Godtear Community Playtest Packet: Lily, Nia, and Rattlebone v2

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 three champions, two new and a slight change to Rattlebone based on the feedback and playtest experiences. For the two new champions in the balance pass, 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.

Lily Experimental Nerfs

Here are the proposed changes for Lily:

• Lily advance: 3 → 2 plot phase

• Nature’s wrath: New wording “If the hit roll total equals the target’s dodge exactly, before the damage roll, Thornlings gain [a damage boon] and the target gains [an armor blight].”

Nia Experimental Buffs

Here are the proposed changes for Nia

• Crystal Mirror and Crystal Glare: Range 2 → 3 

• Erosion: New wording “Hit Effect: Armor blight, Dodge blight”

• Geode: New wording “Plot phase only. Choose a quartzling that is the only model in its hex and is adjacent to an objective hex, and replace it with an objective hex. If it is within 2 hexes of Nia, she may make a claim action on that hex. The Quartzlings may then make up to 3 recruit actions.”

Rattlebone v2 Experimental Buffs

Here are the proposed updated changes for Rattlebone

• Roll the Bones: New wording “Once per phase during Rattlebone's activation, roll one die. On a 1 or 2 you may move a boon or blight from a friendly model within 2 hexes of Rattlebone to any other model within 2 hexes of Rattlebone. On a 2, you may also move a boon or blight from an enemy model within 2 hexes of Rattlebone to any other model within 2 hexes of Rattlebone.”

• Cursed Ground: New wording "You may remove any number of blights from friendly models within range.  Place up to two objective hexes on empty non-objective hexes within range.  Remove these hexes at the end of the clash phase."

• Hex Bolt: Accuracy 2/4/6 → 4/5/6

Why these champions?

We wanted to buff Nia because she is tied for the lowest win percentage of all time on Longshanks.  She is also rarely played in the standard SFG4 format. Nia does offer a uniquely interesting playstyle with hex creation and boon/blight control game, but needs a bit of help to be more competitive compared to other options.

Lily, on the other hand, is in the top 3 win percentage since her release and is widely considered the best shaper; possibly tied with original Raith depending on who you ask. Lily is a solid pick in most SFG4 formats and easily a first pick / ban in draft tournaments. She is one of the best banner crushers and at the same time a strong control champion.

Rattlebone’s first experimental changes seemed overall to fall in a good place with the community but there were some issues.  Roll the Bones stealing two boons (effectively giving out two boons and two blights at range 2 without the use of an action) resulted in some contentious feedback, and Cursed Ground causing an auto wound was a rules headache.

What were their issues?

As hinted at above we feel that Nia’s blight / boon control game is lacking a bit of flexibility and consistency. She is reliant on her trait to do all her actions and even then, they can feel unproductive and clunky. She is slow and really needs the March ability to keep up with other warbands. Her followers can feel a bit boring to play because you need all three active at the start of her activation to trigger her trait.

We feel that Lily is just a little bit too good at both crushing banners and pushing models, while also posing a significant threat with the thornlings “crit”. Having thornlings one-shotting champions can often feel bad for both sides. 

Rattlebone’s changes to Roll the Bones could feel oppressive since it had a 66% chance of stealing a boon from an enemy model 2 hexes away - two boons if you rolled a 2. And this theft auto hit every phase she didn't roll a blank.  This led to a weird playstyle where opponents would just not boon up.  We wanted to address that.  We also felt that Cursed Ground should be improved, just not in the rules twisting way we originally went with.

Why’d we make the changes we did?

We wanted to expand Nia’s boon/blight games while still keeping her identity separate from other shapers. We felt the range 3 to Crystal Mirror and Glare will achieve that. We also wanted to address the clunkiness of the interaction between Meditation, Erosion and Blinding Light while increasing the effectiveness of Blinding Light. We feel the suggested changes will achieve that because it allows for some interesting combinations with the Quartzlings when taking Crystal Glare into account. The change to the ultimate is intended to provide additional options to Nia’s more linear play loop, and give a bit more agency in managing her trait.

We decided that we wanted to keep Lily’s identity as a very strong control game with the combination of pushes and a slow.  One of the most common community concerns seems to be the ease at which she can stay out of engagement range while still establishing and crushing banners.  We felt that reducing the clash speed would more directly address this, but preliminary discussions with Lily enthusiasts raised concerns about this being far too heavy handed, and ultimately chose to explore the plot movement first.  Another common feedback is that the “crit” from Nature’s Wrath can lead to “feels bad” moments, and wanted to explore options to reduce the “peak efficiency” while maintaining the current identity.  This change reduces average damage by 0.6, and limits the previous impact from stacking the attack with boons and blights.

The community feedback was very positive in general for Rattlebone, but there was some contention around how oppressive Roll the Bones felt at times. Given the feedback was somewhat polarizing, we wanted to explore opportunities to keep what people liked about the first iteration while still trying to address the concerns that were raised.  The new wording makes the trait work similarly, but prevents the ability to steal two boons, and reduces the probability of stealing a boon from an enemy model from ~66% to ~16%.  This not only makes rolling a 2 meaningful, but also generally allows the opponent to apply boons close to Rattlebone without being almost certain that they will be stolen.

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:

[Images of the cards in TTS and on Experimental]

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). The original form for Rattlebone can be used, just select if you played with Rattlebone v1 or Rattlebone v2  

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 Lorsann and Maxen; with adjustments to Rangosh and Skullbreaker!

Wooloolool,

The Council of Eldritch Judgement