[Official] Druidic Staff | Jade Staff

[Annele]

As I'm seeing it, the archetypal life deck is supposed to be a deck that sends lots of creatures out and frustrates the opponent with lots of healing while the swarm chips off damage.

Anyway, I suggest the staves having a detachable head so you can keep healing even if you replace the weapon.

Added, and this time I managed to do it without reseting it.

[memimemi]

Spoiler for Hidden:

SoW also carries a few nasty drawbacks that I don't need to mention.  If you're looking for shield penetration then there's still Unstoppables + Adrenaline.  Why would I want to run Staves with SoW when Morning Glories can do it better in a Light deck?  You'll get the regeneration from the Staves, but Light can use Sancs to do the same while gaining other forms of protection in addition to dropping a single Miracle to set the situation back to ground zero.  Glories are also quite capable of dishing out damage without the SoW boost where the Staves will be lacking; this is a common scenario in a deck relying on a 3 card combo to pull off.  So Glories do the dirty work while Miracle and Sancs allow them to continue beating the opponent into submission.  Taking this further, Glories can receive the aid of Shard of Sacrifice since it's not absolutely necessary for Sanctuary to be present.  What type of support will the Staves receive?  Heals are pretty much a given, Carapace sounds like a reasonable addition as well.  Other than this you're not going to find much support which is a problem because the Staves, unlike Glories, are not fantastic damage dealers even with the SoW bonus.  Heals will not stand up to the incredible strength of Miracle, and Shard of Sacrifice is nearly off-limits because the Staves will inflict damage while it is active.  If you're going to add Life creatures to this then you're sort of going against the entire purpose of why you'd want a deck like this to begin with, which is to render creature control useless.  I'm really not sure if you would ever want to take this type of strategy into a duo scenario because of the amount of cards needed to pull it off to begin with.  Aside from this, the only truly competitive use of SoW that I'm aware of is for use in Mono Aether which I suspect performs notably better than Glories (though I'm not in either League to confirm this).  I've seen it used with Anubis but it just doesn't preform as smoothly as the others.  So I'd put the potential of SoW + Jade Staff below both SoW Glories and Mono Aether, possibly higher than SoW Anubis depending on the build; that doesn't strike me as a good reason in and of itself to remove the current Adrenaline synergy.

If I'm running a Rainbow based stall then healing via Jade Staff is likely the furthest thing from my mind; of course the strategy is going to vary considerably.  Speedbows are going to want Discord, Vamp Dagger, Gavel, Longbow, etc. for damage output.  Timebows are going to want Eternity and Pulvy (possibly Eagle's Eye as well) to prevent deck out and eliminate threats that interfere with the deck's win conditions whether they be deck out or damage output.  The issue with using this in a Rainbow based stall is that the deck has several other types of weapons that would likely serve it better.  I would still prefer to take the risk of having a Sanctuary or SoG get Deflag'd over relying on Immaterial weapons to heal me each turn because 1)  I could be using Pulverizer, Eagle's Eye or even Trident to cause considerable damage to my opponent's strategy at that moment as I see fit 2)  Multiple Staves would mean you also need to rely on drawing Animate Weapon or the Staves from your deck and could also cause a very clogged hand if you're unable to play something due to lack of a part of the combo.  With Timebows using a lot of Hourglasses and Sundials this is unacceptable.  Entropy Mark stalling Rainbows would run into a similar problem due to a reliance on Supernova to start anything; in this case SoG is superior even with less healing because you are able to play the Shards off of a single Quantum Tower which also frees up your hand space.  And then we still run into the issues of wanting a more useful weapon such as Pulverizer in its place.  If you're running a Life based stall then there just aren't many options for you to use to counter the opponent's cards and win (lack of control), so you're going to have to out-heal the opponent in several cases and either eventually win through slow, but steady damage output or deck-out.  Additionally, I know that if I'm facing a Life-based stall that there are probably bigger threats I should be concerned with than a single weapon healing my opponent for 5HP each turn.  The only exception to this would be if I suspect my opponent has worked Adrena-Staves into their stall, in which case I would no longer need to worry because the Staff can no longer be targeted by Adrenaline.  If I'm using a Firestall with Deflags then I might use them on the Staves first without the Immaterial status, but it honestly won't make much of a difference either way.  I also have yet to see a single well-built Life Mark Rainbow stall emerge despite the obvious SoG bonus.  This is not because of the fact that SoG is destroyed more easily than something Immaterial, but because you lose the advantage of fast Supernova usage or the ability to readily supply your Hourglasses with more drawing power.  So for Speedbows it's not fast enough, stallbows it's not useful enough...you'd probably face the same or similar issues with a combination of the two.

