Rex Does Kongai: The Third Patch - Grand Realignment

Well, it's time. I've held off for a while now but it's really past time to let go of some of these characters. I want to make a completed set, which means 20 characters (And 26 items but, don't worry, we'll get to that yet.). At the moment, I've got 25 which means 5 need to go. So, I've sharpened my axe, I've weighed my options, and, now, I'm about to make those cuts.


It's difficult because, after all, I've invested a lot of time and effort even into those cards which have failed. No one likes to give up and admit they were wrong and, a lot of the time, that's what recognizing failure means. And, really, the cards that are on the chopping block are the ones that have failed or have been failed by me. They're either not working well enough, have some inherent flaw in their conception, or otherwise contain problems that I'm not able to solve. So, they've going to go.


But it's not a sad time because their parting means the rest of the cards become stronger. Especially since I can lift off some of the skills and mechanics that do work from the cards that are going away and slip them into the cards that are sticking around. It's not just addition by subtraction, it's also addition by replacement as more solid ideas get wedded to more solid designs.


We'll get to how I'm changing around the cards that are still around in a little bit but, for now, let's look at who's on the outside looking in. Here's the current character roster:


NECROMANCERS

1. Dr. Emil Bluth, the Animator
2. Herman Bluth, the Re-animated Man
3. Amanosothept, the Undying
4. Xal'zan Mauok, the Minion Master
5. Fenda Ahkbaka, the Dark Ritualist
6. Yorrick Dane, the Gravedigger

PSYCHOPATHS

1. Maury Pheros, the Dream Killer
2. Jarod Molereed, the Masked Killer
3. Dark [Name], your Evil Twin
4. Normie Mansfield, the Psycho-killer
5. Robin Echs, the Shadow Killer
6. Oberon Woodridge, the Trapper Killer

GANGSTERS

1. Carl “Sunshine” Espantoso, the Underboss
2. Johnny “The Ox” Vaccinaro, a Goon
3. Vinnie “Fingers” Mazerotti, a Thief
4. Sammy “Sully” Sullivan, the Button Man
5. Bobby “Shortstack” Rabbiatto, a Snitch
6. Virginia “Ginny” MaGee, the Gun Moll
7. Rebecca Vampinsiaro, the Boss's Daughter

ROCK STARS

1. Alvis Priesty, the Big Bopper
2. Nigel Thurston, the Celestial Showman
3. One-Eye Votan, the Heavy Metal Thunderer
4. Eddie Curtis, the Voice of a Generation
5. Izzy Knowles, the Headbanger's Doll
6. Tommy Fender, the Juke Box Hero

The cards I'm dropping are Necro #1, the Gravedigger, Psycho #4, the Slasher, Psycho #6, the Nightmare, Gangster #5, Bobby, and Rocker #4, the Grunge Rocker.

I'll get to my reasons in a little bit but you might look over that list and be a bit confused because that leaves the Psychos with 4 cards and the Gangsters still with 6. But that's because in addition to dropping those five cards, I'm also going to shift one from the Gangster group over to the Psychos to round them out. That card is Gangster #7, the Vamp. I've said for a while now that she just doesn't feel like a Gangster and that's because she feels more like a Psycho – she's got the disruption that's supposedly a signature of that group. I'm going to move her over and change her character, ever so slightly, so that she's no long a Vamp, per se, but a Black Widow. A seductive killer who lures her opponents to their doom. So, Gangster #7 is now Psycho #7 and the groups are all even once more.

Here, then, is the revised character roster.


NECROMANCERS

1. Dr. Emil Bluth, the Animator
2. Herman Bluth, the Re-animated Man
3. Amanosothept, the Undying
4. Xal'zan Mauok, the Minion Master
5. Fenda Ahkbaka, the Dark Ritualist
6. Yorrick Dane, the Gravedigger **REJECTED**

PSYCHOPATHS

1. Maury Pheros, the Dream Killer
2. Jarod Molereed, the Masked Killer
3. Dark [Name], your Evil Twin
4. Normie Mansfield, the Psycho-killer **REJECTED**
5. Robin Echs, the Shadow Killer
6. Oberon Woodridge, the Trapper Killer **REJECTED**
7. Rebecca Vampinsiaro, the Black Widow **MOVED**

GANGSTERS

1. Carl “Sunshine” Espantoso, the Underboss
2. Johnny “The Ox” Vaccinaro, a Goon
3. Vinnie “Fingers” Mazerotti, a Thief
4. Sammy “Sully” Sullivan, the Button Man
5. Bobby “Shortstack” Rabbiatto, a Snitch **REJECTED**
6. Virginia “Ginny” MaGee, the Gun Moll

