Rook Combat Card + Graft Balance

[ArtixBot]

I've played Rook up to Prestige 11 now and had a ton of fun with his combat deck. Looking through the card compendium and unlocks, though, I have a few questions / suggestions:

Cards

Rook's deck archetypes are lot less "isolated" compared to Sal's -- Sal generally picks one deck archetype and sticks with it the run, while I find myself mixing and matching archetypes in Rook's combat decks (a bit of Burn, some Overcharge, some Empty, etc.).

• Direct Hit is terrible -- when Empty, it does 1-8 damage (avg 4.5), despite being an Uncommon.
  • Cheap Shot does 4-7 (avg 5.5) when Empty, and is Common.
  • Clear Shot does 5-6 (avg 5.5) when Empty, and is Common.
  • Chimney does 3-8 damage (avg 5.5), has slight AoE, is Common, doesn't care about cell count, and can apply Scorched for more damage over time.
• Double Time is strictly inferior to Gemini, despite both being Uncommon.
  • Double Time does 6 damage when fully charged. (Pale Double Time is very good, if only because it now costs 0).
  • Gemini does 6-12 damage when fully charged.
• Heavy Anchor seems to be bugged in the description, since all it does is increase the cost of Boat Anchor to 3.
• Boosted Blowout does significantly more damage than any other upgraded card from Promoted Ammo Pouch - is this intentional?
• Loader at base 2 cost is pretty bad, given that Rook has no easy way to get more than 3 energy per turn (only net-energy positive cards are Gun Smoke or Visionary Char).
• There's quite a few card unlocks to create what seems to be a debuff-oriented deck, however most of these debuff-deck enabling cards are Rare (Muddle, Offset, Psionic Storm, Ripper, Cataclysm), which makes actually creating this deck really difficult.
  • Adding on to the above point, there's a large number of debuff cards in the compendium that automatically apply debuffs when drawn (Current, Melt, Riptide, Shear, Twist, Wave, Whirl), but I have no idea how to get them in-game (only Affliction, which is from Psionic Storm).

Grafts

In general, I feel Rook's grafts are stronger compared to Sal's. At least one reason I can attribute to this is that Rook's grafts generally can be used by any deck, while Sal's Combo grafts require investment in Combo cards to be any use.

• Twinshot and Speed Wheel's rarities should be swapped. Speed Wheel generates just as much charge as Twinshot by Turn 2, and more by Turn 3 -- the upgraded versions are more disparate, with Speed Wheel granting more Charge by Turn 2.
• Scan Code should be Rare. It's like Overflow, but even better in solo battles since there's no condition that needs to be met when attacking the target (and possibly less useful in group battles depending on who gets Scanned).
• Flash Powder probably could be Common. It deals 3 damage at the start (up to 6 damage if fighting four people, from 3+1+1+1 damage), which is basically the same as Sal's First Blood (4+2+1 damage), and both have a second purpose of enabling Bleed/Burn combos.
• Glancer could probably be Uncommon. It mechanically works the same as Buckshot, but is inferior in solo battles (serving no purpose unless running a debuff deck) and significantly better in group battles.

[Gr1m-]

Yeah a debuff deck sounds really fun but hard to accomplish with their rarity as you said.
"Affliction" isn't really a card afaik in the game it's more like an umbrella term to describe the pool of cards that are available when you cast Psionic Storm (yeah its confusing). All you need to do is play Psionic Storm and then it will insert either 3 (no upgrade) or 5 (boosted) debuff cards to your draw pile from said 'Affliction" Pool (Current, Melt, Riptide, Shear, Twist, Wave, Whirl). When they are drawn into your hand they are automatically applied to a random enemy. They Replenish and don't expend/destroy they stay in your deck for the rest of the battle.