Seamus theory

[Hatchethead]

I doubt it will happen though as if Wyrd changed one model to make it more than it is at present they'd have to field off the "Well if you improved that model why not this model!". Underpowered Models don't break a game, they are just disappointing to those who are large fans but wish they could justify bringing them out of the case for more games.

I like to think Wyrd is a bit more proactive than most in this regard, and that they won't be satisfied to leave well enough alone. Besides, it makes better business sense to ensure all models are viable and competitive. You'll sell more Seamus if he wins more games, after all.

Fingers crossed.

[Dustcrusher]

Im guessing from your posts youre relatively inexperienced with malifaux and seamus.

Seamus is deceptively easy to kill. Thinking he's tough is a number one rookie mistake.

I'm inexperienced with Seamus, and I agree. I'd like to see him get a Df boost, frankly, but that might not be fair in addition to Calmdown's suggestions, which would help immensely without making him too cheesy.

I like Calmdown's suggestions for the RJ except I'm fine with it superseding negative non-damage flips.

Two other options for the RJ on negative damage flips:

1) Ignore it as he suggested.

2) Have it negate the lowest card flipped. On a flip a Red Joker is severe+weak. A :-fate flip with RJ/weak/moderate would be moderate damage (RJ cancels weak), and so on. This would mean a lucky RJ on a negative flip would still be a nice bonus without being too ridiculous.

[rancor709]

Live for Pain no Range is a great idea and would immediately make him better

Necrotic Minstration should be any model, would add to his balance point and not be game breaking, how a homicidial manic cares if what dies is living or undead is beyond me.

I Still think he needs instinctual on two points- The majority of his abilities and potential synergistic abilities are 0 actions but he can only use one a turn. He is a killer that is driven by instinct in the fluff how is not instinctual in the game.

[Cornelious1424]

I really don't think he needs Instinctual, to be honest. No Escape is so situational, I've never really used it unless I'm racing to get his Avatar out (which is never anyway). Womanizer again, is so situational and I think I've maybe used it once. You don't need to be summoning a belle every turn, which leaves Trail of Fear his only real 0 action that really needs to be up most of the time. I know it's only against living models, but it is effective.

Live for pain with no would help a ton.

[JisaacT]

Yeah I'd have to agree with the no icon on Live for Pain. But does this need revision or just an errata change? Can they update cards on the fly?

[Fetid Strumpet]

So what are the thoughts of those following this thread on these specific rules changes if Wyrd ever decides to revisit the book one Masters if Seamus were changed in the following ways:

Give Seamus an ability like:

The Belles, the Belles!: A crew containing this Master gains one Soulstone to the Crew's Soulstone pool at the start of the Encounter for each Belle it hired, up to a maximum of 3.

Change Necrotic Ministrations so that Seamus heals and draws a card whenever any model is killed or sacrificed within 6" of Seamus.

Remove the icon from Live for Pain.

Would these changes break Seamus? Would the changes make Seamus a viable consideration to bring to a competitive Tournament? Would they kick him into the Dreamer/ Hamelin/ Kirai territory? Would playing against Seamus no longer be fun, or would it be just enough to nudge/ shove him in the top master's club?

[Cornelious1424]

Your bell idea is nice, but I think it changes his basic rules a little too much. Simply adding 2 to his current SS cache would make him much better and less of a change, in my opinion. If they do change book 1 masters I'd rather subtle changes to rules than added rules to make them work better.

I think I'm going to start throwing the idea around with my local guys ever now and then, to try set changes in games. Experiment and see if it really changes things.

[JisaacT]

I like that Idea for the belles but maybe make it easier for him to get out belles. He is the weakest summoner of the ressurs. so maybe even that out a bit. I was thinking what if he could summon maybe one or two more units? Or would that stray to far from regular seamus

[Lucidicide]

You don't want to move Seamus too far into Nico or Doug's territory.

Honestly, people love Seamus. It's just that some of his best abilities are relatively worthless against certain crews (read: crew most people play). I don't think he needs to change in how he functions, I think any change should be to make his functions actually work.

[Sandwich]

With the current level of power most other masters are on, even book 1 masters with book 3 minions, the entire Resurrectionist faction falls a bit behind in certain areas. (Except Kirai.)

That said, changing 4 or 5 minor things to Seamus to bump him up to snuff wouldn't be radically changing the character and wouldn't do much to defile his uniqueness.

