Update 7.1 Patchnotes

[Guest 4368268]

So by the sound of it next months' patch is one to actually look forward to and thus continues the Homecoming cycle of 'hopefully it's better next month' oh well, I'm very pleased they're looking to rework leaders.
I don't mind tutor leaders if it wasn't for the whole '2 cards in 1 turn' thing. Leaders and that type of ability especially have been the forefront of most (balance) issues in Homecoming.

So they're reworking all of them in one big sweep, I think that's the way to go about it. I'm very curious what they'll introduce in its place. As far as this months patch goes, I was disappointed with the Ciri reworks.
Making a cards' ability slightly better but giving it higher provision(s) actually just makes it worse because it competes with much stronger cards. Nova at least is an interesting one. Though I suspect you'll only see it in casual the next few days and then not again.

I rarely see NR play their resilience card and that's an unconditional one in a cheaper provision slot.
Look at the auto-include 10(+) provision cards in every faction. There's no way they'll be cut for the possibility of carryover.
It's disappointing because I love Ciri as a character and her having strong cards would be appropriate but idt you'll see a single one of them being played.

Furthermore the balance patch I suspect will do little to actually stir things up. I wasn't gonna play ranked anyway though as I'll just be playing the seasonal mode religiously in August.
Also I'm eagerly waiting on that Arena rework. One thing I'd like to say about that is that though I understand the Adalia/Caranthir reworks this makes Arena much worse. Cause you have all these faction specific cards and leaders in a very random draft. It's like how the whole Syndicate faction feels awkward in the mode.

 

[ya1_]

Lack of any meaningful changes to ST is really disappointing. Especially the easiest and most obvious thing: fixing the anti-synergy between handbuffs and evolving card transformation.

 

[Breli]

... Especially the easiest and most obvious thing: fixing the anti-synergy between handbuffs and evolving card transformation.

As I said in the other thread I reported that as a bug. Feedback: "Card is working as intended." Understandable feedback but, sorry CDPR, this is a broken mechanic. Eithne needs "transform without changing power". There can't really be two opinions about that.

Maybe if some MORE people would report this as a bug ... say a few hundred?

 

[Jollyrogerxberg]

Finally. Nothing really while even NR bronce pool got tweaked could only mean one of two things. 1 Scoia dead for ever only dwarfs can live in some underground tunnels, where they never see any lights.
OR:
Scoia gets love in the next addon. or in the next after or after or ....know what? just forget it

 

[Barracuda88]

Quick summary:
-Harald still the same, though SK bronzes got fixed a bit.
-As expected, no NG nerfs once again, just a couple of buffs.
-No real ST fixes. Very minor handbuff buffs. Will see if they make any difference in playability but DONT think so, honestly. There are still no decent saboteur targets aside from Schirru.
-Ciri... idk seems pointless
-Nice Viss nerf (there's prolly more there, but I just kinda skimmed of NR cuz didn't care ).

 

[Breli]

Adding a tutor for Blood Eagle? Maybe its just me but that doesn't seem to be a wise move ... If anything SK is buffed in total so nothing will change. So at least it is consistent.

ST Changes:
- Mahakam Guard: Small buff for all-in dwarfs. Was playable before. Good one.
- Dwarven Agitator: Still unplayable.
- Vrihedd Saboteur: Still unplayable.
- Pyrotechnician: Still unplayable. Only useful if you can exclude/control the random effect and know exactly what you are hitting. So basically only when your opponent has only one card on the board. Otherwise unplayable.
- Mahakam Volunteers: This only makes sense if you can create a third Volunteer somehow. Like you can do with Vigo and Impera Brigades in NG. What is the idea here? Highroll with Runestone? I don't understand.

Well ... time to switch my main faction!

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

I can't believe no one has commented about Harald's 3rd form receiving a major nerf. They removed its ability to pierce armor. I don't know why the developers are trying to change this without anyone noticing, but I'm still surprised that I'm the only one who actually read the patch notes and noticed the change.

