Neverborn upgrades too powerful?

[Bacms]

Hey guys,

First of all I have to ask sorry for the rant that is coming. For the ones that don't know me, I have been playing for about a year, started with Guild about a year ago and have been transitioning into M2E for the last months. I consider myself as a reasonable malifaux player and play regularly into UK tournaments where I always had moderate success.

However as most of the players I always felt that there were some problems of balance with first edition, which could completely ruined my experience. I am talking about Collodi in first edition, where I knew if it was on the table there wasn't much I could really and I never had to face an Hamelin or Dreamer pre errata crew so can't really comment on those.

For this reason I was really looking forward to second edition, I have had probably around 10 games so far, and even with some hard match-ups I always felt I could compete in the same ground as my opponent...until yesterday. I played two games against Mark (McDoogle in the forums) which was always a very good player on 1st edition and that I can probably count with a single hand the number of times I was able to beat him. However I never had a game that felt so one sided. My crew was

Perdita

->Badge of the office

->Trick Shooting

-> Aura ancestral

Francisco

-> Wade In

-> Lead Line Coat

Witchling Stalker

Austringer

Death Marshal

Enslaved Nephilim

My opponent was using Zoraida, Hannah, Candy, Doppleganger, Nurse and to be honest can't remember the rest of his crew and Lynch, Hungering darkness, Candy, Beckoner, Illuminated on the second one.

My strategy is normally to move Francisco forward and use his zero go give opponents negatives to attack him at the same time he buffs perdita do +2Df +2Wp so forces my opponent to either deal with the Negative on Francisco or with Perdita at defense 9. So far so good until he moves Hannah into close combat with Francisco by obeying her to walk and then activate her to attack me.

[rant]

Not a problem so far, second turn starts and I get initiative Francisco activates and discards a card to flurry with three attacks, even at Dmg 2 minimum due to the loss of the suit associated with his weapon due to Hannah aura I thought to myself I will be fine. Proceed to hit with the three attacks, my opponent does not even bother to cheat on the first attack, due to a stone spent and a card from hand I do 7 damage (5+2CS), Armour reduces damage by one to 6 then spends a stone to prevent damage and gets a 11, preventing another three, and finally due to Nexus of Power heals another 2dmg resulting in a total of 1 damage, other attacks have similar fates, with Hannah down two wounds after Francisco attacks. Then I chain activate Perdita discard a card to move towards Francisco, use my zero to ignore armour due again one severe, one weak and one moderate damage, Hannah takes 1 dmg from the three attacks as he spent stones. He then activates Hannah and leaves Francisco at three wounds. I then send a withchling stalker in to again land two hits and burning 2. At the end of that turn Hannah had taken 4 wounds. She took a combine damage of more than 30 damage, is it just me or Nexus of power is broken as hell? Compare that to lead line coat which cost 2SS and gives armour1 which can prevent a maximum of 1dmg and can be ignored. On the other hand Nexus of power you need to do a minimum of 4 damage to stop the model heal itself, as he can use one soulstone to prevent damage (minimum of 1) and heals two wounds after that.

Then he moves Candy in which as Hannah as fears given form. Next turn if I activate Francisco he will be paralyzed and has to take two Wp 14 duels duels of suffer three damage. Same as Perdita due to the overlap auras of Candy and Hannah. This forces you to activate a model not on that combat which means Hannah can activate and kill Francisco leaving Perdita vulnerable, but worst he can actually cheat the initiative flip so he will be going first so he will be able not only to kill Francisco but then activate a second model to kill Perdita before she even has the chance to activate, not to mention you will be without cards in hard due to all the duels you will be doing. Again is it me of this should be rare1?

Similar things happened with Lynch, with his card manipulation abilities he will always have more cards than you, won't need to discard cards to do anything and will ignore any damage you do to him. Honestly these were the worst games of malifaux I have ever had, couldn't kill a single model on my opponents crew with a faction that is supposed to be the best at killing things. So is it just me or is the balance just gone again?

