Hagbane is indeed very strong but on the other hand, only really consistently so in waystalker hands. But then you got a BW whom with a firewalk or two just annihilates all the visible hordes and suddenly it isnt very strong because all the targets except some elites are dead.
By that logic nothing is terribly overpowered however so i am more or less ranking them as the same. And while WHC doesnt go that far he is still what i´d consider a mile stronger than any other melee career.
To be fair, she doesnt even get to touch hordes much if an active BW is in play, not saying that makes it good but its a matter of keeping perspective.
I think doing all this with the additional things you suggested would kinda kill the career, and i also think barkskin is kinda badly overrated as it doesnt save you from dying in 1-2 bad hits on cata unless you got damage reduction or a fairly big health bar to start with.
Blackvenom is actually pretty good if used correctly, if you click LMB while holding the cast it can be rotated to be less obstructive and it goes down pretty quickly with good effects to help the team clear things.
Ironbark is however crap indeed.
Why the melee damage nerf? It doesnt hit hard outside crit spam AND headshots. I think careers having massive crit steroids easily available that exists and overperforms without javelin is the bigger elephant in the house.
As for a ranged cleave nerf…i mean why really? Only really works on conga lines that have no armor or shields. I think it´d be fine to let it be good at something beyond no ammo or it´ll really be dead in the water behind longbow.
I dont think it´s all that spammy by default, there just exists builds that enable that, and what do you have in mind for increasing the overcharge penalty?
Setting the health loss to 50% of her max health rather than 50 flat and increasing the lockout period maybe?
It should probably lose all excess damage that isnt needed to kill specials in one half-charged shot, then maybe get a reload speed nerf but that´d be about it or no one would use it at all.
Not a very good idea, the most similar existing option right now, blackvenom, already suffers from problems when enemies got multiple points of access which kills the effectiveness.
Enemies will just walk around it and suddenly it´s not helping.
A better idea would probably to reduce the stagger(no effect on bosses to start with) and effectiveness on armor ( power investments to kill stormvermin?) and see where that goes.
Alternatively instead remake the whole thing into something like a dome/field that enemies will not go around but take damage from hanging around and maybe hampered in some additional way.
Unlimited ammo and high accuracy is super fancy but not so much if you only got 2 effective shots before running dry for a notable time on cata. I am fairly sure having like 5 different specials spawning around the same time is considered normal enough so having at least 4 shots is needed for a weapon used to deal with them.
Right now HM and Shade will use it rather carelessly while getting too much out of it which i think is the problem, reducing that by forcing them to hold shot for specials is what i aim for*
Hence i think it´d be better to lose some damage and reload speed to make people cherish their shots more which would hopefully accomplish the effect of reducing how much it can be used.
I swear people are overkilling a lot with this weapon if this ever becomes an issue. Currently you can kill half the special with light shots alone and save that 1 powerful one for the ones like gunners that need to die bit faster.
Couple seconds later you can just repeat the process and you don’t even need any sort of finess like longbow might.
Just to level set - the topic title is ELF. Is it really mostly
some elf weapons, like moonbow, jav, sword/dagger
sister of thorn dps builds
?
I really enjoy waystalker longbow, 1h sword, handmaiden / spear, mists shade, etc and think those classes aren’t too bad. Like, they seem about on par with other class options like bounty hunter, unchained, footknight, etc.
I don’t want to wreck the ult cooldown of SoTT for the few wall players out there (it’s still a much better ult than trash like burning head) in the effort to reel in Bloodrazor Thicket. Maybe just making it nerf the cooldown when used by 50% and have that also affect Radiance. That way you still get your heavy damage output but the crit build and damage debuff wall wouldn’t get buried completely.
Or what I think would be better but more work is to overhaul her last row. The increased duration should be swapped with a wider wall and give it the bleed but nerfed. Bloodrazor Thicket could simply do eruption damage and boss stagger, pull the bleed. And then the blackvenom is mostly OK but I would enable it to apply its debuff to any enemy that comes in contact with the wall in addition to the eruption and give the extended effect here? Not sure if it’s desirable.
Javelin just needs a crit modifier nerf, it’s a fine weapon apart from the abuse guaranteed crits can put out. It hits like a heavy weapon with dual dagger attack speed then, pretty goofy even with no block. Moonfire is a mess and needs to be completely overhauled on the magic cost per shot/reload rate/damage to be tweaked and still useful.
