On Waystalker, I always use serrated shots with the longbow. I think even Drakira’s Alacrity is better. One extra shot from Blood Shot isn’t going to do much. Honestly, I think it should stack up to 3 melee kills that give 3 double shots.
Handmaiden has a mean attack speed bonus from dodging, but Foot Knight also gets 15% attack speed from pushing. Mercenary can also get the 5% bonus crit chance. I think handmaiden is fine, but you’re right. Her talents are somewhat boring passives.
I’d say no disagreements with your assessment of Shade or SotT, but I think shade has been balanced, and SotT probably won’t become much less powerful than the initial nerfs because it is DLC. Really shade with moonfire, SotT with javelin’s that’s the OP meta. Take away those, and they are fine.
EDIT: And honestly, I think the alternative talents are more underpowered when it comes to shade, rather than that Cloak of Mists is OP.
Let me preface it by stating that it is a tad bit subjective, and some are more a question of combinations as well, but in order of careers :
Waystalker
Bloodshot : Talent is crazy strong on any weapon that deals in fewer but more potent projectiles, thus it causes hagbane, moonfire, javelins and even longbow to get substantially stronger. Plus the longtime bug(feature?) that causes trueflight to gain double the amount of shots is wild too.
Spirit arrows & Asrai focus : The combined amount of cooldown reduction these provide is no joke, which gets wild when you have the bloodshot + trueflight bug in play. Homing arrows for everyone, teammates too.
Shade
Well to keep it short, Vanish + CoM is still a killer combo (heh) that allows anyone with a bit of basic flow to just sweep enemies like they’re leaves rather than opponents. Not quite as crazy or easily accessible as it used to be but still seriously potent.
An honorable mention to exquisite huntress for being wild if you can land headshots consistently.
Sister of Thorns
There’s so much overpowered stuff on this one i think it´s quicker to just name the talents that arent, which is like 4 (aside from the common lvl 5 and 15 rows) while ignoring her very powerful passives.
Bloodshot is better on powerful weapons, but it doesn’t seem better than serrated shots or 15% bonus speed on headshots. I’ve used bloodshot a number of times, and I never thought to use it with trueflight volley, that could be a bit OP for an ult build, I might have to try that. Still, doesn’t seem too extreme next to Pyromancers skull reuse on crit, which can trigger several times on high overcharge because her crit chance can go above 50%.
I used the combined cooldown build with the weapon traits for cooldown on crit. That is an interestingly powerful build, but I’ve never got it to the point where I could just spam my ult and. what do you mean everyone gets homing arrows?
On shade, I tried to Vanish with CoM; and it doesn’t seem as good as Assassin’s Blade + CoM + Cruelty. Nothing like guaranteed critical hit for a few seconds, with +40% power from items, +50% damage talent, and 75% backstab bonus. That combination is a bit OP.
Sister of Thorns reuse of Ult that can kill anything caught in it’s zone, along with 10 seconds of mayhem is extreme, but it’s a dlc character, and without javelins, that 10 second power isn’t nearly so strong. It’s mostly the javelin builds that are the most broken.
With pseudo random crits, you are lucky if you get 4-5 burning heads in row. With single bloodshot you are shooting 6 ult arrows that are pretty much better burning heads. (8 Arrows if you go loaded bow)
You are also not relying on crits and instead you need to just slap 1 slave rat to activate it, so the condition is infinitely more reliable.
The cooldown on trueshot volley is also way lower if you spec the talents for it.
You also seem to heavily overestimate how much serrated shots really do for your breakpoints. It is always better to get an extra projectile, especially on weapons like javelin/moonfire so even just from synergy standpoint there is barely any reason to use it.
I really cannot fathom how people come to this conclusion that the career needs javelins to be good? I can run pretty much anything on her and with proper talents I dumpster fire most cata lobbies. On demand screen deletion is stupidly powerful when you also get steroid that is one of the best in the game even after the nerfs and on top of that you still buff team with 25% healing and get free thp back?
Nah there is more wrong with the career than just javelin synergy.
At a glance this isnt wrong, but, lets phrase it this way…“How does these talents affect my damage output?”.
Bloodshot : 100% more damage on ranged attack following a melee kill.
Serrated : 10-15 extra damage per shot depending on weapon,anything from a 20% boost to a 33% boost on every shot. Which is mostly only relevant on swiftbow because its the only one that gets serious breakpoint help from it.
Drakira´s alacrity : …Maybe like…2-3 extra shots if you get to shoot a few in a row.
The conclusion here is that a waystalker that skirts around the edges of melee and picks up a few melee kills while shooting gets a massive boost to her shooting for free if using bloodshot. The other talents never provide as much unless running swiftbow or if able to almost always stay outa melee.
…
Also, what i meant by homing arrows for everyone is that with so much cooldown reduction + bloodshot bug you´ll be firing volleys of trueflight arrows everywhere very often. Which in turn will hit tons of enemies and passing teammates on the field one way or another.
