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Bleeding Disease too strong?


Zebo

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Recently, I've had this discussion and I wanted to ask for opinions here too. 

Bleeding Disease is a non :ranged attack with 12" Range without max damage cap and that doesn't discard tokens. 

The rest of "similar" Actions are:

Sucumb to Darkness (Jakob Lynch): maybe the most similar to Bleeding Disease. It also uses undiscardable tokens, and is also a regular action, so can be used multiple times. In the bad side it has half the range, it's limited to max 5 damage and, if the target don't die, it discards 2 brilliance tokens. 

In the good side, if kills the target you summon a Honeypot minion with cost equal to the brilliance tokens the target has. 

I think both the limited damage and token discarding are good measures to counter the awesome capacity of summoning up to a 7ss model, with no TN, no resources and killing an enemy model with a very good attack. 

 

Blood Poisoning (Brewmaster, Popcorn Turner, McMourning and Sebastian): this action relies on a condition (poison) instead of tokens, so it's more easily avoidable. It's also on a :ToS-Fast:action, so it's only once per activation. It has also the damage limited to 5, and the poison condition is reduced by 5. And also is shorter ranged than Bleeding Disease. 

 

Scorch the Soul (Sonnia Criid): this action works with the Burning Condition, which is the easiest to remove, although it doesn't go down automatically at the end turn like the Poison. It has the highest TN (need an 8), the damage is capped to 5 max and reduces the Burning Condition by 5. It also has a shorter range than the Bleeding Disease. 

In the good side, it summons a Witchling with equal or lower cost than the killed model, so you could summon up to a 8ss model in a single attack (to an already damaged model). 

 

Immolate (Elijah Borgmann): also works with Burning and is a regular action with the same range than Scorch the Soul, but instead summoning a Witchling it makes the target to not drop any marker. It's like a weaker version of Scorch the Soul in the other fire-themed crew (well, in one of the other two, Revenant crew hasn't anything like that action, but the resser's crew indeed don't rely on putting Burning on the enemy). 

 

My opinion:

In many things, Bleeding Disease is better than those actions, but this doesn't mean that it should be needed. Having better or worse versions of actions is part of the game. Maybe the Honeypot has more and better uses for Brilliance Tokens than Plague has for Blight Tokens. Indeed Poison and Burning by themselves are better than Blight, since the conditions already do something, while tokens are useless by themselves. Also, the Tri-Chi crew has lots of uses and advantages for poison on their enemies, while Experimental spreads a lot of poison in pulses and themselves benefit for being poisoned and also the enemy suffers extra for having poison. And the Witch Hunter also has extra benefits versus models with burning, or enemies with Burning has some debuff versus them. 

Plague relies on Bleeding Disease to make damage, and with it capped it would be a huge nerd to a crew that actually is not being over the curve (although I've seen before nerfs to models that weren't too good, like the blow to Von Schill's gun weak damage). 

 

What do you think? 

 

EDIT: to add Immolate. 

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people I play against sometimes complain that bleeding disease is too strong because I have two-shoted their master or some other important model. what they fail to see is that a) I put a lot of effort and actions to stack that bleeding, and b) I lost the game anyway, because I didn't use these actions elsewhere.

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You have also missed actions such as Immolate (which is the burning version of blood poisoning).

I think the review you have given misses an important section - how easy it is to put those tokens (conditions) on the models, and how useful those tokens (conditions ) are for anything else. So Burning and Poison have the advantage that they are useful entirely on their own. The models don't need to work in combination to get them work, so Sonnia can still be a threat even if nothing else in the crew puts out the burning condition.

  I don't have enough experience between brilliance and Blight, but a quick glimpse of the cards suggest its easier to get Brilliance on models (if players are actively trying to avoid), and brilliance has a much wider set of effects in general. Blight is much more of a slow developing token, and largely used for damage. 

So at a simple glance, it looks like Bleeding disease is too strong, but there is often a lot of set up to get it to those levels. Hamlin would need to spend several turns to set a model up enough to kill it with bleeding disease by himself.

 

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1 hour ago, Adran said:

You have also missed actions such as Immolate (which is the burning version of blood poisoning).

Sorry, I missed that action from Elijah Borgman, since Kaeris didn't had it anymore, I thought Sonnia was the only remaining model with that effect on Burning. 

Anyways, Blood Poisoning is the only :ToS-Fast:action from all those. 

