Jump to content

Top 50: Underwhelming cards in the game


RadicalX

Recommended Posts

Regarding Striders:

For only 20 Energy more you get Sunderer which is a waaaay bigger thread for your enemy and can't be countered with just one orcan or a frostmage. I don't think Striders are bad units. They are just too expensive for their limited use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On many cards I have no opinion/no experience. However, on some cards I'd advocate completely different changes to make them more interesting and overall improve the game. These suggestions come from personal experience and analysing the game mechanics:

1 - Executor: I think this card should simply be an S counter. In pve, it would be a true blessing to have a tanky S counter, as this would accompany Forsaken/Nox Troopers perfectly.

2 - Northguards: They aren't "outclassed in every way". In fact, they have the best stats/power ratio among all T1 units. (also, they have 450 ATK btw. not 630.)
Changing their stats would do very little. I'd advocate for giving them "siege", but that would defeat the purpose of them having no ability. Therefore I'd suggest they have even better stats at the expense of S-counter.

Think as them as a frost equivalent to Windweavers. 550/900 on U3, you can send them against building and all kind of units while they get range support from behind.

3 - Envenom: The only change this cards need is that it stacks with Ghost Hunters. I feel everything else is just a cosmetic change or too much.

4 - Rocket Tower: Completely agree. Pure fire doesnt need 2 unique T2 towers.

5 - Eliminator: This unit competes with NC as M/M, which already makes it almost redundant. I say lower its power to 50 for motivate/nasty combos and lower its ability to 25 power. Potentially, you can pull off some cool combos.

6 - Ripper: Changing their stats will do nought. They need faster regeneration + lower cost. S units need low cost to survive in T2, or get perma-cc.

7 - Phalanx: The same as above. A slow, melee, S-creature is very unattractive, especially so with 80e cost. Slightly lower its health, lower power to 70 to make it more all round.

8 - Twilight Minions: This unit is all about transformation buffs. However, it's somewhat expensive and the buffs aren't good. You won't get anywhere by increasing their health.
Lower their cost to 50 and increase their buffs to 30% and 40%. That would make them a really interesting gimmick unit and motivates twilight players to use their transformations.

9 - Slaver: Lowering the energy is a terrible change because nobody will take it over Mauler or Gladiatrix. Instead, I'd say to give it rage.
This way you'd have a medium sized rageclaw squad that you can use for siege (amazing combo with self-destruct). And it would still be useful as an L-counter. Rage would be the perfect ability to mitigate its terrible stats and put pressure on the enemy.

10 - Banditos: Agree with Banditos. 50 energy is an absolute must have, potentially the ability should be even better to mitigate for being S/S, melee and weak to CC.

11 - Bandit Launcher: This card is completely outplayed by Rioter's Retreat. However, if it were 1500 ATK it could make a decent ATK-oriented fortification with some seweet revenge damage when it burns down.

12 - Skydefender: The sad thing about Skydefender is that it deals even less damage than is stated on the card. And its abilities are completely useless. Essentially, this card needs a rework.
I'd suggest rapid-construction, 60e, 900 ATK and debuff abilities (target inflicts less 30% damage or takes 50% more damage).

13 - Stone Hurler: Lol, Stone Hurler is amazing. M-knockback is awesome and so is 200% damage to humans (think renegade campaign). Don't change it.
However, the card is bugged and deals less damage than stated on the card. That's the only fix it needs.

14 - Twilight Hag: The card has potential and its CC covers a huge area, but the CC costs 100 and the Hag does insignificant damage. She should have L-knockback to justify her support role and have some better stats so she doesnt die to a breeze in combat.

15 - Boom Brothers: Agree on the HP buff. This way they become the perfect meal for my Tortugun.

16 - Emberstrike: Make it an XL counter or L counter. There is literally no reason to play it once you get better cards. Nonetheless, I agree with the ability cost.

17 - Fire Worm: Make it require 1 fire orb. There would be many fun combos with it in multi-colour decks. Also, slightly buff its health, it's stats are very sub-average for T4.

18 - Void Maw: Make it a long range unit and make it require 1 shadow orb. It will not survive in the frontline, even with buffed health. There is also nothing special about that card which would require 2 shadow orbs.

