Seriously - Poison?? Binary, boring, annoying, all too common these days

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Is poison a good/well impemented mechanic in Gwent?


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Maybe instead of balancing poisons, let''s just as a test give players (except maybe prorank ones) a choice if they want to play meta with poison or without and these who want will be paired only with others who choose it (according to poisons sourvay it is about 60/40). The same choice that we geave to people if they want to play seasonal mode, or classic mode, instead of forcing them to play seasons every month; I've played a lot on unranked games recently and I have to say, that to my suprise almost nobody is playing poisons there. And that is why I honestly feel that some players are even looking for "poison free" sanctuary in unranked games. So maybe choice could be a good thing: solution without reworking poisons or nerfing it into useless from the one hand, and without flustrating many players with them in the same time. And If it will turns out that with time there won't be many players playing poisons on opposite, than we can remove that kind of mechanics from the game, or choice to play without them - depends on results. And on top of that, if these test of "players choice poisons" will works as is expected, in the future we can apply the same solution for other highly controversial mechanics in the game if they will be implemented
 

Guest 4398794

Guest
Look at that.
Poision caries players to the top even in pro ranks.

Don't ever say again that NG is not top tier, please.
20200524_225414.jpg


Look at those win rates too compared to the other factions in that top 5 pro rank list.
 
Hard to put a well-constructed point between some opinions from ppl that have been playing Gwent from a while ago. I joined Gwent on first week of April but here are my words anyway.

Personally, I do not find lock weak. There are purify cards that are strong and I can understand that makes lock worse than it was before. On the other hand, I do not find those purify cards so frequent. I main SK and Gremist is a really good purify card (if not one of the best around). Playing against NF, if I have to purify locks, I will be left with nothing behind purifying locked units instead of poisoned units. And a package of NF locks in round 1 can easily meaning winning the round.
Not complaining about the mechanic, it's what NF (and secondly ST) is based about: control. And it does not even seem to me something wrong to not find so many decks with lock cards, somehow I find it solid that NG focuses on control units and not every deck I could play against.

Besides, what I find a bit frustrating is, as has been pinpointed by so others here, the amount of poison resources that you can find. Poison, as a mechanic per se? 2 turns in order to remove a unit, which can be purified... The opponent has to invest 2 turns in it, it's not as easy as it seems. But double masquerade (I cannot say that much about SY because as a rank 7 I haven't faced so many SY decks) plays for an insane amount of poison. Even without reusing the scenario, 2xFangs, 1xMaaral and 2xFangs from the scenario itself plays for a shit-ton of removal. I've even seen a couple of King Cobras join the party in a bunch of decks.

I cand hardly say that poison is unbalanced. It becomes unbalanced when you can obliterate more than 2 units while putting points on the board. And of course, failing to take a purify card on those cases means giving the opponent an amount of ridiculous tempo.
 

Guest 4404014

Guest
I don't have much experience but I don't think poison decks are unbalanced. I got a double Ball deck and I'm getting outpaced very often.
 
Personally, I do not find lock weak.

Locks are not so weak, it's more that other cards are very strong now and there is the increased risk due to purify. I think the problem is that if you play any of the available locks you will be outpaced in the round due to the slow tempo.
Compared to many other bronze cards now, many of them see value far above their provisions, while lock is basically a 5p for 5p, if you count the lock itself as 1p. You get 4p on the board, plus the lock.

It didn't use to be this way, is why I bring it up at all. The punishment for playing locks in terms out out-tempo was negligible even if the reward for the lock itself was not good. So, due to changes in the game, locks are being double punished if you compare to the situation as it was before. Locks themselves are more prone to removal, and the tempo is worse, meaning the tempo punishment for playing a lock card is higher.

I'm comparing it to the situation previously, which is natural for me. I don't know how a new player would see it exactly. But compared to before locks have lost value.
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
Locks are not so weak, it's more that other cards are very strong now and there is the increased risk due to purify. I think the problem is that if you play any of the available locks you will be outpaced in the round due to the slow tempo.
Compared to many other bronze cards now, many of them see value far above their provisions, while lock is basically a 5p for 5p, if you count the lock itself as 1p. You get 4p on the board, plus the lock.

It didn't use to be this way, is why I bring it up at all. The punishment for playing locks in terms out out-tempo was negligible even if the reward for the lock itself was not good. So, due to changes in the game, locks are being double punished if you compare to the situation as it was before. Locks themselves are more prone to removal, and the tempo is worse, meaning the tempo punishment for playing a lock card is higher.

I'm comparing it to the situation previously, which is natural for me. I don't know how a new player would see it exactly. But compared to before locks have lost value.
That would only ever be the case if all factions relied on deploy abilities however the majority of them don't and have abilities that have to be activated through order or some external action like damage or boost. Adding 4 or 5p to the board and locking and or stealing an opponents unit or straight up destroying it because of the status is far from being less valuable. Obviously locks are used in conjunction with other cards, it's purpose is to lock your opponents strategy by hindering their units abilities so having high pts and low provision in addition to that would be overkill. I'm not sure who exactly you're playing against but if locks were so less valuable then NG wouldn't be the nightmare that it is currently
 
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That would only ever be the case if all factions relied on deploy abilities however the majority of them don't and have abilities that have to be activated through order or some external action like damage or boost. Adding 4 or 5p to the board and locking and or stealing an opponents unit or straight up destroying it because of the status is far from being less valuable. I'm not sure who exactly you're playing against but if locks were so less valuable then NG wouldn't be the nightmare that it is currently

Well, that "nightmare" is not due to locks, it's due to poison spam.
 
The point I want to make is the idea of adding timers to statuses (this game mechanic is sparsely used, but it`s already implemented).
Weak bronze units would add status - for example poison - just for 1-2 turns.

