Johktari - does she really like hunting?

[bigfatchef]

I love Johktari since she came out. Fast, wild, range +1 ... sounded like fun to play.
But then there was no good weapon for her and all spell attacks don't get her testing benefit. With Kajarah and finally hunting spear she has found her ideal equipment.
But she still carries around her awful wounded prey ability and has the question in her head: “why am I a fast ranged shooter? How do I use my abilities properly?“

One meta I know of is to play a lair and defend it ranged. But that doesn't use fast and playing a swarm is generally more a straywood-thing.

So should you rush with her? You're fast, you're in the enemy corner quick. But you don't want to be there since you shoot from a distance. And when you are where you want to be you have no further benefit from your trait. It doesn't make sense to me. (Playing against a druid is even worse because she nulls fast with vines).
Rush also completely leaves wounded prey unused.

Does she want a buddy? Who and why?

Do you have any great strategies with her? Successful ones? I would love to see some ideas or books here!

[Karadox]

This maybe not belong here, but that would be a good weapon for Johktari.

She could run away and shoot every second round.

[RomeoXero]

I just played a super fun and surprisingly effective jbm. 2 lesser teleports put you on or adjacent to your foe round one. Drop roused grizzly round 2,drop roused timber wolf round3. Puts the heat on fast! So far is 50 50 for success but it's only had 2 matches. So much fun!

[aridigas]

I just played a super fun and surprisingly effective jbm. 2 lesser teleports put you on or adjacent to your foe round one. Drop roused grizzly round 2,drop roused timber wolf round3. Puts the heat on fast! So far is 50 50 for success but it's only had 2 matches. So much fun!

Hell of a surprise! You have to go into the damage race round 2 or go home destroyed.

[Borg]

I just played a super fun and surprisingly effective jbm. 2 lesser teleports put you on or adjacent to your foe round one. Drop roused grizzly round 2,drop roused timber wolf round3.

Great opening. I like this aggressive style of game.
Also very risky of course.
I assume you've got to keep some Teleport/Tanglevine/unpassable walls ready next because if your opponent just Lesser Teleports himself and then doublemoves away from your creatures or better yet just steps aside and throws up a wall in between him and your creature(s) your fast opening may somewhat be nullified.
Anyway, this is going to surprise a few other mages

[iNano78]

A slightly less aggressive / more careful opening might be:

• Double move, FD Brace Yourself or similar. Lesser TP to FC during final QC phase.
• Cervere + Rouse. Cervere is in striking range (assuming he isn't Tanglevine, or hindered by Vines/Terrain, etc) and attacks R2.

From there you have lots of options. Gear up while your opponent deals with the Fast Eludive cat; grab a bow and fire a volley of arrows; Hurl Falcon (eg Thunderrift + Rouse all day long); Fellella, for a longer match, where she buffs you and your cat while you enter the fray.

With regards to the OP question, I haven't had much success with Johktari, but I've basically given up on trying to get all her abilities to work at the same time. Wounded Prey only does something if the opponent provides me with Living targets, so that's out of my hands but occasionally useful. I either build for non-spell Ranged +1 and mostly ignore Fast, or I build for Fast and largely (or completely) ignore Ranged. In the latter case, I've tried Kinships (Straywood is better), but maybe a melee Mage + buddy with Fellella support might be better.  Hunting Spear is nice for this as it provides Piercing and still gives you a Ranged option... kind of like having an Elemental Wand of Hurl Rock on hand. Only problem is the melee attack is 3 dice and you don't have Battle Skill, so you rely on Bear Strength, Wolf Fury, Lion Savagery, maybe even Gauntlets of Strength, in order to have a threatening melee attack. In other words, aside from Fast, you're among the worst melee mages, so you've really got to work for it.

[Pritoos]

Hello. I have been playing Jokhtari a few times these last months. As I admit to value mobility in all games, the swift forest amazon attracted me from the very beginning. I found more or less the same problems others have metioned: channels 9, wounded prey is not likely to be used very often, as it depends on the rival, and fast is not so impressive on the arena as it seemed.

But after trying quite different approaches, I changed mi first impression on her, even when:

- Let´s admit wounded prey is not very good. Don´t count on it, so avoid modifying the build according to the ability. Sometimes you will find it quite usefull, when you have to face that grizzly with your 3 falcons.

