Parse Needs Fixing

(because we haven't had a "needs fixing" thread in a while)

{Split from Parsing Parse: A Strategy Guide}

Played parse for a third time last night, and got her killed for a third time.  I have yet to see any evidence that she's worth a full point of H while in the game, and her incap abilities are just awful, so the fact that she has low HP and no defense tech is a serious problem, especially since I don't feel like she's able to carry the game by herself if others die to protect her.  I haven't played her in H=5 yet, that's probably where she'll do best, but even so, I'm tempted to avoid running her against the stronger villains.

Sounds good. Don't play her. 

She's done fine in all the games I've seen her in (9 this year).

Of course, neither 3 nor 9 games are anywhere near an adequate sample size to draw any real conclusions.

I think she rocks pretty hard, but I have a sample size of one...

I've had her die a couple of times but be amazing on other occasions. Critical Multiplier can turn into one hell of an epic damage buff if you get all three copies out and play stuff like Recompile a load of times. That card where you can discard a villain card instead of playing it and then play the next one instead (Buffer Overflow, I think - has a pic of Parse lining up a shot at a giant reptile-monster in an arena) is possibly the only method currently existing in the game (at least, I can't think of any others) of avoiding stuff like Devastating Aurora. The fact that most of Parse's damage is irreducible is handy as well, as is the fact that she can make the other heroes' damage irreducible as well.

I'm not too keen on her incap abilities, though. I suppose the "look at the top card of the villain deck" is useful if one of the other heroes has deck control in order to be able to do something about it, but that hasn't yet come up for me. I can't remember what Parse's other two incap abilities are, off the top of my head, but neither of them have seemed particularly useful to me.

I've had Parse do very well for me three times, and meh twice. In both of the mediocre games, I was trying to use her as a primary damage dealer. I realize that my sample is nothing statistically, but I feel very good about the character now.

I've come to think of her hunting bow as an afterthought, when you don't know what else to do. She recently owned a game against the Dreamer, where the Toothfairies (since there was a pair in the opening draw, perhaps I should say Twothfaries, but probably not) were in the opening draw.

It was looking grim after turn two, where everyone's hands were nearly empty. Parse was able to play Syntactic Analysis on the Sentinels, who get back up to speed after a highly unlikely combination of Team Communications and Unique Capabilities. From there, Parse was able to keep the game tilted in favor of the players in Oracle mode.

YMMV, but I've been enjoying the heck out of the deck.

Disclaimer - I was only introduced to Sentinels a couple months ago, and have only been playing a lot within the past few weeks.  Also mainly playing non-Advanced mode.

The combination of fairly low starting HP plus a lack of damage redirection or reduction certainly seems to be her glaring weak point.  The first couple times I played her I was very underwhelmed - she seemed to drop quickly and not do a whole lot of useful stuff while she was out.  Since then she's become probably my favorite character because I like the combination she offers of board control (Extrasensory Awareness, Buffer Overflow, Updated Intel, Segmentation Fault) and damage/damage-boosting (Base power, Critical Multiplier, Targeting Arrow, Exploit Vulnerability).  Other characters that have both deck control and damage dealing/boosting cards seem to have a stronger inclination toward one or the other, while Parse strikes a balance between the two that I really enjoy.  There are rarely games (albeit one I played last night, so I acknowledge that it can happen) where I have a hand of cards that I don't want to all play RIGHT NOW, and often games where I have a hand that makes me wish I wasn't going to have to wait another 4-5 turns to get everything set up.

One of the last games I played with her was against the Matriarch, and while I certainly don't expect this to be typical, this was the last turn which I found quite memorable:

Matriarch on her side B played whatever card of hers pulls the flock out of the discard pile.  We'd known that was the last card in her deck because of Updated Intel previously, and we'd burned through her deck with some use of Extrasensory Awareness and possibly a Buffer Overflow to avoid the card that destroys H ongoings so she was at full health.  Parse started off the hero turns by discarding something to use Snap Decision to Recompile, then played another Recompile thus discarding a total of seven cards while having all three Critical Multipliers in play.  Voila, a 23-point shot from her base power.  The Scholar played his card to do one target damage equal to the number of non-hero targets in play, then the Argent Adept allowed the Scholar to play his second copy of that same card, and then the Wraith blew up 10 pieces of equipment to overkill the Matriarch.  Like I said, I certainly don't expect that to be typical - we were ridiculously set up at that point.  However, Parse was also crucial earlier in the game to let us smack down both cohorts via Reveal the Flaws since, at the time, we had the ability to do at most 3 points of damage in any given attack.

We've played several games including Parse, including one where she was being run by a newer player last night, and she has always at least pulled her weight.  She has a nice variety of deck control (some of which is brilliant), reliable ongoing/environment destruction, her own damage in a pinch, and tons of great support/buffing.  Even if all she she does is facilitate other players doing the heavy-lifting, and doesn't bother dealing much of any damage herself by the end of the game, she'd still be contributing a lot.  The fact that she combines rampant control/support with a damaging base power has, for us, guaranteed that even in a sub-optimal match-up or with a sub-optimal draw, she has never felt like she can't contribute something right now.

Well, maybe I'm just bad with her.  Or maybe it's the matchups.  So far, the games she lost were both against Vengeance Three including Blade and Friction (once with Proletariat in Tomb of Anubis, the other time with Fright Train on Advanced in Megalopolis), while the game where she and two other heroes died and the last was left with 1 HP was against Ambuscade (not even advanced) in the Ruins of Atlantis.  In these games she's been paired with Naturalist, Omnitron-X and Ra (the sole survivor), Absolute Zero and Fanatic (both of whom I suck as, although someone else played AZ for the first time instead of me running him), and Visionary and Setback.

Visionary might have pulled that last game off - had I known what would end up happening, I might have used Parse to sift Friction's deck and get rid of her Ongoing destruction, since Visi in a Telekinetic Cocoon with Demoralization out seemed to be capable of single-handedly destroying at least Fright Train and maybe Blade (no maybe if he hadn't had his starting card out, but I never found any way to get rid of it), while neither could touch her.  Had it been down to just Friction, with Blade no longer providing DR to the Devices, and Precognition able to avoid the most damaging Surges, Visionary could perhaps have managed, and I can see a way Parse might have been even better than Visionary at arranging such an outcome.  But it didn't happen (and Setback was just completely useless that game, in large part because Impulsion Beam shuts down Risk).

I still think there's absolutely no excuse for Parse's incap abilities...but otherwise, I'm far from giving up on her (and even if I had, I'd still be required to play her, since I play everything with about equal frequency; she would just go in the same category as Fanatic and Expatriette, who lose half their games and die more often even than that, so I've come to kind of dread including them in matches which are at all uncertain as to outcome).  I just wish I could figure out what precisely I'm doing wrong when playing her.

Wow. That's some serious losing with Fanatic and Expat. You must have a completely different play style to me (and the other G+ers), because I don't see them lose significantly more than anyone else. Sure, Fanatic dies more than average but that's kind of her thing, and she makes the most of sacrificing herself for the team. 

I wish I could figure out why I lose so many games with Fanatic; I do play her self-sacrificially, as that's pretty much her thing, but while her dying so often is not too surprising, I think I've only once had her death benefit the team enough that they won (in fact, Expat has died more often than Fanny, but lost fewer games in the process).  So my Fanatic sucks at martyrdom.  I don't know why exactly.

With Expatriette, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that I keep pitting her against Rook City and/or The Chairman for flavor reasons.  Also I seldom get around to playing Flak Jacket since I'm too busy shooting, and if I do play Flak Jacket, it seldom absorbs more than 3 damage.  The big 8-damage wallops never seem to happen at convenient times.

I'm fairly bad with AA, AZ, Tempest and Bunker as well; AA and AZ both have 11 deaths on record, out of 19 and 20 games respectively.  On the other hand, I only have 3 losses and 3 incaps (that is, two everyone-killed, one she-died-but-the-team-won, and one everyone-else-died-and-she-couldn't-pull-off-the-win-so-I-quit) with Nightmist, and only slightly less impressive results with Legacy and the Scholar, with Wraith only slightly behind them, and O-X comparable in his win rates, though he dies a lot in the process.  Legacy's winrate probably profits from a lot of easy games, as you alluded, but the others are pretty much solidly examples of why I think those characters are "top-tier"; they seem to need to actively screw up, or be facing the absolute worst villains, in order to be capable of losing.  The remaining heroes all hover pretty reliably in the 5-to-7-losses and 6-to-8-incaps in 19-or-20 games range, which I consider to be typical (for my habit of selecting slightly-easier-than-average matchups and seldom making them Advanced).

(I probably should just stop having Parse pick fights with the Vengeful Three.  Also I misspoke earlier, her game against Ambuscade was advanced.)

I adore Parse.

I would define the flow of how I play Parse as a lot like Mr. Fixer, anticipating needs and setting your team up to win, although using very different means to do so.

Mr. Fixer gets better the more you know your opponent and your allies, and so does Parse.

Parse is a support, but she is the most aggressive support in the game, she isn't helping anyone live longer, she's helping other things die faster.

That's why anticipation is big, turning a big round for the villain against them (they get big DR, you Reveal the flaws, or their big card comes out only to get told to play something else, we won't be having any of that Forced Deployment nonsense today.) can swing a battle in one shot, which is exactly how she rolls.

