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Frost cards tier list (PvE)


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Hello! It has been a few months since I've posted another tier list and it is time to evaluate other faction! This time it is a frost PvE tier list!!

You can obtain the tier list here: https://tiermaker.com/create/frost-cards-pve-tier-list-15125367

 

Let's see how you would rate each of the cards! Mine is shown below.

 

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12 hours ago, Dutchy said:

How I would probably do it 🤔
yes, that battleship is in the same tier as Juice Tank only because of Dallarian (❤️

image.png.6624aadc38132ec48bc533be899e62e8.png

We've had seen on the deck tierlists that one tier up/down was mostly a personal preference, same for me here for some cards. But this looks a world better to me!

First things that came to my mind, for me Frost Mage, Coat, Shard, Ice Age, Witch and Shatter Ice one tier higher.

One down at first glance would be for me Stormsinger, Hut, SoM, Sage, Lyrish, Wintertide and all building protectors from your B-tier.

But as we are speaking about 1/20  parts of a deck and not about complete builds as in other games this is very much about personal flavors.

 

But thanks to @KserSke for bringing the topic of tierlists back on the table, as @Metagross31 cut it perfect starting this some time ago - the discussion of such lists is always a big fun for many people!!

Fire tierlist when? 🤗

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Though it has effect on some longer maps it is never a life saver. In the most cases it drains your energy when needed in early game and gives you energy in late game when having enough anyways.

If it was needed on any longer map all not-frost splashes would be not playable, which is not the thing.

Think it is quite well placed in F. That does not mean it is not playable after all, but it is suuuuuuper niche and not optimal in almost any scenario. Cause even a frost splash would perform better without even on longer maps.

Imo the only good thing JT is good for in most scenarios is for building up 120-pop armies w/o any energy management at all

Edited by Volin
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7 minutes ago, Volin said:

Though it has effect on some longer maps it is never a life saver. In the most cases it drains your energy when needed in early game and gives you energy in late game when having enough anyways.

If it was needed on any longer map all not-frost splashes would be not playable, which is not the thing.

Think it is quite well placed in F. That does not mean it is not playable after all, but it is suuuuuuper niche and not optimal in almost any scenario. Cause even a frost splash would perform better without even on longer maps.

Imo the only good thing JT is good for in most scenarios is for building up 120-pop armies w/o any energy management at all

I guess you are correct, though for some players (like me) it can really be a lifesaver, or at least sort of "back-up" if I fail spectacularly and my armies are completely destroyed (Ocean or Raven's End comes to mind). It can give me more opportunities to rebuild and get back to game. But yeah, I wouldn't raise it higher than E. 

Noticed that quite a bit of newer people (I did this too) automatically play JTs everywhere whenever possible (even in rPVE's). This probably stems from the fact that early on you cannot know/covert the power in well to the rate it drains. So people spam JTs because it "saves" power, but in reality, putting it on a well that lasts 20-30 mins in a match that generally takes max 20 minutes is obviously counterproductive. And as you say, early on, that power is well spent elsewhere. 

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Certainly a number of KserSke's video I found on youtube has helped me do a number of maps so thanks! Totally worth it just to see face of the one doing all those videos! 🙂

 

I think Frontier Keep B + Ice Breaker is nicer for solo (since it lasts 15s, I pretty activate it as I am engaging) but definitely can see Frontier Keep R + Ice Barrier better for multiplayer due to frozen enemies taking full damage (and the 50% can be replaced by Home Soil which is better for bosses/enemies that can not be frozen any how).

 

I also use Juice Tanks often as a "fail safe" and I'll cop to having tried Juice Tanks for rPvE but have learned that is counterproductive since. I guess one well placed Juice Tank is all you should need though (covering 3+ power wells) and that only sets you back less than 2 mins in term of power. Yeah maybe E tier.

