Set 12 Design

[DeeGee]

Buncles: Kemious, the reason that buncles are strong isn't that their cards are solid when working together--it's that they're completely numerically through-the-roof broken.
Jade buncle is a level 4 no matter which way you spin it. Either, you have:

45 HP, 40 damage, 4 agility, 2 range (rangeless on that first at+15 hit), 0 DF, which is 14.5, which when compared with Urgrant (50 HP 40 damage 4 agi 1 range 0 DF), is actually above that.

Other form:
45 HP 10 DF 25 damage 4 agility 1 range. If he's level 3 without the 10 DF, he's most certainly level 4 with it.

Amethyst Eater:
45 HP 5 DF 3 agility 3 range and 10 attack--which puts her at 12.5 points, when a level 3 is 12 points, and a level 4 is 14 points. With another 15 attack, she's a level 4 unit. And then of course, she generates SP on open.

Obsidian carbuncle: compared to any great spirit, he's above and beyond ridiculous. The open on its own would have been plenty if you consider the great spirits as balancing factors (EG no level 1 unit open should be better than a GS), but factor in the close, and this thing is obnoxiously good.

Diamond buncle: 25 atk 35 HP 5 df 2 agi 2 range. 11 points already. So once he gets an additional 1 agility, he's a level 3. Usually, he gets an additional 3-4.

Ruby General: buncles basically needed this guy because they did crap damage without him prior to now. But thanks to Amethyst Eater, Obsidian open buff (10 atk) and Agate Carbuncle, that's nowhere near the case anymore. Now he basically one-shots anything with a rangeless attack, and is affected by his own buff and heal, and IMO is on par with the old EXLap.

It isn't so much that "oh, buncles just work together well". Quite a few of them are individually numerically above the curve just in terms of raw stats before you take their abilities into account--which are useful pretty much always (attack reductions, DF buffs, heals, front row free DF destruction). They're about as fast as shrine knights, and definitely a lot more durable out of the box (I suppose if Elaice gets going for a few turns, that stops being the case).

As for Gowen's "tech" mechanics, Kemious, they really aren't tech. They're just inefficient ways of doing damage. The whole focus mechanic is A) not unique to Gowen B) a recipe for mediocrity--either your opponent has no answer, or he gets steamrolled. And most files have an answer for long enough that it's nowhere near as amazing as say, Lawtia's SP denial mechanics, Falkow's manipulation mechanics, or Refess's buffs-out-the-wazoo mechanics.

As for Gowen being "more damage just isn't cutting it", that's not it. It's that Gowen's damage is no longer all that amazing to begin with. Yes, back in sets 5-8, Gowen was the sphere of smash-you-with-more-damage, because the other spheres just didn't have that much damage without having glaring weaknesses. But now, every sphere besides Falkow has very viable ways of hitting you for a lot of damage. And in the meantime, Gowen got nerfed on everything that A) did massive damage (Bringer, Rhino, Dilate, Pixy dual wielder, Mitzette) B) its best tech stuff (RFA SS, pixie locks, wandering samurai) got nerfed to the point that, say, just chain-locking your opponent out of his units with chaining archer pixie is no longer valid. Hitting double RFA with one miracle fruit now costs SP that Gowen can't really generate easily.

So while the other three spheres (especially Refess) got a whole bunch of new options to do things besides damage, the things Gowen had that did its signature damage at good speed got nerfed (Bringer, Dilate, Rhino, Pixy dual-wielder) and best tech options got severely hamstrung, and all it received ever since it got Bringer was set 10 Dilate (nerfed), Jack (nerfed), the pixies (now nerfed), and a bunch of new units that simply tried to do damage in novel ways.

That's just negligence on a massive scale.

[Ropey]

Buncles in the past I've thought of as one of the most balanced tribes, and used to have really good close games with them. Now.... You just can't get rid of em! They buff and debuff to well.

I really am trying to work with the Gowen stuff and it is less of a let down than the last set, but god gun seems flawed and other stuff is just getting to fast and damaging for them, which I kinda thought gowen was supposed to be? The new dragon is to random so is merc fencer, shame as she is otherwise a good unit. One of the better units I've found to my surprise was Ronin Girl, but rank up lev 9! I've been using 2 dryad souls in a row to rank her and GG up, but that means 2 early souls do nothing much to build a field.

[Peralisc9001]

Gowen with rank up are also numerically above average.

Jade also is not working very well with the general on the field since he gives him 10 DF. He won't debuff and neither will he execute his strike.

Obsidians are actually needed. That's the issue with so much damage and field disruption going around.


Also EX lap files / solar kingdom with their buffs also go over their stats. You asked for it to be back.
Crest shock trooper goes above his stats.
Mirelia grim spam goes above her stats.
ETC.

[Romdeau]

Carbuncles will probably receive small nerfs in the future if we go the direction I want to in the next errata. No, Violet is not a valid target so don't worry. Cards I have in mind are diamond, ameythsyt, jade, and the general himself.

Pera I don't know about Logress, but I regularly check and consider the arguments that people make around the forums about gameplay balance. I weigh in what's realistic and in line with the games goals.

[Peralisc9001]

Pera I don't know about Logress, but I regularly check and consider the arguments that people make around the forums about gameplay balance. I weigh in what's realistic and in line with the games goals.

