Reflect possibly needs some nerfs? 2 cost card that trivializes a majority of bosses and monsters in the game with 0 downside. Upgrading makes you near invincible. With the amount of block ME can generate, they shouldnt have access to a card like this with no downside. Possibly make it have Exhaust and/or 3 cost, maybe moving it to a legendary tier card.

I probably should bump it up to rare (it used to be much weaker so I made it uncommon but then it wasn't very satisfying to use so I buffed it and forgot to change the rarity), but it is a power so there is no need to add exhuast.
I think this card feels much stronger than it actually is, to understand the limitations of this card I find it helpful to compare it to something like Buffer which simply prevents the next instance of damage. The nice thing about Buffer is that you can play it and store that buffer until you actually need it by using other block cards. Reflect doesn't have that, it reflects the very next attack you receive and so while it has cases where it is extraordinarily powerful (such as Reflecting a big boss's attack) most of the time you will be weak attacks where it isn't actually getting that value.
That is my theory for it at least, I could easily be wrong and the card needs to cost 3. You are right, the card should be at least a rare though, I'll fix that now.

Blizzaga feels like the only card I need and probably gives too much block.

What are your opinions on Dispel trivializing almost every boss and enemy in the game? I think it should have some major downside, higher energy cost, or only last a specific number of turns. The disciple has a similar card but it only removes buffs for 3(5) turns and only on a single target. It's also a yellow rarity card. I know the mods are completely different but using dispel on many mobs and bosses (ie, time eater) makes them a joke and I feel ruins any sort of strategy. It also pops up quite commonly because it's a blue.

I posted my thoughts on Dispel in the main thread but that was months ago so it getting lost to time is to be expected. What I will say before I post those remarks (lightly edited for clarity) is that after several more months thinking about this card basically non-stop I haven't been able to come up with a really firm opinion on it. Maybe it should cost more?

April 22nd:
I was concerned about Dispel making fights less interesting, as a general rule transformation is more interesting than negation. So for instance Mama is more interesting than Esuna because Mama makes new things happen but Esuna makes things not happen which, as you said, can lead to sameness as everything reverts to the norm. I included it because I wanted to respect the FF6 spell library and also specifically because I didn't think much of the idea I really wanted to explore the design space. Having done so I think it is more interesting than I had expected it to be. Firstly because it has interesting synergies with cards like Water (which temporarily remove strength, but if you Dispel them after casting Water they just permanently lose that strength), and secondly because I feel the power fantasy of it is satisfying while not being generally over-powered. You get to be Alexander chopping the knot in half, which while less intellectually stimulating of a task than solving the knot is fun in its own way.

I did make special exception for some buffs not being removed by Dispel, for instance without Mode Shift The Guardian just throws haymakers at you non-stop, but wasn't able to come up with a way to concisely and accurately convey the idea of "removing all the not-interesting buffs". Doing so I feel would always surprise people about what Dispel did and didn't actually remove.

You could also just make it so it doesnt remove boss/elite specific buffs and keep everything else as it is? You could easily just edit the tooltip or description on the card to say it doesnt remove "unique" buffs or something along those lines. Unique ones would be gremlin nob, time eater, black slimes. Monsters such as Lagavulin or Nemesis might be okay with dispel removing the buffs. Dispel is already underwhelming against them.

"Unique" is interesting... I'm going to do some research to see if that would work :)

Some thoughts on cards:

• Amnesia - I don't think this is necessary. Terra's amnesia never affected her combat abilities in FF6, and I don't see why it should affect them here. As far as flavor is concerned...you could say that *every* character in The Spire has amnesia (check the lore sometime). If you do keep this, tho, please re-code it to be soulbound instead of added to the deck at the start of combat (they've fixed soulbound curses so that they can no longer be removed in shops - Necronomicurse is a bit of an oddball there...it's now soulbound, so it can't be removed at the shop, but it otherwise still works exactly like it used to - it comes right back when exhausted).
  
• Cursed Shield - This should start with lower block and be latent. Here's what I would do with it:
  
  1. Cursed Shield - 2 energy, 10 block, 2 frail.
     
  2. Cursed Shield+ - 2 energy 12 block 2 frail.
     
  3. Paladin Shield - 1 energy 14 block 2 safe.
  This makes it a less-expensive Minerva Bustier (with slightly less block) when upgraded, but requires you to spend 2 upgrades to get there...and gives it the flavor of the Cursed/Paladin shield in-game. Block could possibly be higher on all 3 iterations, but the idea is that this is something you take and spend upgrades on (opportunity cost).
  
• Flare - Why would I *ever* take this? Terra comes with built-in frontloaded damage in the form of Fire. Upgrading that is better than taking a Flare - this is *always* a skip, at least for me. Suggestion: Flare - X energy, deal 6(8)*X damage. That's much more in line with what Flare is supposed to do.
  
• Crystal Sword - same thing as Flare, this is a Skip for me. Suggestion: 2 cost, no Frail, and either up the damage a bit or have it apply weak or vulnerable to the enemy.
  