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Is bleeding disease too strong? Other than a poor gun attack from the OW & Bennie this is the only ranged attack the Plague crew can put out. It usually takes to at least turn 3 (often turn 4 if your opponent is trying to actively avoid stacking the blight tokens) to get a decent amount on a model to make it a worth while attack. 

Assuming you can stack the following blight tokens in a game on a 2AP model & that you are successful with the attack actions:

Turn 3 - target typically has 3 blight tokens = total 6 damage

Turn 4 - target typically has 4 blight tokens = total 8 damage

Turn 5 - target typically has 7 blight tokens = total 14 damage

Total damage in game = 28 damage

Lets compare with a standard range gun attack (say 2/3/5 damage spread - lets assume you are spending first turn positioning & from 2 turn onwards shoot & hit with your attack actions, as you require no additional setup):

Turns 2 = damage 4/6/10

Turn 3 = damage 4/6/10

Turn 4 = damage 4/6/10

Turn 5 = damage 4/6/10

Total damage in game = 16/24/40 damage - so your average damage is going to be somewhere in the low-mid 20's (but could spike much higher) with absolutely zero setup required.

Are these attacks that much different in terms of damage output over the course of a game?

Yes you can perhaps say that given the right setup bleeding disease may give you more consistent higher damage output overall but this is really Plague's only way to get consistent high damage out in the crew (most other crews will have melee beaters with a 3/4/6 damage output which could equate to 24/32/48 throughout a game).

The Plague keyword has loads of hard counters, blasts, shockwaves, anti-demise, alpha strike etc.

The Plague keyword is not dominating meta's or tournament results in fact this keyword has consistently been ranked at the lower end of the Outcast faction.

I don't see why people are therefore suggesting that bleeding disease is too strong? This statement baffles me to be honest, the only errata change to Plague has been to Bennie which has improved his utility within the Keyword & will have little impact if any on the damage output of the crew (in fact Bennie has had diseased aura removed, so less spreading of blight).

 

 

 

 

 

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Bleeding disease is the best way in all of Malifaux to do 20+ damage to a single model.  All 20+ wound models should cower in fear of Hamlin.  However, most crews do not use these prodigious models, so it's probably okay if Hamlin hard counters the ones that do.  

There are exactly three models with Bleeding Disease.  Three.  Obedient Wretch, Nix, and Hamlin.  None are summonable.  If you're a competent player, this information should give you some guidance on how to deal with it - if you even need to deal with it.  

 

 

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3 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

There are exactly three models with Bleeding Disease.  Three.  Obedient Wretch, Nix, and Hamlin.  None are summonable.  If you're a competent player, this information should give you some guidance on how to deal with it - if you even need to deal with it.

In 2nd edition when all 3 Stolen totems had Bleeding Disease as well, AND were summonable, it was a tab bit (read exceedingly) powerful.  Blight tokens grew on its own then, too.

Now, the totem's Vomiting Disease action, and Blight in general, pale in comparison.

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14 hours ago, Adran said:

You have also missed actions such as Immolate (which is the burning version of blood poisoning).

I think the review you have given misses an important section - how easy it is to put those tokens (conditions) on the models, and how useful those tokens (conditions ) are for anything else. So Burning and Poison have the advantage that they are useful entirely on their own. The models don't need to work in combination to get them work, so Sonnia can still be a threat even if nothing else in the crew puts out the burning condition.

  I don't have enough experience between brilliance and Blight, but a quick glimpse of the cards suggest its easier to get Brilliance on models (if players are actively trying to avoid), and brilliance has a much wider set of effects in general. Blight is much more of a slow developing token, and largely used for damage. 

So at a simple glance, it looks like Bleeding disease is too strong, but there is often a lot of set up to get it to those levels. Hamlin would need to spend several turns to set a model up enough to kill it with bleeding disease by himself.

 

Just adding to this point. It hasn't been explicitly stated yet how brilliance tokens also add to the defense of the crew (giving out negative flips when you attack certain models). The closest equivalent to this with blight is Hamelin canceling the triggers of a model and you have to remove the blight to do that. 

We can argue over how good all of these actions are, but the utility of the resource used for this kind of action and the ease with which it is given out play a huge role. I don't think bleeding disease is too strong. If Hamelin starts crushing tournaments then addressing bleeding disease may be the answer. However, I don't currently see him a ton in the competitive scene. 

