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Post by octaviusmaximus on Apr 18, 2018 23:03:28 GMT
We all consider Arlan a great piece, when what it does for most games is giving one extra focus to a jack every turn... FFE alone gives 2 "focus", even in the worst case scenario (when you are buffing a single-target shot). And after that, there is all the rest Caine0 does and all the new options it opens. In my opinion, people despising Caine0 are either influenced by the drop in power perception from Snipe to FFE (From gamebreakingly OP to very good), or from the comparison to the other OP models being released (the other zeros). They aren't really objectively evaluating Caine0 as a single solo/JR. If Caine0 was released as it is now right away and alone, they would consider it a great model, but since they have seen his drop in power in CID, now they talk bad about it. Arlan isn't the only comparison I could make... Jakes1 and the Trencher JR are both considered pretty good tools in our arsenal, and Caine0 is way better than both. I'm also curious about the "meta biases" argument. Who isn't "meta biased"? Everyone of us plays in a meta. Even big metas are still metas. We are all biased by our personal experience on the table. We are all meta biased, but many people fail to consider their subjective experience in the greater context of the game. Arlan can provide a focus a turn but he can also provide evasive to a Jack, which is an exceptionally interesting buff in the game, it expands your options into a lot of matchups (putting arcane shield and evasive onto dynamo makes him far less likely to be chip damaged due to the risk to your opponents caster\backline pieces). Arlan also has repair. Which is a great ability in the right context. He also has a spray that takes striker and firefly buffs like a duck to water, and he also has an excellent defensive Statline. Arlan has something he can do every turn of the game, he had a range of impactful and powerful abilities and he doesn't have to risk himself to use them. Using him as an empower bot criminally underuses his resources. I don't despise Caine0. I'm not angry I'm just disappointed. Snipe had a lot of potential, it was able to be balanced but top of 1 shenanigans stopped that. That's fine to me, but the problem is that losing snipe means that Caine himself now no longer has a good way to contribute effectively without dying because around turn 3 to 4 snipe always went into caine so he could start doing work for me. Without snipe his ability to provide meaningful work and utility is completely curtailed. I could be fine with the change to an uninteresting buff like FFE if his offensive utility potential wasn't so risky. I'd be fine with his offensive potential being risky If his defensive tech wasn't so mediocre. Fixing spirit bond to be something good would make me be fine with caine. I want reliable trick shots and thunderbolts for a few turns of the game, not 1 turn. That is what would make caine0 worth it to me, and there are multiple ways to make that happen. If it doesn't, he's the 4th unplayable caine in faction, imo
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Post by Aegis on Apr 19, 2018 0:42:59 GMT
Couldn't the same be said about you?
Your statements and judices are always pretty "set in stone". You always say "that thing IS good/bad" and never "I think..." or "In my experience...". Aren't maybe you that consider your own subjective experience as the only and absolute truth without considering that what applies to your meta/experience could maybe not apply to others?
I think that is the main reason people often react badly to your statements. You seem to me a pretty good player, and often your analysis are interesting to read, but you tend to consider your point of view the only objective one while in reality you have at least as much biases as anyone else.
That said, about Arlan, it's true that he can do multiple things, but he can do only one at time.
Aside from Evasive, that I don't feel that intriguing honestly (It doesn't save you from anything, and being a passive effect controlled by the opponent it almost always comes out as irrilevant), it's true that he is also a mechanic and has a spray, but how often you actually use them?
I agree that having a mechanic is handy if you don't have any other piece with the skill in the list, but if you have you almost always use other pieces for that, and anyway his low SPD sometimes makes it difficult for him to cover all your jacks.
The spray is an emergency weapon at best, so again quite niche (and actually, FFE makes it a lot more interesting).
From what I see, while it has many options, often the most useful one is to Empower, and since it can do only one of them at time, in many games he ends up doing only that.
Caine0 not only provides at least double the "focus" every turn (that can exceed the 3 limit of jacks and works also on warrior models, on countrary to Arlan's one), but he does so while also doing work by himself.