[/spoiler]

Thank you for the in-depth analysis.  Though I understand that Morning Glory has powerful, in-element, back-up in cards like Sanctuary and Miracle, I was under the impression that cards were to be balanced as cards, rather than as related to the element they're in.  Your points, however, are quite solid.

Morning Glory: 5 for 7|8 damage - a 7 point swing, 8 upped.
Jade Staff: 2 for 2|4 damage + 5 healing - a 7 point swing, 9 upped.

This is my point: Jade Staff, as it is, is only commonly used in 1 strategy: Adrenastaves.  With a berf to damage (3 for both unupped/upped, with more heal OR lower cost upped), the main strategy being helped is... Adrenastaves.

I'm not going to hold on to any sacred cows, here - I still think the card is fine how it is - I just don't see how helping a single strategy out is much of a help to the utility of Druidic Staff as a standalone card.  If there are to be buffs, I would at least like to repeat my suggestion that adding ATK isn't very thematic with  .  OldTrees' idea of buffing the Regeneration fits better with the general HP-gain, and would certainly make players take another look at Druidic Staff, at least.

It's nearly 4am, here, so I don't have quite what it takes to argue further for Immateriality; especially not when I agree with most of what willng3 had to say on the matter. 

As an alternate: what if Druidic Staff|Jade Staff were targetable by Mitosis?  Food for thought.

Thank you, OldTrees  and willng3 - I've had to learn more about theory tonight, just to try to not sound like a complete fool, than I have in the past 5 months of playing/posting pretty much daily.

[ARTHANASIOS]

I'm somewhat on the fence as to what to do with Jade Staff, Druidic Staff seems perfectly fine to me.  It bothers me that Jade Staff is pushed aside even in fully upgraded decks because Druidic functions better with Epinephrine.  If you're not using Jade Staff for the Animate Weapon + Epinephrine strategy then what are you using it for? 

Generally you're using it for additional healing in whatever deck you're using.  Life-based stalls use this card to act as a pseudo-SoG where the healing is nearly infinitely more useful than the damage dealt (assuming non-Animated).  Upped Crusaders benefit tremendously from Jades as they reach 7 attack and grant themselves an 8 damage bonus from Epinephrine, plus 15HP of healing. 

You can use it for damage in rushes, but you can just as easily use a Long Sword nearly every time, right?

So the biggest buff option that I hear people suggesting is to reduce the Jade Staff's attack to 3 to give it greater synergy with Epinephrine.  If we're viewing this as Epinephrine + Animate Weapon being the only possibility of using this card that exists, then this is acceptable and preferred in most cases.  However, there are certainly cases where you'll want to use Jade Staff and either not want to use Animate Weapon + Epinephrine or in restricted PvP you may not have the ability to use Animate at all.  Viewing this from a pure Mono perspective makes the 1 attack decrease an unwarranted setback.  Viewing the upgrading situation based purely on the weapons and none of the other combinations makes the 1500 spent seem really worthless.  Dropping the attack also loses the upped Crusader synergy while adding an Animated Jade + Blessing + Unupped Crusader + Epinephrine synergy, which is obviously not at all practical.  So my reaction to this buff is that it's unacceptable without some other form of buff being granted.  Extra HP added to Regeneration or a cost reduction (although Jade's already pretty dirt cheap as is) seem to be the ones that make the most sense for me.

