I fear the Elementalist is far too strong

By Charmy, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

After reading this discussion, I wonder how many of you watched the FFG live play through of the first Embers of Dread encounter using this expansion? The creators of this expansion didn’t even use LoS rules. They had monsters attacking from 8 spaces away through other heroes and monsters. It was disheartening.

1 hour ago, Helvwin said:

Anticipating an announcement at Gen Con perhaps...

(I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist. I firmly expect there to be no announcement of Descent 3rd Edition at Gen Con... Oh, wait, maybe there will be... Or not, probably not... Almost definitely, possibly not... Sigh.)

Well, if we do get Descent 3e, at least I’m a Skarn and Kyndrithul away from a complete collection...

Hypothetically, if we got 3e, I’d love to see skills that asked players to plan for a quest. For example, a Runemaster may be required to choose 4 condition tokens and put them on Runic Sorcery. When he attacks with Runic Sorcery, he could discard a token from the card to inflict that condition.

Things like that, which encourage planning and preparation for a quest. I would love to see that.

Edited by Lightningclaw
34 minutes ago, ren6175 said:

After reading this discussion, I wonder how many of you watched the FFG live play through of the first Embers of Dread encounter using this expansion? The creators of this expansion didn’t even use LoS rules. They had monsters attacking from 8 spaces away through other heroes and monsters. It was disheartening.

I had. But I do not care about the play, I only wished to see the cards, like many I think, and since the app is not interest to me, I just watched a film while they were playing, looking time to time to see when they show cards.

36 minutes ago, ren6175 said:

After reading this discussion, I wonder how many of you watched the FFG live play through of the first Embers of Dread encounter using this expansion? The creators of this expansion didn’t even use LoS rules. They had monsters attacking from 8 spaces away through other heroes and monsters. It was disheartening.

I skipped the majority of the video because I haven’t played Embers of Dread yet, but i remember thinking that first flesh moulder attack didn’t make sense. They were attacking a hero I was sure they didn’t have LOS to.

I've send some questions to FFG to be clarified on some cards. I hope I will have some answers, I've used another way

Greetings!
Even if just for fun, here is my attempt at addressing commentary regarding the Elementalist class.
These touches are based on comments by user Charmy from this forum, labcoat_samurai questioning from reddit , and general discussions regarding its comparatively stronger starting point, the unexpected ease of battlefield control. A million things can be invented, of course, but I stopped myself from anything that deviated too much from the designer's concept. (Italics indicate change. If card not present, not change suggested).

· Staff of Conflux - 2 Handed - Magic,Staff - Blue, Yellow. If 2 or more of your "elemental" cards are exhausted: 1 surge: +2 damage.

o Reduced occurrence of surge bonus to attend stronger start.

· Blaze - 1 Stamina - Exhaust this card when you perform an attack, after dice are rolled. This attack gains your choice of either : Pierce 1, 1 Surge: Pierce X, where X is equal to the number of exhausted of "elemental" cards .

· Grasp - 1 Stamina - Action : Exhaust this card during your turn to choose a non-lieutenant monster in your line of sight and within 3 spaces of you. If the number of exhausted "elemental" cards are equal to or greater than the number of spaces that monster occupies, that monster is stunned.

o Action deemed appropriate/needed.

· Gust - 1 Stamina - Exhaust this card during your turn to choose another hero figure in line of sight and within 3 spaces of you. Move that figure up to a number of spaces equal to the number of exhausted "elemental" cards in a straight line.

o Added requirements that increase tactical play/thinking. Hero figure as here discussed, to avoid cheesing with quests.

· Tide - 1 Stamina - Exhaust this card before you perform an attack. After resolving the attack, a monster adjacent to the target and undamaged by your attack suffers "damage" equal to the number of exhausted "elemental" cards.

o Attended effectiveness by adding small gamble element.

· Sun and Sea - 0 Stamina - When you use Tide or Blaze, you may exhaust this card to reroll 1 power die . When you purchase this card, gain an additional "elemental" skill.

o Removed avoidance of "Miss" to harmonize risk concept with Tide, as a damage reroll is also good enough. They can't be good in everything!

· Storm's Fury - 0 Stamina - Your elemental cards gain the following: Tide: You may choose instead a monster within 2 spaces of the target if they have received damage. Gust: Action: Perform this card's effect instead targeting 1 non-lieutenant monster.

o As redacted "a non-lieutenant figure", it already allows to choose yourself. No 3xp card required. I additionally add "monster" to avoid Quest trickery, as discussed before.

o Pre-damage requirement just to allow the occasional maneuvering by the OL to avoid damage through formations. Less essential.

o Action to move enemy figures deemed appropriate.

I've played a full campaign with an Elementalist, and he is not so strong. To be fully usable, he needs many stamina, many targets and it's not that simple. So, strong, indeed, "too", maybe not.