- Let´s admit fast is not teleport. The first time you see her, you imagine an arrow throwing whirwind running throuh the field. Though that would be awesome, most times it is not even neccesary, and of course it is usually not possible. But fast is a very good ability in two particular moments: the first turn (as it allows to position your mage in a very good place to begin), and when you need to go away from combat. So, fast can be used to attack at the beginning, and as the deck´s main defense (combined with elusive).

I find Jokthari, as many other mages, can be used in different ways:

attack with arrow support: swarm (lair+falcons)
attack with arrow support: heavy hitters (like cervere or a grizzly).
guerrilla with a small banking; with felella, lair and/or flowers.
others (awaiting feedback)

Which is best? depends completely on the mage you are facing. Against necro, I would probably recomment falcon swarm, using fast to place a lair near him and then support the aviary with your arrows. Against warlord I would probably do a guerrilla tactic, attacking the outposts to disrupt his banking from afar with the support of some creature, while felella and a flower give you some advantage in mana and/or actions. Against an adramelech warlock I would try heavy hitter like cervere for a fast attack, as the swarm would be easy to clear with some fire area spells she will probably have in the book.

So what will be the build you will include in your book? I say all of them. If you are decided to wear lair (and it seems like a good idea to do it), the swarm will only cost you 4-5 SPs to be included. Sure you will not be wearing all the Rajah´s fury (though you can manage to include 1-2), but you will be shooting to support the falcons (and the rival mage cannot easily escape from a fast swarm of flyers and your angry shooting aztec beauty). If you already use a lot of enchantments (which seems to be logical in nature school), you can add felella as a mana/action advantage manager for only 3 SPs. Rather than matching the book to a particular build, focus in the moves the mage is going to perform against one or the other, and include the tools to perform those moves. This means you will have to dismiss maybe one teleport or one purge magic, but it´s worth as the versatility is one of the strenghts of the jokthari, and definitely makes the mage more interesting and funny.

Other tips:

- You know your meta, but I recommend to wear a minimmun of 4 bows. I found people with 3 copies of dissolve (and smart enough to use them with every ranged weapon I played). But I rarely find people with 4 copies (out of the siren or druid watermasters). And you are nothing without a bow. I use 2 ivarium, 1 spear and 1 kajarah. Kajarah looks pretty good but it´s too cheap to dispel. The spear, I have not used yet.

- With a bow, gloves and hawkeye you should destroy a crystal/priest/monk/flower in one shot. You can achieve this easily on turn 2 or 3, and you are barely risking yorself (you are at range 2). This is the definition of guerrilla… it may seem a minor nuisance, but against a holy mage, able to heal the initial damage you can do to them, it may be a good idea to punish his/her mana generators instead, while building a killing powerhouse out of your favorite black forest kitty…

- You can put in some spells that work under certain circumstances (mainly incantations or enchantments), but creatures are too expensive to do that: do not pay SPs for animals you are not going to use. 5 falcons, Cervere, a grizzly and Slavorg can each give you a game. Rajah will not give you a game. A second grizzly probably will stay in the book most times (unless you plan to play two grizzlies in turns 2 and 3, but then I would rather use a straywood beastmaster…).

- Take 3-4 lesser teleport: if you are in one of the centered squares and have a lesser teleport, you can shoot anywhere in the field.

- if a significant threat approaches, run! if you manage to be elusive you can go far far away and use the turn to do some of the things you usually cannot, due to lack of actions (like dispelling two curses or healing yourself). And you will be ready to shoot your foe next turn (with the cunning use of a lesser teleport if you don´t have the initiative)

I definitely love to play jokthari. To me she is not the best winning mage (like many others, she always seems to be 1 mana away from greatness), but she is so versatile and mobile that to me she is the most entertaining.

Good luck!

[V10lentray]

there is always the Johktari Rushmaster build.

