I have to ask, where do you draw the line at doing damage that isnt overbearing OR doing less damage to the point where “okay since it didnt 1 shot the Rogre”. Does staggering bosses factor into this as well; or how easy it is to trade aggro with a career skill/bomba?
I suppose thats what this discussion is for in regards to the first question. But as for the second question. Bosses can and still are a joke if theyre not allowed to act.
A Fooktnight can easily bully any non lord to death at any point given they know how to hold aggro and properly disengage it from someone. I have never seen a BW that didnt take double fire walk talent and that window of opportunity they can give for the rest of the team to attack is HUGE barring any sort of damage that the BW does themself.
Then again thats probably a good thing since theres more skill expression involved with holding down a boss over a longer period of time.
I’m aware minigun isn’t a DoT, off course, but the same principle applies: One could reduce its damage against monster armor type, if it were too overbearing. But to be honest, I don’t think minigun is that much too good against monsters at the moment, and it’s not like Engi is already such an overpowered class, so a shift in the meta where Engi gets a relative buff compared to other classes won’t nescessarily be a disaster.
@N8TH3GR8 :
I have no specic value for where the monster damage values of everything should exactly be, at all. All I know is that the current values, however, absolutely aren’t it. Any change would require testing.
As for stagger and such: I honestly don’t feel like fighting monsters as it is right now - including stagger - is bad at all. I generally like the act of fighting monsters in this game a lot, even. I just dislike it when the monster dies too fast, or dies too slow even when you’re fighting them flawlessly. Personally I think all problems with monsters right now could be solved with number tweaks, basically.
By default? Nah he isnt all too much, but he like WS with hagbane can just get str pot + shrapnel and the end result is basically the same. And on that note i worry that even if burst and DoTs get cut against monsters there are others, overlooked, who might have similar tricks.
If those remain overlooked then the end result is just a shift in monster killing picks but the status doesnt change all too much.
Fair enough, but in that case those things could - and should - be tweaked as well. In any case it would be better to at least start with a few changes and see where it goes, instead of just not doing anything about the current situation.
I agree with your overall point. If a class can delete monsters, it needs to be pretty specialized to compensate, and that just isn’t the case with most builds. Also, there are far too many classes that can delete monsters in the current state of the game.
A non exclusive list:
MWP RV
Longbow Huntsman
Sister
Shade to a lesser extent
GK
BH
Beam BW.
All of those builds (outside of maybe BH and Huntsman) are still strong careers without the ability to delete monsters which is another problem.
While agree with Sleezy, there’s other stuff can be added such a Bluntsman wiping Skarrik in seconds, Engi go BRRRRRR and even at a stretch WHC popping his ult and wailing on a tagged shrapnel boss hammering health - although this is maybe an example of how a boss killer Should work. Specific stacking of things causing some big chunk damage without killing it outright.
Problem is, we’re moving into the territory of just buffing bosses FTW, which may bring as many problems as it solves.
I’m sure bluntsman can pull of a similar trick of landing a headshot in stealth as skarrik lands. With a str potion can 1 or 2 shot him at point blank range especially with a critical.
I’m pretty sure Skarrik is considered Armoured, hence why he’s so squishy… Basically a glorified stormvermin.
And blunderbuss has ludicrous armour damage, even in headshot.
I tested it. With no pwr vs. and strength pot during ult, I did about 120 damage a shot if, assuming all pellets hit the head (which is unlikely). A crit did do about 400 damage though. So if I was running 40% power vs. and got a crit on every shot during ult with a strength pot and shrap, it could take a big chunk of his hp, I’m sure. I wouldn’t exactly pick that as my example of monster deletion, though.
Huntsman would still be plenty strong if his bossing was neutered.
Can’t really comment on BH.
Unrelated: Capping damage per attack might help curb things like Huntsman / Double Shotted but not so much e.g Beam BW. Invulnerability phases would work albeit a little annoying or not very fun.
If bossing was taken outa the equation then bounty hunter would be a lot stronger than huntsman i am fairly sure.Longbowman is kinda compensating for high boss damage with slower elite killing speed which becomes very noticeable when put next to a longbow elf or crossbow bounty.
…Of course the reverse can presently be said to be true as well, with the other two having noticeably less monster damage than huntsman which mainly shows when push comes to shove in terms of just shooting.
Bolt wiz is also way better outside of monster dps. And I would take a pot RV with Xbow over manbow as well. Can handle specials and elites other than cw’s just as well and pots/bombs/ammo are really powerful utility.
For sure would see less Manbow, especially when Keep it Coming Handgun exists.
Gonna stop right there before this turns into a balance discussion… I’m not gonna complain if Huntsman gets supportive capabilities or somehow gives a sniper weapon multi target clearing.
The best monster killer is “scream” with your friends waiting near to some place when they can fall… or push with ultis and bombs to make it fall to the abyss, this never fail if you can do it inclusive at 1hp and lv1 in cata… X’D
After some time thinking about this topic I say no. And not just because a rebalance would be difficult.
There are roughly 4 enemy types.
Horde
Armor/Superarmor
Specials
Bosses
Most heroes can specialize into 2 of the 4, while still having passable stats for the other 2. Add to the mix the unique utility of a hero and it makes them distinct.
Some heroes can overachieve and do more, but to do less feels terrible.
e.g. Merc with B. Longsword is going to do great vs horde and armor, and have passable damage vs specials/monsters. And IB with 1H Axe and Flamer is going to super specialize against the same two at the cost of specials/monsters. Greater specialization comes at the cost of reduced effectiveness in generic circumstances.
e.g. Crossbow BH with double shotted will be excellent vs specials and monsters but lacking in horde and armor. Or Battle Wizard with Famished Beam. By complimenting the previous 2 heroes you can achieve a balanced mix when everyone is alive.
But what if team mates die or have anti-synergy? Then players are going to continue to pick generic weapons that can perform in a variety of circumstances. If boss killing is truly too imbalanced between classes the resolution might be to fix spawn points and timers for the players so that more specialized weapons are less punished.
Let each hero have their time in the sun instead of forcing everyone to perform the same duties at the same level of requirement! Making everything more generic just softens the value specializing and thus lowers expression.
e.g. why bother writing heroes if your ability to be Saltzpyre has the same impact as generic witch hunter number 73. Let heroes have their weaknesses and their strengths!