not sure exactly. sapphire seer isnt that different from a 2/3 but I guess force field is just really important. They both lose 3 stats in exchange for their keyword.
Question - Sunsteel Defender
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Why is Ragebinder a 3-mana 3/4 WITH Bond Heal 3, while Veteran Silithar is a 4-mana 4/3? These are the questions.
But letās be honest, think about how much stronger it would be with just 1 more stat. I think Forcefield is being implemented very cautiously to avoid abuse. Think about what Kron did making Forcefield minions. Even a 2/2 can be quite obnoxious, so lowering cost or raising stats can be a dangerous thing.
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Never suggested a buff; more wondering why the strength disparity seems so large. Sapphire feels vastly inferior for what you get than for Sunsteelās 4.
Because there have to be unplayable cards to teach new players how mechanics work.
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Well, in my opinion, thatās because it is a 3 mana vs 4 mana cost. To be honest i cannot explain it correctly myself 
, but 2-3 mana minions cannot be powerful the same way as the higher cost minions do. And some keywords on a lowcost minions can be way too powerful.
In that case you can see how a 1 health difference is crucial for the sunsteel, as to remove sunsteel you need to suicide at least one minion or take 4 damage yourself (or both sometimes) and then do other 3 dmg somehow. Imagine that with the sapphire, while having only 2 attack, it still requires 2-3 hits or 1 hit and a removal (which is probably too much for a 3mana drop). If instead it would be 3/2 (I feel it once was 
), that would be too much dmg for a 3 drop, i think, because it is able to remove a 3 mana cost minion and do 3 dmg to general or eat a removal (which is again too much for a 3 drop). Things are different for sunsteel, because it is at least turn 3, and you probably have the tools to remove it.
3 and 4 mana could seem a little difference, but sometimes it is not that little, because the first few turns are the more important hugely influence the result of the game.
Sorry for making it so long, maybe you knew most of that, but it was interesting to point it out since you asked 
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Because if it had better stats it would be too good for a 3 drop.
In my opinion the only problem is that Sunsteel Defender can be played turn 1 with flash. Also, just out of curiosity which do you think is better? Sunsteel Defender or Veteran Silithar? Both have kinda the same ability if you consider that they both need 1 extra hit to die.
Sunsteel dies to 2-mana Lasting Judgement 
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Well flash is a faction spell, which cannot define the power of Sunsteel objectively, while it might be the problem when facing magmar :D, and their combination is another topic, i think.
Comparing silithar and sunsteel as standalone cards, sunsteel is much better as it has its shield up every turn, while silithar only hatches on your turn start. Silithar has other good sides related to magmar synergy, but i donāt know how good they are (i do not play magmar), however i not often see it ingame anyway.
Totally agree, was just thinking it while writing the post. But it is only in Lyonar
Cards donāt cost just mana. They have a cost in cards as well. You are spending a card to get an effect, in this case a minion. Also, there is a big correlation between playing cards and winning games. If you can deploy your cards faster than your opponent can, you can often just overrun them. This means that the ability to play multiple cards in a single turn is not to be trifled with, and it is easier the cheaper the cards are. This is why they balance this out by making cheaper cards have a less powerful effect.
By the way, this is why the most crazy minions start at the 5 mana slot, because they can never be played with another 5-cost card, barring shenanigans like flash.
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I think the reasoning might have been (mind you, Iām not sure I agree with it, Iām just thinking out loud) that Forcefield is disproportionately powerful when used in the very early game - so itās not as much a 1-mana difference in cost as it is a difference between a turn 1 minion and a turn 2 minion. Basically, Forcefield minions are very difficult to kill in the early turns, but their advantage disappears quite quickly when you can ping them without losing a significant amount of resources (that is, assuming that you run any ping, but thatās a whole separate question). So the thinking behind the Forcefield minions might be that they donāt āscaleā properly, if you know what I mean. Funsteel kinda proves that this might sometimes be the case?
On the other hand, although this may work in theory, it clearly doesnāt work in practice - no one runs Sapphire Seer outside Gauntlet (which, mind you, may be yet another explanation - Duelyst needs minions that are not necessarily good on the ladder but can still boost your list in Gauntlet). But if it doesnāt work in practice, I think itās mostly because the players are usually being compensated in quite a few different ways for using early-game pings - so if they want to take out a Forcefield minion on turn 1 or 2 and they have the right cards they wonāt really feel the difference in resources. Bloodtear gives you an additional cheap body on board, Sphere of Darkness returns a card and gives you a creep tile, MDG is basically a ramp powerhouseā¦ In other words, itās still down to out-of-hand damage being, once again, probably a bit more powerful than it should be.
