Traits Thread 999,999,999,999,999,999,999

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Even before stagger was forced upon the masses the idea of 1 lone slaverat dealing a ton of damage just because it was alone is sheer idiocy imo.

Cataclysm could’ve been something actually interesting as opposed to the slog it now is while being easier in some cases (no need for tomes / grims). Difficulty specific enemies like supped up Elites that have a unique skin (not entirely new enemies - too much work) with better stats would’ve been interesting to see in Champion, Legend and Cataclysm (spawn chances varying of course). Unique events / encounters would’ve been interesting (spawning a bunch of berserkers that aggro as 1 example, spawning a small warband consisting of 1-2 Chaos Warriors, a few maulers and some cannon fodder that aggro as another example). Bosses spawning in Cataclysm having some sort of honor guard like a Stormfiend spawning with slave rats and a warpfire thrower and a hookrat.

Cataclysm is just number tweaks which is rather uninspiring to me.

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No. It isn’t. You’re just wrong. Being better than the other options doesn’t mean that it is OP or breaking the game. It just means the other options aren’t good enough.

You claim to be using my example, but you assigned a value to Cata (10) and are claiming that SS is 20. So you’re implying again that SS is making Cata too easy, which it isn’t. The point of my example is that SS is stronger than the other traits. Difficulty level has nothing to do with it. Balancing means bringing things to the same level. So buffing the other traits to be similarly powerful compared to SS is balancing. Nerfing SS down to their level would be balancing too, I agree. But because SS isn’t breaking the game, there isn’t any reason to nerf it. Hence the better solution is buffing the bad traits.

This is a true-solo with WHC (thx reddit) running SS. Notice how he has to frequently block/push/dodge/ranged-swap/kite/re-position/mix in charged attacks. The idea that having SS allows you to waltz through Cata spamming left-click and nuking everything is incorrect. This is also a ~40 minute run with no books on one of the shortest maps in the game, and you think they should have spent more time blocking?

Wrong again. The inherent design of all the relevant weapon traits is built around class/weapon choices. Off Balance, Parry, Opportunist are all best suited to tanky careers with high-stamina (shield) weapons. RC and SS are clearly designed with dps crit-heavy classes in mind. Removing crit-based triggers and making traits weapon-dependent and universally effective across all classes is an awful solution. It would mitigate talents, properties, and classes themselves and make everything more bland, which is the opposite of diversity.

SS has a duration of 5s. Not 15s. Maybe you should work on your own reading ability before criticizing others. Watch the video link. The idea that SS has 100% uptime is incorrect. If you’re not against changing the effect (which is really the most allegedly ‘OP’ aspect of SS due to all your hyperbolic ‘examples’) why argue so vehemently for such a minor nerf? Also, if the nerf is really that minor, it means SS isn’t breaking the balance of the game.

Shade, BH, Flamethrower, Bolt Staff, Huntsman, Slayer, etc…there are so many careers/weapons/abilities that can obliterate anything but Bosses and Lords with minimal effort. The challenge comes from overwhelming the players with pure numbers and attrition (ambushes being more deadly than hordes because they force peel/positioning), whittling down the player’s health and punishing bad position and low awareness with disables and aoe special units. Individual enemies and small groups are rarely a problem, but Elite units are still punishing if you get hit by them, and are dangerous in large numbers when coupled with ambushes/specials. Team-play is knowing and filling your role (which enemies am I responsible for nuking). Shade/Slayer are designed to nuke elites. Wizard careers are designed to delete hordes. Some classes/weapons are more specialized than others, but the core gameplay revolves around killing (ideally as efficiently/quickly as possible, ie ‘nuking’) enemies before they kill you. That is the challenge. That’s why you kill hundreds/thousands of enemies per run. Fact.

I understand that there is no difference, because V2 is a hack n’ slash game at it’s core. I understand this because I do play on the higher/highest difficulties. But way to be a condescending prick.

The tankier builds/classes are already generally more viable on Cata because you have more health/damage-resistance and therefore room for error. That is the trade-off between DPS and tanking. DPS is meaningless if you’re getting 1-shotted by enemies. That’s why HM, IB, Merc/FS, and Zealot are the most popular classes (at least that I see) on Cata. And since SS does exist in it’s current state (and has for 2 years), I’d say you’re once again totally wrong.

No. I think the game is fine. SS is fine. More traits being brought up to SS level of viability would be fine and good for the game (build variety). It wouldn’t make things too easy because SS already exists and Legend and Cata are still appropriately challenging. The point is that if YOU think the game is too easy, which it seems that you do, since you’re whining for nerfs, there are ways to increase the challenge WITHOUT unnecessary changes to the most popular trait in the game.

Splitting hairs. You’re comparing SS users to drug addicts and implying we’re stupid because we think the trait is “Phunn”. Don’t back down from your toxicity. I won’t from mine, because I am saying that you and your arguments are stupid, and you need to work on your own reading retention and critical thinking.