Adding HP to regeneration without a decrease in attack would also work assuming the amounted of HP restored became 7 or more, otherwise there's still not a significant reason to use it over Druidic Staff.

I completely disagree with the suggestion to make it Immaterial, either upped or unupped.  Adrenaline synergy is freaking huge with this card.  And you're not just getting rid of Adrenaline synergy, you're also removing Unstoppable, Rage Elixir, Blessing, Chaos Power, Twin Universe, Crusader, Sky Blitz, etc. from being viable strategies at all.  This would leave Jade's primary use to Life-based stalls where it would largely make less of a difference because you're going to likely rely on several different permanents of more threat than your Staff (Feral Bond, Thorn Carapace, SoG, Sanctuary, etc.).  Having the Staffs work with Animate Weapon in these situations doesn't make any sense because there's really not much than an Immaterial standalone Staff can do en masse that a single Epi'd Staff can't do as well.  You're removing the weakness to Reverse Time, Lobo, and Bolts in late game, but continue to have issues with Infection and Fire Shield.  7HP really isn't something that's easy to take down.  Its usage in full blown rushes would likely be negligible because people don't tend to run rush decks with a Life mark just for Jade Staff splash, they use it because they want Life's abilities in the form of Frogs, Adrenaline, Mitosis, etc.  Thus if you're using Life as a core for your Life strategy then you're likely going to suffer from the rather large weaknesses that Life's renowned for when attempting to rush, and that 5HP increase at the end of each turn isn't going to do much to save you against the biggest counters such as decks using Dim Shield.

So...I'm not really leaning towards any one option at the moment.  Part of the problem here I believe is that Life's current card pool is pulling it in several different directions at the same time which has weakened its core and in turn made it difficult to discern how cards such as Jade Staff should be buffed.  It could be buffed to be a beatstick for greater rushing ability or it could be buffed to enhance a stall's survival potential.  I would personally prefer to see Life take the latter of the routes, therefore I believe I would like to see Jade's Regeneration HP gain increase a bit; whether or not that needs to be accompanied by an attack decrease I'm unsure of at the moment.

Oh, and someone should really add an option to change your vote in the polls since each new option added appears to completely screw up the current voting.

^^^
This. I agree 100% with Willng3! 
As a  lover I have to demand to leave our staves alone (I am proud I am the only one right now who voted that Druidic|Jade Staff is fine as it is!). They're fine as it is, if you prefer your Vampire Daggers take them, just tell me how you'll heal yourselves when powerful shields are in the game  . About the nerf to 3 atk in order to synergise better with Adrenaline, let me tell you you'll ruin the overall effectiveness of Jade Staff in order to make it SLIGHTLY more reliable in a certain kind of decks (the flying-adrenalined-staves-type decks). Don't forget that a flying Jade Staff with 4 atk can still be Adrenalined, even if it deals less damage than a Jade Staff with 3 atk. No buff-nerf is needed IMO.

[Atico]

If anyone didn't see problem then I can ask You - why most of rainbows/novas decks use VS, not JS? Yes, players aren't stupid and they use better weapon, so they choose VS. It is very clearly to say that JS is worst than VS, but... I accepted this fact that this game isn't so balanced and promotes few elements.
How solve this unbalanced fact? Use VS, play Darkness instead of Life and You will have advantage in game.

Let me repeat one problem with what you just said. Stilleto doesn't heal if it doesn't hit or is frozen, staff does.  Its not strictly better.

