A way to balance swap in attacks (attempt 2)

[empty solar]

I propose a rebalance to swap in attacks.

Basically, swap in attacks would ONLY be activated by having a creature use a running move and swap into them. Once again, this would ONLY affect the attacking swap ins. Non damaging swaps are left perfectly fine. This rework would increase the viability of things like utarinex, albertospinos, and stygidaryx in the meta, while nerfing things like kyrie, since they can’t just mash swap when they need.

[odd gazelle]

It also increases the viability of rng

Imo swap in damage should sacrifice health. Doesn't have to be big like 33% but some at least

[empty solar]

This just further hurts things like irri g2, which is actually really balanced

[odd gazelle]

You could simply give them buffs so they don't rely on damaging swaps

If they're only going to activate after you use a run move to swap them in I think they're better off not existing

[empty solar]

But like… that gets rid of a lot of creatures’ niches. Take a look at stegoceratops. It’s actually not offensive for a swapper. Low hp, only 1000 damage, slow

[odd gazelle]

Either solution destroys it's niche

[empty solar]

Not really.

[odd gazelle]

Yeah they do

[empty solar]

This proposal gives things like gallimimus and stygi g2 a very much so needed bump in viability in the common tier

[empty solar]

Also what’s that gonna do to a thing like kyrie. You honestly kind of want to take damage so you can use your squall to heal

[odd gazelle]

Stego has to rely on the random chance you're using a dino with a run move. Then you have to hope that dino is actually to stego's left. If not, you have to sacrifice a team member or even two just to allow stego to fulfill it's role. You also have to rely entirely on the run dino to use stego in it's intended niche

[empty solar]

Would you rather have this or the current system?

[odd gazelle]

Probably this

Although 5 extremely important factors of a battle controlled entirely by sheer luck is not fun either

If somebody where to say have Indonemys on the left of their kyrie, their win chance has just shot up by a lot

Whereas if you have to sacrifice your dscorp just to unlock that ability you will probably lose right out the gate

[upbeat saddle]

Maybe make it so that priority moves activate before the swap in attack occurs (so after the creature has swapped in)

[empty solar]

To be honest in a normal state someone with indoN next to kyrie is probably winning anyway

[odd gazelle]

Not if you have a pretty similar lineup yourself

[empty solar]

That was part of my original attempt, but the bot kept getting mad

[odd gazelle]

There are a few things I personally think would help

1. Lockdown can't be cleansed at all. This way swappers have to take the punishment from whatever they swapped in on or are getting revenge killed by
2. Maybe longer lockdown durations but this might not be necessary
3. Simply tone down swap in damage moves themselves

[empty solar]

I agree with 1 and 3

But we both know 3 will never happen…

[odd gazelle]

True

[empty solar]

I personally think 1300 should be the max

[odd gazelle]

Tbh none of this is going to happen though so

[empty solar]

Fair

[odd gazelle]

That seems like a good margin

[empty solar]

A thing like wrhino can keep its current attack stat, but the swap in can deal no more than 1300 (unless crit)

[odd gazelle]

Aside from the draco debacle pre 2.0 swaps were relatively balanced

[empty solar]

Yea

[odd gazelle]

Then we got woolly rhino, cera, then a step up with para, acevia, kyrie, DCPro, and probably on and on soon enough

[empty solar]

Yeah

You have things like ace and para that deliberately bypass on escapes which is just plain annoying

[odd gazelle]

They're literally designed to one up each other too which doesn't help. At least they're smart enough not to put swap in definite on anything but irri gen 2

[empty solar]

Yeah

Which is actually balanced on irri, since the only on escape dodge is coel

[odd gazelle]

The 2 big issues they need to rectify are the actual damage totals, which as stated really shouldn't go over 1300, definitely no impacts or rampages. They also need to stop making it so easy for swappers to negate or avoid punishment

[empty solar]

Mhm

[odd gazelle]

Kyrie just forces it's opponent to leave and can then cleanse it's swap prevention, pretty much all the ceratopsians can just heal, protect, and run(granted like 99% of them are balanced)

[empty solar]

That is why I love magnus

Low ish damage, no way to cleanse. Actually balanced swapper

[odd gazelle]

Magnus and trike gen 2 are the only ones that don't fit that description I think

[radiant spire]

swap in damage is just op

[odd gazelle]

And spinocera is the 1% of broken ceratopsians

[radiant spire]

swap in damage is basically to make up for the turn you lost

[odd gazelle]

It's very easy to make out of hand

[radiant spire]

which shouldnt be the case cuz swapping dinos should be advantageous for the opponent

[odd gazelle]

When they were first added in 1.4 I honestly don't remember having much of an issue with them

