Deepfang and Gemeye tier swap

[Appollonir]

IMPORTANT:
This version of the post is no longer relevant. See the new one:
New version link

I understand that the argument "this change is too complex to add to the game" is enough to dismiss the idea on its own, but I still want to present this concept for fun and discussion with the community. let's get started.

First of all, I want to point out the points why these cards are not very good in the positions they are in, in my opinion.

Deepfang:
1. He is involved in a competition that is almost impossible to win. Razorleaf, Thorbark spam, Enlightenment... Not only can they be played with the same set of orbs as him, but they also outperform him in many situations.
2. The Critter mechanic may be liked by some, but for others it is unpleasant due to the need for excessive microcontrol. Using M units alongside XL ones in dangerous battles adds unnecessary stress because it makes enemy snipers and AoEs much more dangerous.

Gemeye:
He is loved by many, but his stats are not distributed in the best way for a T4 card compared to other "PvE monsters".

Now about what I propose and how it will change the situation.

New Gemeye (t3)

 

I kept his offensive capabilities, but nerfed his defensive ones a lot. Along with that, I gave him a new ability that will keep his late-game spam potential for those who liked it.

- Deepstone Infusion
Gemeye takes an additional 6% less damage, up to 42%, for each allied stonekin unit of the same size within 35m.

This version of the unit can compete with T3 nature cards, providing alternative (without the root system) pushing potential and utility, while still being usable in late-game compositions where it was used before.

However, now the question arises about Gemeye's new PvP potential. I'm not a experienced PvP player, but I can easily imagine how a long-range XL unit combined with numerous CC and support spells could become a problem, despite HP nerf and high power cost. Therefore, I think that the poison should not deal damage to wells and orbs (partly like the White Rangers.). I'm really looking forward to hearing what experienced PvP players have to say about this. Does it need more changes? What exactly should be changed?

New Deepfang (t4)

 

(Red Affinity)

Gravitational Eruption [40 power cost]
The unit dives underground and erupts from it in a new spot within a 50m range. During the eruption, a zone of increased gravity is created that affects enemies for 4 seconds in 35m radius. Flying units will be pulled to the ground, ground units will be slowed, and buildings will be frozen. Additionally, Deepfang begins to spew deep flames, dealing 150 damage per second to enemies within a 35m radius for 3 seconds. Reusable every 20 seconds.

Infused Deepstone union
I have 2 ideas for this ability:

1. The unit is imbued with the power of the stonekin, dealing 3% more damage for each stonekin card in your deck. (This encourages the use of stonekin cards over good nature and frost cards.)

2. The unit is imbued with the power of the stonekin, dealing 7% more damage for each unique allied stonekin unit of the same size within 35m. (This encourages the use of other XL stonekin units. Whether units with different affinities should be considered unique is up for debate. On the one hand, it adds unnecessary complexity to deck building, on the other hand, using a diverse army of large units can be fun.)

(Green Affinity)

Gifted Gravitational Eruption [40 power cost]
The unit dives underground and erupts from it in a new spot within a 50m range. During the eruption, a zone of increased gravity is created that affects enemies for 4 seconds in 35m radius. Flying units will be pulled to the ground, ground units will be slowed, and buildings will be frozen. Additionally, Deepfang begins to spew deep flames, dealing 150 damage per second to enemies within a 35m radius for 3 seconds. Enemies hit by deep flames three times will be paralyzed for 8 seconds. Reusable every 20 seconds.


Players will be able to use 1-2 copies of [Green] Deepfang to support their late-game armies (not just stonekin), or 4-5 copies of [Red] Deepfang with some support to absolutely blast rPvE camps.

So what do you think?

P.s. Translated into English using chatGPT and Google translator.

Edited January 30 by Appollonir
t3 Gemeye PvP changes

[This Is Halloween_2]

I disagree with your analysis. Both cards are fine in their tier right now (talking with recent deepfang buff in mind) :

1) Deepfang : contrary to what you say, deepfang is not in a competition with thornbark and razorleaf. These 2 are great in root network defense, and outside of slow razorleaf push with sylvian gate and a thornbark battery in some Cpve situations, are really not good on the offense. In rpve root network is just too many card slots for some defense.

