The shrike shadow spell is extremely overpowered...it takes all strategy out of high level pvp, to be replaced by critical spamming. Ice's resist cannot stand up to this, and thus the main focus of the school is pointless in pvp. Shields do not matter, they are quickly taken by shatter or DoTs. I mean, when my ice character was trying shrike in pvp, I did 2700 with a single blade to an ice warlord in crafted gear. If that's not overpowered, I don't know what is. This addition is ruining all semblance of strategy. Shrike needs to be nerfed.
The shrike shadow spell is extremely overpowered...it takes all strategy out of high level pvp, to be replaced by critical spamming. Ice's resist cannot stand up to this, and thus the main focus of the school is pointless in pvp. Shields do not matter, they are quickly taken by shatter or DoTs. I mean, when my ice character was trying shrike in pvp, I did 2700 with a single blade to an ice warlord in crafted gear. If that's not overpowered, I don't know what is. This addition is ruining all semblance of strategy. Shrike needs to be nerfed.
Aaron,
I have thought about this spell, and some of the ways around it. This spell is used up on the first item it hits. Also, if you put up the -15 incomming spell, that takes away almost 20 percent of the rest of the damage. It may be that we will need to spam shields and weakness, or other spells now. I also have to wonder what new spells will show up in the second half of this world.
I agree, it's going to make PvP much harder to win for the Wizard going second. It will be almost a sure lost, if that Shadow spell pip shows up. The Stratergy is still there, but now it appears that we will have to play fast, must faster than we have in the past to set up our defense.
I would really like to see PvP stay closer to what it is now, even though we should be increasing in power, the power needs to stay in increases that are reasonable. Taking to big of a jump, destroys the balance of sword and shield in the game. KI really needs to give us a counter to this type of attack, or it's made PvP a one hit win, and destroyed any reason for a PvP'er to level any of their wizards above level 50. The other option is to just decrease the chance of a shadow pip showing up in PvP, make it only 5% instead of the current 20% that it is now.
I strongly disagree and am completely opposed to ANY nerf to shadow shrike. Shadow Shrike is the perfect answer to high resist set-ups that have for too long completely dominated PvP. Shrike has well defined limits: It lasts a mere 3 rounds, takes a Shadow Pip to cast, locks you into a specific pattern of play and comes with backlash. Furthermore ice's resist is not rendered useless, on the contrary simply playing a shield will allow the pierce to be countered by the shield and then the attack will hit ice's ridiculous resist. Shadow Shrike also allows for more strategic play by removing one of the main disadvantages for going second and simultaneously allowing a middle of the way set up to obtain the pierce needed to stay competitive.
The shrike shadow spell is extremely overpowered...it takes all strategy out of high level pvp, to be replaced by critical spamming. Ice's resist cannot stand up to this, and thus the main focus of the school is pointless in pvp. Shields do not matter, they are quickly taken by shatter or DoTs. I mean, when my ice character was trying shrike in pvp, I did 2700 with a single blade to an ice warlord in crafted gear. If that's not overpowered, I don't know what is. This addition is ruining all semblance of strategy. Shrike needs to be nerfed.
i disargree with you it adds a hole new playing field to pvp and makes it more challenging so people can really be proud to be warlord unlike the level 1-10 warlords its not real pvp if your just gonna spam tc
The shrike shadow spell is extremely overpowered...it takes all strategy out of high level pvp, to be replaced by critical spamming. Ice's resist cannot stand up to this, and thus the main focus of the school is pointless in pvp. Shields do not matter, they are quickly taken by shatter or DoTs. I mean, when my ice character was trying shrike in pvp, I did 2700 with a single blade to an ice warlord in crafted gear. If that's not overpowered, I don't know what is. This addition is ruining all semblance of strategy. Shrike needs to be nerfed.
Perhaps backlash can be added for attacking.
Shrike is given to Myth, Fire, and Storm, correct? They have low health. As with their concepts, to deal high damage, they must sacrifice some health. Similarly, if they must attack with high damage, shouldn't it add backlash?
Totally agree. I agree that jade gear provided too much resistance and KI kind of had to bring some better offensive gear in to balance things out. But this new Aquila gear and this spell have not balanced things at all, they have just tipped the scales in the other direction.
