Godtear Community Playtest Packet: Jaak and Halftusk

Hello Champions!  As I’m sure you all know, the community is working on a balance pass for Godtear.  In this playtest packet, we’ll be presenting proposed changes for two champions.  One will get nerfs, one will get buffs.  First, we’ll give you the changes themselves.  Then we’ll explain why we chose these champions, how we have interpreted the community's perspective on their issues, and how we arrived at the change proposal.

Jaak’s Experimental Nerfs

Here are the proposed nerfs for Jaak:

• Battlefield Brew: New wording "If Jaak’s banner is on the battlefield, after he takes each action during his activation, you may remove a wound from another friendly model with two hexes of Jaak."

• Deploy Cauldron: Range 3 → 2

• HP: 7 → 6

Halftusk’s Experimental Buffs

Here are the proposed buffs for Halftusk:

• Feint: New text: “If Halftusk has no wounds, he may use this skill as a bonus action.

• Tongue Lash: New wording “Hit Effect: Move target up to 1 hex toward Halftusk."

• Tongue Tow: Skill renamed to “Tongue Strike” and new wording "Target Halftusk or a Friendly banner. If the target is within range, move it up to one hex."

Why these champions?

Jaak is considered by many players to be the strongest guardian; only surpassed by Durthax in a few scenarios. We wanted to bring him down a bit in power level compared to the other guardians.

Halftusk is a great starter-champion as he is easy to play; but once you get the hang of Godtear, his warband kit just doesn’t bring enough to the table considering the Froglodytes lack of attacks and utility.

What were their issues?

Jaak is just SO strong with so much healing - up to 5 per round without using his Ult (thanks to the ruling that Toil and Trouble triggers Battlefield Brew), can claim range 4 (1 more than Mourneblade), can be KOed and still plant up to 7 hexes away (by rallying, advancing 3, then delegating planting to Cronies), all while having an above average defense profile with easy access to armor boons.

Halftusk on the other hand is slow, only a threat towards high dodge low armor profiles (if he can get to them) and the Froglodytes often feel like they don’t really do anything besides standing on objective hexes.

Why’d we make the changes we did?

We wanted to tone down Jaak on his tankiness ever so slightly, hence the -1 HP, and align his range claim with Mourneblade. We also wanted to address his healing abilities and felt up to 4 per turn (2 during each phase) is enough (and feels like less of a rules lawyering loophole).  Similar to the reduced range of Raith’s Tsunami, lowering the range of Deploy Cauldron by one enables more options for interaction and more interesting counterplay options while maintaining the core identity.

We wanted to increase Halftusk’s ability to get around the board, and make the Froglodytes more meaningful by increasing the interaction between them and Halftusk.  The changes to Tongue Lash and Tongue Strike allow the Froglodytes to meaningfully impact the boardstate more consistently.  Namely moving enemies towards Halftusk, or Halftusk towards enemies while still being able to move banners as a guardian signature move. We hope these changes help the Froglodytes feel more useful on the tabletop.  Feint was buffed conditionally as a bonus action at full HP to enable it to be used more often. Halftusk already has 2 other skills in the plot phase that compete with Feint, not considering advance and claim actions.  Feint just rarely saw play and we wanted to change that to give Halftusk some additional utility. 

How to playtest these changes?

If you want to playtest these changes, simply play a game with one or more of the champions being playtested. Make sure that your opponent agrees on which version (original or community balance pass) of the champions you are using. If you play on TTS, use the changed cards provided by MightyFinePants. The Godtear Community page will also have an online version of the cards that you can use as a reference or if you are playing a live game:

How to contribute to the project?

To provide feedback, which is essential to the success of this project, you can submit THIS FORM (note, if you are new to playing online, you can learn more from this article).  

If you want to discuss these changes with the community at large, please post in the #playtest-feedback channel of the unofficial community discord server.

If you want to help brainstorm directions for balance changes, please post your ideas in the #homebrew channel of the unofficial community discord server.

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That’s it for this playtest packet.  Check out Objective Hex in two weeks when we publish the playtest packet for Grimgut and Kailinn!

Wooloolool,

The Council of Eldritch Judgement