The Book of Baron Mordo

[Yodaking]

I'm going to hold off on voting here until I see what the spells final points look like. He was certainly playing well at 260 before we put a portion of the spell cost on him. Your bio update reminds me I need to do the same for Enchantress.

[Lazy Orang]

I've suspended the Votes on Mordo and the spells. I'm going to make a pre-vote proposal to make sure everything ideally runs in as smooth and non-confused a way as possible, and propose we put Mordo in at 270, Mesmerise in at 25 and Hypnotise in at 25. Alternatively, we could put Mordo in at 260 and bump both of his spells up to 30 or either one of them up to 35. Honestly, I really don't care, I just want to get this guy through at a reasonable level - the minutiae means less to me than getting it done.

@dok , @Dysole , @Tornado , @Yodaking , @johnny139 , @Viegon , @TrollBrute , @japes , @Ronin , @Arkham , @Soundwarp SG-1 , @weebaer , is this sounding okay? Any specific preferences?

[Ronin]

I haven't been keeping that close an eye on the results before tonight, but giving everything a quick once-over, Mordo at 260 and the spells at 30 each looks reasonable to me.

There's a tight margin of error on costing the spells, because under-valuing them is an error that will compound and create balance problems as we create more spells. (More of a problem for spells than for most units because the spells are such good filler to just grab a handful of - a difference of a few points, spread across a bunch of spells, pretty significantly impacts exactly how big that handful can be)

Also, I prefer having the spells cost slightly more versus having MD figures eat the cost of spell interactions. It'd be a shame if all our new MD figures ended up looking like a bag of butts next to some of the old ones that were costed without the spell system in mind. (EDIT: Of course, there will be cases where doing that is unavoidable, but it strikes me as pretty avoidable here)

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Ronin

I haven't been keeping that close an eye on the results before tonight, but giving everything a quick once-over, Mordo at 260 and the spells at 30 each looks reasonable to me.

There's a tight margin of error on costing the spells, because under-valuing them is an error that will compound and create balance problems as we create more spells. (More of a problem for spells than for most units because the spells are such good filler to just grab a handful of - a difference of a few points, spread across a bunch of spells, pretty significantly impacts exactly how big that handful can be)

Also, I prefer having the spells cost slightly more versus having MD figures eat the cost of spell interactions. It'd be a shame if all our new MD figures ended up looking like a bag of butts next to some of the old ones that were costed without the spell system in mind. (EDIT: Of course, there will be cases where doing that is unavoidable, but it strikes me as pretty avoidable here)

Okay - assuming no objections, then, this is what I'll be going with.

[Ronin]

I think that'll go over, but it's probably best to wait a day before you call for a new vote, to give people a chance to weigh in and make sure you're not going to get tripped up on balance questions again. Some of the Heroes may give you a pre-yea if they're cool with those costs, so you might be able to get a jump on the new vote.

[Yodaking]

I have been keeping a close eye on how this all developed and reviewed every test posted. After having seen Mordo and the two spells perform pretty spot on at 320 points for the total package, I would not want to vote to pass the total package at more than that. Where you end up dividing up the points is worth discussing but I'd be against having the total package coming in over 320 at this point.

As for Mordo eating some aspect of the spells cost, he should for at least the Hypnotize spell as he is the only MD figure that can get any extra juice out of it.

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I have been keeping a close eye on how this all developed and reviewed every test posted. After having seen Mordo and the two spells perform pretty spot on at 320 points for the total package, I would not want to vote to pass the total package at more than that. Where you end up dividing up the points is worth discussing but I'd be against having the total package coming in over 320 at this point.

As for Mordo eating some aspect of the spells cost, he should for at least the Hypnotize spell as he is the only MD figure that can get any extra juice out of it.

Unfortunately, that could be kind of impossible since it's increasingly looking like people won't take less than 30 for either spell.

[quozl]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I'm going to hold off on voting here until I see what the spells final points look like. He was certainly playing well at 260 before we put a portion of the spell cost on him. Your bio update reminds me I need to do the same for Enchantress.

He shouldn't have even been tested with those spells until they had a final price.

[Viegon]

Having both the spells come in at 30 would make me feel a lot more comfortable.

Originally Posted by Ronin

There's a tight margin of error on costing the spells, because under-valuing them is an error that will compound and create balance problems as we create more spells. (More of a problem for spells than for most units because the spells are such good filler to just grab a handful of - a difference of a few points, spread across a bunch of spells, pretty significantly impacts exactly how big that handful can be)

I very much agree with this. Unlike with a 200+ point unit where 10-20 points off is a pretty small error, 10-20 points off with a spell is a bigger deal, especially if it happens multiple times. At that point, we're suddenly looking at some MD figures (who are already really good in their own right) running around with spells costing 50+ less points than they should. Especially considering that the spells are supposed to be more of an addition/optional rule, having MD figures rise up to A/A+ rankings because of the spells is something we want to avoid.

[Lazy Orang]

Alright then, I'm going to restart the vote, and I'm going to have the whole vote go on in this thread for simplicity's sake - I Propose Moving to Final Editing, with Baron Mordo at 260, with Mesmerise at 30, and with Hypnotise at 30.

@Tornado - Yea
@johnny139 - Abstain
@Viegon - Yea
@Yodaking -
@japes -
@TrollBrute -

[Viegon]

Yea

[Tornado]

I believe a lot of the concerns with spells will be alleviated over time. They are a gamble and only worth their points when used. Sure you can load up a bunch of awesome spells but will you survive long enough to use them?

This is where all MD builds will be nice, but even then you never quite know how things will play out. Regardless, it is good we are we being conservative at the start.

Yea