[Reset Win/loss ratio + ELO]

On 20.2.2016 at 6:17 PM, Smok said:

I think there should be win/loss ratio based on games played, for example, to two months ago. So if somebody had 40% ratio at start, but after year he improved and wins 60% of games, he will have more accurate ratio displayed. It's better than allowing reset, where player makes reset after single loss to have constant 100% win/loss ratio.

The same though came to my mind. I totally agree with and support this suggestion.

Additionally I like what @LagOps said. An anonymous mode would be a great way to solve many of the problems. A mode that allows you to play anonymously in both ranked and unranked where your name isn't shown. In return you shouldn't be able to see the enemies name either. You can still play for ELO if you want to that way without being harrassed.

PS: Only read the first half of the thread.

[Daily Card Discussion]

Something that I once thought looked good on paper but is utterly useless in PvE. The only use is (as already mentioned) for CC and I'd rather use a spell for that than an immobile tower.

The biggest problem is the lack of damage of this thing for the power cost of 75. The purple affinity isn't really that good because the base damage isn't good enough to make it worth the power. In PvE you know what units you're gonna face but even on maps where I'd fight a good amount of human enemies it wasn't worth it. For some maps it's decent though where you have to defend (Insane God, Crusade).

I forgot if it's able to hit flying units but I think it might.

59 minutes ago, SilenceKiller99 said:

Seems like an okey-ish tower. Riot retreats tower is the lowest damage dealing tower in T2, this one follows up with an awfully low damage.

Frost Crystal got less damage (but not less than Rioter's Retreat).

[Daily Card Discussion]

50 minutes ago, youto000 said:

in PvE it is like boom brothers except cheaper and better but like boom brothers it is rarely used

Boom Brothers are actually cheaper. 100 power vs the 120 power you need for Virtuoso. The difference is that Boom Brothers need 4 orbs. I guess that's what you wanted to say.

IMO Boom Brothers are a great card as they deal insane XL damage for their power cost and are even tanky enough (especially at U3) to do so. In the few times I played a Fire splash in PvE and rPvE I enjoyed having them in my deck. The ability is great for clearing the small fry and takes a good chunk of health out of the bigger targets. So I'd consider them superior to Virtuoso in every way except for orbs. But that's just me.

[Daily Card Discussion]

The Fire pendant of Tremor I'd say. They got pretty comparable stats at U0 (don't checked for U3), they are both L/L and both got a building-destruction ability. The main difference is that Tremor is slow but also gets siege for it's normal unit which makes him a way superior basenuke. Tremor also got a better ability IMO as it's not cone-shaped but a circle (and 40% less power cost).

In PvE it is utterly outclassed by almost any other unit for the supposed role. For example: In a Fire splash Ashbone Pyro, Tremor, Razorleaf and Burrowers are better Siege units. Silverwind Lancers, Drones and Magma Hurler are better L counters. And there is a ton of better tanks. I'd only consider him as an L-counter in a deck that is played in that exact order but I probably won't be playing that much Shadow anyway for a long time.

IMO the card is usable in the current state and doesn't really need a change. If necessary a tiny buff could be applied. I'd either decrease the power cost by 5-10 power or increase his movement speed a little bit. Alternatives to that would be either decreasing power cost or cooldown of the ability but that would be harder to balance.

[How to make fair trades and profit [Guide]]

@PorousBoat Concerning speculating. Actually you can greatly decrease your risk (with a more average reward) if you track prices in AH over a period of time. Buy a card when it's cheap and sell when it's expensive. The great thing about this is that you don't (have to) influence the market yourself and just ride along. However this requires quite some time and great experience (and intuition). Tracking one card over several days or weeks is already work enough but to be efficient you need to keep track of several cards so that you always have one that's currently cheap.

The risk is that you might buy cards when they are at an artificial high that doesn't last. In that case you bought a pile of overpriced cards. This shouldn't happen if you tracked the card long enough though.
Additionally this only works well for cards that got a consistent flow with varying supply and demand. Core cards that are widely used and supplied like Shaman, Dreadcharger and Hurricane are good examples. The prices of those cards are between a few dozen and hundred BFP. You want to use cards that are obtained by the masses for that consistent flow and UR's and other cards that cost 1k BFP might seem like a good profit margin but in the end the flow and variation in price is usually too abrupt and unreliable so that's more speculation.