This symbolizes temporary effect of poison. Weak poisoner would make Poisoned status just for 1 turn, so to kill it, one should play another poison exactly in the following turn.

Or it could add some more bluffing into game.
Bluffing and counting.
Powerful poisoners, like the gold Maraal, could add poison twice, but with different timers - for example first timer 3 turns, second - 2 turns.

Timers could be used to balance things with other "problematic" mechanics as well, not only poison.
What do you think, @mazeebra ?
 
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There are decks that beat poison. I’ve had good success using Skellige second wind playing my defender repeatedly (with Sigrdrifa’s rite and second wind). By the time a poison deck removes my defender 3 times, they have too little poison left to combat my engines.

Second Wind SK, MO consume, and Elf spam ST seem to perform very well against poison. I've mostly played elves the last couple months, and I consider NG Ball to be nearly an auto win for me.

That being said, super heavy poison lists don't rank that high in the meta. Of the 17 listed Tier 1-Tier 3 decks on Team Leviathan's Meta Report, only 4 can poison 5+ times if everything goes right (draw all of the cards, scenario plays out, Maraal and Rot Tossers find full value, etc.). This mechanic doesn't seem to be nearly as broken as a lot of people are claiming.

If you really want to nerf poison, minor changes would do a lot more than most people think. Remove the bronze neutral poisons and make Maraal SY only. That would limit all ST decks to 5 poisons, and NG could never instant kill a unit with Maraal + scenario.
 
Timers could be used to balance things with other "problematic" mechanics as well, not only poison.
What do you think, @mazeebra ?

Well, as you've perhaps seen, I've come to change my view on poison a bit. I think the problem is scenario, and without it, poison would not be that good.

Besides that I think there is still room to adjust some of the cheaper poison cards, especially for SY and ST to make it less of an "auto-include" round starting thing. I think Dryad Ranger is still the main issue in regards to ST and Fisstech uninteractive for SY. It should probably be 5p and not 4p.

I like the ideas of NG spies, and I think in some way Fangs could be changed into some kind of Spy card with poison and something else.
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
Well, as you've perhaps seen, I've come to change my view on poison a bit. I think the problem is scenario, and without it, poison would not be that good.

Besides that I think there is still room to adjust some of the cheaper poison cards, especially for SY and ST to make it less of an "auto-include" round starting thing. I think Dryad Ranger is still the main issue in regards to ST and Fisstech uninteractive for SY. It should probably be 5p and not 4p.

I like the ideas of NG spies, and I think in some way Fangs could be changed into some kind of Spy card with poison and something else.
No argument there. Scenarios in general are one of the worst additions to the game. You either have to use them or forced to have a card in your deck to counter them which more often than not has no synergy with the rest of your deck. Looking at you bomb heaver >.>
 
No argument there. Scenarios in general are one of the worst additions to the game. You either have to use them or forced to have a card in your deck to counter them which more often than not has no synergy with the rest of your deck. Looking at you bomb heaver >.>

Well, as far as I have observed, it seems clear that alot of good and/or big players in this game generally see the whole heaver/scenario situation as problematic.

So it's not just me as a more observant and more casual player who consider this an issue. I like analyzing and I like Gwent, which is probably why I'm such a pain in the ass in regards to nagging about optimizing Gwent in this way or that way or pointing out problems.
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
Well, as far as I have observed, it seems clear that alot of good and/or big players in this game generally see the whole heaver/scenario situation as problematic.

So it's not just me as a more observant and more casual player who consider this an issue. I like analyzing and I like Gwent, which is probably why I'm such a pain in the ass in regards to nagging about optimizing Gwent in this way or that way or pointing out problems.
Nah, they're valid arguments. A part of Gwent, or at least initially was psychological. Baiting your opponent into making certain decisions that could cost them the match....that has become less and less prevalent as some of these mechanics are just point and shoot and requires very little thinking. The optimization is just not there at the moment
 
If you really want to nerf poison, minor changes would do a lot more than most people think. Remove the bronze neutral poisons and make Maraal SY only. That would limit all ST decks to 5 poisons, and NG could never instant kill a unit with Maraal + scenario.

Great suggestion (though I'd go farther and remove all of the neutral poison units - including Maraal).
 
I posted the following in one of the Nilfgaard threads, but it probably makes more sense to have it in this one.

At the moment, the main problem with the Poison mechanic is that it's way too efficient. The cards that inflict the Poison status seem designed to break even when targeting units with around 5 Power (excepting Rot Tosser, which actually breaks even when targeting units with 2-3 Power). The problem is that the Poison mechanic should be designed as a counter for tall stategies; therefore, the break even point should probably be around 8 Power instead, meaning that if Poison is not entirely redesigned in the near future, then most of the units that inflict it will either need to lose some Power or else gain some extra Provisions.
 
I absolutely refuse to play against a NG deck anymore. Last one I played against had 14 poison cards used against me.
Fangs 6 times, 2 rot tosser, Maraal etc.

Never again until they rework it.
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
I absolutely refuse to play against a NG deck anymore. Last one I played against had 14 poison cards used against me.
Fangs 6 times, 2 rot tosser, Maraal etc.

Never again until they rework it.
The NG players here will tell you to use purify or defenders but the problem is the faction has the most proficient cards in the entire game so if you play caretaker or a defender then with yen's Invocation you just handed them a weapon to use against you and now you can't target anything on their side. and unless you plan to fill your deck with 50% purify cards then you're out of luck
 
I would suggest that poison does not kill the card after 2 shots. Instead, it would have a countdown before the unit is killed. This would give time to react and would do enough to balance the status.

1 Poison --- 5 turns before being killed
2 Poison -- 3 turns before being killed
3 Poison -- Card killed

What do you think?
 
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