You seem to think that balance means everything being pushed to the middle, but that’s not what balance is. You’re also confusing trait-power relative to game-difficulty with trait-power relative to other traits. Balance among traits means that the traits are at the same level of power. You could nerf all traits to be at the same level as Heroic Intervention and they would be balanced relative to each other, but it would make Cata and Legend more difficult. Balance relative to difficulty is different. SS is balanced at Cata and Legend. It isn’t OP or gamebreaking. The other traits (with few exceptions) are not balanced relative to Cata and Legend (and therefore w/ SS) because they are outright inferior to and have very little effect on the game.

Watch the video. SS isn’t redundant/mitigating/negating/overshadowing/trivializing/whatever other synonym you want (splitting hairs again) gameplay. Skilled use of defensive mechanics still leads to success, and ignoring those mechanics leads to death and defeat. SS isn’t broken, it’s just good.

We can also leave it alone, buff the other traits, and then it isn’t a balance (relative to other traits) problem.

No. You said you were “Average/Bleow-Average” Which to me means you spend most of your time on Champ/Legend, not Cata, which means that your complaints of SS making the game too boring are invalid. Again, if you’re an elite player who finds Cata boring you can challenge yourself with other game modes and solo runs.

By that logic clutching and solo play should be impossible and that’s not right. And I do see this behavior frequently, and as I said, 90% of the time it IS punished, and when it isn’t it has more to do with that player’s skill and luck than it does their use of SS. Who needs to learn to read? (I also like how your anecdotal example jumped from 1 packmaster to several disablers, but my point still stands)

No they haven’t. That’s an oversimplification. Crit-based triggers were a problem with specific weapons (beamstaff, flamethrower) on specific classes (Pyro), and due to specific talents (Shade w/ 30% CRD and DD, Pyro’s old CDR level 30 talent ) and mechanics (1st hits on enemies procing passive CRD) that have since been appropriately (if not overly, since RS and RC are pretty weak now) nerfed.

That would require weapon-by-weapon balancing for one trait, which opens another balancing wormhole for only a very slight change to the trait. If the effect isn’t a problem ( you’re contradicting yourself with all your ‘SS makes gameplay boring/redundant’ rhetoric) maybe it should just be left alone. Watch the video. Uptime isn’t a real issue. The effect isn’t a real issue. SS isn’t broken, just better than the other options.

I never said RS should be uncapped. I said RC should. There is a huge balance difference between Pyro safely spamming beam/burning-head from range and Pyro/Shade/BH risking their neck in melee combat. LeArN tO REeEEeEeAD.

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Just wanna point some little things out and ask something.

In the video you shared, if you watch when he gets his first horde, his ss has 100% uptime.

When you say RC should be uncapped, what about crit pyro dagger players, do you think thats fine?

Do you think traits etc should be balanced with true solo in mind?

With nuking, do you mean killing enemies fast or oneshotting them?

Ss isn’t really breaking the game’s balance, it is however hard to introduce new traits which are worth picking over ss, and thats the issue. Yes they could just keep the current traits and not rework them, but it’s more fun to have a choice, for me atleast. For example looking at mercenary krubers ult talent which gives 40% dmg red to the team, nobody chooses something else (res ult in rare situation like oneshot weaves maybe or on lower difficulties), but if you know a bit what your doing that choice is a no brainer. So how hard would it be to make the other 2 ult talents compete with 40dmg red? I know ss is not comparable to 40% dmg reduction but its the same concept. Try and find reworks for other traits and you’ll quickly realise it’s not an easy thing to do, ( unless you make things way stronger, a bit like your suggestions which i don’t agree with). it does however get easier if ss get brought down a bit. Don’t wanna be to radical and remove it, because we all got used to it for super long, but looking into different ways it triggers or reduce its percentage couldn’t hurt.

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Not quite 100%. You’re talking about 1:15 - 2:30? It does proc a lot, but it drops during the 2nd wave for like 10s. 2nd horde 4:30-5:30 it is intermittent. He’s also playing a class that guarantees procs after using career ability. The idea that you have 100% uptime through the whole run is what I’m refuting. He also isn’t mindlessly spamming left-click as is being implied. He positions himself with his back to a wall so he can’t be flanked, and he blocks/pushes/dodges frequently, so SS isn’t mitigating the other game mechanics (as is being implied), just doing it’s job.

Yeah, probably. Burning head stops as soon as it hits any SV or CW, and isn’t a guaranteed kill on a CW. Same with Shade’s ability (single target only), and BH too. Constantly generating temp HP would be the most OP aspect in Pyro’s case. I’ll admit uncapping it completely might be excessive, but I’m sure a happy medium exists between 4s and uncapped.

I think they should be balanced with Cata and high-level play in mind. Not to make Cata easy, just to be clear, but before nerfing things like Heat Sink (now worthless) and Ranged Temp Health (could have been toned down without removing it completely, thus making all-ranged parties outright inferior, and range-heavy classes a liability on Cata). It never made sense to me that all those heavy nerfs came right before the release of Cata and the OP Beastmen, especially since Deeds and Twitch still existed at the time. This is a whole other topic, but I can’t understand why there isn’t some kind of public Deed lobby, since it would provide another difficulty tier for players who thought/think Legend and Cata are somehow too easy.

