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Post by grotsnik on Sept 27, 2017 2:20:35 GMT
It is not unusual for a caster to be helped (or hurt) more by changes to the core rules or Steamroller and direct buffs or nerfs. Grissel 2 gained tremendously simply from the change to ROF, just for example. But which changes specifically brought the coven so far up that people say they need a nerf? Because this is something pretty new, at the begining of mk3 we used it because it was the only effective antigunline tec we had, and no one ever said they needed a nerf, so why now? I think it has to do more with the meta than with raw power, or maybe the TFs are the unbalanced thing (which I dont think so)... anyway if someone has some theory about why the coven became a problem all the sudden I would like to read it.
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Post by Cryptix on Sept 27, 2017 2:21:01 GMT
It seems Denny1 has an easy nerf option of removing the no charge / orders clause. That feels like it would keep her intact while taking away some of the oppressiveness she shows in Ghost Fleet. As for Coven though, they seem much more difficult. Can anyone think of anything similarly subtle to do to them? It seems that the combo of their amazing feat, and extreme hardiness (with the potential for triple focus dmg reduction) makes them such a problem. IMO those aren't easily adjusted short of somehow changing their focus pool to give them a 14 or 16 inch control range, which can't be done as those don't divide into 3, lol. I think if their feat gave stealth and Agathia's feat blocked LOS their power levels would be a lot more even. Agathia's the more defensive caster (with hellwrought). I can never look at Agathia as a defensive caster when I remember that she got the Deathjack 18" across the board right into Sloan's ugly mug. Twas beautiful.
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npe
Junior Strategist
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Post by npe on Sept 27, 2017 2:31:22 GMT
I think if their feat gave stealth and Agathia's feat blocked LOS their power levels would be a lot more even. Agathia's the more defensive caster (with hellwrought). I can never look at Agathia as a defensive caster when I remember that she got the Deathjack 18" across the board right into Sloan's ugly mug. Twas beautiful. 18"? hellwrought 3"+6" move + 3" charge = 13"? Edit: I love DJ with Agathia.
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Post by Cryptix on Sept 27, 2017 2:51:57 GMT
I can never look at Agathia as a defensive caster when I remember that she got the Deathjack 18" across the board right into Sloan's ugly mug. Twas beautiful. 18"? hellwrought 3"+6" move + 3" charge = 13"? Edit: I love DJ with Agathia. Hyper Agressuve. You should have seen his face.
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npe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 221
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Post by npe on Sept 27, 2017 2:52:25 GMT
18"? hellwrought 3"+6" move + 3" charge = 13"? Edit: I love DJ with Agathia. Hyper Agressuve. You should have seen his face. haha... you did it with IM. That's hilarious. Edit: did you lose any systems on the approach?
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Post by Cryptix on Sept 27, 2017 3:08:25 GMT
Hyper Agressuve. You should have seen his face. haha... you did it with IM. That's hilarious. Edit: did you lose any systems on the approach? He lost an arm but snacking topped him off.
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Deller
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Post by Deller on Sept 27, 2017 4:31:22 GMT
It is not unusual for a caster to be helped (or hurt) more by changes to the core rules or Steamroller and direct buffs or nerfs. Grissel 2 gained tremendously simply from the change to ROF, just for example. But which changes specifically brought the coven so far up that people say they need a nerf? Because this is something pretty new, at the begining of mk3 we used it because it was the only effective antigunline tec we had, and no one ever said they needed a nerf, so why now? I think it has to do more with the meta than with raw power, or maybe the TFs are the unbalanced thing (which I dont think so)... anyway if someone has some theory about why the coven became a problem all the sudden I would like to read it. Survivability. In Mark2 Focus on the Egg gave the girls an armor buff, but gave the Egg nothing. So the Witches would start at 8 boxes & Arm 12 +1 per focus to a max camp of 21, but the Egg was always a 13/17 that sent the damage directly to the girls. Camping focus effectively did nothing to help save you. Now with the new overboosting system Coven are one of the toughest casters in the game. Now when you shoot the Egg, the Witches can still overboost. On top of that they have the trick where if you get super lucky & blast the Egg for 15 damage they can assign 5 damage to each girl, and each girl can overboost negating everything. So while every other Warcaster in the game can shunt off a max of 5 damage per attack the Coven can shunt 15.
