Couldn't Shrike be 25%-30% pierce? Does it really need to be 50%?
Seriously. Shields need to be strengthened to actually do something.
Shadow Magic is entirely overpowered.
I agree that it needs to be nerfed a little bit, but it isn't a waste of a turn. If you don't have a shield on, they go through all of your resist AND boost on you at the same time. Its worth getting shields up when there is shrike up.
The point in shielding even with shrike is that the shield absorbs the pierce. Without the shield, your resist is pierced instead leaving you even more vulnerable. Shrike is just fine at 50%. It only removes a single tower shield worth of the 30,50,55,70,70,75,75,80,85 stackable shields available for defense of every school except balance (balance can only be defended by the first 3).
The point of shielding is for when they don't have shrike on, when you have a large resist(to act as a pierce buffer) or to dual shield which will absorb the pierce AND then act as a regular shield. Shrike is perfect as it is at 50% and does not need to be reduced.
If you're going to nurf Shrike, then you have to nurf these Jade Turtles. At max level 95, the average Turtle has over 70 resist. Or the always fun wizards that can have 100% resist to fire or storm. Is that fair? Shrike does a lot more good than bad for pvp. And there are so many ways to make Shrike backfire on someone using it.
If you're going to nurf Shrike, then you have to nurf these Jade Turtles. At max level 95, the average Turtle has over 70 resist. Or the always fun wizards that can have 100% resist to fire or storm. Is that fair? Shrike does a lot more good than bad for pvp. And there are so many ways to make Shrike backfire on someone using it.
-Ash
Shrike doing more good than bad? Ices and lifes being nearly useless, warlords without shrike standing no chance..I don't see how this could be considered "good."
Couldn't Shrike be 25%-30% pierce? Does it really need to be 50%?
Seriously. Shields need to be strengthened to actually do something.
Shadow Magic is entirely overpowered.
Yes, I think so also, I mean (since I am and old school player) I was taught that shields could difference between you winning or losing the match, so I was taught to this quite often, but with the shadow magic it means nothing. So, really what I am trying to say here is that people need to shield necessity we learned this from Diego (Some boss in Dragonspyre also shows the importance of it),but the fact that we are using what we know to help ourselves from certain death becomes useless then what was it all for? all that teaching us about shielding and such seems like a waste.
Shrike doing more good than bad? Ices and lifes being nearly useless, warlords without shrike standing no chance..I don't see how this could be considered "good."
Definitely more good than bad. 6 hour+ matches= no longer a problem, tank till flee- almost gone, ice having a complete strategic advantage against 2 schools=less of a problem.
Ice and life being nearly useless? With ice retaining defensive prowess AND having the ability to shrike and life with the ability to critical heal? How in the world are they rendered useless? The warlords without shrike is a problem... a problem with the matchmaking system that we saw coming a long time ago: How a soft cap...
Shrike doing more good than bad? Ices and lifes being nearly useless, warlords without shrike standing no chance..I don't see how this could be considered "good."
So an Ice having 100% resist to both Fire and Storm is fair and ok? No clue how Shrike affects life. Life's never have much resist unless they were Jade gear. And wearing 70+ resist to all schools is fair? And instead of fighting for hours to kill these kinds of people, it takes usually less than an hour or close to that.
And please don't tell me if you don't have Shrike you have no chance. There are so many ways to counter it and make them backfire. Easy to make them fizz with smoke or black mantel or use Juju tc, stack shields or if your Fire use Efreet. Make them fizz enough or where they can't hit and Shrike will take over a thousand off their health easy. I have three warlords at max level so I know what I'm talking about.
I like how people say things like that, acting like shadow-magic users are stalking you or something
Shadow magic isn't always there to destroy your shields. You're looking at 1 instance instead of the big picture. What about mid-levels, where shadow magic is nowhere in their future? I'd understand if Shrike was mid-high levels (50-69) and not just near max level.
If somehow Shrike made into some bundle gear for a low-mid level player (20-39), then your point would be certainly valid on every front. It does enough pierce to destroy a TS.
