I’ve tried ‘ethical’ sister not taking doomsight radiance or bloodrazor, and she’s still strong because elf weapons but much less interesting.
Elf weapons in general get too much for free: Fantastic dodges, extra critical chance, bleeds and shield ignore are splashed onto already strong weapons.
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I think her weapons probably need a downgrade in the defense department - and I never understood why some of her push-attacks avoided shields. It fits on things like Flail, but Sword and Dagger?
@Saryk - Seems like Bloodrazor should be just direct damage and not have the massive bleed. If it could be built to one-shot Stormvermin with effort, then it could maybe be balanced. Perhaps incorporating the bleed to one-shot, though that would kill some enjoyment in the talent.
Your scenario plays into the guaranteed crits and Moonbow being a huge problem, though. Remove that talent - it’s just too strong, I agree. Maybe replace it with a more support-oriented talent.
I just would hate to see things nerfed so hard they become actually bad.
I’m stealing that name.
I also only play Ethical Sister whenever I want to play her because I find no interest in playing her OP version ; and even then I feel I’m playing in another league.
I was giving the ‘optimal dps’ scenario ; and most of the damage comes from the bloodrazor ticks and the Moonbow’s raw damage, more than the crits at least.
Does the S&D push attack ‘ignore’ shields like a flail does ? In my experience the push exposes the rat and the stab stabs them in the face, but that’s not much ‘ignoring shields’ than being fast enough to exploit the opening from the push. Greatsword also ‘ignores’ shields in that regard.
If the stab literally ignores the shield, there is a problem in my book.
Why does a “support” have a giant nuke anyways? I would much rather see Bloodrazor changed into something that doesn’t just outright murder elites and bosses. Having it retain the normal 6s wall duration and slowly pulse a bleed onto nearby enemies might be a nice adjustment.
S&D & dual swords push-stab attacks both ignore shields just like most flail attacks.
Check Cheese’s guide under “Special Case I: Cleave Resistant Units.”
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First of all, thank you for that very interesting link.
Second, indeed, these stabs ignore shields. Why those only though ? If you’re going for a ‘stabs ignore shields’ abstraction, why aren’t spears included ? Why isn’t Sienna’s dagger ? Why doesn’t the Rapier ignore them ? I don’t get the logic…
Edit : I actually really love the depth of this game and all the mechanics that go into making it the absolute marvel it is. I question some design choices but ultimately this depth is what allows weapons to feel unique. I used to not like the greatsword, now I love it ; I don’t like the dual swords on the elf ; but now that I learned they have a similar cleave mechanic (though way less effective cleave despite their heavy linesman) I might give them another go.
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Quick nerf options to temper Bloodrazor power
- Target limit 5-10 so you can’t jump off a ledge to waterfall AI and explode a whole horde+patrol.
- Remove stagger so you are trading control for damage
- Add charge time or slower animations for such a powerful ability.
It also was added to sword and shield push-stabs and S&D light3/4
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Indeed S&D L3 is a swipe, so they’re not all stabs…
Apart from flails, which are intented to bypass shields, I believe all others are stabs though.
I’ll say this, Elf is going to be my last character to level and that’s going to be a while off. I started off the game playing with a friend who soon came to be known as my SwiftBow Kerillian friend (no hate I don’t particularly care what he plays cause he plays good). I now mainly play the three dudebros and Granny Sienna cause I find their weapons more fun to play with.
This character was made for green circle chasing and it shows.
People think Chaos Waste crit boons + lightning + explosion are a terrible thing. Elf is kinda like that but lite version. She is the least fun character to play with if I’m another player.
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I’m not saying that Bloodrazor shouldn’t get nerfed,but have you ever considered why most people are running it in the first place?Personally,I’m running it because it’s instant stagger compared to Ironbark that only staggers after 6s.
Other than that,whenever you do run into SOTTs that are using anything other than Bloodrazor,the walls are almost always a detriment to the team instead of helping them.If the walls didn’t just absorb hits from teammates,it wouldn’t be such a big issue.It’s much better for the entire team for the SOTT to just run Bloodrazor over the other two just to eliminate the chance of messing someone over with badly placed walls(Saw someone blow themself up with their own Trollpedo shot because of a surprise wall right infront of them).The layout of most maps also make it hard to almost impossible to use the wall to its strength.
Obviously people would gravitate more towards the low skill and much more consistent ult pick of the three.
