Balance Proposal: Mutating Maniac

[The Aquanix]

Mutating Maniac:

The strongest drawbacks to this card come in the form of its expensive ability, and inferior cost-to-power ratio in comparison to other cards accessible at T3.

Under no competitive circumstances is this card a viable pick over cards like Fathom Lord & Giant Slayers in PvP, but we're hoping to make Mutating Maniac a more appealing PvE option.

For this, we propose the following changes:

General:

- Reduce energy cost to 120. (From 140).

Ability: Toxic Cloud

- Reduce energy cost to 30 (from 90)

These changes were voted on by the Representatives of the Skylords Reborn Balance Discord.

Voting Results:

Representative - 1  | 8  (Energy Cost) 7  (Ability Energy Cost)

We hope that this will make Mutating Maniac more appealing--and more importantly--more fun.

We will happily revisit the card if further balancing is needed.

With love,

Aqua 

[DarcReaver]

Still think this is the wrong approach to the Mutating Maniac.

The unit is a fire-nature version of a mutating frenzy. Frenzy has a risk concept connected to it with loosing HP -> gain damage%.

Mutating Maniac needs control + aggression elements to fit fire-nature. It should have more of a Vanguard/tanky unit role that can stand in the center of aggression for a long time and frees other units from focus fire. this makes this unit useful in both PVE and PVP instead of only making it a niche pick for certain PvE maps

Possible solutions to apply this:

1) Toxic Cloud applies a DEBUFF i.e. enemy units in the cloud have slower movementspeed, deal less damage or be "blinded" (tankyness + control)
2) Maniac gets a different damage class (M, S or L) to not interfere with Fathom Lord/Giant Slayer anymore 
3) Maniac has passive healing/ravage type ability during fights (sustain + tankyness)
4) Maniac receives rage ability (aggression)
5) Maniac receives a charge ability, similar to Enforcer/giant slayer (aggression)
6) Maniac gains resistance to CC when in a fight, i.e. CC lasts 50% shorter, or he's immune to slowing abilities (tankyness + control)
7) Maniac takes less damage when his health points drop. ie. takes 50% less damage when below 50% health (tankyness)
8) Maniac gets a "berserk" - deals more damage when his health points drop i.e. +50% more damage when below 50% health, + 100% damage when below 25% health (aggression)
9) Maniac receives an AoE taunt-type ability (control)

Of these options only 2-3 points should be combined each, preferably different types of abilites.

[Chibiterasu]

On 8/30/2019 at 10:28 AM, DarcReaver said:

Still think this is the wrong approach to the Mutating Maniac.

The unit is a fire-nature version of a mutating frenzy. Frenzy has a risk concept connected to it with loosing HP -> gain damage%.

Mutating Maniac needs control + aggression elements to fit fire-nature. It should have more of a Vanguard/tanky unit role that can stand in the center of aggression for a long time and frees other units from focus fire. this makes this unit useful in both PVE and PVP instead of only making it a niche pick for certain PvE maps

Possible solutions to apply this:

1) Toxic Cloud applies a DEBUFF i.e. enemy units in the cloud have slower movementspeed, deal less damage or be "blinded" (tankyness + control)
2) Maniac gets a different damage class (M, S or L) to not interfere with Fathom Lord/Giant Slayer anymore 
3) Maniac has passive healing/ravage type ability during fights (sustain + tankyness)
4) Maniac receives rage ability (aggression)
5) Maniac receives a charge ability, similar to Enforcer/giant slayer (aggression)
6) Maniac gains resistance to CC when in a fight, i.e. CC lasts 50% shorter, or he's immune to slowing abilities (tankyness + control)
7) Maniac takes less damage when his health points drop. ie. takes 50% less damage when below 50% health (tankyness)
8) Maniac gets a "berserk" - deals more damage when his health points drop i.e. +50% more damage when below 50% health, + 100% damage when below 25% health (aggression)
9) Maniac receives an AoE taunt-type ability (control)

Of these options only 2-3 points should be combined each, preferably different types of abilites.

1. A poisen fits the nature fire theme very well compared to a blindness or a damage debuff. The movementspeed fits too. But we already discussed this in the discord channel. Poisen + Movementspeed reduction would probably too strong in PvP and only a slow would almost be useless in Pve.

2. Also discussed in discord: S counter is almost useless in t3, M counter would only counter specific units for example silverwind or giant slayer. Both of them are swift so Mutating Maniac will have a tough time fighting against those units. L would be the only possible counter but I'm sure there were some arguments against it too. The only real possibility that we considered was siege damage. But in the end more people wanted the XL damage.

