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Post by oncomingstorm on May 11, 2017 3:33:25 GMT
The funny thing is, I feel like Ret jacks DO by and large fit what I'd like to see from Jacks. I feel like it's mostly (almost exclusively, tbh) Khador jacks which are undercosted, and mostly (though not exclusively) Troll, Legion, and Circle beasts which are overcosted. Well isn't that a bit one sided? Khador player here, to be fully transparent. I'll give you my not-so-humble opinion on all non-character 'jacks, sorted from cheapest to most expensive and color coded from best ( blue) to worse ( red): - Mad Dog: never played; went from "absolute spam" to "nerfed to oblivion"; I sure am happy I didn't purchase a dozen of them; no idea how to fix them.
- Berserker: never played; same thing as the Mad Dog; maybe a hint the nerf bat should be applied carefully?
- Marauder: to be properly balanced, it should cost +1 pts; this means you could no longer field 10 of them; problem fixed.
- Rager: should be -1 pts; it would become a better bargain, but it's a really weak 'jack by itself; at least it would be a better point filler.
- Juggernaut: popular, but probably balanced; should stay right where it is, it's basically the measuring stick of the entire faction.
- Kodiak: many lists will take anywhere from 1 to 3 to shield the 'caster from harm; probably a hint it's fine as well.
- Devastator: fine as is.
- Destroyer: should either have a small cost reduction, or some RAT fixing of some kind.
- Demolisher: never played; should have a small cost reduction or something
- Decimator: never played; too expensive and bad RAT
- Grolar: scarcely played, and when it is, count it as a pseudo character warjack; overcosted.
- Spriggan: speaking of overcosted, daaaamn; if it sees any play it's only because in-theme armies need something to remove Stealth.
- Conquest/Victor: I guess they're mostly fine? They are clearly the warjacks least affected by Power Up
So there it is, my honest assessment of how to fix it as far as Khador is concerned. Do that and we'll see a lot less Marauder spam. Edit: Now, if people want to have good data driven discussion, instead of theorycraft, just look at the latest tournament results and find me a *single* 'jack spam list in there in the last month. The only one managing to top an event dates back to march 4th, and most of the rest is Legion of Steel (infantry) and Winter Guard Kommand (i.e. rocketspam). The only Karchev lists in the top is these two, with 7 warjacks and a complement of Winter Guard models: www.discountgamesinc.com/tournaments/players/view/1383, www.discountgamesinc.com/tournaments/players/view/1366Nerf warjacks too hard, and Khador has two useless warcasters, Harkevitch and Karchev, to go back harvesting dust. There is no such thing as "10 Marauders" topping competitive events. Stop panicking. It's not even remotely one-sided. Show me another faction that has produced a problematic warjack spam list, and I'll be right on board with some nerfs for them. Amon in Menoth and Vyros2 in Ret might come close to the line, I'll admit, but IMO they don't quite cross it. Ranking the Khador warjacks means very little. I did not say that all, most, or even a majority of Khador warjacks are undercosted - I said that the majority of undercosted and problematic warjacks are currently in Khador. If you have 12 Warjacks, and 2 or 3 of them are amazing, it does not matter (from an inter-faction balance standpoint) if the other 9 or 10 are absolute trash, because they aren't the ones which will see play. Particularly in a faction like Khador, where most of their jacks are variations on the same theme and fill very similar design space. I don't know a great deal about the Khador warjacks I don't see regularly, so I will assume that you know what you're talking about. If your assessment is correct, those Warjacks should also go through CID and become better, just as the worst offenders should become worse. I don't even remotely condone what PP did to Mad Dogs in the errata, and I sincerely hope they become playable again at some point (just not, y'know, 14 of them.) The reason I'm contrasting Khador and Circle/Legion is that those factions have few to no heavy beasts which should not see at least a modest decrease in points cost. For circle, I would say that the Shadowhorn, Loki, and Megalith are fine as is, and possibly the pureblood as well (though I could see him at 16 points.) Every other heavy beast should drop 1-2 points, and/or see some sort of rework to give it an actual role (ie. Wold Guardian.) In contrast, Khador has a few undercosted and spammable jacks, a few decent jacks, and a few crap jacks (from what you say.) fixing the outliers in both factions, so that they have a reasonable set of 'balanced' options is more important than fixing a faction which has a reasonable number of decent jacks. As a final point, it is my opinion that Harkevich, as he currently stands, is a broken caster. Not 'broken' in that he's too good, but broken in that the typically Harkevich list uses only half of his kit (ignoring the shooting components) but still manages to be an attrition powerhouse. Personally, I would like to see his ability to run melee jacks decrease, and the ranged jacks be reworked so as to be worth taking with him (or alternatively, replace some of his kit to make him synergize better with them.) But that's a fairly minor quibble, and I understand others might have different opinions.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 21:34:00 GMT
