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thought I might get up a new thread because we got a little bit told off in the last one. Characters up for debate are: 42pt Tulak Hord, Lord of Hate 25pt Nightsister Hunter ?? 50pt Darth Cognus ?? 31pt Mother Talzin It's pretty unlikely that we can create new topics for talzin and cognus but I put them there because they were mentioned as being part of the problem in the main thread. (balance committee 2026?) have fun arguing  .
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https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_CognusDarth CognusFor me Darth Cognus has been an NPE for a while. Even before Tulak. The combination of Evade and Parry is bad enough, but when mixed with the Doctrine of Fear special ability, she may as well have Soresu Style Mastery. The Distraction added on that makes it worse. IMO Doctrine of Fear is one of those abilities that should be contained to Tarkin and his cronies. It is in reference to a specific manifesto created by Tarkin and submitted to the Emperor for a potential policy moving forward also know as "Tarkin Doctrine". I would not consider giving Mother's Sacrifice to Bail, or Han's Echo to Revan. From a purely "Thematic" stand point I don't see it fitting on someone who lived a thousand years before the Doctrine of Fear was even written. It is on a number of other characters, and I disagree with it being on them as well. My big question is, with that change does that make Darth Bane Tulak's bestie? Mamma T and the HuntersI am not in favor of removing the rapport from Talzin. There have been some designs since here creation that would be significantly impacted from this change. I can see the cost being increased to compensate, or Plasma Bolt being reduced to a 2. Overall I don't see a need for a change. The cloak is maybe the most difficult thing to play around, but many Force Users are capable of moving and dealing 60+ damage in a single activation. They won a World Championship in a squad that is no longer playable. We have seen them used, but they are falling short of the domination that they are accused of. Tulak Hord, Lord of Hate I have played against this guy potentially more than any other person. Is it fun? No. Is it broken? I don't believe so. It does require a significant effort to take him down but there are counters to him. It is not a character that just anyone can pick up and use effectively. He still requires some proficiency. Initially we saw "the squad" emerge from several players, but this year we saw very little of it. I won't name any names, but there are some up and coming characters that have already been released that I see as a bigger problem for the game that not one person seems to be complaining about even though they are pushing the envelope as much or more.
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To be honest, I don't think the hunters need to be nerfed right now. I feel like tulak could be brung up in points without removing and flavour from the character. all of his abilities make sense and it would feel like something was missing if one was taken away. the only thing that doesn't directly relate to his character is how aggressively costed he is. Cognus however, i am not so mild on. I hate that lady with all my soul and she needs to be removed from the game  .
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NoffyD wrote:To be honest, I don't think the hunters need to be nerfed right now. I feel like tulak could be brung up in points without removing and flavour from the character. all of his abilities make sense and it would feel like something was missing if one was taken away. the only thing that doesn't directly relate to his character is how aggressively costed he is. Cognus however, i am not so mild on. I hate that lady with all my soul and she needs to be removed from the game . I can see that
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I've often said that I could see Tulak dropping Melee Duelist and gaining Ranged Defense Expert +4. He's currently very strong vs melee enemies (he can Teleport away, thus nerfing almost their entire activation) and weaker vs shooters (he can teleport out of LOS, but not if he wants to make an attack while doing that). So Melee Duelist just makes him tougher vs melee, who he's already strong against.
But if he dropped MD and gained RDE+4, then he'd be stronger against shooters (where his Teleport is a less powerful counter) and weaker vs melee enemies (who have a very difficult time against him, with Distraction, SSM, and Teleport).
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thereisnotry wrote:I've often said that I could see Tulak dropping Melee Duelist and gaining Ranged Defense Expert +4. He's currently very strong vs melee enemies (he can Teleport away, thus nerfing almost their entire activation) and weaker vs shooters (he can teleport out of LOS, but not if he wants to make an attack while doing that). So Melee Duelist just makes him tougher vs melee, who he's already strong against.
