Target Vitals - the new Perfectionist?

My impression of this year's EC was that combat decks, or decks splashed with combat, was more common than the previous two years. Aim cards were the major change. It is not a bad thing that combat is getting easier to oust with; Dragonbound, Frontal Assault and Hell-for- Leather are nice examples, though Dragonbound has been around for a while now. It's also a valid argument that non-combat decks should be forced to include some sort of combat defense, like fortitude or S:CE. But I'm not sure if the aim cards are balanced anyway. Target Vitals sees much more play than the other ones. Sure, it's uncommon, not a rare, but it's also better than the other ones. If not canceled, Target Head is stronger, but it only takes 1 card to cancel it. It's like Perfectionist compared to Capitalist. Wouldn't it have been better if Target Vitals was cancelled by one card as well? And why weren't the aim cards designed to require disciplines? Auspex or Celerity, for example. Did Imbued and 1-caps need to get better at combat? Target Hand, Combat, R , [LotN] Aim. Play when choosing a strike.The opposing minion may discard two combat cards to cancel this card. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she gets -1 strength this action, and you may destroy a weapon he or she has. A minion may play only one aim each strike. Target Head, Combat, R , [LotN] Aim. Play when choosing a strike.The strike does +2 damage. The opposing minion may discard a combat card to cancel this card. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she cannot use any additional strikes or presses this round, and you may set the range for the next round. A minion may play only one aim each strike. Target Leg, Combat, R , [LotN] Aim. Play when choosing a strike.The opposing minion may discard two combat cards to cancel this card. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she may use maneuvers or presses only if they require Obfuscate [obf] , Thaumaturgy [tha] or Flight this action. A minion may play only one aim each strike. Target Vitals, Combat, U , [LotN] Aim. Play when choosing a strike.If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she takes an additional 2 damage from this strike, and he or she cannot press this round. The opposing minion may discard two combat cards to cancel this card. A minion may play only one aim each strike.

On 25 Sep., 13:52, Hyllan <caroline_h...@yahoo.com> wrote: > My impression of this year's EC was that combat decks, or decks > splashed with combat, was more common than the previous two years. Aim > cards were the major change. It is not a bad thing that combat is > getting easier to oust with; Dragonbound, Frontal Assault and Hell-for- > Leather are nice examples, though Dragonbound has been around for a > while now. It's also a valid argument that non-combat decks should be > forced to include some sort of combat defense, like fortitude or S:CE. > But I'm not sure if the aim cards are balanced anyway. > > Target Head, Combat, R , [LotN] > > Aim. Play when choosing a strike.The strike does +2 damage. The > opposing minion may discard a combat card to cancel this card. If any > damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing > minion, he or she cannot use any additional strikes or presses this > round, and you may set the range for the next round. A minion may play > only one aim each strike. > > Target Vitals, Combat, U , [LotN] > > Aim. Play when choosing a strike.If any damage from this strike is > successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she takes an > additional 2 damage from this strike, and he or she cannot press this > round. The opposing minion may discard two combat cards to cancel this > card. A minion may play only one aim each strike. Another notable difference is that Target Head increases the inherent damage of the strike while Target Vitals only will do extra if the original 1 is dealt. Still the discard of only one card makes it too easy to counter. As for the perfectionist...some cards are better and some are weaker, not all cards can be designed as equals :) IMHO Target Vitals is indeed too strong when compared to Lucky Blow and against most decks is even stronger than some potence strike cards which is just wrong.

I agree that target vitals is too strong. I will not spend all my day bitching about it, but a cost: 1 blood or 1 life or one card from your hand would not be unreasonable. There is a good reason why david tatu played 13 target vitals on the last chance qualifier: it does 200% extra damage with 1 card (conditional). It is also a weird choise of WW. In general there is a line in what cards can do. skilled card at basic level does one or +one to something and at superior 2 or +2 to something. If the card costs 1 blood you add 1 to that modifier. nonskilled cards normaly do less. Im not in favor of banning the card, but an extra cost seems suitable. Greetz, Oortje

> Another notable difference is that Target Head increases the inherent > damage of the strike while Target Vitals only will do extra if the > original 1 is dealt. Still the discard of only one card makes it too > easy to counter. Agreed -- discard one combat card is not only usually not a burden it is often a boon. > As for the perfectionist...some cards are better and some are weaker, > not all cards can be designed as equals :) > > IMHO Target Vitals is indeed too strong when compared to Lucky Blow > and against most decks is even stronger than some potence strike cards > which is just wrong. TV is not a strike, so comparing it to strike cards can be a little off. Sure, if you're only going to play either LB or TV, TV is better against everything except Flak Jackets and other 'prevent one'. But you can play both LB and TV on one strike, so they aren't really in competition. And the power of Potence is really in Immortal Grapple and Torn Signpost, the Potence strikes are just gravy (and Potence cards are not in competition with TV, since you can play TS + Increased Strength + Undead Strength + TV). I think Target Vitals is just right for what I'm guessing it was intended to do -- make any minion who can fight at all able to fight more convincingly (if you're willing to use card slots for it), and make any deck that is unable to do anything in combat suffer more for that weakness.

On Sep 25, 7:52 am, Hyllan <caroline_h...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Target Vitals sees much more play than the other ones. It is clearly the best of them. Although in a combat heavy environment, it rarely works (as it is easily foiled by dodge, S:CE, 1 point of prevention, or discarding 2 combat cards) the way you hope it will (I was playing multiple TVs in all sorts of decks for a while locally, and in the end, they rarely ever paid off, so I swapped them out for things that are more generally effective). In a low combat environment, it can be a total killer. But if folks have, like, a manuver or a Flak Jacket, the huge pile of Target Vitals as combat offense isn't going to help all that much. Target Head isn't horrible, as it increases your strike's base damage, so it isn't foiled by a single point of damage prevention. But it *is* foiled by a single combat card discard, making that much easier to avoid. But as it is Rare, Target Vitals generally eclipses it. The other two Targets are kind of janky (although Target Hand isn't bad as disciplinless anti-weapon tech if you really want some). > It's like Perfectionist compared to Capitalist. Wouldn't it have > been better if Target Vitals was cancelled by one card as well? Probably. Using the bad (i.e. most) Archetypes as comparison isn't great, as the first batch were *clearly* underpowered, and the second batch (uh, Perfectionist?) were reasonable. Yeah, the rest of the Archetypes pretty much blow. But that is ok. Target Vitals is generally much, much better than the other three, yes. And is possibly overpowered. But not by much. And it is probably ok that the other ones are kind of janky. > Did Imbued and 1-caps need to get better at combat? Again, Target Vitals *can* be very strong, but generally only in the context of "My deck has zero combat cards in it..." in which case, it was getting schooled by any sort of combat offense anyway. But in the face of any sort of reasonable combat package, a dozen Target Vitals aren't going to do much. -Peter

On Sep 25, 5:22 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: Target Vitals is > generally much, much better than the other three, yes. And is possibly > overpowered. But not by much. And it is probably ok that the other > ones are kind of janky. I think that for decks using Trap Target Hand is pure gold!

On Sep 25, 6:52 am, Hyllan <caroline_h...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Target Vitals sees much more play than the other ones. Sure, it's > uncommon, not a rare, but it's also better than the other ones. If not > canceled, Target Head is stronger, but it only takes 1 card to cancel > it. It's like Perfectionist compared to Capitalist. Wouldn't it have > been better if Target Vitals was cancelled by one card as well? > The comparison with Perfectionist is a good one, IMHO. Target:Vitals may or may not be too strong in an absolute sense, but compared to the other aim cards, it's pretty ridiculous. Target: Head and Target: Hand could have their uses, particularly in a multi-round (i.e. Trap) deck, but in general if I was playing with, say, 8 aim cards, at least 6 of them would be Vitals, with maybe a splash of 2 Hands. Target: Leg is just balls (which reminds me, maybe next set we'll see Target: Balls?). Although, I have to say there are a few Archetype cards which I think are still good in comparison to Perfectionist, more so than the targets, anyway. Obviously Monster, but that's a new one. Creep Show is okay for a trifle and gives you blood in a few situations where Taste of Vitae is useless, Curmudgeon is very good IMHO (and also a trifle), and I've seen Traditionalist used to decent effect (okay, one vamp calls a vote to get rid of Rumors of Gehenna, all of them vote against and gain a blood - not sure it was really worth it to have like 5 Traditionalists in the deck for that purpose, but it seemed to help the deck at the time). Which is interesting - other than Monster and Perfectionist, all of the usable archetypes seem to be trifles. I thought it would be interesting to build a deck around Conniver at one point, but the fact that it is not a trifle and is even weaker than some of the ones that are trifles, *and* the fact that it's not "once per turn", but "tap to move a blood" put the kibosh on that idea.

On Sep 25, 11:57 am, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > The comparison with Perfectionist is a good one, IMHO. Target:Vitals > may or may not be too strong in an absolute sense, but compared to the > other aim cards, it's pretty ridiculous. Oh, sure--it is clearly considerably better than Hand and Leg, and kinda better than Head. But given how it remains to be seen that Target Vitals is anything other than a reasonably strong card, all that means is that Hand/Leg/Head are kind of janky, nor real good cards. Of which there are plenty. Target Vitals is a strong card. And does a good job of providing strong combat offense in places that you don't expect it (or previously didn't have it)--Catatonic Fear/TV is particularly viscious, yes. And the Imbued can be rightly scary with a bunch of them. But again, where TV is really scary is in a low combat environment, where folks just don't expect it, have little combat defense (if any), and the "I hit you for 1 damage, which might be 3!" attacks actually connect and pay off. In an already combat rich environment, Target Vitals doesn't really help much--folks have combat defense or fortitude or combat cards to discard, and you'd be better off with, like, a Weighted Walking Stick most of the time instead. > Target: Head and Target: > Hand could have their uses, particularly in a multi-round (i.e. Trap) > deck, but in general if I was playing with, say, 8 aim cards, at least > 6 of them would be Vitals, with maybe a splash of 2 Hands. Target: > Leg is just balls (which reminds me, maybe next set we'll see Target: > Balls?). Target: Junk! You (and everyone else) are correct; Vitals is much, much better than the other ones. Which doesn't necessarily mean that anything is wrong with Vitals, just that the other three are under the power curve and can be safely ignored. This kind of thing happens when you make a new kind of card. If more "target" cards are made in the future, it seems likely that they will be on par with Vitals and not so much Leg. -Peter

> You (and everyone else) are correct; Vitals is much, much better than > the other ones. Which doesn't necessarily mean that anything is wrong > with Vitals, just that the other three are under the power curve and > can be safely ignored. This kind of thing happens when you make a new > kind of card. If more "target" cards are made in the future, it seems > likely that they will be on par with Vitals and not so much Leg. > > -Peter Wait, why does a vampire care if you target his "vitals?" He's already dead! Brandon

On Sep 25, 6:57 pm, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > The comparison with Perfectionist is a good one, IMHO. Yes. Even ignoring comparisons to other combat cards (where I would argue TV is too strong), it's clearly the best of the current "Aim" cards -- just like Perfectionist is clearly the best of the archetype cards. You rarely see any of the other archetype cards played, for the simple reason that in 95% of the cases Perfectionist is just better... and so the others become wallpaper. While I think the design team in general has done an *excellent* job, I do consider Perfectionist and Target Vitals to be small glitches. //Petri

