Oh look, there's another Ubuntu opener!

What if crippling shot's range was changed from far to close? That would be a useful change for Andromeda.

I don't share your objection to lightning arrow having a cooldown, as long as the designer is careful that it doesn't apply to every interrupt/stun move.

I wouldn't be against that, but what would it be replaced by?

But as you mentioned, Andro also happens to be the a far range single-ranger, so having a high cost would hurt her energy/defense game. It's probably better to change it outright if it would be changed.

I think it was because she needed a way to not die to Chi Blasts as you mentioned, and Kick being relatively useless, although I hadn't started playing until this patch so I wouldn't truly know. Too bad for her Anex and Phoebe don't care. In fact, it just gives Phoebe a chance to actually Hamstring someone to death.

Interesting. Speaking of which, why was it decided that matches should start at close? Wouldn't there be more variety if it started at a random range?

I vote for the buff Andromeda. I don't understand why a single-ranger is fragile, even if she can range dance well. Being single range and fragile means she is forced to fight people at her range (duh) and consequently should be able to, at the least, put up a fight. The only other fragile single-ranger, MLM, has 3 healing abilities and still happens to die pathetically once in a while.

Range-dancing is a powerful defensive ability and they (usually) lack that option against people who fight at their range. MLM has some defense (Healing) against it, Andro has Lightning Arrow and 10 more HP. And just like MLM, she doesn't completely dominate matchups that like her unfavorable range either, so she's between a rock and a hard place. It's kind of pathetic when a character who is blatantly easy to make a mistake on is only allowed to take a few hits. It also happens to have bad synergy with her superior energy game, which encourages her to take advantage of it over multiple turns.

But what is wrong with it? It's energy cost has nothing to do with it, it obviously has to do with being a low-cost defense against Light. If it was given an energy cost, it would obviously suck as soon as she guessed wrong, and she has enough problems with wrong guessing already.

If cooldowns weren't allowed, there would only be a few other options:

1) Turn them into RNG-innates, Juju would not agree with that though, because it can create some silly match-ups. (He knows from experience.)

2) Never have these defense-vs-something attacks at 10 Speed and instead lower their speed and remove the cooldown. This wouldn't do anything but make slower people cry though.

3) Make it single-ranged. This is the only reasonable option. This, at the least, will provide the opponent with a means of getting around it. This is what Lightning Arrow is, but it has one problem: It's been put on a single-ranger who's really good at keeping you at her range.

If Lightning Arrow had no cooldown it would have the opposite effect: it would encourage people to Get Close. Therefore, the attack by concept contradicts everything that Andromeda is.

Slap a cooldown on it, though, and suddenly it becomes something totally different: the ability to be immune to one type of attack for a turn. The reason for the cooldown is because all other means of getting around it in Kongai will not work because of the conflict between her innate and the ability.

In other words, Andromeda is very special. This type of attack might not need a cooldown on a non-single range character who's not good at range dancing. The cooldown is what lets a defensive move against one type to even reasonably exist on her.

(She is looking for a sharpening stone)

I agree with this, actually. Crippling Shot should be the free one.

edit: and Lightning Arrow should have a significant cost, but should interrupt any move that costs 50 or more energy rather than all light attacks.

LA is the only move that deals damage and 50% rest at the same time. Most moves have pros and cons so they wont be broken.
What other con would you suggest for the move so Anrdo wont play: "LA, far, LA, far, LA, far, Yaaaawn..., Mix up a switch, repeat"?

What if Crippling Shot applied a debuff that damaged on range-change, like leafy trap does with physical damage?

I personally always liked taf's leafy trap much more than his IA. It's much better to leave the option for a move, but make it damaging. I think it's sloppy to just turn off an option - Taf would be a more interesting character if he dealt 45 damage to all switch-out attempts. That would keep the intent (an intercept would be a 45+35 one hit kill), but not completely undermine the RPS game since you could escape with a 46 HP character + yomi. He'd still be the same character as a finisher, but there'd at least be some depth there.

Likewise I don't like either of the range-locking debuffs (omis or andromedas). Hamstring is much more graceful. With andromeda lacking damage ability, would a 45 damage-if-you-move debuff on a 30 energy crippling shot fix her?