I chose a true solo run to illustrate that team-reliance isn’t necessarily the most important part of the game (unlike hacking and slashing, which is a core game mechanic) (though I agree that teamwork is good and wish my pubs would be better at it). And also to show that individual success has more to do with skill than it does with being reliant on SS.

Killing quickly and efficiently. Flamethrowers deleting hordes, Slayer deleting armored units, Shade and BH deleting bosses. I’m sure you can come up with your own examples. The point is that the game is designed around killing large numbers of enemy units as quickly and efficiently as possible, and that many classes already achieve this with (ranged) weapons/abilities that have nothing to do with SS.

Agreed, hence my suggestion that the other traits should be buffed. This should happen before other traits are introduced, since stuff like Heroic Intervention is functionally useless.

Ready For Action could cut out the ‘no longer restores temporary health’ part, (maybe 5-10-15 health instead of 25, but idk)

On Your Feet Mates could grant some kind of damage buff or attack-speed increase.

There are tons of ‘no-brainer’ picks across all the career talent trees. I realize that something is usually going to be the ‘best’ option, but the talents (and traits) are supposed to encourage experimenting with different weapons/builds/play-styles. As long as Cata remains extremely difficult for most pugs (which I believe it is), I don’t see a problem with replacing/reworking the bad talents (traits) instead of cutting down the ones that are good.

My home-brew suggestions are excessive because I was trying to make them stronger than SS. I’m not a game dev, so my numbers shouldn’t be taken too seriously. I was just trying to give thematic ideas.

The two are not mutually exclusive. You can buff/rework the other traits and leave SS alone. I’m sure increased mobility/damage/cleave would be competitive with SS without breaking the game.

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Again, not game-breaking but balance-breaking. Simply because game-breaking is not defined. And yes, SS is overpowered and it is making Cataclysm easier than it should be. That you can still die otherwise doesn’t mean that SS is not a problem. And yes, difficulty level has to do with balancing. Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t you say

So you drew the connection between difficulty and traits. And that makes actually sense, the trait should adjust to the top public available difficulty of Cataclysm which currently is not the case. It is overpowered.

Balancing means to reach a middleground, not bringing everything to the top. There is a fundamental difference. And yes, there is every reason to change the trigger condition or to adjust it in any other way.

And you are again, fleeing into extreme scenarios. Again, the usage of SS reduces the needed amount of other core gameplay mechanics which is called creating redundancy. And wow, you found a video I am impressed. I will tell you a secret, you will find other videos as well. This still doesn’t mean that SS is not overpowered. Actually, SS being used in a solo cataclysm run emphasis my point because it helps to make team work redundant. Seriously. Think about it. You are trying to convince me that Swift Slaying is not a balance problem by showing me a video of a solo cataclysm run based on a Swift Slaying build.

But let us start with the permanent uptime issue during horde. People correct me if I get numbers wrong. With equipment you can get 10 % crit chance and several classes have either 5 % class bonus or as talent, if we further regard weapon internal crit chances buffs, a conservative approach of 15 % crit chance is realistic, in some cases a bit low though. Swift Slaying has a duration time of 5 seconds. Most weapons have an attack duration of about 0.5 seconds. Some are slower, several are faster like Rapier or Dual Daggers which are well below 0.4 seconds per hit. All of this WITHOUT attack speed buffs which can decrease the time by equipment alone by 30 % (more or several classes). Which means in those 5 seconds, you can easily place about 10 hits, normally more. So the chance for SS not to activate is (1-0.15)^(10) = 0,2. So, yea it is probably to not trigger because that is how probability works but it is unlikely. And this is the case for not crit and attack speed orientated careers. If you regard something like Shade with Dual Daggers (Crit Chance > 20 %, Attack Speed of 1.35 for a 4-hit combo, * 0.7 = 0.945 which equals 21 hits) then you get a chance to not trigger of below 1 %, very much permanently during horde time. This is just the pure math. If you want to say now: But this is only a certain classes with certain weapons I will say: YES, that is why I want to change the god damn trigger condition away from crit chance because a trait SHOULD NOT BE CLASS DEPENDENT but weapon dependent. And then I can adjust suitable values per weapon somewhere from 5-12 % per hit.

Next issue is the game balance. The average human reaction time is at about 250 ms (I thought it is higher but okay have to take the values as given). Add a general average for computer related latency of about 100 ms you have a value of 350 ms reaction time. This said FS can’t and hasn’t placed any enemy attack animations below this value (maybe there is one at 0.3 seconds, if someone has the numbers correct me), most attack animations are probably at 0.4 seconds or higher. This means by the addition of the SS attack speed buff you UNDERCUT enemy attack animations. Horde enemies will receive at least a slight stagger for every hit (or was it only headshots) which means without additional stagger just by normally attacking you render the enemy inable to attack you. There are of course other enemies and bla but you are also hitting more enemies as one usually. The quintessence is that the amount you need to block for examples is dropping significantly. Just one example. However, for the game to be balanced in difficulty the enemies need to attack you which is why the players attack and the enemies attack should be identical or in favour of the enemy (because otherwise not difficult). Which options gives this to us in the current situation. One is to increase attack speed of enemies. This is a bad idea because you start moving outside the realm of humanly possible reaction time, also the network has to do more calculations per timeframe causing even more bugs. Second possibility is to take some speed out of the weapons which keeps the human able to react and at the same time relieving the network code which hasn’t to juggle priorities anymore. Changing SS is therefore the more beneficial way because as it currently is, it is balance-breaking.

