Don't care. KHD usually matters more to links and if I do grab an Engineer I'd prefer a real cheap one compared to the opportunities that gives.
You know things are fucked when Mahtamori's the voice of reason. Goddamn. I had the opposite reaction when I saw the Evader; I see an elite gun on a dirt cheap trooper, but the important comparison is we're seeing a lot of skills on a profile with a nearly identical statline to the Haidao (even higher for PH and BTS). This tells me we're gonna see a base profile cost on the Haidao hit around 19 points, which should put the rest of the profiles into perspective; Haidao Red Fury is gonna land around 25 points, the KHD about 21 or 22, and the sniper about 32. This is a big deal for troop affordability, particularly in Vanilla YJ, putting the MSR within 3 points of Major Lunah. I don't think the Zhencha will get a particularly deep discount. Camo and Infiltration seem to be at a premium price point in N4, but I would be excited to see the SMG FO profile come in under 30 points. These profiles show some extremely exciting things for Yu Jing, if you're capable of extrapolating what they mean for NWI+SI HI, and HI in general. Knocking 4-5 points off HI means a lot of spare room in Invincible Army and Military Orders. The only real losers in this video are those poor Wildcats.
I think the Zhencha compares pretty reasonably to Sombras, especially in IA, but this is conjectural: Movement - If the pattern holds and most YJ HI end up 6-2, Climbing+ means that the Zhencha can go up to 6" vertically and still shoot, or 8" safely in camo, and then get off a surprise shot at some weird angle. Multiterrain is more broadly useful than Zero-G, since it means +1" movement in any special environment terrain, bringing that up to 7" of climbing plus movement. PH 13 gives paramedics a better chance to heal, and improves the odds to Dodge. If they got Dodge +1" or +2", you'd be able to move-dodge in active 10" straight up a building, but that's probably too optimistic. Lower BTS sucks, particularly due to hackability, but if Fairy Dust is still around and works similarly to N3, it'll help offset that, plus make the Zhencha more resistant to Spotlighting. Given the likely prevalence of hacking and Spotlight AROs, we may end up with a meta where turn 1 with IA always begins with a hacker putting up Fairy Dust. Theoretically being in camo state will also give the Zhencha some resistance to getting hacked while skulking about. Profiles: All three current Zhencha profiles are some kind of specialist. Presuming the AHD becomes a regular HD and the other two keep FO, that should mean all three can impose Targeted. Pair that with a Yan Huo for effective BS17 HRMC fun times, or just a Core linked Zhanshi LGL in your DZ. Yes, it would be nice to have a heavy weapon profile, but we also have Daofei, Guilangs, Tiger Soldiers, the Spitfire Liu Xing, and Hac Tao that can pair some kind of heavy weapon with some combination of armor, camo, and special deployment. Asking for yet another might be excessive. My wishlist is to just give them Shock Immunity like every other NWI (or bump them up to regular 2W, they're HI after all) and maybe add a Paramedic profile with a multi rifle and something weird like EM mines or some grenades.
I wouldn't be surprised if Zencha get Shock Immunity, but I don't want to get my hopes up. On the topic of Dao Fei I totally forgot they move 6-2 which is a nice advantage and would put them more or less on even footing with Sombras if they get a slight points discount
I'm really dumbfounded by the sombras. I honestly though this was everything they tried to avoid when designing the zhencha, and for good reasons, because the daofei is a really strong troop only kept in check by its cost and making a discount one is very, very dangerous for the internal balance of whatever sectorial's it'll be shoehorned in. Yet they went even further than that, they made it a non-hackable discount Daofei with non-hackable specialist profile and C+. I'm really wondering how the corgy players will feel a few months from now when they realize most of their lists starts with max AVA sombras and morans because duh, it's that good. Blatant power creep is never a good thing. Well, the online campaigns don't really help about that
So... Nobody's talking about that Sombra Red Fury and its full 1.5 SWC? Been looking forward to that change for years.
And this is right here is basically why YJ players are annoyed by CB's design, because it seems half our models get artificial limitations built in for the good of the game and then 3 months later new units without those limitations get released for other factions
I want to know what makes a Heavy Infantry, a Heavy Infantry? They have one guy that's MI, ARM3, BTS6, NWI and another that's HI, ARM3, BTS3, NWI. Both are even Mov4-4.
Hackable. So you want to delay the classification as long as possible. Edit: Guess that's not even true with the Ariadna about.
Except they specifically said they were discounting ARM, so 5 points seems like very low. Also, either EVAders are cheated AF or the hackable discount is much larger, as it should be. Also, you just made up that "every HI is coming down 5 points" [emoji16], if they were to give a flat discount without taking into account actual stats and skills that would be... lazy and bad
It's not a flat points reduction, IJW has made as much clear. It's also obviously not 5 points if you look at various units that are known so far. My personal fear at the moment is that the grand total discounts might actually be too high, but we shall see when we have a more full picture.
Flat discount sound bad. It promotes cheap, over optimised HI much more than elite beaters. 5 points for 25 point model is way bigger deal than it is for 50. Hand adjusted discount is also bad, CB can just say: we don't want this old unit to be as good as this new shiny one we want to sell, and boom, suddenly there is point incentive to play new unit. But something like 10-15% discount seems fair. The more expensive the unit the more it is vulnerable to hacking in a way, similar or the same odds of being rendered useless in 1 aro no matter if you cost 20 of 60. This way the more you cost the more you are discounted for a fact that you can get 1shot isolated or something like that. And looking at the price of sujian it kinda looks this way. Spitfire is getting 5 point discount while getting fatality, extra burst on pistol and better move. If c1 daofei pricing is any indication of his n4 price I just hope he gets something cool, like minelayer or superior infiltration on all profiles to justify lack of discount while other units get it.
If Su Jian is anything to go by, if it looks like the points are coming down too low they will slap some buffs rather than let it get ridiculous. The buffs it got are bland though. Combat form is already good at shooting and the extra DAM for the same gun doesn't make much sense thematically. I would have much preferred some more wild changes to beast mode, like hyper dynamics, CC buff or the new even the new guard. Use your imagination, it's a goddamn mecha cheetah.
If the buffs are good I prefer that approach as it makes for more interesting profiles than "Mimetism NWI SMG"
Agreed. I think this is the reason why I'm still hoping for alterations to profiles rather than straight up have heavy infantry made by lowest bidder. I think what Su-Jian got still lets it remain relevant in a more high-ARM meta, though AP Spitfire would've been golden for it and complemented ISS, though we don't know what other changes are coming.
Hackers getting cheaper and HDs now being AHDs as well means that being hackable is more of a drawback, but also that the discount that we are seeing is far more respectable. I certainly know that I was looking at the Su-Jian and thinking "I have to be hacking that" and I think a lot of people will take a similar attitude. Hacking looks like it'll be way more useful in N4 and so HI being cheaper is definitely appropriate.