Totally agree. I agree that jade gear provided too much resistance and KI kind of had to bring some better offensive gear in to balance things out. But this new Aquila gear and this spell have not balanced things at all, they have just tipped the scales in the other direction.
I strongly disagree and am completely opposed to ANY nerf to shadow shrike. Shadow Shrike is the perfect answer to high resist set-ups that have for too long completely dominated PvP. Shrike has well defined limits: It lasts a mere 3 rounds, takes a Shadow Pip to cast, locks you into a specific pattern of play and comes with backlash. Furthermore ice's resist is not rendered useless, on the contrary simply playing a shield will allow the pierce to be countered by the shield and then the attack will hit ice's ridiculous resist. Shadow Shrike also allows for more strategic play by removing one of the main disadvantages for going second and simultaneously allowing a middle of the way set up to obtain the pierce needed to stay competitive.
In short: I vote NO for a nerf to Shadow Shrike
I understand the need for a way to counter the high resist, but isn't 50% pierce a bit excessive? Considering it takes away a percentage of your health and not a defined amount, the backlash isn't actually much.
3,000 health? Backlash will take you down to 2,700 because you can do a lot in a "mere" 3 rounds. Ice wizards cannot tower shield every round and going first is still an issue.
For example, player 1, a storm wizard, is battling an ice wizard. He is ready to attack and casts Shadow Shrike. However, the ice wizard sees this but he cannot do anything. The storm wizard goes and attacks before the ice can put up a tower shield. Now, the ice wizard can put up a tower shield, but how will that solve anything if you have pierce/shatter TC? In short, a storm wizard casts shadow shrike. An ice casts a blade. The next round, the storm wizard attacks and the ice wizard has no chance to block the attack. Shields previous to this section of the battle would not work due to the fact that we still have pierce/shatter TCs.
You would use Shrike only before attacking, correct? There is no need to have armor pierce if you are not going to attack.
Adding 50% pierce against the ice wizards would be the same as reducing your gear's damage amount by 50%.
I vote that Shadow Shrike's pierce be cut down to 20-30%. There are many other ways to cut down the resist without this spell.
TC Extraordinary is 20%.
School Spear is 10%
TC Infallible is 20%.
Assuming you're fire, you can get 27% or 12% depending on which Hades set you use (including wand)
Now, that is 77% or 62% pierce! At highest, that leaves 100% immunity resist down to a small 23%.
I strongly disagree and am completely opposed to ANY nerf to shadow shrike. Shadow Shrike is the perfect answer to high resist set-ups that have for too long completely dominated PvP. Shrike has well defined limits: It lasts a mere 3 rounds, takes a Shadow Pip to cast, locks you into a specific pattern of play and comes with backlash. Furthermore ice's resist is not rendered useless, on the contrary simply playing a shield will allow the pierce to be countered by the shield and then the attack will hit ice's ridiculous resist. Shadow Shrike also allows for more strategic play by removing one of the main disadvantages for going second and simultaneously allowing a middle of the way set up to obtain the pierce needed to stay competitive.
In short: I vote NO for a nerf to Shadow Shrike
Counter to this imo is…. “and comes with backlash”..>>> but the backlash can be reduced to almost nothing. So most will safely ignore the backlash part, if they have any idea what they are doing. “on the contrary simply playing a shield will allow the pierce to be countered by the shield and then the attack will hit ice's ridiculous resist.” >>> Two things here bother me, first, the person going second will be blind and driving into shields, while the person going first is going to hit directly into the Wizard. Huge difference when this spell is cast. This spell gives the person going first a huge advantage that cannot be overcome now. Second, is the comment “Ice’s ridiculous resist”, please remember that it’s only for two schools, Fire and Storm, only. The rest of their resist to all other schools is at par with other schools now. My Balance and my Myth have the same resist to the five other schools that my Ice has. So, a resist to Storm and Fire is needed more by Ice than any other school, it’s not out of line, for the lowest hitting school in the game. “Shadow Shrike also allows for more strategic play by removing one of the main disadvantages for going second and simultaneously allowing a middle of the way set up to obtain the pierce needed to stay competitive.” >>>> As stated above, if you are first, and the opponent is a Jade or (Storm and Fire first against an Ice), I can see your point. If you are second, then you have almost no chance of a win, the spell gives you no advantage when it could be driven into a -70 shield (because you are blind). In short, I vote with Schicks....... on Shadow Shrike.