[/rant over]

[The Godlyness]

Why no shooty? Also his own models are affected by fears given form (as of right now). So it is true it hurts but he is also taking duels. What was the strategy and your schemes?

[Joel]

I'll get to nexus in a minute, but want to deal with fears given form (FFF) first.

FFF forces a Df duel for TN14, not a Wp one - since perdita in your situation is at Df9 and will have a handful of new cards, she'll not take any damage. If she does, nothing stops her damage preventing with a soulstone either. Armour comes into play with the damage from FFF, so fransisco will be putting his coat to good effect.

FFF will affect his own models too, so if candy and Hannah are activating within each others engagement ranges, they'll also have to take tests or suffer damage. This means it can dictate his activation order as well.

It only works when you are in close combat situations too - why not take advantage of one of guild's main strengths and shoot, shoot shoot? this keeps you away from FFF while dealing damage.

I don't think FFF is broken at all.

Being able to cheat the initiative flip is nothing to do with either upgrade, and doesn't always work - I know from experience. Its a useful synergy, but I'm pretty sure you should not have been where you were on the board to make it the main problem. That's hard to say with only your post to go on, so I am acting and writing with imperfect information here, but it sounds like you tried to jump your crew down his throat and got stopped.

Onto nexus,

How many soulstones does he have left at that point? I can't quite follow the flow in your post, but it looks like its about 5? well, he certainly wont be doing that again then. nexus only has an effect when your model can spend soulstones - and those are a limited supply. Its hands he can't filter, suits he can't get or flips he can't alter because he's sunk everything into keeping Hannah alive for one turn.

that's similar in a way to 1.5 von schill - people over protected him with stones using his slow to die and almost always it was a mistake. you could drain soulstone pools right down against a player with nexus with the right approach.

is nexus powerful - absolutely! its probably the most powerful faction upgrade in wave 1 and do I think it needs a tweak - absolutely! its too close to being an auto-take for its own good. But does the change need to be huge? No. It's not too far over the line given what it takes from you. It heals 2 damage/soulstone spent on top of the 1ss to purchase it.

If I spend the equivalent on it as you spend on leadlined coat I will heal 2 damage once (if I am still alive to make the heal as it comes after the action has resolved) - you will prevent 1 damage as many times as you get attacked (unless something ignores it). If you keep getting attacked, you will always have that damage reduction, and you can also spend stones, while you have them to reduce the damage.

the LLC will be useful all game, Nexus is only useful while you have stones remaining. To sum up, I agree that nexus needs a small change, but don't think it has completely unbalanced malifaux, or made neverborn "neverlose" once more. Looking at the results from Malifolk and Halifaux, neverborn aren't dominating events - and I'll bet that nexus was showing up in many, many lists, if not all.

Which brings me to my last point - did you need to kill Hannah? you threw a lot of resources at it, but was their a VP payoff waiting for you for doing it? could you have weakened her (as you did) from range while moving to get objectives? Where there other effects you could have brought to bear (obey perhaps) to get her off your case that you didn't consider that nexus has no way of stopping?

its always unfun to feel powerless, but I believe that there are ways around this problem. It might be fun for you to switch crews with Mark for a game or two and see how it feels from the other side of the table - that might be good for both of you

[Bacms]

Hey Joel,

Thanks for your post it was actually quite informative and I do appreciate the time you took to reply to it. As for your points I will answer to them individually so,

FFF forces a Df duel for TN14, not a Wp one - since perdita in your situation is at Df9 and will have a handful of new cards, she'll not take any damage. If she does, nothing stops her damage preventing with a soulstone either. Armour comes into play with the damage from FFF, so fransisco will be putting his coat to good effect.

[Joel]

I think that change sounds really good - it would make them use stones on defensive or other things which would mean the damage didn't dwindle automatically. I'd be all for that.

[Fetid Strumpet]

From my own experiences FGF is not overpowered for the reasons Joel stated.

Again from my own experiences Nexus of Power is hideously OP.

