Would you like to see a push to make the Mutation theme a viable deck?

That's great and all, but unless something was changed it would become the slowest theme in faction, which takes some doing as we have myx. If they got to very late game I'm sure they'd be awesome, but I suspect much of the time they'd liar before it got to that point.

So it might be cool and flavorful, but what good is that if the theme isn't remotely competitive?

 

That is kind of the thing though. I was hoping that Myx would become the new Mutation faction. Being influenced by the "Zerg" design. Also I updated the comment you quoted.

 

Better make it a superchamp deck.

 

What do you mean?

 

Superchamp decks are about buffing a small amount of champions so much that their stats/abillities become very difficult to deal with. Thematically, that would work well with supermutants kind of sl style. A spell which would reduce the cd on a friendly champion and/or give it charges would work really well in that regard. Some kind of unstoppable (sustain: unstoppable?) would work nicely with mutation:violence. Morph with haste gives charges and gives tons of ap to a single unit. Horrific mutation gives 1 turn invul to non-fearless attacks and flying.

Etc. Etc. Use your imagination.

 

I know what Superchamp bgs are mate. This is not it. At the very least not the idea I was going for. Ideally when I said below average stats I meant it. I'm talking slightly below average damage, low rng, 1 defense, and like 10 hp for the disposable, and up to 25-30 hp for the attackers. It would be very heavily reliant on the Adaptive Mutation mechanic to supply that extra defense for them to be aggressive.

 

Yeah and I wasn't talking about your idea. I was just saying that this could be a superchamp theme, as it fits thematically, and we don't really have one in SL.

 

OH. My bad. Sorry!

Isn't it already a super champ theme more or less? My mutation bg focus on keeping the opponent busy while slowly buffing 1 or 2 champs so they can rampage. Most of the time though I end up getting several small bonuses going on ~4 champs, and moving from there. Persecutors are monsters.

 

The When X happens you gain Y sounds boring as a mechanic.

i rather keep the charge mechanics

 

Charge mechanics have a fatal flaw though. After a certain point. The charges become useless. It would be helpful if we had more runes that reallocated charges between champs.

 

Or equip/spells that burn out charges, like a "explosive mutation" or "genetic canon", dunno

 

We have those, but they are single target killers. I think you want it to work like Goresplosion, but having the damage based on charges right?

 

I meant like a "Cannon Barrage" kind of thing, if the "explosive mutation" is an item then you give equiped cchamp the ability to use spare charges as a weapon, could even make it scale damage with the mutation stage or something

 

Mutation gore does it well adding a charged ability at the end. Alternatively the way marauder is setup with charged bomb works too.

 

Another idea:

Mass Healing Wave: This champeon uses up to 15 charges. Champeons within 5 spaces are healed by the ammount of charges used.

Or abilities that grant an a passive ability using for example 4 charges or more, and target champ gains the ability with a duration equal to charges used (For Nora shield for example, or to grant regen or fun abilities like unstoppable/tremor/slam).
Or grant conditions like "stealthed" or negative ones like "charred", "weakened".. etc.

 

Mutants as a theme has some rather substantial issues, particularly post revamp. The two largest of which are the costs and the time it takes to make mutations optimal.

Warning: Many numbers and much other data will be seen below.

Currently there are six mutations abilities in game. They are all costed differently and provide different abilities but the one thing that holds true for all of them is that they have a CD of 3.

Below are the mutations available. I will also notate the costs of any of abilities granted by the mutate such that they will be available for comparison.

Mutation: Damage 0 Nora CD: 3

Spend 3 charges - this champion gains +2 damage

Stat - Bonus DMG 2 (3 nora)

Mutation: Gore 6 Nora CD: 3

Spend 4 charges: This champion gains Stat - Bonus DMG 2. If it already has Stat - Bonus DMG 2, it gains Rend 2 instead. If it already has Rend, it gains Charged Attack instead and this ability is removed.

Stat - Bonus DMG 2 (3 nora)
Rend 2 (6 nora)
Charged Attack (8 nora)

Mutation: Horror 6 Nora CD: 3

Spend 4 charges: This champion gains Fear 2. If it already has Fear, it gains Frightful Blows instead. If it already has Frightful Blows, it gains Dread instead and this ability is removed.

