Is Collodi next on the chopping block?

[edopersichetti]

39 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

They possibly could have, but in testing Lucius basically became the "Austringer Master", which wasn't what the designers wanted. "Unenjoyable" isn't exactly their target outcome.

It's worth noting that the Pigapult got its own later "fix" in the Stuffed Piglet change, and now a lot of people are complaining that it's useless.

The Sonnia list had Austringers because pretty much every Guild list at the time "just happened" to have double Austringers. They were a huge crutch for Guild in general, and their near-ubiquity was what gained them the designers' attention.

They could attack at 18" because in the previous version of the game they were long-range snipers, and the first Wave of M2E was still "feeling out" how the game was going to shape up, so took most of its cues from the previous edition. Over time, it was decided that it would be better to move them into a scheme-support and medium-range fire-support role, so that's what happened, and they coincided with Lucius' changes because those models heavily influenced each others' design.

Gremlins have Slop Haulers - far and away the best mass-healers in the game - for this exact reason. Neverborn don't. That's pretty much the entire difference! As you say, the Brutal Effigy makes up a great deal of that shortfall, though that requires a specific model, a specific Limited upgrade, a prior Activation, and proximity to your Master to function.

The design philosophy pushes in the other direction. It's far "cleaner" and more "elegant" to create abilities and actions that work in all cases, rather than having to call out specific models which aren't allowed to synergise. (You can see this in action with the "non-Austringer" clauses on Lucius' abilities - it was preferable to change Austringers and allow them to benefit than to preserve the named lock-out.)

Anyway, if you said "non-Howard Langston" on Colette's abilities, all that would accomplish would be changing the target model used - Coryphee Duet, Joss, etc. The point wasn't to lock off just the Howard interaction, but to stop Colette players doing nothing but Prompt with her AP. 

If all Collodi players did was My Will over and over, then I'd agree with you. Honestly, what the designers are looking at in my experience is not "power" (which is incredibly hard to measure in any meaningful way), but variety. If the same things come up all the time (like a bunch of Stuffed Piglets in every Gremlin list, or three Prompts in every Colette activation) then that's a good indication that something should be changed in some way, because players are consistently passing up their other options in favour of it.

So when all the Neverborn players start overwhelmingly choosing Collodi instead of the other Masters, that's when I'd expect him to be changed. If the dominant Collodi playstyle at that point was to spam My Will, then I'd expect it to take a hit. At the moment, I don't think either of those things are true, so I'd be surprised if he saw any changes in the near future.

In general, I'd say the design team prefers to boost models up than tear them down. It's only in cases where certain models are appearing all the time that they get cuddled - I don't think there are any real standouts for such treatment at the moment, so I'd expect the next round of major changes to focus on improving some of the little-to-never-used models so that they see table time. Stuff like Desperate Mercenaries, Guild Guard, Freikorps Specialists, etc. Perhaps some of the Master-specific Totems, especially in Neverborn where the Primordial Magic is usually seen as a better option.

That would be a welcome change - I'm so looking forward to using Moon Shinobi again
And yes, I love good old pukeworm, but he's just too good.

On the Collodi note, half of my meta play almost exclusively him, some even started to play Neverborn because of him. Sure, some occasionally play Lilith, or Lynch, or Zoraida, but when they want an easy win they go for Collodi. That's so obnoxious that made me want to stop playing him, and I did. When I did use to play him, my favorite playstyle was to spam My Will - it's just so effective
Also, one could argue that if players don't spam My Will it's because he has many other good options - his attack is great for example. What is Colette supposed to do now that her Prompt is so limited? The Sabre Trick?? Summon Doves?? Perhaps the reason people were spamming Prompt was that the alternatives weren't as good...then a solution would have been to make her other talents more desirable. I still think crippling Prompt was not the right answer - reducing her options doesn't encourage variety. But I'll let the Colette case rest - we were here to talk about Collodi after all. And designers haven't been known to go back on their erratas, no matter how wonky they are...

You mentioned design team doesn't like to tear models down - pardon me, but that's not what happened with a good number of the last erratas. Stuffed Piglets are just the last example. 

[Angelshard]

20 minutes ago, edopersichetti said:

That would be a welcome change - I'm so looking forward to using Moon Shinobi again
And yes, I love good old pukeworm, but he's just too good.

