Barmution

2 hours ago, dannydb said:

Oxford mages are good condition removal in an area!

Anybody keeping half an eye on the open beta forums will probably be tired of hearing me say this but the OM is pretty amazing in general. The condition removal is pretty ace but also bear in mind the trigger "Elemental Transference: Either remove a Scrap Marker in base contact with the target, end Slow on the target, or reduce the value of the target's Burning or Poison Condition by 2. After resolving, either Drop a Scrap Marker in base contact with the target or the target gains either Slow, Burning +2, or Poison +2."

Note the "after resolving" part. This means that given a tome, even a 1, you can put Slow on any target that is either in base contact w scrap or has a Burning or Poison value at 2+ unresisted since it goes off even if the attack misses. That is pretty strong in crews that juggles these mechanics or vs other crews that use them.

5 minutes ago, whodares said:

Aren't you the guy who was defending the blatantly OP Nicodem and Sanddeep together with Teddybear? Because I actually got my point there when they nerfed both those masters and made them more managable...

Nope, that wasn't me. But you've nicely illustrated that your main motivation for these posts is to get your points. Congratulations on your previous points.

8 minutes ago, whodares said:

You seem to be of the opinion that I think Zoraida and Dreamer are fine. I also think both those masters should be toned down. Zoraida especially with a 25+" (double) Obey range on a stat 7 AND several ways of managing both you and your opponent's decks.

I have no "opinion" about what you think. There will be objective differences in the power levels of both isolated models and synergies in any game. You are entitled to your opinions about them but the way you engage with any kind of suggestion as to how to deal with stuff seems to be very defensive and not open to the results stemming from anything other that your initial proposal, in this case that Titania's power set is OP, in any way. This is not the only thread where you have argued like this and it won't be the last. Suffice it to say that I disagree with you and that I find engaging you directly in arguments to be an exercise in futility on my part. Whether that is a fault on my or your side is not for me to decide.

We are presented with the following options:

1. Believing that Titania is "overloaded"/overpowered based on Whodares' single, self admitted poorly prepared match.
2. Believing that months of open and closed beta play testing didn't show evidence of her power set being overpowered, as well as the reported competitive M3E tourney players have not identified her as anywhere near broken or auto take(in fact I can't even recall seeing her on the lists of the 3 major tourney results I've skimmed, but Zoraida and Dreamer appears as frequently successful Neverborn masters).

The prime argument for 1 would be that competitive tournament players have somehow overlooked the potency of Titania's powerset. But Whodares' main complaint is that it's too easy to set up because the interactions are found as part of the isolated abilities and actions found on Titania's card so I guess that's pretty improbable.

Personally I'm sticking with option 2.

It can even generate Pit Traps which are potentially awesome for Arcanists that can push or place enemy models (hello Kaeris + Iggy!). Really digging the miners.

4 hours ago, cbtb11235813 said:

You absolutely cannot take this action while buried. From Pg. 33, "They still Activate, but they cannot take Actions." So unless Lucid Dream, or the model performing it specifically state they can take the action while buried, they can't. 

Thank you for that clarification. That definitely makes me come to the same conclusion as you: That Lucid Dreaming by itself isn't necessarily a big issue.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

If you optimise the removal of cards the question comes to what have you forsaken to do so. (Many of the models that perform this action are not very strong in attacking or durability).

I think part of the problem is having this keyword ability a part of a keyword that belongs to a summoning master. Technically you can start out with whatever the scheme pool needs and still have some Lucid Dreaming to go around while summoning in even more since LD can be done while buried. Opportunity cost is still relevant, of course, but it's less of an issue with a summoning master IMHO. Personally I would be ok with the ability if Fiendish Gamble were removed from the Stitched, at least as long as there aren't any reports of Dreamer crews steamrolling high level tournaments.

2 minutes ago, Angelshard said:

Also stitched are extremely vulnerable to obey, it's guaranteed damage to your models. 

Nah, Gamble Your Life is Enemy Only and Obey doesn't change which crew the model considers enemy/friendly. They are really strong, esp. as summons.

16 hours ago, Jordon said:

I think we'll see Sandeep a nice bit as a secondary master in other crews. His versatility and ability to summon in-keyword gamin makes him an attractive option

As @cbtb11235813 says I don't think he'll be worth 16 SS in most crews given his limitation on summons and that he won't be bringing Banasuva. Combine this with Sandeep being extremely squishy and probably not getting a lot of Academics to draw LoS from in other crews and I think he'll be a bit of a niche pick if at all. Might see some use in other crews that feature golems due to his ability to command them.