 

 

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Hey guys, 

Frost is my favorite faction and I've played 400+ games in expert cpve maps and in rpve 9 and 10. This is the deck I mainly use for rpve 9 and 10:

unknown.thumb.png.1fa1950ad8aa87ebcf279d9880653ccb.png

 

Lets jump in the Tier List. As for the Nature Tier List, I tried to order the cards within each tier so that the best ones are on the left side and the worse ones on the right side. For spacing purposes, I also avoided to rank each individual affinity if there's no substantial ranking difference in them. For example: both Northern Keep would be in the same A-Tier, so I only ranked one of them. Conversely, there's a huge difference in Frost Bite's affinities, so you'll see them both.

Here it is:

my-image.thumb.png.847f5079958965939881e8986c41051a.png

 

A few comments (i am at home a bit bored with nothing to do):
-first things first, I have to clarify my ranking criteria for S-Tier cards. S-Tier cards satisfy one of the two following conditions: 1) are incredibly good in almost any situation and you always want to include them in your deck if it meets their orb requirements (Examples could be Shrine of War, Regrowth and Frenetic Assault). 2) cards that circumvent rules of the game by warping the gameplay (eg. Decomposer and Amii Monument), bypassing orbs and cooldowns (Enlightenment and Offering) or by simply giving the player more power (Breeding Grounds, Resource Booster and Construction Hut).
-Northern Keep is surely one of the best towers in the game, probably only second to Necroblaster. Just build 2 of them and you basically have invincible units.
-While a T1 with Master Archers, Frost Mage, Barrier and Home Soil is more than enough for lower difficulties and rpve 9, Northern Keep and Glyph of Frost are mandatory for even trying rpve 10.
-Avatar of Frost is the best Frost T3 unit - whoever says that Core Dredge is better clearly has not played enough games with Pure Frost 👀. Use Ice Age G with Avatar and you basically have an invincible unit.
-Shrine of Martyrs is a B-Tier card and in my opinion is the worst void return building in the game. It's still a very good card and makes Pure Frost viable in the hardest scenarios, but you still have to use power to gain back power.
-Winter Witch is the best shielding card in the game - it really outshines Coat of Protection. Winter Witch's ability costs way less than Coat and applies more shields - which is a huge thing in situations where Shrine of Martyrs is your only void return option. In those situations you simply don't have enough power to cast Coat + Freezes + any other supporting spell (like Ice Tornado or Ice Age). If you say that Coat > Winter Witch then you must always have played Frost with a Shrine of War support from another player. Coat is only used as a backup shield as it needs Ice Age to be completely viable, WW shield refreshes itself automatically.
-Frost Shard is the best spell Frost has. Super useful in many situations - here are 3 rpve examples 1) vs Twilight it can insta freeze the Willzapper before it paralyses your units 2) vs Lost Souls it shines in freezing the lost dancers before they Disenchant your shields 3) vs Fire it is mostly used to freeze Volcano.
-A few words on the fan-favorite Battleship - the card is good and I used extensively in the past since its ability is very good to take down spawn camps from distance (too bad now Ice Tornado serves the same purpose without binding power). Battleship can still be used as a strong support unit instead of Ironclads: make sure to its ability as often as you can. 
-I feel like the problem with Frost cards is that many of those are too situational and serve a very specific purpose. Cards like Ice Age, Wintertide, all building-support spells, Amii Ritual, Wardens Sigil are good and can be very useful, but only on very narrow situations. Same goes for many lf the units listed in the C and D Tier. I really like cards such as Tremor, Defenders, Lightblade, Imperials and Lyrish Knight, but they get outclassed by more flexible units. 
-Another problem Frost has is with offensive towers, especially at T2 and T3. Cannon Tower is surely good but can be lackluster in situations where you get attacked by flying units (and teching Gravity Surge is kinda meh for these kinds of scenarios). Stronghold is too weak in this current iteration - even with Skyelfs support (but don't worry, there are plans for buffs). The other offensive towers are just bad.
-Juice Tank is a meme-Tier card - even if some pros (👀) are trying to promote its use. Never ever build this useless thing, unless you just want to meme around lol.

Edited by Donaar
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One thing that would be cool is that if one of the long-standing Frost Campaign Experts would compile a list of maps/wells where a Juice Tank actually is viable.

