New Concept -- Wield and Suit Up (with example cards)

[trashbocks]

If you want allies to carry weapons/armors, you need to design ally specific items. And they will suck because we have Reinforced Armor and Inner Strength/Extra Sharp already. Nobody uses them.

Nothing states that because you made crappy cards that no one uses in the past that you must continue to do so. Design choices are something that evolves as you move the game forward, not something you wallow in because of what you did in the past. Bring on some interesting ally-specific items! But even without them, let's look at an example, yours vs. mine. Which would you rather have? An ally with Reinforced Armor or an ally with Black Garb or Plate Armor for just one more resource? I would tend to think one of the latter. Inner Strength is a bad card because it's Priest-only (and Priests only seem to use items for their abilities, and not their attack values). Extra Sharp, doesn't stick around very long, and thus doesn't make most deck cuts. But imagine this: You have a Weapon Smith in play. You drop a Rusty Longsword and attack for two damage. Your Weapon Smith then Wields your Rusty Longsword and attacks for 5 damage. Doesn't seem so sucky, anymore now does it? Perhaps even a little OP...

[Unruler]

Nothing states that because you made crappy cards that no one uses in the past that you must continue to do so. Design choices are something that evolves as you move the game forward, not something you wallow in because of what you did in the past. Bring on some interesting ally-specific items! But even without them, let's look at an example, yours vs. mine. Which would you rather have? An ally with Reinforced Armor or an ally with Black Garb or Plate Armor for just one more resource? I would tend to think one of the latter. Inner Strength is a bad card because it's Priest-only (and Priests only seem to use items for their abilities, and not their attack values). Extra Sharp, doesn't stick around very long, and thus doesn't make most deck cuts. But imagine this: You have a Weapon Smith in play. You drop a Rusty Longsword and attack for two damage. Your Weapon Smith then Wields your Rusty Longsword and attacks for 5 damage. Doesn't seem so sucky, anymore now does it? Perhaps even a little OP...

Weapons and armors designed with heroes in mind. Give Berzerker Edge to Armored Sandworm (no durability loss, groovy) give him Show Sapphire and what next happens? Retreat! happens.

That cards I listed aren't bad, they are not viable in current meta and generally obscured by other cards. Basically widespread bounce breaks attachment mechanics in this game.

In conclusion: if there was no bounce, the mechanics you suggesting would be OP, but with bounce it's just useless.

[trashbocks]

In conclusion: if there was no bounce, the mechanics you suggesting would be OP, but with bounce it's just useless.

This, I suppose, is where we will just have to disagree with each other. To me, this is like saying Aeon and Olgoth aren't worth playing simply because cards like Retreat or DoU exists in the game to bounce them back into your hand. That isn't so, because in spite of that fact they still have worth and function. Those cards you originally listed that don't work in the current meta have little relation to this particular concept simply because they are what they are and this is what this is. They work differently and, I think everyone would agree, poorly by comparison. Let me explain a little better by returning to my earlier example.

I'm playing as Amber and I drop a Weapon Smith on T3 which for whatever reason you don't kill and decide not to Retreat yet because he's not a threat due to the fact that I have no weapons out. My T4 arrives and now I'm dropping a Rusty Longsword which I will immediately use my hero ability on to pump up to 4 attack. I hit you for 4 damage. I then let my Weapon Smith Wield that Rusty Longsword and hit you for 7 Damage. Now you're in a conundrum. It's your T4 or T5 now and you have that Retreat sitting in your hand. What do you do? Well the obvious thing would seem to be that you should bounce/kill the Weapon Smith and get rid of that damage-dealing nightmare, right? Well, that's just fine for me because I've gotten more than my resources-worth out of that Rusty Longsword and Weapon Smith. Not only that, but if I get you to target my Weapon Smith with something, that makes my T5 or T6 play (Worm, Raven, Aeon, whatever) that much more protected. Most people hold on to a card like Retreat for something they see as a threat down the line. So, if you can get them to play it on something they weren't expecting, that can be your advantage and not theirs.

Now, granted, this is an example of the stars aligning in your favor, but honestly that's the way the game plays sometimes. It's great risk versus great reward and I really see this mechanic as being pretty balanced and actually useful in a number of circumstances. I mean, even if you were take this example away from Amber and put it with Boris who can't buff the weapon, you still only spend 3 resources for 4 damage. That's akin to a Fireball, which I doubt anyone would call a "bad" card.

I have to say that I like that some people think this is OP (like Warr Byrd and Demnchi) and some people think this is UP (like Unruler). It tells me that it's probably a little bit closer to center than I originally thought. I still think some of the cards themselves could use some numbers tweaking, but the concept seems to be good (to me anyway).

[Warr Byrd]

If this concept only worked with 3 and 4cc weapons and armor, I would agree with it being alright and more or less balanced. The problem comes when you start using these concepts with 5cc and up weapons and armor. For example, I play Guardian Angel, and it survives. It is currently a 0/6 Protector. Not bad, not great. Next turn, I play The King's Pride and Suit Up Guardian Angel. Guardian Angel now reduces all physical damage by 2 because of the armor, and is a 2/7 because of the armor ability. I play an additional King's Pride the next turn - Guardian Angel becomes 4/8, and any other allies (who are hidden by the Protector) gain 4/2. My 2cc Puwen is now capable of taking down your 5cc Raven in one hit. Berserker's Edge would be a big one. It gains one attack for every hit. Currently, its power is limited by its durability. Wield it and keep swinging, because your mechanics prevent durability loss. That Berserker's Edge is going to climb up to ten damage (plus whatever damage the ally does normally) pretty darn quick.

