Board Thread:Debate of The Week/@comment-28112409-20171002223259/@comment-31256456-20171008033630

Jallybwan wrote: Wolviller111 wrote: Team Mafia

Mafia is the better group since the Coven is just too inconsistent. (Inconsistency works both ways. It means the Town can't plan accurately for the Coven's attacks, which means that COVEN is the better group, not Mafia.) You can't really kill the first two nights unless you get lucky enough to actually get Potion Master. (CL + Medusa... how many times do I have to explain this?) I didn't mention Poisoner there, because if the town has a Doctor the death can be prevented way more easily than a mafia attack, since the poisoned player gets alerted. (Until the Poisoner has the Necronomicon. And you're assuming there IS a Doctor... there's 1 TP slot and 4 TP's. Disregarding RT, there's a 1/4 chance of the Doc being in the game.)

The Coven may have a consistent way of finding out player's role (since CL is always included) but of course that does not go unnoticed, since the player will be notified that they were controlled. In comparison a Consigliere will be relatively unknown since his targets won't get any notification whatsoever. (What a surprise, Potion Masters can do the same! Fancy that!) They can also just claim Investigator and mix up the nights they checked the players, since the consig's Investigator results obviously include Investigator in the list, unlike CL who can be easily outed. (...That's the strategy Witches used, so CL can use it until they get the Necronomicon. At that point, the pesky Vigilantes can't do jack flummery, and hopefully by then the Jailor will at least be narrowed down to a few people. And even if the Coven Leader dies, there's a chance of said PM or hell, even MEDUSA getting it, which is amazing in and of itself.)

The Hex Master, Medusa and Necromancer all just too inconsistent, as i mentioned earlier. The Hex Master can of course be compared to the Arsonist, but unlike the Arso the Hex Master cannot choose when to kill their targets. So if a Hex Master actually manages to hex all the remaining players, the Coven often times have majority already anways, so the only purpose of the Hex Master was to speed up things. (And it does so wonderfully. Done right, the HM can halve the amount of nights it takes to achieve majority, and thus, victory.) Furthermore the Hex Master is just a dead role for most of the game until the very end. (No, it's not. It's a mix between and Arso and a Framer, but the frame lasts forever. It's still doing something. And with the Necronomicon, it's killing people as well.) This role is just based too much on luck, since the target you just hexed might just get killed by someone else, resulting in a wasted night. (The Framer's target might not be visited at all. The Ambusher's target might not be visited by anyone. Wasted night, wasted night.)

The fact that Medusa can only "alert" 3 times makes her role pretty bad. (So... Veteran's bad? That's a flaw in your logic, Vet is the superior TK in most circumstances and everyone knows it) Sure her target's will might get cleaned but when you actually stone someone in a later stage of the game, the remaining players often know who the stoned person was visiting, since they might be some known TI who said he would check you this night. (It is VERY rare that a TI would do that, since they'd expose themselves to the Coven Leader. And if they said they would visit someone non-Coven, and the CL controls them into the Medusa, that person they said they were visiting is now gonna get lynched because everyone thinks they're the Medusa.) If you don't wait for situations like that and just stone randomly, you will probably just waste your ability since the odds of someone visiting you by chance are not that high. (That's why the CL controls people into the Medusa. Veteran literally takes that chance every time it alerts, and Vet's an amazing role. Medusa's a Vet with an added Janitor effect that can have her teammate send her victims.) After the 3 "alerts" this role just becomes useless. (But with the Necronomicon, it becomes a Powerful killer with an added Janitor effect. That balances it out, I'd say...) Besides that, a Medium can easily out the Medusa by talking to the stoned player. (I've explained why this isn't a huge problem already, see other posts.)

The Necromancer is also a role that relies a lot on luck. Someone with a useable ability actually has to die, meaning they are 100% useless the first night. (GF is useless the first night, and likely for a few more afterwards. It just sits there and orders the Mafioso around, only stepping in when said Mafioso is indisposed. Janitor's reliant on the killing roles doing something, and if both of them are indisposed then IT becomes useless.) Furthermore, most of the time those abilities won't really help the Coven a lot. How does controlling a dead Sheriff really help you for example? (Oh hello there Serial Killer... Hello there WW... And hello there Sheriff claim if you actually find one, so it's worth a shot.)There are only a few roles that actually help the Coven, like a Vigilante. But even then those corpses can only be used once, which often times results in the Necromancer just being useless. (Once again, the Necronomicon saves the day! Ez killing role!)

