Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaur0n
Thanks for the explanation.
I'd like to point out that the only one of those who has a shield is the one who is only to an extent a defender. My point is, some people seem a little too fixated on the appearance of the figure when Heroscape is littered with figures who's power and or purpose won't match too closely with the figure's appearance. It's a little dull to me to pigeon hole a character or reject an ability because it doesn't meet an eye test the creators obviously didn't restrict themselves to. (Race and faction likely being an exception)
I don't think I have a problem with this character fitting a defender role but it's an eye-roll for me that the main reason appears to be it's carrying a shield and not because we decided it should be or it happened organically.
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I believe that the stronger reason for making him a defender actually comes from looking at the set as a whole. We want to give a wide variety of playstyles for people to play with, given that this is meant to be a Master Set on the level of Rise of the Valkyrie.
Looking at other figures and the general directions that have been proposed, we've seen a good number of offensive oriented characters already (Chandra with a Special Attack, Cyberpunk Jace with self-wounding to boost his attack and conditional mind control, the Eldrazi Ruiner with pulling in nearby figures to attack them all, etc.). On top of this, there are a good number of remaining figures that may fulfill similar roles, and have less of an immediate case for being defenders than Gideon does, given his "good guy" color scheme, pose, and shield.
We certainly could make something else a defender rather than him to fulfill that archetype, but I find it worth mentioning to ensure that all pod members are aware that it
is a role to fill, and to offer another design direction to consider in contrast to Chandra, the Firecats, and Ob Nixilus. The details of such a design or whether to take that direction at all is up to this pod, although I do think that the case for making him a defender extends beyond him simply holding a shield.