Well put it this way I could generally engage every other form of Jammer carrier in a F2F roll and contest to get rid of them. Ghazi forced you to trade down in just about every single situation to get rid of them, because of Dogged and 2 DTWs that covered all spectrums of trooper types as a threat.
Surely you see how one faction stepping in the toes of all the other human factions feels wrong? There is some overlapping between factions (like PanO having pretry good HI or YJ with their great camo game) but only Nomads manages to "overlap" with all of them
Nah, those were pretty fudged, too. Their Jammer profiles were universally useful compared to their other profiles and almost any unit in the same price range. IMO, they needed a nerf and Ghazi needed two. They got three and Ghazi four. And Tian Gou / Haqq Spec-ops / the game needed a nerf to Sixth Sense which we got. May not seem like it the way we're building sand castles and flinging only the dirtiest seaweeds from behind our fortifications at each other, but we're discussing a bit finer points than there not being counter plays. Well, most of us are, I'm sure. It's not that there aren't counter play that's upsetting several of us, it's that the counter play is nowhere as easy, safe and reliable as setting the hacking net up is for a few sectorials and even fewer vanilla factions. Oh, and of course, the mandatory factionalism on what's the best solution. It's a lot of inter-linked systems where altering one variable can change the situation wholesale, and that makes it difficult to have a discussion when a tweet-length is about the furthest anyone will read...
I think what you're arguing in terms of those profiles being more universally attractive has nothing to do with the Jammer being broken, it's CB tacking a bunch of other stuff onto the Jammer profile. If you pulled the Panda off the Jammer Heckler it's just a dude a single use camo dude with a combi outside of his ARO duties, he's not even a specialist. Odds are you'd park them somewhere and never spend an order on them and just have them try to waste orders and ARO stuff. Same for the Zulu Cobra it was CB strapping an Assault Pistol and a Sensor to the Jammer profile along with making it potentially one of the safest LTs in the game. In a vacuum the Jammer was just an ARO piece of gear. If the rest of the model carrying it wasn't that interesting then it's not a unit that would spend orders. But when CB starts strapping gear that's also good in the active turn onto them then naturally they're going to become extremely attractive because now you've got a model that's useful in both Active and Reactive turns, it's a bit of a no brainer that these flexible profiles start seeing more table time than others. It's essentially the same shit as the overloaded N3 Ghazi profiles just to a lesser, and less frustrating to engage, degree. My first N4 game into Spiral I didn't know about all the new units that picked up Pheroware, specifically Eraser and it's functionally more or less like fighting into N3 Jammers. I found out about the changes by walking into some ZoCs blind and found dealing with them was pretty trivial, particularly given the Tinbots effectiveness against them. Outside of playing camo spam, which is both safe and easy for factions that can do it to set up. I think @Zewrath had the best description of it with 15 camo markers + rape bear for Ariadna.
If there was one thing on those profiles that made their gear synergise too much it was the forward deploying*, not the guns or pandas, but I also thought the Tian Gou needed a step down one notch and that profile wasn't exactly over-burdened with gear other than the Jammer and its primary purpose was as an excuse to cut Zhanshi AVA down and make sure Fireteams in WB didn't get too cheap. (And just case in point, I haven't been screwed over by the Panda or the Assault Pistol; it's always and still is the Jammer and the Combi on those forward camo markers) Fact is, a Jammer being able to get burst bonus from links, have no way of having negative MODs, no way of increasing BTS versus them, being able to shoot through walls, being able to intuitive camo, and putting you in a state that forced you to have an Engineer to get out of was all too much when considering how cheap the models carrying them were. That's not to say I wanted all of that addressed with disposable added on. Rolling back about half of them would probably work wonders. Though I still find the Intuitive Attack a bit odd for a weapon allowed to shoot through Total Cover... * Synergise too much with the Jammer. The other profiles of these two units are perfectly okay, even bordering on a bit meh.
Oh, I should probably clarify I'm with you killing the N3 bonuses for links on it. It's really just the disposable that's my issue with the N4 version. My position is realistically more the N3 Jammer situated in the N4 rules structure is fine.
Given the hard-limited ZoC range, it could be worse. It's still probably the best option in PanO for dealing with roof markers given what happened to Grenade Launchers and Pathfinders.
I mean I think Nomads are a 'Jack of all Trades' + Hacking faction which is ok (others like Yu Jing can do basically everything pretty good too). I don't particularly like how shooty they have got (I'd rather Kriza didn't exist) and I'd rather they lost some of the shootyness than the hacking. But then I think some of why they became so shooty is because hacking outside supportware and khds became so marginal in N3. So I dunno nerfing hacking again is really the answer to merging faction strengths. If anything Id rather they had to rely on the hacking more and the shootyness cooled off.