On Sep 26, 3:31 am, Petri Wessman <or...@orava.org> wrote: > While I think the design team in general has done an *excellent* job, > I do consider Perfectionist and Target Vitals to be small glitches. Ya think? Perfectionist seems like a completely reasonable card in and of itself--an MPA to conditionally gain blood on a single minion, if their action is successful *and* no reaction is played. Seems like a totally ok master card. Yeah, it completely makes the other Archetypes total wallpaper, but that is 'cause they were bad, not 'cause Perfectionist is too good. The first chunk of Archetypes were totally under the power curve. Perfectionst came out after them, and was about as good as Archetypes needed to be. Target Vitals is about the same--it is strong (just like Perfectionst) and does more or less what it should for what it costs and is a strong card. Yeah, it is disciplineless, but it is easy to avoid (dodge, S:CE, prevent 1 damage, discard two combat cards). To the point that in a combat heavy environment, it is not very effective, and usually better replaced by something more reliable. It does do a really good job of making a non combat heavy environment very vulnerable. Which means that folks should worry about combat more (as the "hope they don't have blasters" defense took a hit due to Target Vitals, as now a disciplineless 1 cap can punch you for 3 if you just stand there and take it). Which strikes me as a totally good thing. The other three Target cards are just kind of bad. Which doesn't mean that Target Vitals is necessarily too strong. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] You make good points. I'm willing to agree that Perfectionist and maybe even Target Vitals are in a reasonable area of the power curve (though TV is borderline imho). The fact that TV gives all decks decent hitback ability is probably a good thing, all things considered. About the archetypes: yes, the problem is mostly the fact that most of the others suck in comparison to Perfectionist, adding yet more wallpaper to the game. Perfectionist as such is a pretty balanced card, the others (bar Monster, another later addition) mostly suck. This is annoying, but you're right; the design flaw isn't Perfectionist as much as the other archetype cards which are too low- powered. About the aim cards: there the situation is a bit different. We have Target Vitals, which is borderline overpowered for a no-discipline card. Then we have Target Head, which isn't actually all that bad -- only the "discard one card to cancel it" clause makes it less universally rocking as TV. Onwards to Target Hand, which is actually a pretty damn strong card in many decks, especially when combined with Trap. Last of all we have Target Legs, which imho is the only Aim card which actually sucks. So here the "problem" is the power level of Target Vitals itself, which can be argued various ways. So to correct myself: the design team glitches have actually more to do with a) the very low power level of the non-Perfectionist archetype cards, which makes them wallpaper(ish) b) the power level of Target Vitals, and the suckiness of Target Legs Or not. The above is my current feel about those card groups, but I'm willing to be pursuaded to think differently :D //Petri

Added: the one thing that does suck is the rarity. Target Vitals should be a common, the rest of the Aim cards should be uncommons. //Petri

Peter D Bakija schrieb: > Target Vitals is about the same--it is strong (just like Perfectionst) > and does more or less what it should for what it costs and is a strong > card. Yeah, it is disciplineless, but it is easy to avoid (dodge, > S:CE, prevent 1 damage, discard two combat cards). To the point that > in a combat heavy environment, it is not very effective, and usually > better replaced by something more reliable. It does do a really good > job of making a non combat heavy environment very vulnerable. Which > means that folks should worry about combat more (as the "hope they > don't have blasters" defense took a hit due to Target Vitals, as now a > disciplineless 1 cap can punch you for 3 if you just stand there and > take it). Which strikes me as a totally good thing. I have to agree, Target Vitals is just fine. The fact that for example some Potence cards are just worse and you might consider playing TV in a deck with lots of inferior potence just demonstrates that Potence is not a good discipline (Probably Peter will disagree here), certainly so on inferior. Also a 1-cap striking for 3 with TV seems strong, but a 1-cap with Concealed SNS + DBR is much for scary from my point of view. The problem here is again that 1-caps (or weenies in general) are a tad bit overpowered since their inherent advantage is that you dont really care if something happens to them since they are cheap. Suicide bombers make for some very effective warfare.

Johannes Walch wrote: > The fact that for example some Potence cards are just worse [than Target Vitals]... What Potence card is "just worse"?

> The fact that for example some Potence cards are just worse and you > might consider playing TV in a deck with lots of inferior potence just > demonstrates that Potence is not a good discipline (Probably Peter will > disagree here), certainly so on inferior. Which Potence card is worse than Target Vitals?

[ quoted text not captured ] You can't think of a single one? *cough*Twisting the Knife*cough* Okay, so maybe comparing one of the best disciplineless combat cards with one of the worst cards in the game and probably one of the top 5 wastes of cardboard in the free world is not productive... But I think what he was saying is that Target:Vitals is often better than even something like Undead Strength, especially if played at inferior potence. The fact that T:V can be combo'd with another strike is hot, including ranged strikes and the nasty combo with Catatonic Fear. Denying a press isn't such a big deal, but it's just an added benefit. T:V has downsides, obviously, compared to a simple strike for +2 damage that can't be cancelled with a discard or stopped with 2 less points of prevention. But the fact that there is a pretty close equivalency between a poster card for a hitty discipline and a non-discipline combat card feels wrong, somehow. If you had vampires with potence and your only choices for combat were Undead Strength and Target: Vitals, my estimation is that you would use some combination of both (mainly because they combo together). If you had to choose one or the other to go in a deck with other combat cards, I think it would be a difficult choice, based on the rest of your deck and your metagame. I'm *not* saying T:V is broken, or that it's better than all of the potence options. I think it's at the top of the power curve for disciplineless cards. I definitely don't think it needed to deny the opponent the ability to press, not that that's a major part of what the card does. It doesn't wallpaper the entire Potence discipline or anything... but I can at least see what Johannes was saying when he said that it's better than some Potence cards.

[ quoted text not captured ] Twisting the knife. Hah. I win! This is mostly a joke.... Same as twisting the knife really....

In article <gbj240$gf5$1...@news01.versatel.de>, Johannes Walch <johanne...@vekn.de> wrote: > The fact that for example some Potence cards are just worse and you > might consider playing TV in a deck with lots of inferior potence just > demonstrates that Potence is not a good discipline (Probably Peter will > disagree here), certainly so on inferior. And here I am, disagreeing :-) Yeah, see, I'm not remotely convinced that Target Vitals is measurably better even than inferior Undead Strength, in a grand sense. Yes, if your opponent just stands there and takes it, the TV will do an extra damage, which is strong. But if your opponent doesn't just stand there, and they prevent 1 point of damage or discard 2 combat cards, the TV is useless, where the US is still doing an extra point of damage (requiring more prevention and can't be foiled by discarding cards that might have been clogging up your opponent's hand anyway). Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" -Gaff

In article <4754572d-844b-40c9...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, Petri Wessman <or...@orava.org> wrote: > About the archetypes: yes, the problem is mostly the fact that most of > the others suck in comparison to Perfectionist, adding yet more > wallpaper to the game. Perfectionist as such is a pretty balanced > card, the others (bar Monster, another later addition) mostly suck. > This is annoying, but you're right; the design flaw isn't > Perfectionist as much as the other archetype cards which are too low- > powered. Yeah. I think the first wave of Archetypes were pretty bad--they were a reasonable attempt, but turned out to be mostly just too conditional (although Capitalist seems like it should be standard issue for, like, !Malk S+B decks, and Sociopath should be ok in most sabbat combat decks), and Perfectionist really is, just better than most of them. And Monster is really good too. So as long as any new Archetypes are as good as Monster or Perfectionist, that's cool. And yeah, sad that the other ones are wallpaper, but, well, lots of things get wallpapered in the long run. > About the aim cards: there the situation is a bit different. We have > Target Vitals, which is borderline overpowered for a no-discipline > card. Then we have Target Head, which isn't actually all that bad -- > only the "discard one card to cancel it" clause makes it less > universally rocking as TV. Onwards to Target Hand, which is actually a > pretty damn strong card in many decks, especially when combined with > Trap. Last of all we have Target Legs, which imho is the only Aim card > which actually sucks. So here the "problem" is the power level of > Target Vitals itself, which can be argued various ways. Oh, sure--I think there is a theoretically reasonable tradeoff between Vitals "Do +2 damage if your strike connects" and having to discard 2 cards to cancel it and Head's "Your strike does +2 damage" and only having to discard 1 card to cancel it; on paper, it seems like a reasonable cost:effect trade off. But in reality, discarding 2 combat cards is considerably harder and costlier than discarding 1 combat card, such that it turns out that the trade off actually *isn't* reasonable. But I can see how the cards ended up like that. [ quoted text not captured ]

The existence of Target Vitals (compared to the other Target-cards) and the existence of Perfectionist (compared to the other archetype- cards) and the existence of Imbued (compared to any other VtES-cards) hints that White Wolf don´t do enough playtesting.

In article <d9215444-ac93-467b...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, as...@hotmail.com wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, I don't know that that is remotely true. Perfectionist indicates that they realized that the rest of the Archetypes were too weak. So made Perfectionist (and Monster) which is actually a good card. Do you really think that, say, Creep Show is a good card, and that it was *bad* that it was effectively wallpapered by Perfectionist? Target Vitals indicates that the other three Target cards seemed like a good idea, but also turned out to be weak (much like plenty of cards turn out to be weak, even with lots and lots of playtesting; see: the original Anarch expansion). Target Vitals is a completely reasonable, strong card. Target Head, Leg, and Hand all have their uses (well, maybe not so much Leg), but generally aren't as good as Vitals. Which is fine. Unless you really, really want Target Leg to be good. The Imbued indicates that when you introduce a really complicated new mechanic, that no amount of playtesting is going to catch all possible issues. And it never does. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Or it hints that you are wrong about your definitions of "enough" and "playtesting". Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/

On Sep 27, 8:38 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > Perfectionist indicates that they realized that the rest of the > Archetypes were too weak. So made Perfectionist (and Monster) which is > actually a good card. Do you really think that, say, Creep Show is a > good card, and that it was *bad* that it was effectively wallpapered by > Perfectionist? > I don't know how Perfectionist could even remotely wallpaper Creep Show. Creep Show is a trifle, Perfectionist is not. Creep Show can give you up to 5 blood between your untap phases (assuming a couple of wakes), Perfectionist is limited to 1 (assuming no Madness Network). Perfectionist gives you a blood when you complete a successful action, assuming you're not in an extremely wake-happy environment. Creep Show gives you a blood when someone dodges or ends combat against you, which can be good because most combat decks gain blood from Taste of Vitae, and Creep Show covers you in about half of the cases when Taste of Vitae wouldn't work for you. So Creep Show is helpful for combat decks (generally not as much as Monster, granted, and kind of a toss- up with Curmudgeon for blocking decks). The cost, effect, and utility are completely different between Perfectionist and Creep Show. And yeah, I think it's a decent card. Not as good as Perfectionist in most cases, true, but it has decks that it could excel in, depending on the metagame.