In offense, deepfang main weakness is his speed. So in T3 Cpve scenario where your army needs to move, he will be replaced by stonekin warrior + rageflamme.

But deepfang has a place in rpve where he’s adapted for the T3 push to T4. His speed is no longer a problem in this situation. In term of damage, the red one offers you 5940 dp20 with L counter. Few things can hit that hard in T3 for 250 power.

He is in competition with enlightment, as well as deep coil worm and the frost worm. Vs the worms, deepfang outperform them completely.

With enlightment, I used to prefer it instead of deepfang, but since the buff it’s the contrary. Deepfang will come faster, and if it’s not enough, by the time you can accumulate the power to cast enlightment + stonekin T4 , I’ll have 2.
He’s better vs an eventual boss at your T4 orb.

He’s a bit worse if your facing a close camp to your T4 and need to snipe the spawner in the back.

Overall, in stonekin T3 Rpve, where before enlightment > deepfang , now it is no longer the case and the choice is ~50/50.

 

2) Gem Eye : You are overlooking a number of facts when analyzing the card. 1st, in the case of gem eye, the 2 affinities are really different.

In term of stats, you are overlooking the massive part the poison plays with the overall damage of the card. If the damage dealt by it is included, then the P one has a dp20 of 5250, not 3250. And it is true damage, which can be exceptionally powerful in some situations (some boss, moloch vs rpve fire, …). And the poison effect stack.

Gem eye P is considered a good range damage dealer overall.
Another thing you’re missing is the range, 50m ain’t no joke. That allows you to snipe building easily.

 

For your rework, remember stonekin identity is tankiness, you should not give your units more damage than they have health/ resistance.

1) Gem eye : No way you keep a 5250 dp20 unit with 50m range in T3, even more with the potential damage buff you are giving him. And no way you give a stonekin unit that much more damage than health. Overall a terribly bad rework.

 

2) I don’t like the passive damage buff based on numbers of units/deck slot, it is not in stonekin identity. The ability is cool, though 35m is too much, it would be 25m if implemented.

Edited January 27 by This Is Halloween_2

[Appollonir]

I think there's a misunderstanding here, but I can't figure out where exactly. Either you didn't quite get my message, or I expressed/translated it poorly, or I didn't understand your message well. So:

A. How popular do you think Deepfang is among all possible cPvE and rPvE scenarios in situations where the player has 1 green and 2 blue orbs or 2 green and 1 blue orb?
We need to collect some more objective data (Ideally, the usage percentage is from developers), since each of us can be biased. In last 200-250 of my games, I've only seen it once (funny enough, it was before the buff). However, I see Razorleaf, Thorbarks, Enlightenment, and, as you rightly noted, Stone warrior + Rageflame regularly. And there must be reasons for this, given that deepfang is mathematically good. The problem could be one of the following (or a combination of them): failure to compete with alternatives, difficulty in use, bad reputation, insufficient or irrelevant sample size for the analysis. 
In my personal experience, your story with Deepfang seems more like an exception than a rule (I can easily be wrong).

B. What damage buff did I give Gemeye?
I took away his HP and gave him stacking damage resist so that in the late game he would be more like his old version (about 4700 effective hp vs 5300 on current one). If the wording on this ability is bad for understanding, then I will ask you to provide a better one (I am bad at English, I do everything with a translator).

C. I did not overlooked Gemeye's range or affinity difference. On the contrary, I believe that this is the only way he can compete with the alternatives. However, the poison damage can be a problem in PvP. Therefore, I think that the poison should not deal damage to wells and orbs (partly like the White Rangers.).

D. Regarding the difference in stats for stonekin units.
Current Deepfang (red) has 3300 base dp20 (4950 with L counter), 5940 with ability (8910 with L counter). Then the damage range is 3300-8910. Effective health is about 4100. In this case, the dp20/hp coefficient range is 0.8 - 2.55.
New Gemeye (purple) has 3250 base dp20 + 50*20 or 150*20 (depending on the number of enemies hit with poison) = 4250 to 6250 (4250-6250 damage range). Effective health is about 2750. With new damage resist fully stacked 4700. Now let's make a range of coefficients. 6250/2750 to 4250/4700 = 2.27 to 0.9 (0.9 - 2.27).
So we have 0.8 - 2.55 vs 0.9 - 2.27. I really don't see how the first option is "Very good" and the second is "Absolutely unacceptable".

