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Cid
Feb 1, 2018 1:04:49 GMT
Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 1:04:49 GMT
Lanz - That is 5 casters that can get their arm to 21, thank you very much. You're discounting 3 casters on EXTREMELY dubious grounds. Not every faction is capable (or should HAVE TO) muster an extremely powerful gunline (capable of removing ARM 19 Chosen under a BB aura). Jamming Arm 21 Chosen into the enemy is a perfectly viable strategy...just not into Cygnar. Also, even if it's JUST two casters (doubtful), that itself highlights that it is not a problem strictly with Anamag. Especially when those two casters are an unreleased caster who looks to be extremely strong in general, and a caster who is already top-tier in Legion. newsun - Juggernauts A) should probably be 13 points, tbh (and I will be bringing this up in the khador CID, if the opportunity arises B) are never catching more than 1 or 2 Chosen on the Alpha against a competent player and B) are not actually capable (statistically) of killing more than 2 ARM 21 Chosen, even with a full load of focus. Also, Juggernauts are the absolute top end for cheap melee hitting power, meaning most factions have inferior access to such tools.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 0:52:21 GMT
His feat going ffm would be game changing overpowered. You're talking an entire army wide +2str +2arm. Ravagers swinging at 15 dmg 17 arm per swing, blood trackers throwing at 13 with weapon master, death wolves at 16,13,14 and arm 16. And that's not even going out of tharn theme. Yeah it sounds awesome but you'd slaughter anything and everything as soon as it got into range. Your infantry alone could drop 2 heavies in a turn. Kromac 2 offers nothing to infantry. Kromac 1 at least had some infantry buffs and terrain gimics. Worst case move war path to kromy 2. Or keep the king of the tharn as 2 beast casters. I'm sorry, but...LOL. Just...lol. That's some serious Circle Stockholm Syndrome you've got going there, mate. When Legion can get Warspears to POW 19 spears with relative ease When Butcher1 makes Rockets POW 12 4d6 damage, or Iron Fangs P+S 13 WM When ANY fury caster can make two units a turn swing at +2 Strength When Battlelust is a cycleable upkeep that makes any unit weaponmasters When nearly every faction has at least one way to apply a +3 (or more) swing to at least two melee units, every single turn You're concerned about a FEAT that gives +2 strength (we can largely disregard +2 Armor - it's nice, but never going to be overpowered on Circle units) to models that are generally pillowfisted for their cost. +2 strength in control is barely a feat level effect. Signs and Portents does nearly as much for damage, but also applied to ranged attacks and to-hit rolls.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 0:38:33 GMT
Flat-out better is not hyperbole. It may be a (slight) exaggeration, in that they are not 'strictly' better than other cav, but it's also not wrong. They're much tougher than anything else, and do not pay much of a price in offense or mobility. What's hyperbole is the Legion players saying that 'this unit will be literally unplayable if they lose an Arm/1" reach/a point of strength. I've gone through this on the CID forums (where there was a point to it, as the devs were reading), I'm not getting into it again here (where it's pointless). The comparisons have been made, the games have been played, and the evidence is there. I don't know if you're forgetting or ignoring the fact that ARM 17 is a major threshold for shrugging off common POW/PS attacks. I saw lots of battle reports that went both way, and a lot of the times players suggested they were too strong was when they were at +4 ARM between the blightbringer and Anamag. A lot of the times players were reporting they were awful is when they were unbuffed, especially at ARM 16. I read this as a problem with Anamag, who just has too much buffs to hand out, rather than a problem with Chosen who appear to be fine in nearly all cases except anamag. Mmmmk. So there's a couple things to unpack here. 1. There are multiple casters who can get Chosen to Arm 21, not just Anamag. While I agree she may still be too strong, the ARM 21 issue is not just an Anamag problem. 2. Playing a unit in their unoptimized state is not a great test of their abilities. If I run Tharn with Kromac2, I'll generally be disappointed, even though they love one aspect of his kit, and it's not Rhyas1 I'm concerned about Chosen being run with. 3. I saw a LOT of battle reports where people complained about Chosen in games where they A) ran their chosen into the middle of the enemy army, where they eventually died after sucking up a bunch of attacks OR B) died after having one or more heavies committed to them, often with buffs. To be fair, I also saw some reports where people were expecting charging Trenchers to kill buffed chosen (which is also silly) but I saw a lot of cases where Legion players had just...completely unrealistic expectations for the survivability of Chosen.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 0:32:30 GMT
Kromy would need to get rid of something to become an infantry caster. And war path doesn't really make sense in an infantry list. Could get rid of wild aggression I guess but that makes more sense to me than war path. We have enough beast casters. If kromy2 gets buffed to be an even better beast caster than why even bother with kromy 1 at all? Kromac2's feat going to FFM would make him a better infantry caster, too. Tharn would LOVE a damage buff/armor buff, and there's not reason that awakened spirit couldn't be swapped to a more general support spell, either. Kromac1 is a very well designed beast caster, and should remain as such. Kromac2 can be easily redesigned into a more open/combined arms caster. I don't see a problem here.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 0:24:02 GMT
