The problem using One-shots to keep Zealous Offense out, is you would of needed a method to do 3 damage on the turn of playing Zealous Offense, as it would destroy itself on the same turn you play it. Unless of course you had it played out of turn.
I get what you're saying, which is why I used the words I did: to keep Zealous Offense out, to stay in play, etc.
I have no disagreement that Sancrosanct Martyr can help you get Zealous Offense Out. It's just that Sanctified Strike and Brutal Censure provide better methods of keeping it out, if you don't have Absolution yet.
A lot of villains have DR, and it is hard to near impossible to keep Zealous Offense out, if you can make it up without hurting yourself that is sweet, but it isn't always possible. That's why I find Martyr a great way to keep it out. With DR of 1 on villain targets you can deal two to yourself, one to a villain and you have your goal.
It's even better when say Dawn gets Anvil and Truth out, as well as battery or hammer. You aren't punching through that to do three damage, but you can deal it to yourself, and shut down their damage while your team breaks through the reduction. Also Martyr can break through DR pretty well, it is a high cost, but if it sets up your team to clear other baddies out, it can be worth it. Chastise and Zealous offense are a sick combo, they shut down three targets from dealing damage, and Chastise gives you two of the three damage you need for Zealous.
I am not arguing that Censure and S. Strike are bad cards they aren't, the point is that they are her weakest cards, not her worst, and that isn't because they are bad cards, but because every other card in her deck has a really strong application in it.
I'm not advising that players go deal themselves five damage every round, use it smartly, and not if you are better off not using it. If the team needs you to tank highest HP hits and support, then you play differently, the problem I have is that it seems to be a concensus that no one should ever use these abilities that can really help Fanatic dominate a battle when used inteligently.
Ronway, I'm going to side with one point awp puts up: there IS an optimal way to play each hero in each situation, given that the objective is to win by the highest margin possible (and not other objective like win the most fun way). The same way there are cards that are just plain better than others (ie. Thokk vs Brutal Censure) there are better plays considering risk/rewards situation and cards invested. You said you have played her a lot (so does awp) but truth is both of you could have been playing her sub-optimal. So far awp has presented his way of playing her, I haven't read in what yours differs (if it's posted elsewhere). Anyway, assessing what's the right play in one situation is not hard but as a whole there are a lot of variables to consider so it's harder to get a consensus.
Me? I think Fanatic has a lot of situational cards which makes her really hard to assess as a whole for a strategy. Sometimes the card you play is a good or bad choice depending on what cards you'll draw. I agree that her "draw a card" cards are great specially early game (reliable) but also that her more situational cards when working properly are far greater (but less reliable).
I disagree with with. If I play defensively, and keep wasting turns so that Cleansing Downpour heals everyone to max before I deal the final blow, I didn’t play in the most optimal way. To me at least, the most optimal play is the fastest way to kill the villain. Once the villain is dead, you can spend as much time as you want healing up, without worrying about innocent people getting hurt. It is great to play an armor card and end the game with close to max life, but if you wouldn’t have died anyways, the optimal play will not be to play the armor card. For me, the game is all about how to kill the villain with the minimum of defensive plays. The only time a defensive play is worth it, is if it will extend the life of a hero (and the game), in order to get in the killing blow. I love trying to figure out if I need to play the armor soon, so that it has a constant effect throughout the game, or if I think I can wait, pound him now, and only play the card if/when I get close to dying. This is what is fun to me, trying to figure this out and create the “optimal” play each turn.
Although, i do happily admit that other people will have a different goal in mind, which would create a different “optimal” play.
NOTE: This has nothing to do with the specifics of the optimal play of Fanatic.
Yep. For me, the optimal play is what is the most fun. 
If I see something entertaining and humorous that might not be the best play to kill the villain (and it won't cause my teammates undo hardship, etc.), I'll go for that.
We all have different views on this stuff - as Ronway has pointed out, we don't even agree on if there is an optimal way to play each hero.