3. We wanted to keep it simple with those changes for now. A passive healing would be a cool idea but we don't know to which extend we are even able to give him such an ability.

4 & 5. Would make it even more similar to giant slayer.

6. Complete CC immunity would probably be way to op in PvP and the other ideas are overall too difficult (or even impossible) to implement.

7. Reminds me of a frost unit. I don't think it fits very well to a Fire Nature unit.

8. That would fit quite well. But again, since it's a completely new ability, it will be very difficult to impossible to implement.

9. Taunt again feels a bit odd for a Fire Nature unit imo. It may be a control ability but it would again fit better to a frost unit. I'm not even sure if there's an aoe taunt in the game right now. (Lightblade only works on one unit what makes it a different ability.)

So some of those ideas are quite good but I think within our limits, the current proposal is pretty good so far. Besides we can still adjust it later on.

[Ragenarok]

I'm a big fan of these changes. I've wanted to like mutating maniac since the beginning days, but he was only ever a peasant's best option until th inserted $ to be able to afford Fathom lord. Sadly the tale with many cards. the game was tailored and "balanced" to encourage real life money spent. Now that is no longer a factor, there are many things I'm sure everyone would like addressed.

Battleforge was often not a case of each card is better than another over a niche situation. You could often break down cards that competed for a similar role in any given deck into a tier list, and it was up to your wallet to help you climb that tier list.

Looking forward to seeing more of the proposed changes and what unique and creative ideas this community come up with!

[ImaginaryNumb3r]

This card is a strong contender for a buff. Since if you make this card viable, it becomes an affordable version of Fathom Lord and a key card for beginners to create a strong fire/nature deck. Keep it's XL-counter but make it as non-pvp viable as possible and reward interesting mechanics that are of little use in pvp.

In terms of stats, the only thing this card needs is a cost of 130 and you get very good stats for your money (along with a good range of fire and nature support).

On 9/1/2019 at 9:37 PM, Chibiterasu said:

1. A poisen fits the nature fire theme very well compared to a blindness or a damage debuff. The movementspeed fits too. But we already discussed this in the discord channel. Poisen + Movementspeed reduction would probably too strong in PvP and only a slow would almost be useless in Pve.

2. Also discussed in discord: S counter is almost useless in t3, M counter would only counter specific units for example silverwind or giant slayer. Both of them are swift so Mutating Maniac will have a tough time fighting against those units. L would be the only possible counter but I'm sure there were some arguments against it too. The only real possibility that we considered was siege damage. But in the end more people wanted the XL damage.

3. We wanted to keep it simple with those changes for now. A passive healing would be a cool idea but we don't know to which extend we are even able to give him such an ability.

4 & 5. Would make it even more similar to giant slayer.

6. Complete CC immunity would probably be way to op in PvP and the other ideas are overall too difficult (or even impossible) to implement.

7. Reminds me of a frost unit. I don't think it fits very well to a Fire Nature unit.

8. That would fit quite well. But again, since it's a completely new ability, it will be very difficult to impossible to implement.

9. Taunt again feels a bit odd for a Fire Nature unit imo. It may be a control ability but it would again fit better to a frost unit. I'm not even sure if there's an aoe taunt in the game right now. (Lightblade only works on one unit what makes it a different ability.)

So some of those ideas are quite good but I think within our limits, the current proposal is pretty good so far. Besides we can still adjust it later on.

I agree with all points above. But as for the ability, I think Twilight units should excel in supporting other Twilight units. Similar to Twilight Pestilence you could provide healing or a damage-reduction buff to nearby twilight units. Twilight definitely needs some love and could encourage to play fully themed twilight decks.

[Karosuke]

Considering Twilight tries to have units that are somewhat cheap for their stats (fire) and slow aoe damage or heal (nature) I'd suggest making him cost 110 and his ability cost something around 50 but also damaging everything except for twilight units. This would reward having only twilight units while also keeping a little from the original shadowcard - more damage but sacrificing itself in the process.

If that sounds too strong to you keep in mind that twilight lacks mobility and cc. So Numbers are kinda their best shot.

[chickennoodler]

This card's trigger ability gas is terrible. The green version has an awesome aoe twi transform debuff that also prevents all ranged attacks. Red version is some sort of anti buff debuff for pvp.

So what I do is run him in, press twi transform, transform into the exact same mutating maniac green again, then use the mutating maniac as usual.

 

To be fair, I almost never use t3 anyways, but it is hilarious on Extreme maps when I get to do this.