[Daily Card Discussion]

One of my personal favourites. Simple and strong but you need to understand where it makes sense to place one and the intuition or knowledge to do that accurately. One of the strongest situational cards in PvE and on some maps it can do wonders.
I really like how it is possible to use and abuse it even in higher tiers. Personally I always would've liked it to be slightly stronger (more HP and a tiny little bit more range) with increased orb and power cost (, 80) but that's just personal preference. IMO in T1 it is overpowered on some maps (and useless on others) and not quite as useful as I would prefer at T2 and T3. Main problem for everyone lusting after one of these already is that you need a few fitting cards beneath MotK to make it shine. WW, Shaman and Roots should be enough.

[Void Power, what is this and how work?]

From a game design perspective it is a genius solution to avoid camping and reward aggressive play. And the LP punishes you for losing units and buildings, while also limiting the amount of power available in the late-game. In theory after the power wells are drained all power will slowly fade away into the LP and thus it is also a limiting factor for the game time. That is never achieved though as there are timers in PvP matches. That the advantages one gets are only temporary is quite standard as a concept but usually it isn't implemented with such a consistent and clear system.

12 minutes ago, youto000 said:

so how does decomposer effect the void refund with its sacrifice ability?

It says "returning immediately 30% of the usual power refund into the power pool". The usual power refund is 90% of the unit's power cost. So you get 30% of that back immediately which is 27% of the power cost.

[Roses are red, violets are blue...]

Fire is red,

Frost is blue,

Nature is green,

That's nothing new.

 

I expect some angry shadow comments.

[Daily Card Discussion]

1 hour ago, LagOps said:

honestly a card that just prevents you from playing cards is a terrible design. i'm happy it is close to unusable. i mean what are you going to do if the enemy plays an xl unit and you can't have giant slayers? is that supposed to be fair?

Ok I agree with that one. Never though of combining it with an XL unit yourself. The question that arises from this is: What do we do with the card then?

[Daily Card Discussion]

2 hours ago, anonyme0273 said:

(can be killed by owner to get rid of the curse immediately)

That is simply ridiculous. Due to the power cost it's not worth to use it on anything that costs less than 110 power (at U2) then. It is already quite useless against Shadow (because of Motivate) and loses even more efficiency with that. I'd strongly suggest to implement a "unit can't be killed by owner" additionally to my earlier suggestions.

2 hours ago, SilenceKiller99 said:

Are you sure about this 30 seconds? The description says until the unit dies.

I'm also surprised by this. Don't have time for testing right now sadly, but that makes the spell even weaker and overpriced.
If the power cost is drastically reduced (to ~80 at U3) it would be ok. In that case it would probably even be a decent spell but in turn I wouldn't buff the green affinity (purple one still needs some love).

[Daily Card Discussion]

First of all a note: At U2 the power cost is reduced by 10 to 110. U1 and U3 decrease the cooldown by 5 seconds each.

I don't know about the design and if it is worth a slot. While you can prevent spam of one kind of unit, the unit you used it on needs to be alive for the effect to last.
Now if the unit you used it on goes into a fight and dies, the spell will be canceled and you don't want it to die that fast. But you can't let the unit roam either as it probably destroys a well or something then. Especially the best targets for the spell (spammable, with a power cost of 100 or above) are really dangerous if kept alive. Keeping it CC'ed isn't worth the cost after already using the spell.
IMO that makes it a spell that doesn't give a lasting advantage as one would hope to gain. The only scenarios I can think of where it is of good use is are either when the enemy hasn't attacked yet and wants to gather units (like a root deck maybe). You can use the spell then to stop that but you need to be fast enough to do so. The second scenario is when there's a dangerous unit you wan't to get down (Mountaineer, AoF, Juggernaut or Grigori) and you simply use the spell (green) for the constant damage (it deals 1000 over 20 seconds which is nice). But even then it's probably better to play something else as you are probably not even in risk of getting spammed.

