How to make shadow duelists stronger without actually making them stronger.

[HowlVoid]

The idea is simple, give them an effect upon death. 

When it comes to pawns in chess or cheap 1 mana cards in Magic, sometimes the "weakest" piece is the most useful one. Sacrificial pieces that give you an advantage and are not actually meant to do a whole lot of damage or any damage at all.

Ofc I would primarily like for Klei to give them better ai but I also understand why Klei doesn't make them too strong. Since Maxwell isn't primarily a combat focused character. 

Some effects that can be chosen from are:

Damage upon death (explode into dozens of shadow knifes for example).

Debuff upon death (slow, frozen, sleep)

Buff upon death (maybe restore some of Maxwell's darksword/night armor durability if he has any equiped)

Etc, etc

Maybe random chance for any of the above, really capitalizing on the chaotic nature of shadow magic (not all at once ofc).

Its very easy for duelists to die, not having accomplished anything at all (especially with AOE attacks). And being the pawns that they are, they should always do the minimum to serve their master. With an effect upon death, they are always reliable even when immediately dying after being summoned.

[-Nick-]

I had an idea that they don't actually die for the first few fatal hits. They just turm into goo and become disabled for a little bit. Then they form back together again ready to fight. After 2-3 times they die for real.