Let me fill y'all in a little bit -- now this involves some math so bear with me. There are 2 4v4 teams facing each other -- one with mixed players from 4 different schools (Team A), the other consist of 3 storm players and either a myth or fire player(Team B). Now Team A has all kinds of different spells in their decks -- shields, manipulations, attacks, heals, etc. Team B only has Gargantuan Tempests for the Storm players (and maybe a Darkwind bubble) and SmokeScreen/Choke/Meteor (Garg'ed of course) for the Fire or Blinding Light/Frog/Treasure Smoke Screen for the Myth. Team B gets first turn advantage -- VERY bad for the Team A. Why you ask? Here's the math:
A 4 pip (2 power pip) garg Tempest does 320 + 225 (or 250 if Treasure Card) base damage -- add in a 80-90% attack boost (which is VERY easy for Storm to achieve) that means somewhere between 981 - 1083 damage for ONE Storm wizard's attack -- not taking into account any resist of Team A. Now 3 wizards on Team B are using this spell -- that means you are looking at 2943-3249 base damage. The fire or myth on Team B then uses a Blinding Light/Choke or Smokescreen to prevent Team A from using any card they make have picked first turn. So Team B hits for massive damage, and Team A is forced to pass after taking damage.
Team B then "spams" that Gargantuan Tempest again -- granted then now have only one pip, or a power pip now so damage is less. The math for that hit, using same 80-90% attack boost: 549-627 damage PER Storm wizard using that "one pip Spam" Tempest. Add in more damage for team A, the total damage they have taken so far you ask? Somewhere between 4590 damage and 5130. If you are a walking tower shield (have 50% resist) you only took 2295-2565 damage. How many of us are walking Tower Shields? I know I am not! And how many have the health globe to withstand that? And don't forget that Myth or Fire Wiz -- they use Frog or Meteor in there somewhere to pour on more damage.
NO other spell can be spammed like Tempest can -- NONE. There are no other XPip spells that are AoE (Area of Effect) attacks that hit ALL enemies -- NONE!
I would like to see ANY other wizard spam an AoE, its not possible. You cannot Gargantuan a 4 pip spell that is elucidated, only one enchantment can be applied to each card.
You cannot Spam any cards but small hits (1-2 pips) at all! Only Storm can hit every round and be assured that they will do damage to all enemies.
Now I ask you -- those that may have stuck around through the math -- do you REALLY find this fair to the people behind those pixels on the other side of the screen? Do you really think THEY are having fun being Killed in 2 rounds and NOT being able to do anything about it? I don't think so.
I hope this post will help open your eyes to just want us loyal Arena Rats call Spamming.
Cass;
ReplyDeleteWhile it is an unfair exploit of a spell, and does hold with tactics like Chain-Stunning, I'm just going to play devil's advocate and point out that there is nothing theoretically wrong with a brute force tactic like Tempest-spamming; a 4 AoE attack is a perfectly legitimate action in PvP, and can be rather beautiful if you're on the right side of it; in this case, some wizard just found a spell that could be cast in quick succession, and went for it full out. I don't think it's a bad strategy; (the PvP strategy I favor is a quick hit-and-run, a repeated 2-round combination of Poison with Dragon or Wraith preceded by blading and shielding), I just think it's exploited; much like chain-stunning, a useful PvE tactic manipulated by repetition into a brute force technique.
Unfortunately, brute force tactics like this one don't belong in games; I think KI could fix this by having Tempest apply a stacking 90 % Storm-resist aura to the Tempest-struck team for the next 3 turns, or perhaps two Storm Dispel to each member of the Tempest-striking team; the first wouldn't affect use in PvE, as a tactic, but both would buy the Tempest-struck team a chance to regroup, and recover. I don't think at all a tactic like this one should be allowed in the game; KI has a responsibility to maintain the Balance in the game, and that responsibility requires them to address a PvP-changing issue like this one.
B Stormthief