I know. I understand what you mean. But then the problem is not firewall the same way is not cover, but the lack of alternative options to deal with it (be it for listbuilding, which is a different problem to approach, or once the list is made but having access to, which is not a problem but a decission). If the lack of reliable weapons to deal with a jottum is "acceptable" because there exists indirect tools (like hacking it), the same can be said the other way
a Jotum's high ARM and BTS is "acceptable" because it's got a really high price. It can be almost impossible to deal with, but it's also almost 90 points focused in a single unit.
And? Interventors are "cheap", yet got the smaller discount from hacking this edition (1 point instead of 2 like all other HD+, seems to me they got checked). I am not sure they are so cheap to not be the equivalent case. My point remains that the firewall is as much problem as cover Someone stated that KHD are not doing their work, and maybe that's the problem. In n3 they were overperforming, and the first reason was because they ignored firewall. Maybe is just an AP program, or more damage bonus to Trinity (as some aleph hackers have) is missing in more factions Also, maybe cb is going to give more repeaters in the future. That could be an option too, to use their own repeaters instead of the enemy ones, with hard to hack units for others. We have seen not a lot of factions revisions until now.
I'm not sure I'd stomach equating an 87 point main hitter unit that you design your entire list around as your primary unit to a sub-30 hacker that'll almost never leave the DZ. Anyway, I think that that someone stating that KHD aren't doing their job is expecting KHDs to be doing a job it's not meant to do any more.
I mean, as I've stated several times by now; I don't agree that something does. Or put differently; as long as the only good and order efficient means of "hacking" in this edition is "chuck a pitcher near what needs to be hacked", then yes, something needs to do that job and preferably in a Neurocinetics kind of way. Which in N3 destroyed hacking. But. I'm of the opinion that as soon as you remove pitchers from the equation (and to a lesser degree FastPandas), you also remove the need for this job to exist because putting up or repairing a Repeater network becomes too order intensive.
@inane.imp made a fairly good argument previously that the investment needed to maximise an Interventor's impact (Repeater network, healers, Pitcher support, Vertigo) can be similar to the cost dedicated to supporting a TAG. The most visible difference is that the TAG is a hell of a lot better at killing things while the Hacking build is superior at scoring and board control. I can agree that KHDs have undergone a shift in purpose, but at present something needs to fill the deterrent role in Hacking. I do quite like your idea of removing Pitchers as a solution, however.
Let me explain it different then. should danavas suffer a nerf too? They are 4 (actually between 3-5) points cheaper (depending on how much the pitcher costs, for some units is 1, for some 3, and 2 for most). Danavas have courage and upgrade program always... How much the extra BTS costs for a squishy LI? Interventors only have 1 upgrade for 1 profile while they are supposed to be "the best", in the more hacking focused faction, their only real advantage as hackers is their bts. Should the other BTS9 hacker be nerfed too? Costing less than double than an interventor, does a lot more, gunfighing, secondary objectives, cc, and survival against KHD. The "they don't need to leave DZ" is a too simplistic way to see it. For that to be true, there need to be more investment in troops and orders. Someone put examples of what minimum support is needed and in the end, there is not so much difference from the total points needed (half the list)... But the order investment in hacking is bigger to start to do something relevant.
Even if you spend the same to support a hacker than a TAG (debatable) the point remains that a Jotum is 87 points while an Interventor is 24-26 and Jazz is 18. That's quite the difference, and also the Jotum has to expose itself to do its job.
I'd disagree with this point. Hacking is powerful in reactive turn, and heavily limits which tools an opponent can leverage against you. It's also often a more reactive list archetype, using debuffs and board control to force an opponent into a bad situation while deploying lighter gunfighters to pick at weaknesses. If you're relying on Hacking in the active turn it will eat your whole pool and ask for more, but used cleverly and sparingly it's very potent. A TAG list can also be played reactively and/or play the objective, but requires you to more aggressively engage the elements of your opponent's list which can fight the TAG before setting it up defensively. I've lost as many TAG games for being too passive or cautious as I have for over-extending.
Accidentally I'm shifting towards this as well. I understand that dropping down repeaters which can be used easily against you seems counterproductive. But honestly this is just how the game works. To attack you have to expose yourself. If you go kill opponent's DZ with a drop troop, skirmisher or a mean shooter, you usually expect him to not survive till your next turn. Not always, but usually, the opponent will focus attention and bring down the immediate threat. Achilles can't murder very many dudes without increasing his risk of untimely demise. So normally attacking in Infinity is a cost-benefit analysis. Will I plausibly murder enough evil dudes with my good dude, that (probably) losing him in return is worth it. In this paradigm vectors of attack that don't increase your chances of losing dudes feel a little bit too tempting. Dropping down an excessive and/or severely extended repeaters could also require a cost benefit consideration besides order spent. Nerfing or removing pitchers would also kind of achieve this, since if you had to physically haul a repeater to a target, then you at least are risking the carrier.