On the Collodi note, half of my meta play almost exclusively him, some even started to play Neverborn because of him. Sure, some occasionally play Lilith, or Lynch, or Zoraida, but when they want an easy win they go for Collodi. That's so obnoxious that made me want to stop playing him, and I did. When I did use to play him, my favorite playstyle was to spam My Will - it's just so effective
Also, one could argue that if players don't spam My Will it's because he has many other good options - his attack is great for example. What is Colette supposed to do now that her Prompt is so limited? The Sabre Trick?? Summon Doves?? Perhaps the reason people were spamming Prompt was that the alternatives weren't as good...then a solution would have been to make her other talents more desirable. I still think crippling Prompt was not the right answer - reducing her options doesn't encourage variety. But I'll let the Colette case rest - we were here to talk about Collodi after all. And designers haven't been known to go back on their erratas, no matter how wonky they are...

You mentioned design team doesn't like to tear models down - pardon me, but that's not what happened with a good number of the last erratas. Stuffed Piglets are just the last example. 

Have you tried switching to the gg18 beta? 

Gg17 is really good for collodi. Not that he isn't a really strong master, but it does help when the schemes and strats really suits you.

Regarding my will, yes it's good, but you also want to use his attack, give out a condition, sometimes summon and, in rare cases where you brought breathe life, push your whole bubble. 

I think spamming my will every turn is mostly for gimmicky lists like trapper plus mimics. And if you play a props list you almost always want to attack.

Honestly I think that if anything should get a nerd it should be strum. Getting fast whenever you need it is extremely strong.

[Kadeton]

8 minutes ago, edopersichetti said:

On the Collodi note, half of my meta play almost exclusively him, some even started to play Neverborn because of him. Sure, some occasionally play Lilith, or Lynch, or Zoraida, but when they want an easy win they go for Collodi. That's so obnoxious that made me want to stop playing him, and I did. When I did use to play him, my favorite playstyle was to spam My Will - it's just so effective

Interesting! I don't think your meta is necessarily reflective of the game in a global sense, but I don't have any hard data to support that. I just haven't seen many posts (other than this one) talking about how Collodi is dominating the scene. After Wave 5, when the other Masters got some pretty serious boosts, I imagine that's even less likely in future. Still, time will tell!

8 minutes ago, edopersichetti said:

Also, one could argue that if players don't spam My Will it's because he has many other good options - his attack is great for example. What is Colette supposed to do now that her Prompt is so limited? The Sabre Trick?? Summon Doves??

Yes? Also move her crew around with Disappearing Act, or hand out loads of AP with All Together Now, or even just Prompt more than one model. There's only one thing she can't do now that she could do before, which is Prompt the same model more than once. If being able to give a single beater three extra AP and 9" of movement was literally the only thing she brought to the game and removing it relegated her from god tier to garbage tier, then she will probably get a complete rework at some point... but I think she's still got plenty to offer.

8 minutes ago, edopersichetti said:

You mentioned design team doesn't like to tear models down - pardon me, but that's not what happened with a good number of the last erratas. Stuffed Piglets are just the last example. 

I didn't say that at all - I said they preferred to boost them. That doesn't in any way mean they won't reduce a model's power if that model is getting overplayed or has an unintended rules interaction. I also don't mean to imply that they always get it right.

I guess what I mean is that if a particular choice is merely "strong", that's usually not enough of a reason for it to be adjusted. It's generally only where it's totally eclipsing other options (e.g. Rooster Riders) or consistently producing negative experiences (e.g. Austringers) that it gets attention. In contrast, merely being a "weak" (but not unplayable) choice is enough to receive a boost - even before their changes there were people playing Lucius, Ironsides and Tara with some degree of success, but they weren't popular, and that was enough to prompt their changes. It's a pretty subjective thing, by no means a hard-and-fast rule.

The July 2017 Errata was specifically described as only addressing "some of the most outstanding game issues that have persisted for some time" - it wasn't an overall rebalance in the way that the January one was. The January Errata was nominally pretty even-handed, though I'd suggest that all of Tara's Void stuff got a significant boost as a result, as well as Brewmaster, even though they're listed in the "General Clarity" section.

[trikk]

I still think Stuffed Piglets are very good in Collect, as summons, and when you need the pigapult so I don't think they becane shelf material.