Critical Multiplier is awesome, but it is not at all my favorite card in her deck, she has so much good stuff for whatever team she is in.

Comparing Parse to Adept or Visionary I think of them like this:

Visionary hanging back a bit, but still in the midst of things, subtly manipulating everything that happens, laying to waste the best laid plans of villains with a subtle tweak here and there, and an occasional misdirection.  They can't understand why that Flagship is so late, or why that EPE backfired, but we all know.

Adept is hanging back for the most part, directing the battle with a timely card play here, an extra power there, some DR where needed or a timely boost to damage.  Occassionaly he moves up front and gives his allies a much needed break, but mostly he's at his best making everyone else get more out of each round.

Parse is all attack, she's focusing on the badguys and showing everyone the things they need to know to win the fight.  Often that means firing the first shot herself, or the first 3 or 4 even.  She's actively going after the Villain, Visionary might confuse the Flagships orders so it shows up late, Parse is crashing it into the ground as it arrives.  The heroes are laying seige to the fortress and Parse is sapping the walls.  She isn't there to patch up your wounds, or take a shot for you, she's there to make sure the badguys are exposed and defenseless, their toys broken and their hiding places flushed open.

I still prefer playing Visionary, sitting back and laughing maniacally as you steer the entire multiverse to your desired result, only occasionaly having to step forward and reveal the true nature of your power, but Parse is a lot of fun too.  She's the support version of Fanatic.  That's how I'd describe her.

I don't recall if you've already said so but do you play a lot of games solo, Edwin? If so, maybe that's why you're having trouble - it can be rather more difficult when you have to spread your attention out between all three/four/five heroes and the villain and environment decks, so you might miss some of the good combos and stuff due to being distracted by having to keep track of All of the Things.

If you only ever play with other people, never mind - it was just a thought :).

What a coincidence.  I'm not that fond of Fixer either.  At least he's a bit more consistent in his damage-dealing, despite having a lower starting amount.  I've won games aplenty with him on the team, but he seldom feels like an integral part of the victory; maybe the same will end up being true of Parse eventually.

Mr. Fixer gets better the more you know your opponent and your allies, and so does Parse.

There might be something to that; I'm very curious what you mean.  I've got a fairly thorough knowledge of villains other than the V5 by now, but since I played her against the V3 twice and the third game was my first ever with her (and I seriously, horrifically miscalculated with the very first card I had her play), I've never played her with more than vague knowledge of both her AND her enemies.  That could well have been a factor, but I can't entirely wrap my brain around it, either with her or Fixer.  Can you go into more detail?  (We could make it another thread if you don't want to clutter up this guide anymore, though at least the parts where you're talking about Parse will still be relevant, and you can perhaps use Fixer as an analogy even then).

Parse is a support, but she is the most aggressive support in the game, she isn't helping anyone live longer, she's helping other things die faster.

That seems like it only really works with a top-notch damage dealer on the team.  Yes she can do damage herself, but she has such difficulty dealing more than a small amount of damage that it seems like you'd need to have other heroes protecting her.  I haven't played her alongside Tempest, Argent or Medico; perhaps in a game with them (Argent especially, if there's at least one tank in the party to keep them both intact), she can survive long enough to completely take over the game with shenanigans.  But in my last two games (actually two and a half, since the first V3 game I played a couple rounds of, committed an uncorrectable rules error, and restarted with another player taking over one of the heroes, and we did MUCH worse the second time), I just felt like there was too much that desperately needed doing and there was never any time for me to goof around with things that weren't immediately useful.  Critical Multiplier came in handy one game because Blade was using his teleporter thingy to make his victim discard and Parse was the lowest HP, but with only one copy of the card, it's not great since there actually need to be damage instances for it to boost, and it doesn't multi-stack on multiple instances such as Fanatic's Exorcism, the way damage boosts usually do (the only other case I can think of where a damage boost is just to the very NEXT damage instance is Absolute Zero's incap; I'm pretty sure there are others, but almost all the ones I've actually used are things like Galvanize or Syncopated Onslaught, which work for a fixed duration and thus make Critical Multiplier look pretty weak).

That's why anticipation is big, turning a big round for the villain against them (they get big DR, you Reveal the flaws, or their big card comes out only to get told to play something else, we won't be having any of that Forced Deployment nonsense today.) can swing a battle in one shot, which is exactly how she rolls.

I definitely see that potential, but you can't just phone Parse in when you need her help; she's there all the time, adding to the H value and getting beaten up, and the moments when her aid swings the battle might never arrive.  If she was meant to be the "Oracle" of the team, she shouldn't be a target, or else she should be part of some larger setup a la The Sentinels, where other stuff is actually contributing directly to the game while Parse makes little adjustments here and there behind the scenes.  I agree that Parse being able to "crack the code" of the game is conceptually cool, but in order for it to really work, she ought to have about 15 turns of setup while she's playing detective and figuring out what's going on, before the fight actually starts.  (Which is of course exactly how her nemesis, Miss Information, plays…whenever I get that match tried out, I will certainly have high hopes for Parse's contributions.  But her usefulness against the vast majority of villains seems badly limited to me by the fact that she's a fairly squishy human in the middle of a firefight, with nothing but a bow and a few tricks that do very little to keep her from getting flattened.)

She's the support version of Fanatic.  That's how I'd describe her.

I'm afraid that makes even less sense to me than the Mr. Fixer comparison.

I do play a lot of solitaire, and do often forget a few details (for instance in the non-Parse game I played the other night, I had Positive Energy Field in play for an entire round without remembering its existence, so I ended up having to retcon that the environment had played Spinning Vortex instead and we all took 3 damage), but I'm pretty good at spotting combos.  Not excellent, so it's possible you're right, but usually I can tell what cards are likely to be good for even when there are a lot of them; I'm just not up to checking every single card at every significant moment in the game, so stuff like damage adjustments and triggered effects can occasionally slip my mind.  Stuff I'm actively doing, though, seldom does.  I know what most of the cards in Parse's deck are capable of; that isn't the same as being able to effectively deploy them at the rate of 1 play and 1 power each turn.

The other big one is Haka of Battle.  

I have nothing else of relevance to contribute to this conversation.  Carry on.

I feel dumb for forgetting that one.  And it probably makes for a relevant comparison; a single Critical Multiplier and a single Haka of Battle both mean that discards turn into +1 damage.  Multiplier can stack several copies and can apply to other heroes, but also requires multiple card plays to set up those copies, does nothing unless something else allows/forces a discard, and doesn't give you at least two cards to feed it even if your hand is otherwise empty.

I feel that given time, CM will outstrip HoB, as you're getting double value out of your discards (both paying whatever cost requires the discard and getting the boost), but with higher risk and less immediate results.

Right, and my experience with SOTM is that 2 times out of 3, the game is over within 6-9 rounds because of the rate at which you take damage, so you have very little time to spare.  Haka of Battle seems like a far better bet to me; too often, you need to do something NOW or not get the time you might have wanted.  Every character is great if they get their dream setup; Parse seems to be very weak if she does not, whereas Haka can easily get along with just one or two cards.

I may be way off course, but hey. Ive never been known to really be good at not speaking up.

As Ive readin other threads Edwin, you seem like you are a pretty solid MTG type player. Ill be fair, and say CCG type. You build a deck, and you hold it to a standard it has to apply to, and when youre playing that deck the deck revolves around a central strategy - and if the deck doesn't apply to that central strategy then its not working right.

And right here, Ill put it out there. I play magic, L5r, Android, and a few other competitive CCGs. Im fairly good, but by no means amazing. And I get that - central themes and /consistancy/ is how CCG decks become amazing.

So you (i say you in a generic sense) look at a deck as a CCGer and the first thing you're doing is looking for a theme. Damage from fanatic. Deck Manipulation from visionary. Self damage for redirection from Zero. Ect. And sure, these theme's are there. But they are by no means refined as much as you would find in a CCG deck. A ccg version of Abzero would replace things like sub zero temp with more search cards or more fire damage that can be redirected. In fact youll see this in a lot of custom variants of AbZ - his base power becomes a search function.

Problem is, SotM wasn't designed as a ccg. And so its decks have a lot of cards that don't immediately lend themselves to the 'theme' of each deck.

And thats what took /me/ a long time to realize. You play a CCG by looking for the best card for the situation - usually with consistancy. I need this card against this matchup, so Ill use this card to go get it (or maybe already have it in my hand) and I want to dig for this card if I can, because once I get it it's an auto win. Sure SotM has those moments - it is a card game and there are some black and white counters to various villains.

But the leson I learned was to forget there is the rest of the deck. Forget you have any cards that exist /except/ those in your hand. And find the best situation that fits the cards, not the best card that fits the situation. Its a subtle difference - and in the end, neither way is a bad/wrong way to play at all - certainly the CCG way will win you games and will give you victory. And it will lead to an enjoyable time for a lot of decks - Wraith for instance, the most CCG style built deck, imho, or Chrono Ranger. 

But if you can shift your perception just a tiny bit (and Ill say again, it took me forever to do it) it will lead to characters like Fixer, Parse, Expat, and others becoming even more fun to play. It will lead to Wraith becoming a different sort of beast - sure you still want your utility belt razor ordenance throwing knife micro targeting computer damage madhouse, but youll find other ways for her to be useful - even start playign Rook City Wraith ;).

