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If you were the Errata man...


KingCrow

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Stealing this from Neverborn and Outcasts Forums:
If you were the Errata man, what would you want from the Arcanists to get errata'd and why/how?
What would you nerf? What should get buffed and how?

Also, wouldn't it be great if next wave was just a mass overhaul of current models?  Most masters had their play-styles shaken this previous wave so having a mass amount of models reworked would shake things up even further!

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Would be nice if Cojo was a reasonable hire. My issue is he's slow and dies too easy. His tacticals are great but good luck getting to use those.

I find Emissary a hard sell. At least for Marcus but that might just be me. Not sure what its big problem is though, if there is one. Maybe I just need to get good :lol:

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#1 Mouse

The Issues:

He's too expensive, peon/insignificant and just strait up doesn't work. Also he doesn't really seem like he interacts much with Ironsides/M&SU and doesn't feel like a totem. His rope lash is a good ability but his lack of a :meleemeans any models he pulls completely shuts him down and models can just walk away anyway. Also his heal is just too difficult to pull off

Some Suggestions:

  • Make him Minion/significant.  
  • Give his rope a :melee
  • Change Arrest him so that it effects attack actions and/instead of Wk/Cg actions
  • Loose the suit requirement on the good stuff. 
  • Give him some other ability that interacts with M&SU models or Ironsides specifically 

 

#2 Ice Golem

The Issues:

Df2 is awful and armour +2 doesn't do enough. He is simply outclassed by other beaters appropriate to his cost. His Decembers sigh trigger is really lame

Some Suggestions:

  • Lower his cost
  • Up his Df to 4
  • Give him some kind of support ability for Frozen Heart models. 
  • Change damage track to 3/4/6 or 3/4/5

 

#3 December Acolytes

The Issues:

Outshines most other 7ss options.

Some Suggestions:

  • Make him 8ss 
  • Loose the built in :crowon his harpoon
  • Change damage track to 2/3/5

 

#4 Essence of Power

The Issues: 

It's too situational for a generic totem. It's abilities are too difficult to use as it cannot use it's abilities and walk. 

Some Suggestions:

  • Make Amplify a (1) and perhaps give it a TN 
  • Change Empower so that it gives a :+fate on the next flip (meaning it can be used on prevention flips) 
  • Allow it to attach a non-limited master upgrade and allow the master to use that upgrade as it it were attached to itself while within range of the essence. 

 

#5 Electrical Creation

The Issues:

It's an awful hire. 4ss is way too much for a model who can only activate twice. It's ability costs too much. I get that this is primarily a summon for Ramos but I would like to see it be a useful hire for other masters and it would give some competition to the Raptors who have a monopoly on the 3ss slot. 

Some Suggestions:

  • Make it 3ss
  • Give it 4 Wds
  • Give it an actual attack action that doesn't just kill it. It doesn't have to be good
  • Change it's Burst to a (0)

 

 

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45 minutes ago, Nikodemus said:

I find Emissary a hard sell. At least for Marcus but that might just be me. Not sure what its big problem is though, if there is one. Maybe I just need to get good :lol:

The problem with our Emissary is that he is meant to be in melee for his hard hitting attack but only has his armor +1 and a non-built in trigger to heal for survivability.  Once he's sent out to kill something, he's usually going to die after that.  I just had a game vs Kaeris last night and my Shasta Vidiya Guard killed the enemy Emissary in two activations (there might have been a red joker involved).  My point is that the Emissary doesn't have the survivability to be in melee but that's how he's built to play.  Plus having other, better 10 SS models makes it a choice slot.

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3 hours ago, Jordon said:

#1 Mouse

The Issues:

He's too expensive, peon/insignificant and just strait up doesn't work. Also he doesn't really seem like he interacts much with Ironsides/M&SU and doesn't feel like a totem. His rope lash is a good ability but his lack of a :meleemeans any models he pulls completely shuts him down and models can just walk away anyway. Also his heal is just too difficult to pull off

Some Suggestions:

  • Make him Minion/significant.  
  • Give his rope a :melee
  • Change Arrest him so that it effects attack actions and/instead of Wk/Cg actions
  • Loose the suit requirement on the good stuff. 
  • Give him some other ability that interacts with M&SU models or Ironsides specifically 

 

#2 Ice Golem

The Issues:

Df2 is awful and armour +2 doesn't do enough. He is simply outclassed by other beaters appropriate to his cost. His Decembers sigh trigger is really lame

Some Suggestions:

  • Lower his cost
  • Up his Df to 4
  • Give him some kind of support ability for Frozen Heart models. 
  • Change damage track to 3/4/6 or 3/4/5

 

#3 December Acolytes

The Issues:

Outshines most other 7ss options.

