file Belated Gangrel Discussion

11 Apr 2014 17:00 #60889 by ReverendRevolver
Norm posted on facebook today-ish "anger management, why so people play gangrel" or something similar.

Generally, on obvious things, i assume most people agree on weaknesses in vtes:
Gangrel have protean. Its a support discipline with cool sce, and so-so other stuff. Domimate is better, plainly.

No bleed defense.

No oust mechanism

Scattered cam/imdy support.

Pricey.

Only answer to sce is hard to get retainer costing pool, and they have 3 combat disciplines as inclans.

These relegate gangrel to walls either earth melding or wrecking vamps.

I like them, but know they kinda suck alot.

I dig +strength, potence, dominate, and cam titles on them, and feel these are good help for them.

Whats the consesnsus?
The following user(s) said Thank You: TorranceCircle

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11 Apr 2014 17:31 #60892 by TorranceCircle

No oust mechanism

Scattered cam/imdy support.

Pricey.

................I dig +strength, potence, dominate, and cam titles on them, and feel these are good help for them.

Whats the consesnsus?

I wish they had some votes on some lower cap vampires. Independent votes.

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11 Apr 2014 18:26 - 11 Apr 2014 18:30 #60894 by ReverendRevolver
Thats another thing, they have midcap indy voters, but from anarchs. Danielle Diron and Antonino are cool, but then you have the fatties begging for cool decks but never getting them (zayyat, xavier) and spotty stuff otherwise.
One cool (but hars to use well) primogen in KoT, one great prince, one meh prince, one appropriatwly costed primogen in jyhad, several overpriced but cool primogen in jyhad, and then of course a justicar with inferior foritude.

If Basilia or Wynn were justicar, or if adv Xavier were, theyd be better with second trad and votes.

As is, theres a g3-4 block with voting ability and or presence, or slava(or her support cast)

I still think Gangrel princes, one 8 cap with ANI DOM FOR pro and a 7 with all big inclans and little dom would be amazing for Gangrel, and maybe one solid justicar. 3 cards gives an archetype.

Beckett base version is the best midcap Gangrel, and is prexon only stupod hard to acquire. Little cel, to forced march. Lord Ashton is cool for some middle of the road decks, but "Animalism Inflation" has made him pricey, due to deep song, his cost, and superior animalism, same with Bobby Lemon, simce they were Anarchs. To a lesser extent, beetleman and stik had this effect briefly.

But, anyway, key midcap spots are hard to acquire vamps or bad interacting ones for all groups but g1, which has other limits, but lucks out with gitane and camiele. Horrock lacks important stuff, shiloh isnt a team player, and we end up with deckbuilding issues where Ryder is our go-to 7 cap for absurd numbers of decks, because we have Beckett (base, adv is boring amd an 8cap, although making him 7 too unlesz merged fixes some issues) whos about as easy to get as Ezmerelda and Talbot, whos ok, but g5. 7cap in a dexk with a fatty star, support mids and support weenies needs good support mids. They are mandatory for clans already lacking. So, Ryder lacks big ani amd cant deepsong rush or gwt good milage out of crows(combat clan, remember) and Talbot cant freakdrive if blocked, cant prevent and press off of indom/HS, and to be preventing alot needs to use less optimal fortitude or rely on not very blood preserving flesh of marble.
We do have decent potence splash, to counteraxt dog packs drawbaxks both ingame and financially, but crypt support is huge deficit.

And thats not even touching on oust ability. Force of will, movement of the slow body, rapid healing isnt exactly sweeping continental championships all that much.

Acess to Abo grants some small block denial, free stealth, bleed pump, intercept, strength bonus, and (fo Ariadne) cool eat people tricks, buf thats a skill graft thing, and LB is still banned. Protean getting helped, or to makexit just gangrel based, Pro Ani amd Pro For gettimg helped would be neat.

But this discussion is belated, since we are waste deep into playtest for a set with Gangrel. Still relevant, though.
Last edit: 11 Apr 2014 18:30 by ReverendRevolver.

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11 Apr 2014 22:29 #60896 by brandonsantacruz
Other than dominate and parity shift, gabgrel ousting power is pretty low. Focusing on survival and gradually lowering table pool is the strategy to use. Kinda boring I know.

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

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12 Apr 2014 14:01 #60908 by ReverendRevolver

Other than dominate and parity shift, gabgrel ousting power is pretty low. Focusing on survival and gradually lowering table pool is the strategy to use. Kinda boring I know.


Yes, very true. So, they block and either fight or use the best scexin the game, same when they act.

They get 3 crypt cards who can parity shift. 3 with dominate.

Theres a splash of presence, but presemce is no dominate.

