Try pushing. 2 pushes in succession usually open them up. Every weapon can push.
A friend of mine and me have nicknames for almost any enemie in the game. Chaos warriors are called âOlafâ, Maulers are called âGunterâ, things like that. Shieldverminâs nickname is âSh_tâ , because thatâs what they are. They are amongst the most ill-designed enemies in the game that are tedious, break the flow of the game and can extremely threatening for the wrong reasons. I like that you need to maneuvre around them and such, but not being able to permanently break their shields, even with SHIELD BREAKING weapons, is simply that: sh*t. If youâre alone and face 2+ of them, there is no tactics involved, no real skill, is just hoping that you get a window where you can spam your fastest attacks and hope you can get a single hit in. If youâre footnight kruber, you can charge em and take em out, if youâre pyro Sienna or Waystalker Keri, you can shoot them with your special. Ranger Bardin can go invisible and grudge-rake them from behind. Shade Keri can back stab at least one of them from infiltrate.
Consider this:
- Shield stormvermin are the strongest vermin enemy and yet they are weaker than CW in every aspect.
- CW often have are surrounded by bulwarks while shield stormvermin will mostly be with stormvermin.
- Shieldvermin deal little damage.
Although SSV are more threatening than SV, just because they are harder to kill, nerfing their main characteristic can easily trivialize them and the whole vermin part of the game.
There is really nothing else in vermin areas that pose a threat and prevent players from simply spamming ranged attacks.
This may be true, but that is a different problem imho. Shieldvermin design is still terrible, no matter how essential they are to challenge when it comes to skaven. Their shields are counter-intuitive, blocking too large of an angle, covering even their faces even when their visual representation clearly does not. As it would seem, their animations seem bugged to the effect that sometimes, they are staggered and open but the animation does not represent that. Okay, fair enough. I mean, you could always make their shields more durable than CW armour so that you will have to wail on them quite a bit, but not being able to permanently remove their shields paired with the unwarranted block angle they have just makes them not at all fun or engaging to fight. It is more or lass a gamble even when you get around them, they still manage to block you when they simply shouldnât be able to. Iâd rather see some other design choices made than stick with Shieldvermin as they are now.
I mean, it works with CW, you really canât deal with them efficiently with just ranged attacks if thereâs 2 or more and some other mobs. That works well, it forces you to engage them in melee, fighting them in melee is actually pretty fun and feels rewarding due to their varied attack patterns and very fair attack telegraphy (for the most part). That is good design, that is fun, that caters to the player making use of the gameâs mechanics and soft-forcing you into melee. Shieldvermin donât do that, they just âlol i blockz u 4 evar pls click moar m1â.
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Thereâs a pattern how many attacks they block. Use shove & light attacks to open them up and once they are open use strong attacks to kill them quickly.
I really never have much problem with them. Even as WHC + rapier which has very low stagger because tag + 2 BOP shots is enough.
Proof is that SV patrols are easily dismantled by bombing the SV. The remaining SSV canât handle focused damage nor deal any damage on their own.
Abusing their AI also already cheapens them a lot. Usually people use ledges, but itâs equally easy to just 1-2 shot them while not aggroed.
They CAN break people that canât deal with armor, but so does CW and any armored boss.
Yes, I am aware of that. But as the patch notes indicate, it does not get displayed properly atm (and when thereâs multiple of them in tight spaces, good luck hitting the same one every time with the pushblock, pushblock, pushattack combo everytime). Even if it did, their incredible invisible block angle makes them counter intuitive to fight. You can twist and turn it all you want, Shieldvermin are just not very well designed.
Very well designed is an opinion and hinges on their intended role. If their intended role was to be annoying, Iâd say they are very well designed.
But as the patch notes indicate, it does not get displayed properly atm
Never had problem with the animations myself.
Even if it did, their incredible invisible block angle makes them counter intuitive to fight.
Well if you tried blocking in the game yourself, youâd find the shield vermin block much the same way (though not as effectively). If you mirror it against that the behavior is perfectly intuitive because it mirrors other game mechanics. At least thatâs how my intuition works.
Simple, play Sienna with beam staff. Beam until shield is down, then snipe.
Yes, because the mobs in this game should totally have the same abilities, because it is about them, not you. It doesnât matter how your own block behaves. Besides, how about them being able to attack chain and block at the same time? Can I do that, too? No? Then your points is rather invalid.
Designing something to be annoying is bad design in itself and requires 0 effort and consideration, so again, a rather moot point. To craft a hyperbole, if my intention was to design an enemy that party whipes anytime it spawned, I could put that in the game. If it did what it was supposed to do, would it be good design?
Doesnât matter if you ever had problems with it, it clearly and explicitly states in the beta patch notes that they are not behaving as they should.
It would at least be more logical if they made their shields larger to actually cover their faces and shield-hand side. It would be nice if I could circle them to their weapon hand side, exposing myself to danger but at least getting an opening myself. The large block angle is counter-intuitive simply because the player is presented many openings on the enemy without the ability to exploit them. Their âbacksideâ is smaller than it seems and only seems to cover a 90° angle, anything above that is considered the side and they can block that.
