Strike tile design

Unknown

I was thinking about strike tiles today and it seems me they're always somewhat overpowered (some more than others), and then it occurred to me that I actually have no idea what is the baseline design for strike tiles. That is, it's pretty easy to look at say a damaging power and say 'looks like target range for a green ability is about 3000 damage'. Sure some abilities are way weaker or way stronger but in general it's easy to guess what target damage (and damage per AP) the devs are shooting for. Strike tiles? I actually have no idea. Let's take an above average but not top tier ability like Berserker Rage (I'm assuming you got no abuse ready for it, and in that respect Berserker Rage is plenty dangerous to yourself). At level 5 it does about 3000 damage on the turn it's used (the damage plus the match damage) and we'll just pretend the benefit and drawbacks immediately disappear after that turn so all you do is getting 3000 damage for 9 green AP, so to scale that to Judgment it should do 2666.6 damage. Judgment generates 3X104 = 312 strength strike tiles, so you need to get 8.5 hits for this to match Berserker Rage, which would be a pretty darn good move if it exhibited the behavior described in absence of cheap tricks with Magneto (does 3000 damage in one round, all benefit/drawback immediately vanish after this turn).

Well, I can tell you just from anecdotal evidence that strike tiles often last a lot longer than 8.5 turns. This is also assuming I am somehow unable to realize things like I can use this in conjunction with Molotov, or that Judgment actually does pretty significant things beyond the strike tiles (sometimes Judgment will do 2K just from the cascade it creates). So then what exactly is the balance base line? Does the fact that strike tiles take some time to do their damage means it should do more damage than a hypothetical 9 green AP for 3000 damage (which would probably be better than anything except Call the Storm before factoring things that are hard to calculate) and if so, how much? Does D3 expect me to play like the computer and immediately match my own strike tiles? Falcon's Inspiriation upgrades strike, protect, and attack tiles by the same amount. Does D3 think that I value those 3 type of special tiles equally? Or do they actually believe those 3 type of special tiles are equally valuable?

I'd say most strike tiles are quite overpowered, but I don't even know if D3 is designing them for someone who immediately matches them after they're created it. For an ability like Psychic Knife, is it designed assuming you'd at least clear out all the immediate red matches, or do they just assume people will use it as soon as possible even if there are 3 red match3s on the board? Can it be that most players do not actually know you're supposed to clear the immediate colors that a strike tiles goes on which is why they're designed to be so powerful? After all, Sacrifice, which is incredibly powerful, is not very powerful if you didn't clear out the yellow matches before using it. What exactly is the skill level expected in using these strike tiles?

Unknown

Well, two thoughts.

The first would be that D3 clearly is aware of the power of strike tiles, or else AWolvie would never have been nerfed quite as hard as he was. Falcon's random choice of upgrading seems like a deliberate design decision along these lines.

Secondly, I think that the fact that strike tiles take time to do their damage *is* a weakness that needs to be taken into account. Something I've noticed playing with Sentry in the simulator is that he feels quite slow in dealing his damage (at least to me). Sure, I can have 8 yellow or 7 green, but I still need to wait at least 2 turns to see the payoff of those skills, which can be irritating when an enemy countdown tile is about to go off. I think it's a great deal of the reason that LDaken is strong - the earlier you place a strike tile, the better it is, and Daken allows you to place those tiles earlier than any other character in the game. Heck, on defense you can even place those tiles on your opponent's first turn.

Something else to think about is that unless a strike tile is buried at the very bottom of the board, it becomes progressively more likely to be matched each turn, because as you match tiles of other colours, the board will by nature become more yellow (if we're dealing with Sentry). So I would guess that there is a statistical 'lifespan' for strike tiles, even if the player is attempting to avoid matching it, and thus the tiles are probably balanced around that life.

Unknown

Obviously the not-immediate nature of Strike Tiles means they should do more damage than abilities that immediately do damage, but what's not clear to me just how good (or bad) do they assume you're at taking care of your strike tiles. Are they designed so that it is still useful for the AI, who can immediately match whatever strike tile they just placed without even thinking about it? Are they designed for players who do not clear a certain color before using it? Are they designed for players who do not wait for having enough for say a Molotov before using Judgment?

It seems to me either D3 grossly underestimated how long a strike tile is supposed to last on average, or that they assume most players do not take care of their strike tiles at all. I'm sure we all have seen cases where AWolv just blankets the screen with red strike tiles. Right now you can do that pretty easily with Daken too. Does D3 really think it's supposed to be hard to have nearly all the red tiles covered with strike tiles when any green matches leads to 2 of them? Unlike normal abilities, if I don't know the answer to these questions (and I obviously do not), I can't even try to decide if something is overpowered or not. Maybe their metrics show most people do not clear out yellow matches before using Sacrifice which is why it has a ridiculous value. I don't know that makes the ability fair, but if that's indeed how it's designed then I can't really argue against that.

Unknown

It might be hard to collect good data on it.

Judgement keeps destroying my strike tiles all the time. It's like Punisher is the definition of diminishing returns when he plays for me.