Before we begin I am Exile. Please excuse the title.

Raise your hand if random chance interfered in any of your battles.

Raise your hand if random chance prolonged or cut short an unnecessary battle.

Raise your third hand if random chance has ever ruined your moment.

Well, what is your stance on luck?

Personally, I have had enough of gambling my fate in EpicDuel. If I have a massive Support advantage then I should be the one who has control over the influence of Support. Vice-versa for enemies who have the same advantage over me.

I am suggesting that "luck" is no longer a gamble but instead something strategic in each and every one of our EpicDuel battles. How this would work is that we play using counters of stat-specific battle mechanics like blocking or going critical.

I will upload a poorly drawn diagram eventually to help express the idea.

For Support's case, first turn is a once per battle occurrence, so I recommend that whoever has the highest Support stat total should go first... guaranteed. Support also manifests critical hits and stun resistance, and these would occur more than once. So now I will introduce this idea of counters. Counters are the number of charges which an ability can be used for. If I have 5 critical hit charges, I can then choose to critical hit a maximum of 5 times. I would have calculated these counters by simply the number of stat points, but then there are no real benefits to using Focus... or having 2 equally Support savvy players critical hit 10 times under their control (easily exploitative). So, these "counters" would be calculated by the difference in stat points between opposing sides.

I was thinking of a progression like:

10+ Stat Difference: 1 Counter

20+ Stat Difference: 2 Counters

30+ Stat Difference: 3 Counters

40+... etc, etc

All the way up to 50+ difference in stats at a maximum of 5 counters.

I was going to use disintegration/decay in the progression, but that surely only benefits Focus in the end, right? So no favouritism.

The mechanics of counters run like this:

A player with 5 critical hit counters in a battle can use all 5 of his/her abilities to go critical within that battle. There are limitations however (like calculus), as to how quickly each counter can be executed. We do not want anyone spamming critical Robot Strike, critical Auxiliary, then a critical multi skill. What do you think this is, today's EpicDuel? Even Nightwraith's NPC is complaining about luck, what's going on there? So... we will use cooldowns! Hurray! Yes, cooldowns on counters for each event in which they are used. For example if I have 3 critical strike counters and use one for my Sidearm, I must wait approximately 5 turns before using another critical strike counter. I would consider having a 1 turn warmup for every counter ability as well. Who wants to have their first turn Bludgeon blocked, or be critical hit for half of their total health on the first turn without being able to prepare in advance? If we warmup for one counter like critical strike, we must warmup for all counters, it is only fair.

Further details of the mechanics:

Some flags were raised in my head when I though about duration. What if you have a block counter up but your opponent does not Strike you?! I would have the block counter remain in play for as long as the opponent does not Strike or use their Primary weapon, and then activate and exhaust the block counter when they do use their Primary. Counters can stack, so when a player uses a block counter when one block counter is already in play, the player is guarded by 2 block counters. Counters will not be visible to opponents, so anticipating and foiling one's use of counters would be intelligent, but very very aggravating for the player who was fooled. Counters do not effect "ultimate skills". With a brief explanation on my part, boosting the effectiveness of something "ultimate" would make it godly then, no? And godly skills would be game-breaking for PvP balance. That's right, you will have to live with ultimate skills not being affected by critical strikes, is that OK? I would somehow eventually include unstoppable attack skills to be vulnerable to this revised system of "luck". For example, Fireball or Plasma Bolt has great damage but cannot be blocked or deflected. Well, if it cannot be blocked or deflected, it should not be able to go critical! Fair enough? And about skills that already include critical chance and stun chance. The critical and stun chance are now guaranteed. I would simply reduce their damage (they even do well in today's standards, just look at Tactical Mercenary's past Strength builds that included Maul). Reduce the damage and guarantee the "luck".

I have forgotten some of my other topics...

But please, do comment, question, and feedback your thoughts to me! If anything is wrong, I want you to tell me (constructively as best as you can), and I will make amends!

Thanks for reading!