My suggestion would be to increase backlash, as it's not a good enough trade-off
Shrike doing more good than bad? Ices and lifes being nearly useless, warlords without shrike standing no chance..I don't see how this could be considered "good."
"ices and lifes being nearly useless" So somehow the opponent gets more pierce and the tanky class instantly becomes useless? Ice can have enough resist to even partially block Shrike or use a tower to absorb all the pierce. Life can heal you, which is now even more important if you get whupped by a big hit from Shrike. "warlords without shrike standing no chance" At the levels at which warlords face shadow magic, you will have sufficient tools to shut down any Shriker and even make it blow up in their face. Earthquake, Medusa, Efreet, Enfeeble, need I go on? "I don't see how this could be considered good" Tell that to the storm who can't make a dent on the Thaumaturge who has immunity and then some to Storm.
"ices and lifes being nearly useless" So somehow the opponent gets more pierce and the tanky class instantly becomes useless? Ice can have enough resist to even partially block Shrike or use a tower to absorb all the pierce. Life can heal you, which is now even more important if you get whupped by a big hit from Shrike. "warlords without shrike standing no chance" At the levels at which warlords face shadow magic, you will have sufficient tools to shut down any Shriker and even make it blow up in their face. Earthquake, Medusa, Efreet, Enfeeble, need I go on? "I don't see how this could be considered good" Tell that to the storm who can't make a dent on the Thaumaturge who has immunity and then some to Storm.
Most ice and life builds cannot deal out as much damage as the other schools, and without their resist, these schools are a lot less useful. Having enough resist to block part of shrike will lower all other stats, and with base armor pierce and possibly infallible, that is negated, as well. When my balance warlord was level 50, he battled shrike users just about every match. Enfeeble and earthquake are counters to blades (And earthquake shields as well) anyway, not shrike. Efreet is only for fire, and that doesn't stop fire from currently being the least represented school at max level on the leaderboard. Medusa is easily countered with a stun shield. Resist is easy to counter. Infallible, blades, spears, armor pierce enchants, base pierce, and converts made it so that resist was not much of an issue even without shrike. Shrike completely changed pvp, and in my opinion, not for the better.
Most ice and life builds cannot deal out as much damage as the other schools, and without their resist, these schools are a lot less useful. Having enough resist to block part of shrike will lower all other stats, and with base armor pierce and possibly infallible, that is negated, as well. When my balance warlord was level 50, he battled shrike users just about every match. Enfeeble and earthquake are counters to blades (And earthquake shields as well) anyway, not shrike. Efreet is only for fire, and that doesn't stop fire from currently being the least represented school at max level on the leaderboard. Medusa is easily countered with a stun shield. Resist is easy to counter. Infallible, blades, spears, armor pierce enchants, base pierce, and converts made it so that resist was not much of an issue even without shrike. Shrike completely changed pvp, and in my opinion, not for the better.
*critical facepalm* Ice will have MORE resist when facing Shadow Shrike, and again, you can just tower and neutralize the Shrike pierce. Life can heal you after you get thumped by Shrike. Enfeeble and Quake remove blades, which make the spell do less damage, which means you don't have to worry as much about resist. Efreet can be used with Fire mastery and TCs, and if you are Death you can use Bad Juju. Black Mantle also works, knock off the stun shields with TC Freeze, use your brain instead of your forum rage, etc.
*critical facepalm* Ice will have MORE resist when facing Shadow Shrike, and again, you can just tower and neutralize the Shrike pierce. Life can heal you after you get thumped by Shrike. Enfeeble and Quake remove blades, which make the spell do less damage, which means you don't have to worry as much about resist. Efreet can be used with Fire mastery and TCs, and if you are Death you can use Bad Juju. Black Mantle also works, knock off the stun shields with TC Freeze, use your brain instead of your forum rage, etc.