I think the current affinities aren't good for their purpose. As you need to keep the debuffed unit alive for a while, the green affinity is simply countering the spell itself (even thought the damage is nice). And the purple affinity isn't worth the power I'd say as it does less than the green affinity.
IMO I'd buff both green and purple affinity, with the green one receiving slightly increased damage (e.g. 70 per second at U3) and the purple one applying a dmg debuff (25% at U3). The dmg debuff actually helps the spell. In exchange I wouldn't decrease the cooldown with the upgrades. So then the upgrades would be:

• Green
  • U1: 10 more damage per second
  • U2: -10 power cost
  • U3: 10 more damage per second
• Purple
  • U1: 15% dmg debuff
  • U2: -10 power cost
  • U3: additional 10% dmg debuff

[Daily Card Discussion]

6 minutes ago, anonyme0273 said:

@Kaliber84 One more problem I have with this popped to my head when I was reading what you said about meta - changing any cards in any way will need a wide community reports and opinions put together and balancing tests, thus leading to a change of existing meta (or a meta kept alive through various ways on the Forum). However, the only way to prevent that, is to change them now, with the game not being released yet, which is almost pure nonsense, as very few people get to have some experience with the card and testing it against other cards and strategies (Alpha members in The Forge)

We'll just have to deal with a slight change in the meta when there is a change, that's how it is. I don't mind as long as the changes are small or really necessary (looking at you Amii Monument ). It is absolutely impossible to do the rebalancing now, simply because we got no access to the playable game. Usually this rebalancing is done in the beta (beneath the bug-catching) but the devs definitely won't have time for it until after release. I wouldn't worry about it as much.

6 minutes ago, anonyme0273 said:

I can't come up with any card that would have a similar effect on gameplay as AM has (except already mentioned Enlightenment), but perhaps its PvE purpose is the only thing the card has. Deeming it almost useless in PvP, PvE usage only being really good for speedruns as it saves some Power and can be placed earlier than finding the T4 monument (if it is available) may be strong, it is the only thing this card has to offer

That is already a lot. IMO this card should never be balanced for PvP as it would completely change the gameplay (and meta ) if it was viable in PvP. That is exactly what happened to PvE when the card was released and I never liked it because of that. Well we know that it needs a change but what change is a topic for future discussions.

6 minutes ago, anonyme0273 said:

This, I agree with more than a rework. Makes sense and MAY increase the balance levels (sounds funny... balance levels  ) a bit, but I still think it needs more shoutout from the community and some kind of voting system, which atm should not be a priority for the developers. However, if a thread about nerfs and buffs can stay topic-related with relative feedback and opinions, we may have a functional way that may progress into and onwards the upcoming game   

I'd also like a more representative system for balancing discussions. As @Mental Omega said in the other thread we'll need something better than the old watchlist. Keep in mind however, that the community isn't always right and that the devs need to consider (or at least publish) the statistics that are relevant to the card. It's hard to make a system that is democratic while still valuing the votes differently. But that's a topic for another thread.

[Daily Card Discussion]

@anonyme0273 Well I think there are a few (not many) cards in need of a rework but that's my opinion. What I see as important is to tone down OP cards. I too don't like how LoL handles it with the constantly changing meta but I'd like to see the devs making more cards viable for a faction. If you got an UP card you can simply buff it a little so that it is worth to spend power on. The problem with an OP card is that you give yourself a disadvantage simply by not choosing it, which is a no-no IMHO.

For example: Amii Monument may not be OP in PvP but in PvE it definitely is. If you want to get the most out of your T3/T4 there is no way around taking either AM or Enlightenment and the latter restricts you in many ways (starting with the orb requirement). Can you tell me an alternative to AM that achieves the same results? Enlightenment is the closest I'd say but it is used for different decks and situations. I consider AM OP, because building a strong T3 can't ever get the same kind of results as skipping it altogether for (almost) the same cost as an orb.

Many other cards won't need a complete rework of course and rebalancing with buffs and nerfs is always risky, but IMO it is better to give it a try than to keep the balance as it is. I'd suggest to keep the changes small to fine-tune cards until they are decent and then stop there. The problem you describe with the changing meta is something I have seen in many games (not only LoL). I think that it is mostly because the buffs or nerfs are too massive, so the card/champion/whatever will forever be changing between OP and UP. By doing small changes and repeat them as necessary this problem becomes smaller and we won't shoot past our aim and create the other extreme.

1 hour ago, Ladadoos said:

You stealing my idea I see  

My pleasure. Nah, my suggestion was to simply make a list of the card names and note the "votes" for UP,OP, balanced. Without a summary as you suggested.

[Daily Card Discussion]

12 hours ago, anonyme0273 said:

Never used it, probably never will (in PvP almost without doubt)

Also, I wonder what will happen to this topic when all 540 cards are discussed

Will we start over?

