Just thought I would share this here. 
Some folks might find it useful, or not know how much damage her dash actually does.
Jesus Christ… Erm I mean by Sigmar and the Hammer!
I always thought the damage was so low, so I didn’t pay attention to it at all…
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This is nothing new. Handmaiden is the most OP character in the game and has been forever. Fatshark do nothing to nerf an elf though.
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I agree, she’s very powerful, but I wouldn’t call her overpowered. The strongest classes in the game right now are easily Zealot and Slayer. Handmaiden is close, but just being “pretty good” at everything isn’t as useful as “being unkillable and able to kill everything close to it at obscene speeds”.
I would, if I could, tweak her invis to break on dealing damage, though, and reduce the damage of her Dash to do around 18-20 damage, and make Bladedancer come close to the breakpoint for Marauders, so you could spec into being able to do that if you wanted.
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She’s never been the most OP. You’re just speaking out of your ass.
She’s one of the least potent careers at the moment. She can’t dash through levels like used to due to boss walls and the frequency of bosses. She’s slow to kill bosses; even with an ammo box and hagbane, it takes some time. Her ability to deal with armor is mediocre. A lot of the balance changes FS has done over time have made her less useful. She even has a completely useless passive(Ariel’s Benison) along with redundant talents for defense, when utility or damage would be better suited. The stamina aura is nice and the dodge distance is great, but the player is pigeon-holed into certain talents like using Gift of Ladrielle for stealth because the other talents are essentially useless.
Reducing the damage on the dash would make it worse than it already is. In order to wipe out waves of chaos in a single dash, you have to spec to do that. Bladedancer is a silly talent because the stealth is invaluable due to what the dash is and how it works(also the damage increase is arguably meaningless). When you dash with Gift of Ladrielle, you get stealth but you also lack collision allowing you to move through enemies for 3 seconds and not get stuck in them. That’s what makes Kerillian’s stealths useful(aside from being invisible).
A number of careers easily outweigh Handmaiden. One of the game’s current issues is that hyper-density is completely out of control and so it throws balance out the window for melee and a number of weapons which are made terrible because of the density issues. The careers and weapons were designed and balanced around the system working properly. The system is currently not working properly. In order to assess the potency of careers and game balance, you must look at things as a whole. If you look solely at something like this, then you’re just going to yo-yo game balance.
Yes . . . the damage on Bladedancer is meaningless, that’s why I’m suggesting it be tweaked. If the default damage was lowered to 18 or 20, it’d still be enough to kill everything it currently kills, but leave beefier targets with more HP. Making Bladedancer do close to breakpoints for Marauders means you could choose to spec into it for more killing power, or just leave the so weak that even a Rapier light would finish them.
I disagree, though, that she’s less useful than she was before. I mean, yes, she can’t just speed-run the map, but thinking that’s her main use is really missing a lot. She’s a jack-of-all-trades who is pretty good at everything. She can fit into almost any party because of how much versatility she has. She can be a frontliner or a midliner, get off rezzes and rescues, kite endlessly, kill entire hordes faster than almost any other character while still being mobile . . . and her damage against bosses, while of course not on the level of characters who are dedicated boss-killers (like Shade) is really good, because she’s got Eldrazor’s Precision for a constant power increase, and some good boss-killing weapons (like Spear that lets her stay at a safe range and deal good damage). And Dash is easily one of the most useful ults in the whole game. Repositioning, escaping, damaging, gaining distance, gap-crossing . . .
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No it’s nothing to argue about. Bladedancer is broken it only works in the keep and is completely disabled everywhere else.
If you try it out in keep you will notice that if it was working it would be borderline op.
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Lol wut? As someone who’s played her for over 100 levels, I can assure you this is not true. Strength pot + hagbane on HM is disgusting. 15-18 seconds to kill a boss while they can not touch you due to dodge distance and dash. Make sure you are doing charge attacks and not quick attacks. The charged DoT damage is around 1k per tick.
Dual daggers still work pretty well with her, but the glaive destroys hordes and can 1 shot SV. She is a very solid pick for any team. Obviously WS with Longbow is the best special eliminator in the game. But if you are already pretty solid on range characters, she’s a great addition.
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So much of an emotional reaction. Found the elf main… Although if you had any time on the handmaiden nearly all of this would be obvious to you.
Handmaiden is virtually unkillable in the hands of player with acceptable skill level and does massive damage and utility with very little weaknesses other than boss damage, which isn’t terrible when using weapons like dual daggers and still excellent if using hagbane. She is great against elites, great against hordes and great against specials. It would seem that isn’t enough though.
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She gets 15% power for free, no grims attached, for an unnoticeable trade off in attack speed. That lets her hit 1 shotting stormvermin in the head territory with dual daggers (since they have one of the highest inherent crit chances in the game), 1 shotting gutter runners with longbow etc. Many things built in that do not have to have thought put into as they do on the other characters.
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She has the highest dodge range in the game. Dodge is life in this game. You would understand that if you play legend deeds like harder better/vanguard or have done Fortunes of War on legend. Her dodge range makes her nearly untouchable.
