Reva Reverie

[Zebo]

There's no such a thing like "Burning Tokens"

It could be

"Spirits in the Flames: At the end of this model's activation, it gains the Shielded Condition at the same value that the Burning Condition. Then, end the Burning Condition on this model".

They're still vulnerable to Burning, if it is gained after their activation. 

[newsun]

She also needs an always useful bonus action or at least less conditional.

[Graf]

I'm new to the game, but even I can see some design problems with her/the crew. Still take it with appropriate amount of salt.

To me it feels like Wyrd thought "fire is Kaeris' thing so we have to do something different with her" but had no clear idea what.

To create pyres you have to suicide Candles or kill models. Especially the latter is quite uncontrollable depending on the models your opponent plays and positiones them. You can drop multiple per turn, but how many models can you realistically kill per turn? On the contrary Wildfire has 2 controlled pyre creators, plus Gamin.

The benefit is quite meh, even just looking at the ability in a vacuum. While Shielded gets removed at the end of turn, Burning stays. You don't get any benefit without other abilities. The only models that work with this are Lampads, who ignore Burning, and Draugr, who convert them into a benefit. 

I feel like Reva needs a completely different buff, other than damage reduction, to differatciate her from Kaeris but still balance her on a reasonable level.

I do not know which way to go through, as multiple would be legit. Changing her crew stick would be as legit as giving all of them an option to ignore or convert burning would both improve her. But in different ways with different consequences. Therefore I think Wyrd needs to make up their mind which way to go with her and then follow through with it. Before I don't know which way to go, I feel hard pressed to give any advice. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've only played against her, but I wonder how much of it is that some of the themes seem like red herrings.

Reva herself's most powerful ability is her melee attack (she can take 3 attacks against a target ~16 inches away), so corpse markers seem like the synergy I'd focus on.

Ressers have pretty amazing corpse marker abilities, but they often struggle to find a home (blasphemous ritual, Toshiro, Grave Golem, etc). Her totems turn on other corpse marker abilities, which is great.

I'd try something like:

Size: 50 - Pool: 4
Leader:
  Reva Cortinas
Totem(s):
  Corpse Candle
  Corpse Candle 2
Hires:
  Restless Spirit
  Toshiro, The Daimyo
  Gravedigger
  Lampad
    Grave Spirit's Touch
  Lampad 2
    Grave Spirit's Touch
  Mourner
 

Grave spirits touch gives extra blasphemous rituals, the crew starts with 4 corpse markers (and could easily pulse 3 focus + summon an Ashigaru).

Mourner stops ruthless from piercing the Lampads. Toshiro summons and provides a nuts aura. Etc.

I think Reva probably is one of those masters that needs to go pretty heavy into OOK and versatile?

[Nikshe]

Revenants can just have +flip for Df\Wp duels for lowering Burning -1. There will be a point to burn non-Lampad\Draugr models every turn.

[MrPieChee]

I still feel that converting burning to shielded is the best option. Shielded so that Reva can attack. Extra defense, but still a chance to get burned if you convert at the wrong time. Draugr can still have burning around to make use of.

From reading about UK tournaments it seems most master's play one or more OOK, so not sure that's a bad thing in itself, but core themes should at least be a viable competitive build.

[MrPieChee]

Had an idea for a slight alteration to the change to spirits in the flame.

Spirits in the Flames: Once per activation. After gaining burning +1 from a pyre marker. This model may reduce its burning condition by any amount (*), then gain the shielded +1 condition by the same amount (max 2).

it can be balanced by a max on the reduction of burning condition, and the max on shielded might want to change to 3.

Forcing the ability to require a pyre marker stops any silly OOK picks against crews which revolve around burning and keeps the need in keyword to think about pyre placement against those same crews.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I wonder if they could also just give Reva an ability that says

"As long as Reva is your leader, corpse markers count as hazardous (burning 1)". It'd merge several of her mechanics. Although it'd break their (unwritten?) rule about terrain markers always being 50mm.

[bigbopper]

The main problem I have with reva is that if you stay in keyword you have lots of card discard, with no card draw. 
I’d like to see final veil allow card draw as well as the heal. 
I personally don’t mind the burning management. I actually find it quite fun. However I can see why people don’t like it 

[MrPieChee]

The burning management is still there, it just that at the moment your strapped for cards, have to manage corpses, pyres, burning and shielded. Combined with a general feeling she's a weaker master (I'm getting that from other players posts - I don't have anything enough experience to judge), I think a small buff and a slight simplification would do wonders.

Being able to convert burning into shielded makes the crew a bit tougher, but still leaves some management with when you convert, and how much you leave for draugrs.

Making corpses like pyres could be a way to go about it, but I don't think pyre generation is an issue.

Adding sources of card draw might just make her too good - there are several master in ressers with card draw mechanics, making another is just a bit boring. Also, those crews provide OOK options and the last whisper upgrade does a similar job.

Maybe changing Reva to attack through corpses and pyres instead of corpses and shielded would help?

Edit: no idea what's up with that white bit. You can highlight it to see the text. I might try and fix it on a pc later.

[bigbopper]

the Whisper upgrade in my experience isn’t enough to compensate for all the discard. It’s crazy the amount of discard you have to do In keyword if you want to get the  full value of their abilities.  Personally I find it the number 1 frustrating part of playing revenant. 
She can already attack through pyres with her “unquiet Dead” tactical action. 

[Adran]

6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

 Although it'd break their (unwritten?) rule about terrain markers always being 50mm.

Ice pillars?

There was a time in beta reva counted corpse markers as hazardous. Very shortly afterwards the rule about crossing one or more hazardous marker only counting a 1 instance was added, as people were suffering huge amounts of hazardous when facing reva. Various rules have changed since that,but it was something beta did look at. 

[Gnomezilla]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

Ice pillars?

There was a time in beta reva counted corpse markers as hazardous. Very shortly afterwards the rule about crossing one or more hazardous marker only counting a 1 instance was added, as people were suffering huge amounts of hazardous when facing reva. Various rules have changed since that, but it was something beta did look at. 

Nothing else changed which was relevant to that meat grinder. It was the old Resser style pioneered in M2e of ‘use emissary to block all paths but the chokepoint’, except now the chokepoint had one or more corpse candles/regular corpses turning the region into instantaneous death for anything 6 or 8 (don’t remember how many pyres I had, mostly corpses) wounds or less. With the change to hazardous only pinging once per terrain type per action, the hazardous-corpse aura plus pyres would have still been deleterious, but survivable by models with six wounds or more. Reva’s current fast action appears to be a response to her crew setting itself on fire and people not liking that.

 

I don’t understand. Between this lack of use of hazardous and Ressers not rating belles this edition, it’s as if an entire faction forgot its positioning tricks, and in a Gaining Grounds with plenty (perhaps too much) emphasis on model positioning.

[Jimbothulu]

I'm new to Malifaux as well and have taken an interest in playing Reva. To me, it seems there is a choice between a Pyre marker heavy crew (probably want to add Draugrs and Lampads) or a Corpse marker crew. Asura, Grave Golem, Bone Piles, Mourners, Mortimer, Grave Diggers, all have the ability to drop Corpse markers and most of these as well as the Emissary have the ability to bring Mindless Zombies into play. I think she has potential, but a player has to decide how they think they can best play her. Trying to do it all would be way too confusing and completely dilute any kind of strong tactics.