Does Mister Fixer need Fixing?

I was just curious to get everyone else’s opinions on Mister Fixer. Having played several games with Rook City components now, I’ve found Expatriette to be pretty straight forward and useful. Tactical Shotgun is awesome; Assault Rifle is awesome, and she’s even got utility with RPG Launcher. However, I just haven’t really found a place for Mister Fixer. His base damage is pretty negligible, and while he can search for his stances, he relies on luck of the draw for the right tool (possibly luck enhanced by Toolbox if he draws that). Many of his tools have excellent utility (Jack Handle, Hoist Chain, Tire Iron) and the other are a solid damage increase (Pipe Wrench, Dual Crowbars), but I rarely seem to have the right tool for the job. I think Riveting Crane is probably one of the coolest ideas in the game, but quite commonly, I end up in this situation:

Some critters are on the table, and some effect is reducing all damage by 1. “Awesome, I’ll use Riveting Crane and make my group love me! Oh, wait. My base damage is only 1. My damage will be reduced by 1, to 0, meaning I didn’t deal any damage, and Riveting Crane doesn’t work…Hmm, I can use Meditation to search for Grease Monkey Fist, to make my damage 2, but I can’t have that and Riveting Crane out at the same time. Well fooey.” Every time this happens (and it happens to me a LOT), I ponder that if Strike did 2 damage as its base, this would work out.

Now, I do understand that under perfect conditions, You could have out Grease Monkey Fist, Harmony, and Dual Crowbars, and be doing 4 damage to 2 targets, and that’s awesome, I’ll admit. Even using Jack Handle to deal 3 damage to all targets is pretty slick. However, it just seems like that situation never happens.

What bothers me the most is that I LOVE Mister Fixer thematically. I love how his tools work, and while I wish stances worked the same way (bouncing to hand instead of discarding), I think their effects are awesome. Salvage Yard and Grease Gun are neat. I do wish their was some way to play Bloody Knuckles along side Charge or Overdrive, but whatever, you can’t have everything you want.

To be clear, I’m not trying to start a flame war, nor am I criticizing >G for making a weak character. What I’m actually hoping for is for a bunch of people to point out combos or clarify something I’m missing. I fully admit, I was one of those people that didn’t really “get” Absolute Zero at first, it took me time, and a few posts by others on how awesome he could be. I’ve played Mister Fixer several times, and I love him thematically, but I hate playing games where he never seems to come together, and I feel like I’m letting down my team when it happens.

So, what I’m looking for is overall opinions about Mister Fixer and whether you’ve found him to be weak/strong/extremely situational/general purpose, etc. If you think he’s strong, please tell me what you do with him that makes him so, and if you think he’s weak, what do you think might make him better? As a stated above, I think Strike doing 2 damage would help a lot. I understand that >G does tons of playtesting, so I assume there is a really good reason that it only does 1, but I just haven’t seen it in practice.

If you can team Mr. Fixer up with another character that can increase damage dealt in some way, that would help cancel that reduction. Tempest is in somewhat similar situation with his Squall, though he does have Chain Lightening and Hail Storm (I think…) to help overcome that limitation. I’d guess that Mr. Fixer just isn’t very good against damage reducing multitarget villains, much like how Absolute Zero is not very good against equipment destroying damage modifying villains.

Although, if you can get that Salvage Yard out, he is decent support for Equipment Heroes fighting in a Equipment hostile battle.

I’ve had a similar experience with Mr. Fixer – love him thematically but have often failed to feel particularly useful while playing him.

I think the idea is for him to have the right tool for the job whatever the job is, but too often he doesn’t seem to have the right tool for the job.

He’s a frustrating combination of being a slow-build character (need to get the right combination of cards out) while not building up to anything particularly spectacular in terms of damage he can do.

He is, then, a slow-build, support character, which is something we have not seen before. If you have Mr. Fixer on your team, look for him to save the day with just the right combination of stance and tool or with grease gun or with salvage yard, but don’t necessarily expect him to be able to do it at the beginning of the game.

Learning to play Mr. Fixer, I think, isn’t really analogous to understanding how to use AZ’s powers in the right way. It’s more analogous to understanding how to be effective with Tachyon. It’s about patience – playing cards in the beginning to set yourself up for success later. Do what you can with the styles and tools you start with and look for ways to get more cards. That may mean not doing just a point or two of damage and instead drawing two cards.

Similar experience here, 2 other players in my group have played Mr Fixer and ended up doing nothing much except draw 2 cards every turn throughout the game.

I played Mr Fixer once. It was more like “just do whatever can be done”. Play a style, then play which ever tool is best for that turn. Since Mr Fixer only has 1 Power in his deck, you want to be have at least a style or tool that gives +1 damage to negate any reducing effects from the villain or environment, and use your Power every turn. If you don’t or can’t use your Power, then you are better off drawing 2 cards and look for Alternating Tiger Claw for irreducible damage or Driving Mantis to redirect damage.

If you play Mr Fixer expecting him to be like Ra or Fanatic, you will be disappointed. Play him as a deep striker (in soccer terms, between the forwards and midfielders), you might be more satisfied.

Yeah, Mr. Fixer is a support character for the most part. So he isn’t going to be like Ra who constantly deals out ever increasing damage.

But, Mr. Fixer can lay the pain down with his Jackhandle. Being able to deal damage to all targets simultaneously, especially if he has Harmony or that card that lets him strike multiple times, can be absolutely devastating to a Minion based villain.

I think that part of the difficulty is that two of the villains in Rook City (Spite and Plague Rat) have no minions and one (Matriarch) has minions that are easily killed. So Fixer isn’t a very good match up with those particular villains. Yet, he gets played with them more because people (in my group at least) want to play new villains with new heroes.

THIS

that is definitely part of it.

He has some utility, but honestly just not as much as a lot of other characters do. I think a lot of his problems stem from the fact that there definitely seem to be a few styles/tools that are really not as good as the rest.

I think the idea behind Fixer is to get a lot of stuff in your hand and then bounce tools from your hand into play and back to your hand… so you always have the right tool for the job. But it seems that much of the time, Dual Crowbars are the right tool for the job. Hm… I feel so disorganized, lets just go through his stuff one card at a time:

TOOLS: Jack Handle: Pretty much never useful. Dual Crowbars is much better 95% of the time considering Fixer’s low damage output.

Tire Iron: Maybe a little more useful, but not much. This might be good in combo with Alternating Tiger Claw Style to take out armor guys, but again, it’s probably better just to have Dual Crowbars for the +1 damage.

Hoist Chain: I like a lot. It’s kind of like a weaker version of Wraith’s stun bolt… Unfortunately its a weaker version of Wraiths stun bolt.

Dual Crowbars: +1 damage FTW!! Dual crowbars is great.
Pipe Wrench: +1 damage ftw again. Between this and Dual Crowbars? Potato/Potato (wow, that really doenst work in print, does it?). Play whatever you get first I suppose.

