How do you feel about pandora's in keyword General power level on average?

[ooshawn 81]

How do you feel about pandora's in keyword General power level on average? What does she feel strong versus? where does she struggle? Prefer answers from people with more than 10 games on pandora

[74legion 4]

It has almost no models that play keywords(even new ones). No defensive abilities for basic models (Candy, Baby Kade ...). Models 4-6ss will not deal damage. They will die quickly. They can't stun you. misery will not work with 8. You need to meet a lot of criteria - you will not be given . Pandora can be unpleasant for an enemy who uses conditions. but this game is not about the leader. In addition, there will be those who will simply be invulnerable to it(Seamus). The faction needs a Smart boost. not all +100500

[SEV 225]

She's fine in keyword but really benefit from strong versatile (Rider, Serena, Hinamatsu). She's my mos played NB master because I like the style (bubble/control), but I think she's at the top of tier 2 righ now (behind Dreamer, Zoraida and Titiana as tier one masters for NB). 

She'll struggle against shoot crew and area damage. High will power crew can be hard if you stay in keyword. 

She is good when the scheme pool draw the fight to a specific position (usually the center). She'll be amazing against crew that wanted their trigger badly (Like Syndicate... even though I lost the only game I played against the with Dora) or that stack foucu (bring Carver). She will also put alot of pressure on your opponent resources. 

She'll struggle at everything that's is mobility based. I think she can do all strats, but Symbols is rough (as is leyline if you stay only in keyword). In my experience, if you stay in keyword, you'll have to play the mobility strats really defensively and go for a low scoring game. 

In keyword, you can Have a core of Candy, Baby and Teddy (let's assume he's a woe) + Sorrows (+AP, but be sure to protect them, they die easily) and you'll be fine. Carver, Iggy and Aversion are tech pieces (but carver is amazing against the right crew and he's one of the 2 ruthless model in faction). Also Poltergeist is a key piece for you. I used him for 2 main roles : 1) Clutch turn (he hide than come in to give a neg to wp duel at the righ moment) ; scheme denial/back field insurance (Telekinesis is great)... If you must, you can use him as a scheme runner but he won't last long in any kind of fight. 

If you like the playstyle, I think you'll want the Rider asap to help you with you mobility issues (Candy is really happy to go for a ride to get in position without activating).

That's what I got. I started to use Dora last fall and I have a dozen of game with her yet. I think she's a blast to play (my wishlist would be a decent trigger on her shockwave attack... surge maybe). HF.

 

[Regelridderen 944]

I’ve only got ‘Dora, Dreamer and Lucius, and I’ll say, I never feel out of options with ‘Dora, but getting a win definitely demands more of me as a player than Dreamer - and playing Lucius is to play on super hard (or impossible, as I’ve never won a game with him).

[ooshawn 81]

I certainly have  a knack for making good quick judgements and she looks on the weaker side in my estimation. I feel like sorrows, lyssa, and  aversions are just dog s. I think that's the problem with open betas is the same you have with any democratic voting situation. You got a lot of not very competent voices that are equally as loud and end up with stuff like this.

[ooshawn 81]

And iggy is garbage. The problem with most game systems is that burst damage is almost always better than D.O.T , and Death is usually the best C.C /Crowd control. So while the crew can ping you for a bit, it's also much too squishy. Furthermore it's crowd control doesn't really allow it to control the battlefield as well as it should for having such unreliable damage.  I think pandora's crew really just should say slow anywhere it says stun, and given terrify to her minions

[Maniacal_cackle 1,524]

1 minute ago, ooshawn said:

And iggy is garbage. The problem with most game systems is that burst damage is almost always better than D.O.T , and Death is usually the best C.C /Crowd control. So while the crew can ping you for a bit, it's also much too squishy. Furthermore it's crowd control doesn't really allow it to control the battlefield as well as it should for having such unreliable damage.  I think pandora's crew really just should say slow anywhere it says stun, and given terrify to her minions

Iggy is so good he gets taken out of keyword sometimes 😜

He can eat enemy scheme markers from 10 inches away. I just saw a game last night where he denied a point last turn of the game by eating up two scheme markers in his activation, despite being engaged (and the enemy couldn't just kill him because of manipulative). Pretty good for a six stone model!