As much as you like saying wrong. No, weapon traits should not be class dependent because it makes a balancing nightmare which caused past adjustments for RS and RC.

See above, I redid the calculation, it didn’t change the result much. Also, personally I think the influence will be noticeable. You are the one who said that SS rarely procs anyway, so you have to answer the question. What is the difference between rarely and rarely? Do you seriously not notice this? How dependent you are on this trait? You do not realize that it is a problem?

And many of those are problematic, but this is a discussion I won’t touch currently. Asking for even more nuking power doesn’t make the game more balanced. I have addressed this issue above as well.

You would do yourself a favour if you cut down the insults towards me like “braindead” or “prick”. They just weaken your arguments further.

Didn’t you say yourself that attack speed is also a defense property (or Offense is the best defense). That is why it enhances DPS classes doubly which is one of the problems. DPS is meaningless if you get one-shotted but you have to get hit for this which gets less likely the higher your attack speed. As for your claim I will leave this to FS to look at the correct numbers. Also, Mercenary is a DPS class and HM is not a tank. She has survivability but is not a tank.

The change is necessary though. Again, I have explained this in detail. You will always find people who say that the difficulty is appropriate even if you can summon Sigmar himself watching as he slaughters everything without you lifting a finger (pay attention, obvious hyperbole).

Not hair splitting. You have to differentiate between user and argument because even intelligent people can make really dumb arguments. And I emphasis the “Phhuun” to highlight the dumbness of the ARGUMENT because your fun is not my fun and not third persons fun. You have implied multiple times that I am against the game being fun although my goal is completely contrary to that. And regarding the obsession SS users have towards the trait without budging an inch, yea, everyone can make a judgment about this himself. So you are not addicted? You can stop using SS everytime you want? It is just that it is better than the rest? It helps you to get this high feeling while mowing down hordes? “But you are obsessive too!!!1” Um, okay. So I am addicted to NOT having SS? Take this as a childish retort towards your insults.

It is not my understanding alone, though. It is also an usual behaviour during negotiation to find the middle ground. And trait power has to be balanced relative to other traits and relative to difficulty. You have to watch the larger picture. If your view is to narrow and disregarding other aspect you will reach a wrong result. Like I said before, Opportunity is balanced for Cataclysm, the other traits need some rework/buff (I made a detailed post for this) while Swift Slaying needs some toning down. THEN, we may be able to reach a balanced state.

Your making again some pretty baseless conncetions and assumptions. I told you who it is. And yet, you try to push me into directions.

Yes, it should be near impossible. You can still run lucky. But if you let a teammate die in Cataclysm then you should pay for it. In my example I was speaking of rush intervention which is by common knowledge multiple disablers.

First you say they haven’t been a problem. Then you list several examples where they have been a problem. Decide on one. Showing that these traits cause problems just on certain classes only emphasis my point that traits should not be class dependent to avoid such problems and that crit chance based triggers should be removed from the game altogether.

Yea, that would be far easier to balance than the current situation.

Yea, that is completely different situation, you are right. Ignoring Pyro or Shade which can have insane crit chances, we take a look at another example: Taking WHC with RC and Fervency with Rapier. Rapier has an attack time of 0.36 + 0.33 + 0.54 seconds per 3 hit combo with 10 % attack speed, it goes to 1.107 seconds. At least we have to skip SS for RC. Still it means we get about 3 hits per second for a duration of 6 seconds, equalling 16 hits, multiplied by 5 %. Coool, 80 % active skill recovery. Yea, you are right. That is much better and not broken and I would totally support this.

You admit the existence of outlier yourself but you draw the wrong conclusions. As long as we have crit based triggers we will either have to watch out for the outliers or we have to add caps. The caps are there for a reason.

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Yes, it drops a bit so it’s technically not 100% uptime. Also having ss not up 100% of the time outside of hordes or lots of roaming enemies is not an issue and doesn’t rlly matter much i’d say. When you look when his ss goes away, he gets less aggressive or uses his ultimate or gives up space, yes in the first horde there were zerkers and maybe he just misstimed his attack, or it could be because he was expecting to attack faster and got hit inbetween.

Balance does mean bringing the current strongest option down a bit and the current weaker options up a bit, it’s like a balance scale on the playground or in your kitchen, if you wanna balance it you can’t just put more heavy weight on one side, or it will break.

Don’t rlly wanna get into to much about talents, but you are correct that different talents and traits are to encourage different build styles. But when a talent or a trait is just the number one pick in every situation and only gets picked in very little situations or weapons, i think there is something wrong with that.

Ofcourse those two are not mutually exclusive, and that’s just personal opinion, up to the devs to see what balancing line they wanna choose.

