Balance was balanced

[Rhyn]

So when people start melding crit over DH late in the raid tier (~3000+ is the current estimate), then spear will be 0.62x of the new nerfed balance. Which is still not competitive with balance. And until then it's 0.4-0.45x since people stack DH and only crit if they have to.

[Furious]

So when people start melding crit over DH late in the raid tier (~3000+ is the current estimate), then spear will be 0.62x of the new nerfed balance. Which is still not competitive with balance. And until then it's 0.4-0.45x since people stack DH and only crit if they have to.

What are you talking about, not competitive with balance? It's not competing with balance. You can't decide to use balance instead of spear, you get one or the other. If it was the same as balance, it would be both immediately better because it interacts with healing and crit-based mechanics, and equally boring.

You can't say "I don't want spear, I want balance", and hey presto. There is now an opportunity cost to giving up a spear in hope of balance that didn't exist before. If you get spear, and reroll it hoping to get balance, you absolutely lose on average, even with base levels of crit. That choice only gets worse as people get more crit.

[loreleidiangelo]

So when people start melding crit over DH late in the raid tier (~3000+ is the current estimate), then spear will be 0.62x of the new nerfed balance. Which is still not competitive with balance. And until then it's 0.4-0.45x since people stack DH and only crit if they have to.

I feel like you're kinda missing the forest for the trees here. What ASTS will have to do now is make meaningful CHOICES, which they have never had to do in regards to their cards since 3.2. Do you take that guaranteed, in your hand RIGHT NOW ".4-.45 Balance", or do you dump it on the gamble that you get lucky and get that 15% chance jackpot on your next Draw? In most every scenario you'll be using the guaranteed option that you have rather than run the risk of dumping it and still not hitting the jackpot on your next go-around. Theoretically, it's the same with Arrow, though I can't say for certain as I haven't done the actual math.

Basically, Balance is still "the best", but since its power is a little bit more aligned relative to the other cards you won't just be throwing those other cards out endlessly because you don't want to "waste" Expanded Royal Road.