For being the 'tank' of the Ressers, he can't tank much because you're SS starved as is and most of the rocks you bring to the fight are going to be spent shooting bullets or healing with Live for Pain.

I would support a + to his Cache, a +1 to his Df, a removal of Ranged from LFP and an alter to Necrotic Ministrations.

As it stands, there's no Fluff backing to Live for Pain being ranged, he gets off on suffering, why is it that he specifically gets his jollies from only his gun?

And Necrotic Ministrations is just fancy for a master of death or dying.

What difference does it make if it's a zombie hooker or a child's dreams?

Back to IRL with me.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I was very curious as to what your opinion was on Seamus in the current environment, Sandwich. Thank you for posting, I read you Seamus tactica quite a bit when I first started the game.

Fluff wise I think it could be easily justified to allow Necrotic Ministrations to work on any model killed or sacrificed triggering it as almost everything is based on SS. Maybe when a construct is killed near Seamus his knowledge and understanding of the Grave Spirit allows him to drain the residual soul energy from the SS cortex powering the machinery, just as an example.

[Cornelious1424]

I just think he gets off on all things getting their couch effed up. Be it, zombie, human, machine...as long as it can no longer get up on its own will, Seamus is a happy man!!!

[Bigkid]

I'm not comfortable with the use of 'fluff' as an excuse to get the upgrades we crave.

It seems to me that 'fluff' excuse is responsible for most of the over-powered aspects of Malifaux (look no further than the Dreamer...).

Stating that a character gets off on death and thus should gain a benefit for anything dying (ceasing to be animated??) around him seems a stretch.

Would a psychotic killer get of on a robot shutting down? I don't reckon.

I'd be happy with '...when a non-construct model is killed...'

[Fetid Strumpet]

You disagree with fluff justification, but then use a fluff justification for why constructs shouldn't be included? Odd.

I see your point about not using fluff based issues to determine mechanics, however, on the whole, it is one of the things I very much like about Malifaux that they are so successful in incorporating both. It is only when that success breaks down that we have issues, as is the case with Seamus I feel.

A few months ago I made a very long post as to a division between abilities that work all the time, abilities which work against everything except something else, and abilities that only work on certain things. I called the latter two abilities exclusionary and inclusionary abilities respectively. I really feel Exclusionary abilities are better design than inclusionary, I.E. that making an ability work on everything except something else is far better than design which only works on certain things.

Abilities that work on everything are obviously the best abilities because no matter how the game expands or the environment changes the ability always works. The vast majority of abilities in the game fall into this category.

Then we come to Exclusionary abilities, these would be things like Black Blood, which work on everything except the listed subgroups. In the case of Black Blood it causes dmg to everything when it is triggered except NB models. This is a great ability because no matter how the game expands, as long as models other than NB are created the ability won't become irrelevant. If the designers create a whole new faction such as, oh say, the Bene Gesserit (yes I'm a Dune fan), black blood doesn't go down in effectiveness because as they are not NB it still works.

Inclusionary abilities can be thought of as working on nothing except the listed sub group. These are the worst abilities, design wise, because as the game expands they can get left behind. If we continue the Black Blood analogy we have a counterpoint ability that the Ressers have access to, Necrotic Spray. Necrotic Spray does exactly the same thing as Black Blood, except it only affects living models. It only retains it's level of effectiveness as long as the ratio of used living vs. non living models stays the same. If wyrd creates more non-living subtypes the ability gets less and less useful.

This is why I feel Seamus' abilities do deserve a rewrite as most of his abilities were designed as inclusionary abilities. Trail of Fear only works on living models. If it can't be changed to work on everything, and I can see the argument behind not allowing it to, as his Avatar has The Gorgon's Miasma, I'd prefer it were changed to an exclusionary ability, like -2 WP to all enemy non-Undead or all non-Ressers of something like that.

Similarly if Necrotic Ministrations can't be changed to work on everything killed or sacrificed within 6" I'd agree with you that an exclusionary ability would be better, although I wouldn't exclude constructs, I'd favor excluding Soulless, but I'd take either one.

At the very least we all seem to agree that taking the Ranged Icon off Live for Pain is something we could get behind. Do any of the original playtesters, if they are allowed to talk about it, know what the rational behind giving the spell the icon was originally?

