I found the reason Refess is so weak!

[DanTheTimid]

I don't know about the rest of you but I think its interesting to see how cards were changed from the Japanese version of the game to our english version so I went through and started comparing the english cards to the japanese counter parts. My Japanese is weak at best though so some of my translations may be off a little bit off but what I found regarding the Refess cards may shock you (or maybe not if your like most people and wonder why Refess is so weak)

For reference I used https://login.alteil.jp/cardDB/list.php for my list of japanese cards

Japanese -> English

Dragonrider/Wassei
Hp 95 -> 85
Attack 15 -> 35
Soul Skill: Return a disengaged unit level 3 or below to its card file -> Return one disengaged unit of level 2 or below to its Card File.
Assualt Dragons Breath: costs 3 sp -> costs 4sp
Japanese Only Skills:
Flying Attack (action skill) 1SP - Deal (Attack) to one enemy unit of your choice.
Power of a Hero (auto skill) 0SP - Choose one named unit. During this turn this units attack is equal to the chosen named units attack.

Evaluation: I'm not 100% sure what restrictions there are on Power of a Hero, it may just be restricted to named character units and if so that obviously weakens him a bit since there needs to be a character out with high attack to really make him useful. On the other hand though, potentially the ability could make him alot stronger, he had more hp, seemingly a better soul skill, a cheaper Assault Dragon's Breath, and Eagle Scouts Flying Attack ability. Overall it seems like he was weakened in the english version.

Saber Saint / Lapierre
Hp 35 -> 30
Lp 1 -> 2
Attack 15 -> 20
Soul Skill: Deal damage equal to your refess level x 10 to all disengaged enemy units in a random row. -> Do 50 damage to an enemy unit.
Lantylit (action skill) 1sp: reduce the hp by 30 from a random row of enemies. -> 2sp: Do damage: (AT+10) to a random row of enemies.
Japanese Only skills:
Hero of the Populace (star skill) 0sp: All friendly units except named refess units get +10 attack and +10 defense.
Saintly Light (action skill) 3sp: Choose an enemy unit in RNG. Reduce that units max HP by 50.

Evaluation: HOLY SABER SAINTS! Lapierre used to be a monster! everyone else left equal, that 35 health alone would make such a huge difference as her current 30 health gets her killed ridiculously easily. Her original Lantylit did almost the same thing, for less, except it had piercing too so she was another legimate defense piercing (which Refess currently lacks badly in the english game). Hero of the Populace, I'm not 100% sure of this ability, but sounds like its a boost to all your non named refess units which is quite good. Regardless, then we've got Saintly Light, an extremely expensive ability that basically lets you auto kill any non refess unit. THIS is exactly what Refess HAD against the Panther Soul / Brave Soldier combo that allowed them to compete with it that they don't have now thus leaving them completely inept and defenseless.

So yeah, my translations might not be 100% perfect but I feel like I got the gist of most of the cards and after looking at only a few cards I've already found ridiculously huge changes that seem to reveal why Refess is so horrible now, because they used to be so good and the people in charge of balance over reacted and squashed their cards from being too good to being barely playable.

Heres hoping they look back over these changes and how its damaged Refess and re-buff a few of these units to something that's not as ridiculous as they used to be but is a little more useful then they currently are.

[DanTheTimid]

More interesting finds:
(Keep in mind, with the exception of soul skills which I'm no longer going to try to translate since pretty much they all were changed and changed drastically, I'm only pointing out differences between the original and english versions of the cards so if I don't mention an aspect of a card (such as its hp) that means it was the same in both versions)
Japanese -> English

Raise Shield
Lvl 2 -> Lvl 3
Open Skill - All friendly units get +10 max hp, +10 hp, and +10 defense. -> All friendly units get +10 defense.

Evaluation: Wow another huge nerf. Not only does Raise shield now require 1 more sphere of influence and cost 1 more sp, but it only increases defense now while it used to buff the hp values of all units. I do agree that the original version probably was a bit much for 2sp, but the new version seems a little too little for 3sp, a compromise (either returning the hp boosting ability, or lowering the cost back to 2 again) would be nice to help refess out.

Ruby Carbuncle
Attack 35 -> 25
Ruby Radiance (start skill) -> (auto skill)
Japanese Only skills:
Admonition of crimson stone (trait skill) SP0: A unit attacked by Ruby Carbuncle has its attack reduced by 20.
Note: Not 100% sure of that trait but it reads something like that.

Evaluation: Wow, they truly wanted Refess to suck in the english version didn't they, card after card I see huge changes neutering other wise great cards into barely playable ones. In this case Carbuncle lost 10 attack (a HUGE deal since attack is one of Refess's biggest weaknesses in the current english meta), made its skill auto instead of start (another huge deal since Carbuncle tends to get killed before he can ever use his ability in the english version while in the original his ability went off at the start of turn), and he lost a trait that seems to neuter the attack of the things he attacks. Maybe he was a little too good in the original version but did they really have to neuter him as much as they did?