STYLES:

TWO FISTED MONKEY STYLE!!! Er, Sorry, Grease Monkey Fist: Looks all spiffy. Changing damage type occasionally useful but not very. +1 damage ftw tho. IMO this is the SECOND best style.

Riveting Crane Style: Pretty cool in theory, but the OP outlined beautifully why this card is first in line to be ditched to an environment card. It pretty much never works out.

Alternating Tiger Claw Style: Meh? Second in line to be ditched to an environment card.

Driving Mantis Style: Ok, every time I’ve seen Mr. Fixer be good, he was using this style. It makes him quite a tank to a lot of environment cards and minions. Add Dual Crowbars or Pipe Wrench and you have a pretty effective Mr Fixer, able to tank a lot of damage and redirect it to 1 or 2 targets of choice. Its not bad.

Fixer’s “ultimate” setup IMO is Dual Crowbars, Driving Mantis Style, and Harmony. Then you hope stuff deals you less than >/= 2 damage, and you can redirect it to 2 targets for 3-4 damage apeice. If you DONT have Harmony out, (Driving Mantis, Dual Crowbars) I suppose you could use Fixer’s Strike power to punch himself in the face for 2 damage, then redirect damage away from fixer with Mantis Style to 2 targets for 3 damage apiece.

Fixer’s strength is that it really doenst take much to get out his ultimate stuff, his weakness is that his ultimate stuff is nowhere near as good as most other heroes ultimate stuff. With that said, I feel like I can NEVER draw harmony, or the toolbox, or the style card I want. It can take a lot of drawing 2 cards at the beginning to get him rolling.

I tried to paint Fixer in as bright of a light as I could for this post, cause I think he’s kinda cool. But on the whole, I agree with you, he’s probably a tad weaker than most characters, and I think this is amplified by the fact that he came in next to Expatriette, who is straightforward and awesome.

You might have played some cards wrong there.

With Dual Crowbars, Driving Mantis and Harmony, Fixer get +2 in damage dealt by him.

If he receives damage that is 2 or less from some another source, he can redirect it. However, the source of the damage remains the same. So Fixer’s +2 doesn’t get added to it.

Also, since the source doesn’t change, Dual Crowbars don’t get triggered, so you can’t deal a second target damage.

I love 8bit theatre

Also, I agree with ketigid. Because the source of the damage doesn’t change, Dual Crowbars doesn’t apply when using Driving Mantis. AZ can get away with stuff like that, because with his shtick, he doesn’t redirect it; he takes the fire damage, and then deals cold dmg = to what he took, but for redirections, it doesn’t work.

hm, true dat… How sad. Oh well, its still useful for mitigating damage, but maybe I’ll have to switch up to Monkey Style.

Last time I played Mr. Fixer, it was against Plague Rat. Fixer got infected, and I was gleefully planning on redirecting that damage to the rat. Just one problem. In addition to Driving Mantis Style, I had a Pipe Wrench and Harmony out. There is nothing more disheartening than having the ability to redirect 2 damage per turn, and be dealing yourself 3.

Also, I can’t remember which one (maybe Jack Handle) states that if Mr. Fixer would deal damage, he deals that damage to all non-heroes. Assuming I’m reading that correctly, that cancels the original damage, meaning that Infection and Afflicted Frenzy (I think that’s the one, where heroes deal damage to other heroes at the start of their turn), and one of Plague Rat’s assigned powers (the one where you deal damage to another hero to regain HP) all turn around to hit Plague Rat (and environments) instead.

heh, nice. Unfortunately, it just seems that in practice, stuff just never works out like that. He pretty much always draws things that are bad.

Today I was desperate for a little extra damage against Omnitrons Electro-Pulse explosive, so I played Bloody Knuckles. This is against my usual mantra of: NEVER play Bloody Knuckles. Anyway, environment turn rolls around (Atlantis) and we draw Atlantean Font of Power. Omnitron plays his Railgun (fixer was one of the two highest, btw) and Fixer plays… Freaking Bloody Knuckles.

So Fixer ended up taking +4 damage from both the pulse explosive and the railgun, darn you, Fixer… By the way, NEVER play Bloody Knuckles.

Bloody Knuckles is nice when you know you are going to lose the card before your turn (especially if before the bad guy’s turn). E.g. with Spites drug, Mr. Fixer could play Bloody Knuckles to increase his damage, and then Spite can force it back into his hand, thus he now doesn’t recieve damage bonus from Spite.

I think part of it comes down to “What are you expecting Mr Fixer to be?”

I can think of many games with different heroes where I have not been able to draw the cards I want. Ex. Bunker not getting a damage card early, Absolute Zero not getting combos early, etc.

Mr Fixer has an innate power which does damage and other cards which feed off of that. Is he going to come out and be able to bash super hard? Not normally, but he stays consistent.

The games where his various tools/styles come into play are during the times where the field keeps changing. As someone above said if you are fighting Spite or Plague Rat once you get the combo down that you want you won’t have much need for changing. But in ones where the amount of targets and various effects are changing you will see him switch cards more. And who knows what other villains/environments are coming down the road. He may shine even more against some of them.

I’ll try to sit down in the future when I have the cards in front of me and try to do some comparisons.

And of course one of the great things with SOTM is just how different the different characters play. Some people will just naturally enjoy playing some of the Heroes over the others. So Mr Fixer will be not enjoyed as much as others to some and yet to others he might be their favorite.

Mr. Fixer is probably one of my favorites, so I personally don’t think he needs to be changed at all. I think it would be nice if his strike did one more damage but oh well.

Imagine this, during playtesting he didn’t have Harmony, I think it replaced another card that searched for a tool.

I think he’s great against villains like Plague Rat or Spite, where there’s a main target to focus on and not worry about a ton of minions. In those situations, he’s not the best at crowd control.

I had great luck with Fixer and Expatriette against Matriarch. What happened was Ex had Hairtrigger Reflexes (1 damage to any Non-hero target that enters play) out. This meant that every time a Fowl (1hp) came into play, it just died. The problem with that is that if there’s a Carrion Fields in play, you take a ton of damage. The Fowl comes into play, it triggers another draw. It dies. The other draw, if a Fowl, triggers another draw and dies. This can go on ten times a turn. That’s ten damage from the Carrion Fields each turn. Ten damage, dealt 1 damage at a time. What I was doing with Mr. Fixer was using Hoist Chain on the Carrion Fields. Hoist Chain would reduce all damage the Carrion Fields dealt by 1. Since it deals damage 1 at a time, it dealt zero damage each time a Fowl came into play while I tick it to death with Hoist Chain. If I have Harmony in play and a style that adds damage, that goes pretty fast. If two Carrion Fields, use Overdrive to lock them both down. Expatriette deals enough damage that we can usually kill one pretty easy. He seemed to work really well like that. We basically never had Fowls to deal with, and Carrion Fields did nothing. That made for a relatively easy win.

Awesome!

Now, someone explain to me how to use Mr. Fixer against Plague Rat after he’s infected.

