Hello,
I don’t know if someone already said something about that (i read a part of all topics but they are a tone of theme so sorry if it was already said) but the Dwarf class Slayer got a pretty huge change between the beta and the release. I just unlocked it hence my reaction time.
The Slayer as in the beta had those feats and quirks: No ranged weapon, Fast recharging active skill, and a very interesting passive witch was: When you hit an enemy you gain a stack of [i don’t remember the exact name] “fury” to the maximum of 3. For each you gained a boost of attack speed. It was great because you could use your active competence to jump into a horde of enemies and then time your dodge right and begin to kill a lot of small enemies. On boss it was not bad either even if less effective because of the comparatively low damage of melee attacks. You would be downed quite a few time in veteran but you could play it. in champ you would need serious stuff and a good team (as … always i guess) but it was playable. But Now… The “Fury” is a damage buff, or if you don’t hit fast with a no ranged weapon character well… You are just useless. The tiny minions will just hit between you’r first a second strike or second and third and will interrupt you ,opening you to a swarm of hit, then the dodge is not very helpful because you simply can’t evade 30 rats at the same time. So you have to block, but you can’t block much making your active ability a retreat one not an attack one anymore. And here you have it: the slayer is just no more useful. Why take this when you can have a tank that don’t take damage every 20 sec that have fat stamina and even if lower damage, still ranged weapons. It’s sad because its the main reason i bought the second one. I loved the first but grinding was not fun in the first. When playing the beta, seeing the slayer [Gortrek being my favorite character in warhammer (he’s a slayer)] i was very excited about this… at last a fun way to slaughter your way… But then i got the slayer today … and … i’m sad. I don’t know if the slayer was “too powerful” in the beta or what but i wonder if other player feel the same way than i do: disappointed.
@Prorbac It’s hard to describe exactly, but as a fellow Gotrek fan I can see where you’re coming from.
There’s a myriad of changes needed for the Slayer to be better in high difficulties. I don’t think any 1 change will make the difference. I always feel like I’m short changing my party when I roll slayer, because he’s just such a liability compared to the other 2 classes.
What I think he needs.
Passive Stamina bonus like Iron Breaker (All Dwarfs have high endurance anyways)
Throwing Axes to give him a limited range capability
Some kind of party buff (damage or stamina bonus perhaps)
Invulnerability frames while leaping and maybe for a second or two after landing
Buff to stamina on all his weapons. Biggest issue I have is with the low stamina on 2H Hammer compared to the high stamina on a 1H hammer.
Just some quick thoughts that would make him more viable. Curious what others can come up with.
as a devoted slayer player (thats a rhyme and thats good) I must say thats the only point I agree
the atk speed buff is good, defence with talent granted and temphp on lvl 20 makes him an easy horde slayer as hes meant to be…getting the swift slaying trait or an kruber in the goup makes him a meat grinder
he stuns enemies or pushes em back where hes landing so u dont have to instand dodge/block and when u start hitting he gets faster and harder by the time u stack up… been on champ today mostly (wont go to leg without pre-made) and he is awesome
I’d agree that with good traits and gear and having a Kruber all go to help his effectiveness, I’m more looking at the Slayer compared to Bardin’s other career choices and what utility he brings to a party.
With my IB, I essentially free up all healing pots to the party along with ammo due to drakefires. Plus all the CC and control I’m providing with my shield. There’s just a crazy amount of value I’m providing as an IB.
Would love to hear more about playing as a Slayer though as I know I’m not the most experienced one. What weapons are you using on him?
If I am looking to play a game I’m anticipating to be a challenge the Iron Breaker is the only way to go. Slayer doesn’t have much to offer.
I can play in a way which consumes no ammo and makes me a great choice to hold tomes and grims. I can taunt bosses and block a wave of chaos warrios with a freagin’ troll while my team gets out of a tight spot. In the instance of a horde mixed with specials running up on a the team, you can simply melt away the unshielded rats and let your token elf murder the specials.
Lots of classes have condition dependent buffs to power. Bardin has none on any of his careers. Missing health, number of nearby enemies, or for the elf being over 25% hp ( )… slayer should get a talent that gives him a substantial power buff AND movement speed buff (maybe an intense reduction to the cool-down of leap instead) in the presence of monsters or large enemies and bosses.
To me, a slayer is a monster slayer. He has nothing interesting vs monsters. Without the level 25 talent that imbues a movement buff on jump - you’re not catching a boss after he knocks you half way across the map and/or if he decides to walk after an ally… meaning you can’t even help them. Lacking ranged is a pain here.
I play mainly Slayer and Im on par with other heroes even though I dont have a range weapon that doesn insane amounts of damage compared to my axes. I demolish armored and shielded enemies and completely rip through hordes. The only time I use leap defensively is when Im the last one standing and need to get to my downed teammates waiting for rescue, or to dodge a wave of bile.
The slayer is definitely not useless. Though, Iron Breaker is better without a single doubt. Given that you can super tank and just keep dealing hits, you ultimately aren’t really doing much less damage at all. You have ranged weapons to keep damage pumping while closing in on the target.
The vulnerability of the slayer class really doesn’t match well with the lack of ranged weapons. This is mostly an issue during boss fights. To not get splatted, you generally have to do some hit and back off tactics and that just doesn’t work well with the slayer. You either get real lucky or just eat a ton of damage if you want to do some damage to the boss.
Maybe if the leap did a large amount of damage to a single target you land on along with its current effects to surrounding targets, you could do that then go back to cleaning up the puny enemies in between leaps on the boss.
I’m pretty sure the boss taunt talent on IB is broken right now, but once that is working it will really be a top tier tactic and rule out even using the slayer, at least for myself.