Fear 2 (4 nora)
Frightful Blows (8 nora)
Dread (10 nora)


Mutation: Leap 3 6 Nora CD: 3

Spend 4 charges - this champion gains Leap 3.

Leap 3 (8 nora)

Mutation: Tough 2 8 Nora CD: 3

Spend 3 charges - this champion gains 2 ranks of Tough

Tough (Rank 2) (10 nora)
Tough (Rank 3) (15 nora)

Mutation: Violence 10 Nora CD: 3

Spend 4 charges: This champion gains Berserker 2. If it already has Berserker, it gains Enrage 3 instead. If it already has Enrage 3, it gains Manic instead and this ability is removed.

Berserker 2 (7 nora)
Enrage 3 (6 nora)
Manic (15 nora)



From here you can see a comparison of the abilities gained by the mutations vs. the cost of those abilities. In some cases these seem like they are quite the bargain, the problem is that you must also factor in the cost of the charge gaining abilities when pricing these mutations, for what good is a mutation ability with no way of gaining charges?



Here are all the champions that are able to gain these various mutations and their accompanying charge gaining abilities and the associated costs of those abilities. (When you see something like (1,2,3) know that this is how I am showing the costs for each rank of the ability.

Tainted Vinecreeper has Mutation: Damage and Attack Charged (2,4,6 nora)
Ruthless Netmaster can have Mutation: Gore or Mutation: Leap 3 and Death Charged (3,6,9 nora)
Draksar Marauder has Mutation: Horror and Attack Charged (2,4,6 nora)
Draksar Persecutor can have Mutation: Leap 3 or Mutation: Tough 2 or Mutation: Violence and Supercharged 1 (2 nora)
Mutant Yeti has Mutation: Tough 2 and Violence Charged (4,8,12 nora)
Homicical Thug has Mutation: Violence and Abuse Charged (1,2,3 nora)



Now that we know the costs of the abilities, the costs of the charge gaining abilities, and costs of the underlying abilities granted by the mutations we can begin to ascertain just how worth it some of the abilities are. (This is all assuming not Mutate ability is used by The Doctor or Draksar Morph)


We shall begin with the Tainted Vinecreeper.
His mutation costs 0 nora. The ability he gains essentially costs 3 nora. His charge gain mechanism costs 2, 4, or 6 nora. The CD on the mutation is 3 rounds.
If he takes rank 1 of Attack Charged his mutation pays for itself after 3 attacks and one mutate, meaning that the point at which it becomes worth it after 3 attacks as it pays for itself after a single mutate.

If he takes rank 2 of Attack Charged his mutation pays for itself after 3 attacks and two mutates, meaning that assuming he gets three attacks in the two rounds after he is deployed he will gain 2 damage 3 rounds after being deployed and will then need to wait another 3 rounds for mutate to come off CD to pay for the ability, meaning that he needs 6 rounds at minimum to make it worth it.

If he takes rank 3 of Attack Charged his mutation pays for itself after 3 attacks and three mutates. Technically it pays for itself after two mutates but only after three are you getting anything resembling a discount. This means he needs to make a single attack to get the first mutate rolling. Assuming he attacks the round after deploying then mutates, then waits for the CD twice more, he will need 8 rounds for the mutate to become cost effective.


Ruthless Netmaster

Mutation: Leap 3 costs 6 nora and the cheapest charge gainer the Netmaster has access to costs 3 nora. Leap 3 itself costs 8 nora. This means that at no point will Mutation: Leap 3 be cost effective. That means that even if four champions died the round the Netmaster was deployed allowing he to mutate Leap 3 immediately he would still have sandbagged himself by 1 nora.

Mutation Gore: Costs 6 nora and Death Charged costs 3, 6, or 9 nora depending on the rank. That means you are paying at least 9 nora and at most 15 nora for Mutation: Gore and friends. The abilities gained through Mutation Gore come out to 17 nora. For the sake of argument we shall assume that on a fully developed board one champion dies a turn and the Netmaster is deployed late enough that there is already a full established board.

That means that the Netmaster at rank 1 of Death Charged breaks even after 7 rounds (4 deaths in 4 turns after deploy and then the accompanying mutate CDs).

At rank 2 or 3 of Death Charged the Mutation only becomes worth it after all three mutations has occurred meaning you aren't playing at a self-imposed deficit until 10 rounds after you deploy the Netmaster.