I think AWJ's main point of misunderstanding is that he thinks Shield Bash is a good move.

I like drc500free's idea about Taf^^

What about if we switch Cripling shot with Hamstring? Phoebe gets to hit Anex Yoshi and VV and andro has a close move.

I've had the idea in my head a long time for there to be three attack ranges, far/normal/close, and matches begin at normal. Rather than expound on it here, I'll give it its own thread.

The suggestion made to change CripplingShot to close is a fantastic one, but I think her other attacks need some tweaks for it to work well. I prefer the Tafari switch lock to a damage solution personally even if Leafy Trap is often awkward to employ.

As long as Andromeda is so hyperspecialized at rangedancing (with an innate and a move both to do the same thing) she's going to suck against everyone but melee characters. It's just a natural consequence of how she's been designed. A character whose game completely revolved around stat debuffs would suck terribly against CC. A character with nothing but light attacks would suck against Yoshiro. The problem is that while CC and Yoshiro are just one character each, "everyone but melee characters" (and even "everyone but melee and Chi Blasters") is a category that includes the majority of characters in the game.

This goes back to my argument that the balance of the long-range game has been neglected and we're seeing the results in 1.9, the first version in a long time to have several far-oriented characters in the top tier (Anex, Ubuntu and Juju). Andromeda was always designed to suck against everyone but tanks, but until now nobody noticed because almost everyone used tanks (by "tanks" I'm including CC--unlike the traditional "tanks" he can do damage at far, but he has no far-only moves and his primary game is obviously at close range)

If I were going to redesign Andromeda, I'd get rid of both the current Crippling Shot and Lightning Arrow. In their place, I'd give her either a cheap, weak 30% interrupt (like a far-range Open Palm), or a more powerful Lightning Arrow (say 30ish damage for 45 energy, and still a 100% interrupt to light attacks) without the cooldown. I'm open to suggestion on which would be better, or for some other idea. The point is to fix her hyperspecialization at rangedancing.

For her fourth move, I'd give her something she could do at close range. However, to make her different from Phoebe and Anex, it would be a nondamaging move. How about this:

Take Aim. Both ranges, 0 energy, 0 damage, speed whatever (pretty much irrelevant)
Next turn, Andromeda deals 50% more damage and cannot miss. Even though it's mechanically a self-buff, it fails if the opponent switches at the same time (she "aims" at the character switching out instead of the one coming in).

Sort of a one-turn guaranteed critical, except that since it's not actually a critical it would stack with "real" criticals, doing 225% total damage. Like other damage buffs, it would affect her interrupt as well as her attacks, and I think it would be interesting if the "cannot miss" would also extend to her interrupt, bypassing Yoshiro's and Rumiko's innates (incidentally, does Origami Crane work this way? If not, maybe it should!)

I'd imagine that the Origami Crane as it currently is would only guarantee the hit if the target stayed and took the attack. I think if they switch, then instead of hit % it goes to proc %, and Origami Crane will probably make both never miss in the next patch.

I don't mind if Lightning Arrow is changed, but as I mentioned in my previous post any energy cost on Lightning Arrow is too much. It pressures her to never guess wrong because then two things will happen, she will be forced to use it again and sacrifice her energy/range game, or she will eat a Chi Blast. If Lightning Arrow was raised to a lower amount of energy needed, it would probably still need the cooldown.

An interrupt like Higashi's also isn't very good because unlike Higashi she is not a tank and she's constantly forced to fight some of the most powerful attacks in the game, which are probably the ones she's trying to interrupt. Trying to defend against a Chi Blast or Anex with Phoebe's PL is a good indicator of how effective it will be in protecting Andromeda. She already requires a lot of Yomi, I'm not sure it's a good idea to make her need a lot of luck too.

But if Lightning Arrow did a respectable amount of damage, it wouldn't be "wasted" in that case. A 30-odd damage single hit, speed 9 attack is pretty powerful even without considering the proc.