Hmmm … Driving Mantis (redirect 1st damage of 2 or less to Mr. Fixer each turn) paired with Dual Crowbars (Foreach attack, may do same amount to 2nd target) looks like a winner.

I think that in the future I want to play Mr. Fixer with a cheat sheet that lists what all of the styles and tools do.

That pair can (depending on how Dual Crowbars actually work, which is a question I’ll ask later today) is a very good combo itself. Use Strike to deal two damage (Dual Crowbars increases damage by 1) to one target, then deal the second damage to yourself, which you then redirect to another (or the same) target.

Mr. Fixer is really more of a support character. If you play him with the mind set that he is support I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with what he can do.

As for Mister Fixer vs. Plague Rat, as JayMann pointed out, all you really need is Jack Handle. http://greaterthangames.info/forum/index.php/topic,439.0.html

Jack Handle with just about any style is good against minion heavy enemies but best with his irreducible damage or everyone’s irreducible damage if he is already buffed enough to do damage

Good Point.

As it turns out, I was actually playing with JayMann. In the first game I used the tool box like four turns in a row trying to get the Jack Handle, but failing.

I see so many people saying Mr Fixer does ‘nothing’ and plays ‘nothing’ during the game.

I feel he is so misunderstood.

Perhaps a strategy guide is in order!

I fully agree with this. As long as you see Mr. Fixer as a support character, he is awesome. I love him so much. He is always fun and always interesting trying to figure out the right Style and Tool combo for whoever we are fighting.

The problem with the Tire Iron strategy is that its inferior to Wraith’s Stun bolt on every concieveable level, from;

1. ease of getting to play; Much easier to get Stun Bolts out between Impromptu Invention and Trust fund than it is to get Tire Iron out. The only helper card that fixer has for this is Tool Box, which -though it can be used repeatedly- is not nearly as good when looking for a specific card.

2. straight damage; technically both Strike + Tire Iron and Stun Bolts deal 1 damage each, but again with the ease of getting out the micro-targeting computer, its pretty easy to do 3 damage with the stun bolt, and the only way you’re getting 3 damage with Strike is by GMF + Harmony, two more specific cards that can be hard to draw (Harmony more than GMF)

3. Damage Reduction: 2 damage reduced by stun bolt vs 1 damage reduced by Tire iron, another easy win for Stun Bolt. Where Matriarch is concerned, this also helps mitigate Matriarchs damage when fowls are destroyed, not just Carrion Fields.

4. Spammability: Fixer can potentially use Strike twice on his turn but only by playing a 1 shot to do so. Wraith’s utility belt can, if you want, allow her to use another set of stun bolts, allowing for 2 targets to be reduced by 2 damage each, or 1 to be reduced by 4.

5. Ability to do something else: Going hand in hand with 4, Utility Belt can allow a double use of stun bolts, or a stun bolt + razor ordinance/infared eyepiece/ or stealth, just to name a couple. Fixer simply doesn’t have additional power options, and is the ONLY hero who has only a single power (Strike) in his deck. And its a single bad power.

This is a lot of how I feel about Fixer in general, is that he’s just a really bad version of Wraith.

You were talking about Hoist Chain, not Tire Iron, right?

Hoist Chain:

Whenever Mr. Fixer deals damage to a target, reduce all damage dealt by that target by 1 until the start of your next turn.

You’ve pointed out one card of The Wraith’s that is better than one card of Mr. Fixer’s, but I think your point is that in general whatever Mr. Fixer can do, The Wraith can do better.

I might buy that overall The Wraith is a more powerful and versatile hero, but, if so, I think it’s close.

What, for instance, does The Wraith have that’s better than any of the following:

• Dealing irreducible damage – Alternating Tiger Claw and Driving Mantis
• Getting equipment cards from the trash – Salvage Yard
• Stopping all damage by non-hero cards – Grease Gun
• Redirecting damage from himself to non-hero targets – Tire Iron

• [quote="“arenson9"”]
  
  [list][*]Redirecting damage from himself to non-hero targets – Tire Iron

[/quote]

What is up with the Tire Iron? Why do people keep thinking it’s something else in this thread? I think you’re talking about Driving Mantis (redirect 2 or less damage) not Tire Iron (destroy 2HP or less targets).

To play Devil’s Advocate Wraith has Combat Stance which serves a similar function (although she must take the damage but it can be any amount of damage so it’s swings and roundabouts)

Personally I do like Mr Fixer, had a good game with him against Spite just today, it worked out so that he could play Bloody Knuckles every turn and it was returned to his hand by the drugs. Gave other players a chance to set up and allowed him to get out his everyone-has-irreducible-damage stance.[/*][/list]

I believe arenson9 meant Jackhandle (is that the one?) where, when he deals damage to himself or another hero (say when infected by Plague Rat) he instead will deal that damage to all non-hero targets. No other hero has a better setup in that specific case. (In fact, with combat stance it’s worse. Deal damage to yourself while infected, deal damage to yourself again due to combat stance.)

Nitpicker’s corner: Despite what I stated, I do not mean to imply that Jackhandle only works when dealing self and allies damage. The actual card states that this “redirection” occurs whenever Mr. Fixer would deal any type of damage. The previous stated conditions are a strict subset of the conditions listed on the card, of which is the most useful and only pertenant condition to the rest of the discussion.

Yeah I was referring to hoist chain. Whoops, but I’m sure it was clear from the context what I meant…

Dealing Irreduceable Damage: Well its hardly fair to blame wraith on this one, as irreduceable damage wasnt even invented yet. But you know what, whatever. I’m not going to disqualify it on this point alone. So lets talk about dealing irreducable damage. First up, Alternating Tiger Claw. Well, basically we’re talking about extra damage here. Suppose a target has 1 armor, ATC makes fixer deal +1 damage. If it has 2 armor, ATC deals +2 damage. In other words, in order to be equal to Wraith’s Microtargeting Computer, the target needs to have at least 2 armor. To be considered better, it must have at least 3. So sure, if you want to punch Grand Warlord Voss in the face and get through his “armor of minions”, I guess ATC would be pretty good. Would also be pretty decent against Spite. Every other situation, Microtargeting computer is much better. As for Riveting Crane Style, thats actually one of my more favorite parts of Mr. Fixer, but the problem is that the more armor something has, the less chance you’ll be able to get damage through with Riveting Crane. So yes, Riveting Crane can be pretty good, but essentially is just a +X buff to hero damage vs a single target, where X is the amount of armor the target has. A weaker version of Legacy’s innate power.

Getting Equipment Cards from the Trash: Somewhat not needed for wraith since she has such an easy time getting equipment cards right out of her deck via Impromptu Invention and Trust Fund. Even if you get a lot of cards out of your trash, unless you are Expatriette, you can still only play one card per turn. This isnt as good as it initially seems to be. Impromptu Invention allows the play of an extra card, so it’s much better

Stopping Damage by Non-hero cards: Stun bolts and stun bolts? Ok, sure, you cant target all non-hero targets, but you can get 2 of them. I also cant tell you how many times I’ve relied on grease gun to stop damage, only to have a “destroy all equipment” card be played, and then the heroes are subsequently wiped out. Grease Gun can be effective, but its dangerous buisiness. Stun Bolts is much more reliable.