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zich
Junior Strategist
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Post by zich on Sept 27, 2017 6:50:13 GMT
npe I would have thought so myself, but recent statistics results seem to indicate otherwise. GF is just as successful with other casters and Host is equally scary (though in a different way) with Shade2/3. I do like what Sascha said about GF and it makes a lot of sense. GF is powerful, regardless of the caster. Denny1 turns GF into "win more". Other casters (like Coven) can be used to improve its bad matchups (gunlines in the case of Coven) instead of its good ones. But what does all of this tell us? Are the themes the issue or the casters? It's probably both and especially the combination of the two. So smaller changes to all of the parts are probably the best way of handling the issue.
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Post by grotsnik on Sept 27, 2017 7:24:43 GMT
Survivability. In Mark2 Focus on the Egg gave the girls an armor buff, but gave the Egg nothing. So the Witches would start at 8 boxes & Arm 12 +1 per focus to a max camp of 21, but the Egg was always a 13/17 that sent the damage directly to the girls. Camping focus effectively did nothing to help save you. Now with the new overboosting system Coven are one of the toughest casters in the game. Now when you shoot the Egg, the Witches can still overboost. On top of that they have the trick where if you get super lucky & blast the Egg for 15 damage they can assign 5 damage to each girl, and each girl can overboost negating everything. So while every other Warcaster in the game can shunt off a max of 5 damage per attack the Coven can shunt 15. But this has been like this since almost the beginning of mk3 (we had to wait for the infernal ruling, but just that), so... why is it that now a nerf is called? Did our troops get better and so the OP caster that was suffering from an useless army finally got the chance to shine? Because if thats not the case I still dont see why the coven is now an issue. If the answer is the meta then its not a nerf what it needs, it would be just time. And if the answer is "it was OP since the beginning" then why is it that people realize just now?
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Deller
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Post by Deller on Sept 27, 2017 8:55:44 GMT
Survivability. In Mark2 Focus on the Egg gave the girls an armor buff, but gave the Egg nothing. So the Witches would start at 8 boxes & Arm 12 +1 per focus to a max camp of 21, but the Egg was always a 13/17 that sent the damage directly to the girls. Camping focus effectively did nothing to help save you. Now with the new overboosting system Coven are one of the toughest casters in the game. Now when you shoot the Egg, the Witches can still overboost. On top of that they have the trick where if you get super lucky & blast the Egg for 15 damage they can assign 5 damage to each girl, and each girl can overboost negating everything. So while every other Warcaster in the game can shunt off a max of 5 damage per attack the Coven can shunt 15. But this has been like this since almost the beginning of mk3 (we had to wait for the infernal ruling, but just that), so... why is it that now a nerf is called? Did our troops get better and so the OP caster that was suffering from an useless army finally got the chance to shine? Because if thats not the case I still dont see why the coven is now an issue. If the answer is the meta then its not a nerf what it needs, it would be just time. And if the answer is "it was OP since the beginning" then why is it that people realize just now? Coven was never seen as an issue because while Coven's been winning left and right since the beginning of Mark3 it never had a great list pair & D&C existed. Before the old forums were purged there was a new thread every week along the lines of "Is Coven the only good list in Cryx?" or "What do I pair with antigunline Coven?". The only really good Cryx lists before Themes were Skarre1 with either Stalker spam, Satyxis, or double Battle Engine which are extremely matchup dependent & don't pair well with the Coven Stalker/Satyxis/Soul Hunter lists that were being played before themes. Then once Theme Forces came along Coven got an amazing list pair in Deneghra1 Ghost Fleet, and the special requirements you need in order to play attrition against Ghost Feet and the NPE of Ghost Fleet overshadowed, Coven. People have been so focused on Ghost