The Titan Problem

[Red_Rob]

I've heard that Illwinter are looking at putting out a balance patch as the next update, so I thought I'd touch on one balance issue that I feel rears it's head quite often - Titans. It's no secret that Titans are currently the red-headed stepchildren of the Pretender world, rarely picked apart from a few standouts. Titans were already a rare sight in Dom4, and I think certain systemic changes in Dom5 have made this problem even worse.

Lets look at the reasons you might pick a Titan. The high starting paths and Dominion might lead you to try a big bless, with 2 or 3 paths at 5+, however the Incarnate requirement for all such blesses really shoots you in the foot here. Having to take them Awake means you are spending a large chunk of points on having your Pretender sat around uselessly for the first 12-16 months. Compare this to taking a Monster with similar paths where you can use their inbuilt abilities to take provinces from turn 1-2. Not getting any benefit from your Pretender until you have enough research and magical gear means in most cases missing the expansion phase, which is a huge opportunity cost. On the other hand, once you start reaching for 3 blesses you are really going all-in on the bless and paying enough that an immobile starts to become a serious cost saving.

So perhaps you should stick to paths at 4 or less and take your Pretender Dormant or imprisoned? Well, for a rainbow bless and path access a Rainbow does that cheaper and can pick up side paths more easily. But at least you get your Pretender available as a Super-Combatant right? Their high stats and full slots would certainly seem to support this as the intended use case. Well, your problems here come from the crippling penalties applied to a Pretender in enemy Dominion. Whereas a Golem or Wraith Lord can attack into enemy territory with impunity, a Titan will suffer large penalties and also lose any bless effects if it tries to attack provinces showing those nasty black candles. This relegates them to defensive duty, making them much less useful. Most Titans don't even come with inherent SC abilities beyond a large hp score, leaving you to cover with expensive forged items often gated behind high research requirements. Combine this with the fact that Pretenders lose paths when killed and require dedication and effort to recall and throwing your only Pretender into battles starts to look quite risky.

The final nail in the coffin is that whilst a powerful bless or additional turn 1 Expander can't really be replicated it is possible to summon Super Combatants with some gems and research. Due to this, when spending your limited Pretender points you will inherently lean towards taking things you can't cover elsewhere rather than things you can with a little effort. All this comes together to mean that the vast majority of Titans are simply never a good option.

So those are the issues, how about solutions. Titans are thematically very cool and I think most players would like them to be viable. However, I fear that too many game systems are working against them for an easy fix like tweaking costs to have much impact. Moreover, trying to crowbar them into another niche like Expander or Big Bless chassis will just edge out one of the other Pretender types. Perhaps if they were given some special resilience to enemy Dominion, or more forgiving Death mechanics they would be usable for their intended role as SC's, but there would still be the Incarnate issue.

One issue with Titans is that Monsters are currently just such a good all round choice. Whenever you take a path above 4 you are incentivised to take your Pretender awake, and whenever you take an Awake Pretender you get a ton more value out of a Monster than other options. One option would be to heavily curtail Monsters in some way. I've tried stripping Monsters to a single path in my Enhanced mods, and whilst this makes Monsters a little less versatile it doesn't actually make Titans attractive as an alternative. Perhaps limiting them to only taking paths up to level 4 would mean Monsters and Titans were no longer competing in the same spaces quite so clearly. Without the ability to get Regeneration, Fortitude or Awe on a Monster there would be more of a sacrifice made when choosing one.

What are your thoughts on the current Pretender balance setup? Do you agree with the problems I've laid out, and is there a simple fix I'm missing?

[Alias]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

STitans never were viable and certainly aren't viable now. There are good reasons if we never see them in actual games.

You can see them winning actual MP games, it's just that they are rarer than monsters, rainbows, and immobilies.

[Alias]

Originally posted by Shinuyama:

The by far most common cause of SC death is afflictions lowering defensive stats. Affliction chance is based on total hp, not current hp. Ergo, your 140 current-hp Titan with 25 'max' hp will receive 2 points of damage on his toe, scream, become feebleminded, and die.

Judging from many, many battles I've sprang from things like Gift of Health into enemy dominion, the extra hp does protect from afflictions. However, a Pretender will still 1) lose bless 2) lose strength 3) lose Magic Resist(!) 4) be vulnerable to anti-sacred Stun and other anti-sacred effects, compared to the same chassis charmed from a throne. It's not impossible to deploy the Pretender from time to time, but usually it will be relegated to defending your own Dominion. Not something that's worth the cost of a Titan.

