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10 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Not sure of your point, you can say that of any single master in any faction.

No, because there's a difference between internal and external balance. I assume that's what Mikey_C was referring to.

Meaning: Not all factions are equal.

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13 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Not sure of your point, you can say that of any single master in any faction.

My point is one master will always have to be "the worst in faction". If that's Seamus, then I think all of the resur masters are fine because Seamus still preforms well for me.

 

2 hours ago, Mutter said:

No, because there's a difference between internal and external balance. I assume that's what Mikey_C was referring to.

Meaning: Not all factions are equal.

Also this. Compare Seamus to the worst in 10T, Gremlins or Guild and I think he comes out ahead.

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8 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

You think that Seamus is worse than Brewmaster?

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I would. You're talking about a master that uses 3 ap to shoot once in a Gaining Grounds 2017 in which killing is not much of a thing anymore. There's not one Reason I'd bring him to a tournament. If I really want to go for the covert breakthrough or undercover entourage argument, just pick tara and Get free points, especially with scion of the void.
Brewmaster can at least deny an area.

 

Also, I don't recall any "This master is worse than Brewie" statement. 

Saying that if Seamus is the worst, the rest are fine is also a very ambiguous statement. Assuming, for argument's sake, that Seamus is a 4/10 kind of Master, then nothing really prevents everyone else from being a 5/10.
The state of one Master has nothing to do with the rest of them.

The whole conversation started because Masters were being rated and, currently, I think Yan Lo Blows Seamus out of the water.

The whole "You can say that of any faction" was a response to a very broad statement. Before dissecting the response, look at the stimulus that provoked it. You'll find that it is flawed in the first place.
 

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The problem with seamus is that if you summon, you can't gain "no eyes on me". If you miss the one shot, your master has wasted a 0 action, 1 ap to focus, 1 ap to place, and 1 ap to shoot. And now the thing you missed can walk up to you and you will no longer be able to shoot. You now need to stone for the suit to trigger "bored now" on your melee and 1 dmg, push 3 inches, hope that you can get out of line of sight or there is a corpse marker nearby.

If you want to kill scheme runners, Reva can kill 4 of them a turn across 4 different spots on the map.

Hell, even if you did NOT miss the shot and you were able to cheat in a severe, and you were able to get a master, and you had decaying aura, and no one was engaged with the target so that you didn't have to randomize, and they did not have hard cover, and you stoned for the 16 inch place.. You did 8 damage. I'm not sure what kind of impact that's supposed to have on the game. If I'm killing scheme runners that's fine, but I cannot imagine anyone having to do all that to do so. Especially not with your Master.

Honestly, If I could take 8 damage on a model and have my opponent drop those resources, I'd allow it once a turn.

Also, remember that if you're afraid of Seamus shooting a given model, engage with just about anything and the player will not even try. There is no control over the randomization flip, and no one is going spend 3 master APs to take a 50% chance of hitting. If more people are within 2 inches, that's an even lower chance.

There is just way too much that can go wrong.


I repeat my assessment of Seamus: A beacon of -2 WP that you may want to engage but don't really care to kill considering the effort required. 


Your best bet is to actually go Bag of Tools, charge people, stone for suits, and drop markers. Hope something dies so next turn you can gain "no eyes on me" with the corpse marker. Teleport (or comply through bleeding tongue on Sybelle), charge again, rinse, repeat. This puts him in the thick of things and with DF4 sure, you're not going to die, but all kinds of nasty conditions can be applied to you. All this to effectively spend a stone for each scheme marker you hope to drop per hit. That's a lot of resources.

Believe me, I got in the game for Seamus and Molly, but the former is just for casual games in his current state.

Sorry, I am getting ranty and I'm not sure I'm contributing to anything at this point. If anyone felt targeted or attacked in some way I apologize.

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20 hours ago, Saduhem said:

Brewmaster can at least deny an area.

Not really, no.

20 hours ago, Saduhem said:

Also, I don't recall any "This master is worse than Brewie" statement. 