But if he dropped MD and gained RDE+4, then he'd be stronger against shooters (where his Teleport is a less powerful counter) and weaker vs melee enemies (who have a very difficult time against him, with Distraction, SSM, and Teleport).
Forgive me questioning, arguably one of the best SWM players in the world, but I fail to understand how a mini with 21 defense, 140 hp, SSM, and MOTF 2, is weaker vs shooters?  Imho, I don't feel that even if something is taken away from him, that he should be given anything in return. He's way too strong against melee and non-melee, as he currently is.
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thereisnotry wrote:I've often said that I could see Tulak dropping Melee Duelist and gaining Ranged Defense Expert +4. He's currently very strong vs melee enemies (he can Teleport away, thus nerfing almost their entire activation) and weaker vs shooters (he can teleport out of LOS, but not if he wants to make an attack while doing that). So Melee Duelist just makes him tougher vs melee, who he's already strong against.
But if he dropped MD and gained RDE+4, then he'd be stronger against shooters (where his Teleport is a less powerful counter) and weaker vs melee enemies (who have a very difficult time against him, with Distraction, SSM, and Teleport).
Ranged Defense Expert +4 (Whenever this character is targeted by a nonadjacent enemy, he gets +4 to save rolls against that enemy's attack and special abilities that turn)That special ability helps not only against non-adjacent shooters, but also vs non-adjacent characters with special abilities that can do dmg, activate the character, etc., that require a save roll! It's a pretty strong special ability to give a character 
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DarthMaim wrote:thereisnotry wrote:I've often said that I could see Tulak dropping Melee Duelist and gaining Ranged Defense Expert +4. He's currently very strong vs melee enemies (he can Teleport away, thus nerfing almost their entire activation) and weaker vs shooters (he can teleport out of LOS, but not if he wants to make an attack while doing that). So Melee Duelist just makes him tougher vs melee, who he's already strong against.
But if he dropped MD and gained RDE+4, then he'd be stronger against shooters (where his Teleport is a less powerful counter) and weaker vs melee enemies (who have a very difficult time against him, with Distraction, SSM, and Teleport).
Ranged Defense Expert +4 (Whenever this character is targeted by a nonadjacent enemy, he gets +4 to save rolls against that enemy's attack and special abilities that turn)That special ability helps not only against non-adjacent shooters, but also vs non-adjacent characters with special abilities that can do dmg, activate the character, etc., that require a save roll! It's a pretty strong special ability to give a character 
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I kind of look at Tulak like this: He's a tank, and a very effective one. He's arguably too good at being a tank, but that's not my point. He's a great tank, but other than that, he's not the most scary. For 42 points, he can do a maximum of 70DMG in a turn, and that is spending 2 FP. Because of his relatively low damage output for his cost, I don't see him as being that horrible. When played well, he can be an absolute beast who isn't all that fun to play against. But the same is true for pretty much any effective piece in the game. For example, this year at Gen Con, I was starting to get bothered by the amount of times people were using the new OR Revan against me. Nothing is really wrong with that piece in my eyes, but it started to get old by the third time playing him in a weekend. My point is kind of this: I personally don't think Tulak needs to be hard nerfed. Maybe some tweaks could be in order, but really if you don't like the piece, just don't choose to play him. There are so many awesome squad options available, and so many of them are viable.
That's just my two cents though, and I haven't been playing for all that long like many of you have, so I certainly don't have quite the amount of experience as you guys, but yeah, that's just my thoughts.
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Tulak definitely needs something dropped. He's too tanky and he can do a good amount of damage when you pair him with 50pt Darth Bane who can give him LSA, which he can use on his Sith Reflexes to dish out 40 dmg in response to taking damage. If he gets Sith Rage from Exar, DFS he can do 90 dmg on the move with LSA and Sith Rage using MotF 2. He gets renewal 2 from Bane also which just makes Tulak even bigger of an issue. Maybe dropping the Darth SA would go a long ways to keeping this guy in check? Without the Darth SA, he wouldn't get to start next to the DF Nexus and wouldn't be an option for Darth Bane to use Rule of Two with and give him even more stuff.