Those are probably the most egregious ones but we don’t have to go back more than 6 months when hagbane, mist shade were pretty much the topic of the day.
You could say the “previous op” was powercrept out of peoples memories.
For instance i think packmaster has like 100 health, then the half charged shot can lose the…80-90 it does beyond that and it´d still be fine. It´d consequently lose the ability to oneshot maulers, lose damage on chaos warriors, stormvermin and bosses all which would help it become more balanced.
If people still wana use it to clear elites they have to spend shots accordingly and then lose the special clearing they would have otherwise for a time.
Well that is pretty significant damage nerf then and I got no further complaints.
Guess I could add that I hope its just not packmasters were are talking here. I think its pretty absurd that it can kill most things without even attempting to headshot.
I have to disagree here. This is just bad wall placement on the SotT player’s part, and though I agree a bad wall is a mistake that one player makes that potentially affects an entire team, so is aggroing a patrol. There is some learning and some skill to the wall’s placement ; but again learning to play is not the focus of the class given how you don’t have to learn to place the wall when there is no wall, and her overall brokenness trivializes difficulty.
A good wall can negate specials like ratlings or flamerats, or apply the debuff to an entire horde without affecting the rest of the team at all.
You keep saying that, and every time I disagree but can’t find a way to express it. I don’t Feel that much stronger when playing WHC than when I’m playing Merc for instance… I see he’s strong, no doubt about that, but not out of line. What’s so broken about him that I’m not seeing ?
Same goes for BW, though to be fair I see her strenghts but it’s nothing as out of line as the Moonfire.
BW and WHC teammates don’t make me feel like there is no point in playing this game.
This is depressing.
I’ve been trying to find a complete resource with the finesse and curve modifiers for weapons but so far it’s mostly digging in by hand. I’ll check what else has a high finesse.
Don’t think the math works like this and testing it on dummy the damage is not that radically different. (vs inf or chaos)
But I’m no expert on how crit power and multipliers interact so I won’t even pretend to be an expert.
Lots of weapons including crossbows, handguns, rapier, bolt staff, trollpedo and javelin melee lights all have 2.5 ;
Dual daggers light and push attacks and Sienna’s Dagger push attack have 3 finesse ;
Kruber’s Spear and shield light 1 & 2, tuskgor L3, Xsword light and push attacks, billhook L2 and push-attack and elf spear L3 and push attack have 4 ;
WS’s piercing shot has 7.
This is non exhaustive but just what I gatherd form 10 minutes of reading files.
Javelin’s light have 2.5, heavies have 2, and thrown has 1.6.
Also this is not really representative of the actual damage increase from normal to crit or headshot but it is representative for crit headshots.
Normal crit without headshot or headshot without crit also take into account a curve modifier (ranging from 0 to 1) that is also dependant on the attack. That curve modifier is 1 for crit headshots regardless of the curve, so finesse is the only modifier that varies when comparing those.
Still not perfectly accurate between different weapons because each attack has its own base damage, armour modifier, finesse and curve modifiers that all work together to calculate damage. That means that finesse on its own is not enough to say “this weapon has the best increase in damage on a crit or on a headshot compared to that one”, but it is representative of “this weapon has the best increase in damage on a crit headshot compared to that one”. Am I making this clear at all ?
Really, I think the logic for Javelin is that you’re throwing a spear into someone’s head. So I can get the logic, but it might need to be tuned down.
Historically-speaking, javelins were by far the most dangerous thrown weapons, everything else - even throwing axes - having just a niche or certain localized uses. Even modern sporting javelins will pierce a person through easily if they hit them, so the cleave feels pretty fair, in this sense.
Thinking more on it, I think giving a “cost” to reloading would be really fair. Either make it that you can stack up charges for reloading from melee kills, or it takes some of Kerillian’s health, akin to Sienna venting. Perhaps the latter only if you don’t have charges from killing enemies. This still gives it infinite ammo, but it’s something you can’t just spam endlessly without thought.
Are you talking the default ult? Because I’d be down with creating an area of effect rather than a wall. If you remain replace Bloodrazor with this, then I’m totally against it. Even if one can make the wall work, Bloodrazor is the only way to make the talent actually fun.