The funny thing is, I feel like Ret jacks DO by and large fit what I'd like to see from Jacks. I feel like it's mostly (almost exclusively, tbh) Khador jacks which are undercosted, and mostly (though not exclusively) Troll, Legion, and Circle beasts which are overcosted. i do think ret is in a good, balanced place. I think there are some players who play ret to try to spam jacks but I find 2-4 to be the ideal amount. I thing this brings us back to the intent of the thread. The limiting power up to the casters focus seems totally reasonable. Unless you're fielding 7+ jacks you wouldnt even notice and even then besides a turn1 run everything how often are all your jacks using their power up focus? Maybe bunny ranch when they bring 8 bunnies? Even 10 maurauders would probably not notice beyond besides turn1 run. Again, I agree - it wouldn't be noticed by most lists, and it's for that reason that I don't think it would be a great solution. There would likely be a fair amount of unecessary collateral damage (for instance, any caster than runs a lot of lights) to lists that aren't problematic, and it doesn't really solve the problematic lists.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 21:16:18 GMT
The funny thing is, I feel like Ret jacks DO by and large fit what I'd like to see from Jacks. I feel like it's mostly (almost exclusively, tbh) Khador jacks which are undercosted, and mostly (though not exclusively) Troll, Legion, and Circle beasts which are overcosted.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 19:51:53 GMT
Meh, probably deserved to stop bottom of 1 shenanigans with stones/TK/etc. Probably the least damaging change they could have made.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 18:25:30 GMT
I know the game is more balanced in 'overall' terms. In MK2 I could take a trash army with my ~10yrs of experience and destroy a less-experienced player's average army. Easily. Now, if I take a trash army, against an average army piloted by an average-experience player, it will be a GAME. And if I take an average army against a tooled army/moderately experienced player, I EXPECT to lose, regardless of my experience, though scenario play does allow for some surprising alternate wins. The loss of the Press Gang program will probably result in regional pockets of great-fun gaming and pockets of black hole competitiveness. I wish for all players the ability to find the venue they desire! We've lost players due to Factions' change. We've gained some. Most with experience have at least dabbled in multiple armies, or changed Factions entirely. The debate in our venue, as ever, is WM vs Hordes, who has the upper hand? Current venue wisdom has it that WM with cheap, plentiful warjacks/power-up is in the lead for blunt force. Hordes uses more tricksy approaches. There really is no debate. Hordes beasts are overcosted, and their in-faction list diversity is worse than WM (my Circle, for instance, only EVER makes use of 4 different units, and 2 of them are highly specialized.) With SR2017 forcing things into a grindfest in the centre of the table, 'tricksy' approaches (which got worse in the transition to Mk3) become nearly irrelevant. Virtually everyone in my meta who has a WM faction has switched to it, because the uphill battles against WM are utterly unfun. I've said it before, will say it again. The game feels like they released it ahead of schedule - after balancing most of the WM factions, but before balancing most of the Hordes factions.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 18:19:04 GMT
I didn't make that argument because I don't own or play Skorne (or trolls). The comparison also gets skewed because to get Arm20 it has to spend 2 fury. So now it has a maximum of 4 attacks. 1 less than the fully loaded Juggernaut and still has a lower base damage. So less health, less armor, less attacks, more resource expenditure to even be considered equal. Might I suggest chess. If youre looking for a game where everything is perfectly equal this is not that game. Every faction has to find the proper balance of appropriate models to perform the same tasks. Let's see...only has posts recorded in Warmachine faction forums...dismisses Hordes players concerns about the effectiveness of their models. Sounds about right. There is a HELL of a lot of strawmanning going on here. Most Hordes players want to see two things happen: 1. Overcosted beasts reduced in points AND undercosted jacks increased in points. and ideally, 2. Some mechanism that decouples the animus system from beasts in some way - I've heard the suggestion that spirit bond should let you cast the animus of a single dead warbeast once/turn. These are not unreasonable requests, stop treating it like Hordes players are proposing that Fury is strictly worse than Focus, or that Beasts should be exactly the same price as jacks.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 8:36:20 GMT