ROCK STARS

1. Alvis Priesty, the Big Bopper
2. Nigel Thurston, the Celestial Showman
3. One-Eye Votan, the Heavy Metal Thunderer
4. Eddie Curtis, the Voice of a Generation **REJECTED**
5. Izzy Knowles, the Headbanger's Doll
6. Tommy Fender, the Juke Box Hero

There, that was painless enough. As I said earlier, by dropping these cards I can not only focus more on the remaining cards in these last, few waning days but I can also take from the rejects key skills and abilities and use them to make the remaining cards stronger. That's mostly what the following patch notes are about, as various characters scramble to rummage through the wreckage and find something of worth.



GROUP 1. NECROS

• N6 is rejected.

-N#6, the Gravedigger was a card that just didn't work for me. He was a Close-range character loaded down with grossly abusive abilities but, more importantly, one that would be hard to get to work since his key attack – a 70 energy unlocked nuke – would be extremely hard to step into, let alone use. Unlike his obvious inspiration Tafari he lacked any abilities he could use at range to really impact the fight. And despite a last-minute, you-haven't-seen-it change to turn his first skill from one that procced a miss chance to one that set the range to Close, he was just too easy to frustrate. And incredibly strong when he wasn't. I've learned this lesson before but nukes that hit fleeing are just a bad idea even if they're as difficult to use as the one I put here, they're just asking for trouble. In the end, though, N6 almost made the cut. I almost turned down Necro #5, the blood-letting ritualist instead because she, too, has some big problems and just isn't working well enough for me. I decided, though, that she was more in keeping with the Necromancers themes – she's a dark-using caster who's frail but anything but meak while the Gravedigger was supposed to be the rough and surrly caretaker of some cemetary somewhere who'd secretely mastered the dark arts. The Necros are supposed to be a line of high-burning casters, not scrapping fighters and since I'd already decided to keep N2 around, N6 was surplus to needs. And while N5 was troubled it's largely because she's not yet living up to the promise of her design. At least, not as well as the other Necros. That's something that can hopefully be fixed while the problems with N6 ran much deaper than that.


GROUP 2. PSYCHOS

• P4 and P6 are rejected.
• G7 is moved to the Psychos as P7. Title changed to “The Black Widow Killer”
  

-P#4, when it comes down to it, just wasn't a Psycho. I mean, yeah, he was a homicidal maniac and all but as I developed the group and came to understand what it stood for better, I realized he just didn't belong. He wasn't a part of it from the start since I set out to create, more or less, in the Slasher a card that played against type. Although he had the disrubtion and disabling that were the Psychotic calling cards, he was more about being a powerful combatant than he was about being a shutdown card. He was the Psycho's heavy, their damage dealer, and wasn't supposed to be as random or confusing as the rest. But that very straight-forward nature was a problem since combining damage and disruption in one package is a dangerous thing. So, not only was he odd from a design standpoint, Psycho #4 was a problem from a balance standpoint – and his skills weren't even all that good to begin with. As I went along, I mentally redrew the boundaries of what was a Psycho card and what was not and, frequently, P4 was getting left out.

-P#6 never quite came together. This is, I think, a recurring theme with the vcards I've dropped but although he had some interesting ideas, they never came together in the same way that more successful cards have. The problem is that I had a good idea but I wound up using it with a different card – take a look at Gangster #4 if you want an idea of what this card originally looked like. Once those skills were used up I flailed around for a while to try and find a hook. I tried a DOT/debuff theme and then a focus on heavy interruption but although the character had some fierce skills he never quite felt right. More to the point, like with P4, he just didn't feel like he belonged in the line.


GANGSTERS

• G5 is rejected.
• G7 is moved to the Psychos as P7.

-G#5 was Bobby, the character that stole from and otherwise weakened his opponents to make himself strong enough to polish them off. It's an interestng concept and, indeed, some of the skills on his bar were nicely done. But they never really worked toher as a cohesive whole, instead being a collection of interesting parts. But the big problem here, for me, was that the Snitchy One never felt distinctive enough. He sorta blurred into Gs 1&3 since they were all flex-range characters with some interesting twists. Bobby's, though, were the least interesting to me. Gangster #1 or Scareface, has problems because he deals too much damage. And the energy draining effects of Gangster #2 have been difficult to deal with. But those problems weren't as major as Gangster #5's who kept getting revamp after revamp while they only needed tweaks and, at least, they're more than the sum of their parts. They also fit better the inteded design of the Gangster group – a bunch of flexibly ranged characters who are tough physical combatants. Maybe not the strongest or the fastest but definitely able to scrap with anyone. Bobby was a weak card by design, he was supposed to be the cringing coward that you don't want to turn your back on. And I think I got that across rather well with the idea of his stealing power away. But it makes him a card that's slow and hesitant to play while the other Gangsters are ripping out throats and kicking in heads. Bobby is, I think, one of the stronger rejects but, in the end, he just didn't belong.

