Hearthpwn

Quote from Chimera >>

Moved to Card Discussion

It is a mechanic of cards.

How about no.

Quote from Chimera >>

It is a mechanic of cards.

[offtop]There is lot of unnecesarry mod activity in this thread. What's wrong with creating new thread with same subject as old thread, if nobody bumps old thread? You won't have 2 threads at top anyway. Why card discussion, when it's general mechanics discussion? Excuse me, but I don't get it.[/offtop]

Charge is indeed bad mechanics here. No, I don't say it's unbalanced now, as charge minions are generally weak, and they don't add new ones, and facedeck tacktics have counterplays.

Problem with charge is that you can immediately hit face, no matter how many creatures are on the battlefield to challange it. Thus, it not only allows to attack faster and do more damage, but allows to EVADE the enemy board. If you are ahead on life counter, opponent needs to kill your charge minion with his minion, thus he doesn't attack face and it leads to even bigger health gap.

Thus, problem is: charge isn't used for speed, it is used to evade enemy minions when you lost board control.

IMO, charge should be Icehowl-like. But that would require all charge cards rebalanced (better stats given).

I mean... charge is a mechanic that is really similar to spells that can deal direct damage like fireball. Charge cards have bad stats  usually for their cost to balance out the charge effect. The only place where charge is really just unfair is with Hogger from animal companion imo.

Quote from ambershee >>

I'm not even sure you can realistically get enough spell damage to do 11 damage in turn 5 with a fireball even if your opponent does nothing

Now that charging patrons, charging moltens and combo druid are gone, it doesn't seem that bad

Quote from Skylarapas >>

Well if you do that in MTG you'll propaby get your threat removed.

Quote from Slarg232 >>

Quote from Sykomyke >>

Quote from TheOmniDerp >>

uuuhhhh

there's nothing wrong with charge and this thread is stupid?

I'm not alone of this, right?

 Actually there is a lot wrong with charge.  Look at how other online card games handle "charge" (or whatever mechanic it's called in other games) the same way.

Here's our baseline for comparison: Wolfrider

Might and Magic: Duel of Champions

  

This card requires 4 mana, 3 Strength (a secondary requirement) and also dies at the end of the turn).  It's main functionality is 3 damage removal on legs that can synergize with some graveyard mechanics. (as opposed to running a spell that does 3 damage)  If you want to go face with this card you essentially will lose it at the end of the turn.

Elder Scrolls: Legends :

 

This (Red - Strength) card is 3 mana, but only 2 attack. So compared to our wolfrider this guy is better at trading, I'd say this card is fairly similar in role to the Stormwind Knight, just having less health.

Another color (Green - Agility ) card from ESL below

Another color Again, just 2 attack.  The theme here?  You pay for charge,  it's attack is never equal to it's mana cost.  Sure the orc had more health then wolfrider, and so does this bat, which actually has drain.  Now I'd say in terms of role, the bat is more in line with wolfrider since it has drain (essentially heals the hero for the damage done), so this card is usually to better go face with.  But the point?  Still less attack for it's mana cost.

Faeria

 

This card is almost exactly like Pao Deathseeker from MM:DoC,  it's slightly less mana, but has 2 land requirements, and dies at the end of the turn. 

This is what wolfrider SHOULD have been like (similar stats).  A 3 mana, 2/1 with charge.  

Conclusion:

Every other game out there realizes charge is a powerful mechanic and as you can see, makes sure that their charge minions generally have less attack than their mana cost.  There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, however in the cases where there are exceptions (Pao Deathseeker, Wind Rider) the charge minion has negative card text.

The only card that we see similar negative card text on that also has charge (in Hearthstone) is Leeroy Jenkins.  Which I think is still a badly tuned card since it's only used as a finisher. 

Charge should be a "catch up" mechanic, and thus should have a cost associated for it's ability to immediately act.  A 3/1 wolfrider with no downside?  It's overtuned.  

I  know that charge isn't limited to just wolfrider,  however I wanted to point out that charge is not the balanced mechanic that a lot of people think it is in hearthstone.  The other games also have other limiting factors that prevent charge from being an out of control mechanic. (ESL and MM:DoC have lanes that can be blocked through various keywords and mechanics, Faeria has actual distance you have to travel as well as keywords that can block it).

Hopefully this sheds some insight into the industry standard for charge.