Pre measuring meant ranged options got allot better. With Superior, Ranged Capabilities meant that Universalist Weaponmaster infantry was going away. With Weaponmaster infantry going away, Warjacks who where immune to mass Pow 10 Shooting Made a Comeback. God no. For players with good enough eyeballing capabilities premeasuring changed next to nothing with regards to using ranged models' higher threat range. What hurt most melee infantry is that whatever allowed it to get in melee in Mk II now gets countered hard by some commonly used ranged lists. Recursion and innately high defensive stats got toned down almost across the board, stealth is useless against the mass true sight lists we got. Ret loves their Sentinels because they still have the necessary ARM to survive most shooting. The HR was busted with infantry because his recursion was still good enough to get whatever was needed wherever it was needed. Cav is more popular not because it outthreatens ranged lists - since it doesn't - but because it can take getting shot at and live. Any non-warnoun or non-ranged infantry you see used gets used because it can handle getting shot from superior range or because it can do its job without getting shot. That has nothing to do with premeasuring and everything with not being soft enough targets to get wiped out from range. Yeah, I agree. It's also nowhere near as simple as Rowdy is making it out to be. For one, most of the really good shooting lists aren't running a ton of low pow guns - even in Khador, the winterguard's guns are incidental to the value the rockets create, and I'm hard pressed to think of another list that even runs Pow 10 (non WM) guns. I think that things like covering fire, high explosive/high pow AOEs, electro-leaps, and the ubiquity of sprays are what's responsible for the disappearance of infantry, more than anything else. Lots of lists can just trivially remove (or trivialize) large numbers of low-stat infantry, without really compromising on their ability to break armor.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 3:30:47 GMT
Yeah, I wouldn't complain about the Gladiator too much. I could maybe, MAYBE see a points drop to 14 points if all of the other beasts dropped, but that's only based on comparison to the Grymkin beast's points costs. It's very much one of the best beasts for it's price in the game, and one of the few heavy warbeasts I would consider to be at an okay price point already.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 10, 2017 0:15:45 GMT
octaviusmaximus : ignoring the fact that said Gladiator has -1 Mat, -1 Arm, and fewer boxes... Cryptix : ignoring that the gladiator has a key animus for it's faction... For me, the better indication is that we're comparing a 15 point model to a 10 point model. Similar levels of in-faction support (Skorne DOES have more non-caster support, Khador has more/better caster support) However, even if we accept that the two models have similar levels of durability and output, the gladiator is 15 points to the Marauder's 10. As we see across the board, it's a 50% tax for playing with the fury rules, and tbh the Gladiator is probably one of the best costed heavy beasts in the game, overall. a 50% tax for playing with fury is Too. Damn. Much. In this case, I'm rather of the opinion that the Marauder should go up in cost, rather than the gladiator coming down, but either way, that gap needs to close. We're not talking about Mk2 focus vs fury rules any more, and the two systems are much more equal now. Have you seen how many Skorne players complain about the gladiator having Rush? It limits our design space in the same way that the choir is to menoth, except we have even more in the form of beast handlers and the krea. I definitely have, but at the same time it's a key animus I'd love to have in Circle, so...meh. Every Hordes faction has animi that limits design space - Trolls have rage, Circle has Primal, Skorne has Rush, Legion has....I am honestly drawing a blank here. Anyways, that sentence was an attempt to be totally fair to the marauder/gladiator comparison, because Warmachine players loooooove to bring up animi as a justification for Hordes beasts costing what they do.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 9, 2017 23:54:38 GMT
octaviusmaximus: ignoring the fact that said Gladiator has -1 Mat, -1 Arm, and fewer boxes... Cryptix: ignoring that the gladiator has a key animus for it's faction... For me, the better indication is that we're comparing a 15 point model to a 10 point model. Similar levels of in-faction support (Skorne DOES have more non-caster support, Khador has more/better caster support) However, even if we accept that the two models have similar levels of durability and output, the gladiator is 15 points to the Marauder's 10. As we see across the board, it's a 50% tax for playing with the fury rules, and tbh the Gladiator is probably one of the best costed heavy beasts in the game, overall. a 50% tax for playing with fury is Too. Damn. Much. In this case, I'm rather of the opinion that the Marauder should go up in cost, rather than the gladiator coming down, but either way, that gap needs to close. We're not talking about Mk2 focus vs fury rules any more, and the two systems are much more equal now.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 9, 2017 21:12:47 GMT
FA 3 doesn't actually fix the issue, and I disagree with the premise that the base marauder and juggernaut are 'fine.' If you have FA3, you might see 9 jacks (of 3 different types) instead of 10 marauders, which doesn't fix the core problem of, say, a Harkevich jack spam.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 9, 2017 21:02:18 GMT