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Not only does she get the best damage mitigation in the game (dodge range), she gets given 150 health (assuming the use of 20% more on necklace), because why not. Even though she’s a melee character lets give her a talent that increases her max ammo, with the other options it’s up against obviously worse choices… because reasons.
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She has the best get out of jail free card in the game, a dash that not only ignores enemies as obstacles, works in mid air but she then phases around invisibly for a time afterwards, even after attacking. Able to headshot away specials trouble free after dashing.
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Despite having this great repositioning and invisibility power, which can be used to get out of trouble, revive a team mate, kill multiple specials by headshotting with the longbow while invisible etc, it is set to a ridiculously short cooldown. The cooldown is so short that the character can spend massive amounts of time invisible when there is a big fight taking place. With either swift slaying or resourceful it is not hard to generate the focus to spam the dash. Who needs dodge range when enemies can’t even see you…
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But being invisible with the highest dodge range in the game, with the best elf weapons in the game (applying DoT damage to enemies), isn’t enough. So let’s give her dash the effect of massively damaging every enemy she dashes through. Something that you might expect on say Foot Knight, who actually comes into contact with enemies using the 2nd clunkiest and very unreliable ult. No… instead put that damage on the handmaiden dash.
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Elf weapons. A selection of the best weapons in the game that are also high crit (daggers, sword and dagger, swords). She also gets hagbane or longbow for precision head shotting
People do not use Gift of Ladrielle because the other talents are useless (let’s just assume that people have taken the game at its word and the extra bleed works as described). Even if it did work it wouldn’t matter, they use Ladrielle because it is plainly broken and far too obviously the best option of the 3.
I have nothing against the elf, in fact I have most of my time on the elf, so am best placed to give an opinion on her but I play all characters quite evenly now with least time on Sienna and am at around 1200 hours played, mainly on legend or legend deeds.
Lets be real though. The elf is staying exactly where it is because it’s a crutch for new players and Fatshark have a secret love for the elf.
You might want to check out a video of me playing handmaiden with my usual team on Fortunes of War. It ends in the most high mobility characters clutching the map. Funnily enough none of us play handmaiden any more for typical legend deeds, because she’s just so untouchable and racks up so many kills for zero effort, it’s just boring for the player and for the rest of the team.
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Bladedancer does work in-game . . . you can test it in the modded realm. Perhaps it works differently in the keep, but in live matches it simply adds one more tick of bleed, bringing it up to 33.75 damage. Which is a useless number, as it’s still too far away from being able to one-shot Marauders (I was already running +Inf Charm and Eldrazor’s Precision to get to 33.75), but doesn’t really let you hit anything else. Maybe you could aim for Gutter Runners or something if you really wanted, but that’s ultra-niche and not worth it.
FoUnD tHe ElF mAiN. You seem to be the emotional one typing an essay in response to one line. lol
Have. And there are careers that can easily do better.
Dodging isn’t damage mitigation.
A chef could cook for years and still cook garbage food. You aren’t the only person who plays more than one character so you can step down from your step stool. I never said HM was a bad career. The below isn’t calling her bad. It means exactly what it means.
And people like you are trying to shove opinions all over the place. smh
You began your post with an insult. Please look in the mirror. You are the one that seems to have something stuck up your rear end about this topic.
Damage mitigation:
I find not getting hit is a great way to not take damage, not a difficult concept.
I can understand you don’t like an “essay” when that post provides not just my opinion but a list of undeniable attributes about the character that makes your opinion look pretty stupid in comparison.
Also everyone is entitled to their opinion and simply stating it is not “pushing” it on anyone. I respect yours even when it’s ass backwards.
I dunno what continued problem you have with this topic is but go ahead and get the last word in so you can “win”. My points were stated clearly above and I don’t see any need to contribute further.
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I have to inform you that you’re wrong. Selecting bladedancer does noting outside of the keep. I tested your claim and as it turns out the dash does 4-5 ticks. You seem to have credited bladedancer with the 5 ticks but that isn’t true. Both with or without bladedancer the dash can do 4 or 5 ticks.
I wasn’t able to find the cause for the tick difference but just preemptiv: No with bladedancer you didn’t get more 5ers no you actually got far more 4rers than without the trait. I think it’s probably caused by the coding that one tick is eaten sometimes.
That’s weird, in my video I only show one tested, but off-camera I tested it repeatedly and only ever saw 4 ticks without, and 5 with. I suppose with randomness that could happen, but I never saw any anomalies.
Though I have seen other DoTs be inconsistent in their number of ticks before.
Sweet mother of mercy. It must be a difficult concept because you can’t understand Avoidance ≠Mitigation. Dodging isn’t mitigating. It’s avoiding it all together.
You were ever contributing?
Did you wait all this time to post a response in the hope you wouldn’t get a reply and had therefore “won”?
Avoidance / mitigation / whatever you want to call it. It’s petty semantics. Dodge distance is the biggest factor in this game in not taking damage on the higher levels of play.
From the other people who have up voted my posts while you have received none would suggest I’m contributing. Maybe it’s also because I provided evidence above for my opinion and focus on talking about the game instead of posting nothing to do with the topic and instead some ad hominem insult.
Have a nice day… moving on.
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