Fleet that they haven't noticed the giant glaring elephant in the room. This is the ATC data from back in February atcwmh.com/2017/03/06/atc-stats/#more-208 people notice Deneghra1's 100% win rate, but she only has a 40% drop rate, compared to the 78% drop rate & 71% win rate of Coven and the 80% drop rate & 88% win rate of Skarre1, and yes even then the Coven/DennyGF player dropped Themeless Coven more frequently than Deneghra1 Ghost Fleet in a time where most people were unaware of Ghost Fleet's actual power & didn't bring counters. That's how strong Coven has always been. Coven & Skarre1 have always been the casters propelling Cryx's success in this edition, because they're the casters who work best with the best models/units in the faction. Deneghra1 has been sitting in our #3 slot, & just had the benefit of being the queen of the first theme force Cryx received. PP can pretend all they want that Theme Forces are optional, but they're really not, so when you only have 1 theme force, you play that theme force, and you'll typically play the best caster in that theme. Infernal Machines isn't the greatest theme, but the second we got another really good theme it instantly overtook Ghost Fleet in popularity. Look back at the ATC lists from a month after Ghost Fleet's release. Most of the Cryx Ghost Fleet lists were with Skarre1, because people believed her to be a better caster than Deneghra1. As it turns out, Skarre1 really hates no spell slave & rit sac targets, so people went down the ladder to Deneghra1. Dark Host is brand new, and it's already become more popular than Ghost Fleet, and even in this event, had a higher win % than Ghost Fleet. People still haven't found the magic formula with Dark Host, which version runs best. Dark Host doesn't have a champion yet the same way Ghost Fleet was championed by Tim Bankey & the Chasing the Dragonfather crew. There's no authority on Dark Host, it's still in it's wild west phase and it's already devastating. Ghost Fleet was a laughing stock during it's wild west phase. Honestly even if PP chooses to not nerf Cryx in the foreseeable future, I think Deneghra1 Ghost Fleet is going to see a drop in play. Cryx is likely getting 3 new theme forces soon, Slaughter Fleet, Black Industries, & whatever the Satyxis theme is going to be. That last theme is likely going to contain both Satyxis & Stalkers, there's no way it goes unplayed. Of the current popular Coven DH/Deneghra1 GF pairing, one is going to have to go to make room for the new hotness. When you factor in all of the cries for Deneghra1 to get gutted into the ground, the fact that it's actually Coven with less bad matchups, and unless you bought into Cryx within the last 8 months it's highly unlikely you actually own any Revenant models since they were trash in Mark2 I expect Ghost Fleet to be the list dropped out of most pairings, or the one ignored by new Cryx players. There's still people playing out of theme for Satyxis, there's no way the Satyxis theme doesn't become an immediate tournament staple upon release. Even if Ghost Fleet & Deneghra1 are left alone I expect in a year from now Deneghra1 will fall to the wayside again as Cryx players are playing Skarre1 Dark Host & Coven Satyxis theme or Skarre1 Black Industries & Coven Dark Host. The second Skarre1 & Coven can build a list pair together that compliments one another really well I expect it to become the defacto Cryx pairing.
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Post by Big Fat Troll on Sept 27, 2017 11:41:36 GMT
Deller You have some good points there, though I thought that Slaughter Fleet was the Satyxis theme, albeit mixed in with black ogrun and blighted trollkin, basically your "living troopers" theme... Anyway, would you say that the limitations on Ghost Fleet include what it can answer as well as its list-building restrictions making it almost downright solvable? And that you are always, at least to some extent, betting that your opponent doesn't have an answer? I still think that Ghost Fleet is a problem, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem for you guys too in any way. Lastly, if Dark Host is going to be cracked so to speak, I would keep an eye on what Aaron Wale and Sascha Mischel are doing. Sure enough, Aaron ran it with Skarre 1 at WTC.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on Sept 27, 2017 11:43:04 GMT
I really hope that's not how it goes, though it's not unlikely. It would mean that the only thing that can dethrone the current OP Cryx lists is more OP Cryx lists.
