Loriens

Just to throw in a certain idea here
-> Make more PvP quests and let people choose between a PvP or a PvE quest tree. So no one ends up being forced to play a game mode he doesn't want to play.
-> Give PvP meaningful gold rewards, especially for losing players the experience is awful. As I already stated, the current values are even worse compared to EA times. 
 
This would give people a choice of playing PvP to farm upgrades and cards and it also would be less frustrating to lose matches if you get decent gold/bfp rewards. Someone lost 5 games in a row because of bad upgrades and cards? At least he does get to buy/upgrade some cards then in order to get competitive. Especially people, that don't have the time to grind hours and hours for upgrades and cards, do want to get the cards by playing the games they enjoy, may it be PvP or PvE. I mean just take a look at the amount of people from the PvE community, that started crying about the PvP quest before rerolls got introduced. People don't want to get forced into a gamemode they don't like.   
 
This is a quick overview for one of the current Shadow Frost decks that shows the difference between U0 and U3. Almost every single card gets a significant buff, making it more effective from a range about 10-60%. This is huge. Just for comparison: The stat difference between T1 and T2 units ranges about 10-25%. So this is somewhat worse than starting a T1 vs T2 match. Alot of combos aren't working anymore, which decreases the cost efficency of cards even further (burst breakpoints are the most important thing here).

One simple example: Nightcrawler + Nasty Surprise is a standard combo for 4/10 decks to burst down the  Skyfire Drake, who is used in 4/10 of available color combinations. With an U0 Nasty it doesn't kill the Drake anymore leaving couterplay potential with healing spells like ravage. This has huge implications on how these matchups end up playing out. The lack of charges for core trading cards makes things worse on top of that as you will run out of effective counter methods much faster than your opponent. 
I'm the current rank 1 player in PvP, yet I wouldn't stand a chance against any decent player, who has an upgraded deck even if my winrate was up to 100% against that person beforehand. There definitely is a decent playerbase outside of the "top 10/20", just take a look at toggys recent rookie tournaments. People are willing to play PvP if there is an environment to do so and there are alot of people from the PvP community, that simply don't bother playing before the reset, as they want to avoid as much PvE grinding as possible. 
If we take that comparison to the old Battleforge, it is looking pretty grim for PvP. There was a way to get cards and tokens for upgrades just by investing a small amount of money. People had the chance of getting cards and upgrades for a strong PvP deck and PvP players used that opportunity as they wanted to play PvP, not PvE. Right now the game suits to players, that like PvE and you did a good job at that so far, but honestly it is worse compared to vanilla BF for PvP players. I'm pretty sure, that the majority of PvP mains would rather invest 10€ rather than being forced to play 30 hours of PvE over multiple weeks to start playing the game mode they do enjoy. Right now this possibility of paying money is gone for good reasons, but there is no compensation for it for a player who just likes playing PvP. 
 

I am going to donate tournament, 50 BFP reward for players who take 5-8 place.

In order to play PVP atm you need a nearly fully upgraded deck. Even as an unranked/low-ranked pvp player you will easily get matched against good players. Without a fully upgraded/charged deck, your experience of pvp is going to be getting stomped 99/100 games, and it would take a month of doing dailies every day to change this, completely unrelated to skill or anything. Very fun experience
From my point of view a typical newbie could experience: 'I do not like PVE that much' --> Try Pvp --> get stomped 15 times in a row --> Quit game

When someone ask a way too high price for a cheap card in trade.

Then proceeds to ask high

Bad Harvest 2.53.8 All time record done. ps: this is not a april fool ^^

Try to use ctrl+wheel to rotate building.

