The Oft-Debated Mr. Fixer

Split from https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/knyfes-overdo-it-incredibly-underwhelming-4696

Also, keep in mind that different cards sometimes work better, depending on who's in play. Bloody Knuckles, for instance, can work great if you have Visionary waiting to destroy it right after Fixer's turn. And Surge of Strength is fantastic for Young Legacy.

I consider Bloody Knuckles a great card, even if it remains in play until the start of my next turn.

If you didn't have to blow it up it would be great. As it is I think, when using the regular Mr. Fixer, that it's very situational compared to Overdrive or Charge.

Even having to blow it up, its great to take down a target with soem DR when you don't have the right style in play, or to put out just enough damage to finish another target off that was causing a lot of difficulty for the team

And like 90% of all sentinels play... its situational. The whole game is about utilizing what you have in the right time at the right place. 

It really depends on the set-up Fixer has and the villain that is currently at hand. Such as Voss, if there is a minion in play and Fixer has at least one card to increase his damage, I would play charge to kill the minion and then hit Voss. If Voss is alone by Fixer's turn, I would much rather play Bloody Knuckles and save the Charge for when there is a minion.

Charge and Overdrive also get significantly more powerful if Fixer is using things that increase his damage, like Pipe Wrench, Dual Crowbar, or Grease Monkey Fist. While with lower damage, Bloody Knuckles can yield out more or equal to Charge, but since Charge can get even better later, it's best saved for that time, and it's best for Villains with DR when not using Alternating Tiger Claw.

And Dark Watch Fixer loves Bloody Knuckles...

I love Bloody Knuckles, esp. vs. Apostate with his relics of -2 damage taken and redirection and general doom are out, Jackhandle/Tiger/Knuckles cleans up a nasty mess pretty well.

The same With Voss and several Guards, or Crowbars and +1 from monkey or harmony, you can drop 2 guards and let the rest of your team mop up the unprotected minions remaining.

Knuckles is mostly used for those times when that extra point or two of damage makes all the difference.  There are a lot of moments like that.

I've had a couple of games where Bloody Knuckles let Fixer do some game-winning Riveting Crane magic.  In a particularly memorable game against Advanced Voss, being able to cancel his DR and hero-nerf on his frontside meant we could burn him down from his 40s to nothing right before a Forced Deployment would've activated and murdered us.  (It's pretty silly against Spite, too.  Why thank you, Mr. Upsilon!)

Fixer is just amazing.  That's pretty much what we are saying.

Second.

I still think Fixer is one of the weaker heroes (not that the gulf is large).  Sure, he can dish out a lot of damage with a good setup, and has somewhat better odds of a good setup than other heroes who can do better.  But he's still fairly limited in the range of effects he can produce.  No Ongoing destruction, no villain deck control, little ability to contribute if heroes can't use Powers, even less if they can't play cards in the early turns, and virtually none if he can't deal damage, unless he has one of a very small number of powerful utility cards in his hand (Grease Gun, Salvage Yard, am I forgetting anything?).  That combined with the fact that many of his card plays sabotage each other make him fairly narrow and situational.  He can be an all-star in certain situations that are not exactly rare, but he can't always be counted on to help, and he only rarely proves the best contributor.

Compare all this to, say, Tempest or The Argent Adept.  It's clear that, while the heap is pretty evenly-distributed, there are heroes which are at the top, and Fixer is at the bottom.  (Although given that I can name more very-strong heroes than very-weak ones, perhaps "heap" is the wrong metaphor..."trench" perhaps?)

I've always loved Fixer.  Maybe I'm just lucky because I tend to do well with him, but the stats say he isn't too great. 

Now the stats are not the final statement on a hero's ability, lots of things go into them.  Maybe people just don't play him well, but in my opinion its a lack of getting the goods.  Let me explain because I know he has tons of great things he can do. 

The issue I see with him, when he is bas, is people never have the right card at the right time.  Its always "Hey Fixer has a great card for this situation, which I haven't seen yet.  Instead I have seen all of his other situational cards that don't work well currently."  Lots of "Boy I wish I had such and such card instead of the ones I have." 

I have one friend that just refuses to play him now beause in every game he played with Fixer (I think he tried 4 times).  He would swear after every card draw because he just got his 3rd copy of some stance but still had not gotten a tool or grease gun.  Ever single round was: Draw card, look at card, sigh, "F you Fixer".  After the first game he thought it was just bad luck, after going 4/4 like that he was done forever.

Ok, I'm really off of the original topic.  The summary is, I have always liked Fixer but I have definitely noticed his potential often doesn't line up with actual play so I UNDERSTAND why people dislike him.

My experience so far with Fixer has only been 4-5 games.  I've seen him stellar once, and "meh" the other times, though key in the win with one of those due to setting up another hero for the kill.  I think one part of it is that since I mainly play 3-hero games that if one of the heroes is not contributing heavily it shows, and you need Fixer getting beyond inflicting 2-3 points of damage per turn on a single target.  I suspect that with more heroes there is a greater chance of a "support" hero helping him out, or possibly the other heroes covering for him when he is having an off-day.

I'm less than impressed with basic Mr. Fixer.   Darkwatch Fixer, however, is a game changer....  primarily because of Riveting Crane Style.    Strike is often too weak by itself to get in the 1 point of damage needed to take advantage of Riveting Crane.   However,  when Bitter Strike is added to the mix,  fixer can strip damage reduction off of a boss or even off of several minions at a time.  Essentially,  on certain turns  against high DR opponents:   Fixer can contribute Legacy's buff several times over.

Living the dream as DW fixer is Riveting Crane Style, Harmony, Jack Handle and something he can trow away for a Bitter Strike  (toolbox or Bloody Knuckles being ideal).   

The trick with Fixer, as I see it, is that he gets some unusual effects.  DR cancellation and damage type manipulation are fairly unusual.  If those are the tools you need, Fixer is your man.  But if that isn't what you need, or you can't get the right tools or stances, then he's weaker than average.

Which is just another way of saying that he's situational, which is what everyone else is saying.  But I guess what I'm saying is that when Fixer is MVP, it's because he's doing something that nobody else can do, which is why he makes up for it by being meh when his skills aren't critical.  And DW Fixer can help fill in when he needs a bit more oomph instead of surgical precision.

I found Fixer to be underpowered until I played him more.

I began to think of him as a Jack-of-all-trades type character, able to do a bit of everything (except card destruction) but not really good at anything.

Then I really started to understand the sickness that is Fixer.

He can do so much that other players can only dream of doing, and on certain teams (any equip heavy team for sure) is just ridiculous.

He's one of my absolute Favorite 3-hero team characters, because when Damage starts dropping Mantis and Pipe Wrench get sick.

He's one of my favorite 5-hero team members because Crane, Hoist Chain, Salvage Yard and Grease Gun get really good in High (H) games.

He's one of my favorite 4-hero team members because Grease Monkey, Tiger, Crowbars and Jackhandle all let him fill gaps in your team.

Then there are the ridiculous combos he pulls off with certain teammates.

Agree with jzs2.  Bunker can make the same claim; no other character can embed the Paparazzi of Megalopolis in adhesive foam for three full turns.  But he is also mediocre much of the time, and has to do a lot of work getting there.  Such characters might be your "go to guy" if assembling a team for a particular foe, but they are often weak if selected randomly or at-whim.

But only about half of villains use reduction, and it's often not their most salient form of invincibility.  Spite and Iron Legacy both rely more on healing, which no hero yet published (possibly excepting Vengeance, I don't know there) can prevent, although at least one Environment does reduce it a bit.  ATC and RC styles are completely useless against villains who don't rely on DR as a way to protect themselves (for instance I believe Plague Rat has just a single copy of a DR card, which might as well not exist given that he provides no secondary targets to distract the heroes from whaling on him).  Against someone like Warlord Voss or advanced Miss Information, Fixer is an all-star…but the second or so time I played him, we were up against La Capitan, and only one of her minions even has reduction (while another has healing, grrrr).  Fixer only has the tools (or Tools) to fix certain problems; others remain insoluble, and Fixer isn't always worth the +1 to H that his presence generates, or the slot he takes away from a different hero.

Driving Mantis is one of my favorite cards in the game at (H)=3. 

Driving Mantis is one of my favorite cards when paired with; Dual Crowbars, Assault Rifle, Thermal Shockwave, Taiaha and Puninsh the Weak, Inferno, Cerebral Hemorrhage, Danny-boy, Chain Lightning... I think people get where I am going with this.

Riveting Crane is one of my favorite cards when going last against Voss, when Mega Computer is in play, or when hitting a target with DR.

Alternating Tiger Claw is one of my favorite cards when there is a ton of DR!

Grease Monkey is one of my favorite card when any of the other 3 styles are not my favorite card.

Jack Handle is one of my favorite card when there are bunches of targets to hit or when Fixer would be forced to hit himself or another hero.

Dual Crowbars is one of my favorite cards when there are a couple of targets that I want to hit, when I have Driving Mantis to redirect my second hit, or when I am forced to hit myself or an ally so I can still hit the enemy.

Hoist Chain is one of my favorite cards when a solo target is dealing most of the damage, when I want to help protect an ally, or paired with Driving Mantis to help redirect damage.

Tire iron is one of my favorite cards when Fixer is on beating the lowest target duty or when the current tool can't quite do the damage needed to finish the job.

Pipe Wrench is one of my favorite card when I feel like being a jerk and carrying only about my own safety, when pairing with Driving Mantis to redirect damage, to remain the highest hero target when mostly the highest is being hit.

Salvage Yard is one of my favorite cards when my allies need equipment back ASAP.

Overdrive is one of my favorite cards because I can use the same power twice in a single turn or when I need a slight boost in damage.

Charge is one of my favorite cards when I need to beat things multiple times.

Bloody Knuckles is one of my favorite cards when it can do exactly the right amount of damage when I need it to.

Meditation is one of my favorite cards when I want to stand in a better position than currently am in.

Tool Box is one of my favorite cards so I can discard cards for allies and not care about it or move through my deck faster.

Grease Gun is one of my favorite cards when heroes need a break from non-hero targets.

Harmony is one of my favorite cards when I have achieved inner peace.

Every card in Fixer's deck is one of my favorite cards when it is in my hand.

Now do one for Argent Adept!

Hm.  Can Fixer use Dual Crowbars to hit himself and then redirect with Driving Mantis?  You seem to be implying so, and I can't remember the exact wording of the cards.

Riveting Crane is one of my favorite cards when going last against Voss

Wouldn't it be vastly preferable when going first?

I'll take that, gimme a sec…

When you have an entire orchestra set up ready to combo out, and need an extra power to do so, badly enough to bleed for it, Polyphoric flare is the best card in Argent's deck.

When your allies want their best stuff back the turn after their next turn, Vernal Sonata is the best card in Argent's deck.  (The 1 HP is generally just gravy, save perhaps if Scholar is in the game.)

When 1 HP every turn isn't just gravy (or Scholar is in the game), Rhapsody of Vigor is the best card in Argent's deck.

When 2 HP every turn would be even more not-just-gravy, or when you want to do something resembling actual damage, possibly while getting a Blinding Speed effect (or two, if you give up the damage part) every turn, Drake's Pipes is the best card in Argent's deck.

When your teammates are a lot more helpful than you are, you can get multiple Accompanies a turn, you have original Nightmist , Omnitron-X, or The Scholar on your team, or you're playing a slower-rolling villain which you'll need long-term help defeating, Inventive Preparation is the best card in Argent's deck.

When you have a bonus to damage or are teamed up with Absolute Zero (I have to remember to try this!), Scherzo of Frost and Flame is the best card in Argent's deck.

When you don't have another instrument, Eydisiar's Horn is the best card in Argent's deck (assuming it's not your first turn and you didn't just get wiped).

When you don't have an Instrument, want to have another Instrument, or would like to increase your hand size, Instrumental Conjuration is the best card in Argent's deck.

When you feel like being weird and doing your Accompany first, Anpuku's Drum is the best card in Argent's deck.

When a lot of 1-damage instances are flying around, the highest or lowest HP hero is taking a lot of hits, Nightmist or some similar hero needs every card they can get, or you can get multiple Rhythm accompanies in a turn, Counterpoint Bulwark is the best card in Argent's deck.

When you have two different kinds of songs that are worth playing, neither of which is a Melody, Telamon's Lyra is the best card in Argent's deck.

When any of your teammates is doing a lot of little damage pings, and/or can boost little-damage pings into something significant, Syncopated Onslaught is the best card in Argent's deck.

