Exactly. AZ is no fun, and no positive thoughts on this thread.
but if you don't play heroes as written but variants, should you include them?
Only if you hate those variants :P
I really don't like playing as Omnitron-X. He manages to feel both useless and overpowered at the same time, which is kind of impressive.
First off, for me at least, he always tends to be stuck with a bunch of self-destruct cards in his hand. 95% of the time, these things are only useful on the last turn of a fight. Did he really need that many? He plays cards so fast that he does everything important at the beginning of his turn, and then doesn't have anything to play during his play phase. Then there's the times where he gets set up, and suddenly takes 5 damage, which ruins him and makes me feel like I wasted my time. Also, his best power is usually just letting someone else do something interesting.
Meanwhile, he has his Bio-Beam that lets him completely invalidate the Environment deck, often making that aspect of the game a joke. He also has armor that trivializes certain villains, depending on the matchup. And letting other heroes play a card from the top of their decks tends to be completely broken, and not in a fun way unless it's Unity.
Plus, I hate having to shuffle his deck every time I use Reset. It's really annoying. Especially when I play a Reset, shuffle my deck, and then draw another Reset!
On a side note, I'm also not a big fan of Team Leader Tachyon. Ten times more powerful than Tachyon, sure, but probably ten times less fun.
As much as I love AZ, I cannot stand Elemental Wrath.
Apart from that, I'm pretty much ok with most of the alts. Of the... standard? I'm going with standard heroes, I'm not overly fond of Fanatic or Bunker, but I don't avoid them in particular.
This.
Also this. Having him say "Non-hero" was just mean.
He'd be strictly better than the original Absolute Zero if it didn't.
Technically with at least 2 damage increase and Isothermic Transducer the original power is capable of dealing more damage than Elemental Wraith's (since it is only cold), but yeah it would almost always be a better power if it could be turned on himself for healing.
He wouldn't be able channel fire into himself with his power
I find it strips the synergy from his deck, pretty much crippling him in any long game.
Why is that? Isothermic + Null Point + Thermal Shockwave still works, regardless of his base power. And, in a long game, that's not hard to achieve, particularly considering how easy it is to get (and restore, if destroyed) the two modules.
Not strictly; the original could choose to do fire damage to himself. And all of the promo heroes, except maybe for the Bunkers (though Initialize is pretty weak) are pretty much huge upgrades to the original power…not always entirely preferable, but usually stronger overall. Since Zero is just getting the same damaging power that Ra and Haka have had all along, I don't think it would have been unfair to let him zap his own NPCU to heal 2 damage, when Young Legacy is blasting for 4 with Surge of Strength, or Team Leader Tachyon is being ridiculous in general.
The thing I find weirdest about him is just the name. Is his suit of armor powered by magic now? If not, then it should be "Cryogenic Wrath" or something. I mean, it's technically valid, liquid hydrogen or nitrogen or whatever is an "element", but it just gives the wrong impression.
Which is pretty terrible, and you know it.
I definitely don't agree there. Not for Legacy, The Wraith, Fanatic, Ra or Tempest.
I believe it's been stated before that the armour doesn't give him his power, it allows him to keep his power under control.
I disagree that any of the promos are strictly better or strictly worse than their standard counterparts. AZ Elemental Wrath may not shine as much in long term games, but in short, fast paced games with equipment and ongoing destruction he won't be completely out of luck and can still contribute meaningfully to the battle, and if you get a bad hand and aren't able to get your modules you can still do damage to the enemy. He can still also still use his one shots with his modules, and so his main source of damage output is not really that compromised.
Even though I'm not a huge fan of RC Wraith, there have been situations where the power has allowed an environment card like Close Combat Quarters to be played out of turn and so the heroes were the only ones who got the benefits.
Although I agree that that TLT's power is generally more useful, it's not strictly better. Rapid Recon allows her to mill her burst cards faster allowing her to do more damage with a Lightspeed or damage more targets with a Sonic Vortex. Team Leader Tachyon sacrifices the ability to mill her own deck to support her team instead of just herself.
Elemental Wrath variant was meant to give Zero a niche that he doesn't always fill. It allows him to be on-par with other heroes out of the gate, and after an equipment wipe, rather than relying on literally 2 full turns of buildup before he can do anything productive. The fact that some people like the original variant better is in my mind, a mark of success for the card. I didn't want Elemental Wrath to completely eclipse Thermodynamics in every meaningful way, and that is why I suggested non-hero. If you're interested, the now older thread; https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/az-house-rule-experiment chronicles my efforts as I toyed around with house rules that eventually turned into the current variant. I can't say to what degree the designers agreed or disagreed with my insights, but presumeably they were at least thinking along some of the same lines. I messed around with it being 3 damage for a while, ultimately that did not make it into the final cut.
Basically Elemental wrath was intended to allow you to play Zero in games when it's not a good idea to play Zero. Like on Mars, or against Omnitron/ Citizen Dawn. It also opens up some new playstyles that focus more on Cold Snap and Impale rather than Modules.
I agree with awp832, The promo AZ gives him a fallback of dealing damage, instead of the usual fallback of play null-point and heal one when your hand stinks.
I also dislike the Tempest/Ra draw engine powers, those heroes don't need them. I never use those variants, although Ra's isn't as bad as Tempest's.
Fanatic's I don't like, but that is because it takes her from being an almost purely offensive force to having more options. Fanatic is a damage first, damage second, I don't care if you hit me machine of villain slaying doom. Even her defensive options are aggressive. Redeemer is a good promo, as it changes her style to be more strategic, and less jump in and throw as much damage as possible.
Young Legacy is perfect, making a Legacy that is more about the self-damage boost and nuking is cool, and still really powerful.
I don't use the Wraith's promo's, even though I have them, I do like price of Freedom, gives her a nice fallback damage source without letting it get boosted by MTC. Rook City Wraith I like the idea, but I don't like using her.
Team Leader is the only one that is obviously more powerful (in a team win% up manner), but she is replacing Legacy, and needed a boost the whole team ability that works with her character.
I will not play mr fixer against apostate, because it makes it too easy. Apostate has damage reduction and mr fixer had irreducible damage
That's the whole point of Irreducible damage. Without that, Mr. Fixer would probably be a bit too weak.
(IMO, his Strike ought to be irreducible, just so it's not strictly worse than Haka's power.)
If only he could have riveting crane and alternating tiger claw in play at the same time (without Fixed Point)
Having actuall played Unity now, I find that having a hero who lets her play cards outside her turn (such as Omnitron-X) is likely to make her take over the game. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm happy getting stuck when I play her without such help, but with the help she seems too easy.
Also Bunker has started to bore me after having initially seemed fun. And I'm definitely getting tired of Tempest too, he's just so good.
Chrono-Ranger goes on the list of characters where his power only deals 1 damage and that seems sad to me, along with Mr. Fixer. However, I haven't actually played CR yet, and playing Fixer was revelatory in that respect, so I'll wait and see.