody in the PvP department decided that having a single path to victory was the way to make PvP more fun.
That is a good point that you made. But you need to realize that this new strategy of killing your opponent quickly is much better than any other strategy out there at the moment because of this new gear and spells. None of the variety of strategies that were used at level 50 when the game first came out are ralevant anymore. PvP as become very plain and boring, you can always expect the same thing from a level 90 match. And if your opponent is not trying to kill you quickly or is still using jade gear then it will be an easy win for you.
At least it took skill and planning to kill your opponent when jade gear the best gear. Now it is just attack attack attack and there is a huge element of chance to the match with all of this criticl being thrown around. You might as well just role a dice sometimes. I agree that jade gear was over powered ad needed a counter but I aslo think that KI over compensated way too much. They went from one extream to the other, when really they should have found a balance somewhere in the middle. Even the most defensive Ice wizards cannot hold their ground to this new onslaught.
Level 50 PvP was and still is a close to perfect balance. There are a huge variety of strategies that are all effective if pulled off correctly. Some strategies were better than others but at least every strategy has a counter. This new strategy of kill or die does not have a counter. The only way to beat it is to adopt the same gear and strategy and hope that you kill them before they kill you.
The so called Spartain players in this game are not upset that their strategy has been trumped. They are just annoyed that it is now the only way to win, and that this new method of winning is exactly the same thing over and over agian with no variety.
Unfortunately, the age of control decks and long term strategy died with the release of Jade Gear. Jade Gear completely preempted all first age strategies: It had too much resist for first age set-ups to realistically handle, too much heal boost for first age tactics to limit and the ability to destroy multi-turn setups in one go. There was(and remains) no counter to trap stacking-shatter so jades would often just run you out of cards and then slowly trap stack to shatter. The reshuffle update further buried first age tactics by making a structured reshuffle strategy much harder to pull off. Jade Gear often led to matches that lasted anywhere from 2-6 hours. I am going to point out that I much prefer a 10 minute match against a Hades player to a several hour match against a Jade. Short of a nerf to Jade gear(and by extension ice gear) or a complete revamp of the pierce system KI really had it's hands tied to correct this scenario. KI chose to go about it by offering a new fast tempo metagame. The new fast tempo strategy may not be ideal but I much prefer it to the old Jade metagame.
I agree that level 50 PvP is the only PvP level where you can still have a variety of winning strategies, and a chance to actually have a fun match. The problem is once you reach warlord, the odds are you are going to start facing only level 90 wizards. And to be honest, I'm tired of fighting level 90s on my level 54 wizard. Even if they have low skills, they have huge criticals and our block is not so good at our level.
P.S. My Promethean Balance wizard is sadly just collecting dust. Somebody in the PvP department decided that having a single path to victory was the way to make PvP more fun.
Yes my level 50 myth faces level 90 wizards now that my rank is 1700+. That is one of the reasons I have now stopped playing level 50 PvP as well as level 90. Even if you are really good at level 50 an amature level 90 can take you out with a lucky critical and that is the most dissapointing way to loose a match ever(it's not fun anymore). I would much rather the game paired me with another level 50 warlord or high rank level 50. This is why I think there should be some sort of level tiers in PvP.
Unfortunately, the age of control decks and long term strategy died with the release of Jade Gear. Jade Gear completely preempted all first age strategies: It had too much resist for first age set-ups to realistically handle, too much heal boost for first age tactics to limit and the ability to destroy multi-turn setups in one go. There was(and remains) no counter to trap stacking-shatter so jades would often just run you out of cards and then slowly trap stack to shatter. The reshuffle update further buried first age tactics by making a structured reshuffle strategy much harder to pull off. Jade Gear often led to matches that lasted anywhere from 2-6 hours. I am going to point out that I much prefer a 10 minute match against a Hades player to a several hour match against a Jade. Short of a nerf to Jade gear(and by extension ice gear) or a complete revamp of the pierce system KI really had it's hands tied to correct this scenario. KI chose to go about it by offering a new fast tempo metagame. The new fast tempo strategy may not be ideal but I much prefer it to the old Jade metagame.