Again. Nothing wrong with playing it the CCG way. It works out well and if it is enjoyable for you, then keep going. But if you want to try to enjoy heroes you really don't like (Fixer, Parse, for instance) then try forgetting whats in their deck and just concentrating on your hand. And don't be afraid to loose the 'perfect setup' for some sort of incremental gain during this turn. More often than not that incremental gain is more important than keeping the status quo.

That said, I still don't enjoy playing Visionary no matter how I change her around in my mind ;)

I actually had a great game with Fixer just now - well, "great" might not be the word, the game as a whole was a horrible slog because it was Spite, but Fixer's performance in it was rather excellent (it didn't hurt that it was Dark Watch Fixer).  Hoist Chain and Driving Mantis were quite useful at different stages of the game, and he pulled off a monstrous Salvage Yard, giving expatriette twelve cards since her trash was full because of that one Drug.  Fixer wasn't the star of that match, but he certainly contributed and quite handily - the high point moment was when, having run out of Charges and Overdrives and once a Grease Gun to stop Spite's 2-damage instances, he settled for adding -1 with Hoist Chain - and then Writhe hit him with Blackout so he could deal another damage and apply another -1.  Earlier, he'd gotten up to -3 on Spite's damage with the help of Expat's Liquid Nitrogen Rounds, and that kept a very low-HP Expat from dying when she Unloaded (alas, only a few Guns in play so it wasn't that great).

If I'd had any sense, of course, I'd have had Writhe bringing Spite his Drugs so he'd flip faster, and had Expat play all her guns and Fixer set up his tools and not even tried to deal any damage until after the flip.  If I try a version of this matchup in future, I'll definitely go that route instead.  But as it worked out, despite having wasted a lot of time trying to hurt him pre-flip without success, I'm still pretty (not very) happy with the game in general, and in particular DW Fixer's role in it was solid.  He's still not my favorite hero by a long shot, but he's got some great stuff in his deck; I just wish it was easier to get the most out of him.

Parse, well, she's not looking that good to me yet, but I've got 17 games to go before it'll be a fair comparison.

I'm guessing you're trying to play each hero an equal number of times so as to "level them out". How come Parse is so far behind? Have you just not played her much, or had you already played the game before Vengeance came out and thuse the new heroes are behind?

I find Parse is pretty good for damage - she mainly has a lot of little plinks, but there's that lovely card Impossible Shot (I think - the one with Ambuscade staring at his sniper rifle which has an arrow lodged in the scope) which deals three irreducible damage and lets you draw a card. Recompile is also really good for getting more cards. I like to take advantage of Critical Multiplier whenever I can so if I can get even one copy of that out (of course, the more you have, the better the damage boost every time you discard), that's pretty good. If I can do that and then use a maximum-discard Recompile, even better. And I don't see that it matters too much who gets the damage boost (as long as you're not all Infected or something), since whatever the case, that much exrta damage is going to be dealt. Well, unless the villain has a bunch of soak or something, in which case you just use it to buff yourself and wait to deal damage on your next turn with a play that deals irreducible damage :).

I see a lot of mentions of her as having "low health", but she has the same starting amount as heroes such as Tempest and Wraith, and no-one's complaining about them ;). It's on the lower end of the scale, yes, but she's no Adept ;). Anyway, a couple of hp is probably only one instance of damage throughout the whole game (considering how many things deal, on average, two points of damage) so I don't think it'd make that much of a difference.

As a serious Parse hater, I really enjoyed this article - it does a great job of poiting out her strengths!

However, kust a quick note:

If that's a deliberate programming joke, it's amazing.  But it's probably important to note that here, X is set at 10, though that number does include two Syntactic Analyses, which you almost certainly have a better use for than discarding two cards.

I am always surprised that Quick Calculation puts cards in your deck rather than discarding them, though.

Syntactic Analysis actually doesn't work for Critical Multiplier anyway---the cards have just been revealed, which means they are still in the deck.  Since Critical Multiplier only triggers on discards from your hand, discarding the revealed cards from your deck doesn't help.  Quick Calculation wouldn't interact with Critical Multiplier, either, even if it discarded from deck rather than put them on the bottom.  I think the only cards Parse has that allow her to discard are Segmentation Fault, Snap Decision, and Recompile, for a total of 7, but I may be overlooking one.

For those discard-from-deck cards to work with Critical Multiplier, they'd have to come up with a different kind of wording, something like "draw and immediately discard."  In some competitive card games, that'd be a problem, since your hand is not public and cards can essentially vanish into it.  But I imagine it would work in Sentinels if that's a functionality they ever wanted.

Good point!  So, X = 8.

I wish I was being that clever, haha. No, it was just me missing it in the proofreading. Thanks!

Discards can also come at the result of other heroes action like Visionnary's base power or CR's discard to draw card and some her discard can be reused like her destroy ongoing or environnment power meaning it  can have a greater influence.

[quote="Ameena"] I see a lot of mentions of her as having "low health", but she has the same starting amount as heroes such as Tempest and Wraith, and no-one's complaining about them ;). It's on the lower end of the scale, yes, but she's no Adept ;). Anyway, a couple of hp is probably only one instance of damage throughout the whole game (considering how many things deal, on average, two points of damage) so I don't think it'd make that much of a difference.

[/quote]

The only counterpoint to that statement that I'd make is this:  Wraith, Tempest, and the Adept all have ways to reduce or redirect damage they take, and/or do some healing.  Parse can't do any of those things, so unless she has external help, if she starts out with the lowest HP she will most likely always stay there taking the hits that go to the lowest health hero.

Edited to add:

Another disclaimer - I don't know if something like this was ever considered in pre-published versions.  I don't know if this would've been considered overpowered - I can easily see the decision being made to have a lack of damage reduction be a deliberate balancing point for Parse.  I just think that this would've been a neat card, and thematically valid.

Pattern Recognition
Ongoing, Limited

Damage to Parse is reduced by 1 if Parse has been damaged by the source of the attack previously this game.

Flavor text: "It's so nice of them to telegraph their punches for me."

Parse has deck manipulation, thus giving her the power to avoid cards that would deal her damage all together, instead putting cards that will hit the folks with DR or great healing.

Also a fun little note: Legacy, Haka, The Wraith, Fanatic, The Visionary, The Scholar, Unity, The Sentinels, Setback, and The Naturalist all have ways of redirecting damage from Parse.

Mr. Fixer, Haka, Legacy, Fanatic, The Wraith, Tachyon, and The Scholar have ways of shutting down damage.

The Wraith, Mr. Fixer, Chrono-Ranger, The Visionary, and Expatriette have ways of reducing damage being dealt, Argent Adept also in a way as he can provide Parse with DR. 

Tempest, Legacy, Omnitron-X, Argent Adept, Setback, The Sentinels, and The Scholar have ways to heal Parse.

Absolute Zero, Fanatic, NightMist, Setback, and Mr. Fixer are able to get their HPs lower than Parse's quite easily and take damage and recover it.

Only heroes not able to protect Parse as the lowest are; Ra, Bunker, and K.N.Y.F.E. But even in that team, you have Bunker that will be the highest quite often to take that damage. Plus K.N.Y.F.E. and Ra will be wrecking anything and everything. It probably won't be too long of a game.

The vast majority of my games predate Vengeance's release.  I still don't own it myself, I play it with a friend's copy (as I did with RC and IR before the combo box came out; back then I still had a few dollars to rub together and was able to buy the new hotness), and very slowly make proxy copies of decks in the order of their manageability, so that I can play them at home instead of just his house.  Parse is one of the two most complicated of the new heroes (the Sentinels are weird on a superficial level, but most of their cards are pretty straightforward), so I haven't gotten so far as to add her to my proxy collection yet.  And since I don't want to play nothing but Vengeance heroes for the next three months, I include only one or two new heroes in each game, so the rate of change is something like 2-3x as many games with each new hero as with each pre-existing one; it'll be a long time before they close the gap.

I find Parse is pretty good for damage - she mainly has a lot of little plinks, but there's that lovely card Impossible Shot (I think - the one with Ambuscade staring at his sniper rifle which has an arrow lodged in the scope) which deals three irreducible damage and lets you draw a card.

That's certainly not a bad card, but it's not incredible either.  3 damage is often not enough to take out an important target all by itself, and not everything even has reduction, so the irreducible part doesn't always matter.

Recompile is also really good for getting more cards.

If you have stuff you can stand to discard, and nothing better to do with your card play.  So far my only use of Recompile was in my little aborted mini-game; it looked like it was proving quite effective, but it was also illegal due to an Impulsion Beam (having been played off Syntactic Analysis), and impossible to undo, so I had to scrap the whole match and play again.

I like to take advantage of Critical Multiplier whenever I can so if I can get even one copy of that out (of course, the more you have, the better the damage boost every time you discard), that's pretty good.  If I can do that and then use a maximum-discard Recompile, even better.

Whoopty-do, you used two card plays to get +3 to damage.  So many heroes can do so much better with less effort.

Anyway, a couple of hp is probably only one instance of damage throughout the whole game (considering how many things deal, on average, two points of damage) so I don't think it'd make that much of a difference.

