Duelyst Forums

Heal Lyonar is Great for Duelyst: A Hypothesis

#28

The problem is that that just isn’t true. The value of 3 health (scintilla) can be directly translated into board presence, e.g killing off a hearthsister with your general. Similarly, lancer provides a way of reducing 2 damage when clearing something like a mystic. Also, you don’t need to trade with those minions to get a heal, you can trade with others. Obviously your own bias is getting in the way of the fact that your general is a clearing tool when you play healyonar, as the repercussions for doing so are minimal.

That being said, cards liks sunforge lancer are almost always played behind the general as an early play, much like ranged minions, but without the squishiness.

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#29

I’ve been playing Zir’an since I started almost a year ago, and am confident in my opinion on this. It’s possible my experience doesn’t translate to everyone’s ofc. Lancer is often the exception, I’ll agree to that. Afterglow only works on minions, so yes, I need to bring my minions into harm’s way to make things work.

#30

By design, CPG has made healing more per mana than damage. When this can be carried out not on just one occurrance (to alleviate our outvalue enemies out-of-hand burst) but on every turn, you’re constantly outvaluing opponent efforts on the most standard of plays. This is what Scintilla vs. Whiplash represents so nicely. A whole post I did on pt per mana:

Lab Analysis - Extended Value

There are overlapping reasons that I’ll go over, but Healyonar isn’t good only against burst/aggro but can also play the control game, and this is the root reasons here.

Than it wouldn’t be in the game. Healing lets you swing trades. If Sajj had more healing available to her, her BBS would become much more of a threat and for opponents to take into consideration.

You just compared a 1 mana card to a 4 mana. But what’s funny is that EVEN STILL falls short. You can’t ignore Elucidator’s gambit. Magmar plays Elucidator (-4 hp to themselves), hits you (-5). You use Sundrop (+5) and lets say WILLINGLY choose to hit Elucidator again to clear it (-5).

You just spent 1 mana 1 card to his 4 mana 1 card with a total hp difference between you and their general of ONE. Is this not mind boggling to you?!

Honestly, I’ll continue this in another reply, as I want this point to really stand out.

ONE mana and 1 card to his FOUR mana 1 card with a total hp difference between you and their general of ONE. This also considers that Lyonar/Ziran is willing to eat the extra 5 elucidator damage to the face!

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#31

Yes, but scintilla procs the heal regardless of whether you heal a minion, which is my point.

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#32

The general is part of the board, a factor that shouldn’t be ignored.

Healing outvalues damage. See my previous comments and link.

Personally find it funny that the suggested general to use besides cassyva is lyonar.

To bring it back around, the unique features that Lyonar’s healing provides is it’s offensive synergy. Healing with Lyonar isn’t just healing anymore, it’s healing and an offensive result (+dmg to your general, 2 dmg aoe, +3 hp to general which leads to more general atk’ing). Healing already provided effeciency vs burst/aggro, but when it synergizes with offensive results, it becomes not only a swing gain, but a heavily strong advantage. It may be this reason why Healyonar handles the spectrum from aggro to control that I personally experience (as a Faie player myself, which like Sajj, would greatly love that extra healing).

#33

After playing for a bit more, I feel that healing Lyonar is fine. The key to beating Zir’an is squeezing as much value out of each card as possible. Zir’an’s main draw in the lategame is Trinity Oath and meltdown. Oath extends the game while simultaneously giving her a card advantage while meltdown is just a big dude that you have to worry about. The way I beat Oath is to make each of my card be worth many of her’s. For example, mid ranged threats like Nimbus, Frostiva, and Vorpeal Reaver can trade for many, many of her cards, nullifying her card advantage. Remeber: healing Lyonar’s lategame bombs are very predictable and easy to counter, boiling down to Meltdown, Ironcliff, and maybe Pandora for the mirror.

Personally, I think that Healing is only seen as overpowered since so few decks can do it. Other control decks like Faie and Sajj need to cram in a bunch of neutrals, which even then are not too reliable and can fizzle in the lategame. Zir’an not only has the best healing in the game, but also counters Abyssian’s second best healing with things like Sunforge Lancer and Sunriser. Now, Cassyva can still get an upper hand on Zir’an by running threats like Vorpeal Reaver and Obliterate, since healing is useless against things that just flat-out kill you. Control Faie only scraps by due to having good removal and Sajj… Her shtick is to trade health for board presence. However, other generals like Zir’an and Vaath do that just as well, if not better, while also having more reliable healing and removal options.