Even in the worst case scenario, if you are so scared about his possible death, he provides 2 boostable RNG 14 shots every turn, with Repo [3] in HM. That's almost half a B13 unit output from a safest RNG. If you then manage to get him in position to safely land Trick Shots and Thunderbolts, that's even more value. For sure a lot more than Arlan's spray will ever do.
In some cases, he can even win you games, like when used to move something out of control zones or to free the LOS to a caster or KD him. At that point, his safety the next turn becomes irrilevant.
Let me be clear, I agree that Arlan is fantastic. I put it in every list. And that is a reason more to me to consider Caine0 a very good addition to our arsenal, since not only he provides extra boosts, he does that while also doing work by himself.
And all that is without even starting to consider FFE combos and the utility the chance to bring a bonded Ace provides to some lists (HM in particular).
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Apr 19, 2018 1:33:43 GMT
Couldn't the same be said about you? Your statements and judices are always pretty "set in stone". You always say "that thing IS good/bad" and never "I think..." or "In my experience...". Aren't maybe you that consider your own subjective experience as the only and absolute truth without considering that what applies to your meta/experience could maybe not apply to others? I think that is the main reason people often react badly to your statements. You seem to me a pretty good player, and often your analysis are interesting to read, but you tend to consider your point of view the only objective one while in reality you have at least as much biases as anyone else. That said, about Arlan, it's true that he can do multiple things, but he can do only one at time. Aside from Evasive, that I don't feel that intriguing honestly (It doesn't save you from anything, and being a passive effect controlled by the opponent it almost always comes out as irrilevant), it's true that he is also a mechanic and has a spray, but how often you actually use them? I agree that having a mechanic is handy if you don't have any other piece with the skill in the list, but if you have you almost always use other pieces for that, and anyway his low SPD sometimes makes it difficult for him to cover all your jacks. The spray is an emergency weapon at best, so again quite niche (and actually, FFE makes it a lot more interesting). From what I see, while it has many options, often the most useful one is to Empower, and since it can do only one of them at time, in many games he ends up doing only that. Caine0 not only provides at least double the "focus" every turn (that can exceed the 3 limit of jacks and works also on warrior models, on countrary to Arlan's one), but he does so while also doing work by himself. Even in the worst case scenario, if you are so scared about his possible death, he provides 2 boostable RNG 14 shots every turn, with Repo [3] in HM. That's almost half a B13 unit output from a safest RNG. If you then manage to get him in position to safely land Trick Shots and Thunderbolts, that's even more value. For sure a lot more than Arlan's spray will ever do. In some cases, he can even win you games, like when used to move something out of control zones or to free the LOS to a caster or KD him. At that point, his safety the next turn becomes irrilevant. Let me be clear, I agree that Arlan is fantastic. I put it in every list. And that is a reason more to me to consider Caine0 a very good addition to our arsenal, since not only he provides extra boosts, he does that while also doing work by himself. And all that is without even starting to consider FFE combos and the utility the chance to bring a bonded Ace provides to some lists (HM in particular). The start of your post is a complicated "but what about You?!" which I don't really want to engage with because this thread has made it clear that nothing I say will be taken objectively. In testing in CID I only really care about the Battle Reports as they are the things that matter. Theory is for making arguments for changes that aren't possible in a battle report and for making list and combo ideas, but the ultimate arbiter of what is OP is what is on the table. I find there are too many people habitually living in Theoryland and making way too much noise over things they haven't demonstrated on the table. If you can't find the value of Evasive, try harder. It's the best spell on his card. Whenever you can assign consequences to attacking a piece, if the answer is "I won't shoot that piece" then that is a massive benefit to you. I use his spray around once every 2 games and his repair almost every game. Repairing 4 to 6 damage negates an attack that someone has done and it's extremely valuable. It also means anything less than a destroyed cortex is no damage at all and with the repairing objective you can repair the cortex and still allocate and still require meaningful resources to finish off your Jack. Caine provides "double the focus" with a much more limited scope. It doesn't remove disruption and it only works on the first ranged attack. Half of the black 13ths long range output isn't exactly a compelling model, to me. Their long range output is bad, you take them if you are playing sons of the memes and like losing games and even then you take them for their melee capacity rather than their OK ranged presence. There is also the fact that, again. Losing Arlan or the black 13th isn't as bad as losing came because you also lose the Jack he is controlling. That is a massive weakness which needs to be compensated for. We've considered FFE combos since the start of the edition and it's pretty telling that even when Caine2 was playable I never saw a reason to cast FFE.
