Stone Totem | Earth Totem

[OldTrees]

Stackable could be easily balanced at around half to 3/4th the current buff. In fact that would increase the mono synergy and the fractal synergy thus expanding the usefulness of the card to the metagame. The totems starting with 0attack goes a long way towards this balance.

Possible Other Totem (but I agree that other does not necessarily fit this series)
Adjacent creatures generate 1 quanta of their element.

[moomoose]

i suppose there are four ways to go about the stacking issue
no stacking of any sort
no stacking with the same buff (nightfall model)
no stacking with other elements' totem effects
everything stacks with everything

[OldTrees]

i suppose there are four ways to go about the stacking issue
no stacking of any sort
no stacking with the same buff (nightfall model)
no stacking with other elements' totem effects
everything stacks with everything

Each of these has benefits and costs.
The more stacking is allowed, the more synergies and deck variations can be made. This increases gameplay versatility.
The more stacking is allowed, the more combinations need to be checked for balance. Imbalance reduces gameplay versatility.

In general this results in the principle of: As much stacking as can be efficiently balanced.

For me that biases everything towards more stacking especially since I have never seen fractal as a "difficult" balancing task.

[moomoose]

but that would also mean that the totems would have to be either weak enough, or high costing enough to not be exploitable, but this would also hinder strategies which would normally be its intended uses.

[OldTrees]

but that would also mean that the totems would have to be either weak enough, or high costing enough to not be exploitable, but this would also hinder strategies which would normally be its intended uses.

The number of adjacent pairs scales well with the additional cost to create more creatures. Thus it is fairly easy to have both the fractal and non fractal usages balanced.

Similarly the only totems and the totems + X usages could be balanced by adjusting the totem base stats/cost.

[moomoose]

my point being that given the current effect, cost and limitation of effect, i believe that stone totem is balanced. if the limitation is not maintained, it will need to have its cost raised and/or effect reduced.  if the cost is raised to ~5 or the effect reduced to 1|1, is it still worth using in a deck where you do not fractal them?

personally,  i would rather have no totem effects stack and focus on them buffing creatures and less about using them as the main source of offense independent of any other creatures

[OldTrees]

my point being that given the current effect, cost and limitation of effect, i believe that stone totem is balanced. if the limitation is not maintained, it will need to have its cost raised and/or effect reduced.  if the cost is raised to ~5 or the effect reduced to 1|1, is it still worth using in a deck where you do not fractal them?

personally,  i would rather have no totem effects stack and focus on them buffing creatures and less about using them as the main source of offense independent of any other creatures

Creatures	Adjacent Pairs	Pairs per Creature
4	2	0.50
5	4	0.80
6	5	0.83
7	6	0.86
8	8	1.00
9	10	1.11
10	12	1.20
11	13	1.18
12	14	1.17
13	16	1.23
14	18	1.29
15	20	1.33
16	21	1.31
17	23	1.35
18	25	1.39
19	27	1.42
20	29	1.45
21	31	1.48
22	33	1.50
23	34	1.48

Based on this data, I think paying 3 +1card to get +2|+2 for each creature in each pair is fair with or without fractal.
Aka: Stacking Stone Totem is balanced for usage with or without fractal.

[moomoose]

did a more concrete example, using the card plot (orange numbers mean occupied by an earth totem)


generating 14 creatures with fractal is not difficult, could take 3 fractals with non-optimal conditions, so lets go with the 3 fractal req to be safe.
for 42 and ~27 you get 4x 8|8 creatures, 5x 4|4 creatures, 2x 2|2 creatures and 1x 6|6 creature, doing a net damage of 62 damage per turn.  yeah, thats not out of line at all, you would probably be better off fractaling flesh recluses for the same cost, doing 6 damage per, 14 x 6 = 84 damage per turn.

so basically i dont mind totems stacking anymore, even rainbows dont seem like they would be that much of an issue (especially considering the subset which don't play well together due to them being active abilities), but i still think that the one would be best suited to only function once per turn per creature, to avoid potential exploits.

[OldTrees]

so basically i dont mind totems stacking anymore, even rainbows dont seem like they would be that much of an issue (especially considering the subset which don't play well together due to them being active abilities), but i still think that the one would be best suited to only function once per turn per creature, to avoid potential exploits.

State of stacking:

In general Boons from multiple totems stack even if they are the same type of totem or the recipient is a totem.

Time is worded such that it would not overcome summoning sickness nor allow a third usage of the skill.
2 Time boons will not stack and Time totems can only give their boon to Water totems, certain non totems and totems given activated abilities (like through Entropy boons).

Death, Darkness, Entropy and Light boons will not stack with themselves or each other on a single creature.

[Powerfrog]

6 fire totems
6 fractals
18 fire pendulums
Mark of Aether

Turn 1: 1 totem 2 fractals 4 pends Play pends and 1 totem. 5 fire 1 aether Turn 2: 1 pend Play pend 5 fire 7 aether Turn 3: 1 Totem Play totem 7 fire 8 aether Turn 4: 1 pend Play pend, fractal totem, play 2 totems 1 fire 7 aether 12 damage Turn 5: 1 pend Play pend 9 fire 8 aether 24 damage Turn 6: (Note many decks have dealt 100+hp faster than this vs an unguarded opponent) 1 pend play pend, 3 totems, fractal totem, discard 1 totem 0 fire 9 aether 72 damage Turn 7: 1 pend play pend 10 fire 1 aether 120 damage Turn 8: 1 pend Play pend, play 3 totems 1 fire 10+ aether 220 damage

This looks like the fastest method to play totems for raw damage. It starts off incredibley slow but picks up some tremendous damage as more are placed. But in this almost best case scenario, it's still pretty slow. A SN powered totem rainbow could possibly have better results, otherwise needs heavy stalling to reach it's prime.

You may be thinking 8 turn FG kill is impressive, but you have to realise most decks are capable of this under perfect conditions and no fighting back.

Note it's very likely your totems/pends/quanta/hand/damage reduction would have been messed with in this process, making it even worse than it sounds.

So yeah. Don't worry about totem fractals being overpowered...

[OdinVanguard]

You may get a better speed by mixing in air totems and sky blitz

[OldTrees]

You may get a better speed by mixing in air totems and sky blitz

No. Totems are not Airborne.