BACKGROUND (skip if you're in a rush)
With the impending nerfs to Rapacious Vermin and Sorcerer of Endia (both will now have a condition of 4 opposing items/abilities instead of 3) in v3.17, there's been a lot of talk on the balance thread about how this will impact the game.
Most people who have spoken up say it will be a bad thing, although there are some more aligned with our reasons behind the changes, which I'll quote here for good measure:
"Firstly, since any hero can use them, there's currently this unwritten rule in SE that if you go up to 3 items or abilities then you are over-extending and deserve to have your best of those 3 destroyed. Based on the usage stats for Vermin/Sorcerer, I think it's fair to say there's a good chance you will be punished if you go up to 3 and also that it is usually in the minds of the players during a match. When deciding what to add to a deck, there has to be consideration that adding an item/ability card might put you in a situation where you could lose one of your key ones during a match. It's limiting a lot of cards and decks. Sure, allies will always be the main type of card, but we do like to see others used - especially as it is one big point of differentiation between this and other cards games (e.g. Hearthstone, where everything on the board aside from a hero weapon was an ally/minion, the last time I checked).
Secondly, because often a player will be faced with the risk of going up to 3 or not in a match (putting their best item/abilities in jeopardy), there's the luck factor of whether their opponent has one of their couple of copies of Vermin/Sorcerer at the right time to punish them. This causes player anxiety during the game as to whether to take the risk and seems mostly to give profit to the risk takers, since the cautious player who does not go up to 3 is still taking a hit. e.g. If your best two cards are already out and not destroyed, then playing a third lesser one is currently putting your best two at a new risk thanks to Vermin/Sorcerer. If the opponent has normal removal, then they will get rid of your key card regardless, but at least you got that lesser one on board without increasing your risk.
Thirdly, following on from that, they are reliable enough that other sources of removal are not so important. For classes where there is meant to be a weakness for non-ally removal (e.g. Elementals, Hunters, Mages and Wulven), Vermin/Sorcerer are making that weakness fairly negligible. When a class has a weakness, it is meant to lead to that hero either foregoing that type of card or running something less efficient as a tech choice. As a player and deckbuilder, I know this will frustrate you at times, but for the sake of making classes more distinct and balanced, we can't be giving out such great generic cards that plug weaknesses so well. Increasing the number to 4 means that there will be many times where you could really do with some other source of destruction or just live with your opponent having 3 items/abilities out."
PURPOSE OF THE THREAD
I figured this might be a good thread to discuss items/abilities and the extent to which heroes actually need an efficient way to deal with them (which Vermin/Sorcerer provide to all heroes currently).
Which items/abilities are so game-breaking to certain heroes/decks that you can't simply ignore them and focus on advancing your own strategy?
So what I'm looking for here are the cards that you think really screw over certain heroes to the extent that they depend on Vermin/Sorcerer.
You may want to focus on individual heroes and their achilles heels or maybe focus on specific items/abilities and list who really can't cope with them. It's your call!
I look forward to the discussion that takes place! Thank you.
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