does it ever make sense to upgrade the darkness card ?

[Scathe]

so far, for me, if I'm going to build a deck with darkness in it, it is going to be a defensive deck that relies more on it's frost orbs than it's darkness orbs. the lowered block by filling two of my slots with dark orbs doesn't seem worth the tradeoff of evoking an extra orb on the other end. powering up one darkness orb is plenty and it is hard enough to keep 1 darkness orb cycling with recursion.

I think perhaps darkness+ should be reworked, but I'd like to hear from players with more experience than me.

edit - channeling dark usualy means waiting a turn or two for the orb to do anything at all. point is, it would be rare that I would have a situation where it is worth the wait with multiple orb slots, the passive effects of other orbs every turn are too much to sacrifice.

[bc]

I dont see anything wrong with an upgrade that boost outcoming damage by 2x times. You might consider to skip an upgrade if you have early consume, cause you probably will evoke 1 of 2 orbs on the turn you played them, but even in that scenario it is 6 additional damage, which is higher then average dmg upgrade.

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

I did the math a while back of darkness vs. lightning damage. IIRC, Darkness requires 5-6 turns to do more damage than lightning (in different play styles, both active orb evoking and passive effects). The problem IMO is that the darkness card just gives an orb, where most lightning cards have some additional effect (ie. the lightning attack card does damage + lightning orb).

However, darkness orb becomes really powerful with reinteration since the darkness damage doesn't reset. So having a single darkness orb can be evoked multiple times with a deck full of iterations. Also, loop power helps a lot to build up the darkness damage.

Also, imo, darkness is weaker since it targets the lower hp enemy, which could mean a lot of "wasted damaged". If this damage wasn't wasted and the remaining portion was applied to the next enemy, then darkness would be a lot more useful. ie. 24 dark damage vs. 10hp enemy = 14 wasted damage

[echoes37]

depends on how youre building
orb cycle is always extremely valuable, in fact i think most people value auto-evoke far too low given that its basically free additional effects on any card that channels
but the most common way to build for dark orb is to sit on one with gold cables/loop and exponentially ramp then dual/multicast for huge damage, and for that its correct that you probably dont need it upgraded

but those kind of decks arent really orb decks, in fact theyre kind of mutually exclusive with most orb strats since channelling new orbs will evoke your dark orb prematurely and having it racked basically turns every channel card in your deck into a curse, so its extremely inadvisable to have more than the bare minimum of what you need since most of your turns will be spent doing chip and putting out huge blocks with like reinforced body just to stall
however, darkness is still a good card outside of these decks, in normal orb decks having a channel 2 can be very valuable (which is part of why you see so much praise for glacier, its not just the base block that makes it strong) and even with a short ramp of even just 1 turn a darkness+ is more potential damage than a ball lightning or most equivalent 1 energy orb cards, so dont underestimate it, but do keep in mind the opportunity cost sitting on dark orbs carries regardless

[alicia, sun's nemesis]

Originally posted by Goblin:

I did the math a while back of darkness vs. lightning damage. IIRC, Darkness requires 5-6 turns to do more damage than lightning (in different play styles, both active orb evoking and passive effects). The problem IMO is that the darkness card just gives an orb, where most lightning cards have some additional effect (ie. the lightning attack card does damage + lightning orb).

However, darkness orb becomes really powerful with reinteration since the darkness damage doesn't reset. So having a single darkness orb can be evoked multiple times with a deck full of iterations. Also, loop power helps a lot to build up the darkness damage.

Also, imo, darkness is weaker since it targets the lower hp enemy, which could mean a lot of "wasted damaged". If this damage wasn't wasted and the remaining portion was applied to the next enemy, then darkness would be a lot more useful. ie. 24 dark damage vs. 10hp enemy = 14 wasted damage

This is a good post, although if I have loop I'll typically loop a frost orb (unless I have enough focus to know I won't die if I loop the dark orb), and you don't need to Recurse it, Dualcast is two dark orbs of damage and then you don't need to draft Recursion.

