I'd expect her to be WIP12 and carrying a comlog tied to a pistol, given the respective performance of Uma, Qiang and Cadin.
The nice thing indeed about infinity and CJC is that I look at both those lists and I get ideas, I really want to play almost every profile! Going back to hacking per-se, and again acknowledging, we are bringing Jazz in the list (either solo, in a link or in Vainilla), what are your other options for Hackers, either vanilla or CJC? As indicated, she is better when supported. I mostly play CJC and IA, and mostly wish the Brigada Hacker was more like the ShanJi (just give me a Multirifle, please!). But I like that even on its own it is sturdy, can go quickly do missions and has its own tinbot. In a link. I would consider also either Valerya or a cheap Alguacile, although love the profile of the Wildcat... Other hackers are more solo mission specialists and I feel they do things first, hacking second, would never expose them to a hacking ARO (Sombra, Bandit).
I'm sorry but that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what's being said here. The idea that anything costs point is not something anyone challenges, so it's a bit of a weird argument to make. When Brokenwolf says there's a cost in supporting Jazz, he implies that you need to build a list around her to make her useful, thus sacrificing something else you could take in your list. This is not true because, as Spellbreaker90 points out, you would take those units regardless of putting Jazz in your list. To use another example: A Hac Tao has a great cost to your list, because it greatly influences what other attack pieces you can/cannot bring as well as a myriad of other midline units you need to balance out under the list building process. On the flipside, bringing Kuang Shi's doesn't cost me ANYTHING because they literally do not affect my list building in any way shape or form, nor do they dictate what attack piece I can or cannot bring. The only thing to note about them, is that having 4+ a handler can be a bit unwieldy when deciding on how you split your combat group, since they are essentially glued together. Yes, all units costs points in Army but cost in this context is 'at the cost of..' as in; 'I'm bringing 2 Morans at the cost of bringing X,Y or Z' Again, as Spellbreaker90 points out (just like the Kuang Shi example), you are more or less always bringing them to the point where NOT bringing is a conscious decision. This could things like Limited Insertion or a Camo Shenanigans list* etc. So just to recap quickly, the aforementioned cost of supporting Jazz is not actually a cost, because you do not support her in your list at the cost of anything else. She basically just synergises with already powerful established units. PS: No, Limited camo Moran doesn't count. It's basically an entire different unit!
I mean I understand what is being said, while it could be figuratively right in a sense, it's literally wrong. If you express it as 'there's no substantial opportunity cost' (because you are taking everything in it anyway, and they are strictly the best things to take) that is closer to a reasonable (and your) meaning I think. Even then though I'm not so sure, because as I said, if Nomads weren't strong at hacking I wouldn't be taking Morans anyway. So it's more that the package as a whole is synergistic, than any part of it has no cost - more that the entire package should perhaps be considered with it's costs and benefits all together, rather than just individual parts. But if you say 'there is no cost at all' that's simply (literally) wrong. And the reason that is important and not just weird is that I can compare that cost not just internally in the faction to things that I could swap to in the same list, but to things outside the faction to see how strong externally it might be comparatively . Like I did by comparing the whole package to a Jotum or an Avatar respectively, and concluded for the points I'd personally rather have an Avatar. Not only that, but the original proposition was that - 6 tinbots were too strong, particularly in combination with Jazz. Now, if you want to tell me that 34 pts for an extra -3 mod on top of what an ordinary firewall gives to you support Jazz has no cost, I'm going to disagree with you.
Default Jazz doesn't really have a cost; the Firewall (-6) Version does. One could argue that the Guided Bot is a cost, but you're Nomads. You're taking a Hacker anyways, so the cost of Jazz vs. any other hacker is minimal. The problem stems from the fact that Jazz + Firewall (-6) is nearly unbeatable in a 1-on-1; even the best hackers in the game barely break a 1/3 chance to succeed, and that's IF you get the first turn. If you don't? Jazz w/ the Firewall (-6) hacking an Interventor (which can't get Firewalls except through repeaters), using Oblivion, is over 57% to Isolate. And that's a WIP 15, BTS 9 guy using Trinity (for effective WIP 18). His chance to do a wound to Jazz? Under 5%. (The numbers don't get much better if it's only a regular Firewall, either: Jazz is still over 50% to Isolate, and Interventor goes up to a measly 6.6%.) So... how many points is one of the best hackers in the game worth? The answer: I don't know. But 19 points should not be it. And while the Firewall (-6) is overkill a lot of the time, it only costs 2 extra points over a regular BSG MB, which while boring is still an ARM 5 brick wall for CQC, so on missions like Armory/Panic Room/BioTechVore the opportunity cost drops significantly. Not to mention better protection for itself/your Evader/your Vostok/whatever else is in the link other than Jazz. At the minimum, you'd have to spend 10 points on a 5th link member anyways, so the net cost of bringing that Firewall (-6) is somewhere between 2 points and 24, depending on what you'd have replaced it with.