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Game-Breaking = skippergate/warcamp exploits, cheesing the ending of Convo of Decay, wigglemancer, machine-gun huntsman, old CRD DD Shade, unlimited ammo ranged classes. Game-Breaking is behavior that is clearly not intended by the devs. SS isn’t close to any of those. Does it make Cata easier? Sure. That’s what a good trait is supposed to do. Is it broken? No. Cata is still extremely difficult for all but elite players and pre-made groups. Like I said, I have 2000+ hours and I’m lucky to win 25% with pubs. I’m probably closer to 10-15%. Difficulty is subjective, but you’re never going to convince me that SS is making Cata easier than it should be.

Disagree. It isn’t overpowered. The other traits are underpowered and SS is fine.

No. That is your opinion of what balancing is. The definition of balance is: a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions. The goal is equality. This can be achieved by bringing the other traits up (equal to) SS’s level. It can be achieved by bringing everything to the middle too (so you’re not completely wrong, congrats), or even the bottom. But given that Cata IS difficult, even with SS, bringing more traits to the top is a better option for the game.

As I pointed out, SS isn’t the reason that the player in the video is successful. It has far more to do with their positioning, ability to block/push/combo/dodge/special-snipe/kite, which are exactly the mechanics that you claim SS is undercutting. I could have used a full-team video and they would still heavily rely on those mechanics, but I chose a solo-run to illustrate that teamwork isn’t as core to the game as hacking/slashing.

You’re using DD Shade as your example which has one of the highest Crit chances in the game. DD is also meant to be a high-crit weapon because it sacrifices reach, cleave, and block-radius/stamina. Traits absolutely should favor certain classes. The defensive traits work best on high-health high-stamina classes. The offensive traits work best on high-crit attack-spam classes. That makes sense.

Because players don’t already do this using ledges, drop-down areas, stagger abilities. /s

You’re once again implying that Cata is too easy, which I disagree with. You’re also discounting the enemy unit’s greatest strength, which is their numbers. They don’t need to and should not have the same attack-speed as players. Certain units already have uninterruptible attack animations. You’re also ignoring the existence of special units and bosses.

I already explained the multiple factors that made RS and RC overpowered with certain builds. The fact that they are still crit-based, and the nature of the trait itself (CRD) proves that they are meant to synergize with certain classes.

I didn’t say that it “rarely” procs, but nice strawman. I said it doesn’t have 100% uptime like you’re implying (not even close).

Your argument is literally that SS is making the game less fun, which as you’ve pointed out, is a subjective argument. By comparing SS users to drug addicts and using the phrase “PHUNN” you’re insulting the person and not the argument, which is why I’m insulting you back.

So if I said “All non-SS users should be banned, tortured, and murdered” and you rationally said “Nobody should be banned, tortured, and murdered”. Would a good middleground be half of non-SS users being banned, tortured, and murdered? Or just banned?

That’s a hyperbolic example, but the point is that the “middleground” can be compromised by extreme arguments on either side, and doesn’t inherently dictate the best solution.

Yeah. I know. I said that.

I think Opportunist could use a slight buff, but I obviously agree with the primary sentiment.

Disagree

Maybe you should define “average/below-average” then. Because my idea of an “average/below-average” player isn’t someone who finds Cata to be too easy. In my experience an “average/below-average” player is someone who can achieve ~90% win-rate on Champion, ~50% on Legend, and is probably >5% on Cata. It seems self-evident that such a player has no business complaining that anything is too easy. So either your definition of “average/below-average” is way different than mine (again, you should explain what you mean). Or you aren’t really an “average/below-average” player as you claim to be.

So RIP the true-solo community, or anyone who lives in remote areas or has to play w/ bots during non-peak hours. But I’m rude for suggesting that elite players who find Cata to be too easy can play twitch/deeds/modded realm?

I said your claim of crit-based triggers being a problem was an oversimplification. Then I explained why the triggers caused problems only in very specific circumstances(builds). I also pointed out that several contributors to those specific circumstances have been nerfed/removed. Learn to read.

The non-crit-based traits are also still class dependent. Opportunist/Off Balance/Parry all work best on classes that have access to more stamina and shielded weapons. They still work on other classes, but aren’t as good, which is the same as the crit-triggered traits, which favor dps classes.

So re-tuning every single weapon in the game to specifically interact with one trait would be easier from a development standpoint than just leaving the trait as-is? I don’t think so.

This isn’t much different than the current Adrenaline Rush Slayer build. Your example is also assuming a limitless number of trash mobs with no armor or special units mixed in to break up the attack chains.

Merc has a 40% damage reduction talent for the whole party, a 25% damage reduction talent for himself, provides CC and temporary health for the whole party with his career skill, and has 125 health (less than the other tanks, but still more than every true dps). Seems like a tank to me.

HM has a stamina restoration aura, passive dodge-distance, passive stamina increase, uninterruptible revives, and 125 health. Her career skill also provides even more damage-avoidance. She isn’t a true tank in the sense that she wants to stand on the frontline and provide CC, but she is definitely a tank in the sense that she can carry grims, clutch, kite, and avoid damage. She’s the tankiest of the elf careers, and isn’t a pure dps like Shade and WS.