[rancor709]

FGF is an incredibly strong upgrade and can be taken advantage of but so can similar upgrades in other factions. A recent vassel game Barbaros with FGF kept away from my forces out front tying up my opponent and spreading dmg was critical in me getting the early lead in the game. Now my opponent was able to attrition me out to a draw but FGF dmg put a strong hurt on him in 2 critical turns.

All that said its not too strong, the opponent has a chance for resist. The ability forces me to place the piece away from support.

Nexus in its current rendition shouldn't have made it through. I am hopeful that is being looked at.

[Bacms]

Glad to see other people are also seeing the problem with Nexus and hopefully it would be looked at. Even if it only applies to defensive duels it is still a very strong one, but one I can live with.

As for FFF I think it is fine as it is on it's own it is the interactions with other models that worry me. As I said in my game it was the combination of it being on both Hannah and Candy, which combined with Candy Sweets and Sours make it a bit too strong on my opinion. I think rare 1 would probably be better but I can probably live with it as it is even if I still feel it is too cheap at the moment.

Also just to make sure we are playing it right, but if you have only one model left on your crew than sending Candy to sit next to it means you won't be able to do anything at all so you may as well as call the game at that point.

[Lolcanoe]

So you had a bad match up? I played a 3 way game last night. Opponent was guild running lady justice, other guy had Mcmourning. I ran pandora, Dopple, and 3 sorrows. His guild crew mollywopped Mcmournings crew, and my crew, throwing Mcmourning in a casket just for laughs at the end. So can I say lady justice is overpowered?

Yes there are some strong things that can be done, but all three of us agree that we were really all balanced. I even took nexus, but that doesn't help when you have no soul stones left. One model or one upgrade should not make you want to quit. Since I've started I've been tailoring my lists to my objectives, and not doing half bad at all and I'm only 3 games in. The crew I like to run tends to make the opponent stay away while I run around and perform schemes. If I'm against a ranged crew, I'm screwed. So should I quit if I get ranged to death? No.

[Bacms]

Sorry dude but what you are saying it is completely different. I had plenty of match ups that I lost and I felt there was something that I could have done. As an example I am trying outcast on the vassal league and running Viktorias, I have lost every single game I play with them so far but I can see what I am doing wrong. As I said I played plenty of games of 1st and enough of second to know the game, lost many, won many, never felt the game was as unfair as I felt yesterday.

Sorry if you don't feel the same but with three games under your belt I feel it is probably you not taking the best advantage of nexus more than anything else. As I said doing thirty damage to a model and see it walk away untouched is a good sign something needs to be fixed.

And what made me want to quit as not one model or one upgrade, was playing a game whether it doesn't mean what I do I have no chance of winning. Yesterday I had two like that and clearly for the other people replies I am not the only one feeling there is a problem with it's current iteration. Maybe people have just not took advantage of it enough to be a problem but trust me it will be sooner than later.

[Lolcanoe]

Actually I believe I have been taking advantage of nexus, burned 2 stones in one turn trying to keep pandora alive. Guess what I did after that. Stopped spending stones on her since I had more important things to do. I'm with you on the feeling of being helpless, I play an evil 8 pointed star army in a game set before the year 50k, and I did it in its last edition. Everything in this game has its positives and it's negatives. I'm sure you know this though. Nexus just happens to be one of the positives of a particular faction. Hell, as it sits right now I'll never take dreams of pain. Why would I spend 6ss to bring a model up with 1 wound? Huge negative. Seems to offset the 1 positive for sure.

[EnternalVoid]

Well as someone who has played with Nexus and against it I will agree that it does need some work but at the same time I think it is not quite as bad as many make it out to be. I can honestly say I agree with Joel that it is a bit of a trap for the user. I have laid waste to people using it by knowing that it is very easy for people using it to get Soulstone happy and drain themselves themselves almost completely dry turn 2. Even when I use it often I am low on Soulstones by the end of turn 2 but I often use a Nexus henchmen as 'bait' to lure in models like the Viks, Perdita & Francisco, Taelor, and other beatsticks. Many people automatically want to dive into what looks like a vulnerable henchman with out stepping back for a moment and consider it.