I mean, normally one cant access those backstabs reliably without vanish, so one doesnt get that 75% bonus at all unless one got an ironbreaker taunting in for you.
Oh dear lord, you sir, have not experimented boldly enough at all.
First up, radiance actually got competition from Incandescence if you run bloodrazor thicket, that combination is bloody lethal thorns for everything and anything since most enemy parties do not survive 3 casts of bloodrazor.
Then there´s the bounty&extra projectiles build, works disgustingly well with moonbow and javelins.
Doomsight&delight staff is also a terror, the repeat crits stack bleeds on a target and they melt pretty much anything that doesnt have superarmor, monsters included.
Extra projectile staff is also kinda overpowered since you can lift so many enemies for free and kinda trivialize elite&special populations with it.
Lastly i wana do an honorable mention to blackvenom thicket, this talent is legitimately extremely powerful in skilled hands between the multiple powerful staggers and the shrapnel effect that stacks with other such effects.
@hgjw The career doesn’t “need” javelins or Moonfire to be good. Nobody’s saying that.
I still don’t think one extra shot everytime you kill in melee outweighs the damage over time bonus or the attack speed bonus, even when it applies to the ult. Sounds like we won’t agree. In practice, I just don’t find one extra shot to make the difference.
@Frostyr, I don’t see the Bloodshot double shot nearly often enough to outweigh the others. The speed also seems to apply to melee, and the serrated shots often make a body shot into a one-shot kill, and it stacks for bosses or other high health enemies.
As for Shade, backstabs, I get backstabs all the time without invisibility. It’s not necessary to have an iron breaker to allow me to target enemies attacking allies. I can often use 2 dodges to get behind any elite.
I have experimented with SotT, and I used The Meta Build for javelins or moonfire, and always with the bloodrazor thicket (I never use anything else) What’s your point? That it’s more OP than I thought?
Roughly 10 damage bleed on something like longbow vs 2nd projectile and in case of trueshot volley, doubling the damage output … Yeah you are right I guess we won’t agree here. Even the attack speed is something that is harder to upkeep than killing trash now and then. Realistically I don’t even value shooting stuff faster that much but that’s whole other debate I can’t be arsed to begin.
Yes the speed does apply to melee, however it only triggers off ranged attacks and it only lasts for 5 seconds so you need to constantly shoot to keep it up. But if playing like that you´ll do more damage with bloodshot anyways. Every slaverat that attacks you means any stormvermin in the vicinity is a possible victim of sudden death.
…plus, the bloodshot+trueflight interaction is also a thing with 3 arrows becoming 6 which is a boost to the point where it can wipe smaller cata waves in a single go.
As for serrated damage, its actually not high enough to reach any meaningful breakpoints if you’ve built your longbow right. I mean you can take it and go crit+ crit power to reach the normal breakpoints and still have crit but you´d do a lot more damage with a proper power vs + bloodshot setup.
As for high health enemies and monsters, the only ones that survive a headshot or two bodyshots are maulers or bigger targets, but, for longbow the bleed damage and firing speed is too low for serrated to add any significant boost. This because those targets typically have serious resistance boosts against normal projectile damage thus making melee more effective.
It works on swiftbow because the firing speed is just high enough and the bleed stacks if i am not mistaken.
When i play shade my experience is that if i try to walk up behind enemies they´ll instantly turn on me if there´s enough of them. If theres too few? Why bother going there anyway, you´re just nabbing fun from your teammates.
With CoM+ vanish i can instead sneak up behind a large group, drop a heavy attack behind a weaker target to get it all started then sweep down the whole party without worrying about them turning on me.
Pretty sure i highlighted a few combinations that dont rely on moonfire or javelins specifically to be overpowered. And i even forgot the doomsight longbow trick.
Which is really just longbow with scrounger instead of conservative, but with doomsight you got certain crits so you can 1shot any elite smaller than a CW and just never run outa ammo. Same as the javelin trick but less hordeclear but better anti elite.
It seems like I’m hitting breakpoints with the serrated shot on cata. It’s like a normal shot becomes deadly after 1 or 2 seconds on the longbow. Unless I get a good headshot, it’s not giving one-shot kills without a serrated shot. I think I’d need to see some better examples in play.
With shade, I’m not having difficulty getting behind enemies in crowds. I’m usually getting kills before I draw significant aggro. Again, this is just one of those situations where our playstyle or experiences differ.
Let’s get one thing out of the way with SotT, she is the most OP class in the game IMO. Even without javelins or moonfire, but javelins and moonfire aside, I don’t think the longbow confers enough strength to be considered so OP that as DLC it will be changed. I would support a nerf of that class specifically.
All in all, I find if we can debate this long about elf’s talents without reaching a consensus, it’s not so much the talents that make elf OP. It’s one of the only characters that have only about 2 bad weapons, and the rest are all more or less, spam left click and hold for heavy hits. Daggers require some finesse to use well, the volley crossbow and one-handed axe are kinda crappy.
