Suggested card changes

[Ggoblin]

Comparing some cards' cost and what they offer I've made a list with some cards that need changes and my suggested changes (all cards are coinsidered as being U3). Won't mention some cards that I'm either unsure of or that would be too controversial

Before that I'd like to talk about 2 mechanics that I feel need some adjustments:

Firstly destroying monuments under construction return 75 power, which is nice if you got the wrong orb but makes it less punishing to build an orb near a fire enemy that might have scorched earth or any enemy with huge dps. I propose instead of getting power back the destruction allows you to build a new monument in the next 10s for 0~25 cost.

Secondly, some spells have such low costs that they cd is longer than their recharge time after you run out of charges, which makes charges irrelevant for them, so I propose spells take at least double the cd time to recharge.

//T1 cards//

1) Envenom - useless at T1 because of high costs (higher than most T1 units) and the tainted damage is too low.

Proposed changes: Infused: 50 cost and 30 dmg/s

Tainted: 50 cost and 20~25 dmg/s, 20s duration

2) Executor - see below

3) Frost sorceress - has way too low damage, making her somewhat useable as a damage dealer would encourage putting her in the front line rather than keeping her back just for the shield.

Proposed changes: 30 damage per hit/ 45 with splash. May need a bit higher shield cost in which case the damage may be even higher

4) Lifestealer - loses more health than deals damage to small units thanks to knockback.

Proposed changes: damaged cannot be reduced by abilities, shields and damage is divided amongst all squad members of a hit unit

5) Mumbo jumbo - too costly for a spell that is mostly supportive, like frost bite. The cooldown is also weird as it's the same as the duration, which would mean that reapplying the debuff or the enemy playing a unit at the moment there's ground presence is a matter of who clicks faster and who has less delay.

Proposed changes: 25 cost and 25s cooldown

6) Nasty surprise - offers burst damage to lost souls, which is supposed to be a risky defensive faction.

Proposed changes: maximum 500 damage vs buildings

7) Nomad - a nice card but the sky catcher ability is too expensive to be useful.

Proposed changes: sky catcher should cost 75

8) Offering(b) - worse than the gifted affinity in every way.

Proposed changes: cost 30~35

9) Phase tower - too little risk in pvp as it's a 900/600 unit while vulnerable.

Proposed changes: 50% damage while vulnerable but vulnerability only lasts 20s

10) Soul splicer(r) - irrelevant compared to soul splicer(g).

Proposed changes: 40~50% bonus damage. Only affects units that remain in the area and consumes the same amount of corpses as bonus damage dealt.

11) Thugs+Strikers - looter is a strange ability that offers late rewards for immediate investment and is hard to balance. I think that immediate return for some late loss would be more interesting for aggressive fire tactics. Also notice that it's useless on pve which is bad considering they're the only non-swift s-counter fire has at T1.

Proposed changes: looter returns the power bound to thughs/strikers back to the power pool. Returned amount is equivalent to 40% of attacked targets power cost relative to damage dealt to its health. Anything with less than 50 power cost will be considered as having 50 power cost so it's still useful in pve. (the change basically means that you immediatelly return part of the units bound power by attacking with it so that you can keep using spells and units. You do lose some power in the long run however due to the higher power cost of units with lotter. If you can't attack enough it's even worse)

12) Suppression - too expensive for a single target cc that only works on towers, even more so with every fire pvp decks and many pve ones having sunstriders.

Proposed changes: cost 20~25

13) Surge of light - too strong on single targets with high health.

Proposed changes: 1k max healing per unit (this change can only be done if pure nature gets a better T2. Doesn't change anything for nature T1)

14) Treespirit - bit too high health for a unit that is technically ranged. (might generate some discussion)

Proposed chages: 720~780 hp

15) Werebeasts - bit too low stats/power (including the regen).

Proposed changes: 660/660

16) Wintertide - a bit too expensive

Proposed changes: 50 cost

17) Witchclaws - ability is too expensive and tainted one has too little impact.

Proposed changes: 15 ability cost and tainted gets 270 unit damage per target/ 810 total

//T2 cards//

18) Bandit sorceress - too little damage. The ability has the tradeoff of not being able to attack so it's no excuse.

Proposed changes: 60 damage per target/ 90 total

19) Bandit stalker - not good enough against anything.

Proposed changes: Gifted: target is slowed so it can counter beasts even better (as they are mostly swift at T2). 800 attack.