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I double checked the breakpoint calculator too and power investment will not get you a body shot. In fact you need power investment just to head shot kill one, or 2 body shot (it 3 body shots SV otherwise). However a crit will body shot without any power investment. If the Elf players in question were playing SotT, it’s likely what you’re really seeing here is the power of Morai hegs, more so than of javelins.
Of course that does raise the question of whether or not javelins should go from 3 hits down to 1 with a crit. Probably not TBH. This does show that their crit multiplier is probably too high.
So let’s refine the list of javelin issues with this info:
- They have too much cleave
- Their crit multiplier is too high
- They might have too much stagger power (they should still stagger CWs on headshot, maybe also on crit body shot, but not on normal body shots even with max power investment, though to be clear I’m not sure whether or not they do this currently)
Their base damage seems completely fine and reasonable to me. I think if those 3 issues were all addressed there’d be nothing at all to reasonably complain about with them
No even in their current state they’re still objectively lower dps and a worse sniper than a longbow with a decent headshot ratio. Sure not having to headshot for ammo sustain is nice, but even then they’re still killing consecutive specials slower than a longbow spamming body shots, when you consider the fire rate difference and reload commitment of the javelins. Morai hegs supplying on demand crits with the javelins very high crit multiplier is the real issue here that throws out their balance.
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I think you make a great point here; wall may be good with the ult that causes enemies to take more damage, on a very coordinated team, but it comes six seconds later and is largely just a poor road block at best. It’s a team game, but it’s asking for a lot of coordination for generally little reward. It is unique, I’ll give it that, and I wanted to like it - but I just don’t.
Because on top of those other issues, it’s incredibly boring - and I think the actual bush looks crappy. It’s like a carefully-manicured topiary! I know these are petty issues, but, well - Vermintide does a fantastic job with its aesthetics, usually, and this is stand-out bad.
SotT is a very bad support career, it’s true - but given that she’s actually a pretty cool class overall (who just needs some tuning and minor pruning, pun intended), I am not really sad about that. An actual “support” class would not be as fun to play and could easily be even more detrimental to the game, as having three heroes on steroids would be worse than one.
Regarding push-attacks going through shields; I’m cool with all of these except on Kerillian’s dual weapons. I don’t think Sword and Shield actually need this trait to be worth using, and Dual Swords - well, maybe they need it, they’re not great. But it still doesn’t make sense. Shield weapons sorta make sense.
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Her passive alone arguably makes her one of the best supports in normal game content. Realistically only coming up short vs merc, since RV ammo sustain is becoming less and less valuable.
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Are you sure about this? I could have sworn the wall has an initial stagger when you summon it as well. Two AoE staggers with a strong debuff at the end doesn’t sound terrible at all for 60s cooldown with radiance making it effectively more like 30s per Ult.
I agree with your general point on why everyone gravitates to bloodrazor, but I also think people are lazy and will take the option that gives the most reward for the least effort. So that doesn’t necessarily mean the other options are actually bad, though I’ll admit the extra duration one is pretty lacklustre and could do to be changed.
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The few times I tried out Ironbark,I casted it right inside/under bosses and they didnt stagger at all until it actually explodes after 6s.
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My main gripe about this is that it has such a huge range that it might as well be a global buff(100m range).Meanwhile,HM,Huntsman,FK(without aura range buff talent) and Engi all have pretty pitiful range for their aura.SOTT just have to exist in a team for her to help them.
The fact that her passives and talents leeches off of teammates for her own self buff is quite appalling for a support career.Excess thp from teammates going to her(this makes her an actually viable pick to run Healshare for sure),Radiance cdr from elite kills and Doom Sight giving her crits from teammates’ ults also.I would like to see more team oriented buffs than a selfish one.
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You’re right, I phrased that poorly; her kit is just largely set up with talents that are damaged-focused, rather than support-focused, would have been a better way to express my thoughts.
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Ah yeah might not be boss level stagger. Wil have to double check against mobs and elites.
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It’s so large I had thought it actually was global TBH. To add to this no idea what Morai hegs’ max range is but I can confirm from messing around with mates that it at very least works from complete opposite corners of the keep, which is pretty wild. I’ve advocated for a general range increase to auras for forever but this kind of range just seems silly.
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At the very least, if hers is that big, they all should be. It’d be preferable to their current inconsequential touching-distance.
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I’d prefer somewhere in the middle. Rock of the Reikland’s current range seems approximately reasonable as base for all auras of this nature.
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