I thought we'd go back to the cards that are in serious need of a rework/balancing starting with the OP ones (like Amii Monument).

@Loptous If we want separate threads I wouldn't do them for every single card but rather the ones that seriously need to be balanced and those that are interesting. Should be separated into OP/UP cards. Because an UP card will simply not be played which is a bit sad, but an OP card is used excessively and destroys the balance in some kind of way so I'd deem the latter more important.
Maybe we should do a thread with a list where every of the cards is mentioned with the general opinion being either OP, UP or balanced.

[Daily Card Discussion]

Concerning PvP I can just say that I saw a few videos where the opponent got wrecked by the dmg output. But yeah, it's probably way harder to play the better the ELO.

In PvE I quite liked him and would always pick him over other root units. Never liked Thornbark at all and wasn't a big fan of Treespirit. He really shines with the heals and CC from pure Nature. And there were also quite some funny strategies to max his dmg output (like going Frost T3 just for Home Soil). Absolutely great for taking out groups but only good vs XL units if you let another unit tank or kite.

The biggest weakness are air units as Spikeroot can't attack them but that's totally ok. Without that he'd be OP as f*ck.

[Daily Card Discussion]

@Mental Omega First of all thx for pointing me towards the 2 sentences I switched unintentionally.

What follows will be a wall of text addressing the rest of what you said.

Quote

First, heal excels even more when you have damage reduction abilities. That is the reason Stonekin units have their received damage cut by 15%. On T4 if you play blue Twilight Pestilence you basically double the efficency of Regrowth. Enemies only do 50% damage, which translates to your unit having twice as much HP. However, since heals are not affected by damage reduction their effectiveness is doubled.

That is true. But my whole point is that the better efficiency of the dmg reduction isn't better than the burst damage in general. If I want damage reduction then I'll take something else with me like Dryad, Ward of the North, Crystal Fiend, Unity (whoever uses that) or Twilight Warfare (purple) which adds Lifesteal. There are tons of options for dmg reduction and Lifesteal and almost all of them are better than the Twilight Creeper because they can affect many more units (with TC at U3 that might be debatable).

In the end I think it's a matter of time. If you want faster clear speed then you should go for the attack buff. I agree that the efficiency is better with dmg reduction abilities in general but 30% more damage is an incredible buff to the clear speed. And let's not forget that over time camps spawn additional units which worsens the efficiency of dmg reduction quite a bit. The times that I struggled most in rPvE was when I lacked the burst damage to destroy the enemy camps or get through to them. Then I was forced back and the fight came to a standstill where both parties continued to spawn units without anything changing except my declining void pool. As I said it's dependent on the map for PvE but I'd say the dmg buff is way better for rPvE. @Treim want to comment on the abilities for rPvE please? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Quote

I agree, but there is one fatal flaw. Twilight Creepers can only attack one target each, so the debuff on 3 different units is mostly wasted. It works well if there ARE high bursts of damage coming from outside like an Inferno or another high DPS card that is being played. Still, as you can see below. A unit with a 30% less damage debuff is better in a normal straight up fight.

I agree with that. But how many times do you pick a fight with a single unit?

Quote

There are far more important factors and we are only talking about a couple of seconds. And if you are playing a nature or frost splash you are more into a macro oriented game to begin with (that is more durability by high HP and healing vs high DPS and damage spells from a more micro oriented game style).

Some speedrunners might kill you for those words.
Sure, Nature and Frost aren't oriented towards burst damage but then again you need to play a Fire splash for TC. I personally wouldn't play with TC because while it's not only less efficient, you give up many good units that require or . If you take the dmg buff you'd also want to play a deck with good DPS in T3. The dmg reduction surely would synergize well with Stonekin or maybe even Bandit's. As I said it's more about ideology rather than general advantages.

Quote

Normal Twilight Creeper stats: 1500ATK / 1550HP / 100e
Twilight Creeper total stats: 1700 * 1550 = 2325000
That divided by the power cost gives us 2325000 / 100 = 23250.

I don't know where the 1700 come from. I guess it's a typo.
From what I guess, what you want to show is a way to measure a units utility-to-power ratio. For this example it's a correct way to go about it but I don't see the difference to what I calculated earlier.

I did the formulas for damage taken (in case 1 of a fight won) and damage given (in case 2 of a fight lost). The dmg reduction is more efficient in both cases, so it's a matter of burst damage/clear speed vs. efficiency/survivability. I still think burst damage is better because of the utility but just choose for yourselves.