Lowest-HP targeting makes it a pretty big deal.  She has none of the mitigation that Tempest and Wraith have, so unless there's someone else to stand in Vengeance Blade's crosshairs, Parse is pretty much boned.  Ditto for flipped Ambuscade, Citizen Blood, a couple of Voss's minions, Miss Information, and lots of other things - plus everything that hits ALL heroes of course.

Recompile does more than give you a damage boost. It increases your hand, thus making it more likely that you will have good cards in the future and allowing you to get to whatever card you need more quickly (such as Exploit Vulnerability or Reveal the Flaws against Voss).

I think you're spending too much time comparing heroes to other heroes. Yes, there is stuff that other heroes can do better than Parse, but likewise she can do some stuff better than they can. Every hero has that. No-one can buff quite like Legacy, but he can't nuke ongoings or environment cards. Tempest can, but has problems damaging anything if there's any soak. Parse can get through soak with ease but tends to only do so in small plinks (unless she makes damage irreducible for others so they can do more of the heavy hitting). Mr Fixer can do irreducible damage to more things at once but needs to get set up in order to do so (Tiger Claw and Jack Handle or Crowbars, in this example). Tachyon doesn't need to get set up but is pretty buggered if she can't draw cards or, as with Tempest, if the bad guys have soak.

Every hero has stuff they're good at in some situations and stuff they're bad at (Unity utterly destroys the crap out of everything…if she has good enough draw to get set up, out-of-turn plays are a wonderful bonus on top of that). You can't just look at a single card in isolation and go "this is a bad card" - you consider three points of irreducible damage to be no good? Try it on a Genebound Guard. Or on Citizen Hammer when Anvil is out (or even just on Anvil himself - that's him nearly half-dead in one shot right there). Or the Periapt of Woe (hey, if you have even a +1 to damage, you get to insta-kill it…and Parse can easily manage that, thanks Critical Multiplier! :D). Or…well, anything with soak, really. You might go "Oh, but you can't kill too many things with only htree damage as many things have more hp than that". Yeah, they do, but every little helps, right?

After several plays with Parse, I've managed to convince myself of a useful lesson—it is okay to discard cards that you actually want.  The first few games, I was seeing the potential uses of all of her cards, so I didn't want to discard any of them to Recompile, because then I wouldn't have them.  So I was avoiding using Recompile because it was going to be a discard of the 1 card I was okay losing to draw just 2, which was not really impressive, and even if I had out a Critical Multiplier wouldn't do much.  But now that I've gotten more used to her, including the frequency of cards in her deck and how much she's able to draw/discard, I've realized that it's okay to chuck good cards.  While I might want to keep that copy of Gauge around just in case I want to start using it, if I'm going full-throttle on Recompile I've got a decent chance of just drawing a second copy, in addition to a bunch of other cards that add to my options.  While I certainly like her cards, and they're generally speaking all at least useful enough to play and genuinely benefit from, most are not so critical to Parse's gameplay that you need to jealously guard them in your hand because if you discard one you've thrown away your whole strategy or shot yourself in the foot.  She has various control cards that provide backup coverage, in case you only have one or the other, and she has various different ways to contribute damage, with varying levels of utility depending on the matchup, so even if you pitch one you'll probably find another that can add similar utility.

Being willing to give up that control over every single card in my hand let me do a lot more with her.  Now I'm filling up my hand much easier with Recompile—which, if I have out Critical Multiplier, can potentially help out other heroes at the same time that it helps me, as a nice bonus.  Discarding 3 to draw 6 is an impressive effect already, so the fact that it can also contribute 3 (or more) damage is a solid bonus from the card interaction.  Yeah, that took two card plays, but Critical Multiplier will keep working over the course of the game—if you Recompile once, it's already contributing as much damage as a 3-point one-shot would have, but often with more versatility because you can spread it out among heroes or bunch it up depending on the board.  If later that turn you use Segmentation Fault, it's up to 4 damage from just that turn, in addition to the actual effects you got from your play and power.  By the end of the game, Critical Multiplier can give you far more damage than almost any single one-shot would, for doing stuff that you'd do anyway.  So, yes, it's an extra play in addition to the Recompile, etc., but that's exactly how it should be.

Critical Multiplier reminds me of playing Chrono-Ranger.  Just a 1-damage plink is not that impressive, but the fact that you get them from all over the place, from playing cards that you'd want to play anyway, lets you really start to take advantage of them.  And playing a Bounty may not by itself feel useful, but then on your next play, you get increased value from whatever you were going to do anyway.  Playing that Bounty meant that you didn't get to play an "active" card on your previous turn, so you need to learn when a Bounty is the right play and when it's not, but over the course of several turns, you can get a ton of damage from it, just by continuing to play your cards normally.  Yes, it's from two card plays, and when first playing a deck like Parse's or Chrono-Ranger's, I imagine it's common to see that as an inconvenience, but once you get used to playing the deck, those interactions instead start to shine as synergy.

I use recompile most in a game where the villain or environment can cause discards, I can keep my hand up, feed Multiplier if it gets out and use those discards to help the team.

I find she has so many good cards that using your play phase for Recompile is less than Ideal most times.  Not that it never is, but I don't play recompile much because I often have a better card to play.

I don't like to bypass a good play to fish for a better one, but that's my playstyle.  I find I play her draw only cards more if I'm using her discard to play a card thing (Snap Decision?), since I still get a card play.

I love the utility of her power that let's her draw a card, since the end result is replacing your power with a card play, while gaining a 1 card cycle and the minor deck manipulation.  It's a phenomenal combo with how good her deck is.

I didn't say that Impossible Shot was bad, only that it's not as good as some other things.  Lightning Slash or Flame Blast is the operative comparison there.  Irreducible might make up for the lower number, and the card draw is certainly nice, but my games have suggested that the higher damage is usually better, especially with the bonuses you can get.  I have yet to see it being practical for Parse to get such bonuses.

Somehow I don't see people complaining about Thokk wich does the same three damage and draw a card without it being irreducible... or even elbow smash wich does three damage without the draw or irreducible... All in all Impossible Shot is a very decent card if you do not limit your comparisons to Lighning Slash or Flame Blast... and it's even better in advanced games because damage reduction becomes even more common

I love Impossible shot, It may not be flame blast or Loghtning slash but in a support deck, that's incredible.

One of the reaons I like playing Visionary is she's a support that can throw down damage at key moments without sacrificing her normal utility.  Parse is more card play based than ongoing and power based, but it is still nice to have that damage option hanging out.

I do in fact complain about those.  Elbow Smash is probably not unreasonable for Haka since he has a built-in damage power, though it's still pretty unexciting, but Thokk! is very underwhelming to me when compared to Legacy's own Flying Smash and to pretty nearly everything Ra does.  It's interesting, because I love to get Brutal Censure as Fanatic; this is reflective of how differently Legacy's and Fanatic's decks play.  And maybe Parse's deck plays in such a way as to make Impossible Shot more amazing for her than Lightning Slash is for Tempest; all I'm saying is that I haven't seen it.

When Tempest draws LS, I grin from ear to ear; when Parse draws IS, I'm still worried that she's going to die and be useless.  Because even though they both have such low HPs, Tempest has Otherworldly Resilience and Cleansing Rain to help him survive, and tons of incredible cards to help him win (just off the top of my head: Chain Lightning, Lightning Slash, Localized Hurricane, Violent Windstorm, Gene-Bound Shackles - most especially those last two), while Parse seems to have tons of very small incremental advantages that leave the rest of her team carrying almost all of the weight, with just a few "magic bullet" solutions like Buffer Overflow.  Call me crazy, but I prefer a character like Chrono-Ranger who has a bunch of one-of "magic bullets" that he can tutor for, PLUS a very functional chassis that can virtually always accomplish something even in his worst games.

Out of curiosity, how long have you been playing the game? I mean, obviously Vengeance is only a couple of months old so none of us have had it for a huge amount of time. But I don't remember whether you said how long you'd had the game when you joined the forum - most people who join up seem to do so because they've only just discovered Sentinels and want to talk about it (presumably either following a link in the game booklet/on the box or Googling for the game to find the site that way). But it sounds like you'd been playing the game a while before you found us over here in our little corner of the Internet.

It's just most of your comments seem to be about Vengeance heroes (like your Naturalist thread and this one on Parse), so I just wondered what were your views on the other heroes - Mr Fixer, for example, is perhaps the most debated hero in the entire game, yet you've never really mentioned him too much and I'd say he's more likely to "go wrong" than Parse in terms of not getting cards applicable to whatever's the current situation during gameplay. And all he can do is put out a Toolbox to try and get more. At least Parse can potentially draw six cards all at once to try and get something good, if her current hand is undesirable (or you just want something to get hit really hard from all those bonuses you can stack up from your copies of Critical Multiplier).

It sort of seems as though once you've decided you don't like something about a character, nothing will change your mind no matter what anyone says to try and point out alternative ways of viewing the situation. You dont like Parse? Okay, fair enough. Shall we just move on and talk about something else, then?

@Edwin, what is the actuall value in comparing two cards in a vaccume while totally ignoring the context in which they exist? From a design standpoint, that mindset only leads to homogenization amongst the cards, which strips the strong feeling of uniquness and personality from the decks (which is a clear strong suit for SotM as a whole).