Pydro, by 'margin' choose whatever resource you think fits the criteria better: total life, number of turns, Incap heroes, etc. It's really not an issue, the point of that was to stress that there is an optimal way to play given limited objectives, given comparable variables. 'Fun' is not a comparable variable because it's totally subjective, Number of turns or Number of Incap Heroes is not subjective so it can be valued. I think that it can be summed up in win%, so whatever gives higher win% is the way to go but that is a bit broader and harder to analyze objectively.
The way that guarantees highest win% is the one that prevents or nullifies Villain card plays and avoid having negative effects on a balance of Heros vs Villain. Reducing the number of turns of the game pushes toward this so I agree that it's an important consideration. You can conclude then that dealing lots of damage ASAP is a high asset and probably worth the cost of your own HP. Note that this coincides with some characteristics of Legacy which is considered among the strongest Heros (if not the most).
Going back to a previous post, I'd argue that the moment Fanatic draws Aegis the way that gives the highest win% could be making sure Fixer gets Incap so Fanatic can cycle her Aegis and be inmortal if the Villain can't deal with that. But it could as well go the other way since, say, Fixer could make you win one turn earlier (and thus reducing the Villain card play by 1). Now those are things in particular I find highly interesting to discuss. I guess people could read "optimal" in a "Play to win" mentality and not that if they are playing for fun they are playing it wrong.
Fair enough. I mistakenly read that as more life. I agree the optimal play is the one that gives you the highest chance of winning. I look for the optimal play by considering 3 tihngs:
1) The possible actions of your oppenent (either a real one or an AI)
2) The probabilty that each action will occur
3) The consequences of each action
From there, I choose the best action available to me that will give me the highest chance of winning.
EDIT: I wanted to add that in SotM, win percentage isn;t always the goal. There is a lot of theme here, and sometime you play to not have an incapped heroes, or to tell a specific very cool stroy. Within each of these goals, there would still be an optimal play in order to accomplish the goal. I also think that fun can be a goal in this case. Many times, the goal of a game isn't to win, but to have a good time. There are characters whose optimal play based on win percentage is actually very boring. If the reason you are playing is to have fun, then that is your goal, and you would still have an optimal play towards that goal. While it is subjective and not quantifiable, the player always knows which card is more fun for him.
I agree that Optimal should mean giving your team the highest chance to win.
The trouble with that is there are so many different villains and environments and hero teams.
The trouble with optimising Fanatic is she can go in very different directions, depending on the situation.
There are times when the optimal course of action is to take damage that most heroes would want to avoid. There are times where Fanatic doing this and dying is optimal. Especially since she has cards that take advantage of her playing at low health.
I'm not going to claim it is "The" optimal way to play, but it is in certain circumstances. Players of Fanatic will benefit from being able to recognize when that time is, and take advantage of it.
Sacrosanct Martyr isn't a go to damage power, but it does have uses, there are times when Fanatic using Martyr to down a Gene-bound Guard will let ther teammates clear the damage minions that otherwise would deal more than 4 or 5 damage to the team. Using Martyr there is a net gain of health for the team, and likely increases your chance to win. It is important for players to be able to judge these situations, otherwise they won't use strategies that can help them win.
Fanatic has high starting health, yet she is very well equipped to be the lowest health hero, even more so the more of her ongoing and equips she can get out. Thinking in terms of health being too good to salf damage leads to players not utilizing Zealous Offense, Divine Sacrifice and Aegis to their full strength, all three are really strong cards, and can swing a match.
So many of Fanatic's cards are situational, Undaunted isn't a great card, but if you are facing Plague Rat (a villain you almost never want to burn against) it is great, as you cn tank an infection easily (If you aren't playing advanced)
One of my absolute favorite combos is TtE on Fanatic with Sacrosanct Martyr, as it allows Divine Focus and Chastise's damage to be radiant, and a sacrosanct Martyr of one damage deals a good chunk back to the enemy. Add in Zealous offense and undaunted and you will deal yourself from 4 to 14 damage, for a return of 8 to 18 damage to your enemies as well as three targets being unable to deal damage. That is a lot of cards, but it can happen, and is amazing when it works.