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Post by Aegis on Apr 19, 2018 1:56:05 GMT
You say you only value Battle Reports, but I see a lot of battle report saying that Caine0 is fine, and even some of them still worried that some part of his kit may be too good. What Battle reports are you reading?
On Evasive, the problem is exactly that it very rarely makes your opponent think "I'll not shot that piece". In a game where you can measure everything, you usually already put your jacks where you want them to be in the engagement phase. Moving 2" backward won't save you from anything if you have already considered the enemy threats, and moving 2" ahead during the opponent turn only puts your jack in threat of more models. If you wanted it 2" ahead, chances are that you could already put it there the past turn.
The only corner-case where I can see it's utility is if you have a terrain to exploit (like an obstruction to hide behind) with the 2" move, but that is quite a corner case. In most situations, moving 2" during your opponent turn won't help you in any way, and so the deterrent for the opponent is null.
His repair, like said, for sure it's nice IF you don't have anything else to do that work AND if Arlan is within 5" of the damaged (but not scrapped) jack.
Your statement about Caine2 is also pretty off... Caine2 is an extremely focus hungry caster that wants all the possible focus for himself. The fact that often FFE wasn't worth for him doesn't mean that isn't worth on a JR, and being on a JR means that it can be combined with other caster's kits, a thing that doesn't happen with Caine2.
I still fail to see what you find bad, as an example, on a 17" threat full boosted pulse on Thunderhead and Haley2, followed by 3 auto-hitting POW 14 electric attacks (with one boosted). To me, it seem a pretty scary thing to go against (expecially since in not-pulse turns, it's a 4x POW 14 shots, 2 boosted and auto-hitting after the boosted first on a 25" threat range).
You also continue to push on the chance to lose the jack. Then why don't you compare him with Jakes1 or Trencher JR? They are both fairly good pieces, they have the same "problem", and they do a lot less than Caine0, but we still take them in several lists. Again, why those pieces are fine with you, but Caine0 that is better isn't?
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Apr 19, 2018 2:31:14 GMT
You say you only value Battle Reports, but I see a lot of battle report saying that Caine0 is fine, and even some of them still worried that some part of his kit may be too good. What Battle reports are you reading? On Evasive, the problem is exactly that it very rarely makes your opponent think "I'll not shot that piece". In a game where you can measure everything, you usually already put your jacks where you want them to be in the engagement phase. Moving 2" backward won't save you from anything if you have already considered the enemy threats, and moving 2" ahead during the opponent turn only puts your jack in threat of more models. If you wanted it 2" ahead, chances are that you could already put it there the past turn. The only corner-case where I can see it's utility is if you have a terrain to exploit (like an obstruction to hide behind) with the 2" move, but that is quite a corner case. In most situations, moving 2" during your opponent turn won't help you in any way, and so the deterrent for the opponent is null. His repair, like said, for sure it's nice IF you don't have anything else to do that work AND if Arlan is within 5" of the damaged (but not scrapped) jack. Your statement about Caine2 is also pretty off... Caine2 is an extremely focus hungry caster that wants all the possible focus for himself. The fact that often FFE wasn't worth for him doesn't mean that isn't worth on a JR, and being on a JR means that it can be combined with other caster's kits, a thing that doesn't happen with Caine2. I still fail to see what you find bad, as an example, on a 17" threat full boosted pulse on Thunderhead and Haley2, followed by 3 auto-hitting POW 14 electric attacks (with one boosted). To me, it seem a pretty scary thing to go against (expecially since in not-pulse turns, it's a 4x POW 14 shots, 2 boosted and auto-hitting after the boosted first on a 25" threat range). You also continue to push on the chance