Personally I think that the Oxfordian Mage will become popular in any crews that feature scrap tokens, burning or poison, due to their Elemental Transference trigger being able to turn these conditions into Slow with no resistance (trigger is After Resolving so all you need for it to go off is any Tome) and also that Arcane Conduit is really strong condition removal.

11 hours ago, Loupe said:

I've theorised about the same group,  with no coryphee, but zoraida running the crew. 

I've used Vasilisa with Zoraida on a couple of occasions and it's pretty solid. You can get scrap from the Voodoo Doll and/or add a Wicked Doll for Vasilisa to use Pulling the Strings on. Z's Threads of Fate makes it fairly likely to get a 9+ Mask in hand during your turn for a Stiched or at least a 6+ for a new Wicked Doll so unless your opponent sports a lot of armor ignoring damage to off Vasilisa quickly it's pretty easy to get a nice return on that 8 SS investment with mama Z.

9 hours ago, retnab said:

Also, Iggy is SO good.  Arson is decent niche tech to have available and his melee is okay, but I swear having him just stand with a Pyre Marker right between him and a melee threat is incredible.  If they charge you and touch the Pyre Marker at all you get to push them away with Misery before they do their charge attack, and if they walk in to try and force you to spend Misery before charging back in you can either shove them into a Pyre Marker if they went fully through it or if they didn't then spend their Burning to get +'s on their actual attack and plink them for damage for daring to be in the pyre marker still.  Bonus points for pushing them to be within 2" of Elijah so they're now engaged with him and can't charge Iggy anymore  He's definitely making my lists in the future.

Just going to echo your sentiments about Iggy. He's basically an auto unless your opponent tips his hand about going for a shooting heavy crew. With drop mechanics on the Fire Gamin and Kaeris and the totem's ability to put out burning just by moving Pyre markers around he can get massive work done with Misery. 10/10, would arson again.

1 minute ago, Marcusito said:

They should at least specify the timing of the current trigger.  Success or resolving.

It's already covered by the general rules: If nothing else is stated it takes effect on success.

4 minutes ago, trikk said:

It's situational from my perspective (how often it goes off). 

I'd say you described how it's suppose to work. But with all the hoops you have to go through (low Df, not built in, just  attacks, only Df) most opponents can really ignore it and risk getting that 3 damage every 5 games because it won't change much. Even when I first played against people that didn't quite realize how it works, I still didn't really get any mileage from it.

Can't argue against your experience but I know that if I faced Lady J that defense trigger would shape my way of playing against her. I might be too conservative a player to take advantage of the actual probabilities.

I'd argue that it's not situational at all: It's a deterrent for your opponent taking pot shots in melee, they're forced to go in big if they have to cheat first after the flip and you can be close to certain that they will be putting in a big card if they elect to attack her so you can play a card that's just high enough to ensure a -flip, not try to make them miss you. I guess we have different definitions of situational.

20 minutes ago, Maciej said:

Am I correct to assume that LoS only is for actions and therefore does not work with Reading the Cards, which is an ability, not an action?

Yes, that is correct.

@Caedrus:

Just to clarify; I'm not saying that you are wrong, I'm just saying that there's an argument to be made for keeping the current wording. It's probably historically hard to say when the majority of people started to call revolvers revolvers as the words pistoleros, gunfighters and gunmen doesn't distinguish the type of weapon used but they're still commonly associated with people using revolvers. I do agree that the word revolver evokes more of an old west feeling as you say, though.

I also appreciate the effort you've put down into making this list but I think clarity and consistency across models is more important if we have to choose between the two. I don't recall who but somebody had the idea of attacks and abilities both keeping their generic names and getting a unique action name as well (like Peacebringer (Light Pistol)) and I think that would be a decent, if wordy, compromise.

7 hours ago, Caedrus said:

• Light Pistol. So, this is a statement that can apply to a few models, and assumes that there is a linkage between the model and the text. That’s not a pistol. That’s a revolver. I think Malifaux’s only pistol use was the metal Guild Sergeant.

The etymology of revolver is a shortening of "revolving pistol," the disambiguation is fairly modern. Wyrd has several historical legs to stand on if they elect to keep the word "pistol" in their attack names.

12 hours ago, Terrordactyl said:

I have a rules question about Zoraida as well. Does Poisoned Fate only work on models that have less than Armor 2? It seems like something that could bypass Armor, but it doesn't say that, and Armor doesn't say it only works in duels, so I'm thinking I'm understanding it right, but where I am in learning the game I'm still not sure when something is or is not an exception to a rule. Thanks!

