[Correction on Jinx with Doubt - Jinx is Pure DMG and is affected by Vulnerable and Fragile but not Doubt]

[Reposted from my Axie-specific blog (Diary of a Lunacian).]

More balance changes just come out for Season 5 of Axie Infinity: Origins. This time only 5 changes, so I would also want to take this opportunity to clarify some of the changes in the previous patch note.

New changes released on 10 July 2023

Ear Breathing

Ear Breathing was problematic card with gaining Shield = ATK in its previous form. Now that it is changed to 50 ATK + AoE Shield = 20% of ATK (i.e. 10 AoE Shield at base level), it is more playable for sure. Still, the AoE Shield does not feel like it will be too useful against most teams and so it is basically 50 DMG shuffling a Goo which is okay but not great. One problem with Goo is that there are not that many cards that shuffles Goo, and many of those cards are too defensive that it will be difficult to fight against Poison.

Leaf Bug

Leaf Bug being 65 Shield is more reasonable but still quite strong because minimum 2 Cocoon means another 8 Shield which adds up to 73 already. Usually you will play it after retaining it for a few turns so it will be 5 Cocoon meaning 20 extra Shield.

Carrot

Carrot changed to +6 ATK whenever healed >=8 HP by ally from +5 ATK whenever healed >=5 HP from ally. The 8 to 5 practically does not make much difference except for Bloodlust AoE / multi-hit, so Bloodlust Owl does not buff Carrot anymore. All other healing from Runes should still proc Carrot +6 ATK (let’s forget about Raven’s Tactic here).

Now it takes 15 procs to max out to 90 bonus DMG as opposed to 18 procs when it was +5, but 15 procs still takes a lot of effort to scale. Unless you run Runes that passively AoE heals every Round, e.g. Gaia and Healing Force, with a Carrot Axie running a Rune that heals repeatedly e.g. Prehistoric Armor, Moonlight Thief, Shellshock, Regenerator, Dominant Predator etc., it will be pretty difficult to make Carrot scales fast enough to be worth it. You might as well just run Tiny Dino. One angle I can see Carrot take is a ramp team with Moonlight Thief where Carrot is mainly use for ramp and the scaling is more like a bonus, but then maybe Nimo tail would be better(?).

Gaia’s Embrace

The AoE all allied Axies healing increased from 1% to 2% Max HP which definitely feels better. It now heals 8-10 HP per Round as opposed to just 4-5 HP. It now feels more like the healing from Healing Force which can be significant over multiple turns. Maybe Gaia can compensate a bit of the HP loss from Soul Eater to make Soul Eater work(?).

Clarifications of previously revealed changes for S5

HP Loss

HP Loss is now a term that the dev is trying to push with the introduction of the new Doubt mechanic. Doubt now “Receives -25% Heal & Shield. HP Loss Effects increased by +25%.” HP Loss Effects include Bleed, Grievous, Burn, Poison, HP Steal, Jinx etc., i.e. lost of HP due to effects other than direct attacks. Note that this should also include HP Loss from Soul Eater which causes HP Loss to all Allied Axies equals to 6% of their Max HP.

https://twitter.com/0xHail/status/1678055902170202116?s=20

Purify

Purify now Exile a random Curse Card in the following order: Draw Pile, Discard Pile, or Hand, which makes a lot more sense compared to Draw, Hand, Discard.

https://twitter.com/0xHail/status/1678055919987593216?s=20

I am excited to try out the new patch which should come up some time this week! There will also be some tournaments using the new patch, so we will get to see how different archetypes perform. Seems like the post-S4 break is going to be over soon and we will soon get some (pre-)S5 actions!

If you find this post informative and would like to see more, consider hitting the subscribe button, check out my Youtube channel, and use my lunacian code: maurice for a little support!

Lunacian code: maurice

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@maurice_ccy

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mauriceccy

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mauriceccy

Axie Blog: https://mirror.xyz/0xA62137E677B06863000886d67e1C11232789428b