My friend that played in ITC with me tried a 6 SP lost in Collect and he was pretty happy with the outcome

[Angelshard]

Have anybody tried running primordial with collodi in a bag of props list?

I rarely take more than two marionettes with him in props anyway, so switching them for pm the worm might be worth it. He can still siphon focus from it and rush of magic is always nice

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

The July 2017 Errata was specifically described as only addressing "some of the most outstanding game issues that have persisted for some time" - it wasn't an overall rebalance in the way that the January one was. The January Errata was nominally pretty even-handed, though I'd suggest that all of Tara's Void stuff got a significant boost as a result, as well as Brewmaster, even though they're listed in the "General Clarity" section.

I really don't think that you can call the Brewmaster errata a "significant boost".

3 hours ago, edopersichetti said:

And designers haven't been known to go back on their erratas, no matter how wonky they are...

They have adjusted some models multiple times, though. Tara and her crew have gotten all sorts of adjustments in the form of erratas and 0-cost Upgrades.

[Kadeton]

6 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I really don't think that you can call the Brewmaster errata a "significant boost".

I don't play Thunders enough to judge, really - I just would have assumed that allowing two Drinking Contest auras on the board instead of one was a pretty big change. If not, fair enough - I'll take your word for it.

[Math Mathonwy]

57 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

I don't play Thunders enough to judge, really - I just would have assumed that allowing two Drinking Contest auras on the board instead of one was a pretty big change. If not, fair enough - I'll take your word for it.

The original wording already allowed for it but it was a bit weird. Now it's clear but I wouldn't call that a boost as such.

[edopersichetti]

Brewie still has a long way to go...I tried his new upgraded Obey, and it helps, but it doesn't solve the problem of spreading poison. His other upgrades with better Poison damage...mmh. So yeah, there's one master that I hope to see featured in the next errata too!

@Math Mathonwy it looks like with Tara they finally got it right? I haven't played against her recently, but I heard she's become quite good.

@Kadeton let's hope they pay a bit of attention to a few models that could use help, and nothing has been done about (like Moon Shinobi for example).

@Angelshard my mate and I tried one game with GG18 and then switched back to GG17 until GG18 is in an acceptable shape

[Ergonomic Cat]

13 hours ago, Kadeton said:

The July 2017 Errata was specifically described as only addressing "some of the most outstanding game issues that have persisted for some time" - it wasn't an overall rebalance in the way that the January one was. The January Errata was nominally pretty even-handed, though I'd suggest that all of Tara's Void stuff got a significant boost as a result, as well as Brewmaster, even though they're listed in the "General Clarity" section.

I can't find the reference, but I'm 90% sure the design philosophy is that the mid-year errata is to fix things that are broken and the January errata is to make basic changes.  

Also, they specifically said that the Collette prompt change was because they didn't want people triple prompting.  The fact that Howard/Joss was very powerful may have influenced it, but their stated reason was that Prompt x3, go was not a fun style.

[Adran]

Going back to an earlier point, I really liked playtesting Collodi when he didn't have a damaging attack. Unfortunately, Some other people thought it was really bad for a master to not be able to damage models, and he now has one of the most consistent attacks in the game. I'd be quite happy to remove the damage profile from the attack (just making it hand out slow as an attack, and keep the other triggers), but at the very least I think  it ought to gain  (and probably ) and lose the bonus flip to damage.  

[Angelshard]

If the attack doesn't deal damage the opponent can't stone to prevent the damage and thus the control effect though, so it would probably be better against henchmen, just something to keep in mind

[Azkral]

7 hours ago, Adran said:

Going back to an earlier point, I really liked playtesting Collodi when he didn't have a damaging attack. Unfortunately, Some other people thought it was really bad for a master to not be able to damage models, and he now has one of the most consistent attacks in the game. I'd be quite happy to remove the damage profile from the attack (just making it hand out slow as an attack, and keep the other triggers), but at the very least I think  it ought to gain  (and probably ) and lose the bonus flip to damage.  

If they do that forget Bag of Props Collodi.

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, Azkral said:

If they do that forget Bag of Props Collodi.

If they dropped the damage but gave non-Trigger-Slow (or gave the attack the gun icon and took away to positive), BoP could give additional Triggers to Tomes and Rams (give out Fragile, take the Action again against a different target) or give his Summoning the Masks baked in or something. Lots of options.