Combat Mechanic or Arcane Reservoir for Ramos?

[Anung Un Rama]

I am planning on taking Field Generator and Under Pressure on Ramos and I cant decide on the third upgrade or if indeed I need one.

So, Combat Mechanic, Arcane Reservoir, no upgrade or something totally different?

[retnab]

I always take Arcane Reservoir, better chances of getting that 11 he loves to have.

[JoeJones]

My normal loadout on Ramos is Arcane Reservoir, Under Pressure, and Electric Summoning. I had been using Field Generator, but I kept forgetting about it, and so I decided to try more summoning. So far, it's working well fir me.

[RustAndTheCity]

The only one I always take is field generator. Makes the ball of constructs in the middle much more survivable.

[spooky_squirrel]

It depends on your crew make up and intent.

If you're using Joss, Arcane Emissary, Rail Golem, Hank (any 2+ choices from that list) as your front line workhorses, Combat Mechanic can heal them. Minions are helped out by Bleeding Edge Tech, but Enforcers+ need someone/thing else repairing/healing them. As an added bonus, the dude you just healed can chain activate and get in some more actions before the opponent can try to whittle them down again. It's solid for making Joss feel unkillable (if you're not using a Doom Ward Oxfordian Mage and putting Warding Runes on Joss already). However, you'll feel the lack of scrap markers if you're trying to put spiders out every turn. You can counter this by using Joss to kill stuff and bringing in Large Arachnids to also drop scrap markers when they kill stuff.

If your primary workhorse is Ramos (spider factory) and you're going with other henchmen, like The Captain, Firestarter, and/or Cassandra for reasons, then you want the added card control (and don't need the added repairs). Every bit of scrap is another 1-3 spiders, and if you're rolling with the pressure and field upgrades, those new spiders are going to either get a lot of work done or cause your opponent to burn up a lot of AP. If you're using one or more construct henchmen but keeping them back as a counter-attack element (and/or Bleeding Edge Tech caddy), you will probably find yourself not using the repair as much; same thing if you're using Hank as a guided missile (he won't be in repair range and/or your opponent is going to focus-fire him off the table rather than let him dance in and do what he does best).

Either mode, Ramos needs scrap markers. You should also practice with both upgrade options and see how they work with how you're using your crew..

[Sybarite]

I often took Arcane Reservoir, seize the day when it came out, and nothing else on Ramos. Maybe Under Pressure if I'm nervous about ressers or neverborn casts. Although I can definitely see reasons for taking the other upgrades as well. It's just that I often think Reservoir is enough. The companion from Combat Mechanic is sweet, and I sometimes take that. 

[Mxbedlam]

Seriously, where is our Ramos sticky?

I take: Under Pressure, Resevoir and Field Generator. Pretty much every game. Honestly in my Ramos crew I have almost 20 SS tied up in Upgrades. Joss takes bleeding Edge and Powered by Flame, and Howard has Imbued.  
Between BET, PBF and Field Generator I have a roaming bubble of mega buffs for all constructs

[hydranixx]

12 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

Seriously, where is our Ramos sticky?

I take: Under Pressure, Resevoir and Field Generator. Pretty much every game. Honestly in my Ramos crew I have almost 20 SS tied up in Upgrades. Joss takes bleeding Edge and Powered by Flame, and Howard has Imbued.  
Between BET, PBF and Field Generator I have a roaming bubble of mega buffs for all constructs

Yeah, Ramos sticky would be quite good. 

I've only recently got into Ramos, but I thoroughly agree. This upgrade loadout is pretty good on him if you're focusing the build entirely on summoning and buffing Arachnids to win you the game. That's his primary purpose about 80%+ of the time when you play Ramos anyway, and he does it quite effectively.

The only thing I'm not sure of is Powered by Flame. It's so very costly to run. Most of the constructs either one shot enemies anyway, like Howard or Rail Golem, or otherwise struggle to actually hit anything since they come a single Ml4 attack at most (even if there's a +flip) after they get summoned in.

I will play with PBF some more to get more of a feel for it, but currently I'm thinking that Joss with purely BET is more economical and more expendable, or Joss with BET + Imbued Energies/Protection adds more hitting power or staying power, which I find invaluable since I'm already forking out 11ss for him.

Have you run him without PBF much?

[spooky_squirrel]

I enjoy running Joss with BET and Warding Runes for Mei Feng and Ironsides, since magi support and counterspell on him is amazing, but so is putting raw Ca hate in the middle of an objective with regenerating Rail Workers under Protection of Iron and double defensive Metal Gamin eating up opponent AP. In a Ramos list, Open Current doesn't hurt my own people and if I'm expecting Joss to kill stuff or die trying, he'll come in with that and Imbued Energies as his second. If he's going to sit back as a counter-charge element, I'll keep BET on him (otherwise, it'll go on someone like Johan).

[hydranixx]

Well said! Joss really is quite versatile. I think with Ramos he's as close to auto include as you can find, and 1-2 upgrades on him is equally close to auto include. He's either pure buff centric or aggressively attacking things for extra scrap, but either way most available upgrades have a purpose to one degree or another.

Variety is good, and I think I'll try him with only buffs and without any buffs a few times to get a feel for what the right choice for a given scenario. 

48 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

I enjoy running Joss with BET and Warding Runes for Mei Feng and Ironsides, since magi support and counterspell on him is amazing, but so is putting raw Ca hate in the middle of an objective with regenerating Rail Workers under Protection of Iron and double defensive Metal Gamin eating up opponent AP. In a Ramos list, Open Current doesn't hurt my own people and if I'm expecting Joss to kill stuff or die trying, he'll come in with that and Imbued Energies as his second. If he's going to sit back as a counter-charge element, I'll keep BET on him (otherwise, it'll go on someone like Johan).

I like it! I had a similar idea of using BET's (0) offensively against casters to shut them down. You do have to be careful that BET itself doesn't deny Mei's Railwalking if you're trying to stack it with Vent Steam. 

Since BET doesn't specify the action needs a target, like Vent Steam does, it's really cruel in mirror match against enemy summoners and buffers. Again, Joss would be an ideal candidate if the strats want everyone clumped up in one place, since most of the time he's hanging about with friendlies and healing them with it anyway. But he's not mobile enough in spread out strategies like Recon (despite Ramos loving this strat) to get to the summoning/buffing engine your opponent may run, so he's often just becomes a heal bot in one section of the board. 

Johan with BET is decent, but I find he's quite slow; honestly, I've been considering some mischief with BET on The Firestarter: with IE and BET he can heal up minions when you need it, before zipping off to interfere with anyone relying on spells or simple walk actions, no matter where they are, up to 23" away. 

In an ideal scenario, he double or triple walks, and casts BET's (0) while engaging most of your opponent's summoning/buffing engine. This has an effective range of 17", and best of all, if they actually spend AP killing him, you still get to draw 4 cards, not to mention they've used up AP that would have been better spent earning VP or summoning. At 9ss, I really don't mind sacrificing him to delay or deny their plans, even if it's for a single turn. A single turn delay in summoning or maneuvering is a huge deal when they're up against the Ramos spider factory.

Between the Firestarter, the free Arachnids that Ramos makes and a couple Malifaux Raptors, we probably have the most mobile of disrupting tarpits in the game. As long as they're all there clogging up and delaying whatever's important to the enemy, Ramos has free reign to do as he pleases. To take advantage, Ramos really wants that Arcane Reservoir to increase that chance of the 3 Spider summon. Even failing that, the extra control card fuels a Railworkers (0), or eats a discard to the enemy Belle trigger or gives someone Df stance at the very least; always worth it.