Fetid Strumpet disagreed with a person saying "Compare Seamus to the worst in 10T, Gremlins or Guild and I think he comes out ahead." Unless you consider someone worse than Brewski for TT and Gremlins, I believe that that was the implication.

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48 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Not really, no.

We're just going to have to disagree on this one.

Fetid Strumpet disagreed with a person saying "Compare Seamus to the worst in 10T, Gremlins or Guild and I think he comes out ahead." Unless you consider someone worse than Brewski for TT and Gremlins, I believe that that was the implication.
 

Oops, I missed that.
 

Although, Having 3 ap to spend on Swill or Pick Your Poison seem a lot better than 3 AP for 1 shot with a value of 6 that targets Df and randomizes, suffers from cover, is affected by armor, soulstones, incorporeal, hard to wound, hard to kill, can't be used while engaged and cannot be re-attempted on a miss.

If you're just counting on Drinking contest you're going to be disappointed, but AP for AP, brewmaster is getting a lot more value. Pick Your poison is just nasty.

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31 minutes ago, Saduhem said:

Although, Having 3 ap to spend on Swill or Pick Your Poison seem a lot better than 3 AP for 1 shot with a value of 6 that targets Df and randomizes, suffers from cover, is affected by armor, soulstones, incorporeal, hard to wound, hard to kill, can't be used while engaged and cannot be re-attempted on a miss.

Maybe you just need to pick your targets better, then? If you're using 3 AP for the one shot, then I guess that you are moving somehow somewhere. So don't shoot models whose cover, melee, armor, SS use, Incorporeal, HtW, Df, and/or HtK are going to ruin your day.

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If you're just counting on Drinking contest you're going to be disappointed, but AP for AP, brewmaster is getting a lot more value. Pick Your poison is just nasty.

Yeah. You still probably need the AP from something else in your force to kill whatever it is that you've Swilled. Or else you get to keep Swilling the target for the whole game.

But it's absolutely impossible to somehow comprehensively and objective establish who is worse. I know that I'd much, much rather face Brewski than Seamus. I've played quite a bit with both and Seamus just wins games a whole lot easier than Brewmaster. YMMV. But I'm pretty sure that neither one of us will be convinced by the other's arguments so I refer you to that gif that I posted up thread.

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Sure, but that's a lot of limitations. Not many choices either. You either back alley to pick the best target, focus and hope to cheat a severe and shoot.. or you might do 4 dmg. Then you have to go through your checklist and make sure that none of those conditions described above get in your way.

Brewie can pick any low to average WP target and force them pick their poison. What i'm saying is no matter what seamus does, he's not going to be able to do anything but hurt one model with 3 ap. It's printed on his card, he cannot shoot again, no way around it. 3 ap per turn to move around and shoot 1 dude that is not engaged/behind cover etc.. is just all he can do. If there is anything else, please let me know. He can't even drop markers after the back alley.

one for the road and 3 pick yer poison, or a move, one for the road, and 2 pick your poison.. I mean no matter how you put it, each ap not spend simply moving is very likely to remove a card from the enemy's hand with a choice of :

obey
lose suits until the end of the game
take 4 dmg
be paralyzed.

That is for each 1 AP. You don't have to swill, but you have the option to.

My argument is this, and I don't understand how it can be seen in any different way. 

No matter what you do with Seamus, 3 ap are all devoted towards a single shot. There is absolutely nothing else. If you're lucky shoot and charge? We're talking about min 1 damage slaps and now you're engaged..

If you take bag of tools you can do melee attacks, but now you're engaged. You also need to have specific high cards for the triggers or spend stones (Pick your poison depends on the discarded suit, Brewie does not need to provide one. Seamus HAS to stone for the triggers). Most importantly, your most impactful feature, -2 wp around you, is gone.

Brewie's AP, individually, have far more weight than 1 Sh6 vs Df per turn, considering that brewie lowers the value he targets, Seamus doesn't.