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:tdrDk.7$Ra...@newsfe06.iad... > as...@hotmail.com wrote: >> The existence of Target Vitals (compared to the other Target-cards) >> and the existence of Perfectionist (compared to the other archetype- >> cards) and the existence of Imbued (compared to any other VtES-cards) >> hints that White Wolf don´t do enough playtesting. > > Or it hints that you are wrong about your definitions of "enough" and > "playtesting". Maybe, maybe not. The definitions of those things hinge on the context. Well, "playtesting" really shouldn't be in doubt. I'm not sure what the dispute could be about the definition of playtesting. For me, playtesting is doing whatever activity needs to be done to learn how well the set has been defined, spot problems, fix them, and test the fixes. Yes? No? Did I miss something? I think the question is about what is "enough" playtesting. Every set, I see distinct, identifiable, fixable problems. I suppose I have no idea what it's like being a set designer and having my own ideas about what's appropriate and getting lots of conflicting comments from lots of sources and having only a few opportunities to change cards and test the changes. No doubt it's all very challenging and I wouldn't do as good a job as the current guy does. But if he had more time and more organization, I have little doubt he could do a much better job and a lot of problems that look obvious (to me, anyway) wouldn't get out the door. So, in that sense, there has not been "enough" playtesting. From the standpoint of White Wolf, I'm sure the picture looks different. Since they're wanting to get the sets out the door soon enough and within budget constraints that make these projects profitable, one would assume they're doing the best they can. The fact that we're getting new sets and there are no major player revolts - just a few obnoxiously long threads about specific cards - probably attests to the fact that they're doing "enough" testing for their purposes. One of those, "it-is-what-is" situations, I guess. Fred

On Sep 27, 6:38 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article > <d9215444-ac93-467b-ab5c-78837de3f...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, > > as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > The existence of Target Vitals (compared to the other Target-cards) > > and the existence of Perfectionist (compared to the other archetype- > > cards) and the existence of Imbued (compared to any other VtES-cards) > > hints that White Wolf don´t do enough playtesting. > > Yeah, I don't know that that is remotely true. > > Perfectionist indicates that they realized that the rest of the > Archetypes were too weak. It's been noted by industry people* and has been my experience as well that the more a CCG set is playtested, the stronger it gets. Two reasons. One is that playtesters (correctly) gravitate to overpowered stuff first and only get around to pointing out coasters if there's time. Two is the removal of the fear factor. The less playtested a set is the more fear that something will slip through the cracks that is abusive, counter to designer intent, or whatever in some embarrassing way. Rigorous playtesting doesn't catch everything (nor should it since discovery is a huge draw to CCGs), but it gives confidence that the problems will be minimal and that the game can withstand additional tournament level cards. * I first saw it talked about when someone was comparing Homelands to Alliances. The latter had way more playtesting. So, the point may be that far too many weak/low use cards get made due to insufficient playtesting. That much of the useful playtesting of V:TES sets is done after they are published, leading to corrections in future sets but doing little to help underpowered cards in print.

In article <d06987f7-afee-42cc...@w7g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > I don't know how Perfectionist could even remotely wallpaper Creep > Show. Creep Show is a trifle, Perfectionist is not. Creep Show can > give you up to 5 blood between your untap phases (assuming a couple of > wakes), Perfectionist is limited to 1 (assuming no Madness Network). > Perfectionist gives you a blood when you complete a successful action, > assuming you're not in an extremely wake-happy environment. Creep > Show gives you a blood when someone dodges or ends combat against you, > which can be good because most combat decks gain blood from Taste of > Vitae, and Creep Show covers you in about half of the cases when Taste > of Vitae wouldn't work for you. So Creep Show is helpful for combat > decks (generally not as much as Monster, granted, and kind of a toss- > up with Curmudgeon for blocking decks). And yet I have never seen (outside of, like, the Black Hand pre-release) Creep Show used. Ever. And Perfectionist? I see (and use) all the time. It might be that people are just not truly understanding the powerful genius that is Creep Show. Or, it is cause in practice, it isn't really worth including Creep Show in a deck, as it just is too conditional to be worth the card slot. > The cost, effect, and utility are completely different between > Perfectionist and Creep Show. And yeah, I think it's a decent card. Do you ever use it? > Not as good as Perfectionist in most cases, true, but it has decks > that it could excel in, depending on the metagame. All cards have decks that they can excel in somewhere. That doesn't mean that they are all good. Creep Show (and pretty much all the first wave Archtypes) aren't very good. And Perfectionist is, more or less, far and away infinitely better than all of them. As it has a very low conditionality; it works on any minion, it works on any action (and taking "an action" is much more likely to occur for a given minion than "a bleed action" or a combat), and pays off all the time. And as Archetypes are only one per minion, the incentive to use, like, Creep Show instead of Perfectionist is very low. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sep 27, 11:43 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > The cost, effect, and utility are completely different between > > Perfectionist and Creep Show. And yeah, I think it's a decent card. > > Do you ever use it? > Occasionally. In general, my environment has been more hitback combat than avoidance lately. I have a couple of decks with Creep Show in them right now that I haven't gotten around to playing yet. Curmudgeon, I use consistently, and it's consistently better than Perfectionist for the decks I use it in (pretty much anything that's primarily reactive and blocks more than it acts). Creep Show remains as one of the few archetypes than can give you more than 1 blood between untap phases, and of course the fact that it's a trifle makes it hard to call it wallpaper. Creep Show or Curmudgeon tend to make it into a few of my decks if only because I'm already too master-heavy to use Perfectionist.

On 27 Sep, 15:38, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article > <d9215444-ac93-467b-ab5c-78837de3f...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, > > as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > The existence of Target Vitals (compared to the other Target-cards) > > and the existence of Perfectionist (compared to the other archetype- > > cards) and the existence of Imbued (compared to any other VtES-cards) > > hints that White Wolf don´t do enough playtesting. > > Yeah, I don't know that that is remotely true. > > Perfectionist indicates that they realized that the rest of the > Archetypes were too weak. So made Perfectionist (and Monster) which is > actually a good card. Do you really think that, say, Creep Show is a > good card, and that it was *bad* that it was effectively wallpapered by > Perfectionist? Why not compare Perfectionist with the archetypes that does the same thing, only worse? Like Capitalist or Guru or Loner etc., instead of one that does something completely different? Creep Show is decent. Monster is good. Perfectionist is broken, and I think anyone could see that just by looking at the card. Except the White Wolf design team, which is sad. > Target Vitals indicates that the other three Target cards seemed like a > good idea, but also turned out to be weak (much like plenty of cards > turn out to be weak, even with lots and lots of playtesting; see: the > original Anarch expansion). Target Vitals is a completely reasonable, > strong card. Target Head, Leg, and Hand all have their uses (well, maybe > not so much Leg), but generally aren't as good as Vitals. Which is fine. > Unless you really, really want Target Leg to be good. It´s the same thing here. Target Vitals is unbelievably strong (compare to discipline-cards like Carrion Crows and Undead Strenght for example). Target Head is ok, the other Target-cards are collecting dust in the bottom of my closet. Anyone could see it just by looking at the card and comparing to other cards. Except White Wolf. But maybe LSJ thought that it was absolutely necessary for Smudge or Procurer to be able to strike for 3, who knows? > The Imbued indicates that when you introduce a really complicated new > mechanic, that no amount of playtesting is going to catch all possible > issues. And it never does. I´ve written about this a thousand times. "All possible issues"??! The complicated new mechanic IS the issue, so why introduce it at all? Again, not much playtest is needed to realize this.

Peter D Bakija schrieb: > > Target Vitals indicates that the other three Target cards seemed like a > good idea, but also turned out to be weak (much like plenty of cards > turn out to be weak, even with lots and lots of playtesting; see: the > original Anarch expansion). Well either playtsting should've found that TV is so much better than the other Target cards and up the other ones a bit or tone down TV a bit. Ofc some cards need to be better than others, but they shouldn't have such a volatility in terms of power, especially not when they are designed as a "cycle" of cards. I personally think TV would've been still ok without the press aspect or with just +1 dmg. Still putting it way above lucky blow imo.

In message <727fe7d0-b60f-4e91...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroup s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: >Perfectionist is broken, and I think anyone could see >that just by looking at the card. Except the White Wolf design team, >which is sad. Could you clarify what you mean by broken here? Broken is usually taken to mean something game-breaking - Return to Innocence, old Thoughts Betrayed, and so on. - Radically overpowered? Not really. It's only one blood a turn. - Causes you to have to play it or play against it? Well, you certainly can play it a lot, but you don't have to - many, many decks in the TWDA without it. You don't have to thwart it, although you can try to if you want to. It may also be worth noting that weenie Auspex (and wall decks generally) are often popular, causing some issues. - Undermines the predator-prey dynamic? No. - Wildly inappropriate for the game (like Madness or old Monocle)? Doesn't seem to be. It is: - Better than various other cards of the same type, but that can just indicate that those cards are bad. (e.g. Lost in Crowds is good, and Stealth Ritus is fairly poor - but that doesn't mean Lost in Crowds is broken) - Easy to include in many decks - but so's Blood Doll, The Barrens, Dreams of the Sphinx, and plenty of other useful cards. Neither of these means a card is broken - they can just indicate a good card. If you've printed some bad cards for a particular mechanic, at some point you just have to cut your losses and run. You can make some cards better by printing more support around them - this Anarch card isn't good enough to make it worth playing in isolation, but with some more Anarch support in this set, it's a possible include - but some mechanics just don't have that possibility. The bottom line is that if Perfectionist had never been printed, various of the archetypes still wouldn't see use outside of draft, hugely corner case decks, or fun challenges. Master cards are a precious resource, and there are a huge number of good cards competing for space in any given deck, and several of the archetypes just don't cut the mustard, regardless of Perfectionist. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

In article <gbnnut$400$1...@online.de>, xcver <xc...@xcver.com> wrote: > I personally think TV would've been still ok without the press aspect or > with just +1 dmg. Still putting it way above lucky blow imo. Using Lucky Blow as a measuring stick for *anything* is dubious theory, as Lucky Blow is awful. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <727fe7d0-b60f-4e91...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > Why not compare Perfectionist with the archetypes that does the same > thing, only worse? Like Capitalist or Guru or Loner etc., instead of > one that does something completely different? Creep Show is decent. I'm comparing Perfectionist to other Archetypes. 'Cause you can only use 1 Archetype at the time. So the cost of using any Archetype is that you can't then use another Archetype. So you need to pick the Archetype you are going to include in your deck and go with it. The vast majority of the time? Perfectionist makes the cut well before any of the others. > Monster is good. Perfectionist is broken, and I think anyone could see > that just by looking at the card. Except the White Wolf design team, > which is sad. On the grounds of what is Perfectionist "Broken"? It is a Master card that gives you 1 blood a turn. Maybe. Compare to: -Hunting Ground: Cost 2 pool (-). Always works (+). Can go on any vampire (+). Unique (-) -Rack: Can be stolen (-). Gives you 2 blood (+). Always works (+). Unique (-). -Houngan: Costs 1 pool (-). Unique (-). Only on Samedi (-). Always works (+). Can give you 2 blood if you really want (+). Can be stolen (unlikely). -Palatial Estate: Costs 2 blood (-). Unique (-). Always works (+). Not master card (+). Seems that Perfectionist is totally in line with all of these. It is non unique (+) and free (+). But doesn't always work (-). Strong, sure. Broken? Not by any definition I can imagine. > It愀 the same thing here. Target Vitals is unbelievably strong > (compare to discipline-cards like Carrion Crows and Undead Strenght > for example). Ok. Carrion Crows always works (+). Isn't strike damage (+). Lasts all combat (+). Isn't prevented by 1 point of damage resistance (+). Or dodge (+). Target Vitals would *never* make the cut in a deck over a Carrion Crows for my money. Undead Strength always works (+). Isn't avoidable by 1 point of damage prevention or discarding 2 combat cards (+). I'm hard pressed to see a situation where I'd use Target Vitals over Undead Strength in a deck with moderately reliable POT. And have trouble seeing it being worth using it in a deck with mostly pot (as I probably wouldn't be using Undead Strength anyway). Target Vitals is really good in decks that didn't have other good combat options already. It isn't so much in decks that did. > Target Head is ok, the other Target-cards are collecting > dust in the bottom of my closet. Sure. 'Cause they are limited focus and not great. That doesn't mean that Target Vitals is broken. > Anyone could see it just by looking > at the card and comparing to other cards. Except White Wolf. But maybe > LSJ thought that it was absolutely necessary for Smudge or Procurer to > be able to strike for 3, who knows? How is it bad that Smudge or Procurer can strike for 3? If their opponent can't: -Maneuver to long range -Dodge -S:CE -Prevent 1 damage -Discard 2 combat cards Smudge and Procurer already *could* strike for 3 (heck, even 4! with a bunch of cards) without much trouble (WWS+Lucky Blow+Pulled Fangs). More reliably. And they weren't tearing up the pea patch. > I扉e written about this a thousand times. "All possible issues"??! The > complicated new mechanic IS the issue, so why introduce it at all? > Again, not much playtest is needed to realize this. How is the complicated mechanic an issue? Other than a few unfortunate cards and wording issues, the Imbued are fine. Certainly now that a couple cards have been removed from the mix. Why introduce it at all? It is interesting. A lot of people like the Imbued. I mean, yeah, kind of a pain in the ass, in the "look at all the crap on the table" kind of way. But hardly devastating the play environment now that Memories and Explosion are gone. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <4c3111ca-020b-43c8...@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > Occasionally. In general, my environment has been more hitback combat > than avoidance lately. I have a couple of decks with Creep Show in > them right now that I haven't gotten around to playing yet. Interesting. Yeah, I see hit back (and by "hit back", I mean "I'm going to grapple and kill you") far more often than Dodge. S:CE comes up fairly often, but if I'm rushing them, I have anti-S:CE tech, and I don't play (or see) that many wall decks. So Creep Show seems a questionable inclusion most of the time. > Curmudgeon, I use consistently, and it's consistently better than > Perfectionist for the decks I use it in (pretty much anything that's > primarily reactive and blocks more than it acts). Creep Show remains > as one of the few archetypes than can give you more than 1 blood > between untap phases, and of course the fact that it's a trifle makes > it hard to call it wallpaper. Sure, it *can* give you a lot of blood, in theory, but it can also give you none at all. Ever. Even as a trifle, it strikes me as a questionable inclusion in most decks. I'd sooner use Life in the City, really. > Creep Show or Curmudgeon tend to make > it into a few of my decks if only because I'm already too master-heavy > to use Perfectionist. Curmudgeon seems slightly less dubious than Creep Show for a super block/wall deck, but still, incredibly easy for your prey to foil. Even as a Trifle--if I were playing a super blocky deck that could get mileage out of Curmudgeon, I'd just use The Rack instead in that spot. Yeah, not a Trifle, but much, much better. [ quoted text not captured ]

