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Post by dragash on Sept 16, 2018 23:47:34 GMT
Which warcasters or warlocks do you think have the best design? By 'best designed', I mean ones where their spells, abilities and feat work together well, and which fulfil their intended fluff/concept.
By the same measure, which warlocks/warcasters do you think are the worst designed? Ones with a ton of Skornergy or which, for whatever reason, just don't work as they should.
(Hope this isn't too weird a question. I was inspired by a post I read a while back, talking about some Legion casters, and I thought it would make for an interesting discussion.)
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doopsie
Junior Strategist
Posts: 341 
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Post by doopsie on Sept 17, 2018 1:34:40 GMT
For the factions I play:
Grymkin - Best: Heretic
-Overall, I feel this guy is a fantastic "warped mirror" of Protectorate casters, which he should be fluff-wise. Protectorate priests say power comes from Menoth, Heretic got cast to basically hell for saying humans have the power within them. Almost every spell or ability he has can also be found on a Protectorate Caster (except Fury, I think), which makes this connection really solid.
Grymkin - Worst: Wanderer
-To be honest, I love the IDEA of this guy. But he just doesn't WORK (at least not for me). All he's got going for him is Star-Crossed, which is super-nice, but...that's it. Low FURY (seriously, only Fury 6 in the faction),no real movement shenanigans for his army (which I would have expected from him), no damage buffs, nothing. Overall, he's just...lacking. One of the guys in my meta put it best when he said "If I see Wanderer, I'm a lot less worried about playing Grymkin."
Protectorate - Best: Harbinger
-She is Menoth's will manifested. Would I like her to personally threaten more a-la Barny2, yes. But Menoth never struck me as a god to get personally involved, preferring to work through others, and that's how Harby feels. Her personal threat is...ok, but she decides who lives and who dies. She strips you of your heathen magic, and condemns you for fighting against her. She FEELS like a god is stepping into the fight to tip the scales.
Protectorate - Worst: Reznik2?
-this was hard, as I really like the Protectorate casters, and tend to feel they represent an idea fairly well. That said, Reznik2 is my choice. I just can't tell what he wants. He's got Curse saying "put me up front and take jacks," but he's too squishy and on a huge base to be in front. He's also got Boundless Charge saying "take jacks," but Death March says "take units." His feat and Spellpiercer make me want to shoot, but generally Protectorate shooting ranges from mediocre and worse.
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Post by mcdermott on Sept 17, 2018 1:48:15 GMT
Khador - Best: Irusk2
-Overall he's honestly probably the best infantry caster in the game. Damage buff, battlefield control with feat and artifice, resilience boost with tough, mobility boost with tactician. You're going to be hard pressed to find a caster who brings as much to an infantry heavy list as I2
Khador - Worst: Vlad3*
-Vlad3 gets worst PRIMARILY because there's no horselord theme yet. It worked when you could mix the outriders and gun carriage and uhlans and drakhuns together. Without the ability to mix what you get is cav that doesn't take good advantage of his feat (due to single attacks, or the lance rule) and warjacks that could be solid under feat but get limited to no support from his spell list. Vlad needs either a new unit or a potent theme that lets him do more mix and matching.
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Post by thimnwitt on Sept 17, 2018 2:15:20 GMT
Mercs
Best
This is a really hard one for me to pick. I'm going to have to go with Ossrum. He seems to have the best tool box available in Mercs, and that support is what let's Mercs function. Honorable mention is Damiano for the same reasons.
Worst
Constance Blaze. Ooof. She wouldn't be so bad if she had a theme or more units that are Morrowan. As it stands, she lacks the things that would make you want to take her.
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Post by deathbymelancholy on Sept 17, 2018 2:16:37 GMT
Retribution Kaelyssa and Garryth.
Kaelyssa is a Strike Force leader and assassin and that's just what she does, really well in the right list that takes advantage of her strengths.
Garryth is also supposed to be a killer, but more of street fighting knifer in the dark. His kit is still all over the place, and although he can kill someone if he gets in there he's not that great at "getting in there" and has no way to get back into "the all-concealing shadows" to make him a hit and run knife fighter. Honestly, I played a ton of Grayle back in mkii and found him to be much more what I wanted in Garryth.
