So in a group of 3 tonight, we played 2 games with Wraith, Mister Fixer (MF), and Bunker. After both games the buddy who played MF and myself were a little perplexed. His Forms and tools are cool, but he doesn't get enough damage instances to use them much, only has a single 1 damage power, and a couple of his forms/tools appear to be better in most circumstances. He has a couple control options, but from what we saw he appeared pretty underpowered for being mostly a damage dealer (and somewhat meh at that). Is this the case or are we missing something?
Play him against Apostate. His Alternating Tiger Claw tears chunks out of Apostate's Relics. I'll admit that I've been very frustrated by Fixer's low damage output in the past, but he has only gotten better as more Villains have come out.
I said a lot on the other thread, but in general, yes I feel fixer is weaker than most heroes. He's fun, I enjoy playing him, but he needs a lot of help to be effective. I would reccomend playing him alongside a dedicated buffer hero, like Legacy or Argent Adept. This makes him a bit more useful.
I'll second that. Legacy helps for obvious reasons (Galvanize/Inspiring Presence), but Argent Adept can help a lot too, especially when paired with Hoist Chain.
Mr Fixer is a surgeon. Or a commando. He is very effective at getting rid of this one target that makes the villain more powerful. Especially those who confer damage resistance to all villain targets. Fixer's irreducible damage (or ability to make all damage on a given target irreducible) and Tire iron are tools made to destroy these buggers. Impressive ? No. Effective ? Ho yes. Breaking the defenses of the ennemy is always good.
Sometimes Fixer shines - like when he can get rid of all the minions brought back by a Forced Deployment, including Genebound Guards, with just one strike. Or when he cancels the protective drug of Spite each turn with a timely use of Bloody Knuckles on the "makes all damage to that target irreducible" style. Or when he changes Plague Rat's Infection into a weapon against Plague Rat. All this without external help. With some help, I've seen him destroy all the limbs brought by a primeval eruption with Overdrive.
He is not easy to play, but not "underpowered" once you understand what he does best : "fix" the ennemy's shtick to make the team more effective. And don't fear to use Bloody Knuckles. This card's whole point is not to make him impressive, but to help reach the exact amount of damage he needs to do right now what needs to be done.
Few people say that Visionary, for instance, is weak - because it is easy to understand her "role" in the team, and it is not damage. Mr Fixer is also a support character, but his role is less obvious : doing just the right amount of damage to get rid of a target who makes the team weaker. He is a target controller, where others are "ongoing" controllers.
I had a hard time with him, at first. It all "clicked" in a fight against the Chairman - my first win against him. The first time I really began to ask myself, each turn, what was the most efficient thing I could do for the team.
So, you could say that he Fixes situations…? Blammo!
In all seriousness, I think he's a good team player. Salvage yard is amazing against villians who like to destroy your stuff, and also gives you a decent damage boost for the turn if you've already played overdrive.I do agree with SoundofTrees. Try him out with that in mind, and you'll be waxing those villians on and off with impunity.
Yeah, I can also agree with the fact that Mr Fixer is a great help in a whole load of situations. Some examples in which I personally have found him very useful...
Against Plague Rat - If you get Infected, make sure you have Driving Mantis Style up, which lets you just redirect the damage to a target of your choice (Plague Rat, or his Locus if you haven't destroyed that yet, unless there are any environment targets you want to hit - Rat has no otehr targets in his deck). Just make sure your damage hasn't been buffed so that the Infection damage is more than two points, or you can't redirect it.
Against Spite - If Spite has out the "when you use a power, take two damage and discard the top five cards of your deck" and the "Spite's damage dealt is +1" drugs, this means that when you use a power, you take three damage, more than you can redirect with Driving Mantis Style. However, Pipe Wrench reduces all damage taken by Mr Fixer. So you can reduce and thus redirect this damage, again using the Driving Mantis Style. Not so good if Spite hasn't flipped (he takes the damage but instantly heals), but at least then all you're doing is basically nullifying the damage completely rather than having your own hp go down and/or Spite's go up :).
Other cases I can think of where Mr Fixer would be useful (but I haven't got round to trying yet - so many combinations in this game!), are, as mentioend, against Apostate's relics, or indeed against anyone else who gets any kind of damage soak, such as Baron Blade with his Living Force Fields. I think some of the Citizens of the Sun have soak too, as does one of Gloomweaver's cultists. And you can freely switch tools every turn (since the tool being replaced just goes back into your hand). I think there are two of every style card in his deck, plus at least two Meditation cards you can use to get out the style you want and stick it straight into play. He's easy to set up - you only really end up with three regular cards in play - a tool, a style, and Harmony. Stuff like Grease Gun and Bloody Knuckles are probably a bit more situational, but very useful under the right circumstances :D. Also, as mentioned, he can help everyone else get their stuff out of the trash if something's destroyed it - yay for Bunker or Ab'Zero :D.
Or just get jack handle out and never worry about damaging yourself or other heroes again
I find Mr Fixer one of the more dependable characters, who has almost always something to contribute. Though yeah, sometimes luck screws with you and you never see any tool or style and all you draw are bloody knuckles after bloody knuckles.