Game would be balanced, when in 50% games JS will be better than VS. Now it is better in maybe 10-20%, not more (it is better only against more than 2HP damage reduce). Do You really think that Players are stupid and they choose worst cards? Here is card usage:
Obsidian Pillar   913
Vampire Stiletto   109
Emerald Pillar   880
Druidic Staff   79

Obsidian Pillar(U)   244
Vampire Stiletto(U)   153
Emerald Pillar(U)   143
Druidic Staff(U)    57 (3x less than VS...)

I know, that card usage isn't the best way to say which cards are OP/UP, but it shows that Players treat JS as weak/weaker card than VS. As I said earlier - we must accept this that game is unbalanced in few elements.

[tyranim]

If anyone didn't see problem then I can ask You - why most of rainbows/novas decks use VS, not JS? Yes, players aren't stupid and they use better weapon, so they choose VS. It is very clearly to say that JS is worst than VS, but... I accepted this fact that this game isn't so balanced and promotes few elements.
How solve this unbalanced fact? Use VS, play Darkness instead of Life and You will have advantage in game.

Let me repeat one problem with what you just said. Stilleto doesn't heal if it doesn't hit or is frozen, staff does.  Its not strictly better.

Game would be balanced, when in 50% games JS will be better than VS. Now it is better in maybe 10-20%, not more (it is better only against more than 2HP damage reduce). Do You really think that Players are stupid and they choose worst cards? Here is card usage:
Obsidian Pillar   913
Vampire Stiletto   109
Emerald Pillar   880
Druidic Staff   79

Obsidian Pillar(U)   244
Vampire Stiletto(U)   153
Emerald Pillar(U)   143
Druidic Staff(U)    57 (3x less than VS...)

I know, that card usage isn't the best way to say which cards are OP/UP, but it shows that Players treat JS as weak/weaker card than VS. As I said earlier - we must accept this that game is unbalanced in few elements.

while i do agree that jade is weaker than vamp, i do have one thing to say: you try and make this game more balanced than zanz does.
imho, jade staff has its place in many decks. your opponent puts up a shield that reduces damage or stops it all together (which happens to me a lot) your vamp dagger is no longer healing you adequately, so you swap it out for a jade staff. and let me clearify ONE MORE TIME, i am for giving jade staff a MINOR buff. nothing too flashy

[Annele]

...
Oh, and someone should really add an option to change your vote in the polls since each new option added appears to completely screw up the current voting.

I thought I did...

[Atico]

If anyone didn't see problem then I can ask You - why most of rainbows/novas decks use VS, not JS? Yes, players aren't stupid and they use better weapon, so they choose VS. It is very clearly to say that JS is worst than VS, but... I accepted this fact that this game isn't so balanced and promotes few elements.
How solve this unbalanced fact? Use VS, play Darkness instead of Life and You will have advantage in game.

Let me repeat one problem with what you just said. Stilleto doesn't heal if it doesn't hit or is frozen, staff does.  Its not strictly better.

Game would be balanced, when in 50% games JS will be better than VS. Now it is better in maybe 10-20%, not more (it is better only against more than 2HP damage reduce). Do You really think that Players are stupid and they choose worst cards? Here is card usage:
Obsidian Pillar   913
Vampire Stiletto   109
Emerald Pillar   880
Druidic Staff   79

Obsidian Pillar(U)   244
Vampire Stiletto(U)   153
Emerald Pillar(U)   143
Druidic Staff(U)    57 (3x less than VS...)

I know, that card usage isn't the best way to say which cards are OP/UP, but it shows that Players treat JS as weak/weaker card than VS. As I said earlier - we must accept this that game is unbalanced in few elements.

while i do agree that jade is weaker than vamp, i do have one thing to say: you try and make this game more balanced than zanz does.
imho, jade staff has its place in many decks. your opponent puts up a shield that reduces damage or stops it all together (which happens to me a lot) your vamp dagger is no longer healing you adequately, so you swap it out for a jade staff. and let me clearify ONE MORE TIME, i am for giving jade staff a MINOR buff. nothing too flashy

No shield - VS is better
Shield with 1 damage reduction - VS is better
Shield with 2 damage reduction - VS is better (it is better to deal 4 attack and 4 healing than 2 attack + 5 heal).
Shield with 3 damage reduction - probably is still better (3 attack and 3 healing (VS);1 attack and 5 healing(JS))
Shield with 50% chance for attack - in 10 turns VS gives 30 attack and 30 healing, JS gives 20 attack and 50 healing - probably it is draw. In shield with 40% chance VS is better.
So only  spam of DimShields, Freeze weapon and Hope with >3 damage reduction makes JS better. And this is a reason why Players use VS instead of JS.

