Lets talk about the Flaming Angel in the room

[WWHSD]

6 minutes ago, KingCrow said:

Right.  That's why I wrote that it has synergy with Purifying Flame before that part of the quote. Also the synergy with Grab and Drop as you pointed out.

Sorry, I changed tracks a bit there and was moving on from the synergy you pointed out to the potential "gotcha" from that trigger.

[KingCrow]

2 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Sorry, I changed tracks a bit there and was moving on from the synergy you pointed out to the potential "gotcha" from that trigger.

I see! No worries. Thanks for pointing it out because it is an important thing you don't want to miss and potentially kill Kaeris/other members of your crew.  

[WWHSD]

1 minute ago, KingCrow said:

I see! No worries. Thanks for pointing it out because it is an important thing you don't want to miss and potentially kill Kaeris/other members of your crew.  

I've always thought it was odd that Kaeris doesn't have any sort of innate protection from Burning. You'd think that maybe Truth In Flame would let her remove burning from herself.

[dancater]

It looks like there is a general thread of agreement in this topic....

That Kaeris is a fiddly master to play with a collection of upgrades and crew selections that don't synergize the way one would expect/hope.  With her upgrades there are several 'limited upgrade' restrictions which constrain her options and flexibility.  In addition the upgrades while providing a boost on one hand potentially expose a flaw on the other (so not durable enough or average damage output or some mobility limitations).  Then there is the Burning upkeep issue which makes her a difficult master as every round you need to set up her burning requirements in order to work some planned magic, but this is difficult to do and that is even without your opponent understanding your potential play and trying to prevent it.  To work Burning she needs to take certain crew models but a number of those models are sub-optimal outside of a Burning build, so do you take them to maximize her Burning but at the cost of having great crew selections which operate well independently.  

Ironsides is simply tougher than Kaeris.  Raspy is vastly more lethal at range.  Mei Feng and Colette (I will point out that Mei and Colette each have their own significant flaws in the current meta as well) are faster and have more weird scheme/attack vectors.  Marcus and Sandeep are vastly more flexible.  Ramos is a tier one summoner support with some durability and damage output.

So Kaeris is..... struggling for space.  Her main schtick is fiddly, requires constant work to upkeep, demands at least some crew selection which is at least a little sub-optimal and also needs upgrades which while they provide a trick also highlight vulnerability.  Meanwhile in the generic areas of damage output, durability, speed, flexibility, support and crew attrition (summoning) she is across the board over-matched by alternative Arcanist masters and crews.  So she needs her upgrades and crew to separate her and give her a firm 'place' but they struggle to achieve this and in attempting it require careful and constant management.

I think Sandeep, Ironsides, Ramos, Raspy and Marcus are all highly competitive.

In contrast Mei Feng, Colette and Kaeris all struggle in the current meta.  They are fiddly and vulnerable.  However at least Colette has a real strength (can be tough to kill with her triggers, has great scheme tricks and strong crew theme sees solid play).  Mei Feng has TT play and also can operate nicely around a generic crew (she does not need++ but can use support - mainly for railwalking) and she also plays strong into Rezzers and ranged crews.  Kaeris struggles in theme and while she has some potential (vs summoners) as a counter-crew it is even then hard to pull off successfully.  So basically Kaeris is "work to succeed > outcome" in terms of competitiveness, functional theme, strong match-ups or excellent play into certain scheme/strat pools.

Hopefully the new box encounter set can resolve some of her issues but the problem is by adding an amazing few Arcanist models to our already strong cross-SS selection it is likely to boost the better Arcanist masters as much, if not more than Kaeris anyway. 

 

[Dereikt]

I'd agree that a lot of Kaeris's inefficiencies come from trying to change too much about the burning condition, particularly when in addition to trying to turn a weak, temporary, damage dealing condition into a strong, persistant condition she *also* tries to use it as a benevolent condition. When you look at most buff/defbuff effects in Malifaux, they divide into two broad categories-Aura effects, which require you to remain in close proximity to the target, or attacks which require you to spend AP tagging a target which then gets the benefit/drawback. Kaeris's have the disadvantages of both and benefits of neither-I need to spend AP and actions setting my models on fire, *and* keep them close to Kaeris, *and* also have a specific timing condition attached to them-they only get the benefit if they are near Kaeris at a specific time. As a final insult, if you mess up the timing or position, you don't just lose your buffs but end up taking damage as well. So, requiring all that much effort, I would expect her buffs to be very powerful to compensate, but they aren't.  Really, her buffs need reworking to avoid dependence on the burning condition, for example by allowing friendly models to gain a condition which grants them the bonuses *instead* of applying burning, which they could then use regardless of their proximity to Kaeris. On the flipside of things, applying burning to her enemies, the problem is mostly that all her abilities there basically add up to damage, and at her best she's a mediocre damage master.

However, there's also a lot of inefficiency and extra limitations built into her abilities that keep them from working well even within the limited confines of her core mechanic. Accelerant would be the most extreme example-it does 2 damage to a model with burning, which is weak to start with. but has to affect all models with burning including friendlies, and can only be done once a turn so you can't combine it to do medium levels of damage, and requires a TN to work. So it's already reduced to a very small niche, but then as one final limitation if you *do* manage to get an opponent on two wounds or less with burning, they can avoid the damage by gaining paralyzed. That and 'Born of Fire' would be the worst cases, but there's a lot of lesser examples. Flare requires a Df duel, which can't be relented, so it can't be used to reliably set opponents models *or* your own models on fire. Her abilities only do burning+1, so it rarely adds up to a significant amount of damage, Smoldering heart is 'after succeeding' *and* requires a suit, and even with the bonuses against a model on fire immolate is a mediocre attack, and her good Wk value of 6 is balanced out by a poor charge value of 6 and a lack of any movement ablities, so she depends on Grab and Drop for mobility, which in turn limits her flexibility by taking her other limited upgrades out of consideration. Her broken promises upgrades, regrettably, continued the trend of inefficiency-Flaming angel is a decent upgrade, but the combination of a high 2ss cost, requiring a seven or better for incinerating swoop, not being allowed to use it more than once, and most importantly the massive limit of it not ignoring terrain keep it from actually being *good*, let alone great in the way the Broken Promises upgrades for other 'Weak' masters are. Once again, it feels like the designers put in enough limits to keep it from being overpowered, then added one or two extra. The additional trigger on Immolate, which needs an extra suit and sets Kaeris on fire, but *not* the actual target, joins Born of Fire and Accelerant in the 'Wyrd may as well not have printed it' category.

All the inefficiencies add up, and the end result is a very limited master who has a small range of effective abilities, and more often than not tends to end up as a poor damage master.

[Squirrelich]

*shrug, flaming angel has been stapled to my card since it came out and has very much improved my games with her. I have missed the swoop cause of the TN of 7 before, which feels bad. Have not had huge issues with the not terrain part but have definitely used it for both free burning for positives on her attacks afterward and for an escape when she is being bogged down and in a few rare causes for the extra 2" of move. The trigger I only use if it comes naturally or I will stone if I have Heat Wave to spread for that Heat Stroke.

Not saying it made her top tier or anything, but I've found it to be far from binder trash.