I think you're missing some context here: the KHD was introduced specifically to kill elite Hackers. It was, in fact, the AP HMG to the Interventor and it's ilk's TAG. It also used to be surprisingly rare, with PanO having exactly one of them across the whole faction when I started playing and most other factions not being much better off. More than one faction's been left without its intended anti-Hacker countermeasures because CB arbitrarily chose not to give them an update with N4- notably Hassassins would actually be quite poor at Hacking if the Barid wasn't given a bunch of Upgrades relative to its previous incarnation. Markers, Coordinated Orders, GMLs, White Noise/Albedo+DTW, assassin pieces, just about any HMG or Fireteam Core gunner with MSV (Wildcats, Grrls or Grenzers all work for the Nomads, Intruders will do in a pinch), or avoidance of its fire lanes all work against a Kamau Sniper. Those are counters that were found early on, or added to the game by CB. Hell, the "White Noise Trick" that let you take uncontested shots against it before that was errata'd out was a Vanilla Nomad specialty. There's about a hundred pages on this forum specifically about fighting Kamau Snipers with genuine good advice if you're willing to dig through the complaining.
For anyone interested; the "old" U-Turn was a program that made the hacker roll WIP with a severe penalty, but if successful the Guided munition would do a U-turn and use the Guided Missile REM that shot the missile as target instead of the intended target. There is a small implementation issue with this and that is that they've been working to make negative MODs something that applies to opponent only and that the old U-turn program violated the concept of the Face to Face dynamic.
Again ... maybe I should put it in my signature line ... I have not expressed an opinion about if KHD should or should not reliably kill top notch hackers, I just described the situation. And the consequence of the situation right now is: Don't hack a hacker. Is it that hard to understand? Or is my plain refusal to agree on "KHD should absolutely kill every hacker everywhere" already a red rag in your eyes? Intruder does not really work. I tried. All other tricks are pretty hard and situational to pull off. On the other hand, it was demanded that Jazz can be hacked to death by every KHD just ... with one order. So it has to be easy to kill the hacker, but an ARO piece can be as hard to kill as it wants to be. It can cost several orders to arrange a situation, some command tokens for coordinated orders, as well as sacrificial troops ... everything is fine. Hey, it's a possibility. But the hacker has to be hacked to death without preparation.
It actually is that hard, you've been phrasing it kinda poorly. Cleared up now, at least. OK, now it's you who's making things up. I haven't seen anyone arguing that some schlub Wildcat or Bolt with Trinity should be dropping an Interventor. If you take a careful look through the complaints from several prior posters from this thread and others, you'll find that what people tend to want is a means of punishing overly-aggressive Repeater Zone placement in ARO so they can properly defend their pieces from GMLs and nasty Programs. Traditionally that's been the KHD (this is why they're usually under Markers, so they can surprise careless Hackers who get too close), but in older threads on the subject alternatives such as an improved DHD or Zero Pain have been proposed. The big exceptions are probably Hecaton and me. If I recall, Hecaton is still furious that his OCF (a very Hacking-heavy, offensively-oriented army) didn't get any of the Upgrades necessary to tackle top-end Hackers and actually does want to be able to kill them with something, and I'm annoyed because I can't counterplay them properly at all with NCA. This is more of an issue with CB's goldfish-like attention span; they know the new Hacking dynamic exists, we saw it when they updated Barids, they just haven't given factions they're not actively marketing more than a courtesy pass- my NCA Machinist, linkable with Bolts, still has a skill Bolts haven't had since frikkin' N3.
Actually, you know what? I'm curious. What do you think an appropriate level of preparation/investment is for killing or disabling Jazz without using an assassination piece, since not everyone gets those? Maybe we can actually break this down and figure out where the disconnect between the two sides of this argument is.
If you are afraid of such an alpha strike, then you should consider taking the first turn if the option is available. I know its been deemed more strategically sound to go second because most missions are easier to win getting in the last turn. But that is the balance between going first and going second. That said, there is usually only 1 missile bot (due to availability, I am unsure if any faction can field 2), so if you alpha strike it, it won't be able to hurt you anymore. You can alternatively set up to ARO defense against a pitcher wielder, especially if they are the hacker that's going to be doing the hacking. Force them to peek their head out, or, waste orders trying to roll spec. fires. A pitcher only has 2 uses. Spread your units out. Make it so multiple units are not hit with missiles. You can still reset against the spotlight as well, and each failure is another order expended. Alpha strikes are designed to inflict damage. Impersonators are pretty savage, and you probably won't discover them in time before they do something. Superior Infiltrators can smack you very hard as well. They are just units made to break your castle. These are just parts of the game you have to adapt to. Finally, it seems this has resurfaced because of TTS. I would consider TTS its own meta and not the meta of the entire game because TTS has a few differences from a live game. For instance, you can study all the available maps on TTS and plan strategies ahead of time, knowing the best spots to do certain things and bringing that into the games you play. In a live event, you don't really know what you'll be playing on until the pairings are announced.