We just can't have nice things with Ludia

[radiant spire]

then they added swap in impacts and rampage

isnt swap in rampage too much?

they really should delete it

[odd gazelle]

The update after actually, which goes to show Jamcity isn't totally responsible for all this

Thankfully no swap in rampages exist now but the fact they added an impact doesn't bode well

[radiant spire]

eh? Couldve sworn I saw a dino with swap in rampage before

maybe it was an on escape idk

[odd gazelle]

There used to be

Draco gen 2 and dracoceratops had swap in shattering rampages all the way back in 1.5

[radiant spire]

ah ok no wonder

but some on escapes also need to be nerfed

just take a look at hydra boa's on escape vs alacranix's

[upbeat saddle]

Hell no, Hydra's built to be an anti-swapper, Cranix isn't

[zenith monolith]

Yeah strong on escape moves are the identity of the snakes, they'd be basically nicheless if you nerfed their on escapes

[empty solar]

I kinda wish the on escapes didn’t leave the snakes tbh

[zenith monolith]

rather odd considering you want swap ins nerfed

[empty solar]

Both would be nice

It’s just really annoying trying to have a pivot based team when every. single. dang. dino. has an on escape

not swap in damage

Like swap in distraction or dodge. I have a lot of that

[zenith monolith]

So basically they need nerfs since they counter your team style

I do think they're rather over prevalent but that just sounds salty lol

[empty solar]

I wouldn’t say salt, cause I’m fine where i am in arena, it’s just annoying and makes it hard to enjoy my team when I can’t do anything with it half the time

There’s definitely been a few battles where the salt came in because the opponents just keep rolling needed rng and thanks to on escapes I just couldn’t do anything.

[pulsar tusk]

Why

What is the problem of swap in attacks

[empty solar]

Because swap in attacks take no skill and rob games from people?

You literally just need to hit something once and then bam swap in max attack DCPro and there’s a free kill

[pulsar tusk]

Well the dracocerato swap in is so broken that is true

[empty solar]

There’s an issue if you DONT see the issue with swap in attacks

[pulsar tusk]

But the others are not even broken

[empty solar]

Whino, Spinoceratops, albertocevia, ParaT, and Mrhino all dominating their respective metas at some point for being swappers:

And since we’re rapidly approaching the rebirth of the dracoceratops timeline

Dracoceratops with swap in shattering rampage:

[pulsar tusk]

Is that for you broken?, Really?

A thing that is broken is geminideus not that

[empty solar]

Literally every single one of those dinos dominated their respective metas because of their swaps

[pulsar tusk]

And

[empty solar]

They all were broken on launch because of their swap ins

The only reason why they’re “bad” now is powercreep by other swappers and gemdeus

[pulsar tusk]

In personal I like so much swap in tbh, they help me to kill diloracringes, and other op dinos

[pulsar tusk]

Yes that's true

[empty solar]

So basically, you’re against swap in nerfs because you don’t know how to play without them

[pulsar tusk]

No

[empty solar]

So then you’re against swap in nerfs because you can’t win without them?

[pulsar tusk]

No, its because they help me to kill level 30s, by swapping in, because in my arena they all have level 30 creatures

[empty solar]

So you abuse swap ins to win battles you shouldn’t because your other creatures lack levels

Therefore justifying the point that swap ins rob battles that should be won

[odd gazelle]

In my opinion spinocera mostly dominates because it has such good matchups with everything but rexy and thyla, sure the swap in is useful but it does very little damage compared to Blythea, allo, and thyla when the opponent isn't rend resistant

I don't think swapping in on anything changes its chances of winning since most legendaries are stun immune or have an on escape

[feral lance]

Swap In Damage should be removed altogether, but that isn't happening because they've already been in the game for so long and now Ludia's more obsessed with them than ever. Ig an alternative to balancing them would be giving them the same priority levels as active moves, so the swap in becomes a lot more situational and not a free unpredictable kill.

(only for damaging swap ins, this wouldn't effect non-damaging ones)

[odd gazelle]

We are going to need to nerf a few dinos because some of them become near immortal without swap ins

Dilo would only be able to be killed by indon and Geminid essentially

[empty solar]

Fair point, but all of the others this applies to. Mrhino sort of rode on its resistances, but the swap in was a massive part of why it was meta

[odd gazelle]

I think rhino was relatively ok, it didn't bypass any on escape defenses and has pretty low damage

It's easy to see why parat almost immediately overthrew it

[final junco]

Still wanting ludia to give it a unique or legendary hybrid, it’s the only one with swap in definite strike and that’s actually really good considering all the tanks and cloak/dodge in the higher leagues

[zenith monolith]

Being the only swapper that hits kyrie is kinda cool