to lose the jack. Then why don't you compare him with Jakes1 or Trencher JR? They are both fairly good pieces, they have the same "problem", and they do a lot less than Caine0, but we still take them in several lists. Again, why those pieces are fine with you, but Caine0 that is better isn't? I'm reading my battle reports as well as others. I don't trust their results implicitly, I look to see whether they or their opponents have made play mistakes first. Bad models can be good when played into mistakes. I enjoy using evasive to walk Dynamo up the table being covered by terrain to limit other models who can get to him ify opponent can shoot him (or if my opponent wants to attack a Model dynamo is b2b with with an aoe attack or 2. It's a great way to punish an overextension. Walking 2" with a powerful model can win you a game. It's pretty silly to think otherwise. Yes, you need to put Arlan within range of the models your opponent is going to attack. This takes some experience, but it works perfectly fine. The reason said Thunderhead tech doesnt scare me is because it's thunderhead. It's extremely easy to measure his limited threat and watch as your opponent puts half their points and more than half of their focus resources into polishing that turd as hard as they can. Thunderhead putting a number of shots into a model isn't exactly scary as he only has slightly more output than a Grenadier and the grenadier doesn't need to buy his shots and you can have multiple of them. I also think you are doing the maths of thunderheads shots wrong. 3 focus allocated and with TA he has 2 free attacks. He boosts the first to hit and gets 1 boosted damage and a second unboosted shot or he gets 4 unboosted shots. I would rather a charger than that 20 point trash heap. The reason I don't value the other 2 juniors is, well, I don't think they are very good. I don't understand how players are apparently keeping these models alive while meaningfully engaging in scenario. They are too juicy targets and the loss of one often loses a huge portion of your lists ability to fight on the table. Jake's wants to bring a melee Jack but launches it right out of her ctrl area and can't afford to fully load it and energise it without dropping sidekick or getting help from Arlan and then camping 0 which means she is instantly dead. The trencher junior is OK, but provides nothing of value to the trencher theme and, again, can't use his spells and load up his Jack without camping 0. If you can't camp, then you are a dead junior. The ability to shut you off is too valuable and your opponent can get a favourable trade quite easily. Walking up a charger into threat to kill Arlan often isn't worth it, walking up a charger to kill jakes1? Exceptional value.
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Post by Aegis on Apr 19, 2018 3:35:39 GMT
I didn't see any your BR with Caine0 and FFE. The only ones I have seen were 2 saying that Snipe in Cygnar was fine and another explaining the turn 1 shooting. You see, I read your last post and have quite different impressions. That should prove that both our viewpoints are subjective, and noone of them is actually objective...
That said... Walking 2" during your turn is a thing, during the opponent turn for a ranged model, I have some doubts. If I wanted my Dynamo 2" closer to the enemy, I would probably be able to put it there on my turn. Often you put it just outside the enemy melee threat range, to be able to reach as far as possible without being charged next turn. At that point, moving 2" ahead doesn't do any good to you, since then you would walk into the enemy threat range during HIS turn. I rarely just run Dynamo ahead at max speed and don't manage to get close enough. I often use less than his full movement on the turn before the engagement. If I wanted those extra 2", I would have placed him 2" farther on my turn. If I didn't, it means that putting is closer is dangerous, and so doing it with Evasive is no good.
On Thunderhead, my math is ok:
You put FFE on him. He has the first full boosted POW 14 without spending focus. Than he has 2 (3 with TA) auto-hitting attack spending 2 focus, and another focus to spare to boost one of them. Result: 2 boosted damage shots, 2 unboosted. If the first attack (boosted to hit) connects, all the other 2(3 with TA) auto-hit.