Amazing to what extent people spite logic in order to defend ill-designed mechanics just to uphold their âbetter than thouâ.
Set difficulty to champion or below.
Itâs already been stated. SSV block angle is just similar to the player.
Also, how many games does it require to understand where the block is effective? IDK, maybe trying something different sounds TOO hard, better spam light attacks until dead.
Well we already had this topic with the Shieldvermin
Many agree that the shield mechanics are boring and many disagree.
I personally think it is boring how you have to handle them. The fighting system is the main and nearly only reason i play this game. The most fun is the fighting when it demands skillfull actions by the player.
For example:
- Fighting a horde. Carefully choosing the time to make a strike while dodging enemy incoming attacks and pusshing at the right time.
- Dodging a CW while aiming with heavy stikes at his head. Same with other elite enemys.
- Constantly dodging a boss so that he stays at the same place and youre team can get easy hits.
- Helping teammates in tricky situations by covering their back or using youre special abillity at the right moment.
- etc
So for me the game is fun when it demands my skill or the skill of my team.
But fighting shieldvermins just doesnât demand any skill, and offers no interessting new gameplay elements.
Yes you can get attacks in from behind, but 90% of the time it is just way easyier and less dangerous to start whaling blindly at their shield. To get a attack in from behind you often have to move out of position and that is normally something you should avoid.
And donât tell me it is fun to constanly climp up and down a ledge to kill them 
For me it is defenitely not.
I think if you want to make fighting them more interresting, than other tactics need to be more promising than just bashing their shield. Thats why i suggest this:
Keep in mind this is just my opinion. If nobody agrees with me i will just try to mod it in as soon as we get modding tools. I hope this will be possible
@birdman
I donât understand why a ssv gets nearly the same block angle as a player.
The player are heroes who killed thousands of skaven, hundreds of bosses and are constantly outnumbered.
A ssv is just a single stormvermin who only has to fight four heroes. Giving him nearly the same block angle doesnât sound that fair
If our enemys should have the same mechanincs as the player, then why cant they block any strike of the player if they dont have a shield? Why cant they dodge? So i donât think player and ssv need the same treatment when it comes to block angle
The initial argument was that SSV block angle was âcounter-intuitiveâ. Itâs the similar to the players thus not so much.
The enemies donât have the same mechanics, but instead a rudimentary AI so itâs just fair that they have sufficient stats to avoid being steamrolled.
Vermin areas are already weak as they are. They could at least have another SV variant such as a captain.
I really donât know how people have so much difficulty hitting SSV backs with 2+ players. One has the aggro, the other hits the back. 1-2 hits each and dead.
I agree its boring if even elite enemys get steamrolled. But right now most elite enemys are really not that tough. Even maulers get stunned by light attacks of most weapons.
And its the same for ssv. They are absolutely not dangerous. Just spamming light attacks at them stunns them forever. Thats also one reason why their is not really a point for going for a attack in their back.
As long as a teammate spams light attacks at a ssv it is really hard to get a nice strike in their back.
If you tell youre teammate now he should stop attacking then you give the ssv an opportunity to attack.
So why not just play it save and spam him to death?
Also if there is a ssv in a horde, then normally you donât try to get behind them. That would mean you are seperate from youre team, something you should avoid.
So instead the team normally deals with the horde first and just stuns the ssv from time to time.
Even if you watch players like J_sat you rarrely see them going for a back attacks. Only exception is when they play shade or an other stealth character.
I think SSV shouldnât get stunned that easely by attacks from the front. That makes spam tacticts way to effective.
If its more difficult to stun them with frontal attacks but easyier to get attacks in from the side or behind fighting them would be much more interresting in my opinion.
Maulers are to chaos what SV are to vermin. SSV are the nearest to CW. Not worth mentioning by themselves, but they increase mob pressure.
Unlike CW, they canât be one-shot silly, which shouldnât be a thing anyway. CW should be much more resistant to abilities as they are against most ranged weapons.
Going for back attacks is just an option. An option you donât have against CW, unless shade ofc. I think angles are good as they are because some maps are very narrow.
Iâd agree light attack spam is too effective (beam), there could be a cap where attacks w/ too little stagger wouldnât do anything, however they could then be more vulnerable when attacking.
I would be totaly fine with that.
I cannot understand why people would call fighting shieldvermins âboringâ. if everything can be damaged by light/heavy attacks directly, THAT would be boring. SSV gives so much diversity in playstyle.
- heavy/light attacking while circling around itâs back with a quick weapon
- opening up the shield with X light attacks then going for the head
- fighting a horde together with a shieldvermin, waiting for it to be exposed then quickly dodging, drawing your weapon and shooting it dead and returning to engage the horde
- aiming AOE weapons (hagbane/bombs/conflag staff) behind them to stagger or kill them
- learning the most effective way to open them up and kill them with each weapon type
- prioritising them and just killing them outright through shields with the handgun (bardin and kruber)
- drawing your sniping weapon, waiting for the critical moment when they get opened up by attacks from your teammates then shooting them in the face
imo, theyâre really interesting to overcome.
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