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Post by sand20go on Sept 17, 2018 3:37:21 GMT
Khador - Best: Irusk2 -Overall he's honestly probably the best infantry caster in the game. Damage buff, battlefield control with feat and artifice, resilience boost with tough, mobility boost with tactician. You're going to be hard pressed to find a caster who brings as much to an infantry heavy list as I2 Khador - Worst: Vlad3* -Vlad3 gets worst PRIMARILY because there's no horselord theme yet. It worked when you could mix the outriders and gun carriage and uhlans and drakhuns together. Without the ability to mix what you get is cav that doesn't take good advantage of his feat (due to single attacks, or the lance rule) and warjacks that could be solid under feat but get limited to no support from his spell list. Vlad needs either a new unit or a potent theme that lets him do more mix and matching. No Doubt but I think that Butcher 2 gives Vlad3 a run for his money. You COULD build something truly bizzare - but I think competitive if you had the models - going largely for an assissination run. I have no idea whether this would work - but it would be potentially fun to play...... conflictchamber.com/#c3201b_-0TbWdZkW8p8pl5l3l3867QgdkQkQKhador Army - 75 / 75 points [Theme] Armored Corps [Vladimir 3] Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey [+27] - Grolar [18] - Juggernaut [13] Man-O-War Drakhun [9] Man-O-War Drakhun [9] Man-O-War Kovnik [0(4)] Man-O-War Suppression Tanker [0(6)] Man-O-War Suppression Tanker [0(6)] Battle Mechaniks (min) [3] Man-O-War Shocktroopers (max) [16] - Man-O-War Shocktrooper Officer [4] Man-O-War Siege Chariot [15] Man-O-War Siege Chariot [15] |
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skormedlover87
Junior Strategist
Desperately searching for days off to game...
Posts: 517
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Post by skormedlover87 on Sept 17, 2018 4:08:01 GMT
Skorne
Best: Imo, probably Rasheth. Fatty sits where you plop him and controls the whole battle. Kill off that solo, murder that clump of duders, debuff that heavy. Even kill his own to get a necessary buff off. Does lots of work but never gets his hands dirty.
Worst?: This is up for discussion cause we've got a few. Mordikaar is a holdover from MK2 that got shined up a bit for the new edition, but then screwed by theme forces. Xekaar is hilarious hot garbage whose only redeeming feature is his character beast.
But I think the real cake taker is Makeda3. In mk2 she was one of the smoothest running, best designed casters in the game. The transition put her in the ground. No longer can she support and then retreat to safety because of the change to Moliks animus. No longer can she or her beasts bounce off things because of the change to puissance. What was once an ellegant lady is now a rusty piece of scrap that has too many problems to function.
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Post by borderprince on Sept 17, 2018 5:10:54 GMT
Khador:
Best - really hard to choose here. Butcher3 is a brutal maniac who is actually capable of wiping out whole swathes of the opposing forces, unlike his previous incarnations (but with minus points for (partially) recovering from insanity thanks to acquiring pets. PP will be starting to tell us that Friendship is Magic next). Irusk2 is almost the platonic ideal of an infantry caster.
Worst - Zerkova2. Has one good trick, which is feat-enabled spell assassination. But it's hard not to telegraph it in advance, so it can be prevented quite easily once you've seen it. Other than that she struggle with themes (like Vlad3). She boosts spell-casting in a faction whose spell casting is limited mainly to Ice Cages or POW12 sprays, on fairly flimsy models, in a theme which doesn't really help deliver them and where there are too many bad match-ups. Sacrificial Lamb seems nice until you realise she provides nothing else for Khador jacks and Banishing Ward struggles to find a purpose in her main theme (you can't cast in on Doomreavers, who already have the benefit; Greylord Outriders can take it, but they're also usually the best target for Telgesh Mark in her theme; Greylord Ternion are only 3 models).
In terms of feeling like the fluff, her previous incarnation is just the better spell-caster, with a more flexible spell list.
Dishonourable mentions to both Vlad3 and Butcher2, as noted. But I really like the 'pragmatic use of dark magic' part of Khador, so I'm more disappointed in Zerkova2 than in Vlad3 (like other Vlads, but on a horse!). Butcher2 was never going to work for me as soon as I saw Arcane Dementia - too unreliable. But he's meant to be absolutely insane in the fluff at that point, so unreliable is sort of a good representation of that?