Redirecting Damage from himself to nonhero targets: You mentioned Tire Iron, I think you meant Driving Mantis Style. The style is okay, but you can have only 1 style in play at a time (this is one of Fixer’s greatest weaknesses, IMO, coupled with the fact that UNLIKE tool cards, style cards are destroyed when a new style enters play, rather than being bounced back to the hand). Your goal with Driving Mantis style is to be dealt exactly 2 damage a lot of the time, but on different turns. This requires a bit of luck to pull off. You basically get 2 chances every round, once on the villan turn and once on the environment turn. So a lot depends on the villan and the environment. Megalopolis hardly ever (if ever) deals heroes 2 damage. Atlantis and Insula Primalis do it fairly frequently. Many of Voss’ minions deal 2 damage, but Chairman hardly ever does. Overall I like Driving Mantis style, its handy, but in terms of damage prevention, Stealth is almost as good, plus Wraith has Suture Self to heal up if needed, where Fixer has no heal cards. The real pity with Driving Mantis Style is that if only he had another power, you could pull off a sick Embolden/Driving Mantis combo, which would be awesome… but only one power in his deck stops that from happening.

Obviously Fixer isnt comperable to the Wraith in every respect. But for everything Fixer can do, someone else can do it better. He’s not the best at anything. He’s probably not even second best at anything. Fixer has no ongoing destruction or environment control, which severely limits his ability to play the control game. His lack of damage hurts him a lot too. His power is weak, his one-shots are lackluster, his card draw is limited. The only thing he has going for him is that the powers on his tools/styles are somewhat unique, which at times can be useful. But that simply doesnt make up for his many many weaknesses.

Addendum: The jack handle/infection thing is such a corner case for such a tiny advantage that its barely even worth replying to, so I’ll just say that I think you’re reaching. You’re really reaching.

I think you’re missing a trick with Driving Mantis, heroes can damage him too and it be redirected to another target. Be it via a power like Bunker’s Grenade Launcher or through an ongoing like Fanatic’s Embolden, he can do it every turn

Well, the main thing about Salvage Yard is that it doesn’t just get his equipment back from the trash, it gets all equipment back from all hero trashes. You mention playing Grease Gun, only to later have all Equipment destroyed, that Salvage Yard now gets all equipment back (though it does take a few turns to get them back out, yes).

So, the tactic that twice easily beat Plague Rat is now simply a corner case? You may say I’m reaching, while I say that’s one of my favorite uses of Mr. Fixer.

It’s an excellent thing to have happen but it only happens with one specific villain on one specific side of their card, I agree that it’s both a good use AND a corner case.

A corner case for now I guess, but I’m not convinced that there will not be other cards in the future that will also force heroes to deal damage to targets to which you may not wish to deal damage.

I completely agree.

I also note that Mr Fixer’s Style cards say “Destroy all other Style cards in play” If there is a Ninja/Martial Artist villain in a future expansion I can see that coming back with a vengeance.

Matchstickman; sure you can I guess but only when its less than 2 damage. with Dual Crowbars and Harmony it would be pretty good to turn tiny hits into bigger hits. <2 damage per hit means usually there are no other global buffs in play, and very limited self-buffing for other team members, as the only person with a power that deals only 1 damage is Fixer himself. I suppose you might be able to combo it with Haka who has Punish the Weak out, and a few one-shot cards from Fantic or Tachyon. That’s about all you can reasonably expect without sacrificing the effectiveness of other heroes.

JayMann; not, “now”, no, but yes, Jackhandle/ Infection is absolutely a corner case, and always has been. End result; you save yourself around 2 damage per turn. This is at the expense of say, Pipe Wrench, which would be +1 damage/+1 armor. Overall, not a huge benefit. Again, Wraith can save herself 2 damage per turn easily. Yeah, Salvage Yard is a useful card, depending on your team. Moderately useful. Not omg bbq useful.

Furthermore I dont think speculating on what may or may not come in the future makes Mr. Fixer any better.

There are quiet a few cards I can think of that deal 2 damage to multiple targets. Combine this with Mr Fixer’s redirect and you’re doing 4 damage to a single target, possibly wiping them out where otherwise they would live to deal more damage next round.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s the best thing since sliced bread but I do think he’s better than you give him credit for.

Infection is not the only card to have this effect. Afflicted Frenzy (especially multiple copies) as well as Plague Rat’s flipside powers (increadibly useful in this case) make Jackhandle against Plague Rat increadibly useful.

Also, something about unecessary speculation or whatnot (not entirely sure how strict the “NDA” is…)

Oh, how ironic.

I know this is a relatively old point, but I wanted to bring something else up because I wasnt 100% sure how stuff worked at the time, but now I remembered why this struck me as fishy.

Driving Mantis style allows fixer to redirect damage, but -like wih all redirections- the source of the damage remains the same. In other words, sure you could use a one-shot or grenade launcher or something similar to attack Fixer and have him redirect damage with Driving Mantis Style, but there would be no point in doing so as you would not get to use any of Fixer’s buffs from Harmony or Tools or anything.

It’s not about Mister Fixer’s buffs, it’s about doing damage to the targets you want not the targets you are forced to hit. The point is that you can hit the same target you have already hit with more damage.

For instance with Grenade launcher you could hit
Citizen Summer for 2
Mister Fixer for 2
Citizen Dawn for 1

Mister Fixer redirects the damage to Citizen Summer and now Citizen Summer takes 4 points of damage, not 2 and a partially wasted attack because there weren’t enough targets for Grenade Launcher (or you just wanted to make sure Citizen Summer went down from this attack).

From what I gathered playing him, he’s not supposed to be as strong as the other damage heroes. He’s really more of a utility/jack of all trades hero. Also, he has an infinitely shorter recovery time than Wraith or Expat or the purely damage-dealing heroes.

I hadn't thought of using Driving Mantis to allow other heroes to use multiple targets on the same target. I still think he and Expatriette (Why does she have 0 drawing cards?) are some of the weaker heroes. Maybe that's because they don't have superpowers like the other heroes. I don't think they are the weakest, though. We use a house rule for Absolute Zero's base power (in my signature) because if he can't find his modules he is the worst hero in the game.

What I don't like about Fixer is he has so many "Don't play that" cards. Every hero has cards that I usually refuse to play. Surge of Strength, Wrathful Gaze, Enduring Intercession, etc. Fixer just has too many of them. Bloody Knuckles, Riveting Crane, Tire Iron, any stance if you already have a stance, any tool if you already have a tool. I know there are situations where they are useful. Maybe I'd like him more if he had ongoing/environment destruction (maybe his broom tool ;) or a finishing move. 

0 drawing cards?