Some Suggestions:

  • Make him 8ss 
  • Loose the built in :crowon his harpoon
  • Change damage track to 2/3/5

 

#4 Essence of Power

The Issues: 

It's too situational for a generic totem. It's abilities are too difficult to use as it cannot use it's abilities and walk. 

Some Suggestions:

  • Make Amplify a (1) and perhaps give it a TN 
  • Change Empower so that it gives a :+fate on the next flip (meaning it can be used on prevention flips) 
  • Allow it to attach a non-limited master upgrade and allow the master to use that upgrade as it it were attached to itself while within range of the essence. 

 

#5 Electrical Creation

The Issues:

It's an awful hire. 4ss is way too much for a model who can only activate twice. It's ability costs too much. I get that this is primarily a summon for Ramos but I would like to see it be a useful hire for other masters and it would give some competition to the Raptors who have a monopoly on the 3ss slot. 

Some Suggestions:

  • Make it 3ss
  • Give it 4 Wds
  • Give it an actual attack action that doesn't just kill it. It doesn't have to be good
  • Change it's Burst to a (0)

 

 

Giving the Electircal Creation 4 Wds seems like a bit of a nerf. Joss doesn't kill it with the minimum damage from his ranged attack if it starts with 4.

I wouldn't mind seeing it get Companion to make it a better summon for Ramos. 

 

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Looking at Mei Feng's new upgrade Press The Advantage, it gives her a :crow:mask trigger to all Ml actions to take the Railwalker action. Her Tiger Claw action has an inbuilt :mask so it only needs a card or stone to get the trigger but her Jackhammer Kick needs a stone and a card to get it off. This would actually make sense if they were planning on giving her an inbuilt :crow to her Jackhammer Kick as part of a buff in January's errata. Being able to :pulse out armour as an inbuilt trigger would allow her to maintain some defensiveness on the turn she decides to drop her vent steam bubble and go all in as well.

It probably won't happen but I have my hopes.

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My wishlist of things to change would be:

To nerf

  • December Acolyte (one of +1ss, reduce the damage tracks, remove the built in :crow on Harpoon Gun, or make the Slow on both attacks into triggers)
  • Imbued Energies (reduce to 2 cards drawn, and/or trigger on killed only)

To buff

  • Mouse (any combo of of -1ss, make Rope Lash's Rg into ":ranged8 or :melee1", make into a Significant Minion, give him something more Spymaster-y)
  • Essence of Power (make the +1 Ca Aura a 1 AP, maybe give it a low-moderate TN to hit to do it so you can actually position it to be used, buff all the similar generic Totems for each faction as well, I'd love to actually feel good using Student of Conflict too)
  • Ice Golem (make Smash more reliable with either +1 Ml or :+fate (it is 3 AP after all), make it give Hard Cover to friendly models near it, increase its Df by 1 or 2, let it eat nearby Ice Gamin to heal, etc, lots of possibilities)
  • The Philosopher's Stone (total rework, really of each faction's version, I've never seen one even considered in a list)
  • Sub Zero (make it start "This model and friendly minions with...", IMO this might count as the Ice Golem buff)
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Agree with Jordon's and retnab's lists.

I also think Eternal Flame needs a buff. Suggestions:

  • Companion, this way Flaming Detonation, which is kind of anti-synergistic on its own, could actually happen immediately after applying the burning you want to happen immediately.
  • Follow the Flame working like Carlos' thing. Pyre markers are pretty weak as markers go.
  • Replace Combustible Mixture with something that does something, extremely few models are actually capital I Immune to burning, they they are just immune in practice without using that word.
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I think making December Acolyte an 8 ss model would mean it never sees play. As it is, Guards are 8ss and I have a hard time finding the stones to take them and I've started taking Acolytes less and less. 

Agree with Mouse suggestions

Golem: put it to 10ss but give it hard 2 wound or Hard 2 Kill and a slow aura like Sloth instead of exploding. H2W and Armor 2 should keep it alive longer.  

Gunsmiths: lose H2K and drop 1 SS. I'd play the shit out of these guys at 6ss

Colette: Make Prompt like Obeys. No more than 1 attack but can Prompt for interact or walks all day.