The key for me for beating it has not been quality of attacks but quantity. If the model has Nexus I never cheat damage save for certain occations. The main one being that if I cheat Severe, does it stand a chance of killing them if they don't flip high enough on the Damage Prevention. The healing does not kick in till after the attack is resolved, meaning if they don't survive the attack they don't heal. A prime example of this was once against the Viks where when my opponent got the Red Joker he make sure he took 2 wounds off before cheating in the RJ. At that point, unless I flipped a Severe on the Damage Prevention I was not going to save my Nexus model. Looking at your brief report it looks like you were willing to blow several of your good cards on Francisco right off the bat. I like saving my heaviest attack against the Nexus model till last and only spend it if I can go over their remaining number of wounds by at least 2, for example if he had let Hannah's wounds drop to 7 for Perdita's last attack you would have had the cards from Francisco's first for a Severe double Crit for Perdita's last attack *and maybe used a Stone for another Ram for 8 damage*. At that point she needs to flip a severe damage prevention or she is dead before healing.

Otherwise I generally just go for alot of 1-2 damage weak attacks. At that point generally the Soulstone might prevent all of it so the healing is sort of wasted, while I am keeping my high cards for defense or other key fights. It is why I generally like having several minions on hand in any list. If they use their soulstones soloy on damage prevention flips and Nexus you are looking at 14 wounds gained back and on average 14 wounds prevented. So it basically it is better to say it doubles the value of the soulstones used on defense then saying 30 damage as some forget you would still be stopping half of it anyway if the soulstones were spent. I honestly do think it is one of those things that need looked at but by being on both sides I have found it not as bad as some make it to be, and that many are react poorly as they don't know how to try and handle it. I have several different suggestions on how Nexus could have been changed but did not really get any mind during the Open Beta. That also say I am also a strong supporter that El Mayor is a something that should not have come through the open Beta as it is as I find a Df9 Wp9 just about as bad if not worse. Guild really strikes me as one of the strongest factions right now. I think I have tormented people almost as much with El Mayor as I have with Nexus.

Taking though a look at your opponents list at even just a glance, at least the Zoraida one, he was betting it all on the Nexus and Fear Given Form. With how Obey is and his selection he did not really have much of a back up plan if something went wrong. I get that he used Obey to press foward but there are options even there to what you could have done, just generally such moves prompt opponents into panic or hasty action.

[Spifferson]

I'm still trying to find the rules question in this thread. Perhaps the Neverborn forum would be a better place for this discussion.

[Joel]

Just an aside on the "30 damage and she walked away" headline...

She took 4 damage and lost 5 stones - and topdecked like a boss. Without nexus, the model would still have prevented 16 damage (nexus accounted for 10 wounds from spending 5 stones).

Now if the headline was "20 damage and she walked away" people would still be up in arms - but frankly any soulstone user can do such by spending stones.

It feels a little....off....

Nexus effectively prevented 10 wounds for spending 6 stones (one to buy, five to use) and that was pretty much it for the game. That seems a clearer picture to me.

As mentioned above, having nexus altered will simply prevent the "henchman as bait" tactic that was being used in your game - or at least retard it.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Joel

[Mike3838]

Actually I believe I have been taking advantage of nexus, burned 2 stones in one turn trying to keep pandora alive. Guess what I did after that. Stopped spending stones on her since I had more important things to do. I'm with you on the feeling of being helpless, I play an evil 8 pointed star army in a game set before the year 50k, and I did it in its last edition. Everything in this game has its positives and it's negatives. I'm sure you know this though. Nexus just happens to be one of the positives of a particular faction. Hell, as it sits right now I'll never take dreams of pain. Why would I spend 6ss to bring a model up with 1 wound? Huge negative. Seems to offset the 1 positive for sure.

