I have been playing a whole lot with the laser gear and I realized what's stopping people from fully embracing the lasers. It's not the bad collection of cards on items (they're pretty good, actually, since a lot of them really trade consistency for high expect damage output), and it's not most of the malfunctions either (at least for warriors, because they can benefit from them so much). It's that Drained Battery forces you to work with only a few laser items. I kept track of what malfunctions have done for me so far with warriors equipped with Nova Axe and 2x Slice And Dice: Meltdown creates victory point pressure if applied there and can be a favorable damage trade Battery Explosion is almost a guaranteed benefit because the enemy is either going to take damage or lose cantrip by moving Laser Spray loses tempo but can be very good if you've positioned extremely well for the malfunction Drained Battery is just a cantrip steal most of the time if you're using your laser as the last attack; it has caused the most screw games though as discarding all laser attacks has led to very, very unfortunate scenarios (2 worst cases so far: discarded 2x Laser Thrust and Laser Strike, and discarded 2x Laser Thrust with one freshly drawn from Parry.) I suggest that Drained Battery cause you to discard your oldest laser attack card instead of all. The reasoning behind this is that it will still be a great handicap if you do happen to have another laser attack, but it doesn't screw too much in terms of randomness. This will put the card more in line with the other malfunctions and assure that malfunctions are not too random.
I've gotta say, this one handicap is literally the reason I equip only minimal laser at any given time. Every malfunction can be mitigated, and "not running Laser" is how you mitigate "lose all Laser." Interesting suggestion. I'm probably fine either way, whether it flies or not. Perhaps after I mull it over more, I'll want it more than I don't, then hit Like. $F^ J We'll see.
Interesting suggestion. Given, though, that most of the time Drained Battery is the malfunction card that least affects the player, I wonder if buffing it makes sense?
@Flaxative What if it were also to do a bit of self damage? Either always or only when it actually drains a card.
That's the reason I only play 2 laser cards in my standard team. I consider Laser Spray far worse. The point is: unreliable power. That's the Laser gimmick. It's very damaging, but you can't control it. Drained battery, is somewhat balanced by the huge potential damage those cards deal.
It only affects the player the least if you have a small quantity of laser attacks (4 or less) in deck. I currently run eight per warrior, and it affects me so much, mostly because I think twice before keeping a laser attack and the order in which I play laser cards. I would actually be tempted to run a Laser Thrust into a potential block over hitting with a Laser Cutdown first because of this. Given that the other malfunctions can be played around, what if this malfunction was removed or changed altogether? It's the only one that is not based on Magic Laser damage. I suggested changing the discard to the oldest instead of all because I was guessing the reason you put this in place was because you didn't want people dual-wielding or triple-wielding laser attacks. But perhaps that's not why you think it is in place? All the other handicaps can be worked to a unique advantage. This you can't. If this is intended, perhaps you could just instead take Magic Laser damage for each Laser attack in hand (with or without Cantrip)? The damage is not completely reliable, yes. There are actually far more reliable alternatives to major erratic damage lasers which have the same or better average damage (Laser Thrust is to Impaling Stab, Laser Strike is to Powerful Hack or Powerful Bludgeon, and so on). But you can play around the malfunctions, which can potentially boost the damage output. You can actually control things to some extent. I position characters to make sure if I draw Meltdown, Drained Battery, or Laser Spray it will have great positive impact. For the minor erratic damage lasers, the relatively high base damage is offset by having drawbacks that are more likely to negatively impact you. Two of the malfunctions are range 1. Meltdown can't be countered by Dimensional Traveler, which is the most common way wizards avoid terrain attachments.
The irony of course is that all the other malfunctions (for melee at the very least) can be turned into positive impacts -- when these are handicap cards. Drained Battery is only not a handicap card when you didn't have any more lasers in hand or (much less likely) when you had a combination of Blind Rage, very low HP, only lasers left in hand, and no other good way to get rid of them -- or an opp is trying to approach you with Touch Of Death, Punishing Strike, or such like -- or some other highly situational situation. It is a handicap after all -- like the other malfunctions are supposed to be. The other cards gain positive impacts because we players are just users and abusers like that. $;^ b (Actually, Drained Battery will sometimes keep an opp away for a turn or even make an opp waste a move to get away due to not knowing yet which malfunction you've drawn.)