Case 1: Damage taken when taking dmg buff is more than when taking dmg reduction debuff. The difference is:

difference dmg taken = enemy HP / (1.3 * your damage) * enemy damage - enemy HP / (your damage) * 0.7 * enemy damage = (9 / 130) * enemy HP * (enemy damage / your damage)

Case 2: Damage given when taking dmg buff is less than when taking dmg reduction debuff. The difference is:

difference dmg given = your HP / (0.7 *enemy damage) * your damage - your HP / (enemy damage) * 1.3 * your damage = (9 / 70) * your HP * (your damage / enemy damage)

[Daily Card Discussion]

@Mental Omega Ok yeah that changes my opinion. The one time I don't review the card ingame. XD
I don't agree with your point of taking the damage reduction one. With Nature you already got heals to keep your units alive and the Fire part of your deck will greatly benefit from the damage amplification. In the end it's simply a question if you look for prolonged fights or burst damage and for many maps and especially for rPvE the latter one is more important.
For everyone who doesn't care about that and who doesn't know that your units will be healthier with the damage reduction ability I'll quickly do the math.

Just think about it this way: For example you own a Twilight Creeper that fights a unit with the same stats (and no abilities) and the buff/debuff of your TC is enabled for the whole fight. We'll ignore the attack type for now as the relative results will be the same.
Either your unit deals 30% more damage.
The damage you deal is a_1=1.3*1500dmg=1950dmg and the damage you take is b_1=1*1500dmg=1500dmg. Both of you have 1500HP.
The time it takes you to kill the enemy is t_1=1500HP/(1950dmg/20s)=15.38s
So the damage you take in that time is d_1=1500dmg*(15.38s/20s)=1153.5dmg
Or your unit receives 30% less damage. The damage you deal is a_2=1*1500dmg=1500dmg and the damage you take is b_2=0.7*1500dmg=1050dmg.
The time it takes you to kill the enemy is t_2=1500HP/(1500dmg/20s)=20s
So the damage you take in that time is d_2=1050dmg*(20s/20s)=1050dmg
You see that with the dmg reduction ability you will take D=1050dmg/1153.5dmg=91% of the damage you'd take with the attack buff ability.
Burst damage still got the advantage if you want to clear camps for example or to take down a building that gets repaired over time, etc. Any advantage for the enemy that gets stronger over time is countered by burst damage.
A prolonged fight also got advantages. If you got power problems you will get back more void power in a prolonged fight and if you got support yourself (Shaman, SoM, Kobold Trick) or are waiting for a card to recharge it buys time that becomes an advantage for you.
This all is only a generalised model though and always needs to be seen in perspective for PvP, PvE and rPvE. You should see burst damage vs prolonged fights more in terms of ideology for a deck than immediate advantages.

Also an update to my earlier post: IMO abilities shouldn't be changed in any way, base stats could be fine tuned, but I only played this card rarely when I played a Fire splash for a change, so I don't know what's needed there. Probably'd need statistics to know what changes shold be made. I still think on paper it doesn't look quite as good as other units as it is comparable to Magma Hurler but lacks the constant long range and knockback. The swift ability could be pretty interesting for the unit if the base stats are balanced accordingly but I wouldn't change anything else.

[Daily Card Discussion]

Haven't looked at it in detail so I don't know about the upgrades but I think it should get a buff to the abilities by upgrading (dmg reduction or amplification goes from 30% => 40% at U3).
Maybe a little buff to it's base stats. I'd only buff health rather than dmg if the abilities get buffed. If the abilities don't get buffed I'd buff the attack damage so that the ability is more useful.

Maybe a Swift ability would fit if it needs buffing apart from it's base stats and affinities. There aren't many T3 swift units so that would be a nice variation. Though every pure element got a swift unit at T3, none of the hybrid ones have. There's only Razorshard and Bandit Stalker at T2 and only one of those is a useful card as we know. Twilight getting a swift unit at T3 would be good I think but correct me if I'm wrong.

Aside from all that it's a decent card that I wouldn't change too much if possible.

[Daily Card Discussion]

Never saw this being played. Neither in PvE nor rPvE nor PvP. Dmg buff looks good on paper but pure Fire destroyed even the slightest intention to play him.

