yeah my experience in both cata and legend have been pretty lax compared to what people seem to go on about in this and the other thread.
I also decided to take a quick look through the source code and…honestly unless there’s some sort of unique bug (which would be beyond my understanding) that is looping spawns and/or making them happen all at once then I’m convinced people just aren’t clearing up fast enough and allowing spawns to stack up.
Or they’re exaggerating the numbers they’re actually getting.
Having played the map a few times after i wrote that comment out of pure curiosity i concluded thus : The difference in the amount of enemies spawned, the pressure generated, can be immense. Of my four experimental runs i had two cases where the chaos warriors almost ended up alone with no other enemies, particularly almost no specials, to help them, which was easy putting it mildly. And in another it was a nonstop party of enemy spawns…the last was a stormer&gas&gattling warzone.
Handmaiden not running dual daggers cannot do what you did with WHC there, and even then its not as safe due to shorter range, in my opinion at least.
FK with 1mace does damage? O_O
Which is…unusual these days but not really useless is it? And saying that damage is not important…honestly i disagree. If you try to use say handmaiden with bladedancer&spear there you´ll have a hard time clearing out elites anywhere near fast enough i think…that and if enemies dont get cleared you´ll eventually drown in heaps of them in them since it never stops.
Also, didnt a large number of enemies die to you procing the headshot crit kill passive on them even outside of fervency?
Werent you also picking off a lot of enemies all while kiting around nonstop too though? Handmaiden can pull off the kiting part but she would not be clearing as quickly.
Unchained would just smash though the hordes far more straightforwardly, no argument from me
I am saying it´s more orderly if anything which does pay into your favor there, imagine a teamcomp that lacks a frontline where people end up having to kite but as they are moving around they run into eahcother and get sandwiched by chasing hordes.
I´ve been through that T_T
To me it seems like the spawns are rather similar on average but still works with some RNG same as enchanters lair, the difference between a chaos warrior wave during the flies phase and some random maulers or zerkers is…large. Putting it mildly.
Gonna hijack this and ask about the Old Haunts event we start in the church where you get the map.
There is this weird double CW wave thing that happens when you stay inside the church, instead of going outside. Is it just random, or is there actually some trigger that spawns the CW wave twice?
Well, the event is stopped immediately when you exit the church. So if you’re playing an invis or dash class, you can just run out and stop the event at the first wave of chaos.
I was strictly talking about enemies spawning. There were no large groups of normal mobs or even specials the came in along with the chaos warriors.
Instead of like 10 guys running in from all directions at the same time both one time before and one time during the warrior wave in another run. Plus assassin, gasrats and firerat.
I don’t know your positioning, kill speed, when the specials actually spawned, etc. That’s why just saying stuff spawned isn’t very good information. Make a video. Show the issue. Then maybe something could be done about it if an issue actually exists. Most people I know who are skilled players don’t have these random huge waves, which makes me believe it’s something the player is doing that is causing pressure to build up.
I mean…its the exact same weird stuff that goes on in enchanters lair, the nurgloth fight.
Sometimes 8 chaos warriors and a horde spawns in during the flies phase and just utterly steamrolls the team, sometimes they do not.How does me making a video of something like that change anything? Neither i nor anyone else was doing anything particular.
Its just random arse RNG working on the spawns, which is far from anything new in this game.
Yeah it’s not weird. There are set waves that can spawn based on RNG. However, none of the waves that can spawn in Convo align with the claims of the whole place filling up with elites and specials like many people claim. The Enchanter’s Lair waves and the Convo waves both work properly in my experiences.
yeah terror events have a set list of combinations they can spawn in during a wave, sometimes you’ll get something easy, other times you’ll get something pretty brutal. One can argue the inconsistency is a problem and I’d be inclined to agree
However those set spawns aren’t matching a lot of what I’m seeing claimed. Only way to get into the scenarios I’ve seen described would be allowing waves to stack up without killing much of anything
As far as I can tell, it is not some weird double CW wave. It is just that the event keeps spawning unless you leave the church. If you keep fighting inside a third wave will spawn, then a fourth, … and so on. Had a team which was overwhelmed once in the cellar area because they kept being pushed back by new waves. After seven waves, the attrition was just to much.
So as Sleezy said, your best bet is to get one team mate rushing outside to stop the spawn cycle. Can be done by either dashing or invisibility or just brute forcing.