Tainted: can't be useful without countering anything. Change ability to: 50% of all damage dealt to target can't be warded off, lasts 7s after attack. Possibly also the slow on attack. 800 attack.

20) Commandos - too little stats for the cost even with the toogle.

Proposed changes: 800~860 attack

21) Darkelf assassins - active has basically no downside.

Proposed changes: 15s of weakness

22) Deathglider - weird and basically useless unit.

Proposed changes: ???/??? stats plus no death on infection (but 10 cost). Gifted affinity deals extra damage to walls.

23) Earthkeeper - too little attack.

Proposed changes: 600 damage

24) Eliminator - the downside should be the hp loss rather than the cost.

Proposed changes: 10 ability cost

25) Frost crystal - a building meant for cc that can't hit archers.

Proposed changes: archer range on active

26) Gladiatrix(p) - gives up swift for increased effects on an ability that has a cost. The increment is simply not good enough.

Proposed changes: 60 ability cost so you might use her instead of the gifted one if you want to focus on the ability.

27) Gravity surge - a tiny bit too expensive for what it does, even if flying units usually cost 100 at T2.

Proposed changes: 45~50 cost

28) Healing well - no starting heal and incredibly slow charge speed.

Proposed changes: 100 healing charge per 2s

29) Kobold laboratory: Could probably use a small buff.

Proposed changes: 40 cost and 50% faster repair speed

30)Lost converter - should probably cost 50 really.

31) Lost priest - too low attack

Proposed changes: ???/???

32) Mountain rowdy - too low range on ability and unecessary 2 frost orbs.

Proposed changes: archer range on the ability/ 30~35s cooldown

33) Razorshard - the knockback is too strong.

Proposed changes: 5~7 radius

34) Skydefender - Do I even need to say anything?

Proposed changes: cost 60 and higher damage

35) Slaver - too low stats

Proposed changes: 1120 attack

36) Spirit hunters(p) - too low damage

Proposed changes: 23 poison damage

37) Stormsinger(g) - has swift and a good cheap ability. I think it should cost more than the infused one even with the extra damage.

Proposed changes: 40 cost

38)Twilight brute - the ability affecting own units makes it very weird. Specially considering it needs you to kill the enemy and the unit itself is meelee.

Proposed changes: Ability only affects enemies and the daage is adjusted accordingly

39) Twilight curse - too expensive to be used effectively on enemy or own units.

Proposed changes: maximum unit cost is decreased to 150. Power cost is decreased to 60~65 so that it can be used effectively on both its functions

40) Wallbreaker - could probably be a bit cheaper

Proposed changes: 20 cost

41) Warlock - too expensive for a mono fire unit that does what it does.

Proposed changes: 50~55 cost

//T3 cards//

42) Corsair - too little damage and no counter.

Proposed changes: ~76 damage per cannon

43) Drones - worse than silverwinds in every way even though they're basically the same unit for different factions.

Proposed changes: stat/power similar to silverwinds

44) Dying breed - too expensive to be useful.

Proposed changes: Tainted: 40 cost

Gifted: 40 cost and no damage

45) Frontier keep - too expensive for little return.

Proposed changes: 150~170 cost

46) Gunner(p) - has little to offer compared to other affinity.

Proposed changes: attacked units can't be healed for 10s

47) Infernal machine - similar poroblem to frontier keep.

Proposed changes: 200 cost

48) Lord cyrian - way too expensive for what it offers.

Proposed changes: 330~350 cost

49) Mutating maniac - low stats for the cost

Proposed changes: 2660/2450

50) Shrine of martyrs - 125 is still a bit too expensive for the amount of defense it offers and the restrictions of the card.

Proposed changes: 100 cost

51) Stone launcher - ability costs way too much for such a specific card, not to mention that it can't attack the unit that it brought down.

Proposed changes: ability cost 0.

52) Sylvan gate - could be a bit more useful considering the investment you have to make.

Proposed changes: links the root network to each other sylvan gate

53) Treefiend - way too weak statted.

Proposed changes: 1900/2100 (the attack is actually meant to refer to it's damage in rooted form)

54) Twilight hag - low stats and weird ability.

Proposed changes: 1200/900 and ability is not gender restricted

55) Twilight warfare - too little impact to be useful.

Proposed changes: 100 cost/ 40% for each affinity and the infused one increases damage dealt to anything/ units transformed in the area will have full health

56) Virtuoso - low stats per cost

Proposed changes: 1900 health

57) Waystation - useless and doesn't represent bandits very well.

Proposed changes: quick build (50%) faster. No duration outside of range for the infused one.

