Pure Fire vs Pure Frost

[Chorba]

Hi. 

I've been playing almost every element (besides shadows mix and pure shadow) in pvp and one matchup I couldn't work no matter how hard I tried is pure fire vs pure frost.

I genuinely think this issue needs to be addressed. I wouldn't mind a hard matchup, as this is part of the game, but I honestly feel like this is hardly playable.

As long as you don't get some massive t1 lead (map dependant - can't always scavy rush, and even if you do the frost player can defend it), on T2 you get destroyed in any point of the game. 

Defending is next to impossible because fire doesn't have building protect spells, so even if you kill the units a well probably will drop. 

frost has stormsinger + abillity, area ice shield, skyelf, cc (coldsnap) and homesoil and you have drakes. can't even play gladi for the skyelf cause they'll get destroyed by an eagle so

you're force to spam drakes which doesn't work cause you can only cast ravage on one of them.

Carrying Global warming (which is not effective AT ALL in any other matchup) is a bit dumb, cause it's only for frost matchups (and maybe fire frost).

Rushing T3 doesn't fit fire playstyle mostly and it is not that effective since frost players can easily counter juggernaut stamepede, even if you manage to get one.

 

Would love to get some insight, and/or suggestions. I couldn't think of anything, because pure frost isn't as strong as pure fire in PVP in general and nerfing frost is definietly not the right call.

 

 

[Deadman]

This does say that Pure frost is good against Pure fire 

[Dallarian]

When Frost player goes for second monument, take monument yourself, not a power well. Don't defend T1 vs T2.
Play defensively - kill War Eagles with Skyfire Drakes. Spawn undazed Enforcers to kill Stormsingers. White Rangers? Hmm...

When you get to Tier 3, do not use Juggernaut defensively. Juggernaut is way better at killing structures than Tremor. Disenchant breaks Taunt / Freeze cycle. When Jugger dies, spawn new one. If you aren't behind all the game, such pressure should be incredibly difficult to deal with. Stampade can be only stopped by more units spam + well placed Glacier Shell.
If you want to defend, use Giant Slayers, they are also great at killing power wells.

[Chorba]

1 hour ago, Dallarian said:

When Frost player goes for second monument, take monument yourself, not a power well. Don't defend T1 vs T2.
Play defensively - kill War Eagles with Skyfire Drakes. Spawn undazed Enforcers to kill Stormsingers. White Rangers? Hmm...

When you get to Tier 3, do not use Juggernaut defensively. Juggernaut is way better at killing structures than Tremor. Disenchant breaks Taunt / Freeze cycle. When Jugger dies, spawn new one. If you aren't behind all the game, such pressure should be incredibly difficult to deal with. Stampade can be only stopped by more units spam + well placed Glacier Shell.
If you want to defend, use Giant Slayers, they are also great at killing power wells.

If that's okay, I will enclose our today's replay, maybe someone better than me will be able to help you. And me. I recently do pretty badly vs Pure Fire.
 

Frost vs Fire.pmv 25.17 kB · 0 downloads

The t1 was a mistake, I agree. Killing stormsingers with enforcers I don't find so easy - stormsingers are swift, and I only have one charge. plus, you always carry a war eagle with you that 2 shots the enforcer.

The jugger play was a mix of tilt + I wanted it on the field because I knew my orb was gonna fall.

Thanks for the tips

[Eirias]

I haven't played this matchup in 1v1 since the buffs to mountain rowdy and white rangers (and nerfs to skyelf templar), but I typically faired decently (actually if I knew my opponent was pure frost, I preferred pure fire compared to fire nature).

My usual plan is 

1. long t1, try to gain power advantage by making the frost player go t2 early, while you stay t1, then play defensively and get lots of wells.

2. go t2 -> t3 quickly. If you have a lot of wells then it's okay if you lose a few wells here, as long as orbs stay alive

3. juggernaut to initiate base trades and close the game

This has probably changed because mountain rowdy and white rangers are very powerful vs sunstriders, but before the buffs fire t1 is pretty effective at defending vs frost t2 on lower power levels, because frost can't outrun you to attack different places on the map. Gladiatrix just loses to war eagle, so I often find that I'm playing some sunstriders to defend war eagles even in t2. So essentially, you are going t2 only for skyfire drake and disenchant. 

When you are t2, try to use as many skyfire drakes as possible. If you get a cliffing position so that gravity surge doesn't work, skyfire drake will beat stormsinger. It's really good if you can force out skyelf templars, because this makes the enemy bind power in non-offensive units which allows you to "escape" to t3 easier.

