Thank you James, could this be the reason behind all those poor chaps out there with both protean and vicissitude (newest addition to the family:Xipe Totec), it doesn't seem like such a superb combo to design vamps around,but this is getting off topic, so thanks again for the answers.
> Marakh wrote:
> Thank you James, could this be the reason behind all those poor chaps out there with both protean and vicissitude (newest addition to the family:Xipe Totec), it doesn't seem like such a superb combo to design vamps around,but this is getting off topic, so thanks again for the answers.
>
No. Sometimes, like with Xipe, its canon. Xipe is pretending to be the actual ancient Xipe totec, btw.
But, most PRO VIC are just bad luck for the vampires, if its not canon. On the brightside, you have stealth, combat ends, and agg hands. On the downside, youre missing a whole discipline to have access to two aggpoke support disciplines.
I doubt anybody ever bothered playtesting reform body and dual form during kmw tests.
On the other hand, having both VIC and PRO allows you to play Xipe either in a VIC deck or a PRO deck.
You're not really supposed to play both at the same time.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Flesh of Marble could be quite handy for some combat defence with VIC. Just to keep those Potence King-Hit types off guard.
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
Redundancy has always been a huge balance problem in the game.
See Celerity + Potence for why Brujah and !Brujah have historically done far worse in tournament play than their peers.
Traveller Card Game
> ICL wrote:
> Redundancy has always been a huge balance problem in the game.
>
> See Celerity + Potence for why Brujah and !Brujah have historically done far worse in tournament play than their peers.
>
They win tourneys (brujah, at least) with cards like 2nd trad, carthage parts 1&2, p shift, etc often. The problem is you need fortitude with your celerity and potence to build a deck with it and use celerity and potence. Otherwise, you invest in vamps who hit hard, til one agg kills them. If a vanilla bru with 3 superior inclans fights Basilia, and plays signpost, increased strength, slam, grapple, blur, brute force and burning wrath, all basilia has to do is have rolling with the punches and hope the brujah doesnt have sideslip, and she wins easy.
Conversly, Pug Jackson is one of the most often seen support vamps for good bru combat usimg both potence and celerity, because he has 4 relevant disciplines and the damaging ones are superior. His title is the only useless thing printed on him.
Count germaine decks use this method, and some dimitra and germain ones. Forced march, high damagexoutput, good abilities, ability to prevent, and a small bit of bleed ability. Really, all bru being euro bru or at least having dom instead of pre woulda helped them in vtes. But you either vote and bleed or fight and bleed, and if yiu dont fight great, why build your deck to fight at all?
But. I HATE it when a vamp would be playable with a little different disciplines. Like every malk with inferior celerity(the worst inferior to have if you arent anarch or some with fortitude as well) would be better with inferior fortitude. Ive done ok with fortitude and potence malks. Celerity malks? Santaleous is coolish.
Huge vamps with inferior dominate who can multiact. Ok, doms still playable, i use deflections in g2 samedi, but big doms cooler.
Big vamps with little presence as out of clan. Brunhilde and Qayahablahblah would love dominate instead. Or, Q would like big aus and not pre.
Inner circles from the nosferatu clan. Theyd be playable with fortitude, flight, even serpentis. But niether of them has something worth one action a turn for 11 pool.
I also hate protean having such limited prevention but roughly 87 ways to dodge or manuever.
I hate how vic has a card as awesome as horrid form which is free with path out, but its a freaking rare, some i have 478 of every unplayable vic cmbat card, and like 2 horrid form.(could buy, havent yet)
I hate how gangrel got the shaft and thier only midcaps with sup inclans are g1, precon only $15 beckett, or uber cornercase shiloh marie.
I hatexnon slave gargoyles being nearly unplayable.
I love all the Nos justicars beiawesomely playable in combat or vote archetypes, or even bleeding.
I think some discipline spreads like:
Cel Ani, DOM FOR ANI, CEL FOR AUS, PRO DOM, CHI DEM,
Need proper crype cards printed to thrive. From now on, id also like to think of little celerity as inf viseratika. Because its about as useful.
I think gangrel with dom is the bestxplayable gangrel, and they should have it more.
Im done with my rant for now. Most other stuff is HoS shouldnt suck, abominationsxshould do something useful like recruit wolves, and how g2 tzimitsce are the best by far and its never been remedied.
I don't really agree with basic celerity being that bad, celerity is a support discpline anyway, for example cel/POT is so much better than just POT because you get good manuevers (and presses too if needed). I much rather have vampire with cel/POT than with CEL/pot for example.
