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The AWESOME Colette (Nop)


Fictor

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Hi guys, since she was nerfed, for me, becomes the worst Arcanist Master, and stoped play with her.

But... since a couple of weeks I want to test my mind and play a lot of Colette, with all upgrades, and all combination of miniatures.

In every game I feel the same, she is pure shit now, in all of the games the same Crew with another Master works better.

Yep, in the past people abuse of Prompt, but it's because the other abilities are trash, for real, are really trash, doesn't are abilities of 4ss minions... are abilities of a Master with poor 2ss of cache.

The best upgrades to carry are PP, SotD and AR, two of them generics and another for Showgirls, you doesn't need use that master for that.

You can pay 4ss for have Collodi's abilities with out :+flip on dmg and 4" instead 10"... OMFG

She live from Scheme Markers but, she discard the markers, and you need them for Schemes, for keep her alive, for hit, for ALL, and can't interact while engaged.

Really this Master need up the cache to 4/5ss, leave Prompt 3 times on minions or Showgirls or rewrite her fucking trash upgrades....

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i prefer playing Colette in in the back and prompting like mad with Shell Game and Practiced Production, and sometimes using dissappearing act to teleport closer or into better position.

i play her with models that are great but their main problem is mobility, so i use prompt to get them into range so i can activate then charge instead of walking with high cost models.

Large Arachnid is also gold worth, put down scheme beside him then he activates and eats it for that delicious :+flip to all flips until end of activation.

my colettte lists core consist of:

  • Colette 

  Shell Game, Practiced Production

  • Cassandra
  • Large Arachnid
  • Union Miner
  • 1 or 3 Oxfordian Mage
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Like I said, I play all combination of miniatures, and in all cases if I change Colette for another Master the results will be better...

Use Shell Game make me sad,  this upgrade are really bad, you need activate your master early, spend stones or cards, upgrade slot, and Aps... oh man, if you say that this upgrade are the best of Colette... and yes I try to use this a couple of times.

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She has also lost access to the distract/ cursed object schemes that were her bread and butter, so she is going to be down powered. Since she only had 1 change from being considered TOP TIER always take, to now never touch, and thats adding a once a once per turn per model on one of her abilities, I do think that people are over reacting. I will say though that the current GG is not a favourable set of schemes and strategies for her (although she may make supply wagon easier thanks to those extra interact actions she offers)

She can still do plenty of out of activation crew re-arrangement, and AP addition, which has a place in Ours, and certain other scheme pools. She is still one of the easiest ways to add Ap to models, and that can be strong. 

She is also hurt by the increased amount of no Df triggers that are now in the game. 

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36 minutes ago, Adran said:

She has also lost access to the distract/ cursed object schemes that were her bread and butter, so she is going to be down powered. Since she only had 1 change from being considered TOP TIER always take, to now never touch, and thats adding a once a once per turn per model on one of her abilities, I do think that people are over reacting. I will say though that the current GG is not a favourable set of schemes and strategies for her (although she may make supply wagon easier thanks to those extra interact actions she offers)

She can still do plenty of out of activation crew re-arrangement, and AP addition, which has a place in Ours, and certain other scheme pools. She is still one of the easiest ways to add Ap to models, and that can be strong. 

She is also hurt by the increased amount of no Df triggers that are now in the game. 

I think the increase of models with trigger ignoring and and damage reduction ignoring abilities happened at about the same time as her nerf which came just prior to the schemes and strats being ideal for her. The Practiced Production nerf wasn't a direct nerf to Colette but it probably didn't help.  

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I feel Colette doesn't deserve the garbage designation she's given. She is certainly not optimal, but I find her to be reasonably competitive especially in Wagons where handing out 0 AP is very helpful. 

I think the key to Colette is building a crew around her that takes advantage of some of her unique abilities:

  • Handing out 0 interact actions for wagons / headhunter
  • Giving glass cannon type models reactivate, where the sacrifice isn't too bad as they will probably die anyway
  • Models that benefit a lot from doves, or using doves to disrupt enemy crews that rely a lot on positioning. 
  • Handing out free focus to showgirl minions

This is what I normally take:

Colette AR, CC, AP

Cassandra PP

Joss

2 Coryphee

Performer.

I'd like to try swapping the coryphee for ox mages at some point

 

 

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1 hour ago, grim_stoki said:

I feel Colette doesn't deserve the garbage designation she's given. She is certainly not optimal, but I find her to be reasonably competitive especially in Wagons where handing out 0 AP is very helpful. 

