Duelyst Forums

New keyword ability idea + examples

#1

Hey Guys,
I really enjoy thinking about new cards and I want to share my new keyword ability idea with you. Let’s see:

Deathrage: Triggers whenever this minion falls from 4 or more health to under 4 health. Minion must be alive to trigger effect.

That basically means, if you have a 5 health minion with Deathrage and it gets 2 damage, the effect is triggered once.
Then there are two possibilities:

  1. The minion gets healed to 5 health, and then damaged to 3 health again. Then the effect triggers a second time.
  2. If the 3 health minion is damaged to 1 health the effect doesn’t trigger a second time because it doesn’t FALL from more than 4 health to less than 4 health.

If a minions gets destroyed without falling under 4 health the effect doesn’t trigger. 0 health doesn’t count for Deathrage, the minion must be alive.

Last but not least here are four example cards with Deathrage.

Write your thoughts and balancing suggestions in the comments. :slight_smile:

IMG_20160730_121734.jpg441×554 76.3 KB

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IMG_20160730_121658.jpg453×574 76.6 KB

IMG_20160730_121600.jpg467×588 79.2 KB

I have just taken Void Hunter as an example image, maybe someone wanna do Pixelart…

2 Likes
Suggest new Keywords or abilities
#2

Why make it so complicated for no reason? You could easily make it “triggers when the minon takes damage and doesn’t die”. As it is, the effect is way too conditional and confusing to have a place in the game as a keyword.

4 Likes
#3

My biggest gripe with this mechanic is that it’s too specific. It’s condition pretty much make it only 4+ hp units can be created which is kind of clunky and limits what can be created. Duelyst has always tried to keep things rather simple in terms of effects. For an example Flying and Range could’ve been given ranges so that ranges can shoot a certain amount and flyers could fly a certain amount of tiles. However in a Podcast developers mentioned they considered this but ultimately chose not to go with this mechanic to create a more streamlined experience.

Also once you remove the health boundary it becomes essentially the same as HS’s enrage mechanic. Not a bad thing but I wanted to point that out.

As for the cards:
Dark Sacrificier:
If you want to give hp out of a non zoo deck Sun Elemental does a better job as it actually leaves a body and applies the hp on hitting the board. However the only zoo decks that I can think of don’t want to give their minions hp(Abyssian Swarm), have better alternatives(Vetruvian Inner Oasis), or don’t truly benefit from it (Vanar Jax and Walls). Honestly I can’t see it seeing much play outside of VERY niche decks.

Seratus Rage:
Pretty aggressively statted for a 4 drop considering the deathrage. Might see play? faces a lot of competition with Dioltas though who not only shares shares a similar niche but also deals with this card fairly well.

Echo Reaper:
I’m honestly not sure what to think about this card. On one hand it’s fairly costly for its stats but at the same time I don’t think giving frenzy to everything is a good idea. Seems like mostly a win more card in my opinions.

Erus Lifebender:
Interesting idea but probably broken. If you don’t have a minion with 4+ (general attack+ +4 minion kills it) or an answer you probably just lost the game as you’re stuck as a pretty much immortal creature trades with your stuff. Also this pretty much trades into any minion with less than 6 attack and more than 2 pretty freely. Oh and this pretty much outclasses Sworn Defender in every possible way.

2 Likes
#4

so, basically you want taygete for non magmar decks

1 Like
#5

That’s a good idea. I knew that the thing is too specific, but couldn’t find an easier version. Thanks.

#6

Thanks for your large answer. I think I will redesign Dark Sacrificer completely, that was the card I was most unsatisfied. Seratus Rage is fine as it is I think. Echo Reaper is pretty difficult. I wanted to make a card with very good tempo and synergy. Erus Lifebender is not that broken I think. At six mana your opponent should have some big threats or removal/dispell on hand. But maybe go down for 4 Attack?

#7