I also fail to see how a 17" threat range is "easy to avoid" "limited threat". If your opponent doesn't put anything into 17" from THead he is giving you up the scenario (It's a 34" diameter bubble...).
Also the Granadier is POW 13, doesn't auto-hit and it's not electrical (so not powerable), and requires trenchers (so extra points and placement restrictions) to work. It's not at all the same thing. Auto-hitting against having to hit with RAT 6 is totally different.
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Post by Aegis on Apr 19, 2018 3:52:23 GMT
Since you like Battle Reports, let's take an image from your own... Let's say that the objective in this image is ThunderHead, the yellow bubble would be his 17" pulse threat range under Haley2, with a full boostable pulse if Caine0 was there... Now tell me, how would you deploy your models to "easily avoid" THead and ignore him? Attachments:
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Post by Sarcastastic on Apr 19, 2018 4:50:05 GMT
I have played a good number of games with Jr's in my lists, and I have a pretty easy time keeping them alive. Sticking a charger on Jakes1 is fine, cause it can reposition with energizer and I don't feel like I'm wasting anything, while she stays safe and sometimes pops off a shot. Same goes for Trencher Jr. In fact, the most pressure I've felt on them lately was this week when a friend fielded Greylord Outriders. They were fast enough with enough sprays to actually angle a threat at them while on a hill or behind cover. Terrain is usually easy to use to protect a Jr.
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Post by ForEver_Blight on Apr 19, 2018 13:23:09 GMT
... This, to me, says that he can be impactful himself or he can be safe, but neither at the same time ... This is every model in the game and is what constitutes balance. It is not a flaw/fault/bad design
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Post by streetpizza on Apr 19, 2018 14:06:21 GMT
If you can't find the value of Evasive, try harder. It's the best spell on his card. Whenever you can assign consequences to attacking a piece, if the answer is "I won't shoot that piece" then that is a massive benefit to you. If you're not finding the value in Caine0, try harder. Whenever you can assign consequences to attacking a piece with him or using another part of his kit ... do that. I'm reading my battle reports as well as others. I don't trust their results implicitly, I look to see whether they or their opponents have made play mistakes first. Bad models can be good when played into mistakes. Everybody else is either stupid or suspect, only my reports have value. Condescension and dismissiveness are central to obtaining true objectivity, y'all should try it. I would rather a charger than that 20 point trash heap. Anything I dislike is trash and you should feel bad for being such a scrub when putting it on the table. So sayeth the tao of objectivity. and the brightest jem of them all... The start of your post is a complicated "but what about You?!" which I don't really want to engage with because this thread has made it clear that nothing I say will be taken objectively. Y'all respect my objectivity while I show none for any of yours. Really this thread has been a genuine pleasure to read. Please do keep going.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Apr 19, 2018 14:32:57 GMT
... This, to me, says that he can be impactful himself or he can be safe, but neither at the same time ... This is every model in the game and is what constitutes balance. It is not a flaw/fault/bad design 'Staying reasonably safe' should be what I said. Caine0's impact is entirely too small to justify the risk he is in when engaging.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Apr 19, 2018 14:34:22 GMT
Since you like Battle Reports, let's take an image from your own... Let's say that the objective in this image is ThunderHead, the yellow bubble would be his 17" pulse threat range under Haley2, with a full boostable pulse if Caine0 was there... Now tell me, how would you deploy your models to "easily avoid" THead and ignore him? Let him pulse on something irrelevant and kill him with something cheaper than the investment they had into him. Seems easy enough, his range is only 6" after all.