[wtcannonjr]

I like the Johktari with cats and canine creatures in support, Animal Kinship, Hunting Bow and Hunting Spear. This combos nicely to give two options based on opponent play. If they sit back to build economy you can use the bow to wound creatures and have your animals benefit from Wounded Prey to finish them off. If they charge or block this strategy then the mage can take a Hunting Spear and charge forward two zones using Fast/Elusive and benefit from the Wounded Prey and Animal Kinship for Melee +2 bonus against the wounded creature. The option to have the mage charge forward and gain the benefits in melee to finish off a wounded creature is a nice feature, but requires that you are ready to take down opponent creatures quickly. I recommend starting with something like Cervere and a Dire Wolf in the first two turns and go from there.

[SharkBait]

But she still carries around her awful wounded prey ability and has the question in her head: “why am I a fast ranged shooter? How do I use my abilities properly?“

- Let´s admit wounded prey is not very good. Don´t count on it, so avoid modifying the build according to the ability. Sometimes you will find it quite usefull, when you have to face that grizzly with your 3 falcons.

Going to have to disagree 100% here.

1. Wounded Prey is a free action that costs you zero mana.
2. Despite the fact that it generally doesn't work against Necromancers (Every mage has a matchup that is tough), I normally gain 10+ extra dice from WP. Battle Skill doesn't come close to the same number in a similarly timed match.
3. 80% of creatures in this game are living. This means Wounded Prey works on a LARGE majority of the creatures you'll encounter.

I think you guys are severely underrating this ability

[iNano78]

Going to have to disagree 100% here.

1. Wounded Prey is a free action that costs you zero mana.
2. Despite the fact that it generally doesn't work against Necromancers (Every mage has a matchup that is tough), I normally gain 10+ extra dice from WP. Battle Skill doesn't come close to the same number in a similarly timed match.
3. 80% of creatures in this game are living. This means Wounded Prey works on a LARGE majority of the creatures you'll encounter.

I think you guys are severely underrating this ability

While it can act like a free Marked for Death (but only for Mage and animal melee attacks), it has several limitations:
- Does nothing against a solo mage;
- Does nothing against a "buddy" if the "buddy" is (a) non-living (and that's more popular these days considering a desire for Psychic Immunity) or (b) if you don't intend to kill the buddy;
- Requires damage on the living enemy creature... so it often does nothing against Level 1 swarmy creatures since they either die to the first successful attack or would die to the second even without the melee +1.

While 80% of creatures are living, I'm not sure 80% of all creatures you're likely to encounter are living, and won't die to 2 or fewer attacks even without the bonus.

I'd guess that I typically get 3 or 4 extra dice out of it in Arena death-matches, but sometimes none, and would prefer something like Battle Skill 'cause at least that works against the enemy Mage, and the goal of the Arena death-match is to kill the enemy Mage (without dying in the process), not to hunt down all the enemy Living creatures that might get summoned.

That said, it works great if J-Beast amasses a swarm against a mage with a "few big" living creatures that you intend to hunt down before going after the opposing mage. And it works well in Domination since an alternate win condition involves killing Level 2-3 Sslaks/Usslaks that typically require a few bites each. Idol of Pestilence or similar would help to activate Wounded Prey against any/all living non-Mage creature(s) if it didn't also hurt your (presumably low-level) animals. Consecrated Ground or an early Plagued might help to put a point of damage on one or more potential Wounded Prey targets so your animals can benefit even on the first bite.

Summary: Wounded Prey would be a lot better if it could target the enemy Mage, and/or if it could apply to an undamaged target (for improving the chances of one-shotting Level 1 swarmy creatures, and generally getting one more use out of it per enemy creature), and/or if it was worded like Marked for Death (e.g. "gain +1 attack die") so that it also worked for Johktari's non-spell (and spell, for that matter) ranged attacks, 'cause as it stands, she can't stack the benefits from both Wounded Prey and her Archery skill.

By the way, comparing Battle Skill to Wounded Prey isn't really fair. You need to compare the sum of each Mage's abilities and stats. Certainly nobody is going to argue that Fast is as good as Quicksummoning, nor that Archery is as good as Pet. And I definitely don't think the sum of J-Beast's abilities are so much stronger than the sum of Straywood's to justify a -2 Life penalty - quite the contrary!
(And even if you wanted to pair up abilities for comparison, I'd suggest Battle Skill > Archery, Pet > Fast, Quicksummoning >> Wounded Prey, and 36 Life > 34 Life).