I think the key to Colette is building a crew around her that takes advantage of some of her unique abilities:

  • Handing out 0 interact actions for wagons / headhunter
  • Giving glass cannon type models reactivate, where the sacrifice isn't too bad as they will probably die anyway
  • Models that benefit a lot from doves, or using doves to disrupt enemy crews that rely a lot on positioning. 
  • Handing out free focus to showgirl minions

This is what I normally take:

Colette AR, CC, AP

Cassandra PP

Joss

2 Coryphee

Performer.

I'd like to try swapping the coryphee for ox mages at some point

 

 

6 activation Crew... In a few games in my meta you loss turn 2 is the opponent go slowly...

51 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Coyphees are models that look horrible on paper. Are they any better on the table?

Not for me, y play a lot this model because love the miniature, but at 14ss cost all other options are better like x3 Oxfordians, Howard, Myranda+IE (that can be reactivated with Prompt and turn into Cerverus) and all other combinations...

YES, only one nerf on one ability ruined this Master because the other abilities and upgrades are B-A-D, and when you starts to lose miniatures Prompt turns bad and bad, with only 2 miniatures and your Master you only can do 2 Prompts, and 1 if you only have 1, in the past this doesn't matters because you can do 3 Prompts until the end, or Colette can do Prompts she can't do nothing, the other things are shit.

I doesn't say return to the past, I say up a little the Prompt, if the problem is Howard do only affect minions or Showgirls or do the other abilities a little better for can so something other than Prompt.

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2 minutes ago, Fictor said:

6 activation Crew... In a few games in my meta you loss turn 2 is the opponent go slowly...

To be fair, that crew will probably end up being around 8 activations after summoning some doves. 

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6 hours ago, Fictor said:

Like I said, I play all combination of miniatures, and in all cases if I change Colette for another Master the results will be better...

Use Shell Game make me sad,  this upgrade are really bad, you need activate your master early, spend stones or cards, upgrade slot, and Aps... oh man, if you say that this upgrade are the best of Colette... and yes I try to use this a couple of times.

you need to hold cards anyways for prompt sometimes, and you just use the free suit to convert into a card essentially. and you dont need to activate colette early? i used her in a tournament and activated her mid to late when the opponents hand was dry from forcing him to cheat, then you can go ham with your left over models and cheat for that sweet damage.

You want to spend the AP on prompt anyways, otherwise why do you play colette? so the "using aps" argument that the upgrade doesnt hold up.

they way i use prompt i basically give poor mobility models walks instead of them spending their 2 ap on walks, so you net one ap and sometimes you get that flurry/furious casting or get into charge range.

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Honestly, I've found decent use with her Dancing Sabre build.  Steamfitters can drop 2 scheme markers a turn.  Other minions can drop them as 0 actions and most of all, the Union Miners can drop two for one AP. .  I usually have 6+ markers on the field around Colette that she can use. Yes, it sucks have to put 4 SS (which I think both should just be 1SS) into two upgrades (Dancing Sabre and A Lady's Secret) but damaging and handing out Slow to 2-4 models a turn is very detrimental to your opponent.  Especially on their heavy hitters.  When you play with this build, it's about a game of CONTROL, not so much as killing the enemy.  Amina is perfect with Colette for this build and she just brings even more control.  Everyone is so used to Colette being a Prompt machine but this build actually lets her play a complete control game.  It is hard, but out of the 5 games I've played this build, I've won 3/5 and tied the other two.  Also, for all those who say that there are too many models out there that ignore Df triggers, I honestly haven't seen that many and with Amina around, they usually aren't going to be hitting Colette. 

She is most certainly a lower tier master but she's playable.  I just wish we had more models that could benefit from enemy model's being Slowed like the Scorpius does.  

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Well for me the main problem is that she went from Top to Bottom...kinda the opposite of what happened to Lucius...but anyway.

I remember the days when she would be able to do most scheme/strats very well, she was indeed a great generalist and you could choose her crew to fit whatever combination she needed to do. Heck, I've done entire tourneys with her as a solo master - she was one of my all time favorites. That spot is now sadly taken by Sandeep, and Colette instead struggles to do anything - I have a really hard time winning games with her. Her new upgrades were a chance to help her - missed, as they are mediocre at best.