I understand the need for a way to counter the high resist, but isn't 50% pierce a bit excessive? Considering it takes away a percentage of your health and not a defined amount, the backlash isn't actually much.
3,000 health? Backlash will take you down to 2,700 because you can do a lot in a "mere" 3 rounds. Ice wizards cannot tower shield every round and going first is still an issue.
For example, player 1, a storm wizard, is battling an ice wizard. He is ready to attack and casts Shadow Shrike. However, the ice wizard sees this but he cannot do anything. The storm wizard goes and attacks before the ice can put up a tower shield. Now, the ice wizard can put up a tower shield, but how will that solve anything if you have pierce/shatter TC? In short, a storm wizard casts shadow shrike. An ice casts a blade. The next round, the storm wizard attacks and the ice wizard has no chance to block the attack. Shields previous to this section of the battle would not work due to the fact that we still have pierce/shatter TCs.
You would use Shrike only before attacking, correct? There is no need to have armor pierce if you are not going to attack.
Adding 50% pierce against the ice wizards would be the same as reducing your gear's damage amount by 50%.
I vote that Shadow Shrike's pierce be cut down to 20-30%. There are many other ways to cut down the resist without this spell.
TC Extraordinary is 20%.
School Spear is 10%
TC Infallible is 20%.
Assuming you're fire, you can get 27% or 12% depending on which Hades set you use (including wand)
Now, that is 77% or 62% pierce! At highest, that leaves 100% immunity resist down to a small 23%.
Agreed. Defensive wizards are already being completely overpowered by this new hades gear as it is. Anyone still playing defense is loosing because you cant defend yourself anymore, this new offensive power is just too great. This new spell is just adding to it.
Also if you are using the current attack spamming strategy then there won't be any backlash at all.
I can't see this new play style being very successful for the future of the game. I'm not saying that jade defensive play was good either. KI really needs to restore the balance in PvP play styles like it was before the release of jade or they will loose a lot of their player base to other PvP games. No one wants to play PvP for a game that has no variety in strategy.
I understand the need for a way to counter the high resist, but isn't 50% pierce a bit excessive? Considering it takes away a percentage of your health and not a defined amount, the backlash isn't actually much.
3,000 health? Backlash will take you down to 2,700 because you can do a lot in a "mere" 3 rounds. Ice wizards cannot tower shield every round and going first is still an issue.
For example, player 1, a storm wizard, is battling an ice wizard. He is ready to attack and casts Shadow Shrike. However, the ice wizard sees this but he cannot do anything. The storm wizard goes and attacks before the ice can put up a tower shield. Now, the ice wizard can put up a tower shield, but how will that solve anything if you have pierce/shatter TC? In short, a storm wizard casts shadow shrike. An ice casts a blade. The next round, the storm wizard attacks and the ice wizard has no chance to block the attack. Shields previous to this section of the battle would not work due to the fact that we still have pierce/shatter TCs.
You would use Shrike only before attacking, correct? There is no need to have armor pierce if you are not going to attack.
Adding 50% pierce against the ice wizards would be the same as reducing your gear's damage amount by 50%.
I vote that Shadow Shrike's pierce be cut down to 20-30%. There are many other ways to cut down the resist without this spell.
TC Extraordinary is 20%.
School Spear is 10%
TC Infallible is 20%.
Assuming you're fire, you can get 27% or 12% depending on which Hades set you use (including wand)
Now, that is 77% or 62% pierce! At highest, that leaves 100% immunity resist down to a small 23%.
No 50% is not excessive. What is excessive is immunity level resist that can literally make an infinite damage boost negligible. The percent of health is 30% of your current health with a minimum of 10%. This is a significant amount especially if your opponent is playing agressively or utilizing a high pressure startegy. Ice wizards need not tower every round, they can use volcanic shield as well. Furthermore they only need to shield for 3 rounds not every round. This is the main difference between shrike and gear. Shrike offers a limited counter to resist at a pip cost, turn cost, resource cost and for only 3 rounds wheras immunity lvl resist offers a complete shutdown of a damage cost every round for no cost.