Blight New alltime record ^^ 

Replays updated from my run of March
Convoy        06:59.1   ->   06:52.0
Empire        27:49.7   ->   19:04.6
Sunbridge    13:11.5   ->   12:33.1
Crusade        09:45.3   ->   09:43.6
The Gun of Lyr    08:47.2   ->   08:43.6
Defending Hope    20:37.6   ->   20:36.7
Blight        22:57.7   ->   18:24.1
The Insane God    10:55.1   ->   06:07.3

[quote='claun' pid='9212' dateline='1437686350']
Cliffdancers are op but you can not remove them without giving pure fire something else to keep balance, in my oppinion they should get the game to work before they think too much about balancing it. I am saying this despite pure fire not being my main deck.
[/quote]

On maps without cliffs Pure Fire is not weak. They do not need something to compensate for taking away something they never should have had.

[quote]
Normally i'm not a fan of ,,it's not imbalanced, just play better.'' But here i'm surprised that nobody, not even a player like Hirooo, mentioned the possibility of avoiding getting cliffed. Again, i'm not saying cliffdancing is fair or balanced, but i got cliffed with firedancers in one match out of hundred, if not less. Of course it's not as easy to avoid in 2vs2, but 2vs2 is another dimension anyway.
Dont take well near cliffs
I wrote this a while back and it always helped me not getting cliffed:
[/quote]
I agree with you that it is possible to avoid some cliffpositions. Overall the advantage on some maps given by cliffing is way too huge without any good reason for it. Some maps like Uro or Yshia even come close to freewins in cliffable matchups.



[quote]
Wazhai:
Take the first well in the corner and watch out for enforcers walking to a cliff position, you have to react fast enough, for example if you are F/N send ghostspears asap, dont wait for the cliffing to begin.
[/quote]


So Wazhai. What you needed to do to avoid getting cliffdancered is to 
[list=1]
[*]Get the wells near your t1 which offer 0 mapcontrol at all besides stoping him from cliffing from there
[*]Dont fight for the middel because those wells can be instantly cliffed
[*]Build corner well+monument
[/list]So now he can "only" cliff you from a rallybanner to your 2/3 spawnwells or if he takes his t2 at the side.
Or if he puts a rallybanner near your t1 at the other side.
Or if he puts a rallybanner near your t2.




[quote]

Simai:
dont take the middle, its absolutely unnecessary to have a 4 well cluster that can get cliffed or destroyed by phoenixes if there are enough other spots.
[/quote]

And also dont take the other 4 well cluster above the middel.
And dont take the monument next to those. With giving those up its possible to avoid being cliffed.
You dont have any chance to build up pressure against pure fire now and your t3 spot is easily blockable.


[quote]
Layesh:
Getting both corners normally means the win against any colour, be careful with the walls, if you are insecure pull them up yourself, after 5 -10 minutes in the game 25 or 50 power spent in walls dont make that much of a difference (regarding power levels)
[/quote]


Also dont take any of the clusters with 2 wells or the middle since both can be cliffed.
Maximum extra well amount is 4 now.



[quote]
Uro:
the only deck having problems not getting cliffed here is Frost/Nature. Because Frost/Fire and pure frost can easily defend cliffdancers and every other deck has the chance to move a swift to the trhee well cluster in the beginning. After you took control over this cluster on your side you control 4 spots that cant get cliffed now. So if some non-frost player tells me cliffs on Uro are OP i wonder wtf he is doing.
[/quote]


You can get to your 3 cluster in time thats true.

If your enemy instead goes t2 in the middle and takes a well/banner at your t1 you are dead because the doublewellspot reaches to your startwells.
Also if your enemy gets the middelpoint you dont have a t3 spot accessible or are allowed to take control of one.



Some people wanted to have Yrmia back in the ladderpool but if you look at the way the map is build fire has way too much mapcontrol here too.

Looking at 2n2 maps:
Danduil you need to take care of never giving up your startpositonwall but thats manageable.
Nadai t3 spots where endangered but that was fine since you could not have control there anyways because no wellspots so t3 was allways delayed by walking. And cliff vs t3 doesnt work.
Fyre is fine too since you could block those walls easily.

Zahadune was bad since your startposition is cliffable completely.
Also your twowellcluster was but that wasnt such a big deal compared to your whole startbase.