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Post by hocestbellum on Sept 17, 2018 8:54:18 GMT
I'd argue that Butcher2 has the best design in the game from the perspective of 'fulfill intended fluff/concept'. He's an unstable psychopathic lunatic, and every rule he has screams that. He has random focus (unless he kills enough), he can daisy-chain entire units, conferred rage is great, his feat is doubling down on murder. Everything he does is about killing.
Sure, none of these things make him a tournament-competitive caster, but he's 100% the embodiment of his concept.
Worst in Khador... Harkevich. His abilities fit the fluff nicely, but the limitations of the faction itself mean that his abilities are only ever trying to shore up weaknesses, rather than enhancing strengths. (Outside of his feat)
A caster designed around shooting jacks in a RAT4 faction with no accuracy boost is a bit of a bunk straight away. Mobility is great, but maybe not on a focus 6 jack caster with no in-built efficiency boosters. His Field Marshal is interesting, but is actually pretty limited in terms of in-game application (again, it seems to be aimed for a shoot-and-scoot style mainly). So he basically has a great feat and one somewhat useful spell.
Worst direct fluff-to-model has to be Oleg/Viktor Strakhov (1), where the fluff and the rules don't agree on what his actual name is!
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Post by Azahul on Sept 17, 2018 9:31:54 GMT
On the Minion front, there aren't very many standouts that I feel embody their concepts. Midas needs Bone Grinders to be a bit more flavoursome instead of just cheap sometimes infantry, Arkadius is amazing but his needle is the only part of him that screams mad scientist to me, and Carver is a strangely Warbeast focussed 'lock for the would-be unifier of his people. I'd probably go with Calaban for best designed, he's got a very unique feel.
Worst is easy. Sturm and Drang. They're actually a good Warlock that I've had competitive success with, but they completely fail to embody their concept. The idea of two heads with unique spells and field marshals is awesome. The implementation, especially with Will Work For Food stripping Drang's Field Marshal, is lacking. The correct play is almost always to be playing Sturm. All Drang offers is situational Pathfinder and a Mat buff that Sturm can replicate, with effort admittedly. But if the central design is "Sturm protects the army and delivers it and then Drang beats face" then Drang really needs, at minimum, a threat extension. You hardly ever swap to Drang when you commit because you almost always need Sturm to get into combat in the first place. And without a damage buff Drang's face beating sure leaves something to be desired.
One saving grace for Drang is that the Soul Slave can give him a TK if necessary, so I probably swap to him one in every five or six games. Still feels like an appalling squandering of their phenomenal concept.
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Deller
Junior Strategist
I’m on a Boat
Posts: 605
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Post by Deller on Sept 17, 2018 9:49:06 GMT
In Cryx:
Best: Wraith Witch Deneghra
An assassin out to prove herself that strikes from the shadows. She cripples & Distracts your Forces from afar using Arc Nodes to camaflague her whereabouts as she & her team of assassins stalk closer to her target. Once in range she pounces, murders her prey, and than vanishes back into the shadows. Deneghra1 plays too passively compared to how Deneghra acts in the fluff. In the fluff Deneghra bounces around the battlefield actively murdering her prey in Melee, relishing the feeling of ending her target’s life with her own hands. Deneghra3’s rules & mount make no sense for the girl who’s all about Stealth. But Deneghra2. Deneghra2 plays exactly how her fluff makes her sound.
Wraith Walker, Shadow Step, and her Feat represent her disappearing act.
Hellmouth & Venom are her distraction spells, designed to confuse the enemy, while also causing maximum suffering, so they misread her position on the battlefield.
Breath Stealer & Curse of Shadows are her debuffs that weaken the enemy, and in the case of Curse, allow her better avenues to her Assassination target.
Damnation represents her goal. At her core Deneghra is an assassin. While she may take pleasure in murdering the enemy troops, her objective in any given battle is to assassinate someone within the enemy ranks. By the time in the fluff Deneghra has reached her 2nd incarnation, she is no longer willing to play with her food. Playing with her food got her cut in half. Even if she may enjoy each kill less when she doesn’t get to personally stab her prey, Deneghra2 is more efficent in death. Damnation is that goal, you, damned target, I have a very special set of skills. I will find you, and I will kill you. I would prefer to extinguish your life myself, but if I have to send Nightmare in to do it, so be it.