The game really isn't about damage a lot of the time. The best things generally revolve around movement and interacting, and Iggy has loads of both.

[ooshawn 81]

I can say your points are valid, and perhaps I didn't provide enough relevant descriptors of why I think he is bad. He just doesn't fit the crew the way that the other models do. He's a 6 point squishy scheme runner and probably the best scheme runner of the crew. While that's a wonderful , beautiful thing to be. It's not great if you are a 6 stone enforcer and you are the sole good scheme runner of a crew. If we were playing a game and I knew iggy was gonna be doing work for you, He would be the first thing I made sure I killed, and I know I could succeed because of how squishy he is. Outside of his independent ability to scheme run, he doesn't add any layers to pandora's crew.  

While the game isn't about damage, sometimes you need to be rid of a model of be able to make a model go away. Pandoras crew can't stop you from doing anything. If you just kill her minions and scheme run, you can ignore her and candy.  I've played a LOT of malifaux, in a LOT of tournaments. The game hasn't changed THAT much on how to win. stunned would be a good condition if models were still littered with things that gave extra generic AP or movement AP, but all too often bonus actions in this edition are just a hodgepodge of abilities that range from awful to amazing, but don't directly give you ability to scheme. Which makes stunned's value drop severely.  If you kill iggy and 2 sorrows, you just took away any chance she had of Killing any of your models or accomplishing schemes. You'll most likely still have your entire crew available. Leaving turns 4 and 5 to just slowing delete her options from the table while continuing to score points

[karukame 9]

I dont think Pandoras keyword is so bad as some players describe. Sure, there is a lot of vulnerable models, but you need to compare them with another models of the same cost. For example Sorrows is one of the best 5 cost minion in faction, and lyssas for 4 are amazing.  Candy is great, and babycade is still a killer for his 7 stones. 

Still, Pandora is not easy to play, and yes, her models lack of good protection, but there is a lot of mobility and nice tarpit in keyword. Ive rated her third, cause i think 1st place is always a Dreamer, second is collodi or, if dmx is banned, Titania (still her keyword is garbage untill you get Rex on your hands.).Zoraida is not so good in current schemes after nerfs and invention of friendly-emeny controlled in gg, that breaks her manipulations alot. Euripid is lack of survivability and has mediocore models, Marcus is better in arcanists, and lucius is much better in guild. Nekima is nice, but i think mano-o-mano Pandora wrecks her keyword. 

So if ive played Iron scorpions on 3 tours ive ended up with Dreamer collodi Titania and Pandora. 

[ooshawn 81]

I concur from my research that dreamer and collodi are felt to be very strong. Though I personally feel like Nekima's in keyword crew would be probably one of the worst matchup's she could have. Fast stat-checky models that you can force a specific outcome(death) on your terms. Once nekima and a mature get to work on pandora's minions , she will probably lose 2+ models a turn  starting at the top of turn 3 and just get pushed off the table. that's what I envision 

[Maniacal_cackle 1,524]

5 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

I can say your points are valid, and perhaps I didn't provide enough relevant descriptors of why I think he is bad. He just doesn't fit the crew the way that the other models do. He's a 6 point squishy scheme runner and probably the best scheme runner of the crew. While that's a wonderful , beautiful thing to be. It's not great if you are a 6 stone enforcer and you are the sole good scheme runner of a crew. If we were playing a game and I knew iggy was gonna be doing work for you, He would be the first thing I made sure I killed, and I know I could succeed because of how squishy he is. Outside of his independent ability to scheme run, he doesn't add any layers to pandora's crew.  

Iggy isn't a great scheme-runner, but he is a great scheme-denier.

