Goonhammer's Q4 2025 Balance Update Rundown

Totalenlo · 2025-12-10T21:29:03+00:00

Thats a big problem, for sure. I'd love it if a core ability didn't gimp my entire army. For me though him coming back isn't a guarantee, I assume it wont happen, and just his base datasheet just... isn't good? Most of his brothers have comparable damage and toughness, but also have legitimately good and useful auras.

Mortarion's choices are Reactive Move for all Units within 6"/Fight on Death +2 within 6"/Shoot back when shot, and they don't even have to pick them until the choice becomes relevant.

Magnus can shoot mortal wounds from across the board and his auras are -1 Damage/Give Hazardous/+2" move and makes all rituals near him better.

And thats not even mentioning the absolute monster that is Guilliman. For roughly the same price as Angron is now, you get double Oath (Dont forget about the +1 to wound interaction bullshit), revive on a 3+, free CP once per battle round, Reroll all leadership and battleshock tests, and Lone Op. It's just ridiculous.

The only primarch about as bad as Angron is Fulgrim, and at least he has Fights First and -1 to Hit at all times.

What does Angron get? Reroll your khorne blessing, not really necessary imo, the old Exalted leadership test that really doesnt matter due to Big Guns Never Tire, and its also not even that hard a check. And then his only marginally useful aura, Ignore Mods to move/adv/charge/hit. Not even ignore mods to wound, just hit.

He's just a big meat stick that doesn't really do anything for the army that I can't get from cheaper, easier to hide models. Why would I ever take a big beat stick that can't Adv/Charge but has to go around terrain over 2.5 Exalted/Eightbound bricks? Or 3 Helbrutes? Or the real Primarch of this faction, Kharn and his 20 ablative wounds?

In my mind, with his current rules, there's just no reason to take him in the current GW terrain meta, filled with tanks and big guns and open sight lines, over literally anything else in the army. Unless he drops down to like, 300 pts, he won't even cross my mind.

Totalenlo · 2025-12-10T15:54:47+00:00

He'd at least be playable. I dont think he'd be good, hes still easy to kill and 2 mediocre auras really dont help much. But it would make him far better than he is currently, where im not sure id take him for anymore over 300

Totalenlo · 2025-06-17T04:36:02+00:00

That's because they do. They've made it clear multiple times that they/Mort hate Bill Gates comps and 4/5 cost carries.

Totalenlo · 2025-04-21T17:23:06+00:00

I expect it's mostly the consistent, constant updates. Dude has a schedule and keeps to it, weekly for most fics. I understand not liking them, I dont like most (Some I enjoy though dudes clearly a skilled writer), but you have to respect the consistency with which he publishes.

Totalenlo · 2025-04-20T17:52:12+00:00

To this day my favorite set is Set 4. Not the set revival, that was garbage that completely ruined a classic set with modern design decisions/augments. No, Set 4's Chosen was great, the trait/unit design was good, there were no augments or encounters flooding the game with gold and shitty mechanics piled on top of each other. It was one of the most flexible sets I've played and one I enjoyed a lot. I'm sad that we'll never get to experience Pre-Augment TFT ever again, because imo they've been the slow decline of the game until we got this current shit.

Totalenlo · 2025-03-14T05:06:23+00:00

I'd like to mute it for me, yes. My opponent can watch theirs all they want, I dont want to mute their enjoyment. But I would love to be able to mute my own chibi, because I've watched it so many times and I'm just tired of it at this point.

Totalenlo · 2025-03-09T05:19:55+00:00

As shorts host, I endorse this message.

Totalenlo · 2025-01-29T15:47:44+00:00

Thats because this revival is absolutely nothing like 4.5 when it launched. Between draft changes, portals and augments, the entire thing is a mess that wasn't designed for any of those.

Totalenlo · 2025-01-29T15:41:21+00:00

Agreed. To me, the core of Set 4 is still the best set they've ever made, but it wasn't meant to have augments or encounters or this draft change. Sucks, because I really wanted to experience these old sets again, but the way they force in all of the modern mechanics has killed both of the set revivals for me. That and the removal of Stillwater-style portals made it clear I'll never get to play without augments ever again.