This is a funny subject to me in that neither of the two cards presented as "overpowered"; are really ever played that much in my group. I've seen Perfectionist played effectively a few times and have yet to have seen TV do any damage, know I won't say they aren't powerful, I just haven't seen anything to say that their broken. So I have to agree with Mr. Bakija in that he has produced a stronger argument and backed it up with some very specific examples. It seems to me that any deck prepared for heavy hit back in any form can nullify TV. As for the under play testing of the game I don't know any specifics; but the cards to me seem to have been getting better over all in the past few sets without wallpapering the old cards (except some crappy ones) which shows to me that the level of play testing is fine.

Peter D Bakija schrieb: > In article <gbj240$gf5$1...@news01.versatel.de>, > Johannes Walch <johanne...@vekn.de> wrote: > >> The fact that for example some Potence cards are just worse and you >> might consider playing TV in a deck with lots of inferior potence just >> demonstrates that Potence is not a good discipline (Probably Peter will >> disagree here), certainly so on inferior. > > And here I am, disagreeing :-) > > Yeah, see, I'm not remotely convinced that Target Vitals is measurably > better even than inferior Undead Strength, in a grand sense. Yes, if > your opponent just stands there and takes it, the TV will do an extra > damage, which is strong. But if your opponent doesn't just stand there, > and they prevent 1 point of damage or discard 2 combat cards, the TV is > useless, where the US is still doing an extra point of damage (requiring > more prevention and can't be foiled by discarding cards that might have > been clogging up your opponent's hand anyway). I still think Undead Strength inferior is worse than Targets Vitals (also in response to LSJ/XZealot). Of course when you only use TV as a combat card and your opponent can prevent one (which happens all that often from my experience, most preventers can prevent everything anyway) Undead Strength does an additional damage. But in the majority of situations TV will do more damage, esp. when combined with Torn Signpost where preventing one will not help your opponent at all.

On 28 Sep., 16:03, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article <gbnnut$40...@online.de>, xcver <xc...@xcver.com> wrote: > > I personally think TV would've been still ok without the press aspect or > > with just +1 dmg. Still putting it way above lucky blow imo. > > Using Lucky Blow as a measuring stick for *anything* is dubious theory, > as Lucky Blow is awful. > > Peter D Bakija > p...@lightlink.comhttp://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html > > "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" > -Gaff It's not dubious at all. A comparison between disciplinless cards that enhance the damage of a strike. Ofc we also can take Shoulder Drop into the equation. I for myself would not consider taking undead strength into a deck nowadays since I rather will take TV.

On 28 Sep., 16:21, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > It´s the same thing here. Target Vitals is unbelievably strong > > (compare to discipline-cards like Carrion Crows and Undead Strenght > > for example). > > Ok. Carrion Crows always works (+). Isn't strike damage (+). Lasts all > combat (+). Isn't prevented by 1 point of damage resistance (+). Or > dodge (+). Target Vitals would *never* make the cut in a deck over a > Carrion Crows for my money. Undead Strength always works (+). Isn't > avoidable by 1 point of damage prevention or discarding 2 combat cards > (+). I'm hard pressed to see a situation where I'd use Target Vitals > over Undead Strength in a deck with moderately reliable POT. And have > trouble seeing it being worth using it in a deck with mostly pot (as I > probably wouldn't be using Undead Strength anyway). > TV works on all strikes(+) Cancels press (+)...About the Discarding two to cancel it; odds are one of the discarded cards could've been used to save from the TV as well (dodge, prevent, S:CE etc). Furthermore TV has a positive strategic standpoint, because you will come on with a standard h1 strike an opponent may be inclined to save his dodge or S:CE for a worse strike after which you can play the TV whereas undead strength gives away all the information at once. I for myself wouldn't use US over TV. But with the introduction of Slam US is nearly obsolete imho > Smudge and Procurer already *could* strike for 3 (heck, even 4! with a > bunch of cards) without much trouble (WWS+Lucky Blow+Pulled Fangs). More > reliably. And they weren't tearing up the pea patch. > well comparing one card with a combination of 2 is no good. Hey....thrown gate is bad because Fake out + Thrown Sewer Lid rules...mhhh > > I´ve written about this a thousand times. "All possible issues"??! The > > complicated new mechanic IS the issue, so why introduce it at all? > > Again, not much playtest is needed to realize this. > > How is the complicated mechanic an issue? Other than a few unfortunate > cards and wording issues, the Imbued are fine. Certainly now that a > couple cards have been removed from the mix. Why introduce it at all? It > is interesting. A lot of people like the Imbued. I mean, yeah, kind of a > pain in the ass, in the "look at all the crap on the table" kind of way. > But hardly devastating the play environment now that Memories and > Explosion are gone. > > Peter D Bakija > p...@lightlink.comhttp://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html I dunno about lots of people liking the imbued. My estimation would be that more players hate them....some playgroups even ban them or dislike them to such an extent that effectively no one will play them.

On 28 Sep., 16:21, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article > <727fe7d0-b60f-4e91-ac54-409ebc635...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > I'm comparing Perfectionist to other Archetypes. 'Cause you can only use > 1 Archetype at the time. So the cost of using any Archetype is that you > can't then use another Archetype. So you need to pick the Archetype you > are going to include in your deck and go with it. The vast majority of > the time? Perfectionist makes the cut well before any of the others. > Oh and I think that Perfectionist is just fine.

Johannes Walch wrote: > I still think Undead Strength inferior is worse than Targets Vitals > (also in response to LSJ/XZealot). But it's not "just worse". Undead Strength inf won't let the opponent cycle combat cards to reduce the damae to 1. It won't be completely prevented by a Flak Jacket or Glancing Blow.

[ quoted text not captured ] Flak Jacket and Glancing Blow aren't exactly running rampant in the games I play if they are seen at all. most vamps who can prevent it, could also prevent the complete undead strength strike (with cycling one card). Also without IG anyone who could discard 2 cards to cancel TV probably could've "cancel" the undead strength somehow (dodge, S:CE etc.)

[ quoted text not captured ] You have to take synergy into account though. how many decks that ARE playing US, will not be making use of IG?

On Sep 29, 4:59 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > Furthermore TV has a positive strategic standpoint, because you will > come on with a standard h1 strike an opponent may be inclined to save > his dodge or S:CE for a worse strike after which you can play the TV > whereas undead strength gives away all the information at once. You have to play TV when choosing your strike, thus giving away the same amount of information at the same time. -witness1

On Sep 29, 4:59 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > TV works on all strikes(+) Cancels press (+)...About the Discarding > two to cancel it; odds are one of the discarded cards could've been > used to save from the TV as well (dodge, prevent, S:CE etc). Sure. But it still has yet another out (discarding two combat cards) that other cards don't have. It is a strong card. It is hardly overpowered. And still, I'd never use a TV instead of a Carrion Crows in an ANI rich deck. > Furthermore TV has a positive strategic standpoint, because you will > come on with a standard h1 strike an opponent may be inclined to save > his dodge or S:CE for a worse strike after which you can play the TV You play Target Vitals when declaring the strike. You don't get to hide till they determine theirs. > well comparing one card with a combination of 2 is no good. > Hey....thrown gate is bad because Fake out + Thrown Sewer Lid > rules...mhhh The point is that the capability was already there. And heck, even just a WWS is doing more damage in the long run as a single card than TV. And you can't cancel WWS with a point of damage prevention. -Peter

On Sep 29, 4:29 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > I still think Undead Strength inferior is worse than Targets Vitals > (also in response to LSJ/XZealot). If you are playing all pot, don't play Undead Strength. But even then, +1 damage for certain is no worse than +2 damage that is conditional. Certainly not worse enough to justify calling it strictly inferior. -Peter

Peter D Bakija schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] Even if you consider them to have an equal effect (+1 vs. +2 conditional) one requires an inferior discpline while the other doesn´t. So US seems inferior to me.

LSJ schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] Right. But it requires pot. TV requires nothing.

[ quoted text not captured ] Right. But it's not "just worse".

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, perhaps I am entangled in the slightly different meanings of english words and cannot express my thoughts very well sometimes. What I meant to say is: If I have a deck that uses a lot of pot, I would put TV instead of US.

Johannes Walch wrote: > What I meant to say is: > If I have a deck that uses a lot of pot, I would put TV instead of US. OK. That may work better in some environments, sure.