• Meltdown - A bit more interesting than Flare or Crystal Sword because of the higher base damage and the fact that Terra has good ways of mitigating the STR loss, but I doubt I would take it unless didn't have a better source of AoE damage.
  
• Icebrand - Might be slightly OP - compare to Wallop on Watcher: Wallop is 2 for 9(12) damage/block and works the same way as Icebrand. Relatively speaking, Icebrand is 2 for 10(14) damage/block. Maybe make it 4(6) instead? Probably fine as-is, tho, assuming other things are brought in line.
  
• Blizzard - Scaling damage AND defense? Yes, please. This is very OP as-is, since it scales both with STR and with the number of enemies you're up against. Suggestion: Make it not be AoE (which would make other AoE damage options more viable), and fix Bravery...you might up the damage per hit to compensate in that case. Trust me...if I get a Bravery (see below) and one of these early? My plan from there should be just to remove all the strikes and defends from my deck, and maybe add more copies of these, plus Trance and Transfusion/Minerva Bustier. You don't even need to upgrade Blizzard for it to be useful, just upgrade Bravery - it'll scale Blizzard more than enough.
  
• Bravery - I did a double-take the first time I saw this one...and I always take it when I see it. Why? The scaling on this is absolutely insane. Comparing this to Demon Form, Demon form is rare, costs 3 energy, and gives 2(3) str per turn, static. Bravery? While it depends on the fight, it's often 2-3 str per turn unupgraded, For 2 energy, and it's only uncommon, so it's not uncommon to see 2-3 of these in a run. A decent fix? Make it a skill that gives 2 STR per hit (instead of 1), but you only gain str on the turn it's played (permanent), or make the STR it gives temporary (you get it for the turn following the attack, but it goes away at the end of that turn unless you pull some artifact shenanigans, which either costs a potion or makes for a bigger deck).

--Arek75

P.S. A few screenshots to show just how silly a Bravery/Blizzard deck gets:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1980772030

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1980772234

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1980772447

Note: I did use the Pandora's Box glitch to get rid of my Strikes and Defends at the end of act 1, and near the end Replay the Spire saw fit to give me a couple of its relics (Lightbulb, which procced constantly, and Ninjato, which was kinda like Kunai in this build...a meme). That said, my previous run (also using RtS, but no box glitch), was almost as silly.

I had thought about Cursed Shield turning into Paladin's Shield for a while, one idea I had was you had to have in in a certain number of fights before it would transform but that just made it a bad card to pick in act 3. Giving a Latent and making to require 2 upgrades is a good idea as it partially solves the problem of people being able to skip the "Cursed" part and just pick up an upgraded Paladin's Shields in act 2/3 (as StS will give you upgraded cards but only one upgrade not 2) but then the problem becomes that the game doesn't have a way to preview the effects of multiple upgrades (this is why the upgrades for all Latent cards are the same both times you upgrade them). That might be fine as a reference because FF6 also didn't have a way to tell you "this will be a dope ass shield later on" but I felt that flew in the face of StS design choice of radical transparency.
Perhaps I should make it a card you get from an act 1 event, make it worse, an actual curse that after many fights will transform into Paladin's Shield which would be neat.

Bravery is a card that I've had trouble balancing because it's value varies so wildly based on who you are fighting. So in some cases, like The Heart, it is amazing because you will get attacked 12 times in a single turn, but then you also have Bronze Automaton who will attack once every couple of turns. I could add a limit to how much Strength you can get per turn to even it out which would make it easier to balance (as I had to do with Bloody Hilt) but I don't like that doing that as embracing and taking advantage of those edge cases is what makes you feel really powerful and smart as a player.

Another idea for the Cursed/Paladin shield just staying a normal card (tho I like the curse idea if it's implemented decently): Change the latent keyword to Latent X, where X is the number of upgrades left. Most current Latent cards would be Latent 2, but the Cursed Shield could be Latent 3 or 4, requiring more effort to get online. As for the preview....If you want it to Preview, just make Paladin Shield be "related" to Cursed Shield and preview it that way. :)

How about this for Bravery:

• Bravery - Cost 3, grants 1 str when attacked, (limit 4(6) per turn).

This would make it considerably less OP against the Heart, but it would still be really powerful there, or against Byrds, etc. Just make sure that if multiple copies of Bravery are applied, each caps separately (so 2 copies of Bravery gets you 2 str with a limit of 8(12), etc). The new higher cost would mitigate the usefulness of multiple copies. 2 cost just doesn't work, there really needs to be an opportunity cost for playing something like Bravery.

[s]Also, I think I'll mention this here: The Trance timer being a debuff causes some bad interactions with other things that effect debuffs - Not sure about Esuna or Ribbon, but I do know that Durian (a relic from Replay the Spire) reduces the turn counter on Trance.[/s]

Edit: The above may or may not be true, as it looks like I wasn't paying attention to how Trance charges work. I'm gonna finish my current run and see what's what, but I have some thoughts here.

--Arek75