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11 hours ago, Zeus said:

Is bleeding disease too strong? Other than a poor gun attack from the OW & Bennie this is the only ranged attack the Plague crew can put out. It usually takes to at least turn 3 (often turn 4 if your opponent is trying to actively avoid stacking the blight tokens) to get a decent amount on a model to make it a worth while attack.

well, that's not how it works, at least not for me. unless I get completely screwed by cards I am usually able to put at least 4 blight tokens on selected target on turn one and that's usually before I activate Obedient Wretch to finish it off. Blight isn't as ineffective as you present it and certainly has a potential to become broken in the future (if new models are released which give a lot of Blight easily), but for now it's not as strong as people may think after their first game against Hamelin.

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Also more seriously, from a game design perspective, poison and burning are built around the assumption that 3 burning/poison = 1 damage. There's many models that stack burning and poison 2 and even 3 at a time, with the assumption that 2 burning is only 2/3rds of a damage/turn.  Limiting the actions to 5 clears design space - 5 is already a ton of damage, and more would make it super easy to one-shot models with burning 8 or so (when Burning 8 is only intended to be 3 damage/turn).  

Blight is only added with blight, one counter at a time, and designed around such.  

 

Seriously, anyone who thinks Hamlin is too strong just needs to learn to play.

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On 4/1/2020 at 5:07 PM, Adran said:

You have also missed actions such as Immolate (which is the burning version of blood poisoning).

I think the review you have given misses an important section - how easy it is to put those tokens (conditions) on the models, and how useful those tokens (conditions ) are for anything else. So Burning and Poison have the advantage that they are useful entirely on their own. The models don't need to work in combination to get them work, so Sonnia can still be a threat even if nothing else in the crew puts out the burning condition.

  I don't have enough experience between brilliance and Blight, but a quick glimpse of the cards suggest its easier to get Brilliance on models (if players are actively trying to avoid), and brilliance has a much wider set of effects in general. Blight is much more of a slow developing token, and largely used for damage. 

So at a simple glance, it looks like Bleeding disease is too strong, but there is often a lot of set up to get it to those levels. Hamlin would need to spend several turns to set a model up enough to kill it with bleeding disease by himself.

 

Well, i think Bleeding Disease is too strong because some reason. In our community, Hamelin can put 4 Blight tokens with the lure the first turn. Then, Nyx can use Bleeding disease once because the enemy model is near Hamelin, (Lure Stat 7 12"), then the obedient can do it once or maybe twice, nyx also can do it twiche. Obedient is a very powerful model because of the Bleeding Disease,  tummy aches, the rule that makes impossible to cheat against her in opposed duels if you have blight, her high resistance with manipulative and stealth. 

And, some says that there are no more interactions for the blight, this is false. Hamelin can make you a Df 0 Wp 0 with the staff, as it gives you injured +1 for every token. So 4 tokens makes the BEST stat model 6/6 a 2/2, against duels with stats of 5 and 6 (Obedient, Nyx). But wait, there is more, the totems, the Stolen can use vomiting disease from 10" stat 5 and if you have 3 or more tokens it makes 1/3/4 with + to damage. Very strong. And Nyx have the bonus action, Loose Bowels that makes you unable to interact as long u have blight and are 6 inches from him. If he engages you, it´s nearly impossible to interact even if you push him 3-4 inches. Also, if you have any Df triggers or attack triggers within 6 of Hamelin, he can cancel your trigger by lowering the Blight by 1. 

Also, it looks like the summoning of rats is useful, the rats with stat 3 can make you 0/1/1 blight. So if you have injured, you can´t even defend from a rat and it increases the blight easily as long as you can´t prevent that blight. 

Hamelin has the power to literally explode any model in the game if he does it well. It´s single target damage, yes. But he can focus on any model from the oponent and kill him in a turn without wasting cards to cheat damage, it´s very powerful. 

I´m not saying it´s the most powerful damage of the game, as long as it needs a very good setup, but it´s awful that, my master in my last game against Hamelin, McCabe could die because a 5SS model (obedient), does him 8 damage without being capable of cheating, and killing him in a single activation. (McCabe 12Wd mounted and then 7Wd dismounted), this was 16 Dmg points as McCabe was wounded while mounted. 

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I want to point some things that have been said.

 

1 - winning or loosing doesn't mean a model or action is too strong or not. You can play a game, win it and still realize that some of your opponent's models or actions were too strong. Also you can lose a game and point the same fact without being a lossrage.

2 - the level of the players discussing that in my meta is quite higher than mine. There's really good players reasoning why Bleeding disease could be too good (or more exactly, not complaining about it but giving as a fact that it's gonna be nerfed in the future). 