-I've moved P/G#7 or the Vamp over to the Psychos because, well, that's where she belongs. Like the rest of them she's a character that focuses on disruption and tying her opponent up in knots. She's got interrupts and reflects and more ways of stopping an opponent on her bar than should probably be allowed, and that's about how I'd describe your average Psycho as well. She's also a card that's not really good at pressing the attack and that's not what I'd like to think of as a Gangster as well. It will take some alterations to her flavor and background but, in the end, I think she makes more sense alongside the Psychos than she does the Gangsters.


ROCKERS

• R4 is rejected.

-I came very close to dropping R#2 instead. It came down to which card more suited the Rocker's themes and in the choice between the debuff centered Grunge Rocker and the buff focused Glam Rocker, it was no contest. The Rock Stars are about teamwork and buffs while R#4 was about debilitating his opponents. And while he might have been working better than the Glammer, especially in recent days, his fundamental premise just wasn't as good. I liked more about the Glammer even if he bar was a mess – the flavor, the theme, even the basic concept and what he'd bring to the group. R#2's bar can be hammered out and, will, since I can now pluck some other interesting ideas out of the soup. But changing R#4's core functions would take almost a complete redesign. So, although there's some interesting stuff on his bar, the Grunge God is gone and the Showman remains. Some of his ideas were interesting, though, but don't worry, they'll still remain.


I'll deal with changes to the Necros and Pyschos when I get around to their posts. I should be able to get them whipped into a more finalized form and be able to slip them into the Compendium by then. But, for now, I'm just going to go over the changes I've made since the last, ever so recent patch, to the cards that are already there. Don't expect a lot of big changes here although there is at least one good revamp.



GANGSTER 1. SCAREFACE

• Skill #1. Renamed Switchblade Slash

-Nothing to see here, moving along.


GANGSTER 3. FINGERS

• Skill #3. Clarification. Damage caused by the On Guard buff is untyped and will strike for the full 35 amount, when this damage is procced Pick Pocket automatically fails (But note that it is not interrupted, and does not trigger any such effects.). Duration of On Guard increase to 2 turns from 1.

-The idea, in case I wasn't clear about it before, is that On Guard has a chance to stop Pick Pocket from happening. And, when it does, it deals damage. Not that someone would get their pocket picked and G3 would take damage (Although that's interesting, it's probably still a little too good given what PP can do.). Also, I've increased the duration here so that the effect lingers for longer and Finger's per turn energy gain continue to fall. This means that it's conceivable albeit unlikely that two of such buffs could overlap. What won't, though, is their effect since I'm going to say that there'll only ever be one proc check and one blast of damage that Fingers takes.


GANGSTER 4. SULLY

• Skill #4. Duration decreased to 6 from 10. Damage over time up to 3 from 2. Now deals 18 DOT overall.

-Looking it over, Marked For Death is an incredibly powerful effect. Leaving it lingering for 10 turns was too much - not only does it lower resistance and set it to 0/0/0 it rewards any card that gets a killshot with a bunch of fresh health. I've lowered the duration so that it's feasible to hide a card that's been MoDed in hand long enough for the effect to fade without serious trouble. Because of the lower duration, I feel comfortable in increasing the damage over time effect, bringing it back up to 3. That means it will deal 18 damage overall or roughly where it was - equal with the DOT from Skill #2. Both take away a good bit of health and enough that an opponent will care about running away and taking that hit but not so much that they can kill cards by themselves.


GANGSTER 6. MOLL

• Skill #2. Damage changed to 5x9(45) from 3x15(45)

-As has been pointed out to me, a skill with a high multiple has some nasty synergy with effects that, like Raindance, increase multi-hit damage. Even a minor boost turns into a massive icrease in damage. After crunching the numbers, 3x15 is too big, especially since Ginny packs a buff that makes it ignore resistance. Along with her procced damage, it puts her squarely in one-hit territory. And not just against cards with low health. A few of the right buffs and she could put even high health heavies into the graveyard. So, I've reset the skill to 5x9 damage which, I feel, should work out better. It's a nice middle ground where she doesn't gain too much from Rain Dance and she doesn't gain too much from White Powder at the same time that her buffs have been toned down. But it still keeps the flavor that I want to get across of a large gun that delivers a lot of small hits.