Because Dreamers latest iteration has "Pleasant Dreams", so they don't stay on 1Wd for very long. Just don't summon then in a vulnerable position

[Bacms]

The key for me for beating it has not been quality of attacks but quantity.

I would agree with this but the way that the systems works it is not the case. Imagine an hypothetical situation (as I don't have the cards of book with me, let's assume Hannah has 8 Wd). I do three attacks with a model of 2/4/5. If you take two dmg don't bother spending a stone. If you take any of the other numbers you would take 3/4 wd with armour. If you prevent damage you will heal a minimum of 3. Assume I now attack again again 2dmg you would take 1wd, assuming you had taken 1 dmg before don't bother cheating. Assuming you had taken more and didn't prevent damage you now not only prevent the damage from this attack you also heal the 2 wounds you had taken before.

And so on and so forth. What I am saying is you actually will be spending a stone every two or three attacks maximum, assuming you crew as five models that means in an entire turn, with your entire crew attacking that model you maybe spent 5stones maximum. And again quality of attacks require a minimum damage 5 to even have the change of placing a wound on a model. And does it really needs to be an aura? At least make it like only one model in your crew can take advantage of it and then you can run away

She took 4 damage and lost 5 stones - and topdecked like a boss. Without nexus, the model would still have prevented 16 damage (nexus accounted for 10 wounds from spending 5 stones).

Different way of looking at the problem. The problem is she always heals two wounds independent of many damage she took. I do one damage to her, she can prevent that one and on top of that still heal two. If you spend a stone normally to prevent say you get an 11 you prevent 3 when you only taken 1 it is a waste of a high card and of a stone, but not with Nexus. Plus she would still be death without Nexus...which is my point. It is the best healing ability on the game and in my opinion too powerful at the moment. Stop making it work on healing flips and it will still be very good but not overpowered. This before we even start considering combos and synergies. Like nurse healing the model on top of nexus or other models with healing abilities. At least on this one you can kill a model before it has the change to activate. With current Nexus you all are agreeing with me the only solution is to ignore the henchman as it will most likely not die anyway.

[Adran]

Just want to say I can make an ice golem survive 30 Damage with just one upgrade - imbue defense.

Yes, those numbers do require the damage coming in in 10 packets of 3, so it is a perfect storm scenario.

Is this combination over powered? I don't think so

I agree with Joel that Nexus is a little too auto take, but its not that overpowered.

Knowing how and when to deal with it can make a huge difference. Perdita can kill Hannah in 2 shots, even if she is packing the upgrade.

Nexus is better than armor +2, but it works best when used in conjunction with other defences, such as Armor. It does take up resources to get its best use. Hannah is probably the best model in the game to be under the nexus of power because of her natural durability.

Soemtimes your best bet is to wear out opponents resources, others would be to ignore them, and otehrs woudl be to expend your resources to crush her badly.

[Bacms]

I agree with Joel that Nexus is a little too auto take, but its not that overpowered.

Knowing how and when to deal with it can make a huge difference. Perdita can kill Hannah in 2 shots, even if she is packing the upgrade.

Can you please explain how?

[Thaarup]

Can you please explain how?

I would guess that it has something to do with Trick Shooting, Vengeance Bullet and the Critical Strike trigger.

EDIT:

Personally I would try using a different strategy next time. Using the same crew I would try out some combination of :

Try draining your opponents card hand. You have a few options with the current crew:

Austringer´s Distract trigger, The Stalkers Drain Magic trigger are both options if you have the mask suits. The Austringer have quite high Sh, so you could use low to middle high cards depending on what you opponent cheats.

Bury could also be an option, especially if you have drained his card hand.

Other than that a lot of attacks ending up with Perdita´s (or another high damage attack). Bringing the Vengeance Bullet could be an option.

Otherwise different crew members if you have them? Ninos Headshot or Santiagos Trigger Happy could also be an option and I am sure there are more options out there.