Orb requirements should be decreased to making it available for splash decks and the power cost should be reduced (to ~50). The abilities/attacks need rework too IMO.
The dmg buff is a nice thing in theory but as LagOps mentioned it could quickly break the game in a fire deck if the card is buffed in any way. My suggestion would be to change the buffs so that they only apply to either melee or ranged units and get increased in return. That would then be something like "Melee units deal 40% more damage for 5 seconds" and "Ranged units can't get knocked back and receive 25% less damage for 5 seconds). He should lose his normal attack then though.
But that would change the card into either a defensive support or a single unit Home Soil (that keeps on binding power).

[Daily Card Discussion]

4 hours ago, YaBro0 said:

I'm sorry but it annoys me a bit that people always name a lot of possible counters for Avatar of frost like spirit hunters (purple), fallen skyelf, global warming ... revenge?! Some of these cards might be playable but they are no core cards and way to specific in one matchup that it wouldn't be smart to put them in your deck. (In a serious deck)

The only real counters are cards like life weaving or treespirit (not sure if disentchant (purple) can erase the shield) because they are actual strong cards you want in a deck.

I agree. Though I'm not exactly a PvP expert I am an avid watcher of PvP replays and I have never seen Spirit Hunters (purple), Fallen Skyelf or other specific counters used against AoF. He isn't even played that often (that might have something to do with it ). The best commonly played counter is probably Juggernaut. Simply rips an Avatar apart, while being cheaper and a better basenuke. It's probably not even efficient to start a CC battle because of Disenchant. Life Weaving is actually another counter. Don't know if Bandit Stalker is commonly played in PvP but that would be another counter.

So yeah there is counterplay but vs Nature, Frost and Fire-splashes without Shadow he should be a good card. Of course there's a ton of people playing Shadow, so that's that.

4 hours ago, YaBro0 said:

But in 2v2 matches theres definatly a place for him. Lifeweaving+cc support is really a strong basenuker.

Ehm...sorry to shatter your illusion but damage reduction isn't applied to shields. Otherwise you'd have a gamebreaking combo with Ward of the North.

 

I think AoF is great the way he currently is. He is quite good in PvE if upgraded and usable in PvP. There are no special abilities that are in need of tweaking here (don't know about fine-tuning though) and the stats are good. He is one of the most ideal cards IMO. Simple and good but neither OP nor UP.

[Daily Card Discussion]

I played mainly Stonekin back in the day with a bit of pure Nature and pure Frost from time to time. This card never made it into my deck for various reasons (some of them already mentioned).
When I played Stonekin I usually started with a differing T4 for different decks, simply because there are so many amazing cards that require 2 orbs. Most importantly SoM and WoG in my case. What I expect from an expensive XL unit is either a great basenuke, a DPS monster, a massive tank or something for utility/mobility (flying units for example). This card doesn't deliver any of that but is rather an all-rounder. It got decent dmg, decent effective health and a decent ability but doesn't excel at any of that and lacks damage vs buildings for it's cost. IMO it's too expensive to take as an L counter when Silverwind Lancers or Drones can take care of almost any L unit for less than half the price. The waveclear is good when using the ability (green) but then I could just as well take Razorleaf which doesn't require me to sacrifice a unit (or critter) and gets even stronger when bringing more onto the battlefield (as well as that godly range). The red ability isn't bad for a bit of burst damage. But then again I only really need burst damage to nuke bases and Core Dredge, Deepcoil Worm, Brannoc or Tremor do a much better job at that.
So all in all it is a card without any real specialty (aside from being an overkill L-counter) in a game of rock-paper-scissors.
Also I don't like the necessary micro to deal with the critters and to keep them alive long enough to be sacrificed.

My suggestion would be to change the dmg buff of the red affinity to one that either affects all allied units (making it a dmg support) and buff the damage from the green affinity (making it great for waveclear). In turn the power cost or attack dmg could be adjusted accordingly.

Another possibility is to add a weakened Siege ability (~30%) making it decent in all roles and thus making it a viable option to save on deck slots.

Of course it's always possible to simply buff the stats or decrease the power cost a bit. But that's just boring and doesn't make the card more fun to play.

[Daily Card Discussion]

5 hours ago, Mental Omega said:

I think this card would be fun if it had its range increased and rate of fire brought down to 3 seconds, making it 2500. It would be a squishy, but strong a XL artillery unit which does not sacrifice mobility, making it quite unique. And with the basestats being raised, you could even make use of ability once in a while. Note that 2500 attack would give it a similar attack/power ratio to Death Ray.