Fixer's Charge, for instance, doesn't look like much when you put it next to Ra's Fire Blast and is stricktly worse than almost all pure damage one-shots, but it has a clear place and purpose within the context of deck around it. It works. The puzzle element here is finding how to best utilize the tools given. If a tool just doesn't work with the rest of the toolbox, thats a much more valid critique than "my screwdriver is smaller than that guys". Because the entire time you are missing out on the fact that you have a ballin set of alen keys that the other guy just doesn't have access to. Too focused on screw driver envy. Who's tool box is really better? Really hard to tell without knowing what the job is right? Maybe you need that bigger screw driver. Maybe you really need the alen keys.

And that brings me to my final point. Hero decks are, and have always been, balanced against villains. They are *not* balanced against each other.

I'm totally having screwdriver envy. ;)

Seriously though, that's a good point Foote. I think that's what I've been trying to get at with the whole tier thing, but didn't manage to express it nearly as well as that. 

Look at it this way. The fact Parse has that big of a screwdriver in the first place is a small wonder in itself.

Since last summer.

But it sounds like you'd been playing the game a while before you found us over here in our little corner of the Internet.It's just most of your comments seem to be about Vengeance heroes (like your Naturalist thread and this one on Parse), so I just wondered what were your views on the other heroes - Mr Fixer, for example, is perhaps the most debated hero in the entire game, yet you've never really mentioned him too much and I'd say he's more likely to "go wrong" than Parse in terms of not getting cards applicable to whatever's the current situation during gameplay.

I actually just mentioned Fixer earlier on this thread I think.  He's disappointed me a lot, but my last couple games with him have gone a bit better, though I still think his deck lacks the things it needs to be really effective.  Parse will probably grow on me too in time; I just don't see much value to her so far.  (Not "none", just "not much".  As with Bunker, she's got a few neat tricks up her sleeve which nobody else can do, but I'm not sure she's worth as much to a team as most other heroes.)

It sort of seems as though once you've decided you don't like something about a character, nothing will change your mind no matter what anyone says to try and point out alternative ways of viewing the situation.

Not much other than more play experience might change my opinion.  I'm interested in hearing alternative viewpoints, it's not like I ignored everything in this guide - for instance I didn't really get what Updated Intel was for until I read the OP.  I have a better idea of what Parse can do now; I'm just still not certain that it's enough.  Buffer Overflow and Segmentation Fault are really good; I'm unsure what the rest of her deck offers when you don't draw those cards.

Plinky death with lots of irreducible damage. And the ability to let other people do irreducible damage (off the top of my head, I'm not sure who else can do that besides Mr Fixer and GI Bunker). And the ability to, as mentioned, build up some epic damage via Critical Multiplier(s), especially if you have Recompile and at least three other cards.

Were there characters you didn't like before Vengeance came along? Obviously you've joined after that was released so most of the chatter here has been about the Vengeance heroes, but for example did you think that Unity was bad because sometimes she can't do anything (mainly when she has equipment but no bots, or vice-versa)? I tend to find that I like each wave of new heroes more than previous ones. That's not to say that I dislike any of the older heroes (I don't dislike any of them), but I find I have more favourites from the later expansions (well, from Infernal Relics onwards) than from the older stuff. None of the original heroes can deal irreducible damage so Parse has one up on all of them right there, for example ;).

As well as playing more games in general, it may help to play more games with other people - I think I recall you saying you solo quite a lot. It can help to play with different people, because then you get to see how they play each hero, and that might show you new ways of playing them which you'd never thought of before.

Plinks don't do incredibly much good against a villain with 80 or 100 HP, not unless you can boost them or just have a never-ending supply (or, like Chrono-Ranger, both).  Parse's damage output looks almost comparable to Haka's, but he has way more HP and better card draw.  And as I've often said, irreducible only matters against villains who have reduction, and significant reduction is present on maybe a third of villains and a couple environments.  Entire cards that exist only to grant irreducibility are usually wasted cards; irreducible on something that does other things and just happens to be irreducible is very nice, but seldom all-deciding.  I've yet to see a card that deals 20 irreducible damage; you can't really win the game with just 3 points here and 1 point there, whether it's reducible or not.

And the ability to, as mentioned, build up some epic damage via Critical Multiplier(s), especially if you have Recompile and at least three other cards.

We seem to have different definitions of epic.  Critical Multiplier can be counted on for an average of +1 damage per copy of the card, if you have some effect that will let you discard (a handful of villains and environs will help you with discarding, but you can't really count on it).  Guise + CM is a nice combo if you can manage it, but only nets +1 per turn; handy but not sexy.  Recompile is just a one-shot, and if used to absolute maximum effect, it could offer +27 to a single damage instance - not quite enough to one-shot Iron Legacy unless the recipient is Ra or Tempest, and certainly barely enough for Citizen Dawn or Omnitron to even notice, and entirely wasted against the individual small targets that you're often busy dealing with.  Considering how much work you have to go to setting it up (drawing and playing all three copies of CM, needing a discard besides that, and praying not to get wiped), the reward should be pretty close to an instant win - at least something akin to End of Days, which is just one card, and a lot of heroes have a single card almost that potent.  The only one I've seen for Parse that looks able to clinch victories like that is the Iron Legacy one whose name I keep forgetting - I actually did get that one in play after reading about it in this guide, but naturally I was against the Vengeance Five at the time, so it wasn't that hot.  Against a normal villain, though, it's great - possibly a Dark Visionary level of great, in which case the problem would stop being "useless" and start becoming "broken and unfun".  But only if you happen to draw it.

What I am definitely not getting from Parse is consistency.  She does a little of this, a little of that, and almost never enough of anything to be crucial to victory.

Were there characters you didn't like before Vengeance came along?

I'd say Expatriette tops the list, closely followed by Bunker, Fixer, and eventually Haka (who is good, just not as good as I'd like).  Oh, and Legacy; he's awesome and great at winning games, but I don't enjoy playing him at all (though Young Legacy was okay).  I like Wraith every once in a while, she's got a lot of neat options, but too often she falls into a predictable pattern and becomes boring fast.  Ra has a similar problem and is less entertaining, though I love the Egyptian theme; he's too simple to entirely do it for me, though certainly good to have on your team.  Visionary has neat things she can do, but wastes too many cards on piddly plinks of psychic damage, and largely sidelines the reality-warping awesomeness she's mostly about to me.  Tachyon is just barely on the verge of beginning to bore me.  Did I forget anyone?  I think pretty much everyone that's left qualifies as awesomesauce to me…oh, except maybe for Setback, who I haven't really started to grok, and who seems kinda all over the place, but I don't really feel like I've figured him out yet beyond "he's pretty tanky and does a bit of melee damage".  Parse, I do feel like I know what she can do, I'm just not very satisfied with the result as yet.

but for example did you think that Unity was bad because sometimes she can't do anything (mainly when she has equipment but no bots, or vice-versa)?

She can have that problem, but in my experience skipping your turn to draw 2 once is usually sufficient to get her out of that scrape.  I've had one or two bad games as her, but never enough to sour me on the experience.  Probably in large part this is due to me really liking her personality and cute visuals.  Parse is a neat character too, but doesn't quite turn it up to 11 the same way.

I tend to find that I like each wave of new heroes more than previous ones. That's not to say that I dislike any of the older heroes (I don't dislike any of them), but I find I have more favourites from the later expansions (well, from Infernal Relics onwards) than from the older stuff.

The same is true here, but I think that has more to do with the heroes themselves.  It's likely that the >G crew's understanding of design technology has progressed, but mostly I think they just waited until the game was well-proven before they got really experimental with what the heroes could do.  Both IR heroes are Complexity 3s, and both are extremely high on the awesomeness scale; since then, there really haven't been any simplistic heroes like Ra or Legs or Haka.  Even complexity-1 KNYFE gives you tons and tons of stuff to do, and took two games for me to begin understanding her.  It makes sense for the core-set heroes to be more straightforward (even AZ, while counterintuitive and mathy to play, isn't as complex a Complexity-3 as the other two), since they're responsible for selling the game to newbies; Rook City was probably just an early design and not too adventurous.  Since then, they're really going above and beyond, so unsurprisingly the results are quite good.  Parse might prove to be the same thing in time, but so far she feels to me more like a failed experiment.

As well as playing more games in general, it may help to play more games with other people - I think I recall you saying you solo quite a lot. It can help to play with different people, because then you get to see how they play each hero, and that might show you new ways of playing them which you'd never thought of before.

Well, unfortunately, that's a problem that's slow to solve itself.  If I'm lucky I can get in two non-solo games in a week.

Okay, let me go through some of your points…

~ Plinks don't do any good because it's small damage

Every little helps!

~ Being irreducible doesn't matter

…except when it does, like every other effect in the game. Very few abilities are useful all the time, otherwise what would be the point in having different abilities/decks/scenarios?

~ 3 points here and one point there is no good

Try telling that to the Hired Gun/Thief/Informant/Voss's Minions etc…and expand that list if Parse has even a +1 damage buff from anywhere.

~Critical Multiplier is no good because reasons.