And tower is easily countered by DoTs, which every school can access, and every school but balance and storm get as school spells. It is not possible to tower every turn. Life can only heal so much, and in recent times, it is extremely hard to outheal damage. Most players do not use blades anymore, instead using medium pip attack spam. Efreet costs a lot of pips, is easily shielded, and without actually being fire, will have low damage. Bad juju is a counter, but again, cannot be used every time the opponent is ready to attack, does not work from second, costs 3 pips, and deals several hundred damage to yourself, which, when boosted by damage boosts and pierce, is often not worth the cost. Black mantle is all about luck, and with the new accuracy-boosting crafted gear, is not a reliable counter to shrike, especially with infallible. Finally, while using treasure card freezes, you make yourself vulnerable to attacks, which is generally not smart to do in max level pvp; also, the opponent can easily use another stun shield or conviction, which many people carry because of the high critical often seen in the arena currently.
And tower is easily countered by DoTs, which every school can access, and every school but balance and storm get as school spells. It is not possible to tower every turn. Life can only heal so much, and in recent times, it is extremely hard to outheal damage. Most players do not use blades anymore, instead using medium pip attack spam. Efreet costs a lot of pips, is easily shielded, and without actually being fire, will have low damage. Bad juju is a counter, but again, cannot be used every time the opponent is ready to attack, does not work from second, costs 3 pips, and deals several hundred damage to yourself, which, when boosted by damage boosts and pierce, is often not worth the cost. Black mantle is all about luck, and with the new accuracy-boosting crafted gear, is not a reliable counter to shrike, especially with infallible. Finally, while using treasure card freezes, you make yourself vulnerable to attacks, which is generally not smart to do in max level pvp; also, the opponent can easily use another stun shield or conviction, which many people carry because of the high critical often seen in the arena currently.
You don't need to tower every turn, shrike lasts for 3. Black mantle is a counter and reduces even 100% accuracy down to 45%. Stacked shields, beguiles, stuns, weakness etc. Shrike is being effectively countered in the high lvl meta daily, the only time it causes trouble is due to lvl mismatches or when a player is unfamiliar with the counters.
You don't need to tower every turn, shrike lasts for 3. Black mantle is a counter and reduces even 100% accuracy down to 45%. Stacked shields, beguiles, stuns, weakness etc. Shrike is being effectively countered in the high lvl meta daily, the only time it causes trouble is due to lvl mismatches or when a player is unfamiliar with the counters.
With a damage over time spell, it is easy to use 12 hits of damage (3 for the 3 initial hits, 9 for the DoTs), completely ignoring the shields. Even if the shrike user does not use so many DoTs, your shields will still be gone, and a spear will be placed, increasing the pierce. 45% accuracy is all about luck; relying on wild bolts works just about as well. Again, shields are easily removed with DoTs. Beguile wastes pips, and if the shrike user attacked with a single enemy attack the turn beguile was used, it will still hit his/her opponent. Many players carry stun shields or conviction, and stuns cannot stun all the way through shrike. Weakness is only 25%, which is not a very large portion of most attacks in today's pvp. With shrike combined with infallible, it is quite easy to destroy an opponent's health with a few four pip spells. Even if the opponent does not die, he or she will almost always be at low enough health to easily kill. One spell making a stat useless while it is up is not my idea of balanced.
With a damage over time spell, it is easy to use 12 hits of damage (3 for the 3 initial hits, 9 for the DoTs), completely ignoring the shields. Even if the shrike user does not use so many DoTs, your shields will still be gone, and a spear will be placed, increasing the pierce. 45% accuracy is all about luck; relying on wild bolts works just about as well. Again, shields are easily removed with DoTs. Beguile wastes pips, and if the shrike user attacked with a single enemy attack the turn beguile was used, it will still hit his/her opponent. Many players carry stun shields or conviction, and stuns cannot stun all the way through shrike. Weakness is only 25%, which is not a very large portion of most attacks in today's pvp. With shrike combined with infallible, it is quite easy to destroy an opponent's health with a few four pip spells. Even if the opponent does not die, he or she will almost always be at low enough health to easily kill. One spell making a stat useless while it is up is not my idea of balanced.
All you have to do is time your shields, even with a DoT if you cast a shield for 3 rounds you are still mitigating large amounts of damage. Protect your shields with absorbs. Debuffing their accuracy still remains viable and will negate a shriked attack the majority of the time. Beguile is costly but if you are looking for 2 free set up rounds then you are set. Personally using my shift set-up which has only 15% resist I have had no trouble surviving shrike. There are many spells that make a stat "useless" for their duration. Just off the top of my head I can name Doom and Gloom. Is that overpowered also?