I’m sure he means the insta-kill on headshot crit. It just makes his damage output scale so much better into high difficulties than any other career.
You’re right, but the problem is that by bringing this ult it means you can single-handedly force your team to play around you instead of with you. In a pre-made this is totally fine and expected, but with randoms? It just makes the class kind of annoying with utility that is still just very short-lived. If they really want it to be good, it needs some quality of life changes.
Make the wall droppable by Sister. Usually I’d say bind that to the ult key, but since that will use the extra one that won’t work. This way a mistakenly-placed wall that harms an ally can be dropped.
I know the wall can take damage, but I don’t know if it currently has a health pool that can be depleted; giving it a far longer duration but have health that drains (and can be torn down by enemies) would make it far improved. This would have to go along with the ability of players to manually end it early.
Perhaps instead, allow players free passage through it, and their attacks or shots, in its current state. Perhaps the wall even buffs allies who pass through it, allowing it to become even more support-oriented. Then it cannot grief allies, even unintentionally, and gives it good support plausibility.
I wanna add, I used to play mostly Mei in Overwatch, whose Ice Wall was much like this - but better, really. I absolutely loved that ability for its ability to frustrate enemy plans; trap their tank if they over-extended, nullify ults, block snipers. It was great. But most games I saw others playing the character, do you know what they did with it? They just griefed their allies in a minor but annoying way. And this wall is SO much smaller. It’s kind of ridiculous how lame it is. Just because it can be made to work, or extra effects added by some of its talents make it usable does not mean it is good. It’s a low-value ult on its own in general situations, in its base state.
Perhaps when PvP comes, this might actually be more useful, because there will be other human players who can be punked by this. Pact-Sworn clearly setting up an ambush? Block their Hookrat out of the room at the vital moment to disrupt it. I wonder if it was actually built with this mind.
Bloodrazor Thicket needs to exist, though, in case your team does not want to play around Sister. So here’s a suggestion; lower the size of the AoE damage, and reduce its damage slightly so it requires some stat investment to kill Stormvermin. With a smaller size and requiring the investment, it remains a useful and satisfying tool, but also has less potential to kill as many Stormvermin per ult. It also forces it to be more focused on elite damage, as the smaller AoE will reduce its value against hordes.
As for bosses, really I have no problem with it being able to stagger them. A lot of characters get boss stagger now, it’s true, but that just seems an effect of there being more careers. I think people make too much of an issue of this, and if the other melting-abilities against bosses are brought down (AKA crit-stacking from her talent + Javelin), then it’s not as much of an issue. I do wish there were levels of stagger for bosses and Bloodrazor could just have a weaker one, but right now it’s all or nothing, and it just wouldn’t make sense for the ult to have no visible impact on a boss.
EDIT:
Regarding auras:
Yeah, me too. I just mean that they should all be consistent with each other, and too prevalent over too weak would be better. Too small and they just might as well not exist.
I’d just add to that that flense gives pretty silly good damage for no effort. Also crit/headshot damage modifiers make the rapier pretty godlike against every enemy type. WHC is capable of one shotting a Cata CW with a fully charged rapier heavy crit with the right setup which shows how much damage that weapon is capable of putting out in WHC’s hands.
Sure… THROWN weapons. Not ranged weapons. Bows and crossbows and guns outclass javelins, by quite a large margin. And if we’re going on an historical argument, nobody is yeeting javelins with such power without a running start. Actually, nobody is yeeting javelins with such power, period.
One javelin isn’t cleaving through one person on a horizontal throw, perhaps 2 with a good parabola. 3, maybe 4 people if they’re lying on top of one another and the javelin comes from above. Not 15 from a half assed arm movement.
Actually quite the opposite, but I get what you mean and I agree. When you crit headshot someone and they die, the damage you’re credited with is only the attack damage, not the total health of that enemy. That means that WHC actually has way more damage than what the scoreboard shows.
Flense deals the damage.
Can’t allies pass through the wall ?
Edit : Allies can go through the wall, they’re just a bit slowed down. Can’t shoot through it though, and it eats your melee attacks’ cleave like stone ; and those are more of an issue imo.
Why not replace the bloodrazor burst by a carpet of thorns, that would apply bleed to enemies walking over it, similar to a fire grenade ?
