Deck Mode DOMINATION (Your guide to building a deck for PvP)

Polearms ignore armor and polearm skills do knockback stuns. If people are running around in full plate (like Chris was) polearms will wreck their day.

 

I loved watching Chris's video, even though it was after playing with the combat system during the dev+ test. One thing that does worry me about the combat system and one of Chris's comments about the system. During the video he mentions that fireball is overpowered. Overpowered!! In my experience it was hitting for way less damaged than most of the melee warrior were able to hit me for as a mage. Sure I was wearing cloth armour, but still. There's no way that a cloth wearer can stand there to cast and still take warrior damage. Melee's were consistently able to hit for way above what the fireball damage was. Heck I even got hit for45+ damage a number of times by some two-handed warriors (and no they weren't devs playing in god mode).

With regard to Darkstarr's comment about root. Root is the only way I've found to be able to take on the melee warriors. If I can't root and then cast lightning and fireball, I will be dead. As it is my only tactic seems to be to wait until the root spell comes up, cast it, and then let go with the heavy artillery. If they can break it immediately after it is cast, forget about it. If it's put permanently on the combat bar, i hope purify and knight's grace are very expensive to use.

 

Valid points, but that's only seeing things from one point of view. So people wearing plate armor can just cast root on you and now you can't get away. How's that helping anything when the other guy employs a spell that no one can counter?

 

That may be the case but they're nowhere near as effective as a skull shield and sword is with blades turnt up against real opponents.

As far as knock backs people with that armor skill can ignore it and also pushing an opponent back isn't actually very useful I have found, you tend to want them to stay where they are so you can get damage in..

Plus compare the 22 or 23 damage vs 19 plus a shield on skull sword... too close.. Now if it was 29 or 30 damage, the pole arm would be more dangerous, considering how slow it feels.

I tried both ways, I was always dying with a pole arm vs with a skull sword and the skull shield...

I agree root is super effective. I really hate that spell already but it is a game changer for the caster. root and a couple lighting bolts and I'm toast.

 

Slugs are bad!

 

Do polearms get a reach advantage?

 

I think they should. If they do it's not noticeable in the game.

Remember in Ultima V where you could target a couple spaces away

 

Never played it...but it sounds good.

 

I think the main problem with pole arms is that they don't currently have a very effective skill tree in the game like blades do.

All you can do is pierce or knock back and while that's fine, you can't speed them up and they are slower, and they are 2 handed.

Maybe they just need some better skills. I've honestly tried to use them in a couple releases and I always go back to sword and shield.

I can't be the only one....

 

You're not, I answered this in another thread....just give it time they haven't focused on them (or many other things yet).

 

I found the polearm extremely slow today as well and the damage I was doing in comparison. You hit me a LOT harder than I was hitting you, armour piercing or not. I may switch back to Sword and shield as well, at least until the skill tree is flushed out a little more.

 

Chris may be still traumatized from when Fireball was literally the one skill everyone was using because it was so much more powerful, but right now Blades are utterly overpowered to the point where with the right build (pumped up innate damage and all the blade specials) you can take someone from full health to dead in 2 to 3 hits. That is... not intentional.

 

Well, when I did do a lot of damage it was a result of getting a couple cards in to increase my strength and if you ditch trying to use the focus stuff, which is pretty odd to me because if you increase it you increase how long the cards stay in your slots and how many slots you have, and if they're slugs from armor you want them out of there, and you're going to get slugs if you wear armor, you are, so it actually means you want the skills to go in and out fast since some are slugs... there's definatley some issues around the focus tree and the armor slug behavior that need refinement.

Maybe it works better for casters but I know I'm so much more deadly if I just spend as many points as possible on blades and get right up close to lightly armored people and chop them down.

Another weird thing is you have to put at least 20 cards in there to avoid default slugs, and if you spend points on a light spell you end up having to put in light or healing in the combat bar. Healing I understand, but unless you spend a ton of points, healing during a fight isn't worth it because the time it takes you're going to continue to take damage, and you usually only have time to heal while you're running away.

Anyhow I really like the ideas but I do feel they need refinement. Of course, these are all just my personal feedback and I welcome different opinions.

 

You're bringing up another really good point indirectly. What's the big deal about having slugs if you just focus them away with fast decks?

My gut instict is to say that slugs should not be impacted by focus AT ALL. That slugs should be removed at their own pace and should not be something players can click off of.

 

I know. I've been a victim of that build more than once. In fact you may have been one of the many to deliver a swift, eat my blades kind of death.

 

Dude, this actually made me WANT to play with the card system. I'm a big fan of lowering cool-down times.

 

Well.... just leave it like it is

After all casters have that horrid root spell ! Give us a chance with all those slugs we get when armored

 

I agree with you. Maybe they aren't and I'm mistaken, it's hard to tell from one night of testing.

But it seemed to me that they stayed around the same time length (longer with more focus points in that one focus skill) as the cards...

 

Am I the only one stunned at how good the card system is?

I mean, I really had reservations about it. I'm so stoked to try it now!

 

Valid point. I take it as a risk vs reward situation. If they can't break out of my root, there's a pretty good chance that I'll do some damage to them and probably kill them. If I get rooted, there's a good chance I'll be dead or running for my life. And if they can break out, there's a good chance that I'll be dead anyway. I think the risk of being rooted by my foe is a risk worth taking.

On the other hand, maybe a chance to break root or stun by using the space bar to jump is acceptable. Not sure if purify or knight's grace is, especially if the chance of breaking the root is high or the fizzle chance is low or possibly non-existent, like it might be for knight's grace since it is a melee skill.