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After errata Levi


Jafar

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2 hours ago, Kaos said:

My concern about the errata is making him losing his role. If you have beatstick, something with nothing more than raw damage output, and you change it to lower his damage output in a drastic manner, then you have a useless model. It basically fail to do what is designed to do.

When I look at the old card and the new card I see not only is his ability was changed drastically but also the soul stone cache and this is really looks like a over modification.

Taking a piece and making him weaker AND more expensive to play unless is still a top model, is really overkill.

His playstyle clearly enough was about taking damage, die and come back. This mechanic was changed since he can't now trigger his main ability multiple time, so the game plan need to change as well. The bad thing is he got nothing else to make up for his loss (usually in the design process if you change something you give it something else to make up for what is was changed) and compel players to find new strategies.

Wyrd knew all that (they invented the game). Justin knew exactly what he was doing - he gave a very detailed response on a podcast explaining the decision and its ramifications.

People still play Levi and do well with him. He can still do significant damage, just needs to burn stones or focus to get his +flips now. He still has 3AP to shoot stuff with potential massive damage from the upgrade, he still has the quasi obey, he still has potentially huge mobility and he can still summon. 

Literally the only thing this did was reduce the average number of wounds he does from 8 or 9 to maybe 7 with his shooting and stopped him constantly ignoring cover.

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Look, I really think "who invent the game knows better" it's a kinda poor argument, since I saw several cases of perfectly fine pieces/rules (according to the the creators) that were exploited to no end (look at magic the gathering and the banfest in Urza Saga and Mirrodin for example) and the "3 years of game testing for the new edition" meme from another well know game where they had if not first day, first week erratas. And where they admitted they royally missed the point of a entire army that will be redone at the start of the new year. So much for 3 years of testing...

But let's say I agree with all that you said, so you're supposed to use soulstones and all this.

What's the reasons of diminishing his already small soul cache then? Give him that extra soulstone to burn right? I see most masters average 2 to 3 soulstones so the decision to make him a master with the least soulstones available is kinda debatable. 

Also looking at the tournament winning distribution looks like it's pretty fair (please note I checked last year tournament results) with Resurrectionists having a better run than other armies, with 5 wins overall at major tournaments and followed by the guild and outcast at 3 wins each. Arcanists and Gremlins see the lowest success rate with 1 first place each.

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But what makes you think you know better? Your argument was that all Levi does is damage, which is patently untrue. He just had the rest of his card ignored and spent te entire game doing damage and notihng else. He still gets a 7 stone cache if he wants it, that hasn't changed.

Looking at tournament results is a fairly poor way of assessing his power level as you would have to take only tournaments with fixed master where someone took only Levi. 

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23 minutes ago, Sordid Strumpet said:

Your argument was that all Levi does is damage, which is patently untrue. He just had the rest of his card ignored and spent te entire game doing damage and notihng else. 

What else is on his card except attacks and 'sacrifice' your own model to get cards or jump into base contact with sacrifised model? What other options with him do you have? 

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3 hours ago, Kaos said:

My concern about the errata is making him losing his role. If you have beatstick, something with nothing more than raw damage output, and you change it to lower his damage output in a drastic manner, then you have a useless model. It basically fail to do what is designed to do.

When I look at the old card and the new card I see not only is his ability was changed drastically but also the soul stone cache and this is really looks like a over modification.

Taking a piece and making him weaker AND more expensive to play unless is still a top model, is really overkill.

His playstyle clearly enough was about taking damage, die and come back. This mechanic was changed since he can't now trigger his main ability multiple time, so the game plan need to change as well. The bad thing is he got nothing else to make up for his loss (usually in the design process if you change something you give it something else to make up for what is was changed) and compel players to find new strategies.

You don't give the model something to make up for what was changed if the model was determined to be too good at what it was being used for.