Is there something you have clearly defined together as the game's goals? Or is it more like everyone with his own opinions / point of view that somehow fit together?

I have seen plenty, but i have yet to get the gist of what exactly you're trying to achieve.

[Romdeau]

It's a vague concept that I've accumulated over time by playing the game and working with Logress for almost 4 years. For example, extreme changes are quite unlikely to occur unless the card is extremely over or underused (see Giant squid or EX Primrose).

[Icyglare]

So far, I have nothing but praise for Set 12 Designers

Some of the cards made me go, "Huh, what's this for?"
Then I see these different files out of the woodwork because...

One complaint I had about making a grimcount UD file was that I couldn't use Returns and I just got trounced horribly but just now I saw a file that was sorta like a grimless grimcount with the new wizard princess. The gowen lv3 unit dumped grims into the cemetery and either the princess put it back or Hirume put it back.

Crest got a good boost since it felt nobody was playing them since Langbart came out.

I'm still not sure where all the new cards fit in but I'm sure it'll be clear as time goes on.

[CainHyde]

Carbuncles will probably receive small nerfs in the future if we go the direction I want to in the next errata. No, Violet is not a valid target so don't worry. Cards I have in mind are diamond, ameythsyt, jade, and the general himself.

You can do whatever you want with Jade, but why poor Ame, Dia and Ruby.
Just pick ugly Violet plox if you want to small nerf something. :V

[Kemious]

To begin with almost sounds as if your saying Jade is the single most trouble some unit when it comes to Buncles. I will admit that Jade does have more stats then he should, but then if you look at Foltrart Heavy Knight he ends up with far more stats then Jade with him being a 65 25 1 1 at first gains 10 def and then at start gains another 10 defense, especially when one considers the grim immunity he should in theory be superior to Jade and you should complain about him as well right?

I mean he has 2 stat points on Jade at the end of the day plus that grim immunity so why not compain abour that with him? Because the base for him isn't quite as stable as the Carbuncle base. He as a unit shouldn't be as good as he is and he does need a stat nerf for his attributes if one were to be completely honest.

Diamond carbuncle is very much dependent on having a field to once again serve any use. If no other carbuncle is on the field he like Agate serves almost no real purpose. Carbuncle work very much off each other pretty much any carbuncle that's isolated will not fair well against other units of = level , with the current exception being Jade who like I completely agree has more stats then he should.

Obsian carbuncle argument is quite narrow minded in all honesty. If one were to simply look at all the level one units in the game you'll see that the mass majority have some pretty good uses to them. Succubus, Boy Priest, exploding spores, Cemetery Rats etc etc. I could go on with the level 1 units that are more useful than as simple sac units. Again this goes back to buncles having that really strong base.

Your argument about Amyherst doesn't quite make sense to me yes she generates sp, but without a level 3 buncle on the field you can't do so and once again is completely useless without other on the field.

Everyone knows that there are quite a few files that Buncles generally can't handle. Shrines ripe em apart, Undead tend to win out against them, Big red recks em. Wiz Kingdom is another that trolls em, Orks eat them alive. Mage soldiers with their invulnerability to auto attacks makes them useless. mermaids with Emana (either one) The simple truth is is you put a Feline warrior in your front row and rank her up before Violet you were pretty much guaranteed a win against Buncles.

But those are just some of the counters that they may come across.

Now back to the Gowen tech card discussion. Perhaps our own definition of what it means to be a tech card are different. I for consider a card like Sakura as tech card because he creates advantageous situation . Violet would be another one due to her speed control, Safaria for her engage, Greg due to his buffing and killing action. Though he like Safaria have requirements to be held. In addition I was say we were implementing slowly through Gowen, its difficult for us to give them tech units because even more than Lawita players, Gowen players tends to avoid the tribe like styles that allow tech units to not only exist but thrive.

Now on to the nerfing. The majority of those nerfs were because they were toxic to the game at that time. Like RFA its a nerf that needed to happen. It at the time was the only return SS that didn't have a sp cost. Lets use the logic that we return that back to normal but we remove the sp requirement for all the other return ss and we'll see how much everyone complains about how return ss are running rampant. Pixies are still playable just with other players having a chance at actually playing a card. Perhaps The nerf to Assassin's Open was bit harsh but the other prevented a good amount of players from even acting. Pixies completely forced everyone to have to play rushes for the simple fact that if you played anything else you had an auto lose.

No one ever claimed that focus was a gowen exclusive skill. Though more and more units are coming up with em. They are providing Gowen with tech like abilities while still maintain a Gowen like Play style. Gowen still has the most open damage skills combining both grim and unit into one, rewarding for dropping down a unit by allowing you to play down a unit and get a grim like effect. While that is no consolation I admit Gowen probably hasn't receive quite the love it deserve, its not gonna steamboat the other spheres like it used to but we are trying to bring it more in power to be fully playable again.

And in all honesty Gowen still has its Very Heavy hitters like the new dilate, they just require a little more timing comboing with other cards at hand.The just tend not to be single card drops like they use too.

[Icyman2]

How are jade and urgrant comparable? How can you count jade's action skill which is a one time into his stats and not urgrant's skill into his?