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Definitely feel like Tulak is still the issue and not Cognus because like Mando just said Bane can still beef Tulak as well. As we have seen, there are plenty of people thinking Tulak is the issue for multiple reasons. I think simply losing 1 ability would go a long way or simply increasing cost by a few points.
Urban Jedi in the other thread did bring up good points. I do feel like Tulak needs a small adjustment but other than that I do feel the meta is pretty good right now. There was a large and diverse field in all major tournaments and not 1 team winning them all. There is an emergence of powerful pieces but I feel there is nothing that is an automatic play in a tournament which I feel shows a pretty balanced meta.
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DarthMaim wrote:thereisnotry wrote:I've often said that I could see Tulak dropping Melee Duelist and gaining Ranged Defense Expert +4. He's currently very strong vs melee enemies (he can Teleport away, thus nerfing almost their entire activation) and weaker vs shooters (he can teleport out of LOS, but not if he wants to make an attack while doing that). So Melee Duelist just makes him tougher vs melee, who he's already strong against.
But if he dropped MD and gained RDE+4, then he'd be stronger against shooters (where his Teleport is a less powerful counter) and weaker vs melee enemies (who have a very difficult time against him, with Distraction, SSM, and Teleport).
Forgive me questioning, arguably one of the best SWM players in the world, but I fail to understand how a mini with 21 defense, 140 hp, SSM, and MOTF 2, is weaker vs shooters? Imho, I don't feel that even if something is taken away from him, that he should be given anything in return. He's way too strong against melee and non-melee, as he currently is. Yes, I'll tell you that Tulak is significantly weaker vs shooters than he is vs melee enemies (at least, in my squad with Cognus' Doctrine of Fear in effect). With DoF, enemy melee characters need to hit a 29 Def, and then there are factors like SSM and Distraction. But in addition to that, if he does get hit (and if he fails a SSM save) he can teleport away (often to attack another character), and all of that character's attacks are now empty. Contrast that with his defenses against shooters: --shooters can attack from outside the DoF range, so they only need to hit a 25 in cover. How many characters have a 25 defense in cover, plus evade/soresu style? This really isn't a big deal nowadays, especially not with the amount of damage output that shooters are getting. --shooters don't care about his Distraction --if Tulak wants to teleport away to break LoS, he'll almost never have someone to attack with the teleport People are saying that Tulak is very punishing against melee enemies. Yes, I agree. But he's significantly weaker vs ranged enemies (really, not much different than most other tanky jedi/sith). Therefore, my thinking is that if we make him less punishing to melee enemies, it would make sense to buff him a bit more vs ranged enemies. Whether RDE+4 should just be the +2 version, or something else, or nothing at all, might be a good discussion.
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Some people despise Tulak entirely and don't want to have to face him at all. But that gets into a discussion about why he was developed in the first place.
I'll let Bryan talk more about it, but when he and I spoke about it during the idea/brainstorming stage, he said he wanted to make a Sith piece that both had and provided some defensive durability. At the time, Zannah was the only tanky Sith piece and she was almost never used. He wanted a tanky Sith piece that was worth using, and I think he nailed it. Tulak is such a tactically-rich piece that he quickly became my favorite piece in the game.
Whenever we're talking about tanky characters, I always point to the issue of (still increasing) damage output. Characters are regularly attacking for 40dmg per hit. Most of the time, these are shooters who are either cloaked or who duck back out of LOS after making multiple heavy attacks. I've been pretty vocal on many occasions about how this damage-stacking is harming the game, and yet nothing has been done to limit it or turn it back. (I recognize that this is a complicated issue that can't be easily fixed with a floor rules change or some other approach.)
Regardless of how complicated the issue is, the higher the damage output rises, the tankier the tanks need to be. If not, then they cease to be tanks, and they simply become pin-cushions that can take a few more pins before they fall apart. My point is that if we have high damage output, then we need tankier tanks. If we could find a way to drop the damage out put or find a way to limit damage-stacking, then I would agree that Tulak (and perhaps other tanks too) might need a nerf. But until then, I really don't think Tulak is broken or needs a nerf.