Say you have a pool of Public Enemies, Leave Your Mark, Breakthrough, Assassinate, Vendetta, and Claim Jump. That's a solid scenario where you don't have to cross the line, but Iggy's scheme denial really opens up your options. Denying Breakthrough becomes a LOT easier when you've got Iggy in reserve.

Sure he'll die if he crosses the centreline, but Pandora isn't really a 'cross the centreline' sort of crew. And that's a pretty good thing this season - 75% of the strategies don't really require crossing the centreline. Sure he is terrible if there's no scheme marker schemes in the pool, but then you just don't bring him.

9 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

While the game isn't about damage, sometimes you need to be rid of a model of be able to make a model go away. Pandoras crew can't stop you from doing anything. If you just kill her minions and scheme run, you can ignore her and candy.  I've played a LOT of malifaux, in a LOT of tournaments. The game hasn't changed THAT much on how to win. stunned would be a good condition if models were still littered with things that gave extra generic AP or movement AP, but all too often bonus actions in this edition are just a hodgepodge of abilities that range from awful to amazing, but don't directly give you ability to scheme. Which makes stunned's value drop severely.  If you kill iggy and 2 sorrows, you just took away any chance she had of Killing any of your models or accomplishing schemes. You'll most likely still have your entire crew available. Leaving turns 4 and 5 to just slowing delete her options from the table while continuing to score points

Sorrows are a bit weak, I agree (although some people quite like them). They're very precise tools that easily die, though, so I don't like them as too many things can go wrong. But as you've pointed out in another thread, that's a wider issue with M3E (many cheap models aren't worthwhile).

Also there's loads of crews that simply don't rely on keyword models (my Reva crew typically spends 10 stones on keyword models). So I wouldn't constrain yourself to just thinking of the crew in terms of the keyword. In Ressers, I always have 1-5 versatile and OOK models I think... Especially as you often have to adapt to the matchup, which means you're grabbing your tech picks from across the faction.

[Maniacal_cackle 1,524]

Although I should clarify I agree with the above assessment, but she isn't top tier. So in the most cutthroat metas, she might not be able to compete (she's nowhere near the level of Colette for example... But most masters aren't 😜 )

[ooshawn 81]

Yeah I am purely looking at this from the point of view like, okay you have dreamer, I have pandora, we are top 2 at Adepticon, is this a fair game, because typically that's how my meta was, and most of my experience will be playing against strangers in tourneys. If i'm playing against a friend, I couldn't care less if I had a team full of nothing but sorrows and lyssa. From that stand point , i'm sure she is just fine. 

[ooshawn 81]

Last edition even though people mostly played dreamer, i'm one of the people people that think she was the strongest neverborn master , when fully mastered in M2e.  Though I did well with lynch too

[Adran 4,520]

51 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

I certainly have  a knack for making good quick judgements and she looks on the weaker side in my estimation. I feel like sorrows, lyssa, and  aversions are just dog s. I think that's the problem with open betas is the same you have with any democratic voting situation. You got a lot of not very competent voices that are equally as loud and end up with stuff like this.

Just saying, open beta is not a democratic process. Not all voices are equal. But there is a degree of your information is only as good as people give it to you, so it is possible that if only poor players played against her, the results flattered her and she was brought down. ( It's also possible she is just a a middle master this gaining grounds)

And currently the majority of the votes have her in the top half of the faction. 

But she is a very different play experience to last edition from what I've seen. ( and iggy is great for wildfire, and the only misery that you can easily keep putting on the same model, if you have ways to give out burning...) 