On the table, her kit fits her character and comes together wonderfully. While her style is unorthodox for Cryx, every Spell & ability on her card comes together amazingly giving Deneghra all the tools she needs to pull off an Assassination. She has an incredible toolbox available to her that allow her to assassinate nearly any caster in the game provided you’re able to manufacture a vector onto their Warcaster.
Worst: Lich Lord Venethrax
We have the Lich Lord of Draconic lore, the Dragon Slayer, the powerhouse that fought an Iron Kingdoms dragon to a draw 1v1. How is this combat monster represented in game. He’s a back line Warjack support caster with some anti-spell tech, a poor denial feat, and a debuff. Literally nothing about this guy’s lore is present in his game design. His rules look like they belong to a Mortenebra dabbling in occult experiments. Nothing about this guy screams obsessive dragon hunter. This character’s game design should be more like a Butcher3, Stryker2, or Abby2 either being a super solo monster or providing buffs when he assists his army killing. The optimal way to play him should not be hiding away in the backline like a coward. The only Spell on his Spell list that makes sense for his character is Deadweight. Everything else needs to go.
His debuff should be Disintegration, not Mortality. He’s trying to kill you himself but should you survive, his army can pick up the slack against your weakened state.
His signature jack is the Seether, yet his FM does nothing for it. His FM should synergize with the Seether, something like Overtake, which would turn Seethers into aggressive Pac-Manning monsters of death. It’s also thematic since on top of being the Seether Guy, Venethrax is the Bloodgorger Guy.
Lamentation? This isn’t Goreshade or Scaverous, Give this man Hellbound. Let’s him be aggressive and up in the Frey, while reducing what can get into Melee with him.
Give Mortenebra her Terminal Velocity back. If this guy is gunna buff jacks, he’s also gunna buff himself. Give this man Escort instead. This way when he goes in with his jacks he’s a little bit sturdier.
P+S 15 on his Dragon Slaying sword, really? Even Asphyxious3 has P+S 16, and that guy leads from the backline. You’re telling me the frontline monster is weaker than Asphyxious? That’s a load of Bull. Pow 16 minimum, but it should probably be 17.
Since we have 2 Nukes already in Deadweight & Disintegration, Blood Rain can go goodbye. Add something that helps his troops help him, like how he use to have Soul Harvester, or a buff that Synergizes best with the Blighted Trolls. The Dragon Slayer theme of old’s unit of choice were the Bloodgorgers, so they should be the archetype with the best Synergy with Venethrax. A buff along the lines of Silence of Death so Bloodgorgers don’t get hosed by Tough and Marauders get a STR buff for their thrown weapons, Scavenger’s Blessing since it synergizes so well with Marauders and Gorgers appreciate Pathfinder, or Solid Ground so a Unit away from Jussika can have good tough.
Venethrax’s current kit not only doesn’t fit his character, but it doesn’t really mesh together at all. His Field Marshal & Terminal Velocity are Force multipliers that want him to be spamming Melee Warjacks, but he has to pay wasted points on focus efficent heavy of the faction since Seethers already Counter Charge. He has no way to actually fuel a large battlegroup, and he wants Focus hungry Melee jacks. His other spells don’t make a lot of sense either. Lamentation is just kinda there, and has no Synergy whatsoever with the rest of his kit. Mortality is amazing, until you realize that Casting it means either camp zero to cast a Terminal Velocity, or not casting it. So now the spell you’ve built around you can’t cast. Or you can choose to build around having Mortality instead, but in that case his Field Marshal is only meh, and TV is likely uncastable. If you’re in the TV plan, you’ll never have a chance to cast either of your nuke spells. On the Mortality plan you’ll maybe cast a Deadweight. Blood Rain will likely never get cast outside of trying to drift corrosion onto things turn 1. His current kit is jut completely disjointed & unfluffy. It makes me sad because Venethrax is one of my favorite characters.
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Post by droopingpuppy on Sept 17, 2018 11:08:56 GMT
Cygnar:
Best - Major Prime Victoria Haley. Her unique design is interesting. And her kit is works well with herself and her faction as well.