She has the one that lets her find Pride or Prejudice. She has Armory, where she reveals and pulls out guns. And she as another one too, i believe (?) that lets her get a gun out. - If you mean 'Draw one card' yeah sure, she has no of those, but she has Deck manipulation mechanics within her deck.

Its not perfect sure, ive played plenty of games where I didnt see a gun for her until round 6 or 7, and it really blows to be completely useless in that time period. did a lot of 'No Play, No Power, draw 2 cards'

There's plenty of heroes who don't have "superpowers" that are still pretty incredible. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum: I think Mister Fixer and Expatriette are only made better by the fact that they don't have superpowers and still kick ass. Both of them are up there in my favorite heroes. Mister Fixer is 80 years old, and he can still beat up anything the universe throws at him. How cool is that?

And I think all of his tools have their own use throughout the game. He can pretty much be applied to any situation and get the job done, no matter what. That's why he's got 5 tools and 5 styles; that gives you 25 possible combinations to apply to whatever situation you may need. Now, that's not to say you're going to be using a ton of those combinations every game. Odds are you'll stick to 2-3 combinations over the course of an average game, but that still means you've got what you need. Maybe you don't manage to get the right two cards you need, but at least they're there, and you can get lucky and get them in another game. Sure, you might stick with Pipe Wrench and Grease Monkey Fist in a lot of games, but that's understandable; it's a good combo. But if you're fighting Voss and he's got a lot of shielding around him, you might need Alternating Tiger Claw to break that defense. Anything that needs to be attacked in a particular way, Mister Fixer can make it happen. I LOVE Mister Fixer. Honestly, I think he's one of the best heroes in this game.

I can totally understand people's apprehension when using Bloody Knuckles, though. It is a pretty risky play. It really just depends on benefits vs. costs, and whether or not you can predict if he's going to be hit in the next turn. But trust me, used at the right time, Bloody Knuckles can be an amazing card.

Final thoughts on Fixer: much like Nightmist, you can't be afraid to let yourself get hurt. You don't wanna hide behind Pipe Wrench and Driving Mantis the whole time--get out there and put yourself on the line, and do some serious damage.

Other Heroes' deck search cards let them draw cards in addition to searching. Quick Draw in particular is so specific that it amazes me it doesn't have 'Draw 1 card, Play 1 card' on it.

Even Absolute Zero's Onboard Module Installation has that.  Except, of course, that he isn't allowed to put one of his Modules directly into play, so it usually amounts to only one perk of "Draw a card" if you want him to suck ice or coldify fire that turn.

BTW anybody use MR. FIXER vs Spite yet?

I had a great game of tennis going on... Mr. Fixer would whip out Bloody Knuckles and do extra damage... Spite would bounce them back with that strenght drug of his, and then Fixer preps bloody knuckles on his turn again for more beatdown goodness. I really liked him vs Spite and he is the boss of Voss.

I certainly don't disagree - she could use more draw. But she does have draw cards, they just arent the typical draw 1 card sort of deal. its a bit more refined, and I believe that is because she is entirely dependant on her guns to do -anything-, that she needs a less random depend on the shuffle draw, and a bit more of a direct call - while still maintaininga  bit of the randomness.

On topic, I really like Mr. Fixer against Apostate. Jack Handle/Alternating Tiger Claw is great against the Orb of Delirium, and Hoist Chain is serious damage control.

Dont know if he need more fixing, but I definitely found it lacking.

Being a support character doesnt mean he shouldn't be doing anything usefull. He definitely lack use for his cards, one-shot or power. Having only one power to rely to is meeh. He isn't that much versatile and once he commit to a style cannot change it or he wont be able to get back.

It always feel like there is someone that could do it even better and that everyone else could do it just as good. As far as support goes he feel a lot lackluster compared to other support character (Legacy, AA, Visionnary,...).

He look more like a concept character than a balanced character.

I disagree.  I've found him able to do quite well, he just needs proper care and feeding.

Legacy + Argent Adept + Mr. Fixer

+2 damage from your allies, Argent can get you Bloody Knuckles on his turn, and then Overdrive on your turn.  Jack Handle + a Style + Harmony =  6 damage to ALL targets (or use dual crowbars and get 7 damage to two targets) - this can really make a huge difference in some villain fights (I think there is only 1 or two citizens that would still be alive after that strike).

Mr Fixer is not the single-target damage powerhouse, he is a multi-striker.  If you think of his abilities as AoE, then they are pretty powerful.

Sorry but put any heroes with the same 2 other helpers and they all will rocks... and some a lot more than Mr. Fixer.Just Tempest and his basic power will be 3 damage to every vilain, Fanatic 3 + 3 damage, and Expatriette a lot more with just one gun.

If you say Mr Fixer need a +2 Damage boost and someone to play his cards for him to do quite well, then indeed you say he need help.

I find Mr FIxer to be an invaluable member of any team. Choose the most profitable style+tool you can manage, charge, overdrive, change set up when needed : he is very adaptable, and good at dealing lots of damage, or helping other to deal lot of damage, or/and tanking. And he as Salvage Yard. And the incredible Tire Iron that took me so long to use efficiently.

I don't feel he needs any fixing, but it is true that a player can feel playing him to be repetitive - though it is true of most other heroes.

In fact you can really argue why is power is not : put a style or a tool in play. Then have each tool provide for the actual power. It nearly wont change a thing about him.

And that is why he feel so dull to play, no real choice, totally dependant on the draw to sustain him his only 3 cards he could have in play at the same time, only one power to activate, could be totally dependant on other players/environment to provide him with damage bonus, could often manage to do with 3 cards what other heroes could do with one.

His deck is too many cards that cant enter play and not enough one-shot and other to provide things to do when you have your 3 cards set.

In fact sometimes I would love his power to be  : deal 2 melee damage to one target or deal 1 melee damage and draw a card. Or that he can cycle his deck for non-style, non-equipment cards.

I'm intrigued by the way we analyze hero decks. 

Each deck is specifically designed with a style and flavor that is unique to that hero. In Mr. Fixer's case, he's designed to be versatile, but very zen - he doesn't need a bunch of stuff to be effective, just a simple configuration of a few cards that are appropriate for the current situation. That's the flavor of his deck.

We've had many games were Fixer did wonderful - for what he does. No, he's not flashy and he's not highly dynamic. But he generally does a decent to good amount of damage, gets past the villain's defenses/offenses (with styles, tools, and his grease gun), and makes himself important to the game.

Again, it's just his style. When I'm looking to play lots of cards, I'll play Tachy. If I want to have lots of stuff and options, I'll play Wraith (or, if I have the brainpower, Argent Adept). If I'm feeling like I have an attitude, I'll play Absolute Zero, Fanatic, or NightMist. If I just want to burn things, it's Ra.

But if I'm looking for something effective and thoughtful, but not overly active, Fixer's the guy I go to.

Now, when he's with the right team, he's even better. Argent Adept letting him play cards on AA's turn is wonderful! Boosts from others always helps. Having someone like Visionary help him get the right cards is great, also, but everyone loves that.