But I guess if you were going out of your way to win only with Dark orbs for whatever reason, you should consider upgrading your Darkness if you have enough orb slots to hold them and still block effectively with Frost (which naturally works well with Darkness and in general), because there are going to be encounters where you need more than 1 Frost Orb. In that case, if you find a Recursion, you certainly won't need to upgrade Darkness.

My favourite darkness generation card is unupgraded Rainbow because it exhausts itself and casts a frost orb before the dark orb (and you can evoke the lightning orb to make room for frost orbs if necessary). Of course you're not always going to see a Rainbow, I'm just trying to illustrate it.

You only really need one source of dark orb to scale against bosses like Champ (very effective way of dealing with Champ, you just scale up and then kill him without letting him into his second phase), Time Eater (same deal), etc. It's one of the most common forms of scaling in the card pool so that's why I favour it. Dualcasting saves time and helps it scale 'faster' and Dualcast is a starter card so all you need is one Darkness source. I would never bother upgrading any of the Darkness cards therefore, maybe Chaos...?

Otherwise it's kind of a waste of a slot, you could just have Frost in there and very efficiently mitigate damage for all those turns. In normal fights Lightning is faster and more efficient, and you start with a Lightning orb and Zap in your deck, plus Ball Lightning is a pretty good common. Dark orbs are pretty fun but my opinion is that you don't need two Dark orbs and you could upgrade something else and it would be better.

Lightning hits unpredictably without Electrodynamics but at the speed it works that doesn't really matter.

edit: lol, Valve censoring on '♥♥♥♥ Goblin' broke the quote and I had to censor your name myself.

[bc]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Also, imo, darkness is weaker since it targets the lower hp enemy, which could mean a lot of "wasted damaged". If this damage wasn't wasted and the remaining portion was applied to the next enemy, then darkness would be a lot more useful. ie. 24 dark damage vs. 10hp enemy = 14 wasted damage

Almost every multiple enemy fight requires to focus them one by one, having an option to control your damage is a huge advantage, downside that u just described is very unnoticeable.

[Scathe]

Originally posted by alicia, who smiles at death:

Originally posted by Goblin:

I did the math a while back of darkness vs. lightning damage. IIRC, Darkness requires 5-6 turns to do more damage than lightning (in different play styles, both active orb evoking and passive effects). The problem IMO is that the darkness card just gives an orb, where most lightning cards have some additional effect (ie. the lightning attack card does damage + lightning orb).

However, darkness orb becomes really powerful with reinteration since the darkness damage doesn't reset. So having a single darkness orb can be evoked multiple times with a deck full of iterations. Also, loop power helps a lot to build up the darkness damage.

Also, imo, darkness is weaker since it targets the lower hp enemy, which could mean a lot of "wasted damaged". If this damage wasn't wasted and the remaining portion was applied to the next enemy, then darkness would be a lot more useful. ie. 24 dark damage vs. 10hp enemy = 14 wasted damage

This is a good post, although if I have loop I'll typically loop a frost orb (unless I have enough focus to know I won't die if I loop the dark orb), and you don't need to Recurse it, Dualcast is two dark orbs of damage and then you don't need to draft Recursion.

But I guess if you were going out of your way to win only with Dark orbs for whatever reason, you should consider upgrading your Darkness if you have enough orb slots to hold them and still block effectively with Frost (which naturally works well with Darkness and in general), because there are going to be encounters where you need more than 1 Frost Orb. In that case, if you find a Recursion, you certainly won't need to upgrade Darkness.

My favourite darkness generation card is unupgraded Rainbow because it exhausts itself and casts a frost orb before the dark orb (and you can evoke the lightning orb to make room for frost orbs if necessary). Of course you're not always going to see a Rainbow, I'm just trying to illustrate it.

