The Weaver: Dev Diary #3

[p]Pets were obviously going to be the centerpiece of the class, and once we decided on finite slots the moment of "you filled all your slots so now you can only replace, not add" was set in stone. From then on you need to use a variety of abilities, buffs, artifacts, pets and even a few attacks to buff AP and make your board hit (and sometimes block) even harder. But there's also a LOT of synergy in Unraveling (sacrificing) Pets, and...[/p][p]It's hard to even know how to write this post - AP buffing pets synergizes with your token Spiders since they also deal their AP as damage when Unravelled (even if you already attacked with them this turn). And any normal Pet keeps its AP when Unravelled so you can discard them and then draw them again and play them with whatever AP you buffed them too. A few kinds of Pet have ways to duplicate themselves, and then Unravel so you can play and duplicate them again at a higher AP value. You can Unravel by playing over something with a Pet card, but there's also plenty of cards (and Pets) that directly munch Pets to (often optionally) boost their effects, and that can clear space to mass-Weave more Spiders so you can buff them and then Unravel them again for damage. [/p][p]Oh yeah, and all of this Pet-based damage, Unravels included, works with Rage, so you can save up buffed Spiders for a Rage turn and then Unravel them all (after having already attacked with them) for a fight-ending spike of damage. Oh and there's Infests you can put on enemies that'll be triggered by dealing enough damage... it just keeps going. In the limited amount of playtesting as I write this we've already seen an unprecedented amount of hybridizing and archetype-pivoting throughout Weaver runs. [/p][p]Trying to describe any one aspect of the class and potential synergies very quickly turns into describing the entire class. You might be stacking AP buffs onto a main damage Pet so it can trigger a pile of Rage-Infests quickly on a turn you plan to go off so your AP-buffed Spiderlings can be mass-Unraveled by a card that also gives future Pets you Weave this turn more AP for every Pet you used it to Unravel so you can refill the board with a Pet that duplicates itself so the duplicates can benefit from the new-Pet-AP-Buff twice and... you get the idea.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]So to limit the amount of run-on sentences I'll be writing, let's just center in on three Pets that fill a similar niche in different ways and give examples of some things they synergize with particularly well.[/p][p][/p][h2]Wippersnapper[/h2][p][/p][p]A very straightforward common. As you deal damage, get a bit of Block. This might not be as crazy as it sounds since if it's blocking enough to keep you safe, it's already dealing enough damage to win a fight. Nevertheless, the fact that the Block scales perfectly to the damage means it has a great relationship with Rage and Vulnerable, as well as benefitting immensely from extra actions given by abilities or artifacts, since a second attack on the same turn also means double the block. [/p][h2]Rock Collector[/h2][p][/p][p]An uncommon that can fuel itself but massively benefits from building around it. There's a variety of support Pets that have AP (and might benefit from AP buffs) but don't actually use their AP, as well as Pets like the basic Rat that have an optional action (a Delay Block 4 in their case) that doesn't scale to their AP and doesn't care if you drain them down to 0. This happy otter is still only going to be attacking for his baseline AP value, but he'll be refunding cards invested into buffing him on the way there. Spend early turns where you're building up your board gaining AP (and drawing even more cards to help build up), and then once you're setting up big damage-boosting Rage start attacking for big chunks and closing things out pretty fast.[/p][h2]Combat Wombat[/h2][p][/p][p]There's a number of much more complicated AP-payoff Pets up at the rare level, so let's go with the simple one. Every turn after the first, you'll be getting 2 actions out of this guy, doubling whatever AP you've buffed on it. The trick is, the fact that this is in the form of "two actions" instead of just "double damage" still has a lot of neat interactions. [/p][p][/p][p]Put a Red Void Stone into it, shove it in the leftmost slot, and have it also produce 50% Rage in the process of attacking twice. Throw in an upgraded Sceptre of Command and that's another 50%. Buy a Blue Ribbon at the floor 2 soul collector and as soon as you buff Wombat enough to get to 10 it'll be keeping the biggest enemy locked down by debuffs consistently.[/p][p]This is just 3 of the 25ish Pets Weaver has to offer, and I've already seen playtesters surprise me with enough clever synergies to know that even I haven't fully grasped the potential of the class yet. Hopefully all the players reading this find lots of interesting ways to (ab)use the possibilities offered by Pets.[/p][p][/p][p]- Dabor [/p]