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Post by pangurban on Jul 18, 2017 17:37:23 GMT
You're ignoring the fact that in the same weekend, Khador dominated the Australian scene in Wintercon. Also, Top 4 in Iron Guantlet had Legion and I forget who else. Keith Christianson, the Cygnar player in the Masters finals, has been playing Cygnar AND Cryx for a while (having won WMW a few years back, when Cygnar players were all "Cygnar, Mwaaah! " ). Those guys didn't get there carried by their faction choice. It is not a coincidence that you frequently see the same names in the big shows. I am making 2 important assumptions which I feel reasonably confident in making but I concede they flat out that they are assumptions which I don't know how to empirically test. 1) If you are traveling to multiple conventions in a competitive mindset you can play whichever faction you want - from either owning, borrowing, trading or selling/buying. This is akin (to a degree) of noting in the 1980s that ProStaff's where the club of Choice on the PGA tour. Did that mean that ProStaff's "carried" the best players? No. It is that with a plethora of choices and options and testing and focus that was the stick the best players in the world chose. 2) Australia's current population (for the whole country) is 23 million. That is remarkably close to the entire population of Southern California (excluding Baja for which, if we added, we would be at about 26.5 million. So the Australian results are akin - broadly - to Kingdom Con. Conversely, you could make a strong argument that WMW and L&L are really the only "national" conventions drawing from all over the country. Even then, I would concede, L&L had a more Pacific NW/BC flavor that a truly "national" even but only PP knows the percentage of ticket holders from outside a days drive and how many rooms they filled in how big a room block. You realize that your first argument applies just as much to those players dominating events with Khador or Skorne or Legion or whatever, right? For whatever reason, they chose those factions. Assuming Haley or Denegrah players chose their casters because they're the strongest and other players chose their other casters for other reasons is circular reasoning. Your assumption can't be used to prove itself.
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Post by sand20go on Jul 18, 2017 17:50:03 GMT
I am making 2 important assumptions which I feel reasonably confident in making but I concede they flat out that they are assumptions which I don't know how to empirically test. 1) If you are traveling to multiple conventions in a competitive mindset you can play whichever faction you want - from either owning, borrowing, trading or selling/buying. This is akin (to a degree) of noting in the 1980s that ProStaff's where the club of Choice on the PGA tour. Did that mean that ProStaff's "carried" the best players? No. It is that with a plethora of choices and options and testing and focus that was the stick the best players in the world chose. 2) Australia's current population (for the whole country) is 23 million. That is remarkably close to the entire population of Southern California (excluding Baja for which, if we added, we would be at about 26.5 million. So the Australian results are akin - broadly - to Kingdom Con. Conversely, you could make a strong argument that WMW and L&L are really the only "national" conventions drawing from all over the country. Even then, I would concede, L&L had a more Pacific NW/BC flavor that a truly "national" even but only PP knows the percentage of ticket holders from outside a days drive and how many rooms they filled in how big a room block. You realize that your first argument applies just as much to those players dominating events with Khador or Skorne or Legion or whatever, right? For whatever reason, they chose those factions. Assuming Haley or Denegrah players chose their casters because they're the strongest and other players chose their other casters for other reasons is circular reasoning. Your assumption can't be used to prove itself. It isn't who won. It is the density of top 8 or 16. When you have 2 out of 4 (and I think I saw 5 out of 8) Masters being Denny1 Ghost Fleet it seems pretty clear to me that there is a problem.
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Post by pangurban on Jul 18, 2017 18:08:32 GMT
You realize that your first argument applies just as much to those players dominating events with Khador or Skorne or Legion or whatever, right? For whatever reason, they chose those factions. Assuming Haley or Denegrah players chose their casters because they're the strongest and other players chose their other casters for other reasons is circular reasoning. Your assumption can't be used to prove itself. It isn't who won. It is the density of top 8 or 16. When you have 2 out of 4 (and I think I saw 5 out of 8) Masters being Denny1 Ghost Fleet it seems pretty clear to me that there is a problem. Same difference, just substitute "players who won" with "players who did well". Your reasoning is still circular. Aside from that, in the case of Ghost Fleet I'd say it seems likely that theme is helped by a dearth of RFP and magical attacks in a theme force dominated meta. Allowing Mercs to be used in theme will affect that situation anyway, but it's a problem created by the meta in the first place (under PP impetus, admittedly).
