Jimmy Fantastic wrote:I think narrow tiers is more or less impossible without a serious overhaul to all the rules.
AG4 teams are just too good, plain and simple.
+1/2 you dont get a full point though jimmy
elves have never had it as good as they do right now, everything about CRP rewards the elf player really. Journeymen benefit them the most, inducements all benefit the elf teams the most, the nerf to fouling REALLY benefits elf teams the most, and CPOMB as martin points out benefits Elves the most. Also lack of traits helps elves too.
There are a number of things you can do to stop elves being stupdily good. First of all nerfing CPOMB helps because it will make people take anti elf doubles as plasmoid says, it also means there will be more tackle about.
Improving fouling a lot would also be a very big help against elves, not because of the damage it causes but instead because of the threat it poses. I can't believe how badly the bbrc messed this one up tbh. The threat of powerful fouling stopped the stupid hyerball plays we see all the time now, elves constantly leaping into cages etc... because if they did the elves would get fouled the following turn and often bh+, now elves can not only leap into cages safe in the knowledge that fouling is lame now, but they can also use Wrestle which makes popping balls free even easier, ditto with the free dauntless.
The same goes for elves man marking a cage to break it open, you used to have to pick your most opportune moment to get in, now you can just do this every turn till the ball carrier is free. You couldnt do this back in lrb4 again because the threat of fouling was so great.
Some changes to wizard were good, like not relying on ag rolls for fireball anymore, but the lightning change was another piece of complete stupidity, now elves can just bide their time and lightning the ball carrier on a 2+ pop the ball out in the open then blitz away a tackle zone and grab the ball, its far too easy. I will never understand why they thought it would be okay to do this when the previous editions "hit anywhere on the field spell" (Zap) was a 4+ roll and there was a risky scatter if you fail, which sometimes turned your own player into a toad.
Also Traits help, now elves and skaven can get frenzy and dauntless on a player or two without a double, this again makes it easier for elves to dominate in games. Dauntless for ball sacking and dealing with teams that should be using their superior strength to tie you up, and frenzy for helping with attrition, and when elves start surfing players and getting combos like MB PO JU they can bash better than dedicated bashers now. which is just plain stupid. Elves rarely had a chance to take dauntless and frenzy because 3ish guard players are so vital for their team, this made it harder for them to break teams down.
Also St players had access to the best Trait in the game which helped them big time. Now that skill has been nerfed beyond belief to a sad state of vanilla and now sits in the large pool of skilsl i almost never see anymore.
So I do think elves will always be top tier (you got 1 point for this jimmy), but starting with those three or four areas is a good place to start to nerf the elves a bit and this would make a big difference right off the bat without having to overhaul anything (this is where you lost 0.5)