On the flip side, having Fixer give everyone else their destroyed equipment back is pretty shiny - Bunker, Zero, and Wraith love that! In our experience, because he generally sets up well and quickly, Fixer tends to be the go-to person for ditching his hand/cards, skipping his turn, and things like that. Not necessarily because he's being less effective, but because he isn't as dependent upon his cards (once he has a useful setup) and being set back a turn doesn't hurt him as much as it does other heroes. He is not the person to ask to destroy something (unless it's his Bloody Knuckles), as he rarely has much out to destroy. Having said that, he does have ways to deal with it when it happens.

I agree. Fixer would win the "Best Team Player" award were Legacy or Ardent Adept not in the game. He is always able to sacrifice a card from hand or the table to minimize damage to those characters who have more of a set up to "set up". He also usually has exactly what is needed for the situation at hand, so once he draws it, he will be a solid, consistent benefit to the team. (Mr Fixer with Harmony, his Jackhandle and Driving Mantis against a minion heavy villain is a thing of beauty)

"Argent Adept letting him play cards on AA's turn is wonderful! Boosts from others always helps. Having someone like Visionary help him get the right cards is great, also, but everyone loves that."

The trouble is that there isn't so many cards he can play ! AA could let him play the one or two cards of his decks that make sens in his turn. Visionnary can help me get his hand on the one or two cards he could play.

That is the core of the trouble : you will need to play 3 cards on a serie of 24 of your 40 cards decks. The 21 others cards you draw (still more than half your deck) aren't playable/usefull. That is a problem that is exacerbated on Mr Fixer above all the others character because he didn't draw a lot of cards and cant play a lot of cards. When another hero draw any card he usually could put it down for a later use or in case, when Mr. Fixer draw a Style, a Tool, a cards that make it draw a style or a tool, he have no use for it and cant put it down without slowing himself or cancelling another capability.

That is why I find it far less fun that other. Because when you have what you need, more than half the time you draw a card it is useless and you cant do anything with it, not even boost your actual power like Bunker or Tachyon. And it is quite fast to have what you need when you only need 3 cards. Anyother heroes is more fun because s/he rarerly cant use what s/he draw so you have to make decision on what you play and what you use.

Mr Fixer draws more cards than anyone else. Thanks to his Toolbox and not having to trash equips, he always ends up with half his deck or more in his hand, which means he has access to just about every tool and style in his arsenal, which in turn also means he will be capable of handling absolutely just about any situation the villains will throw at him, every game.

He seems pretty fine to me. Not always exciting, but he has never failed on his own merits in play.

Actually, I often struggle to get him to draw cards. I've been lucky to start with Tool Box the last few games, but using Tool Box to get a lot of cards requires multiple uses, and I can't always afford to spend time playing Tool Box over and over again when I need to be playing cards. 

I'd like it if Tool Box actually did as its name implies and let you draw a tool from your trash or deck, making it a counterpart to Meditation.

But I'm totally in agreement that he's not designed to be a total powerhouse (even though he totally can be). If you need a powerhouse, he can do that. But he's better if you apply him to more situations than that.

Personally I've found that on the few occasions I've played Mr Fixer, I never seem able to get out that many cards. I don't think his Toolbox has ever come out for me. By far the most regular mass-card-drawer that I've played is Nightmist - if I haven't got at least half her deck in my hand within a few turns, I've got problems. Once I even managed to draw her entire deck and realised I'd buggered myself up a bit since I couldn't use any card that required me to reveal cards from my deck ;). Anyway, Mr Fixer can be pretty cool - using Driving Mantis style and the Jack Handle is very useful against Plague Rat, I've found…well, as long as you've not got any damage buffs in play (to push the Infection damage over 2, which Driving Mantis then can't redirect). Playing with Legacy at this point is then a bad idea, as I've discovered ;). May not have been so bad if I'd managed to get the Jack Handle out - think I only had the Mantis style out. We died before I could get much more :P.

I rarely use Toolbox either, honestly, but I still have yet to find Fixer ever in want of cards. Since he recovers many cards he plays, ala Tools, his hand just gets bigger instead of smaller as he draws one (at least) every turn and plays (generally after a few rounds) less, due to his tool pick-up, and if he's lucky, already having Harmony and/or a nice Style in play.

I really rarely find Mr Fixer at a dearth of weaponry, sometimes Styles. It's always Expatriette that has problems with getting guns and/or ammo. I just played with her a small time ago and found every copy of her Submachine gun, one ammo, and a dead Expatriette.

Expatriette does NOT have draw cards. Her search cards Quick Draw, Reload, and Arsenal Access each put the card into play. You can put it into your hand, but you rarely do that. Even if you do it's a one for one play that costs you your play phase. If you use your innate power (or Speed Loading) twice then your hand is empty. Most other heroes tend to combo well with their innate. She doesn't because playing lots of cards means you need to have lots of cards, which she can't get.

Her innate is for the "play a card then play unload" combo.

But yes, Expat needs card draw support more than anyone else in the game, especially since one of her set up cards kills her deck without it.

But, I digress. Expatriette is far better than Fixer. He does need fixing.

I tried playing him where he was allowed to have up to two stances in play and it was much more enjoyable. He felt like a real hero. But, two stances doesn't make him over powered. Even with this tweak we still lost to Voss the first game. We beat him the second game with everyone at 7HP. The original post was "Does Fixer Need Fixing" with a lot of good points made on both sides. What Fixer fixes have people tried?

I think letting him have two tools would make him way too powerful.

Setup:

At the start of the game, shuffle your deck and draw three cards.

Gameplay:

Whenever Expatriette destroys a target, draw a card.

Whenever Expatriette uses the power of a gun card without an ammo card played next to it, destroy that gun card.

Setup:

At the start of the game, you may place up to 6 minus (H) tool cards in your trash.  Shuffle your deck and draw three cards.

Gameplay:

At the start of your turn, you may discard a Toolbox to search your trash for a tool card.  Place that card in your hand.

JayMann, are these your custom rules for the two?

I'd think I'd find Expatriette to be better if Arsenal Access let you take two equipment cards. You could put one into play and the other into hand. That'd just make her less reliant on others making her draw cards.

I've had this idea for a while for heroes to have optional setup cards.  They aren't a promo replacement of the hero, so all the cards and character card for that hero are the same (and for heroes which have promo versions, you could use setup cards for either one).  The idea is that villains always have setup cards, and thus no default setup, heroes have optional setup cards, with the default setup being "Shuffle your deck.  Draw 4 cards," and the environment having optional setup cards, with the default setup being nothing at all.

The idea is to give an always in play effect from the beginning of the game which makes the hero more enjoyable to play.  Usually this is by finding something annoying about the hero and coming up with a fix.  In order to keep this from being far overpowering, I also add a penalty (typically, I always have three card draws instead of four, unless I have that hero search for and put a card into play at the beginning, then I usually have two card draw).

