Who will be nerfed? Who needs some buffs??

[ooshawn]

that's what i'm saying, maybe post mark it at the top of neverborn forum. 

The thing about collettes defense tech is, that's always been her thing. In truth, I think it's part of her core identity since first edition. In third, she has essentially traded all her damage for survivability and scheming. The core question you have to ask, is killing or not kiling collette gonna change the games that she is winning or losing that she should or shouldn't be winning or losing. I would say not. Chances are that if you are playing collette in something that involves actions and moving and scheming and your opponent has gone the route of killing, they should realistically lose most of the games vs a good collette player. that's how they started the game in first edition. They said even if your master dies you can still win. it's the only game where you can have no models on the table and win. That was one of the big selling points. If wyrd says they have a problem with how efficient collette is scalpeling models out of crews, then that is a easier problem to fix. I kinda doubt that though, personally.  Kirai can throw a fast shikome at someone or datsu-ba can make a fast shikome charge at someone, which kills just about anything with a good hand

[muraki]

35 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

that's what i'm saying, maybe post mark it at the top of neverborn forum. 

I'd watch out if all you really want a 'best / worst in faction' post as it'll become a lightning rod for 'no not really' / etc comments, which will prolly get it shut down / off topic before its useful enough to warrant a sticky. 

I'm also not sure it'd make sense to bookmark a post like that as it'd be basically you saying 'these are the worthwhile / trash models for the faction' which (even if right) may do more harm than good as new players read posts like that as if they're gospel and not pick up models/masters they may otherwise buy + enjoy.  Which I don't like.  Yes there are some good synergies / models that people will call out, but not everyone likes the same ones / feels they're good for all situations, so there'll naturally be things that are good/bad based on the pool/master/playstyle/etc.  Also if people don't play new things the metas / tactics don't really grow / change.

Also... What if someone disagreed? Do they get their own stickied best / worst post?  Do they have to convince you that you're wrong and they're right?  I'm not even going to try and think about how a mod would decide what is / isn't worthy of a sticky/who gets to control the content.

If anything should be stickied I think that honor goes to master/keyword specific tacticia posts.  Those I love reading / have a lot of respect for the folks who wrIte them as they put in a lot of time to play their favorite master (usually 20+ games), try out different models against diff opponents + pools.  And as they're focused on a certain keyword, saying 'yeah x isn't that great here' really just says that. Doesn't say it's never useful, just not in this keyword playing in a specific way outlined by the tacticia.

On a final note. I know a lot of posts here are done cause we're bored / online. I also know it's hard to play as many games as we'd like... But in the m3e open beta the devs said something that stuck with me which was something like (clearly a paraphrase it's been years ha) 'theorycraft / opinion posts are fine, but battlereps is what we're really interested in, so get things on the table and see how they play'.  Which is a good way to look at this game.  We all theorycraft to an extent (and some are darn good at it) but end of the day, nothing beats getting models on a table and seeing what actually works.

[touchdown]

3 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Haha, I almost suggested nerfing soulstone cache as it does feel a bit strong, but the overall consequences for the faction would be pretty big.

Overall, I've not seen anything that convinces me Arcanists are completely over the top or anything (and if anything, in the NZ meta I struggle with TT way more).

EDIT: And as far as I know under the official rules (multi-master), Arcanists don't even have the strongest double master combos?

Sometimes I think they should swap Empower and Attuned. It doesn't really feel like the mech rider or emissary were balanced around being able to use soul stones. Conversely it would actually increase the upgrade for henchmen and masters since you get that plus flip for adding a suit.

[MrPieChee]

Is it Collette who is too powerful, or the coryphee's?

I believe they are taken in every Collette crew, and are responsible for most of the damage output.

Collette's identity is a master that slips through the opponents fingers, and when I first joined this forum it was pointed out that you shouldn't bother attacking her.

She should win via scoring without engaging, so it makes sense for it to be very hard to kill her. However, if her crew is getting significant damage onto the opponents crew, that's the problem.

[Mycellanious]

37 minutes ago, MrPieChee said:

Is it Collette who is too powerful, or the coryphee's?

I believe they are taken in every Collette crew, and are responsible for most of the damage output.

Collette's identity is a master that slips through the opponents fingers, and when I first joined this forum it was pointed out that you shouldn't bother attacking her.

She should win via scoring without engaging, so it makes sense for it to be very hard to kill her. However, if her crew is getting significant damage onto the opponents crew, that's the problem.