It's a tough way to play, and risky, but the rewards can be great. I wouldn't write a guide saying this is the way she should be played, but I don't think it should be idnored either.
Agree with your way 3 points.
Sure, but backtrackking a bit we are talking about a strategy guide here, right? I don't think people need a guide on how to have fun. So not making the optimal move towards win% to have more fun from the game is still not playing optimally even if you are still winning. This doesn't mean you shouldn't do it or that you are playing wrong. If the optimal way to play a character is boring it's a flaw from the character IMO but if we are talking about how to make the most out of it, boring or fun doesn't participate.
Btw, I'm also on the camp "Fanatic doesn't need help to reduce her HP" by default when I start a game because I don't play to optimize Incap Heroes, not a fan of the strategy and because she doesn't have a reliable way to get her top-tier cards other than drawing. I did burn her when I figured that the longer the games goes the lower the chances of the heroes of winning like vs Blade, Ennead and Dawn (in my plays). I gauge all cards of "deal yourself damage do something extra this turn" in a similar way: I consider them good when speeding the game is in the Heroes favour.
Precisely. I guess I should have made clear what I felt that "optimal" meant. I assumed everyone had a similar definition as I did. What I meant by optimal is: Has the highest possible win%, across an extended number of games, and with fewest possible hero incapacitations.
There are a few things I'd like to mention before anybody jumps on them. Firstly, when I say across an extended number of games, what I mean by that is consistency. For the strategy to be "optimal" it has to work often, leading to success practically all the time. It can't depend too much on card draws, it can't rely on a particular environment, it can't work only against a certian villian, it can't require anybody except Fanatic to be on your team. I like combos as much as the next guy, heck, I think I'm even going to add TTE + Focus/SS Martyr/Chastise to the guide, that's a good one. But it can't be party of a general strategy, it requires too many unknowns to work.
Secondly, I guess not everybody views hero incapacitations as a bad thing. I do. Maybe this was an assumption I should have made clear, but when I wrote the guide 2 years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of people begging to differ. I kept that mentality, but I suppose not everybody has. It's one thing to be down and brought back with Aegis, it's another thing to be down and out. It's the down and out part that I feel is bad. To a certain degree, practically everything that it is possible to write in a hero strategy guide only applies when that hero is not incapacitated; therefore if your hero is incapacitated it largely invalidates the guide. It's also generally the case that a hero can do more good when on their "active" side. There might be specific exceptions (Tempest vs Chairman =p ) but again, I have to write a guide based primarily on cards that are in Fanatic's deck, not on any combinations with other heroes/villian/environement.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming =p
Phantaskippy: Now, in the guide, I did specifically mention that Sacrosanct Martyr might be a good way to get Zealous Offense out. It's in the Support section where I talk about Zealous Offense. I also talked about how amazing Divine Focus is! Why would you think that its so bad? I sort of went over it in detail in the guide…
I think my first post was poorly worded.
It doesn't bother me as in "You should have known better!" but more I wanted to throw it out there so people would think more about it, because it bothers me when people don't even consider a lot of her cards because they cost health.
I like Zealous offense early, because it is so powerful being able to pick two targets each turn, it is a really powerful card that many players dont play because they don't think about dealing themselves damage, with Chastise, Divine Focus and Martyr, there is plenty of first turn cards that let you throw focus second turn and keep it out, I think Zealous offense in Fanatic's deck is one of the strongest cards in the game. I know you said Martyr could be used to keep it out, but you also said that if you were desperate enough to use Martyr to keep it, you probably don't have time to wait.
It sounds very much like the "any damage is bad" mentality that limits how well people play fanatic.
The problem with that is, you should be weighing the idea of purposfully taking damage to gain benefits anytime you have the cards to do it, waiting till you are desperate is too late, take sacrifices early and use Fanatic's tools to stay in the game, or go out with a bang. No one wants to incap, but you can save yourself and lose the fight, Fanatic is equipped to be the hero that takes the beating for her team, and the villain is much worse off for it.