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Jul 18, 2017 18:29:44 GMT
I am frankly curious: Are there any Mercs/Minions that will help me (or anyone, as Skorne doesn't have that many Mercs) with RfP?
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jul 18, 2017 18:31:45 GMT
It isn't who won. It is the density of top 8 or 16. When you have 2 out of 4 (and I think I saw 5 out of 8) Masters being Denny1 Ghost Fleet it seems pretty clear to me that there is a problem. Same difference, just substitute "players who won" with "players who did well". Your reasoning is still circular. Aside from that, in the case of Ghost Fleet I'd say it seems likely that theme is helped by a dearth of RFP and magical attacks in a theme force dominated meta. Allowing Mercs to be used in theme will affect that situation anyway, but it's a problem created by the meta in the first place (under PP impetus, admittedly). What mercs bring RFP? I think there are a few minions/minion units that do RFP, and maybe a few merc solos, but it's not exactly widespread, and access to mercs isn't even across factions. In any case, the main issue with Ghost Fleet is not 'Ghost Fleet,' it's Denny1. She's one of the only S-tier casters from Mk2 that didn't see major nerfs going into Mk3, (along with Haley 2, incidentally) and the pop-n-drop + 5 points armor swing is something she's been able to do forever. I doubt anyone would cry to see H2 and D1 eat some (measured) nerfs.
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on Jul 18, 2017 18:51:34 GMT
If a list can be beaten it doesnt mean that list is balanced.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Jul 18, 2017 19:21:44 GMT
If a list can be beaten it doesnt mean that list is balanced. Then may I offer a corollary: If a list is hard to beat, it doesn't mean it should be nerfed. Also, this is me once again spamming this awesome article www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-bannedquote from the article Cygnar and Cryx, or more specifically GF and Haley_2 do not fall into this definition.
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Post by sand20go on Jul 18, 2017 19:29:57 GMT
Same difference, just substitute "players who won" with "players who did well". Your reasoning is still circular. Aside from that, in the case of Ghost Fleet I'd say it seems likely that theme is helped by a dearth of RFP and magical attacks in a theme force dominated meta. Allowing Mercs to be used in theme will affect that situation anyway, but it's a problem created by the meta in the first place (under PP impetus, admittedly). What mercs bring RFP? I think there are a few minions/minion units that do RFP, and maybe a few merc solos, but it's not exactly widespread, and access to mercs isn't even across factions. In any case, the main issue with Ghost Fleet is not 'Ghost Fleet,' it's Denny1. She's one of the only S-tier casters from Mk2 that didn't see major nerfs going into Mk3, (along with Haley 2, incidentally) and the pop-n-drop + 5 points armor swing is something she's been able to do forever. I doubt anyone would cry to see H2 and D1 eat some (measured) nerfs. Well....... Let me deal with the RFP issue first. Hutchuck, Bythy and Bull, and Slaughterhousers have take down. Alexia 2 and Ragman both have an RFP mechanism. As long discussed, if you lose the leader, no more recursion. Weird rule but it is what it is. More broadly, Mercenaries will give magic weapon options which helps with controlling the blackbanes and threatening the W. Engine. Not a pre-req for winning (neither is RFP) but it is super helpful in the right circumstances. Denny 1, I would argue, DID take 2 nerfs (but the GF is starting to get into the territory where it is a problem). First, she lost the ability to charge her own model (so did everyone) but this was an effective 3 inch increase on the threat to your caster. Now you ARE safe from the pop and drop from >21 inches and, while it wouldn't SEEM like 3 inches is a big deal it turns out it is. Second, because of nerf to things like BANES she lost some of the worst pieces that really made her sing. What the GF does is drop 9 to 12 models (depending on the build) that shoot strongly into the mix AND which can, with ghost shot, threaten. You USED to be able to deal with this by getting ahead on recursion. But now with a minimum of 2 and maximum of 4 models (and an average of 3) coming back each and every turn it becomes very difficult to NOT be looking at 3 3 man CRAs at Base Pow 13 (and fairly easily swung to POW 20) into your caster. That means the assassination threat is always on the table when your caster is near the rifles/leader. I am not convinced the CID solves the problem (and I wouldn't at ALL be surprised to see some new GF builds that drop points so they can find Devil shadows because Zira "solves" a problem - stealth - that the GF can have). That said, I want to see how it performs if the CID with mercs. goes through.