Another comparison: [mwcard=MW1E27]Marked for Death[/mwcard] costs 4 (or 6, with Magebind) mana to do something strictly better (e.g. applies to melee and ranged attacks, etc), albeit it can be Dispeled. [mwcard=MW1I03]Call of the Wild[/mwcard] costs 4 mana and lets your animals choose any targets they want (living, non-living, creatures, conjurations, enemy Mage...), although it only lasts 1 round and doesn't give a bonus Melee +1 to your Mage (which you probably aren't benefiting from anyway if you're making use of Archery). So Wounded Prey is probably worth a little less than 4 mana per round (against multiple targets) or per target (for multiple rounds), depending which spell you compare it to. How much is Pet worth? And Quicksummoning?
(Fast is worth as much as an unremoveable Cheetah Speed; Archery is worth less than Hawkeye, since it doesn't work on Attack Spells, although it can't be Dispeled; Battle Skill is worth a little less than Wolf Fury, or half a Bear Strength)

[Halewijn]

I have had 30+ games with Johktari and it's I get very little value out of it.

1. Wounded Prey is a free action that costs you zero mana.

True. But most mage abilities don't cost an action (and/or mana.) (Fireweaving, ethernal servant, spreading vines, veterans ..)

2. Despite the fact that it generally doesn't work against Necromancers (Every mage has a matchup that is tough)

Doesn't work against necromancer, doesn't work against most forcemasters, doesn't work against many books that don't summon a living creature because they know she can snipe them (see water elemental, iron golem, ...), does, in reality, not work (decently) against flyers unless you have tons of birds out there, does not work against a swarm because you want/need to kill those small creatures from full health in one attack. If you need a second attack, the +1 melee will probably be redundant anyway to finish it.

I normally gain 10+ extra dice from WP. Battle Skill doesn't come close to the same number in a similarly timed match.

I highly doubt you often get 10+ dice with it. Even if you did, you are comparing what looks like the main ability of Johktari to a small additional bonus on other mages. Her ranged +1 is comparable to melee +1.

Warlocks main ability is bloodreaper, smaller ability is curseweaving, bonus is battle skill
Straywood's main ability is Pet, smaller ability is quicksummoning (or other way around), bonus is battle skill
Warlords main ability is Veterans (even though this sucks), smaller ability is battle orders, bonus is battle skill.

3. 80% of creatures in this game are living. This means Wounded Prey works on a LARGE majority of the creatures you'll encounter.

Assuming the opponent will not adapt his strategy facing a johktari. This is the main problem with the ability: It needs your opponent to do what you want.


Additionally:
- The melee +1 only works when the creature is damaged, so never on the first hit
- This counteracts the ability of the [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard]
- Whenever you want to kill a creature, I often finish it with the mages attack spells or bow which is far more reliable to give the last blow when it's already wounded.

Last but not least: Beastmasters are mid-game mages. In many, many scenario's, they will be the ones pressing the attack and trying to kill the mage and not the creatures. It's not like they can outlast paladins, necromancers, priestesses or druids so focussing on creatures will mostly be advantegeous for the opponent.

Sure the ability has uses.. But I would be in favor if you could at least use it on the enemy mage as long as there is no other living creature on the board.

[Halewijn]

iNano just beat me to it by a second.  We have many similar points.

[Coshade]

Just throwing in my two cents. I agree with what Shark said. The value you get from the JBM can get deceptively out of hand.

[SharkBait]

While it can act like a free Marked for Death (but only for Mage and animal melee attacks), it has several limitations:
- Does nothing against a solo mage;

So? It doesn't have to. The way I see the point of the ability is to help you get a board presence advantage. If someone wants to solo mage in this kind of game, then they can learn the hard way that they should bring friends. Ignoring 1/6 of the cardpool isn't a good move.

- Does nothing against a "buddy" if the "buddy" is (a) non-living (and that's more popular these days considering a desire for Psychic Immunity) or (b) if you don't intend to kill the buddy;

Yes, that's in the 20% of creatures category for a) and you'll only do b if you already have a win condition available.

- Requires damage on the living enemy creature... so it often does nothing against Level 1 swarmy creatures since they either die to the first successful attack or would die to the second even without the melee +1.