Parse has plenty of ways of discarding stuff - Recompile just happens to be her personal best. Plenty of villains and environments force discards as well. Also, with the max discard from Recompile you get back six cards. Six! Can anyone else draw that many at once? The only person I can think of who can manage it would be Fanatic when her only available card is Prayer of Desparation. Drawing that many cards, you are bound to get something useful, even if it isn't a copy of Critical Multiplier. Get all three copies of it out (I've managed two on more than one occasion…think I've only managed all three once but I've not played Parse too many times) and you can give a total of +3 damage to whomever you like just for discarding one card. Now say you're fighting Voss, who has several Minions out, and have built up a nice stack of damage on…well, anyone, really, as long as they haven't dealt any damage in order to wipe the stack, and then you play that card which makes all damage against a chosen target irreducible (Reveal the Flaws, I think?). Oh, Voss, do you have soak with all those minions? Well, Legacy is gonna give you one hell of a punch in the face right now ;). Even if not using it against the main villain, actually, think of something like Muninn - wouldn't need too much of a Crit Multiplier buff (if any) if combined with the make-it-irreducible thing to one-shot him and make Huginn an open target for everyone to pounce on :).

You probably need to stop looking at these decks/cards individually. Yes, some stuff is utterly useless some of the time, but other times that same useless stuff becomes absolutely epic. You don't need to hit a villain with a single hit of 20+ damage or insta-nuke all their stuff to pull off an epic result against them. There is plenty of stuff you can do and so much of it often revolves around combining effects with other decks - when some kind of random, perfect combo comes up when that hero plays that card and then you play this one, and then that other hero uses that power and KABOOM, that thing which was a serious threat last round is suddenly gone in a puff of smoke…that's the kind of stuff the game is all about. It's a team game, a co-operative game - it's not about "my deck is better/worse than your deck", it's about "hey cool, if you do that thing and I do this thing, then that really cool thing happens and we both feel really good about it". I don't think you should be thinking about the decks in isloation the way you seem to be doing - that's not what the game's about. I know you say stuff like "Oh, but the chances of that situation coming up are so low…", but well, that's half the fun - that one time you manage to pull off that epic thing out of nowhere, and it still gets mentioned months later because all the players gleefully remember how cool it was. That's why I reckon this game is so cool - it has so many possibilities, random variables and stuff that can happen as a one-off uber combo (or whatever), and you get to sit down with a bunch of people and all enjoy the uberness, and then play it again and maybe some different uberness will happen. Or you get utterly flattened and instead can talk about "omg remember when we got wiped by X in three rounds?", and then plot revenge against them and come back and kick their arses :D.

I think this is just something that comes naturally. It can't be forced. The game by nature is highly situational and the number of permutations of situations per game is staggering. You can go through a stretch early on of never ever have much use for a card. Eventually you will run into that one situation where it saves your butt and you'll finally appreciate that its in the deck.

Or not. I'v still never used Excevation and probably never will. What can I say, I'm too stuck in my ways. So your mileage may vary.

I'm firmly in the "play your hand, not your deck" camp myself.

And I had never really thought about using Wrathful Gaze until I was in a game with Ronway where he used it every single round, finally killing off the villain with it. And it was awesome. 

Ra's Legions of Angry Queens is one of my favourite cards in the game.

Parse has become one of my favorite characters.  Critical Multiplier can just be awesome with the proper setup.

I will say that I do think that her incap abilities are probably the least effective of any character.  And she is a bit glassy so I do often try to protect her as much as possible.  However, the idea of having to protect and baby an archer to keep them alive is nothing new to me as it reminds me of almost all role-playing games both electronic and storytelling that I have played (era 1982 - 2008, so it's possible that this has changed in recent history).  So having a fragile archer is not an issue.

She has great support but her few offensive cards can come into handy.  One of my favorite thing about Sentinels is that I do not have a single character that I do not enjoy playing and I also do not find any of them weak.  (There are a couple: Legacy and (the)Wraith that I find as the most powerful, but there are other circumstances where they are not as powerful).

Just my two cents worth.

Too few little bits won't help enough.  As I've said, the game has a clock; your own HP will run out in an average of 6-9 rounds, so you're not usually able to win unless you can do it in that amount of time.  You need to aim for around 9 damage per round against Dawn, for instance; you won't do 9 in the first round, of course, you'll make up for it toward the end, but every turn in which each hero is only worth 1 or 2 damage is a round where you're not pulling adequate weight toward the goal.  This is particularly true with 3 heroes, since no villain yet created has [H]-based HP (though the Dreamer comes close, as do the Vengeance Five and the Ennead - perhaps for accuracy's sake I should say no single villain target has HP which varies this way).

~ Being irreducible doesn't matter…except when it does, like every other effect in the game. Very few abilities are useful all the time , otherwise what would be the point in having different abilities/decks/scenarios?~

Except against Miss Information, Lightning Slash is pretty much always good.  So is a card that draws you cards (and yes, Recompile does that, but not without cost).  Again, my tolerance for highly specialized weapons is greater if they are tutorable singletons; if they clog up your normal draws and get in the way when you don't need them, they're just landmines in your deck that show up now and again to give you a bad game, and that's not cool.

Also, with the max discard from Recompile you get back six cards. Six! Can anyone else draw that many at once? The only person I can think of who can manage it would be Fanatic when her only available card is Prayer of Desparation.

You have to pay four cards to draw those six, so it's only a profit of two cards besides itself.  AZ, Bunker and Tempest can all match that (though only Tempest doesn't expend his Power for the turn doing so); Scholar and with a bit of jiggering Fanatic both far exceed it, though at the cost of the rest of their turn, unless they get an OOT play.

Oh, Voss, do you have soak with all those minions? Well, Legacy is gonna give you one hell of a punch in the face right now

If it's a 90-damage punch, great.  Otherwise, those villain targets you've been leaving in play will probably just overrun the earth.  Personally, I see no reason to let Voss keep his bodyguards for any length of time.

You probably need to stop looking at these decks/cards individually. Yes, some stuff is utterly useless some of the time, but other times that same useless stuff becomes absolutely epic.

And again, search cards are the way to make that a viable strategy (though even so you occasionally get boned by the random draw, having Fanatic start with Wrathful Retribution for instance).  Or even better, modular cards - ones which have a wide variety of different uses, one of which is likely to fit the situation.  As it stands, I am forced to evaluate every card according to how often it'll do useful things (alongside how cool it is, but that's a far lower-order criterion, more of a tiebreaker than an actual factor), and if that's too low compared to how often I'm going to see it in a game, that card is a bad card.  And a deck with too many bad cards is a bad deck.  Legacy is a hero with a bad deck (some good cards, yes, but not enough of them), who is not a bad hero only because he has an absurdly good Power.  Visionary is a hero with a lot of bad cards, but I'm not sure I'd say she has a bad deck, since she has several insanely good cards and has her innate Enlighten power to accelerate and filter her draws, so cards like Brain Burn and Mass Lev are a fairly manageable inconvenience (unless you have Setback's own luck on the draw, as I seem to).

In that context, Parse strikes me as an experiment in design - building a hero with a LOT of highly situational cards, and then giving her tools to sift through them in search of the ones she'll need.  It's a neat concept, but so far I haven't seen much evidence that it performs up to spec.  Again, future plays may convince me, as they largely have with Mr. Fixer, but it's not certain.

that's the kind of stuff the game is all about. It's a team game, a co-operative game - it's not about "my deck is better/worse than your deck", it's about "hey cool, if you do that thing and I do this thing, then that really cool thing happens and we both feel really good about it".

Those moments are certainly nice to have, but I'm a bread and butter kind of guy, I don't care how good the food at Le Cordon Bleu is if I can only afford to eat there once a year, because I have to survive on something else the rest of the time, and I'd rather make sure the something else is good enough for me.  So my ideal hero is one where EVERY card in his deck is good, even if none of them are great.  I think the overall closest one is Tempest; other than duplicate Limiteds, about the only card in his deck I'm not thrilled to see is Elemental Subwave Inducer, and maybe Grevious Hail Storm but even that one is at least handy.  That doesn't mean Tempest is my overall favorite hero, but he is pretty much what I'd regard as the Gold Standard of quality, or pretty close to it.  I don't expect everyone to measure up to his level, but they have to offer something else comparably desireable, such as the extreme risk/reward equation of Absolute Zero, or the control trip you can get playing Visionary.  That last might be the best bet for me to eventually appreciate Parse, but once again, I haven't seen it happen in the three games I played (perhaps because two were against the Vengeance Five, I'm definitely done with that matchup).

I know you say stuff like "Oh, but the chances of that situation coming up are so low…", but well, that's half the fun - that one time you manage to pull off that epic thing out of nowhere, and it still gets mentioned months later because all the players gleefully remember how cool it was. That's why I reckon this game is so cool - it has so many possibilities, random variables and stuff that can happen as a one-off uber combo (or whatever), and you get to sit down with a bunch of people and all enjoy the uberness, and then play it again and maybe some different uberness will happen. Or you get utterly flattened and instead can talk about "omg remember when we got wiped by X in three rounds?", and then plot revenge against them and come back and kick their arses :D.

