Banditos Have No Role in T2

[DukeDublin]

As per the design documents, Bandits has always had problems with the identity of their cards and splash redundancy. Skyfire Drake is to Windhunter, Gunner to Ashbone Pyro, Frenetic Assault to Amok and further. Banditos faces the largest redundancies in the lineup as a S->S type, which even T1 unit cards are outperforming. This post is made as a long standing Bandit's player, and isn't meant to be any sole verdict on the state of cards within Battleforge, nor any effort to change the game beyond Banditos themselves*. First let us look at the card itself:

• Banditos are a swarm/anti swarm unit through their passive, Alliance. Swarms being within the Bandit archetype.
• Banditos have a Complexity Calculation of 2, having only passives, with Alliance containing external dependencies (sum of surrounding enemy/ally units). While Alliance stacks multiple times with itself, the function of the passive remains consistent and straightforward (though it may be interpreted as more complex or multi-stage, Alliance requires no further game knowledge).
• Banditos lack synergy with other Bandits cards, which is contrasted by other Bandits cards granting them a factional synergy.
• Banditos has the highest health value among Bandit unit cards in T2 at 840 HP (beating Bandit Spearmen by 30 HP).
• Banditos has a low attack power for a T2 melee unit at 660 ATK, which rises with 3 surrounding units up to 990 ATK, and a maximum potential of 1650 ATK at 9 surrounding units (comparable with Nightcrawler's Frenzied 1630 ATK).
• Banditos can be summoned four at a time by the T3 Corsair (Nature) for 120 power, a design choice seemingly made for Gifted Alliance to be active without needing the Corsair itself nearby, or for Motivate/Blood Healing to be more easily used underneath a supporting Corsair.

Within PvE, Banditos can grant a significant advantage when swarming, but in practice suffers from a lack of support options such as Nature's healing spells. Earth Crystal and Ice Crystal appear to be heavily encouraged within Bandits, as many cards have a Nature or Frost affinity available, but these neutral buildings just help an already ahead player get further ahead. Banditos require a large power pool to make a difference, and only when they're not being knocked down or facing area damage.

For PvP, Banditos face significant use-case issues:

• Army deterioration near immediately disables Alliance. Bandit's limited sustainability and high offense exasperates Banditos' lackluster statistics, especially when contrasted with Bandit Spearmen (who do not rely upon a conditional effect) having nearly the same statistics of a Banditos with Alliance active (without factoring in Bandit Spearmen's weapon change ability).
• Banditos (Nature) requires a significant lead to utilize fully, and in the situations 7-10 units can be massed up (and not lost to spells) the match has likely been decided first by other cards.
• Banditos (Frost) is a counter to swarms (without any ability to intercept said swarms).
• Banditos (Frost) are not useful against any swarm cards. Banditos do not counter Sunken Temple and its Pest Creepers, nor Undead Army or Harvester, while Thugs will always beat an equal power's worth of Banditos if Gang Up is active alongside proper targeting.
• Fire/Shadow has other S->S counter units, which Banditos offers no play advantages over. Thugs are more durable when swarming in T1 saving you a deck slot, Rippers will bounce back from spells and counter corpse use, while Dark Elf Assassins are already one of the most power-effective S->S units; and happen to be ranged.

The primary issue with balancing Banditos is that they are produced by Corsair (Nature) for 30 power each, without binding power. While I personally believe the impact of buffing Corsair (Nature)'s Banditos will not shake PvE's balance, there may be significant problems in PvP if Banditos' are over tweaked. Corsair drops (especially Banditos) are currently in an okay spot balance wise for T3 PvP, but this is about the T2 unit, Banditos, not Corsair! So what can be done?

• Tweaking the units combat statistics to better compete with other cards in Fire/Shadow which are S->S unit counters. Again, this could be an issue with Corsair, but Banditos are not winning games outside of being the ability of another card.
• Raising Banditos' complexity, since the unit has a budget as an uncommon card for new effects. Maybe something which will support a swarm playstyle earlier for Bandits than T3 (as admitted to be the case by the Bandit Design documents).
• Perhaps a controversial take, but lowering Banditos power cost (maybe below 50 even) may grant the card some space in a deck without altering Corsair's functionality. Thugs are already outperforming Banditos with their Gang Up ability, but its questionable whether this approach would actually enable swarms, instead encouraging smaller trades over and over.
• Another route (which may be better as its own card) may be for Banditos to include a rapid constructing building, and over time it resummons these Banditos or has an ability which you can spawn another for a price.