paradox - he doesn't compare favorably with other 'beast' casters like Butcher, Barny2, etc. He's very killable, and you have to be careful about how you commit him. Unlike a caster like Thagrosh2 (who is...comparable...in terms of tankiness) he doesn't have a splashy BG efficiency spell like manifest destiny. He either needs to be more able to contribute personally without being at risk of dying, and/or he needs to improve his army support abilities. Personally, I think you could ditch the additional beastiness in combat if you swapped Awakened spirit for a better spell, and made the change to the feat to target 'models.' Then he could feasibly play in CoTW, Bones, or Devhost, which would give him a lot of flexibility in list-building. forthehorde - Don't you dare touch warpath. That's one of the last pieces of out-of-activation movement tech that Circle has. What Kromac1 needs is either a damage buff, or something that gives him more survivability into guns. One of those weaknesses is fine, both make him hard to slot into a pairing (as your offlist then has to handle both, and both are GENERALLY a problem for Circle lists). Not gonna lie, the thought of the feat affecting FFM does give me some wood. And not too nuts either. Yeah, it mostly goes to his flexibility in list building...which incidentally makes him more powerful, but also just opens up more interesting builds to test with him. I'm always in favor with anything that takes a caster away from a monobuild (though I acknowledge that this design is integral to some - read, synergy - casters).
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Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 0:13:19 GMT
paradox - he doesn't compare favorably with other 'beast' casters like Butcher, Barny2, etc. He's very killable, and you have to be careful about how you commit him. Unlike a caster like Thagrosh2 (who is...comparable...in terms of tankiness) he doesn't have a splashy BG efficiency spell like manifest destiny. He either needs to be more able to contribute personally without being at risk of dying, and/or he needs to improve his army support abilities. Personally, I think you could ditch the additional beastiness in combat if you swapped Awakened spirit for a better spell, and made the change to the feat to target 'models.' Then he could feasibly play in CoTW, Bones, or Devhost, which would give him a lot of flexibility in list-building. forthehorde - Don't you dare touch warpath. That's one of the last pieces of out-of-activation movement tech that Circle has. What Kromac1 could use is either a damage buff, or something that gives him more survivability into guns. One of those weaknesses is fine, both make him hard to slot into a pairing (as your offlist then has to handle both, and both are GENERALLY a problem for Circle lists). Overall, he's more of an 'okay' caster with meta issues than one that absolutely needs a buff, IMO.
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Cid
Feb 1, 2018 0:07:22 GMT
Post by oncomingstorm on Feb 1, 2018 0:07:22 GMT
There’s plenty of ways to buff chosen in faction. A solid stable of casters that can deliver them and it Buff Damage. The key is, they are flat betterthan other comparable Cav. They just have too much going on at once. Hyperbole doesn't help your argument. They don't have ranged attacks, and they don't have the same threat range, and they don't have access to many real threat range extenders aside from one warlock who does nothing else for them. This is the kind of bias that creates problems in CID. Making bold baseless statements like 'flat out better than X' with no data helps no one. Flat-out better is not hyperbole. It may be a (slight) exaggeration, in that they are not 'strictly' better than other cav, but it's also not wrong. They're much tougher than anything else, and do not pay much of a price in offense or mobility. What's hyperbole is the Legion players saying that 'this unit will be literally unplayable if they lose an Arm/1" reach/a point of strength. I've gone through this on the CID forums (where there was a point to it, as the devs were reading), I'm not getting into it again here (where it's pointless). The comparisons have been made, the games have been played, and the evidence is there.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 22:26:09 GMT
Welp, I feel stupid. I'll show myself out. I really should remember the Wind Wall one at the very least, given how much Una2 I play Haha no worries. It's a good example of the problem we have with this list. No matter what cool tech you dream up to try and counter this matchup, nemo has an answer for it and continues to ask harder questions of his own. Yuuuup, I hear you. I'm glad to be able to just windmill slam Krueger2 into him, but when I played Ret...that was a painful matchup.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 22:18:40 GMT
Wind wall is completely within 3", so an AA can never be protected by it. Storm striders are battle engines and can't be made stationary. Welp, I feel stupid. I'll show myself out. I really should remember the Wind Wall one at the very least, given how much Una2 I play
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 21:55:17 GMT
The big problem with running any gargantuan into the list, even if you have shield guards, is that Gargantuans are really easy to stall. Drop a firefly in front of a Garg, and it's going to be really difficult to clear it without obstructing the Garg's path forwards. Meanwhile, each turn the Garg (even without Dynamo) takes 4 boosted POW 17s from storm striders, while Dynamo blows something off the board each turn, provided it's not also shield guarded.