Assuming both Seamus and Brewie have optimal conditions and that they're both activating when they're the most effective (Seamus towards the end when enemy has fewer cards, brewie towards the middle to get rid of the hand) would you rather:

 

Remember, both master under ideal conditions
A - Lose 3 cards from your hand, each of which can result in:Paralyze, 4 dmg, no suits for the rest of the game, and Obeys
or
B - 8 Preventable and Reducible damage on a single model

I'd pick B any day. 

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Seamus has other ways to attack in his upgrades, not only the pistol. Also, i cant see the problem in disengaging in a crew with couple of belles (and being able to summon more)

His -2wp aura sinergizes very well with many resser models and can not only drain opponents hand but heavily hinder their game plan.

In my opinion seamus is far better than poor brewmaster.

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Every ap spent from other models to disengage seamus is an additional one devoted to his one trick. With his sinister reputation upgrade he can CA attack vs defense. If you use that, you're not focusing or teleporting. You're giving up something either way. 
I get one shot a turn with the flintlock, I'm not giving that up for the measly damage track on the Sinister reputation attack.
Additionally, the current UK master claims that he would never bring Seamus to a tournament, and the guy won with a 5 model Nicodem list at 45 soulstones against the other masters at 50. There has to be some validity in that.

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15 hours ago, Saduhem said:

Remember, both master under ideal conditions
A - Lose 3 cards from your hand, each of which can result in:Paralyze, 4 dmg, no suits for the rest of the game, and Obeys
or
B - 8 Preventable and Reducible damage on a single model

I'd pick B any day. 

You really have bizarre ideal circumstances. They appear to be forcing Seamus to have to move every time, and never even doing his summoning yet never force brewmaster to move.

Sorry your argument doesn't persuade me. I'm going to agree with Math, I would rather use Seamus, and rather face Brewmaster to get me good results based on experience.

The UK master 2 years ago won the event with Seamus, beating the "overpowered" Leveticus in the final. So Seamus might not be Jamies cup of tea, but can't be ruled out based on results.

 

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24 minutes ago, Adran said:

You really have bizarre ideal circumstances. They appear to be forcing Seamus to have to move every time, and never even doing his summoning yet never force brewmaster to move.

Sorry your argument doesn't persuade me. I'm going to agree with Math, I would rather use Seamus, and rather face Brewmaster to get me good results based on experience.

The UK master 2 years ago won the event with Seamus, beating the "overpowered" Leveticus in the final. So Seamus might not be Jamies cup of tea, but can't be ruled out based on results.

 

I'm sure you have more experience than I do. Although in 2015 Most if not all schemes were pretty much kill first, then score. In fact the Seamus player won through Assassinate. The argument was that devoting an entire turn to deal 8 damage to a model is the best this master can do in GG2017. 

Also, if place, focus, shoot is not what he does, what is it that I'm missing? Nurse + Back hand triggers?

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Well since you seem to be assuming Brewmaster is already in the right place for his stuff, perhaps Seamus can interact and summon. The as well as him killing a 6ish soulstone model a turn, he is scoring leave your mark, and potentially preventing interference.

Or he interacts, shoots and moves to score/deny Interference.

Or, one I quite like using, is he kills something, and then corpse bloats to explode the corpse near several other enemy models who are  on -2 wp. (Or is he is in the middle of several models, drop a corpse, explode it, and heal up from  all the lost wp tests. Hopefully killing another model, allowing another explosion...)

The mobility of Seamus is much greater than that of the brewmaster, as is the survivability (at least in my experience). Yes, Seamus can't interact straight after a back alley, but he can do so next turn if he wants to. they try and do different things, but intrinsically a master which controls a model every turn has to do a lot more than a master that just removed the model outright the first time.

Here is Stryders post about the Master finals he won, explaining what he likes about Seamus, a lot of it looks to me like it is still relevant to GG2017. He still rated him as one of the competitive resser masters in April2016, so he still thinks he did well in GG2016.

