Quick Fire's odd upgrades

[ZeppMan217]

Could anyone come up with a situation in which you'd ever take Boosted Quick Fire over Rooted? It does +/-1 damage if you have a charge, guaranteed +1 damage if you have Concentration, and always worse when you have min/max damage boosters like Overcharge. Boosted needs to have a bigger max damage range to be worthwhile, like 3-7.

[RageLeague]

How did you do your math?

Rooted Quick Fire gives you 9-9 damage if you have charge, and Boosted gives you 8-10 damage. They both have an average of 9 damage. Although the latter has a larger damage range, making it unreliable, it will benefit from minimum damage increase effects such as concentration, while rooted doesn't.

Sure it's worse if you can't spend any charges, but when has that ever come up? You get one charge per turn anyway.

[ZeppMan217]

12 minutes ago, RageLeague said:

How did you do your math?

Boosted does 10 damage if you have 2 Concentration and 1 charge, Rooted does 9 damage with just 1 charge. What am I missing?

[RageLeague]

You are missing the fact that what you just said basically means Boosted does more things when it has more preconditions, while rooted does less things with less preconditions. Hardly a fair comparison.

If you have no concentration but one charge, Boosted does 8-10 damage, which has an average output of 9, and Rooted does 9 damage. They are the same.

The difference comes when you have at least one concentration, and one charge. Boosted does more than the average 9, but Rooted damage doesn't change because the damage is capped at max.

[pacovf]

Rooted is better if you expect to find yourself playing it with no charge often. Boosted is better if you expect to play it while having concentration. They’re not super different in power level either way.

[ZeppMan217]

6 hours ago, RageLeague said:

If you have no concentration but one charge, Boosted does 8-10 damage, which has an average output of 9, and Rooted does 9 damage. They are the same.

The difference comes when you have at least one concentration, and one charge. Boosted does more than the average 9, but Rooted damage doesn't change because the damage is capped at max.

It's a 1 damage difference between the two in the best case scenario, which is why Boosted seems nonsensical to me.

In similar fashion, Sal's Lacerate is bizarre as well: Boosted Lacerate applies 5 Bleed flat, yet Savage Lacerate has an incredibly strict condition that nets you only 1 point of Bleed extra over Boosted?

[RageLeague]

In the best case scenario, boosted does MORE damage, so why is it nonsensical to you?

[ZeppMan217]

Because it's a meager +1 that's worse in every other situation.

[RageLeague]

Worse in only if you don't have charges, which should not happen often because you passively gain 1 charge per turn. It's the same damage output if you have one charge, although it has a slightly higher variance. It's very easy for rook to gain concentration or other minimum damage raising effects, and you need only one to beat rooted on damage output.

[ZeppMan217]

5 Overcharge turns Rooted into 14 while Boosted remains 8-15. +1 damage is just not worth the variance, just like +1 Bleed isn't worth not being able to apply any Bleed at all. Also,

Enhanced consumes 2 charges while giving 6 damage, Boosted consumes 1 charge while giving 6 damage. Venting an extra cell isn't worth losing half the damage bonus. Enhanced should consume 2 charges and give 4 damage per charge, for an 8 total.

[RageLeague]

That's not how Rooted works. Overcharge only increases the max damage of a card. Even though there's no damage range when there's no effect, if you have overcharge, only the max damage will increase, while the min damage stays at 9. The game doesn't display the range if the base card's min damage is equal to the max damage, but it's still there because the game's damage system always has a min damage and max damage on cards.

And consuming an extra cell is absolutely worth it if you want to make sure your cells are empty.

[ZeppMan217]

17 hours ago, RageLeague said:

That's not how Rooted works. Overcharge only increases the max damage of a card. Even though there's no damage range when there's no effect, if you have overcharge, only the max damage will increase, while the min damage stays at 9. The game doesn't display the range if the base card's min damage is equal to the max damage, but it's still there because the game's damage system always has a min damage and max damage on cards.

I did not know that, thank you. Still think that using both cells for the same damage bonus as one is unfair.

[pacovf]

You get the Enhanced upgrade when you’re running a deck that aims to spend as much charge as possible, or to stay at 0 charge whenever possible. It’s a decent enough card there. Otherwise, yes, Boosted is better.