3 - I have my own opinion, that although Bleeding Disease is stronger than other actions, that forms part of the game. Deja Vu is stronger than Surge and is not gonna be nerfed. 

Maybe the problem could be on a 5ss model that could kill a healthy Master in a single activation without the Master having more chances to defend that flipping a very high card or stoning. 

I don't feel Bleeding Disease is too strong in Hamelin or Nix, but may be in the Obedient Wretch (again, may be). 

 

It has not been a whining made by a losing player, but a discussion it has came after on good player beated Hamelin and gave his thoughts about that action maybe being too good (actually don't remember if his opponent agreed with him, but some other players did). 

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4 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

One thing to keep in mind about the obedient wretch is it is darn easy to kill. Any min 3 beater with ruthless can kill it in one activation.

Like any other 5ss model, I though. 

But any 5ss model in game can display the damage OW does. 

Although that damage is not only hers, it's also from many sources that increased the Blight

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10 minutes ago, Zebo said:

Like any other 5ss model, I though. 

But any 5ss model in game can display the damage OW does. 

Although that damage is not only hers, it's also from many sources that increased the Blight

Saboteur can do 9 damage from shockwaves if it hits three targets.

Bayou gator can spam execute pretty consistently (comes in a crew that can draw 12+ a turn easily).

Old Cranky can obey something to do heaps of damage.

So while bleeding disease is up there for a 5 cost model, it certainly isn't unique (especially since the model is just realising the damage that other models 'deal' by placing tokens).

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I think of Obedient Wretch as a 5ss tax on Hamelin. You don't hire Hamelin without her nor you do hire OW without the mad piper. If you think of it this way, evaluating her becomes less straighforward.

As I said, Blight mechanic isn't intrinsically bad; quite opposite: give Hamelin more tools (in terms of new models) and Bleeding Disease may become an offender. Currently, it's strength is mitigated by the amount of resources you need to invest into it to make it work consistently over the course of the game (it's not uncommon to nuke a 10+ ss model on turn one, but it's hard to do that turn by turn). If you evaluate an action, you simply have to take all circumstances into account.

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1 hour ago, BimVooDoo said:

Well, i think Bleeding Disease is too strong because some reason. In our community, Hamelin can put 4 Blight tokens with the lure the first turn. Then, Nyx can use Bleeding disease once because the enemy model is near Hamelin, (Lure Stat 7 12"), then the obedient can do it once or maybe twice, nyx also can do it twiche. 

I'm not saying its not strong, but that's 16 damage and it took 3 master AP and 4 other AP from 13 stones of models. I can think of several ways to get better damage output in a turn from that outlay. 

And I know that's not really the best way to get blight ( but is one of the fastest) but the best way means it's only a few points a turn, so its several turns into the game before you get those high damage outputs. 

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4 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

I think of Obedient Wretch as a 5ss tax on Hamelin. You don't hire Hamelin without her nor you do hire OW without the mad piper.

Plenty of people hire her outside of Hamelin because she had Analyse Weakness.

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On 4/5/2020 at 2:35 AM, BimVooDoo said:

I´m not saying it´s the most powerful damage of the game, as long as it needs a very good setup, but it´s awful that, my master in my last game against Hamelin, McCabe could die because a 5SS model (obedient), does him 8 damage without being capable of cheating, and killing him in a single activation. (McCabe 12Wd mounted and then 7Wd dismounted), this was 16 Dmg points as McCabe was wounded while mounted. 

Yeah, someone beat a Ten Thunders master.  God, that's ridiculously OP.  All it took was some mispositioning and bad play out of the Ten Thunders.  Please send in the nerfs, the Ten Thunders lost a game and that's not supposed to happen. 

I think instead McCabe shouldn't hand a bonus action to give other models fast on top of the upgrade bonuses, it's way too good.  Other methods of handing out fast cost way more resources.  Nerf McCabe.  I lost to him once, clearly OP.  Nothing I could have done differently except wait for Wyrd to nerf him.  

Or you could kill Obedient Wretch, Nix, and Hamlin, roughly in that order.  Not impossible, really.  You took a 20 wound model into the crew that loves killing 20 wound models.  He got exploded.  That's what happens when you play into a counterpick and then don't take any tech or change your play in any way to avoid it.  You got punked by a counterpick, that's Malifaux.  You'll hesitate next time you declare McCabe into Outcasts, and that's as it should be.  We don't declare Daw into Ten Thunders.  Your opponents should influence your master and crew choices.  