On Sep 29, 9:19 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > Even if you consider them to have an equal effect (+1 vs. +2 > conditional) one requires an inferior discpline while the other doesn´t. > So US seems inferior to me. Undead Strength is kind of a basic measuring stick for cards. It requires a discipline. It does +1 or +2 damage at various levels. It does not cost blood. It is a nice, solid, reasonable card. Target Vitals, when compared to Undead Strength does not require a discipline (which is a plus, but if you are playing a potence based combat deck, mostly irrelevant). Does +2 damage instead of +1 (POT Undead Strength strikes me as strictly superior to TV), but the damage is conditional--it doesn't happen a lot of the time. Which strikes me as a wash. The press prevention is a minior bonus, but not huge one way or the other. If you are building an all pot based combat deck, I could see an argument for using Target Vitals instead of Undead Strength. But if you are building an all pot based combat deck, there are probably lots of other options too, most of which will take the place of Target Vitals anyway, as if you are building an all pot based combat deck, you probably weren't going to be using Undead Strength, either (the viable pot based combat decks I have seen generally revolve around fortitude prevent/Disarm, Torn Signpost/CEL Blur, or CEL ranged Sewer Lids. None of which tend to use Undead Strength anyway). It is possible that one could argue that the existence of TV makes a pure weenie pot/IG/TS/TV deck pretty good. But not significantly better than pure weenie pot/IG/TS/PtL or even pure weenie pot/IG/TS/US, due to the conditionality of Target Vitals. So claiming that Target Vitals is strictly superior to Undead Strength is kind of missing context completely. -Peter

On Sep 29, 8:12 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > Flak Jacket and Glancing Blow aren't exactly running rampant in the > games I play if they are seen at all... Which doesn't mean that such is true elsewhere. Unless you have a complete knowledge of every metagame in the world, which you obviously don't, it's just not possible to argue that Vitals is categorically better than Undead Strength in every situation. John Eno

On Sep 29, 4:45 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > It's not dubious at all. A comparison between disciplinless cards that > enhance the damage of a strike. Yes. But Lucky Blow is a bad card. It isn't worth comparing anything to it as it is below the power curve. Bad. Not good. So not worth looking at as a comparison. > Ofc we also can take Shoulder Drop into the equation. Shoulder Drop is, more or less, just better than Lucky Blow. 'Cause Lucky Blow isn't a good card. > I for myself would not consider taking undead > strength into a deck nowadays since I rather will take TV. If you have reliable POT, Undead Strength is better. If you do not have reliable POT, lots of other strategies are better to follow than just replacing Undead Strength with Target Vitals, and Target Vitals isn't going to likely mix in all that well. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] as well as you can't argue the other-way around (i.e. US being better than TV). But anyhows one of the great strengths of TV is imo that it can be played on all damaging strikes (notably: long range strikes and Catatonic Fear)

On Sep 29, 10:42 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > But anyhows one of the great strengths of TV is imo that it can be > played on all damaging strikes (notably: long range strikes and > Catatonic Fear) Sure. But that doesn't make it just better than Undead Strength. That makes it just different than Undead Strength. Yes--Catatonic Fear+TV is brutal. But then, as combat is ending, your opponent is far more likely to have the combat cards to discard ("Oh, you S:CE? I guess I'll discard this Taste and this Blur to foil the Target Vitals then...") No one is saying that Target Vitals isn't a good card. It is strong. But less so, I suspect, than a lot of people envision it to be. Especially in combat heavy play environments (where it is likely that you'll run into regular damage prevention and other combat decks). -Peter

On Sep 29, 3:57 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > And still, I'd never use a TV instead of a Carrion Crows > in an ANI rich deck. Not instead no. But in addition to, sure -- since (and this is the root of the problem) TV can enchance almost any strike. Oh, and it also kills presses. Carrion Crows + Aid From Bats + Target Vitals is a killer combat package, as an example, and all it needs is ANI. I (still) consider TV to be overpowered, and a bad card since it more or less wallpapers lots of other disciplineless cards, and even many discipline cards. In all too many cases, just chucking in tons of TV is a lot more effective combatwise than actually using combat disciplines. Sure, it fails against Flak Jacket or Nephandus. So what? Lots of things fail vs Nephandus, and as for Flak Jackets... well, when was the last time you saw those used? *In theory* it might have looked like a balanced card on the design team "drawing table". Practice has shown that the disadvantages of the card are totally overshadowed by the huge benefits (+2 without disciplines to almost any strike, and kills opponent presses). Meh. //Petri

On Sep 29, 10:42 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > as well as you can't argue the other-way around (i.e. US being better > than TV). Which is why no one has done so. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] losing these cards for another opportunity where they might be needed. The general argument is that one can "cycle" cards to cancel TV. Combat light decks usually have not 2 in hand or will find a better use than to cancel a TV (unless it's critical). Combat heavy decks most often rely on a certain combo of cards in hand to pull of the combat, so discarding two is not always something they want to do either because they have to discard something they need or they redraw into some form of hand jam which they hadn't before. It's not a measly cycling of cards. More often it hurts imo. And i really like Tv for Renegade and Ossian :)

On Sep 29, 10:51 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Yes--Catatonic Fear+TV > is brutal. Having played a bunch of decks that used that combo, I have to disagree somewhat. It's really in the same boat as other uses of Target Vitals (including a combo-less use of just the card itself): it only performs well when your opponent wasn't really doing anything to you anyway. Fear+Vitals is pretty good against decks that don't have combat, and is especially funny in that it is S:CE that beats opposing S:CE, but all of the Big Three combat strategies (guns, Grapple/pummel, Bats/ Crows) beat it or ignore it, so it's not particularly great as a proactive combat strategy. It's also cute that it theoretically beats damage prevention, but as you point out above, in practice that just leads to people discarding their prevention cards to cancel Vitals, and unmodified Catatonic Fear isn't likely to put a hurting on anyone. A special note should be made here, though, that the Fear+Vitals combo is especially effective when used against Josh Feuerstein, who finds it really annoying. Hi Josh! John Eno

xcver wrote: > losing these cards for another opportunity where they might be > needed. > > It's not a measly cycling of cards. More often it hurts imo. Of course, cycling the cards is optional. And having the option is better than not having the option.

On Sep 29, 10:31 am, Petri Wessman <or...@orava.org> wrote: (about Target: Vitals) > > Sure, it fails against Flak Jacket or Nephandus. So what? Lots of > things fail vs Nephandus, and as for Flak Jackets... well, when was > the last time you saw those used? > Umm... how about all the time? Maybe Target:Vitals is so good in your metagame because the cards that totally hose it are never used? Maybe if you're having so much trouble with it, you should use some of those cards? Now, I'll agree that T:V is generally better than Undead Strength. It doesn't wallpaper US, because it's not universally better in every situation, but in general, I think they're at least comparable, which is bad because T:V is disciplineless. But Undead Strength is no longer the class of potence. It's not nearly the best thing that Potence can do. Potence is a good combat discipline because it has Torn Signpost, Preternatural Strength, Slam, Earthshock, and especially Immortal Grapple and Disarm. Plus some of the other situationally useful stuff like Stunt Cycles and Lids. T:V is not better than those cards. Some of them it really doesn't compare against because it does totally different things. But regardless, even if disciplineless combat has T:V which may be better than Undead Strength and Mighty Grapple, it's not like Potence can't compete, because those cards aren't what makes Potence go. And Disarm and IG are REALLY GOOD. T:V is strong. Maybe too strong for an uncommon - would be nice if we could actually get enough in quantities to be able to use it. But I find it really hard to believe that it breaks the game in any meaningful way. I've seen it pop up in a lot of decks, and I suspect that John Flournoy has been trying to break it. It's good, but it's just not broken. And the beauty of the card is that the more combat you see in your metagame, the weaker it suddenly becomes. At some point, it's just a hand-cycler for your opponent. Put it this way, if you're prepared for combat at all, you're prepared for T:V.

On 29 syys, 18:31, Petri Wessman <or...@orava.org> wrote: > I (still) consider TV to be overpowered, and a bad card since it more > or less wallpapers lots of other disciplineless cards, and even many > discipline cards. I have to disagree with you there. WWS is still good, Zip Gun is even better than before, and damaging disciplineless strikes are as useless as they were the day they were printed. You can't turn wallpaper into wallpaper. >In all too many cases, just chucking in tons of TV > is a lot more effective combatwise than actually using combat > disciplines. Maybe if you only have inferior Potence and can't Throw Gates with Increased Strength but outside of that I can't think of any examples where that would be true. > On Sep 29, 3:57 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > > And still, I'd never use a TV instead of a Carrion Crows > > in an ANI rich deck. > > Not instead no. But in addition to, sure -- since (and this is the > root of the problem) TV can enchance almost any strike. Oh, and it > also kills presses. > > Carrion Crows + Aid From Bats + Target Vitals is a killer combat > package, as an example, and all it needs is ANI. IMHO Carrion Crows+Aid From Bats+Aid From Bats is even better ;) Preventing the opponent's presses is theoretically nice but it's pretty rare for a deck to be able to press out but not be able to cancel TV.

On Sep 29, 11:31 am, Petri Wessman <or...@orava.org> wrote: > Carrion Crows + Aid From Bats + Target Vitals is a killer combat > package, as an example, and all it needs is ANI. Just Bats and Crows was totally sufficient for killing minions long before Vitals was ever printed. I'm not sure why you'd bother putting Vitals into such a combat package, since it doesn't actually address that package's weaknesses (S:CE and long-ranged hitback). > In all too many cases, just chucking in tons of TV > is a lot more effective combatwise than actually using combat > disciplines. Can you give some examples of what you think are those combat packages which are so much worse than a pile of Vitals? > Practice has > shown that the disadvantages of the card are totally overshadowed by > the huge benefits... ...in your playgroup. In mine, and in Peter's, and probably in other combat-heavy playgroups, that's just not true. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] Target Vitals is a so so card, useful in specific decks, but dies to any decent form of combat. If you have For/Flak Jacket/Guardian Angel/ Sideslip it withers. If you have a meta that has no combat, yeah I can see TV being a problem for you. But if there is even a slight amount of combat/ anti-combat, it is really no big deal.

On Sep 29, 7:54 am, Pullen <mattp3...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > As for the under play testing of the game I don't know any specifics; > but the cards to me seem to have been getting better over all in the > past few sets without wallpapering the old cards (except some crappy > ones) which shows to me that the level of play testing is fine. The problem I see with Target: Vitals and Perfectionist would be that they more or less wallpaper a few cards in the same set, since they're a bit stronger/easier to use than the other aims and archetypes. And this could, in some way, be traced back to play testing I guess. I wouldn't say that it's a huge problem though, but Target: Vitals is probably a bit too strong (the same way Freak Drive and Govern the Unaligned is, which is part of why I love the game).

In message <gbqm3q$mi8$1...@news01.versatel.de>, Johannes Walch <johanne...@vekn.de> writes: >LSJ schrieb: >> Right. But it's not "just worse". > >Well, perhaps I am entangled in the slightly different meanings of >english words and cannot express my thoughts very well sometimes. What LSJ is trying to suggest, I think, is that while you may or may not prefer a given card for the most part, it's not strictly worse than the other card. That is, there are situations where you might favour one over the other. If it was "just worse", there'd be no situations in which Undead Strength was better - or possibly they'd be so ridiculously unlikely as to be not worth considering. ("Well, if you bring out Arika, and I have a Werewolf Pack, and then someone else plays...") The canonical example here is usually a Better Kine Resources Contested, which gives you 5 points to split instead of 4, or a Worse one that only gave you 3. Obviously, there are obvious situations in which TV is going to be better than US, when both are possible choices. Me, I'd possibly favour a mix of the two anyway, so you can stack both if you want. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

On Sep 29, 11:31 am, Petri Wessman <or...@orava.org> wrote: > Not instead no. But in addition to, sure -- since (and this is the > root of the problem) TV can enchance almost any strike. Oh, and it > also kills presses. I gotta say--I was playing Target Vitals in an ANI combat deck. With tons of Bats and tons of Carion Crows. Figuring exactly the same thing you were--it stacks, it'll always be good. But in practice, it rarely paid off, and I usually just wished it was another Carrion Crows. And so eventually, I swapped them out for Carrion Crows. And was in no way disapointed. -Peter

On Sep 29, 11:39 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > losing these cards for another opportunity where they might be > needed. They are cards you would have played if combat didn't end. But combat did end. So you get to both cycle some combat cards and prevent 2 damage. A reasonable trade off. -Peter

Johannes Walch wrote: > > Right. But it requires pot. TV requires nothing. This sentence taken out of context, or put in a different context, takes on a completely new meaning... For instance if the sentence prior to this one was: "Getting high is better than Television!" best - chris -- Super Fun Cards www.superfuncards.com *NEW Website!* auct...@superfuncards.com