Edited February 19, 2012 by Fetid Strumpet

[Ozz]

I agree with basically everything you have just said, but having never played using Seamus, and only against him, though i have read most if not all of his fluff, i would say his changes to work on anything not a construct, or even not Purely a construct would be better. As even if it is not living, it has some form of free will i guess? And so he should enjoy sucking the "Life" from it ect and get his benefits, in my opinion. I also agree he needs a big boost as i have never seen him draw a game, let alone win a game.

[Mike3838]

What strikes me as a little strange is why Seamus has become such a focus in the last few weeks. Recently there's been not less than 5 separate threads with suggestions for making him more competitive.

I do agree he could do with a slight boost in any V3 cards release (and there are many great suggestions in this and the other threads) but there are 5-6 other masters that would benefit from a similar amount of "tweaking", and aren't being discussed. Maybe it's because Seamus feels easier to fix?

Mike

[rancor709]

What strikes me as a little strange is why Seamus has become such a focus in the last few weeks. Recently there's been not less than 5 separate threads with suggestions for making him more competitive.

I do agree he could do with a slight boost in any V3 cards release (and there are many great suggestions in this and the other threads) but there are 5-6 other masters that would benefit from a similar amount of "tweaking", and aren't being discussed. Maybe it's because Seamus feels easier to fix?

Mike

I think you may be on to something Mike. I also think its because Seamus is an iconic boxset that got a lot of people including myself to enter th breach. He has been a bit of a focus because his scope and abilities have gone down in effectiveness since the release of book 2 and even the avatar boost in book 3 its hard to play Seamus. Not saying it should be easy, but half of his card won't work if your opponent is playing a large majority of expected crews. He's a Wp based master that has no real ability to use wp against opponents since The majority of abilities are living only.

I also think a majority of suggestion in this thread are suprisingly balanced and thoughtful suggestions on how to properly tweak him back into the ring. And that so many throughout the thread have common themes of what we'd like to see or feels needs to be tweaked I'm hopeful it will be helpful to designers as they continue to work out the bugs in malifaux.

[Buhallin]

half of his card won't work if your opponent is playing a large majority of expected crews. He's a Wp based master that has no real ability to use wp against opponents since The majority of abilities are living only.

We may have different definitions of "half his card" and "majority".

Things that don't work: Terrifying/Face of Death, Trail of Fear, and some Necrotic Ministrations (since it does affect Undead as well, including your own). By my count, Seamus has 18 different abilities on his card if you count the weapons. So generously, that's 4 of 18. Nowhere near a majority.

A lot of people tend to overstate the Rezzer vulnerability to a non-living crew, and Seamus' isn't immune to that. But I think he actually handles it better than most - the only thing that he truly loses is his Terrifying, and even if I find it more useful than some it's not something that can (or should) ever win or lose you the game on its own. Corpses aren't a huge issue for him, because he's not a summoning factory and you can recycle off your own models just as well. All of his core tricks are still in place - despite the names, Excessive Bleeding and Slit Jugular have no living requirement, Undead Psychosis is one of the more awesome spells in the game, and works against anything (lacking Immune to Influence, of course).

Honestly, the assertion that he's a Wp-based master just doesn't hold up either. Again, going to the count, of his 18 abilities only 5 target or affect Wp, and it's important to remember that constructs and undead can still be affected by the most important of those - Undead Psychosis - works just fine. Heck, even if you limit it just to offensive stuff, I count 3 Wp-affecting vs. 6 Df-affecting.

[rancor709]

Fair call on my wording, Buhalin if you will allow me expand on my intent with it with what I was attempting to say. The majority of what I would deem "master abilities" large aura's, control card manipulation mechanics revolve around, the opponent being living or undead and around wp. It may only be 4 of 18 or whatever but it is also his abilities that make him flavorful as a master at least in my opinion. Again Necrotic minstartions, Terrifiying, The face of Death, Trail of Fear all rendered useless to me or nearly useless if my opponent has no living or undead models in there crew. That is by my count 2/6 abilities, 1/4 (0) actions and 1/3 (1) spells taken out of the game by my opponents crew selection.

If I contrast that to Say Nicodem also a resser master

The only thing I lose is one trigger Empty Vessel which only works if I kill a living or undead model with either the cane or Decay. Which is all my 0 actions work just fine, all my (1) spells and I only lose 1/2 triggers and its a trigger that is always active. And his really good trigger Putrefy still works regardless if that model is anything.