[Unruler]

Receiving 11 damage on the t4, ofcourse it's OP, game just wasn't designed to be that way.

What I meant is that this mechanics will absolutely thrash shadow and make Retreat! even more valuable.

Weapons and armors were designed for heroes, they are powerful, why do you think you can't have more than one in play at the same time? These game mechanics there for a reason and you have to consider it.

[trashbocks]

For the record, I will say that the more and more I look at it, the more it seems to be a little on the OP side. Still, I won't give up and say that it's as bad as it would be to, say, just let your Hero equip whatever they want. I think there's something to this that could not only be balanced, but add another fun dimension to the game.

If this concept only worked with 3 and 4cc weapons and armor, I would agree with it being alright and more or less balanced. The problem comes when you start using these concepts with 5cc and up weapons and armor. For example, I play Guardian Angel, and it survives. It is currently a 0/6 Protector. Not bad, not great. Next turn, I play The King's Pride and Suit Up Guardian Angel. Guardian Angel now reduces all physical damage by 2 because of the armor, and is a 2/7 because of the armor ability. I play an additional King's Pride the next turn - Guardian Angel becomes 4/8, and any other allies (who are hidden by the Protector) gain 4/2. My 2cc Puwen is now capable of taking down your 5cc Raven in one hit.

This does present quite the awesome combo that would be quite OP. In order to set it up, though, it would take most (or all) of your resources on T5 or 6, T7, and T8. In the meantime, your opponent could just use Jericho, Ter Adun, Logan, Smashing Blow, Tidal Wave, Focused Prayer, Assassination, Stop Thief, Mind Control, Retreat, Selfishness (I suppose, though I'm not entirely certain how the non-targeting mechanics would interact with attaching cards), Sever Ties, and/or Ley Line Nexus to break things up. And that's solely single cards to break things up; we haven't even touched the possibilities of using multiple cards to just kill off the Angel. While an ally can be formidable, it's still susceptible to burn, just like any other ally. If we're talking T7/8, it should be too difficult to come up with that much burn to handle a situation building up beyond your control. Isn't that what we kind of do already? Stop things before they grow too much out of our control or suffer the consequences of not doing so?

This does bring up some issues that I hadn't quite fully considered, though. First, like I mentioned earlier in the thread, Protectors are a problem. They're probably the most dangerous thing in this entire concept. This leads into the second problem, being that Shadow decks are surprisingly low on item destruction. They also don't really have Protectors, so it's not like they can take advantage of this to the same effect that Humans can. It kind of makes things a little lopsided, but not in a way that couldn't be fixed if the idea were to be implemented. Simply give Shadow some item-destruction love or level the playing field with some Shadow Ally Protectors that don't have to come from Warrior Training or Mocking Armor.

Berserker's Edge would be a big one. It gains one attack for every hit. Currently, its power is limited by its durability. Wield it and keep swinging, because your mechanics prevent durability loss. That Berserker's Edge is going to climb up to ten damage (plus whatever damage the ally does normally) pretty darn quick.

Berserker's Edge seems like it could be an issue, but the sheer fact that it's attached to an ally makes it less likely to grow out of control against your will. If you're smart, you don't attack the BE ally until you know you're going to kill it. Then it takes 9 turns for something like a BE to get as ungodly as you say. So that's, what, turn 14 at least? How many games do you know go to something like T14 that wouldn't get a card or cards to shut down a BE or an ally by T14?

Receiving 11 damage on the t4, ofcourse it's OP, game just wasn't designed to be that way.

What I meant is that this mechanics will absolutely thrash shadow and make Retreat! even more valuable.

Weapons and armors were designed for heroes, they are powerful, why do you think you can't have more than one in play at the same time? These game mechanics there for a reason and you have to consider it.

Oh, I'd like to think I'm considering it and that I'm quite aware of the fact that these Weapons and Armors were designed with the intent to attach them to Heroes and not to allies. But the point of this idea is to take something that was created for one purpose and give it a broader purpose. I think you're right, too, about this concept being a little out of favor with Shadow decks. It just doesn't play as well for them as it does for Humans. That's a good realization to come to, but nothing that couldn't be fixed as I said above. I think another problem could stem from not tweaking some of those example cards to make sure they're not too imbalanced either. Stopping 11 damage on T4 is probably a good thing, but that's simply because something like Weapon Smith in it's current iteration would play into an Amber deck very nicely. I hadn't thought about that until now, since I haven't built an Amber deck yet. Spiky damage like that (because it's not like every turn before or after that is going to be so large on the damage meter) can be disheartening. If you've ever played WoW Arenas, nothing is worse than playing a really even match but then watching RNG work in the favor of some Ret Paladin and bam. You go from full to dead in a matter of a two or three GCDs.

Like I've said from the beginning, I think the idea of attaching items to allies in order to allow multiple items out at the same time is balanced. My example cards may not be yet. Now that I've gotten some feedback on this beyond my initial thought process, maybe it's time to consider adjusting those first card suggestions and coming up with a few more to help my cause