What would be worth the cost is the Titan being reasonable effective at early expansion, followed by being reasonably effective researcher/geared crafter who can double up as geared supercaster/supercombatant in your own dominion. Even at the moment there are a couple of outliers who can do this, but it should become staple for their class.

[BoboYagga]

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

The titans were never a competition in Dom 4 at all if you wanted to be cost effective actually...But now thanks to the monster nerf titans can finally be kind of considered viable.

I disagree. I used to use the Dom4 bless calculator all the time, and if I wanted a strong dual bless, a titan was often the most economical choice. The issue with Dom 5 is that due to the the incarnate system it is no longer possible to take an imprisoned titan for a heavy bless. The power would be coming in FAR too late. Like literally, if you are planning on relying on Sacreds in the late game you are probably doing it wrong, because everyone is dealing massive damage with their mages now, and can counter nearly any sacred build.

I don't dislike the incarnate system mind you, but it has changed the calculous on when a titan is viable, which is basically never now.

[ÆtherNomad]

It really does look like no-one agrees on Titans. That's a real shame: if we can't even agree that they're currently too weak, why would Illwinter do anything to buff them?

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by BoboYaggatheTiny:

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

The titans were never a competition in Dom 4 at all if you wanted to be cost effective actually...But now thanks to the monster nerf titans can finally be kind of considered viable.

I disagree. I used to use the Dom4 bless calculator all the time, and if I wanted a strong dual bless, a titan was often the most economical choice. The issue with Dom 5 is that due to the the incarnate system it is no longer possible to take an imprisoned titan for a heavy bless. The power would be coming in FAR too late. Like literally, if you are planning on relying on Sacreds in the late game you are probably doing it wrong, because everyone is dealing massive damage with their mages now, and can counter nearly any sacred build.

I don't dislike the incarnate system mind you, but it has changed the calculous on when a titan is viable, which is basically never now.

Ah, you are right. I've kinda forgot about the dual bless. But you know, considering that it is the only viable option for a titan doesn't really make a lot of difference...

And no, you don't get major blesses for late, but for mid game. It might be, that mages are going stronger and stronger there, but sacred still remain extremely strong and will mop up any normal opposition, even if it's backed up by mages. That reminded me of a battle I had today with my Rus run. There my 13 Daughters of the Sun with all their Falling Fire spam killed 153, while my 37 nature blessed Skinshifters 140. Now imagine those guys having a second major bless added to it. Considering that the mages I wielded cost over twice as much as my sacreds, I really wonder, if you don't actually overestimate the mages killing capabilities... Sure, late game, after turn 70 or so perhaps, the mages kind of catch up, but until then major blessed sacred troops reign supreme.

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

It really does look like no-one agrees on Titans. That's a real shame: if we can't even agree that they're currently too weak, why would Illwinter do anything to buff them?

They are not too weak, they are just niche and unimpressive. I honestly think that we need a major overhaul of the pretenders by bringing them far more special abilities to make them more "individual", but I am certainly not calling for a buff for something that only needs it in some special occasions (like the really bad Solar Disc).

[Morsigil]

People forget that titans dominated pretender selection for something like the first year of Dom 4. I was so utterly sick of titans, but then all the changes to monsters were made and they have been in vogue ever since (though none of the nations I play particularly benefit from them).

I think part of why we disagree on titans as a community is that some of us have preferred nations, or nations we've played more than others, and that can provide some bias. For instance, I frequently take the Devi of Good Fortune or the Celestial Carp, both titans, and I do this because it's the cheapest way to get the quickness bless along with magic weapons and the rings of wizadry/sorcery on a mobile pretender from the pretenders available to EA T'ien Ch'i and MA Bandar Log. I take them dormant to make it a bit less painful.

If there were an astral/water monster option that was cheaper I would probably take them, though. Meanwhile on MA Jotunheim I have a hard time picking anything but immobiles.

[ÆtherNomad]

Originally posted by Morsigil:

People forget that titans dominated pretender selection for something like the first year of Dom 4. I was so utterly sick of titans, but then all the changes to monsters were made and they have been in vogue ever since (though none of the nations I play particularly benefit from them).

This was most likely a remnant of the dom 3 meta though, which favored SCs a lot more than dom 4 & 5. Thus, the whole design philosophy behind Titans is outdated.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by Morsigil:

People forget that titans dominated pretender selection for something like the first year of Dom 4. I was so utterly sick of titans, but then all the changes to monsters were made and they have been in vogue ever since (though none of the nations I play particularly benefit from them).

I think the main problem is that people are kind of still stuck in the Dom 4 meta, even while playing Dom 5. I bet, most are even too scared to try and playtesting trinity pretenders properly and discard them instantly as not viable just because of their very high upfront cost.