I do think it’s worth them rethinking how waves spawn honestly. It’s definitely manageable if you’re playing at the top of your game and are focusing on doing enough damage, but if you’re trying to babysit people at the same time, or rez them (because letting your team stay dead while you try to solo the event is just crazy rude in qp imo) it’s super easy for things to build up to a stage that you’re probably not going to recover from. I can’t count how many games I’ve rescued my team a bunch of times, only for them to basically be immediately swamped in CW and killed.
It’s a bit of a pain stopping stuff from building up as is.
Having waves tied to progression would be a good call I think, so it’s much easier for people to clutch events, while also removing the weird logic that the event has where you need to drop but are also discouraged from doing so.
They do lots of friendly fire dps, and as a tank like FK/off-tank like HM shouldn’t be too dangerous. Assassins are the big threat on this event.
I have had full team runs with almost no spawns. Was especially funny when it happened on Onslaught. However, my true solo was not one of them.
HM with the 1h Sword has enough super armour damage. You don’t need to kill all of the CWs, just enough to stay on the platform. I get knocked down by two ratlings at one point. With a higher bodyshot dps weapon I could’ve done serious damage to the CWs as they were climbing down, or back up when I got on top of the platform.
1h Mace’s heavies are like 1h Axe’s heavies, which have good super armour penetration relative to their normal armour pen. FK can rock 30% attack speed and 25%-32% power. Combine that with the Mace’s good elite stagger and the dps is enough, especially since Globadier’s can kill most of the infantry. Certainly difficult but being able to reset nearly the entire platform with a 30s ult is no joke, and the 1h Mace is decently fast, so it suffers less from stagger bugs (naturally this is going to be more of a problem with a group, but in solo the charge is strong).
The 1h Mace is like a better 1h Axe imo. More stagger, still enough armour dps and at least some minor horde damage+much better safety (only really loses out on monsters). Bret Longsword would do wonder here too.
GK wouldn’t be bad here either. Main issue would be Blightstormers. Slayer won’t have any issues, RV with MWP and max attack speed+max movement speed can definitely get the same dps if not more while kiting.
Shade can do it as well with Cloak of Pain. Volley Crossbow for reflex snipping and SnD heavies for elites. L1 > L2 > block cancel for horde dps. 25% move speed to avoid getting caught/getting back on the platform quickly for dps. If ammo is needed, jumping down and backstabbing enemies that are climbing up should be possible, if a lot more boring imo.
Hell, even Pyro with Dagger, Bolt staff and max move speed + max attack speed can probably do it, with some careful and smart Bolt staff play and heat management.
My headshot % is good but I still lose a lot of damage from not picking Flense. I’d pick up a lot more damage with a weapon like the Axe and Falchion and Flense, but then I’d be dead because my defense would be poor. I don’t get the importance being place on damage when my build was not a high dps WHC build, it’s a kiting one. I’m pretty sure I don’t event out dps a Handmaiden with the 1h Sword vs CWs. Rapier’s superarmour (relative to its normal armour penetration) penetration is relatively poor except on crits. Even the non-crit headshots are mediocre. That’s why I focus the CWs with Fervency despite Killing Shot not working on them.
A lot of the time, by the time Killing Shot procs on an elite outside of Fervency it’s already nearly dead. It’s only 5 Rapier light headshots to kill an SV. If I’m unlucky and the crit occurs on the 3rd/4th/5th strike and not one of the earlier ones, I’m not gaining much value.
The enemies don’t stop but the event does. Circle uptime is more important than dps once dps reaches a certain threshold. The biggest thing I struggled with as WHC when practicing the event was getting back on the circle quickly enough. I had to learn the spots where I was dropping and getting knocked off by enemies to optimise the distance to staircases. I make mistakes, but this helps a lot. If I wasn’t running Charmed Life, max attack speed, the Rapier and doing what I did I’d fail.
Yeah, I was. This might sound arrogant, but haven’t seen any WHCs with the Rapier that match my dps uptime. You’d see that with me on most weapons. If I stood still while fighting those elites, and didn’t keep frantically dodging with BoP while shooting specials, I’d die very quickly with little room for recovery as WHC (I also have thp on crit/headshot). I’d struggle to play the same as Handmaiden, but I’d be able to make better use of the dropdowns which are everywhere in this event. I’d find that boring though and would probably die.
SnD and 1h Sword can both do this specific event because their lack of reach is less of an issue because of the numerous climbs enemies have to do. Longbow for specials and SV. Only thing that can build up is CWs but they can honestly be ignored.