In clan, they have: tier of souls, deep song and army of rats (arguably force of will) for ousting power.
They have earth control, daring the dawn, rapid change, horrific countenance, beast meld, day op, and i gues outferior netral gaurd for stealth.
To not die, they technically have fortitude bleed reduction and untap, and protean intercept, but due to cost and drawbacks, those are garbage and animalism is the only real answer, so sense the savage way, cats guidance, and in a HUGE pinch i guess rats warning over the basically garbage of guard dogs or instinctive reaction.
Those are the primary objective filling stuff.

Now, getting votes is limited to lokis gift and a justicar vote. Getting around combat they excel at with earth meld and form of mist(this is so far thier strongest point) then theres the logical means to an end thematically, fombat.
To win with combat, you either wall up and oust via jack, selectice minion removal, chump bleeds, and the pool damage trio for combat(fame, tension, dragonbound) or you take a more proactive stance with rushing or bruise n bleed, getting more forward momentum at a cost of less defensive capability. Heres a bitch too, since Akunanse get to not forfeit defense due to better cards in no secrets and abo stuff. Another bloodline of thiers outwalls them, because spiritus has cooler stuff and uses the animalsim.
So, fighty gangrel has won, but combat is one of the hardest things to win with. They have the pool damage trio, albeit all 3 tend to hit not just intended tagets with pool damage, then deep somg for bleeding or rushing and taunt the caged beast as well. The actual fighting?
Pack alpha is solod to toolup, then imtercept retainers or murder of crows. Drawing oit the beast and canine horde beat guns, and have other functions. Flesh of marble is ok, albeit less amazimg than a permanent precent 2 damage a round could be, and we wont even talk aboit crappy stuff like mythic form. Then good old crows work wonders. Striking, body flares barely cool, bats if you are a wimp, basically we want to punch up close. Sce is avoided with dog pack or splashing grapple, both not great but playable things. Revel is great if you can keep it there, and we will get to toolup for combat actioms last. Theres manuevers in fortitude amd protean to be close, then no real playable strike cards. We want to punch, and we might agg poke. Then we fan prwss via a precent andpress fortitude card, or maybe a trap.
Theres shadow of the wolf, and ritual challemge, then crappier mantle of beastial majestyfor help, but for eaxh round damage potential, as a combat clan, agg poke and birds isnt great.
In fact, 2 solutions to this are gicen to gangrel bloodline disciplines: charge of the buffalo and invoking the beastcwould have both aided gangrel some.

So, since agg poke isnt great and costs blood, we hit for maybe two, birds for 2, and prevent, maybe press.

No womder other clans are more playable.

Cant bleed great, costly stealth, bad voting, then splashes of pre dom, and enticement. Cant outblock or outfight bloodlines deacended from gangrel. Ita sad. I built Torvus and Cock Robin decks at the same time 2 years ago, as id never done torvus and hadnt dond robin in awhile. Coxk robins title, special, potence, and clan made it laughable to try gangrel instead.

Gangrel are outclassed due to proteans meh-ness, and:
Secomd trad is better than what rhey can do to block.
Spiritus blocking is better than thier blocking
No secrets is better than thier blocking
Potence and abombwe are better than thier fighting, because fortitude and animalism is easily accessed by akunanse and g23 cock robin and nic, and protean isnt nearly as good as those, especially given parity shidt and sexond trad, or no secrets and terra incognita even.
Vic is similar in function, but does better for tzimitsce than pro does for gangrel, same could be said of abombwe.
So, they get foritude animalism, which are great. But ravnos have a better, less "rely on me!" Inclan with chimestry, so sense dep, stealth, some bleed, mass reality, etc are on thier side, and revel is no week of nightmares (of coirse, everytime i say that, someone says revel doesnt make your game implode in X turns, but revel is burnable, no bleed pump, and people are forgetful about counters amd sawyable with WoN, also the ability to taste is still there, if bloods a,problem towards deadline of WoN)

So, thats where i am. They have protean, that cant be helped. Protean shouldnt get stuff.

Protena + Animalism and Protean +Fortitude should, though, the former to help blocking and bleesing deficeits, and the latter to help with combat or maybe help with thier toolups.

After that, a way to make combat work better as a clan card. Mybe untapping every gangrel who has entered combat this turn?

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12 Apr 2014 14:51 #60911 by ICL
Replied by ICL on topic Re: Belated Gangrel Discussion
Gangrel were the most successful clan in the game for years.

What has killed them is that they haven't gotten anything new to do that is effective. You can still do Dominate. You can still do Serpentis. You can't make Embraces that are Camarilla, like back in the day.

Ousting power isn't much of an issue. There were Computer Hacking, Laptop toting Gangrel back in the day. Now, you get to Deep Song. Can throw in Monkey Wrench and Leverage. Force of Will still exists.

But, others get shinies. Look at how much support Baali have gotten compared to how much new you can do with Gangrel. Independent voting has possibilities but obviously works better with others.

The real crime in the game is that we don't have disciplineless Deflection, but I think we decided beating dead horses didn't help.

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