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Oxfordian Mages: A Power Struggle


DrayZed

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18 hours ago, Da Git said:

I was thinking this too. Instead of changing the mages, remove one of the abilities from Temporary shielding. Either:

Rename it Uni (not college or frat since Oxford is British) Mates and just have the -1ss cost when taken in 3s.

Or (I like this option much better) 

Just remove the -1ss cost. It's still a free upgrade for kinda two extra wounds at the cost of a card. 

This would return them to 18ss for all three, naturally giving players less incentive to run all three (which I see as very good for the game). You might actually see just a solo or even a double mage in lists opening up crew building options and increasing the variety of lists seen rather than just having a 15ss clump of auto-take. 

Would you still take mages at 6ss with Temporary Shielding but no -1ss?

Yes 100% I would still hire mages every game with sandeep. But actually, only two at certain times to give the crew more flexibility.

 

 

PS: further to the "nerf Sandeep" stats, since the post earlier in the thread I've run (almost) solo sandeep at two further events and placed 2nd/42 (lost on VP diff after narrow win vs uk master) & 3rd/30 (lost to Varney's Nico, low V diff from narrow wins with Colette). There is huge disparity between running sandeep and any other Arcanist master and I really dislike it.

 

 

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46 minutes ago, Hollingydale said:

PS: further to the "nerf Sandeep" stats, since the post earlier in the thread I've run (almost) solo sandeep at two further events and placed 2nd/42 (lost on VP diff after narrow win vs uk master) & 3rd/30 (lost to Varney's Nico, low V diff from narrow wins with Colette). There is huge disparity between running sandeep and any other Arcanist master and I really dislike it.

 

 

So is it the case that Sandeep is overpowered and that you are placing above where you should because you played him or that the other Arcanist masters don’t put you on an even footing against the competition?

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7 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

So is it the case that Sandeep is overpowered and that you are placing above where you should because you played him or that the other Arcanist masters don’t put you on an even footing against the competition?

Sandeep is overpowered because he is consistently churning out results in every scenario he is placed into.

I would like to think I would still be #2 in the UK & best Arcanist even if he didn't exist as I'd find a way with the other masters, which I did prior to his release. But currently there is no reason, competitively, to run anything else so I can't really answer the first point.

There is easily at least one Arcanist master that is on an equal footing with most other masters in the game, except possibly Nicodem and Zipp (maybe Nellie and Kirai?) in my opinion.

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9 minutes ago, Hollingydale said:

Sandeep is overpowered because he is consistently churning out results in every scenario he is placed into.

I would like to think I would still be #2 in the UK & best Arcanist even if he didn't exist as I'd find a way with the other masters, which I did prior to his release. But currently there is no reason, competitively, to run anything else so I can't really answer the first point.

There is easily at least one Arcanist master that is on an equal footing with most other masters in the game, except possibly Nicodem and Zipp (maybe Nellie and Kirai?) in my opinion.

It seems like if the only problem with Sandeep is that he doesn’t give you a reason to play any other masters he’d need to be catching heavy enough nerfs that there will usually be a master in any given situation that would be a better choice. If that were to happen it seems like he’d more or less knocked out of rotation.

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31 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

It seems like if the only problem with Sandeep is that he doesn’t give you a reason to play any other masters he’d need to be catching heavy enough nerfs that there will usually be a master in any given situation that would be a better choice. If that were to happen it seems like he’d more or less knocked out of rotation.

This is a discussion for the other thread. He just needs to be dropped to a point where he is not an autotake for everything. A projectile added to arcane storm and making beacon slightly harder to pull off will not knock Sandeep out of rotation.

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On 4/6/2018 at 9:46 PM, WWHSD said:

If you are going to mess with the triggers on Elemental Bolt why not just spread them around to different suits.

Push stays on Tomes, Slow goes to Masks, Burning goes to Crows, and Armor ignoring goes to Rams.

 

Elemental bolt is really good because the trigger is basically built in with resonance. If you change the suit of the triggers, you need to spend a card to hit the status you want. I feel that would weaken the mages too much. 

 

Basically, making it so the trigger can only be declared once per turn means you can only slow one model per activation. I feel like that is fair. 

 

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9 minutes ago, grim_stoki said:

Elemental bolt is really good because the trigger is basically built in with resonance. If you change the suit of the triggers, you need to spend a card to hit the status you want. I feel that would weaken the mages too much. 

 

Basically, making it so the trigger can only be declared once per turn means you can only slow one model per activation. I feel like that is fair. 

 

If a Mage is trying to slow multiple targets then he isn't furious casting which is it's own trade off in a way. 

Allowing each mage to only declare any given trigger once per activation puts a damper on one Mage pushing the other two into position. Not sure if that would be intended.

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On 07/04/2018 at 5:40 AM, WWHSD said:

Would that be enough of a hit to Mages to make them a bit less of the obvious choice?

I think it wont change fact that Mages are auto-take. Yes, agree they will die faster but mostly they are picked cause of aura and damage output. Once Mage gets its position (and with pushes its not so hard at all) he can Furious cast and since mages provide a SS if they damage enemy model they are auto take even if u dont pick those reduction upgrades.