Let us consider your scenario, first of all the ability to easily circumvent shields from first is nothing new. It has long been pointed out that Shatter was overpowered but KI took no action on that issue so it is all said and done. Second if you place a shield during a shadow shrike opponent and they decide to use shatter then guess what you have accomplished:
No attack that round
No backlash reduction that round
Resource waste
If ice wizards only reduced storm's damage boost by 50%(leaving most storms doing 40%+ above their base damage) that would be a lot more fair than it is now. However, ice's resist literally turns storms attack boost into negative boost. A storm hitting into ice's resist is in effect achieving anywhere form -70% to -100% to their base damage.
Those many other ways that you cited cost resources, limit your options to boost your attack and a multiturn commitment that can all easily be overwritten with a one turn commitment to a shield. Thus I support Shadow Shrikes unnerfed version.
Counter to this imo is…. “and comes with backlash”..>>> but the backlash can be reduced to almost nothing. So most will safely ignore the backlash part, if they have any idea what they are doing. “on the contrary simply playing a shield will allow the pierce to be countered by the shield and then the attack will hit ice's ridiculous resist.” >>> Two things here bother me, first, the person going second will be blind and driving into shields, while the person going first is going to hit directly into the Wizard. Huge difference when this spell is cast. This spell gives the person going first a huge advantage that cannot be overcome now. Second, is the comment “Ice’s ridiculous resist”, please remember that it’s only for two schools, Fire and Storm, only. The rest of their resist to all other schools is at par with other schools now. My Balance and my Myth have the same resist to the five other schools that my Ice has. So, a resist to Storm and Fire is needed more by Ice than any other school, it’s not out of line, for the lowest hitting school in the game. “Shadow Shrike also allows for more strategic play by removing one of the main disadvantages for going second and simultaneously allowing a middle of the way set up to obtain the pierce needed to stay competitive.” >>>> As stated above, if you are first, and the opponent is a Jade or (Storm and Fire first against an Ice), I can see your point. If you are second, then you have almost no chance of a win, the spell gives you no advantage when it could be driven into a -70 shield (because you are blind). In short, I vote with Schicks....... on Shadow Shrike.
The backlash can be reduced to a minimum of 10% and that is only if you lock yourself into a specific playstyle. Hence one of Shadow Shrike's limitations is that during it's activation you are literally forced to play in a specific way.
Second the large degree of pierce is precisely why shadow shrike offers a second turn player so much utility. One of the main disadvantages of going second is hitting into a shield. However, shadow shrike offers the second turn player the ability to overwrite said shield putting them on much more even footing than they are at currently. The spell gives much larger net advantage to the second turn player than to the first.
As to ice's resist being justified by their low attack: Is ices's attack doing 400% less damage than a storm's? That is the amount of damage boost it takes to overcome 80% resist. How does lower attack justify immunity? It does not in any way. No school should be able to completely shut out a damage type with absolutely 0 in-battle effort. The spell gives you a huge boost from second since it allows you to overwrite the 70% shield you would normally be driving into. This is much better than today's scenario where they are driving into the shield and the resist.
The backlash can be reduced to a minimum of 10% and that is only if you lock yourself into a specific playstyle. Hence one of Shadow Shrike's limitations is that during it's activation you are literally forced to play in a specific way.
Second the large degree of pierce is precisely why shadow shrike offers a second turn player so much utility. One of the main disadvantages of going second is hitting into a shield. However, shadow shrike offers the second turn player the ability to overwrite said shield putting them on much more even footing than they are at currently. The spell gives much larger net advantage to the second turn player than to the first.
As to ice's resist being justified by their low attack: Is ices's attack doing 400% less damage than a storm's? That is the amount of damage boost it takes to overcome 80% resist. How does lower attack justify immunity? It does not in any way. No school should be able to completely shut out a damage type with absolutely 0 in-battle effort. The spell gives you a huge boost from second since it allows you to overwrite the 70% shield you would normally be driving into. This is much better than today's scenario where they are driving into the shield and the resist.
Backlash can be reduced, and as I have already found, even in PvP, it's easy to control. Backlash is a non issue, and should be ignored in any discussion, imo.
It does offer the second person a viable option, but the first person now has an unlimited way to destroy the second person. Where at one time the person playing second has a chance of winning, that change is gone, if the person playing first has any idea what they are doing.
Ice has no way to take out shields with a low pip spell, traps or blades. If they go with a Myth amulet, they can't heal out of a deep hit. If they go with the Life Amulet they lost any real defense. Yes, they have Storm and Fire resist, but I have seen Storm and Fire take out Ice with little problem. Storm at over a 105% damage, and Fire not far off now, the Ice resist is not really an issue. Agree, maybe over on central it's an issue, with the limitations they put in place, but I don't see it in Ranked.