Have any of you tried running Lylyth3 with an Archangel? that seems like it would get around many of the issues. Lylyth is tough enough that she doesn't just die to E-leaps with escort up, she can escort/windwall the AA while it blows Dynamo off the board to keep it safe from Storm Striders, then send it into the Storm Striders (since it can't be pushed). Feat to stationary the storm striders if you can't get on Nemo3, and it seems like a reasonable matchup to me. Run Ravagores and Teraphs as necessary to ensure you can one-round Dynamo at range, and the matchup seems...manageable.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 19:53:00 GMT
I have very mixed feelings about the Tharn CID, having seen the relatively small size of the Legion CID. On the one hand, I've been looking forward to Circle getting a CID for a very long time, on the other...I'm concerned that we'll see a tiny update that won't make a significant dent in our internal balance.
That being said, I'm hoping to see the following changes/additions to casters, in relative order of priority:
Iona the Unseen: I hope she does something to support Tharn...a real infantry support warlock would be nice. Delivery + a damage buff would be the absolute minimum I'd hope to see, and ideally I'd like to see her have some kind of 'blood magic' special rules. Cannibal magic would be way to strong on a caster, but the ability to spend corpses to turn on some kind of aura, blood boon, attack types...I can think of lots of ways to make her interesting.
Kromac2: I love the guy's model, but he feels very lackluster. He doesn't really do anything particularly unique, even in Circle. I would love to see the following changes: - Something that makes him more of a beast in combat. Along the lines of what we're seeing with Thags2, Barny2, etc. - Feat goes to either 'models' or just 'living models'. Tharn love armor buffs, damage buffs, and Carnage...and it would be damn nice for the Tharn King to want to run Tharn
Morvahna1: Currently her biggest issues are A) getting incidentally hated out of the meta by RFP tech and B) Regrowth is a bad upkeep for the (huge) cost. I suggest: - Regrowth requires recurred models to sacrifice movement OR action. prevents revenant pirate shenanigans, but allows for you to get actual use out of the spell. -
Morvahna2: A victim of the dreaded 'triple nerf and then nerf it again to be safe' style of balance, Morvahna2's tricks just...no longer do anything particularly compelling as opposed to other casters. She may be revitalized by the Tharn theme getting better, but I think she still needs work: - Swap Carnivore for a spell that does not RFP, or that RFPs in a manner that is synergistic with heart eater. - Swap Censure for Repudiate - Consider allowing her to return Solos with the feat. This would bring back some of Morv2's old tricks, without putting her as far above the curve as she was in Mk2.
Wishlist - Kaya1: She's no longer a battlebox caster, and it's about time PP took a serious look at this caster, who has been decidedly meh, and competitively unseen, since the start of Mk2. I think that she should gain: - Stealth (allows her to put occultation on something else) - Spirit Door to cost 2 - Add the following to her feat: Warbeasts in her battlegroup do not frenzy next turn.
These changes will allow her to play a more reliable hit and run game. The change to the feat lets her mitigate primal, something no other caster in Circle can do. Still a warlock that demands finesse, as she still lacks a damage buff, (though the feat lets her hand out a LOT of primal) but I think this would give her more of a niche.