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Considering 3 years ago, mages were considered to be one of the worst models in the faction, would just banning temporary shielding work? 

(For those that don't know, a few years ago each faction got to vote for models they thought were too weak and needed a boost in the form of a new upgrade. Arcanist voted for Slate Ridge Mauler and Oxfordian Mages. We then got temporary shielding and Circus bear). 

Alternatively you could give it a cost of 1 ss, giving you a slight advantage for hiring multiples still, but it could still be used even if you only hired 1 Mage. 

I think the rise in power of the Mage is due to the other models that have been released, so that even without Temporary shielding, people would still take them now, at least sometimes. 

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2 hours ago, Rillan said:

There were no book 4 that came out completely broken and crushed the overall Master balance. Since then we suffer....

They didn't get Temporary Shielding until book 4.
Other than the Oxfordian Mages themselves, the Freikorps Librarian was the only Academic that could be hired into Arcanist crews. Book 4 added 4 Arcanist Academics and added in additional options for hiring in others from outside the faction.
The master they worked with best, Ironsides, was arguably the worst master in the faction. She has since been buffed through errata and book 5 upgrades to be one of the stronger masters.

 

Book 4 did more for Oxfordian Mages than just bring Sandeep into the game. The buff to the Mages came at the same time that a couple of changes in the faction made them more likely to see play. 

If Temporary Shielding didn't exist Sandeep synergizes well  enough with the Mages that I suspect that you'd probably see at least one in his crews. Sometimes you'd see people bringing more than one but that would be dependent on scheme pool and table layout. Now that Ironsides is seeing play, you'd probably see at least one (with Blood Ward) with her and Amina. Outside of that you'd probably see a Mage with Blood Ward to power Warding Runes or occasionally see a Mage with Nemesis Ward as a ranged attacker. 



  

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21 hours ago, Rillan said:

There were no book 4 that came out completely broken and crushed the overall Master balance. Since then we suffer....

Are you trying to say that the only reason people are saying the Mages are over powered is because of their use with Sandeep? 

If this is the case, and there were changes to Sandeep to lower his power, do you think that would be enough to remove the apparent power of the Mage so that they don't need a change themselves? 

 

 

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52 minutes ago, Adran said:

Are you trying to say that the only reason people are saying the Mages are over powered is because of their use with Sandeep? 

If this is the case, and there were changes to Sandeep to lower his power, do you think that would be enough to remove the apparent power of the Mage so that they don't need a change themselves? 

 

 

U got the point.

Book 4 by trying to buff weak models gave us overall perfect Masters that are not so one sided like mosts others are. And when people realized that mages are made (perfect synergy) for Sandeep they forgot about Tonnia.

 

But this doesn't mean that im about to nerf Sandeep. Im still for buffing/reworking other masters so they look more like generalist - Sandeep and wont be so awful without their crew. As a guild player i see the problem in Justice + Franc, Sonnia + Franc. Franc is auto-take model and without it those two do pretty bad while with Franc they have a chance and its not interesting to play 40 SS with restricted options crew since 10 SS  always auto-take Franc.

Same goes to Kaeris - weak damage and pretty useless triggers so only scheme run and she is not best at it.

Same goes to Colette - weak damage, average sustain can't do anything against bruisers/summoners, only scheming.

 

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Sorry, Still not sure what your view point on the power level of the mages is?

Do you find the Mage is too good (presumably as a block of 3, but also as an individual model) or do you think the only reason that they are viewed as too good is because Sandeep is viewed as too good?

I guess what I'm trying to say that if you removed Sandeep from the game tomorrow, do you think Mages would still be too good for the rest of the faction? Or are they only too good with Sandeep, or are they actually not too good even with Sandeep. (This is trying to remove all views on the strength of Sandeep from this question)

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Adran said:

Sorry, Still not sure what your view point on the power level of the mages is?

Do you find the Mage is too good (presumably as a block of 3, but also as an individual model) or do you think the only reason that they are viewed as too good is because Sandeep is viewed as too good?

I guess what I'm trying to say that if you removed Sandeep from the game tomorrow, do you think Mages would still be too good for the rest of the faction? Or are they only too good with Sandeep, or are they actually not too good even with Sandeep. (This is trying to remove all views on the strength of Sandeep from this question)

 

 

Mages are balanced so just good. Problems start when they get in Sandeep crew and Sandeep same time takes Myranda with IE. Piece by piece it becomes too strong. Cause Mages weak point (discard to furious cast) is covered by Myranda with card draw +4. Also When Mage is close enough to Sandeep it can shoot non-:ToS-Range: cast with + flip to damage or get :ToS-Tome: to all casts since Sandeep also is Academic that's for 5 SS model is huge. Same time mage provides great defense (upgrades) to Myranda so she becomes almost invulnerable and she always gets those 4 cards turn u need.

As a separate pieces its OK, but when they come together its power-play.

 

 

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