Worst - Constance Blaze. Do you really expect anyone else? I suppose you didn't. She is a total crisis, that is an 'infantry caster' that does nothing to do with infantry actually, try to supports melee but on the faction with weak melee support(Cygnar), and is simply inferior to existing melee buffer casters option(both Cygnar and Mercenary). She is even worse than her MKII incarnation, and now she lose the synergy with Mercenary melee units such as Privateer groups that makes her at least playable in MKII. The trash on the cake is, she is not even a good caster against undead.
She is not even a model that has its niche, and she is more like a 8~10pt solo model(consider her damage box and FOCUS 6, of course) that uses a precious warcaster slot, which is unacceptable in the real games. Picking her means you are simply forfeit your warcaster slot and taunt your opponent that you can beat him without a warcaster/warlock, really.
Even the relation with Jakes2 and Jakes1 - that the presence of Jakes1 removes the reason to pick Jakes1 because her solo version has the superior spell and her warcaster version is lacking many things, not to mention about superior melee buffer caster that also work as the assassin of their own - is quite better than that. At least Jakes2 is a playable caster, and she is only inferior to the others(and annoying to play). But Blaize is not even able to clings her level.
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Post by ForEver_Blight on Sept 17, 2018 17:34:20 GMT
Best Legion in terms of holistic design: Thagrosh 1
Gold Standard.
Defensive spell that can cover an entire army.
Big high power nuke
Personal mobility surprise spell
Damage buff
Attrition loss reset feat
Scary personal melee presence
Utility Ranged attack
Fury efficiency abilities
Damage mitigation bubble
Like A Boss
Worst: Vayl 1
She seems like a wannabe spell slinger but has way more in terms of buffs. Her best buff then has a really bad downside that would be fixed if she herself could move under her feat. So she just seems entirely disjointed. She has a ton of rules but none of them stack to be really useful to get one cohesive idea to an end goal.
Guided and spellbound. Great! I can arcnode things where ever I want. What can I cast? 1 good nuke spell that's costly and has a short range and small AoE. Malice would have to hit a fully loaded Bronzeback or Mauler to be invoke a "wow, that's good" feeling. Or full camp Harby... If only.
Dark Sentinel, snow wreathed and talon. Really fancy defensive tech. DS can do a lot to hurt a model getting to close. Concealment isn't something to argue with. Talon is...odd. I think often it's just better to transfer all of the damage, but it's situational. 15/14 stat line. Not the worst. Ok, so she's really cagey and easy to protect. Fury 8 long distance, arc nodes. Yeah she's a waaaaay back kind of caster. Incite is 9"... Either you make use of the great cagey gameplay or you throw caution to the wind and hope to survive. ( I know, incite on Vayl in late game. It's not like mid to front line Feora 3 strategy)
Leash, kinda-sorta better slipsteam. Yes please.
Frost field, Mat fixing isn't bad.
Feat. Everybody but me take a walk. Massive theoretical uses. Game table it is so frustrating to use because it's after everything has activated. It's not a threat extension like Bradigus. It's not the attack capable Thagrosh 2 feat. So it seems like a walk back to safety or up to jam. Neither actually get Work done. So yes, the move is cool. But compared to other feats that can actually produce immediate effect on the attrition or scenario game, it falls a bit short.
Fury 8; so much resources what can I do with them all? Again, hoarfrost is the best thing to cast and takes up enough fury in one instance to make you worry about your camp. Slipstream is the only animi you are going to reliably cast and get work out of. Spiny might be in there just to not be threatened by HE blast damage.
So, good combined arm's shell. But devotes a lot to spell casting and only one good, not-really-spamable, spell. Powerful sounding feat that you feel bad for wasting turn 1 to devour board space but is probably the best use of it. But certain changes could swing her well into different roles instead of a middle ground of "why not play [blah] that does it better"
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Post by dragash on Sept 17, 2018 18:13:33 GMT
Thanks for all the replies so far, guys. Really interesting to hear all your thoughts on this.
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Post by challenger on Sept 18, 2018 4:47:30 GMT
Grymkins best to me is dreamer. Just everything she does is very very consistent with her fluff of a dreamer who is influencing reality with her dreams.
Shes got future sight and manifest destiny both allowing her dreams to essentially impose on reality. She pops dream creatures into play. She makes people fall asleepxwith her trump and gun etc. She influences reality with mirsge and abyssal
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