LoH Class Analysis page 2

Originally posted by RedeemedWahrior:

double card play is a double edged sword that very commonly hurts yourself. not counting the minor inconvenience of depleting more cards per turn, a nonstop with high haste proc rate and a deck full of reflex badge cards cannot reliably use any ploys or hold on to timing-specific cards like Last Ditch Effort, since they cannot choose not to play a card.

I recently picked up On The Bubble. It allows me to play two cards in a row for two turns on deplete.

It is awesome.

Beginning to suspect that people complaining about having to play multiple cards are simply putting up a front to keep everyone else from demanding your class be nerfed. And anyone who really think it’s so terrible as a class feature, I will happily trade you my +1 shields for it.

No Lord B.. IT"S MINE… You can’t have it.. :P

Originally posted by LordBucket:

I recently picked up On The Bubble. It allows me to play two cards in a row for two turns on deplete.

It is awesome.

Beginning to suspect that people complaining about having to play multiple cards are simply putting up a front to keep everyone else from demanding your class be nerfed. And anyone who really think it’s so terrible as a class feature, I will happily trade you my +1 shields for it.

True story bucket, picked an “On the Bubble” in my first draft (dumb luck), as an acolyte, no matter what ploys I have on my hand who cares, Im spewing out bullets with it.
while Non-Stop might not be the best class to amass ploys with, they are pretty good… Ill trade you my class-badges that seems to be countered in half the fights I go to :)

Sincerely
~ Sleepingpill

Originally posted by LordBucket:

Kind of agree that the descriptions here are more what the classes are “supposed to be” rather than how they actually are.

A few observations:

• From badge level 4 and up, nonstops have just as much of a power badge damage bonus as strongharms and it’s only one or two points or damage.
• Additionally, the value of shields is a bit overstated. Point for point, replenish is almost always better than shields because both unstoppable and depletion effects ignore shields.
• Like FinalCheetah says, firesculpters being weak to strongharms is just not true. +1 or +2 shields can’t stand up to double damage.
• I think the fragility of firesculpters has been seriously overstated. How are they fragile? In pve, brawl bosses routinely do 15-20 damage. It’s not like the extra point or two of shields or replenish that other classes get makes any difference. And in pvp, they do enough damage to overcome the shields that other people put up. How is it “fragile” to do 8 damage and put up zero shields against an opponent that only does 6 damage and puts up two shields?
• Since nonstops have gaurunteed armor-ignoring damage from deplete, they can sit back with high armor/healing cards and wear away their opponents. Regardless of the extra 1 or 2 armor bonus strongharms get from their power badge, in actual practice nonstops are far more functional as a high shields “tanking” class than strongharms are.
• Acolytes, so far as I can tell, are the strongest pvp class. I routinely lose to acolytes even 20 levels lower than me, and others I’ve spoken to have said the same. Saying they don’t have any particular advantage against anyone just doesn’t seem accurate. They appear to have an advantage against everyone, but only in pvp.

Are these observations continuing to hold true a month later?

For example, I don’t see many non-stops sitting back with high armor/healing cards. Non-stops I’ve seen lately tend to be aggressively high damage seeking, acting like firesculpters with extra cards given to play each round.

Do Acolytes continue to hold such a PVP lead with the new set out?

Originally posted by RedeemedWahrior:

lol my experience seems to be quite different.

lastly, I found acolytes to actually be the easiest to fight against, the simple reason being the existence of neighbourhood watch. Because that card pretty much renders allies useless (especially with the recent change stripping them of badge effects as well), people tend to not use a lot of allies in pvp, which renders aco ally badge powers pretty much moot. Their recovery 1-2 also seems about as useless as the nonstop deplete 1-2 at endgame. They are pretty much nothing to do with their badge powers in pvp at all, effectiveness being almost entirely determined by what cards they have in their deck. (granted if you dont have nwatches and the acolyte is loaded up on allies i can see why you would have a problem, but other than that…)

and well, every class but firesculptor actually gets screwed on some of their secondary badges. Making an attack unstoppable as a badge power is a joke. The percentage may be higher than the crits or the 2x or the copies, but its worth is far far less since if you’re a sane player, you’ll almost never ever play a high damage attack vs a high shielded enemy (which is the only time being unstoppable gives you a decent boost). so what ultimately results is like a 3% chance per badge rank to do a few points of extra damage, since you’ll be using your low damage cards when the enemy is heavily shielded, and your high damage cards when the enemy has low shields.