And he really shines with damage boosts and out of turn plays/power use.
Each hero is perfectly viable in their own right. They each have a different role, so measuring any of them by the others' standards is an excercise in futility.
Really, it boils down to there being a couple that are really powerful and varied (Tempest, Wraith, NightMist) and everyone who isn't them is one of the "weaker" heroes.
For the sake of reason, we should precisely define what we mean by "weaker" or "underpowered" each time we want to use the word.
If "weaker" means "does less damage" then Argent Adept is seriously underpowered.
If having abilities that destroy ongoing or environment cards is the criterium you use, Ra and Haka are among the weaklings.
Any judgement of the level of "power" of a hero is made along a specific scale, using specific criteria. On this scale, it may be true, and we all would agree - but using another scale of evalutation, results would be very, very different.
It was a joint message from the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Non-Aristotelician Thought Processes, and the Misunderstood Heroes Rook City Fan Club.
I understand it is hard to compare. The text I quoted from lynkfox seemed to indicate he thought there were some weaker heroes. So I wanted to know which ones.
That's how I understood your post, flamethrower49 - but it took me so long to understand what bugged me in these conversations about Mr Fixer and Expatriette (and others at different points in time) that I had to formulate it.
What is "underpowered" ? When I use this word for a hero, do I mean he is inherently weak - or that I have not found yet the way to play him to his strengths ?
Do all heroes evaluate the same situation the same way, or should our tactical analysis of a given fight be completely different with some heroes ? For instance, I one day understood that Ra doesn't evaluate Environment and Villain Ongoins cards the same way as other heroes, as they can make him stronger (in this game, Ra was able to destroy Dawn because no one could destroy her ongoings !).
SotM always surprises me : I am always finding new tactics, new uses for old cards, ways to change apparent weaknesses into strengths... Suddenly, you understand something you didn't, and you find yourself playing in a completely different way - and you can't find a way to explain this change of tactics clearly to other players. Like when you stop caring about modules when playing AZ, or stop seeing Omnicanon as a goal but just as a tool you will or not put into play depending on the circonstances.
heh if you’ve been following the thread in general you’d see I do not think there are any weaker heroes. In fact I think they are all pretty strong. some may have a broader application than others but none are inherently weaker than another. just different and may require a different playstyle
I think that one of these two statements is made in bad faith. If the second one is your belief, than why don't you just say that up front instead of saying "he's not one of the weaker heroes" which implies that there ARE weaker heroes, and Fixer is not one of them. If the first statement is more in line with your thinking, than the second is just a cover up because you can't answer the follow up question (who is weaker than fixer?).
What do I define as weak? Well it's the opposite of powerful. What do I define as powerful? The heroes most likely to help you win the game. (what other definition could there be?). I have NEVER stated that heroes should be evaluated purely in terms of straight up damage output. Does Mr. Fixer win more games than say, Tempest or Tachyon? I doubt it.
I used to be heavily into Arkham Horror. I still love it but I've now gravitated towards games that are a bit less of a time investment. Anyway, in Arkham Horror there are different investigators who have different powers, and on the Fantasy Flight forums there is a really wicked thread that just straight up charts a variety of different things. Among them you can see the Investegators with the highest win%, as well as the Ancient Ones (villians) with the highest win%. This makes it pretty nice and easy to see who is on top (Patrice Hathaway) and who is on bottom (Vincent Lee). For those of you who don't play the game, Patrice is not exactly a monster slayer, not a huge damage dealer, but her special ability is pretty much second-to-none in terms of winning the game.
That's how SotM heroes should be evaluated. Ultimately: DO THEY WIN? Yes they are part of a team. In A-H you're part of a team too, but if you play enough games, see enough reports, you start to see trends. Patrice tends to win, Vincent tends to lose. Legacy tends to win, more than other heroes. Fixer (and Expatriette, and Bunker) tends to lose more than other heroes. That's been my experience.
awp you’re misunderstanding my post. I was referring to the fact that sound of tree s statement was a perfect rebuttal to anyone saying fixer is a weak hero. my belief is as I stated in my second post. I do not believe any heroes to be inherently weaker than another. Even by your win rate comparison. In the few games we have lost in my Playgroup (and the truth is we don’t loose often) its usually been a bad draw by the villain that does us in. or the environment takes a heavy toll. I cannot recall a game where I looked at our loss and said ‘well if we’d had wraith instead of expat we’ve won.’
I can say ‘if we’d had more deck control’ or ‘if we’d had more damage’ but those usually come out of randomized games, with all support heroes or all pure damage against a controller.
it’s entirely possible that I could be wrong. I only have my groups games once a week to go by. We don’t have an arkham horror style statistics thread (maybe you could start one? seems like a fun project) but in that same vein you only have your experience. As I said in the other thread were going to have to agree to disagree until someone starts making cold hard statistics. because my experience shows me none of the heroes are weaker on a general basis than another
