[Poll] When will Arcane Incantation get nerfed?

Unknown · April 2015

Arcane Incantation may be the new IFOKL. Place your bets, when will Scarlet Witch get the beatdown?
Discuss Scarlet Witch here.

Demiurge's done it again. They're avoiding pre-release nerf angst in favor of either too strong characters or post nerf releases. Is she worth maxing her blue passive right away as long as you get an hp refund? Either way, she's the 4 turn crit machine; use her while you can!

Why it will be nerfed

1:

There's a video people should check out in the Scarlet Witch thread.

Why 2:

Wall crits: (left wall example)

If you have a purple in any of those 4 spots, it's an automatic 100% crit chance. One of these purples has a pretty good chance (46.0%) of existing without any other board manipulation if the countdown is in the middle 4 rows.

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)
Arcane Incantation - Passive
(PASSIVE) Scarlet Witch begins a complex ritual, as it grows in power the very fabric of reality seems to writhe. At the beginning of her turn, if one does not exist, she creates a 4-turn Countdown tile that transforms 2 random adjacent basic tiles to Purple.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Transforms 3 basic tiles. Level 3: Transforms 4 basic tiles. Level 4: Creates a 3-turn Countdown tile that transforms 4 basic tiles. Level 5: Transforms 5 basic tiles.

Note: I'm not saying Scarlet Witch is as strong as IF, only that there is one very powerful, arguably OP ability.
Note2: Also, I'm not saying cripple the character. Character adjustments should necessitate a band-aid, not a wheelchair.

fmftint · April 2015

shes fine, it being a CD is enough of a draw back

tanis3303 · April 2015

^This. She's going to get a nerf, but I think its going to be her Green that gets it, not her only semi-reliable Blue

simonsez · April 2015

Can we nerf the nerf threads?

Colognoisseur · April 2015

While piling sticks around a pyre outside the offices of Demiurge

The Nerf Herders are chanting in unison.

Burn the Witch!!!!!
Oh wait I mean
Nerf the Witch!!!!

Unknown · April 2015

tanis3303 wrote:

^This. She's going to get a nerf, but I think its going to be her Green that gets it, not her only semi-reliable Blue

Really? I'm not seeing it off hand. Sure it's 8AP and generates 4 AP, minor targeted destruction, but you have a 50% or less chance of getting the target. Further the AP is random, and could be team-up (ugh) AP. The damage from 5 destroyed tiles really isn't that much.

Also in a battle against enemies that don't use tiles, it's not nearly as useful. The destruction is far too unpredictable so you can't use it like a surgeon's knife to generate cascades.

TheOncomingStorm · April 2015

daibar wrote:

Arcane Incantation may be the new IFOKL. Place your bets, when will Scarlet Witch get the beatdown?
Discuss Scarlet Witch here.

Demiurge's done it again. They're avoiding pre-release nerf angst in favor of either too strong characters or post nerf releases. Is she worth maxing her blue passive right away as long as you get an hp refund? Either way, she's the 4 turn crit machine; use her while you can!

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)
Arcane Incantation - Passive
(PASSIVE) Scarlet Witch begins a complex ritual, as it grows in power the very fabric of reality seems to writhe. At the beginning of her turn, if one does not exist, she creates a 4-turn Countdown tile that transforms 2 random adjacent basic tiles to Purple.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Transforms 3 basic tiles. Level 3: Transforms 4 basic tiles. Level 4: Creates a 3-turn Countdown tile that transforms 4 basic tiles. Level 5: Transforms 5 basic tiles.

Note: I'm not saying Scarlet Witch is as strong as IF, only that there is one very powerful, arguably OP ability.
Note2: Also, I'm not saying cripple the character. Character adjustments should necessitate a band-aid, not a wheelchair.

NERF FATIGUE! Stop trying to get every character nerfed!

It's a cd ability and placement is double arbitrary (when the CD is placed and when the CD procs).

Moreover, instead of this ridiculous nerf talk, we could be talking about the best teams for and against SW.