I agree with the OP - it is incredible how a simple change completely ruined this master. Unfortunately she suffered from a series of ham-fisted erratas that afflicted other models, but in her case it was truly deadly. People started complaining about Prompt + Howard, so what's the fix? Completely nerf her prompt. It's like squeezing a pimple with a bazooka.
It would have been a lot easier to just make Prompt Minion+Showgirls only, or make it 1x for Enforcers and Henchmen, or something like that.

Of course, I agree that the current GG2018 is not a good fit for her either...but still, her situation went from awesome to subpar way too quickly.

I hope she gets some love in the July errata, currently she's bottom of Arcanists and it's pretty sad.

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I'm agree 100% with you @edopersichetti, I play him a lot before and after the nerf, for this reason start this topic, after the few games, I'm sure to speak and don't say anything that didn't tested.

9 hours ago, WWHSD said:

To be fair, that crew will probably end up being around 8 activations after summoning some doves. 

Yes, the Doves, but man, 8:mask for a Dove hurts, you have a free SS, but for example in the last game, in my first turn I only have 13:tome higher than 7's, doesn't want spend that on a Dove, and can't summon nothing (Try one time and fails xD), at this cost we can summon a Gaming who can interact and gives all your Crew :+flip on attack... the same thing... I think that must be reduced to 6:mask or 8 out suit.

27 minutes ago, Rufess said:

What made the prompt so bad? I always consider the action as an alternative version of Lucius's Issue Command. In most situation the 2 actions have similar value.

The thing is that, in the past you have most versatile Master whit only 1 miniature of each type, if you want shot x3 on Acolyte, if want hit x3 on Howard, if want lure x3 on Performer, and even if you only have one miniature on reach you can do that, now you can't do that, you need all time x3 miniatures at 8" to get your x3 Prompts, and if you have versatility you can't do more than one time the same action for the limit.

5 hours ago, edopersichetti said:

Her new upgrades were a chance to help her - missed, as they are mediocre at best.


It would have been a lot easier to just make Prompt Minion+Showgirls only, or make it 1x for Enforcers and Henchmen, or something like that.

For me that two phases are the solved problem, refix her Prompt or up her Upgrades

And for sure the other Arcanist nerfs hurts Colette like the PP and similar things, at this point is the trash tier Master.

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8 hours ago, Rufess said:

What made the prompt so bad? I always consider the action as an alternative version of Lucius's Issue Command. In most situation the 2 actions have similar value.

Indeed, as @Fictor here says, Prompt went from gold to crap.

The restriction to 1x per model killed it. Before you were able to readjust your crew as needed, and most times even prompting 2x was enough (without reaching the level of the 3x Howard craziness). So yes, this "fix" prevented the 3x Prompt beater or lure, but at the same time means quite often you fall short of what you needed the Prompt for in the first place.

In comparison to Obey for example (needs 7:mask) it only needs a 6 and has the extra push which is incredibly useful, but was restricted to friendlies only - Obey has the advantage of targeting enemies too. I think that was a fair tradeoff. Collodi doesn't need to flip (which is huge) and gives a :+flip but is restricted to friendly minions/peons/puppets (which is not that much of a restriction) - that's for sure the most powerful "command action" in game right now (and I think eventually it'll be retouched, because it's quite bonkers). Lucius only needs a 5 and is restricted to Minions 1x, so similar to Colette now, but he also has the commanding Presence so he still has more flexibility. I think Prompt is now easily the worst "command action" in game.

I think designers wanted players to use Colette's other actions a bit more rather than 3x Prompting each turn, the problem is the most of the other actions are not very useful to support your crew: the teleport is nice but the summoning is subpar and then she has little else. She needs a lot of scheme markers to accomplish stuff, and her upgrades are usually quite bad, and overcosted. It was a ham-fisted "fix" - sadly not the only one, but for a master that's pretty severe. Add in Sandeep, who can pretty much do anything she does but better, and that's where we stand...

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17 hours ago, WWHSD said:

To be fair, that crew will probably end up being around 8 activations after summoning some doves. 

Yeah, that is typically how I play. I agree giving up an 8 is painful, but you need to remember doves get better as the game goes on. I'm not too worried giving up an 8 or a 9 on the first turn especially with AR. Worst case scenario I'm giving up a prompt.

Games tend to be a bit slower in wagons anyway, since crews need to do a lot of positioning and pushing early in the game. 

18 hours ago, WWHSD said:

Coyphees are models that look horrible on paper. Are they any better on the table?

I wouldn't take them in anything but wagons, where you get two free 3" pushes a turn. They can be a real nightmare for your opponent, with all of the positive flips and defensive tricks.  And giving them free focus really helps. 