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Cid
Jan 31, 2018 16:01:01 GMT
Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 16:01:01 GMT
Maybe. He never did achieve the kind of oppressive winrate I associate with casters that really do need a nerf, though. And while his feat was a timewalk, the counters and workarounds to it were numerous enough that I'm not convinced he actually needed to be changed. He's definitely still a strong caster, I just have a hard time with how dang quickly he got nerfed (despite not putting up the kinds of results other casters have) while casters like Nemo3, Denny1, etc take months of years to get seen to. And don't even get me started on Una2. She 100% needed a nerf, but the speed at which the nerf hit was unprecedented (I don't think she'd even been fully released.) I blame bad playtesting more than anything else for that one, though... So, you complain against Choosen but are not sure about Wurmwood/Haley1/Ossyan nerfs? Wow. Seriously, Ossyan was attrition monster, Haley1 screwed Trolls hard and Wurmwood needed exact counters many factions didn't have at all. Also you don't mention he had pre-nerf sticks. For Legion he was merely hard, I don't know what Trolls or Skorne did against him back then. I complain about Chosen because they are objectively and mathematically superior to other (played) heavy cavalry, and - not being a caster, and thus not having a ton of moving parts - I can be reasonably confident that they're over the top. Haley1 was never, ever a meta relevant caster in Mk3. Temporal barrier was sufficiently nerfed by the removal of 'speed penalty means no charges.' Her nerf 100% came out of left field. Ossyan was also NEVER a real problem. He was a gunline caster that anti-gunline tech actually worked against (shocking, I know.) He had no answer to cloud walls, stealth, or LOS-blocking terrain. The only even mildly problematic interaction was with MHSF, and that still had in-game counters (not just list-building counters like, say, Nemo3). I'll concede that he wasn't fun to play against on an empty table (and frankly, I personally dislike gunline casters period), but he certainly would not have been a problem in SR2017. Even with deadeye, he's nowhere near on the level of Nemo3. Wurmwood always had a number of hard counters, which admittedly not every faction had access to. His fear also had many soft counters. Even at the 'height' of complaining about him, (WTC 2016), he was never putting up winrates that were much better that 50%. At the time, I was onboard with nerfs, in retrospect I'm less sure. As for what Trolls and Skorne did...Trolls had a ton of problems until their CID came through, and the nerf was pre-Great Skorne Errata, so Skorne was functionally a non-faction...though I suspect their answer to Wurmwood would be the same as their answer to Coven/virtually everything else - more Ferox. Sentry Stone nerf was needed, and I don't believe I mentioned it. All three nerfs happened a little over 4 months into the release of Mk3. None of the casters were putting up ridiculous winrates (or sweeping Cons) though Wurmwood and Ossyan were certainly meta-relevant (something Ret hasn't had since, incidentally). By contrast, Haley2 made it through the transition to Mk3 as a ball-busting control caster, and took a full year to eat a nerf. Denny1 has been oppressive since Mk1. Ghost fleet was sweeping cons since January 2017, and didn't get nerfed until very recently, even after putting up 70% winrates at the WTC. And so on. By contrast to these changes, the nerfs of Haley1, Ossyan, and to a lesser extent Wurmwood were reactive and(IMO) likely undertested.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 15:36:06 GMT
I think most of the models that were in CID were in a good place at the end of the cycle (still think Chosen are too strong, but that's beside the point). I highly doubt that they'll buff models that weren't in the CID at all, without any external testing. That's how you end up with Una2. Lol, whut? You don't get Una2 by droping cost of unused models or sensibly buffing them. PP does that from time to time, not everything goes through CiD. And lets be brutally honest - CiD is more useless more models and themes it involves. So yeah, say Soldier and Protector price will drop to 8 points. I guarantee it won't change anything meta-wise other than you'll see them on the table. Say - Legionaires will cost 13 points. Still not Una2... Or maybe our artillery (yes, we have one, no, I didn't see it outside my two unpacked blisters I bought in bargain bin) will get AoE 4". Maybe you'll see them in CotD list (or not)? No, insufficient playtesting is what gets you Una2.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 10:28:07 GMT
I was thinking this yesterday... that some models may see changes a la Cryx, without going through CiD. Yes. Hellmouth will get a nerf. ARM16 or Cmd5/RNG1 or spawned tentacle doesn't activate. Frankly, if so, good. The fact that a portion of legion is underpowered is no justification for leaving overpowered models as they are.
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jan 31, 2018 1:45:53 GMT
Part of me wonders if there'll be other changes that didn't go through CiD included (much like the Coven nerf) when the rules changes go live, or if it was a smaller CiD due to a new faction, or just a new direction they wanted to go for. Time will tell I suppose, but I wouldn't read into it too much just yet. Coven got nerfed, the Corrupter was dropped to 14 instead of 15, Kharbydis got untested changes, Bloodgorgers got an untested MAT buff and the sea witch saw a CMD nerf. That's just what I could pick out comparing the January update notes to the week 3 Black Fleet rules related to changing existing models. It's premature to assume everything we saw in the CID is all the changes that are going to happen, and that everything will remain as it was in the final week of testing. I think most of the models that were in CID were in a good place at the end of the cycle (still think Chosen are too strong, but that's beside the point). I highly doubt that they'll buff models that weren't in the CID at all, without any external testing. That's how you end up with Una2.
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