I don't care if they put out 4or 2.0 or a Super Pre-Nerf X-Force. We've had enough nerfs and changes for a while. Could we go a month or at least a solitary week without proclaiming the sky is falling?

Unknown · April 2015

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

NERF FATIGUE! Stop trying to get every character nerfed!

It's a cd ability and placement is double arbitrary (when the CD is placed and when the CD procs).

Moreover, instead of this ridiculous nerf talk, we could be talking about the best teams for and against SW.

I don't care if they put out 4or 2.0 or a Super Pre-Nerf X-Force. We've had enough nerfs and changes for a while. Could we go a month or at least a solitary week without proclaiming the sky is falling?

We could if Demiurge stopped pumping out characters every week without having time to think about the consequences of new abilities, or knew how to balance without bringing out Mjolnir for their nerf bat.
This 'nerf' talk is far from ridiculous, but it seems people have to be beaten with the characters for a month until they complain that this character is all they see. I think a nerf is inevitable whether we like it or not. I like the ability myself. I don't judge it to be balanced, especially with Master Plan in the wild.

The sky isn't falling. At most it's a minor landscape change.

Either way, I think I was too soon with this thread.

notamutant · April 2015

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

daibar wrote:

Arcane Incantation may be the new IFOKL. Place your bets, when will Scarlet Witch get the beatdown?
Discuss Scarlet Witch here.

Demiurge's done it again. They're avoiding pre-release nerf angst in favor of either too strong characters or post nerf releases. Is she worth maxing her blue passive right away as long as you get an hp refund? Either way, she's the 4 turn crit machine; use her while you can!

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)
Arcane Incantation - Passive
(PASSIVE) Scarlet Witch begins a complex ritual, as it grows in power the very fabric of reality seems to writhe. At the beginning of her turn, if one does not exist, she creates a 4-turn Countdown tile that transforms 2 random adjacent basic tiles to Purple.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Transforms 3 basic tiles. Level 3: Transforms 4 basic tiles. Level 4: Creates a 3-turn Countdown tile that transforms 4 basic tiles. Level 5: Transforms 5 basic tiles.

Note: I'm not saying Scarlet Witch is as strong as IF, only that there is one very powerful, arguably OP ability.
Note2: Also, I'm not saying cripple the character. Character adjustments should necessitate a band-aid, not a wheelchair.

NERF FATIGUE! Stop trying to get every character nerfed!

It's a cd ability and placement is double arbitrary (when the CD is placed and when the CD procs).

Moreover, instead of this ridiculous nerf talk, we could be talking about the best teams for and against SW.

I don't care if they put out 4or 2.0 or a Super Pre-Nerf X-Force. We've had enough nerfs and changes for a while. Could we go a month or at least a solitary week without proclaiming the sky is falling?

I think you and several other players saying the same thing are missing the point of this nerf talk. It isn't because we want the characters nerfed. Many of us are okay with overpowered characters, as long as they are only a little bit overpowered. We are talking about this because we want people to not keep falling for D3s tricks where they introduce a character that seems really good and nerf it. It is very unlikely D3 is nerfing characters solely based on the forum comments. We are trying to warn people to not buy covers if the character seems within the realm of possibility of being nerfed because they seem just enough overpowered for D3 to take notice. I for one think that SW is only OP with a very specific team, and is otherwise an okay/lackluster character. But I also think D3 cares about those very specific team ups that can be game destroying. So I am sharing this with the forum in the hopes of saving peoples money.

puppychow · April 2015

personally, I don't see that power as OP, because there's a 4 turn countdown before purple tiles are spammed. That being said, it would be interesting to see how SW/DP/Hood team would run. I suspect it's not a good team because of low health of the overall group.

Add: That being said, if that power allows a winfinite combo (i.e. extra turn for you to launch a whale) I COULD see it being an issue in pvp.

simonsez · April 2015

notamutant wrote:

So I am sharing this with the forum in the hopes of saving peoples money.