Edit: I corrected damage for JS. Thanks for ARTHANASIOS

[ARTHANASIOS]

^Dear Attico, please keep in mind that Jade Staff deals four (4) points of damage. So, in upped versions of JS and VS:
No shield:
 VS deals 6 & heals 6 (12 hp difference between players) while JS deals 4 & heals 5 (9 hp difference between players)
 {VS is +3 hp better than JS}
DR 1 shield:
 VS deals 5 & heals 5 (10 hp difference between players) while JS deals 3 & heals 5 (8 hp difference between players)
 {VS is +2 hp better than JS}
DR 2 shield:
 VS deals 4 & heals 4 (8 hp difference between players) while JS deals 2 & heals 5 (7 hp difference between players)
 {VS is +1 hp better than JS}
DR 3 shield:
 VS deals 3 & heals 3 (6 hp difference between players) while JS deals 1 & heals 5 (6 hp difference between players)
 {VS is even with JS}
DR 4 Shield:
 VS deals 2 & heals 2 (4 hp difference between players) while JS deals 0 & heals 5 (5 hp difference between players)
 {VS is -1 hp worse than JS}
DR 5 Shield:
 VS deals 1 & heals 1 (2 hp difference between players) while JS deals 0 & heals 5 (5 hp difference between players)
 {VS is -3 hp worse than JS}
DR 6 (or more) Shield or frozen weapon or delayed weapon:
 VS deals 0 & heals 0 (0 hp difference between players) while JS deals 0 & heals 5 (5 hp difference between players)
 {VS is not just -5 hp worse than JS, here VS is just worthless while JS is still useful}

People prefer VS over JS not because JS is better, but because of the following reasons:
1) Not many people use DR shields in PvP, so it is a more useful weapon there.
2) A lot of Elements players are just little kids who become amazed by "evil" elements, like  and  , while "good" elements like  looks sissy to them and they select  cards over  cards since they look "cool" and "awesome".

[OldTrees]

This is my point: Jade Staff, as it is, is only commonly used in 1 strategy: Adrenastaves.  With a berf to damage (3 for both unupped/upped, with more heal OR lower cost upped), the main strategy being helped is... Adrenastaves.

I'm not going to hold on to any sacred cows, here - I still think the card is fine how it is - I just don't see how helping a single strategy out is much of a help to the utility of Druidic Staff as a standalone card.  If there are to be buffs, I would at least like to repeat my suggestion that adding ATK isn't very thematic with  .  OldTrees' idea of buffing the Regeneration fits better with the general HP-gain, and would certainly make players take another look at Druidic Staff, at least.

As an alternate: what if Druidic Staff|Jade Staff were targetable by Mitosis?  Food for thought.

Thank you, OldTrees  and willng3 - I've had to learn more about theory tonight, just to try to not sound like a complete fool, than I have in the past 5 months of playing/posting pretty much daily.

If Druidic Staff was able to reproduce, then Longsword might be allowed to reproduce. Longsword is the reason weapons do not reproduce.

You're welcome.

[willng3]

...
Oh, and someone should really add an option to change your vote in the polls since each new option added appears to completely screw up the current voting.

I thought I did...

I'll ask Higs if she can fix it if I can find her.

As an alternate: what if Druidic Staff|Jade Staff were targetable by Mitosis?  Food for thought.