The Potion Master might be one of the more useful Coven roles, but he can still only use his potions every 3 days, which is a long cooldown time. (The potions are timed so that you have to use variety. AND THE NECRONOMICON STEPS IN AGAIN, FANCY THAT!) Besides that, he will instantly be known if he chooses to kill N1. Mafia in comparison always has the ability to kill N1, so no roles would be revealed there. (Unless the Janitor decides to clean, or the Forger makes himself obvious)

The Necromonicon might sounds great at first, but the Coven is just useless until they actually get that. (False. Coven has an equal, if not higher kill count than Mafia even without the Necronomicon, and it's only a 2 night wait.) They have no way of killing  (besides the Potion Master) (And CL + Medusa, or just Medusa on her own, or Poisoner...) until Night 3 in which timespan the mafia might already have killed 2 players. (And the Coven can easily have gotten those, and likely stoned em as well. Medusa's guaranteed to be there.)

The townies have a lot of new strong roles that help them defeat the coven pretty easily. The Psychic will get 1/2 evil player every second night, which might just be enough to kill a coven before they even had a chance to attack. (I fail to see how that doesn't work on Mafia as well... Oh wait, it does :D) There are 2 new TP roles which makes the job even harder for the Coven. (At least the Coven are equipped to deal with these new threats. Mafia was designed for a weaker game overall. Coven's stronger because it needs to deal with stronger enemies, ya get me?)

Overall the Coven doesn't have a real way of deceiving the town or spreading wrong info. The mafia in conparison has roles like the Forger/Framer or Hypnotist who can easily get the town to lynch a from person. (Medusa stones people to create claimspace, CL phucks around with everyone in general, Potion Master and Poisoner can work together to cement the PM as a Doctor... the list goes on.)

If you take the Coven Expansion Mafia into account, they even have anotehr way to kill. Besides the Mafioso and Godfather they also get the Ambusher, which could potentioally lead to 4 mafia kills before the Coven could even kill 1 person. (How the phuck did you end up with that number? You can only ever get 2 kills a night MAXIMUM, and if the Ambusher gets seen then he's phucked. Coven can kill at least 1 person a night until the CL gets the Necronomicon, at which point the chain of killing starts and the Coven overtakes the Mafia. Don't try and establish the Mafia's dominance over Coven in terms of killing power, you'll get shot down. Coven has a higher kill count and that's pretty much final, unless you can find some gamechanging situation to tilt the scales in the Mafia's direction.)

I'm quoting this because i'm just going to point out some things-

You point out that Potion Master can do the same thing as Coven Leader to counter the consig argument. Well, Potion Master is really not a good replacement for consigliere- only once per 3 nights, making this point completely invalid in my opinion. Now you can obviously argue that the Poisoner can actually kill every night, without a doctor, but this is basically a nerfed mafioso/gf. Okay, you can again say that you can kill 4 people or more per night? Then you are stuck for the next few nights finding out how to kill town as you run out of things to kill with, until you get the necromonicon. The town not knowing how many people will die is not really a disadvantage... you also say the chances of doctor are low in a game, which actually proves one of my points as well: How are you supposed to predict what your coven will be? For mafia, every single role can be worked with, but for coven, let's say you have two non threatening roles as your rc, you are dead. Coven Leader itself is a underwhelming role without necromonicon- just a consig mashed with some weird mechanic and voila. but you reveal the presence of a witch as soon as you use it. And your assuming that the town won't gain info while you are sorting out 4 coven. There's TI for a reason, you know. The Mafia can EASILY change the tides and confuse the town- like my blackmailer games, wheras you COULD theoretically claim doc or invest and get away with it for 2 nights- but again, everyone expects a potion master, so they'll be automatically suspicious of your claim. Consig isn't as flawed in that sense. Hex Master is bad, i'm just gonna say it right away. You can't curse enough people before being caught, and the invest result isn't doing anyone favours either. It's kinda like pac-man in smash 4- a character with a LOT of techs that could in theory destroy anyone, but just doesn't work in practice. sorta like coven in general. Medusa is good. just a little suspicious and hard to kill either than the cl tactic- "vet" baiting doesn't work because you'll be caught if town is smart. You also mention that mafia is "designed" for a weaker game but i personally think most of the new town roles are not that overpowered. Oh, and have you heard of Custom?

sorry if this was really bad but i was following in order of what u said so that's why it isn't so good

coven reminds me of ww

mafia reminds me of sk

one more consistent, one has more potential. Jally makes some excellent points- i might change my view in the near future.