When you need a versatile and reusable tool to solve a wide variety of situations that don't involve dealing damage, Sarabande of Destruction is the best card in Argent's deck.

When you want to be able to play any damn Accompany you want, Xu's Bell is the best card in Argent's deck.

When what you need is the best Instrument in Argent's deck, Musaragni's Harp is the best card in Argent's deck.  (This is particularly true on turn 2, when it and Xu's Bell are the only cards that will let you get both halves of whatever song you played on turn 1, unless you opened on Subdominant and another song, which might let you use the Drum or Horn effectively.  Of the two, the Bell is slightly less likely to be optimal, despite being apparently stronger, since Rhythm performs are weaker than Harmonies on average, though it will always depend on the situation.)

When THAT HAS TO DIE RIGHT NOW, or when you can get one or more Harmony-Accompanies and don't badly need to heal, Cedistic Dissonant is the best card in Argent's deck.

Whenever you have a non-Melody song in play, Silver Shadow is the best card in Argent's deck.  Even if you don't, it's pretty damn good.

When you need to play more cards in the early game, or combo out in the late game, Alacritous Subdominant is the best card in Argent's deck.

The rest of the time, Inspiring Supertonic is the best card in Argent's deck.  I mean, it gives you more powers to play all the other songs with, so it kind of can't help but be the very best in most situations.

At all times, Arcane Cadence is tied with the other best card in Argent's deck, since it gives you roughly a 1/2 to 1/4 chance of being that card, plus letting you draw another card and stack your deck a little.

Nope, by Fixer's turn, then minion will be dead, thus Fixer can hit Voss. That way, if the first hero is someone like Ra, he can focus on Voss then a following hero with AoE can kill the minion. Fixer would be great in first if he had enoguh +1s to hit Voss, but if that were the case, get Dual Crowbars to kill the minion and hit Voss, opening up another style opportunity instead. Or alternativle, in a 4 hero game, have Fixer will Driving Mantis and Pipe Wrench and redirect Voss highest damage to the newly played minion, as long as it's not the Ion-Lancer.

That will be something for another day. As his cards will get very different depending on the heroes in play. It'll take me well over a hour, unlike the Fixer post which was less than 10 minutes.

Edit: Scratch that, I can just word things like; Alacritious Subdominant is one of my favorite cards when I or someone else has cards they want to play or when I want to use even more powers.

Edit2: Actually… I'll pretty much be listing off the effects of the cards…

Ah…I am enlightened.

I took care of it already.  Argent isn't my favorite hero per se, but he is the one I've had to study the most intensely in order to understand him at all, and thus I feel like I know him pretty well by now.

I can't wait to play Mr. Fixer alongside Parse.  I get the feeling that will lend itself to a terrifying team.  Fixer will undoubtedly love the irreducable damage that Parse can make him deal, and Fixer (as I remember the cards) can also use the Critical Multiplier buffs better than she can.

I think Fixer is fun to play because he's tricky and not overpowered.  You feel pretty clever if you can use him well.  I love his DR and AOE against the little minions of Voss.

Yeah, I've always found it interesting that despite NOT being his nemesis, Mister Fixer just kinda owns Plague Rat thanks to Jack Handle and/or Driving Mantis.

I think that particular interaction was largely unintentional.    Not broken enough for them to change it,  but I can't imagine that  >G meant for Jack Handle to operate like that.  

Envisioner:  do you play advanced mode?   DR is fairly common on a lot of villans, and Voss, Akash-Bhuta, Spite, Apostate, Ambuscade, V5 Baron Blade, V5 Friction (with Baron Blade) all have *heavy* amounts of DR in their decks or starting off.

Villans who don't use DR (or have little DR in their decks) to protect themselves or their minions are a very small minority!

Considering they were Playtested at the same time, I have a very hard time believing they never noticed it. Jack Handle works the way it was always ment to.

So have we reached a forum concensus that Fixer is amazing yet?

I can put together some more arguments if needed.

Actually, Fixer's Jack Handle is no ordinary Jack Handle. It imbues the user the power to be extremely resistant to mind altering abilities. But the name "Magic Jack Handle" didn't really fit in with his deck.

Didn't it used to belong to the Mr Fixer's teacher of the path, ancient master Jack Handle? It's full title was "Master Jack Handle's Magic Jack Handle".

Lolz all around!

We'll I've always thought so but I have to go with no on this for the reasons I stated in my post.  In summary: Yes he can do great things, if he can ever get the things he needs to do great things. 

When so much of your deck is situational you can handle any situation (with the right draw) but then again for any one situation half your deck is useless.

Do you reckon we might see a Master Jack promo card, using Fixer's deck? I'd love to see Master Jack handle  "Master Jack Handle's Magic Jack Handle".

Someone plays D&D…is it Parse or her designer?

Sometimes.  It depends on the villain…I won't play non-advanced Akash'bhuta ever again (except possibly for the benefit of newbies, and then only under protest), while with Iron Legacy I've only dared to try Advanced once (and got creamed, so I won't likely do it again).  Miss Information, I actually have played Advanced half the time, but intend not to again for quite a while.  Usually 1 to 2 of every 3 battles I go advanced, depending on difficulty and general annoyance…ones where the advanced text adds DR are admittedly ones I'm more likely to disdain as annoying, since I find it easy to forget the DR is there and be left having to redo all my math.

Excluding V5 since I don't know about them, I count 8 villains who use more than occasional DR at least on advanced (Voss, Chairman, Ambuscade, Akasha, Apostate, Iron Legacy, The Dreamer, Miss Information) and 8 villains who don't (Blade, Omnitron, Plague Rat, Spite, Matriarch, The Ennead, Kismet, La Capitan), with Dawn and Gloomweaver as marginal cases.  One or two cards in the deck that invoke DR is a marginal case at best, and then only if it significantly impairs your ability to accomplish anything (as Citizen Truth and the DR cultist do); with Omnitron having DR half the time and Matriarch having one card that grants it, packing irreducible tech is probably a waste of your time. If all the villain has is DR 1 on himself, it's unlikely to be consequential except to a handful of heroes (Fanatic, Chrono-Ranger, Tempest a little, and Tachyon in the sense that it neutralizes HSA, though Lightspeed Barrage remains effective).  So in about half of games, Fixer will want a style other than Driving Mantis or Grease Monkey Fist; the rest of the time, those four cards are at best a slight help, and more likely would be useless or even actively detrimental to play.

Combine that with all the other limited utility in the deck, and my own atrocious luck - I've had extremely bad experiences with Fixer and just do not consider him an effective hero in general.

I just want to clarify, when you say "for any one situation half your deck is useless" is this post getting a tool and style out and thus not needing to change or is pre-getting a tool and style out? I've got a pretty decent reply to either one of them, I just didn't want to have to type up both, so I wanted to know how I should respond.

Actually its interesting when you ask because, both really.  One has to do with my friend described earlier that won't play him any more.  Another person in our group doesn't LIKE to play him (nothing to do with power) because he feels once you get in the optimal stance/tool for the weapon you he is extremely boring for the rest of the game.

On a personal level I like Fixer and don't think he is boring becuase Charge, Overdrive, Grease Gun, and Salvage Yard are all good for any setup.  Similarly between Meditaion and Toolbox I seem to do ok getting in the stance I want.  What I do know is I have two players in my group that just despise playing Fixer for two different reasons. (One can't get the cards he wants, one thinks he's boring when set up).

I would love to see a video of Master Jack Handle mastering Master Jack Handle's Magic Jack Handle. 

These are actually 2 reasons that I really liked Dark Watch Fixer.  It's less critical that you get the cards you want, because he hits more powerfully at the beginning, and he never really "stays" setup, unless someone else is willing to sacrifice their stuff, or you have a couple of rounds in a row of Bloody Knuckles or something.

I don't think Fixer has the boring problem as badly as Expatriette (who I have seen literally become a self-operating robot once...her turns were a programmed loop that required no human intervention).  But it would be significantly improved if he took Styles back to his hand instead of destroying them.  I have no problem switching Tools, just as I have no issue switching Omnitron's Platings, and I'm told Naturalist has no problem because he can Transform into a Form from his trash.  But for Fixer, any time you play a Style (and despite there being fewer in his deck, I always seem to draw more Styles than Tools), it becomes drastically sub-optimal to ever play another Style again, because you can't go back to the first Style if you need to (unless you draw a second copy).  This is a significant problem IMO.  (I just looked at Meditation, which does let you take a Style from your trash, so it's not quite as bad as I thought, but it's not much better either...you're still wasting a card play when you give up a Meditation in hand to get a Style back from your trash, when you could just as easily have gotten it from your deck.)

It also doesn't help that the only card-drawing card in Fixer's deck is a two-fer, albeit reusable.  Other heroes that are meant to be generalists have TONS of card-draw - Impromptu Invention and Trust Fund, Initialize and AuxPS, Arcane Cadence and Counterpoint Bulwark and Cedistic Dissonant and Silver Shadow.  If fixer doesn't draw Tool Box, he isn't going to draw much of anything else either, and with his dependence on setup, he can't really afford the skip-to-draw-two turn.  (I do want to try playing him with someone like Team Leader Tachyon sometime though, and see how much he improves.)

Oh great... Both of them... Well this may take a bit...

Firstly, someone will most likely say "DR will hurt that, because DR always exist, bleh... bleh... bleh..." There are 7 heroes capable of increasing damage. There are also 5 environments that also increase all damage, also the Tomb of Anubis that can give a power that deals a base of 2 damage, making it 6 Environments that can help increase Fixers damage output.

Lets start with the "I can't draw what I want/need!!!"

Now it is true each one of his cards are best in different situations, but that doesn't mean other cards cannot work in the situation they are not best for.

Looking at the tools first, how many of these are super restrictive in their uses? Tire Iron is the only one I can think of, as targets need to be quite low on health for it to work, but tools have the added benefit of returning to hand when playing another, so it may be worth slapping that down when it is needed to get a killing blow, then switching back to the other tool the following turn.

Jack Handle is certainly best when facing tons of targets or when forced to hit heroes. How many villains have very low target count and do not force heroes to hit themself? Spite, that's all. So the majority of the time, it's a pretty good card to keep in play. Sure it may not help every turn, but when the villain makes Fixer try and hit a hero for 2 damage, it's great that he does it to all non-heroes instead.

Dual Crowbars functions a lot like Jack Handle, in two targets are great! But it also has that +1, so even against someone like Spite, you still get a benefit. Even when forced to hit another hero, you get to hit the big bad as well. So once again, never a bad time to play it.

Hoist Chain, it reduces damage a target can deal... I can't see any reason why this would be a bad card to play... I certainly don't hate seeing it in my hand.

Finally Pipe Wrench, +1 damage dealt and -1 damage taken. Good, all around card. Never is painful to have it being the only tool available.

My thought process says Tools are actually quite diverse, with only Tire Iron being very restrictive on when to use it. Jack Handle being a distant second because of Spite. Everything else can be the one in play, even if it's not the best tool for the job.

I am not going to do the same thing with the Styles, as they are the most restrictive between Style and Tools. But that is why they have Meditation. But even so, Gease Monkey Fist or Driving Mantis are never bad to have in play.

Lastly we have Grease Gun, Harmony, Bloody Knuckles, Tool Box, Salvage Yard, Charge, and Overdrive. Salavage Yard is really the only card that is worth holding on to. Harmony should probably be first even without a Style or Tool in play, just so that way when you get both you'll get the bonuses right then. Unless of course you need damage immediately, Bloody Knuckles would typically be first for me, unless I know I am going to be hit a lot. Grease Gun of course saved for just whenever mostly.

I've had games where I had only one card in play, and I still kicked ass because of Bloody Knuckles, Charge, and Overdrive. After all, if I am not drawing Styles and Tools, then I am drawing the great One-Shots or Bloody Knuckles.

If for some reason the opening hand is made up of only Riveting Cranes, Alternating Tiger Claws, Tire Irons, and/or Salvage Yards, play Tire Iron. If Tire Iron is absent, play one of the two Styles. Odd are, the next card will be something worth while. It's only 8 cards in the deck that will most likely have no use at all, if those are the first 8 cards someone draws, then that's some bad shuffling.