We could reference that in the future to newcomers

"Juice Tank and you" 😃

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4 hours ago, Kapo said:

One thing that would be cool is that if one of the long-standing Frost Campaign Experts would compile a list of maps/wells where a Juice Tank actually is viable.

Here is a comprehensive list of maps and wells where Juicy Tank is actually viable:

-

 

Jokes aside, Juice Tank lives in the contradiction of being a card that one wants to build as soon as possible (to maximize long-term return) but only gets value from a certain point - that is whenever the well would run out of power (since production per time increment remains the same).

Consider a 600 capacity power well - it lasts for 20m. That's the lowest well capacity in the game. If you build JT as soon as the well its built you maximize the long-term power gain. However JT is effectively useless for those 20mins due to the production per time remaining the same. Playing a card that is only a waste of power for such a long time is never worthed in my opinion. 

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16 minutes ago, Donaar said:

Here is a comprehensive list of maps and wells where Juicy Tank is actually viable:

-

I can add to this list aswell:

-











PS: But joking aside, I played one here and math says it was worth building it (as I had some unused slots anyway) or it did not matter (for the action count). If it not saved me an action, it was worth time wise, as I had a very long T2 phase.

 

Edited by Volin
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I definitely agree you don't need Juice Tank for any map but I also think there is no doubt it reduces the difficulty of a lot of maps where you can defend/accumulate power a little longer and win by power advantage. Maybe people (especially players like myself who been playing game for a while now but is by no means an "expert", actually I consider myself a noob on many aspects of the game) should "up our game" and learn to play game without Juice Tank! 🙂 

 

Although on other hand, I think is "viable" on a lot of maps because even all time top 10 rankings aren't that much faster than 20min mark. Another thing is if I look at Bad Harvest with sub 2min times, while I think that is cool and amazing achievement (that I probably can't replicate myself personally), I also just want to play a "decent/fun game" and that is not my cup of tea. So ultimately, while no map "requires" Juice Tank, most maps in fact are long enough for it to have some positive impact for the average players.

 

 

Scanning through the all time rankings, these are the only maps where I found the 1st rank is above the 20m mark (and most of them aren't even that much above 20min):

  1. Blight (4p map solo) - 24m 55.9s (starts with 3 wells at 600)
  2. Siege of Hope - 21m 56.2s (starts with 2 wells at 600)
  3. Nightmare's End (2p map solo) - 20m 48.1s (starts with 3 wells at 1200)
    1. PS: I think is totally pointless for this map with power wells near ritualist being 900 and you got plenty of other power wells on map.
  4. Defending Hope - 20m 35.5s (starts with 4 wells at 600)

 

1.) For Blight you are racing against the waves AND you got plenty of extra wells on map that it probably doesn't make sense to use Juice Tank.

2.) For Siege of Hope, you got plenty of power wells on map and you probably want to rush to them due map objectives anyway.

3.) For Nightmare's End, you definitely don't need Juice Tank but from my sub-optimal attempts solo-ing, it helps (I recall reading this is one of the longer map on average); you might to Juice Tank later power wells instead.

4.) For Defending Hope, you got plenty of power wells so you also don't need Juice Tank.

 

For me personally, I am not crazy for rankings/having the absolute best run times and think a couple mins slower for safety margins is what is "fun" for me. I can always destroy my Juice Tank(s) after a couple mins (after 2mins, 600 power wells will deplete in 21mins instead of 20 so by 21min mark, I got extra 25 power to work with accounting for void power lost of destroying Juice Tank, 55 extra power if I covered 2 wells, etc). I definitely used Juice Tank way more often in the old BF days (speaking of which, I think the SR team has increase starting power wells on a number of maps). I guess a short way of putting it is Juice Tank is like training wheels of sorts.

 

Edited by Lans
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8 hours ago, Lans said:

there is no doubt it reduces the difficulty of a lot of maps where you can defend/accumulate power a little longer and win by power advantage.

There is stong doubt, thats what some of us want to say. You invest energy when needed most and get your "profit" when not needed at all.

In fact Juice Tanks make things mostly even harder, draining your energy (when you need it) and slowing you down when things are prolly still spicy.