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Post by octaviusmaximus on Apr 19, 2018 14:38:13 GMT
If you can't find the value of Evasive, try harder. It's the best spell on his card. Whenever you can assign consequences to attacking a piece, if the answer is "I won't shoot that piece" then that is a massive benefit to you. If you're not finding the value in Caine0, try harder. Whenever you can assign consequences to attacking a piece with him or using another part of his kit ... do that. I'm reading my battle reports as well as others. I don't trust their results implicitly, I look to see whether they or their opponents have made play mistakes first. Bad models can be good when played into mistakes. Everybody else is either stupid or suspect, only my reports have value. Condescension and dismissiveness are central to obtaining true objectivity, y'all should try it. I would rather a charger than that 20 point trash heap. Anything I dislike is trash and you should feel bad for being such a scrub when putting it on the table. So sayeth the tao of objectivity. and the brightest jem of them all... The start of your post is a complicated "but what about You?!" which I don't really want to engage with because this thread has made it clear that nothing I say will be taken objectively. Y'all respect my objectivity while I show none for any of yours. Really this thread has been a genuine pleasure to read. Please do keep going. Oh, I'm trying to be objective. Its impossible for anyone to truly be objective, but I'm trying. I don't see the problem with finding faults with models that are currently being tested which would make those models simply not very useful. The fact that this thread is apparently filled with some extremely rude people who attack my character as soon as I post my opinion such as yourself is completely to the side of the Caine0 discussion. If you want to discuss Caine0, or you have a problem with my analysis, feel free to speak up.
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Post by Aegis on Apr 19, 2018 15:01:14 GMT
Since you like Battle Reports, let's take an image from your own... Let's say that the objective in this image is ThunderHead, the yellow bubble would be his 17" pulse threat range under Haley2, with a full boostable pulse if Caine0 was there... Now tell me, how would you deploy your models to "easily avoid" THead and ignore him? Let him pulse on something irrelevant and kill him with something cheaper than the investment they had into him. Seems easy enough, his range is only 6" after all. That takes for granted that the Cygnar player is braindead and commits Thunderhead to whatever you feed to him. On the table, it plays quite differently: - If you put just a token (irrilevant) piece/pieces in the area, the Cygnar player will easily shot it down with whatever else he has in the list without committing THead, or even with THead using his normal POW 14 shots (so still without committing it at all), and you would have just given up a turn of scenario for nothing. - If you put enough models to make it impossible for the rest of the list to shot it down, then likely committing THead will kill way more than 20 points, and after adding the rest of the list behind him, probably the attrition swing is so hard that the game is heavily on Cygnar's player favor. Also, don't forget that you don't need to use all that threat. If convenient, you can just use TA for advancing, bringing a still pretty good threat 13", pulse, and then Energizing and TK back 4", putting Thead at 17" from what was outside the bubble (and with boosted pulse, very few things can remain alive inside it, expecially considering the subsequent POW 14 auto-hitting attacks). Your tactic of just putting something irrilevant there is exactly what I call "giving up scenario", that is probably the best outcome the Cygnar player can ask for (you lost models and scenario points, he lost nothing and the next turn it will repeat).
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Post by streetpizza on Apr 19, 2018 15:14:26 GMT
Oh, I'm trying to be objective. Its impossible for anyone to truly be objective, but I'm trying. I don't see the problem with finding faults with models that are currently being tested which would make those models simply not very useful. The fact that this thread is apparently filled with some extremely rude people who attack my character as soon as I post my opinion such as yourself is completely to the side of the Caine0 discussion. If you want to discuss Caine0, or you have a problem with my analysis, feel free to speak up. I haven't attacked your opinion at all. I find the technical discussion quite interesting. Its the presentation of said discussion and your inability to appreciate how it hurts your points more than helps them that I find particularly amusing. As for Caine0 I don't remember if its this thread or one of the many others but I have stated that I see plenty of good applications for FFE. Also compare Caine0's output to something like the hellsinger phantom (who is 7pts) and does very well there to. The fact that he can buff other models on top of doing his own thing and fuel a jack makes him pretty damn good. I think spirit door is dead weight and should be lowered in cost (also helps Kaya1 who needs the boost) or replaced but if released as is dude is just fine. To your larger point though no I haven't played him so yes this is all based on theory and model comparisons.
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