[url=http://battleforge.wikia.com/wiki/Map:Yshia]Yshia[/url].. Yshia is a joke. 
So player 2/4 could walk up to the monument in the open take that play a dancer and attack the opponents startingmonument.
Good luck counterplaying that.
That of course also worked with a rallybanner at many places around any spawn.

Turan you couldnt play the middel what was kinda fine since you could get t2/3 elsewhere.
If you took care of not getting walled at the section next to your base you where also set for wells.

Koshan was another ugly map but not as bad as Yshia.
There were 2 wells in the middel you could not take because of dancers.
You could not take either of the clusters at the end of the map that where close to your opponent so t3 was always in direction of your mate.
Your t2 was 100% cliffable(the hill behind it..) if you could not stop your enemy from getting inside your "area". The wall there was around 75 e iirc what loses you the complete midgame if you really keep that one up.

On Gorgash you could take the middel but not all wells which is fine.
Same for the 2er clusters where you could only take 1 if you dont have the whole area.
Fine map.



While you are right there are some points where you can counteract cliffdancing this not the case on many maps
and I dont see a reason why there should be given out a single freewin because somebody happens to have a 50m range unit.

Normally i'm not a fan of ,,it's not imbalanced, just play better.'' But here i'm surprised that nobody, not even a player like Hirooo, mentioned the possibility of avoiding getting cliffed. Again, i'm not saying cliffdancing is fair or balanced, but i got cliffed with firedancers in one match out of hundred, if not less. Of course it's not as easy to avoid in 2vs2, but 2vs2 is another dimension anyway.
Dont take well near cliffs
I wrote this a while back and it always helped me not getting cliffed:

by VendettaT | on 30.08.2013
how not to get cliffed:
Elyon:
if you win the midfight take a well in the middle and dont let him take a well where he can wall-dance you, push him to the outside. If he overwells you by a wall-dance-well, he can't attack efficently, he will be in a 175 power disadvantage.
Wazhai:
Take the first well in the corner and watch out for enforcers walking to a cliff position, you have to react fast enough, for example if you are F/N send ghostspears asap, dont wait for the cliffing to begin.
Simai:
dont take the middle, its absolutely unnecessary to have a 4 well cluster that can get cliffed or destroyed by phoenixes if there are enough other spots.
Layesh:
Getting both corners normally means the win against any colour, be careful with the walls, if you are insecure pull them up yourself, after 5 -10 minutes in the game 25 or 50 power spent in walls dont make that much of a difference (regarding power levels)
Uro:
the only deck having problems not getting cliffed here is Frost/Nature. Because Frost/Fire and pure frost can easily defend cliffdancers and every other deck has the chance to move a swift to the trhee well cluster in the beginning. After you took control over this cluster on your side you control 4 spots that cant get cliffed now. So if some non-frost player tells me cliffs on Uro are OP i wonder wtf he is doing.
random maps:
there are always enough spots that can't get cliffed
And dont forget: have fun not getting cliffed !

I was never pro so i might have forgotten situations back then but i'm the living proof that it's possible to not get cliffed if you just keep thinking: he starts with a scavenger ! I should consider him being pure fire !
I wouldn't cry a tear if walldancing/cliffdancing gets a treating, but i somehow always saw it as a strategical aspect in terms of mapcontrol wich you can deal with and not as something randomly OP depending on the map.

[quote]
Anyways, I think that this is going a bit off-topic and if we wanna talk about card balancing we should go here :

http://bfreborn.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=379
[/quote]
First of all:
This is the PvP forum and a thread to a topic that only really touches PvP is not offtopic.
The thread you linked to is an overall what do you think is op thread while this one discusses a specific aspect.
To have only one thread for cardbalancing in general is not efficient for discussion.