Peter D Bakija wrote: > In article > <d9215444-ac93-467b...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, > as...@hotmail.com wrote: > >> The existence of Target Vitals (compared to the other Target-cards) >> and the existence of Perfectionist (compared to the other archetype- >> cards) and the existence of Imbued (compared to any other VtES-cards) >> hints that White Wolf don´t do enough playtesting. > > Yeah, I don't know that that is remotely true. > > Perfectionist indicates that they realized that the rest of the > Archetypes were too weak. So made Perfectionist (and Monster) which is > actually a good card. Do you really think that, say, Creep Show is a > good card, and that it was *bad* that it was effectively wallpapered by > Perfectionist? > Do you mean Capitalist here? I mean seriously, Perfectionist is "just better" than Capitalist. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <P3aEk.830$Dk4...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>, librarian <auct...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > Do you mean Capitalist here? I mean seriously, Perfectionist is "just > better" than Capitalist. In a general sense, sure, but Capitalist really isn't that bad--it gives you a blood for what you were doing anyway; if you are, like, a !Malk S+B deck? Capitalist is arguably the way to go; you get the blood for successfully bleeding (which was your plan anyway) and you don't get foiled by a reaction card. With Perfectionist, if your prey plays some intercept or bounce (which is likely if you are an S+B deck), the Perfectionist doesn't pay off. With Capitalist, you are getting the blood regardless. I mean, still, Perfectionist is probably more effective in a grand sense (as it helps when you hunt or whatever too), but I have certainly built decks that used a bunch of Capitalist in them. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" -Gaff

In article <957eb5da-6453-484c...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, sg3kmb6...@gmail.com wrote: > The problem I see with Target: Vitals and Perfectionist would be that > they more or less wallpaper a few cards in the same set, since they're > a bit stronger/easier to use than the other aims and archetypes. To go back to that point, Perfectionist more or less wallpapers other Archetypes from a previous set (as apparently, they were determined to be lame); Target Vitals is mostly better than Head (although I can see how Head got designed the way it did vs Vitals), much better than Hand (unless you really want to destroy weapons), and Leg is just awful. But that is ok; we can live with 1 or 2 bad cards out of a set of 4 using a new mechanic. > And > this could, in some way, be traced back to play testing I guess. Not necessarily--Lords of Night has a lot of new cards. It seems likely that playtesters focused on the ones that were obviously too strong, or potentially too strong; cards that look weak might end up getting the short straw in playtesting. > I wouldn't say that it's a huge problem though, but Target: Vitals is > probably a bit too strong (the same way Freak Drive and Govern the > Unaligned is, which is part of why I love the game). I think Vitals is clearly a strong, effective card. That doesn't mean it is too good. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sep 29, 10:27 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > To go back to that point, Perfectionist more or less wallpapers other > Archetypes from a previous set (as apparently, they were determined to > be lame); Target Vitals is mostly better than Head (although I can see > how Head got designed the way it did vs Vitals), much better than Hand > (unless you really want to destroy weapons), and Leg is just awful. But > that is ok; we can live with 1 or 2 bad cards out of a set of 4 using a > new mechanic. Bravo and Loner are from the same set as Perfectionist though, and are kinda crap when compared (the other ones from the set is harder to compare since the work in some different ways). Target Legs would've been decent if it had done maybe 1 extra damage and didn't have the restriction on what maneuvers it disabled and I can certaintly see Target Hand being useful in some decks and metagames. And the only thing that's better with Target Head is that it's cheaper imo. If I was afraid of additional strikes I still think Vitals would be more useful since it's harder to cancel via discarding. Also, from my experience, 2 combat cards is quite a lot even for a dedicated combat deck. > > And this could, in some way, be traced back to play testing I guess. > > Not necessarily--Lords of Night has a lot of new cards. It seems likely > that playtesters focused on the ones that were obviously too strong, or > potentially too strong; cards that look weak might end up getting the > short straw in playtesting. Yeah, I'm sure they do. And I'm thankful for that, since I'd rather have a set with 10 crap cards than a set with 10 broken cards :p That doesn't really change the fact that the "problem" with aim cards can be traced to playtesting. The cards that gets the short straw might have been looked at more if more time had been given, or something like that. Then again, I don't know how much time is given or what the playtesters are told to do... > I think Vitals is clearly a strong, effective card. That doesn't mean it > is too good. I'm not sure what I think of it yet. Instinct tells me it's a bit too strong, but I haven't really played or seen it played enough to give any real statement. I doubt it'll be PtO-strong or something like that, but that doesn't mean it's a well balanced card either.

[ quoted text not captured ] personally, i think carrion crows is a bit overpowered, myself, but that's a whole new thread.... :) -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

[ quoted text not captured ] imo US got obsolete for potence decks with slam. The added maneuver is just too good to pass upon. Since the emergence of Slam and TV I haven't seen US in any deck since a long time

[ quoted text not captured ] > aucti...@superfuncards.com But TV requires a TV and antenna and cables and electricity. pot just requires pot and some way of burning it..... ;)

On Sep 29, 6:21 pm, sg3kmb613sdf...@gmail.com wrote: > That doesn't really change the fact that the "problem" with aim cards > can be traced to playtesting. The cards that gets the short straw > might have been looked at more if more time had been given, or > something like that. Then again, I don't know how much time is given > or what the playtesters are told to do... Given the last statement, I don't see how you can make the first statement with a straight face. - D.J.

On Sep 30, 6:03 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > imo US got obsolete for potence decks with slam. The added maneuver is > just too good to pass upon. Since the emergence of Slam and TV I > haven't seen US in any deck since a long time I dunno, Undead Strength is still good in POT/ani decks that use Drawing out the Beast. And POT/cel (where the cel is mostly for Flash providing manuvers and presses, rather than additional strikes most of the time). Slam is really good in mono POT decks, but the blood cost isn't a non issue. Although long before Slam came out, I was kind of fond of Torn Signpost/IG/Mighty Grapple for a punch for 4 and a press. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Agreed, way above the powercurve, 2 ranged environmental damage per round at superior is incredibly powerful. I doubt anyone would have raised any objections if it has been costed at 1 blood when it was first introduced.

[ quoted text not captured ] How do you mean? Assuming that playtesting takes place I think that badly designed cards can be traced back to that process, or did I say something else?

On 28 Sep, 16:21, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article > <727fe7d0-b60f-4e91-ac54-409ebc635...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > Why not compare Perfectionist with the archetypes that does the same > > thing, only worse? Like Capitalist or Guru or Loner etc., instead of > > one that does something completely different? Creep Show is decent. > > I'm comparing Perfectionist to other Archetypes. 'Cause you can only use > 1 Archetype at the time. So the cost of using any Archetype is that you > can't then use another Archetype. So you need to pick the Archetype you > are going to include in your deck and go with it. The vast majority of > the time? Perfectionist makes the cut well before any of the others. > > Monster is good. Perfectionist is broken, and I think anyone could see > > that just by looking at the card. Except the White Wolf design team, > > which is sad. > > On the grounds of what is Perfectionist "Broken"? It is a Master card > that gives you 1 blood a turn. Maybe. Compare to: > > -Hunting Ground: Cost 2 pool (-). Always works (+). Can go on any > vampire (+). Unique (-) > > -Rack: Can be stolen (-). Gives you 2 blood (+). Always works (+). > Unique (-). > > -Houngan: Costs 1 pool (-). Unique (-). Only on Samedi (-). Always works > (+). Can give you 2 blood if you really want (+). Can be stolen > (unlikely). > > -Palatial Estate: Costs 2 blood (-). Unique (-). Always works (+). Not > master card (+). > > Seems that Perfectionist is totally in line with all of these. It is non > unique (+) and free (+). But doesn't always work (-). Strong, sure. > Broken? Not by any definition I can imagine. This +/- -thing is really funny. Who are you to decide which factors should be included in the above? Why stick a + to the Palatial Estate but not a - to it, because it takes an action to put in play? > > It´s the same thing here. Target Vitals is unbelievably strong > > (compare to discipline-cards like Carrion Crows and Undead Strenght > > for example). > > Ok. Carrion Crows always works (+). Isn't strike damage (+). Lasts all > combat (+). Isn't prevented by 1 point of damage resistance (+). Or > dodge (+). Target Vitals would *never* make the cut in a deck over a > Carrion Crows for my money. Undead Strength always works (+). Isn't > avoidable by 1 point of damage prevention or discarding 2 combat cards > (+). I'm hard pressed to see a situation where I'd use Target Vitals > over Undead Strength in a deck with moderately reliable POT. And have > trouble seeing it being worth using it in a deck with mostly pot (as I > probably wouldn't be using Undead Strength anyway). > > Target Vitals is really good in decks that didn't have other good combat > options already. It isn't so much in decks that did. > > > Target Head is ok, the other Target-cards are collecting > > dust in the bottom of my closet. > > Sure. 'Cause they are limited focus and not great. That doesn't mean > that Target Vitals is broken. > > > Anyone could see it just by looking > > at the card and comparing to other cards. Except White Wolf. But maybe > > LSJ thought that it was absolutely necessary for Smudge or Procurer to > > be able to strike for 3, who knows? > > How is it bad that Smudge or Procurer can strike for 3? If their > opponent can't: > > -Maneuver to long range > -Dodge > -S:CE > -Prevent 1 damage > -Discard 2 combat cards > > Smudge and Procurer already *could* strike for 3 (heck, even 4! with a > bunch of cards) without much trouble (WWS+Lucky Blow+Pulled Fangs). More > reliably. And they weren't tearing up the pea patch. Are you serious? TW = 1 card, Lucky Blow+Pulled Fangs = 2 cards. I don ´t see any point with a discipline-less combat card that does +2 damage. If you don´t understand this, I´m sorry. > > I´ve written about this a thousand times. "All possible issues"??! The > > complicated new mechanic IS the issue, so why introduce it at all? > > Again, not much playtest is needed to realize this. > > How is the complicated mechanic an issue? Other than a few unfortunate > cards and wording issues, the Imbued are fine. Certainly now that a > couple cards have been removed from the mix. Why introduce it at all? It > is interesting. A lot of people like the Imbued. I mean, yeah, kind of a > pain in the ass, in the "look at all the crap on the table" kind of way. > But hardly devastating the play environment now that Memories and > Explosion are gone. A lot of people fuckin HATE the imbued. NoR could have been interesting, if it was more like VtES instead of it own little stupid game, scaring off newbies, making games take a hundred years to play etc etc. It has been written tons of threads about this - try google it if you still don´t get it.

On 28 Sep, 13:53, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <727fe7d0-b60f-4e91-ac54-409ebc635...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroup > > s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: > >Perfectionist is broken, and I think anyone could see > >that just by looking at the card. Except the White Wolf design team, > >which is sad. > > Could you clarify what you mean by broken here? Broken is usually taken > to mean something game-breaking - Return to Innocence, old Thoughts > Betrayed, and so on. > > - Radically overpowered? Not really. It's only one blood a turn. > > - Causes you to have to play it or play against it? Well, you certainly > can play it a lot, but you don't have to - many, many decks in the > TWDA without it. You don't have to thwart it, although you can try to > if you want to. It may also be worth noting that weenie Auspex (and > wall decks generally) are often popular, causing some issues. > > - Undermines the predator-prey dynamic? No. > > - Wildly inappropriate for the game (like Madness or old Monocle)? > Doesn't seem to be. > > It is: > > - Better than various other cards of the same type, but that can just > indicate that those cards are bad. (e.g. Lost in Crowds is good, and > Stealth Ritus is fairly poor - but that doesn't mean Lost in Crowds is > broken) > > - Easy to include in many decks - but so's Blood Doll, The Barrens, > Dreams of the Sphinx, and plenty of other useful cards. > > Neither of these means a card is broken - they can just indicate a good > card. If you've printed some bad cards for a particular mechanic, at > some point you just have to cut your losses and run. You can make some > cards better by printing more support around them - this Anarch card > isn't good enough to make it worth playing in isolation, but with some > more Anarch support in this set, it's a possible include - but some > mechanics just don't have that possibility. > > The bottom line is that if Perfectionist had never been printed, various > of the archetypes still wouldn't see use outside of draft, hugely corner > case decks, or fun challenges. Master cards are a precious resource, > and there are a huge number of good cards competing for space in any > given deck, and several of the archetypes just don't cut the mustard, > regardless of Perfectionist. Sorry, not 'broken' then, I mean´t 'strongly overpowered'. Happy now? Do you understand me? I think Perfectionist should have been a bit less strong, the unplayable archetypes should have been a bit stronger, and the same for TV and the bad aimcards.