Now for the grand "I have the Style and Tool I want in play, but now half my deck is dead weight"

This is actually the case for most heroes... Wraith wants to focus on damage, Razor Ordinance, Throwing Knives/Stun Bolt, Utility Belt, and Micro Targeting Computer. What else does she have to do? Play Equipment cards until the villain is killable by a Inventory Barrage... Maybe throw in a Throat Jab or two. Argent Adept gets the Harp, Lyra, a third instrument, Inspiring Supertonic, Counterpoint Bulwark/Inventive Preperation, and possibly a Melody. Then what? Play more songs and instruments just incase he wants to change things up. It's really nothing unique to Fixer, he gets some cards in play, plays his one-shots or Bloody Knuckles on occasion. Most of my games tend to last 4-7 rounds and only 30-45 minutes long. If Fixer does get the combination he was achieving for, the game doesn't really last that long where he gets bummed for not having to switch Styles or Tools. Mainly because of other cards he can play. Sometimes situations can also change quite easily, calling for a new Tool or Style.

Also!!!! I should note that I never play Fixer with want a particular combo in play. Every game I play him, I play with what i've got. I've had very few games where I had played Fixer and felt he didn't contribute. I've had no games playing as Fixer were I was bored.

I actually really like Tire Iron.

Esp. with Tiger.

If you have 3hp (4 with Harmony, up to 6 if you have Knuckles) you die.  Oh Hi Mable, thwap!

Tire Iron Tiger is the bomb vs. Voss, the projectile lets you hit the ships, and no matter what Voss's advanced text and those dumb guards say all the minions dies in a hit.

There are better, but Tire Iron is still good.

I think people fall into the same trouble with Fixer and Bunker, they decide on a certain set-up that they want for the fight and try and pull it off, and then keep it.

But that isn't how Fixer works best.

One big thing with Fixer is he gets better the less other people can do.  Fixer gets better on advanced, and even better vs. some of the nastiest villains.

La Capitan is one of my favorite villains to face as fixer, throwing Crane on Siege Breaker or Hoist on Chip, or just redirecting the damage from them with Mantis.  Pulling all the equipment she's destroyed out of the trash, he's just so incredibly useful.

Don't get me wrong, Tire Iron is a great card. But it certainly the most restrictive of the Tools, when it is the card for the job though, it is truly a frightning sight…

Playing a card every turn to deal 3 damage (or 2 for Overdrive) instead of 1 is your idea of kicking ass?  Don't ever play Young Legacy, dude, your head will explode… 

Now for the grand "I have the Style and Tool I want in play, but now half my deck is dead weight"This is actually the case for most heroes.

Except for almost all of them.  Wraith has a few duplicate Limited cards and can toss them to Trust Fund, or save them to rebuild after an Inventory Barrage.  Expat doesn't mind caching extra guns for an Unload.  Almost nobody else even begins to find more than a handful of their cards useless.  Fixer is unmatched in this category, dubious accolade though it is.  Your argument that Wraith might be left with nothing worth playing is laughable, and while Adept may end up with more options than he strictly needs, at least he CAN play those cards in case they suddenly become useful…

Most of my games tend to last 4-7 rounds and only 30-45 minutes long.

4-round games are very rare in my experience.  6-8 is a typical average.  And they seldom take less than an hour, but admittedly that might be due to us not having the level of constant practice your group has likely achieved.  We have after all only been playing SOTM a few times a week for like half a year.

Also!!! I should note that I never play Fixer with want a particular combo in play. Every game I play him, I play with what i've got. I've had very few games where I had played Fixer and felt he didn't contribute. I've had no games playing as Fixer were I was bored.

Well bully for you.  Maybe drop by the SCUverse games sometime and show me how it's done.  I for one have had more unsatisfying games with him than good ones (he did own advanced Gloomweaver pretty hard in a game with Nightmist and Wraith once, but that's the only time I can recall him performing exceptionally, though in 19 games there were probably 1 or 2 others, even if we discount 3 games with his DW version).  Mostly my experience with him is "lay down a useless Style, plink for one, draw yet another card that isn't a tool or Tool Box, sob quietly".  The level of luck necessary to make Fixer even basically competent will have Ra dealing something like 10 damage a round, or Adept giving out enough extra plays and powers to practically count as a sixth hero in an H=5 game.  My favorite card in his deck is Driving Mantis, but even this only intermittently does anything.

Except that if she destroyed it, it won't be in the trash, at least not until after she flips and gets plinked a few times.

I concur. He began to be one of my favorite heroes when I found myself improvizing unexpected moves and strategies when he had nothing especially useful to do. Like hitting a friend for one damage because it would make Fixer the new highest HP target. Or deliberately sacrificing him to protect others - and because his incap abilities would be more useful than what he had in hand. I learned a lot by playing him, he changed the way I play other heroes too.

He is not the easiest hero to "grok", and not the most obviously "shiny", but always a good hero to have in a fight.

This thread makes me happy - one year ago it seemed the general consensus was against him.

I've used a house rule for vanilla Fixer that worked well for me and doesn't change his core gameplay too much. It's also somewhat similar to his new Darkwatch card.

Essentially, replace his Strike ability with:

STRIKE - Power: You may discard a card. If you do, Mr. Fixer deals one target 2 melee damage. If you don't, Mr. Fixer deals one target 1 melee damage.

The modified Strike works well in conjunction with Fixer's Toolbox, and I've found in playtesting that it helps to make up for those situations where a villain or Environment does something like destroying a bunch of ongoing or equipment cards (you know, that Dual Crowbars you've been trying to draw the whole damn game and just finally put out last round), which usually is murderously devastating to Fixer's flow and makes him annoying as hell to play. Conversely, it's not overpowered because it limits your hand greatly if you rely on it too much.

Bloody Knuckles I still feel is one of the worst cards in the game, I've never played it and not regretted it. Though as I've noted before when talking about Fixer and Bloody Knuckles, I also think Smoke Bomb is an annoying card to play simply because you can't destroy it at will and it's well known that Wraith is one of the more useful heroes.

At first, it was also a card I avoided. The first one to go when a discard is needed Until I finally decided - like I do with all these "dangerous" or "useless" cards, like Enduring Intercession - to test what I could do with it. Once you accept that hit points are best lost doing something useful, it's a great card. Now, I use it in most games.

Like others have said, these dangerous cards are amazing . Hunter and Hunted ive seen turn Chrono Ranger into a 20+ damage machine, ending a villain we thought would take us out. Bloody Knuckles has been responsible for snagging down more minion waves of Voss or Dawn than I can count. It's all about reading the game state and seeing if the damage incoming is going to be more than you can handle (within a cushion of course, for the card being played by the environment and the villain)

Fanatic was my first hero I played, and has always been my favorite - and the thing I learned from her is that you are just as effective at 1 hp as you are at 25+ hp. and sometimes playing reckless can be the key to winning.

As I said, I had one other card in play. In those games, I have had Pipe Wrench, Driving Mantis, Jack Handle, and Dual Crowbars.

Except for almost all of them.  Wraith has a few duplicate Limited cards and can toss them to Trust Fund, or save them to rebuild after an Inventory Barrage.  Your argument that Wraith might be left with nothing worth playing is laughable

Adept may end up with more options than he strictly needs, at least he CAN play those cards in case they suddenly become useful..

Maybe drop by the SCUverse games sometime and show me how it's done. 

The level of luck necessary to make Fixer even basically competent

will have Ra dealing something like 10 damage a round

 Adept giving out enough extra plays and powers to practically count as a sixth hero in an H=5 game. 

That statement touches my heart.  I'm glad someone else gets that.

Envisioner:

What (H) do you tend to play, and how often do you do advanced?

Fixer is very different as (H) changes, in (H) = 5 matches without damage reduction he is really underwhelming.  As (H) drops, or you play advanced with DR Fixer's value goes up.

I wonder if this is one of the main reasons for the rather divergent perspectives on Fixer.  It appears that those who don't like Fixer might prefer heroes whose value in a game doesn't change quite so dramatically based the presence of factors like lots of DR or the number of heroes (of course every hero varies at least a little bit with these factors).

On the other hand,  others, often playtesters, like Fixer for the crazy things he can do when he is in the right environment.

Some might be measuring heroes by how often they underperform, others by how often they pull off something amazing.  Just different standards.

Johnny, Timmy, Spike.

Spike type players don't like Fixer

Timmy type players maybe like him, but its 50/50

Johnny  type players probably love him.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b

Yeah, I'd be a Johnny.  Always loved to build wierd decks, even if they only won every once in a while, jsut to see people's faces when they started struggling against a deck that they'd never thought could do anything to them.

In college we played Yugioh because Magic was banned and Yugioh had just started.  I built some great decks before the game got ridiculous.  I still miss the feeling of playing my Jar deck, that thing was a work of beauty.  I loved the wins vs. tournament decks I pulled off, when they suddenly realized they didn't have enough monsters to fulfil Cyber Jar in their deck and had lost the game.

Where did you go to college that Magic was banned?!?!

Not Hogwarts…

I went to a Malone College in Ohio, it is an old Quaker affiliated school that pretty much everyone in my family goes to.  (My Grandparents met there and I think 13 of my relatives have gone there.)  I was determined not to go there, but I had an awesome school visit and their professors were awesome in my field (Pol. Sci and econ.).

What is funny is that Magic wasn't banned because it was evil or anything, but because some idiot stabbed a guy with a pencil over a magic game.

I just don't even know what to say to that.

Should have banned the guy, not the cards.  Or better yet -- banned pencils. Diff. Equations in ink forever.

When it comes to Fixer and Expatriette, I think whether or not people love or hate them depends on how long it takes to have that awesome game with them.

The times where Fixer is underwhelming are a lot easier to deal with if you know and have experienced at least one time where he was completely awesome. It's the same with Ex-Patriette, but it seems to me from the forum posts that Fixer has a higher turnaround rate than Ex-Pat does. For people who don't like them, their opinion is rarely because of the outcome of one game. It's usually about 3 or 5 games, and it's understandable how having unsatisfactory games with a hero 3 or 5 times in a row can really turn you off them.

I like Fixer and Ex-Pat, but I can understand the issues people have with them.

Or the villain may become immune to damage for a turn and you can use Eyepiece to pad your hand, or the villain could get a boost to damage and you need the Stun Bolt to compensate.  I wouldn't even balk at playing Mega Computers to keep the Environment deck in check, unless it's especially likely to kill the villain faster.  It is very rare that I don't want to play a card as Wraith.

Fixer CAN play those cards from hand when they suddenly become useful too.

And thereby destroy or bounce whatever useful card he already had in play.  Adept and Wraith and so forth lack such a disadvantage; Adept doesn't have to destroy her Razor Ordinance in order to put some Throwing Knives out.

By the time you get both a Tool and Style, Harmony and Salvage Yard will be cards you'll probably want, meaning there are still 18 cards in the his deck that are great.

Bloody Knuckles is only situationally great; there are many cases where the bonus damage you deal is worth less than the HP you'll lose to multiple attacks boosted against you.  Harmony is Limited, Grease Gun prohibits your own strikes, and Salvage Yard might be incredible or useless depending on who your teammates are and what they've been doing.  Overdrive and Charge are the only cards in his deck which are consistently helpful, and by themselves they leave him looking pathetic next to Haka or F6 Wraith.

The luck doesn't seem to be that great, unless your luck is so bad that you constantly get Alternating Tiger Claw, Riveting Crane, Tire Iron, Harmony, and Salavage Yard on the top of the deck, but if that were the case, you could get a Style and Tool in play with Harmony. Which would work great against villains and environments that have targets.

I do consistently get Riveting Crane or Alternating Tiger Claw, and often Salvage Yard too.  Harmony, not so much, and Tools of any variety almost never.  Without a tool, Harmony is a blank card.  Without a damage buff, Riveting Crane is a blank card.  ATC is only useful against villains with reduction, and you're still just plinking for 1.  If Fixer can't find a Tool, he's pretty much worthless, and he has only 10 in his deck and no way of searching for them.

10 damage a round? Staff, Imbued Fire, Blazing Tornado would all have to be in play. Then would have to constantly play Fire Blast and Inferno to constantly pull off the 10 damage. So you see that more frequently than Fixer getting any useful cards?

Well maybe it was more like 8 or something, but yes, I see Ra perform stellarly (pardon the pun) in nearly every single game, while Fixer needs incredible luck to be even reasonably competent.  Just about all of Ra's cards are strong, with the only exceptions I can recall being FOTSG, Wrathful Gaze and Excavation, and the latter only in the early game when there's no Enviro deck.  Four cards that are usually useless, I can live with.  Fixer has more like twelve, at least by my definition of "usually".  If I could have more games where he drew nothing but Tools, Tool Box, Overdrive / Charge, and a late game Salvage yard, I might think better of him.  But experience has taught me that he seldom delivers such quality results.

  An average turn for Ra is about five damage, depending on exactly what he gets; sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less, but his average is close to Fixer's maximum, and Fixer's average is close to Ra's minimum (assuming you're not playing Horus of Two Horizons).