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Post by sand20go on Jul 18, 2017 19:34:01 GMT
If a list can be beaten it doesnt mean that list is balanced. Then may I offer a corollary: If a list is hard to beat, it doesn't mean it should be nerfed. Also, this is me once again spamming this awesome article www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-bannedquote from the article Cygnar and Cryx, or more specifically GF and Haley_2 do not fall into this definition. I just think this is not empirically backed up. The results from L&L suggest that GF was a dominant drop and that it is "meta warping". The question I will concede, however, is that it isn't clear as the meta reacts whether that opens up other problems. That was, I would argue, the problem with Haley2 in MK2 - it required such specialized builds it created real holes in the rest of the match ups. I am NOT sure that GF will.....but I know you are opening yourself up to "hope for dodge" if you don't have a way in your lists to hand out magic weapons and/or RFP (BTW - I would also concede that SR 2017 in 1/2 of the scenarios you DO have a way to hand out MW to at least one model - and that may be all it takes to shoot the hellslinger/blackbane, threaten Engine).
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Jul 18, 2017 19:54:28 GMT
At this point I just think we should wait to see how SR2017 shakes down by the end of the year and evaluate then. Some people think SR2017 will make H2 worse, I'm not so certain.
And yes, you do need to plan for hard lists and you do need to bring the right tools, and GF fleet is that list that is doing the gear checks at the moment. I also think that having these dynamics in the game has value.
Look at it this way: 1.- People aren't going to just let you march your brick across the field. 2.- People aren't going to let you just shoot your guns from a distance. 3.- People aren't going to let you get away with stealth. 4.- People aren't going to let you bully them with high Armor. 5.- etc etc etc.
And just like they will throw wrenches in to your well oiled army, you should be doing the same to them. And at the moment, that means bringing RFP and Magic Attacks
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Post by chillychinaman on Jul 18, 2017 22:07:42 GMT
And just like they will throw wrenches in to your well oiled army, you should be doing the same to them. And at the moment, that means bringing RFP and Magic Attacks Except quite a few factions can't bring those things to the table in a meaningful fashion. I play Protectorate and Legion, and while we have magic weapons to blast the Incorporeal stuff, we have no real access to RFP to counter the recursion. We just have to take lists like GF on the chin because we don't have all the tools to compete currently.
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Post by Swampmist on Jul 18, 2017 22:21:24 GMT
I do think that GF could be fixed by new releases and buffs in those factions that lack rfp, but we have no idea if those things are coming.
Also, tangent, but if you play POM and Denny1 GF is giving you fits try Thyra and/or Reznik2
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Post by Azuresun on Jul 18, 2017 23:18:01 GMT
I do think that GF could be fixed by new releases and buffs in those factions that lack rfp, but we have no idea if those things are coming. Also, tangent, but if you play POM and Denny1 GF is giving you fits try Thyra and/or Reznik2 How about Severius2? The idea of being able to point at the unit leaders and say "Go Away" is quite appealing.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Jul 18, 2017 23:24:20 GMT
I do think that GF could be fixed by new releases and buffs in those factions that lack rfp, but we have no idea if those things are coming. Also, tangent, but if you play POM and Denny1 GF is giving you fits try Thyra and/or Reznik2 How about Severius2? The idea of being able to point at the unit leaders and say "Go Away" is quite appealing. Apparently its nowhere near as good as you think because Sevvy has a habit of dying.
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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Jul 18, 2017 23:32:31 GMT
How about Severius2? The idea of being able to point at the unit leaders and say "Go Away" is quite appealing. Apparently its nowhere near as good as you think because Sevvy has a habit of dying. Ssssshhhhh. Spoilers.
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