I agree, Level 50 is still lots of fun, but I see where Level 90 could still be the fun that Level 50 is. Here is the basic’s of the idea, and this would need some refinement, but it’s a start. OK, “how”, by releasing Crafted gear, that you could also get in the Packs. (Misc note, agreed, Jade Gear is dropping by the wayside, as it should). So, the new Gear just has to have limitations put on it, just like the PVP Gear already has. Right now, PVP gear has No Mana or -100% mana so it cannot be used outside of PvP. Ok, let’s use this same idea for a new Generation of Gear. This would be a solid counter to the new Fast Tempo Metagame…… and would wipe the dust off so many Promethean’s that now sit under a layer of dust. It would also lock out Jades at the same time, bringing new life to PvP at the high levels. What do we need, simple, “one Wand”, and we could bring PVP back at the upper levels. Have a Wand that has ~250 Critical Block and ~45 Critical, but at the same time locks your resist down to 45-50. Simple resolve to a problem that has turned PVP into a simplistic mindless battle, but this concept, once thought out, could change that.
That is a good point that you made. But you need to realize that this new strategy of killing your opponent quickly is much better than any other strategy out there at the moment because of this new gear and spells. None of the variety of strategies that were used at level 50 when the game first came out are ralevant anymore. PvP as become very plain and boring, you can always expect the same thing from a level 90 match. And if your opponent is not trying to kill you quickly or is still using jade gear then it will be an easy win for you.
At least it took skill and planning to kill your opponent when jade gear the best gear. Now it is just attack attack attack and there is a huge element of chance to the match with all of this criticl being thrown around. You might as well just role a dice sometimes. I agree that jade gear was over powered ad needed a counter but I aslo think that KI over compensated way too much. They went from one extream to the other, when really they should have found a balance somewhere in the middle. Even the most defensive Ice wizards cannot hold their ground to this new onslaught.
Level 50 PvP was and still is a close to perfect balance. There are a huge variety of strategies that are all effective if pulled off correctly. Some strategies were better than others but at least every strategy has a counter. This new strategy of kill or die does not have a counter. The only way to beat it is to adopt the same gear and strategy and hope that you kill them before they kill you.
The so called Spartain players in this game are not upset that their strategy has been trumped. They are just annoyed that it is now the only way to win, and that this new method of winning is exactly the same thing over and over agian with no variety.
All I can say is that "I agree with your reply" well stated.
I agree that level 50 PvP is the only PvP level where you can still have a variety of winning strategies, and a chance to actually have a fun match. The problem is once you reach warlord, the odds are you are going to start facing only level 90 wizards. And to be honest, I'm tired of fighting level 90s on my level 54 wizard. Even if they have low skills, they have huge criticals and our block is not so good at our level.
P.S. My Promethean Balance wizard is sadly just collecting dust. Somebody in the PvP department decided that having a single path to victory was the way to make PvP more fun.
I thought this was really relevant so I made a thread about it "Level 50 PvP" if anyone wants to check it out.
shrike doesn't remove length because yoou have to pull the card first: Fast discarding theory still works, even with reshuffle got nerfed. You can easily dig up your deck for anything if you have 2-3 copies of it.
shielding can protect you from huge pierce: Thats not true. I was speaking about how shrike will affect the damage dealer wizard classes. Storm has lightning bats, that can be cast every single round, and fire has low pip DoT spells what will eat up your shields. Yes thats true, that you can cast a shield every round, but then what is the point of your own strategy?
negative charms against shrike: Colossal triton with one 30% blade + 100% damage + 80% pierce + critical VS. weakness <--- LoL
"thank it to your local Jade player": Well stated. Jade summoned the proble, that this shrike spell meant to solve. Too bad there are a lot of players who never used Jade...
ice takes the most advantage of the new shrikes: I agree with you. Good thought.
