Kaeris Summoning Rant.

[WWHSD]

I'm looking at Kaeris's summoning upgrade and trying to figure out the logic behind it. It's a 2SS upgrade. It requires Kaeris to kill a target that has the Burning condition with a specific attack. It also requires hitting a trigger that is not built in. If she jumps through all of those hoops she gets a half dead Fire Gamin.

To contrast how bad that is both Sonnia and McMourning have similar upgrades. 

Sonnia has a 1SS upgrade. It summons a full health Witchling Stalker if an enemy model with Burning gets reduced to 0 wounds within 10 inches of Sonnia and Sonnia is will to spend a soulstone or discard two cards. She has a second 1SS upgrade that summons a full health Purifying Flame if an enemy model with the burning condition is killed anywhere on the table. It sacrifices other totems when it's summoned so she'll only ever have one out but she could potentially summon a multiple times in a round with each Purifying Flame taking a 1AP activation.

McMourning has a 1SS upgrade that summons a full health Canine Remains when a Living or Undead model within 8 of him dies from Poison. It also gives him the option to summon a full health Flesh Construct whenever he drops a Living or Undead enemy to 0 wounds with Expunge.

I get that not everything needs to be equal and that what is an underpowered upgrade on one master may end up being broken good on another. This just seems like another thing that Kaeris can do that is like something someone else does but crappier. I don't expect that this will change, I just felt like ranting. Her 2SS upgrade also has a built-in trigger to drop a Flame Pillar when her attack kills something but most of the other upgrades I mentioned have other effects as well.

[Franchute]

There are indeed better summoners in faction, ie Ramos, Sandeep.

[KingCrow]

I 100000% agree with you.  Her summoning is very sub-par and will never see competative or really any type of play, unless someone is trying it out.  In the years I've played Malifaux, I've used the upgrade once, saw how bad it was and have never touched it since. I fully wish that Wyrd would re-do her summoning upgrade to give her access to the Lampad Resser model.  I still don't understand why Ressers got access to a models that's all about burning even though there are factions that have such better synergy with the burning.  I guess we can only hope maybe they'll give something that is PERFECT for Kaeris in the future. 

I believe Kaeris is supposed to be a tanky, frontline spellcaster but the setup she requires takes precious AP and not enough models can benefit from the enemy models being on fire.  Also, not enough models can reliably put burning on the enemy. 

[WWHSD]

43 minutes ago, Franchute said:

There are indeed better summoners in faction, ie Ramos, Sandeep.

She doesn't need to be a great summoner. The examples I gave were similar upgrades for other masters that aren't really considered summoners. Her summoning ability being subpar would be fine, but as it is, there are a ton of hoops to jump through, it has a crappy pay off, and it's on an expensive upgrade. If it was a trigger on her card I would be happy with it. If it didn't have so many conditions to meet, I might not hate it (but still might think it's a bit overpriced). 

That's kind of Kaeris's niche though, isn't it?  Jumping through a bunch of hoops to get mediocre results? 

[WWHSD]

17 minutes ago, KingCrow said:

In the years I've played Malifaux, I've used the upgrade once, saw how bad it was and have never touched it since. I fully wish that Wyrd would re-do her summoning upgrade to give her access to the Lampad Resser model. 

I think I'd be happy with the 2SS upgrade, jumping through hoops to trigger it, and getting a half dead model if that half dead model was a Lampad.

[Clement]

If she doesn't get the Ram, she's still able to make Pyre markers for free.  That's tech she formerly had to take a limited upgrade to get.

[WWHSD]

4 minutes ago, Clement said:

If she doesn't get the Ram, she's still able to make Pyre markers for free.  That's tech she formerly had to take a limited upgrade to get.

I think this upgrade is the only way she can drop Pyre markers. 

[Clement]

17 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I think this upgrade is the only way she can drop Pyre markers. 

Purifying Fire upgrade made 2 Pyre Markers as a 0.  But it's limited so you couldn't do Grab and Drop, which is way more fun.

[WWHSD]

11 minutes ago, Clement said:

Purifying Fire upgrade made 2 Pyre Markers as a 0.  But it's limited so you couldn't do Grab and Drop, which is way more fun.

That's the one I missed. Born of Fire (the summoning upgrade) is one of her original upgrades so she's always been able to take it. 

That's the other thing that grinds my gears with Kaeris. None of her upgrades are so good together that any of them need to be Limited. That and she ends up with way too many zero actions for a model that isn't Instinctual. I guess she can hire the Emissary and let it spend it's zero action and a 5 or higher to give her Instinctual until the end of the turn but that's just one more activation order piece of BS that a Kaeris crew can add to their already long list of things that need to activate in a particular order. 

[retnab]

The thing I really hate is how desperate she really is for Instinctual.  She just has so many 0's, and they each synergize with each other so much it feels like she was practically built to have that ability.  I feel like I almost have to take the Emissary with her and I basically have to treat it like a 10ss upgrade that doesn't take up one of her slots and can be killed.