I've never tested them, but, when I've shown what I've come up with to friends, they all seem to think it would be fun to play.  The two I've posted are the only two I'm confident would be close to finished, and, coincidentally, were the two mentioned as being underpowered in this thread.  I also have ideas for Tachyon, Absolute Zero, Visionary, and The Tomb of Anubis, though the mentioned heroes would likely be far overpowered with what I have come up with thus far, and I really don't have much hashed out for Tomb of Anubis yet.

So, think of what I wrote in the quotes as if they were a second setup card for the heroes, much like villains have a second card for setup and gameplay.

Evandan, having arsenal access add one card to play and one to your hand is exactly the kind of thing I think Expatriette needs.

Jaymann, I like your idea for optional setups. I'll try them out. It would add some personality. The Expatriette one makes Pride and Prejudice and Unload hard to use, but submachine gun and shock rounds get better. Speed Loading might be too good, though. It does make sense that guns need ammo. I'll have to try her out.

I don't think the Fixer one fixes him, though. I think his main problem is once he has a tool and a stance in play he has 16 cards in his deck he can't play (without losing the old one). What would be nice is a way to use the extra cards he has in hand without playing them like Bunker, Haka, Fanatic, and Nightmist. Maybe he could discard a card to do one extra damage.

@lugaru

I've done Fixer vs. Spite, but it didn't go well. It's because I kept playing my draw card and trying to get hoist chain, instead of using the cards I had, so by the time I got the cards I wanted, Spite had the drug that forces equipment and ongoings back into your hand.

Here's my proposed 'fix' for Mister Fixer, an effort to make him a more interesting hero to play by encouraging the player to change tool/styles more often, rather than sticking with one set as I have so often seen:

All styles, like tools, return to your hand if you put another style into play.

Strike: You may play a tool or style. Deal one target 1 melee damage.

This. Is. Cool.

I think it gives him the flavor that >G was going for. A hero that is not hard hitting, but is able to be dynamic and change things up depending on situation. If it's too good you could do "You may play a tool or play a style OR deal one target 1 melee damage." I'll have to try it to find out.

While I really like playing Mr Fixer, and  I don't think he really needs fixing, I must say this sounds really fun and dynamic.

Just played Mr. Fixer with The_Jakey's suggestion for his innate power: " All styles, like tools, return to your hand if you put another style into play. Strike: You may play a tool or style. Deal one target 1 melee damage."

It was excellent. He was so much more fun. Fanatic was the real hero of the battle, but Fixer was great, too. Especially Overdrive which let him use Strike twice. He used the first Strike to get out Dual Crowbars and the second Strike he switched them out for a Hoist Chain. It was cool because he could hit multiple citizens when needed, but switch when Dawn was the only target. He barely flinched at Devastating Aurora.

We still lost. Fanatic needed one more card to do Wrathful Retribution. Dawn was at 25HP. These are the kind of close games that make this game so fun. It would not have been close with the old Mr. Fixer. Dawn would have been too healthy for Wrathful Retribution to have given us the win.

Did he have out the Drug card that makes you mill the top five cards of your deck when you use a power?  With a Scrapyard, Spite can increase your chances of pulling a Tool by 600%.

What Mr. Fixer needs is a reason to play styles when there's no good reason to play styles. Tools at least go back to your hand, so playing new ones situationally isn't a huge deal, though still clunky. But the styles (which are all helpful, but none at OMG-level) could use something like the following text in order to be more fluid and useful: "When this card is destroyed, Mr. Fixer deals 1 target 1 melee damage."

I like that idea.  Would give me a reason to move between stances, which would feel like a natural thing for Fixer to do.

I think this is the first suggested fix in this thread I like. I love Fixer and find him to be immenently useful and fun to play, but the idea of him doing something as he shifted from one style to another is pretty great.

I do agree with a lot of people that Fixer's use isn't meant to be damage, rather, Mr. Fixer is all about utility. Get some options in your hand through Tool Box and Meditation (Scrap Yard can be used if the villain has actually destroyed things, in which case you'll be every other equipment user's best friend anyway). Then, just go with the flow of the battle.

Lets think about numbers plasticbrain. Ra - damage dealer hero deals on turn in which he uses his play phase to augument his powers (for example playing imbue fire) deals with his basic power 2+1+3 maximum damage. Three for fire tornado, one for imbued fire and one for a staff. It`s total of 6 damage.  Your version of fixer deals 1+1+1+1 twice. Strike + tool + grease monkey style + harmony and change of the style + grease monkey style + tool + harmony. It`s two more than the hero whose job is primarily dealing damage. 

We can't change the text on the style cards themselves, but we could change Fixer's text to make an alt version:

"POWER: Strike - Deal 1 target 1 damage.  Destroy a Style card.  If you do, deal 1 target 1 damage."

Call it "Mr. Fixer, Martial Arts Master".  I guess his hp would need to drop by 1 or 2?

I'd be resistant to version of Strike that requires me to destroy Styles. Change that to "You may destroy a style card. If you do, deal 1 target 1 damage," and we're in business.

With this wording, Mr. F doesn't get the benefit of the style he's destroying on the second packet of damage. Not sure if that was intentional or not. You could do "You may choose a Style card in play. If you do, deal 1 target 1 damage and destroy the chosen Style card." That gets kinda wordy and clunky though.

I dunno. It's things to think about.

I'm not really going to comment on plasticbrain's suggestions, as I'm not big on changing the cards, myself, but I did want to comment on your analysis, as you've compared Ra's base ability with cards in play to Fixer's base ability with cards in play and playing a card (because you'd have to do that to destroy a style), which isn't exactly a fair comparison. Throw in Ra playing a card (and he has a lot of damage-dealing cards), and the comparison is probably more appropriate.

I don't really remember. It was quite a while ago, but I think you were in that game, Reckless. I think the problem was that I couldn't get both a tool and a style out because I had to return a card to my hand every turn, and I just didn't have enough cards on the field.

I analyzed situation in which he play a card imbue fire - a card that let him modify his playstyle.  Card fitting for the current situation quite nicely. And no - letting change of the styles don't make him more fluid or anything - it make him overpowered powerhouse. If we let him get his style go back to his hand that means he can play overdrive every turn ( because overdrive is nothing more than deal one target one damage if played on his turn ). And if we don`t let him his style go back to his hand we just added 10 new overdrives like card to his deck. Thats around 16 overdrives on his full deck if we count salvage yards. Thats 20 total damaging cards that he have in this situation in his deck - and normally he should have only 9 of damaging cards in his deck. Thats doubling the ammount of damaging cards in his deck!

@soul31: i wasn't suggesting that the "1 damage" text go on every style necessarily, but rather that every style have SOMETHING happen when it is destroyed, to make the Styles more useful. "When this card is destroyed, get an equipment card out of your trash." or "When this card is destroyed, draw a card." or 'When this card is destroyed, destroy a non-hero ongoing card." or etc...

Last night my group tried out Mr. Fixer using a version of plasticbrain's suggestion to get him to cycle through his styles and tools in a more fluid way.  It worked out very well, and I'm planning on making an alt version of Fixer's oversized card that uses the new power.  The power we used was:

Strike: Mister Fixer deals 1 melee damage to 1 target.  If a Style or Tool card was played this turn, increase this damage by 1.