If you bought Leveticus for the "immortal beat stick that you won't ever get assassination victory points from" theme, unfortunately that hasn't worked out.  Among the explanations given for the change in Leveticus is that his role has been changed from a simple "beat stick" to a scavenger.

So the purpose of the cuddle is to compel players to find new strategies with what they have.

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2 hours ago, Sordid Strumpet said:

Literally the only thing this did was reduce the average number of wounds he does from 8 or 9 to maybe 7 with his shooting and stopped him constantly ignoring cover.

This statement also amuses me. I don't know on what tables you use to play guys and girls but we use to have tables with lots of soft/hard cover and my opponents learnt that hard cover is Levi's worst enemy. After errata with two focused shots I tend to pull whooping 5 damage on the average with Unmaking unless I'm lucky to have my opponent to serve me his model in the open and I win initiative flip.

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5 minutes ago, solkan said:

You don't give the model something to make up for what was changed if the model was determined to be too good at what it was being used for.

If you bought Leveticus for the "immortal beat stick that you won't ever get assassination victory points from" theme, unfortunately that hasn't worked out.  Among the explanations given for the change in Leveticus is that his role has been changed from a simple "beat stick" to a scavenger.

So the purpose of the cuddle is to compel players to find new strategies with what they have.

And what he has exactly to represent the scavenger property? What did they give him to switch him from a beat stick to a more control or summoning oriented master?

 

40 minutes ago, Sordid Strumpet said:

But what makes you think you know better? Your argument was that all Levi does is damage, which is patently untrue. He just had the rest of his card ignored and spent te entire game doing damage and notihng else. He still gets a 7 stone cache if he wants it, that hasn't changed.

Looking at tournament results is a fairly poor way of assessing his power level as you would have to take only tournaments with fixed master where someone took only Levi. 

I agree about the tournaments. The "accumulated tournament results" argument was made by someone else so it was worth to mention that they don't really show a incredible Leveticus domination over the other masters.

Looking at the card I see basically all his abilities are tailored for him to get stuck in melee (and try to make new abominations by killing other stuff) and then get out of melee sacrificing himself. So either you possess a version of his card different than mine, or I'm completely missing the point here. 

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They didn't 'give' him anything - he always had it, people just chose to ignore his abilities because his damage was so good.

 With his upgrades, the guy can summon, he has an obey-like action and his ranged attack can do the same damage as a hanged. He can also teleport and probably get at his target from somewhere with no cover. He is just more of a precision hitter than a 'take that thing off' guy.

And if you have so much terrain that shooting is useless, maybe your terrain set up needs looking at.

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28 minutes ago, Sordid Strumpet said:

They didn't 'give' him anything - he always had it, people just chose to ignore his abilities because his damage was so good.

 With his upgrades, the guy can summon, he has an obey-like action and his ranged attack can do the same damage as a hanged. He can also teleport and probably get at his target from somewhere with no cover. He is just more of a precision hitter than a 'take that thing off' guy.

And if you have so much terrain that shooting is useless, maybe your terrain set up needs looking at.

His summoning is pathetic, since it requires 9 Crows and scrap marker or crows in duels AND kill opponent with it. Rusty Alyce has better abomination summoning option, since she can put scrap markers on her own and requires 10 without suit to cast it. His melee during charge is unpredictable- 1/3/8 damage spread is huge and to be able to deal that severe damage he must use Tomes card or spend a soulstone. About his teleport- Seamus or Mei Feng also have option to quickly move themselves very quickly across board and have damage output far superior to Leveticus. His only advantage over that models is large hiring pool and questionable surivability.

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And his "obey like" ability isn't a obey like ability at all. It works only with friendly models and it works only with melee attacks. So no pulling enemies outside of cover or in charge range, no extra shooting attacks for your friendly models. 

It's a quite huge difference.

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36 minutes ago, Kaos said:

And his "obey like" ability isn't a obey like ability at all. It works only with friendly models and it works only with melee attacks. So no pulling enemies outside of cover or in charge range, no extra shooting attacks for your friendly models. 

