I like this idea from a balance perspective, but how on earth can Bubble Shield and/or Guard Crush be reworded to make that happen without sounding extremely awkward?
Honestly, Oni Arg is bad-but-fine as-is, and is probably improved enough by giving Oni a throw on his 6.
2 Likes
Thatās true, I think a 6-throw (with a non-6.x speed, obviously) would probably be both enough of a change and much more elegant that whatever hoops weād have to go through to make the wording work out for Guard Crush beating Bubble Shield.
Well, I originally thought we could just have it in the FAQ. After all, the only way you know that Aces lose to even normals is to consult the FAQ as well. However, I forgot that Guard Crush is worded with the clause that says Guard Crush doesnāt work on ānamed blocks with special abilities.ā 
Is it obvious that I barely ever play Onimaru? 
Knowing that now, I do agree it would be kind of convoluted to have Guard Crush work on Bubble Shield but not on Gwen and Rookās special blocks.
This is a valid perspective, and if really pressed, I would say the only Arg MUs that I think absolutely need changing are Rook and Gloria. Otherwise, I feel like all of Argās MUs are fine as is. I just figured I would chime in if we were gonna talk more seriously about what Argās strengths and weaknesses are.
2 Likes
I donāt know about anyone else, but Iām starting to get tired of theory-crafting and endless debates. There are a few things pretty much everyone agrees on, so shouldnāt we start testing those? Once the consensus change ideas have been tested and either accepted or rejected, weāll have a better idea of where to go from there.
1 Like
Honestly, a pretty relatable sentiment. 
I think @thehug0naut tried to get that ball rolling with this thread but Iām not sure how much actual play testing has gotten done?
I would be game to play some V3 Yomi, though! Maybe we should try to get play testing started in that thread and leave this thread for MU discussion and theory-crafting?
2 Likes
In the interest of facilitating playtesting, Iām going to update the Bureau of Balance thread with the proposed changes that received the most positive feedback. This will probably happen later tonight when Iām free. Correct me if Iām wrong or if thereās more, but I think these are:
-
9-throw -> 9 attack. Currently listed as Under Consideration, will move it to Consensus. -
Time Stop throws become Enders. Will move this to Under Consideration. I think this is a brilliant idea that prevents feel-bad high hp checkmates without significantly affecting 's disadvantaged mus. Perhaps most importantly, it lets us leave 
alone in good conscience since both his and 
mus get significantly better, so we donāt have to make the clunky Quince changes that have been suggested. This change is also really easy to playtest so if feedback is good we could just move it to consensus.
9-throw -> 9 attack. Currently listed as Under Consideration, will move it to Consensus.
Time Stop throws become Enders. Will move this to Under Consideration. I think this is a brilliant idea that prevents feel-bad high hp checkmates without significantly affecting 
alone in good conscience since both his Few thoughts of my own:
Regarding the recent 
discussion, I understand the sentiments but ultimately I find these recent ideas to be little more than band-aids when she really needs a rework. I donāt say that lightly - I think and maaaybe 
are the only chars that actually warrant considering reworks.
Having played a lot of 
, I wanted to comment on him. I like the character a lot but piloting him can be less than satisfying at times because optimal play often consists of powering up everything in sight -> going to low hand -> threatening near-50/50s where your play is frequently decided by your topdeck. Itās true that heās designed to function better on a small hand than others but imo the switch to V2 made it way too good. PCP is card neutral when you flip to attack because of normal draw, and making AA be affected by MHG is huge too. This results in pretty degenerate play imho. The other thing about DeGrey is that his damage efficiency/conversion ability is simply too high for a character with more than 90 effective life thanks to Troublesome Rhetoric.
I fully support the proposed change of making AA not affected by MHG, but Iām pretty sure it doesnāt go far enough since his losing mus are getting nerfed (
). I think the following changes warrant consideration:
- PCP discards 2 cards to flip
- 85 life and/or TR heals 8 life
And then let me finish by proposing making 
's counter once per turn. When the reworked counter idea was proposed earlier it was suggested with an additional knockdown component that received a lot of negative feedback. The once per turn limit, however, seems to be very good on its own because it:
- helps
a ton without having to make extensive and questionable changes to Lumās throws - makes the counter more interactive against other characters like
and 
(if you counter their draw phase ability, you canāt counter their combat abilities that turn) - actually doesnāt hurt the
mu very noticeably since her Jacks recur so Arg just has to wait a turn to get good value from his counters. And the mu would be better already because of the āBubble Shield prevents healingā change.
a ton without having to make extensive and questionable changes to Lumās throws
(if you counter their draw phase ability, you canāt counter their combat abilities that turn)
mu very noticeably since her Jacks recur so Arg just has to wait a turn to get good value from his counters. And the mu would be better already because of the āBubble Shield prevents healingā change.