No they aren’t. It seems like your idea of fun is turning this game into a slow-paced slog where Cata runs require 3 tanks and a ton of corner-camping (we’re basically there now, which is why SS isn’t a problem) . All of those weapons/classes are balanced for their role. Flamethrowers struggle against long-range enemies. Same with Slayer. BH, Huntsman, Shade are all balanced by low health pools and struggle in extended melee encounters. Your idea of balance seems to be making everything the same for everyone, which is boring, and the opposite of how a class-based system works. Certain classes should excel in certain roles because otherwise they might as well not exist.

Nah. I’m good. Gotta call it like I see it. Also, I never called you “braindead”. I asked if you had brain damage. I called myself braindead in my sarcastic SS-addiction rant. MaYbE YOu SHoULd LeArN tO REaD

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I am not talking about game-breaking. I repeated several times that I am talking about balance-breaking which is a difference. You say you are looking at the greater picture but in your first posts you admitted that your suggestions would be power creep which is a bad thing. You ignore most numbers by repeating “SS is fine” as a mantra.
People dying in Cataclysm still doesn’t mean that SS is fine. Far from it. And again, your numbers are meaningless. They don’t say anything. Also don’t misunderstand me. Neither do i intend to convince nor am I trying you. I am merely using you as a tool to talk past you towards the developers. Because they are the people I would have to convince. And FS has all numbers so they can easily verify claims. I will also skip over all your “is fine” texts. There is no point adressing them.

Not my opinion exclusively as you have noticed by now. I literally explained why to high of a weapon speed is a problem from several points which for the most part you conveniently ignored. Current SS is a problem as it decreases enemy threat in an overbearing manner, namely undercutting enemy attack speed.

Stagger abilities and weapons is literally the intended way to do this, instead of undercutting their attack animation. Ledges and drop-down areas are not always conveniently available and even them using them effectively is harder than just using SS.

I would have to check. But I am halfway sure that I didn’t even say once that Cataclysm is to easy. You are reading a lot of stuff into my text for your argumentation. One of my main arguments is that the positive effects of Attack Speed/SS are to much and make other gameplay elements redundant and just to be sure I am not talking about negating but making redundant, meaning they are used lesser than the threat-level should require. This concerns mainly blocking and team-coordination. Dodging as well but not in such a stark manner. For specials, they suffer equally under SS as the hook animation has a wind-up which I can easily undercut. And that there is a rest which poses a threat does not mean that it is okay in what stark manner simplifies fighting hordes.

I literally did you the calculation. Shade is ONE example and I only made this calculation based on 20 % crit chance. Now consider having a Huntsman in the party, consider playing Pyromancer, consider a Slayer with increased crit chance and even more increased attack speed or a Zealot. I also did the calculation for the most conservative approach. 10 % crit chance and 30 % attack speed is possible on every career in the game. Under the assumption that you use slow weapons where every hit takes about 0.7 seconds, you still have only a 20 % chance for SS not to trigger. This is under the most restrictive scenarios. Add just a bit more crit of 5 % (caused by Huntsman, by weapon, by class talent), just increase attack speed even further by Mercenary’s passive talent, by Zealot’s class talent, by Slayer’s class talent, etc and you easily get values below 10 %. This is not just some random claim. You have the numbers here. You can cross-verify them with the Armory Mod. As long as you have something to hit (which is of course the obvious limitation) a 100 % uptime is not only possible, It is the most likely scenario with the lowest chance of 80 %. Even if you just hammer around on these 80 % which is the lowest value, it still is very close to 100 % uptime.

Actually, my argument is that SS is making the game not more fun. And I have explained why I regard fun as an unconstructive argument. It has nothing to do with the users. And I don’t see where it is an insult to say that people are addicted to the speed. I would reckon that most would even agree on this. In worst case, this is easy to test. Tell someone he shall stop using SS and then wait if he is able to or not.

Did I mention already that you like to create extreme scenarios (at least you are admitting the hyperbolic example)? We are talking about balancing, a normal process which needs some mediation. I and multiple other people already told you that balancing is finding the middle ground and that bringing everything up to powergame level SS is not the best solution in this case.

And yet you ignore the long-term perspective where power creep creates damage to the game. On Cataclysm we haven’t yet reached the state luckily but we have situations on Legend and below where defense classes like shield-bearers finish the level hastily following the dps classes which kill most stuff before they even get a chance to stagger. And then they finish the map and wonder “Wait, that’s it?” Current SS makes defense classes less viable. This has happened in 1.x already and is happening here as well. Stagger did help a bit but ultimately it is not enough. So yea, SS is robbing classes of their role. The problem is even worse if you consider that people rely on SS on Champion already where the game plays more like a Hack n’Slash. As they are attacking so fast, they never properly learn different mechanics and are then overwhelmed by the next difficulty.

Opportunity is balanced for Cataclysm, the other traits need some rework/buff. Swift Slaying needs some toning down. Those two sentences only work together. A trait rework without toning down SS is unfunctional and creates power creep.

What for? What do we win by defining my skill level? My personal numbers are as meaningless as yours. They have no role in this discussion. And how often does it happen that a person is making himself look worse than he is? What should one gain by this? This whole discussion point is bullocks.

