Tremere Paths

Like most Tremere combat cards, Perfect Clarity and Thoughts Betrayed are really expensive and not that easy to use.

The consensus in our group has always been that for a core clan, Tremere combat has always been weak. Looking at the top 10 "combat" Tremere decks on Lasombra, almost all of them use the same 2-card Apportation/Theft combo.
Flames of the Netherworld didn't even exist until HttB.

No one in our meta uses Tremere combat, and it's a pretty heavy combat group, because most clans do it better. Obviously, bloodlines and Settites aren't a fair comparison.

Stack Tremere combat against nearly any other combat clan, and they'll lose.
Honestly, if you're in combat, would you rather fight the Tremere or the Tzimisce? What about the Brjuah or Nosteratu or Assamites?

Theft can't put a vampire in torpor and most of their agg combat requires additional card setup or has too many restrictions.

From the tournament winning decks I've seen, it doesn't look like many people are using more than a couple Thaumaturgy combat cards.

***You'll never get me to argue against boosting Samedi or Gangrel.***

Please find distinction between the clans Tremere/!Tremere and Thaumathurgy.

Stack Tremere combat against nearly any other combat clan, and they'll lose.
Honestly, if you're in combat, would you rather fight the Tremere or the Tzimisce? What about the Brjuah or Nosteratu or Assamites?

The questions like above should not even be asked. All of the above have 2 inclan combat disciplines, while Tremere have only 1. If you'd ask, who would win a combat between a Ventrue and Tremere, the answer would be clear. Same would go for weaponless Toreador.

Better imagine, if there was a mono-thaumathurgy combat deck possible, would even monopotence or monoanimalism win against it?

With their discipline spread, Tremere were never meant to dominate combat, just to be versatile. They can dominate their bleeds, block with auspex and still have answers for vast majority of combat situations. Perfect toolbox.

I would disagree.
As a clan that's been around since the beginning, I expect more from them.
Of the 49 Thaumaturgy cards that exist, 29 of them are combat cards.
That's 59% of their Tremere-only* in-clan discipline cards.
Animalism is 42% Fortitude is 49%
Protean and Quietus are 50%
Celerity is 60%

*Obviously, the occasional vampire will have access to Thaumaturgy.
I was lumping the Tremere/!Tremere/Thaumaturgy together because they share 95% of their DNA. Compare their differences to Gangrel/!Gangrel.

Potence has 36 combat cards, celerity 31. Is thaumathurgy better than any of those alone, yes, both. Is it better than both of them combined, no. Should it be any other way?

Please do remember that even in lore, thaumathurgy is not a combat-only discipline, it is just as versatile as it is in VTES. And second turn combat is a perfect balancing tech. Please do rmember, that thaumathurgy requires high cost in preparation in lore. You do not cast random fireballs and turn blood to water at will.

yesferatu wrote:

I would disagree.
As a clan that's been around since the beginning, I expect more from them.
Of the 49 Thaumaturgy cards that exist, 29 of them are combat cards.
That's 59% of their Tremere-only* in-clan discipline cards.
Animalism is 42% Fortitude is 49%
Protean and Quietus are 50%
Celerity is 60%

*Obviously, the occasional vampire will have access to Thaumaturgy.
I was lumping the Tremere/!Tremere/Thaumaturgy together because they share 95% of their DNA. Compare their differences to Gangrel/!Gangrel.

You look at the problem from the wrong angle.

You seems to want thaum to be at equal footing with potence in combat. It is a BAD idea. Potence do nearly exclusively fight. And it does it very well. But again, it have some strong weaknesses : difficulty to deal with ranged combat, aggro poke and fortitude prevent.

With thaumaturgy, you have acces to lot of cool stuff. You look only red cards but you forget utility cards like magic of the smith !! And I swear to you, Muaziz IS scary !

Thaum is meant to be a toolbox discipline and NOT a combat discipline (and the proportion of red card is irrelevant).

I don't really see the point of these discussions anymore.... If you want to build a hardcore combat deck and you do not find tremere suited, pick another clan/skillset.
There is no doubt tremere are awesome and they might be best suited to play the most powerful combination of all (since repetition seems to be the standard):
MotS + fe ivory bow, goggles/movement ot mind/apportition/spirit's touch + flames ot netherworld combined with rotschreck.
Or play Ash harrison and just spirit's touch + rotschreck. That is as airtight as it gets in VTES. Play graverobbing to complete and if someone plays a star vamp you need to pull that trick one time and his game is basically over.