On higher difficulties, getting hit by the boss is not really a viable option, especially with a couple grims. So, the ability to run back to it after getting hit is not very useful. Given that most of the bosses have wide angles of attack (or can instantly turn and hit) and a number of attacks with little to no windup, simply being near them for more than a couple seconds means you are likely going to get hit.
Right now, the slayer’s damage comes from a constant hail of blows at close range over time. if he had some sort of spike damage option, his mobility could actually shine in a boss fight.
+1 to add throwing weapons to the slayer. And for those who said that it doesn’t fix with the lore, I think it might fix, and also, Bardin uses grenades in the game, why he can’t throw his axe to an enemy? That doesn’t make any sense. There’re times it would be helpful, some enemies are imposible to hit in melee because they’re in a roof, or hiding behind a fence, etc…
To all those who actually play it: first well gj because i can’t even play it in recruit because of what i said, and, have you played to the closed beta? Because the surge of speed that he had was so good. It was fun. Now i play a slow fat ass without ranged weapon. Sure his active ability make him faster. But if you rely on a active ability to do damage the game win because it have more than just one boss well placed for you. And then it is also a comparative point of view: if your in trouble on a level what is the best option: well certainly not slayer. At last i will say that beyond the “power” of this class it really is the fun it gave before that made me wright this topic:
Slaying hordes was a fact… Now your pushing your slow limbs to the contact of enemies… That’s no fun.
I agree that slayer in CB thanks to insane attack speed was way more fun, but slayer is fine currently even in legend. You just have to have good awareness and use the level 15 leap cd reduction + swift slaying + level 25 movement speed to its full potential. Also, the heroic deeds for champion that upgrades roaming enemies (which replaces regular rats with stronger chaos mobs), slayer is pretty much mandatory for mowing down the horde fast enough.
Well i am relieved that it is not as bad as i experienced it originally then. I just have one last thought: Then why they have changed the Slayer of CB? And also: what kind of trait and weapon do you use to be that efficient? Because i personally love the dual axes but i don’t know if they are viable anymore?
Slayer with increasing AS was ridiculously OP. A good slayer (which I admit is a bit rare. Along 200 hours I spent on the beta+release, I met only 1 functional slayer outside people I knew before) could solo delete SV patrols in Nightmare(Champion) pretty easily in seconds.
I use dual axes 90% of the time, but bring out the two-handed hammer for chaos warriors or shielded SV. The key to being efficient with slayer is avoiding damage with leap cc + movement speed and using block only when you mess up the dodge (or reviving, etc). I recommend doing lot of private legend runs to practice. Once you get used to this “dodge-dancing without pressing the dodge key”, you can pretty delete hordes by yourself easily.
For talents I get crit chance, leap cdr, damage reduction and movement speed. I have swift slaying on my dual axe + two handed hammer, but resourceful combatant on hammer might be okay if you use it defensively at chokes.
I think you’ve missed the point of the Slayer. It is a class to remind you why you should ONLY play ranged classes like the Ranger, Waystalker, Pyromancer, Huntsman or Bounty Hunter. The only thing that is correct with the Slayers name is that he gets slay…ered by the enemy. I’ll stick with my 10-12k damage per round ranged classes instead.
Interesting points to bring up, and I can see why people think slayer is not in a good place right now.
But I have to say I think not only is he in a very good place with other class’s being a bit over tuned looking at you IB. The biggest thing I have to ask is how many people are basing slayer play on Recruit to champion? If you are basing it just on this, then I can see why you would think he is weak, any fast attacking melee weapon or ranged weapon full stop rules. However he kind of shines in Legend at this point his ability to trash all armoured targets is amazing, his mobility and killing power is very noticeable if you compare it to other melee builds. Yes ranged can make it boring for a range and yes you do have to play very calculated.
also having a second melee weapon to cover the weak spots of the 2x1h axes is amazing, the 1h hammer makes such a good second.
don’t just take my wall of text as gospel though, I have been releasing and making vids to highlight that Slayer does not need changing in his current state… you just need to wait till you are ready for legend.
If I may here is one of said videos that I feel highlights what he can do fairly well.
Personally I’d just like to see the Slayer get a way to gain more health from doing his job(s) well, or by just doing something good in general.
Like maybe X amount of enemies killed in Y seconds grant back a portion of his health, giving him incentive and staying power when fighting hordes but still punishing him for not appropriately dodging / blocking and just face tanking a hit by not letting him just completely outheal the damage he takes.
Against a small horde it’d let him potentially heal up a chunk of health, wouldn’t let him heal off single scattered targets enough to be considered exploitive, and would in general give Slayer a bit of staying power that he lacks in lieu of just a straight defensive increase like others proposed.
It’s not that the Slayer is bad or isn’t viable, there are just better options. The IB is… dare I say it… hands down a better class. Other classes kill hordes and bosses just as well as the Slayer without giving up ranged. I switch between Slayer and IB on Champ. The Slayer is fun but I can absolutely carry a group as the IB.
He needs buffs to make him worth taking over IB imo.
If we look at it from a Lore perspective Slayers aren’t trying to just outright die. They are trying to redeem family honor by a worthy death. That doesn’t mean they need to be a glass cannon. I think more passive defense or hp would be good.
Ranged… I’m torn I like having two melee weapons. I don’t want just throwing Axes, it feels like a cop out. A Chain Axe fits the lore and TT though. Give it maybe the same range as the flame throwers. You could even have it either pull you to the target or the target to you with it’s right click. Put it on like a 20-30 second cool down.
)… slayer should get a talent that gives him a substantial power buff AND movement speed buff (maybe an intense reduction to the cool-down of leap instead) in the presence of monsters or large enemies and bosses.