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4 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Yeah, someone beat a Ten Thunders master.  God, that's ridiculously OP.  All it took was some mispositioning and bad play out of the Ten Thunders.  Please send in the nerfs, the Ten Thunders lost a game and that's not supposed to happen. 

I think instead McCabe shouldn't hand a bonus action to give other models fast on top of the upgrade bonuses, it's way too good.  Other methods of handing out fast cost way more resources.  Nerf McCabe.  I lost to him once, clearly OP.  Nothing I could have done differently except wait for Wyrd to nerf him.  

Or you could kill Obedient Wretch, Nix, and Hamlin, roughly in that order.  Not impossible, really.  You took a 20 wound model into the crew that loves killing 20 wound models.  He got exploded.  That's what happens when you play into a counterpick and then don't take any tech or change your play in any way to avoid it.  You got punked by a counterpick, that's Malifaux.  You'll hesitate next time you declare McCabe into Outcasts, and that's as it should be.  We don't declare Daw into Ten Thunders.  Your opponents should influence your master and crew choices.  

Only up to a point, though.  If McCabe is by far my favorite master, someone should not be able to auto-win just be plopping the plagued piper on the table.  Forcing me to come at things differently is good, but rendering my preferred master utterly irrelevant before the game even starts is another.

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4 hours ago, clockworkspide said:

Only up to a point, though.  If McCabe is by far my favorite master, someone should not be able to auto-win just be plopping the plagued piper on the table.  Forcing me to come at things differently is good, but rendering my preferred master utterly irrelevant before the game even starts is another.

It's far from an auto win. It will force you to play differently but certain matchups should force you to. You can't expect to play a crew they exact same way into every matchup. Use positioning and counter tech. You know the opponent's declared master (and faction before-hand) so use that info. Losing one game to a crew doesn't make that crew OP. It's a learning experience. The first time playing against any master can be jarring. Especially if you don't look into the crew or try to build your crew with the opponent's in mind. Also, there are definitely some masters that you just can't pick into certain factions and 10T really isn't the faction that suffers from this the most. Usually it's other factions not being able to pick masters into 10T. While I don't think there are any true auto loss pairings (there is always the player as a factor and card flips) there are plenty of matchups where crews will be extremely disadvantaged. 

Honestly, I really won't be concerned about Hamelin and bleeding disease until the crew starts consistently showing up and winning large tournaments or becoming a solo event master. There just isn't the data to back up any of this talk. 

Even if you lose your master turn 1, you can still win the game (though, losing your master on turn one usually means there was a mistake made). That is the beauty of Malifaux. It doesn't have to be just about killing power. 

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4 hours ago, clockworkspide said:

Only up to a point, though.  If McCabe is by far my favorite master, someone should not be able to auto-win just be plopping the plagued piper on the table.  Forcing me to come at things differently is good, but rendering my preferred master utterly irrelevant before the game even starts is another.

While I share the sentiment that enabling players to hard counter certain masters (by hard counter I mean something much worse than a bad matchup; I am not against the idea of bad matchups) makes the game less enjoyable, I don't see how Hamelin in particular is a counter to McCabe - or, in fact, to any master. What Hamelin does is precisely what you said - forces you to come at things differently. My opponents tend to play more cautiously if they know what I am capable of. Those who rushed me on turn one got punished for the lack of experience, I doubt they will make the same mistake twice. Btw. my first Hamelin game was against McCabe and I felt pretty hardcountered by him :D he had blasts and pulse damage to punish me, he used Ride with Me to save lured Samurai (more blasts!) from being nuked and he even managed to trample through my rats killing four or five of them in one action (which was charge, so he had an attack still - super effective)! Not to mention that he brought Shadow Emissary to render my Lures and Bleeding Disease less effective.

@BimVooDoo have you tried Shadow Emissary against Hamelin?

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6 hours ago, clockworkspide said:

Only up to a point, though.  If McCabe is by far my favorite master, someone should not be able to auto-win just be plopping the plagued piper on the table.  Forcing me to come at things differently is good, but rendering my preferred master utterly irrelevant before the game even starts is another.

I don't know about that particular matchup, but that is definitely one of my biggest complaints about Malifaux. It can be hard to attract players when they might accidentally pick crews where one person is hard-ish countered by the other, and there's a significant gap right from the get-go. Not everyone has the luxury of having a large collection to pick from.

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