Right, and in those cases you don't need it. But that doesn't take away from the ability's power. It's not a 100% of the time use ability, but it's still good. Paladin doesn't always strike the strongest creature each turn, Siren won't fermata a song every single turn, necromancer won't always plaguemaster every turn. These are just examples where those abilities are still good but not used on a constant basis.

I'd guess that I typically get 3 or 4 extra dice out of it in Arena death-matches, but sometimes none, and would prefer something like Battle Skill 'cause at least that works against the enemy Mage, and the goal of the Arena death-match is to kill the enemy Mage (without dying in the process), not to hunt down all the enemy Living creatures that might get summoned.

You're right, the point is to kill the mage. However, if you go after just the mage without regard for its support, then you greatly reduce your chances of successfully killing the mage.

By the way, comparing Battle Skill to Wounded Prey isn't really fair. You need to compare the sum of each Mage's abilities and stats. Certainly nobody is going to argue that Fast is as good as Quicksummoning, nor that Archery is as good as Pet. And I definitely don't think the sum of J-Beast's abilities are so much stronger than the sum of Straywood's to justify a -2 Life penalty - quite the contrary!
(And even if you wanted to pair up abilities for comparison, I'd suggest Battle Skill > Archery, Pet > Fast, Quicksummoning >> Wounded Prey, and 36 Life > 34 Life).

And while I respect your opinion, I'll disagree in general on things that aren't countered by math (36 is in fact greater than 34, I cannot disagree there ). I do, however believe that for playing into a mage's strengths, the abilities of the two beastmasters are much closer than you make it sound with the above comparison.

I have had 30+ games with Johktari and it's I get very little value out of it.

Then you may want to re-evaluate how you use it . (Not meant to be a mean comment, but I've had a significantly different experience with the ability. It wouldn't hurt to re-examine it.)

Doesn't work against necromancer, doesn't work against most forcemasters, doesn't work against many books that don't summon a living creature because they know she can snipe them (see water elemental, iron golem, ...), does, in reality, not work (decently) against flyers unless you have tons of birds out there, does not work against a swarm because you want/need to kill those small creatures from full health in one attack. If you need a second attack, the +1 melee will probably be redundant anyway to finish it.

It works on Necromancers that summon gorgon archers and demons. It works against forcemasters (most of them DO use living buddies). If it causes a mage to cast non-living creatures in fear of losing a living creature then it's helped limit their options in ways that are even better than the melee +1 it gives. It works fine against a swarm (mage shoots/throws/damages and the animal finishes the job and then can reassign the WP marker in the same turn).

I highly doubt you often get 10+ dice with it. Even if you did, you are comparing what looks like the main ability of Johktari to a small additional bonus on other mages. Her ranged +1 is comparable to melee +1.

10 is actually a bit low of an average (pulled down by the random necro matches). Let's say I have 3 falcon buddies (I've had games with more, games with less, but 3 isn't exactly hard to get rolling with a lair). That's 3 turns of all 3 attacking the same target. Generally it doesn't get concentrated like that, but it's not hard at all to net 10+ dice in a match from that effect.

Warlocks main ability is bloodreaper, smaller ability is curseweaving, bonus is battle skill
Straywood's main ability is Pet, smaller ability is quicksummoning (or other way around), bonus is battle skill
Warlords main ability is Veterans (even though this sucks), smaller ability is battle orders, bonus is battle skill.

I disagree with the sentiment here. I do not think calling things "main abilities" is reallly the right way to look at it. In my opinion, it's a whole picture thing like iNano pointed out. That being said, your experience is different than mine on nearly every mage above. I use/value the warlock's curseweaving far more than the other two abilities, and actually like the battle orders the best on the BWWarlord's statcard. Just food for thought from a different perspective.

Last but not least: Beastmasters are mid-game mages. In many, many scenario's, they will be the ones pressing the attack and trying to kill the mage and not the creatures. It's not like they can outlast paladins, necromancers, priestesses or druids so focussing on creatures will mostly be advantegeous for the opponent.

This is probably where we disagree the most. There is nothing stating that beastmasters are/have to be mid game mages. In my experience, they very well CAN outlast those listed by killing off their creatures enough to gain a significant board advantage. When to press that advantage is part of learning how to use the Johktari beastmaster effectively.




Final note: I tried to respond to the major points and put some real thought into the responses. It's meant as a discussion so I hope it sparks some new ideas