My ideal would be if temp hp on stagger and kill got removed and headshot/crit and cleave were given to everyone. I’m not a fan of how on kill promotes saving last hits for that one guy that needs it. Stagger promoting a sub-optimal attack pattern feels lazy and less engaging to me.
The thing I like about headshot and cleave temp hp is that they always work. Stagger won’t give you health if you kill, or if you’re fighting a boss. Kill won’t sustain you if someone else lands the last hit out from under you, or if you need a bit of time to kill a boss.
The problem is that for this to work would require temp hp to be balanced on a per weapon basis, which is an absurd amount of work and will never happen. But it would be nice if cleave was the general sustain, and headshot/crit was balanced to edge out cleave on single targets or with an insanely good headshot rate.
The problem with removing stagger is that it has a disproportionate effect on shields. I’m not a big fan of shields, but they don’t really work well without stagger. Stagger is kinda meh for most other weapons that aren’t T-spear or flame sword. And the issue with kill can easily be fixed by simply nerfing the hp some mobs give (CW and maulers) and buffing the hp some mobs give (Monks/skaven infantry). There is a mod out right now where you can play with some modified talents. It works pretty well. Also, crit headshot is always going to be a poor option on some weapons because of attack angles (elf g-sword for example).
I’m not sure this is necessary unless a talent is far too strong on a particular weapon. Outside of that, there just needs to be one option on every career that works with every weapon. For example, I ran axe with on kill on IB and it felt very sustainable. Something that hasn’t really been true for a long time.
Does that means you were being specific with your words? No implied meanings?
I find it startling that you disagree with facehugging being a good headshot tech then. I’m always looking for ways to get better at melee headshots, so it would be neat to read a counterpoint(s) to the ones I made. I don’t see how maintaining distance is possible unless someone else takes aggro for you or if using absurd movement speed, especially since on regular Cata high stagger is just going to knock horde enemies over. Maybe on Deathwish with Beam staff since it doesn’t knock them over but keeps them still iirc.
I agree generally. I’ll add in addition that push spam granting thp seems cheesy to me, especially on any career with access to high stamina or stamina recovery. Making it so that pushes only grant thp if followed by a push attack might make getting thp when pushing involve some risk, but would be awkward for some shield chains that prefer push > heavy bash.
This isn’t relevant. Every thp talent is always going to be poor with a given weapon. While it’s true that crit/headshot is a bad fit for Kerillian’s Greatsword, it’s not because of that. It’s because crit/headshot requires very quick strikes to generate thp. Headshotting a single target in the cleave of this greatsword’s swing is reasonable. The only things the lights struggle to headshot are targets they shouldn’t be used against (mainly tall elites, which are what the heavies are for). For an attack to be so bad at headshotting to be relevant here it needs to be both low cleave and a very poor angle, like Kerillian’s 1h Axe’s upswing attack.
Since the discussion for the thp on crit/headshot idea has run its course and is unlikely to be discussed any further, having been overridden by a thp balance discussion, I guess it’s time to talk about what the point of thp talents being different is.
Should each thp talent work for only a few weapons, or should they be universal and reflect in combat choices made by the player? Or should they all be similar, like how they are in the thp re-balance mod (when I last used it that is, I’m using that point as a reference for this idea, not as a criticism), where even the Rapier is good with stagger thp vs hordes because of easy push spam and on kill feels like cleave thp vs hordes (it already does tbh vs Chaos hordes, not sure why it isn’t single target or limited to two at most).
Ideally I think they should be universal and reflect in combat choices made by the player, so that they are more playstyle dependent rather than all basically being the same in practice or just a yes/no for a weapon.
I dunno if I can agree with that statement. It’s 2 thp per push max, however ridiculous the enemy density. Hardly abuseable in practice, and even if you were to try it would just leave you doing very little dps for a prolonged period which is hardly helpful. The slam mechanic is 99% of what makes stagger THP good on shields, the push proc seems negligible and nothing to worry about.
That’s a really hard question to answer if I’m being completely honest. I feel like the latter is easier to balance generally, but the former is easier to make less restrictive on playstyle. Personally I’d say the latter option is safer and less likely to leave some weapons out in the cold. Can definitely see advantages to both though.
Fair. Since it has a small opportunity cost, it should be fine.
