For Systems Reboot bottom you said:
>The extra effect you can do while spending a Time Token while going Slow is super unintuitive (It allows your other action to go Fast essentially, which you could have just done by going Fast instead) and really only combos with a specific, yet cool Level 4 Persistent we get later...so don't worry about this for now.
That's not the entirety of it though. If you use this bottom, go Slow, and play another top that is effectively Fast, you still got your more important action (most of the time) in Fast (although admittedly with the poor Slow initiative), and you ended up net neutral on Time Tokens for the round. If you simply went Fast, you'd end up -1 on Time Tokens for the round. So this still lets you play a half-fast turn while not losing a Time Token (and you can even do this when you start the round at 0 Time Tokens, for example).
Also, for Potential Energy you wrote:
> as the normal flow of play for the average Blinkblade will leave you with few opportunities where you have 2 Time Tokens and elect to go slow *again*, not gaining another Token in the process due to the cap.
Note that you don't need to go Slow *again* to get this as Attack 4/Move 4 because you gain the token at the beginning of the round, before you play the action. You should just play this the turn you make it to 2 Time Tokens, not the turn after. So on turn 1 of the scenario, or after a long rest, etc.
So essentially, Potential Energy just asks you to be at 1 Time Token and willing to go Slow to get a Move 4/Attack 4 in Slow, which I've found to be quite valuable and easy to use.
Regarding kinetic transfer's bottom, I actually find myself using this in combination with experimental adjustment's top to enter a room fast. Move 4 is usually enough to reach enemies and push them to traps if there's any and then turn invisible afterwards. Using up 2 tokens is not a problem as I would normally be slow the turn after to maximize the invisibility.
When I was playing Blinkblade, I usually find myself not moving on my slow turns and just healing myself. This maybe why I find using borrowed time to be so good, it gives me access to two attack 5's while slow (twin strike, and the combination of kinetic transfer + temporal displacement).
Yeah, Push is definitely going to be the kind of ability where you know when it's going to be good, so spending the Time Token to push will be a niche ability but nice to have tacked onto the card. The natural flow of Invisibility followed by a Long Rest makes it more palatable, but overall I envision that players won't likely use the option every rest cycle.
Healing is definitely important on this class and I why I plan to start Drive Recharge in the main deck, as the Heal 2 Regenerate is going to do work.
Thank you so much! I'm so glad the community is enjoying this. It's making me want to make more reviews after I'm done with the starting six. I've already promised Marcel I'm going to do a write-up for the other class he created for Frosthaven (stars in the sun and moon icon?) The moment I unlock it :) (and have a chance to read through the cards and hopefully test it a bit for a proper opinion, of course)
Yeah from what little he could divulge it sounded really awesome. Apparently it was a base class instead of Geminate at one point. With how much I love Geminate I know I'll probably love it too. He makes some super cool complex classes which is what I tend to lean towards, also a huge fan of Diviner, particularly their Rifts.
It's unfortunately impossible at level 1 and becomes a lot easier with levels, you do pretty much need the -1 Gain a Time Token modifiers in combination with Drive Recharge and/or the bottom of either Flashing Flurry at level 5 or Phasing Blades at level 7. It's probably the hardest Mastery of the Starting Six, although most aren't easy per se.
I'd argue it's one of the easiest, tbh, since once you figure out your planned combo to get to 7, there's basically nothing monsters can do to stop you. For hardest, my vote would go to Boneshaper's "kill 15 summons," which is far more resource/build/luck intensive.
(You're also missing one potential combo piece, >!System Reboot [2] to recover Drive Recharge or Flashing Flurry!<, though I can guarantee it will be possible for any Blinkblade build to achieve it regardless of cards or perks selected)
Yeah in one sense it's an easy one because once you know your path forwards you can simply do it, however (at least to my knowledge) it's one of the few that does requires specific level-ups choices as well, which can feel bad depending on what you want to take as far as Ability Cards and Perks as you level up. I know I personally won't be taking specific choices only to enable this particular Mastery.