I'm think you may need to start shuffling your decks better, as you seem to draw the same cards quite often.

That is certainly possible.  Dovetail-shuffling SOTM cards is difficult since they're so thick and stiff (otherwise, of course, this is an advantage), so I usually do the overhead-chop method, which probably does tend to leave some clumps of the same cards together for a few games in a row.  Still, most heroes perform well in spite of this possibly deficient randomization.  The Adept doesn't get Arcane Cadence as often as I might like, and often goes without an Instrument for far too long - but he's able to make some contribution, unless his only card in play is Cedistic Dissonant.  Fixer, in most cases, is lucky to be able to deal 2 damage with a card play, when so many heroes can do it without one.

I would say about 40% of my games are H=3, and usually the rest was 35% 4's and 25% 5's, although lately it's strangely reversed.  Advanced games are semi-rare, and I tend to less often choose advanced against DR-using villains because it leads me to forget to account for DR, so I have to redo all my math.  The last game I played against Ambuscade was supposed to be Advanced, but I spaced on the DR for an entire round and retroactively made it a normal game so that I'd played it correctly; the same happened with the Dreamer once.  When DR is on cards, like Gene-Bound Guard, I can remember it, but when it's an Advanced mode that I ignore half the time, I tend to ignore it the other half as well.

My reaction to this is to regard Fixer as a specialist hero, who should be left on the bench unless you're specifically facing a DR villain.  Which is getting perilously close to the likes of a Circle of Protection: Color in Magic.  I have much more respect for cards and decks that function equally well in all circumstances.

He's an old blind mechanic. He needs to put his tools away when he's done with one and needs to get a new one, just so he can remember where they all are.

I like Fixer. Fixer is great.

What Silverleaf said. I like Fixer. I also like...well...everybody else. They all have times where the suck and times where they shine, some with a more even distribution of suck to shine than others. I really think it all averages out, and that everyone's fun to play and frustrating to play in equal measure.

This makes me curious as to whether the number of heroes each player is playing also has an effect on whether they like some of the less consistent heroes. If you're playing as three heroes by yourself having one who is having an off day isn't so bad, but it's annoying when the hero having a bad day is your only hero. (I don't have RC/IR yet, but I tend not to choose Absolute Zero while in a group for this reason, but I will put him in solo games.)

I think it can also depend how often you play Sentinels. If you play a game every day, then a hero having an off day won't upest you that much, but if it's entirely a weekend or once a week thing,  then it can definitely be more irritating.

It's true that playing solo, and often, is a very different experience. Not so much because you don't care about "bad days", I think, but rather because you don't have the pressure to be useful, or the fear of being bored or boring because you can't do much. As you are the whole team, you feel that every little bit helps, and a hero who just does a little damage while his team mates crush the opposition, or sits there taking damage for the team, discarding or playing ongoings just as fodder for the villain's ongoing destruction cards feels as useful as the others.

So Infrared Eyepiece becomes a good play in games where you are focusing on damage when the Villain becomes immune? Wow, that seems oddly situational. So you don't like how Fixer plays cards when their best situation comes up, but it's fine to already have a card in play if it may be useful later?

And thereby destroy or bounce whatever useful card he already had in play.  Adept and Wraith and so forth lack such a disadvantage; Adept doesn't have to destroy her Razor Ordinance in order to put some Throwing Knives out.

I do consistently get Riveting Crane or Alternating Tiger Claw, and often Salvage Yard too.  Harmony, not so much, and Tools of any variety almost never. 

 Without a damage buff, Riveting Crane is a blank card. 

ATC is only useful against villains with reduction

 If Fixer can't find a Tool, he's pretty much worthless,

and he has only 10 in his deck and no way of searching for them.

Well maybe it was more like 8 or something, but yes, I see Ra perform stellarly (pardon the pun) in nearly every single game,

while Fixer needs incredible luck to be even reasonably competent.

  Just about all of Ra's cards are strong, with the only exceptions I can recall being FOTSG, Wrathful Gaze and Excavation, and the latter only in the early game when there's no Enviro deck.  Four cards that are usually useless, I can live with. 

Fixer has more like twelve, at least by my definition of "usually". 

If I could have more games where he drew nothing but Tools, Tool Box, Overdrive / Charge, and a late game Salvage yard, I might think better of him.

  But experience has taught me that he seldom delivers such quality results.  An average turn for Ra is about five damage, depending on exactly what he gets; sometimes it's more and sometimes it's less, but his average is close to Fixer's maximum, and Fixer's average is close to Ra's minimum (assuming you're not playing Horus of Two Horizons).

 Fixer, in most cases, is lucky to be able to deal 2 damage with a card play, when so many heroes can do it without one.

I pretty much agree with this opinion.  As I've stated, I personally like Fixer a lot, but I have defintely seen and understand why people don't.  As for the three personalities, I didn't read them that closely, but I always built my decks to play the way I wanted them to play the maximum percentage of the time. 

That did not mean that they were powerful, it just meant that no matter what draw I have or things my opponent is doing, I can work around it and have the deck do its intended purpose.  That might be some kind of big combo in a certain turn, or stall to some win condition late, or just beat face, but it did what it was INTENDED to do. The times I don't have fun in games are the times when I know the deck or character I have has all of these fun they can do, but for some reason I can't actually do the fun stuff it was designed to do.

That last part is a general statement, and not a knock on Fixer or Expat, but it might also be a reason that they are less liked.  If you think about the newer (than RC) heros (haven't seen vengence yet) it seem like newer heroes have more in their decks to facilitate getting what you want and avoiding bad games. At least to me if feels like there is a lot more card draw and cycle.  Then again several base set heros had that too.  And Fixer has meditation and tool box… well anyway.

Edit:  I hear the Natuarlist has card search as his base power, now thats a deck that won't be stuck with not getting the animal form (or whatever their called) that they need!  Anyone remember a suggestion for an alternate Fixer that let him search for Charge or Meditation with his base form.  I really liked that version.

Excellent point.  That stats give us a clue (though not a definitive answer) as to who had bad days the most often on a large number of played games.

To be fair Envis did say that he would like Fixer better if his stances bounced back as well.  You both make valid points.  Fixer can not just switch it up for one turn and then go back his previous set up the next like most heros using different powers.  Well he can with tools, but not stances.  However it is also clear that if he could have several tools and stances in play at once that would be crazy.  Again, maybe if stances returned to hand as well that would make this a non-issue.

You actually can get that combo nearly every game because of instrament search and his card that lets you look at the top 5 cards, extra draws from songs and one shot effects,  etc.

An arguement that you need to shuffle better is just…

Well anyway, as far as what that was refering to, Envisioner is not the only one ending up with several copies of stances that are not beneficial.  See my very original comment in this thread. 

By the way your arguement with Voss and damage reduction is a very good and clever use for it.  Not that my group would use it much as we really focus on minions before bosses anyway but that a good idea for your play style.  It is fairly dependent on turn order though so I am currious how people in general order their heros.  My group is always random order, do people sometimes order strategically?

As I had stated, Styles are more situational than Tools, not needing to be changed frequently. If one has Grease Monkey Fist, then a target with DR 1 comes into play, do you really need to play Alternating Tiger Claw to take care of it? No, because the net damage will be the same. If using Driving Mantis and you need to squeeze out just a wee bit more damage, do you need to get Grease Monkey Fist into play? No, if not using a +1 damage Tool or Tire Iron, then you can swap that out, if you already using one of those Tools then there is still Overdrive, Charge, or Bloody Knuckles that will give that push for you. Sure there are sometimes when it may be worth it, but nearly as many times as switching Tools.

 By the way your arguement with Voss and damage reduction is a very good and clever use for it.  Not that my group would use it much as we really focus on minions before bosses anyway but that a good idea for your play style.  It is fairly dependent on turn order though so I am currious how people in general order their heros.  My group is always random order, do people sometimes order strategically? 

If Fixer were able to, say, have as many tools and styles in play as he likes but could only apply one of each to any instance of damage, he probably wouldn’t be overpowered. It would also fit his theme of “right tool for the right job” a lot better if he didn’t have to spend a few turns switching his setup every time the situation changed. I like Mister Fixer as he is, but he is definitely a Johnny type character. You do interesting things with him that only work out every once in a while.

I don’t think his consistency problem is that he doesn’t have deck search for tools. I think its that he doesn’t have the ability to aim for late game effectiveness or early game effectiveness. Characters like Wraith can aim for long term setups that do a whole bunch of things at once, with 5 or 6 different pieces of equipment all providing valuable help, while still keeping pace before getting fully setup. Whereas Ra can be doing powerful things from turn 1, even if he doesn’t change that significantly when given time to set up. Fixer can only have 1 style, 1 tool, and harmony in his set up. And Harmony only matters if he has one of the other two. None of the styles and tools are so amazing that you can beat face with one of them on turn one. And you don’t have very much room to grow to achieve late game dominance. So it feels a lot like you are struggling for competency. Medium risk, low reward. His best stuff is finding small tricks like going last against Voss to negate DR. It feels satisfying for finding unconventional workarounds to problems your team faces. He at least has that to recommend him over Expatriette. He has a lot of good cards, and a lot of good ways to use them. But not enough synergy with himself.

I really like Mantis stance.  One thing that might hinder my play with Fixer is that I like it too much.  If I have it in play and don't have another copy I'm really hard pressed to change to a different stance.  I feel like even if the other stance is better this round it hinders me for each round thereafter.

On another topic.  Duplicate limited cards are not a problem for some heros because they have something to do with them.  Nightmist and Scholar are prime examples as any duplicate just makes choosing your discards easier.  Even Wraith has Trust fund with which to replace duplicate cards with different cards.  Fanatic and Tempest can always discard them for damage from ongoings, etc.  Heck if you have nothing to do with them but enough draw that they don't hinder getting to your juice that is fine too.  Other heros have nothing to do with them, Legacy for examle can't do anything with a second ring.  Fixer has what seem like an unusually large number of limited cards for someone that can't use or cycle them.  Duplicate tools get you no where, (except if your equipment is destroyed and it no longer a duplicate though that is always true).  Duplicate stances are not as bad as then you can swap and later swap back alleviating my issue above.  But again seeing several copies of a seldom used stance gets tiresome.

So I said previously that Fixer has amazing abiltiy but it often doesn't line up with play. Here is an example, please don't get too bogged down in the specifics of the example and more the point because I already know it was a tough situation for other heros as well.  I'll reiterate the exact point at the end.  I'll try to remember it accurately:

We are fighting dreamer and she puts out two Dark Hero's on the same turn.  This means that every projection is at 2DR.  My friend is playing Fixer and I'm optimistic.  He says "well I have a couple copies of the stance in my had that lets me get rid of DR."  I smile, then comes, "but I don't have a way to get through the DR to apply that."  I look at his board, He hasn't hit a Harmony all game leaving his damage at 2, not enough.  I say, "What about the stance that let YOU ignore DR, that and crowbars would be a good start?"  "Nope, haven't seen it, don't have meditation."  I say, "do you have a charge or bloody knuckles? you can set up this turn and bust through next turn" "Nope, in my had I have two tire irons, two (the DR removing stance), a jack handle, and an overdrive none of which helps.  Well, I'll just draw two cards and hope for something good."  Draws two cards, "Nope, I still suck."

The point is that Fixer definitely has the tools (pun intended) in his deck to deal with this situation, and in fact a couple different ways.  We knew them, we identified them, we were unable to execute them.  I know that this can happen to every hero, but at least for us it happens significantly more with Fixer.  I stated before that I like decks to be able to do what they are intended to do, but with him it feels like he has so much potential but that potential is often not realized.  I'm actually wondering if he does well a fair amount of the time, but he falls short often enough that it really stands out more because people know he has potential.  To have the solutions in your deck but not be able to get them is frustrating and off putting.

As someone who generally likes Fixer, I have to admit, I end up in situations similar to the one above more often with him than other heroes.  I sometimes wish had a way to search for tools or more copies of Toolbox for better draw.  I've also (always) wished his stances bounced like his tools.  Again, I still like Fixer (more than anyone else in our group), but I admit he has shortcomings.

I agree with this, when you have really bad card luck and that perfect "Mr. Fixer saves the day" moment comes and you can't do anything, that really sucks.

If I'm not doing anything else with my play phase, then sure, why not?  The only exception would be if I was worried about a wipe (in particular Technological Singularity); in those cases I'd keep the cards in my hand rather than store them on the table.  But if I'm against heavy discard which isn't Citizen Dawn (since she can both discard and wipe), then it's particularly handy to keep things in play just in case.  And, all other things being equal, I'd just rather play more cards.  I also like drawing more cards; I don't much care for having cards and not using them.