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2 hours ago, edopersichetti said:

Indeed, as @Fictor here says, Prompt went from gold to crap.

The restriction to 1x per model killed it. Before you were able to readjust your crew as needed, and most times even prompting 2x was enough (without reaching the level of the 3x Howard craziness). So yes, this "fix" prevented the 3x Prompt beater or lure, but at the same time means quite often you fall short of what you needed the Prompt for in the first place.

In comparison to Obey for example (needs 7:mask) it only needs a 6 and has the extra push which is incredibly useful, but was restricted to friendlies only - Obey has the advantage of targeting enemies too. I think that was a fair tradeoff. Collodi doesn't need to flip (which is huge) and gives a :+flip but is restricted to friendly minions/peons/puppets (which is not that much of a restriction) - that's for sure the most powerful "command action" in game right now (and I think eventually it'll be retouched, because it's quite bonkers). Lucius only needs a 5 and is restricted to Minions 1x, so similar to Colette now, but he also has the commanding Presence so he still has more flexibility. I think Prompt is now easily the worst "command action" in game.

I think designers wanted players to use Colette's other actions a bit more rather than 3x Prompting each turn, the problem is the most of the other actions are not very useful to support your crew: the teleport is nice but the summoning is subpar and then she has little else. She needs a lot of scheme markers to accomplish stuff, and her upgrades are usually quite bad, and overcosted. It was a ham-fisted "fix" - sadly not the only one, but for a master that's pretty severe. Add in Sandeep, who can pretty much do anything she does but better, and that's where we stand...

Coming into this completely n00b (having never played with or against Colette), but how would it have been splitting the difference? Instead of neither the free range, or once per model, you made it once per action? 

ie. A model cannot be made to take the same Action twice via Prompt per Turn.

So Howard could be targetted 2-3 times, but he could only Claw once, and the other actions could be any of Focus, Move, Interact, Steam Cloud, Defensive, etc. It'd mean you could use the more important models multiple times for multiple reasons, but you couldn't chainsaw attacks from a single beater which appeared to be a problem. Would that fix have brought them down to an acceptable level, but not pushed her into apparent obsolescence?

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2 hours ago, Morgan Vening said:

Coming into this completely n00b (having never played with or against Colette), but how would it have been splitting the difference? Instead of neither the free range, or once per model, you made it once per action? 

ie. A model cannot be made to take the same Action twice via Prompt per Turn.

So Howard could be targetted 2-3 times, but he could only Claw once, and the other actions could be any of Focus, Move, Interact, Steam Cloud, Defensive, etc. It'd mean you could use the more important models multiple times for multiple reasons, but you couldn't chainsaw attacks from a single beater which appeared to be a problem. Would that fix have brought them down to an acceptable level, but not pushed her into apparent obsolescence?

The easiest way to “split the difference” would have just been to use similar wording to what is on Obey:

”A model which performed an Attack due to Prompt may not be targeted by Prompt again during the same activation”.

This gives a little more flexibility to Prompt and removes the lockout that Prompt has if you fail the first flip.

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56 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

The easiest way to “split the difference” would have just been to use similar wording to what is on Obey:

”A model which performed an Attack due to Prompt may not be targeted by Prompt again during the same activation”.

This gives a little more flexibility to Prompt and removes the lockout that Prompt has if you fail the first flip.

I was figuring it'd allow a few models with multiple Attacks to make use of them, but not allow the spamming of the singular awesome attack. 

But a "friend only Obey with a Push" works too. 

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4 hours ago, Morgan Vening said:

ie. A model cannot be made to take the same Action twice via Prompt per Turn.

 

You get a 3" push with prompt as well, so you could potentially push a model 9" before it activates (12" if you have Cas understudy). 

That feels a bit extreme to me.

I'm not sure the prompt nerf hurt Colette so badly as other models being adjusted such that her abilities are no longer cost-effective.  

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2 hours ago, grim_stoki said:

 

You get a 3" push with prompt as well, so you could potentially push a model 9" before it activates (12" if you have Cas understudy). 

That feels a bit extreme to me.

I'm not sure the prompt nerf hurt Colette so badly as other models being adjusted such that her abilities are no longer cost-effective.  

It's not like Howard or Performers were touched, it was Prompt that was touched...what models being adjusted do you refer to?