Yes, RIP true-solo community. You can’t tell me that there are people who solo the highest difficulty meant for a four player co-op experience and that there aren’t balance issues. Again, this is a co-op game. It should NOT be soloable, at least not a whole map. I am also not sure why you are mentioning bots in the same sentence. If someone plays with bots, he is obviously not running around alone. Because he has … bots. Or are teammates for you only human players?

Oversimplification or not is not the point. The point is that crit-based traits have always caused problems and that the trigger is the main problem. Even if you remove certain conditions like the 30 % CDR, it would still be a problem with the old RS/RC. And again, these nerfs are necessary because of the existence of outlier. Outlier exist because we have created traits which are class dependent. Remove the class dependency and you remove most of the outliers. It is that easy.

No, these traits are weapon specific. They work the same on every class with that weapon. My Opportunist Shield works the same on Ranger as it does on Ironbreaker (trait effect, not stamina effectiveness). Parry on my Rapier works the same on BH, Zealot and WHC. Because the trait is weapon dependent. Also Off-Balance in most cases is a bad choice for shields with the exception of IB taunt which happens to rarely to justify Off-Balance. Shields are best used actively, pushing and bashing. These are not influenced by Off-Balance. Opportunist works very well on Shield Weapons but has positive effects also low stamina weapons by increasing stagger duration and level and as such increase follow-up damage. So it works well on many weapons. Parry actually works best on low-stamina weapons as it literally negates your stamina-consumption. All these traits are weapon specific and work well over most classes. Crit-triggered traits though work better on crit classes by a factor ranging from 2 up to 5 (usual 10 % versus up to 50 % on Pyro).

Not exactly sure what you mean with development standpoint. But from balance perspective? Definetely. From time investment if FS decides to work over traits? Yes, that too. Because to find the one magic sweet spot where it does still work on low crit classes but does not break balance on high crit classes is way more time-consuming to find (if it even exists) than adressing each weapon singulary. Not doing anything, is of course the least possible amount of work. But trait rework is one of the more discussed topics and adjusting SS in the process is necessary.

There is a difference in the active skill effect though which has to be considered. Rapier/Fervency does one-shot everything up to Maulers/Chaos Warriors. Especially the horde can mowed down even easier than Adrenaline Rush Slayer. Armor can be a problem but only Mauler and Chaos Warriors. Stormvermins also die by one-shot. Specials ALSO die by one-shot. So that scenario is different. As long as you don’t reign in the crit-based triggers, they will create problems. This is not some kind of hallucination. This is all based on past examples and simplified theory crafting. And believe me, there are people far better at breaking the game than me.

We can do a survey as what Mercenary generally is regarded. I don’t think many would say tank. He has the damage reduction talent but it is rarely used. He has the damage reduction active skill which is popular but it would be labelled as support. If you take biased question like “Who is the tanky Kruber?” you would get 80+ % for FootKnight. Damage reduction talents don’t make a tank. His pacing strikes and the increased cleave generally make him a dps/support build depending on talent choice although I have seen Shield Mercenaries too.

Which is what I said. She has survivabilty, but she is not a tank. Tanking means taking damage. Go and greet a Stormvermin with her. She will kneel down quickly. That minor amount of HP doesn’t make to much difference simply because she has no damage reduction talents. Event Battle Wizard is tankier. Clutching, kiting and avoiding damage are not tank properties.

No, my idea of fun is having a balanced team where everyone has his role. A melee dps, someone looking out for specials, some kind of control tower career which creates space and controls the crowd. A balanced team with a mixture of everything. I don’t even know when I have seen corner-camping the last time. As for the rest, this is a discussion i will not lead at the moment.

For the sanity of this thread I will just say that I disagree with you on nearly the complete front and that the best solution is just to disagree. You are not my target and I have made several logic and number based arguments showcasing the unique problem of the overpowered SS trait or even worse power creeping everything to that level. While there is still more to say, I don’t think I will achieve much more. The made arguments are working well enough already and don’t need further polstering.
As past games have shown adding new content without power creep is very well possible.
As past situations have shown crit-based triggers are far more problematic than other triggers.
As a simple calculation of crit chance numbers has shown the uptime of SS is near constant.
As a simple evaluation of attack speed numbers has shown a too high and permanent attack speed undercuts other gameplay mechanics.
As your video has shown people can solo Cataclysm. This underlines that there are balance problems. If I would be bored I could actually check how many true solo videos are NOT relying on SS which again showcases that it is one of the major balance breakers.

There are a lot of other traits in Kitten’s OP which deserve more discussion (like bomb traits or charm traits) instead of a lengthy discussion over just one trait even when the polarizing nature of the trait again showcase how problematic it is.

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This comes with a heavy heart, but enemy attack speed being undercut is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

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When we talk about SS, it’s not enough to think ONLY about that talent.

In my opinion it doesn’t need a nerf (maybe a rework, make it independent from crits)… But, over power or not, too much things are linked to SS. We have tons of weapons that can be considered decent only thanks that talent. The entire game’s difficulty is dependent to SS.