Thank you, OldTrees  and willng3 - I've had to learn more about theory tonight, just to try to not sound like a complete fool, than I have in the past 5 months of playing/posting pretty much daily.

No problem.
When Mitosis was previously able to target weapons I loved the Mitosis + Staff combo.  There was quite a bit of complaining made about the combo being OP, but nearly every one of these complaints lacked hard evidence to support these claims and people even began to admit that they were wrong after testing it further.  I certainly wouldn't mind getting Mitosis to work on the Staff again, but as OT said, the reason that Mitosis no longer works on weapons is because Mitosis Long Swords was far too powerful.  However, I do wonder if it's possible to make the Staves an exception similar to how SoR's double ability usage only works on Time creatures.

[memimemi]

When Mitosis was previously able to target weapons I loved the Mitosis + Staff combo.  There was quite a bit of complaining made about the combo being OP, but nearly every one of these complaints lacked hard evidence to support these claims and people even began to admit that they were wrong after testing it further.  I certainly wouldn't mind getting Mitosis to work on the Staff again, but as OT said, the reason that Mitosis no longer works on weapons is because Mitosis Long Swords was far too powerful.  However, I do wonder if it's possible to make the Staves an exception similar to how SoR's double ability usage only works on Time creatures.

What would you say to this, Annele?  It's a minor buff, but one that not only adds a new set of strategies (Mitosis runs well with so very many other things), but does absolutely no harm whatsoever to the existing uses for Druidic Staff.  Is this idea worth adding to the poll, in your opinion?

[Atico]

^Dear Attico, please keep in mind that Jade Staff deals four (4) points of damage. So, in upped versions of JS and VS:
No shield:
 VS deals 6 & heals 6 (12 hp difference between players) while JS deals 4 & heals 5 (9 hp difference between players)
 {VS is +3 hp better than JS}
DR 1 shield:
 VS deals 5 & heals 5 (10 hp difference between players) while JS deals 3 & heals 5 (8 hp difference between players)
 {VS is +2 hp better than JS}
DR 2 shield:
 VS deals 4 & heals 4 (8 hp difference between players) while JS deals 2 & heals 5 (7 hp difference between players)
 {VS is +1 hp better than JS}
DR 3 shield:
 VS deals 3 & heals 3 (6 hp difference between players) while JS deals 1 & heals 5 (6 hp difference between players)
 {VS is even with JS}
DR 4 Shield:
 VS deals 2 & heals 2 (4 hp difference between players) while JS deals 0 & heals 5 (5 hp difference between players)
 {VS is -1 hp worse than JS}
DR 5 Shield:
 VS deals 1 & heals 1 (2 hp difference between players) while JS deals 0 & heals 5 (5 hp difference between players)
 {VS is -3 hp worse than JS}
DR 6 (or more) Shield or frozen weapon or delayed weapon:
 VS deals 0 & heals 0 (0 hp difference between players) while JS deals 0 & heals 5 (5 hp difference between players)
 {VS is not just -5 hp worse than JS, here VS is just worthless while JS is still useful}

People prefer VS over JS not because JS is better, but because of the following reasons:
1) Not many people use DR shields in PvP, so it is a more useful weapon there.
2) A lot of Elements players are just little kids who become amazed by "evil" elements, like  and  , while "good" elements like  looks sissy to them and they select  cards over  cards since they look "cool" and "awesome".

Oh yes, You are right, I made a little mistake I corrected my post, thanks
But summary is the same, You need >3 DR to see JS better than VS. It is very very rare situation. What is more - we counted that 1 point of attack = 1 heal, but we both know that it is better to deal 1 attack than heal 1. So JS in compare with VS looks very very poor in most of games.
Personally I think that 6 damage + 6 healing for 2 is too powerful. And I don't need comparing with JS to say this. I think that making JS 3 attack and 5 heal for 2 and VS 6 attack + 6 heal for 3 will be fine.