Faction Pack Fridays

[angelspawns]

I've been playing TGC as my favorite subtype for a long time to know you're wrong Gon. *
Lack of good Startskills isn't the downfall. I'll put up the argument that OPENSkills are alot more helpfull. You can dodge the fieldwrecking SS's phase and damagespam better with TGC units ChurchPaladin, Fortune, ExBardia. (I'm hoping for more of these defensive openskills in the future!!!!)
That's why i love the Subtype so much. Winning all comes down to predicting your opponents moves and counterplaying them... Unfortunatly you can easily gain higher RP numbers grabbing a Falkow or Lawtia file for that.

To better understand what's wrong with this Subtype just take one look at FolrartLadyMonk. It reveals all.
It is bad allocation of statpoints!
TGC has been the basic support behind the old Refess philosophy to 'stall your way into a draw/victory'. This kind of play suffered a loooong time from the straight out unwillingness of the designteam to evolve it into a stronger and more succesfull one. Results are TGC's getting Stats totally unfit to their function (Abel, FolrartLadyMonk, etc) Situational/overdose/weird prequisits (Atk or Rng=0, lvl7+, Agi5+, undead, lawtia levels & non refess & lvl4 or below, nighttime, etc) Basic Skills and bad Stats to do them with (LowAtk Shieldbreakers, LowAgi Bashers, etc).


Fortunatly there's been noticable changes. ExCynthia has her stats in all the right places. Gravan got a usefull counter after errata. Experiments to aid the subtype with more unique Skills like Lucia and Cosmos.
That said, it wouldn't hurt the designteam to look around and ask advice while creating/errata TGC units. I see the desire to make it workable, but also the difficulty they have knowing what'd actually be useful or needed.

____________________________________________
*There are actually 10 with a Startskill:
- 9 Startskills are an Atk boost. Often along the line of 'Atk+5' or 'Atk+10 Left/Right'.
- 1 Startskill is defensive! (conditional Nighttime= one unit gets Rng-1)
Out of these 10 only 3 are usable: Gilensa & BoyCombatPriest & ForartMonk.
Take note that TGC units are initionally support for a strategy based on stalling a fight. To heal. To help tank. To build and counter your way into a saturationpoint. Sadly only 1 Startskill (with a horrible condition!!) really provides this type of support.

[GonFreeces31]

Have you ever tried to play TGC without that superpowered EX card?

[angelspawns]

As a lvl2 rush, yes. Builds up power early game and then falls behind. I don't like it.

I rather go the route of Gilensa & Raste. Tank and stall. Trying to overpower the opponent with TGC mediocricy isn't the way to go.
But i see your point. I just noticed how Gilensa isn't in the prebuilt. That's just.... sad..... Without that there's no reason to play them at all.

[GonFreeces31]

Yeah man. It's like the EX Lap nonsense. These tribes shouldn't be made so that they require an overpowered EX card to make them viable. I also agree with you that start skills aren't needed as long as there are other pros, but for a sphere that lacks open skill damage capability, field manipulation, or SP drain capabilities, I think they need to have, by far, the strongest start skills to make up for what they lack. Power in unity.

[angelspawns]

Or Openskills that fight that damage capability, field manipulation, or SP drain capabilities.

But i realise we're both talking about 2 different sides that TGC Tribe has. One is the failing Martials trying to pass as another agressive rush, the other the Priests taking a more defensive aproach.

Making another standard Refess rush out of mediocre TGC wasn't exactly desired imo. I never saw the point in using them and i doubt many people do. I tried these TGC Martials a few times and abandoned it again. There are enough of those Refess rushes aviable and it simply doesn't cut it. Specially not when such field stands or falls with the survival of 40HP key unit(s). For a sphere that's supose to take it all in the face and still be the last man standing, more counteroptions to this dreadful openphase are much more welcomed. I can see some Priests and TGC's trying this. (unfortunatly many options get heavily restricted)

I rather see TGC's further expand in this unique flavor. Focuss on using and manipulating the HP Stats, utilize original defensive Skills, openskills and counters. Rng reducement(Abel, InquisitionNightRaider, Fortune), Healing(ExBardia, Bardia, ChurchPala, GirlCombat), MaxHP(Gilensa, BoyCombat, Cosmos, Beneficient), & Dmg decrease/prevention (Gravan, ChurchPalaOpen) are a few TGC examples.

[Icyglare]

Even though I got the TGC faction pack, I haven't played it once since I don't have that ever so important EX card. Though I do play the crap out of EX Cynthia, if they don't have anything that has more than 55atk then she can stall them out.

[gadu]

Knight of Shrine isn't a TGC.