Kismet Question

So the main thing is does the bonus she gets from the talisman add to the damage dealt from her jinxes themselves when the hero takes damage from a jinx?

 

Ok trying to see if we are playing kismet wrong because so far we have not even come close to killing her. In fact not even half way. She has nearly taken us out before we could even get her to flip. Here is the question, while she has her talisman does that add damage based off her jinxes to all of the damage done by her deck including from the jinxes when they do damage during a hero's turn. Because right off the bat she is getting out several and as soon as she does her turn she does all that damage to everyone. Then we try to do something (like play a card) and we take the card from the jinx (plus the bonus from all the other jinxes) so that hero takes a bunch. Then the next hero has one that if they use a power they take a point but then we've been adding in the bonus for all the other jinxes in play. It's making it to where in like one round before we can even think about getting rid of any on going cards that she has dealt (with just 3 jinxes in play) 4 to everyone then another 4 at each individual heroes turn to that hero for a total of 16 points and then she usually gets a one-shot card too in the turn which is another 4 or more points so 20 total points to the group. And if she gets a bunch out (we had like 8 and were close to flipping her but it didn't happen) she did something like 81 points of damage to the group in just that one round. And we only had like 80 at max hit points as a group. It just seem over powered. Unless we are doing it wrong, Which I would think we would have to be.

 

 

If the jinx says Kismet deals the damage, such as Weak Heart, then yes, you add the Talisman damage. If the hero does the damage to themselves, such as Two Left Feet, you don't as Kismet isn't the one doing the damage.

Ok I worded it a bit wonky. (tired lacking sleep) the main issue is really with the one-shots where she is doing damage. We got several of those (and right after she got both the one-shots that put extra jinxes into play - 6 total) Then she got the lucky one-shots that did damage to the group does that add in the bonuses from the number of jinxes too. Cause if so damn. She can with even a half way decent draw by her and a only decent draw by the heroes, pretty much wipe out the group in a couple of rounds. Which if you can't get the talisman out of the way right away, and don't manage to kill her in the (max of) 4 rounds before she gets it back, means your all pretty much dead. Especially if you get crapy cards and can't do damage right away and/or it takes more then 2 rounds to get the talisman. And with only 3 players (even heavy damage dealers) it's a good chance that it will take 2 rounds, plus without drawing the most awesome cards possible and not getting unlucky with the cards you get it's really hard to put out 70 points of damage with 3 heroes in just 4 (or less if she gets lucky) rounds. And well if she gets it back there is a very good chance (especially if you concentrated on dealing her damage during those 4 rounds) that she is going to pull out a rubber glove as she gets the talisman back and kill the person with the lowest hit points just about out the gate and nearly kill the one who had the one who had the talisman (of course if they are the same person they are dead). Taking the group down to 2 heroes who then have to try to take out the talisman again which is going to take (more then likely) at least 2 rounds (unless they get really lucky with the cards) (we don't usually get that lucky it's usually like 1 point left on minons or envrioment card etc that have 7 hp after a round and that's with all 3). Plus she has been killing us with the destroy H ongoing hero cards. Only making it harder to get the needed damage done by just 2 players. So then there is 2 rounds where she is doing an insane amount of damage (at this point statisticly for 5 rounds - 6 if it took 2 in the start to get the tailsman - she will have gotten about 4 or more jinxes and at least 2-3 of them will be ongoing and she will have gotten 2 lucky cards which at least will have been one shots) but in those 1-2 rounds that follow with her having the talisman (depending on our luck of the draw) she's likey to do (just on normal - not advanced) 3-4 points to each player + cause we always end up with one of us getting weak heart 3-4 points to that player. Then she is likey to get at least 1 lucky one shot which will do 3-6 point of damage to at least one if not both heroes. And this is after all the other nickel and diming she did while flipped. And that's not assuming that she got the one-shot that let her put a bunch of jinxes into play (which so far she has always gotten both of them for us) which for us has been an extra 6 jinxes played and 4 of them being ongoing adding 4 more points to each of those estimates. So yeah her damage has been so exponential that we can't even get her down to half health before she wipes us out. And she just keeps getting more cards out. So we are either so busy trying to use powers that get rid of them or heal us that we can't do the damage fast enough.

Now if the bonus does not add into the one-shot damages then at least we would have a fighting chance.