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The strenght of the sunsteel isnt in itās ammount of stats, but in their distribution. 4 attack allows you to kill the vast majority(or sometimes straight up everything) of what your opponent plays and 3 health allows you to come by any 2 mana 2/3 minion and requires another ping source. And on top of that you can flash it on turn 1. I think that making a saphire 3/1 would greatly increase cardās power.
I wonder if 3/4 Sunsteel would cause the same ammount of problems.
I do not think sunsteel on its own is a problem. When it is played with a mana ritual, then it becomes crazy good. Still, there are factions that just kill it outright the very next turn from hand. Personally, I think mana rituals are pretty busted because they break the flow of a normal game and other card games always have these cards in the truly degenerate decks.
Sapphire seer is actually not a bad card at all. It is as good as you can make a forcefield minion that isnāt unreliable like a pet. I would also like to add that this was one of my pay-off cards in Kara. Buffing this even once makes it really obnoxious due to the jump from 2 to 3 toughness. I donāt mind that this card is okay filler in other decks and acceptable in Kara or a deck that will buff it through other means.
Mana ritual?
As for Sapphire Seer, I donāt remember the last time I saw him on the ladderā¦ I think the only genuinely popular Forcefield minions right now are Sunsteel and Grove Lion. Which is a shame, because at its core itās a simple yet really interesting mechanic.
Sorry, with mana ritual I mean Flash reincarnation. Itās a spell that generates mana after you cast it due to costing nothing itself and giving a discount of 2 for the next minion played. Cards of this nature break the steady accumulation of mana you receive per turn, so they are commonly referred to as a mana ritual in other card games. A play on the first of these type of cards, which was magic the gatheringās Dark Ritual.
Sapphire seer had its time. I think it has been made obsolete now that we have better 3-drops. It used to be that the 3 drop slot had only very few worthwhile minions. It was a common sight right before Shimzar launched.
Also, donāt forget about nightwatcher, eāxun and sunbreaker! Though to be fair, eāxun is a minion that only I seem to play nowadays.
Ah, you mean ramp (I think this, rather than āmana ritualā, is the most common name; simply because not all CCGs use āmanaā as a resource). Yeah, sure, I think everyone agrees that ramp in Duelyst has its problems - and the fact that you can completely mitigate Flashās intended downside is just silly, especially in the early game. Weāve had quite a few productive discussions about it over on /r/Duelyst - Flash, but also MDG and ramp in general.
As for Nightwatcher &co, well, sure, even Frostiva sees some play - just definitely not as much as Funsteel and Grove Lion. Nightwatcher itself is such a nice, interesting and well-balanced card; itās a shame itās just too tech-y and too slow for the current meta. I think we could use more cards that prevent burst damage and crazy out-of-hand combos - a buff to Nightwatcher and Prophet of the White Palm could move us in the right direction.
Ehā¦ I am not sure whether ramp is the same as a ritual. I see ramp as playing a card that gives you more mana in subsequent turns at the cost of an early turnās worth of mana. A ritual is a card that increases your mana the second you play it. Itās the difference between crystal wisp and flash reincarnation. Crystal wisp only gives you its boon after it has been killed of in a later turn. Flash reincarnation is active right away. Personally I donāt mind cards like crystal wisp, but I do mind cards like flash reincarnation, because they usually enable some very busted openings.
I see forcefield as a mechanic that is most at home in argeon. Argeonās ability to boost power makes anything with forcefield a significant threat. Only argeon can really leverage a card like Nightwatcher to its full potential. Also, I think Nightwatcher is as strong as we could make it. I donāt think there is a single number on there that we can increase without making it a contender for being the best 4 drop. As long as rush remains prevalent.
You could probably say that ramp is a more general term, with mana ritual being a particular type of ramp, a one-time boost rather than some sort of perma-ramp?
As for the forcefield being best in Argeon, well, probably? In theory? I mean, itās really hard to tell because itās not a very common mechanic right now and the faction that uses it the most is Magmar (because Funsteel). Prism Barrier suggests that CPG was thinking along those lines at some point, itās a shame that with this amount of hard removal/dispel a 2-mana spell like that is simply too expensive (still works in gauntlet tho).
As for Nightwatcher, Iām not thinking necessarily about a stat boost, maybe some additional protection effect (like a built-in Aegis Barrier or something)? So it provides some real defence rather than just removal bait.
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