The problem with a high-damage, high-cost Lightning Arrow along with also replacing Crippling Shot is that now Andromeda has no damaging cheap attacks-- we've turned her into far Helene, without the HP or the armor. So I guess that isn't really a good idea after all.

Another problem with Lightning Arrow is that it doesn't help at all against nukes that aren't light-based. I imagine new cards will have more of these attacks, and as a result Andromeda will have even more characters she's just screwed against.

The point I'm making is that Andromeda just isn't a well-rounded character--she's overspecialized at fighting melee-only characters, and as soon as the metagame shifted away from those characters (which took a long time) she became much weaker. Hard counters here and there are okay, but a character who's literally designed to be hard countered by more than half of the cast isn't viable without major changes.

I think that the original purpose of Andromeda-- in a world where Phoebe's Power Lash does light damage and Rapid Lashes are physical-- is that she has the tools to out-yomi anybody at long range.

In that world, all of the really big long-range nukes (50+ energy to use) other than Power Toss and Dark Chi blast are light-based and are slower than Lightning Arrow, so Andromeda has the tools to beat most of the cast at long range by 100% interrupting their big fireball.

That isn't the world we play in anymore, which is why Lightning Arrow should be changed so that it effectively does step on big ranged nukes.

It'd be cool if that purpose was divorced from its other purpose of being free damage.

Except that Andromeda didn't even get Lightning Arrow until the same patch where Power Lash was changed to physical. So it was never really useful for the purpose it was presumably meant for.

I think the primary point of Lightning Arrow was to be a defense more than an attack, though -- I think the damage was tacked on to make it a viable move even if she guessed wrong. In the case of a more damaging, higher energy one, it would lose most of its ability as a usually-available defense, and it also starts looking a lot like Trueshot. Don't bother changing Lightning Arrow -- if it's going to be changed, it's best if it's a completely new attack.

I still think she should be a tank, because small defensive moves like interrupts don't actually help her take hits reliably. If she has no reliable defense against far range attacks, but is meant to take hits from them, why shouldn't she be a tank?

But Trueshot is speed 2 and LA is speed 9. And another widespread (and probably valid) complaint about Andromeda is that Trueshot is too weak and needs to do more damage, so...

Someone up the thread pointed out that Shield Bash isn't exactly a strong move, but I'm guessing it was pretty strong when it was speed 8, and that's why it got nerfed (in retrospect, it's amusing to read Sirlin's "Note: Helene still expected to be very good" under the patch that gave her a full three nerfs and instantly dropped her from top tier to rock bottom) What if Andromeda had a speed 9 high-percent interrupt that worked on all attacks, or even a high-percent stun (sort of like a far Eviscerate)? Note that I'm just brainstorming now--a Pilebunker-like Eviscerate probably isn't actually a very good idea. But I think a pre-nerf Shield Bash on Andromeda wouldn't be as broken as it presumably was on Helene, since Andromeda is fragile unlike Helene who is a tank.

Here's an idea I just came up with--Pinning Shot. Far-only, highish speed, no damage but ~90% interrupt. The idea is she pins her opponent's clothing to stop their attack, like in a Robin Hood movie. Moderate energy cost (like Hypnostare) and can't be used 2 turns in a row (a cooldown on a move that does no damage doesn't offend my sensibilities :))

What if she got this move in place of LA, and either kept Crippling Shot or replaced it with the "aim" move I suggested upthread? Note that we're getting pretty far afield now, talking about completely replacing two of Andromeda's moves.

Wow. I see quite a bit of exageration here about Andromeda.

First off, she doesn't "suck against everyone but tanks", she sucks against Andro+Phoebe and has a few other difficult matchups (Amaya, Rumiko, Cain).
She still does well against Yoshiro, Higashi, MLM, CC, potentially Juju, Ambrosia (and tanks, obviously).

I see her being compared to tanks a lot, but she's not completely similar. Single-range does bring her problems, but her innate and defense are much more useful than say, Oni's HP and 10 Physical.

As for how to fix her, this should work:
Trueshot:
- Speed 2->3.
Ties Power Toss, and with Charm, a few other attacks (VS, HigBlast,...).

Crippling Shot:
- Damage 20->25.