Eh, kinda.  I do like the way SOTM really gives me a sense of alternate timelines and shifting destinies - the way targeting is based on current HP totals (other than Lowest HP, since that never changes itself) means that just deflecting a single attack can change the outcome of the game.  So that immense variety and replayability is a definite strength - but it doesn't stop me from feeling cruddy when I draw yet another opening hand along the lines of 2x Brain Burn, 1x Mass Levitation and 1x Mind Spike.  Above all, I always live in the present moment, and so what I want is always a hero who is confident that he has the card he needs RIGHT NOW, just at his fingertips.  CR is perfect for this, Ra is pretty good, the Wraith is almost too good - there are a lot of heroes which can do this.  If Parse can't, she may well just not be the hero for me; I'll still play her an equal share of the time, but perhaps mostly in solo games.  (It's probably not a coincidence that the hero I enjoy most, Nightmist, has been played in real games a full fourth of the time, whereas my overall ratio of solo games to non-solos is more than 2 to 1.)

I think this isn't the game for you. What you want isn't Sentinels of the Multiverse. 

*quietly shoo's Silverleaf out of the thread for her own good*

*hugs* ;)

Just out of curiosity, what are the bad cards in Legacy's deck? I usually want to play every card in my hand when I play legacy. I can see where you may not want to play the damage one, but playing legacy as a major damage dealer is a lot of fun. I played one game on G+ where I got to just beat on Omnitron for the last 2 rounds or he would have reshuffled and probably killed us

Not gonna lie, pretty disappointed with the turn this thread took. I got all excited when I saw a bunch of activity, but nope. Sigh. 

Kharnel, I think today was just the kind of day that everyone feels that way

I'm sorry Kharnel, this one got derailed pretty badly, huh?

Lol, let's just say this thread has 10 HP and damages the two highest HP targets at the start of the environment turn… 

Best laugh of the morning. Thanks!

Surge of Strength is extremely weak (unless you're Young Legacy of course), Danger Sense is situational and often unwelcome, I've mentioned Superhuman Durability as similarly being spotty in value, Next Evolution is only likely to be worth your Power against villains who concentrate heavily on a single damage type, Motivational Charge also costs a Power that you often can't spare, Fortitude is nice but seldom nice sufficient, and even Bolster Allies isn't always the best investment of your play phase.  Were I re-designing Legacy, I'd do things like making Fortitude not limited, combining DS and SHD into a single situational-defenses card, combining NE and SoS into a single card that benefits you whether you're playing offensively or defensively (but not if you're just being a cheerleader), increase the Legacy Rings to x4 in the deck, and maybe let Bolster Allies give you an extra Power usage that turn, just to make it different from Fleet of Foot.  I wouldn't mess with Inspiring Presence at all, but I might increase the self-damage on Take Down and perhaps Heroic Interception, as they're a little too good.  Maybe I'd reword Galvanize to last through your next Play phase so it could affect your One-Shots (but also your self-damages).  Lead from the Front I'd probably leave alone, it's one of those cards that's almost too good and can really shut down games in a kind of lame way, but it's so defining to what the character is all about, I'd kinda hate to mess with it.  I think that's basically his whole deck aside from the damaging one-shots.  The result of all this tweaking might actually be fun for me to play, might be brokenly overpowered, but certainly would leave me with fewer things to complain about.

I am more than a little surprised it hasn't been split.

Only because I haven't been able to make the time to find a good place to split it.

Can we call it "Parse Needs Fixing", there hasn't been a thread with the word "fixing" in it for awhile…

Edit: If you want some help, I think comments 28, 36, or 41 all seem like pretty good splitting points. Now you only have to read 3 post instead of the entire thing!

Perfect - thanks, Ronway! 

Personally, I think Parse is one of the more interesting heroes to play as she takes some understanding. Granted, as an offensive support character, she does benefit strongly from having either a tank or defensive/healing support character on the team in addition to your "run of the mill" damage dealers, but then again, she is a team player.

As to the opinion that she needs fixing.... No, I think her weaknesses balance out her potential nicely.

Parse totally needs fixing! She has no search cards. Any hero who can't search their deck for desired cards is automatically low tier.

No search? Don't belong even on the lowest tier. Teirless as it were.

Parse search card:

Calculated search: you may search your deck, trash or play area for any one shot, equipment, or ongoing card. You may put it into play, your hand, or trash
You may draw a card.
You may play a card

Parse needs fixing no more

O_O

That would certainly make a big difference.  (Though it might as well just say "any card", since she doesn't have any Distortions or Mechanical Golems.)

Bleargh. Parse needs fixing like NightMist needs fixing. She's a beast. If she's not the hero for you, no worries - there are lots of heroes in the game. They were all written to be good for a different play style. It's ok if a certain hero isn't for you. There are plenty of people that hero IS for, and plenty of heroes who are for you.

Also, man, comparing individual one-shots to Lightning Slash or Fire Blast? Might as well be comparing every non-damaging card to Impromptu Invention.

When will this forum learn that all heroes are equally inferior to Tempest?

Well, to be fair, Tempest is probably the most generically OP, but nobody shuts down bosses like Legacy.  He may need someone else to do the actual killing, but Lead From the Front + Legacy Ring + Next Evolution + Next Evolution makes a LOT of villains trivial.

Everyone on the forums knows that any hero that doesn't have Improptu Invention is trash. Trash I say!

They must also have a card that searches for Impromptu Invention or are likewise trash.

Which is exactly why Wraith is trash as well.

Why do all the heroes have to be trash? Why are we even playing this game? Quick, lets all go play Candy Land. Now that is what I call a well designed game.

Can't hold a candle to the wacky and crazy thrill ride that is Chutes and Ladders! Or Hungry Hungry Hippos. Now there was a real game. If only I didn't eat all those marbles…

I was terrible at playing pretend.

The only issue I find with Parse is the incap abilities but little else

Hungry Hungry Hippocalypse!

Tiny little Haka-faced marbles…

If he ever makes it into Tactics, please make this his innate power

Christopher wrote:

I think you may need to look into getting the rights to release that game...

I think you may need to look into getting the rights to release that game...

Nah, we're just gonna go for it.

Have you heard about the new "Spider-Man and Batman team up again Darth Vader!" expansion for Sentinels of the Multiverse?

Confirmed. Darth Vader = The Cosmic Entity.

*Added to the Wiki*

No, no I haven't. But I am now super stoked for it and can't wait to get the playtesting decks for it!

Not possible. Batman works alone.

Not after Espalier, the nefarious gardener, grafts him to Spider-Man.

Hand Smack

Thats my joke!

I'm just going to state this again, just once more.

If you do not play advanced, heroes like Parse and Fixer lose a ton of value.  Drop 80% of the damage reduction in the game and Parse isn't the juggernaut of destruction that she is on advanced, and Fixer doesn't look good because almost anyone can beat his damage.

When you step into the big leagues, having someone who can make the game seem like normal mode is amazing.

Nah, now THESE were real games Flipsiders | Wiki | BoardGameGeek

Anyone else remember these?

Yes! I totally remember playing Scavenger's Gold. Probably one or two others, but I haven't looked closely through the list yet. That was a great, and weird concept.

Edit: And of course, I immediately go and look through the list. I really like Chopper Chase and think Checkered Flag might have been in the mix. I wonder if I still have those somewhere. Now I want to take them apart.

I know I have the original 6 that completed the roygbv chart: Checkered Flag (red), Dragon Master (orange), Scavenger's Gold (yellow), Rock Tour (green), Chopper Chase (blue), and Mall Madness (violet), but I only found out recently that they made more of them.  My 80s inner child is crying out for me to find the rest.

Never heard of Flipsiders, but on the subject of ancient and obscure games, anyone besides me remember the old 3M Bookshelf Games?  I have many fond memories of Twix, Feudal, Venture and Tryce, and I recently discovered Ploy which was rather neat.

I enjoyed both Feudal and Ploy as a kid.  Never heard of the others.

I think all the heroes suck. I'm an equal opportunities hater. 

I'm a big fan of Parse and I think a lot of it has to do with having reached the Zen of Playing Your Hand not Your Deck before I ever played her.

Stats (just since I thought to start recording the results of my games):
9 games
4 losses (2 were story challenges that I'd stacked pretty high against my team)
3 wins where Parse was Incapped (and she was the only one Incapped in those games)
2 everyone's-OK wins

In fact, I like Parse so much that I've selected her for my first foray into Christopher's "any 3 Heroes can beat any Villain on Advanced" challenge.

I always thought Twixt was the best-known - it's a game where you use posts and links to try and build a wall across the board.  One player plays N/S and the other E/W; each link is long enough that the posts have to be a knights-move apart (ie 3 spaces one way and 2 the other), and you win either by completing your path or stopping your opponent from doing so.

Venture and Tryce are from the nine-game "mini-bookshelf" series, which didn't get as much traction as the big ones.  Tryce I've only played once or twice, it's a weird rummy variant where the cards have letters on them which you can use to spell words, in addition to getting runs or sets like with normal Hoyle cards.  Venture, however, is my favorite of the bunch; it's a game of forming big-business conglomerates (which I picked up early enough in life that I hadn't yet become a radical Utopian socialist, so playing the game and roleplaying a ruthless capitalist doesn't bother me intellectually the way it does in, say, Monopoly), represented by cards in six "suits", with letters on them that you try to match up in order to get the highest score.  So you might have a stack of two Aero-Space companies and a Steel manufacturer, and score various bonuses for it.  One deck of cards is blue and is the companies you're buying, while the other is green and used as money.  It's very cute.