 

As it is the 3 of us have had no luck. And once one of us dies (which is who ever ended up with the lowest hit points the first time she got a one-shot that targeted them - because they just keep getting hit after that it seems) there is just no coming back with 2 heroes at that point.

 

This is also one of the only villians to give us so much trouble (due to the just insane amount of damage she is doing as it keeps stacking).

 

If you could be any more vague that would be great. 

If you could include card names and specifics, I think it would be much easier to even understand what you are doing or not doing. Just saying jinxes and one shots is not helpful for us on the least

For your rules question: Anytime damage is dealt, her cards should specify who deals the damage.  If it is being dealt by Kismet, then it gets the Talisman bonus for the Jynxes in play.  Typically the one-shot damage is dealt by her, but then she has one-shots like 'Hapless Strike' where one of the hero targets deals the damage, which is why we can't just give you a yes or no answer.

As for strategy of how you beat her, I'm not sure how much help I can be.  She can vary alot based on the order her cards come up.  I do feel the Shattered Timelines villains are a bit harder than the Infernal Relics batch.  She also has way more ongoings than the average villain, meaning that ongoing destruction can be much more important.  You might also try to focus on cards like Throat Jab to buy you some extra turns.  Fanatic's Divine Sacrifice can also be an interesting, if risky, way to keep the Talisman away from her longer.

Earlier versions of Kismet did not have the text on her card to deal damage to each hero target at the start of her turn.  Without that I felt that she was way easy because she would typically build up the Jynxes or deal some damage, but not both.  With that text, she is much more challenging when she brings out alot of Jynxes early.

Ok here is more specfics

First statistics:

2/3 of the time she is going to get out a jinx card into play on her turn (or the one shot that allows her to put up to 4 jinxes into play). 2/3 of the jinxes are ongoing and add a bonus to her damage when the talisman is in her possession. They themselves aren't too bad as only one gets to add that bonus damage (Weak Heart).

Next there is 1/3 of a chance that she will draw a lucky card. Now 3/4 of the time she is going to get a one-shot lucky card that does damage to the group if you then add in the bonus damage for the number of jinxes in play this gets insanse. (more on that later). So when she is without the talisman it's not too bad at least.

Now during her turn she gets another chance to pull a lucky card which she will 1/3 of time (based on the number of cards in the deck and the odds esp since she keeps getting to reshuffle)

 

Ok then there is the tailsman which has 7 hit points. If you are playing with 3 heroes it can be really difficult (and require great luck) to get rid of it in one round. Assuming you are playing heavy damage dealers it becomes possible. However in turn you are not likely to be able to get rid of the ongoing jinkes in play (which later will be a big problem). But if you take a character (for instance Argent Adept) you have a better chance to be able to get those ongoings out of play. But that character will not be helping to deal damage leaving 2 characters to do all the damage.

Ok so the odds are good that it will take 2 rounds to get the tailsman out of play with 3 heores. Even 3 heavy damage dealers only do 6 points in a round without getting good cards to help with that so they even have a chance it will take 2 rounds. And with only 2 heavy damage dealers it will take likey 2 rounds because again you have to otherwise get really lucky.

 

 So that is 2 rounds where she is pulling cards so far.

 

Now you have the tailsman gone. You have 4 rounds Max before she has done enough damage to the tailsman to kill her and do 70 points of damage. With 3 damage deals this is going to be a job of work. But with 2 and somone on maintenance trying to keep the jinxes widdled down it's impossible just about.

 

So that means by now she has had 6 rounds to pull cards and play.

From her normal draw each round: So likely that she has had 2 lucky cards to come out. Now at least those were during her time without the tailsman more then likely so it's not too bad yet. She's just been hitting for a few points each round. But she has been hitting the whole group. She also has had at least 4 jinxes come into play and at least 2 are likely to be ongoing. Now if you are as unlucky as we are she at some point drew the one shot that lets her put a bunch of jinxes in play which the odds are it was at least 1 and there is a good chance it's 3 of them (cause it's been that way each time for us).

Then her extra draw in the first 2 rounds she has a good chance to get another lucky card in play. 1/3 each time.

So by the time she gets the tailsman back she has any where from 2 (if you are really lucky) to all 10 ongoing jinxes (if you are very unlucky) in play. More then likey it's around 6.

And if you have been doing it with a heavy damage group then you haven't really been getting rid of those. And more then likey she is almost dead but just not quite. But now she has the tailman back and at least one member of the team is hurting pretty good from the damage done to them by her due to them having the tailsman.

