Definition of over powered heroes...

[Raphael Majere]

I admire Helio's efforts but everyone develop their own personal definition of OP.

For example, a casual player who has never visited the SE forums will find the DC is OP, simply because he/she does not have a solution.

IMO, the current big 3 are all beatable - but I feel they need some 'balance', 'slight tweaks', etc - Why?

Because it does not take talent to learn how to play or build them well. 1.27 is very popular due to multiple builds available. Even multiple builds for the same hero. (Ally-heavy Gwen, Weapon-heavy Bazaar Gwen, Death Race Majiya, Control Majiya, etc)

For the current 1.28, the best Elad decks look very similar to each other. So does DC/Logan.

The lack of in-depth strategy/deck building/gameplay strategy will put off players who appreciate who prefers games requiring greater thinking, stellar gameplay tactics, deeper strategies.

[iClipse]

For me, a deck/hero is OP if it's able to beat decks/heroes that are designed especially to beat that deck.

Example: an Eladwen shouldn't be able to beat a Zhanna if that Zhanna is tailored especially to beat Eladwen. In current meta, that Eladwen will still win 50%+ of her matches. Also, that Zhanna will have to be a very skilled player to pull it off, while that Eladwen can be any new player and they would still be evenly matched.

Same goes for Logan.

Darkclaw is... Well beatable for sure, but a pain to play against, and you have to make sure you have item destruction maxed.

Either way, this my opinion about being OP.

[Sisyphos]

An OP hero is inherently too strong because of his/her ability compared to other heroes abilites. Card pool can add to that, but is something to look at seperately. We don't have any OP heroes currently, just heroes that out of all the ones with good abilites have the right card pool, too, respec. whose ability can't be dealt with well because the cards other heroes have access to don't feature strong answers (Eladwen).

[Ringel]

Deciding whether a Hero is OP does require considering the cardpool, since a Hero can only be OP when played with a deck to back it up.

If there is a hero with a deck (in the hands of a skilled player) that wins any deck anyone (no matter how skilled) builds with any other hero more than half the time, that hero is OP.

But that isn't the only way a hero can be OP. It isn't clean cut. Many of the other conditions put forward here would also work.

[Marc Timmons]

Okay this post is looking for a definition of an "Over Powered Hero" which is nearly impossible to define, do to the fact that each hero can be overpowered in their own right. Still, my definition would be,

Over Powered Hero- A hero with a win rate of 70%+ that cannot seem to be beaten by a player who is using a different, or multiple different hero's.

What it all comes down to is the fact that, basically EVERY hero/deck is OVERPOWERED (in the hands of a skilled player) if you use the WRONG hero to fight it (skilled or not). Fighting a DarkClaw deck with an item destroy deck like Ter Adun, Ter Adun seems over powered to the DarkClaw user. Fighting a Gwenneth deck with an ally filled deck like GraveBone can also be brutal for GraveBone due to the bows and armors etc that heal Gwenneth when enemy allies are killed. People are always going to "find" a hero/item/ally that "is" over powered in this game, simply because they have no idea how to counter it. Suck it up, make an AI deck of the deck you cant seem to beat and play till u win. Trial and error peeps, diff hero's, deck designs, etc, or use the deck that is "OP'd" to you and stop complaining. The game is very well balanced too me if you know some sort of strategy. I am fairly new to this game and I love it. The changes I see are great, in fact Eladwen was unplayable to me until her ability was able to target hero's too. Now she's too powerful? (seeing that said about her everywhere) Suck it up or play something else where you cant lose, like catch or something, I dont care. It all comes down to the fact that, everyone, its JUST a GAME! Play it for FUN, if you dont have FUN, move on! Me and a few friends have a blast with this game and will be playing for a long time... That concludes my rant I think, hate on me if you wanna, im a big boy, but I get to say my opinion too :-)

[MrNice]

An OP hero is inherently too strong because of his/her ability compared to other heroes abilites. Card pool can add to that, but is something to look at seperately. We don't have any OP heroes currently, just heroes that out of all the ones with good abilites have the right card pool, too, respec. whose ability can't be dealt with well because the cards other heroes have access to don't feature strong answers (Eladwen).

I think this right anwers the question.

[Emile Mulder]

I think you definitely need to consider both card pool and special abilities, since each are unique to every class / hero. If you only look at hero abilities, for example, Serena looks on par with Gwenneth without considering the card pools available to each, and how well the ability goes with the cards. You also need to consider the cards available to opponents, since Over/underpowered is a relative concept. So not only, does X hero have a powerful ability/card pool, but also can Y hero counter him or her?
I think the problem with 1.28 is that it took away some of the limitations that certain heros had, making their strengths seem ridiculous.
For example, Eladwin's ability is well balanced. It is fair, especially considering some of the other heros that can do damage / creature control. It is balanced by the fact that it costs 4 sp, making it a rare occurrence. That all changes when shadow font makes shadow points readily available. By taking away the limitations on the ability, Eladwin has become overpowered.
A similar thing happened with DarkClaw, the actual ability of darkclaw is fine, it is balanced, by only being available once every 4 turns. It is not all that different from the moonstalker ability from 1.27...so what changed that made it OP? Well wulvens used to be about being able to withstand damage, and deal consistent, small amounts of weapon damage, while augmenting this with a few specialized allies, and some very solid ally removal cards. The weakness was that as those cards dried up, they would eventually get overwhelmed...if they couldn't lock down the game before then they were done. What changed again was shadow font, letting the invulnerability be overused, so that Dark Claw can be invulnerable for 12+turns and completely ignore ally control. The ability also added a damage buff which meant that dark claw no longer has to rely on other cards to deal damage, and can make a weapon / defense only deck. The nail in the coffin is the card that damages allies, meaning that if you rely on allies to deal damage, darkclaw can ignore them for most of the game while they slowly die. This means that the only way to counter this strategy is with item removal, which is available to some extent, but a bit weak. I can win most games against darkclaw, but it still feels OP, because it takes no skill to play the deck, it is completely predictable, and yet there are only so many things I can do to counter it, and they are really soft counters.

What makes this game fun is being able to make decks that employ their own unique strategies to play, and attempt to guess and counter the opponent's strategy. I like losing games, when I feel that I've been outplayed. If I can guess an opponent's exact strategy at the beginning of a match, and have built a balanced deck, I should have a pretty good shot against it. Since the update, I find that even when I know exactly what is coming, with certain heroes there is not much that I can do. I have been playing mostly as hunter lately, and this may mean that hunter is underpowered, but I only encounter this sort of frustration against eladwen, logan and sometimes darkclaw. If you ask me what my hunter/trapper deck's weaknesses are, I'd say direct damage and item based damage decks. What is Elaadwen's weakness? If there isn't a relatively broad and simple answer to that, I'd say it's overpowered.

[Swisher]

For example, Eladwin's ability is well balanced. It is fair, especially considering some of the other heros that can do damage / creature control. It is balanced by the fact that it costs 4 sp, making it a rare occurrence. That all changes when shadow font makes shadow points readily available. By taking away the limitations on the ability, Eladwin has become overpowered.

Eladwen can't use Shadow Font.

[Emile Mulder]

Eladwen can't use Shadow Font.

yeah...I realized that after writing all that...left me wondering, why does eladwen seem so much more powerful now than before? what else has changed? Is it just ice armor?

[Drakkon]

Eladwen isn't over powered. She's just easy to use. She's a burn deck.


Honestly, when people catch on that Mind Control/ShadowFont Zaladar is just as much burn and better control you'll start to see Zaladar is OP everywhere.