 

Okay, for those of you who wanted Seamus advice, here it is:

 

I view Seamus as what I would term a 'Skirmisher'. That is someone who hangs around on the edge of the main fray picking off any models that look weak or try to make a break for it, and eliminating enemy scheme runners. This makes him one of the few masters that can conceivably win a game using the strategy of scheme denial rather than strategy denial. Of course, this means that the scheme pool has to be favourable to this. Stuff like Breakthrough, Power Ritual and Protect Territory are all good things to focus on denying by killing scheme runners. Bodyguard and Entourage are a couple of others he can deny with a little bit of resource input. You can lure your models away from Plant Explosives and Spring the Trap with Belles. Vendetta can be partially denied if your opponent reveals it but fails to score three points on the reveal, and anyone can deny Outflank. Plus there's always Assassinate, an easy one for any half-decent Seamus player to deny. Of course, with things like Cursed Object, Distract, Frame for Murder and Murder Protégée in the pool, this denial method becomes harder to accomplish and in scheme pools which feature two or more of these I would probably pick a different master and crew.

 

So that's how I would play Seamus. Build his crew to focus on getting ahead on Schemes in the right pools while ensuring you don't fall behind on the Strategy and you'll be maniacally laughing all the way home.

 

Wanted a battle report/crew breakdown instead? Here it is:

 

Masters: Final round vs Ben Crowe

Strategy: Reconnoitre

Schemes: We both took (and announced) Breakthrough and Protect Territory. I'm sure there were other options, but meh...

 

 

 

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"devoting an entire turn to deal 8 damage to a model is the best this master can do"

I think this kinda sums it up.

Sure he can still do alot. But compare them to other similar masters. Mei Feng flys around the battlefield, got triggers for more and more attacks... Seamus got that one shot.

 

And the -2 WP aura is nice... for a model who likes close combat. But Seamus with df 4 and no real good attacks in close combat is not very welcome in there.

If Bag o' tools would increase DF and maybe something more so he REALLY becomes a cc expert. That'd be great.

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I agree with @Adran's sentiment - take Corpse Bloat next time. It really opens up a new set of options for Seamus. He's no longer a model everyone wants to just tie up and ignore - if you're close to him you just make it easier for him to throw his spleen at you and then blow it up. Back Alley lets him position it perfectly for that 3" :pulse, he can automatically heal himself when your opponent fails duels, and Sinister Rep makes it harder for them to succeed those duels.

I also agree that schemes are definitely what you look at when you consider him, not strategies. In most instances, the schemes in GG2017 don't encourage a Seamus Pick - Frame for Murder is more common than ever and it's terrible for him. However, there are a few schemes that are great for him - I think he's one of our best masters to deny Tail 'Em or Eliminate the Leadership, for example, and excels as he always has at Entourage. He's also decent at Hidden Trap / Set Up / Dig their Graves if he opts to go for Bag of Tools.

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36 minutes ago, Lord Malkom said:

"devoting an entire turn to deal 8 damage to a model is the best this master can do"

I think this kinda sums it up.

Sure he can still do alot. But compare them to other similar masters. Mei Feng flys around the battlefield, got triggers for more and more attacks... Seamus got that one shot.

 

And the -2 WP aura is nice... for a model who likes close combat. But Seamus with df 4 and no real good attacks in close combat is not very welcome in there.

If Bag o' tools would increase DF and maybe something more so he REALLY becomes a cc expert. That'd be great.

And hope the model doesn't have armor/hard to kill/hard to wound/incorporeal/bulletproof/hard cover/soulstones (You can take unnerving aura for an additional 2 stone investment to bypass this last limitation). In these cases, it's not even 8 damage per activation.

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I actually don't like him for Tail'em. If you took a focused shot you are necessarily in line of sight of something. You can deny the scheme, sure, but they denied your master's turn.

The Carrion Emissary is the Resser answer to Tail em. Preemptively place the Shards, have you Master/Henchman end their activation behind it.