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DarthMaim wrote:Forgive me questioning, arguably one of the best SWM players in the world, but I fail to understand how a mini with 21 defense, 140 hp, SSM, and MOTF 2, is weaker vs shooters? Imho, I don't feel that even if something is taken away from him, that he should be given anything in return. He's way too strong against melee and non-melee, as he currently is. 
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thereisnotry wrote:
Whether RDE+4 should just be the +2 version, or something else, or nothing at all, might be a good discussion. However, RDE would make him way better against the one thing he is weaker at which is save based direct damage (missiles, grenades, proximity mines, etc)
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urbanjedi wrote:thereisnotry wrote:
Whether RDE+4 should just be the +2 version, or something else, or nothing at all, might be a good discussion. However, RDE would make him way better against the one thing he is weaker at which is save based direct damage (missiles, grenades, proximity mines, etc) Ok, so maybe RDE is not the answer. My thought is simply that Tulak could probably stand to lose Melee Duelist because he's so strong vs melee. But if he does then I think he should retain his durability, but just shift it to help against shooters rather against melee. Maybe Difficult Target? That would be preferable to RDE in my opinion, anyway.
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urbanjedi wrote:thereisnotry wrote:
Whether RDE+4 should just be the +2 version, or something else, or nothing at all, might be a good discussion. However, RDE would make him way better against the one thing he is weaker at which is save based direct damage (missiles, grenades, proximity mines, etc) Agree here 100%. Hoping we dont nerf him one way and buff him another and create a similar scenario. At that point would rather leave him as is, although not in love with that I think it is a better alternative.
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Mando wrote:Maybe dropping the Darth SA would go a long ways to keeping this guy in check? I like this idea - Tulak is still a monster in Melee and Ranged, but he can't get Renewal 2 from Bane and can't get Summoned by the Nexus. With Renewal 1 he should be manageable, and Melee Duelist (and possibly Cognus) can help him stay alive. Removing the [Darth] just reduces the amount of batteries he can benefit from, forcing the player to rely on the Vision in the Cave or a Sith Holocron.
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urbanjedi wrote:thereisnotry wrote:
Whether RDE+4 should just be the +2 version, or something else, or nothing at all, might be a good discussion. However, RDE would make him way better against the one thing he is weaker at which is save based direct damage (missiles, grenades, proximity mines, etc) +1.
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thereisnotry wrote:urbanjedi wrote:thereisnotry wrote:
Whether RDE+4 should just be the +2 version, or something else, or nothing at all, might be a good discussion. However, RDE would make him way better against the one thing he is weaker at which is save based direct damage (missiles, grenades, proximity mines, etc) Ok, so maybe RDE is not the answer. My thought is simply that Tulak could probably stand to lose Melee Duelist because he's so strong vs melee. But if he does then I think he should retain his durability, but just shift it to help against shooters rather against melee. Maybe Difficult Target? That would be preferable to RDE in my opinion, anyway. Let's not over think this. If Tulok players, for some reason, are worried about shooters ( If so, I didn't know that people thought he was too weak against shooters ), than may I suggest the following mini currently available to the Sith faction, that is an amazing, cheap, cloaked gambit gathering masterpiece of a mini; Sith Krath Death Witch12 Hit Points: 30 Defense: 14 Attack: 4 Damage: 10 Rarity: Common Base: Medium Gender: Female Krath Death WitchSpecial Abilities Melee Attack (Can attack only adjacent enemies) Cloaked (If this character has cover, she cannot be targeted by nonadjacent enemies) Steal Force (Replaces attacks: touch; 1 adjacent character with a Force rating loses 1 Force point and this character gains 1 Force point) Force Powers Force 1 Force Lightning 1 (Force 1, replaces attacks: range 6; 20 damage) Commander Effect Allies with Melee Attack within 6 squares get +4 Defense against attacks from farther than 6 squares.
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