It's not a disadvantage to have to bounce cards back in hand. It's actually a balancing mechanic so that way Fixer won't be able to deal all targets 3 damage, twice, kill anything with 2 or fewer hit points, and anything surviving will reduce their damage by 2. Then imagine if Fixer also played Overdrive or Charge.

Right, I'm not really arguing with that part.  Like I said, if Fixer's Styles also went back to his hand, and if he had better card drawing or searching, I'd probably be okay with him.  But as is, he's just got too many deficiencies, and my terrible luck exagerrates them, so I find him very frustrating to play.  (A lot of people have had similar complaints about Bunker and AZ, but both of those "like" me; my Bunker games get a tad repetitive since I usually just Flak Cannon everything, but I've had The God-Turn with AZ at least a couple times, and find it totally worth how hard it is to set up, which is completely not how I feel about Fixer going Jack Handle + Monkey Fist + Harmony + Bloody Knuckles + Charge, even if that result might be objectively better than Hoarfire + both Modules and one or both of the other Equipment.)

Only if you're not keeping the Villain and Environment decks cleaned up. At most he'll typically only take 4 extra damage, it's perfectly survivable.

You do know that most villain and many environment targets deal damage at the end of the turn they come into play, right?  And that many ways exist for these decks to play an extra card?  I've seen three or four new damage instances pop out of nowhere on multiple occasions, and sometimes they hit all heroes, or the lowest hero.  I'm disinclined to take that kind of risk.

What's wrong with skipping a turn to prevent all non-hero targets from doing damage?

Ask Haka or Tachyon that question and hear them laugh.

Fixer is in every game that Salvage Yard is in, if heroes manage to go through most of a game without Equipment being destroyed, there should still be an Overdrive in the trash you can use it for instead.

Overdrive is just 1 extra damage unless you have a good "rig" set up, which as I have established, I often don't.  I seldom want to waste a card as theoretically-powerful as Salvage Yard on that little benefit, but often its potential is never actualized.  I think I've seen it perform extremely well twice, out of nineteen games.  It shows up in my hand in at least half of them, but usually the heroes aren't trashing enough Equipment for it to matter, and Fixer might never even draw Overdrive, though it's probable that he will.

Charge+Strike deals 3 damage, more than Haka's base power.

The comparison should not be Fixer's card and power to just Haka's power.  Throw in an Elbow Smash and Haka is now doing 5 damage.  And Elbow Smash in turn is pathetic next to Ra's Flame Blast plus his power.  Or if 3 damage is all we need, Legacy can do it with just a card play, perhaps drawing a card as a result, and then Galvanize everyone.

Besides, how often do you play either of those cards when you have nothing in play?

If they're all I have that's worth playing, but the team needs my pathetic 1 damage so I can't draw 2, then damn if I'm not going to play a pathetic card rather than no card, if I'm not going to get anything for giving up my play phase.  I make very few exceptions to the rule that I perform either both of my non-draw phases, or neither of them.

I don't play them unless…I really need to squeeze out a few points of damage to kill something.

Which is pretty much always in my experience.  (Except against Ambuscade or Miss Information.)

That would mean you are drawing the same 10 cards almost every game.

Explains a lot of my attitude doesn't it?  But as I've said, this doesn't seem to cause me any problems when I'm virtually any other hero (except maybe Bunker, as mentioned above, and there the problem is just homogeneity, rather than utter patheticness).  My repetitious games as Visionary, Nightmist, Unity, Tachyon, Haka, Tempest, Wraith, and other card-drawing heroes are self-correcting.  With AZ, I go several games without seeing cards like Fueled Freeze or Thermal Shockwave, but who cares?  Once I've got my two modules (with twelve total cards ensuring that at least one of them gets into play), I'm golden; I'll make do with whatever's in my hand.  No other hero suffers anywhere near the level of failure I've had as Fixer; Expatriette and Unity are the closest, since one needs a Gun and the other at least a Golem, but I've generally gotten the problem fixed within two turns at most.  Ironically, Fixer can't Fix himself without his Tool Box, which is why it probably ought to be a 4-of in his deck, or else a search card that gets you Tools the way Meditation gets Styles.  I've also had a few sluggish games with Argent, and this is one of the reasons I rank him fairly low in spite of his immense potential; Legacy is dead last in my rankings, and he also has some of the problems I face with Fixer, such as never drawing Flying Smash, and Danger Sense or Superhuman Durability usually being blank cards (however my bigger problem with Legacy is just that he's boring, since his Power phase consists almost exclusively of waving a pair of pom-poms instead of actually doing anything - he needs the Legacy Ring as badly as Fixer needs Tool box, and once again, he gets only two copies of it).

Against Voss, Fixer can hit Voss without any DR, then anyone hitting Voss while a Minion is in play will be able to do Irreducible damage.

Very seldom will a window open up for this to be feasible.  Voss starts the game with Minions in play, and flips when they're gone.  For this scenario to apply, he'd have to have no minions when Fixer strikes him, but then gain some during subsequent hero turns or the Environment turn.  Otherwise, he'll be flipped and have maybe 1 point of DR at the most, so Riveting Crane will be a very minor buff.

Against Advanced Omnitron, every other round Fixer can hit Omnitron's non-DR side and when he flips, the DR no longer matters.

Now that actually is a decent idea.  I'm not sure if I've played Fixer against Omnitron.  Not that Omnitron needs any help losing games, of course, unless he's Cosmic.  Still, maybe a 3-hero game would be worth trying.

Chairman, Deputy is in play, bringing out the Crooked Cop. The heroes can work together to kill the Crooked Cop with AoE while focusing on Operative, Fixer can hit the Operative to make it Irreducible. Next round, Deputy brings out a Crooked Cop, heroes with the AoE can still it Operative for full damage.

Marginal.  Fixer of course has significantly increased value in a fight with his nemesis, but Riveting Crane is still not especially strong there.  It only ever works if Fixer can get through, and the odds of other heroes not being able to get through if he can are fairly slim, considering most of them do more damage than him with anything less than a perfect setup.

Spite has his DR drug for the first hit every round, Fixer can Charge or Overdrive first, then the second hit will do damage and no one else has to worry about the DR.

A slight advantage, but noteworthy.  When I'm done being utterly sick of Spite, I'll try to remember Fixer against him.

Hitting Apostate or Dawn everyone round would mean a Fiendist Pugilst or Citizen Anvil won't apply their DR to them.

Handy, but again, only 1 DR, so not spectacular.

Kismet's Shaky Arm on anyone other than Fixer, Striking makes Shaky Arm not matter.

Again, good point, but Shaky Arm targets the hero with most cards in play.  Whether that's Fixer or not depends on a lot of factors; his "kit" is almost never more than four cards, but he absolutely must have at least two.  Except for Wraith and Adept, almost every hero can be effective with just one card in play, so the odds are fairly decent that Fixer with a Style, a Tool, and Harmony or Bloody Knuckles is going to be the one with the Shaky Arm.

Akash'Bhuta's advanced flip side, someone can reduce her End of Turn damage, while Fixer can make all limb damage is still doing it's full amount.

I'm not even sure what this is meant to be saying, you appear to have tripped over your own grammar here.  (Not judging, it happens to the best of us.)

Fighting in Pike Industrial, The Block, or Time Cataclysm, DR can come out, but Fixer having Striked, it won't matter to that target.

Good point there; I do tend to forget about Environment DR being as ir-reducible as any other kind (as I already mentioned before with Mega Computer).

Even funner in the Pike Industrial, if both Biometic and Irradiated Vats come out, canceling each other out, Fixer can Strike and then every other hero will get the +1 towards that target.

That is indeed funny.

As I pointed out in another thread, Wraith's Mega Computer and Fixer's Riveting Crane are a great combo together. So Riveting Crane is not a Blank Card, you just have to be clever in your uses for it.

I believe my original statement was that it was blank about half the time, and you didn't disprove that by mentioning about half of the villains, with many of the cases you brought up being fairly infrequent things.  Baron Blade, La Capitan, Matriarch, Gloomweaver, and Plague Rat have only tiny amounts of DR from one or two cards, hardly worth acknowledging (except on BB's flipside advanced, but with only 30 HP that's pretty irrelevant).  Miss Info has huge DR which Fixer will struggle to ever get through, though if he manages it, the team's chances improve drastically - assuming of course that Fixer survives her retaliation damage, or else Riveting Crane will go away when he incaps.  Iron Legacy might have DR, but it's ultimately his healing which is the bigger problem, and ditto with Spite.  The Ennead have one member with DR, though she will usually turn up eventually; usually it's simple enough to just kill her, but I can definitely see it being worth Fixer's time to punch through against someone else who's at lower HP and doesn't heal like Nuit does.  Still, this is a lot of marginal cases.

The point about Advanced games is a fair one, perhaps as I play those more often (and stop forgetting about the DR), I'll gain more appreciation for Fixer.  But I still think he has to work too damn hard to be halfway-competent, when other heroes can be amazing with that much effort, or equally competent with almost none.

Pretty much worthless? Did you not see my post where I stated I went an entire game with Driving Mantis in play and was still kicking ass? Heroes were bouncing their second target off Fixer, Environment and Villain were unable to touch him. He was getting insane with his redirection. Grease Monkey Fist would be fine as the only card in paly as well.

GMF gets him up to two damage; I wouldn't stop there, at least not without AZ or somone in play to care about the shifting damage types.  Mantis is a fun card, but the 2-damage cap keeps it from being amazing in my experience, as hits for 3 or 4 are usually what I'm worried about.

Bcause every hero needs a search card to find every card in the deck!

If they're not competent without that card, then yeah.  Chrono-Ranger is definitely one of the best decks in the game, because he has tons of situational singletons and two different search cards for finding them, which also do a damage on top of the searching.  Maybe I'm a little spoiled, but Fixer looks pretty gorram pathetic next to that.  Heroes like Tempest or Tachyon, of course, don't need a search card because every card in their deck is good, just about.  Again, Fixer wishes he could say the same.  The only hero I identify as being in about the same "league" as Fixer is Bunker (and poor Expat is in a league all by herself below that).  Both need immense setup for fairly mediocre results, and of the two, Bunker is marginally more to my taste, partly for flavor reasons (BUDDABUDDABUDDA) and partly because of my long history of atrocious luck with Fixer.

Ra is a hero that is solely about burning a target. There isn't much else for him to do.

And with the exception of a few matches like Miss Info or Wagner Mars, there isn't much need for him to do anything else.  Fixer might solve problems, but Ra ignores them entirely more often than not, by simply melting the main villain's face as quickly as metahumanly possible.

Fixer takes a different mind set than Ra to play.

I have only one mindset with which to play all heroes.  Perhaps Fixer is just less to my taste than most.  (Ra is not necessarily the most so, but at least he's at or above the median.  My ideal is probably Scholar or Nightmist, as both of them have won all but I think 3 games out of 16 or so.)

Because he is built to burn, burn, burn.

Yes, he does one thing and he does it well.  While Fixer does one thing (whack, whack, whack) and does it mediocre.

Sure, by your definition. My definition is he has cards that are ready to be used yet!

Good luck living that long.  28 HP isn't awful, but it isn't great either, and all villains will generally kill the entire party within an average of perhaps 8 turns, unless measures are taken to the contrary.

When you put the same 10 cards on top of your deck, it sure is going to be hard to draw anything else.

Well it's not like I've been doing it on purpose.  Like I said, equally bad shuffles for all other heroes have turned out consistently better, except for Expatriette, Fanatic and AZ (with, oddly, Tempest being probably the next-worst, but by a fairly substantial gulf).

But Fixer isn't solely about doing damage every round.

As opposed to what else?  Standing around sucking his thumb?  He can't destroy Ongoings, he can't help allies draw cards or stack their decks, he can't control the villain deck, he can only draw cards himself if he lucks into Tool Box.  If he gets Driving Mantis and/or Pipe Wrench he can tank a little, but is nowhere near as good at it as Scholar, Legacy, or even fanatic.  Otherwise, damage is pretty much all he's good for.

If you are trying to play Fixer as Ra, then yes you will be very dissapointed. That's equal to playing Tachyon as Visionary, wondering why you can't manipulate decks.

Visionary is nowhere near as exclusively about manipulating decks as I'd like (except for Dark visionary, where she's too much so).  Perhaps part of my problem with Fixer is just that I got into him later; my early games with Visionary might have convinced me she's about nothing but dealing pathetic amounts of psychic damage.  Still, the time difference involving them isn't that huge.  Anyway, Tachyon is very good at telling you what her deck should be about, AND, and this is the big "and", she gives you pretty much every tool you could possibly wish for to enable her to do what she does.  Fixer can't even come close to such a boast.

