Mage vs hunter secret cost?

My mage generally gets wiped by hunters - largely due to their 2 point secrets vs my 3 points - unless I’m fortunate with my early card sequence.

Similar can occur with rogue but its less frequent and their secrets less directly game influencing.

Anyone know the reason for what appears such a misweighted ‘power’ imbalance.

Its already bad enough hunter fire traps trigger pre-emptively but frost armor secrets dont.

Why mages would develop their primary armor spell so it doesnt protect against either ranged or spells is baffling.

I realise I can swap to playing hunter to benefit from the bad game design.

Just baffled why it exists.

Uh, what? You get the armor before they hit you. It very much is preemptive.

the armour doesnt trigger unless the player is physically hit

so ranged/spells ignore it

same with hunter, and the mage one can kill minions that are a lot more important

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= nonsense - fire trap now triggers before the minion hits the hunter - and frost armor doesnt kill anything. it just provides 8 points armor protection

Are you talking about ice barrier or flame ward. Ice barrier certainly triggers before damage. Flame ward triggers after

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ice barrier.
it only triggers if the player is hit physically.

so you can have the secret up but casts or ranged dont trigger it

I don’t understand what you mean by pre-emptively then, explosive trap doesn’t trigger on spells either.

hunter explosive trap isnt an armour spell - it is a defensive ‘mine’

the point is that if they can design defensive spell effects to trigger prior to the character being hit - then ice armor should be designed that way

ice armor is a mage’s primary defensive protection

it is supremely illogical that the mage’s main defence doesnt protect against 2/3rds of attacks

and as far as card balance - its about the most imbalanced thing in mage card mechanics

its a 3 point cost - so more expensive the paladin and hunter secrets - so you can cast it less frequently and it dosnt work a lot of the time because it doesnt trigger

ive lost count of the number of games i lose where hunters just sit back and ping the character with ranged attacks and spells while ice armor is loaded but doesnt trigger

mage is already stupid with rng. but i like that to an extent - i play mage because its the most unreliable class Ive found to play - makes it the most difficult class to win with

the rest are pretty much cookie cutters

i accept the rng - but the ice armor is just failure of game balance design

Mages secrets generally more powerful more often than not. They have a better potential to stop bigger threats
sorry to say frost armor might not be great at stopping a lot of aggro unless you already are using other forms of stall

Hunter is among the best a dealing face damage without having to attack face so just accept that

Paladins 1 cost secrets are generally much less impactful during a game

As far as defense goes you may get better value out of flame ward, a well timed spell counter, and nether wind portal

If they made it activate with taking any kind of face damage might be a bit too much. best they could maybe do is keep the same activation requirements and bump the armor up to 10 but reading that still seems like that would be too much of a buff. Last suggestion would be to keep the same activation and armor and freeze the attacking minion after

Both Ice Barrier and Explosive Trap trigger when the hero is attacked with a minion/weapon, and both trigger before the attack connects.

Are you getting Ice Barrier and Flame Ward mixed up?

I mean, I’m pretty sure Warlock and Shaman find it more difficult to win than Mage these days.

honestly - there is zero thought in these responses. asked and answered multiple times.

the point is about ice barrier spell not triggering against range/spells - which is on the face of it illogical.

the hunter explosive trap was mentioned because it was changed from triggering it after it hit the player - to now it triggers before a minion hits the hunter.

so its that specific mechanic change thats similar to what I am asking for - there’s no comparability in the spells themselves

ice barrier is a 3 point spell - it should be superior to hunter 2 point spells. dont go looking for direct comparability in effect as it shouldnt exist

the central point is - why on earth would mages - of al classes - design an armour that doesnt trigger against 2/3rds of attacks. ie ranged and spells. especially when mage secrets are so high cost vs other classes - the secrets should be superior not inferior in effect

and if logic isnt relevant - then from a game mechnics point of view its simpler still - mages principally rely on that spell for dmg mitigation.

other classes augment their minions - which in effect becomes their dmg mitigation.

mages dont have that capability - so their defensive spells need to be more effective. you get one cast one effect vs other classes being able to augment multiple toons with one cast

its simply unbalanced and poor design

it does work that way. the minion attacks, you gain the armor, then damage is dealt.

you have to counter the meta, if you keep losing to something because of a dead card, switch it out for another card, don’t expect the game to work the way you want it to, work around it. mages have much better direct damage spells then hunters, burn them down and use counterspell when your life gets below like 15 and you think they’re gonna kill command next turn.

it’s a classic card, it wasn’t designed to deal with the new hero power hunters. unfortunately it’s not gonna be good unless the best hunter decks become minion based again. They can’t redesign the classic cards every time a new expansion comes out.

because that’s not how the spell works in world of warcraft, only effects melee characters.

Another mage gang member

incorrect - ice armor mage spell in wow works against the following once it is cast. it doesnt require a hit to trigger it

Apply Aura: Absorb Damage (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)
Value: 437

it was different in 2014. It had a haste buff and slowed melee attackers

iron i get what ya saying but honestly ice barrier is thrash even if it worked againts spell…if you dont keep the opponent board clean its as if you had never play it

recommend flame ward//counter spell instead…opponents cant play much around those at all…explosive can be soak with certain minions(early game only Lone Champion can soak that greatly but like no one play him so technicly you can get away with it)…and sheeping secret usually end up on a garbo minion(high ranking play)…my fav secrets would be flame wards…counter…spellbender(ppl usually dont run spellbender but i do)

overtime i gave up on duplicate(too slow for current metas and its played around often)…sheeping same case…played around :S

here a “trade” secret…if you dont use a full net deck you can slip in mystery cards for opponents…opponent generally expect a net decker…so if you play something
not expected then you get the “surprised pikachu face” from the opponent…well honestly i have to wonder if you could slip proper mystery cards in seeing how you been reacting to ice barrier not working the way ya were expecting…ight…if ya ever make it pass diamond 4 i think by then you would know whats rly busted

what i’am saying is that your too quick to complain…learn the game first…and in the case of being a new player…lacking access to key cards would be a problem as blizz has yet to make the game newb friendly…and if you dislike playing meta…maybe watch wowhobbs on youtube…could be inspirational for ya…the only player i know that dont net deck like all of the sheeps in the game…only downside is that he make a fair chunk of misplay but still nice to watch him as he strive with non-meta…have a nice day

Ive played it for 8 years. was always aware of the issue

but the new hunter zerg has made it absurd

my view was- why have cards in a deck that dont work as intended?

between

  • ice barrier
  • fubar derate of evocation - the spell was already almost unusable given how many duplicate spells it tends to throw up. at 2 point cost i often only get one spell out of it
  • and getting 3 x same spell in a row from the main mage quest 2 x running

you can see hearthstone designers are basically saying mage is rng x rng - dont care factor

i dont mind a fair degree of unpredictability as i said.

but this cycle its gone to the point cookie cutter no brains are wiping mage for fun. prior i could win by outtthinking,

its become very hard to achieve that

that said - i take the collective point that you shouldnt complain to get things equalized - just fall in line with design flaws

i simply cant help feeling anyone with a +120 iq should know how to design some basic equilibrium into a game.

but they never did in wow so why start in hearthstone. same bs op tween baiting they did with dk the demon hunter