It's a quite huge difference.

Plus you hurt your model in the process and probably you will randomize between friendly model and enemy (or multiple friendlies/enemies).

Just look at other obey-like actions that target friendly models- like Dreamer or Colette- and see that these actions are far more powerful. Since Masters AP are (usually) most valuable AP in the crew, trading 1 Master AP for 1 AP for other model must be valuable- like pushing before taking action, granting + do flips or something like that or like obey/heed my voice- allow you to target enemy models. In case of Levi, you are randomizing between models (ignoring this only with models with engagement of 3 or more), hurting your model in the process (remember, Unmaking ignores reduction/HtW/HtK) and allowing them to perform (1) AP close combat action. In several cases you end with Levi AP spent on hurting your own model, then that model misses its action. Sure, similar situation can happen with obey, but at last you don't hurt another crew member in the process.

In my opinion Levi needs solid change in his card, maybe even complete rework. His advantage of taking any construct/undead is huge, but other than that he is weak model- not very weak, but below average.

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It's nice to see that this topic developed. But originally it was to speak about tricks and play style of new Levi. It’s here to help new Levi players (or old ones). Not to see how group of old Levi players argues ……
For example, after some reading I saw that Von Schill can charge twice a turn (with fast from Oathkeeper or Student totem), before that I never used that trick.

So let's guys focus more on original idea for this topic. You can discuss all day long in private messages.

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+1.

Personally I think, to some extent, reading a good deal of Seamus threads will help. Levi looks to me like a variant Seamus essentially in how he plays now. You want to pick on the weak or injured, constantly changing vectors via your waifs, and anything that gets close gets death touched. His survivability also looks like how I use Seamus', in that if you are careful in how you play its basically an AP sink for the enemy. He isn't going to be very efficient to put down for good, but if you don't he's going to keep picking off your weak and injured models, and if you get close to where he's operating the death touch is very scary to deal with. He just doesn't get an A+ in killing, A+ in survivability, A+ in mobility, as well as 2 free activations anymore. 

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I found that free focus + shot + focus + shot are best option for him now. He should activate as one of the first models in crew to be able to cheat pathetic low damage with moderate/severe. You can try to kill big model with to the earth return, but it has value only if target has minimum 7 wounds remaining (since you can basically change your moderate to severe damage). Drawing extra cards is useful when you have undead/construct near death- you can trade almost killed model for two cards. For me his core crew almost always contains Ashes and Dust- he can free teleport to a perfect place to shoot some models, then gain 2 activations more. 

Im bigger fan of Iron Levi than Bone Levi, so my crew contains almost always a Mobile Toolkit (great utility!), A&D or Mech Rider, Joss, Rusty Alyce and Soulstone Miners/Necropunks. Lazarus is also a great option when there are plenty of low Ht terrain. Must try Ryle, Teddy and Peacekeeper and some Hunters for utility/schemes.

I still think that his upgrades need rework (especially From Ash).

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2 hours ago, Jafar said:

It's nice to see that this topic developed. But originally it was to speak about tricks and play style of new Levi. It’s here to help new Levi players (or old ones). Not to see how group of old Levi players argues ……
For example, after some reading I saw that Von Schill can charge twice a turn (with fast from Oathkeeper or Student totem), before that I never used that trick.

So let's guys focus more on original idea for this topic. You can discuss all day long in private messages.

Agreed but I was hoping someone has other ideas than damage-oriented Levi as it was once suggested.

As for new tricks for Levi I think RoF book gave him two very good models: Terracotta Warrior and Mad Dog. 

Warrior can nicely change Levi's Pariah of Iron upgrade into i.e. Oathkeeper and also allows to switch To The Earth Return into something useful once it is no longer necessary or doesn't have any viable targets to be used against.