However, I do feel that Trinity Oath should not be so powerful simply because it empowers tempo Argeon so much. Right now, Argeon is one of the top decks simply by playing things that are better than the things that the opponent plays. Instead of taking advantage of healing synergy like Zir’an, Argeon’s plan is just to put as many above curve Lyonar minions on the board as possible and win from there. I have far less sympathy for this deck than I do for Zir’an. So, I hope that nerfs to Lyonar should target Argeon tempo builds, not Zir’an.

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#34

All right, take abbysian 3/3 battle pet. Or any 2 mana minion. I took elucidator bacuse it represents out of hand burst and even then sundrop isnt that good.[quote=“seraphicreaper, post:30, topic:8341”]
If Sajj had more healing available to her, her BBS would become much more of a threat
[/quote]

That has nothing to do with healing but with vetruvian ability to spend health.

IF your minion has high attack to matter and high health count to survive the trade AND this has to be on your turn so you can heal it back up. Doesnt look like you have played with healing enough to understand it.[quote=“seraphicreaper, post:30, topic:8341”]
you’re constantly outvaluing opponent efforts on the most standard of plays. This is what Scintilla vs. Whiplash represents so nicely.
[/quote]

All right, let me explain it once again. If you dont want to close the game right now, scintilla does nothing, zero impact. And if you are in different corners of the board, whiplash threatens your opponent, forcing you to use your scintilla effect every turn, while scintilla is just a reactive mesure.[quote=“seraphicreaper, post:30, topic:8341”]
but can also play the control game
[/quote]

Healyonar’s only purpose is to go to late game. there is no point in stoling out the game for no reason. Control is the core of the healyonar consept. But Healyonar looses to overgreedy control decks. Thats the point.
Healyonar is practicly a synonym of control.

#35

People complaining about control
People supporting aggro
People not wanting 10 minute games
People complaining of a late game
People not supporting a strategic deck

The more ziran i see, the less aggro mag i see, the more cards i am allowed to play each game. Thank u cpg

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#36

I ain’t in here complaining about zirans, I’m just telling people it’s not as hard as they’re making it out to be.

#37

Personally I’ve been seeing WAY too many heal zi’ran’s in ladder (diamond) to be specific and I hate it. I understand and promote anti aggro/control decks however trinity of oath to me is a bit much. Control decks should outlast for a finisher not outlast to literally restart and keep stalling/buffing/healing

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#38

I’m going to avoid drawing this out. The OP brought up why Healyonar is great for Duelyst, and I provided numerical evidence of the dangers that it brings.

“to matter” is subjective, but even 2 atk is relevant. High health: The majority (maybe all?) of Healyonar’s minions have 4 health, which is substantial and can survive most trades.

Except it doesn’t. Scintilla heals 3, whiplash damages 2, which means you need scintilla’s proc every 2 times for every 3 times whiplash uses theirs. It’s reactive, the whole healing archetype is, it’s healing. The reactive strength is greater than the proactive damage. This is an interesting occurance to take note, as oftentimes reactive card design provides a punishment for active reactively (oftentimes less effective, weaker bodies, etc.)

I’m still unclear about what point you are making and where I’m wrong with things. I haven’t said it’s broken or that it needs to be nerfed, but have provided an explanation/theory for why healyonar is at the top, and the dangers it’s current format poses to Duelyst. (I’ve marked my frustrations with it most assuredly, and I do hate it, but my aim was to provide the reasoning for Healyonar’s performance in the current meta.)

#39

I guess that Healyonar will find no place in control meta with the cards we have today. Its more of a temporary thing in aggro meta. I am sorry if i missed the topic and went too far off.

I just believe that even now healyonar does not have 60% or more winrate against aggro (with the lists ive tried) so there isnt much point in playing it instead of other aggro (aside from personal preferences). The part of Zir’an’s popularity lies in the fact that she is considered to be the weakest general, and pelople like toying with that. But again, thats all my personal thoughts.

I really dont believe that healyonar will ever be an issue based on reasoning @thematsjo gave above, but you’ve made me think more about the spiring potential of healyonar cards.

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#40

Apologies as well. I know the discussion became more frustrating for me and I wanted to best avoid making any personal comments, as that’s unnecessary. :slight_smile:

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#41

Personally I try keep minions behind my general but within range to counterattack. Ziran can’t kill everything alone, especially early game without Sunforge Lancer buffs. Later on you can keep some minions further away.
It is true Scintilla works regardless. However the BBS heal proc needs a damaged minion.
2 Heal procs > 1 heal proc :slight_smile:
Sometime you don’t have Scintilla and want to get some value from the cheap 1 mana BBS.

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#42

Ziran is considered top general for a month now, maybe a little more.
She gets + general attack that vaath and sajj could envy while occasionally healing +10 or more per turn, always staying above 20 hp. above what most control or aggro decks can make per turn.

