PART III
We looked at new terrain changes and map sizes last post. Now let’s unpack the PAC!
SPEED
- Flurry: No change
- Leap/Climb: No change EVEN THOUGH IT NEEDS ONE
- Phasing/Teleport: No change
- Earthbound/Neutralized — no change (even though we still think it could use an update/reversion)
- Charge : No change, but a few powers it interacts with make it more viable
- MIND CONTROL: Its minimum RANGE option gets reeled from 6 to the previous 4. For longtime clix players, this feels very familiar. Personally, I thought the minimum for this power should have remained 4.
- Plasticity: No change
- FORCE BLAST gains a minimum range of 4 for its POWER action application, down from 6. This seems appropriate, since the classic version of the power used to be 0 range. More to the point, the return of knock back damage means this should be reeled in a bit.
- Sidestep: No change
- Hypersonic Speed: No change
- Stealth: No change
- Running Shot: No change, but read on. There’s a new power combo with Telekinesis that didn’t exist before.
ATTACK
- Blades/Claws/Fangs: No change
- Energy Explosion: No change
- PULSE WAVE: It gets a big change — the halving of range values is OVER. Pulse Wave just has a 4 range now. This is a boost to characters who had 6 range or less (well, mostly, since sometimes you kinda wanted that really low range to not catch your friends in the wave). It’s a little bit of a nerf to figs with 8+ range. Though we still kinda want this power to be scarier, this is a pretty good fix.
- QUAKE: Another big change. Quake now wrecks terrain within 1 square before hitting the target(s). On a F.U.N. level, we’re not sure how we like this; we’d gotten used to this power reflecting both the massive ground-pounding of, say, The Thing, but also Black Widow sweeping the legs out of a bunch of foes at once. But the ability to smash through a wall to attack someone hiding behind is actually pretty darn cool. We’ll get used to this fast. It’s also back to being a dedicated CLOSE action.
- SUPER STRENGTH: It now can pick up non-object terrain, such as Barrier. Long one of the worst standard powers, Super Strength might have gotten its mojo back.
- Incapacitate: No change, still InCRAP
- Penetrating/Psychic Blast: No change
- SMOKE CLOUD: It gets the minimum 4 range nerf — or, as we longtime clix players might feel, a proper correction to its prior state.
- Precision Strike: No change
- Poison: No change
- Steal Energy: No change
- TELEKINESIS: Not only does its minimum range drops from 6 to 4, but the distance of each TK placement is also slashed from 6 to 4, regardless of range value. That’s a HUMONGOUS nerf. But TK gets some boosts in being able to move terrain around — AND use it in RANGE attacks again! In fact, said attack now works with Running Shot, so that’s interesting.
DEFENSE
- Super Senses: No change
- Toughness: No change
- Defend: No change
- Combat Reflexes: No change
- Energy Shield/Deflection: No change
- BARRIER: Minimum range drops to 4 and it’s vulnerable to Super Strength and more, making it MUCH easier to counter — probably a needed balance to this power. But it also gains the ability to effectively generate weapons for Super-Strong or Telekinetic members of your team as well. That’s a new offensive support for this formerly purely defensive power.
- Mastermind: No change
- Willpower: No change
- Invincible: No change
- Impervious: No change
- Regeneration: No change
- Invulnerability: No change
DAMAGE
- Ranged Combat Expert: No change
- BATTLE FURY: It now allows RANGE Terrain Actions as an exception to its barring of range attacks! That’s fantastic and sounds like great F.U.N.
- SUPPORT: It’s basically Regen for other people, losing the guaranteed 2 healing (making it markedly less effective on STOP clicks) and possible 4, but also losing the extra “attack” roll and other limitations.
- Exploit Weakness: No change
- Enhancement: No change
- PROBABILITY CONTROL: Drops to minimum 4 range. It’s going to be much more difficult to use this power as safely as before, especially on enemy turns.
- Shape Change: No change
- Close Combat Expert: No change
- Empower: No change
- PERPLEX: Drops to minimum 4 range. It’s riskier to use, requiring you to be much closer to buff friends or nerf enemies.
- OUTWIT: Also drops to minimum 4 range. This is not good for Outwit, because unlike many of the other support-style powers, the Outwitter can’t hide in the back line.
- Leadership: No change
ABILITIES
- OBJECTS are replaced with terrain. Terrain has stats now governing how far it can be thrown, how much damage or reach it gives in attacks, and how much it takes to destroy it.
- IMPROVED MOVEMENT: DESTROY BLOCKING is much better — I will no longer have to tell players they can’t stop in that blocking square they were in the process of running through.
- KNOCKBACK: Deals 1 damage for falling or hitting certain terrain — a partial return to old rules. But the PAC is going to either require an errata/clarification or game terminology may be changing, due to this weird wording: “(A character that is knocked back onto a lower elevation or into terrain suffers 1 damage.)” Suffer isn’t a game term, soooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- IMPROVED MOVEMENT: ELEVATED: The language has changed to “This character does not have to end its movement when crossing a boundary of Elevated terrain” — characters can now climb up and down rooftops without using transition squares. (Much more about that in Part IV.)
OTHER CHANGES
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INDESTRUCTIBLE: “This terrain marker can only be destroyed by using it in an attack or by its own effect.” It’s a new key phrase for these new terrain rules.
….that’s a lot, but not nearly as much as in 2021. They are leaning even more into melee. It’s looking like F.U.N.!
So far, all these changes are positive. Even the ones I was sure I hated at least a little are looking better by the moment. But there’s one more part WizKids is set to drop: New comprehensive rules. Hopefully they won’t ruin stuff.