If you want to add a card to make the matchup easier, I recommend nomad (r) instead of global warming. The ability will 1-shot war eagles which lets you stay t1 much longer. Additionally, nomads are very effective at harassing frost t1.

[Chorba]

11 hours ago, Eirias said:

I haven't played this matchup in 1v1 since the buffs to mountain rowdy and white rangers (and nerfs to skyelf templar), but I typically faired decently (actually if I knew my opponent was pure frost, I preferred pure fire compared to fire nature).

My usual plan is 

1. long t1, try to gain power advantage by making the frost player go t2 early, while you stay t1, then play defensively and get lots of wells.

2. go t2 -> t3 quickly. If you have a lot of wells then it's okay if you lose a few wells here, as long as orbs stay alive

3. juggernaut to initiate base trades and close the game

This has probably changed because mountain rowdy and white rangers are very powerful vs sunstriders, but before the buffs fire t1 is pretty effective at defending vs frost t2 on lower power levels, because frost can't outrun you to attack different places on the map. Gladiatrix just loses to war eagle, so I often find that I'm playing some sunstriders to defend war eagles even in t2. So essentially, you are going t2 only for skyfire drake and disenchant. 

When you are t2, try to use as many skyfire drakes as possible. If you get a cliffing position so that gravity surge doesn't work, skyfire drake will beat stormsinger. It's really good if you can force out skyelf templars, because this makes the enemy bind power in non-offensive units which allows you to "escape" to t3 easier.

If you want to add a card to make the matchup easier, I recommend nomad (r) instead of global warming. The ability will 1-shot war eagles which lets you stay t1 much longer. Additionally, nomads are very effective at harassing frost t1.

the nomad thing sounds really cool. i'll try, thanks!

if you could watch the replay Dallarian uploaded; i did many of the things you did there.would love insight

[Eirias]

17 hours ago, Chorba said:

the nomad thing sounds really cool. i'll try, thanks!

if you could watch the replay Dallarian uploaded; i did many of the things you did there.would love insight

Did you play this on the regular server? I can't run it.

[Chorba]

5 hours ago, Eirias said:

Did you play this on the regular server? I can't run it.

yes, regular server. no idea why it wouldn't work

[Xamos]

I don't play much PvP lately (hardly any actually), but as a main fire player I can very much relate. Would have loved some changes to the obviously weak fire cards that could in theory counter pure Frost - like global warming and gladiatrix. I tried to suggest things on the discord but nothing got accepted.

I also find it very hard to fight against Frost: War eagles + Stormsinger + Area ice shield beats everything fire t2 has. Only global warming can theoretically help here but isnt very practical.

 

Global warming got reduced in power cost and aoe size. But as you mentioned it´s not at all slot-efficient and even the free PvP deck doesn't contain it. I would like to see some stats if this card is actually even used by anyone after that change. I suggested to change it different - all affected enemies take increase dmg taken and maybe get slowed aswell.

Gladiatrix got it´s ability cost reduced, but imo the purple affinity is still not worth it. I would have loved an affinity swap from purple to blue and give it a new passive to take reduced dmg from ranged attacks (like Moloch´s ability but only at ~20% reduced dmg). Maybe then both affinitys could get the enemy-buff-removal the current purple one has. This way the new blue affinity could help in such exact situations vs other slow ranged units.

And then there was Warlord as a pure fire card - would have loved to see this as a pure fire t2 that can cast a meteor. Would have been great vs slow units like war eagle but bound to such a weak unit it would have been easy to balace that properly I think. But as we know warlock got changed into a different direction ^^

 

The only matches I every won were against unexpirienced players - in late t3 were a lot of power was already in the game and thus a lot juggers. So maybe it has to be that way? Too bad I often don't make it to T3 because the frost-player just attacks with the mentioned 3 cards in use and I cant defend and just lose my wells and orbs.

[RadicalX]

Some issues mentioned here relate to the circumstance, that pure Fire has the most one dimensional T2 structure out of any PvP factions. The T2 only consists of M ground units +Skyfire Drake leaving an ideal trading pattern for Frost if it manages to get rid of the latter one. On top of that the entire pure Fire anti air arsenal (with the exception of global warming <-> area ice shield interaction) is built around splashable cards. Making these stronger would result in unintended buffs towards splash factions (i.e. Fire Nature), that have better synergistic options (i.e. crowd control). 

In regards to the approach of Fire vs Frost the general idea presented by Eirias still is very valid if you avoid close well scenarios (long T1 with high well base, passive T2, finish through superior T3 tempo options). This does provide very solid chances at winning the matchup even though it still is far from an ideal design position. We want to address this issue mid term and some first steps can be made rather sooner than later, but since pure Fire has been one of the stronger factions overall, there still are a few topics with higher priority.