19 - Artillery: It's an amazing T4 card and a near must-have for a bandit mission deck. But I'd take any buff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The looter ability is essentially a double-dip. If thugs kill forsaken (or any 50-power unit) they generate 10 power out of nowhere while the opponent loses his unit with 45 power going to void and with 5 power permanently lost. Now if the thugs themselves die, they send 54 power to the void and 6 permanently lost. This means a thugs that has killed a forsaken has more than paid for itself in a permanent sense. Except this was already true before the looter-change since the fire player had both a temporary positional advantage and a still-living unit while his opponent didn't not. Now on top of that, the fire player has 10 power that appeared from nowhere and which is immediately available to him in the powerpool. 

Power calculation wise, as long as thugs have dealt 60% of the damage to any 50-power unit before death, they have permanently paid for themselves. And if they kill 2 units, they have permanently paid for 4 50-power units. Any disadvantage a thugs player occurs power-wise can only ever be temporarily, as his opponent constantly loses power permanently from unit-lose while he gains power even while losing units. It violates the rules of the game and succeeded in ruining what was once a very balanced match-up between Fire T1 and Shadow T1. Making the same mistake with strikers would mean that no shadow player (or fire players without thugs/strikers) should even bother playing tier-1, because the match-up would no longer be winnable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with Windhunter and honestly, I'd prefer to revert the looter ability to its original state: Make it only work on buildings (affecting thugs and strikers). Phenomic really had a very weird way of buffing units when balance was up to debate in watchlists... (especially since most people agreed on making thugs 50 power).

Windhunter really nicely showed the problems and frankly, such unintuitive mechanics should not be in the game.

As for Strikers themselves, I am not sure what their place in the game actually is and would prefer leaving them as they are. If balance changes are actually going to happen the meta is going to shift and maybe we can find a suitable niche for Strikers as the meta evolves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, ImaginaryNumb3r said:

 such unintuitive mechanics should not be in the game.

That's exactly what i ment with paranoia of being behind while being even. The thugs buff gave a totaly new feeling to the most common T1 matchup and i don't like this feeling. Not only because i as a shadow player can throw most power calculations i usually make out of the window after one thug caught up to a forsaken. It's also the fact that fire now has the ability to play more defensively wich often leads to stalled out boredom instead of welltrading. Don't get me wrong, a thugs buff was overdue because in mid T1 before sunderers come into play motivated frenzied forsaken where a little too strong in offensive situations. But creating power out of fighting units will remain strange to me and makes me even consider playing something other than shadow. There's the argument that absolute perfect micro makes thugs almost useless, but i don't believe that. Especially when your oponent is also really good at microing and the map restricts your moving paths even more you sometimes have no chance but to run into thugs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I propose to rebalance Nightshade Plant - awful twilight version of Grimvine with worst stats and useless ability. It costs more then Abomination with better stats and  very decent ability; it has no Siege like Grimvine and it requires 2 fire 2 nature orb.
It seems this card was designed by old devs just to show that they realy do something at job.

Edited by Loriens
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I also want to share my ideas with some underwhelming Cards. Personally i dont see this Cards much used and also find that they missing something to be usefull:

1. Northguards: Barley used them myself and i also saw them not so often. I thought it would be cool if we can change their "Brave Defenders" to an passive that actually give them some Bonus. Maybe we could give them an 5% Damage reduce when the northguards are near friendly structures. That way the Name for the passive would still makes sence and make them more usefull.

2. Tortugun: I like this unit, if it would not turn hungry so damn fast. It dont fell right that you need to waste ressources that Tortugun dont kill your own troops, while you could just use an other unit. I like the idea of just reduce the Speed of getting hungry again. Additionally when you summon it, Tortugun should start with a full stomach if you ask me

3. Anti-Air Buildings: Yes i know in some missions they can be usefull but i personally prefer to build Towers that can attack Air and Ground Units. I dont know how to make the Anti-Air Towers more attractive but i find them useless when you just can build better Towers.

4. Magma Spore: Never seen this unit seriously used. For anti-air i find it too weak and when you want to attack Ground troops you must pay 50 Energie to attack every 20sec. I have no idea why you should take this unit and waste one Slot for this.

5. Infernal Chain: Dont find this speel usefull at all. Maybe its better if its cheaper.

Other Cards i find useless are already mentioned in this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

# 8 Envenom:

I agree imaginary number up there, in regards to making the poison stack with natures other DoT's it has.  As a matter of fact most of them need to be looked at.  Also the reduction of power by 5 or 10 would be a good idea.

