I was hoping you'd respond! I enjoy the heroes that you've posted, and I hope that you don't mind that I've nicked/altered some of your ideas for some of my own. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, rite?
1. The HP question- Taking HP as an aggregate, your team is on the very upper echelons, the same as Haka. But individually, they are always going to start out as the lowest. This means that you can reliably depend on getting absolutely pummeled by anyone who targets the lowest for several rounds- even the entire game. But increasing HP isn't the answer either, since you don't want them to be two high HP heroes, you want them to be a team that shares the punishment and gains strength from teamwork.
My point is to be really wary of abilities that cause damage to the character. They don't have much HP, and pretty much ANY self-inflicted damage is going to add up very quickly. You might also want to consider some sort of ability that lets them trade off damage.
Speaking from the times I have played them, the fact that they are separate targets has eaten through their HP very, very quickly. More often than not, I think one of the two find themselves incapacitated by the end of the battle. I actually increased the life total from 17/15 just so that they wouldn't be wiped off the board so damn quick. This is definitely the highest they get, because I couldn't have the team be higher than Haka.
I understand what you're saying about self damage, I have at least 3 instances in this deck, owing mostly to the nature of Chaos. More on that later.
I love the trading damage/deciding who takes the damage idea! Imma see if I can work that in.
2. Setup: Low HP characters have to have some ability to set up quickly, or be immediately effective out of the gate. Every turn devoted to setup is another turn for the villain to focus fire on the lowest and reduce the amount of time that your team will be in the game.
In game terms, you might want to consider increasing the number of one-shots, and reducing the ongoings. Ongoings work best with tanky people who build slowly and roll faster and faster as they accumulate ongoings.
Your ongoings are a mix of support and defence, but since you only get one card a turn, think about how long it is going to take to have them be effective. Remember that you should take into account getting hit for 3-5 HP per turn, as both environment and minions often go after the lowest. Either that, or have one shots dedicated to getting their support gear out without sacrificing card plays (or damage).
Great point on setup time. I have seen this once or twice in my play tests, where they are in the single digits and barely out of the gate. So I like the idea of getting a card out for free or something in that vein.
3. what if... This is the one that gets me ALL THE TIME. weird situations. What if fanatic uses an end of days? What if one of them goes down and the other is still up? What if you allowed Tempest to use all of his defeated powers, making everyone immune to a damage type...and more? Are there infinite loop combos? How much damage will you be doing if legacy is playing? This is the sort of stuff that playtesting shows, which you've acknowledged.
Fantastic questions. I don't think I've ever played these two along Legacy or Argent Adept, so that's a good one to test. Their damage could get bonkers...
4. What are you? (feel free to ignore this part)
Right now, I'm having a bit of time pigeonholing order and chaos in terms of a character class. Are they damage dealers primarily? are they support characters? Are they burst damage like Ra, or steady like Haka? Or are they meant to build up to power combos? Heroes don't NEED a gimmick or a central convention- but it helps in terms of building their deck.
Blast! I was hoping that Order's protective nature and Chaos's destructive tendencies would come through in their cards. They are a high damage deck, for sure, that can lean on Order for large single-strike damage or Chaos for just a wall of damage. For their other functions, Order protects (both cards and heroes) and heals when he can, while Chaos is meant to boost damage by sacrificing life and destroy things in whatever way possible. They *do* feel like all-arounders like Tempest when looking at their deck, it's true. I'll give it a look and see if I feel they need to be pushed to further extremes.
Thanks for the ideas! I had already started on V2, so now I got more material to work with.
Braithwhite wrote:
1. The HP question- Taking HP as an aggregate, your team is on the very upper echelons, the same as Haka. But individually, they are always going to start out as the lowest. This means that you can reliably depend on getting absolutely pummeled by anyone who targets the lowest for several rounds- even the entire game. But increasing HP isn't the answer either, since you don't want them to be two high HP heroes, you want them to be a team that shares the punishment and gains strength from teamwork.
My point is to be really wary of abilities that cause damage to the character. They don't have much HP, and pretty much ANY self-inflicted damage is going to add up very quickly. You might also want to consider some sort of ability that lets them trade off damage.
Speaking from the times I have played them, the fact that they are separate targets has eaten through their HP very, very quickly. More often than not, I think one of the two find themselves incapacitated by the end of the battle. I actually increased the life total from 17/15 just so that they wouldn't be wiped off the board so damn quick. This is definitely the highest they get, because I couldn't have the team be higher than Haka.
I understand what you're saying about self damage, I have at least 3 instances in this deck, owing mostly to the nature of Chaos. More on that later.
I love the trading damage/deciding who takes the damage idea! Imma see if I can work that in.
Braithwhite wrote:
2. Setup: Low HP characters have to have some ability to set up quickly, or be immediately effective out of the gate. Every turn devoted to setup is another turn for the villain to focus fire on the lowest and reduce the amount of time that your team will be in the game.
In game terms, you might want to consider increasing the number of one-shots, and reducing the ongoings. Ongoings work best with tanky people who build slowly and roll faster and faster as they accumulate ongoings.
Your ongoings are a mix of support and defence, but since you only get one card a turn, think about how long it is going to take to have them be effective. Remember that you should take into account getting hit for 3-5 HP per turn, as both environment and minions often go after the lowest. Either that, or have one shots dedicated to getting their support gear out without sacrificing card plays (or damage).
Great point on setup time. I have seen this once or twice in my play tests, where they are in the single digits and barely out of the gate. So I like the idea of getting a card out for free or something in that vein.
Braithwhite wrote:
3. what if... This is the one that gets me ALL THE TIME. weird situations. What if fanatic uses an end of days? What if one of them goes down and the other is still up? What if you allowed Tempest to use all of his defeated powers, making everyone immune to a damage type...and more? Are there infinite loop combos? How much damage will you be doing if legacy is playing? This is the sort of stuff that playtesting shows, which you've acknowledged.
Fantastic questions. I don't think I've ever played these two along Legacy or Argent Adept, so that's a good one to test. Their damage could get bonkers...
Braithwhite wrote:
4. What are you? (feel free to ignore this part)
Right now, I'm having a bit of time pigeonholing order and chaos in terms of a character class. Are they damage dealers primarily? are they support characters? Are they burst damage like Ra, or steady like Haka? Or are they meant to build up to power combos? Heroes don't NEED a gimmick or a central convention- but it helps in terms of building their deck.
Blast! I was hoping that Order's protective nature and Chaos's destructive tendencies would come through in their cards. They are a high damage deck, for sure, that can lean on Order for large single-strike damage or Chaos for just a wall of damage. For their other functions, Order protects (both cards and heroes) and heals when he can, while Chaos is meant to boost damage by sacrificing life and destroy things in whatever way possible. They *do* feel like all-arounders like Tempest when looking at their deck, it's true. I'll give it a look and see if I feel they need to be pushed to further extremes.
Thanks for the ideas! I had already started on V2, so now I got more material to work with.