Cojo: Figure out what he wants to be. Beater? Give him more beating. Control? He needs to be faster and a bit more survivable. Tank? He really needs some help there.

Slateridge Mauler: Rework this guy. I think he should be a rare 1 enforcer that is Crockett's pet. Crockett doesn't have to discard a card to give him extra melee attacks but only when he is giving extra attacks to the bear. 

 

 

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Just another thought on the Philosopher's Stone, biggest issue I have with it how Imbued Protection is in almost every way explicitly better than it at defense (2ss up front for always +1 Df and can discard it to block 2 damage, or 1ss up front and another 1ss every time you want your Df +1-3 randomly and can discard it to draw 2 cards), so what if we nixed the defense idea entirely and made it a bit more self supporty?  The Philosopher's Stone is more or less known for things like immortality, changing the base elements of things, and just generally magical power so what if it could give us a 1/2/3 self-heal trigger on all Ca actions (or just auto-heal 1 every Ca action), and/or a bonus :+fate if you spend a stone on a Ca action.

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I don't see anything at this point which would be worth the overhead an errata creates. I agree with several of the tweaks suggested in that they would be improvements, but the headaches involved (ordering new cards, reminding new players) for me overshadow anything I can think of in the Arcanists Faction that I would want to change.

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I've never once taken nor have I ever seen the philosophers stone upgrade. I actually forgot it even existed to be honest. Yeah that upgrade is just awful but I think they're all that way. I would recommend they all get errata'd back into relevancy.

3 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

Colette: Make Prompt like Obeys. No more than 1 attack but can Prompt for interact or walks all day.

I would be surprised if her prompt got errata'd again seeing how they just adjusted it. I feel like if anything needs fixing it's her new upgrades to give her something aside from Prompt to spend her AP on.

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Wind gamin and practiced production were too good, bad for the game, and needed the nerf. 

Beyond that, I would advise against nerfs on models like acolytes who are on the higher side of the power curve, but not broken in so far as they are brought in every list and dramatically impact your chances of winning. An opponent can effectively counter an acolyte and render your 7ss investment useless.

In Malifaux's "age of tinkering" I think it's better for designers to focus on buffs and only nerf when absolutely necessary. 

I bought Collette right before her nerf and never really got her on the table. At first it was because the nerf left a bad taste in my mouth, later it was because I saw her falling down the power curve. While the "bad taste" is mainly psychological, it is a real effect that impacts players enjoyment. Plus, a faction needs "good" models. As Aaron has said, people don't hate power creep as much as they say they do and the good models help keep a faction competitive while niche models help provide options. Both types are needed to keep a faction competitive.

I think arcanists are in a pretty good place and I think their rankings are going to marginally drop some amount due to the wind gamin nerf. I hope designers focus on helping out those stragglers and don't try to over correct other models. 

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1 hour ago, JoeCL said:

Beyond that, I would advise against nerfs on models like acolytes who are on the higher side of the power curve, but not broken in so far as they are brought in every list and dramatically impact your chances of winning. An opponent can effectively counter an acolyte and render your 7ss investment useless.

The problem with having a model at the higher end of a power curve is that it invalidates models that it is directly competing against. In this case we have gunsmiths who just can't compete with what Acolytes can pull off. So your having to decide between buffing gunsmiths to also be ahead of power curve in order to compete which will ultimately lead to power creep.

In the gunsmith's case it might actually be a instance where the smiths need a boost and the acolytes need a nerf. It really depends on whether you believe the gunsmiths are below the curve of what a 7ss model should be.

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  1. Sandeep’s Beacon ability to specify friendly Gamin or Academic models and decrease the range. This would help add some predictability on what models around him are eligible to take his strategically powerful cast actions.
  2. Imbued Energies to give 2 cards instead of 4. Right now the upgrade is too resource efficient making it an auto include when you have a spare stone or two..
  3. December Acolytes could use 1 less wound. Given the offensive strength these guys have, having one less wound would be more inline with what i’d expect from a 7ss model. I also don’t think they need a drastic change to make gunsmiths viable in crews outside of ironsides.
  4. Mechanical Rider’s scheme marker trigger should probably be once per turn.. Because of how they are now placed x” away from the target’s base, they are more often eligible for schemes than the markers were previously. In the context of Arcanists, it can make certain schemes really hard to deny (may be different in gg18).
  5. Angelica’s pushes should probably have some target number on them, even if its low. Personally I just don’t like strong actions like that without some kind of target number.