So I dont know if you guys are following the World Cup, but I think Plaag has 8-0 all but one game with Collette. My understanding, is that Collette is really strong because the Duet grants her permanent activation control. It guarantees her last Activation, which is excellent for scheming, but also means she just gets to wail on the opponents crew without fear of reprisal. 

[ooshawn]

To be fair the winner of something usually is undefeated, not to dismiss your point. Has collette won a bunch of other events or is this a case of good timing

[ooshawn]

9 hours ago, muraki said:

I'd watch out if all you really want a 'best / worst in faction' post as it'll become a lightning rod for 'no not really' / etc comments, which will prolly get it shut down / off topic before its useful enough to warrant a sticky. 

I'm also not sure it'd make sense to bookmark a post like that as it'd be basically you saying 'these are the worthwhile / trash models for the faction' which (even if right) may do more harm than good as new players read posts like that as if they're gospel and not pick up models/masters they may otherwise buy + enjoy.  Which I don't like.  Yes there are some good synergies / models that people will call out, but not everyone likes the same ones / feels they're good for all situations, so there'll naturally be things that are good/bad based on the pool/master/playstyle/etc.  Also if people don't play new things the metas / tactics don't really grow / change.

Also... What if someone disagreed? Do they get their own stickied best / worst post?  Do they have to convince you that you're wrong and they're right?  I'm not even going to try and think about how a mod would decide what is / isn't worthy of a sticky/who gets to control the content.

If anything should be stickied I think that honor goes to master/keyword specific tacticia posts.  Those I love reading / have a lot of respect for the folks who wrIte them as they put in a lot of time to play their favorite master (usually 20+ games), try out different models against diff opponents + pools.  And as they're focused on a certain keyword, saying 'yeah x isn't that great here' really just says that. Doesn't say it's never useful, just not in this keyword playing in a specific way outlined by the tacticia.

On a final note. I know a lot of posts here are done cause we're bored / online. I also know it's hard to play as many games as we'd like... But in the m3e open beta the devs said something that stuck with me which was something like (clearly a paraphrase it's been years ha) 'theorycraft / opinion posts are fine, but battlereps is what we're really interested in, so get things on the table and see how they play'.  Which is a good way to look at this game.  We all theorycraft to an extent (and some are darn good at it) but end of the day, nothing beats getting models on a table and seeing what actually works.

I probably wasn't clear enough with my intention. I essentially meant a factionwide , live document between the regulars of the form with a section for every master /keyword/model with tactica. that's able to be updated and can't get bogged down with posts , if it's stickied. if someone disagrees, they can disagree all they want in the post

[Adran]

3 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

So I dont know if you guys are following the World Cup, but I think Plaag has 8-0 all but one game with Collette. My understanding, is that Collette is really strong because the Duet grants her permanent activation control. It guarantees her last Activation, which is excellent for scheming, but also means she just gets to wail on the opponents crew without fear of reprisal. 

I didn't really follow it that closely, but the last stats I saw was at the end of the group stages, so 3 games per player. Plaag won all his games but they weren't all 8-0. (In these 3 games Plaag was 19-7 in points, so at most 1 of the games could have been 8-0) (Edit- in fact it was 6-2, 8-3, 5-2, )

Colette had won 8 games and lost 3. She scored 33 points in those games, and Plaag in his 3 games scored 19 - that means in the remaining 8 games she only scored 14 points, even though she won 5 of that 8. (She also lost 13 points in those 8 games. 

If you remove Plaag from the Colette scores, then its won 5 lost 3, score 14v points conceded 13. Which doesn't look so over powered. Now that might not be a fair way to view if a master is overpowered or not, but generally I think a master is overpowered if multiple people can use them and get results above what they would get with other masters., not just if 1 person can use them and get top results. 

Thanks to Shinchan for the numbers

Malifaux Vassal World Cup 2020 - Malifaux Discussion - Wyrd Forums (themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com)

 

Edit -if you meant world series rather than world cup, then I don't have game scores, but he came 2/44, 6/30 and 4/62, so that may well only be loss on tiebreakers, but he only has 1 podium in the 3 events.  This isn't evidence that she doesn't need changing, but just stating that what you claim is not true. 

 

[MrPieChee]

I think when analysing big tournaments it's important to throw away a lot of the data to take into account player skill.

Something like, ignore all games with the players that rank in the bottom 40%, and all games with players that rank in the top 20%.

Obviously this gets rid of huge amounts of data, but it's important to consider that the rules could be perfect and it's just skill/meta that's making things look skewed.

In tournaments with entry criteria you can widen the ranges much more - so if players need to have a given level of experience, then you could change those bounds to the top and bottom 10%.