1 Like
Iām not sold on the Time Stop throws becoming enders, thing, tbh. Geigerās already getting a nice nerf with +1 damage going away and Gold Burst knocking off TD, imo. And Geiger is already hard to play - Iād kind of hate for him to be hard to play and also kinda bad.
I could see the tiny nerfs to DeGreyās life and Troublesome Rhetoric, but not feeling the suggested PCP change.
I still donāt feel like +1 pump to Lum throws is bad, compared to limiting Argās counter.
4 Likes
I think I agree with most of what you said about the other characters (and Iām not really qualified to vote on them anyway), so let me just give my thoughts as a DeGrey player about those suggestions:
- Moral High Ground no longer affects Final Arbiter: If I didnāt agree with your thoughts on this, I wouldnāt have put it in the Bureau of Balance!
- Point, Counterpoint requires discarding two cards: Not a fan, though I see your reasoning for it. My problem with it is because of the (admittedly rare) cases where revealing the Attack side and spinning to Throw is better. This mainly happens in the Quince matchup, which is currently considered to be in Quinceās advantage already. Instead, what if you just didnāt get normal draw off of 7-attack? That way the cost is real without worsening one of his bad matchups unnecessarily.
- Reducing starting life: I donāt like this primarily for flavor reasons, but also because itās a mostly inconsequential change anyway unless you reduce it by more than 5 HP, which is even worse for flavor.
- Troublesome Rhetoric healing by less: This is fine, especially since Iāve always thought it seemed a bit too much. Not sold on it being specifically 8, but either that or 10 should be acceptable.
2 Likes
Yeah thatās a good point. If we agree that high hp unjokerable checkmates and the associated horrible mus are undesirable, I think the Time Stop change should probably be made in lieu of removing +1 Spiral damage during TD. As written in the Bureau, the purpose of removing +1 Spiral damage from TD in the first place was that it was āthe most straightforward way to further reduce his checkmate damage potentialā, which the Time Stop change accomplishes more efficiently. Basically, I donāt think we have to choose between reducing Geigerās feel-bad high hp checkmates and having a strong Geiger.
I understand your reservations and share them to some extent, let me explain where Iām coming from a bit more. The interaction you mentioned in DeGrey-Quince is a single interaction that wonāt always occur in a single mu that isnāt worse than slightly Quince favor. In the big picture, weāre looking at a top 5 character that is probably disadvantaged in no more than 4 mus in the current game, none of which are really all that bad to begin with. Add in the fact that 3 of those 4 disadvantaged mus are getting nerfed, and I think itās clear that he needs something more, whatever form that might take. Though given that I like playing this character, I wouldnāt complain if he became the best in the game. 
2 Likes
That does make sense, but I stand by my stance that we donāt want to weaken him too much. I think if AA doesnāt get MHG, 7-attack doesnāt draw on hit, and 4 only heals by 8 HP, thatāll probably be plenty. Especially if characters he currently is advantaged against get buffs, and I expect that many of them will at least get some small buffs.
Changed wording for easy reference and to potentially copy into Bureau of Balance later
4* Troublesome Rhetoric [Draw Phase]
Choose attack, block, throw, or dodge. If the opponent combat-reveals that option this turn, gain 8 life.
7* Point, Counterpoint [During Combat]
Discard a card to rotate this 180 degrees. Do not draw a card if the attack side of this is blocked or wins combat.
The change to Final Arbiter is already listed in the Bureau post for DeGrey.
1 Like
Aside from adding many more words, it seems like this would make especially sure that you never combat-reveal the attack side of 7, which would make me sad :^( . Currently, revealing 7 as an attack is a fun tech that is actually sometimes viable in grappler/Zane mus or in edge cases like against Setsuki who just recurred 7 and 10. I think it makes those mus more interesting, hence why I favor the ādiscard 2 cardsā version so youāre still rewarded fully for reading the opponent properly, but have a bigger cost if your read was wrong.
True, that is a downsideā¦ It could be conditional on actually spinning it? As for it adding more words, I donāt think thatās a huge problem; itās a single sentence thatās pretty clear in what it does, as opposed to some suggestions that have been made for other characters where it was almost impossible to come up with a wording that was unambiguous without being overly verbose.
Conditional wording
7* Point, Counterpoint [During Combat]
Discard a card to rotate this 180 degrees. If you do, donāt draw a card if the attack side of this is blocked or wins combat.
