Catapult | Trebuchet

[Malduk]

when sacrificing a creature, are the death affects triggered?
death affects as in those for condors, graveyards, etc.

Yes they are.

[Appawesome]

Aether pillars, 4 Fractals, Gravity Pillars, 6 Armagios, 3 catapults.

Fractal armagio anyone?

[OldTrees]

Damage=40*HP/(40+HP)

Examples:
Damage(50HP)=2000/90~=23
Damage(100HP)=4000/140~=29

[Tea is good]

was hoping it would throw weapons from hand or permanents or something.

[Xinef]

was hoping it would throw weapons from hand or permanents or something.

Throwing pillars would be funny, elementals crushed by pillars falling from the sky.

[twinsbuster]

After testing a lot, I support jmizzle7.   The damage output is just slightly low; I believe firmly that Catapaulting 4 uninjured Elite Armagio should kill an opponent, which james'll sven's formula does without changing the card dramatically.

I dont.
Damage indeed is, but should be, low. Catapult is not just a damage dealer, and damage it does is unblockable.
Not to mention that instant damage is much more valuable than damage over time.
I do think Catapult could use a buff, but as I previously said, I think its enough of a buff to allow it to toss more often.

support jmizzle7 +2
again take unstable gas as example, Catapult 4 Elite Armagio to kill an opponent is still weaker because it has to do in several turns and less resistance to perm control
talking about direct damage, unstoppable Ruby Dragon can also deal that among, but in every turns...

Catapult need too many setups, costing much more quantum and card slots, but damage is lower

[Pineapple]

Wait, is max really 25?
If not, fractal scarab/voodoo + chimera + one of these = ^^

[jmizzle7]

Wait, is max really 25?
If not, fractal scarab/voodoo + chimera + one of these = ^^

No. There is no damage ceiling. However, the law of diminishing returns hits HARD. A creature with 1000 HP will only deal 39 damage with the current formula.

[Xinef]

No. There is no damage ceiling. However, the law of diminishing returns hits HARD. A creature with 1000 HP will only deal 39 damage with the current formula.

The ceiling is mathematically 40, since
X / (X+N) for X -> equals 1
40 * 1 = 40
More precisely, it is 37, since HP is capped at 499 right now.

Practically though, the formula means that Catapult works best when you throw a large number of creatures with medium HP (between 10 and 30 I'd say). So, either you throw a number of creatures with a number of catapults at the same time, or a number of creatures with a single catapult over a period of several turns, or the card mechanic is changed.

Generally though, the card does not need to be buffed. Right now it's not powerful enough to build very effective decks around it, but the same is true for cards like momentum, deflag, purify and the like. You don't build decks around these cards. You add these cards to a deck built around some other key cards as a support for your other strategy. Or you use these as a part of a larger combo (eg. to trigger death effects). But, no one says that the card must be good enough to form your main source of damage. Neither momentum nor deflag are a main source of damage. They are simply ways to overcome shields and other stalling things. And standard creature rush should always be faster than catapulted armagios. Catapults are not meant for rush! They are siege weapons xD
Siege weapons are meant to destroy strong defensive setups, not to rush. If we continue with the medieval reference, if you want to rush, you take cavalry and infantry. Cavalry and infantry beats siege weapons (even the anti-infantry ones, due to higher mobility and larger numbers), siege weapons beat fortifications. Fortifications beat cavalry. Simple rock-paper-scissors scenario.

Saying that 18 damage for a thrown Armagio is too little and should be increased, is similar to saying that 'against a very heavily defended deck (PA'd Dissipation Shield or a huge Bone Wall, or something like that, with SoGs, CC, antimatter etc.) dealing 18 damage per turn is low. The truth is that it let's you win in 6 turns. Almost no other card would allow you to deal that much damage per turn against such a deck. Of course healing remains a problem. That's why you might need to shoot in salvos with a number of catapults, or pack PC (eg. pulvy nicely fits in decks) to deal with SoGs, while BB and GP can be used to deal with creature based healing.

[jmdt]

Generally though, the card does not need to be buffed. Right now it's not powerful enough to build very effective decks around it, but the same is true for cards like momentum, deflag, purify and the like. You don't build decks around these cards. You add these cards to a deck built around some other key cards as a support for your other strategy. Or you use these as a part of a larger combo (eg. to trigger death effects). But, no one says that the card must be good enough to form your main source of damage. Neither momentum nor deflag are a main source of damage. They are simply ways to overcome shields and other stalling things. And standard creature rush should always be faster than catapulted armagios. Catapults are not meant for rush! They are siege weapons xD

The problem is gravity can't rush either.  Another slow card for an element sorely lacking speed.

[jmizzle7]

True, Xinef. But my point is that Catapult does so little damage, one could argue that it isn't threatening at all. If you haven't killed your opponent by the time they have a "dangerous" catapult running, then you deserve to lose the game. Catapult was designed to be a threatening card. It isn't at this time.

[Xinef]

Catapult was designed to be a threatening card. It isn't at this time.

Was it designed to be a threatening card? I thought it was designed to be threatening only to stall decks, while being at most average against other decks (when used offensively), while when it is used to trigger death effects can't be easily judged 'how threatening it is', but then changing the formula wouldn't change much. Making it's ability usable multiple times per turn might change that situation, but I'd say that catapults are quite slow weapons and don't seem like a card attacking more often than other cards.

Right now it is good for a number of purposes (as a support card). Not excellent, just good. Buffing the damage or allowing multiple use would increase the number of uses. The question is, is this card designed to be used more than other Gravity cards? Does every new card have to be used more often than the previous cards? It's a simple card that fills some niche. Unless Zanz intended otherwise.

As for the problem with Gravity lacking speed and damage... I'd say using catapult to fix this issue would be wrong. Catapults are not meant to be fast, and their damage is supposed to be high, but expensive, so creatures should definitely have better damage/cost ratio.
This problem should be fixed with other cards that are designed to be rush cards. Maybe acceleration will fill this purpose. Maybe not, and Gravity will have to wait for even more cards. IMHO we simply shouldn't try to bend the new cards to fix problems they are not meant to fix.

Of course, if Zanz's intention was different to my interpretation, than shall be it.

Not to mention that Time's rushing capabilities, even if I know a few tricks, are still worse than Gravity's in my opinion. At least if we compare unupped vs. unupped and Upped vs. Upped.