Boy Combat Priest
Japanese Only Skills:
Prayer (action skill) SP0: Increase Refess Sphere level by 1
Providence of God (action skill) SP0: Choose one friendly unit. During this turn the chosen units attack equals [attack + (10 x refess sphere level)].

Evaluation: No wonder Boy Combat Priest is considered completely useless in the english version of the game, he's exactly the same as he was in the japanese version... only missing not one but two key abilities! The main issue with Boy Combat Priest in the english version is that with his horrible hp and attack you generally want to keep him in the back row boosting your range people, but that means he's not doing anything with his action for the turn and the small boost he provides isn't worth having a liability like him on the field. In the original version he had not one but two actions he could choose from when his turn came around, both extremely solid and helping in areas Refess in the English version SEVERELY needs help. With an attack boost like that Refess would actually have a viable way around Killing Machine Labeau in the starter!

Ancient Spear Knight
Lancer Sp1 -> Sp2
Japanese Only Skills:
Concealed Power (auto skill) SP0: When this units hp is at 10 or below this units attack is doubled.

Evaluation: OMG, not only was Lancer half the cost it is now (column attacking abilities seem to have been cheaper then row attacking abilities in the Japanese version of the game while the seem to cost about the same in the english, strange, cause row attacks do seem generally more useful so I'm not sure why this was changed) but he had an auto skill that doubled his attack (albeit only when near death)! It truly appears that they decided to kill Refess in the english version of the game.

[DanTheTimid]

Oh and I forgot to mention but probably the most well known nerf is:

Will-o-Wisp
Power Source: gain +2sp -> give a unit +10 hp and +10 max hp.

Evaluation: Seems like a small change but Will-o-Wisp was considered one of the best cards in the game, it was included in not only every refess deck but pretty much every non-refess deck too, so great was the sp advantage it provided. Its new effect isn't even in the same zip code and yet its stats weren't buffed to make up for this taking it from being an auto-include to being a never-include.

Just for comparison to the other clans so you know I'm not just ignoring the changes to them:

Azure Dragon / Vordore
Unchanged from Japanese version

Return
Unchanged from Japanese version

Brave Soldier
Unchanged from Japanese version

Panther Soul
Unchanged from Japanese version

Combat Monk
Unchanged from Japanese version
(I had heard this was changed but I'm looking at the japanese card file right now and its completely identical to ours)

Zombie Lord
Unchanged from Japanese version

Shade
Unchanged from Japanese version

[teasel]

umm... are you sure you are looking at the right list and not looking at some "super version" of the same cards?
https://login.alteil.jp/lhCardDB/list.php
while the cards are really quite different (different levels... zagar has a little change? he's level 6 and two times as buff! that's not a little change) the change doesn't quite match with your list... for example i tried picking the combat priest and run his text trough babelfish this was the result

<< Motion area: Support area >>: [HP+20/AT+10] you do your own unit. << Motion area: Victory area and defeat area >>: [HP+10/AT+10] you do your own unit
while it's not pretty clear it certainly doesn't match (oh and for comparison the guy is LV.2 in the japanese he's got 20 HP instead of 15 and he has an agi of 3 instead of 4)

(oh also kudos to the english team for the formatting on the english version... it's a nightmare to find some stuff like LP in the japanese list!)

[DanTheTimid]

Interesting, this is the list I had found:
https://login.alteil.jp/cardDB/list.php

Your link seems similar except your is the "lh" card list... whatever that means.

[teasel]

yeah you are right... maybe the list i found follows different rule? that would explain why some stats were missing

[Gigantorus]

Ok while I do want Refess to be buffed, that original version list was way on the overpowered side.

[teasel]

another thing i seems to have noticed... there are no "do sphere X20 Damage" stuff... leonardo soul skill is a forced stat change like black cat and the archer scout one is just a SP+2 skill also

秘められし力

0
【発動条件/自分のHP10以下】自分を[AT×：2]する。

i think the ancient spear knight buff is only when he had 10 HP remaining if that's how it works then that's a pretty lame buff

[Sarkath]

Balancing is probably one of the hardest, and most time consuming parts of game development. They had it overpowered, but now too weak. They will find a reasoning and come up with a between of it. I believe they have tried a re-balance of some proven facts from complaints in the japanese version.

If the cards were like this, I'd understand why the combat monk or brave soul / panther weren't changed or Le Bleau. There will be more balance issues once expansions comes out, but I believe they'll try to reach a decent balance before that.

[teasel]

Carbuncle
このユニットは[攻撃]の代わりに以下のスキルが発動する。■[RNG内]の敵軍ユニットからランダムで１体選び[ダメージ：AT-20]する。

According to babelfish

This unit [skill below moves in place of attack]. * [From enemy unit inside RNG] with random 1 body choosing [damage: AT-20] It does.

personaly i'm just annoyed at the changes... when duel master came out in the US they nerfed all the draw power blue had (which was too much) and that was about it but the change here seems pretty drastic