You don't need to tower every turn, shrike lasts for 3. Black mantle is a counter and reduces even 100% accuracy down to 45%. Stacked shields, beguiles, stuns, weakness etc. Shrike is being effectively countered in the high lvl meta daily, the only time it causes trouble is due to lvl mismatches or when a player is unfamiliar with the counters.
Earlier you stated that dual shielding fixed the problem for you. That, to be honest, is not true. Because of people spamming attacks nowadays, dual shielding is nearly impossible and the only way to really do it is to be able to cast 2 turns at once, or if you have a seriously defensive deck and your opponent passes for one turn, which with Shrike, I doubt would happen.
Black Mantle isn't a logical solution to Shrike. I have 108% Balance accuracy, add Infallible, that's 123%, subtract 45% and that's still a 78% chance of working. Almost as much as Myth's normal spell accuracy, and it works a lot of the time.
Stacking shields can be removed by DoT's, minions, Shatters, etc, Beguile is horrible for 1v1 because most people with Shrike would be using single hits, stunning can only be used once out of the 3 turns and the opponent keeps their pips, accuracy, and even the spell to hit you the next turn with the same shieldless condition you were possibly in last turn, and Weakness is very hard to keep up while putting up shields. You know yourself that you can't dual shield, stun, and cast Weakness all in one turn, so Shrike is still a huge game winner for most.
Yes, I'll be honest, Shrike is being effectively countered a lot, but many Shrike users are getting smarter too. I've seen some use Stun Blocks and a HoT being using Shrike, putting up a minion, using a DoT, using Shatter, all before they use Shrike, and added with gear pierce and the ever popular MC Infallible from pets, you're just about doomed unless you're a Balance wizard who criticals Availing Hands with massive heal boost to heal you every turn.
All you have to do is time your shields, even with a DoT if you cast a shield for 3 rounds you are still mitigating large amounts of damage. Protect your shields with absorbs. Debuffing their accuracy still remains viable and will negate a shriked attack the majority of the time. Beguile is costly but if you are looking for 2 free set up rounds then you are set. Personally using my shift set-up which has only 15% resist I have had no trouble surviving shrike. There are many spells that make a stat "useless" for their duration. Just off the top of my head I can name Doom and Gloom. Is that overpowered also?
If the opponent uses a DoT, 3 of the hits will get through your shields, causing large amounts of damage. Even if you shield every round of shrike, the shields are negated/reduced to a tiny amount (If they are not tower shields), leaving you extremely open to attacks. Absorbs are costly, and oftentimes the first hit of the DoT will hit through them, rendering them useless. With beguile, you leave yourself open to the first attack of shrike, which can do quite a bit of damage oftentimes. Doom and gloom is easily countered and is extremely situational. Shrike is hard to counter and can be efficiently used in most situations where a player has 4+ pips. Shrike allows for damage spikes that can annhilate 4,000 health easily. I have done it myself on my ice and had it done to me many times. For the more defensive schools, I don't believe that it is fair to take away the entire idea of the school with one spell.
Earlier you stated that dual shielding fixed the problem for you. That, to be honest, is not true. Because of people spamming attacks nowadays, dual shielding is nearly impossible and the only way to really do it is to be able to cast 2 turns at once, or if you have a seriously defensive deck and your opponent passes for one turn, which with Shrike, I doubt would happen.
Black Mantle isn't a logical solution to Shrike. I have 108% Balance accuracy, add Infallible, that's 123%, subtract 45% and that's still a 78% chance of working. Almost as much as Myth's normal spell accuracy, and it works a lot of the time.
Stacking shields can be removed by DoT's, minions, Shatters, etc, Beguile is horrible for 1v1 because most people with Shrike would be using single hits, stunning can only be used once out of the 3 turns and the opponent keeps their pips, accuracy, and even the spell to hit you the next turn with the same shieldless condition you were possibly in last turn, and Weakness is very hard to keep up while putting up shields. You know yourself that you can't dual shield, stun, and cast Weakness all in one turn, so Shrike is still a huge game winner for most.