You only really need one source of dark orb to scale against bosses like Champ (very effective way of dealing with Champ, you just scale up and then kill him without letting him into his second phase), Time Eater (same deal), etc. It's one of the most common forms of scaling in the card pool so that's why I favour it. Dualcasting saves time and helps it scale 'faster' and Dualcast is a starter card so all you need is one Darkness source. I would never bother upgrading any of the Darkness cards therefore, maybe Chaos...?

Otherwise it's kind of a waste of a slot, you could just have Frost in there and very efficiently mitigate damage for all those turns. In normal fights Lightning is faster and more efficient, and you start with a Lightning orb and Zap in your deck, plus Ball Lightning is a pretty good common. Dark orbs are pretty fun but my opinion is that you don't need two Dark orbs and you could upgrade something else and it would be better.

Lightning hits unpredictably without Electrodynamics but at the speed it works that doesn't really matter.

edit: lol, Valve censoring on '♥♥♥♥ Goblin' broke the quote and I had to censor your name myself.

It is good to see I'm not the only one thinking this way. To be clear, these points you make would seem to lean twards the opinion that not only should you not upgrade darkness or rainbow, but that getting the upgrade randomly, at least with rainbow, would make your deck weaker? would you then prefer to see rainbow have it's unupgraded and upgraded versions flipped? would darkness be fixxed by upgrading to exhaust or to 0 cost or both ?

[alicia, sun's nemesis]

Originally posted by Scathe:

Originally posted by alicia, who smiles at death:

This is a good post, although if I have loop I'll typically loop a frost orb (unless I have enough focus to know I won't die if I loop the dark orb), and you don't need to Recurse it, Dualcast is two dark orbs of damage and then you don't need to draft Recursion.

But I guess if you were going out of your way to win only with Dark orbs for whatever reason, you should consider upgrading your Darkness if you have enough orb slots to hold them and still block effectively with Frost (which naturally works well with Darkness and in general), because there are going to be encounters where you need more than 1 Frost Orb. In that case, if you find a Recursion, you certainly won't need to upgrade Darkness.

My favourite darkness generation card is unupgraded Rainbow because it exhausts itself and casts a frost orb before the dark orb (and you can evoke the lightning orb to make room for frost orbs if necessary). Of course you're not always going to see a Rainbow, I'm just trying to illustrate it.

You only really need one source of dark orb to scale against bosses like Champ (very effective way of dealing with Champ, you just scale up and then kill him without letting him into his second phase), Time Eater (same deal), etc. It's one of the most common forms of scaling in the card pool so that's why I favour it. Dualcasting saves time and helps it scale 'faster' and Dualcast is a starter card so all you need is one Darkness source. I would never bother upgrading any of the Darkness cards therefore, maybe Chaos...?

Otherwise it's kind of a waste of a slot, you could just have Frost in there and very efficiently mitigate damage for all those turns. In normal fights Lightning is faster and more efficient, and you start with a Lightning orb and Zap in your deck, plus Ball Lightning is a pretty good common. Dark orbs are pretty fun but my opinion is that you don't need two Dark orbs and you could upgrade something else and it would be better.

Lightning hits unpredictably without Electrodynamics but at the speed it works that doesn't really matter.

edit: lol, Valve censoring on '♥♥♥♥ Goblin' broke the quote and I had to censor your name myself.

It is good to see I'm not the only one thinking this way. To be clear, these points you make would seem to lean twards the opinion that not only should you not upgrade darkness or rainbow, but that getting the upgrade randomly, at least with rainbow, would make your deck weaker? would you then prefer to see rainbow have it's unupgraded and upgraded versions flipped? would darkness be fixxed by upgrading to exhaust or to 0 cost or both ?

High five!

I definitely think you should not upgrade Rainbow unless something has gone really wrong! The card is too expensive for the Lightning and Frost orbs and the way you play Dark orb kind of pointless.

I don't want to have to upgrade Rainbow for it to be good, so I would rather they not flip it (although if they added a cost upgrade it might be bearable), and yeah I would consider if it got upgraded randomly by something to be a huge nuisance. Not the end of the world but it would just stay in my deck as a dead draw, something I'm very unlikely to want to play beyond the first cycle through the deck. Those are edge cases kind of (War Paint, an event, maybe Mind Bloom...), most of the time upgrading is voluntary.