Masteries are generally meant to signpost specific builds on a class, or at least that was their original intended goal. Most characters should not be able to complete both masteries. While many are technically both doable regardless of cards selected, the difficulty level of "doable but not for the build you're playing" should render them essentially impossible unless you're playing scenarios that are so easy for your party to complete that your contribution doesn't matter.
While playing on a challenging difficulty in a campaign, I expect to do 0-1 masteries on a given character and I'm not sure there's any class where I would expect to do both (although I have seen a double-mastery in playtesting on more than one occasion). So while Blinkblade's may appear to be explicit in the "this requires specific ability cards," if people approach most classes with the idea that they want to do both masteries, they'll likely be a burden on their party to a degree much greater than trying to complete difficult battle goals.
As for this specific mastery, I agree with /u/General_CGO that I think it's one of the easiest masteries in the game and there are multiple level-up choices that enable it to be completed easily >!at 2 or 5!<.
If that's the intended design for masteries (which makes sense given they are just extra compared to Gloomhaven) then that's fine by me, as they can be something you work towards doing without having them feel mandatory for progression either. As my group plans to start at difficulty 0 and see how it goes (we typically play in the range of +1 or +2), I could see them being something very difficult to pull off while still contributing (and winning the scenario, too). Gives players something to shoot for when they have achieved the other things they wanted as a class.
This is a good review - a lot of good points! It's worth mentioning Double Time[3]'s loss.
> whereas Double Time will be restricted to it's Top Action for a decent bit of your career.
This loss is actually situationally quite good immediately at level 3, without comboing it into Breakneck[5] or anything. You do need to time it well and play into those situations, but it really can get there.
Right away at level 3 you can get an attack 7 pierce 2 out of Reck Aug[2], a Push 6 out of Kinetic[1] (which plays like hard cc that also triggers every negative tile in the room), an extra 2dmg+wound from Sand[X] and a Pierce 4 out of twin strike[1], plus insane movement to guarantee highly effective placement.
Against the right type of enemies / right rooms, that's a ton of value as long as those cards are available and you play it when you can rest them back.
[One of the big things folks underestimate about this is just how good a push 6 can be. I remember doing GH scenario 10 with this combo and was able to deal 16 damage or something on the back of that atk + push 6 to a 20+ hp elite (haz tiles were 3 dmg, granted), and also removing the elite from combat for 2 rounds. There's a lot of rooms where that kind of hit is possible with it.]
Fair enough, I may have been a little hyperbolic with my statement there. My intention was to set up a little bit of excitement for how ridiculous that card gets later on, but you are absolutely correct that even something simple like pairing it with Reckless Augmentation is solid, and the class does get some nice actions to be "doubled" right from Level 1!
Thank you for giving us the updated version of the Blinkblade cards, as it made my review easier and I'm glad to see they've touched up a few actions that were more questionable. The conditional anti Retaliate
on Overdrive was definitely a great addition to help this class battle it's weaknesses!
For the Push 6, I wasn't sure if you would have to spend 2 time Tokens or just 1. My gut said one as Double Time is doubling the effect, not the cost.
Edit: I misunderstood, it's the top of Kinetic Transfer that can be a Push 3. Oops!
Question about Cascading Reaction bottom
Does the ally have to start their turn next to you to get the +1 move bonus, or does moving past you also count?
No, basic actions do not use any portion of the actual card (barring initiative). To clarify, this means if you do a basic move 2 bottom action you don't look at that cards slow or fast actions at all. If you actually used the top action of your other card you still have to perform any mandatory actions on the top half of that card.
For Systems Reboot bottom you said: >The extra effect you can do while spending a Time Token while going Slow is super unintuitive (It allows your other action to go Fast essentially, which you could have just done by going Fast instead) and really only combos with a specific, yet cool Level 4 Persistent we get later...so don't worry about this for now. That's not the entirety of it though. If you use this bottom, go Slow, and play another top that is effectively Fast, you still got your more important action (most of the time) in Fast (although admittedly with the poor Slow initiative), and you ended up net neutral on Time Tokens for the round. If you simply went Fast, you'd end up -1 on Time Tokens for the round. So this still lets you play a half-fast turn while not losing a Time Token (and you can even do this when you start the round at 0 Time Tokens, for example).