Leaving out the bottom end of the ranking takes account lower skill levels, but leaving out the very top removes those meta quirks and luck. If all players have the same skill level, then someone will win, and that'll be down to good draws when needed. If a few at the top with similar crews read the meta right and draw well, then you don't want to errata those crews, when they were actually fine.

You can make these windows for analysis based on scores rather than specific rankings as well, which probably offers better results.

[muraki]

37 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

I probably wasn't clear enough with my intention. I essentially meant a factionwide , live document between the regulars of the form with a section for every master /keyword/model with tactica. that's able to be updated and can't get bogged down with posts , if it's stickied. if someone disagrees, they can disagree all they want in the post

Feels like a bit of a cart and horse. 

If you want to make a tacticia, go for it, make a post, do the work and update it.  If it ends up being good enough that it deserves a sticky, well then I'm sure an admin will see to it.  Going in with the 'i'm making a stickied post' goal feels like it could just set you up for 'why arent people listening to me / the admins marking this as important?'  I'd also really recommend you stick to a single master for a faction, as trying to go faction wide would be way too much to both build / update and for players to read (as most tacticias are really for players who want to increase their skill with a single master, right? not necessarily every one at once).

Additionally when I read tacticia pages I go through what I know about the user / their previous posts a bit to find out more about what kind of player they are (what they play, what they like, what arguments they've gotten into on the forums).  So if you really want to make your post something that people will want to read / listen to, I recommend using the batrep section to post some of your games or help out with some of the rules questions / etc pages.  I know both of them are thankless / unsexxy jobs, but building a community / reputation is rarely easy.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, ooshawn said:

I probably wasn't clear enough with my intention. I essentially meant a factionwide , live document between the regulars of the form with a section for every master /keyword/model with tactica. that's able to be updated and can't get bogged down with posts , if it's stickied. if someone disagrees, they can disagree all they want in the post

My suggestion would be to write each of them as a separate thread, and have a Master thread that linked to them all. 

Its probably not perfect, but it sort of gets what you want, I think. 

I remember how much effort it was to fill up Pull my finger, and then re-do it with the edition change, so I will wish you luck.

[Vangerdahast]

Concerning Colette, it is a bit difficult to see if she is strong or OP. Without Plaag, the stats are good but not overwhelming (as said by @Adran).

If it can contribute to the debate, I have almost 100 games with Colette and my win ratio should be around 75%. A bit more in GG0 and a bit less in GG1.

In tournaments, I placed 2nd, 3rd, 3rd.

For me, very strong but not OP. Feel free to disagree.

Perhaps she could be slightly nerfed. Reducing range on Presto Chango to 6" for example.

Not sure about changing Fade Away. For this, please remember that other models have it (Scion of the Void, the Scribe and Bete Noire). A nerf to Fade Away would also impact these models.

 

Another model that could be nerfed is the Mecahnical Rider. I man the Revelation Trigger. Being able to reactivate a model anywhere on the table is huge.

Especially in a faction with the Coryphee Duet. That means the Duet can have 8 actions in a turn. The Soulstone Cache Upgrade is also a problem as it grants the Rider the possibilty to use this Trigger on Turn 2 insterad of Turn 3 without the Upgrade.

The problem is less important but also exists with the Soulstone Miner. It was nerfed to not count for Schemes and Strategy the turn it unburies but has it is only until next activation, the Rider can reactivate it and make it count for Schemes and Strategy.

Perhaps the Miner should not count until next turn instead of next activation.

Personnaly, I would nerf the Revelation Trigger to models in range of the pulse. It would disallow to self reactivate the Rider and would oblige the player to think about where he places the model he wants to reactivate.

I know that the two options were tested during the Beta. But I think that ignoring the range of the pulse is a bit too much.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Note Coryphee duet can only do three activations with Rider, not four.

Rider doesn't set the model back to unactivated, it just gives another activation.

So you can't do the split for another activation trick.

[Adran]

Just saying, you only get 6 actions from the duet, it can't get 2 activations from its reactivation, because if it splits it has already activated, so the corephyee doesn't get to activate again. ( you can get 9 actions if you're playing with fast). 

[Vangerdahast]

Thanks to @Adran and @Maniacal_cackle.

 

I don't use it very often (because I feel it too broke and don't vnecessarily need it to win) but even 6 actions seem too good in my opinion.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

53 minutes ago, Vangerdahast said:

Not sure about changing Fade Away. For this, please remember that other models have it (Scion of the Void, the Scribe and Bete Noire). A nerf to Fade Away would also impact these models.