If she got a Lucius-style rework (which if any Arcanist Master needs it, it's absolutely her) I'd love to see her get Instinctual and have the Emissary's upgrade get totally redone (hurt my models to give out extra Burning?  No thanks.  Why not just let them give out Burning, even if the ability instead goes to a (0) aura?).  Heck, while we're at it I'd love it if she just had an ability which was basically "when Kaeris deals damage, she also gives out Burning +1", then turn Flaming Halo into just give Burning +2 or 3 and remove the  and Stoke the Flames trigger.  For Flare, drop the Df duel and just make it go off on say a 4 or 5+, it's a master's (0) after all.  She also has so many triggers on her upgrades, maybe pull a few from there and just put them on her card.

[WWHSD]

I’d love to see them strike the word “Enemy” from the first sentence of the Grab and Drop action. 

If she could use it to place her own models that would be awesome.

[KingCrow]

Where do we start the petition to get Wyrd to remake Kaeris? lol

[Fictor]

This weeks I'm testing other masters (Ironsides, Kaeris...) after few games I can say, Kaeris is the worst Arcanist master, like you say all his habilities are worst than any others maters.

Like you say summon at death are so, so bad.

Pyre markers are bad too! they pop out at the end of the turn, so Sonia and Raspi are a lot of better in that again.

The 'Expurgue' of poison that have Kaeris, and his totem (this bad, bad totem) ends the burning, but isn't the same like Expurgue poison because poison doesn't do all dmg at the end of turn and we need that, but the burning do all dmg and we doesn't need spend Aps to consume, if they at least doesn't finist the burning after resolve the Ap, we could do dmg at the end of the turn too...

And his Ap to do more dmg on burning and the Firestarter hability are Aps!!! Sebastian is a passive, poison can't be reduced by armor, he doesn't need activate before, only stay near the targets and do dmg 2 times in

IMO, she and his crew do all worst than all other comparations.

[WWHSD]

48 minutes ago, Fictor said:

This weeks I'm testing other masters (Ironsides, Kaeris...) after few games I can say, Kaeris is the worst Arcanist master, like you say all his habilities are worst than any others maters.

Like you say summon at death are so, so bad.

Pyre markers are bad too! they pop out at the end of the turn, so Sonia and Raspi are a lot of better in that again.

The 'Expurgue' of poison that have Kaeris, and his totem (this bad, bad totem) ends the burning, but isn't the same like Expurgue poison because poison doesn't do all dmg at the end of turn and we need that, but the burning do all dmg and we doesn't need spend Aps to consume, if they at least doesn't finist the burning after resolve the Ap, we could do dmg at the end of the turn too...

And his Ap to do more dmg on burning and the Firestarter hability are Aps!!! Sebastian is a passive, poison can't be reduced by armor, he doesn't need activate before, only stay near the targets and do dmg 2 times in

IMO, she and his crew do all worst than all other comparations.

In general I think that Burning is the better condition if you are just tossing a few models that deal it into a crew with no particular synergies with it. Poison is the better condition if you’ve got a lot of abilities that key off of the condition since posion can last a few turns and doesn’t need to be constantly reapplied. 

[Moirdryd]

Hi, New(ish) to the game and first post to the forums. 

Been playing A LOT with Kaeris recently as I'm getting back into the game and yeah, her summoning sucks compared to pretty much every other summoner and feels like a waste of points and an upgrade slot. 

However it feels like a massive 'bolt on' compared to her other abilities and upgrades. I mean with Kaeris on the table lots tends to burn and when you add in Carlos and the Emissary then EVERYTHING burns. Had a game yesterday against Reva and (while I lost due to a stupid move on my part and some solid play on my opponents part) there is a moment that was photographed as every model in Reva's crew except for Reva was on fire with Burning 2 or 3. It was beautiful. 

[Adran]

2 hours ago, Fictor said:

This weeks I'm testing other masters (Ironsides, Kaeris...) after few games I can say, Kaeris is the worst Arcanist master, like you say all his habilities are worst than any others maters.

Like you say summon at death are so, so bad.

Pyre markers are bad too! they pop out at the end of the turn, so Sonia and Raspi are a lot of better in that again.

The 'Expurgue' of poison that have Kaeris, and his totem (this bad, bad totem) ends the burning, but isn't the same like Expurgue poison because poison doesn't do all dmg at the end of turn and we need that, but the burning do all dmg and we doesn't need spend Aps to consume, if they at least doesn't finist the burning after resolve the Ap, we could do dmg at the end of the turn too...

And his Ap to do more dmg on burning and the Firestarter hability are Aps!!! Sebastian is a passive, poison can't be reduced by armor, he doesn't need activate before, only stay near the targets and do dmg 2 times in

IMO, she and his crew do all worst than all other comparations.