Backlash can be reduced, and as I have already found, even in PvP, it's easy to control. Backlash is a non issue, and should be ignored in any discussion, imo.
It does offer the second person a viable option, but the first person now has an unlimited way to destroy the second person. Where at one time the person playing second has a chance of winning, that change is gone, if the person playing first has any idea what they are doing.
Ice has no way to take out shields with a low pip spell, traps or blades. If they go with a Myth amulet, they can't heal out of a deep hit. If they go with the Life Amulet they lost any real defense. Yes, they have Storm and Fire resist, but I have seen Storm and Fire take out Ice with little problem. Storm at over a 105% damage, and Fire not far off now, the Ice resist is not really an issue. Agree, maybe over on central it's an issue, with the limitations they put in place, but I don't see it in Ranked.
It is not the backlash itself that is so controlling but the threat of backlash that is. Like I said, once your opponent shrikes they are effectively binding themselves into a specific playstyle for 3 rounds. Any deviation from that playstyle will cause them an increase in backlash or no decrease. This offers a savvy player incredible oppurtunity.
The person playing from first only gains a slight advantage from what was already possible when going from first. The second turn player on the other hand gains a massive increase in potential. I would actually expect the second round player to have a better chance with shrike than without it.
What do you mean ice has no low pip shield breakers? Any spell 2 pips or less works, ice has frostbite as a DoT, a minion that casts shield breaking attacks and if you are looking for the absolute premium in shieldbreaking ability look no further than ice elf tc.
Every school makes sacrifices when choosing a mastery, ice is not unique in this situation. Furthermore 105% damage doesnt compare to 85%+ resist. Guess what a 105% damage boost spell does against 85% resist...it does 69% below the base damage of that spell. Claiming that ices resist is not an issue is not merely false, it is simply mathematically incorrect. On central there is no issue with ice's resist as all resist is capped at 52%.
I think shadow magic was a pathetic and boring way to attempt to try and counter jade players and higher defense especially the mighty and their survivability.
This is seriously the best option?
And on top of that they made companions for the new world and made it yet even easier.
More and more of the fun keeps disappearing with every update.
The shrike shadow spell is extremely overpowered...it takes all strategy out of high level pvp, to be replaced by critical spamming. Ice's resist cannot stand up to this, and thus the main focus of the school is pointless in pvp. Shields do not matter, they are quickly taken by shatter or DoTs. I mean, when my ice character was trying shrike in pvp, I did 2700 with a single blade to an ice warlord in crafted gear. If that's not overpowered, I don't know what is. This addition is ruining all semblance of strategy. Shrike needs to be nerfed.
Oh, just noticed that I did not mention this, the spell i did 2700 damage with was snow serpent. :P
Many people out there think, shadow strike isn't overpowered because even through that 50% pierce ice still resists it. The major problem that is being ignored it that if a storm shadow strikes my balance with 51% storm resist instantly has 1%. on top of this they can infally (another 15 or 20%) and use their spear, and add on the new hades gear can easily get 110%% pierce (20 + 50 + 10 + 30) this does not include tc spears. And right there they can pierce anyone. My balance has high resist and low damage. This makes pvp for me now impossible. Anyone still think it is fair; look at it this way, most schools have lower resist than my balance. Most schools get completely pierced by shadow strike and then some. Looking at fortify you can say well there is an extra 20 or 15% to protect you. Well congrats if you fortify, you cannot use conviction, which is needed for storms massive critical. My balance has the full Avalon crafted gear that gives elemental resist and block, and I still have to conviction... Yeah this is obviously not unfair in anyway. Addressing perhaps the biggest argument which is "They have low health" yes they do, but does that matter if they can defeat a tanky balance and life team in 6 turns? If you require me to answer it for you it does not. I like what KI did with Shadow Strike and I made a prediction that so much pierce would be thrown around that resist won't matter for any school, besides Ice. My solution? Make Shadow Strike PvE only. What makes the 75 minions so OP and Shadow Strike not?