 

[Barracuda88]

Another thing, wasn't that so easy and logical to give the provision cap to Second Wind? So why didn't you do the same with MEcho, instead of gutting the entire archtype?? And having watched that archtype be basically dead in the water for the entire month, why didn't you go back and rework MEcho the same way while you were fixing Second Wind? I mean, it was right there in front of you...

 

[Jollyrogerxberg]

I can't believe no one has commented about Harald's 3rd form receiving a major nerf. They removed its ability to pierce armor. I don't know why the developers are trying to change this without anyone noticing, but I'm still surprised that I'm the only one who actually read the patch notes and noticed the change.

psssst don't mention it, abuse it hehe
Assire can still copy ball but Adalia not the heaver anymore. So sad. Such a funny f****you on the ball gone

 

[Breli]

I can't believe no one has commented about Harald's 3rd form receiving a major nerf.

Because it doesn’t matter. Still very good.

Second Wind got nerfed a little, true. In total, however, SK got buffed! Mark my words and prepare to get wrecked by Arjnolf and Raids/Boats/Druids next season ...

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...] why didn't you go back and rework MEcho the same way while you were fixing Second Wind? I mean, it was right there in front of you...

What do you mean ?
Both of them will cease to exist in their current forms in an upcoming patch and ME was left alone for now, I honestly do not see what you mean, especially when they even mentioned they briefly considered just deleting those leader abilities until their complete rework.
Or do you intend to state that ME is currently still problematic ?

 

[Jollyrogerxberg]

Nerfing ME to 9p and leaving Harmony as it was....

 

[Barracuda88]

What do you mean ?
Both of them will cease to exist in their current forms in an upcoming patch and ME was left alone for now, I honestly do not see what you mean, especially when they even mentioned they briefly considered just deleting those leader abilities until their complete rework.
Or do you intend to state that ME is currently still problematic ?

Putting a cap on MEcho to remove Waters from its range and reversing the Harmony nerf. How is this not obvious?

 

[InkognitoXI]

Putting a cap on MEcho to remove Waters from its range and reversing the Harmony nerf. How is this not obvious?

I assumed you refered to this patch, rather than the expansion patch.
That being said, I am pretty sure we will see that this is not enough to deal with SK being Tier 0.5.
Also they are slow with reverting overdone nerfs (see Executioner).

 

[G3nome]

Nilfgaard:

• Impera Brigade provision changed from 6 to 5.
• Fire Scorpion power changed from 3 to 4.

portal hyper thin flashbacks

Vabjorn power changed from 6 to 2. Provision changed from 9 to 8. Ability changed to: Deploy (Melee): Play a Raid card from your deck.

a prideful warrior that could take damaged enemies bigger than him, now reduced to an awful tutor

 

[Syntol4]

Guess i still insta quit if i get NG as enemy. (To avoid brain bleed)

 

[Philido]

Guess i still insta quit if i get NG as enemy. (To avoid brain bleed)

And when will you stop doing that? When their best leader's winrate is below 50%?

 

[Syntol4]

And when will you stop doing that? When their best leader's winrate is below 50%?

Source?

 

[Jollyrogerxberg]

The source of his rather rethorical question would be his mind, sir.

 

[quintivarium]

Although I appreciate the ongoing efforts to make Gwent an outstanding game, I must admit that I’m very disappointed in this update. While I recognize the need to make incremental changes rather than over-nerfing, unless better balance — at all levels of play and not just for experts — is achieved soon, I expect there will be a massive exodus of players. It seems most of the major issues were unaddressed or under addressed, while other things were changed for the worse without need.

I believe by far the most common complaints are about NG and SK both being badly overpowered while SC was nerfed into the ground. I will not comment on SY as I do not have the experience to intelligently address it. As this post comes without experience of actually playing or playing against the new cards, what I say is my best judgment, but could be proven wrong.

Let me start with the leader cards. Actually these changes look good to me. The planned long term changes seem well justified, and the immediate nerf to Second Wind is in keeping with suggestions of several players.

On neutral cards, it is good to see Ciri reworked, but I think Ciri Nova will prove to be a negative card. It is very binary, losing significant value to a purify, while being very strong when the opponent lacks a purify. It’s interaction with Yennifer’s Invocation and Philippa Eilhart make it even more risky. And while I don’t mind Vincent’s interaction with veil, he feels totally unfair against Nova — a card that requires significant deck modifications to even run. The adjustments to stratagems seem like good ideas. I will discuss Ethereal when I discuss monsters.