On 1 Okt., 09:08, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > A lot of people fuckin HATE the imbued. NoR could have been > interesting, if it was more like VtES instead of it own little stupid > game, scaring off newbies, making games take a hundred years to play > etc etc. It has been written tons of threads about this - try google > it if you still don´t get it.- Zitierten Text ausblenden - I second that

In message <2a5dc0a4-9222-4954...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroup s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: >Sorry, not 'broken' then, I mean´t 'strongly overpowered'. Happy now? >Do you understand me? What's "strongly overpowered" about it? It doesn't seem strongly overpowering. It is better than various of the other archetypes. Remove the other archetypes from the game. Assume they'd never been printed. Is the card itself "strongly overpowered"? It's one blood a turn, if you act, and if no-one thwarts it (either intentionally or incidentally). What's "strongly overpowered" about one blood a turn? >I think Perfectionist should have been a bit less strong, If it's "strongly overpowered", making it only "a bit less strong" seems insufficient. Is your issue that: - the card is better than (most) other Archetypes or - the card is too good for the game? If the former, that doesn't matter. Many of the other archetypes are trash. That Perfectionist is good doesn't mean they're not trash. If Perfectionist were removed, they'd still be trash. If the latter - as indicated by "strongly overpowered" and the former claim of "broken" - it certainly doesn't seem to be wrecking games. It doesn't force people to play it - some do, some don't, there are many decks with and without. It provides a potentially good source of blood, but it's hard to believe that that's overpowered in itself - there are plenty of other ways of gaining blood reliably. I'm just not seeing the too good to exist factor. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Oct 1, 3:08 am, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > This +/- -thing is really funny. Who are you to decide which factors > should be included in the above? The guy writing the list. Who am I not to decide? > Why stick a + to the Palatial Estate > but not a - to it, because it takes an action to put in play? 'Cause compared to a master card, equipping is generally easier, as you only get 1 MPA a turn. For my money, when comparing things that do similar things (i.e. Palatial Estate vs a master card that gives you 1 blood a turn), that it is an equip action is an advantage. You might disagree. Go nuts. > Are you serious? TW = 1 card, Lucky Blow+Pulled Fangs = 2 cards. I don > ´t see any point with a discipline-less combat card that does +2 > damage. If you don´t understand this, I´m sorry. What I don't understand is your sentence. What does "I don't see any point with a discipline-less combat card that does +2 damage." mean? If you mean that you can't see why a disciplineless combat card should do +2 damage, well, I don't know what to tell you. It is a good card. But hardly a no brainer, and doesn't work as often as it does. > A lot of people fuckin HATE the imbued. Great. And a lot of people don't. A lot of people hate rush combat. A lot of people hate being killed in 5 minutes by S+B. A lot of people hate having their minions stolen by Setites. So what? -Peter

On Oct 1, 3:43 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <2a5dc0a4-9222-4954-875e-dcab0a4ea...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroup > s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: (re: Perfectionist) > >Sorry, not 'broken' then, I mean´t 'strongly overpowered'. Happy now? > >Do you understand me? > > What's "strongly overpowered" about it? It doesn't seem strongly > overpowering. > > It is better than various of the other archetypes. Remove the other > archetypes from the game. Assume they'd never been printed. Is the > card itself "strongly overpowered"? It's one blood a turn, if you act, > and if no-one thwarts it (either intentionally or incidentally). > > What's "strongly overpowered" about one blood a turn? > I think this is one of those cases where I want to argue both sides. One blood a turn is pretty damned strong - I wouldn't just write it off like that. Perfectionist doesn't guarantee a blood a turn, and again, it depends on your metagame. But let's assume for sake of argument that it's 1 blood per turn. Someone mentioned Palatial Estate already, 2 blood in order to get a blood per turn. Aaron's Feeding Razor, 1 pool in order to get a blood per turn only when you hunt. Inbase Discotek and Hunting Grounds - 2 pool in order to gain 1 blood per turn. In some way, Perfectionist is better than all those cards. It seems like with the archetype cards, they were trying to put some restrictions on the use of the cards such that you had to be doing something in tune with the "personality" or your deck in order to gain a blood. Gurus vote, Capitalists bleed, Curmudgeons block, Bravos fight, Conniver - well... should've been a trifle... Are these cards good in and of themselves? You know, I think they were good enough (most of them). You still see Guru and Capitalist in decks, but even though they are cornercase better than Perfectionist in the right situations, in general I think they would be better off swapped with Perfectionists, even in decks that do those things. If there were no Perfectionist, I'm confident that those two, at least, would see much more play. I don't know why they had to be Sabbat-only - that's certainly annoying. I suppose there are no capitalists in the Camarilla? It's not game-breaking. I'm not going to cry in my Cheerios because Perfectionist is too good. It's obviously better than most of the other archetypes, and I think that the other archetypes were more in line with both the power-curve of previous cards and with what I thought was the intent and flavor of this class of cards, but it certainly doesn't ruin V:TES. I think at the very least that Target:Vitals should not have prevented presses (very minor nerf to a still-strong card), and Perfectionist probably shouldn't have been printed at all. Perfectionist is a cop-out archetype in the role- playing game, too. It's like when you go to a job interview and they ask you what your biggest flaw is - "oh, I'm too much of a perfectionist. I need to do everything right. oh, and a workaholic too - I just have to work, work, work, all the time!" Player says, "my character is a Perfectionist. He doesn't like to fail at anything." GM says, "I don't think so... your character's new Nature is Pederast. Care to choose a Demeanor?" I'd have preferred if they'd chosen a different archetype instead for V:TES. Even Pederast woulda been better... ;)

In message <07bab9cb-125d-4193...@h60g2000hsg.googlegroup s.com>, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes: >I think this is one of those cases where I want to argue both sides. >One blood a turn is pretty damned strong - I wouldn't just write it >off like that. I'm not writing it off. It's a good effect, for sure. But "strongly overpowering"? I don't see it. >Aaron's >Feeding Razor, 1 pool in order to get a blood per turn only when you >hunt. Inbase Discotek and Hunting Grounds - 2 pool in order to gain 1 >blood per turn. Inbase Discotek is generally a poor comparison, much better to think of the Hungry Coyote. (This is in as much as IDF doesn't see much play, whereas Hungry Coyote does - compare the relative frequencies of them in the TWDA, and the age of the appearances, and I think HC is showing itself to be comfortably ahead.) Yes, the Coyote only affects the Sabbat - but it affects all of yours, no tapping. There's not much point comparing cards with cards that just don't see play if, as I suspect, the reason they don't see play is that they're not all that good. We could create a dozen cards that weren't as good as Coyote, and were on a par with cards that don't see much play. But what's the point of creating cards in that way? The new cards are unlikely to see much player either. Note also that there's plenty of good blood gain in other strategies (requiring either a discipline or a title or whatever else), and there's Giant's Blood too. Is Perfectionist better than Giant's Blood? I can see arguments for either or both. But what about compared to Voter Captivation? VC seems to blow Perfectionist away to me. Concert Tour or Renewed Vigor both seem stronger. Combat decks have the potentially very good Taste of Vitae, and Thaumaturgy has Theft of Vitae, which is still potentially great. (Yeah, simple aggro-poke lucks out a bit here, but that's no so unusual - it lucks out in a lot of places.) Much like Taste of Vitae is blood gain for doing what you're already wanting to do, Perfectionist is a bit like that for the rest of us - do your thing, get some blood. Of course, the mechanics are radically different (permanent master, slower, etc. vs potentially large slurp of a combat card), but it helps the rest of us - in a way that Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt, godluvvit, doesn't do in quite the same way. >If there >were no Perfectionist, I'm confident that those two, at least, would >see much more play. Yet there are many decks that don't include Perfectionist either, but aren't including Capitalist or Guru or whatever else. If these cards would see play without Perfectionist, but people aren't even playing Perfectionist in quite a few decks, it seems to be a problem. > I don't know why they had to be Sabbat-only - >that's certainly annoying. I suppose there are no capitalists in the >Camarilla? This - and the trifle point - I agree with. It's part of what makes several of them quite weak - expensive, not contributing as much as they could. With (for example) Hungry Coyote, the Sabbat restriction isn't so bad because the power level is much higher, so people will build around it. Much less incentive to do that with a poor card. I don't disagree that Perfectionist is better than most other archetypes (Monster is completely different, and there are a couple of situations where a couple of the others are okay) - but I simply can't see people stampeding to the other archetypes if Perfectionist vanished, when other cards are so much better. >I think at the very least that >Target:Vitals should not have prevented presses (very minor nerf to a >still-strong card), and Perfectionist probably shouldn't have been >printed at all. Target Vitals not preventing presses, I'm pretty much in line with. I don't see it as necessary, really. (And change the aimed location, if that was considered unrealistic - I don't care.) But I'm really not convinced that Perfectionist is so good that it's crowding out all these other archetypes which would just burst onto the scene were it not for Perfectionist. [ quoted text not captured ]

Chris Berger schrieb: > Perfectionist doesn't guarantee a blood a turn, and > again, it depends on your metagame. But let's assume for sake of > argument that it's 1 blood per turn. I found that to be not-so-true most of the time. From what I can see the introduction of On The Qui Vive lead to more wake-type reactions in perhaps any decktype. And since your Perfectionist is clearly visible they will try to use the cards on those actions, even if they can´t block. In reality Perfectionist has usually given me ~0,5 blood per turn. > Someone mentioned Palatial > Estate already, 2 blood in order to get a blood per turn. Aaron's > Feeding Razor, 1 pool in order to get a blood per turn only when you > hunt. Can´t compare since they aren´t masters. You can get the Estate and then Freak Drive for example, while Masters are usually limited to one per turn. Also Estate is a blood for sure, even without acting, which is just better. > Inbase Discotek and Hunting Grounds - 2 pool in order to gain 1 > blood per turn. In some way, Perfectionist is better than all those > cards. Not so. ID is an under-par card, no need to compare. Hunting Ground costs 2 pool but it allows you to choose the minion *and* it gives you the blood when you need it, during the untap phase (to be taken off by blood doll, preventing you from hunting ...). I have tried Perfectionist in a lot of decks in it only seemed to be worth including where you have lots of stealth and lots of actions (such as weenie obf). Otherwise it is hardly worth the Master slot.

On 1 Okt, 10:43, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <2a5dc0a4-9222-4954-875e-dcab0a4ea...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroup > > s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: > >Sorry, not 'broken' then, I mean´t 'strongly overpowered'. Happy now? > >Do you understand me? > > What's "strongly overpowered" about it? It doesn't seem strongly > overpowering. > > It is better than various of the other archetypes. Remove the other > archetypes from the game. Assume they'd never been printed. Is the > card itself "strongly overpowered"? It's one blood a turn, if you act, > and if no-one thwarts it (either intentionally or incidentally). > > What's "strongly overpowered" about one blood a turn? Everyone of your vamps can be Perfectionist. Compared to for example Hunting grounds, it is very easy blood gain. > >I think Perfectionist should have been a bit less strong, > > If it's "strongly overpowered", making it only "a bit less strong" seems > insufficient. > > Is your issue that: > - the card is better than (most) other Archetypes > or > - the card is too good for the game? > > If the former, that doesn't matter. Many of the other archetypes are > trash. That Perfectionist is good doesn't mean they're not trash. If > Perfectionist were removed, they'd still be trash. Well, I have nevered argued for the card to be removed. I just think that WW could bother to notice that some cards are too powerful and some are too weak PRIOR to printing the set, not after. I sick of buying boosters with wallpaper cards. But you seem to like it.