Doing high damage is not what Fixer is all about.

Well, there you go; that's exactly what my problem is with him.  He can't do much of anything other than do damage, and he can't even do that especially well, and has to work very hard to manage that much.  If his deck was about putting Car targets into play and then repairing them so that other heroes can drive them, he might well be able to contribute more effectively.  (On that subject, I'm not certain I've played him with Unity, and that's an obvious thing to try sometime.)

Things Mister Fixer can do other than specifically dealing damage:

• Penetrating DR. 
• Allowing others to penetrate DR.
• Returning destroyed equipment to players' hands (while dealing extra instances of damage in the same play!)
• Redirecting particularly common damage instances (2-3 damage).
• Preventing all non-hero targets from dealing damage.
• Changing damage type to preferred types.

Things Ra can do other than specifically dealing damage:

• Putting cards from the Environment trash under the Environment deck.
• Healing himself 3 hp.
• Making the party immune to fire damage (at the expense of dealing significant damage).
• Providing a flat +1 damage buff.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mister Fixer is not not not not not a "damage-oriented" hero.  Ra, Haka, Expatriette, and even Bunker will consistently out-damage Fixer.  That's fine, because it's not his primary role.  He's there to "fix" the situations that come up as they arise.  Need an "off-tank"?  He can do that.  Need some global damage?  Pull out the Crowbars or the Jack Handle.  Need to punch through DR?  He's got that handled.

Case in point:  this evening, my game group played a game with Legacy, Wraith, Expatriette, and Fixer against Apostate.  Fixer flopped Riveting Crane in Round 1 and attacked Condemnation.  Legacy's Galvanize got a single point of damage through, but that allowed the rest of the group to take out Apostate's sword that much faster, depriving the villain of significant damage.  This was exacerbated when Fixer threw down a Jack Handle, ripping through the Runes of Malediction/Orb of Delerium pair with ease.

Fixer's damage cannot be your only focus when playing him.  If you think that way, you'll be disappointed.  Fixer's damage is just the "delivery device" for the various benefits provided by his Styles, Tools, and One-Shots.  Fixer's power lies in what he offers the party:  he's a support hero, in disguise as a melee bruiser.

While I understand your post, and agree with much of what you have to say, half of these points are entirely dependent on Mister Fixer dealing damage.

The only cards Fixer has that are actually contingent on him dealing damage are Riveting Crane and Hoist Chain.  If you absolutely positively need to get that damage through, Bloody Knuckles to the rescue!  Even if he's prevented from dealing damage entirely from Ensnaring Brambles/Sonic Mine/etc, he's still not worthless if you've got Driving Mantis or Salvage Yard.

As I mention later in the post:  damage is the "vehicle" for delivering these effects.  The damage isn't the goal itself:  it's a means unto an end.  When you're using Riveting Crane, the point isn't do deal a lot of damage:  the point is to deal just enough to get through the DR, so that it frees up your partners to take on the target.  

And, actually, out of that list of 6 bullet points?  The only one that depends on Fixer getting damage through is the second one.  The first one guarantees that the damage goes through and the others have little to do with Fixer dealing damage.

I guess if you're stuck in all-the-damage-all-the-time mode, Fixer's not much fun.

I'm a more flexible player than that (although I do love me some damage) and I think Fixer's great. If you wanna do all the damage, pick Ra. Complaining that Fixer doesn't do enough damage is like complaining that Michael Jordan isn't very good at golf, or that Placido Domingo can't shoot a bow to save his life.

Fixer is a fantastic team player - rarely the star, but he's the guy making the passes that let the other guy score, and he does sometimes score some goals himself. And that's fine.

I'd never use the word "worthless" to describe Fixer, JimmyTheRat.  While Riveting Crane is the only one that requires damage (and consistently requires another card or outside buff to penetrate the DR in question, which I am merely noting without condoning or condemning), Grease Monkey Fist gets around damage-type immunity or reduction and buffs damage while Alternating Tiger Claw allows him get through DR himself to deal damage.  Damage is still clearly an aspect of Fixer's deck, whether it's a lot or a little.  Without the effect for the "vehicle" of damage, then the damage itself can be rather disappointing.  While Fixer isn't about dealing damage, having the damage buffs or modifiers without the effects that modify the battlefield itself can be a frustration.  These are more observations rather than points for/against Fixer.  No hero is perfect, and I think it's important to map out the pros and the cons of Fixer and his deck.  These are just some points that I've experienced first hand with him.

And can we please avoid remarks that imply that the reason some players don't care for Fixer is because they somehow cannot grasp some innate truth or higher understanding of the Tao of Fixer?  It just seems a little tasteless, and H.R. "Slim" Walker deserves better than that.

I understand and respect what you're saying.  My post was in direct response to Envisioner's particularly long post, but specifically his section which said:

Well, there you go; that's exactly what my problem is with him.  He can't do much of anything other than do damage, and he can't even do that especially well, and has to work very hard to manage that much.  If his deck was about putting Car targets into play and then repairing them so that other heroes can drive them, he might well be able to contribute more effectively.  (On that subject, I'm not certain I've played him with Unity, and that's an obvious thing to try sometime.)

My post was meant to show that Fixer can do numerous other in-game tasks aside from dealing damage, specifically by contrasting his in-game abilities to that of Ra's (raised by Envisioner as an example), as Ra is significantly more damage-focused than Fixer.  In showing that evidence, I believe that Envisioner's findings/opinions are incorrect or, perhaps more accurately, trying to draw comparisons between characters that do not have the same purpose or design goals.  

Mister Fixer's a smooth blend of support effects with some secondary damage dealing.  To me, comparing him to one of the premier damage-dealing characters in the game and complaining that Fixer can't keep up just sets up fallacious thinking.  Given that, I don't feel unreasonable saying, "Dude, you're looking for the wrong character if you're looking for raw damage output from Mister Fixer and want to ignore all of his other abilities."

Honestly, I think Spiff's "So where are the "How to Fix Chrono-Ranger" Threads!?" topic covered that many players don't really care that Fixer doesn't deal massive amounts of damage.  The frustration that a lot of them experience is not having the cards they need for Fixer to be the utility powerhouse that he is.  Some want damage-dealing powerhouses, but a lot of people just wish there was a more reliable way to get what he needs when he needs it rather than just spamming Toolbox and hoping for outside help from other heroes and/or environments.

And my remarks weren't all meant to be exclusively directed at any one person.  I'm not cool enough to take the time to do a bunch of smaller quotes, so I just tried my best to address the recent discussion and posters as a whole.

I definitely understand when people get upset over people disliking a hero for something they aren't built to do.  I know a lot of folks don't care for Legacy, for instance.  Many players find him to be a bit boring or stagnant, but I personally love being able to provide the support he provides to the entire team.  In those instances, it sounds like they just need to look for a different character rather than say Legacy sucks.

I just find it useful to convey that with "I feel very satisfied when playing as Legacy" or "Legacy fits my playstyle" rather than implying, or outright stating that it takes a player grasping hidden truths that are unknown to the average Legacy player to really appreciate the subtle nuances of his "make everyone get a lot of damage bonuses" methods.  Again, I'm referring to comments in general on the topic rather than any specific person.

Reckless, I'll take your remarks for me, as I sometimes fall to the dark side of my personality

Mr Fixer has a specific play style, that probably doesn't appeal to many persons. And it involves finding the best way to use what you get, rather than relying on a specific set-up you could have. If you enjoy this kind of things, you discover that Fixer can nearly always do something useful, even if it is not THE something useful you'd want him to do. It's not a hidden mystique, and it doesn't make players who don't "grasp" this inferior in anyway. It's just what he is good at, and something that makes the people who like his play style consider him as a very good hero and team player. And others consider him as lacking.

I understand that people can consider some heroes as less interesting to play, for them, because their playstyle doesn't match theirs. I have a harder time when people just conclude that said hero is bad, or badly designed, just because it is not a hero who fits their play style, or a hero they haven't "explored" enough yet to understand some aspects of his gameplay. And, in my opinion, all heroes have "secret" tricks to discover - or learn about in a guide.

I don't like Argent Adept much - it doesn't mean he is a bad hero, just a hero built around a playstyle that doesn't attract me much, and that I don't "grasp" very well. But I try hard to learn how to play him well. And fail miserably more often than not

Finally…

If Mr Fixer (and probably all of Rook City's decks) was designed today, he would be made in a different way. Not because he is bad, but because the many, many diverse playtesters >G has now would report these feelings of apparent uselessness, and the deck would be tweaked again and again until his playstyle was felt as more "awesome" and gratifying. Not because the design at the time was bad, but because the testing samples at the time were more limited - and probably so experienced with the game and his intricacies that their idea of a "correct" difficulty for villains/heroes, or their definition of heroic awesomeness, was too restrictive.

Mister Fixer is not a bad hero, or a badly designed one, but is probably one of the heroes with the more "hermetic" playstyle. And one of the most difficult to explain, too, in my opinion.

Fixer has the best environnement interactions in all the game:

Stuck in the tomb of anubis see him duck tape the rod of anubis to whatever tool you want and laught at stuff that thought they were safe cause you dealt melee damage.

Have driving matis in play and willfully destroy stuff just to abuse Anubis' damage by redirecting it after all both of you are synchronised with first time each turn.

Ever dreamed of having two tools or styles in play fixed point prevents the bounce or destruction at the moment of play meaning as long as you don't change after you feel like a munchkin with a cheat card. At the same laugh as Ra fails to do the same trick with his staff.

Just try once a legit crowbar and jack handle and you'll regret ever dissing him.

Salvage yard is also crazy with other heroes that tend to put equipment in the trash, not getting who I'm talking about than take a look at the darkwatch team: Expat's ammo coming back all at once is a blast and Nightmist can suddenly discard her equipment for diverse effect and get it all back to fill up her hand. Also works well when following up a devastating aurora or a technological singularity.

Yeah, Salvage yard is awesome with:

Bunker:  discard Equip for Gatling or shoot it from Omni)

Expat:  Ammo comes back!  Makes Speedloading insane.

Nightmist:  her Equips have high average numbers, discard for healing and bring them back.

Chrono Ranger:  Grenades whenever you want them.

Ra:  Throw the staff!

Adept:  Destroy all the cards (seriously Fixer and Adept rule)

Fanatic:  More revives?

Haka:  Discard and return for more smashing.

Knyfe:  Just played her yesterday and I want to run her and Fixer so much.

Omni-X:  Singularity, Self detonate, components dying, it is all good when your mechanic is right there.

Unity:  Construction Pylons.  No more needs said.

Wraith:  Inventory barrage and recover.

That's a pretty good number of heroes that can put their Equips in the trash for reasons internal to their deck.  I was saddened to see that the other 4 new heroes have 1 equip combined, adding three of the five heroes to the two heroes we had before vengeance with no Equips in their deck.

I hope that trend doesn't continue.  You can now run an (H)=5 game that involves 0 Equipment cards.

Also : all these copies of tools you have in hand and don't know what to do with ? Unity knows.

And then, there is this Room in the Freedom Tower that gives the "equipment" keyword to all ongoings…

I was saddened to see this, as well. I find that I tend to favor Heroes with a balance of Equipment and Ongoings, as cards that destroy one or the other are generally less hateful to such a Hero. While being able to totally ignore one is nice, that tends to shaft my teammates, who likely do have equpment and will generally be sacrificing more of it. Fixer, certainly, is one of these, but also AA, Fanatic, Bunker (to a lesser extent–he’s certainly more equpment heavy), and Chrono-Ranger.

I am, however, personally biased towards heroes that use Equipment as an aesthetic preference on my part. Iron Man is my all time favorite superhero, and street level heroes (Green Arrow, the Question, and the like) are right up there with him.

I read that but was thinking it would only apply to cards in play, but it does not state that.

Hmm. . . if it worked on cards in the trash, then would it work on cards in the deck?  That would be interesting.

That's how I've played it. Using Displaced Armory to pull Bounties is fun times. Definitely wasn't thinking about using the Playground with the Salvage Yard (Slim's Playground?) though. THAT seems too awesome to NOT be legit.

I was mostly just pointing out that he can potentially still have stuff to do if hit by a Whipacorn or something.  When Ra, Expat, or Chrono get hit with a can't-deal-damage effect, I often feel like I get completely dead turns with them until the problem's taken care of.