Also, corpse bloat can deal 5 damage to your own guys and since you depend on the position of a corpse marker (in base contact with yourself if obtained through corpse bloat) you may not really have the option. And that's another 2 stone upgrade. I guess you're giving up Unnerving aura? That means you're not going to shoot soulstone users at all.

How many people clump up around the corpse marker anyway? Are you not focusing the shot? So that's 2 ap for a 4 min damage on gun and potentially 5 from corpse bloat (that can be avoided). If everything goes well it's 9 dmg vs 8. Is it worth the extra action, the position, the dependency on the corpse marker? Do you use the 0 to provide your own corpse marker? Are you then giving up "no eyes on me"?

Whenever all those variables come in, you're playing the odds a lot. In Malifaux I like to have the math on my side.

I love corpse bloat with Molly, as she swims in corpse markers, but I tend to not have too many around with Seamus, and I need those for Red Chapel Killer and the "no eyes on me" condition.

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I only use Corpse Bloat to actually create a Corpse a few times each game - early in the game after he Back Alleys into the enemy. 

It's not so much a question of how many people clump around the Corpse Marker - it's more a question of where do you want that very first Corpse marker to be, since you're coming in from 10" - 16" away the first time. You place it in areas where it's affecting 2-3 models or more. A perfectly positioned 3" :pulse reaches so much further than it sounds, and most crews naturally like to bubble together to support each other. 

If everything goes "well", I'm not looking at 9 damage, I'm reasonably looking at 5 damage across multiple models, or destroying their control hand, depending on how many models I catch. It's not uncommon to kill 2 or 3 models with a single explosion. I might use that third AP to shoot with the pistol and add 4 more damage, or I might use a Corpse generated by killing someone to start again. I also don't have to rely on cheating in Severe damage like you are for your 8 damage so I save a high card there. 

I presume you mean Decaying Aura, since you mentioned Soulstone users. No, of course I'm not taking Decaying Aura. Why would I ever shoot Soulstone users? 4 Damage to the average Henchman or Master is a joke. If I Focus they can just use a Soulstone to give themselves a :+fate on Def and put me a :-fate on any damage flip. That's such a waste of his AP. 

It can be extremely powerful against some factions. Against Gremlins, for example, their WP is generally so low and model count so high your initial Unforgiving Stench is going to be enormously game changing. Against another Resser player, low WP stats across the board means the TN15 WP duel is really hard to get away from, and it gets around Hard to Wound and Incorporeal with the flat 5 Damage. Almost any minion or peon would need to flip 11's or better to dodge the 5 Damage.

If you have tried the build a few times and think it's still trash fair enough. In your meta, perhaps it is trash. If you haven't tried it, I'm wondering if you might try it once or twice with an open mind before claiming, essentially, that all Seamus can do is Back Alley, Focus and Shoot.

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On 3/17/2017 at 11:12 PM, Fetid Strumpet said:

I've tried it and it's pretty bad against anyone who has the remotest handle on what it does. 

IME when the opponent knows how it works, it forces him into awkward positioning which makes it more difficult for them to utilize their synergies properly. Because the threat of the explosion is really scary - five damage that goes through some important defenses (HtW, ItW, Df Triggers, and Incorporeal to name a few) and Wp 13 duel with Seamus' -2 to Wp can be quite difficult to pass as hydranixx notes above. Especially if they don't save cards against it and if they do, that again affects their play.

So yeah, it might seem that it doesn't have a big effect since there's never a good spot to use it but then you end up winning the game since the opponent is seemingly making weird choices all game long.

YMMV, naturally.

Edit: And I wish to stress that I don't mean that YMMV dismissively but rather to acknowledge that it is very possible that our experiences differ because of terrain and general meta and so on.

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Lots of discussion about Seamus on this thread and the one about the Voodoo doll? Obviously people feel differently about his strengths and weaknesses, which is what makes the game work so well IMHO.  I am quite new to the game and haven't used him yet so have nothing to bring to the discussion on that front.

Although I do feel Molly is much under rated on this thread, for having the best surname in the game if nothing else!

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