//T4 cards//

58) Amok - a lot worse than frenetic assault even though it has so many restrictions. Tainted one is so slow it's useless.

Proposed changes: Infused: up to 7 units affected

Tainted: spreads to 2 new units every 5s

59) Bloodthrist - doesn't stack the more damage you deal like it used to, even though there are so many restrictions on it.

Proposed changes: fix it to how it used to be

60) Colossus - the ability is practically useless even though it's a three nature orb cards. Could probably have better stats considering the high cost.

Proposed changes: ability lasts 30s and has 25m range, also it's free (you lose dps by using it afterall)

61) Earthen gift(p) - a weird card with effects that don't really match each other.

Proposed changes: friendly structures take 50% damage instead of enemy ones dealing less

62) Fire sphere - a triple fire spell that is delayed and has awful range. Basically useless.

Proposed changes: at least give it a 25m effect radius since you do need 3F for this card

63) Infernal chain - too expensive.

Proposed changes: 100~110 cost

64) Lifestream - not as useful as similar buildings, takes too much damage.

Proposed changes: 50% of the damage is transferred

65) Lost spirit ship - has average damage; if it had 4 cannons instead of 8.

Proposed changes: just nerf the damage really, it's undeserved

66) Magma fiend - too little health for a unit htat is practically meelee.

Proposed changes: 4K health

67) Nightshade plant - requires one to be full twilight and has awful abilities and stats.

Proposed changes: make it also affect units that hit it or that it's hitting. 5s duration for tainted and 15 for gifted (same duration on death)

68) Plague - very risky ability with just average damage.

Proposed changes: 200 damage/s

69) Ravenhearth - too expensive

Proposed changes: 300 cost

70) Tortugun - the storage capacity is too little.

Proposed changes: up to 7.5K stored lifepoints

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Ggoblin
Added T3 and T4

[RadicalX]

Hey! I went through your list and it was interesting to read. That said, you are targetting a good amount of cards, that are affecting the PvP meta and getting proper balancing here is not that easy. The balancing system is very sensitive, small changes could weaken entire factions (especially the fragile ones). I went through the list and these are the most dangerous changes: 

 

-> Starting mechanics: If you change orb switches in such a way, that there is no power return, scorched earth would be completely broken in the first place. The card is strong already (especially in 2v2) and destroying a monument in PvP is a significant loss as you are down at -75 or even -175 until you rebuild the orb. This would be nothing but a pure Fire buff aka. empowering one of the most powerful factions in PvP. 

-> Charges on low cost spells are irrelevant as there is next to no low cost spell that gets spammed to the limit of its charges (Motivate being the one exception). So this change would be nothing but a direct nerf to Motivate, when it's played in aggressive T2 factions like Shadow Nature.

 

1) Envenom has its use as a counter to Ravage. It can take a small buff, but 50 would be over the board in the first place as it gives nature an easy way to execute units effectively. 

3) Frost Sorc is in a decent spot in the current meta, where it's the core card of the fire frost faction. I think she is in a fine place as a supporter and doesn't need a damage buff as it would be viable in a spam against Fire T1. 

6) Nasty surprise is in a very good spot after setting down the damage cap to 1,5k life points. A nerf would just buff Frost based T3 factions like timeless one even further so you would pretty much buff Shadow Frost as a faction and also empower cards like Curse well, which is arguable the most broken T3 card in this game. 

9) not targeting the true Phasetowerproblem, that it does provide to much damage due to its splash and high range

11) I'm pretty sure that the looter ability gives you the power immediatly already and it's not going through your voidpool.

14) Yeah Treespirits are in a weird spot right now, where they get outshined by the classic "op strats" like phasetower or mortar, but they provide a good amount of power in combat against units. Pretty hard to balance them properly due to their weird attack burst rotations

16) Wintertide is a big buff to 2v2 Frost Shadow, where you spam Forsaken with it. In addition to that I think the card is unhealthy as it's not rewarding skill, so making it viable would be bad for some T1 matchup (especially Frost vs Shadow)

21) Changing Darkelf Assassins is a bad idea as they are a core unit of every Shadowsplash faction. The implication this has on a faction like Bandits is quite insane. In addition to that there is alot of counter play for almost every faction (okay pure Frost sucks against S, you need Frostmage or Icefang Raptor, that are not optimal, but that's about it) 

26) Also just a buff for pure Fire, that uses the Gladiatrix (p) since you want Disenchant Green for your Juggernaut

27) Gravity Surge is strong, but T3 Air Units are simply not part of the meta, so Stormsinger is more than enough. I wouldn't go below 55 power cost for that one. 