I don't like Divine focus because of the cost, when you run out of cards you don't do much. That's fine if you see the villain is low enough that you can burn your hand and kill him, and the damage to start the villain turn can be a real lifesaver (esp with Voss and forced deployment if you have +damage or Hairtrigger out there, you can kill a nasty one before it acts. Mostly I find that only with ridiculous +damage is it worth a card. It might be worth burning your hand down if you have Prayer of Desperation, but you'd lose your turn there. I guess the main use I could find for it would be to empty your hand to one card so Prayer of desperation would get more cards out and increase your chances of getting retribution.
I say that the weakest cards are the draw cards because a card draw has no tangible benefit, and the production of 1 to 2 damage isn't game changing, they are good cards because they move through the deck, but they aren't strong cards because they don't accomplish much in the fight. The difference between strong/weak and good/bad is probably why there is confusion here, they are good cards, but they aren't strong cards, Fanatic's deck is full of strong cards, and while her draws aren't weak compared to other heroes decks, they are the weakest in Fanatics.
I understand why you don't include all kinds of alternate and situational strategies in your guide, it is long enough just getting through the basics, I was more interested in starting a discussion than complaining or critisizing, I actually think your guide is very good, one of the better ones. After my first post I got a little defensive and wasn't really responding to your guide anymore.
Maybe an advanced tactics guide for the different heroes would be good, just to show off all the really cool stuff heroes can do that isn't for most games.
Again, this is just a personal (not technical) definition of Optimal, but...
If I'm alive, with a hand of 4 or more cards, chances are that I'm going to be able to contribute more fully to any given battle than if I was incapacitated.
Fanatic's incap abilities are:
- One player may play a card now.
- One Hero regains 2 hp.
- Select a Hero. Increase the next damage dealt by that Hero by 2.
Of those 3, the most likely useful on any given turn is #1, followed likely by #3. But, if Fanatic's incapacitated, that's all she can do.
Compare that to her other potential options, through her cards: Zealous Offense, Holy Nova's healing, ongoing/environment destruction through Consecrated Ground, to say nothing of her numerous damage options. Being incapacitated removes all of those options.
Generally speaking, I'm going to be able to contribute more to my team while alive than dead. It's more likely that my team will live, if I'm there to help them actively with multiple options each round rather than the same 3 over and over, to say nothing of acting as an additional villain target.
Fanatic is obviously meant to be a character driven on self-sacrifice--Sancrosanct Martyr, Chastise, Embolden, Divine Sacrifice and more all imply Fanatic giving up hp for the benefit of her team. That said, burning her down to nothing walks a tenuous tightrope--one villain turn could knock you out of the fight and down to those 3 incap options. But, I don't usually seek to burn her down any faster than the villains usually do, barring some really necessary utility, such as kicking off a Zealous Offense or redirecting foes that would normally target a low hp Hero. Not saying that self-damaging options don't have their place, but rather than they have to be used judiciously and that as a "main course", they're a quick way to be out of the game.
You don't consider that a good trade-off? Basically instead of playing your turn, you deal 10 damage (5 cards) to the Villain, take 4 damage and do it again. If it's done again, it would deal another 10 and maybe you can chain another Desperation. That is comparable to the damage Retribution does but without the need to be low on health (you do need a 2 card combo). And if not you can leave in hand whatever is useful, I like the "draw a card" cards to rebuild the hand. Really surprised that you vouch for dealing damage to yourself to deal damage and not to skipping turns to deal damage.
I'm not a big fan of burning your hand to do that damage. Even the original guide questioned the value at its base damage. I don't like trading damage for damage, but I do like dealing yourself damage to deal more, or to shut down the villain from dealing more than you take, the only reason to flat burn health on Fanatic is Retribution, which doesn't work well with a card that empties your hand. Now if you have a huge hand due to TLT or other causes it isn't a bad idea, otherwise I don't see 5 cards being worth 10 damage that you can't target, it just hits the highest HP Villain. If that target has any reduction Focus becomes 1 card for 1 damage. With good +damage it is worth it, but even then it is untargettable, and can't take out strategic targets.