F. Regarding passive damage buff based on numbers of units/deck slot. At this point, it's no one's identity. But considering that the nearly all stonekin are made of the same stuff and use the same energy, I don't see why this mechanic wouldn't work for them (unless something like that is planned for the twilight).

[This Is Halloween_2]

No I did understood you (mostly ^^, see B), I just disagree with what you said and gave you the reasons :

 

A. Deepfang was not great until recently. He got significantly buffed on 22th decembre. It takes time for people to try new things they have previously discarded. It took something like months before people realise how strong plague was after the rework, and over a year to realise that emberstrike was actually meta in rPvE. Deepfang got reworked a month ago. And I've experienced that people playing stonekin are even more loath to try new things. As said, deepfang isn't really in the same bath as root defense, this thing is really map dependant. Stone launcher & deepgorge are more in competition with root defense for the same slots in your deck than deepfang is.

As explained, deepfang compete for space in your deck with enlightment & stonewarrior + rageflamme combo (& the 2 color worms), and particularly with enlightment in rpve.
And until his buff, he was a lesser option. Now, he competes seriously (meaning it is not longer an obvious choice). But people need time to start integrating him back into their decks.

B & C. Sorry I misunderstood deepstone fusion as bonus dmg instead of bonus armor.

But the point I made stand. You can't keep gem eye P & G passive effect on its attack at T3. Again, when you see 3250 DP20, the truth is that gem eye P is 5250 dp20 with 50m range & 100% true damage (bypass any protection). You simply can't keep that at T3, it's T4 power level.
And the damage reduction you gave him allows too much scaling at T4.

You're creating a 5250 / 4700 T3 creature at T4. You're making a T3 unit better than a good number of T4 range units. The power level difference between T3 & T4 is supposed to be the biggest power level jump in the game, and you are basically making a T4 creature at T3.
And at T3, your unit has almost twice the effective dp20 than it has effective health.
For a stonekin unit, it is not part of the faction design, where your units (outside buff & combo) effective dp20 should be inferior to its effective health.

D. Deepfang is dependant on an ability for that damage boost (you can get silenced, you can leave the area of effect, ...). Active effects > passive ones in the game, for obvious reasons.
So you're comparing a 3300/3500 L counter slow creature with short range and a damage buff ability to a 5250/2340 true damage creature with 50m range, which can scale into a ~4700 equivalent hp creature into the late game. That is the problem.
 

Just to give you an idea, when nightshade plant was moved from T4 to T3, its cost stayed the same, but its stats went from 6380/5800 to 4100/3400. It did gain siege & a transformation cost reduction, but still it lost ~2300~2400 stats of attack and defense for moving down 1 tier.

Right now, both cards are fine. Gem eye main attack could use a small buff at most (650 -> 700 , so 3250-> 3500), and even there I'm not sure it is necessary for its viability.

Edited January 27 by This Is Halloween_2

[Appollonir]

Regarding Gemeye, I think it makes more sense to consider his dp20 as 4250, not 5250. It's not always easy to keep many enemies in poison for the entire duration of the poison. "bypass any protection" part is quite niche and it is rare that you will be able to get good value from it. While you think I underestimate him, I think you overestimate him. And I think the percentage of Gemeye's usage is more on my side. 

Regarding the Nightshade Plant as an example of good changes... I don't think that's a good argument. I didn't see him much more often than the Deepfang. About 3 games out of 200+. I think he needs another 500 hp and a buff to the twilight transformations (as a whole) to be a good option.

Now about my version of Gemeye. You need to invest quite a lot of power to scale his defense that high. It's more of an option for people like "Devs changed the only good card I enjoyed playing and now I'm uninstalling the game." For the same reason, I didn't touch the attack number, but yes, perhaps the poison damage could be reduced. And along with this, we can raise his power cost to 300. But we really can't touch his other stats and abilities. Otherwise, many players will be unhappy and/or he will also lose the competition. 
I agree that this concept of attack and hp distribution is not very suitable for a stonekin unit. But there's nothing we can do about it, in my opinion. I could change his new ability to +300 hp instead of +6% defense to make it look better (f it's technically possible to implement it in the game), but nothing more than that.