Given human nature, I expect it has the opposite affect. If someone sees people complaining that so-and-so needs to be nerfed, this is an implication that this is the most powerful character in the game, which creates a strong incentive in that person to acquire this character, regardless of the likelihood of it being only a short-term benefit.

puppychow · April 2015

simonsez wrote:

notamutant wrote:

So I am sharing this with the forum in the hopes of saving peoples money.

Given human nature, I expect it has the opposite affect. If someone sees people complaining that so-and-so needs to be nerfed, this is an implication that this is the most powerful character in the game, which creates a strong incentive in that person to acquire this character, regardless of the likelihood of it being only a short-term benefit.

I don't mind whales buying covers to max out SW. Someone's gotta pay to keep D3 servers running. If it's not me, then I'm happy.

wirius · April 2015

Legit question here. How is a 3 turn countdown randomly placed tile that turns 5 surrounding tiles into pink overpowered? 3 turns results in possibly one pink match? I mean, X-force has a three turn yellow coundown tile that gets matched or blown up 2 out of the 3 times. Not sure I get your argument here.

Unknown · April 2015

Since the ability is on CD it'll likely take 2 applications of the CD before anything super crazy happens it's less of an impact on PvP where you're trying to win really fast because you'll likely need around 10 turns to get 2 CDs resolved (factoring in that the CD can be matched and an occasional failure to get a match 5), though I can't imagine game lasting longer than 20 turns overall no matter what with Scarlet Witch around, and quite a few games will indeed end at around turn 10 whenever the second CD finishes resolving.

Colognoisseur · April 2015

While continuing to stack wood on the pyre to Burn I mean Nerf the Witch the Nerf Herders are heard muttering to themselves,
"We're doing everyone a public service why don't they see it."
"We must see to the health of all in the MPQ community whether they like it or not they'll thank us"
"Hand me that wood we missed a spot over here"
Then they start to sing, "Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off to Nerf we Go"

Unknown · April 2015

wirius wrote:

Legit question here. How is a 3 turn countdown randomly placed tile that turns 5 surrounding tiles into pink overpowered? 3 turns results in possibly one pink match? I mean, X-force has a three turn yellow coundown tile that gets matched or blown up 2 out of the 3 times. Not sure I get your argument here.

The area the 5 tiles added is extremely small, making a match 5 almost a certainty. Since this ability has the same 'immediately replaces tile if it's destroyed' ala Unbreakable/Exquisite Technique, there's really no way to defend it unless every position it's put in is something you can match.

Come to think of it, all these passives would be a lot more balanced if they didn't have the 'you thought you stopped this ability? Think again!' aspect. If matching the tile stops the passive for even a few turns, they'd be much more balanced.

mjh · April 2015

Nope, not even close. A 3-turn CD will come to fruition maybe 2/5 times.

Just look at

GuntherBlobel · April 2015

I don't know first hand how this actually plays, but it seems fine to me. The CD timer is actually longer than I thought it would be.

For all I know, the most useful thing people will do with this ability is pop the CD tile with

.

Heartburn · April 2015

this might make me want to fight falcon teams

DaveR4470 · April 2015

This is clearly part of the Top Secret Plan (tm) to return Bagman to pre-eminence in the superhero pantheon.

Snarky Remark! Snarky Remark! Snarky Remark!

Unknown · April 2015

mjh wrote:

Nope, not even close. A 3-turn CD will come to fruition maybe 2/5 times.

Just look at

This is if you're explicitly targeting it because it
A. Doesn't come back every turn, and you don't have other stuff to do.
B. Actually has a noticeable significant effect upon resolution.

Against an AI, a 3-turn CD will come to fruition 4/5 times, but you'll definitely remember the 20% of times where it doesn't go off, especially if it's something expensive like R&G's I Gotta Plan.

Demiurge recently said that Quicksilver's 2200 team damage passive was 'pretty strong for a passive' (loose quotes), but this takes upwards of 12 turns to proc in most matches, if lucky. SW's blue passive generally generates at least 3 purple AP, and usually(?) a crit, particularly if you match to place purples around the countdown. That crit is another 1-1.5K damage at least, not bad for a passive.

[Poll] When will Arcane Incantation get nerfed?

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