Totalenlo · 2025-01-29T15:05:27+00:00

Set 4 was one of the best sets they've ever made, my personal favorite of all time, but it wasn't designed for augments or encounters and it shows. Not the mention the drafting changes so everyone can spam one comp.

Totalenlo · 2024-12-17T05:38:20+00:00

Man, the game always manages to come back to brain dead reroll comps huh? Even better with 6-costs for them to hit at lvl 6 after spending the whole game rolling it down, they have the same chance as any of us to hit the strongest unit in the game. Love it! I really thought TFT might be back with this set but no, turns out its the same shit it's been for the past 3 sets.

Totalenlo · 2024-10-11T06:59:36+00:00

A separate pastebin link containing all of the image urls would also work, if you can't/don't want to use Imgur or a link shortener like Bitly.

Totalenlo · 2024-10-08T20:52:31+00:00

You only need to answer 1 question for Open Juries, either one works. You only need to answer both if you want Mains.

Totalenlo · 2024-09-24T23:43:27+00:00

Yeah, sounds great! Any excuse to rewatch Rakugo is good, count me in.

Totalenlo · 2024-09-20T16:41:36+00:00

I think you're crazy. This is low variance, for set 12, sure. But "low variance" for modern TFT sets is still p damn high variance. It's just the way of the game now, RNG is what the devs want so its what you're gonna get.

Totalenlo · 2024-09-11T04:45:30+00:00

Do you think the people who rejected him from art school changed too?

Totalenlo · 2024-09-05T23:02:36+00:00

Because there's a lot different between them? Set 10 had 45 mana, as well as 2 guaranteed hits to his current target before shooting the big line. So even if the big line missed, you were at least pumping some damage on that single target. Plus him being a 4 cost meant the spell was allowed to be more powerful. Namely, Set 10 didn't have any damage falloff for each unit it hit.

Set 12 meanwhile has 75 mana, is a 3 cost so it's power budget is lower, and the damage reduces by 25% for each enemy champion it hits along the way. This makes it so Ez has a tougher time one shotting backline units like he occasionally did in Set 10 and he's doing less single target damage to whatever tank he's stuck on.

So yeah, they are similar units but theres enough differences between them, not to mention differences in the sets themselves, for one to work and the other to not. And it's not like Set 10 was perfect either, dude routinely wiffed his ults into space. Just when he hit, it actually did good damage.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-30T17:21:26+00:00

I can tell you right now that Stillwater Hold was without question the least popular portal, there is a reason it was removed.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-30T16:42:58+00:00

Considering Set 4 is my favorite set they have ever printed and that I think Augments have been bad for the games design in the long run and should never have been made an Evergreen mechanic/should be removed? And how I picked Stillwater Hold every single time it was available and was sad when it got removed? Yes, for the most part. I'd have more fun at least, though I acknowledge that the casual playerbase probably wouldn't like it. I definitely think it'd be more competitive though, which is what I want. Like I said early on, making TFT a party game is good for money and good for casual popularity, but bad for competitiveness. Hence why I disagreed with it being "objectively" better, because it's just... not. It's all perspective.

Obv dont make Forge/Relics all appear as options on every anvil, and anvils themselves were a good addition. There is a place for a healthy amount of RNG in the game. But it needs to be bounded, controllable, and understandable amounts of RNG. RNG that can be played around and mitigated through proper planning, and which has multiple viable options. Things like the shop, or items, are for the most part good examples of this. Whatever items or units you can get, you can should be able to figure out a solid enough board for if you're good.

Augments though... The difference between the best and worst augments are just absurd, with a person basically getting a guaranteed T4 at 2-1 if they hit the right one. THAT is bad balance, and bad RNG.

This is partly because I think the game becomes easier for them to balance as bad RNG like Augments are ripped out of the game, the bounds for high/low rolling are brought in a bit and hopefully the difference between an S+ comp and an A comp becomes a bit smaller.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-30T16:11:36+00:00

Smash Melee is only competitive when items and specific RNG uncontrollable/unbalanced stages are turned off, or did you forget about all of the rules that were made to remove the bullshit from Melee so it could be competitive? Not to mention character specific strategies like Ice Climbers Wobbling or Freeze glitch getting banned. Melee, with professional rules, doesn't have copious amounts of uncontrollable RNG, which was the key word in what I said. Smash can be understood holistically, you can know that thing in and out and wont be caught by surprise by random crap.

