I was thinking about the “Stealthy” trait and how it works and I had an idea for a status effect based on it, but I’m not sure how balanced it would be. Let me know if you think it’d work?
So, the status effect would be called something like “obscure” and what it does is “troop cannot be targeted by spells (unless there are no other targets)” and I’m thinking it would last until the troop in question takes damage. Like, getting hit knocks them out of hiding. Maybe doing an action would also remove the status effect, like submerged, cus I figure that attacking or spellcasting would give their hiding spot away.
Stealthy is a really good trait and it would be great to be able to trigger something like it on a specific troop, even just for a turn or two, against certain teams, but it might be hard to balance that, and I know it’s already a trait so I don’t know if you can have it as a status effect too, but I just thought it’d be a cool idea. So, if people like it, can we have something like that?
Hmm … what specific kinds of damage or targeting does it protect against? Consider how Stealthy does not protect against against spells which target by position, stats, color, random, or all targets.
If all you need is something to nullify/avoid damage from a single strike – well, don’t we already have Barrier for that? Which also lasts until used up.
Yeah, it wouldn’t stop the troop being damaged, it just wouldn’t be able to be picked by “select a troop” type spells. So, spells that target the first or last or whatever would still target it, like with stealthy. And spells that target all troops would still target it (submerged would be the counter for those).
So, if you combined it with barrier and/or submerged, by putting them on the same troop, it’d be even better, but on it’s own it’s just protecting the troop against being targeted, nothing else.
Honestly, the only usecase in which this would actually get some unique value is spells that inflict status ailments or drain stats (other than Life). Otherwise, Barrier is the superior effect.
So I feel like it’s a bad idea, because of how powerful Stealthy is. They specifically limit which troops can get stealthy so that the troops without it can be focused or targeted. Giving troops like Zuul, Ctharrasque, Diamantina, and Stellarix potential access to something like this makes targeting them impossible, and thus making PVP a potential nightmare. That’s not even accounting for troops like Queen Bee getting this status.
Another thing to consider, which might be a pain in the butt to code, is how the status interacts with Stealthy. I can see bugs popping up with someone fighting troops with Stealthy, and then the last troop without Stealthy gets obscured, and suddenly no troops can be targeted with spells until the obscure takes damage, or prolly does a skull attack or casts a spell. If the status ever became a thing, it should likely fall off on all of these things, with the justification that they have to come out of hiding to attack or cast a spell.
Good point about the coding. I could see it causing issues if they didn’t test carefully.
Troops like zuul and ctharrasque are exactly what would make such a status effect useful, because they insta-kill, so if you had a status that prevents them from targeting certain troops, it would be great for defending against them. If the only troop you don’t have stealthy/obscured is immune to lethal damage, their spells become largely useless, until you attack or cast a spell, or take damage, and obscure is removed.
I can see it being annoying in PvP, though, by making it harder to target troops that need to be killed fast. Not sure how viable it would be with the AI handling it, but there’s a chance of it being majorly annoying. You’d be able to counter it with scatter damage, and spells that don’t need you to pick the target, though, so it wouldn’t be wildly unbalanced. Just something extra to plan around when seeing what troops are on an enemy team.
They are the troops that it is best against, yes, but they are also the troops that such a status is the most dangerous on. If you want another potential scenario, and one that isn’t entirely unlikely, imagine this status getting on the raid boss, making them unable to be targeted by your Godslayer, or a Zuul on Zuul fight, but you can’t Zuul their Zuul, because it’s obscured, then they RNG pick your Zuul for their target. The rage potential seems high.