Some people have noted how I take very seriously the balance of effort vs. reward. I believe it’s a very important part of a game’s balancing act, because it’s what keeps the meta from devolving into mindless spam all over the place. It’s a very simple concept: the more you work for something, the more you get from it. The act of “working for it” can take many different forms: using certain other moves first, inflicting a condition, staying alive for a long time, having a specific monster combo handy, losing teammates, and in my opinion the most controversial one: having the enemy fulfill a given condition.
There are two sides of a balanced meta: put little effort into something, get little reward in return; for example, Flocco’s slash move requires a mere press of the button, but rarely nets kills and leaves him at high TU. Alternatively, put lots of effort into something, get lots of reward; for example, Voidress netting 3 kills and then wreaking havoc on the enemy team all by itself; an absolutely brilliant embodiment of the far end of the balanced spectrum. 2 ideal sides of effort and reward, both in relative sync with each other. But then there’s the 2 bad combinations that indicate poor balance: high effort + low reward(like the sheer amount of time and breathing room needed to assemble a line of Cryos or Sancs that can go to waste very quickly), and of course low effort + high reward. You can probably see where I’m going with this.
The moves I’m discussing are Double Counter Strike, Nightwatch, Time’s Up and Defang. Here’s a couple of similar moves that I’m giving a pass:
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Assassinate. The first of its kind, this one is much more fair and makes more sense than its counterparts imo. If there’s a protector it grants you the ability to rip into it, and as a bonus take down one enemy that’s being protected. It’s a protector’s job to die first, so having it be one of the casualties shouldn’t be that big a blow, not to mention that the other target is directly enjoying the benefits it provides, so that sort of makes it complicit, if that makes sense.
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Timestrike Double. Rather a classic, this move would be on the chopping block if it weren’t for the advantage that you give up by using it. A monster that can’t contribute to the fight is worse than dead, because it stops another mon from taking its place. By taking advantage of a stun lock to just pulverize 2 opponents, you pass up on an opportunity to leave the opponent in a crippled state. Hence why this move gets a pass from me despite having the same core issue as the others.
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Double Dreamhunt. Honestly sleep itself can be pretty tough to land in the first place, and just like timestrike you’re passing up the chance to keep things quite heavily in your favor.
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Double Poison Eater. Will talk more on this in a moment.
Now… the problem with these 4 moves, of course, is the imbalance of effort and reward. The standard killer moves we see on mons like Cyclo and Chrome strike a perfect balance; if a single enemy meets the condition, that enemy gets the axe. But when the move is expanded to double form, a very real problem arises: what if only one of the targets fulfills the condition? Well, these moves simply opt to kill both of them anyway. They are reaping twice the reward that the single versions do for the exact same amount of effort. True, there’s a 30 TU difference(which is lessened with bonus factored in), but even so it’s significantly more efficient than the single version. Not to mention this grants them the ability to target that single condition monster through a protector that doesn’t satisfy, which kind of causes them to intrude on assassinate’s role in a sense. Not that there’s anything wrong with the general idea of a move being upgraded, like dual retribution and such, but the problem here is a monster being unfairly targeted.
Now, in comes Double Counter Strike to just throw gas into the fire. I’ve seen its full power from both the dealing and receiving ends, and I can safely say that it is pure bull****. The killer moves at least make sense in that they counter specific setups that are potentially devastating… but punishing a monster for being a specific element? Frankly, that’s just kind of cruel. Why does Lava have any more reason to be targeted than Mecha when they’re essentially the exact same monster? So, counter strike on its own is a questionable concept at best(Looking at you too, Kattmander and mythic ladies…), even though it makes some sense given the target’s initial advantage over the use. But what pushes it over the edge toward being simply unbearable is the way a second monster is roped into being punished for a petty condition it didn’t even meet at all. This is the equivalent of a teacher sending 2 students to the principal’s office for acting up even though one of them never made a peep. It’s incredibly low effort(~50% chance of fire being present in a randomized FL) for ludicrous reward, a condition that the opponent shouldn’t reasonably expect to be prepared for.
I could overlook all of it, however… under one condition: the damage gets toned down. Here’s where I bring up Double Poison Eater; the reason this one’s passable despite punishing a monster that isn’t even poisoned is because in this situation the damage is fairly lackluster; significant, but not enough to kill a reasonably bulky monster. A reduced reward(unreliable kills) for only half the effort, staying consistent with the balance spectrum. DCS, nightwatch, TU and Defang don’t seem to suffer from this problem however, very reliably scoring kills with only one target despite the damage being less than that of two targets; full reward for half effort. That just ain’t fair to the single move monsters that only get one at a time. If there are two targets fulfilling the condition? well then, the attack can do 100k for all I care. The condition’s fully met, so full reward is due.
I understand though, it’s quite rare that you happen to get 2 monsters at once to satisfy the condition, and if that were the only scenario where it was useful then the move would be WAY too situational. So, it’s fine for it to deal significant damage with only one, just not enough for 2 guaranteed KOs. Take a page out of DPE’s book, and only take out SEs and frail legends in one hit. Canis’s ability to sometimes pierce could be slightly problematic though… since he’s meant to be played around underranked monsters anyway, I feel like it’s fair to lower his damage to the point where single target DCS needs piercing in order to kill the bare minimum amount. Counter strike is just a dumb move, so I strongly believe its damage should be much less.
I would love to make use of my Canis for creative strats that allow obscure epics to shine… I just don’t want it to be overshadowed by a single broken move, and I don’t want to feel like a dirtbag just for putting him in my team. That’s kind of the other half of my motivation for asking for this nerf, alongside the balance of effort and reward. If anyone has arguments for why this wouldn’t be such a good idea or maybe even a different way to fix the same problem, I’d like to hear it.
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