Actually I am in extreme favor of these new spells. People complain about jadezillas spamming towes/heals, and this was the solution. If your under 90, you probably won't have jade gear and for sure no shadow spells anyways. Especially for balance, this will make things a LOT easier, and I rather be in a 2 Min match then a half an hour or an hour long match. This will benefit all schools because no one will have the claim of being the weak of cheated school. Even an imp or ice bettle will be very good. This may seems like a problem to some people but it's much better then casting rank 10 spells with a bunch of boosts that end up doing slightly UNDER their normal amount of damage.
Kingsisle brings you jade gear, you complain about the resist. Kingsisle sees your constant complaints and does something about it. You get mega pierce, you complain about it. Am I missing something?
Kingsisle brings you jade gear, you complain about the resist. Kingsisle sees your constant complaints and does something about it. You get mega pierce, you complain about it. Am I missing something?
Yes, you are missing the point that the pedulum has swung just to far to one side again. Just as with Jade gear, the average player could not figure out a way around it.
This game should not be designed for the upper 1% of players, it should be designed for the Average player, and that is what the problem is.
Think of it this way, Add in 20 pierce with infallible tc, 15 pierce added to a large hit, and then add in another 15 to 20% from the newly released gear. Now add the Shadow spell at 50%, and we are going to place you second in a PvP match, so your blind.
What are your chances of winning.... ? No need to go any further, the first turn advantage has now been boosted to an uncontrollable level.
Kingsisle brings you jade gear, you complain about the resist. Kingsisle sees your constant complaints and does something about it. You get mega pierce, you complain about it. Am I missing something?
Yes you are missing something. A counter to jade was not specifically what we wanted. What we really wanted was the balance of strategy and play style restored. A counter to jade was necessary to achieve this but KI over compensated way too much. As Veracity8 said, the pendulum has swung to the other side when really we wanted it to sit somewhere close to the middle. We have gone from one extreme to the other and the variety of strategy and play style is just as unbalanced as it was before but in the opposite direction.
The new Hades gear has already tipped the scales far in the opposite direction to the point where even the most defensive ice wizards cannot hold their ground to it. This new Strike spell is just tipping the scales ever further.
Yes, you are missing the point that the pedulum has swung just to far to one side again. Just as with Jade gear, the average player could not figure out a way around it.
This game should not be designed for the upper 1% of players, it should be designed for the Average player, and that is what the problem is.
Think of it this way, Add in 20 pierce with infallible tc, 15 pierce added to a large hit, and then add in another 15 to 20% from the newly released gear. Now add the Shadow spell at 50%, and we are going to place you second in a PvP match, so your blind.
What are your chances of winning.... ? No need to go any further, the first turn advantage has now been boosted to an uncontrollable level.
Actually, this spell does more to combat first turn advantage than any other. One of the reasons first turn advantage is such an advantage is that an opponent can cancel out your attack immediately with a 0 pip shield. That is no longer a factor. This further negates some of the advantages of first in that blade stacking becomes much less viable. If your second turn opponent has such a strong offensive potential then you will be hardpressed to do any kind of stacking.
Yes you are missing something. A counter to jade was not specifically what we wanted. What we really wanted was the balance of strategy and play style restored. A counter to jade was necessary to achieve this but KI over compensated way too much. As Veracity8 said, the pendulum has swung to the other side when really we wanted it to sit somewhere close to the middle. We have gone from one extreme to the other and the variety of strategy and play style is just as unbalanced as it was before but in the opposite direction.
The new Hades gear has already tipped the scales far in the opposite direction to the point where even the most defensive ice wizards cannot hold their ground to it. This new Strike spell is just tipping the scales ever further.
Agrreed. MasterSorcerer was speaking like there are only Jade vs. Shrike matches in the arena. :)
