No Pain No Gain Modifier gives all units Painforge which means they gain +1 power when damaged by Poisoned or Burning or hit by an ally. This Modifier makes self damage strategies very interesting because hurting your own units can actually make them stronger. Instead of avoiding damage you sometimes want to trigger it on purpose. In this battle, I focused on activating Painforge every round to slowly build higher damage than my enemy. So, even if they have units with better health, I was able to overcome them thanks to this modifier.
Modifiers
No Pain No Gain - All units have Painforge (+1 power when damaged by Poisoned or Burning, or hit by an ally).
- Electrified deals 1 damage to all allied units at the beginning of each round. In No Pain No Gain Modifier, this is very efficient because it triggers Painforge for every unit at the same time. Instead of damaging only one or two units like with Reckless ability, you buff the whole team together. The 1 damage per round can be bad in long rounds but the +1 power stacks every round which makes the trade-off far more appealing.
5 Combos You Can Do with No Pain No Gain Modifier
| Modifier | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 | Electrified | Deals 1 damage to all allied units at the beginning of each round. |
| - Electrified deals 1 damage to all allied units at the beginning of each round. In No Pain No Gain Modifier, this is very efficient because it triggers Painforge for every unit at the same time. Instead of damaging only one or two units like with Reckless ability, you buff the whole team together. The 1 damage per round can be bad in long rounds but the +1 power stacks every round which makes the trade-off far more appealing. | ||
 | Poison | Attacks have a chance to apply poison, which does automatic damage to the target at the beginning of each round after the poison is applied |
| - This one is more like "don't use units with Poison ability." You cannot apply Poison to your own units so unless there's No Pain No Gain modifier and Noxious Fumes modifier at the same time, then this doesn't apply. Having poison on your unit only helps your enemies though. | ||
 | Incendiary | At the beginning of round 2 and each following round, applies Burning. Burning has a 33% chance to spread to either adjacent unit at the beginning of each round, then all Burning units lose 2 health. Burning can be cleansed. |
| - This one can be good because it applies Burning to your unit and spreads. The downside, the damage is a bit high. Burning deals 2 damage per round and you only gain 1 damage regardless of the self-damage so I prefer Electrified instead. | ||
 | Blast | Does additional damage to Units adjacent to the target Unit |
| - Blast deals extra damage to units adjacent to the target unit. When your units gain more damage from Painforge, that extra damage also increases. If you already stacked +3 or +4 damage then Blast becomes very scary when your units starts using them. This ability scales well with Painforge and helps spread the high increased damage across the enemy lineup. This ability also works a lot better with Snipe and Opportunity along with Painforge. | ||
 | Life Leech | Unit's health increases each time it damages an enemy Unit's health in proportion to the damage dealt |
| - Life Leech is the best ability when you have Painforge. If you have Electrified, Poison, Burning or Reckless that can trigger Painforge, the increased damage means more Life Leech as well. This becomes a loop where you get damaged, increased damage because of Painforge, and higher Life Leech because of higher damage. |
Battle Breakdown
Early Game:
Upon seeing the enemy lineup, I realized that I have higher advantage in this battle. The enemy did not have anything set up to trigger Painforge so I would have advantage in terms of damage as the round goes on. I have less health advantage though because I get damaged each round by my own Electrified each round as well. Still, I think it's better to have higher damage since the damage stacks while the damage you take is consistent. For example, after 3 rounds, you take 3 damage but you deal 1,2,3 extra damage so that's 6 bonus damage in 3 rounds.
Mid Game:
I accidentally trigger enemy's Painforge because or rather triggered a visual bug. So, even if it says that I activated Painforge or the enemy, they don't get any damage increase since the Painforge came from my unit and not theirs. Painforge only works if you hit your own unit with your abilities. While the enemy has higher health units on some, I have better damage overall because of Painforge and Electrified from Shock Trooper.
Late Game:
With 3 rounds of Electrified and 1 instance of Resurgence, my surviving units have +4 in their magic damage. They all have low health but every one of them is very scary to fight against. If the enemy also have Electrified or a way to trigger Painforge, I am not too sure if I would have won this battle. It would be nice if Splinterlands have some of those practice tools you can use to set up each units and archon specifically to show what could've happen if they did the correct lineup.
Full Battle can be found here: https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_62922eabd36c707dc51bcaf11da32bd3
Closing Thoughts
This modifier can benefit players who understand how to manage self damage. In this battle, my enemy did not have a way to trigger Painforge which gave me a big damage advantage as rounds passed. Even if my units were losing health from Electrified each round, their damage kept increasing and that stacked quickly. After a few rounds, my surviving units had very high magic damage and each attack can become lethal blows to my enemy's units. No Pain No Gain Modifier proves that sometimes taking damage on purpose is the best way to win.