So I think Rainbow is fine as it is, as a tech card that isn't amazing but does its job the best in its class.

To fix Darkness I am not sure, because it's such a playstyle thing, in the sense that if it was exhausted it would probably make a bunch of people very sad even though that would make it a substantially better card. I think Exhausting is conventionally considered a downside on cards (or at least it's not inarguably an upside like a cost upgrade sans Snecko), and upgrades in this game are all strict upsides, so I also can't imagine them adding exhaust to it (same thing for flipping Rainbow). I think it's ok for Darkness+ to be the way it is and I just don't take it unless it's unupgraded unless I'm desperate for a way to beat Champ.

I think if they made it 0 cost it would actually be strictly worse at what it does right now as well, without making me want to take it any more (I'll take it if I don't see a Rainbow, pretty much... I won't upgrade it). 'Cause you want your Dark orb as early up as possible, so if you're going to cast multiple Dark orbs, you might as well cast 2 for one energy rather than cast them at different times for free. They could change the card from vanilla Darkness orbs to channelling it and proccing its passive effect a couple of times or something... I'm not too creative lol...

I actually really like that there are cards that don't need upgrading so much, Echo Form is like that, you'd much rather have it non-Ethereal obviously but it's a whole upgrade for a card you're almost *always* going to play when you have it unless you're energy-starved

[Scathe]

Originally posted by alicia, who smiles at death:

High five! :tabbycat:

I definitely think you should not upgrade Rainbow unless something has gone really wrong! The card is too expensive for the Lightning and Frost orbs and the way you play Dark orb kind of pointless.

I don't want to have to upgrade Rainbow for it to be good, so I would rather they not flip it (although if they added a cost upgrade it might be bearable), and yeah I would consider if it got upgraded randomly by something to be a huge nuisance. Not the end of the world but it would just stay in my deck as a dead draw, something I'm very unlikely to want to play beyond the first cycle through the deck. Those are edge cases kind of (War Paint, an event, maybe Mind Bloom...), most of the time upgrading is voluntary.

So I think Rainbow is fine as it is, as a tech card that isn't amazing but does its job the best in its class.

To fix Darkness I am not sure, because it's such a playstyle thing, in the sense that if it was exhausted it would probably make a bunch of people very sad even though that would make it a substantially better card. I think Exhausting is conventionally considered a downside on cards (or at least it's not inarguably an upside like a cost upgrade sans Snecko), and upgrades in this game are all strict upsides, so I also can't imagine them adding exhaust to it (same thing for flipping Rainbow). I think it's ok for Darkness+ to be the way it is and I just don't take it unless it's unupgraded unless I'm desperate for a way to beat Champ.

I think if they made it 0 cost it would actually be strictly worse at what it does right now as well, without making me want to take it any more (I'll take it if I don't see a Rainbow, pretty much... I won't upgrade it). 'Cause you want your Dark orb as early up as possible, so if you're going to cast multiple Dark orbs, you might as well cast 2 for one energy rather than cast them at different times for free. They could change the card from vanilla Darkness orbs to channelling it and proccing its passive effect a couple of times or something... I'm not too creative lol...

I actually really like that there are cards that don't need upgrading so much, Echo Form is like that, you'd much rather have it non-Ethereal obviously but it's a whole upgrade for a card you're almost *always* going to play when you have it unless you're energy-starved

Good points again, although I dont think a card is fine as is if getting a random upgrade on it is considered a nuisance and a drawback.

what about this idea for rainbow: change the base card to both ethereal and exhaust, and have the upgrade only remove ethereal? that would be considered a nerf by many but I think it would fix the upgrade and the card might still be best in it's class without an upgrade?

or maybe it would be better to just straight buff it. leave the base card alone, but change the upgrade from removing exhaust to reducing the cost by 1?