[quote]

This being said, why does the range of the firendacer have to be nerfed ? Why don't the maps have to be changed so that cliffdancing won't work, so that dancers can't reach your buildings without taking a significant risk ? Are we considering firedancer to be an OP card ?
[/quote]

Nobody here said that.
Firedancers are too strong when used to cliffdance.
A change to not make long ranged groundunits able to shoot over walls or cliffs would be enough.

[quote='ladadoos' pid='9083' dateline='1437657064']
[quote='Destoyerfros' pid='9081' dateline='1437656323']
In certain situations fire dancer was a OP card e.g. building a wall near an enemy base and shooting over the wall at the enemy base.On certain maps cliffs could be taken advantage of to kill wells. However a lot of cards could be OP in certain situations (War Eagle) But thats why people play those fractions for the 'Good' cards. I think we should focus on cards such as Brannoc first..
[/quote]
If we are going to use your example of something being OP because you could build a wall near an enemy base and then shoot over the wall at the enemy base, there are a lot of others cards that are OP too... Sometimes it's not even the cards, sometimes it's the maps itself that causes imbalances.. There was a map, I don't remember the name of it, that wasn't symmetric. This meaning that some archers on the wall reached the wells, while the same archers on the same wall on the other half of the map couldn't reach the well...

What's the big problem of taking advantages of cliffs to beat your enemy ? It might be lame yes, it might show that you don't have a lot of skill.. but that is just how tactics work...

There are indeed a lot of others cards that could be OP in certain situations, War Eagle like you mentioned, Skyfire drake... Even energy parasites could use cliffs to their advantage...
[/quote]
So as you said you did not play a lot of pvp.
To compare the effect of energyparasites/skyfires being more mobile on maps with cliffs to the one of cliffdancing is wrong.
You could counteract to those fairly easily. Walls near your own wells or monuments you could block by summoning a unit there.
Interesting option since it made you for example play a t1 unit while going t2 etc.
I dont realy get how you want to use cliffs with skyfires anyways besides playing around gravity surge.
Micro against gladiatrix etc was interesting but not something suddenly broken by having a few more cliffs around you.
Cliffdancing is very different to this.
You take that wall a screen away from your opponent and you win.
You build that well or rallying banner right there and you win.
Thats not how tactics in a videogame should work no.
As I already said before in this thread the tactical option to win a game instantly by using it should not be in the game.

2 Player rPvE - new all time record

Changes, so if more than 2 players are in unranked PvP, the kicking logic is disabled. (will be live in about 40 minutes)

Hi 
I would like to see the npc bandit walker added to the current playable card base!
Just love playing bandits lol ?

So I was playing some pvp, and I came across a couple of Avatar of Frosts. They get that shield and stuff, and I found it a little hard to determine how much damage was needed to get rid of it completely before it would refresh, so I could determine when the best time to go all in was. But there are no numbers on the shield (other than written in his ability set), which can be a little hard to get accustomed to when I haven't seen one in forever.
I've been playing League of Legends for about 8 years, so I've grown accustomed to the way they've set up their health bars.

It occured to me that we might be able to implement a similar system for our HP bars and shields for units and buildings in out game, so that we can determine how much is left much more accurately and quickly. I know this can be fixed with a lot of experience, but I'd think this would help the newer players more too. My suggestion would be to add a half line for every 100 points of health/shield and a full line for every 1000; just like in LoL. I definately think it could help all kinds of play if it could be implemented at all. (It could also help with damage spells to better determine when to use them) 
What do you guys think?
Edit 1: just realized S units might need something a little different, I don't know.

Guns of Lyr speedrun replay to add for your list of replays:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O539pdiE7Uw
 

Hello fellow Skylords!
It is time for new warriors to step into the ring and for fresh blood to prove its worth. Who will win the Stress Test Rookies#2?
 
Format?
It will be a 1vs1 Double Elimination best of one tournament, the  finals will be best of 3 (grand final: one match, no reset). Winners and losers finals will be all played on stream.
And it will be without the top20 of the 1on1 duel ranking (and those who have been up there). Please let the rookies step up and battle this one out.
 
