If you know anything about me, you know that I like megathreads. So, I figured it was time to update my old megathread, what with it having been three months and us having a new main balancer. Here’s what I’ve got:
General
Occupying classes no longer see if their target was immune. This makes them too investigative.
In general, minimize notifications and make the ones you do get as generic as possible.
King
Remove Allies from the Good King. This ability focuses the gameplay on the King a bit too strongly, and leads to everybody blindly following the King instead of playing the game.
Here is my personal suggestion of what the King should be. It involves some drastic changes, especially to Royal Finger, but ultimately I feel it would be more fun to play as and more fun to play against. Plus, it’s still plenty strong, and its inherent double-vote allow it to act as a strong leader.
Assassin
Nightshade is replaced with Hidden Blade, which now makes its target bleed instead of being poisoned. This prevents poisoning from immediately revealing the faction and allows Assassin to fake-claim Hunter.
Herbalist
Is now a Social (or Support) class. Don’t let it just be instantly found by Princess.
Scorned
New wincon: “See three Blue Dragon executed during the day, or live to see the Blue Dragon lose.” This allows the Scorned to act as both an aversion to blindly following investigative claims while also giving them a fallback wincon (the issue when it was just to see BD executed was that it was too hard - this will allow them to act for both new winconditions at once).
Inquisitor
Change “Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition” to “Unexpected” - an absolutely great reference, but it could stand to be a little less ham-fisted lol
Sorcerer
Bomb Swap can now be used in addition to Walking Bomb. Bomb Swap uses reduced to 3. Makes bombs a bit more consistent, useful because Sorcerer is currently the weakest apparently.
Hunter
Wolf Companion is now a day ability.
Add a new passive, Food Supply, that prevents you from using Wolf Companion on the day after you used Bear Companion and prevents you from using Bear Companion the night after you used Wolf Companion.
Remove Retribution.
Make Hunter non-Unique.
Not strictly necessary, but I’d really prefer a weaker Hunter than can appear in games more often, and isn’t instantly a “vote each other” if somebody fake-claims it with a real one in the game.
Poacher
Now has Rabid Wolves, a day ability that acts exactly like Hunter’s Wolf Companion. The second use requires and expends a use of Assassin’s Nightshade/Hidden Blade.
Snare Trap now prevents their target from visiting anybody on the night it is used, regardless of immunities, but may only be used on any individual player one time. Now has four uses.
Spike Traps now has two uses.
Currently Poacher really lacks its own identity. I feel these changes would help bring it into its own. Additionally, as a Timesnatcher gives the Unseen an extra kill, it only makes sense to add somebody that gives them an extra bleed.
Sheriff and Paladin
These next few require a lot of work, and are hotly contested, but I personally feel that the game would benefit from the increased variety.
Make Paladin unconvertible.
Make Paladin unique.
Make Paladin Special instead of Investigative.
Balance from here, allowing the Unseen to convert their Sheriffs but making the Cult work around the singular Paladin. As long as the Paladin is somewhat hard to confirm, this should work just fine and be more varied and interesting. Is this necessary? No. I just think it would be cool.
Alchemist
Truth Potion is removed. You can replace it if you want, but I’m still not a fan of a Neutral that can make itself immune also acting as an investigator. It’s similar to why I dislike Allies, but on a much smaller scale.
Possessor
Reduce Mind Control uses to two.
Blackened Shield no longer protects against kills made by members of the Blue Dragon.
Puppet Strings no longer lets you read whispers to the person you controlled.
Recent stats show that Possessor is way too strong. Three small nerfs (against whispers, against Knights, and against late-game vote control) should help bring it more in line with the other NKs.
Sellsword
Now has a new passive, “Undercover”, which automatically redirects any attempt made by the Unseen, Cult, or NK to kill the Sellsword to the Sellsword’s target. This will not activate if the Sellsword’s target is not a member of the Blue Dragon. It will also not activate if the kill attempt on the Sellsword is made by a member of the Blue Dragon or a non-NK neutral class.
Now has a new day ability, “Bribery”, which allows its night abilities to work through occupation immunity the following night. Two uses.
Must now survive to win. Or maybe not. I don’t particularly care on this point.
Somehow Sellsword actually raises the BD winrate by being in the game. It is possible that this is due to the spawning algorithm giving the BD more/better classes if a Sellsword is spawned. If that is not the case, it needs a buff - I suggest making the scum attacking it much less likely to waste their kill, and giving it a bit more utility against occupy-immune classes.
Cult
Honestly I’m no expet on Cult balance at the moment. But if I remember correctly one convert (Ritualist?) was objectively the best. So buff the rest! (I’m open to other suggestions)
Invoker
Add a new single-use day ability, “Enrage”, which allows your night abilities to pierce immunites the night after it is used.
Seeker
Gaze now returns target’s faction alongside their class type.
Princess
Will-O-Wisp is now a day ability that tells you if your target killed anybody at the end of the next night. Should make the ability less relatively useless (Flirt is better in almost every single case).
Duchess
Dark Wisp is now a day ability, and to prevent overlap with the Timesnatcher, it now tells you the name of the next non-Unseen player to use a day ability.
Observer
Follow re-split into Watch (see who visits your target) and Follow (see who your target visits).
Window Peek is changed into a day ability, but is dropped to only one use. You are given results at the start of the next night.
These should help bring Observer more in line with Maid and Princess, while Window Peek’s huge buff prevents it from becoming too weak.
Nightwatch
Watch Carefully is changed to a one-use day ability, to match the change to Observer. You are given results immediately.
Follow is renamed to “Stalk”, but is otherwise unchanged. (It still gives visits and visitors)
Maid
New day ability, name to be determined, that is only available to be used on Day 1 but allows you to control who your first sample for Matchmake is (replacing the current random one).
New day ability, name to be determined, that is only available from Day 2 and on, that selects a new target to be your baseline comparison. One use.
Nosy Servants is removed.
This cuts an almost entirely useless ability (Nosy Servants) and places a bigger focus and a bit more control over your matchmaking, without significantly changing Maid’s power and role.
Handmaiden
Prying servants now shows all players to ever visit the target, not just those who visited on the night of their death. This gives a bit more power to an otherwise weaker convert.
New Blue Dragon Roles
Currently, there are a lot of BD Investigatives, and a decent number of Supports, but if you exclude Prince there’s only two each of BD Social, Killer, and Offensive. I suggest we add a new role to each of these categories to help spice up the game. Some of my own ideas are below.
Killer: https://forum.imperium42.com/t/class-suggestion-the-ranger-and-the-bandit/73903?u=orangeandblack5
More coming soon!