Regarding "wrong cards for comparison". So if you want a fast army, Deepfang is bad. If you plan on defending or slow pushing, Razorleaf can do the same thing, but better. If you have enough power to summon two Deepfangs, then Enlightenment + t4 unit will be better economically (If you don't plan on keeping Deepfang in your t4 army, which doesn't seem so bad). Of course there are situations when you have about 250 power and you have to act now, but they are quite rare. Even in the case where you need to push from T3 to T4 in rPvE, Deepfang is not very good because of how its damage is split between targets. You can right click a spawning building and start dealing 0 damage to it in half of the games.
So generally, you can use other cards that cost the same amount of orbs and get a better result. I guess that's what competition is. No?

And now I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to force myself to play a stonekin deck with Deepfang and I will take every opportunity to test him out. And after that I will find 3 slots in the deck to put a Razorleaf with the root system. And I'll be completely honest about the outcome of this test. And god forbid if it turns out Razorleaf is better than Deepfang in a stonekin deck...
But this test will not take less than a week I think. In the meantime we can continue our discussion =D

Edit: I was wrong. I have revised my views on some individual things and the situation as a whole.

Edited January 30 by Appollonir

[Appollonir]

Important Note: After further reflection and testing, I realized my original suggestion needed significant changes. As a result, many of its points and much of the reasoning process have been revised. Here’s a brief list of changes for those who read the old version of this post:

• The approach to evaluating and analyzing cards has been shifted to a more global perspective, not limited to card class or tier.
• Clearer analogies for new mechanics using existing cards.
• Additional changes to the Gemeye card aimed at improving its concept and PvP balance.
   

Stonekin state analysis

After spending a considerable amount of time using both meta and off-meta decks in various PvE scenarios (cPvE and rPvE), I decided to try out Stonekin decks. These included more meta-oriented decks (Grinder + Bedrock) as well as more fun-focused ones (Deepfang [R] + Gemeye). And, to be honest, I was somewhat disappointed.

I spent some time trying to figure out what was wrong, as the stats and mechanics of the Stonekin don’t look bad on paper (especially after the recent buff to Deepfang). After much thought, I came to the conclusion that they lack "spark." More precisely, their "spark" doesn’t shine brightly enough. Other meta and off-meta decks usually give players one (or a combination) of the following feelings:

• I completely annihilate enemies using powerful AoE abilities or spells.
• I feel like I’m cheating by constantly teleporting my army, mind-controlling enemies, or making them fight each other.
• I obliterate powerful bosses in seconds, while other strategies would take much longer.
• I’m using a very powerful T4 card with unique features (Batariel, Forest Elder, Dreadnought...).
• I provide significant support to other players (Wheel of Gifts).
• The strategy I’m using is unique enough to surprise other players (Comet Catcher, Fire Worm spam, Altar of Chaos...).

Against this backdrop, Stonekin decks don’t feel flashy or impactful enough overall, despite having a few interesting concepts. Below, I’ll break down their options by tier and provide my suggestions for improvements.

So, like any self-respecting mixed faction, the Stonekin begin their journey in T2. At this stage, they have access to many interesting options: Aggressor, Razorshard, Crystal Fiend, and Matter Mastery. With these, players can definitely experience some of the feelings listed above - watching the Aggressor toss around enemies of L size, Razorshard and Crystal Fiend providing support to the army, and Matter Mastery turning the tide in tough battles. In my opinion, T2 Stonekin are in a good place and don’t need any big changes.

Now, let’s move on to T3. Here, we have unit options like Rageflame spam, Stone Warrior + Rageflame, and Deepfang. The first two options are quite good. They might seem less unique compared to T2 options, but they’re still unique enough in my opinion. Deepfang... Don’t get me wrong, it’s very strong. I was even quite impressed when I tried it out after the buff. At first glance, it seems unique enough, but it’s not that simple. Uniqueness isn’t enough on its own. Good uniqueness shouldn’t feel clunky or overly complicated to use. And that’s exactly the problem with Deepfang. If an average player tries to manage an army of multiple Deepfangs (or including Deepfangs), they’ll quickly notice a number of issues:

