Charm Idea: Frostbite Charm

[digital vigil]

Clunkmaster Exclusive

Reduce effects by 1

+3

Rationale : It'd be nice to have a charm for some of those niche cards that have negative effects but are lower on the number scale to have another charm option other than durian (which you might want to commit onto other cards).

Non Clunkmaster companions tend to not have negative effects related to number effect values other than Bombom which is why the charm is exclusively Clunkmaster. Jumbo has a negative effect but it is attached to their attack rather than effect. Clunkmasters could benefit from this charm though by reducing the deck bricking done by Folby or Scaven (if you're just picking them up as stat sticks), having a Mega Mimik that you actually want, a Plinker that can be a hard carry without an extra crown + card taken up by frostbite shard (or constant inking), and Tootordian that goes off but can stick around!

While durian is a great option for cards like Plinker that dont want their effect at all, there are many cards that have amazing effects with a downside that get removed of their original card identity if they completely lose their effects. Tootordian and Mega Mimik are the examples that come to mind (especially Mega Mimik because it literally cannot attack anymore). For the trash companions if you need a great stat stick early game but don't want to be bricked late game without inking yourself this is also a great alternative. Of course this could also just be a great way to get a funny card if you happened to want to go something like a stacked B.I.N.K while still maintaining it's 'hits all enemies' status.

Why not just crown frostbite shard instead of making this charm?

Crowns are valuable resources that are oftentimes preferably used on companions or count down clunkers instead of spells. This charm gives a gateway into using aforementioned cards without crowning frostbite shard over another card.

[snow inlet]

we probably can't have another charm that creats super plinker combo (like durian charm)

if you dropped the damage up part maybe it can work.

[digital vigil]

the damage is just to fall in line with durian feel but removing the damage up is completely fine as well. just because the effect is niche to only a few cards though I feel like it should have some benefit

and then cards that want attack can still run it at the cost of their effect

[snow inlet]

I can't think of many cards in game other than the lose scrap clunkers that would want this

[digital vigil]

i mention nearly all of them in the post

that's another reason for the secondary attack buff in my thought process- because for most cards losing their effects or reducing them is a negative

i also dont think all charms have to be good on the vast majority of cards especially not when we have charms like penguin charm, bread charm, recycle, trash, peppernut, and frenzy

Weakness as well

[snow inlet]

I also just don't think that having charms that are completely useless most of the time is good game design.

but if the devs (and certain players) are okay with deliberately adding bloat to the game I guess I can't say anything.

I think a -1 to effects charm will be similar but not identical to the bloaters you listed outside of bespoke interactions, in which case it's just a second, worse durian charm. Idk, it just doesn't sound like it's solving any of the game's problems or creating a new niche

[digital vigil]

I think the +3 removes some of the bloat (and making it CM exclusive as well) , but yes I definitely agree that adding charms to bloat feels really bad especially with an already big charm pool. I also dont think every charm has to be good on everything though! The niche the charm does have is still applicable and the +3 makes it so that it isnt entirely useless out of that niche. Inherently certain charms will always play into certain archetypes and play off those strengths better

What do you think would make it differentiated more though?

[snow inlet]

off the top of my head, I'm not sure. I thought about most of the use cases and Durian charm just seem to already work in those cases and arguably better. The only exception is mega mimik

The main niche of Durian charm is "make plinker OP" and "make Bombom simpler and generally way stronger". Your proposed charm's niche would be "make plinker OP", "make mega mimick OP" and "make Bombom marginally better"

+3 damage can be a downside because it means you can't put it on tootortion (it doesn't have attack intrinsically) or similar clunkers that you might get from gnome merchant. The fact that it needs to work with cards that have numerical effects also locks it out of being put on things like slapcrackers that only have non-numerical effects (unless you have another numerical charm to spare just for +3 damage)

As for things like proto-stomper, durian charm just feels better in all ways because it does what frostbite charm wants to do but harder, that is, completely clearing all potentially negative effects instead of just -1 to numerical ones and providing more damage.

I think your design stems from inspirations that you got from looking at frostbite shard the card, and you might have thought: "what if this was just a charm instead of a card that I need to put a crown on"

I think that's understandable, but I think the way you need to change the game to make frosbite charm's niche unique is to remove frosbite shard the card and replace it with a charm that just apply -1 to effects and nothing else, and ideally delete a few "bloater" charms like bread charm or pengu charm to make the addition bearable.

[odd coral]

🤔 I like this idea, but I think that with the cards and charms currently in the game this doesn't offer enough synergies or trade-offs. Plus, the modify-numbers effect applies to all effects, which I think weakens this charm's potential more. (Like, the +- attack charms only affect attack, or +- armor only affects armor, which makes synergies and trade-offs easier to put in or re-balance.)

Maybe if we had a few more cards with either good or bad numeric effects, this charm would be better to put in. For example, it'd work to boost a gearhammer but remove the grow-attack. Or put onto a card you've added the recycle charm to, so you don't have to put up with the recycling. (But Durian would work on cards/charms with consume like molten egg.)

[digital vigil]

I think the frostbite shard also being applicable to enemies also changes it's niche though. Especially when we have both noomlin charm & noomlin biscuit in the game I think the game is ok with some redundancy. Other charms also hold some of the same niches other cards do, such as shield charm & shelly. Also tiger charm & teeth charm having similar functions but slight differences in the way they handle teeth. Admittedly I didn't think of attack not applying to cards with tootordian and not being able to apply attack to triggerables/ non debuff applying spells, but that's more of a gripe I have with the way charm application is handled

for it to have attack though that would probably be the change necessary to make its niche separate enough

[ancient pulsar]

I like this idea but I think it would be too strong on the scrap loss clunkers

It’s not the most elegant fix but I wonder if

-1 effects +2 on companions
-2 on clunkers

Would be a good implementation

I think that’s a lot of text for a charm though and kindof clunky

The game really doesn’t need another way to break mega mimic or plinker

[digital vigil]

I think that's mostly only plinker though because mega mimic isnt currently breakable? unless i'm missing an interaction

As for making it worse for scrap loss clunkers then it would TRULY just be a worse durian