New Starters and Small Errata

[Anima13]

And also she was getting lots of play because most lawtia level 3 units plain suck.

not gonna lie, this made me lol

Chances are high the person making this statement is playing refess ,

And yeah I hope refess wont be nerfed too much, but also not too little.

And I look very much forward to the new starters.

[Tiuwaz]

Refess moment in the Sun was nice while it lasted, even if exceedingly short xD.

Jokes aside


Miffy is too good, so yes its deserving of a nerf

Phoenix Chick can be annoying, but I dont see how it needs a nerf (havent lost once to chick with a variety of files). tough this might just be my own experience

Verlaat is nice, definately powerful, but again I am not sure he needs a nerf. Its just that he is 5star thats widely available atm. Afraid they'll make him totally useless

Augment Doll. Again powerful but not overtly so. Might need a slight toning down to bring in line with other lvl 3's but she is far from overpowered. Widely played due to availability, combo with augment or dolls and because of 0sp revive.

[Peralisc9001]

Phoenix Chick can be annoying, but I dont see how it needs a nerf (havent lost once to chick with a variety of files). tough this might just be my own experience

Verlaat is nice, definately powerful, but again I am not sure he needs a nerf. Its just that he is 5star thats widely available atm. Afraid they'll make him totally useless

Augment Doll. Again powerful but not overtly so. Might need a slight toning down to bring in line with other lvl 3's but she is far from overpowered. Widely played due to availability, combo with augment or dolls and because of 0sp revive.

Have to see what these 3 get changed to. Hopefully it's not something that can't stand up to the silly meta anymore.

[Scientiafide]

The second errata will be a 'spike' hunting errata. No, I don't mean aggressive players, I mean 'spikes' in our card usage data. A lot of times, when running card usage, there are ups and downs in the graph, but a handful of cards will skyrocket above all the others, and only get worse over time. We want to 'clip' these spikes in the graph so they don't disrupt the game. These are for general game health, and are not intended to be a widespread balance change. I did one of these types erratas before, on Apoco-launch (I think it was Emana, harpist and Chaos anna). This time, our lucky winners are Super Verlaat, Super Miffyre, Phoenix Chick, Magic Doll Augmented, and Jewel of the Deep Sea.

In any case, tune in tomorrow for some excitement!

I just want to point out that increase in card usage is not always necessarily due to card strength. There are a few reasons why a card would be more widely used:

1) Card Strength: How good a card is is indeed a factor. Players generally will rather use something effective.

2) Card Availability: Players are obviously more likely to use a card if they have it. There are some cards that are way easier to acquire than others, whether it be due to rarity, store promotions, or the fact that the card is given out for free.

3) Card Useability: A player may have a good card in their possession, but if it's use is too restrictive and has too many requirements to be good it may not see play at all. A card is more likely to be used if it has more general effects (ie it can fit into multiple strategies), if it doesn't need multiple copies to be used, or if many of it's requirements are readily available.

4) Extra incentive: If there's an extra in-game incentive to use a certain card (such as rewards for using a card specifically), then it's more likely to be used

5) Unique roles: If a card fulfills a function that no other card or few other cards can fulfill, then it's more likely to be used.

I'd like to note that right now, all of the set 11 cards you listed fit into many of the criteria listed above. Yes they're good cards (I'm not getting into an argument on whether or not they're op, as that's not the point of this post), but they were also made widely available (everyone was only given an entire playset for free) and are easily useable for a lot of reasons.

The mid-refess units were made very easily useable due to the fact that set 11 has multiple mid-refess units, including everything a mid refess file needs to function (sp generation and startskill buffs). Magic Doll augmented fits into the same category since set 11 provides an entire augments file, but is also easy to use due to it's status as a free revive unit and the fact that one of it's main combos is also provided in set 11 (the overdose combo). One can argue that it also has a unique role for lawtia, as there aren't too many free revive cards in existence. Jewel of the deep sea is easily used since it's meant to be used as a turn 1 opener for falkow; as a result, pretty much any falkow file can use her much in the same way many files can use emerald carbuncle.

Furthermore, the entire set 11 can be used for underdog files, so a lot of players have been doing just that for the extra point cards. Hell, for a lot of new players, these set 11 cards are all they have to play with. Is it any surprise they're gonna go with the two complete files provided for them?

Just wanted to point out that just because the data shows increased usage, it does not necessarily mean the card is "too good." Of course, judgement will always have to be used in every individual case, but I believe what I pointed out should be considered when making these decisions.

[AqvasFire2]

^ This.

And as for the nerfs:

Phoenix chick: still does not address what made it OP, which is that it invalidated files that did lots of damage from a single unit (EG Big Red).
Verlaat: does the loss of +5/+5 on the combined open/start buff really matter? If you get Verlaat down, odds are, you're going to be rolling hard anyway. Does it make a difference that guardian is countering for 50 instead of 60? Nope, she's still crazy good at that point.
Miffles: SHE'S A BLOODY 55 HP AUTO SP GENERATOR THAT NEEDS NO FLOATING SP TO WORK. So what do they do? Herp derp, let's nerf the heal by 10 HP.

In the meantime:
MD augment: way to kill a meta? Nerf the setup unit. And there goes dolls' setup unit. Now a silly revenant or hellsmoke can kill it, even though EXCAK, broken virus, and MD exo did just fine in that regard already. Oh, and can someone on this blue planet explain to me why you need to make a bad matchup for dolls (mid ref) even worse? How long do I have to explain that making bad matchups worse = crap balance?

Jewel: okay, moving the +2 SP to next turn I suppose would be all well and good to decouple it from mediator SS (which has no other reliable way of activating either, so good job there, testing team), but the SP=0 nerf? Uh yeah, no more setting up with that thing at all unless you need some obnoxiously high (7+) Falk level early on.

MD augment's use will drop significantly since it just lost two roles (taking out mids and setting up), now basically being an anti-WK sideboard card (more or less). Jewel will be completely useless now since everyone would do well just to go back to buncle mof for similar setups.

Love how Refess got completely coddled with its nerfs while Lawtia and Falkow just got sledgehammered.

[Icyman2]

Mad Priest: HE'S A BLOODY 4 AGI AUTO SP DEGENERATOR THAT NEEDS NO FLOATING SP TO WORK. So what do they do? Herp derp, let's put on a 10 HP damage.

[AqvasFire2]

Mad Priest: HE'S A BLOODY 4 AGI AUTO SP DEGENERATOR THAT NEEDS NO FLOATING SP TO WORK. So what do they do? Herp derp, let's put on a 10 HP damage.

When you're talking about 30 HP, that's actually pretty massive, considering it forces you to rest. Here, let's make him more like miff.

agi: 4->1
range: 3->2
HP: 30->60.
Atk: 20->30.

Now do you see the absurdity? Or still having trouble?

[Peralisc9001]

Guys (admins, game "bossees", logress and friends, whatever you like to call yourselves) why don't you update the front page errata section? :/

And the starter page seems to not show the new ones for me. @_@


Mad Priest is utter fail and underpowered in current environment. See miff for more details.

[ZeroX1999]

Where do you see the start card updates? I still see the old ones from the front page. And the forum has not posted all the changes to it.

[hexagram]

Does starter switcher also remove all fm lottery starter cards?