ROCKER 1. BOPPER

• Skill #1. Damage down to 22 from 26. (@30 dmg a swing).

-Skill #1. Sock Hop at 26 damage was doing a little too much with the increase to its crit rate. It hit for 39 damage on a crit which would also reward the Bopper with a 10HP heal. At a 50% rate it was dealing close to 32 damage, on average, and, then, gaining +5HP per use. That was too good of a deal for only 30 energy. So, I've cut the damage down a bit. It should now strike for about 30 damage a swing, on average. Throw in damage reduction and it should be a much fairer swing. It's now a skill where the healing is important, and I think that's necessary given the weakness of the King, but it should still deal significant damage.


ROCKER 2. GLAMMER

• Innate: Functionality changed. Now reads "When Nigel's foe is buffed, he has a 75% chance to steal that buff and apply it to himself and his teammates instead"
• Skill #1. Functionality changed. Now procs Lunar Phase. (Lunar Phase. The next time you would be debuffed you are instead healed for 10.)
• Skill #2. Functionality revised. Stardust Memories buff now return to causing regeneration over time. 50% chance for each teammate to gain 4for4 healing or 16 health overall. Cost down to 60 from 70.
• Skill #3. Functionality changed. Now costs 30 energy, is 6 speed, deals 5 damage (D), is 100% to hit, and has a 40% chance to interrupt if it hits first. It causes an additional 10 damage (L) for each buff currently on R2. Renamed Cosmic Howl.
• Skill #4. Cost decrease down to 5 from 10.

-A massive revamp here as the Glammer sucks up several discarded mechanics and I attempt to construct a working bar from them. The first change is to shift his innate from rewarding him for having buffs to allowing him to vaccuum up a large number of buffs. He's the Celestial Showman but he's also a rip-off artist, now able to steal buffs and spread them throughout his whole party. Second, I'm dropping the problematic "next turn stun" mechanic from Skill #3 and replacing it with a version of S#3 from the rejected R4. It's still a light damage hit with a minor chance to interrupt but instead of being focused on debuffs, it's enhanced by the presence of more buffs - each one adding on some bonus damage. That plays into Glammer's new innate and the many buffs he'll proc through use of his other skills as well. Speaking of which, I've switched around the procs of Skills #1&2 so that his staple attack procs the debuff protection and his power hit is the one that causes his team to heal. The regenerative effect is arguably stronger but I want the debuff shield to see more play as I think it fits in better with the new buff siphon theme of his innate. Finally, I've decided that the new energy cost lowering part of his Ballad was just too good and I've toned it down. Because he's lost that and because he's lost an innate which gave him excess energy, I've reduced the cost on his nuking Skill #2. It and his other skills might need further adjustment because of the new energy situation, though, and I'll look into it. The end result, though, should be a character with a decided “help the team” theme that eliminates a lot of the problems that were plaguing his bar.


ROCKER 5. THRASHER

• Innate: Functionality changed. Now read "When one of Izzy's attacks is interrupted, she does not lose any energy."

-I've dropped the placeholder innate which was just a weak version of Constantine's stat protection and, in its place, given Izzy an innate which offers her some protection against beind interrupted. Her attack will still be blown but, unlike normal, she won't lose any energy so she'll be able to attack again. It's arguably a weak innate but, then, Izzy has a really strong bar and she just needs that little capstone that says she's got a really fast motor and you can't slow her down. This, I think, achieves that much better.


ROCKER 6. JUKE BOX

• Skill #4. Functionality changed. Now reads "Your team gains +3 resistance (+3/+3/+3) and a 25% chance to dodge all attacks for the next 6 turns." Costs 50 energy, is 5 speed, and has 100% proc.

-That's right, I've always liked R4's Ballad much better than the rest of his card and I've never liked R6's Ballad so I've swapped one for the other. This is a defensive ability that helps to protect the weakly resistant Juke Box (And helps him more than the rest of his group - thanks to his innate, he'll get +5 resist for each use of this skill.) as well as benefit the rest of his team.



That's it for now, then. Once again, I'm going to hold off on writing up the bars for now. I'll get to them and updating the Compendium later on, I'm sure.