A dreaded suggestion regarding Immortality.

[PiP]

One question that should be answered first would be: Should Invisibility, Ethereal and Immortal be made equivalent to each other? Or is it acceptable if one outclasses the others?

An idea based only on my my knowledge of the words and experience with stories and rpgs:

  - (the most appropriate) - Invisibility
Cannot be targeted, but affected by global spells and shields.  Can be turned on/off once per round. (like burrow)

  - Ethereal
Can be targeted, but any incoming effect from the opponent has a 75% miss chance, including shields.

  - Immortal
Immune to damage.

P.S. a side idea for coding Immortal that would also give unrelated options in the future would be to give all creatures an armor rating that reduces damage received.  It would be set to 0 for most creatures and the Immortal ability would set the AR equal to damage received.

[Kameda]

One idea regarding Invisibility:
Cannot be targeter by the enemy, if you target the invisible creature with a spell it will become visible again.
Then I have to different ideas:
- Invisible creatures will do more damage, but as soon as they attack the invisibility will cancel.
- Invisible creatures become visible just if they receive damage or a buff. No attack bonus.

[PiP]

If we split Ethereal and Immortal they'd probably be weaker separately, but if combined be even more powerful what we have now.  To offset it a bit change the ability  cost for  Anubis to  (or more)

[Lanidrak]

One question that should be answered first would be: Should Invisibility, Ethereal and Immortal be made equivalent to each other? Or is it acceptable if one outclasses the others?

An idea based only on my my knowledge of the words and experience with stories and rpgs:

  - (the most appropriate) - Invisibility
Cannot be targeted, but affected by global spells and shields.  Can be turned on/off once per round. (like burrow)

  - Ethereal
Can be targeted, but any incoming effect from the opponent has a 75% miss chance, including shields.

  - Immortal
Immune to damage.

P.S. a side idea for coding Immortal that would also give unrelated options in the future would be to give all creatures an armor rating that reduces damage received.  It would be set to 0 for most creatures and the Immortal ability would set the AR equal to damage received.

This has just taken a massive step backwards. I'm guessing you haven't read the previous 3 pages on this thread.

• Your version of Invisibility is exactly like Burrow, except no damage reduction and they are effected by shields and global effects.
• Your version of Ethereal will be shot down by 90% of the people on this board. People don't want more % and random effects.
• Immortal is the same as what has been said before, but the whole Armour Rating... No chance of that being implemented.

One idea regarding Invisibility:
Cannot be targeter by the enemy, if you target the invisible creature with a spell it will become visible again.
Then I have to different ideas:
- Invisible creatures will do more damage, but as soon as they attack the invisibility will cancel.
- Invisible creatures become visible just if they receive damage or a buff. No attack bonus.

If they lose their invisibility as soon as they attack, then it will be entirely pointless. Considering you attack at the end of your turn, none of your creatures would be invisible any more - making them all vulnerable to your opponents next turn.

Another option, that would require some sort of new code; would be to have the Invisible ability trigger after[/u] the creature has attacked. So, you pay your , then end your turn. After the creature has attacked it becomes invisible. Then, it becomes visible again after your opponent ends his turn. This way, you would have to pay every turn, for each creature, you want to keep invisible. So, ultimately, they are only 'invisible' during your opponents turn.

If we split Ethereal and Immortal they'd probably be weaker separately, but if combined be even more powerful what we have now.  To offset it a bit change the ability  cost for  Anubis to  (or more)

How would they be weaker separately?

An Ethereal creature cannot have ANY spells put on him, so no positive buffs and no negative buffs, or damage effects.

An Immortal creature cannot have ANY damage put on him, but CAN have positive buffs or negative buffs. For example, Lobotomize and Liquid Shadow will both remove his Immortality status. Rewind Time and Antimatter will also completely ruin a deck using Immortals.

The only way you can combine it, is to have an Immortal creature, presumably costing 4-6 , then putting a few buffs on him, Blessings 4-6 , and then finally making him Ethereal 3 . It will be so expensive to combine the two status', that I doubt anyone would go through the effort.

[Kameda]

One idea regarding Invisibility:
Cannot be targeter by the enemy, if you target the invisible creature with a spell it will become visible again.
Then I have to different ideas:
- Invisible creatures will do more damage, but as soon as they attack the invisibility will cancel.
- Invisible creatures become visible just if they receive damage or a buff. No attack bonus.

If they lose their invisibility as soon as they attack, then it will be entirely pointless. Considering you attack at the end of your turn, none of your creatures would be invisible any more - making them all vulnerable to your opponents next turn.

I give two ideas for that.
They lose the invisibility after the attack only if when invisible they deal extra damage.
If they don't have extra damage they will only become visible again when receive damage or a buff.