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Deller
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Post by Deller on Sept 27, 2017 13:15:18 GMT
I really hope that's not how it goes, though it's not unlikely. It would mean that the only thing that can dethrone the current OP Cryx lists is more OP Cryx lists. My problem is everyone seems to be putting Deneghra1 on the pedestal as the biggest problem in Cryx, or Cryx's Haley2. She's not our Haley, she's our Stryker1. Incredibly powerful, but insanely predictable. If you have no plan you lose, if you have a plan it's a game. Deneghra1 does it with recursion, Stryker with insane levels of Armor. If people think nerfing Deneghra1 is actually going to solve the Cryx problem they're in for a rude awakening when all that nerf does is drive Cryx players back to playing the actual power models. There were almost 0 Revenants in tournament lists before Ghost Fleet. Cryx is one of the last factions who's primary models from the time before themes (Satyxis Raiders) are still themeless. The Satyxis theme is going to be a major power boost for the faction. I don't mind seeing Cryx getting nerfs when warrented, but I don't think Deneghra should be the target, because right now she's the one causing Cryx players to bring the mediocre chaff units as opposed to our actual good units. Of all the current Ghost Fleet casters her and Terminus are the only ones that aren't going to immediately swap over to Slaughter Fleet or Satyxis upon release. Asphyxious1 loves the living units, and if the Sharde Pirate sprays are any good it'll likely be the better gunline theme. Deneghra2 will take Spray Pirates over Revenants anyday, especially since her niche is in the Cryx mirror & Sprays own the mirror. Terminus is the one who wants undead, and Deneghra1 is the one who turns on the attrition of the Revenants thanks to her feat buying some extra time to recover numbers, for everyone else Sharde Pirates just look better since they don't have Deneghra1's control abilities or Terminus's reliance on undead models. If you want to nerf Cryx, start with the biggest problem, and right now in my opinion that's Coven followed by Skarre1, not Deneghra. I don't see Deneghra1 in anything but Ghost Fleet & the occasional out of theme list. Coven & Skarre1 sit atop IM, DH, can play and have won major events in GF, and I've see in multiple places discussions on them both in the two insider themes. No real discussion of Deneghra1 in them. I think Pagani was correct in suggesting that we should wait for the meta to adjust to Deneghra1 & Ghost Fleet. I think the problem is that the meta can't adjust to them properly as long as Cryx can fall back on versatile catch all casters who are so powerful they turn literally every single theme force up to 11. Coven & Skarre handle too much, fix them release the rest of the themes, keeping the biggest magnifying glass on the Satyxis theme in testing and wait for the meta to adjust before touching Ghost Fleet or Deneghra1, because honestly I don't think they're actually a problem as long as they can't be paired the with an unpredictable catch all list that plays well into nearly everything.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Sept 27, 2017 13:16:30 GMT
Deller You have some good points there, though I thought that Slaughter Fleet was the Satyxis theme, albeit mixed in with black ogrun and blighted trollkin, basically your "living troopers" theme... Anyway, would you say that the limitations on Ghost Fleet include what it can answer as well as its list-building restrictions making it almost downright solvable? And that you are always, at least to some extent, betting that your opponent doesn't have an answer? I still think that Ghost Fleet is a problem, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem for you guys too in any way. Lastly, if Dark Host is going to be cracked so to speak, I would keep an eye on what Aaron Wale and Sascha Mischel are doing. Sure enough, Aaron ran it with Skarre 1 at WTC. It's not, they specifically mentioned that Slaughter Fleet doesn't contain Satyxis, which is why many Cryx players are slightly underwhelmed by it, even though Gang Fighter on jacks is incredible. The problem is that all we can currently use is slow infantry that nobody wants to play: Bloodgorgers and Ogrun. This while everybody was assuming the theme would contain all pirates: Satyxis, Bloodgorgers and Ogrun, this way the fast Satyxis could at least serve as a front line while the slower medium based infantry formed the second wave. Sascha might have some real life things coming up which might mean that he won't play as much.
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Post by macdaddy on Sept 27, 2017 13:23:58 GMT
The fact that I have to tech incredibly specifically just for denny 1 ghost fleet is the problem. If you deny that her piloting ghost fleet does not demand a very specific toolset (and even then it is a really hard game to win for the opponent) then I do not know if there is any more argument to be had. The problem in cryx is that you guys were a pretty OK faction before themes and then you got denny 1 ghost fleet, and then you got dark host. Denny 1 ghost fleet is bad for the meta too. Just because she isn't as stupid good as coven does not mean she doesn't need a nerf.
The issue with skarre 1 IMO is mostly How her feat can affect her entire army if built properly there should probably be a limit on how many models can be affected by her feat.
Dark host is mostly the issue right now. The combination of the strenuous demands for ghost fleet AND the brutality of dark host is just abusing the meta right now.
Denny 1 and coven need changes. Dark host also needs changes. I am sure when people start abusing Dark industries that will need changes but i could be wrong about that one.
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