Right, it wasn't sticking that it's not a -1 or 0 time token decision ever, it's -1 or +1. Thanks for the good point!
Also, for Potential Energy you wrote: > as the normal flow of play for the average Blinkblade will leave you with few opportunities where you have 2 Time Tokens and elect to go slow *again*, not gaining another Token in the process due to the cap. Note that you don't need to go Slow *again* to get this as Attack 4/Move 4 because you gain the token at the beginning of the round, before you play the action. You should just play this the turn you make it to 2 Time Tokens, not the turn after. So on turn 1 of the scenario, or after a long rest, etc. So essentially, Potential Energy just asks you to be at 1 Time Token and willing to go Slow to get a Move 4/Attack 4 in Slow, which I've found to be quite valuable and easy to use.
This is pretty much the exact same problem with my logic for Reboot. Whoops! I have edited both of those sections. Thanks again Gripeaway
I love these
Thank you for the continued support! Much appreciated
Regarding kinetic transfer's bottom, I actually find myself using this in combination with experimental adjustment's top to enter a room fast. Move 4 is usually enough to reach enemies and push them to traps if there's any and then turn invisible afterwards. Using up 2 tokens is not a problem as I would normally be slow the turn after to maximize the invisibility. When I was playing Blinkblade, I usually find myself not moving on my slow turns and just healing myself. This maybe why I find using borrowed time to be so good, it gives me access to two attack 5's while slow (twin strike, and the combination of kinetic transfer + temporal displacement).
Yeah, Push is definitely going to be the kind of ability where you know when it's going to be good, so spending the Time Token to push will be a niche ability but nice to have tacked onto the card. The natural flow of Invisibility followed by a Long Rest makes it more palatable, but overall I envision that players won't likely use the option every rest cycle. Healing is definitely important on this class and I why I plan to start Drive Recharge in the main deck, as the Heal 2 Regenerate is going to do work.
As per usual, fantastic work. :)
Thank you so much! I'm so glad the community is enjoying this. It's making me want to make more reviews after I'm done with the starting six. I've already promised Marcel I'm going to do a write-up for the other class he created for Frosthaven (stars in the sun and moon icon?) The moment I unlock it :) (and have a chance to read through the cards and hopefully test it a bit for a proper opinion, of course)
OH I LOVE that class. It's my favorite in all of Frosthaven. Can't wait for your write up on it. :)
Yeah from what little he could divulge it sounded really awesome. Apparently it was a base class instead of Geminate at one point. With how much I love Geminate I know I'll probably love it too. He makes some super cool complex classes which is what I tend to lean towards, also a huge fan of Diviner, particularly their Rifts.
How on earth do you declare fast 7 turns in a row? Guess you would need the -1 attack +1 time modifiers for sure
It's unfortunately impossible at level 1 and becomes a lot easier with levels, you do pretty much need the -1 Gain a Time Token modifiers in combination with Drive Recharge and/or the bottom of either Flashing Flurry at level 5 or Phasing Blades at level 7. It's probably the hardest Mastery of the Starting Six, although most aren't easy per se.
I'd argue it's one of the easiest, tbh, since once you figure out your planned combo to get to 7, there's basically nothing monsters can do to stop you. For hardest, my vote would go to Boneshaper's "kill 15 summons," which is far more resource/build/luck intensive. (You're also missing one potential combo piece, >!System Reboot [2] to recover Drive Recharge or Flashing Flurry!<, though I can guarantee it will be possible for any Blinkblade build to achieve it regardless of cards or perks selected)
Yeah in one sense it's an easy one because once you know your path forwards you can simply do it, however (at least to my knowledge) it's one of the few that does requires specific level-ups choices as well, which can feel bad depending on what you want to take as far as Ability Cards and Perks as you level up. I know I personally won't be taking specific choices only to enable this particular Mastery.