To start off with in answer to all of your questions in the first paragraph; no, I am not of the opinion that any of them should get nerfed. I think the first step is to nerf pitchers. There is an increased cost in getting a hacker to work, yes that is true, but the cost is largely incidental and typically much lower cost than that of a single main TAG - typically runs you closer to a KoJ, depending on which faction. In addition to this, the hacker is never asked to over-extend itself the way a TAG is and seldom if ever exposes themselves to other forms of AROs the way a TAG does. The whole reason we're having a heated conversation about it is that the Interventor is seriously difficult to shank - something that's often the fate of the Jotums. Looking at the problem through the lens of hacking only is hurting the conversation, in my opinion.
My point stand. You need to invest in troops for that ARO to be so powerfull, and most of the time you will also need to invest in orders to deploy that repeater network, cybermask certain hackers, put support programs and so. Something being more useful in reactive than reactive should not be a problem (too much power has the active turn in my opinion), and hacking has not changed in that regard from n3 (where it was not working as intended), so I don't get what the point is for that Also, the tag can do his shotty job against any other objective, while the hacker is limited to hackable objectives, has his 3 points of structure, not 1 (main reason for its high point cost) If we only account for the interventor evading any support, they will have to 4 or more orders to get to possition and start doing things against only a certain number if objectives, and the table has something to say if it will need to expose themselves. If we are tinking that there will be other troopers putting repeaters to fulfill that aro purpose, then the investment gets bigger than a single interventor
So we are including the Vulcan in the support package for the hacker but suddenly the hacker doesn't have objectives because somehow he can't Spotlight the shit out of anybody. Your arguments when it comes to Nomads are so dishonest it hurts to read; you can't move the goalposts at your whim and argue one post the hackers need support then the next you go comparing them without support. The mere fact that we are honestly comparing a 87 points piece with a 24 (or 18!) points one in terms of game dominance should be enough to at least guess something is wrong with those hackers.
I don't agree that the two lists that inane.imp posted are comparable, even after you account for that it's apples and oranges, he needed to add two sources of forward repeaters and two hackers to the hacking list to catch up in points with the Dragao (which is a 6 BTS TAG, btw), meaning the hacker list has a bunch of redundancy and attack vectors (even has a Doctor for doctoring the units that are being complained about being difficult to attack!) and as such is much closer to being a complete list than the more expensive Dragao list. That's also ignoring that each hacking element in the hacker list is multiplicative of the hacking ability while each extra element in the TAG list is additive (backup) to the TAG's ability; the value of the support elements are different for both lists - with the Vertigo making sure that the value of the hacking list isn't diminished very much if the opponent doesn't field hackable elements.
It's a fair point. You're basically suggesting replacing all Pitchers with Fast Pandas or something similar? Or just making it that Pitchers don't get Fireteam Bonuses? I think the second would work well and bring them into line. Coupled with my original suggestions for Guided, changing them to S1 and making Deactivators ZOC I think it would well in making Repeater spam much less viable and limit the ability to achieve a Guided Alpha. However, it doesn't really solve the Dep Rep/Fast Panda into Oblivion threat to Hackable Lts.
To play a little devil's advocate. Should it be solved? As many people have pointed out - if you don't have CoC and you take an obvious lieutenant it is your own damn problem. They were talking about Interventor, but why shouldn't the same point stand the other way around.
Those Hackers had 1W each. I felt justified with the redundancy. Equally the two midfield Repeaters did two different roles, defensive and aggreessive. I can see your point - it's difficult to compare the how easy to hard it is to build particular lists. I do think you're overstating how hard it is to build a decent TAG list in N4.
Changing pitchers to either thrown range bands or pistol range bands is the first step, IMO (thrown if you really want to mess with them...). Then give it a few months to see if the community is still raging about Guided missiles taking their LTs out first turn. It would address the problem of targeting the Hackable LTs with Oblivion not by removing it, but by making one side of the table less likely to have enemy repeaters. FastPandas are annoying as hell in how they can be placed in the most awkward spots without a roll, so keeping those rare and limited is important.