 

As for things to make better, there are a few weak models in the collection but I don’t see any that are in urgent need of a fix. I’d love to see some of the other factions get a few things adjusted so they can have a hiring pool as deep as ours.

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10 minutes ago, Nutella said:
  1. Sandeep’s Beacon ability to specify friendly Gamin or Academic models and decrease the range. This would help add some predictability on what models around him are eligible to take his strategically powerful cast actions.

How is "everything in 12 inches and LoS" any less predictable than "Gamins and Academics within 9 inches and LoS"?

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2 hours ago, WWHSD said:

How is "everything in 12 inches and LoS" any less predictable than "Gamins and Academics within 9 inches and LoS"?

Well you would definitely know 100% for sure that the December Acolyte isn't going to use his zero action to place herself 6" away where as before it would be one of the many things that could happen. I guess if one were to play heavily into the gamin / academic theme already, then the change would do very little to cut down the variety of actions that could happen, but I also think it's not unreasonable to expect that an opponent would be familiar what Sandeep can do within his theme.

My issue with him is that because most things in the faction can take his actions, it creates an incredibly large amount of new combinations and flexibility that, at least to me, is unreasonable for someone to expect a player to remember when playing against a single master. Add to that having to keep track of which summoned gamin has what version of upgrade, which mage has which upgrade, which of Sandeep's actions have been taken and whether or not Sandeep has taken his 4th AP this turn and the most common reaction people playing against him have is "wait, what exactly just happened?" I'm also not saying that it's definitely a balance issue, it could be.. but who knows.. To me, it's just a NPE that could be addressed and he would still be on the short list of top masters.

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On 9/25/2017 at 6:13 PM, Nutella said:

Well you would definitely know 100% for sure that the December Acolyte isn't going to use his zero action to place herself 6" away where as before it would be one of the many things that could happen. I guess if one were to play heavily into the gamin / academic theme already, then the change would do very little to cut down the variety of actions that could happen, but I also think it's not unreasonable to expect that an opponent would be familiar what Sandeep can do within his theme.

 

On 9/25/2017 at 3:25 PM, Nutella said:
  1.  This would help add some predictability on what models around him are eligible to take his strategically powerful cast actions.

Making it hard to predict which model might use one of Sandeep's actions is a different story than predicting which models are able to use his abilities.

I think that one of the best things about Sandeep is that he isn't really tied to taking models that meet his theme. Other than needing a Gamin to summon Banasuva off of, he doesn't  have any effects that benefit from hiring Gamin.  He has two upgrades that benefit from hiring Academics, but his base card doesn't really have any particular synergy with them. They can borrow his 6 in place regardless of station but that's it.  Neither of the upgrades that affect Academics are auto-takes either.

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On 25/09/2017 at 3:51 PM, Jordon said:

I've never once taken nor have I ever seen the philosophers stone upgrade. I actually forgot it even existed to be honest. Yeah that upgrade is just awful but I think they're all that way. I would recommend they all get errata'd back into relevancy.

I actually like the arcanist stone, its trading 1 SS in crew building for 2 cards which is pretty good. It doesn't get seen too often because of Slots on masters and the general good (0) actions on masters. 

I would Liek Ice golem to have a trigger to make their armour non ignorable. Possibly built in on Df and needing a suit on Wp. That's their big problem. Otherwise they have good attacks with built in slow trigger. Don't mind the speed, I normally would only use them in games where I don't need them to move much. 

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I wonder if giving Cojo "Impossible to Wound" (or maybe just "Hard to Wound") and "Laugh Off" would be enough to let him fill an area control niche without making him too strong for 8 points.

"Laugh Off" fits in with the old joke "Where does an 800 pound gorilla sit?" and lets Cojo take a spot on the board and hold it until he gets removed from play.

"Impossibe to Wound" (or "Hard to Wound") combined with his "Hard to Kill" makes Cojo tough enough to last an entire turn against anything short of the full attention of your opponent's beaters.

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Buff:

Cojo & Rattler - so they will see any play outside master box vs master box
Captain - do something with him, for 12 ss we can get much more in our faction

Nerf:
Sandeep - one of his summmons gives [+] to attack only for minions and gamins / switched his ability to get 1 more AP to get [+] to next flip or push. Maybe reduce cache
Ox mages - too good price for what those models do. 

 

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