Comparatively that is alot to lose just because my opponent is taking a nonliving crew and I'm taking Seamus. Again i've always viewed him as a wp based master as he's suppose to be this terrifying force in malifaux his crew as a whole is built on wp manipulation his aura reduces wp, and he has a spell that forces you to run from the undead.

[Buhallin]

<shrug> I have to be honest, while I can understand the things you think are important for a master, I think it's a bit of a cheat to count that way. You ignore his passive abilities like Belles of the Ball and Hard to Wound for something he keeps, but include Terrifying as something he loses. I also think it's much more complicated than just counting abilities. Nicodem may not lose as many targeted abilities, but he's going to suffer considerably more if his opponent isn't leaving him corpses to work with.

I don't really think your last points hold up, either. Everything you list still works against nonliving (assuming we take "terrifying force" as descriptive, rather than ability-referencing). His crew's Wp manipulation still works - Belles and Hanged still rock with him, and Undead Psychosis is still awesome even if you can't lead it in with the -2 Wp. You're trying to present it as if his entire crew's Wp manipulation just falls apart if he can't keep Trail of Fear up. It's a nice ability, but I don't think it's THAT critical. Maybe we just play him differently - but at the very least, that would seem to argue that there are avenues to playing him which function perfectly well against nonliving crews.

[rancor709]

<shrug> I have to be honest, while I can understand the things you think are important for a master, I think it's a bit of a cheat to count that way. You ignore his passive abilities like Belles of the Ball and Hard to Wound for something he keeps, but include Terrifying as something he loses. I also think it's much more complicated than just counting abilities. Nicodem may not lose as many targeted abilities, but he's going to suffer considerably more if his opponent isn't leaving him corpses to work with.

I don't really think your last points hold up, either. Everything you list still works against nonliving (assuming we take "terrifying force" as descriptive, rather than ability-referencing). His crew's Wp manipulation still works - Belles and Hanged still rock with him, and Undead Psychosis is still awesome even if you can't lead it in with the -2 Wp. You're trying to present it as if his entire crew's Wp manipulation just falls apart if he can't keep Trail of Fear up. It's a nice ability, but I don't think it's THAT critical. Maybe we just play him differently - but at the very least, that would seem to argue that there are avenues to playing him which function perfectly well against nonliving crews.

There are still things as presently constructed he can do against nonliving crews i'd just like him to be able to a little more. I'm not trying to present him as unplayable as presently constructed I'm simply trying to point out his shortfalls at present. I really love what Seamus is and does for malifaux, and every local meta is different. Belles rock period. H2W2 I tend to fall more in the its a disadvantage camp but that is another discussion for another thread. You bring up some good counter arguments Buhallin to the Seamus situation as a whole. Really good points overall and Seamus has tricks against a lot of different builds. I'd just like to see him with a full bag of tricks for all minion types living or otherwise.

[Bigkid]

You disagree with fluff justification, but then use a fluff justification for why constructs shouldn't be included? Odd.

I see your point about not using fluff based issues to determine mechanics, however, on the whole, it is one of the things I very much like about Malifaux that they are so successful in incorporating both. It is only when that success breaks down that we have issues, as is the case with Seamus I feel...

I guess I may of come across as overly negative in my post (I was recovering from watching Arsenal getting yet another stuffing...). I was just warning of the dangers of using fluff just to get what we want.

Obviously abilities must have some basis in fluff otherwise I'd demand Seamus gains the ability to breath fire and fly...*wink*

[Calmdown]

Belles rock period.

I disagree hugely with this. I actually think Belles are one of the reasons Seamus players struggle. They're way overrated and used far too often.

Show me the last time a list with Belles won any reasonable tournament...

For Seamus players to win more, they really need to go back to the drawing board and look at the faction as a whole, rather than autoincluding Belles in every list. They're as much a problem for Seamus as his HtW2, 2ss cache and reliance on living opponents is.

[Spiku]

What is the options for Seamus in the alternative when compared to other masters? To Belles this is. Anything purchased that McMourning could summon is essentially a wasted master choice, and given you can only reduce WP for living models you are not even able to look at caster supported minions.

Does this not leave only the focus on fast moving undead and undead psychosis?

---------- Post added at 03:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:27 PM ----------

*presuming non-Avatar terror list build

[tattyted]

Show me the last time a list with Belles won any reasonable tournament...

I think it will be a sad day if the criterion for picking forces is how well the models perform in tournament play. People doing that would miss out on so many lovely models and lots of different variations in games.