Another +1 from me, although I would rather the Kriza was altered rather than simply not existing: the models are great and the Mk12 version is a really neat unique unit within the faction and sectorial, it's only the HMG loadout thats a problem. To me, it also doesn't fit Tunguska which is otherwise about tricks, hacking and mobility. Similar with Riot Grrls (do they really need BS 13, +1 Damage AND 6-2?) and the Vostok (I don't like the Mim -6 profile but otherwise it's an excellent addition). N4 has been, by all accounts, great for making hacking more useful and versetile and letting the Nomads play to our strengths which had been badly gimped in N3 by KHDs so what's the harm with some of our HI (Taskmasters, Brigada and Hollow Men are fine IMO) getting scaled back? I also want to voice my support for this: these are simple solutions that benefit everyone. Beefing KHDs again is just misery for anything that's not BTS9.
They're minmaxed to hell and back under current link rules, but when you're playing one solo they really feel like a proper Bakunin linebreaker with their Frenzy and loadouts, busting down doors and giving no damns without being overwhelming to a prepared opponent. Impetuous is actually a fun rule when it's allowed to play out on the table, and Riots are a unit that's only really missing some less favourable link rules to bring back into line.
That's not true. You could add a +3 WIP Burst 2 Damage 16 AP program and people wouldn't use that against anything that isn't at least BTS6. All those BTS0 and 3 Troopers probably wouldn't give a shit because you'd be better off firing Trinity at them. A big problem we have is there aren't enough programs, shit was dumbed down too much. There aren't enough programs that are designed to tackle high BTS stuff. Carbonite should be a B3 program by default, and there should also be a higher damage AP Immobilise program that can actually threaten a KoJ.
Except they would in ARO. That's +3 DAM for a BTS3 target which is rather important. It's probably more reasonable without the +3 WIP (even if it retains B3), although I'm still not convince we need a "Screw Interventors!" program. I'm not disagreeing with your second point. There is certainly room for 2 types of IMM, ISO and Wounding program. I've always said that Multi Ammunition is a good system because it's always obvious what ammo you should use because only 1 - rarely 2 - variable changes. N3 Hacking was a bad system because across programs you'd have upwards of 4 variables changing: which meant it was difficult to know what was the correct answer in a particular situation. I don't think CB has quite gotten it right yet: but I do think it's better than N3.
It's really not that impactful from an ARO perspective. The difference between Trinity and that made up Damage 16 AP program between two WIP13 BTS3 KHDs is an increase of 3% for the attacker to take a wound. I don't think that breaks the bank at all. And from someone who's meta is infested with high BTS hackers, yeah, we kind of need it pretty badly.
wow I just stumble upon this topic I can't believe all those mary sue lolmads of the broken faction are complaining xD to sum up lolmads: _best sniper FT _best HMG FT _best hacking offense _best hacking defense _best midfield presence _best body count 15+puppet theirs only weakness is no assassin my biggest issue is the AVA on the vanilla, nomads sectorials are balance thx to limitation of profiles, vanilla can do anything (except assassination) well to answer the topic: Vanilla Nomads aren't healthy to the game. (haqq tohaa CA aren't far tho)
We don't need a program specifically, but some sort of anti-Hacking-castle mechanic would be greatly appreciated. Hacking MSV to counter Firewall's Mimetism, programs hitting alternate stats, letting the KHD's variant of Trinity have the old Silent rule or any number of things could help.
I wouldn't mind more programs if they: a) were actually useful b) did interesting stuff a) For example I would prefer that, if Carbonite is lacking they would first fix Carbonite than add another program, that's just Carbonite but better. b) How about programs that are easier to land (say, being AP+DA) had smaller effects, like Stun. Then it would be an interesting tactical choice. Do I want bigger risk-reward (Carbonite) or do I want something more penetrating (Cyberstun) cause I'm targeting high BTS? At the end of the day, there should be a very noticable difference between hacking BTS 3 and BTS 9 target.
Keeping in mind that generalised solutions can cause general problems in other areas. E.g. if there's a program to pierce Firewalls this might cause problems for factions that rely on tinbots to power through hacking instead of competing against it, or for that matter negatively affect the "light" hackers that most factions rely on by removing the "mimetism" from them. I think mostly there needs be an incentive to take risks from other sources for hackers. E.g. we've been discussing damage values; what if you got AP if you hacked without a repeater interface in the way?
The problem with just buffing Carbonite is if you buff Carbonite to threaten BTS9 targets, it fucking dumpsters absolutely everybody else who has less BTS. Well actually I haven't done the math maybe it's not quite that bad, but the point is you're also buffing it against units that are currently reasonable and don't need to be more vulnerable to it. We currently have the opposite problem with Oblivion being one of a kind program as well. It feels fucking oppressive against lower end models, but if you nerf it so it feels more reasonable against them it won't be able to effectively threaten the high end shit like an Avatar. In short, CB fucked up by dumbing hacking down quite this hard. The idea is with multiple programs you can tune them so some work better against different targets. A lower damage high burst program is more dangerous to a low BTS unit than a higher damage AP program that has lower burst and vice versa. That sounds reasonable on paper, but it doesn't account for high BTS hackers can be difficult to reach ZoC if they have a sufficiently powerful repeater network. Playing into that "it takes too much effort to threaten a 19pt Jazz hiding behind a billion firewalls" again.