[Lanidrak]

So, your first solution will be to create an effect identical to Dive?

With your second solution; taking into account that Invisible creatures will only be affected by Shield effects (Fire Buckler Damage) and Global Effects (Thunderstorm, Rain of Fire, Plague) - no-one is going to want to waste a Rain of Fire just to make an invisible creature visible.

My idea is that invisibility is an active ability which must be activated every turn. So, you play a creature - for example, a Stalker for , and then he has to survive the first turn in play; because you cannot use a creatures ability on the turn it enters play; and given that it survives, you can then use his ability to turn him Invisible.

Once you use the ability, the creature only becomes Invisible after attacking. Invisible creatures cannot be targeted by your opponent. And the buff of Invisibility only lasts until the start of your next turn.

This way, your creatures will only be invisible during your opponents turn, ie, after you attack the ability is activated (provided you clicked the creature during your turn). Shields will effect Invisible creatures - so Procrastination will leave your Invisible creatures vulnerable for one turn after they attack (you cannot use it's ability due to stasis).

Anyways, back on topic, it looks as though the voting has still been going on, and now officially, more people would prefer to see a change done to Immortality which will give us Ethereal as a new status. I for one, am happy.

[icybraker]

Not if I have anything to say about it, Lanidrak. Just voted for "Leave Immortality as it is" to re-balance the vote.

Personally, I think Immortality as it is isn't overpowered but isn't particularly weak either. It logically makes sense and is neither too powerful or too weak; plus, with all these variations of Immortality running around, things WILL get complicated. Card descriptions will get cluttered and it would take a long time - perhaps an infinitely long time - for people to realize the difference between several different kinds of Immortal buffing.

[Xinef]

But there are a few things about immortality as it is now that NEED to be changed.
Even it immortality/etherealness/invisibility are not going to be implemented/distinguished, at least something should be done with fire shields killing immortal creatures... this fact (even if it seems good in terms of balance) is totally against common sense.

[icybraker]

Perhaps not. Immortal creatures only remain immortal because they stay in a different realm; to attack other opponents, they must temporarily depart from this realm. If they are accidentally hit while they attempt to attack (i. e. through a Fire Shield), they take some damage. It's like what happens when you take a really hard hammer and whack it against a wall of spikes. The wall's going to get hit, but so is the hammer.

Although your point is understandable; they're called IMMORTAL for a reason.

[Lanidrak]

Yup. It was the day that shield effects started to affect immortals that I bit the biscuit and made this post.

I'm all for shields effecting immortals... BUT REMOVE FIRE SHIELD!

Immortals to me, is, immune to damage... Which is what they should be... Permafrost, Procrastination and any damage reduction shield SHOULD effect immortals... just not Fire Shield...

@Icybraker, I sort of agree with you, that Immortals (and Phase Dragons) are not really weak, nor really overpowered. The problem arises when you can use Quintessence on any creature in the game, and the fact that we have some very powerful creatures in the game which just cry out for this Quintessence... Fallen Druid, Elite Otyugh, Firefly Queen and Lava Destroyer to mention just a few...

Getting an early 'one of those creatures' out in a game, and then putting a Quintessence on it before it can take any serious damage - can often make or break the game for you or your opponent respectively.

My suggestion would not necessarily over-clutter nor complicate matters.

Immortality will be a status: Anubis can give the status to creatures, and maybe there will be a new card (like Quintessence) to give the status also.

Immortal creatures simply cannot be targetted by anything in the game that does damage. Everything else can still hit them.

Ethereal will be an status: Phase Dragons and Immortals will have this status. Quintessence will give this status.

Ethereal will work exactly like Immortality does in the game right now - except that Shield effects do not work against it.

[Lanidrak]

Immortal creatures only remain immortal because they stay in a different realm; to attack other opponents, they must temporarily depart from this realm.

Although your point is understandable; they're called IMMORTAL for a reason.

I'd have to say these creatures you're talking about, what with living in a different realm n all, are more like ETHEREAL .

Immortal to me somehow denotes the opposite of Mortal or Mortality... As in, the inability to die, or in a more Elements-Card-Game sense of the word, unable to take damage.

[Double posting - blah blah someone posted while you were typing blah blah]

[icybraker]

You do make some sense in your statements; however, I feel as if a simpler and cleaner solution would be to simply change what the Fire Shield does. Shields aren't really supposed to hurt, people, anyways How about instead of splitting up the Immortal status into two and redefining these different realms, we simply make Fire Shield do 1 damage to the OPPONENT for each attack that hits it, rather than to the creatures?

I believe that BECAUSE of the fact that Immortal is quite balanced, it doesn't need to be changed; only the Fire Shield complicates things.