Was it an RtL campaign?

I NEVER play road to legend. I hate this aspect of the game.

7 hours ago, rugal said:

I've played a full campaign with an Elementalist, and he is not so strong. To be fully usable, he needs many stamina, many targets and it's not that simple. So, strong, indeed, "too", maybe not.

It isn't in the subject of the topic, but how many hours/days did you spend to complete this campaign and how many players ?

Edited by vk0dama

I am currently working on a solo RTL campaign using the Soul Reaper and Elementalist. I am using two other heroes as well, since I am a firm believer in using four heroes whenever possible.

I respect @rugal ‘s choice to not use Road to Legend (although that woke me up when I was browsing the forums first thing in the morning).

I like it (though not as much as the OL mode) and I’m using it because play sessions with my regular group are locked up with an Heirs Of Blood campaign.

TL:DR; I like the Soul Reaper. Elementalist is strong but stamina heavy, Grasp is very very good.

I’ve only completed the Kindred Fire introduction so far,so these are very early impressions.

Soul Reaper:

I can’t say enough good things about the class. I did choose Jonas the Kind to reduce the damage I would need to deal with.

-I love the layer that essence adds to the game, and how it makes me evaluate the monsters each time a door is opened.

-It does depend on monsters heavily. My first two monster groups were Razorwings and Zombies, two fragile and numerous monster groups.

If I’d had Merriods and Broodwalkers (two low figure tough groups) the quest could have gone very differently.

-I had three essence left by the time I defeated Wrath Incarnate, out of 18-19 essence I had earned over the course of the quest. By that time one hero was KO’d and two were heavily damaged.

I really enjoyed it. I think it could be my favorite healer. Not because of power levels, but because of how interesting the essence economy is.

Elementalist:

I chose Master Thorn. I deliberately avoided high tier mages like Quellen and Ravaella. I chose Blaze and Grasp as my starting elements.

Blaze is good. Pierce 2 is easy to do (use Grasp before you attack). Note that having two exhausted element cards gives access to Surge +2 on the Elementalist’s starting weapon.

I stunned monsters with Grasp exactly twice. Both times it was quite impactful, preventing potential Stun (master Razorwing) and Immobilize (master Zombie).

I did not have an opportunity to stun anything else due to monster size. The group behind the second door was small but too far away from Master Thorn to be relevant.

I was still exhausting Grasp later in the quest to improve Blaze’s pierce and to get access to the stronger surge on the starting weapon.

It took lots of fatigue. I frequently had 3-4 fatigue on my hero sheet.

Even with the fatigue costs, Grasp feels too easy to me. It felt like an off switch for melee monsters. I will see how it develops when I get some of the buffs for it.

Blaze does allow the Elementalist to deal lots of damage. I don’t think it does as much damage as another hero on the team, Roganna the Shadow Walker, but it was rather good.

I will see how it goes.

On 7/9/2019 at 7:25 PM, vk0dama said:

It isn't in the subject of the topic, but how many hours/days did you spend to complete this campaign and how many players ?

From 3 years or more now, I play around a campaign by month, sometimes more. So, around 20 hours. Usually, I complete a campaign through 4 - 8 days and I play around 1 to 5 times a week, around 10 hours a day.

Yes, I have time to spend ;)

On 6/26/2019 at 5:10 PM, rugal said:

The exemple of this is the Soul reaper. More balanced, but boring, and a bit weak in with an Overlord, since defeating monsters does not occurs so often, so, the healing will come rarely with almost nothing to offer facing this. I'm playing it too, and, as expected, it's boring, but on top of that, a bit weak.

I'm playing a Lorekeeper - Soul Reaper with Leoric of the Book at the moment. Pretty funny to grab other's conditions with Blight Extraction and then throw away right after with Ancient Remedy and the result is 3 Essence (2 from Blight Extraction 1 from Mirror of Soul). With some clever timing I don't even have to use Ancient Remedy because many conditions can be handled simply without that. Most of the collected Essences are from these tricks and not from killing monsters.

10 hours ago, kbalazsa said:

I'm playing a Lorekeeper - Soul Reaper with Leoric of the Book at the moment. Pretty funny to grab other's conditions with Blight Extraction and then throw away right after with Ancient Remedy and the result is 3 Essence (2 from Blight Extraction 1 from Mirror of Soul). With some clever timing I don't even have to use Ancient Remedy because many conditions can be handled simply without that. Most of the collected Essences are from these tricks and not from killing monsters.

Yeah, Soul Reaper seems to excel in RtL. Blight Extraction is a key way for him to get essence. Unfortunately he's pretty bad against a traditional Overlord, since if you take Blight Extraction the Overlord just won't spend surges on conditions and won't take condition-applying monsters. Without the assistance of Blight Extraction and the Mirror of Souls, he has a really rough time getting essence.