 

 And over in MTG, we have Spark Elemental (1 mana 3/1 Haste, dies at the end of turn), Goblin Guide (1 mana 2/2 Haste with minor drawback), Hellspark Elemental (2 mana 3/1 haste, dies at end of turn. If it's in your graveyard, you may pay 2 mana to bring it back to the battlefield), and Craterhoof Behemoth (8 mana, Haste, All creatures you control gain Trample (Damage spills over if blocked) and gain +x/+x, where x is the number of creatures you control).

 

Hearthstone's Charge mechanic is fine.  

If you pick the best two cards combo, leeroy + faceless will do more damage than almost all class combos out there.

leeroy + faceless 10 mana, 12 damage. Its better than almost everything except:

2 fireballs: 8 mana, 12 damage - 1 turn only

leeroy + blessing of might: 6 mana, 9 damage - sticks

2x mindblasts: 4 mana, 10 damage - 1 turn only

leeroy + power overwhelming: 6 mana, 10 damage - 1 turn only

Grommash + enrage spell: 10-12 damage, 8-10 mana - sticks

Others?

Of course there is a 1 card charge that can overwhelm all of those:

Anything can happen

It has no counter whatsoever. Loatheb and taunt can restrain it for a turn. Adding horrible murloc cards to your deck is also not clever. As soon as it can deliver 30+ damage in a turn Priest won't be viable. So yes, there's a lot wrong with charge and mostly with anything can happen.

Imo it should cost 10 mana + text: cost 1 more mana for every card in your deck, summon 7 friendly murlocs that died these game. That way it would be only playable in fatigue, so the opponent can prepare his wall of taunt in the exact moment. Just my thoughts.

Don't know how to nerf charge mechanic tough.

Quote from ambershee >>

A sensible Priest can beat an Anyfin Can Happen deck by using Entomb. If you take out the Murloc Warleaders, the spell suddenly does very little immediate damage at all (even when played a second time).

At this point, the Paladin is basically just trying to out-last the Priest, which ain't gonna happen.

yeah. we should also nerf every spell that can deal damage to the face and of course weapons as well. let's not stop there, nothing should be able to hit face other than fatigue.
wish there was some kind of mechanism that counters charge. something like a taunt ? not sure.

A sensible murloc paladin player would also play the first warleader on turn 3 and the other before the wild pyromancer + equality combo. Giving you no chance to entomb it. 

In the light of the hog card recently revealed, accompanied by the necessary complains on how charge can be a boring mechanic, I was thinking of this:

A charge rework.

A minion with charge can only hit face if it obeys one of two conditions:

1° If there's no more minions on opponent's side of the board.

2° If the minion survived one turn in the board.

This puts some healthy restrictions on charge. First, if you want to surprise the opponent and hit face, make sure you did your homework and cleaned his board. Second, the charge still has some kind of "summoning sickness" with the advantage of being able to hit a minion as soon as it is played (still a big advantage).

This could mean a good halt on some cancerous aggro decks who would shift to a more midrange aproach, but more importantly, cut a lot of current OTK decks. This game is about interaction, at least that's what Blizzard claims, so fixing charge would mean a big step towards that goal.

If charge minions could only hit minions when charging, I think that fixes it right there.

BUT ... off topic, hearthstone needs two things.

1) A way to prevent spells from going face (grounding totem)

2) A way to hit through taunts (like Magic's flying) that isn't ogre's 50% chance BS

No, no, no.  Taunts help stop rampant aggression, and lets face it, a WHOLE lot of decks (while they may not be face decks) do just smash your face in so quickly that there is nothing you can do other than pray to RNGJesus for a counter.  Taunts are already weak because there are so many cards which buff attack, but hardly anything which restores minions to health or increases their defence.

I do agree however that cards which stop face spells are needed, something like Bolf (only that is only affected by spells) would have been perfect (particularly if it had spell shield itself, to make it difficult to heal, buff or spot remove)

Charge could do with being split into two abilities, Charge and Skirmish.  Charge would continue to work as it always had, while Skirmish only allows you to attack minions (on the first turn), cards which give charge to other minions, would instead only ever give skirmish, while charge would only ever be found on minions "printed" on minions, so it's value can always be accounted for.

Charge minions can´t attack the hero the turn they are played

See title.

Special: Patches/Leeroy could get their text altered to "Charge, can attack the hero this turn".

Aggro needs to be a factor to keep extremly greedy control decks in check but the current state is unbearable.

Current charge minions could get a health buff to compensate. 

Shamans would still remain strong and Warrior would only lose instant Korkron / Argent Horserider( rarely used).

So its not that of an extreme change but would help a bit imo.