Prize Pool! (subject to change)
1st place  - 1500 BFP + a boosterpack + Lyrish Knight Promo
2nd place - 1000BFP + a boosterpack + Grinder
3rd place - 700 BFP + a boosterpack
4th place - 500 BFP + a boosterpack
5th place  - 150 BFP
6th place  - 150 BFP
7th place  - 150 BFP
8th place  - 150BFP
 
 
When?
On 06.04.19 starting on 4pm CET, the stream will start about 30 minutes in advance.
 
Where?
In the Sparring grounds, get the community observer maps to enable observers/streaming.
=>LINK<=
Extract the folder to Documents/Battleforge/
 
Organisation?
The tournament brackets will be on Challonge, so register and join the tournament there. Please use your in game account name to make communication and finding your enemy easier.
=>LINK To CHALLONGE<=
The streaming channel that will be covering the tournament is DasToggy on twitch.tv .
In case of problems contact me or one of my mods via Discord or Battleforge.
A list of tournament mods and organizers: DasToggy, Karlmann
 
Rules!
-Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake.
-Not showing up to your match with after 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins.
-After your match go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats . The brackets will be updated automatically.
-The Map Pool is: Haladur, Simai, Elyon, Lajesh, Uro and Wazhai (same pool as in ranked duel). The first match of the round will be played on Haladur, then it is losers choice. Second round will start with Simai, third one... you get the drill.
 
So again in short:
-Decide to play and register for the Tournament in Challonge, please use the "Sign in with alternate Name" feature if your Challonge account does not match your Battleforge name.
-Download and extract the community observer maps.
-Be online before 4pm CET on 06.04.19 and contact your enemy, invite him into a party and then host the first map (Haladur) and play the match.  If you are not able to contact your enemy and he is not contacting you, proceed as if you have won.
-If you win, go to Challonge and confirm your win and update the bracket. It will show your next enemy.
-Contact your next enemy, invite him to a party and then host (Simai/Elyon/loser's choice/...). Repeat until you are in the finals.
-Winner and Losers finals will be all played on stream. Communication will be via Battleforge, the stream and Discord.
-Win the tournament and eternal glory. Also some BFP and maybe cards.
 
Reply in this thread if you have questions, I will check it out later. This was a lot of text but as described under "So again in short" it is not a lot of work.
I would love to see this community grow again and the competitive scene develop aswell. This is an opportunity for less experienced players to have some first hand tournament experience...again.
Please recheck this thread before the tournament in case the map pool, rules or staff/mods will change.
 
Best regards,
DasToggy

Shadow/Frost is generally considered to be the strongest PvP deck for the following reasons:
Strong, versatile, and easy to play T1. Cheap, high damage units like Nightcrawler and Darkelves, as well as very efficient offensive units like Mountaineer. Building protection, CC, and Aura of Corruption make for very strong defense. One of the strongest T3 in the game (up there with pure fire) due to things like Grigori, Tremor, Silverwinds, and Timeless One. Stonekin is also very strong due to having the best building protection, CC, and knockback units (fairly unbreakable defense with all of this).  Adamant skin + Crystal Fiend means that they can just defend until the power pools are big and then they can streamroll their opponents.
One deck that's pretty underrated, but extremely strong is pure nature.  Pure nature has some insane strength (Energy Parasite, Deep One, Shrine of Memory, and Parasite Swarm are all absurdly strong), but also some huge weaknesses: no building protection, no direct damage spells, and no high damage ranged units (except for Spikeroot, which is expensive and has to root before attacking) makes them extremely weak on defense.  If played properly, however, I would argue that pure nature actually beats every deck except fire/nature and stonekin.
Note that this is for 1v1.  In 2v2 pure fire + stonekin is the strongest combination.

