Okay so I’ve got a few balance/monster usability things I wanted to bring to @Dev_VKC’s, @Dev_BRD’s attention.
Note that a plan these posts a lot in advance, so recent developments that aren’t straight up updates to the game don’t change them.
First topic:
The Godfeather/Dragaia:
These two legendaries used to be highly sought after. They were the pinnacle of “Thing to get” in order to help with pretty much any event. As a result they were removed from the regular egg, removed from the first egg, and moved exclusively to the rare egg. The Godfeather since then has been featured a total of once, and no one hatches a Dragaia anymore. When you get these, they are pretty meh, and nobody uses them anymore. Especially when compared to the like of Delugazar.
Why aren’t they used so much anymore? Because they are nearly impossible to set up. Firstly, they want to be alive and ready to go when they are the last monster left. They have the following moveset:
Assisted thunder/Quake(all)
Life Flip Self.
Last bite(Basically the whole legendary right here.)
Retreat
Hold Ground
Stun Immune
As you can see, the monster when it can get a turn can either:
a: skip
b: life flip
c: assisted quake/thunder
The second two are the worst options in the game when your biter is at full HP. If you use assisted quake/thunder then you will never use a second move afterwards because the enemy will kill your biter(whether AI or a pvp opponent) due to the inherent fact that it can and will have a MASSIVE target on it’s head. The second one is self explanatory.
Skipping in PvE is fine, but in pvp it’s not working. That, and the AI has wizened up to the last biter, meaning that it will kill it once it enters the field. As a result, it’s not going to almost ever have the chance to actually use last bite. That, and the fact that there are sooo many things that pierce hold ground right now that even if you do manage to set up last bite, it’s not the payoff that it used to be. It will not give you a reasonable last shot of winning the game.
As a result, we can see that there are the following issues:
- Doesn’t set self up.
- Has high TU moves that it doesn’t want to use, or a move that gets itself killed.
- The payoff for setting the monster up is pretty small.
To combat these three things I would like to propose the following changes:
- Get rid of assisted quake/thunder(it’s not being used, it’s not helpful anymore, monsters aren’t being touched.) Then replace it with backstab. This way the monster can indeed set itself up.
- Make last bite have excessive force. This way when you do set up the monster(or have it set itself up) it will be a force to be reckoned with.
These two changes to the both of these monsters will make them useable and useful for both pvp and in online pvp play as well. I hope you will consider them.
Alright, on to next topic:
Scorpionyx(second form of the mythic onyxia):
I will be completely honest when I say that I wish I didn’t have to post this as one of those weak problem monsters. But it’s just that. A weak problem monster. Note that it’s final form Onyxia is very powerful and should be left as alone as possible.
First thing about this monster that sticks out is it’s giant scorpion tail. . . also known as fatal sting.
- Fatal sting: This skill hits 1 enemy. It deals damage and poisons the monster. Enemies hit by this skill will die after 200 seconds, even if the user leaves the battlefeild , unless they are purified before then.
At first this looks like a perfectly reasonable move. It probably is until we look at the rest of this monster’s moveset:
- Assisted blight
- Raw Bloodthirst
- ELEM healing
- Passive: Sleep immunity
- Passive: Stun converter
So when we look at the rest of it’s moveset comes out. It appears that whenever it gets a turn, it really doesn’t do much. It can heal a shadow monster, hit something, use fatal sting, or use the Raw move(which has to charge for ages). This is it’s list of options upon converting stun. None of these actually effect the game board. Fatal sting might eventually effect the board, but it will not effect it right away. Herein lies the problem with scorpionyx. It needs time to be set up, but the resources given to it will prevent the setup from going off in the first place. With onyxia this is fine, due to the fact that it’s supporting the team with stun counter. However with scorpionyx, raw bloodthirst takes ages to set up(330 seconds),when it finally is set up it can’t do anything(due to raw, and the fact that anyone wishing to live for 330 seconds needs a protector.) and during that time it doesn’t do anything for your team. It also dies to a chrono killer.
Onyxia has none of these problems because it’s supporting your team while to does stuff. Unfortunately though, scorpionyx does nothing, and takes ages to be set up. As it stands, you need to basically have the monster awakened for it to do anything other than sit on your bench, which isn’t okay for something that is above legendary rarity.
So with these issues come changes right? So here is what I propose(1 of these, maybe 2):
- Remove raw. This would solve all the issues for scorpionyx because then protectors and one on one could actually set him up in a meaningful way. As it stands, they’re not doing anything. However, I can see this causing problems with onyxia. So this is a change you might have to balance the upgraded mythic for.
- Replace elemental healing. This spell does nothing for what the monster wants to do. It wants to live, it wants no protectors, and it wants to kill things. Why is this on the monster? Maybe makes sense for onyxia, but 160 second low impact move does nothing for scorpionyx. Especially when all it’s time should be spent on fatal sting. I don’t even know what with(comments pls).
- Just upgrade the raw bloodthirst to raw bloodfury. This is simple, it makes the monster usable, it’s what it needs. That way it has some sort of payoff for fatal sting.
Please devs, look over this iteration of the monster again. I have tried really, really, reeeaaaally hard to get it to work. It’s not working. It doesn’t do anything. It’s a bronzeshell with stun converter.
Alright last monster:
XY-450M:
Okay, so this is more a I feel there is a bit of dysfunction in the second form. Firstly, I like the design space of the monster. Either it does one thing really well, or it does another thing really well. This is created by the move iron wall, which is a protect focus without the protect.
This allows XY-450M to theoretically be 2 monsters in and of itself. It can be a monster that sits there and acts like a brick while supporting your team, or it can be an offensively based monster that sweeps while it disrupts the enemy’s options with ion field. Note that there is just 1 wrench that is thrown in here.
The wrench:
- While the monster is theoretically supposed to be 2 monsters, it’s really more like 1 and a half. This is due to the fact that the second one of his forms literally has moves locked. This means that the defensive support version of the monster is locked behind the awaken wall, which incredibly difficult to overcome. As a result, iron wall as an option is locked(due to the payoff of ion field not being nearly enough to warrant using iron wall and shutting off the option of double survivor), and evolving the monster from X-100S to XY-450M is literally doing nearly nothing. It’s adding a single additional target to survivor at an addition 5 cost to your team.
(As a result I will not be evolving my X-100S at all until I have 3 more of the monster.)
Remedy to the wrench(anti-wrench lubricant):
- Let him have his second passive already. There are 2 massive upgrades already when you awaken him, so let him have his stun absorb when he evolves for the first time. It completes the design in the second form. Stun absorb makes the addition 5 cost that you add to the monster when evolving it for the first time worth doing. Give XY-450M His second passive.
Drax:
Given that we have been promised stuff for drax, I don’t think that I need to talk about him much. I will say though that I would like to see him have his design completed in the second form, in the second passive being given to him, and the new one being one that can be upgraded when it goes from second form to awakened form, such that the jump in power is as big as the other mythics.
Anyway, that concludes my thoughts. Tell me what you think.