I explained poorly…what i meant to explain was that serrated doesnt give you something that a proper power vs build doesnt, and with such a build, you can also get bloodshot which is notably powerful.
Its not that the longbow itself is overpowered, its just that SoT makes it overpowered with her crit and power schemes, seriously, longbow with 100% critchance and powerboosts is nuts.
You cant say that after previously admitting you dont play the overpowered WS build ._.
A proper power build? I don’t see much alternative to 20% bonus to Power vs. Armored/Chaos. That’s what I use with longbow; still find serrated shots to be more useful.
I recognize that SotT uses a gets a ton of crit and power with her ability, but I it’s not a permenant bonus. It’s a DLC build that’s meant to be somewhat more powerful than her other classes. Even still, I do think SotT shouldn’t be quite so OP.
I can say I don’t think the talents make Waystalker OPO, because I have used the “OP build”, and I don’t think it played as well as serrated shots.
I haven’t heard so novel about elf’s talents that I wasn’t already considering to sway me to believe that any class besides SotT is OP. I doubt I’ll sway anyone either, so I don’t see any point in discussing it further. On one thing we can agree, the javelins and moonfire bow are OP and need a nerf; if we were to see that happen, I’d like to see how elf plays after that because I rarely see other players using it anything else so I might change my mind.
I’ll play Waystalker with Longbow and Bloodshot now, see how it goes.
Can we not go there? Warrior priest is a great example that dlc careers don’t need to be absurd to still be impactful. Engineers power is a meme for most of the community so I really don’t get how this is something we should even be consider when arguing.
Why 20% power vs when using serrated though? With serrated you hit pretty much all the important breakpoints with just 10% power so you just need one against each.
Assassins die with 1 bodyshot, all other elites&specials without superarmor die in 1 headshot.
Pay to win is not an acceptable standard at all and it was never applied before or after.
I mean, if you cant make good enough use of the trueflight bug to hit broken then thats on you, cant blame the build for not performing well if you dont adopt the playstyle for it.
If talking waystalker specifically then hagbane is also silly overpowered but that´s another discussion and a half.
When those werent in play (pre SoT really) most waystalkers just ran hagbane or played Shade who was disgustingly OP at the time.
Dude, it is definitely not pay to win; it’s closer to pay to be slightly ahead, and in a co-op game that’s not such a big deal.
This isn’t a competitive game. As for everything else, originally, I was asking if there was consensus on what’s OP about the elf classes, and I don’t get the sense it’s uncontentious, so I don’t support nerfing any elf class (besides SotT).
Sure I’ll go there because I might not mind a nerf to SotT, but I know that many who bought the DLC might not agree. I’m just pointing to the reality that the DLC classes are in a different boat than the standard classes (Engineer might be a bit behind expectations there).
This is really such a non argument. The people who bought the dlc might as well enjoy the class being balanced and unique instead of feeding their power fantasy. We don’t have any numbers to back any of this, such this is absolutely pointless topic to even bother continuing nor has it any relevance to the balance discussion at hand.
yeah lets do it like world of tanks were premium vehicles are outright better versions of non premium vehicles, and their premium status is protecting them from nerfs, totally ruining the balance.
balance affects fun, no matter the gametype be it competetive PVP, casual PVP, coop PVE, or singleplayer, if the balance is off it results in players leaving.
I didn’t say it was intended to be p2w. It’s clear the DLC classes are intended to be somewhat better, and the new weapons you get with them are clearly a tier higher than the average stuff already in the game (clog hammer, pistol, bretonnian sword, flail and shield, WPoS greathammer, etc.)
I’m not advocating for game-breaking balance issues justified by calling it DLC, so you’re not arguing with me. That’s not even I topic I want to discuss.
We already discussed the elf classes talents, and there’s only maybe 2 that so far 2 or 3 people agree are OP, but I find that debatable. Nothing I’ve heard isn’t something I’ve already considered. I gave Waystalker with Bloodshot a try using the meta builds; the only thing that surprised me is how powerful it makes the ultimate; I’ll concede that seems like a bug. Besides that and the obvious SotT balance issues, I’m not interested in discussing further if there’s nothing new to add.
The reason DLC weapons are better, is because they are not a carbon copy of a game that shares its biggest similarities by name only. 2hHammer, Flail, and many other core weapons were made for that game, not for VT2.
The new weapons, the actual VT2 ones, all got made for the new game. Either by handing more ways to deal with situations or by adding other interesting quirks. This is not bad, but just shows that FS at least has a slight grasp on how their game plays. This also doesnt mean new weapons have to be borked by design.
Elgi weapons were always an exception. To this day Sword&Dagger is the weapon that grants you everything. The parent of the do all fear nothing archetype. The DLC weapons that got added to her are not in line with that weapon, which should be the peak. They make S&D look like a minor character that only is able to stand in the shade of the nuclear fueled light, that the Moonbow casts on everything.