On 1 Okt, 14:53, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Oct 1, 3:08 am, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > > This +/- -thing is really funny. Who are you to decide which factors > > should be included in the above? > > The guy writing the list. Who am I not to decide? > > > Why stick a + to the Palatial Estate > > but not a - to it, because it takes an action to put in play? > > 'Cause compared to a master card, equipping is generally easier, as > you only get 1 MPA a turn. For my money, when comparing things that do > similar things (i.e. Palatial Estate vs a master card that gives you 1 > blood a turn), that it is an equip action is an advantage. You might > disagree. Go nuts. > > > Are you serious? TW = 1 card, Lucky Blow+Pulled Fangs = 2 cards. I don > > ´t see any point with a discipline-less combat card that does +2 > > damage. If you don´t understand this, I´m sorry. > > What I don't understand is your sentence. What does "I don't see any > point with a discipline-less combat card that does +2 damage." mean? I mean that the card it too damn strong. A card that do this should require a discipline. > If you mean that you can't see why a disciplineless combat card should > do +2 damage, well, I don't know what to tell you. It is a good card. > But hardly a no brainer, and doesn't work as often as it does. > > > A lot of people fuckin HATE the imbued. > > Great. And a lot of people don't. A lot of people hate rush combat. A > lot of people hate being killed in 5 minutes by S+B. A lot of people > hate having their minions stolen by Setites. So what? It´s not that I (and many others) hate losing to the Imbued. We hate playing against them, because of all the reasons stated in hundreds of postings at this newsgroup.

On Oct 1, 5:51 pm, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > > Great. And a lot of people don't. A lot of people hate rush combat. A > > lot of people hate being killed in 5 minutes by S+B. A lot of people > > hate having their minions stolen by Setites. So what? > > It´s not that I (and many others) hate losing to the Imbued. We hate > playing against them, because of all the reasons stated in hundreds of > postings at this newsgroup. It's not that I hate losing to [x]. We hate playing against it, because of all the reasons [x] annoys me personally. Because [x] annoys me so much, I think I'll post on the newsgroup that it's broken, badly designed, and a sign of poor playtesting. -witness1

In article <641702b6-b386-4a19...@j68g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > I mean that the card it too damn strong. A card that do this should > require a discipline. Meh. I'm ok with it. I'm yet to see it be particularly effective. Yeah, once and a while, it catches you by surprise and does some extra damage (I got a Garou killed by an ally one time due to a TV that I didn't see coming, yet now that I think about it, if I was paying attention, I probably had 2 combat cards in my hand I should have discarded...). A lot of the time, it doesn't do anything at all. It strikes me as a perfectly reasonable design decision to make people worry about combat more often now. > It�s not that I (and many others) hate losing to the Imbued. We hate > playing against them, because of all the reasons stated in hundreds of > postings at this newsgroup. And that's you. As noted, lots of people hate playing against Rush combat ("I don't get to take actions! I don't want to be forced to use combat defense!"). It isn't that they hate losing to Rush combat. It is that they don't like playing against it because of all the reasons stated in hundreds of postings on this newsgroup. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Good for you! Now if everybody that also hates [x] also posts, then you might not get more of [x] from White Wolf.

[ quoted text not captured ] That obviously worked for stealth and bleed cards. -witness1

In message <f22167b5-6e88-47ba...@u28g2000hsc.googlegroup s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: >On 1 Okt, 10:43, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> It is better than various of the other archetypes. �Remove the other >> archetypes from the game. �Assume they'd never been printed. �Is the >> card itself "strongly overpowered"? �It's one blood a turn, if you act, >> and if no-one thwarts it (either intentionally or incidentally). >> >> What's "strongly overpowered" about one blood a turn? > >Everyone of your vamps can be Perfectionist. Compared to for example >Hunting grounds, it is very easy blood gain. At the cost of a master phase action for each, of course. So, say, 4 Master Phase Actions, 4 cards drawn (how many in your deck?), and 4 vamps. Okay, all kitted out. On the flip-side, my Hunting Ground is doing just fine when I decide not to act for a turn. It's also portable - the blood can go on a vampire of my choice. The specifics vary in a few cases (e.g. Gurchon Hall), but generally so. My vampire gets dunked? Okay, Hunting Ground blood goes to... If you are looking to play 2, 3, 4... each one is, of course, cutting into other master cards you could play. This may well be cutting into you pool gain - Blood Doll, Vessel, Minion Tap etc. Or it could be cutting into your discard/cycling tech - Dreams, Barrens. Or your speed-up tech - Zillah's, Info Highway. Not the most fun in the world, and an interesting decision. Certainly, it's not a no-brainer as to what you cut, or how. An interesting strategic choice? I'd say so. One with an obvious answer? Possibly in a few decks - but generally? Don't see it. >Well, I have nevered argued for the card to be removed. I just think >that WW could bother to notice that some cards are too powerful and >some are too weak PRIOR to printing the set, not after. I sick of >buying boosters with wallpaper cards. But you seem to like it. Not really. Who wants wallpaper? However: - what *you* think of as wallpaper won't be true for everyone - opinions will vary over whether an open playtest is the best way to achieve this. Other people have suggested a potential improvement (better cross- fertilization between playtest groups) which seems to keep the benefits of the current system, while potentially making it much better in a hopefully manageable way. And given that tournament winning decks, as other people have noted, have been constructed around some of the "unplayable" cards you've listed, your opinions really are just that - opinions. Who's been arguing for wallpaper to be printed? No-one. Please, take your straw-men away. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 2 Okt, 22:22, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > And given that tournament winning decks, as > other people have noted, have been constructed around some of the > "unplayable" cards you've listed, your opinions really are just that - > opinions. What TWDs has been constructed AROUND cards I think suck? I haven´t seen any, I think. And I have never suggested that my opinions are anything else than opinions. > Who's been arguing for wallpaper to be printed? No-one. Please, take > your straw-men away. I´ll be thinking of you the next time I open a Poison the well of life- booster.

On Oct 3, 4:00 am, as...@hotmail.com wrote: > On 2 Okt, 22:22, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > > > And given that tournament winning decks, as > > other people have noted, have been constructed around some of the > > "unplayable" cards you've listed, your opinions really are just that - > > opinions. > > What TWDs has been constructed AROUND cards I think suck? I haven´t > seen any, I think. http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k8darkcellars2 (And note that the deckbuilder there says that they rock, and he needs more in there.) That's just the first one that comes to mind. - D.J.

[ quoted text not captured ] I'm not sure how necessary it is to poke holes in the "bleeding at +1 bleed and +1 stealth for 1 blood at an inferior discipline is not very good" theory...

[ quoted text not captured ] OK, I see, and the deck was built AROUND the card? But seriously, ok, that card is ok. Absolutely playable, although not worth it if I would build a stealth-bleed-setite-deck. But thats just me.

In message <6c2012d9-6be6-4061...@w32g2000hsf.googlegroup s.com>, as...@hotmail.com writes: >On 3 Okt, 17:21, Meej <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: >> http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k8darkcellars2 (And note >> that the deckbuilder there says that they rock, and he needs more in >> there.) >> >> That's just the first one that comes to mind. > >OK, I see, and the deck was built AROUND the card? Note that there are also six Messy Bedsheets, a card you also wrote off. >But seriously, ok, >that card is ok. Absolutely playable, although not worth it if I would >build a stealth-bleed-setite-deck. But thats just me. Lots of cards aren't necessary if you just build a stealth-bleed deck. If that were the only yard-stick for a playable card, the game would probably not extend into 3 figures of playable cards. Nice bits of Obfuscate, a few bits of Obtenebration, Dominate, Presence, Dementation... you don't need much else. But a card like Eternal Mask can be good, even when there are other options available to a given deck or clan. - You may be able to take advantage of a better / different[0] discipline spread. Example here, the Setites have ser available at 2 and 3 caps - they don't have obf/pre until you hit 4 and above. - Having it on one discipline can make other tasks easier. For example, breed-boon is a popular and potentially powerful mechanic[1], but you want something to do with the weenies you breed. Waters of Duat lets you bring out any one discipline card. You could decide to make that one card Serpentis and play cards such as Temptation and Eternal Mask. Do you have to? No, obviously not. But this is a potentially powerful deck-type that doesn't just rely on stealth-bleed, but uses it in tandem with another strategy. - The interesting / weird / challenging superior allows you to take advantage of odd situations, while having a perfectly playable inferior level. This is a problem with various other cards with mildly corner-case uses - if you don't have that situation turn up, the card is dead. Cyclable, usable, playable inferiors, and the Bloodlines fallback level, often facilitate interesting play. - Spirit Marionette, to go off on a tangent temporarily from the above point, is sometimes played with a horde of Dominate weenies. If the stealing strategy doesn't work, you just turn into a bleed deck. If the star vampire is pummelled, you turn into a bleed deck. Using the weeniefication of Serpentis, you could try something similar here, if you thought you had a good way to exploit the superior. - Library efficiency. Some players are meticulous about cutting decks down to 60 cards, others want to cram in 110 cards and are trying to find room. In either case, a more efficient card might help them out. Sure, they'll be different decks to yours, but there isn't only one best deck for each clan. - Use where stealth and bleed isn't possible. We've had all sorts of disciplines splashed in semi-random ways before. Who's to say Serpentis won't get splashed elsewhere later? Or you might be using Setites without Obf or Pre, but want some bleed power too. Or LSJ might design a whole clutch of Warrior Setites (POT/PRE/SER) in the future, and looky here, a card that doesn't suck for them. [0] Which is to say, it might not be a better crypt for any given library, but you might well be able to make a competitive library that goes about things in a different way. [1] Obviously, different playgroups will find it different - but it's hard to deny that good breed-boon can be effective, in the right hands. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Oct 1, 8:50 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > I have tried Perfectionist in a lot of decks in it only seemed to be > worth including where you have lots of stealth and lots of actions (such > as weenie obf). Otherwise it is hardly worth the Master slot. I'd go with decks that multiact as the best use of it. Even if you lack stealth, a Majesty here, an innocuous first action there ...

On Sep 26, 1:21 pm, Blooded Sand <sandm...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sep 26, 7:05 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > > The fact that for example some Potence cards are just worse and you > > > might consider playing TV in a deck with lots of inferior potence just > > > demonstrates that Potence is not a good discipline (Probably Peter will > > > disagree here), certainly so on inferior. > > > Which Potence card is worse than Target Vitals? > > Twisting the knife. Hah. I win! > > This is mostly a joke.... Same as twisting the knife really.... But I can cancel a Target Vitals with two Twisting the Knife but you can not cancel a a Twisting the Knife with two Target: Vitals. :P Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

> I still think Undead Strength inferior is worse than Targets Vitals > (also in response to LSJ/XZealot). You're nucking futs! (you are crazy) Target Vitals gets shut down easily and cycles the opposing minions hand. Players don't realize the cards that you can burn to cancel Target: Vitals. A few examples are -Swallowed by the Night -Steely Tenacity -Walk of Flame -Carrion Crows -Immortal Grapple -Pulled Fangs -Trap -and of course, Twisting the Knife You don't have to be able to play the combat card or be able to play it as a combat card to be able to use it to shut down Target: Vitals. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sep 29, 7:12 am, xcver <bernd.schw...@firstdata.de> wrote: > On 29 Sep., 12:24, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > Johannes Walch wrote: > > > I still think Undead Strength inferior is worse than Targets Vitals > > > (also in response to LSJ/XZealot). > > > But it's not "just worse". > > > Undead Strength inf won't let the opponent cycle combat cards to reduce the > > damae to 1. It won't be completely prevented by a Flak Jacket or Glancing Blow. > > Flak Jacket and Glancing Blow aren't exactly running rampant in the > games I play if they are seen at all. most vamps who can prevent it, > could also prevent the complete undead strength strike (with cycling > one card). Liar! I play with them all the time, and I play with you all the time. :P [ quoted text not captured ]