it doesnt you apready run one boring Brigada as LT and have a list full of Jaguars to clear high density tables, you are better off spending points on HI that would do something in the game if you invest that much purely for firewall its going to be just a blank when you get paired against ariadna or tohaa
Obligatory “Firewalls work vs Pheroware” response. Still blanks vs Ariadna though Also sometimes you don’t run the MB LT, but I’m aware it’s very common. Personally, I don’t see the Firewall (-6) as auto-include as the rest of the Package (Jazz/Morans/Guided/Firewall (-3)/etc) but it does make an already supreme hacker that much more oppressive. There’s a separate discussion underlying the whole hacking thing about Corregidor in general getting a little too much bang for their buck, to the point where units like the Sombra get derided as “overcosted” or “unplayable” despite being very, very good. But I think that might bleed out of this topic a bit. Corregidor is perfectly capable of running 2 Mobile Brigada, but they get so much other stuff that they’re rarely inclined to.
This fucking shits me to no end. "We need to dumb down hacking and remove programs for the purposes of streamlining the rules!" Then proceeds to basically turn Pheroware into a bunch of faction only unique hacking programs and increase the amount of profiles carrying these rules.
I've said this before, it's very obvious that some factions don't have a fan on the design team, and it's very obvious that Nomads (especially Corregidor) and Tohaa do.
I don't know about fan, I don't even rate the Tohaa pheroware that highly outside of Mirrorball being super useful given their threat projection without repeaters is practically nil. It's more that the whole situation and hacking in general just reeks of people running around with their pants on their head and no idea what the fuck they're doing and that annoys the shit out of me.
I rarely agree with @Hecaton , but as a nomad player, I think Jazz is an abomination. In vanilla I feel she comes close to obsoleting Interventors who are limited to white noise OR Trinity, cost more, and don't bring a pitcher. And this is faction defining best hacker in the game since N1 unit. In corrigedor the not especially good hacking sectorial, she gets even worse for balance. For her costs, both in points and opportunity costs she's makes everything tremble in fear. Her hacking is so good it makes units like Asuras and EI aspects struggle to handle her. And I don't buy that the tin bots are a significant trade off, those types of links will want to include one regardless. Back in the days of HSN3 my dream was for a mobile brigade KHD to pair with a tinbot MB (using the luxumbra bust as a model), but instead CB went a bit bonkers and gave us Jazz instead.
Yup, she's just overtuned. When the Defiance profiles dropped people immediately pointed this out. She's become a faction-defining unit for Nomads and Corregidor.
I think you're unlikely to get as much argument about the idea of Jazz being very, or even too good or auto pick. She is. I don't think too good or auto pick or faction skewing or what ever is the same as anything being zero cost or making the design of hacking wrong. But I guess that's a distracting detail when everyone is really furiously agreeing on the big picture. Personally I don't mind CJC being good but limited (just 1 AVA 1 trooper does it great) at hacking which I guess is the design intent. CJC's vibe has always been effective but functional not fancy though. So I feel like Jazz could be same but just a standard HD (no HD+, no Trinity, maybe an interesting upgrade like just cybermask?). It's good enough for Zoe. Then you'd see the Sombra KHD (and Billie) more, and that would be good.
Except the way hacking works, that's enough to kick someone over the edge. You only need one hacker if they're good enough.
Why is the nomad forum the only one where players think their own rules are too good? This said, I agree here. I've always hated proxying and Jazz is making it into all my lists despite no model, and often bumped the interventor out of my lists.
There are two potential answers to that question, one is that those players have their heads waaaaaay up their collective holier than thou arse, and the other.... gestures wildly at the Vostok, Evaders, BS19 snipers and other assorted offending units
Nomads sells itself as a faction of subversive and effective tricksters using creative and unexpected strategies to level the playing field against superior foes, but the underdog playstyle doesn't work too well when you outshoot some flavours of PanO. This expected-style-based-on-marketing thing is also one of the reasons why YJ is so constantly salty- they were advertised through all of late N3 as the CC faction when only two units were even considered viable in CC thanks to the Uprising and power creep; few who picked up the army in that period got what they payed for and those who played earlier lost it. Nomads is just one of the very few factions that actually gets relative strengths outside of its marketing niche, and is popular enough to get talked about, so that's why you see the odd request for a nerf from a player of the faction.
I just think Nomad players are cooler people ;) Gets strained a bit with the semi regular targeted hyperbolic attacks from others at times. Along with the Haqq peeps its always been one of the more reasonable sub communities though, regardless of actual performance at the time, which varies. Plus yeah, Nomad players don't always love blunt force being added as our best approach (eg Kriza) which is a contrast to some other factions.