Many people out there think, shadow strike isn't overpowered because even through that 50% pierce ice still resists it. The major problem that is being ignored it that if a storm shadow strikes my balance with 51% storm resist instantly has 1%. on top of this they can infally (another 15 or 20%) and use their spear, and add on the new hades gear can easily get 110%% pierce (20 + 50 + 10 + 30) this does not include tc spears. And right there they can pierce anyone. My balance has high resist and low damage. This makes pvp for me now impossible. Anyone still think it is fair; look at it this way, most schools have lower resist than my balance. Most schools get completely pierced by shadow strike and then some. Looking at fortify you can say well there is an extra 20 or 15% to protect you. Well congrats if you fortify, you cannot use conviction, which is needed for storms massive critical. My balance has the full Avalon crafted gear that gives elemental resist and block, and I still have to conviction... Yeah this is obviously not unfair in anyway. Addressing perhaps the biggest argument which is "They have low health" yes they do, but does that matter if they can defeat a tanky balance and life team in 6 turns? If you require me to answer it for you it does not. I like what KI did with Shadow Strike and I made a prediction that so much pierce would be thrown around that resist won't matter for any school, besides Ice. My solution? Make Shadow Strike PvE only. What makes the 75 minions so OP and Shadow Strike not?
You are adding up only the pierce possible. Lets look at the defense too. Aside from every school being able to easily become Storm Immune with gear plus a good pet. On top of that you have TC -85 shield, Storm -80, Glacial -70, Volcanic -70, OH wait we have -75 Glacial and Vocanic too... and then there's Tower -50, TC Tower -55. Let's be real, is 50 pierce anything really overpowered against -1200% and that's not even including the auras and other defense boosts or all the immunes. You are WAY overstating it's power, shields and high resist don't cause you to lose 10-50% of your health, unlike Shrike. Get over it, there's nothing overpowered about it.
Why is the only issue being discussed about Storm having Shadow Shrike? EVERY school can get it, making their opponents almost helpless to any school attacks?
Let's take a look at Balance for example: Yes, you can shield them, but only with Tower Shield and tc types of it. They can go right through any shield unless you were to stack those shields. They also would have the power of Shatter as a tc, imagine them using Shrike with a few blades, shattering, then using a 6 power pip Judgement?
The issue here is NOT only with Storms using Shrike, but all schools having access to it
I've seen someone hit 1,000,000 with a thunder snake.
Yes, that's quite possible. I've done 1,000,000 with my fire's wand. If you get enough blades and traps, you can do it with anything. My point was, before shadow spells, to do 2,700 with snow serpent with only balefrost to an ice in full crafted gear would have been extremely hard to impossible. With shadow spells, it just makes all of ice's gear completely useless. Ice can have a little resist left over, sure. This, however, will not be enough to stop the massive amount of damage that people using shrike can deal extremely quickly. Ice cannot, and the way things are going, probably will never be able to match the damage that other schools can do without many blades. These critical spammers with shrike, though, give them almost no time to blade. Even with somewhat more health, with resist practically gone, ice is pretty much useless. It used to be that ice was more powerful because of its defense, but beatable if you used the correct strategy. These critical spammers, on the other hand, tip the scale completely. I have seen people critical on my ice when I use my 300 block gear constantly. It's ridiculous, and I think that there should either be a counter to shrike, or it should be completely changed.
The shrike shadow spell is extremely overpowered...it takes all strategy out of high level pvp, to be replaced by critical spamming. Ice's resist cannot stand up to this, and thus the main focus of the school is pointless in pvp. Shields do not matter, they are quickly taken by shatter or DoTs. I mean, when my ice character was trying shrike in pvp, I did 2700 with a single blade to an ice warlord in crafted gear. If that's not overpowered, I don't know what is. This addition is ruining all semblance of strategy. Shrike needs to be nerfed.