33) Pretty sure, that Razorshard is only that strong, because the splash damage got calculated poorly. Rather than having 50% extra splash damage it has 150%, which brings 300 damage per hit onto a wellcluster. After the hit delay it is definitely possible to micro around the shots with some good unit management. 

 

[Ggoblin]

-> Starting mechanics: Although I agree that might be too strong I'd say building a monument where the fire player can easily acess it is something that should be punished.

-> Charges on low cost spells matter for motivate, home soil and frost bite, they have a set amount of charges for a reason and having to wait after you use all of them would be only fair. There's no reason to make charges irrelevant for those spells.

1) Not really effective as it takes 20 seconds to deal 600 damage to a unit that doesn't stop attacking, not to mention that most units cost 50-60 at T1 so it's not power efficient either. As for fights against T2 it still has obvious weaknesses and the damage isn't that strong unless the opponent keeps attacking with the unit.

3) Fair enough.

6) The damage cap is 3k no? And I don't see how nerfing the damage it deals to buildings (and only if it would go over 500 per building) would buff frost. The only faction that relies on burst damage from nasty surprise to destroy buildings is lost souls which has acess to frost.

9) Might be so.

11) The change I'm proposing is to make it not generate power out of nowhere and instead take it from the thugs/strikers bound power. The returned power would be relative to the attacked units powercost and health but would return more than currently (40%). That would change these cards from immediate cost for late rewards to immediate rewards for late cost and would make them easier to balance.

14) Agree that they're hard to balance.

16) It might indeed be good as is.

21) Their ability is supposed to be risky but instead it allows you to get damage out 10 secons earlier. I don't see how making them take 15s to recuperate instead of 10 would make the card unuseable.

26) Swift is an important ability and choosing to forgo that for an ability that you have to pay for should be more rewarding than it currently is. I don't think this change would make it particularly powerful.

27) I feel like a single target cc that allows ground units to target air ones should cost less than 60 but I suppose it could be too strong considering frost's great ground control.

33) I might have tackled the wrong problem then.

 

[ImaginaryNumb3r]

I know it's fun to speculate, but a sledgehammer approach never works when you want to improve the game. A change to a card must add something positive to the game, like allowing a faction to be more competitive, more fun or more balanced overall. Don't forget that every card belongs to a faction in one way or another (including orb restrictions + decks where it makes sense to play the card to begin with), looking at cards one by one hides the bigger issues.

Some cards are utterly pointless and need a drastic revamp, while other cards are overshadowed and a simple change to their stats will achieve nothing. And other cards might be beneficial if re-imagined and seen from the perspective of the respective faction to make this faction more competitive / balanced / fun.

Your end goal can never be to buff a card because individually it is subjectively regarded as bad or just because you can do so. Even worse, some cards are potentially toxic and buffing the wrong cards can do a whole lot harm than good.

I say this because you obviously put a lot of thought into this, but I really miss a little justification behind your suggestions. And some seem really ill-thought out: Yes, Mutating Maniac has bad stats and is downrighter inferior to Fathom Lord. But a 2660/2450 for 140 power is just absurd (sorry), because it turns the unit into one of the most power-efficient T3 units in the game. And it would only remain a boring beatstick. Without question, Mutating Maniac absolutely needs better stats. But I'd change it's abilities so it is more interesting.

Remember, Twilight also has access to Fathom Lord which has a powerful single-unit CC that combos well with it's anti-XL designation. Mutating Maniac could work as a multi-unit CC unit (and potentially become anti-L), which also debuffs units with its Toxic Cloud (no healing, damage reduction, slow enemy). It also has a transformation ability that nobody uses because it's too expensive and too situational. The transformation ability would be far more interesting if it was more powerful (like disallowing enemies to summon cards for a short time).

I'll leave it at that. I don't mean this to be overly critical, but simply informative. The game has a lot of issues, but many of them are very delicate and require special care.

[Showaren2]

Can we please please please do something about curse well soon? I am massively abusing it in T3 because everyone else is, and it makes for the most boring matches ever. Only counter to curse well is curse well and then you end up playing 4 matches in a row where you just run around with silverwinds and curse well the sh1t out of each other. I try to finish in T1, but as soon as I am playing against a frost splash I basically know we will end up in T3. I win very often with this strategy, it is just so incredibly boring..... The card is absolutely broken!