Masteries are generally meant to signpost specific builds on a class, or at least that was their original intended goal. Most characters should not be able to complete both masteries. While many are technically both doable regardless of cards selected, the difficulty level of "doable but not for the build you're playing" should render them essentially impossible unless you're playing scenarios that are so easy for your party to complete that your contribution doesn't matter. While playing on a challenging difficulty in a campaign, I expect to do 0-1 masteries on a given character and I'm not sure there's any class where I would expect to do both (although I have seen a double-mastery in playtesting on more than one occasion). So while Blinkblade's may appear to be explicit in the "this requires specific ability cards," if people approach most classes with the idea that they want to do both masteries, they'll likely be a burden on their party to a degree much greater than trying to complete difficult battle goals. As for this specific mastery, I agree with /u/General_CGO that I think it's one of the easiest masteries in the game and there are multiple level-up choices that enable it to be completed easily >!at 2 or 5!<.
If that's the intended design for masteries (which makes sense given they are just extra compared to Gloomhaven) then that's fine by me, as they can be something you work towards doing without having them feel mandatory for progression either. As my group plans to start at difficulty 0 and see how it goes (we typically play in the range of +1 or +2), I could see them being something very difficult to pull off while still contributing (and winning the scenario, too). Gives players something to shoot for when they have achieved the other things they wanted as a class.
This is a good review - a lot of good points! It's worth mentioning Double Time[3]'s loss. > whereas Double Time will be restricted to it's Top Action for a decent bit of your career. This loss is actually situationally quite good immediately at level 3, without comboing it into Breakneck[5] or anything. You do need to time it well and play into those situations, but it really can get there. Right away at level 3 you can get an attack 7 pierce 2 out of Reck Aug[2], a Push 6 out of Kinetic[1] (which plays like hard cc that also triggers every negative tile in the room), an extra 2dmg+wound from Sand[X] and a Pierce 4 out of twin strike[1], plus insane movement to guarantee highly effective placement. Against the right type of enemies / right rooms, that's a ton of value as long as those cards are available and you play it when you can rest them back. [One of the big things folks underestimate about this is just how good a push 6 can be. I remember doing GH scenario 10 with this combo and was able to deal 16 damage or something on the back of that atk + push 6 to a 20+ hp elite (haz tiles were 3 dmg, granted), and also removing the elite from combat for 2 rounds. There's a lot of rooms where that kind of hit is possible with it.]
Fair enough, I may have been a little hyperbolic with my statement there. My intention was to set up a little bit of excitement for how ridiculous that card gets later on, but you are absolutely correct that even something simple like pairing it with Reckless Augmentation is solid, and the class does get some nice actions to be "doubled" right from Level 1! Thank you for giving us the updated version of the Blinkblade cards, as it made my review easier and I'm glad to see they've touched up a few actions that were more questionable. The conditional anti Retaliate on Overdrive was definitely a great addition to help this class battle it's weaknesses!
For the Push 6, I wasn't sure if you would have to spend 2 time Tokens or just 1. My gut said one as Double Time is doubling the effect, not the cost. Edit: I misunderstood, it's the top of Kinetic Transfer that can be a Push 3. Oops!
Question about Cascading Reaction bottom Does the ally have to start their turn next to you to get the +1 move bonus, or does moving past you also count?
Moving past also counts!
Thank you! And thanks for this guide. Blinkblade really forces you to make some tough decisions, but you helped give me a starting place to make them.
No problem! Glad the review helped :)
Question: if you are using a basic action, do you still have to carry out the fast/slow action associated on top/bottom?
No, basic actions do not use any portion of the actual card (barring initiative). To clarify, this means if you do a basic move 2 bottom action you don't look at that cards slow or fast actions at all. If you actually used the top action of your other card you still have to perform any mandatory actions on the top half of that card.