It is not going to be easy, but as Hannah plus upgrades is quite a drain in soulstones neither should it be... You could ofcourse also go for the ignore strategy and try hitting the rest of his crew? It didn´t seem like you played with a lot of SS so Hannah would be a quite big part of his crew.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Thaarup

[Adran]

One set up is as follows

Perdita having diestro (negative flip of Df) and Trick shooting. 0 to ignore armor.

First Action spend a stone on adding a Ram. Cheat in a Ram. Hit and cheat severe damage.

7 damage. Soulstone to prevent 2 and heal 2 - Hannah on 5 wounds.

Shoot again, stone on Ram. Cheat a Ram, cheat severe damage. 7 damage. Hannah soulstone prevents 2, takes 5 and dies before she gets to heal.

Needs 2 decent rams, 2 severes in hand and 2 SS.

A 1 hit is possible with the red joker for damage and a weak damage prevention flip.

You can improve this by using Focus to make the Damage cheat more reliable.

Hannah can spend extra stones to negate her negative flips, but that is forcing her hand, and she has to choose to spend her stones before you do.

Is it garenteed? No.

Is it likely enough to Scare Hannah? I would think yes it is.

In your position I would try and gain extra cards with SS to help me get in aposition to make this do-able.

Possible crew hires to help - Use conditions- Burning and poison deal damage outside of an action. damage prevention from them won't get the additonal heal. Nickel and dime 2 wounds onto her, as most Nexus players won't spend the stone until they actually gain its full effect and then unlesh the Big killing hit.

Student can give Perdita 4 AP, allowing both attack to be focused.

Rapid firing nino can ignore the engaged Perdita, but Hannah is till at negative DF flips. She will still prevent/heal a lot, but you will very quickly burn through the resources. If he is within 6 he could do that before companioning Perditia

Convict gunslinger and Pale rider both can do melee attacks with Sh (get the diestro bonus), and the Convict can rapid fire in melee.

I would also strongly consider using obey to either move his 2 henchment into their own Fears given form range, or move the one without Nexus out of the range of it before attacking and killing it.

As I said, it is a very good combination, Nexus is probably a little too good on its own, and I would say Hannah is the best henchmen to be under its effects because of her armour and other defenses. But You can plan ways to beat it.

But things may well change today,

[Bacms]

One set up is as follows

Perdita having diestro (negative flip of Df) and Trick shooting. 0 to ignore armor.

First Action spend a stone on adding a Ram. Cheat in a Ram. Hit and cheat severe damage.

7 damage. Soulstone to prevent 2 and heal 2 - Hannah on 5 wounds.

Shoot again, stone on Ram. Cheat a Ram, cheat severe damage. 7 damage. Hannah soulstone prevents 2, takes 5 and dies before she gets to heal.

Needs 2 decent rams, 2 severes in hand and 2 SS.

A 1 hit is possible with the red joker for damage and a weak damage prevention flip.

Thnaks Adran some good advice on there and things I have not consider before. Always thought Diestro would be better on Franscico rather than on Perdita as he his the own who want to be on the the front of the battle. It is a good idea to put it on Perdita though as most players will try and ignore Francisco in close combat thanks to the it's negative. Will give it a go.

[Joel]

Yes, wih one model left in candy's range, you are effectively doing nothing and taking 3 damage.

[Adran]

Possible crew hires to help - Use conditions- Burning and poison deal damage outside of an action. damage prevention from them won't get the additonal heal.

As I understand it, the wording of Nexus is

"friendly models within 6" that spend a soulstone heal 2 wounds after the action is ended"

Burning and Poison both deal damage outside of an action. Whilst you can spend soulstone to prevent the damage, there will be no healing, as there was no action in which they spent soulstone.

Likewise, damage from Fears given form will also occur outside an action.

[Dracomax]

and now, according to the FAQ, Nexus doesn't work with damage prevention.

[Gorbad]

The new wording is:

Nexus of Power: Change text of Nexus to: “Friendly models in a6 heal 1 damage after resolving an Action in which they spent one or more Soulstones on something other than a damage prevention flip.”