I would say Grab and Drop is one of the best abilities in the game (Zipps is better). Enemy model placement and damage as well as master movement is amazing. 

Her summoning is poor, but its an option if you want it. Likewise her Pyres were poor, but have got a lot better with Carlos. turning burning to damage isn't great because its probably going to happen anyway, but its eitehr a trigger on her attack (so you decide if its worth it for you) or the actions of a cheap model. Not a huge cost. 

 But those aren't the reasons you picked her. 

She is a bit of a generalist, so if you pick her against the specialists in an area she will always come of second best. 

She summons better than Ironsides, controls areas better than Marcus, drops scheme markers better than Rasputina, fights better than Ramos

[katadder]

I do like kaeris and use her alot. She can be competitive too.

But I agree her summoning is poor. If it was similar to sonnias it would be nicer even for half dead gamin

[retnab]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

She is a bit of a generalist, so if you pick her against the specialists in an area she will always come of second best. 

She summons better than Ironsides, controls areas better than Marcus, drops scheme markers better than Rasputina, fights better than Ramos

Problem with that is Sandeep is a better generalist in all of those so even just in-faction she's not the best at her job

[Adran]

Sonnias summoning has quite an additional cost, having to discard cards or soulstone each time. And she already has other abilities making her want to discard cards and/or soulstone.  Also has some timing issues in that most of the time you want to be killing the model on the second attack because you used the first attack to apply the burning which isn't applied until after the damage. The model being on fire before KAeris hits them with immolate is at least the normal situation you are aiming for, and its easier for Arcanists to set models on fire than it is guild. 

 I think Kaeris summoning is most like Levi and his abomination summoning (needing an upgrade on his ranged attack). 2ss for the upgrade is high, and I know I rarely want it, but I have also nearly lost a game because of good use of it (they had a buried Killjoy, and I struggled to deal with the summoned gamin in my crew to prevent killjoy arriving).

 

Edit - Retnab you might be right, but there are still times Kaeris is a better choice than Sandeep

[Ludvig]

Have to agree with Adran, cards or soulstones aren't exactly a trivial cost for Sonnia. The totem upgrade is extremely efficient though. When I first faced Kaeris I wasn't that impressed but then my opponent started using Grab and drop. All that scheming and all those flying imbued beaters and on top of that dropping my lynchpin models way out of place... Damn!

[katadder]

Well Levi gets his summon with no damage to it and just requires a suit (which combined with hodgepodge effigy and tally sheet is easy to add a stoke for suit) so even Levi doesn't have to jump through as many hoops

[Ludvig]

15 minutes ago, katadder said:

Well Levi gets his summon with no damage to it and just requires a suit (which combined with hodgepodge effigy and tally sheet is easy to add a stoke for suit) so even Levi doesn't have to jump through as many hoops

Levi's whole thing seems to be being a dick to be honest but I'm finding it hard to compare Levi and Kaeris because they go about everything differently. Levi's summoning upgrade is strictly better than Kaeris' just like other model and upgrade comparisons turn up very different results. Mech rider's (0) compared to basically any other rider's (0) is also a pretty insane comparison and those models were designed to be at the exact same power level while Kaeris and Levi have very different designs.

It wouldn't exactly hurt the game if her upgrade was slightly better but errata has been restrictive so far and limited to reigning in masters percieved to break the game, not mending individual upgrades. Not against that approach though, Kaeris could certainly have a better upgrade.

[Squirrelich]

Yeah, her summoning upgrade is pretty trash, for all the reasons mentioned. But it is hardly the first card from the first 2 waves to be trash.  Look at your other masters and tell me there aren't are least a few upgrades you will never take again. Maybe some masters have 6 viable ones, but I'm sure you'll be able to find others that don't. For me an easy example is Ironsides reflip red joker received damage, and that was before steam fitter could give a  condition that reduced RJs to moderate

Put out enough cards and some are going to be duds, just happens. And upgrades are probably a  much smaller priority to fix than dud models for sale and hobby reasons 

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, Ludvig said:

Have to agree with Adran, cards or soulstones aren't exactly a trivial cost for Sonnia. The totem upgrade is extremely efficient though. When I first faced Kaeris I wasn't that impressed but then my opponent started using Grab and drop. All that scheming and all those flying imbued beaters and on top of that dropping my lynchpin models way out of place... Damn!

By not having it be a built in trigger, Kaeris also essentially has a stone or card requirement. The difference is that Kaeris needs to decide to pay the price before she knows if the model that she is attacking will be killed by the attack.

A full health Witchling Stalker is also a much better model than a half dead Fire Gamin, especially now that offensive condition removal can end up scoring points in two strategies.

[Ludvig]

I wasn't arguing that her summoning uprade is good but that she does other things instead and shouldn't take it. It's like the upgrade that gives Lucius extra melee attacks for friendly markers or Ryle's upgrade that discards scrap. Simply not good.