• When you have a lot of Stonekin Critters, it becomes quite difficult to select a specific one to use its ability. This is especially true if one of your Deepfangs suddenly loses health and you’re under pressure from its potential death. You risk losing all your Stonekin Critters with a single button press or failing to sacrifice one in time. This adds unnecessary stress to the player.
• The mechanic of summoning additional Stonekin Critters when destroying buildings, intended to solve the limited number of Critters, creates its own problems. Newly summoned Critters aren’t added to the control group or the currently selected unit group. As a result, most of them end up scattered randomly across the map, which, as you might guess, doesn’t help you achieve your goals.
• The damage buff ability of Deepfang [R] loses most of its effectiveness when you try to buff anyone other than Deepfang itself. This makes it difficult to comfortably use Deepfang as support for other unit compositions. Melee units move out of the buff zone, and Deepfang’s speed doesn’t allow for strategic placement of the buff. Additionally, if you need to move a long distance, Deepfang will fall significantly behind the main army.

In summary, Deepfang is strong in terms of "stats for cost", but it’s clunky and unreliable in the vast majority of situations. I propose giving it a more significant rework to make the card more interesting without overcomplicating its use, and to better ignite the spark of the Stonekin in the late game (more details after completing the analysis of T4 options).

So, onto T4 territory. Grinders grind, Bedrocks add a bit of APM, and Gemeye tries to be strategically effective. But globally, nothing flashy or interesting happens. At this stage, when players expect the most power and impact from their deck, the spark of the Stonekin burns the weakest (compared to most other decks).

But the situation can be saved. And here’s what I propose.

 

Core Idea

Deepfang moves to T4 with a rework of its mechanics, while Gemeye takes its place in T3. But why these cards? Why this approach? Here’s why:

• Aside from the aforementioned issues with Deepfang’s concept in T3, I see huge design potential in it that could allow it to become that "cool and interesting" late-game option for the Stonekin.
• As for Gemeye... Its uniqueness in attack range and affinity abilities feels a bit underwhelming compared to T4 tools and other decks. You already have a strong army with a mix of melee and ranged units. You have frost damage spells and nature support spells. Gemeye can be nice in some situations, but you don’t really need him here. In T3, its potential is much, much greater.

Moreover, both units, after the changes, will inherit and expand on the existing Stonekin mechanic of "scaling in the presence of other units," which is present in one form or another in cards like Grinder and Stone Shell. So, lets go?

 

New Deepfang (T4)
 

 

Ability Changes

Icefire
Unit releases a fiery stream that deals 270 (was 165) damage to enemies every second

New abilities

 [R] (Red Affinity)

Gravitational Eruption (40 power cost)
The unit dives underground and erupts from it in a new spot within a 50m range. During the eruption, a zone of high gravity is created that affects enemies for 5 seconds in 30m radius. Flying units will be pulled to the ground, ground units will be slowed, and buildings will be frozen. Additionally, Deepfang begins to spew deep flames, dealing 120 damage per second for 3 seconds to every enemy unit or structure Inside the high gravity zone. Reusable every 25 seconds.

Infused Deepstone union (passive)
I have 2 ideas for this ability:

1. The unit is imbued with the power of the stonekin, dealing 3% more damage for each stonekin card in your deck. (This encourages the use of stonekin cards over nature and frost cards.)
2. The unit is imbued with the power of the stonekin, dealing 7% more damage for each unique allied stonekin unit of the same size within 35m. (This encourages the use of other XL stonekin units. Whether units with different affinities should be considered unique is up for debate. On the one hand, it adds unnecessary complexity to deck building, on the other hand, using a diverse army of large units can be fun.)

 [G] (Green Affinity)

Gifted Gravitational Eruption (40 power cost)
The unit dives underground and erupts from it in a new spot within a 50m range. During the eruption, a zone of high gravity is created that affects enemies for 5 seconds in 30m radius. Flying units will be pulled to the ground, ground units will be slowed, and buildings will be frozen. Additionally, Deepfang begins to spew deep flames, dealing 120 damage per second for 3 seconds to every enemy unit or structure Inside the high gravity zone. Enemies hit by deep flames three times will be paralyzed for 8 seconds. Reusable every 25 seconds.

P.s. If stonekin now have too many paralysis mechanics, we can change the green affinity to blue and replace paralysis with freeze.
 

Comment

Players will be able to use 1-2 copies of [G] Deepfang to support their late-game armies (not just stonekin), or several copies of [R] Deepfang with some support to absolutely blast rPvE camps. Strong, fun, reliable.