Draksar Marauder

Mutation: Horror costs 6 nora and Attack Charged costs 2, 4, or 6 nora. The abilities gained via Mutation: Horror are worth 22 nora.

For the Marauder you at least break even after the second mutation regardless of the rank of attack charged chosen. The issue becomes the bottle necking based on having to attack to gain charges. The other issue is the Marauder has a Charged bomb, which means you will almost never have enough charges lying around to make use of the mutation.

Mutant Yeti

Mutation: Tough 2 costs 8 nora and the Yeti's charge gain mechanism costs 4, 8, or 12 nora. The abilities acquired via the mutation are worth 10 nora then 15 nora after the second mutation. This means that only after the second mutation does this mutation become worth it at rank 1 of violence charged. Assuming 4 attacks are made after the Yeti is deployed it will take 4 rounds for him to become worth it. At ranks 2 and 3 of Violence Charged you never come out ahead. You are either paying 16 nora for 15 nora worth of abilities or you are paying 20 nora for 15 nora worth of abilities.

Homicidal Thug

Mutation Violence: Costs 10 nora and abuse charged costs 1, 2, or 3 nora. The abilities gained through Mutation Violence cost 28 nora. In this case the mutations will become "worth it" by the second mutation regardless of the rank of abuse charged chosen. The problem is that in order to gain enough charges to fully get to the final rank of mutation the thug will need to be attacked a minimum of 4 times at rank 3, 6 times at rank 2, or 12 times at rank 1. Even with scrapper a champion with only 44 HP will be hard pressed to survive that many attacks and that many rounds such that he can get the full value of his Mutation.

Draksar Persecutor

Last, but not least, is the Persecutor who has Supercharged 1 for 2 nora and can get one of three possible mutations.

Mutation: Leap 3 costs 6 nora and supercharged 1 costs 2 nora. Leap 3 costs 8 nora. This means that after 5 rounds (You don't gain a charge the round the Persecutor is deployed) the Persecutor will finally be exactly worth what he has paid for.

Mutation: Tough 2 costs 8 nora and supercharged 1 costs 2 nora. Tough 2 is 10 nora and Tough 3 is 15 nora. This means after 4 rounds will you be getting what you paid for and after 7 rounds will he be seeing any benefit of the mutation.

Mutation: Violence costs 10 nora and supercharged 1 costs 2 nora. All the abilities are worth 28 nora. This means that after 9 rounds the Persecutor will 1 nora less than if he simply had Berserker 2 and Enrage 3 base, and after 13 rounds he will finally become an efficient champ of Violence goodness.





TLDR:
You are paying too much for a very delayed efficiency on the Mutation Champs assuming that efficiency ever comes at all, which will not come in some instances. Realistically the Mutates should completely lose all reliance on any sort of charges and simply be limited by their CDs.

As it stands Mutants as a theme will never be viable with the way the champs are currently. Out of the gate every single mutate champ is varying degrees of inefficient and some champs never are able to dig themselves out of that hole.

 

Great writeup, movn.

I'd like to add a couple of other things:

Mutation: Violence will cause your unit to gain careless for a slight stat increase. Losing all ap will never be worth using the abillity, unless you decide to pump up the champ with rageband (also bypassing 1 step of the mutation chain). But that's 35 nora extra, and most people should know that it is a risky gamble.

I consider marauder to be the most fun mutation-unit, for the reason that he has to choose whether he wants to spend charges on charged bomb or his mutation. Unfortunately, for exactly the same reason he is inefficient (although only slightly). His stats are quite decent, but his abillities don't come in play when it matters. The closest comparison would be jakei owl rider, who gets to easily proc his attack charged with 7 speed and flying. Marauder is not flying and has 6 speed, which means he will attack less, which means he will gain less charges, which means he will most likely need to use bomb to get extra damage.

With that being said, I think that more ways to utilize charges and cheaper cost would be very interesting, granted the units get a discount for having 2 ways to spend charges instead of only 1.

Mutation: gore and Mutation: horror should be the template for other mutations. Leap, tough, damage are not only inefficient, they're also boring. Mutation: violence is probably the worst designed one, because you actually lose a great deal of power by mutating via careless.

 

That's a lot of Firking words to basically say "Mutation sucks unless the whole thing is reworked"

And even then, would probably not be worth it.

 

Well sure, but why say with ten words what can be said with ten thousand?