That's perfectly fair, but the list of other abilities he has is not especially long.  Penetrating DR himself is just a weaker version of dealing extra damage, so that's off the list of non-damage things he does.  Changing damage to preferred types is a) only something he does for himself and b) also about dealing damage, so again, off the list.  That leaves Riveting Crane, Salvage Yard, Driving Mantis and Grease Gun as cards he can play to do anything other than deal damage himself.  He has only two copies each of these cards (except possibly Grease Gun, I'm not sure there), one of them can recycle another, and the last two are searchable.  So he has a semi-reliable ability to fix four problems that can arise in a game, and otherwise he's a damage-dealer.  Compare all this to Nightmist or Argent; those are the real Fixers.

This is a very good point.  Fixer and Expatriette* are fairly primitive in terms of design technology; they probably receieved less scrutiny than the core-set heroes because they were for a more optional product, and definitely have received less than subsequent designs for the obvious reason that more time has passed.  The villains of RC have their shortcomings too, as does the RC Environment; alone of the decks in that product, Pike Industrial turned out just about perfect IMO (the whole Checmical thing aside).  My first game ever, I didn't know about the sets, and picked Pike on the assumption that it was probably a more "default" kind of environment than Atlantis or Mars, more likely to have been meant for a beginner; this never seemed to be a mistake.

• Then again, I played Expatriette today (as usual, I took the Darkwatch version and then never used her alternate power, though I was at least tempted to several times; one of these days, it will actually happen!), and found myself making several interesting strategic decisions about the use of Ammo.  It was definitely one of the most satisfying times I've ever played her, so perhaps I should not be quite as down on her as I am.  Still, somebody has to wear the mantle of Weakest Hero, if only by a fractional degree, and the only other possible candidate I can think of is Bunker.  Mr. Fixer is third-worst to me, and I can't even begin to guess who might be fourth.  But even these, I will play now and again, and quite happily; I just reserve the right to grouse about how they could be made even more enjoyable, and more comparable to my all-time favorites (which number well more than these least-faves).

I don't think Fixer and Expat had less design time or attention than other heroes. Not do I find them "primitive". Not at all. What I meant is that they were probably tested, by people who knew the game very very well and had a high threshold for difficulty and complexity.

It's like when you are creating a video game, and your testers are all highly competitive hard-core gamers : the end product will be well designed, but for this crowd, not for the other members of the audience. A more "mainstream" player will find it too hard, even boring - because the only feedback you had was from people who enjoyed a specific level of difficulty or a gameplay that other players would find irritating. Your design is still great, but not "wide" enough.

Even with a great design, you need lots of feedback from very different people - not to compensate "failures" of any kind, but to ensure that everyone takes pleasure in the game.

Shattered Timelines and Vengeance are, for me, proof that  the >G team did an excellent move by opening playtesting to many players : the awesome ideas and designs they created in the core set and Rook City are now even awesomer and fascinating.

Expatriette's strength and weakness usually revolves around the age old question, "Did you get your shotgun?"

Best power in the game.

Eh.

Ive had plenty of games where I never drew the shotgun and had a grand ol time. Assault rifle+nitrogen rounds saves the team from Voss or Dawn. Shock Rounds or SMG clears the board of the Matriarch if you have a teammate with DR. Pride and Predjuce can make for some pheonomal power usage when given a moment to build up - my favorite situation is having AR, Pride, Pred, and using AR to do damage every turn and play ammo onto Pride and Pred, preparing for the shot needed to get through something nasty coming up - Runes of Malediction, or Citizen Truth, or Gene Bound Guard, or Spites damage prevention drug, or  or or …

Shotgun is nice, yeah - 4 dmg power is nothing to sneeze at. But she can do so much more than that.

Meh, Wraith has a five-damage power, it's called "Impromptu Invention".

My biggest problem with Expat is that once you have Pride and Prejudice in hand or play, Quick Draws are dead cards, and her deck is not sufficiently strong to afford any of these.  Also several cards are useless if you never draw Ammo, and Ammo is useless if she never draws Guns.  And she could badly use a way to use extra Powers more reliably than with Unload; I'm almost never tempted to use Load even though it should be one of the best powers in the game, which any other hero would beg for.  It's even sadder that in three games with DWEP, I've never once Aimed (although just the extra HP makes that version better, apart possibly from her incap abilities - the whole "your next power comes with ALL THESE BULLETS" effect is great for "drop out and be invincible" characters like Visionary and Scholar when they're the last one standing after a tough game).

Sorry, double post.

Silverleaf wrote:

Yeah actually most of my group isn't really into damage.  One of the players that won't play Fixer anymore is all about support.  He LOVEs Adept and Visionary.  I would definitely say that is more the type of player to like Fixer for sure, but I know that isn't the reason my friends avoid him.

Yes please!

I agree except for the smooth part.

And this is why.

I look at Naturalists base power and think, oh Fixer if only you could do that.

Why would Fixer need to search his deck for a card that won't be there?

Ronway... we've been over this... You know what he meant. Don't be pedantic just for the sake of pedantry.

I'm not a huge fan of the search innate power. It's fine with Naturalist because it centers around his power theme, and the three cards he can search for are all unique and do more than just grant him a power.

Yeah, plus there's the whole "no duplicate innate powers" unwritten rule, so now that the Naturalist has it, no one else can use it.

Just for giggles lets consider a Fixer where you remove all Mediations and all but one copy of each style from his deck.  His base power is changed to:

You may search your deck or trash for a Style and put it into play.  If you do you may deal 1 target 1 melee damage. If you searched your deck shuffle your deck.

The idea being he actually MUST change his stance to get the attack from his base power.  Would this be fun, not fun, interesting, not interesting, or any combo of these?

From the view of if this had been considered prior to his release, think of all the extra card space he would have for new cards in his deck.

From the view of trying to play him like that now, his deck is a lot smaller so you hit all the rest of his stuff more easily.

Oh, yeah and not to rain on Naturalist's parade, of course this would somewhat step on his uniquness, its just an interesting topic for me to think about.

Edit:  Just another thought, you could actually switch tool and stance in the same turn with this and that is not currently possible.  Not that it is a bad thing that you cant, just an observation.

Aim brings a special hell with forced deployment if you get any other damage boost and hairtrigger reflex. Only once played Voss with a haitrigger reflex that was dealing three damage when they popped in and I can tell that game was overly broken almost not fun…

Even without Aim, if you have a damage boost...had a fun game once which included Ra and Expatriette versus Gloomy (yeah, yeah, it was only Gloomy, but still...). Expatriette had Hairtrigger Reflexes, Ra had Flame Barrier. There was a damage buff coming from somewhere (either Imbued Fire or the third hero was Legacy). Cultist enters play, gets Hairtriggered. Cultist hits Ra, gets Flame Barriered, usually enough to kill said cultist. Cultist comes back as Zombie. Zombie gets Hairtriggered, Zombie is dead. Lol ;).

That rule clearly doesn't apply to "this hero deals one target 2 damage".  Three different heroes in Vengeance alone have that.

Damage type is included. So a hero could have a 'get one of your cards' power, it just couldn't be a form...

Aim has some great synergy when you're Unloading.  Use that as your first power to beef up every other shot!

and as long as you are using pride and prejuidice you can still shoot every gun, because it is a power per gun and pride lets you shoot both of them

Deal 1 target 2 MELEE damage

Deal 1 target 2 ENERGY damage

Deal 1 target 2 PSYCHIC damage

Deal 1 target 2 PROJECTILE damage

These are all different.

To be a small devil's advocate, they are techinically different but not practically. Damage type doesn't matter most of the time, and the few times it does are not usually major concerns, unless you are dealing with targeted immunities like Shu or Omnitron.

No, but they are different enough that when Freedom Wraith was revealed with a 'deal 1 target 2 melee damage' power, the GTG guys bowed to pressure and changed it to not be like Haka's.

I wouldn't say Bowed to Pressure so much as 'Agreed with the Design Ideas of the Masses' :p

Yeah. Totally different. They didn't realize we cared so much about everyone having unique powers until we said something about it.

And I'm sure I'll get to live that dream someday, but since Unload is only a x2 in Expat's deck, I seldom manage to draw it, and believe it has never happened in my three games with DWEP.

Sophistry.  The difference is largely irrelevant in most matchups.  The mere existence of Absolute Zero, Grand Warlord Voss, and the Silver Gulch Water Trough does not suffice to make damage types an overriding concern in SOTM as a whole; they're more of a tacked-on afterthought that spices up a few specific matches.  If they were really meant to be different, EVERY villain, hero and environment would need to have various immunities and complications, so that you couldn't flip three cards without having to care what type of damage was being dealt.

You missed Frost's Cryo Chamber.

Not sure who you're responding to; if it was me, I mentioned Absolute Zero.

It isn't part of AZ's deck. It's part of the Freedom Tower.

Also missed: Leaking room, Shock dampeners, Empyreon, Adaptive Plating Subroutine, The Amazing Mable, Shu, Gloomweaver, Calypso, Prototype Servo-gauntlet, Focused Conduit-blade, Next Evolution, Tempest's incap, Argent Adept's incap, Omnitron-X's platings, and the Cactus.

Not to mention that the differences of their powers add THEMATIC differences, in addition to the mildly important mechanical ones.

You guys are missing my point.  This is still a tiny percentage of all the cards in the game; damage type is still largely irrelevant in spite of all these effects.  In order for me to consider Haka's and Ra's powers different, there would have to be virtually zero occasions on which they affect the game in the same way.  You'd have to have either tons of extra rules text on cards, saying that the Stout Barrel takes extra damage from fire and that Old Lady in the Street reduces all melee damage by 1 because she's a half-solid ghost, or else have rules baked into the game that says all fire damage causes things to burn for an additional 1 damage each round until something extinguishes the flame, but that melee damage represents being physically close to the target and thus you're also affected by splash damage from any area effect which hits them.  The point being, the effects of damage type would have to be interlaced through the entire game in a completely inescapable fashion, resulting in an overwhelming increase of complexity, comparable to a miniatures wargame or an RPG.  I am not suggesting that anything like this should happen, of course - but because it has not, damage type is largely irrelevant in the game, and thus two powers having different damage types does not make them different powers.

(For that matter, two powers dealing different amounts of damage doesn't really make them different powers; Haka and Mr. Fixer both punch things, Parse and Chrono-Ranger both shoot things.  I would however say that dealing different numbers of damage instances is a unique power; Tempest is not like CR, because CR is shooting one thing while Tempest is making a mild storm which pelts everyone with debris.  Likewise, Fanatic's Exorcism feels different from Fixer's strike, even though a component of it is exactly the same, because it has another component - no other hero has a "deal 1 damage each of 2 different types to the same target" power, but if Captain Cosmic turns out to have "Captain Cosmic deals one target 1 projectile damage and 1 energy damage", I would consider that to be the same power as Fanatic, and if he could deal the damage to two different targets, I'd consider it the same as F6 Wraith.)

The point I'm trying to make is that If the company had ever personally promised me that no two powers would be duplicated, I'd consider Haka and Ra alone to be proof that they weren't honoring the spirit of that agreement, and I am very much not a "letter of the law" kind of guy.  As far as I'm concerned, if they aren't prepared to deliver on a common-sense interpretation of such a statement, they should never have made that statement.

Baron Blade, Elemental Redistributor selective immunities

Voss, all of his minions immunities

Omnitron, Adaptive Plating Subroutine, selective immunities

Apostate, Gauntlet of Perdition only triggers of melee

La capitan, Mable is immune to melee

Ermine, Calypso reducing Fire

Friction, Shock Dampners making her immune to lightning damage

Vengeance Blade, Empyreon reduces energy damage

Absolute Zero, of course

Ra, gets an only Fire damage bonus

Fanatic dealing herself Radiant damage

Legacy becoming immune to a type of damage

Tempest incap, making one hero immune to one type of damage

Wrath only gets Projectile damag bonus with Micro targeting

OmnitronX plating cards. Stupdily important which one to get for him.

KNYFE only getting Energy or Melee + damage, and many of her cards doing a mixture of both

Megalopolis, all damage Melee

Ruins of atlantis increasing lightning damage

Mars base decreasing fire damage (Oxyegen Leak + Firein the Biosphere is amusing)

Pike Industrial changing damage to Toxic and increasing toxic

Silver Gulch increasing ligting dmage

Freedom Tower, Coolant Chamber

- Over a Third of the decks you will encounter has something that will affect damage type in a specific way  on causing bonuses or minuses.