Yes, I'll be honest, Shrike is being effectively countered a lot, but many Shrike users are getting smarter too. I've seen some use Stun Blocks and a HoT being using Shrike, putting up a minion, using a DoT, using Shatter, all before they use Shrike, and added with gear pierce and the ever popular MC Infallible from pets, you're just about doomed unless you're a Balance wizard who criticals Availing Hands with massive heal boost to heal you every turn.
You only need to dual shield when shrike is up, if they are spamming attacks then a single shield is effective and if DoT's then triage is available. Black mantle is a realistic solution as most people in the arena especially Hades gear users do not have such high levels of accuracy. Beguile will not prevent a same round attack but it will prevent the following rounds. In normal play beguile is usually frowned upon in 1v1 but I have been using it to great effect as a shrike and nova counter. You don't need to use every defensive method in one round to win, those are all different options that can be applied at different times. A simple example is stun, followed by black mantle, followed by a shield, weakness or heal: All 3 rounds of shrike countered. The fact that shrike users are getting smarter is a testament to PvP, as you know it is a constant arms race. As you yourself have pointed out, shrike is being effectively countered daily. Even against a smart shrike player one is not doomed if one heals with one of the many available heal spells.
If the opponent uses a DoT, 3 of the hits will get through your shields, causing large amounts of damage. Even if you shield every round of shrike, the shields are negated/reduced to a tiny amount (If they are not tower shields), leaving you extremely open to attacks. Absorbs are costly, and oftentimes the first hit of the DoT will hit through them, rendering them useless. With beguile, you leave yourself open to the first attack of shrike, which can do quite a bit of damage oftentimes. Doom and gloom is easily countered and is extremely situational. Shrike is hard to counter and can be efficiently used in most situations where a player has 4+ pips. Shrike allows for damage spikes that can annhilate 4,000 health easily. I have done it myself on my ice and had it done to me many times. For the more defensive schools, I don't believe that it is fair to take away the entire idea of the school with one spell.
I believe this comes down to playstyle difference, I personally find shrike very easy to counter. I have numerous counter-options available to me at most points in the duel and if I can't go defensive then switching to an offensive stance typically works since a shriked player effectively neutered his defense/heal options. Shrike does allow for damage spikes(that is the point). For the defensive schools it is entirely fair since at any point this spell isnt up they retain their large amount of defensive prowess. Are storm shields unfair to the storm school because they stop their massive attack boost?
I believe this comes down to playstyle difference, I personally find shrike very easy to counter. I have numerous counter-options available to me at most points in the duel and if I can't go defensive then switching to an offensive stance typically works since a shriked player effectively neutered his defense/heal options. Shrike does allow for damage spikes(that is the point). For the defensive schools it is entirely fair since at any point this spell isnt up they retain their large amount of defensive prowess. Are storm shields unfair to the storm school because they stop their massive attack boost?
Again, problems with different schools. Switching from a defensive stance to an offensive stance can prove difficult to some schools, especially when attacks must be healed off. Because shrike users can do damage much faster than a player without shrike, trying to be aggressive against them often ends in defeat. Even without shrike, with the massive amounts of damage often seen in the arena, defensive schools have lost much of their usefulness. Storm shields are not unfair, as often even with storm shields storm can hit massive amounts of damage, they can be easily removed for low amounts of pips, and without storm shields, the other schools would have no good way to counter storm, while storm could counter large amounts of resist with pierce and converts. An example of how shrike is overpowered happened to me yesterday, when I tried a practice 4v4 match. My team was second to a team with a storm in last position. First round, the storm bladed. Second round, infallible. Third round, they stunned us and the storm used shrike. Fourth round, with 70% shields on two of us and a stun shield on our life, the storm did an 8,000 damage storm lord through the shields (And around 60 resist on the life). Without a death spamming virulent plagues, there is no real way to counter this, and even with a death spamming them, the opponents used death dispels on our death. I personally do not find this fair in any way, but I guess that's just me. If the PvP community wants 4 round matches where the most damaging schools dominate, I can't really stop that.
Warlord
