Yea. I’d say shielded stormvermin are the most annoying enemy in the game as of now. Not because they have some challenging mechanics, they are as dumb as any rats, because they counter almost all the stuff that should counter them. I’m somewhat competitive player and I never had too much trouble with huge packs of chaos warriors, stormvermin, berzerkers or even multiple bosses. They are ok. But multiple shielded stormvermin in a fight= death sentence without explosive bombs. They are armored, so not anti-armor weapons arent quite meh vs them, they have autoblock shield so wasting ammo on them is also pretty ineffective.
Sure we have dedicated counter-shield weapon quality, well too bad they counter it too since it doesnt work on them, their shield is unbreakable and the window where they drop it is less than a second and its canceled by shoving them so you cant “break guard, shove others, strike the opened one” combo them. They are also fast, have huge autoblock arc and have instant 180 degree turn if you decide to help your teammates with them which is by itself is pretty dangerous idea if you are under siege, flanking during a wave on champion or higher is putting you and your team at risk.
There is also knockdown mechanics that i love to use on… well, pretty much everything. Except shielded stormvermin. Are they the only enemy who are immune to knockdown? Even chaos lord gets knocked down, those guys dont and dont even drop their guard when they get hit with it.
There is also ignore shields rule that could help. Aaaaaand only one weapon in the game have it. And this weapon is not even armor piercing (not at all attacks at least). I dont think saltzpyre with flail should be a must-have character and loadout to be sure you wouldnt get hard countered by 4 randomly spawning shieldvermin.
Im really annoyed at being hard countered by something i can do nothing about except for hoping my allies are alive, not too far away, dont have anyone else to help, not in too tight formation with me, not occupied at all and have extremely specific tools for the job (because i am usualy shieldbreaker and anti-armor guy)
TL;DR We have enemy that:
*Counters not-armor piercing weapons unless its some daggers that can hit the head with insane speed
*Counters anti-armor weapons with autoblock
*Counters ranged weapons with autoblock
*Hard-counters weapons that pierce through multiple enemies since you cant pierce stormvermin and clear enemies around them
*Hard-counters shield-breaker weapons with unbreakable shield
*Hard-counters knockdown with knockdown immunity
*Hard-counters slow swinging weapons with small guard down window
*Soft-counters alpha strike in range with autoblock after 1st hit and pretty big health pool
*Hard-counters blocking with some kind of block piercing or AoE attack (mb bug dunno)
*Hard-counters shoving since they are stormvermin
*Hard-counters tight formations with huge block angle
*Hard-counters running backwards and poking with autoblock
*Soft-counters headshotting from the back due to head position
So to counter them without flailed saltzpyre you need to: freely walk around them, have multiple ppl with anti-armor weapons, outnumber them two to one because of instant rotation (yea you can deal with 2 or 3 without outnumbering them but when they are 4+ its just ubreakable shieldwall that just splits in two and chases you around), have a clear path to walk backwards and focus fire only one of them in the mob. Sounds easy enough.
P.S. I doubt anyone is talking about how hard it is to beat a single shieldvermin in an open field that runs at you in a straight line. I know im talking about 4 or 5 randomly spawning in the middle of the wave or during boss fight and either insta sniping one player if he cant run away backwards with decent blocking weapon, if he can they just shut him down until he hits a wall or sneaky slaverat with his back.
What if that block/attack was used for shield breaking?
Something like kick in Dark Souls series, maybe increase stamina cost but make it 99,9% chance to open shields of your enemies for few hits.
Or simply yet another special attack you could use for this purpose only, it could also help in future if we were for example to get more shield carrying enemies.
Blockquote
What if that block/attack was used for shield breaking?
Honestly I thought that was what you were supposed to do at first, but so far as I can see it only works if you have that orange trait that boosts your push when the enemy is attacking or are doing a easier difficulty at max power.
Pushing to lower their guard temporarily would be a good counterplay addition, and it’d make fighting these guys by yourself much less irritating.
SO when you go into quickplay and nobody has a shield breaking weapon so 2 of you just sit there spamming light/heavy hits on them for 30 seconds until he finally dies. You don’t think that’s a bit excessive for a minor elite? If it weren’t for the shield we could all oneshot them. Couldn’t there be a medium? Still providing a challenge, instead of essentially being a “bullet sponge” for melee?