[ooshawn 81]

I agree, she is far, far from unplayable, but I think in the system we have everything has game and great flavor amongst friends. She really only needs the correct nudge to make her be effective at a wider range of things. Her minions need to be able to facilitate hand draining better, and sorrows would have much more game at 4 points, and like a terrifying 10 duel. I think from there , she will just spring to life. Also Give iggy terrifying 10.  Call it a day. Maybe give pandora way to interact while engaged. Finished. let the penalty of having no ability to remove models and bad minions be made up with her using her 15pt/3ap be used for scheming and trying to drain hands. Shove her whole gameplay into hand draining

[ooshawn 81]

Aversions I think need like either terrifying 12 or make their terrorize 10-12 inches and a 6 stat

[Maniacal_cackle 1,524]

6 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

I agree, she is far, far from unplayable, but I think in the system we have everything has game and great flavor amongst friends. She really only needs the correct nudge to make her be effective at a wider range of things. Her minions need to be able to facilitate hand draining better, and sorrows would have much more game at 4 points, and like a terrifying 10 duel. I think from there , she will just spring to life. Also Give iggy terrifying 10.  Call it a day. Maybe give pandora way to interact while engaged. Finished. let the penalty of having no ability to remove models and bad minions be made up with her using her 15pt/3ap be used for scheming and trying to drain hands. Shove her whole gameplay into hand draining

Well, given that she's already voted as one of the top Neverborn masters, what more do you want? Is she supposed to be the best Neverborn master? xD

I'd prefer to see buffs for Euripedes and Nekima first (although maybe the new GG will be nice to Nekima).

[Maniacal_cackle 1,524]

Just now, ooshawn said:

Aversions I think need like either terrifying 12 or make their terrorize 10-12 inches and a 6 stat

I think boosting Terrorize is a bad idea, since it is so powerful on Teddy, Widow Weaver, and Seamus. It definitely doesn't need a buff.

[ooshawn 81]

Me personally, I look at nekima and quite frankly she's the master I'm most excited about trying. I don't think anyone is Thinking outside the box with that master. Euripedes I'm completely clueless on and I'm selling his box to facilitate filling out my crews. I'll just buy a fully painted euripides crew a few months after I find work

[ooshawn 81]

Yeah but those 3 models are insane and make aversions look just completely worthless. Those are all Lynchpin models that are just incredible and have clear defined purposes

[Maniacal_cackle 1,524]

15 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

Yeah but those 3 models are insane and make aversions look just completely worthless. Those are all Lynchpin models that are just incredible and have clear defined purposes

M3E standardised abilities, so changing terrorize on one model would not jive well with the other models that have it.

Although with the release of ES they don't seem as worried about that, not sure if it is intentional...

[ooshawn 81]

Another point in that regard is they all have that ability on a six, and if you look at widow weaver for 8 points and look at aversion for six , it's clear to me the math isn't accurate. At least on a six, you can force it through when you need it. aversions should get terrifying 12 and cast at a 6 or be five points and terrifying 10 and cast still at a 6 lol

[SEV 225]

You seem indeed good for quick judgment 😁... You're righ though Dora is by no mean a top tier Master. But most models in her keyword are playable imo.

Ping damage can be surprisingly strong, but you also seem to forget that misery have an other part (the 2" move is ofter more useful than the ping). The keyword can be tricky to play at first and as I said, I think you really need the strong  versatile to have a competitive crew.

Lysa : well they're 4ss models don't expect too much. They can help to bring people in your bubble with bring it.

Aversion: really backward because they don't have Glimpse but scatter is great in the right spot (I will always play one in Leyline). Antipathy is just weaker than terrifying in most case, but it give them a nice flavor. Still probably the weakest model in keyword stone for stone.

Iggy : a great tools to counter deep field scheme that relies on scheme marker placement (Breakthrough, sabotage). 3 AP give them alot of options. They're also good against  rew that like to put themselves in fire (Reva). 

 

 

[ooshawn 81]

I really feel like every keyword should be able to function independently for the sake of well I guess Story? I mean balance is only as important as you make it. For me I really am glad to be done with the days of completely hodge podge crews, owning ancestors without ever purchasing yan lo, completely peacemeal crews. Like I love that wyrd went hard into keywords. I just think that with some clever, gentle nudging we can inch a few of the weaker performers together. I might even start playing Euripides on Vassal exclusively for awhile since people seem to think he is bad