Also you don't need fortitude to be able to do succesful combat decks, Nana for example is pretty nice without fortitude, so are Beast and Theo. Agg poke is fairly rare because it really isn't good since any kind of combat defense (manuevers, dodge, s:ce, prevent) foils it, and its absolutely useless against allies (barring some exceptions like ponticulus). The main issue that Brujah of all types (except euro) have is that they lack any kind of defense which forces you usually to waste too much resources going backwards.
On the topic of crappy inferior discplines, I would say auspex and animalism are pretty high in the list, all that basic auspex gives you is 567439 different ways to get +1 intercept, and basic animalism is just simply ineffective at doing anything. Basic protean is also pretty meh, giving you agg poke, free s:ce, and not much else. Basic dementation is also extremely underwhelming.
Also horrid form is not a rare, its an uncommon, and there was like 4 or something in the 3rd tzimisce starter.
Also, how is g2 tzimice being good a bad thing? And group 4-5 tzimisce is starting to approach similar levels of goodness (Ludmilja Racozky is totally awesome getting free read the winds and ani retainers), and group 5 still isn't finished, now they would just need a good 6 cap (if only Adhiambo would have had aus instead of that useless pot...), and perhaps a 4 cap that has all in-clans at basic with no crippling drawback (Jane Sims I am looking at you) and they would be pretty much set
> Klaital wrote:
> I don't really agree with basic celerity being that bad, celerity is a support discpline anyway, for example cel/POT is so much better than just POT because you get good manuevers (and presses too if needed). I much rather have vampire with cel/POT than with CEL/pot for example.
>
There is one card that is worth playing at (Flash). Everything else sucks. (Diversion and Hell-for-Leather notwithstanding)
> On the topic of crappy inferior discplines, I would say auspex and animalism are pretty high in the list, all that basic auspex gives you is 567439 different ways to get +1 intercept, and basic animalism is just simply ineffective at doing anything. Basic protean is also pretty meh, giving you agg poke, free s:ce, and not much else. Basic dementation is also extremely underwhelming.
>
Animalism at least has Drawing out the Beast and Terror Frenzy and Aid from Bats isn't utterly bad. Also Owl Companion and Raven Spy. Basic dementation is indeed sad.
Blur is also just fine at basic celerity, at least when combined with superior signpost, Resist Earth's Grasp is also just fine at basic celerity. And personally I would say all those free manuevers and dodges at basic celerity are also just fine, even if you probably wouldn't play them -just- for the inferior effect, but if your crypt is mixed basic and superior celerity, then they work just fine for those guys who only have basic too.
> Klaital wrote:
> Blur is also just fine at basic celerity, at least when combined with superior signpost, Resist Earth's Grasp is also just fine at basic celerity. And personally I would say all those free manuevers and dodges at basic celerity are also just fine, even if you probably wouldn't play them -just- for the inferior effect, but if your crypt is mixed basic and superior celerity, then they work just fine for those guys who only have basic too.
>
Yes, my comment was more in the vein that if all your crypt has is inferior version of Celerity, then the only card worth the inclusion is Flash. Maybe Blur (or Acrobatics, whatever) if your deck for some reason really wants additional strikes.
I've built a few decks with mostly inferior celerity and Flash was a good inclusion.
> Klaital wrote:
> I don't really agree with basic celerity being that bad, celerity is a support discpline anyway, for example cel/POT is so much better than just POT because you get good manuevers (and presses too if needed). I much rather have vampire with cel/POT than with CEL/pot for example.
>
For me, Celerity as a combat support discipline became a lot worse (relatively speaking) with the addition of Target Head and Target Vitals. With your common or garden strike - say, a Torn Signpost or a .44 Magnum - being able to Blur was pretty fun. But with Target Vitals, why not just add the +2 damage to the first strike? Obviously, yes, Dodge, Skin of Steel - you'd probably still rather have additional strikes there, so it's not totally a waste, but it seems less necessary to me. Conversely, that probably opens up various other strategies - it's much easier to aggropoke for 3 damage rather than just 1, for example, or you could do a wally gun deck that hit quite hard (without it being Aus/Cel), or something like that.
It's not that Celerity is useless - the maneuvers are still good, and additional strikes are fine if you have them. But it's a lot less "necessary" than it used to be.
Distraction is pretty good at inferior and a great staple card for decks that require to cycle/dump cards fast... like malk stealth bleed, for instance. You won't use many, sure, but not a wasted discipline slot at all.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day