Again this isn't an effort to change the game beyond Banditos themselves, with Corsair it's a tricky subject to approach. The state of play for Banditos is defined by other cards in a deck of limited slots, and currently Banditos don't have a role alongside other Fire/Shadow cards.

Edited April 6 by DukeDublin

[WindHunter]

First of all, great post. You did a good job of analyzing the state of the card and you did so through the lens of the existing literature we have on card rarity and the Bandit faction. 

We as a dev team agree with your assessment and we actually have proposed some Banditos changes for next patch in our official card balancing discord.

Banditos - Iteration 1
1. Alliance friendly unit requirement: 3 per stage ➜ 2 per stage
2. Blessed Alliance Rework:
   A. No longer based on nearby enemies.
   B. Now grants increasingly more damage reduction based on number of friendly units nearby.
   C. Description: "The unit will be incited to resist more damage when being surrounded by friendly units within a 25m radius. Per every 2 friendly ground units around them, Banditos will receive 20% less damage up to a maximum of 6 units that will spur them on."

With these changes we want to buff the swarm aspect of the card by giving them access to their scaling buffs earlier. We think this is a better approach than trying to turn Banditos into a trading card or a one-unit wonder. As you pointed out, the blue affinity simply lacks the tools to be an anti-swarm card, so we are giving it scaling damage reduction, like the red affinity has a scaling damage increase, and making it into a swarm card as well. We have also proposed changing Girl Power into a melee unit swarm support card on our balance discord. If these changes both go through, we hope it will help to carve out a new melee swarm archetype in Fire T2 splash decks. We also know this will constitute an indirect buff to Corsair, and we think that is perfectly acceptable.

[DukeDublin]

Adding damage reduction to Banditos (Frost) does a lot for the design I feel, as one need only look to Skeleton Warriors and their success through Undead Army as a swarm card for Shadow. As a small note: changing Blessed Alliance to scale upon friendly over enemy units is a step away from a boss unit, another aspect of the Bandit archetype that is mostly absent in the T2 lineup (not that Banditos was functioning before as an effective boss unit, given the additive not multiplicative stacking of attack power buffs).

Banditos (Nature), (or is it Fire affinity now?) I worry remain in an untenable state. They must reach the first increment of Gifted Alliance to compare to Bandit Spearmen's base statistics, and the second increment of Alliance to compare to Bandit Spearmen with their freely enabled weapon change. The restrictions innate to reaching Alliance's high unit count only falls away through Corsair's ability (which is why they function well as a summon ability), compounded by the fact Bandits lack economical cards (like Shrine of Greed or Resource Booster). Banditos (Nature) will continue to fail against Gang Up Thugs both in battle and for a deck slot. Other T2 S->S cards have forms of alternative game edge like Rippers, while Dark Elf Assassins can kill said Gang Up Thugs (and thusly anything Banditos is trying to) for cheaper with ranged advantages. The shifting of the friendly unit requirement alone I see only as a significant benefit to Corsair, not the state of play in T2.

Edited April 7 by DukeDublin

[WindHunter]

Making both affinities of a card equally viable is a difficult task. It is something we have achieved on probably less than 20% of all cards with affinities. It is also why we do not add affinities to a lot of the new cards we introduce into the game, because we do not want to contribute to an already substantial problem.

In terms of Banditos, I think it is fine if the green affinity's primary use is in combination with Corsair. But even then, I think you underestimate how important damage scaling is on S-units. While Bandits might lose to Thugs in an army vs. army match-up, this is hardly representative of scenarios players will encounter in PvE. The new Girl Power (Fire Force) will provide damage reduction scaling, giving Banditos more survivability, while the natural limitations of melee S-units means more damage per squad member is one of the highest prized stats. Melee units have an attack limit against enemies and S-units are the ones most affected by this. There reaches a point where more squad members simply cannot attack the enemy. The damage scaling of Banditos is a creative way around this limitation. 

Will this be enough? Honestly I am not sure. Melee S-units will likely never be top tier strategies, there are simply too many structural issues at play for them to thrive. But we are hoping they become viable, which is a different standard entirely.