Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-33167183-20180817003113/@comment-32881402-20180819080819

1. Most of the Mafia roles are useful.

The Framer works as a way to conceal roles from others and make town potentially mislynch because of a lack of information. It also has unlimited claimspace because of its easy claim to framing. While the Spy is a counter, it is not guaranteed to roll in the rolelist. The Spy must also reveal their role, making them a target for the Mafia. With Jailor meta, or other confirmed Townies in the game, this is incredibly risky especially as you potentially sacrifice your life to tell the Town that a player could be framed? It does not reveal the identity of the framer, nor confirm its existence. The Framer may not be the most powerful role, but I'll say it's underrated.

While I am not too familiar on the change with Disguiser, I believe it can change its role shown to the Town on death and fool the Town. I agree that this is among the weaker roles of the Mafia, but it has its Pros. Its sacrifice can lead to many mislynches if played properly. For example, you could cc a Sheriff claim, and post your will, telling the Town that certain players are Mafia or SK. This could rid the Town of potential Investigators and Doctors (if such roles were claimed) and that's only a fraction of what the Disguiser can do.

I have also never encountered an Ambusher before, but I see that it is extremely confirmable. This role I do not wish to fight for, as it has so many disgusting flaws not only with getting caught, but with inconsistency with KPN and lack of control over who you kill.

The Mafioso is a necessary team player. It makes the Mafia's killing so much more consistent. While I do think that tactical mafia should be a thing, the Mafioso is an important member of the Mafia.

The Hypnotist, however is a brilliant role which can fool others into thinking certain roles exist (possibly getting a mislynch on claims in another alignment). Not only can it trick players, but can also reinforce its claim with notifications. It has an easy claim to Escort and Transporter and a more risky claim to Doctor. I don't see where you're going with 'Town will eventually hang you', 'rarely works', 'can't play' or 'killed by a Neutral'. It generates a message, so it should work every time and the chances of it being killed by a neutral are low, unless you claim Escort and the Serial Killer attacks you. These are extremely weak arguments which rely on your experiences alone.

2.  It is unfair to compare the Mafia and Coven. The Mafia and Coven are two completely different factions. Coven plays much more aggressively whereas Mafia's limited KPN is made up in better deceptive capabilitities. They are both factions which will never appear against eachother in a good rolelist. The individual roles in both factions may need tweaking, but they should never be compared. Comparing roles from completely different factions is the weakest argument by miles - you could say 'buff the investigator because the consigliere is objectively better', even though the investigator is already in many ways overpowered - it limits claimspace for scum to the point where PoE gives Town such a huge advantage in ToS without reads and other skills.

The Coven is overpowered and anyone making arguments that the roles aren't extremely powerful is wrong! It's full of roles which need reworks and nerfs. But that's Coven's problem, not the Mafia's.

3.  The ELO system works! If you look at the elo formula, it clearly factors in winrates, in both elo gain and loss, making the difference in winrates unimportant. And please, never EVER use All Any as an argument. It's a chaos gamemode and requires much less skill to win. The fact that you're forced to be a solo Coven from the beginning of the game is out of your control. Also, using your own experiences as an argument is weak, because others may have very different experiences. I could say that Coven are extremely weak because I played a game once where all of my teammates died by n3 from Mafia and Town and I lost the game because I was a solo Necromancer. Personal records are unreliable and should not be used to support arguments.

I am not necessarily opposed to the Mafia being buffed, as I do support ideas such as Tactical Mafia, but your arguments are weak and you have not offered a buff to the Mafia. This is more of a thread trying to explain why Mafia is useless compared to everything else, which I think is just unnecessary. If you wish to propose a  change,  I might be more supportive.