A strong tank in the front (like Overlord, or Grimvein) and Void Maws behind, I can totally see that work.

Even more, you could still use it to to sacrifice them, 100 power is not so much of a big deal.
Edit: I think making it one shadow orb wouldn't hurt this unit either. It can be hard to get good anti-XL for some colours and I think it would be good to provide Void Maw as a valid choice just in case.

Increasing the range would make it synergize really well with support spells (Home Soil for example) as single target buffs (e.g. Unholy Hero) aren't worth using on a 100 power card. I can definitely see them being used then for those who don't like to spam LSS. What I definitely wouldn't advise is to do all the suggestions together (increased range, 2500dmg, changing orbs to ). Two of the three changes would be enough to make the card playable but all of them would make it OP for the current power cost. Of course the power cost could be adjusted then (to 130?) but I like the idea of this card still being a relatively small combatant on it's own compared to XL units who get those massive stats. It should be a damage support IMO.

[Daily Card Discussion]

It's the most cost-efficient XL counter for a shadow deck with no fire splash (except for Jorne) I guess but that's about it. One fire orb is enough to exchange it for Boom Brothers who do a much better job at countering XL units as their base damage is around 50% higher (and ~25% more HP). Bloodhorn is also a better option I'd say. Void Maw is probably the way to go if you want a XL unit killed instantly in turn for higher power costs but that's the only reason I can think of. Without a fire splash one might also want to take them as a cheap XL counter. Main problem for rPvE is that the ability doesn't work on bosses but they might still be viable. I'm sure Treim will address that.

I think they should get more focussed strength because as they are now I think the ability is better for XL countering than their normal XL attack on higher difficulty maps. But even though the area damage and knockback of small and medium units makes them good vs those they lack the dmg compared to other S and M counters at T4 to be played efficiently vs those. Even Unstable Demon at T3 gets slightly more dmg (not area dmg though) and is a M counter too. Fathom Lord does a better job at countering XL units at T3 too. I think the best way to deal with this card is to change the attack type to Splash and increase the dmg by ~25%. The card will be good to deal with the small fry then and the ability will still make it useful vs XL units. I don't know if the orb costs need to be changed.

[Daily Card Discussion]

4 hours ago, Treim said:

--> Most expensive current card is 350 power...

Cyrian?

After a bit of consideration I think increasing the power cost for both the building and the orb ability is the way to go for now (if we don't do a complete rework). In turn for skipping T3/getting T4 the user should have considerably less power in his power pool at the time he gets the orb from AM. That disadvantage should naturally lessen over time with the overall increase of power levels but it would be a considerable downside (especially for Speedruns).

I like Treim's numbers. 400 power for the building is binding quite a bit more power and one needs to gather it first too which creates a disadvantage while waiting.
IMO building an orb should require another 50 power (which goes back into the void). That way if someone builds Amii Monument they get considerably decreased power levels in turn for T4. The power levels could be balanced a bit (like 380 building & 70 orb or 420 building & 30 orb, etc...) depending on the performance then.
It will probably then become necessary to play it with SoW or SoM, but it's enough if one player on the team got those, so I'm okay with that.

[Daily Card Discussion]

I agree with @Mental Omega on the most part.

The card itself is a poor design choice that let's you negate any kind of challenge after your designated T3 which is basically a T4 with this card. The power spike of going from T2->T4 is just way too massive IMO and it absolutely breaks the difficulty of most expert PvE and rPvE maps. I'm crying inside when I'm playing a carefully crafted campaign map on expert and some dipsh*t brings his Amii Monument and stomps right through whatever lies ahead.
I'm just happy that it's not viable in PvP or it'd be OP in every game mode.

There were several suggestions back in the day and even now how to deal with this card. The suggestions I remember (probably some of them my own):

• Increased power cost
• Increased build time
• Less HP
• Increased cooldown (for switching orbs)
• Deactivating the option to switch orbs
• Global debuffs for allied units as long as it's active

While all of those might help a bit it doesn't change the massive power spike but will either only weaken it or make the card unusable altogether. IMO when they made this card it was a balancing disaster waiting to happen, so I guess they just left it as is. Right now it is way overpowered in PvE and the only singular pay-2-win card so to say. I'd prefer it would be removed or completely reworked and not just nerfed.

Or make it into a promo so that nobody can afford them anymore.