I just wouldn’t rescue them when they wen’t down. Would give me plenty of time to get the ritual down. Keep 1 player alive as bait.
Just kidding (though I wouldn’t go out of my way to rescue them if they fully died, out of fear of things building up). The kiting solo part mostly matters on WHC. On a dash career the kiting shouldn’t be made much more difficult.
This also depends on the career. GK would prefer the CWs, as would a Shade using Cloak of Pain, while WHC prefers the Maulers/Savages. Slayer will be indifferent. My main struggle on that event as WHC in my Enchanter’s Lair Cata Deathwish true solo, even when I got CWs in my practice runs, was the shielded Marauders. Of course, with Cast Away and Flense I’d not have that issue, so it depends on the build too.
In Nurgloth’s fight what often happens is not enough damage was done after the rings of fire to trigger it to go back to the spot where it’s invincible. This causes Nurgloth to go to the corners of the arena, where it shoots projectiles that stagger the player and summons more adds. If Nurgloth is damaged now, it goes back up and immediately summons the next wave while the previous one is still up. You can see this happening here in this run at 25:47:
Similarity between all these is that they can rapidly annihilate armored targets, point in case was that if you instead brought in careers/builds that struggle doing that you´d easily end up in deep trouble whenever such waves come in.
As for pyro…wouldnt she lack horde clear too much with dagger and bolt?
From what i saw in the video you were tearing through a rather large number of horde mobs with melee headshots, werent you? Even a few stormvermin died to that i think.
On bodyshots yeah, on headshots 1handed sword on handmaiden does 43 damage while the rapier does 63. And rapier has a far superior crit modifier which also beats handmaiden crits on bodyshots.
She does deal more damage on normal heavy bodyshots though…but then again i´d also say that the range and ease of access also plays in the rapiers favor.
Additionally with crits on the head…WHC with a similar build to yours deals 130 damage on a heavy headshot, 210 if fully charged. It´s so much better it almost feels silly to say Handmaiden has good anti armor by comparison.
Sure she isnt flat out bad, but is she good? Compared to the likes of WHC,Grail Knight slayer or such? I´d say no.
A very fair point, one i admittedly find myself neglecting when dealing with a struggling team in need of help.
Not after seeing the video no, i am infact inclined to believe you x)
Rather than saying struggle…wouldnt be more accurate to say you´d end up just clearing minimally while just using her mobility to try and gain as much circle uptime as possible? Because having played her i dont see any way to match that clearing uptime you pulled off.
Strangely enough i feel i might manage to do it on slayer but my aim is not as good as yours so i´d struggle on WHC T_T
I mean…you kinda lose their main perks do you not? Sure enemies wont be attacking when they are climbing which gives you free hits but on the other hand you will basically not be attacking them while they are not climbing in turn. That and if you are to force the enemies to climb a lot you wont be in the circle consistently.
Honestly i think everyone would prefer anything but chaos warriors in large numbers, even Grailknight and painshade because once you´ve killed 1 or even 2 what the heck can you do about the rest? Especially if the rest of the team has bad anti armor?
This i have actually noted, but the normal mob spawns are also variable, sometimes a few fanatics spawns along with the warriors and sometimes a bunch of shields come in to make it truly miserable.
“Edit”
Also, that nurgloth fight was nice! Your kiting path and fly management were both a joy to behold…third phase meanwhile was somewhat lucky but it´s Nurgloth x)
Dagger has the same light attacks as Rapier. L1 > L2 > Block cancel is good for hordes. Ult is not bad vs chaff if needed though that’s a last resort. UC stands up here pretty well, but struggles with Bolt staff uptime on specials.
A lot of those SV have often already been hit by multiple Rapier light headshots or light crit bodyshots by that point. Killing Shot is a dps increase for sure though. I think for what they are, HM being a tank/mobility hybrid, and WHC a dps/support hybrid, that HM does not compare too poorly on the dps front.
Not good, but enough. This is something that’s very important in true solos. It’s why there aren’t many post WoM true solos with IB’s with Drakeguns.
I personally feel that HM is not as rewarding for headshots (which saddens me immensely but that’s another topic), but HM’s dps is enough. Even if HM has less maximum potential dps than a career like WHC, in an event like that, HM doesn’t have to kill as much to survive. If I don’t kill enough as WHC I’ll get cornered and die (I’m glad I saved that bomb for so long and had it near the start of it of the event) or find it impossible to stay on the platform for more than a second, but as HM I have dash, stamina aura and 90% BCR to keep going once things start piling up. Once the event is over, it’s an easier escape for HM as well. I could’ve easily messed up at the end there and died as WHC. I nearly did.
