5 okt. 2016

Errata thoughts.

So yeah. The news that the balance errata will nerf/buff about 5% of top/bot casters. So my first reaction was what 5% of casters would I change and how. Then I realized I'm just a shmuck. Only I care what I think :D So I asked my brain trust of professional people with opinions. Also known as the top 5 Warmachine players I had talked to lately on Facebook. So I enlist them to give me a list with 10 caster to buff and how. Then 10 casters to nerf and how.Most of them could not make a list of ten for either. The energy and good choices start to disappear after about 5 casters.

Buff List

1. Gaspy2.4/5. People miss the old Mk2 King. The consensus is the nerfs went to hard on the poor dude. There was no reason for Caustic Mist to be an upkeep and the feat should be less dice dependent.William went a bit further and mentioned the Hellbound nerf. If it's going to be a round spell the cost should be decrease to 2.

2. Constance Blaze.4/5. Most agree that poor Conny needs a fix. How to do it people are a bit unsure. Giving her back the real transference and her some kind of veteran leader for Morrow was the two examples. I think you would need to do a lot more then that to make her a decent caster. I think you rework her. Give her the ability to always gain souls from models that died in her cmd from enemy attacks. Then make her feat only give the ARM part but let it affect heavies as well. Then give her something to do with souls that is not turn it into focus. Maybe she could force opponents to re-roll attacks in her command? Something to do.

3. Old Witch.3/5. The changes varied but most of them were about the feat. One was that anything damage should be KD:ed. Another was that as warrior models taking the hit should become KD. Another common idea was to let her have a bit more jack points. Thomas wants to trade Gallows for TK.

4. Mortenebra.3/5. Delyris can right now not use overrun which is an obvious fault and that needs to be fixed. Then she could get back Terminal Velocity and her old Mk2 Void gate. Another idea is that she gain Field marshal Ghostly and let spectral steel give Blessed weapons as well. Either way you gain an option to deal with an Arcane Shielded Stormwall.

5. Kryssa.2/5. Should trade Velocity for Energizer. I don't think that is even close to enough to make her a good caster but sure.

6. Denegrah2. 2/5. Her feats is the problem. What to do with it has our cryx experts divided. William wants to make it some kind of crazy powerful feat. Make it her old pre nerf MK2 feat but only for 5 models. While Tom is a bit more balanced and wants to build in an -5 range on ranged weapons into her current feat, which sounds like a decent fix for me. 

7. Bradigus. 2/5. His current iteration is a bit lackluster so just give him something. Inhospital ground or Elemental Master. Maybe give him a fieldmarshal for Shieldguard.

Then we are in the honorable mention category. 

Where we start with Mohsar. Make Pillars Great Again. The change that you can charge them really brings him down. Then he apparently needs some kind of personal protection.
Vlad 3 feat should also gives pathfinder and boosted to hit. 
Kraye trades pursuit for watcher and gain 2 armor. 
Shade 3 get back pathfinder. 

NERF LIST

I asked for stuff that needed to be nerfed. Not the casters that were top ten in the game. So everyone went after casters that are anti fun. Top 7 is unanimous, as in when people gave me to few casters I auto filled in the caster I thought they should have given me. Then the last four got 2/5 votes. 

1. Wurmwood. So yeah no surprises here. The fun part is how. Everyone had their own opinion and no consensus was reached. Johan wants to hit Dark Path. Remove Cassius ability to move with Dark Path. That way he becomes more exposed. William don't really care how just hit him. Charles wants to make him fury 6. I think the ability to gain souls should be limited so he can only get friendly models souls on enemy attacks.
 
2. Haley2. I think I might have swayed the consensus with something I tweeted a couple of days ago since everyone was more or less agreed that she needs to lose Telekinesis. Some thought she just needed to lose Future sight and her Field Marshal though.

3. Haley3. Echos should not contest scenario points. None of the Brain trust mentions the thing that rubs me the wrong way with this caster. Why is Temporal Distortion cost 2. What is wrong with that spell. It should cost at least 3. Maybe 4.

4.
Madrak2. He can not go over his fury stat or he can't use his feat himself.
 
5. Kara Sloan. No one actually gave me any way how they wanted her nerfed. Everyone just saying she is a bad play experience. So guess everyone just want her nuked from the game. I think guided fire should only affect the first shot. You should probably not listen to me on this one though. I want to play Kara Sloan. I have missed old Lylyth2. The way to really hit her is to remove refuge I think. Then she is not so personally safe and gets removed from the game. 
 
6. The High Reclaimer. His feat needs to be reworked. The way he places models at the moment is fucked. How it should be reworked is split. Either he can only bring back grunts. Hitting him hard. The other option is that all models are placed simultaneous. Both ways limit the ability to bring back Mercs and I do not really know what to do about that. Another common thing was that the models he brings back would need to sac movement.

7. Ossyan. Our experts agree giving him deadeye was over the top. I think that was alright. I think that he should be hit in his personal security. That way if he feats on something he is probably dead. 

8. Issyria. Blinding Light needs to change. Either put in a once per turn clause or change it back to the Mk2 target restriction.

9. Rask. Admonition is the spell that had to go from this powerhouse. Some said that the throw nerf might be enough. Depending on what that is.Might be right. Don't think so though. Admonition just synergize so well with his feat.
 
10.
Baldur2. He creates extreme list chicken. Something that removes skill from the game. Losing the wall was nerf that won out in the end. Even though our expert Charles does not think that is enough and wants to make roots an upkeep. Which would kill him I think.

11. Sev 2 swap arcane might for greater power (free upkeep) 

Honorable mentions:

Irusk 2 trade solid ground for force barrier. 
Lyl3 can't reposition after a trample. 
Vayl2. Should not be able to reach that far.Hitting the NBT is probably better for the game. Give it back range 14 and give it a new animus.


Ending words

I asked for casters, then I got a lot of Mad Dogs needs to be nerfed. They are not a caster but I agree. I don't think they should be nerfed like people sugest to make them 8 points though. I think you hit their jury rigged. Give them fleet instead. So that they trample 9" up instead of running 12" each round. That lessens the scenario pressure a fair bit and lowers their charge threat range since they might blow up if they pay to fleet and charge.

Then I talked some about the Cryx balance with William. Trying to figure out how to make cryx resistant to shooting is almost impossible according to this Negative Scot. He wants to buff Cryx back to even higher heights then their Mk2 days. Getting artifical deviation on all his casters would not be enough protection. All the jacks needs to become 12/19 which just sounds stupid to me but sure. In my opinion what they need is a point reduction on all their heavies. Wiliam points out that many cheap jacks does not work well for focus casters. So they also need way for their battlegroup to be more focus efficient. So maybe the Skarlock Thrall gets an ability to give their casters Amons feat for one spell. Letting you allocate a bit when you throw spells might be a good use of that model.

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