Monsters changes look OK. I do hope the original Imlerith power returns in a new card soon as it is an interesting card with nice point slam synergy. The change to Caranthir seems alright — especially looking toward the future, but it does not really address the problem of Ethereal. Playing Ethereal multiple times is still possible, although harder. But the real problem is not the replaying of Ethereal, it is the interaction with fruits that produces 4 points a turn with no easy shut down and no input of resources other than a leader ability that remains very useful in other rounds. This unstoppable, freely sustained four point a round engine will far more hinder future cards given monsters that the possible use of Caranthir on future neutral units.

I think the adjustments to SK (which I considered my main faction until it became so OP I didn’t feel good playing it) are an unmitigated disaster. Not only did the developers fail to fully address the root problems, they messed up some of the more interesting and strategic cards in the game. The big problems I see with Skellige are the Dagur/GreatSwords mechanic (which adds additional reward for removal which is probably already the most valuable action one can take), too many warriors with too many tutors for them, and bronzes that would be golds in any other faction. The change to Harold is pretty minimal (although with the nerf to second wind may be sufficient). To me this is one of two appropriate changes made to the faction. The other is the change to Dimun Pirate which helps offset loss of synergy with the modified second wind. On the other hand, Vabjorn’s change is absolutely horrible and I predict will make next month’s meta even narrower than this month’s was. Blood Eagle is even more imbalanced than Harold was —and now it has a cheap tutor which significantly increases the chance it will be used twice. Moreover, Vabjorn used to be an interesting niche card; variety we will no longer have. This has to be the worst change imaginable. But the wrecking of Skellige doesn’t stop here. Rupture (at least on Tyrggvi) is now worthless. It will stop or reset almost no real threats, and plays for meaningful value on only on a small handful of cards. Skellige bronzes probably did need a slight nerf, but CDPR did this inconsistently, uncreatively, and to the detriment of some of the more interesting Skellige cards. Drummond Berserker’s neatest feature was its sudden jump from 2 to 6 (with the substantial removal risk when it drops to health 3). Now the jump is less significant, the timing less sensitive, and the removal risk less. In short, the card is nowhere near as strategic. A much better change would have been to boost the provision cost to 6. Villager has an ambiguous description. If only the bleeding effect on an opposing unit is changed, I applaud the rebalancing. On the other hand, if the friendly unit also only gets three bleeding, the card loses all interest. Rather than having meaningful value for Skellige’s self-damage units (4 damage is sufficient to justify use with Blueboy, 3 is not) it is reduced to another vanilla damage pinger almost always played next to something veiled. Nothing was done about Skjordal Drummond, An Craite Raiders, or An Craite Blacksmith all of which need nerfing far more than the two bronze cards hit. The other changes are pretty minor; I will let them pass without further comment.

I am also uninclined to make extensive comment on changes to NR. With one exception (and it is minor), I support the changes. To me the most boring faction remains boring. I do strongly dislike the addition of more soldier labels — the large number of labels on SK and NG contribute to imbalances in those factions — more soldier labels in NR will have the same negative effect there. We need fewer soldiers, warriors, and aristocrats, not more.

The three minor changes to ST are all good, but way to little for a faction that is languishing. Probably a dozen bronze units need significant boosts, some sort of synergy between dwarves, elves, and dryads needs to be found, new traps are needed to make traps a viable archetype, and harmony needs to become more meaningful (perhaps by only counting units in the same row when determining whether a unit has the same type). Honestly, after the relatively weak expansion cards ST received, I’m not certain completely rolling back the harmony nerf would be too much.

Changes to NG are an insult to the large number of players who already hate the faction. The spy archetype is already very powerful, and enhancing damage engines is the last thing needed to balance different NG archetypes. Also, developers have said they aren’t convinced that double ball is a problem. To which I respond that single ball is a problem. Even with veil, there is just too much poison too cheaply and quickly available. And in general, I don’t object to either the scenario or the poison mechanic.