Personally I think the Rapier’s bodyshot crit damage is too high. I think Killing Shot insta killing instead of being a simple damage increase is what causes Rapier lights to be exceissively powerful. A simple damage increase would let Saltz otherwise benefit from Killing Shot mostly as they do now (1h Axe headshot does more damage on crit headshot than a Rapier light does, so it could be made so that the damage increase could tip something like 1h Axe over into 1 shot headshot SV and Bestigors, while the Rapier would require partials heavies to 1 shot).
I would likely get impatient, make a mistake/be too aggressive and then die. I’m a very impatient player. It’s why I don’t use the Billhook much if at all. As WHC with Rapier I can be constantly attacking while kiting, while as HM I have to do a bit of blocking and waiting. HM’s fast weapons don’t have enough reach to be retreating from a horde and dealing damage to it the same time, and the high reach ones don’t have enough speed, mobility or good enough block cancelling for me to play as recklessly as I do. This is a me problem. I do think others could do it though.
I have a lot of practice on WHC, so that’s probably the case (unless you’re a WHC fanatic like me). However, with some practice you may surprise yourself with what you can pull off as WHC. As far as aim goes, I’m pretty happy with my melee headshots even if they could always be better, but my aim with ranged weapons is not as good as it could be. Too much using BoP probably. The build I use also makes headshots more reliable/consistent than other builds, as Charmed Life makes WHC very good at repositioning for better headshot angles, and max attack speed reduces the time you have to aim attacks for, so less chance for enemy heads to have moved by the time the attack hits.
This is true, however HM can still deal enough damage to get through the event in a solo context. I’d recommend the extra so you can take more risks than usual and play very aggressively. Dual Swords might be okay here if you get a bomb to the final, because you can kill all of the chaff and then once the elites have built up, use a drop down to bomb a whole lot of them (decently effective since they buffed bomb damage on Cata).
GK’s movement curve with Exec + movement speed passive and thp on kill is one of the if not the most effective way to deal with massed CWs in the game in melee (or at least it will be when they fix the thp ult bug). Crazy levels of reach too. At the same time though, a GK would be struggle fighting an equivalent number of SV without a shield. Would get interrupted during Exec heavies too often. It does work on SV with the move speed ult (Exec + max move speed hasn’t seen widespread use, but in niche massed elite fighting it’s exceptional).
BH deals with massed CWs very well (though only off-host for Double-shotted CD bug or if very good at lining CWs up). It’s much more difficult to fight 20 SV as BH than it is to fight 20 CWs.
UC with Flail couldn’t care less about CWs. Arguably less dangerous for UC simply because they take up a bigger slot.
It’s much easier to get guard broken and staggered to death by the faster elite types when solo. I’ve seen a lot of Shades die on FoW to the SV waves after kiting one of the CW waves. That’s a specific example, as mobility tends to counter CWs, while stagger counters SV, but all elites have their own challenges.
Fighting massed Shielded SV without an aoe staff/shield bypassing weapon like the Flail is worse. It’s agony even with a 2h Hammer. Exceptions are high stamina builds but even then they can be awkward to deal with when massed.
I did do a few tests and you’re right. I’ve even gotten spawns with just Fanatics and no elites or Marauders.
Thanks! It was lucky. I was shocked by how close it was. I’ve done some practice runs where I do better, but that’s when I fly to the end to just practice Nurgloth, so naturally there’s less pressure and no fatigue from doing the full run. An interesting thing about Nurgloth’s flies is they seem to have a much larger hit box than Halescourge’s flies. There’s a few points in the run where I hit them despite the flies being behind other enemies.
Ahh alright, i havent really used dagger at all due to massive bias towards both the firesword and flail x)
My biggest gripe with handmaiden is how…scattered and unclear her identity seems at times. Is she a tank? A damage dealer? A a hybrid? Does she do anything better than anyone else except running away? Can she do several things decently well instead?
So you are indeed guessing it likely ends up with the handmaiden eventually letting things pile up while using mobility to avoid the fate of being buried in a pile? : P
Well to be honest i cant say i am sure about any of these, i just catch myself thinking that Keri´s 1handed sword could drop dodge charges down to 6 in exchange for a better heavy headshot modifier or better infantry on light attacks.