Nothing bypasses armor unless the effect explicitly states that it does but remember that armor can't reduce damage to less than 1 so Poisoned Fate would do 1 damage per cheated flip to an armored model, regardless of it having Armor+1 or Armor+3.

11 hours ago, BornOnTheBayou said:

For those of you that have uses her as a second master, is she really worth 17 ss (16+1)? 

When I tested her as a secondary master w Ulix she did a fine job. She was costed at 16 (15+1) but the main difference was that she was able to draw LoS through all friendly models, not just Swampfiends. I think her value has somewhat decreased due to the last change since she's know more reliant on being moved around, preferably outside her own action. I could still see uses for her, esp. in crews like Ulix where flexibility in model placement and order of activation can be a big plus, but in general I think the changes has made her more of a pick in a list specifically designed for her.

9 minutes ago, Angelshard said:

Also I don't see how a 3/4/5 damage flip is worse than Asami summoning an obsidian oni that charges you with 2 focused attacks and then blows up for 2 dam and 2 burning.

I'm pretty sure that I'm allowed to find that unreasonable as well, but tbh I don't really think the comparison is relevant since you are then comparing keywords. From a summoning perspective it gets a bit more iffy since you have to take the whole keyword into consideration. Also bear in mind that both Widow Weaver and Vasilisa are capable of summoning these buggers outside of the Nightmare keyword. Zoraida even provides Vasilisa with scrap via the Voodoo Doll.

1 hour ago, Angelshard said:

But then you would be back to gamble being a random draw that isn't really worth it unless you rearranged your opponents top cards first. This way it still costs you the weak card you could have removed from the deck and you need a high card to be among the three cards you flippen with lucid dreams. 

It doesn't cost you the weak card if there wasn't a weak card among those 3. The way it works now is that you get a bonus if you either get a low card or a very high card along with 2 others you don't want to remove. I think it's on the strong side now, for sure. If you get that 13, or even a 12, you are 90%+ sure that you can do 3/4/5 unresisted onto a target. That's especially massive vs soft targets that rely on -flips or high stats to avoid damage.

@kaintxu

If your starting hand is comprised of 2 out of each of weak, moderate and severe (close to the statistic average) and you're doing the Lucid Dreaming straight away your odds of not getting any weak cards on a single try is about 37%. Each time you do this it becomes less likely due to you having less moderates and high cards left to pull. It's not an accurate simulation but if you'd retained these odds on all 13 uses, only getting 3 weak cards out on those 13 tries is about a 4/1000 chance. In all likelihood this number is far too high due to repeated attempts in the same turn having even better odds at removing weak cards. I think it's pretty reasonable to say that you were freakishly unlucky.

As a big Pandora fan (and Zoraida for that matter) I don't think the current wording is neither currently good for the game nor futureproof. As it is I don't even think that limitations on triggers, enemy only or the no attaching of upgrades or naming of models is sufficient to weed out potential exploits or rules conundrums. My vote is for a redesign or just to go back to using only the damage track of the targeted model with her own suits activating triggers on the Self Loathing attack itself for Stunned and potentially a couple of other options.

5 minutes ago, Jordon said:

Regarding the Firebranded, I remember a while back a change list mentioned them having conflagration. I think them having conflagration would be a much better ability over Elemental Bolt. Make it a Stat5 and give the Smoulder trigger (not built in).  

That would set them apart in a good way, agreed.

3 hours ago, trikk said:

I think it could have potential consequences that might need looking at. I do however think that some shockwaves should have an option to ignore the effect for friendlies (like snowstorm)

 

What do people take as her core?

Firebranded + Magical Training
Carlos

is all I figured out as an autotake right now.

 

Kandara + 2 fire gamin also seem decent.

Not sold on the Firebranded atm. They have very little going for them compared to Oxfordian Mage except Embrace the Flame. After the OM got Elemental Transference on their Elemental Bolt (that triggers after resolving) they are just so much better than the FB (healing mantra for elementals, Arcane Conduit for condition removal, Elememental Transference for exchanging conditions on enemies and friends) that I'd be hard pressed not to pick the OM every time.

So Oxfordian Mage + Magicial Training and Carlos is a really solid core IMHO.

1 hour ago, bsm86 said:

I don't see how any crew should have any issues at all with taking out Iggy...

That wasn't my point. I find him a great addition to Wildfire and he's definitely not hard to remove, my point was that he actually pulls his weight to the point of him being worth focusing which isn't something a lot of 6SS models can say. I was just using him as an example of how well the new Opportunist/Misery mechanics can work out given the right circumstances.