Plus, I don't advocate burning health with Martyr just to do the damage, you do it if you need to get through reduction to get a specific bad guy, or to take advantage of already being dealt radiant damage, or to keep Zealous offense out (the main reason I use it). Even if you just have Martyr and retribution you at least get 2 damage for 1 health, taking damage to prevent damage or to tank for your teammates is smart, because you can turn damage the villain dealt you into damage to them and stay alive with Aegis. I rend to play Martyr early if there isn't a lot of destruction, just because It can be so valuable in certain circumstances.
Fanatic's strength (in my opinion) isn't her damage, but in how she aggressively shuts down non-character villain targets damage, and with End of days can clear the whole field. She can also tank with sacrifice and burst with retribution. The fact that she can do these things and deal damage make her ridiculously powerful. Even if you just use her damage she is solid, but with her whole kit going she is a goddess of the battlefield, shutting down villains, protecting her friends and bursting down the boss. If Aegis fails to keep you alive you die, but before that you can dominate the fight, then it is worth the risk, if you get Aegis and stay alive, even better.
Yes, but the added value Divine Focus has is that deals damage before the start of your next turn. Sometimes it matters, most often it doesn't. And the conversion of 1 card -> 2 damage is a base one (see Bunker) it gives use to all the cards you have in hand in one turn instead of having to wait several for them (for a lesser effect). And this doesn't retract from other things you mentioned, like keeping up Zealos Offense. As you mentioned, Desperation does have the nice side effects of digging deeper into your deck to find either Aegies or Retribution or any other good card.
There's been a Lot of times where ill just have nothing useful to play in my hand with Fanatic. Playing Divine Focus and discarding a card or two for extra damage is great. Can really fill holes between finding your strikes and censures.
See, I find that Prayer of Desperation to be much less useful than pretty much any other card in Fanatic's deck.
Fanatic is one of those characters that runs on dealing damage; eating her Play and Power phase without dealing any damage is anathama to me. If she's anywhere close to "default", Prayer of Desperation is only going to pull 2-3 cards. It's only in the rare occasion where multiple discards have been forced that Prayer of Desperation is worth playing. It's so situational as to become discard fodder for me 9 times out of 10.
Yes, it could combo well with Divine Focus, but...that's also at the expense of pretty much every other option. You'd have to either commit to using your hand to fuel Divine Focus or let DF drop in favor of other options.
It's not an amazing card, but I do play it on occaision. It's not a bad first turn play if you have a weak hand, because it's basically draw 3 cards. It's also ok if you manage to play it during somebody else's turn. It's just a tool to use to get better things.
I'm not saying divine focus isn't ever good, but I definitely prefer other cards. Bunker as a counter example has much more card draw, and Omnicannon is ideal for bursting over DR, and you pick the target. If you could pick the target with Divine focus I'd love it, you could clear key minions instead of just hitting the highest health hero.
2-1 damage to card is a somewhat standard burst damage amount, but all the others you pick the target and deal it in one shot, with Divine Focus you spread it out (which is better for +damage, worse for -damage) and Fanatic does not have a card draw engine like Bunker, Haka or Omnitron-X. She has pertty good card draw, so there are times you could justify using the card, and there are also times where it is your best option.
Where Divine Focus is nice is against decks that her other cards don't work against. Chastise and Zealous offense, two cards I love, don't work against decks that don't deal a lot of damage from minions, or don't have them. Spite, Plague Rat, even Apostate and Miss Information, heroes that have no or few damage dealing targets Divine Focus would be much better, as you can discard those cards to focus on the main villain, who will be the highest health. That's where Divine Focus really shines. I don't use it as much because I don't play those decks as much.