[Morsigil]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Originally posted by Morsigil:

People forget that titans dominated pretender selection for something like the first year of Dom 4. I was so utterly sick of titans, but then all the changes to monsters were made and they have been in vogue ever since (though none of the nations I play particularly benefit from them).

This was most likely a remnant of the dom 3 meta though, which favored SCs a lot more than dom 4 & 5. Thus, the whole design philosophy behind Titans is outdated.

It's true that titan selection was a remnant of Dom 3 meta, but specifically the Dom 3 vanilla gameplay. The Conceptual Balance mod made rainbows about as popular as titans, and when Dom 4 came out (lacking CBM) rainbows were once again ignored. I believe there was also an addition of titans prior to the monster patch which offered new titans that were cheap and had 3 base paths instead of 2, which pushed out a number of immobiles.

I don't think people stick to a meta because it's what they know, I think they choose what will help them realize a particular build efficiently.

[ÆtherNomad]

There is absolutely no reason to pick a trinity pretender, besides the Grey Ones. Trinities are objectively incredibly expensive and bad for no good reason. So, no, it is clearly not "being stuck in the dom 4 meta" or "being too scared to try". There simply is no way at all to exploit the Hooded Spirit, Morrigna or Titan of Crossroads without shooting yourself in the foot. It is crystal clear that these pretenders are absolutely worthless in the current version of the game, unless you're using mods to buff them.

[Morsigil]

What pushed out titans in Dom 4 and 5 is what pushed out immobiles and rainbows during the shift from Dom 3 to 4.. Monsters were made cheaper with more base paths, which is what the new titans brought and pushed out the competition with.

[ÆtherNomad]

Originally posted by Morsigil:

What pushed out titans in Dom 4 and 5 is what pushed out immobiles and rainbows during the shift from Dom 3 to 4.. Monsters were made cheaper with more base paths, which is what the new titans brought and pushed out the competition with.

Except that rainbows and immobiles were very viable at least for the second half of dom 4. Only Titans weren't viable back in dom 4. Hell, immobiles even were the most powerful builds at the time, thanks to the old bless system.

[Morsigil]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Originally posted by Morsigil:

What pushed out titans in Dom 4 and 5 is what pushed out immobiles and rainbows during the shift from Dom 3 to 4.. Monsters were made cheaper with more base paths, which is what the new titans brought and pushed out the competition with.

Except that rainbows and immobiles were very viable at least for the second half of dom 4. Only Titans weren't viable back in dom 4. Hell, immobiles even were the most powerful builds at the time, thanks to the old bless system.

I agree, and I think we're on the same page: the second half of Dom 4, after the monsters came out. Rainbows were made cheaper and immobiles have always had a niche for very large blesses (like 3+ large blesses). Titans were replaced by monsters because suddenly you could get a cheaper double bless and the triple blesses were now cheaper on a number of immobiles than the previously cheap titan triple blesses (2 large 1 small for instance).

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

There is absolutely no reason to pick a trinity pretender, besides the Grey Ones. Trinities are objectively incredibly expensive and bad for no good reason. So, no, it is clearly not "being stuck in the dom 4 meta" or "being too scared to try". There simply is no way at all to exploit the Hooded Spirit, Morrigna or Titan of Crossroads without shooting yourself in the foot. It is crystal clear that these pretenders are absolutely worthless in the current version of the game, unless you're using mods to buff them.

Lmao, that is exactly what I mean by "too scared to try". Have you ever thought about that a Morrigna provides the player with 3 mid game SCs? It is already hard enough to take down 1 SC at this time of the game, now imagine 3... at once. Sure, the gear will cost you a ton of gems, but the potential strenght is undeniable.

[Red_Rob]

I've tried reducing Monsters to starting with only 1 path each in Dom Enhanced, which ideally should open up the dual bless space to Titans. The problem is that due to the Incarnate system, taking a N7E7 bless or similar on a Titan also requires taking it awake, which makes it much less attractive unless it is one of the handful of Titans that can expand.

Perhaps it would be best to just accept that Titans are going to be taken awake and ensure they have abilities that are useful from Turn 1 - either some kind of resource/troop generation, combat power & gear to expand or some other impactful effect like Bonus/Inspiring research or adding new recruitable units. That way you can take a dual bless on a Titan and not feel like a chump for paying for your Pretender to just sit researching for the first 12 months.

I will say that thematically I vaguely dislike a setup where the only Pretenders that routinely get taken Dormant/Imprisoned are rainbows. You would think it would be the more powerful chassis that would be bound away by the Pantokrator rather than the weedy mages.