The effect was that you get rewarded for swapping in new styles and tools throughout the game (rather than sitting on a hand full of styles/tools you don't want to play), and even if the new style/tool isn't the perfect one for the situation, the +1 damage boost makes the change still worthwhile.  But it doesn't feel so mandatory that you feel forced to do it every turn even if you've got other plans.

Unfortunately, the wording we chose means that you'll get the +1 the first time you lay out a Style or Tool, even if you're not swapping them, but we thought that was acceptable.  The alternative, since different things happen to Styles and Tools when you replace them, would have been to use some tortured wording that says something along the lines of "if a Style card was destroyed this turn or a Tool card was put back into your hand, increase this damage by 1", which we wanted to avoid.

I'll post a note when this alt version of Mr. Fixer has been added to the accessories on my site, in case anyone else wants to play with this.

You could also word it "If a Style or Tool card left play this turn, increase this damage by 1," if you want a more streamlined version. I actually like the flavor of getting the boost the first time he plays one better though. It makes more thematic sense for him to get a little boost for surprising his enemies with a new tool or stule than for losing his stuff, and it smooths out those first couple turns while he's getting set up.

It may just be me, but I've never really needed any extrinsic motivation for changing styles and tools. The battle changes over time naturally, and I just adapt to it when necesary. Sometimes there are a lot of foes I need to hit at once, but later on I'm more concerned with just hitting one target really hard, so I switch things up. Not every tool is needed every battle, but I usually find something useful pretty soon into the game. I like to think of him as a damage specialist, meant for wedging his way into enemy defenses and prying them open.

It looks like the idea of a "Synergy" ongoing that raises your damage on turns where you change tools/styles was brought up during playtesting( it later became Harmony), but seemed too artificially forced and not very thematic to have him trying to change his moves frantically, regardless of whether it was needed.

That said, it's an interesting idea.

Actually, looking over the old playtesting forums for Rook City, I see there was some talk about Mr. Fixer lacking ways to build up power as the game progresses. I can sort of see what they meant. In my experience Mr. Fixer does a lot of the building in his hand rather than the play area. But now I'm curious-- would it be fun to have some way for him to "build up Chi," as the RC playtesters put it?

I gave this some thought last night, and I don't think implementing something like this would be as radical a change as one might think. Just for fun, I'm going to try a game with him using these changes:

Overdrive's keywords are (Ongoing, Chi).

Overdrive's text reads, "POWER: Use Mister Fixer's "Strike" power X times this turn, where X = the number of Chi cards in play plus 1. Then, destroy this card."

So mechanically it will do the same thing as before, but now multiple copies can be saved up for a series of "Flurry of Blows" strikes. For added fun, I might try giving Harmony the Chi keyword, too. Maybe even have Meditation make Chi cards indestructable until the start of your next turn( or maybe just the end of this one, I feel like this could end up getting really silly).

I've added the "Stance Shifting Master" alt Fixer card to my oversized cards and have posted it on my site for anyone who wants to grab it.  I used the Mr. Fixer art from the hp tracker card that >G put out with Rook City, so it looks different from the base Mr. Fixer card.

www.spiffworld.com/sotm

i like the interpretation. much easier to implement than a change to all the Style cards and gets the job done in respect to making it feel like there's a reason to play your cards when you're playing this Hero.

(but Spiff, i can't find where you've hidden him at your site?)

I added his alt tracker to the normal .zip of hero oversized card trackers.  So download that .zip and it's in there (at least, it's supposed to be and be sure to let me know if it's not).

I think of Mr. Fixer as being in the same group as Absolute Zero, the Argent Adept and in some cases Nightmist and Unity.

They can all be fine on by them selves. but to shine they need time or a teammate to help them get set up (drawing cards/playing them).

So to say hes under powered or needs fixing beacuse his bace hit is 1 or he realise on set combos is a little silly when Absolute Zero needs modules to not hit him self and still has a bace hit of 1.  And you can be stuck looking for that one instrument as the Adept that synergises with what ever rhythm, harmony and melody cards you have.

Those are my favorite people to play as because of the set up required. Some games youll save the day and other times youll get the team killed miling your deck.

Adept has four Instrumental Conjurations and multiple forms of draw acceleration.  Fixer has Meditation and Toolbox and that's it.  If he's out a Tool, he'll be hitting one target for two at the most (Possibly more if he has an Overdrive or a Strike in his hand, but it'd be a pretty lackluster play that would prevent him from Toolboxing more cards to his hand).  Abs can search for his Modules, and has a few cards for draw acceleration.  Unity has multiple draw acceleration cards and can handpick what Golems she needs.  Nightmist is a monster on her own for getting what she needs when she needs it.  It's great that he can look for his Styles, but Fixer has no means to get a Tool he needs unless he draws it or it ends up in his trash and he Scrapyards it back to his hand.  I like him as a character, but there seems to be a lot of games where he needs a gratuitous amount of hand-holding to function at all.

hes not going to be soloing any bosses but hes great agenst hevy minion villans with his jack handle and tire iron.

Ive played a few games where we just let Unity destroy Mr. Fixers tools when the situation no longer called for it.

With a little help from Argent Adept we were able to play greese gun 5 turns in a roe. 

Useing a turn to stop all villain/environment targets from doing damage, or useing salvage yard to let evryone get all equipment back can change the tide of the fight (hopefully for the best).

or you could just modify tool box to get a tool in play, instead of the draw 2 thing.

I love it when he takes out his Toolbox, and pulls out ANOTHER TOOLBOX.

(Insert obligatory Inception joke here, despite the fact that even in the movie that's not what the word meant)

I feel like when you get right down to it, it's OK to have slight variations in relative "usefulness" between characters. Teamwork isn't about finding some way to objectively rate each person and then just using all the ones on the top of the list; it's about finding ways to make use of everyone's strengths and synergies the best you can, and overcoming each person's weak points. As long as a hero is fun to play for whomever's playing them, it doesn't matter if they're not quite as good as other heroes.

In addition, each hero has their own playing style, and some playstyles appeal more to some players than others. Everyone has a different idea of which heroes are the most fun. And sometimes "fun" includes playing a more difficult hero to give yourself a challenge. You really have a lot of ways to decide how much of a challenge you want in this game.

I don't believe Mister Fixer needs fixing, but it's fun to discuss alternate ways to play heroes! This has given me a couple ideas I want to try out myself.

^Pretty much my thoughts about this entire topic

So... Mr Fixer was just used for the very first time in my game group (Visionary and Nightmist were the other two heroes, going up against Ambuscade in Atlantis).

Based on cards drawn Mr. Fixer was easily MVP of the trio -- in fact, Mr Fixer almost completely soloed the game (V & N did very little to affect the outcome and the only damage they took was damage that went to all heroes from the environment).

Anyway, just sharing my experience.