Tbh it seems pretty evident to me that the hurt comes from the Prompt nerf - personally I've played her many times both before and after nerf (with the same crews) and I can tell the difference. It's about the flexibility and the opportunity of allocating resources where needed, as @Fictor explained in his post. Imagine a car that only has 1st, 3rd and 6th gear (I know, I'm European, I drive manual cars :D ) - it just doesn't work that well.

Of course, they could have boosted some of her other abilities, or upgrades, to make up for it, but they didn't. In fact, in all candor, it looks like the designer just didn't calculate very well the impact that chopping the nerf in that way would have on her game. It's ok, I'm a math teacher and I can definitely tell you, calculation mistakes happen to everybody ;)
The important is to learn from your mistake :P

Even better, there is still the chance to fix it! :) 
I strongly agree with @WWHSD and @Morgan Vening above - something similar to Obey with a restriction x action would be a lot more appropriate. It still would prevent extreme interactions such as 3x Howard attacks (seemed to be the main complaint at the time), but without breaking the whole bank. Tbh any of the fixes proposed would be better than the current state (restrict to Minion+Peon+Showgirls a la Collodi is another one, for instance).

p.s. for the record, I played the 3xHoward combo a couple of times, found it extremely boring, and then never played it again. On the other hand, pre-nerf Colette certainly did not need that and could win plenty of games very well without even hiring Howard. Unfortunately it is the same sort of "exploitation" process - players finding the glitch and abusing it for the sake of an easy win - that keeps happening, perhaps inevitably, over and over again. It happened to Stuffed Piglets - and they were nerfed to total uselessness. It now happened again with the Tanukipult - I bet some money that will be addressed soon. I won't waste any more space citing many more examples.
Poor Colette simply paid a steep price for it, and one thing is a Peon becoming useless, a Master is another thing entirely...

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I'm Agree 110% with @edopersichetti, @WWHSD  and @Morgan Vening, can't explain more times the same or add something else.

And my personal choice is never play again Colette since they fix something on her, it's a fact that I doesn't get fun in my games with an unbalanced thing like this, and I try this couple of time with so much combinations.

I have a lot of masters to test and play until Wyrd see that xD

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11 hours ago, Fictor said:

I'm Agree 110% with @edopersichetti, @WWHSD  and @Morgan Vening, can't explain more times the same or add something else.

And my personal choice is never play again Colette since they fix something on her, it's a fact that I doesn't get fun in my games with an unbalanced thing like this, and I try this couple of time with so much combinations.

I have a lot of masters to test and play until Wyrd see that xD

I mean, sometimes I still play her and I enjoy the challenge, but I see what you mean. It always feels like playing with the handicap. Before she used to be able to play any crew with good results, now it's the opposite - any other master can play the same crew better than her.

Indeed I've played her with, like, a frozen-heart based crew, a fire/burning based crew, a whole M&SU crew, a Blade&Claw crew...besides the obvious Showgirl-based crews. In fact, I think she's one of my most played masters ever exactly because I have tried her so many times in so many combinations!

So yeah, maybe you're right...I have, like, 15 other masters that I could dedicate my time instead :D

Unfortunately the effect is that if everyone does this, you hardly ever see her on the table anymore (and in fact...)

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12 hours ago, edopersichetti said:

So yeah, maybe you're right...I have, like, 15 other masters that I could dedicate my time instead :D

Unfortunately the effect is that if everyone does this, you hardly ever see her on the table anymore (and in fact...)

Yes, and I really WANT to do something competitive with her, because for some reason that I can't understand is a big challenge for me, but... still fail 😟

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/15/2018 at 2:09 PM, WWHSD said:

The easiest way to “split the difference” would have just been to use similar wording to what is on Obey:

”A model which performed an Attack due to Prompt may not be targeted by Prompt again during the same activation”.

This gives a little more flexibility to Prompt and removes the lockout that Prompt has if you fail the first flip.

As a Collette main, I would have preferred raising the TN on subsequent uses (or, less favorably, adding a suit).  I'm not sure why Wyrd doesn't take more advantage of TN increase as a balancing mechanic, because I think it's a potential way of adding decision points to play, rather than heavy handed prohibitions.

Or, if they wanted to push theme more (which I think generally they should, as a rule), they could have allowed Colette to Prompt again if the target was a Showgirl (so if you Prompt only Showgirls, you could still do 3x, but if you Prompt another model, it ends the Prompt opportunity).  Though I think there you may start to run into text length issues on the card.

The thing about Command abilities that makes balancing them difficult is that they essentially it is really a two-tiered process.  Both the Command ability itself, but then the range of obedient models have to be considered as well.

 

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