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8 hours ago, Lans said:

 

  1. Blight (4p map solo) - 24m 55.9s (starts with 3 wells at 600)
  2. Siege of Hope - 21m 56.2s (starts with 2 wells at 600)
  3. Nightmare's End (2p map solo) - 20m 48.1s (starts with 3 wells at 1200)
  4. Defending Hope - 20m 35.5s (starts with 4 wells at 600)

I think those are horrible examples:

1. On Blight spending 50 power for nothing can be detrimental even in 4P runs - I can't imagine how terrible it is in solo since you also have to defend waves coming from other camps. 

2 & 4. You also need to consider the fact that Juice Tank needs another 1.40min (100s -> 50 power) to be completely worthed. So in both SoH and DH it is kinda useless. Also, in both maps you have enough wells to work with so... 

3. A 1200 power well takes 40min to deplete... 

 

It is perfectly fine to say that there are some situations in which Juice Tank is mathematically worthed. But playing a card that does nothing for such a long time is never worthed in my opinion.

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21 minutes ago, Volin said:

There is stong doubt, thats what some of us want to say. You invest energy when needed most and get your "profit" when not needed at all.

In fact Juice Tanks make things mostly even harder, draining your energy (when you need it) and slowing you down when things are prolly still spicy.

To be fair, that only applies when you actually use that power well. I think debate about Juice Tank needs to consider, that most people that could gain some actual use from the card are not the best players. Playing as a newcomer means you can easily waste lot of power not knowing map/spawns/mechanics and thus, JT can give you the opportunity (on long maps) to try again few more times without restarting the map.

First time I played Mo on expert, I slogged heavily through the scenario and JTs helped me to win the map by pure brute force - I threw enough bodies at the bandits that ultimately I won by pure attrition. Without the extra power, I would have not done it. But of course, this is far from any good or ideal solution to a map I guess 😄

It's basically preemptive failsafe, where the player basically goes - I am not the best, I know I will most likely fail this attack/objective several times, so I would prefer to have another chance or two, considering the game is gonna be long one anyways. The actual question stands, whether or not such thinking should be encouraged. 

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On 8/12/2022 at 4:41 AM, Nemoo SK said:

To be fair, that only applies when you actually use that power well. I think debate about Juice Tank needs to consider, that most people that could gain some actual use from the card are not the best players. Playing as a newcomer means you can easily waste lot of power not knowing map/spawns/mechanics and thus, JT can give you the opportunity (on long maps) to try again few more times without restarting the map.

First time I played Mo on expert, I slogged heavily through the scenario and JTs helped me to win the map by pure brute force - I threw enough bodies at the bandits that ultimately I won by pure attrition. Without the extra power, I would have not done it. But of course, this is far from any good or ideal solution to a map I guess 😄

It's basically preemptive failsafe, where the player basically goes - I am not the best, I know I will most likely fail this attack/objective several times, so I would prefer to have another chance or two, considering the game is gonna be long one anyways. The actual question stands, whether or not such thinking should be encouraged. 

Exactly. The other point I seem to keep repeating is you can destroy Juice Tanks early and don't need to use it for the full duration of the wells.

 

@Donaar If you actually read the whole post, I later explained/implied that Blight solo (item 1), Siege of Hope (item 2), and Defending Hope (item 4) doesn't make sense to use Juice Tank. For Nightmare's End, I'll concede that rankings is full sub-40min runs but there is enough runs over 20min marks that as I said "you might to Juice Tank later power wells instead" (meaning your starting wells shouldn't need it but your 2nd orb wells which I believe are still 600 power wells might benefit; I'll have to play for daily to confirm later; PS: never mind, power wells near ritualist is 900 so big NOPE for Juice Tank). I was trying to split hairs that yes you basically don't need Juice Tank based on times from rankings (those 4 maps solo were the only mathematical candidates; based on assumption standard wells are 600 power/20min to drain and even none of those need and in fact most of them are counter productive to use Juice Tank) but also according to rankings, the average player does in fact play long enough on many maps (I didn't do a thorough job here) such that Juice Tank could be a net positive.

 

 

Edited by Lans
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