Spiked Shield/ Spiked Wall

[YoYoBro]

Another shield idea, not hard to implement, which could be useful in many decks. Comment this too.

[Lucifear]

I like the effect, and it fits the black meta.
Seems like a solid addition

[YoYoBro]

Thanks to you, and to all the people who gave me positive feedbacks in chat.

[ScytherLoL]

Great addition this one for Dark, (dark at least I understand).

This would really make an opponent suffer espicially in conjunction with a vamp deck.

Thanks for you time and artwork.

Scyther

[YoYoBro]

Thanks for the feedback. The artwork isn't mine tho

[Kamietsu]

Ouch, that would hurt might bad.

[Lanidrak]

Seems Okay, price is good, effect is not too bad.

How would the mechanics of it work though?

Every time you lose at least 3 or more damage your opponent takes 1 point of damage? In that order?

Will attacks doing 2 or less than 2 damage won't trigger the effect? As far as I can see.

The way the game works at the moment - to my understanding - is that every creature in the game attacks individually, also causing any effects it might have, such as bio-luminescence etc. This card wouldn't work exactly as you have designed it because the game would have to physically count all the 1 and 2 damages you take and whenever they add up to 3, then your opponent would lose 1 life.

A prime example of this mechanic at work is when you have a dissipation field in play, notice how for 3 damage it only removes 1 entropy quanta. So, 2 and 1 damage-hits also remove 1 entropy quanta. The game, again, as far as I know, has no way of totaling your incoming damage (accurately). It does however provide a rough estimate as to how much damage you will do/or take in a round (the shaded yellow part of your green health bar). But even this rough estimate doesn't factor in shields, sundials, antimatter etc...

Maybe you've all foreseen this, and haven't mentioned it yet!

It could be an interesting balancing point, that it only effects creatures which do 3 or more damage.

Finally, what about antimatter or adrenaline? If the card only effects 3 damage-hits or higher, then adrenaline would be a definite way of nullifying this shield effect. Would antimatter hits heal you, or your opponent? Eg. You're taking 6 damage from an creature with antimatter (therefore healing you 6), would this heal you 6 and your opponent 2? Or would it heal you 6 and damage your opponent 2?




But, apart from all that, a very nice concept, the upgraded version rocks and ultimately it'd be very nice to see Darkness with a new shield (and the other elements for example...)

[YoYoBro]

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

I think that it should work like the entropy shield, causing 1 damage even when creatures with 1/2 attack damage you. I don't think it would be too OP: after all a skull buckler blocks all damage considering a full table of malignant cells, so it's a 0/0 damage ratio (0 you and 0 your opponent).

This would cause a 20/20 or so damage ratio. Not too OP I think. And it doesn't reflect spells/poison so if you think this is OP because it makes your opponent lose 1/3 of the damage he causes you with his fire lances/etc, I think it's balanced here too. With a reflective/jade shield your opponent takes all the damage and you don't .

Adrenaline is treated as multiple attacks, thus multiple 1 damage hits to your opponent.

Antimatter converts the atk to negative atk, so you don't get damage CONVERTED to healing, you only get healing, so the effect doesn't trigger.

[Lanidrak]

Right, got you.

I posted here before I read your other Shield (Luminous) post.

In this case it is a bit more powerful than I had imagined. Not strictly over-powered, but will be interesting. Maybe it should be made even more powerful? I mean, Shards of Gratitude, Feral Bonds, Vampires, Miracle, Heals - these all are very powerful healing spells...

If any opponent played one of these, it would have to be early, and it would have to be in a game where I happened to get offense onto the table early. That way, the damage I do him, will be returned to me (on a 1 to 3 ratio) - he would still have to damage me quite a bit. Then, all I would really have to do is play an Empathic Bond/Shard of Gratitude or two and this effect is pretty much useless. (Maybe he is upgraded mono-darkness running steals and vampires in which case I am f***ed).

With-out topic hijacking too much - maybe we can 'complicate' the way this shield works, to make it more powerful - only in given situations.

Make the damage-return ability related to your Darkness quanta? Like an entropy shield in a way, except that the shield doesn't die when your Darkness Quanta reaches 0.

So maybe the card reads like this:

As long as you have Darkness quanta your opponent takes 100% damage return (ie. 1 point for every 1 damage, and -1 quanta). If you have no Darkness Quanta, your opponent takes 20% damage return (1 point for every 5 damage).

This would eat through your quanta supply pretty quickly, but the ability is strong enough that you shouldn't really need to play more cards - as in, the card, if used correctly could end the game. Eg.

You have 30 Darkness Quanta and 50HP (So card will do 100% damage return for the first 30 damage)
Your opponent has 32HP and does 60 Damage to you each turn.
You play this card.
You have 20HP, 0 Darkness Quanta and your opponent has 2HP. (now 20% damage return)
Effectively your opponent dies first - provided his next incoming attack on you is not 20 or higher.



Just my two cents, really like the idea - perhaps your simpler way is better!

[YoYoBro]

I'm intrigued by your idea, but I think:
1- Quanta draining should be used for gravity/entropy elements: darkness is more about absorbing
2- The way you suggested would probably require a lot of coding to take into account the damage ratio per quanta information: entropy shield is just destroyed after you reach 0, so that it doesn't require further coding to "know what it'll do when your quanta is x".

Nice suggestion tho

[Lanidrak]

Some say I am a dreamer...


But then, if I am brutally honest - this card is nice on paper but in the game, I doubt it will be used very much.

If I were for example, some sort of Shield connoisseur, my best of top 5 would look something like this:

Diamond Shield, best for reducing incoming damage.
Fire Buckler, best for creature control
Dissipation Field, best for long term damage avoiding
Phase Shield, best for short term damage avoiding (maybe sundial too )
Bone Shield, best for blocking big hitters/steal&deflag-proof.

If this card (Spiked Shield) were in the game, it would be somewhere between Skull Shield and Solar Shield... It does't really absorb or protect you in any way other than giving your opponent little bits of damage. In the current mechanic you take damage first - then this shield will return 1/3 to your opponent - so in terms of 'turning the table on your opponent' - any one of the 5 shields above do that very well. This one, not so much.

Not really sure how to improve it. Maybe a % chance to give 100% damage return on an incoming attack and 100% defend against the incoming attack?

Then again, that would just work like a Dusk Mantle (making your opponents creatures miss) with some added return damage.

[YoYoBro]

I made it like this not to make it seem OP in any way. Imo this would have an excellent synergy with healing cards.

For example, you play aflatoxin, and your opponent gets a bunch of cells that replicate and damage him for 1 each, without being blocked or destroyed. If you can heal with siphon life (dark/death deck?) you win the damage race, and the game. Or this could work well with emphatic bond, miracle, heal, shards, granite skin, black hole etc.

You heal faster than your opponent takes damage without being able to stop his own creatures=you win.