Should thp talents reward player tendencies, like a WHC with the Rapier focusing on elites would benefit from the idea listed in the original post (as it’s a multishot weapon that can’t guarantee landing the final blow like how an Exec or any breakpoint weapon can), one focusing on just attacking the horde from on cleave etc.? I think it being two talents for each weapon would be good.
It’s more like asking yourself what you do in combat with your weapon and what you’re effective at, and picking a talent that matches the answer. Thp talents being things players naturally lean towards could be superior to the current weapon to talent matching logic they have now, which has the same problems Slayer’s second talent row has. I think if there’s enough thp talents that match playstyles, then it shouldn’t be restrictive.
For example, as Slayer with the Greataxe, when fighting hordes do you prefer to focus down elites whenever possible, or kill the horde with heavy attacks? If the former, then on kill works well. For the latter, cleave works well. That’s a specific example that’s resulted from the Greataxe being good at both tasks with two distinct attack types, but I wonder if this should be made true for most weapons in a way that doesn’t involve changing the weapons themselves.
Of course, a player should be doing a mix of these things, but most naturally lean into one action over another. Most setups can’t do it all, and quite a few of the ones that can would benefit from the idea in the original post.
stagger thp wasn’t changed at all except it was actually nerfed for bashes and fixed to give thp when an attack that would have staggered an enemy kills an enemy. However, we were just able to track down a bug with the help of cheese that causes pushes to give more thp than intended. You can get up to 6 thp on pushes sometimes when the max is supposed to be 2. IDK if it will be able to be fixed, but that’s probably a big contributor to thp on stagger being so good on push-stab weapons.
I agree about kill thp. I think it should have been changed by giving a slight buff to pink rat health and giving a more substantial buff to thp gained from SV and monks. Also, clan rat hp is too high. But the mod won’t be finished for a couple weeks and numbers are being tuned currently. One of the changes will likely be a kill target. It was supposed to have one but it doesn’t work right atm.
I don’t really think it matters how you go about getting there. As long every career has at least one option for every weapon that’s all that matters. I don’t mean every option works with every weapon, but for each career, one of the three talent options needs to work with every weapon. For example, crit/headshot doesn’t work with elf g sword, but that’s fine as long as cleave is an option. It only become problematic if your talent choices are like crit/headshot and stagger.
How you get to that point doesn’t really matter. After a week picking your thp talent will become as flavorless as it is now. I’m just tired of seeing careers be bad because of randomly distributed talents in the stagger and thp rows.
Having said that, I feel like the thp talent you select should be based upon the weapon you pick and not combat choices you make. Influencing combat choices is generally not great as it leads to contrived decision making. (Again, looking at slayer DR for example).
However, I would be completely open to crit/headshot thp if it could be balanced. I think it would work well on salts/elf as they aren’t really stagger-focused careers and both have access to some high-finesse weapons that fit with the theme.
That explains it then. Thank you for the information.
They weren’t random. They were assigned to careers on an individual case by case basis with aesthetics and thematics in mind. That’s why Huntsmen has Bulwark, as drunk poachers are known for being a cornerstone of reliability in any group.
I mean… ranged careers having On Kill THP is a questionable choice.
Pushes granting more than 2thp happens when pushes proc multiple times right?
Typically forces enemies directly into stagger 2 and can sometimes use both stacks of Asrai Alacrity on Handmaiden.
Actually not sure about this. There was some element of design, but if you look at the way the talents are distributed across individual characters, it actually looks like they were distributed in a pattern rather than what purely makes sense for the class. I thought it was design at first too until Incan pointed out the pattern. It’s too consistent to be a coincidence.
Also note this exists on live.
Correct. It even makes the sound for multiple pushes. Not sure how to fix it atm.
I’m not exactly sure how to recreate it, I could be way off the mark… Density and turning my camera to introduce more enemies into my push angle/active frames seems to consistently break it.
Aye I noticed the same thing in Cheese’s clip. That it was happening on turn a lot. Seems like you’re dragging an active hitbox. Weird that push would even have a draggable hitbox. You’d think it would be like a bash.
Edit: the problem is I’m not a good enough coder to fix it. Random words does all the hard stuff lol. He’s MIA for a couple weeks while he does other stuff though.