Mad Dog brings badly needed 4'' no-cover marker which stays till this action is used again. It is a bit pricey way to work around enemy cover but more reliable than using Watcher I think (although Watcher paired with Lazarus is still scary shooting combo).

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13 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

Agreed but I was hoping someone has other ideas than damage-oriented Levi as it was once suggested.

As for new tricks for Levi I think RoF book gave him two very good models: Terracotta Warrior and Mad Dog. 

Warrior can nicely change Levi's Pariah of Iron upgrade into i.e. Oathkeeper and also allows to switch To The Earth Return into something useful once it is no longer necessary or doesn't have any viable targets to be used against.

Mad Dog brings badly needed 4'' no-cover marker which stays till this action is used again. It is a bit pricey way to work around enemy cover but more reliable than using Watcher I think (although Watcher paired with Lazarus is still scary shooting combo).

Plus with Mad Dog you get nice killing machine, and with upgrade he is very resistant.

Terracotta Warrior can protect very valuable model, like Mech Rider or Langston plus giving Levi two Oathkeepers (one from start then other from switching Pariah) helps him a lot. 

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For my point of view people aren't coming with solutions because there aren't so many solutions.

 

You choose your central piece in the army for 2 main reasons.

1) He's a obscene beatstick

2) He synergies well with his theme army.

 

Leveticus lost the obscene beatstick selling point and has no synergy selling point.

For which reason you should play him with the abominations /Ashen and Dust army?

What does he do for them?

If someone shed light on this we can understand better where he is now.

The summon abominations ability looks kinda lacking since everyone of his cute friends can do it and arguably can do it even better than him.

So let me understand why a piece should be better with Leveticus instead of any other outcast master.

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1 hour ago, Cedar said:

Maybe if he would have built-in suits for Desotate Warping both in melee and Unmaking he could play as a finisher against wounded models. 

Rather something like Kirai - tag a model with first hit to give him Desolate Warping condition and then this models dies with this condition on he can summon Abomination.

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It is true, but look this way - Levi has big access to constructs or undead, but other masters also have huge hiring pool. If you take Bone Levi what is his advantage over Resser master (especially Seamus, since they both play similar)? If you look at damage, resilience, mobility and synergy between Master and other models- Seamus work just better. With Iron Levi you should compare him to Hoffman and Ramos- Sure, he has better damage track and a bit different defense than these two masters, but they offer more to their crew than him- Pseudo obey, summoning, healing. In case of Hoffman, Levi hiring pool is just few models more. So why should I play Levi instead of Hoffman/Ramos or Ressers? 

I think that people are thinking that because he has huge hiring pool and two free activations he shouldn't be able to accomplish anything during game, maybe except wounding one or two models.

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Many Outcasts are Mercenaries so you can field them with Seamus. The only Undead not from Ressers are Fae and Levi theme crew- about 8 models. I admit, his hiring pool is biggest in the entire game, but it doesn't mean that this and low damage should be the only reason to pick him.

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A large hiring pool is only a "big advantage" when it enables some kind of crazy combos or access to models that become overpowered outside their normal hiring conditions. There are indeed some cool combos in the game but Leveticus is hardly the only person with access to these kinds of combos through hiring pool tricks or simply using in-faction combos, especially since the other "hiring pool" and combo masters get to add their own abilities into the list of synergies and combos. Also where does this "can't score assassinate" idea come from? If he's buried at the end of the game he counts as dead and your opponent scores assassinate.

Anyway, we've seen a little discussion on the combos available to him, like being the only master that can use Teracotta Warriors with outcast upgrades, but what other combos do people like to use? I don't mean stuff like taking the Mech Rider because its a good model, there are lots of good models in every faction and having access to a few more to fill the same roles your faction can already fill isn't that exciting, i mean stuff like Watcher/Lazarus, Metal Gamin+Teddy or some kind of trick using a Draugr to give out those spirit upgrades to an outcast model.

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