Result:
- She's still at a disadvantage against Anex, but she does deal some retaliatory damage. She even wins 22.5% of the time (Trueshot crits, Crippling Shot doesn't miss) 1 vs 1 with both at 100HP.
- She hasn't been helped much against Phoebe, but she still has chances against Phoebe, albeit low.

cant mlm destroy her? Teleport is faster than her nukes(if you can refer to them as such)... I don't see how higashi cant beat andromeda either. Higashi can dash strike and ocassionally close in for open palm/sweep. Just make sure to dash until she uses up the arrow and you are golden. Usually you can pull close after she either blows a couple range changes or something.

Starting close CC destroys her. At far, how does andro manage to win? CC can close almost anytime.

Mlm has energy problems, and his low HP coupled with Lighting Arrow isn't fun.

Many months ago I said to Sirlin that Valk Charm was a horrible card design. Agree/disagree? Let's replace it with something else imo

I think I agree. It makes the amazon characters hard to balance. The thing is, the value of a point of speed is a lot less constant than the value of a point of damage or defense, because what actually matters is just whether your speed is less than, equal, or greater than your opponent's. If a +1 or +2 to speed doesn't change which of those three states you're in then it's completely worthless, but if it does then it's absolutely huge.

What would you replace the Charm with, though? Also I wonder, would Quickening Powder cause the same problems if it actually worked properly?

By the way, what do you think of my assessment that long-range Kongai is a lot less tested and hence less finely-tuned than close-range Kongai (evidenced by Anex turning into a new "old Higashi")?

Exactly... good idea. However if this is implemented there will be a whole new age of Sharpening stones for ashi and anex.

And i'm sure that eventually a bunch of players will start complaining about the incredible high damage that anex have with critstone.

I've been playing long-range for ages, and I'd say that the biggest difference is that long-range fights are more based off of dealing large amounts of damage (hence why i like it :)). Anex isn't much different from this, but the reason she's so great is that A) she's got a hits fleeing that's non-multiplicative B) she's got a nuke that destroys anybody that only has moves under speed 3/5 C) Her moves are more reliable than most long-range powerhouses (IE Phoebe and Andromeda) D) she does close-range combat well too with her close-range voidstream, and E) very tough to kill because of her dangerous innate

IMO anex is just a screw-up right now. Something needs to be done, but sirlin's too lazy to make a new changelist

IMO all the amazon items are probably a bit overpowered because they have to compete with Valk...

Last I remember reading, Critstone was already going to be dropped down to 25% anyway? Candle would definitely be in use too without ValkCharm IMO.

I think Trueshot is horrendously weak for being the only far range Speed 2 nuke in the whole game too. I don't think turning LA into a fast Trueshot is the right solution though.

If LA was indeed turned into a strong interrupt/stun/disable/etc., while not as OP as Helene's old Shield Bash, it would still need to cost a decent amount of energy to be balanced, which would leave Andro with only Crippling Shot as her energy-efficient move. Granted, that might not necessarily be a bad thing, but it definitely should be considered because it will affect her energy game, which may have adverse effects.

Her innate and defense are much more useful against close rangers, but they're also much more worthless against far rangers. Oni's HP and defense work for both cases.

I agree, a character's speed is one of the most inherent parts of their design. The power of their moves and energy cost both relate very intricately with speed, and messing with that throws off balance, usually moreso than another item would.

Given that far range games seems to generally consist of trading painful blows, I too feel that the far range game needs some adjusting. Totally understandable, we're still in beta for a reason.

I agree that far range is about >50 energy nukes. It hasn't receive as much balancing time because until recently, it didn't receive as much playing time.

Trivia: Valk Charm was the focus of a bet (no $$ I think) between Sirlin and some other guy over whether speed was an important stat or not.

The effort to make items simple is what makes thm hard to balance imo.
A +1 valk charm would be weak while a +2 is hax.
Jade figurine... sigh.

I have stated my preference for more complex items but none else seemed to agree...

give andromeda anex's innate.

That should actually work.

If you want to give andromeda Anex's innate, you're obviously missing the point of using Andro in the first place.

I don't like the close-range Crippling Shot idea. It makes her too similar to Phoebe.