It feels so dang mediocre at everything except dodging which ends up being frustrating.
I´ve had occasions being able to dodge dance a mixed horde to death but honestly it´s often a chore given how enemy tracking interacts with Keri´s dash, Particularly maulers, CW´s and stormvermin. These guys have a tendency to do 180´s or gain massive distances when trying to catch you during a dash with a charge.
The feeling when you have a mauler step up infront of you while dragging his axe and you dash away, turn around and…that same mauler has somehow tagged along and is 0.2 seconds away from delivering an overhead.
…
I also play very aggressively on certain careers with some weapons but that makes me feel the difference between a aggressive build and a more reaction based one more clearly.
Isnt the problem with exe the lack of horde/mixed horde clear? And thus you bring a weapon for that but then you have no shield?..Well i hardly see anyone use the mace&shield on him with exe even though that seems like it ought to work. Instead people run like hammer or Mace&Sword.
True, but isnt this why the likes of Handmaiden would face a problem in CoD if she cant clear fast enough? Each stormvermin needs 2 heavy headshots to nail them but between the short range and not overly quick attacks it seems like it´d be a strugle.
To be fair, stacked shields is a pain for everyone except those who can bypass them, even the ones who break them dont like a lot of them in the same place except arguably the slayer who can jump and rain down a flurry of greataxe hits to settle his problems.
It’s a bit janky compared to those two. The stab light attack doesn’t even pierce armour, does the same damage as the sweep lights and has less cleave than them. I’m hoping they’ll make the stab light the same as the push attack, and let the push attack chain into the heavy stab. Would give Sienna a proper finesse weapon finally. Chaining heavies feels clunky but that might be fair for the weapon, I’m not sure.
Yes, but I think that pile is more reasonable to manage than you might suspect. I’ll find out by doing the event as HM (or failing) and uploading it soon (within 24 hours hopefully, depends on my internet connection).
Definitely is. The entire point of HM being so mobile in the first place is freedom, but in practice missing things like the dash counting as a dodge makes Handmaiden better at surviving than kiting and dealing damage. Slayer’s leap feels safer to me because Slayer can just jump over hordes and keep attacking. HM often has to block or at the very least immediately dodge after using what is supposed to be a mobility ult.
WHC in many ways is also reactive but still has very good control of a situation through movement, reach, speed and dps which allows WHC to play very aggressively (it’s a shame more WHCs don’t).
Nor am I. I just don’t like that I can bodyshot SV with the Rapier so easily, and that light spam is optimal effective dps on 90% of the enemies in this game. Mixing in heavies makes its gameplay so much more interesting.
Of course, but that’s why Exec pairs well the Mace & Sword. Mace & Sword’s heavies with Virtue of Ideal deal with shielded infantry well (the 1h Sword’s heavies can do this as well) while dealing decent damage to any elites they might hit. Throw in 45-50% movement speed and 60% stamina recovery and the GK can deal with mixed hordes reasonably well, and pick out specific elites out of a horde with good safety (especially CWs).
I hate to say this but invis dash + Longbow works well for picking off the occasional elite to supplement any dps issues. I’m going to use flight mod to go to the end event as Handmaiden and do this (should have it done by in 24 hours).
Very true. Trivialised by some weapons while being a nightmare for others.
Light mashing being the optimal is indeed not the most stimulating or fun experience…yea some changes to promote heavies a bit would not be wrong although i think many would struggle
I´ll have to try it myself the next time i feel like Grail Knight, i did realize that it seemed like a good combo in theory but i was too stuck on running around with the Brettonian longsword.
Hasn’t processed to higher quality so looks pixelated (takes a while for my videos to process to usual quality). Not Deathwish but that probably wouldn’t matter on a player that’s more careful than me, definitely possible at least. Went in with a Healing Draught (I also had a bomb as WHC but there’s always healing near the area before the event, bombs aren’t guaranteed, so I went in with only the healing).
Watch from 0:45 to 1:05 in Velsix’s HM video. That’s what I was trying to tell you about dropping. He gets distracted by an assassin at some point, but w/o the assassin, he could have just made a straight loop. It seemed like a lot of enemies in the circle, but making one tight loop linearizes the enemies and it’s really not that much. That’s why his spawns seemed bare in the WHC TS. If you’re surrounded by 20 enemies it feels like a lot, but 50 in a straight line doesn’t seem like much at all.