Are you still using Neighborhood Watch? I don’t see it that often now with the new set out. I pulled out half my NW’s to make room for cards in the new set. Also, I see much more ally use in people’s decks with Susie:Antihero and the new Upstarts out.

Yes, I regularly use high damage cards against heavily shielded opponents, because a good Strongharm deck keeps them heavily shielded. If I wait too long without trying to overwhelm their shielding, their consistent medium damage will grind down (especially if they have raised their other badges for the unstoppable and higher crit ratings). The addition of cards like Hard Target only further buff the Strongharm level of shielding.

Originally posted by BTwelve:

Originally posted by LordBucket:

Kind of agree that the descriptions here are more what the classes are “supposed to be” rather than how they actually are.

A few observations:

• From badge level 4 and up, nonstops have just as much of a power badge damage bonus as strongharms and it’s only one or two points or damage.
• Additionally, the value of shields is a bit overstated. Point for point, replenish is almost always better than shields because both unstoppable and depletion effects ignore shields.
• Like FinalCheetah says, firesculpters being weak to strongharms is just not true. +1 or +2 shields can’t stand up to double damage.
• I think the fragility of firesculpters has been seriously overstated. How are they fragile? In pve, brawl bosses routinely do 15-20 damage. It’s not like the extra point or two of shields or replenish that other classes get makes any difference. And in pvp, they do enough damage to overcome the shields that other people put up. How is it “fragile” to do 8 damage and put up zero shields against an opponent that only does 6 damage and puts up two shields?
• Since nonstops have gaurunteed armor-ignoring damage from deplete, they can sit back with high armor/healing cards and wear away their opponents. Regardless of the extra 1 or 2 armor bonus strongharms get from their power badge, in actual practice nonstops are far more functional as a high shields “tanking” class than strongharms are.
• Acolytes, so far as I can tell, are the strongest pvp class. I routinely lose to acolytes even 20 levels lower than me, and others I’ve spoken to have said the same. Saying they don’t have any particular advantage against anyone just doesn’t seem accurate. They appear to have an advantage against everyone, but only in pvp.

Are these observations continuing to hold true a month later?

For example, I don’t see many non-stops sitting back with high armor/healing cards. Non-stops I’ve seen lately tend to be aggressively high damage seeking, acting like firesculpters with extra cards given to play each round.

Do Acolytes continue to hold such a PVP lead with the new set out?

The new set of cards helps aco a bit but you need to have a lot of the allys to make it work efficiently. tbh, I don’t use any of the new allys because of my ally limit(6) and I feel its too small for the new upstarts and stuff to be worthwhile.

Originally posted by sonofhades666:
The new set of cards helps aco a bit but you need to have a lot of the allys to make it work efficiently. tbh, I don’t use any of the new allys because of my ally limit(6) and I feel its too small for the new upstarts and stuff to be worthwhile.

You don’t need a high ally limit, because Shimmerstorm: Upstart creates a copy of herself whenever you use her, so you can create a wave of allies well beyond your limit to take advantage of the new “For every Upstart” bonuses.

you gotta spam shimmer though and shes a relatively weak npc

Yeah shimmer is way too weak.

Acolyte is getting more and more on my nerves. Even in quests and brawls, I constantly wish I were firesculptor instead. Heal 1 is pretty useless compared to +2 damage and x2 damage, especially when all you’re healing is blanks… Plus sculptors can banish. I got a cruddy remand in my lunchbox, and it’s complete garbage when you realize the reflex and sculpting badges on it are useless, and the power badge on it is basically useless (who cares about 1 shield, when other classes get +damage or crit). If I had 300-400 SP to throw away, I would switch, but obviously I don’t.

aco is fine as it is, most of the brawl rewards are quite good for aco, (puppet strings and siab have aco badges)

Originally posted by BTwelve:

Originally posted by LordBucket:

Kind of agree that the descriptions here are more what the classes are “supposed to be” rather than how they actually are.