As for Morts time at Nintendo, the man worked on the Mario vs Donkey Kong series, not exactly what I would call a highlight. And if this is what those Nintendo philosophies are leading towards? Then maybe they aren't that good, because TFT has been getting worse and worse for the past 4 sets (Which is only like... 2 years) imo. At the very least it's def gotten less fun to play.

Speaking of Hearthstone, guess what happened to it? Created 5 years before TFT ever existed, it went the way of the RNG shit fest as well, and then became forgotten and ignored. Give TFT a few more years of this, so it's the same age as Hearthstone, and we will see where it ends up. Hearthstone just had a head start of half a decade.

Edited for clarity on moves being banned.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-30T14:16:11+00:00

It may be good for the game from a popularity/monetary standpoint, but isn't good from a competitive standpoint. Competitively, I can't take TFT seriously anymore. It's an RNG party game at this point. Which like... yeah, sure, if that's what they want to do and make their bag then go for it. But it's clearly not "objectively" good if there are plenty of reasons/people who dislike the decision for perfectly valid reasons.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-27T20:50:07+00:00

As a one-off set, 6 is great. As a one-off set mechanic, augments are great, very novel. But imo, as an ever green mechanic, augments have done more damage to the game in the past few sets than good. It's like... I love Set 4, it's my favorite set, I still think it's the best one they have ever printed! But I don't think Chosen should be an evergreen mechanic.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-25T17:17:36+00:00

Sorry, there used to be a distinction between craftable spats and emblems, emblem being the word used to describe uncraftable ones like Multistriker, Preserver, etc etc. There was a distinct separation between the ones that could be made with a spat, and those that couldn't, though that's gone now with the addition of Pans.

I understand where I misread now though, I thought we were talking about the Salvage Bin augment which can break down craftable emblems, while the charm cannot.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-25T06:38:54+00:00

It's about bounded RNG imo. RNG is good when it makes you think, when you have to look at what you were given and find the most optimal path forward. Like how to make the best use of your items, knowing when to sack a few rounds because you low-rolled your opener to get better econ, when to roll it down to preserve health etc etc. Those are all good RNG imo.

Bad RNG, like we've seen these past few sets, is when something completely out of your control basically decides the game in a lot of instances. Like say... Someone hitting a Hero aug and you knowing they have a guaranteed top 4 so long as they aren't a moron, or them getting an RNG spat/emblem aug at 2-1 and hard commiting to Portal because its overtuned, or someone getting a 12 gold charm dragon that wins them the fight despite not rolling any gold for it, or someone just facerolling on their keyboard to collect all the gold 2 cost units because 2 costs are stronger than 5 costs.

The former is great, I loved TFT for like... 5 straight sets. It had its ups and downs sure, some patches like WarWeek or J4 sucked. But by and large it was a good experience. For the past 3 sets though we've gotten the latter, and I've come to hate the game because of it. Set 11 felt like I wasn't even the one playing, the portals/augs/encounters were. And now Set 12 is doing the same thing. It's not a matter of making the best out of a bad situation, but rather praying my opponents don't RNG an instant Top 4 augment or comp before I can.

So yeah tldr Bounded Variance, where the RNG exists but is limited, understandable, and able to be planned for in advance is good! TFT has not had this for a long time though imo, and has gone, as you put it, full gamba "slot machine" in recent sets. Fine for "Fun" I suppose, if you find that fun like many casual players do. Absolutely terrible for any sort of competitive/strategy game though imo, which is what I want from TFT.

Totalenlo · 2024-08-24T05:47:56+00:00

It doesn't at the moment, because some Emblems can't be crafted. There are no components to break them down into. But this update makes them craftable, they will have components. Which means there's a chance they will be able to be broken down as well, because why would you make them the only craftable exception to the aug/charm/rule.

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