Jade Figurine isn't worthless on Amaya, though I guess Scroll is better. Hey garcia, if you think Valk is a bad card design then what are your thoughts on Scroll? It seems to me a move's energy cost is just as fundamental to its design, and just as sensitive to small changes having huge effects, as its speed is.

Hamstring doesn't really synergize well with Phoebe though, since she's not really focused on range-dancing, it's just there because PL would be virtually impossible to use otherwise, and Hamstring can't be far range because that would be overpowered, at least at 10 energy. Andromeda, on the other hand...

Scroll and Valk both mess around with delicate balances, but I don't really think Valk is that bad simply because it actually has some competition from almost all the other Amazon items, but comparing Scroll to Caltrops and a yellow piece of paper is a bit more of a stretch. Although, yes, Jade Amaya isn't half bad at all.

I think scroll is also not as good design, but it is less binary than speed. So it is not as big of a deal, imo. The only character it's absolutely essential on is Rumiko. For others, there are tradeoffs to make, for example, Yoshiro can either do double chi blast or do more damage, and so on.

I see what you mean. -5 energy can be huge (like the difference between 55 and 50--not that any ninja has a 55 energy move) but even when it isn't it's always meaningful. So it's not really comparable to speed.

Why is Scroll "absolutely essential" on Rumiko? It lets her Eviscerate twice, but doing so is not such a great idea IMO--what if the second one doesn't proc? I think it's only "essential" because she doesn't have any other particularly good choices.

Far, shuriken, shuriken is a threat which turns around her matchups with a lot of people (e.g. Voss, non-feather Juju, <50 en Anex).

60 energy eviscerate makes it much, much safer to go for an eviscerate. If they switch out, you can still threaten eviscerate on the incoming guy.

It allows infinite eviscerate loop (eviscerate, rest, repeat).

I have been dealing with Zina and MLM a lot recently, and MLM tends to have the Ring of Curses, Zina the Tiger's Claw.

I don't see Cornelius too much at Skill Rank 24/25, although I use him quite a bit. I see Onimaru sometimes, and I sometimes use him myself. One deck I like using sometimes is the combination of:

CC/Vial;
Onimaru/Salve;
Ubuntu/Death Mask;

I have found a nice way of dealing with Zina, after one time when I shredded the Kongbot in Practice Mode. Cain/Gem of Souls is an underrated but potentially strong choice against Zina and Anex. It even works against Vanessa if you can manage to lower her hit points. Given the prevailing choice of Anex, Cain can make a VERY serious counter to her. If Cain acquires the inate of Zina first, and then takes out Anex, he can be very formidable against virtually anybody. I have had a Rush of Bats deal 160 damage before, when Cain was in inate range, had Beast Feast, had the inates of Zina and Anex, and with a tantrum and at least a couple of rain dance buffs. If Cain acquires Vanessa's inate, his RoB is deadly. Also, his Tackle has a 50% chance to interrupt any slower attack.

If you use Cain/Gem of Souls with Ubuntu/Death Mask, you can make Cain's RoB quite a bit stronger, allowing him to take out an opposing character more easily.

Then again, I have also used these decks recently:

1: CC/Vial;
2: Yoshiro/Insignia;
3: Juju/Feather (or Ubuntu/Death Mask);

1: VV/Tome;
2: CC/Tome;
3: Tomebrosia;

(Note that on the last one, I sometimes have CC and Ambrosia switched.)

IMO, Beast Feast is a poor IA to grab because it won't activate until you kill a second person with that character. The problem with playing a Gem of Souls versus a strong player is it will do nothing most of the time, and very very little some of the time (Woohooo, Higashi's IA, except, the opponent has one character left...)

Exactly. There's nothing really wrong with the card per se, but it doesn't help you at all until you kill an opponent's char - and then, only when you kill them with a specific character of yours. Meanwhile they've been having the benefit of their items all along. And in the end, the odds of the gained innate actually being useful enough to be worth the delay in having an actual itme effect are pretty low. Basically, it can help you 'win big', but it won't help you win, for the most part.

(Probably more usable in 5-card I guess, if you play that.)