 

New Gemeye (T3)
 

 

Ability Changes

Damage changes to match new dp20 of the card +

 [G] (Green Affinity)

Gifted Spit
…Up to 3 (was 5) hostile units that are still in the area at the end of the duration will be paralyzed…

 [P] (Purple Affinity)

Tainted Spit
…the affected area around the target will be contaminated with a piercing substance for 5 seconds dealing 38 (was 50) damage every second… Power wells and Monuments take only half damage from this unit.

New abilities

Deepstone Infusion (passive)
Unit deals 6% more damage and gains 10% more maximum health for each allied stonekin unit of the same size within a 30m radius, up to 30% more damage and 50% more health.
 

Comment

In this form, Gemeye will offer more uniqueness and utility for Stonekin in T3. Its purple affinity opens up the possibility of long-range sieges with piercing damage (additionally ignoring the damage reduction of freeze), while its green affinity can combo with the recently reworked Stone Warrior [G]. The new passive ability is designed to support late-game Gemeye compositions for players who enjoy this playstyle. Now, let’s discuss some of the more controversial points that arise with this change:

• If such a high attack range in T3 seems too overpowered, it’s worth remembering Spitfire (a pure fire T3 card), which, in addition to its range, can also fly.
• At first glance, potential competition with Hammerfall in terms of design might seem like a strong argument against moving Gemeye to T3. However, we already have a somewhat similar situation in T2. Both Aggressor and Razorshard can knock back enemies of their size, while still having their own unique features. Similarly, Gemeye and Hammerfall would both have long-range capabilities in T3, while differing significantly in everything else. If more examples of similar card pairs are needed, consider Skyfire Drake and Windhunter. Both can be played in a bandit deck, have the same cost, similar appearances, and comparable stats.
• Stat scaling and piercing damage in T3. I agree that this might seem overpowered at first, but I don’t see how it could be more overpowered than most other strong T3 cards (Razorleaf scales better, Enlightenment provides orb cheating, shadow T3 spells can wipe out groups of strong enemies, Spitfire can cheese cPvE missions, etc.). This version of Gemeye won’t harm the game. And even if it does somehow, additional adjustments to its stats, cost, or abilities can always be made.

 

Conclusion

These changes are just one of several potential ways to breathe life and freshness into T3 and T4 Stonekin, increasing their appeal to players and their competitiveness with a wider variety of decks. So, what do you think about this?

(Translated using СhatGPT)

 

[Bkingn]

Short answer: Not a fan of the swap, i think Gemeye is a core T4 unit, with a core concept of a long range siege, CC unit, which is needed for the Grinder melee push.

On the other hand, the buffs for Deepfang made it viable for T3, and its a fun unit especially against a building heavy map. you can just swarm the enemy with the flying units while the deepfang theres to backup the army.

[RadicalX]

Hey, in most cases tier shifts and full card reworks are only considered if the existing design sees no play in any game mode (rPvE, cPvE, PvP) without being salvagable by numeric changes. We would otherwise remove existing content from the game, which will inevitably lead to frustration for players that did enjoy playing the card. I think there is a general misconception about Gemeye's popularity in PvE in this proposal, so I would like to provide this particular stat for context: Gemeye is included in 11% of all decks in rPvE adv ++ (the most popular game mode), making it the most popular stonekin card by far and also one of the most played T4 units in the game. Its simple and forgiving design also makes it quite beginner friendly. 

In terms of Deepfang the proposed dive ability would be impossible to implement, because we are limited by existing unit animations. Only unit models like Burrower or Scythe Fiends could make use of such an ability. The same applies to new mechanics like damage scaling based on cards included in your deck. Implementing such things is extremely time consuming, maybe even impossible. We need to prioritize design additions that are easy to implement, because these can actually end up in the game and improve the player experience even if some flaws remain at times. 

If you are looking for some spicy stonekin combinations I recommend playing World Breaker Gun + Tectonic Shift. If you enjoy theorycrafting about a functional stonekin card rework or buff proposal I would recommend Earthkeeper as this card has no existing play rate right now. I obviously can't promise anything, but it's the stonekin card with the highest probability of seeing a rework proposal getting accepted.