Countering ShrikeBacklash is the Achilles heel of Shadow spells. Your opponent is going to lose some health for using it. How much they lose depends on how well you can control them.StallingThe first line of defense is stall tactics. They’re losing 30% of their health by default. If you can keep them from doing anything for 3 rounds, they’re going to get hurt in the face. So your first option is disruption. Mantle spells that reduce accuracy, dispels that take away their ability to cast, stuns that.. well, stun them. Mixing and matching these disruptions together can be effective. Mantles are particularly good against players using the Hades Defensive set, since it gives very little accuracy to start with.ControllingBut we want to do even more than that. We want to dominate our Shrike-enhanced opponent so thoroughly that they become our puppet, casting spells we decide.The absolute, most effective anti-Shrike spell in Wizard101 is Medusa. If you are a Myth player or you have a Myth Mastery amulet, this is your first option. It stuns your opponent for two rounds. This means you can hit them again, and then follow with a Mantle or Dispel. I suggest, if possible, a dispel to their school so they cannot cast an attack on their third round of shrike. If you hit with Medusa and something else, their health should have a huge dent in it, and without the ability to attack they will probably need to shield or heal to avoid death. This will invoke another 10% damage from Shrike, swiping 40% of their health away when Shrike ends that round.
Countering ShrikeBacklash is the Achilles heel of Shadow spells. Your opponent is going to lose some health for using it. How much they lose depends on how well you can control them.StallingThe first line of defense is stall tactics. They’re losing 30% of their health by default. If you can keep them from doing anything for 3 rounds, they’re going to get hurt in the face. So your first option is disruption. Mantle spells that reduce accuracy, dispels that take away their ability to cast, stuns that.. well, stun them. Mixing and matching these disruptions together can be effective. Mantles are particularly good against players using the Hades Defensive set, since it gives very little accuracy to start with.ControllingBut we want to do even more than that. We want to dominate our Shrike-enhanced opponent so thoroughly that they become our puppet, casting spells we decide.The absolute, most effective anti-Shrike spell in Wizard101 is Medusa. If you are a Myth player or you have a Myth Mastery amulet, this is your first option. It stuns your opponent for two rounds. This means you can hit them again, and then follow with a Mantle or Dispel. I suggest, if possible, a dispel to their school so they cannot cast an attack on their third round of shrike. If you hit with Medusa and something else, their health should have a huge dent in it, and without the ability to attack they will probably need to shield or heal to avoid death. This will invoke another 10% damage from Shrike, swiping 40% of their health away when Shrike ends that round.
Finally, someone else who understands that shrike is just another aspect of strategy that also has it's weakness. Shrike can be just as dangerous to the caster as the defender. It all depends how it plays out.
It is not the backlash itself that is so controlling but the threat of backlash that is. Like I said, once your opponent shrikes they are effectively binding themselves into a specific playstyle for 3 rounds. Any deviation from that playstyle will cause them an increase in backlash or no decrease. This offers a savvy player incredible oppurtunity.
The person playing from first only gains a slight advantage from what was already possible when going from first. The second turn player on the other hand gains a massive increase in potential. I would actually expect the second round player to have a better chance with shrike than without it.
What do you mean ice has no low pip shield breakers? Any spell 2 pips or less works, ice has frostbite as a DoT, a minion that casts shield breaking attacks and if you are looking for the absolute premium in shieldbreaking ability look no further than ice elf tc.
Every school makes sacrifices when choosing a mastery, ice is not unique in this situation. Furthermore 105% damage doesnt compare to 85%+ resist. Guess what a 105% damage boost spell does against 85% resist...it does 69% below the base damage of that spell. Claiming that ices resist is not an issue is not merely false, it is simply mathematically incorrect. On central there is no issue with ice's resist as all resist is capped at 52%.
Yes, any deviation from that play style for 3 rounds will increase blacklash, but any savvy player will be set up with infallible and stun block before bringing the strike spell out. So, the savvy player that is going first, will shut down any opportunity that the second player has, which is expected.
The person playing from first gains a huge advantage, an absolute incredible advantage. The second player is still blind, and can be shut down far easier than someone not a round behind guessing at the next move. Does the second player gain an advantage with strike, sure, but no where near what the first players gains. I don't see how you can even make this comparison, it makes no sense at all.
Ok, Ice has no low pip shield breaker that's not a TC. Ice's minion is normally not a factor, when the ice is second. Frostbite is 5 pips, not a Low pips shield breaker, bottom line.
I am certainly not talking central here, we are talking ranked. Most Ice do not have 85% resist, it's up in the 75% area for only two schools, Fire and Storm. Both of these schools easily have hit above 80%. Take that 80% plus, and add 50%, plus 15% infallible, and then add in 15% normally added to the card (or TC in the Side) and what do you have, Ice resist is not an issue. Prove to me mathematically that you can add up the above pierce correctly, and Ice or any other school has any chance at all from second.
and their survivability.