If I had to make a ranking for the strength of every deck it would be probably something like this:
 
Low Tier decks (you can still reach Prime with them, but the best players will abuse the sh*t out of you)
10. Bandits 
- No Crowd control
- Awful matchups against most meta decks
- worst defensive capabilities out of all decks
Average Tier decks (mostly with some massive strengths, but without being well rounded)
9. Pure Nature
- No reliable M Counter 
- weak defensive capabilities
- Nature T1 can get abused by stuff like Phasetower 
+ deals very well with L units
+ the pure cards are massive and can turn games around on their own
 
8. Pure Frost 
+ destroys pure Fire
+ very high scaling and arguably strongest T3 in the game
- Frost T1 is unreliable due to the lack of swift units
- T2 is very War Eagle reliant
 
7. Fire Frost 
+ high snowball potential against decks with weak defensive capabilities 
+ Finally got the much needed reliable M counter (Stormsinger buff, yay)
- very hard to play (shield micro has to be on point to apply any sort of pressure against Frost splashes) 
- Has just a mediocre S counter 
 
6. Pure Shadow 
+ massive dps units in the early T2 stage
+ Harvester can turn games around by himself 
+ no bad matchups apart from fire nature 
- unreliable crowd control
- Shadowmage-micro is one of the most difficult things to execute perfectly (makes pure Shadow incredibly hard to play when you reach a certain level)
 
5. Shadow Nature
+ arguably the strongest early T2 in the game (cheap units + cheap cc)
+ best colour to play against an extended T1 
+ destroys pure Frost & Shadow Frost 
- gets majorly destroyed by pure Fire
- falls off late game
 
Top Tier decks (definitely superior in some aspects and therefore ended up getting played very often):
 
4. Stonekin 
+ Pretty much the strongest T2 in the game
+ translates well from defense to offense in an overwhelming fashion
+ scales well into late T2 
+ combined strength of building protection and crowd control
- very slot intensive deck 
- you are forced to either play nature or frost T1, who are both sort of lackluster 
 
3. Fire Nature
+ the most well rounded T2 (deals well with S, M, L & XL units)
+ no bad matchups except for shadow frost
- arguably the worst T3 in the entire game
 
God Tier decks (most played & strongest decks for ranked games):
2. Shadow Frost
+ Low risk high reward deck 
+ perfect scaling curve (You start strong, but you get even stronger as the game progresses) 
+ absurd defensive capabilities (can come back from large deficites, especially in T3)
+ Insane T3 
+ easy to play 
- low outplay potential in T2 (struggles against perfectly excecuted Shadow Nature & pure Fire) 
 
1. Pure Fire
+ Most aggressive deck in the game (if you are ahead you will be able to destroy your opponent)
+ Only T3 that can match timeless one defenses 
+ best M counter in the game 
+ Cliffdancers are the most abnoxious thing in the entire game 
+ Wildfire is the most powerful damage spell in T2 
- lacks air control
- requires a long T1 to prevent snowballing through early L units 
 
The differences between the decks aren't as big as you may think, you can do well with every single one as long as you are skilled enough and there are only a few scenarios that result into a true autolose (cliffdancer on yshia hehe).

Back in PvP, cliffing or to "abuse" cliffs with long range ground units (e.g. Firedancers on Lajesh) was often called a lame move and mostly you got a really negative response from your enemy when you did it. On the Forum, it was about 50/50 people saying its against the code of honor and shut not be abused, and also those who defend it saying: as long its possible and not considered a bug by defs, its legal and strategic
Whats your opinion, should it be considered bad manner? Or do you accept or even use it as a main strategy on certain maps? Would be interesting to see what we will encounter once we can PvP Brawl it out again.

Personally... i did it some time as a rocky as fire, until realized its hated and also switched to pure shadow.
So i avoided it mainly, and i guess i will too in future

Ocean new all time record 15:53.2

Thanks! Yes, I want to make a guide for every T1 faction. It may take some time though due to current exams.

When you meet a top PvP player in rPVE

I shared all replays of the best runs i did those 2 month on this topic, if you want to look.