Inferior celerity sucks

Looking at the options for celerity I wonder why this discipline seems to be almost useless at the inferior Level.

Regarded by most as mainly a combat discipline all available celerity combat cards simply seem not worthwhile at inferior, making it a bad choice for low-midcap dedicated cel decks or as a support discipline even in higher cap decks.

The standard combat options for celerity are mainly .44 Magnums or vampires with +strength or celerity in combination with potence cards.

These are the effects of all celerity combat cards at inferior:

Acrobatics: Additional strike for 1 blood

Backstab: First strike when blocking for 2 blood

Blur: Additional strike for 1 blood

Fast Hands: Steal Equipment

Flash: Maneuver or press

Infernal pursuit: press

Lightning Reflexes: Additional strike for 1 blood

Mercury's arrow: 1R+maneuver for 1 blood

Morphean blow: CE at Close for 1 blood

Nimble feet: press

Preternatural Evasion: dodge

Projectile: 1R or other range strike that cannot be dodged

Psyche: Press

Pursuit: maneuver

Quickness: Additional strike for 1 blood

Rapid thought: Maneuver or press

Resist the earth's grasp: Maneuver and optional press for 1 blood

Riposte: Not usable on the first round of combat. Strike: combat ends, and inflict 1 damage to the opposing minion once combat ends if the range is close (damage not preventable) for 1 blood

Sanguinary wind: Only usable before strikes are chosen. This vampire's strikes may not be dodged this round.

Side strike: dodge

Side slip: dodge

Stutter step: dodge

Torrent: additional strike for 2 blood

Vampiric Speed: dodge

Looking at these 25 cards, 4 recurring effects appear: maneuver (4), press (6), dodge (5) and additional strike for 1 or more blood (5).

Rapid thought, Flash and Resist the earth's grasp provide maneuver and/or press in a single Card.

None of these strike me as a viable combat option providing you enter combat with a 4cap vampire with 1 strength. Also maneuver, press and dodge are available as disciplineless combat cards already.

When compared to 2 other combat-focused disciplines, fortitude and potence, celerity seems to get the short end of the stick.

Fortitude gets

Armor of vitality: prevent 3 damage for 1 blood

Hidden strength: prevent x+1 damage

Skin of steel/Superior mettle: prevent all damage from a strike for 1 blood

Soak: prevent 2 damage

Undead persistence: dont go to torpor with a press


and Potence gets

Disarm: send opponent to topor if you do more damage

Immortal grapple: only HS

Pushing the Limit/Slam: +2 damage for 1 blood

Torn signpost: strength 2

Undead strength: +1 damage


We all know that fortitde and potence lowcap rush combat works, either as trap/prevent or grapple/disarm, +maybe some molotow cocktail / weighted walking stick shenanigans.
When using simply celerity, there is no way of doing more than 2 damage in a round without spending blood.

Even Abombwe and Protean are better combat disciplines at inferior than celerity:

Devil-channel Hands: agg for 1 blood

Invoking the beast/Invoke poison Glands: +1 strength / strike for +1

Flesh of marble: prevent all non-agg above 1

Claws of the dead: agg for 1 blood


Also none of the non-combat celerity cards have any meaningful use at inferior(even at superior celerity, most non-combat celerity cards suck)

Even though i know that this may not seem as a pressing game need, why shouldnt there be a free additional strike at inferior celerity

The Card could be something like this:

Faster pussy cat! Kill! Kill!
Combat
Only usable once each combat
cel: additional strike
CEL: another untapped minion prevents 1 damage to a minion (or vampire if u please) you control involved in the current combat

All decks focused on superior celerity will certainly use the available blur and sideslip, so no harm done here.
Mass weeenie .44 decks are held in check by the fact that guns are expensive and
equiping +4 minions with them is very costly.

Comments?.............

Indeed, cel sucks ... i have found no cards so far to abuse - )
I like the design; maybe a different title though - since there are public as well as non-public decks on secretlibrary with the same movie reference > copyright?).
"Minion" is fine I think, although I would consider making the card available only for midcap / weenie (cap less then 6 or so) because I would defenitely play it in Anson-Volker, Anneke, etcetc decks who need no further help as you are well aware.

The basic problem Celerity faces is that its initial design was fairly clearly a "combat multiplier". Other combat let you do decent stuff, Celerity let you make it better - be it maneuvering to close with Flash and blurring a Torn Signpost, be it a weapon, be it a vampire with Cel/Pro doing some damage then popping a claw on the last strike, or whatever.

But over time, that multiplier effect has decreased somewhat as other cards have made other tactics work just fine on their own - Carrion Crows boosts the Gangrel and Nosferatu, Target cards help a lot, the whole development of tactics like stickmen grinders, Disarm making Potence extremely successful in the early game (When people have lots of blood) with just one strike not lots etc.

Celerity does still have a place in some Aus/Cel gun-ish/wall-ish decks. And I think you miss one of the new cards that Celerity has which I think has potential, Zephyr . It's not "Load your deck with 20 of them and go", but it's potentially neat for any deck employing Finnish stealth in a bruise/bleed/rush sort of combination - want to block me? I'll punch your chump blocker in the face and untap for a bleed, ta.

But that aside, I'm not sure that minor-but-flexible damage prevention is going to have a super huge effect on things. Pot/For already has that, as do grinders. Aus/Cel etc. will already be going to range, which isn't damage prevention but helps a lot. Weenie Animalism can do annoying combos of Bats and Crows at range. Weenie Fortitude Trap decks are going to die, but kill you too. Mono-Cel can already do things like dodge and hit you with an additional strike, whether through a card like Acrobatics or combining any dodge effect with an additional strike in two cards - or just go to range very easily and hit you with ranged strikes (e.g. guns, Projectile, Mercury's Arrow). And regarding the additional strke, as with many other things, it can just add Target Head or Target Vitals to it, which is a very potent option.

M.Schumacher wrote:

Even though i know that this may not seem as a pressing game need, why shouldnt there be a free additional strike at inferior celerity

It's one of the few things that make Anarch Celerity different - Diversion and Hell-for-Leather . In so far as additional strikes still have some decent value, I'm not sure it's the greatest idea to detract from one of Anarchy's unique virtues.

Additional strikes are probably valued more than they are worth in the current meta. I guess they were supposed to get extra value from getting around dodges, but who plays dodge nowadays? There is no reason to factor a multiplier effect in the price: Carrion Crows and Torn Signpost do not cost extra because you get extra value from them with a press, for example, and that is what makes them competitive. In my gun, I do not play Blur or any other inferior additional strike cards: the blood cost and lack of flexibility compared to Pursuit is not worth it.

That being said, I am not convinced at all that the game needs more weenie rush.

I think Flash is a great inf CEl card. It's super versatile. I use it in a weenie deck with Flash Grenades and the press comes in handy to mitigate Crows damage or keep fighting if I want to.

In my view, the Target cards (target vitals in particular, due to the ludicrous clause of only being cancellable by discarding two combat cards) have made moot most of Potence's damage increasing effects and much of Celerity's force multiplier use.

I think they were poorly designed.

On the flipside, Fortitude certainly came out on top, with its prevention effects neatly foiling the target cards while also doing what they were being designed to do anyway.


Drain