(To complete this post's educational-to-people-other-than-Donner value, Feudal is a chess-like game on a much larger board, where you win by either exterminating your opponent's royalty or capturing their "castle" piece; it has a few terrain features, "cavalry" pieces that interact with them, an Archer piece that shoots, and you start out choosing where to put your pieces while hidden behind a screen, plus it has six colors of pieces so it can be played either with 4 different players or 2 teams of up to 3.  And Ploy is a game where you have flying-saucer-shaped pieces with fins on them which determine the direction they can move; each turn you can either move or rotate a piece, and you try to capture either your opponent's "king" OR all their other pieces in order to win - in the 4-player version, there are only 8 other pieces instead of about 15, so capturing everything but the highly maneuverable "king" is fairly doable, but if you manage to capture a "king", you gain control of the rest of that player's pieces!)

And Batman beats everyone.

"Prep time!"

Parse has an immense amount of firepower to her. Honestly, at first glace, she makes Visionary (not Dark) a pointless choice. The lack of any real defenses his her defining weakness compared to other supports. She can improve damage on par with Legacy, while having better manipulation and comparable damage; she can manipulate on par with Visionary while having better damage and damage improving. Unlike either of them, she folds to solid hits and that feels very intentional.

I think she is in a good place personally. Very powerful and very fragile means she is a great glass cannon, but needs to be picked as part of a team that is generally tanky or has someone willing to dedicate themselves to tanking (and lordy she better watch out for AoE).

From what I can tell in my limited experience with her is that her card accelleration and ongoing/environment destruction effects require her to give up resources to gain new ones (Segmentation Fault, Recompile, and Critical Multiplier).  Other effects require multiple cards to be in play or for her to skip her draw phase and use no other draw effects (Data-Mining and Snap Decision, respectively).  Other than that, her incredible ability to deal Irreducible damage isn't a huge priority against villains with little or easily dealt with DR, and one of her damage boosts involve villain/environment targets entering play which isn't as helpful as it could be against decks that have little to no targets (Exploit Vulnerability).  She has many cards that don't require a cost for their effects (Syntactic Analysis, Quick Calculation, Impossible Shot, Targeting Arrow, etc.) but a lot of her incredible effects do rely on particular set ups.

This, of course, is true for all heroes.  I'm not arguing whether Parse needs to be fixed or not.  I'd just say that there are some vulnerabilities that could be exploited in her deck (see what I did there?).  I'm quite fond of her deck design, but there were A LOT of debates about her deck on the playtesting forum!

I'm confused, why would she not be able to draw anything on her turn for Snap Decision? All she has to do is discard a card at the start of her turn to play an additional card. There's actually nothing in her deck that suggest she cannot draw cards.

My apologies.  The text I had access to was an older version of the card and changed before her deck was printed.  In that case its cost would just be grouped in with her other cards that require a discard for their effects.

Parse does have a lot of "Play this against a minion heavy villain," and "Play this against a lone target villain" cards.

That's why she reminds me so much of a support Fanatic.  Her cards are all awesome, in the right circumstances, and she has cards that can break the game, in almost any game she is in.  Like Fanatic has end of days and Retribution, Zealous Offense and Wrathful Retribution.

A good chunk of their decks aren't going to be great options for the current fight, while others will be sick.  Then a different fight the roles reverse.

I like Parse a lot. I was more excited about her story than I have been of a character in a long time. I am very upset that her early stats show that she is one of the weaker heroes.

I really like her deck because the amount of control she offers allows you prevent the villain from playing their strong cards (She finds weaknesses right).

There are only two things missing from her deck. The first is defense as has already been pointed out. However, I would contend that the control that she offers is a form of defense. Still, I can see your argument that no healing or damage reduction means she won't last in a long fight.

The second thing that is missing hasn't been mentioned, yet. Multi-target damage. There are a good number of villains (the Vengance villains included) where multitarget damage is a huge weakness. Everything Parse does is single target. That includes Critical Multiplier. If Critical Multiplier boosted a hero for a turn then Parse could rely on others to deal with multiple targets like Legacy does, but she only boosts one damage instance.

I disagree that she needs search cards. She has the ability to draw a ton and can use her control effects on herself if there is something you need to find. If I did have the ability to search with her I'd search for more draw cards. Setback and KNYFE have no search either. I'm just saying.

I was a big hater on Fixer and Absolute Zero, but there are enough heroes now that you can just avoid those that you don't enjoy. And I do enjoy Parse.

I don’t think anyone, except maybe Edwin, actually thought Parse needed a search card. Like you said she has great draw and Recompile is amazing. The search card I wrote was a joke, it would be crazy overpowering. Critical Multiplier would be too good if it boosted damage for a turn. Think if CR had +6 damage for a whole turn, on top of his self buffing. And that’s just a full Recompile with 2 CMs

I agree that a full turn would be too good. There isn't a way to do what I'd want in the current wording. What I'd want is for a boost to the next "attack" where an attack could be all non-hero targets (Like a Hypersonic Assault which doesn't work against -1 damage reduction). Unfortunately since damage is dealt in individual instances there is no way to boost the next "attack." I still maintain that Parse is weak in 1. long battles and 2. villains with multiple targets.

I've done well with Parse against Skinwalker Gloomweaver and Grand Warlord Voss (Voss was on Advanced). In both games, she wasn't doing great at the start, but eventually accumulated ridiculous power.

In general, I agree that Parse isn't great at handling multiple targets by herself, but that's what Between the Lines, Exploit the Weakness, Reveal the Flaws and Syntactic Analysis are for - to enable others to take out multiple targets efficiently.

Gloomweaver and Voss do have a lot of targets, but both of them are nuetered by control heroes like Parse and Visionary so it's no surprise that she held her own. The Matriarch, Akash Bhuta, La Capitan, and the Dreamer are examples of villains where Parse's lack of multitarget damage is not compensated for by her superior ability to stack decks.

Counter example. Parse is the single greatest hero to take against the Chairman. Long battle. Lots of targets. Murders it. 

I haven't played the Chairman much and definitely not with Parse.  What makes Parse good against him?

Well, when the Plague Rat game finishes, why don't we rest it out? (I'm running a PBF game at BGG I I'd just start it up here.)

Powerhound, what makes parse good against the chairman is her deck control, she can mill his deck to get rid of prison breaks or under bosses about to come up. Our ignore them completely south buffer overflow. Her frequency of getting irreducible damage or allowing heroes to do irreducible damage is handy for ignoring those pesky crooked cops.

There’s got to be more I’m not thinking of right now, but I seriously don’t understand why this topic exists. Of course I haven’t read it all, who would have the time for that?

Me?

We totally beat the Chairman last night. No problem. 

At all. We brain burned then had some fun with Fixed Point, then killed him. It was great

Oh yeah, the Naturalist was in Rhinodile form!

And we got a free Ground pound, a 2 use hollow points and something else that im not remembering

The fact that Parse always has some usefulness in her deck makes her a great choice to begin with, but the fact that she can draw like nobody else (thanks to recompile) is absolutely brilliant to get to the combo she needs. Anything else is just discard-fodder for extra plays or modulation.

[edit: seemed to have missed that there already was a page 3 in this topic… ]

While I do like Parse I have to disagree that she can draw like no one else. Nightmist and the Scholar are pretty great at drawing. The Sentinels' Team Communication is a draw 4 that doesn't require discarding. After all, Recompile is only a net of three cards.

Recompile's larger purpose is far greater than just netting hand size. Who else can draw that deep without some major drawbacks? Scholar and Fanatic can dig 5 deep in one shot but have to sacrifice their full turns while Nightmist can draw up to 4 deep while taking an equal amount of damage. Sure you can say Team Comm has no drawbacks and chaining them can dig really deep, and thats a valid point, but its not like they can generate any bonus effects from digging that deep (besides the obvious point of finding the exact card you need, which holds true for all heros). Recompile on the other hand digs 6 deep and turns its drawback into massive profit through tools like Crit. Multiplier. 

On the whole, Scholar and Nightmist are better at getting large hand sizes, but thats a core part of their mechanics. There is still no other single draw card as "potent" as Recompile given the context of Parse's deck.

*cough* Setback *cough*

But seriously, Parse has epic draw power.

I love Recompile, her whole discard enginge is so awesome, and her best draw card is weaker if she has few cards in hand, it works so well.

I might get to test all this shortly in the current forum game where I am running Parse for the first time.

Have a copy of Critical Multiplier in the start hand and I just drew Recompile.  Also am using a 1st turn play and activation of Extrasensory Awareness to take a look at The Rat's deck.

The Rat game ended quick - I'll start a game for the Chairman with Parse and otherwise random heroes and environment.

Just for the record I had and excellent finish last night against Voss thanks to both Parse and Mr. Fixer, Voss had 5 minions out and 9hp, my heroes were pretty much dead villain turn but thanks to a combination of Parse's Between the Lines (one hero may use a power now, if it deals damage then that damage is irreducable) and Mr. Fixer's Riveting Crane we were able to make Voss's DR vanish and beat him into oblivion without worrying about the minions.

Yes it was situational, it'll probably never happen again, but it was awesome when I realised it was going to work and win me the game.

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/episode-28-the-chairman-with-special-guest-parse-5187

Forum game with Parse in it verses the Advanced Chairman completed.  The Organization owned by Parse and Tachyon's Hypersonic Assault.