A few observations:

• Like FinalCheetah says, firesculpters being weak to strongharms is just not true. +1 or +2 shields can’t stand up to double damage.
• I think the fragility of firesculpters has been seriously overstated. How are they fragile? In pve, brawl bosses routinely do 15-20 damage. It’s not like the extra point or two of shields or replenish that other classes get makes any difference. And in pvp, they do enough damage to overcome the shields that other people put up. How is it “fragile” to do 8 damage and put up zero shields against an opponent that only does 6 damage and puts up two shields?

Are these observations continuing to hold true a month later?

Do Acolytes continue to hold such a PVP lead with the new set out?

I think the points about Firesculptors continue to be true; the double damage chance far outpaces the occasional extra shield, and firesculptors aren’t fragile in any way that matters, they just don’t get +shield on power badge. But the chance to crit or banish more than makes up for it. What I don’t think is true is that acolytes rule PvP; if your opponent is running NWs (and maybe Abyss), your allies as an acolyte are pretty much useless, which reduces your awesome badge power to “occasional healing that doesn’t make up for the damage bonus your opponent gets with every other class”. Admittedly, sculptors aren’t reliable, so if their badges don’t ever fire, they will have a tough time winning. But if both players hit their badges, the sculptor is going to win.

the main damage for nw is not that it stops your ally. Its that you get no attack and no shield for that turn. Do you guys think on the bubble is powerful? Thats pretty much what nw gives. 2 consecutive attacks.

If I were to change NW I would either go one of two routes.

1. Make it so that the ally is banished but the attacker gets to pick a different attack. After all the theory is that the big bad allies are so strong as compared to the weak regular attacks like painful memories that they need a specific counter to hose them. Now the ally is countered and the opponent still picks a regular attac.

2. Make the card 0/0 and the same class as blank (not martial or tactical)

The effect is so strong that it will be the only thing it does and you run the risk of making yourself miss a turn if you draw three.

it should just negate the attack and maybe banish/deplete it but the user of the ally still gets the shield.

I see people saying that aco’s have such great number of awesome cards that have their badge…. the problem is those cards get almost no enhancement out of their badge. the heal is pathetic in any high damage environtment, the extra damage is low (1.5 not scaling with anything), the only usefull thing is the 70% chance to banish ONE ally, nice against a player who does not have many, against brawl bosses who have loads of allies, its a drop of water on a white hot plate, almost no effect.
add to this that our strongharm badge takes the worst part of the strongharm badge (the shield), and that the other two badges have very limited use (you have to draw an ally with a fire badge before your fire badge can do anything(playing your ally with cover fire does nothing), and you need a reflex ally that is not unstoppable in order to get a minor buff to your damage from them, really shields can get high but are rarely a major factor in strong attacks, and why on earth would you waste one of your precious ally slots on a weak ally.
all in all I feel greatly shafted on our badges. the only badge of ours that scales with the power of the card is fire, and that only with fire allies, fire badges on any other card only means that you could theoretically increase their damage by playing cards that increase fire badge damage.

in comparison, even strongarms get scaling on two of their badges: psych badges scale with the power of their npc cards, and the crit chance of their fire badge scales nicely with the often high damage of the fire badge cards.
Lik aco’s they have the weakness that their main badge does not scale well at all, in fact its easily the worst main badge of all, since shields are often wasted healing 1.3 cards tends to be better than shielding two and at least aco’s have the banish allies, wich is easily better than the .5 extra damage sh does. but unlike aco’s sh’s have decent off badges (except for relflex maybe)

my opinion of reflex complaining about ploys: given that you not only get to play more cards, but also DRAW more cards as a result and thus have better chance of drawing one of your killer cards, the minor drawback that you might be forced to play all three cards is just that minor.