Her only weaknesses are:

  1. positioning mistakes early game allowing her to be overrun by extreme aggro.
  2. late game she can just run out of cards if pressured enough, or doesn’t draw trinity oath(that happens too).

I actually would agree that healing should be removed from trinity oath as ziran gets too much sinergy from it.
She has too much sinergy already.

Weakest general would be sajj or kara as widely accepted by the community. Still saw plenty of those in s rank with quite strong decks actually.

I guess at that level of play the general doesn’t matter as much…

#43

Come on, have you visited the watch section recently? There are some ocasional Zir’ans there but its not like they crush everytihng that moves. If thats not enough, compare the ammount of Zir’ans to Argeons out there, and you will understand that Zir’an is only good due to sunforge lancer (quoting the best s-rank player). Otherwise it is just better to run Argeon with her tools.

10 per turn? Using sundrop elixir is more of a heroic act than a viable strategy. The other healing card being scintilla, well if you cant handle ocasional restore 3 health effect, than thats not Zir’an being top tier.
Staying at high helath requires you to invest your recources in healing instead of the board. Its only good when your opponent direly seeks to close out the game.

That is as much of a usual situation as playing Variax on your first turn as player 2 with gor and darkfire sacrifices.

Well, i dont want to see that level of out of hand damage.[quote=“raviel1234, post:42, topic:8341”]
I actually would agree that healing should be removed from trinity oath as ziran gets too much sinergy from it.She has too much sinergy already.
[/quote]

So you are telling me that spending a whole turn on drawing cards and having a healing mystic opening gambit is OP? Then what do you think about sphere of darkness? But better exapmles are spell jamer and cryogenesis. Developing a board or removing threats is less valuable than healing for 3 health? to have a healing synergy you should have established a minion already (and healing synergy minions are understated and easy to remove) or you should have 7+ mana. But then you are already in late game so this does not change much.

I have 600 wins with Zir’an and relativly as much losses. I know all the weaknesses and strenghts of Zir’an. Yes, of course sometimes ocasional hyper aggro decks get destroyed by god draw Zir’an, but it is much better than furosa+cryptographer abuse or other combos like this one.

I believe that one of the reasons Zir’an getting good cards and such support is healyonar being the icon of a good deck, that is fun and healthy for the game. It does not win of unlikely broken card combination,doesnt go all in, it does not pull insane out of hand damage and it commits to the board and positioning.

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#44

the proc itself isn’t op, what is op is the synergy suddenly you get +1 attack, 2 aoe damage on sunriser and your lucent beam deals 4 damage/ so you could lets say play trinity oath and kill a 4 winds magy on the other end of the map for 6 mana while drawing 3 cards while healing 3 hp. argeon gets just the +3 hp with is fine, and loses tempo (so i would already often play sister lkian over trinity oath in argeon), ziran can actually gain tempo by playing that if her board isn’t clear, even if it is clear she can still squize some extra value in.

spell jammer - is double bladed sword, not nessesarily worth playing in many decks.
cryogenesis - draw + 4 damage for 4 mana, ok i guess i didn’t complain about it before the nerf definetly not going to complain after.
sphere of darkness - don’t really have an opinion on it, it can be compared to cassiva bbs that also takes a spot in your deck, but the shadow creep always spoawns. i wouldn’t call it op.

fun and healthy is depends who you ask, i find it disturbing that i have to try hard to get her to single digit hp and she just gets to 20 hp over and over again, while building some board at the same time. maybe not impressive board but some board

i do not consider 3/4 easy to remove or understated for 3 mana. and it is a must remove, if you don’t remove it immidiately she just wins over time. not all factions have as much removal as vanar to deal with all that remove or die cards.

sure it isn’t as bad as abyssians and all their sheap combos but fun to fight against it is definetely not.

#45

After Shim’Zar hit, Kara was still the best general, but people barely played her cause they were bored. Before Shim’Zar, Tempo Argeon was 2nd best tournament general after Kara, and yet was barely seen on ladder. Popularity and power aren’t necessarily tied together.

Zir’An is a top general, and has been since RotB has hit.

#46

See also struggles to get rid of high health minions like Ironcliff, Hamon, Nimbus and Meltdown. It’s a lot harder to pull of healing combos if she can’t damage her own minions, so if you stay out of reach of her minions or kill them she can’t swing the game in her favor. I’m currently playing Kaleos in S-rank, and I haven’t lost a single game against Zir’an yet while playing Kaleos (Kaleos 10 - Zir’an 0).

#47

Curious what your deck is