You either bash it till it gets staggered, or do a push+counter to land in a quick hit, or simply go behind it while it’s fighting a teammate.
You can’t complain if everyone has only horde clearing weapons or everyone has only single target anti armor weapons. You need to have everything and everyone needs to play a different role for a balanced experience.
that’s easy to say until you’re in quick play where people don’t really “have” to do anything. unless you get a group that is willing to do that sort of thing, it very well might be a situation where you don’t have any shield breaking.
simply just make it possible to hit them in the back and head shot. Right now if i shoot them in the head they will auto raise their shield unless they are not in combat. Same with flank, they just turn around instantly to block. Poor design! Just these changes alone will make it balanced, where 1 person could have trouble, but 2 people working together could deal with it.
I saw a few posts, “just aim for the head”, first off, duh, second it seems their shield has a glitched box, I’ve aimed and knew I would have head shotted these guys several times only to get the shield block animation. Hit boxes need to be adjusted…
Yeah I honestly don’t know what those people were talking about. To date, I’ve never managed to headshot a shield vermin that was already engaging a player. He might have been confused about critting, since I believe those penetrate armor/shields, or maybe they were talking about killing them before they attack, I don’t know.
Sometimes I’ve aimed at a shieldvermin’s head from a flanking angle while the enemy is distracted and the damn rat turns 170 degrees and blocks it anyway. It’s absurd.
If the rat stays facing the way it is, this is correct. Problem is that, even if engaging another player, they will often whip around 180 degrees to block your arrow. So technically their block radius is 180, but realistically it often ends up being 360 degrees. I feel like they have to be animation locked via stagger or attacking for you to reliably hit them from behind.
This gets even worse with people hitting them as it not only heightens their unpredictability but it can also make your on target attack from behind them suddenly fall within their 180 degree arc. Yet, ironically, if not being attacked they would still potentially 180 and block you anyways.
They just plain suck atm. Their counterplay is present, but super narrow and very inconsistent. And their magic shield jumping to easily block every headshot in every situation is part of that.
Agree they are tedious to fight, their shields are titanium enforced and should behave like other shields, perhaps with TWICE the resistance ( with slightly damage absorption) but i have seen games where a player cannnot break the stormvermin-shield defenses. They are not supposed to be one to one with any heroe.
Just Ctr+C Ctrl+V the other shield system with the changes mentioned above
The only problem I have with them is the visual representation of their block. I stab them from the side-blocked,form the side and slightly behind- block. Only working attacks are directly from behind.
They’re not hard, but I hate how their visuals don’t represent their actual block area.
I like shielded stormvermin, but even if they do have shields, they shouldn’t, imo, be more resilient than a Chaos Warrior, lol. Grant it, the Chaos Warrior is foregoing protection for the double-sided axe. But even so…on one hand, you have black ratto with piecemailish, hodge-podge “armor,” and then on the other you have a mutant, towering juggernaut clad in chaos-tainted suit of plate. Yet the ratto has better chances at survival than the juggernaut, lol.
I notice i die alot from left over enemies… like stormvermin hit the floor, and i think he is dead, i proceed to others, then guy raise behind me… yesterday one one shoted me like that
Shieldvermin aren’t actually more resilient than a Chaos Warrior.
One has an indestructible shield, yes, but behind that he’s just a stormvermin that doesn’t have strong moves.
A Chaos Warrior will take multiple hits from a strong armor piercing weapon while having an insta KO move. The stormvermin is vulnerable, but he also hits very hard from a large distance with his strong moves.
Against shieldvermin it’s just about not getting overwhelmed. They are pretty hopeless once the stormvermin are dead.
I just mean the shield, for what it is, is just way too resilient. Even if behind the shield the ratto is weaker, the shield itself is just, crazy strong. I don’t have any problems with it personally, I just think if anyone should have such a strong shield like that, it should be Chaos Warriors. Shielded, Chaos Warriors.
I mean i wouldn’t outright nerf em as those shields are dangerous in a horde but when they’re the last rat’s standing (and let’s be honest 99.9% of the time they are…) i’d give em like a “fatigue” or “cowardice” thing, if they’re alone they don’t block as much for . Cleanup isn’t exactly engaging gameplay
Sienna deals with them pretty easy tho, as the quick multiple hits from a LMBHold Beam will make em stagger and drop the shield then you just right click for the killing blow.