For what itās worth, another reason that I like this change is that emphasizing the removal of normal draw will help new players by making them realize/remember that normal draw exists on their other normal attacks. You wouldnāt believe how often I have to remind even the more experienced players in my area about normal drawā¦
1 Like
I like that wording. It actually encourages revealing the attack side which sounds fun. What was your reason for disliking the simpler ādiscard 2 cardsā version again? Personally, ignoring gameplay elements, I like the flavor of Quince having an ability that lets him draw two cards (Flagstone Tax) and DeGrey, his antithesis, having an ability where he discards two cards (PCP).
That flavor would be nice, but I think having it discard two would exacerbate the āalways play low hand for maximum MHGā problem by letting him dump his hand even more efficiently. We want to get rid of MHG on AA specifically to make him less reliant on his innate, right? Even if it isnāt by much, Iād rather not balance that right back out by letting him discard more quickly. As it is, I think my version still provides an incentive to combat-reveal Attack first, since if you want to draw you can reveal attack and hope they threw, and if you want to keep your hand low you can reveal throw to be guaranteed to not gain cards.
Anyway, Iām off to bed for tonight. I think we at least have a couple changes we can agree on, and maybe weāll reach a compromise on the others after testing!
Yes certainly! I like your conditional no normal draw version quite a bit. Iād probably have to see them in action to decide which I prefer.
I think making PCP cost two cards nerfs ātopdeck heroā DeGrey playstyles without really bothering more conservative playstyles. The smaller a playerās hand, the more it hurts to have to discard and the more likely they are to have to discard something valuable. If 7 cost two cards to discard, topdeck hero DeGrey would be weaker because 7 would be a much less real threat from a small hand, while DeGreys that build hand more are rewarded by being able to realistically threaten 7 flips.
As a real example, I was recently playing a game against Leontes in which I had AA and 1 random card after dumping most of my hand to bring him to ~30 life and powering up. I topdecked a 7, beat his FDB/dodge mixup by spending my 1 low value card to flip 7, and confirmed into AA for lethal. This wouldnāt be possible if PCP cost two cards to flip.
1 Like
Quite a lot of discussions here to catch up on so Iāll summarise:
-
I agree with @zqxx that the majority of Arg matchups are fine and he doesnāt need loads of changes for no real reason.
-
Completely agree with @fenixoftheashes that Temporal Distortion could get itās +1 damage back if we nerf Time Stop. The idea of not needing to do anything weird with Quince would be especially great.
-
On DeGrey, I can finally see why making PCP cost 2 cards would make sense. I could see either PCP nerf working tbh. Best to have them as options for testing. Troublesome Rhetoric definitely needs itās lifegain reduced. Is 8HP too little to be worth using though?
One question @hobusu, what flavour is broken by having DeGrey on 85HP? Personally I think it would be completely fine to nerf both HP and TR a little (say 5HP and 2HP respectively) to give him a moderate survivability nerf overall.
Also, I know I still owe @mysticjuicer some Jaina feedback, I stupidly left it drafted on my work PC so Iāll put that up today sometime
2 Likes
Rather than have Geigerās TD throws become enders, Iād rather make his 0.0 Aces lose their pumps, if he absolutely needs another change besides losing his +1 damage and getting Gold Bursted out of TD.
1 Like
If you had one more card the same situation would still have happened. shrugs Sometimes you draw the card you need when you need it.
2 Likes
The Geiger-Quince matchup is not nearly as bad as suggested, and letting jokers knock off TD will go a long way toward making it even better. Quince player has to know to make sure to threaten AA off of KD, but thatās a matchup knowledge thing. That being said, I would actually prefer the nerf to make him unable to combo off of time stop throws over the one to his damage in TD, with the reasoning that it would increase the mind games when TD happens, and the more mind games the better.
There donāt need to be big changes to Argās Hex. The āunable to healā clause on bubble Shield is probably fine for anti-gloria tech, and as far as vs. Lum and Oni, a nerf to argās counter should be fine for Lum and Oni maybe just needs another rank of throw, things that have already been suggested.
As far as Jaina goes, I say take away Knee Bash and make that throw just have normal throw properties, including the speed that goes with a throw on a 6. It would slightly nerf her dodge followups, but give her more consistency on punishing throws and make 6 spin maybe do some actual damage, plus give her more consistency on throws and let her save her blocks a bit. I know people want this mythical āflavorā of shooting arrows and being some different thing, but she is what she is, and this seems like the easiest way to accomplish multiple goals for her regarding her power level.
3 Likes