# 9 Tunnel:

As a proponent of a tunnel deck this is a toughie for me, in regards to how to make it useful in PvP.  PvE is not that big of a deal, PvP though, that one is tough.  However the reduction in power cost is probably the only way to make is useful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...
On 11/1/2018 at 8:11 PM, Loriens said:

I propose to rebalance Nightshade Plant - awful twilight version of Grimvine with worst stats and useless ability. It costs more then Abomination with better stats and  very decent ability; it has no Siege like Grimvine and it requires 2 fire 2 nature orb.
It seems this card was designed by old devs just to show that they realy do something at job.

This :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just went throu all cards, to make a list witch cards i personally never use. This is my subjectiv opinion and i might be wrong with some cards. I just name cards that both of the affinitys is not viable.  If we talk about what card affinitys are underpowered there will be only 20% (wild guess) of cards left were both affinitys are somehow viable.

This not means that i feel all of them need a buff, because especially at t1 and t2 they might affect pvp in a way i´m not good enough to decide. And pure pvp cards i ll leave out at all cause i m not quallified. Basicly all t1 s melee units are not used in pve so i let them out.

Some of the cards just get outclassed by dominant cards like Necroblaster , Lost Launcher , World Breaker Gun, so they are only not used cause there is a so much better alternative. But anyway i would suggest not to nerf Nekroblaster too hard. Just nerf Necroblaster a little and also buff all the other Towers that are UP to bring them too a balance.

I feel especially Buildings need a balancing. 

I will not explain for every card why i feel ther are not viable , they are too much. If u wonder ask then ill explain. Some cards i ll explain.

Some cards can be buffed by change the energy cost or att or hp stats some would need a complete rework.

 

 

1  Bandit spearmen (maybe pvp viable?)

2  skydefender (Rioters retreat can attack ground + Fly and more damage cause 3 targets + heals near units) 

3  Banditos  (t2 s melee unit must have crazy cost efficiency)

4  Earthkeeper

5  Eliminator

6  Frost crystall

7  Global warming (super rare usefull so it should at least be OP vs shields)

8  Kobold Laboratory 

9  Mountain rowdy

10 Bandit launcher 

11 Lostconverter 

12 Twilight minions

13 Shrine of Märtyrs   ( important to change) (more shield and less void needed to trigger full shield. or biggershield the less void u have not the more void u have.)

14 Fleshbender  

15 Frontier Keep (T3 and 260 energy for a defencive supportbuilding)  80 energy maybe

16 Infernal machiene (T3 and 260 energy for a defencive supportbuilding)  80 energy maybe

17 Oracle mask

18 Lost Disruptor (Pure anti air tower must be OP vs air) outclassed by nekroblaser

19 Twilight Hag

20 Waystation 

21 Incubator 

22 Infernal Chain

23 Plague

24 Artillery ( why they took away their l knockback...)

25 Girl power

 

Ofc manny things others will see different and thats OK

 

Kind regards

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bandit spearmen suffer from the issue that they can be perma-cc'd due to knockback. Stat-wise the card is incredible with its ability. Spearmen can kill all standard T2 M-units in 10 seconds or less (nightcrawlers, enforcers, burrowers, etc.) and it even beats or comes close to beating some of its own counters (scythe fiends, ghostspears). Its flaw is that it is slow and almost unusable against nature splashes, which is exactly where the card is most needed by bandits. 

The card, and Bandits as a whole, would benefit from bandit spearmen being given steadfast (knockback immunity). This change would make spearmen an all-arounder card for Bandits (+50% damage against any melee unit, and M-counter), which I would hesitate to add to any other faction, but Bandits lack of CC and building protects means that its units ought to have higher stats compared to other factions to compensate. The only faction this would give Bandits a lopsided match-up with is Pure Nature, since Bandits already wins this match-up and spearmen beat ghostspears in a 1v1 while steadfast would make spearmen useful against deep ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Great list and suggestions. It's well thought out and makes the cases effectively. 

One general point of improvement:

In almost all cases, I think the best buff is one that emphasizes the card's uniqueness. Most of the time, I think you did this, but in a few cases, I think there could have been more focus there. In particular, when a twilight card is underperforming, its transformation ability could be the first place to look for buffs, as most of these abilities are too weak to be worth using.

Outside of twilight cards, one in particular that I think about is Battleship. I would buff it by improving its ability instead of its general stats, making it the ultimate air siege unit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Terms of Use