Another model that could be nerfed is the Mecahnical Rider. I man the 

Now that I think about it, I think the change should just be to stunned entirely. I think it just is a problem with stunned, not with the individual profiles. The anti-trigger condition should shut down triggers.

Mechanical Rider seems fine to me. If you're doing its reactivations, it has no suits for defense and is surprisingly squishy. That said, the soulstone cache upgrade does put it over the top a bit, but I don't like nerfing a model for an upgrade.

But the upgrade was just nerfed, so seems fine to leave it. Certainly nothing I've encountered has suggested to me that it is unbeatable or unreasonably format warping.

Colette on the other hand... She warps everything around her. You need to take so many things into account when facing Arcanists just because Colette might be declared.

That said, I don't know if I have lost a game against Colette yet (and have even beaten Plaag's Colette once). But I used Molly and Kirai to beat his Colette, which is also in my top five things to nerf in the game 😜

So do take my opinion with a few grains of salt.

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, Vangerdahast said:

Thanks to @Adran and @Maniacal_cackle.

 

I don't use it very often (because I feel it too broke and don't vnecessarily need it to win) but even 6 actions seem too good in my opinion.

 

Well, you're also using 23 stones (25 with upgrades) of models to pull it off. That's half your allotment!

[Adran]

Just now, Vangerdahast said:

Thanks to @Adran and @Maniacal_cackle.

 

I don't use it very often (because I feel it too broke and don't vnecessarily need it to win) but even 6 actions seem too good in my opinion.

 

You get 6 actions for things like Howard or ice golem, with the reactive. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also, if I can come full circle on Colette...

I think she is especially strong in the single master format (since she is a bit weak to support master + summoner master, especially if you have irreducible damage in there).

So if the game is balanced around double masters, she might be fine as is (and I assume that's how the game is balanced).

[Vangerdahast]

@Adran: Yes, perhaps the Revelation Trigger could be "Minions only".

Or for all models but witihin range 6.

 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

As for Coryphee Duet... It at least has a lot of weaknesses.

Cant take upgrades, is vulnerable to repositions and blasts and big hits of damage when split, severe terrain, unkillable models, WP attacks, etc.

It is the strongest non-master in the game. But it is also the most expensive non-master and comes with some counterplay.

Colette's counterplay is "don't get within 16 inches of any model you don't want to swap places with", which is pretty insane (although maybe fine with double masters).

As you can see, I don't have a firm opinion 😜

[Vangerdahast]

4 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Also, if I can come full circle on Colette...

I think she is especially strong in the single master format (since she is a bit weak to support master + summoner master, especially if you have irreducible damage in there).

So if the game is balanced around double masters, she might be fine as is (and I assume that's how the game is balanced).

Interesting idea. I don't play double masters. I have only played once with Hofman as the Leader and lost versus a Justice+ Perdita crew.

I also played a single master Colette versus a Justice+Perdita crew and won. So perhaps is she better on her own than with another Master.

If you are right, that will be difficult to have her balanced in the two formats.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, Vangerdahast said:

 

If you are right, that will be difficult to have her balanced in the two formats.

 

Yeah, my biggest objection to the single/double master split is it is very hard to balance the game around both. Although the 'leader only' abilities really help with that, they're only an answer for the OP combos and not for the masters answered by doubles.

[Vangerdahast]

3 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

As for Coryphee Duet... It at least has a lot of weaknesses.

Cant take upgrades, is vulnerable to repositions and blasts and big hits of damage when split, severe terrain, unkillable models, WP attacks, etc.

It is the strongest non-master in the game. But it is also the most expensive non-master and comes with some counterplay.

Colette's counterplay is "don't get within 16 inches of any model you don't want to swap places with", which is pretty insane (although maybe fine with double masters).

As you can see, I don't have a firm opinion 😜

Yes the Duet has counterplays.

But facing Duet AND Rider can be very difficult. Focus on the Duet and the Rider can use revelation very often. Focus on the Rider and the Duet is able to do all it wants. Very difficult to take down the two at the same time.

Colette also has coutnerplays: attacks that target WP (Colette needs a Soulstone for Fade Away, resource drain), attacks that target Mv, irreducible damage, Laugh Off..., attacks that prevent Triggers like Soulstone Miner, for example.

 

[Vangerdahast]

19 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Well, you're also using 23 stones (25 with upgrades) of models to pull it off. That's half your allotment!

Yes, it's a huge investment but I think it is worth the price.