Since this seems to be the day to call out all the troops that need fixing, Wraith has to be on this list.
My thought is this: If you raise wraith’s cost he’s still going to be too OP because no matter the cost all it takes is one skull hit to possibly kill a troop. So raise his cost to 24 mana even (ridiculous, hear me out) but his trait is still too much. My proposal is to take away this mechanic. A skull damage hit should never apply death mark, it’s too cheesy.
So if you agree, we need to come up with something that still makes wraith a cool troop. OR do we? He’s supposed to be a weaker troop. He should have never been this powerful.
Not to me because he’s still to cheap a troop to even have the chance to kill that easy.
Also I see what you tried to do there. That would basically nerf all death mark troops. Not needed. Death as we discussed before should have a true chance to kill with death mark.
The problem is his cost, and the fact that a simple 3 skull match can apply something as deadly as death mark. It’s overly cheesy. It’s beginning to feel like the same level of cheese people complained about with Maw.
It is a little strange having death touch on a common, especially combined with chill touch. Pairing the two strongest on-skull abilities like that would be cool for an epic+, but a common?
In terms of balance, rather than just how it ‘feels’, I don’t think it’s particularly OP though. Seeing Wraith on a team doesn’t make me want to avoid it the way that Courage/BD do. To each his own, I suppose.
If I see Wraith at the top I choose an appropriate team to deal with him. Sylvanimora traited entangles him on a 4 match. I can’t even remember when I last lost to Wraith, Bd, courage, famine teams etc - and I get them a lot. There are also plenty of impervious troops to counter him. If he isnt at the top he isnt a problem anyway.
Although I’m on record as saying I think instant-death should not be in the game, that’s not the discussion here so I’ll leave it at that.
Death Mark absolutely should NOT kill turn zero with NO chance to respond. That is the very definition of “overly cheesy”. It completely makes Cleanse useless since Death Mark is the only status effect that’s even worth cleansing. The rest of the status effects are garbage in comparison, especially burning and poison.
If you’re going to take down Wraith for it, Herald of Chaos will need to be changed too, since he inflicts Death Mark on skulls.
I do however agree with you that Wraith is too powerful for its base rarity because, as Simon said, it doesn’t only Death Mark, it also FREEZES.
I think Agile instead of Death Touch could be good change. Agile would be like a translation/adaptation of his immaterial state that can be activated to avoid attacks without the need to create a new trait for ghostly troops.
Don’t forget entangle is worth cleansing as well, but yeah not many. But you can make that same argument for why death mark is actually a worthy status effect. That’s been on the table as well, buffing other status effects.
That’s why i’m on record saying that Death is the only one that should have death mark. His mana cost is fine for that spell. No new troops should have it, and definitely not on skull hits. lol
This is exactly why Devour was never fully taken out of the game. I just don’t think they’ll stop creating more troops with it.
This isn’t even about anything other than this mechanic is STUPID. A match can start with a skull match on the board, and boom one of your troops are already dead. What?
Having Death Mark be unique to Death is something that I would definitely support but I think there’s zero chance of that happening. The Devs seem to like the instant-death stuff.
I use a lot of Mercy and Apothecary teams. Part of the reason for that is to cleanse. There’s nothing more annoying than losing troops (yes, multiple) before there’s even a chance to cast.
I agree that the Wraith mechanic is silly but overall Death Mark needs a 1-turn ramp regardless.
I think Wraith is a bit over the top for a Common but the real issue is the aforementioned hated team that we keep seeing it on, AKA any team with Courage and Bone Dragon. Or any team with Bone Dragon.
Having to dodge any Skull match when you’re also trying to prevent the enemy from getting more than one match of Purple and Brown is too much.
But yeah, an Impervious lead solves that. (Doesn’t solve the Bone Dragon issue, nothing does…)
More like another problem since we pretty much have to cling on Impervious troops, because that’s another overly good trait. Not the topic i know, but still relevant to mention in the general sense of rebalancing stuff.
If it was intentional then it suggests they’re dangling crack cocaine in front of new players saying “see, come and play to get more of these cool one-hit killers!”
I have OCD, not ADD, and I’d really like this to continue to have at least some strategy. LOL
Let’s see what makes Wraith a problem, it’s not only him having Death Mark on skull hit :
DM on skull hit is one thing, low mana required is another, but the real problem is the synergy between it’s spell and his trait. Having the possibility to Death Mark someone all while slowing the game by either siphonning mana or stealing life.
On top of that, this is a common card, with only one mana color, so not blocking too much mana for cards it synergize well with.
Freezing on skull hit is just icing on the cake.
So what should be done?
Common cards should not have Death Touch
The spell is too strong, no matter wich of the effect of the spell fires, it’s just too strong for the mana required. In my opinion, it should be raised to 10 mana.
I can get behind Impervious leads, we just need more of them. The good kind. Behemoth is a great impervious troop because he’s not overly strong. Just does some good things.
Unlike some other troll troops that have impervious that will not be named.
There’s a problem in this game with not having clear cut defenders and attackers. Give defenders the defending traits, and attackers the attacking traits. Don’t mix the two. Anything that prevents, should go to defenders. If you give those traits to troops that deal serious damage, it gets out of control. Also there is such a thing as too many effective traits on a troop. No troop should have a combination of stun, impervious, and some other defending trait. It’s too much. You should need a full team to pull off all those traits and spells.
I know I’m going to get roasted for this, but look at EK. Stun, Stoneskin, Mana Drain, and True damage. Is he a defender, attacker, or one man army?
The thing about needing an overly good trait like Impervious to deal with an overly strong attacking trait like Death Touch just piles up problems i think. Scalating things in this sense will lead to more degenerated combinations in due time IMHO…
Some could argue that Stun is overly good as status effect, and aside from Impervious, that protects against everything, we have only Thick Head that is a trait “wasted” to protect two other traits from a single status effect… Yeah, this logic could be applied to a lot of stuff, but comparing the effort of fully traiting a troop to the effort of casting a spell, or triggering a 4 or 5 match trait, that will cancel all traits we can surely see that Stun is reaaaaally great. On the other hand i see it as a necessary evil to avoid some stale battles, but solely because there are still few status that could be created for the sake of diversity.
What if we could have an effect that disables just “Damage reduction Traits”? It would be good against a lot of tankers, but still pale compared to Stun…
So my point is: If the devs keep pushing things this far, they will just reduce the amount of options they can explore and make their own jobs quite hard over the time.