Now she is going to be doing 7 points to each hero that turn (21 total) just from her base attack. She then has good odds to draw yet another jinx into play. If it is one-shot like imminent destruction she gets rid of enviroments cards (lets say 2 and be nice even though if you were doing damge to her and not dealing with envrioment cards too much it's could be 4 or more by now). She then deals the damage based on the number of cards she destroied. Then (and here is where the issues is) if you add in the bonus she gets from the tailsman for all the jinxes she does an extra 6 points to each character. So she has done at this point 15 points to each character (just in that round) for a total of 45 points. This is along with any other damage done over the other 6 rounds which is going to have been at least 2 each for the first 2 rounds, at least 2 to the player with the tailsman the first time, 4 the second, 6 the third, and 8 the last time (so 20 total points ot that character from having the tailsman) By now the character who took the tailsman is going to be deal if you use heavy damage dealers and were just trying to take her out. So you are down to 2 characters. And if you had someone healing and working on the jinxes the person who took the tailsman is still dead because that is 37 points of damage at least that they have taken minimum.

So there are 2 heroes left. It will take at least 2 rounds to take out the talisman. So she gets to do the 7 points to each hero again the next round.

And that assumes that she didn't get a lucky card on her first extra draw. Cause of the 2 rounds she is likely to pull at least 1 one-shot one of those rounds and a decent chance she will do it both times, either as a lucky or a jinx. So lets say the second time she gets another ongoing jinx out adding another point to her damage now. And she gets to try for a lucky. Last time she didn't get one but this time she does. Now most of them are one-shots, and most of them are damage that she deals to the group. So she gets Fortune's smile out and deals both of the heroes 1 + the jinxes now 7 so that is 8. They have taken at least 2 + 15 + 8 damage just from those 2 attacks and the frist 2 rounds and that doesn't include her minor damage she likely dealt when she didn't have the tailsman. So they are down 24 points which if you were doing just heavy damage dealers is enough to almost have them both dead, assuming they hadn't taken any other damage.

Now she loses the talisman. And starts doing damge the next round to the one who has it. They are going to be toast quick at this point and she gets the tailsman back and party wipe then happens.

Now if the additional damage from the jinx cards does NOT add in to the damage from one-shots like violent trickster, fortunes smile, & imminent destruction. The damage is much less and there is at least a fighting chance for a team of 3. Because 1/2 of the time that she gets a lucky it's going to be one of those lucky cards and there is a good chance that the jinx card listed will come out at least once too, Since she goes thru cards like crazy.

 

 

Now sure with 4 or more heroes she's probably not as bad. But up till her there hasn't been a villian that 3 heroes can't take out without too much problem with her it's guarenteed to kill everyone pretty easy. We can't even get her down to half health before she kills everyone.

We've had similar problems with Kismet - we've fought her three or four times in total but last week we had our first ever win against her. The problem we tend to have is a lack of ongoing destruction (even using heroes who can manage that, we never seem to have the appropriate cards come up, or when they do it's too late and we're dead within a round or so anyway) which means that Jinxes build up and she mauls us. If we steal the Talisman then she still deals damage and her card plays tend to smash us pretty well too. And if Lady Luck comes up (which it has done in two of our games), we tend to spend at least a couple of rounds repeatedly trying to get rid of it and having it save itself.

It might just be a matter of us getting unlucky with our card draw or something, but...well, against Kismet, I suppose that's kind of appropriate ;).

It does count for all of those cards. In fact, because Imminent Destruction is a Jinx card, if she has her Talisman, it effectively does a minimum of +1 damage. Mind you, I've personally never seen Kismet keep the Talisman in play for more than a round, so it just doesn't feel like an issue.

Looking at Kismet's deck, it seems as if having more players is straightforwardly better against her, at least on Normal mode.

Played a game against Kismet yesterday with five players (at the meet-up club thingy with PWatson) and we kicked her arse so yeah, I think having more people probably helps a bit...okay so one game isn't much to make a definitive answer on that, but it was nice to actually kick her arse for once instead of the other way round. The fact we didn't let her flip and I'd put the Ultimate Target bounty on her (and probably By Any Means too, I think) and had a load of damage buffs kind of helped - she got pinged for a total of six damage from my bow every time she started her turn ;).