Not to mention things like

Expat Ammo

Visionary Twist the Ether

Chrono Ranger Compound Bow

Fixer Style to change the damag type

in order to take advantage of other characters card boosts (such as Ra fire bonuses or Absolut ezero damage or fanatic radiant damage or knyfe energy/melee boost) or to get around immunities

Or also all of the Multiple damage sources to one target in one line (Ie, not Terrible Techstrike) take a big use out of this, especially against immuntiies and changing immunities. Fanatic base, Argent Adept Frost and Flame, the Enneads 4 individual hits power.

Damage types are also very thematic for the type of character and adjust the manner in which you play. Iron Legacy is mostly Melee with a little bit of Psychic. Cold and Fire damage for Zero and Fire damage for Ra would not be nearly as cool without its type. Energy damage for KNYFE puts her apart from Wraith, from Ra. 

Not to mention the 'mere presence' of Absolute zero would not work at -all- without damage types already as a part of the game.

It is far more than just ... tacked on.

edit, cause a lot of posts hit between me reasearching and this post:

Its far less than 'largely' irrelvant. It happens in close to 24 of 60 decks, almost half the decks in the game. It comes up in most of those games Id hazard - environment decks exspecially - as you are fare more likely to shuffle that deck each game at least once. Its there. And it will show up.

Are you seriously saying that, on turn 1 with a "heroes cannot play cards" effect in play (maybe the Chairman said Rook City was his in the Ruins of Atlantis), or better yet with no cards in your hand (Citizen Sweat + Citizen Tears + Blinding Blast), you play Haka's power phase somehow differently from Ra's?  If not, then you're not adjusting the way you play because of the damage type, you're doing it because of the cards you play.  The damage type is NEVER relevant unless a CARD says it is, therefore it is the CARDS and not the TYPE which actually differs.

Iron Legacy is mostly Melee with a little bit of Psychic.

And projectile.  [/nitpickfromtheguywholostagametoFlyingAssault].

Its far less than 'largely' irrelvant. It happens in close to 24 of 60 decks, almost half the decks in the game. It comes up in most of those games Id hazard - environment decks exspecially - as you are fare more likely to shuffle that deck each game at least once. Its there. And it will show up.

If it only comes up in half of games, then it is indeed "largely irrelevant" in the other half.  You can play multiple games with Mr. Fixer and Chrono-Ranger in which the fact that one of them is doing Melee and the other Projectile never comes up at all.  The two heroes's decks distinguish them, but their powers do not.

You do realize this is a Card game right?

I'm mostly agreeing with Envisioner here.

The majority of time damage type does not matter.  That the powers are all different is a concession to players, not something they set out to do.

probably 70% of the time the type of damage doesn't matter.

Is it cool that it will, at some point matter?  Yes it is.

Is it cool that thematically the little Fanatic in my head is hitting the bad guys with a sword made of holy smiting?  Yes it is.

Are powers that deal 2 damage of different types largely the same?  Yes they are.

How many times does a Chrono-Ranger player (or a hero with TtE on them) not even bother to declare a legitimate damage type.

Fluffy Bunny Damage, Delicious Taco damage, 3-Alarm Chili Colon Damage. . .

Kind of shows we aren't too concerned with damage type most of the time.

Actually Fanatic is a good example of how little damage type matters in this game.  90% of the time, Radiant is the correct choice for Absolution's damage, because nothing is ever immune to it.  You might occasionally choose Fire for Absolute Zero's sake or due to some similar effect; there's virtually never a reason to choose Melee, which several things are immune to and nothing that I can think of is extra-vulnerable to.  (I suppose once in a blue moon you might intentionally stab the Cactus with reduction in effect, getting it to stab you back, but in those cases you could just as easily stab yourself to much the same effect.)  If damage type mattered more, choosing a type for Absolution would be great; instead, it's largely pointless.

How many times does a Chrono-Ranger player (or a hero with TtE on them) not even bother to declare a legitimate damage type.Fluffy Bunny Damage, Delicious Taco damage, 3-Alarm Chili Colon Damage. . .Kind of shows we aren't too concerned with damage type most of the time.

Hell, Tempest can make it so all his outgoing damage is Artificial Imitation Peppermint-Stick Flavored Ice Cream Type Product Damage, thanks to Elemental Subwave Inductor.

It is impossible for all heroes to be perfectly balanced against all villains/enviornments. 

It is impossible to make all heroes fun to play for all players. 

The goal of Exp and Mr Fixer was to make street level heroes. In my mind these charecters are succesful at their roles. Does everyone want to play street level heroes? No of course not. But some people like to play an everyman hero that fights the bad guys against the odds. Some people like to play the rich heriess with her vast supply of toys. 

The great thing about this game is that the veriety of heros is so vast that you can play anything you want.

In my mind a characters like Exp, Mr Fixer, and even Bunker should be "weaker" then other heroes. They are base humans with no "powers". The fact that they have to struggle to get setup is in theme. I can understand where this might be unfun for some people to play, but this sort of hero is enjoyable to other players.

I like and enjoy playing Exp and Mr. Fixer. I can understand those people who do not enjoy playing them, but there are 21 other heroes to play. No one has to like playing every hero, find the heroes that you like to play and play those heroes. 

I don't like playing Visionary, but that is my problem not hers. 

Also Proletariat. Forgot him.

And, Envisioner, maybe YOU should listen to someone else for once. The point is that damage type is NOT meaningless fluff. True, it's not important for EVERY CARD, but there are a lot of cards for which it does matter.

And furthermore, it's a matter of flavor. Haka's 2 damage is different from Parse's 2 damage, because Haka's is punching someone and Parse's is shooting them with an arrow. Not to mention KNYFE's energy lance, Idealist's telekinetic jab, Absolute Zero's Elemental Wrath, and Ra's Pyre. They're similar, yes, in that they are all hurting someone for about the same amount, but the way they are going about it is different, and for a game like this -- which is as much about telling a story as it is about winning -- that matters.

I agree with this statement, but thats also why I wouldn't card if some new hero did the same type of 2 points of damage as a previous one. If its the type that fits the character then do that type.  If the amount is right for balance etc then do that amount.

The fact that it is the same as someone else I don't care.  They have different cards in their decks to make them unique.  Two heros with very similar base powers can still play very uniquely.  Look at Chrono and Parse.  They both do some projectile damage for their base power but are almost nothing alike in how they play.  If they had made KNYFE do melee damage, how similar to Haka would she be? If two heros both use say energy damage and one is using magnetic force and the other is using a lazer rifle, thats fine, it fits both thematically without making them the same.

Your argument would not persuade me to drop it, McBehrer.  But the fact that it turns out this "rule" never actually existed does.  I say the Powers are essentially the same in all but a handful of cases, but it turns out that nobody at >G ever even implied they wouldn't be, so it turns out there's not really anything to squabble about.

Stop.

Listen.

Calm the hell down.

Folks, if you want to yell at someone, go somewhere else.

If you disagree with someone here, tell them POLITELY that you disagree and explain why. If they don't agree with you, it's done.

Stop expecting everyone to conform to your version of reality.

This is a community of people. Diverse people. People with different opinions and different ways of thinking.

Respect that.

No one has to admit anyone is right or wrong. No one has to admit anything.

But we do need to accept that we have different opinions and respect that. Because if you don't, you won't be a part of this community.

I'm done. Seriously, trying to keep up with all the caustic posts today have pushed me over the edge.

Calm. The. Hell. Down.

Don't diss the fluffy bunny, man. They can lay out some serious hurt!

Clan Fluffy Bunny in their Jackalopes.

Hell to the yeah! 

Their deadly carrot clubs do not help improve your eyesight.

They do, actually. With them, you'll be seeing stars…

I think Ronway is being funny. It's a dry wit.

I have not been impressed with Mister Fixer. As much as I love him on a conceptual level, and think his cards have the best art in the entire game line, his mechanics haven’t done anything for me. Between his ridiculously low damage output and his lack of either armor or healing effects (I can never get out his Pipe Wrench when I need it), he’s usually been the first one to go down in a fight, in my experience.

Then I played him against Gloomweaver.

The first card I got out was, er, the one style card that redirects any damage that’s two or less, and right at that moment I knew all the zombies in Gloomweaver’s deck were going to be Fixer’s best friends. The second card I got out was Jack Handle, and then I spent the entire rest of the fight laughing with a mixture of laughter and embarrassment because nothing could hurt Mister Fixer, but it did hurt every bad thing on the board. I felt like Link batting fireballs back at Ganon, except the fireballs also hit every moblin in Hyrule.

I’m not really going anywhere with this story. I just wanted to tell it, because I’ve been wanting to like Mister Fixer for weeks and only now finally got a basis to do so.

I hate to bursy your bubble, as was done to me, but that style only redirects the first instance of damage. Found that out while playing with my cousin, and it still makes me a little sad

Also, while we're bubble-bursting, Jack Handle doesn't multiply redirected damage; he's not the one dealing damage, the person attacking him is.

Aw, crud. Oh well, I guess Mister Fixer goes back to being worthless in my estimation. Sorry, dude, I tried to like you.

…Wait, redirected damage doesn’t count as damage the hero inflicts? So any hero who has a damage buff can’t use that buff on redirected damage?

Nope.  The damage is still being dealt by the original source; only the endpoint of that damage changes. 

For what it's worth you aren't the first person to make this mistake, and this is usually the reaction people have when they find out.  Same with Expat's Arsenal Access.  "Arsenal Access is great!  I get to put one card in my hand AND one card into play!  Wait…I have to put one of those cards back in the deck, and only get to put one of them into hand OR into play?  Bummer."

I'm not arguing for/against Fixer or Expat, here.  It's just a common reaction I've seen with those cards.

For what it's worth Fixer was the man in our second go-round against the Vengeance 5.  3 variable-type damage against every villain target before any buffs...twice if I play Overdrive?  Yeah, I'll do that I'll day long!

Also, if you happen to be playing Mr Fixer in the Time Cataclysm and Fixed Point comes up...yay, and even more yay if there's someone who can let you play even more stuff before the Fixed Point goes away. Just make sure you don't try to play any more Tools/Styles after it's gone, or you'll be back to one of that type again.

I know that multiple style cards could be stacked during fixed point, but could you get multiple tools out of the field? I thought that tools said "return to hand" when another tool is played, not "destroy". I'm away from my copy of the game atm, so could someone refresh my memory?

Also, as  Mr. Fixer fan, I am enjoying most of his tools...except for tire iron. Anyone getting any good mileage out of that?

Indestructible means that a card cannot be removed from play. So that includes destruction and returning to hand effects.

Ah, cool. Ty, ty.

I like the iron, it is great vs. Voss, since it can hit the ships and with Tiger can one-shot guards.  I like it vs. reduction heavy objects, esp. with Tiger.  It is definitely situational, but it has its moments.

I was playing Darkwatch Fixer against la capitan and well I don't like Mable… So as soon as she came out I asked somebody to do 1 damage on her was chronoranger if I'm not mistaken. And then I looke at her melee Immunity and laughed like a maniac when the tire iron struck her dead from the rope she just went from 5 to 2 wich is the magic number… Henceforth the tire iron is now refered as Mablebane (especially with grease monkey fist, harmony or help)

Tire Iron is all about target selection.  It's a situational +2 to damage and/or ability to ignore (some) armor.  Unlike most of his other tools and styles, it gets progressively better the later Fixer is in turn order.  I've never found the damage type change to be very useful, though.  I think it's his least generally useful tool, but if you can manage to get it out in the right situation, it can be quite nice.

I believe the Tire Iron was the first tool I ever used, or maybe it was the Crowbars (the Jack Handle was a myth to me until about the 4th or 5th game with him, and Pipe Wrench wasn't much better).  I loved it, though it wasn't enough to make me love Fixer overall.  But it was a really cool concept for a card, I thought.

So, um, Vengeance.  Any theories on what exactly is happening in the art of Ermine's Heavy Hitter?  Is she supposed to be defeating Mr. Fixer in hand-to-hand combat?  Even though he's a master martial artist and she's just a slippery thief?  Or is the card name just a reference to her "hitting" on him while dodging his blows?  I really can't figure out what the picture is meant to show.

I think she is defeating him, or at least putting up a great fight. I make some sense of it being early in Fixer's comeback, since they are in front of his shop, and him still being rusty.

Of course, Ermine does seem to be a good canidate for being a good hand-to-hand combatant and Fixer might have underestimated how slippery she was and got taken by surprise.

Plus, he is quite a bit older than she is, she's probably slightly faster

She's a stealth character, however Mr. Fixer compensates for his lack of visual senses she might be hard for him to track.  I think she's getting the drop on him.

Surely he can easily locate her by the steady stream of Constant Prattle.....