Well ... this is entirely another topic. "goldfish-like attention span" is a pretty good phrase. I think noone is happy with everything CB does. But if we go into this ... it's unending. I think N4 hacking was simplified too much. I am not even happy with some of the better units CJC got. But that's not the fault of poor Jazz I don't know. Since I don't like to play sektorials and if I do I don't like to put hackers in links, I can not say that Jazz is invulnerable. Normally I hide her somewhere, she gets a bodyguard like a Jaguar or Morlock and that's it. She can be killed pretty easily with drop troopers. Once even a TAG almost got her, because it almost broke through. Because the often mentioned repeater network is not as indestructible as it is described. Morans die (regularly), Repeater can be shot. Mid-game the repeater network often has pretty large holes. See ... hackers are shot. Not hacked. In my experience a Hacker (no matter if Jazz or Mary or both) does not have the same effect in the game as maybe a Kamau or other linked MSV-Sniper. Maybe I am playing it wrong then.
What I'm genuinely curious about is why some of you say that Jazz is so much harder to kill than any other good linkable hacker... Is a linked Interventor much easier to kill? Still, I don't see much people saying they're breaking the game. But maybe I'm missing something...
Its probably because pitchers are a BS attack, but even then, you have to move her out of the deployment zone to get a reliable shot, which makes me believe that no one is contesting her position in ARO.
An Interventor is actually much worse, only Mary Problems can kill one with any kind of speed. BTS9 and a Firewall is a brutal combination that causes Trinity to wound on twos. The only reason we don't see more of them is that Jazz is "good enough" on the defensive for Vanilla players, and far better offensively due to having Trinity without needing to give up the important and useful HD+ programs. Incidentally, the Knight of Justice HD is even worse than an Interventor if you're trying to kill it with a KHD; it's BTS9 with 2 true Wounds. Even Nomads actually have trouble with that one.
I don't see how her having a pitcher makes her more difficult to kill than any other linkable hacker... And so? As we obviously can find other hackers that are even tougher than Jazz, including some HD+, why claiming that she's near impossible to kill and that she induces balance issues?
It doesn't, she is very killable. Its more that she gets +3 BS in an Alguacil link to launch the pitcher, and she can toss 2 at once. Edit: Oh, looks like she can't get the +3 BS anymore, because she doesn't count as an alguacil, so, I don't even know why its that big of a deal anymore.
Ok, so we agree in the end... ;) My question was really about why some people are claiming she is too hard to kill to be balanced. EDIT : and yeah, no more +3!
I don't think you grasp how big Trinity for a HD+ actually is. It shores up their key weakness, face-to-face rolls in ARO, and gives them a means to directly target and kill enemy troopers. The usual anti-BTS program is Oblivion, which has AP and higher damage, but critically does not have a bonus to hit, which means Jazz is usually at B1 WIP17-14, while her attacker is at B2 WIP 9-12. Many people will find that worth the tradeoff that they'll only be wounded one in four Trinity hits instead of one in 10. Jazz also removes the need for a KHD of your own in the list, hence why many players here have stated they'd pay double for Jazz- she replaces not just an Interventor, but the Zero KHD you'd be using to protect it too.
Interventors can't access a tinbot, let alone a -6 one, which is a rare piece of kit. -6 to your roll vs Jazz's +3 trinity is just brutal (and of course bts6 with -3 damage is pillow fisted even if you land something). That becomes an issue when jazz's zoc is half the board because of 2 morans, repeaters and pitchers: all the upside with almost no threat back. That's why people have been saying what they've been saying in this thread.
Well, she's 22pts now as an fto (she caught a combirifle 'upgrade' in the recent patch), but your point stilll stands!
Normally it's the tsyklon in the team with her thats putting repeaters real far down range, jazz normally just launches them up close to plug gaps between the morans and the DZ repeaters.
this will only work if your opponent is an iddiot that runs them out into the open to launch it where they need it. More likely they are going to draw LOF just shy of what is going to ARO them (if they havent already murdered the shit out of it with a vostok), and shoot at the dirt nearby.
Thats fair, but that also means your opponent needs to spend more orders to set up such a strike. And then if you win in ARO(which some dedicated ARO pieces can do, even against a Vostok), it really cripples your opponent. You will need to wreak a lot of havoc and hope all the dice go your way to get the most optimal use of GML Pitcher strat if your opponent prepares correctly for it.