If Juggernauts are fine, then comparable 12 point options (ie. the Ironclad) should be underpowered, considering the amount of Jack support Khador offers. The Ironclad is not underpowered, despite having less offensive potential and less durability, and being in a faction that offers a MUCH lower level of jack support than Khador does (at least to melee warjacks.) You mean a 4 Point Solo that Offers a SINGULAR Powerup with FA2? The heck are you talking about? As opposed to Cygnar's SINGLE 4 point solo that offers empower at FA C? And I'm talking about Warcasters, mostly. Cygnar doesn't get many damage buffs (really just Stryker3 and Maddox.) They don't get multi-target speed buffs (just Constance.) Their only reliable means of buffing durability is a minimum 10 point package (Jr + Jack) which puts a single jack up to khadoran base levels of armor. They NEVER get more than one of these elements on a single caster. Before you accuse me of faction partisanship, see my posts in the Haley2 thread where I cal out numerous Cygnar pieces as overpowered and needing a fix
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 9, 2017 20:55:46 GMT
I will apologize for resorting to an Ad Hominem personal attack, as well as resorting to a strawman fallacy. But I will not agree with the radical suggested changes recommended at Khadoran jacks. Not at all, and I think the suggestions suggest a deep non-understanding of Khador. Khador Jacks Gained the Most in the MKIII Transition, but they were some of the least played and least touched in the entire game, with the Behemoth Dominating Jack Choice Almost Completly. I think on an individual scale they were priced pretty appropriately, and the biggest issue arise when Spammed. So suggest Nerfing them to the extent suggested would be in my mind be the same logic that causes one to never eat oranges because of the potential for Vitamin C Poisoning. If Juggernauts are fine, then comparable 12 point options (ie. the Ironclad) should be underpowered, considering the amount of Jack support Khador offers. The Ironclad is not underpowered, despite having less offensive potential and less durability, and being in a faction that offers a MUCH lower level of jack support than Khador does (at least to melee warjacks.) You're going to rebut this by pointing out that cross-faction comparisons aren't appropriate, but: 1. you're making cross faction comparisons (warden, slayer, freebooter, etc.) 2. Cross-faction comparisons are appropriate if you account for the context of the factions and applicable support options. Khador has many more ways to tune up the durability, speed, and output of melee warjacks than Cygnar does. In addition, the reason why Behemoth edged out the juggernaut chassis was NOT that the juggernaut chassis was terrible (though the Mat 7 change OR the points drop was likely warranted.) It was because the nature of Mk2 (and the lack of power up) meant that there was typically only room for one or two warjacks, and also that warjacks with focus-generation mechanics were waaaaay more valuable than they are now. Juggernauts would still be played at 14 points, and I stand by my assertion that they are underpriced at 12.
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 9, 2017 20:37:02 GMT
I feel like the Juggernaut could probably go up to 14 points and still be fine Nah, 16 would be better and more Faction Identitarian. But since Cryx is Flavored around mass production I have a feeling that the slayer could be 7 Points and also be fine! Yeah no. You dislike other factions having toys ("But keep my own toys because my factions fluff deserves Toys unlike your faction"). I have reached debate bedrock with you in my opinion. 1. I don't play Cryx. Cryx having more toys does not affect me in any way whatsoever. I don't have a problem with slayers (or most non-Khador jacks, for that matter) because they are not a problem when spammed. Show me a Cryx list that is problematic because it spams Slayers, and you'll see me asking for a fix there, too. If anything, you are the partisan one - it's very obvious that you're a khador player, because you're always arguing for khador buffs/against khador nerfs. I just point out problems when I see them, including in my own faction (I was, for instance, one of the people calling for a Wurmwood nerf in early Mk3.) 2. If you're going to deny that Khador jacks (on the whole) radically improved in a way which most other factions' jacks did not (most other factions' core jacks saw a stat increase OR a point decrease, not both) then we are indeed at an impasse. The juggernaut chassis, in particular, saw a threefold buff by was of points decrease, MAT increase, and power up, and it was not a particularly bad chassis in Mk2 (though it was often overshadowed by colossals/character jacks in the one-two jack slots most khador lists typically used.)
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Post by oncomingstorm on May 9, 2017 19:51:52 GMT
It's not fluff, it's faction identity. And both fluff and spam are problems, with the spam being particularly egregious when it goes against fluff. So you would suggest that the lower cost Warjacks (As in the Maurader and Jugg Maybe) be redesigned to cost like 15 Points but be much better? I feel like the Juggernaut could probably go up to 14 points and still be fine, maybe with a minor tweak to give it more utility. Mat 7 was a huge buff for it, as was power up, and I don't think it needed to drop 2 points in addition to that. Maybe a small tweak to it's damage. The Marauder, absolutely. I'd happily see it's damage potential and/or utility increase if it wasn't so gosh-darn conducive to box-spam strategies.
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