Without SS, the game would become much harder (someone might like it, but would not be the difficulty that developers have chosen… And seeing how many few players can handle hardest contents, imho we must not increase the difficulty).
Without SS, the weapons variety would be worse than now… Wich is already poor.

An hypothetical SS nerf must be accompanied by HUGE changes… And Fatshark, now, can’t handle them. We have other priorities.
For this they should leave this change for last.

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Just wanna say something.
I wouldn’t necessarilly say because ss is used in most or even all true solo runs that ss is the reason they can do it, there are mostly other things who have a higher weight in winrate. Mechanics, good careers, invis, good weapons etc. There is a reason you see most true solo’s with the same careers in cata atleast. Ss is just the best trait to pick, doesn’t necessarilly mean it’s because of ss that they can true solo, otherwise you could true solo with every career and weapon as long as you have ss.

Maybe this is a bit arrogant, but i do slightly agree that if you can complete cata or even legend true solo without abusing mechanics (gas rat stacking) or broken careers, that the difficulty is too easy. Even if you can’t do a true solo, 2 experienced players can do cata, and i feel like the game should be difficult with 4 players. Look at onslaught cata 3 for example, when someone dies or 2 people die it gets considerably harder and 4 players rlly need to put in their weight. Ofcourse it shouldnt be that extreme but atleast a bit more then it is right now. And if it would push people down into a lower difficulty thats fine.

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I forgot one important thing. Say: “SS makes the game too easy” is totally NONSENSE.

SS isn’t something born from the last patch that has negatively influenced the previous “established balance”… SS exists since d1. It hasn’t never changed.

When Fatshark balances the game, it’s because they have in mind a specific difficulty… and that difficulty is guaranteed by many factors (weapons balance, enemies balance, etc etc)… SS INCLUDED.

If the current difficulty is 7,5/10 (just random numbers), it’s because Fatshark wants a 7,5/10 difficulty… and this is possibile only thanks SS too.

If we nerfed it, the difficullty would become much harder… and much different from Fatshark’s idea.

Apart this, seeing how many few players play cata, to say that the game is too easy… seems to me just false. And, for who wants an extreme difficulty, there are c3o, twitch, etc etc.

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Why would fatshark balance the game around one specific trait?
Why didn’t they bring the other melee traits to ss level then if the game would be too hard for players?
Or is every player expected by fatshark to use ss to make cata easier?

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it’s a little known fact, but SS was actually the focus of the devs when they made this game. They just thought it was a really cool concept, and wanted to design a combat system around it to show off.

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I’m sorry but i can’t tell if you are joking or not

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Fun Fact #2: I have never told a joke in my life

Also on another note, I’m not sure why SS being nerfed means the game needs to be nerfed completely. If some weapons are very reliant on it, you could give them a little bit of attack speed while cutting the extra speed off of SS. Just for a random example, 2h hammer would be 10% faster always, but SS only gives you 10% bonus, so it’s less of a must pick on pretty much every weapon. Numbers would vary obviously, and changing how it procs a bit would probably help too if that still wasn’t enough.

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Yes exactly, every time there are discussions about tweaking or nerfing, everyone goes a bit radical and defensive, it’s not one or the other, there are plenty of ways to change things.

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This is an hard speech… honestly, what Fatshark expects from us, I don’t know.

I was only saying that, when Fatshark thought about how much this game must be hard, they considered SS too… so SS contributes to reach the diffculty Fatshark wants.

Another speech, for example, is season 1 Battle Wizard… she has been something unexpected and sudden that has upset the balance.

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You are (or were) talking about game-breaking. I pointed out the difference already between trait-vs-difficulty and trait-vs–trait balance. Obviously SS is stronger than the other traits, and that can be fixed by buffing the other traits. If SS isn’t breaking the game than it isn’t a problem to bring the other traits up to it’s level.

You’ve said multiple times that SS is making Cata too easy. If it isn’t making Cata too easy (which it isn’t) there isn’t a problem with balance-vs-difficulty, only a problem with balance-vs-other-traits, which I’ve addressed above and in my other posts.

Yes. And that’s why your unlimited-trash-mob vs 1 player examples don’t work. In the real game there are 3 other heroes competing for those hits. There are armored units to interrupt those hits. There are ranged specials that need to be sniped. There are berserker and CW and SV attacks that need to be blocked or dodged.

If Cata is fine then their isn’t a problem of trait-vs-gameplay imbalance, which means bringing the other traits up to the level of SS isn’t powercreep, it’s just balancing trait-vs-trait.

This has very little to do with traits or SS. The nature of the shield-bearer is literally to provide peel for the DPS. Slayer, Zealot, HM are always going to be the vanguard and charge ahead. Ranged classes are always going to kill as many units as they can from range. It is the shield-bearer’s job to protect their flank and provide cc if/when they get overwhelmed. (There is nothing more frustrating as a flamethrower user than a FK charging directly in front of me into the horde/ambush I’m already burning to score cheap kills while I get hit in the back.) If you pick a shield weapon you shouldn’t measure your game experience with kills. Your primary job is to provide cc, peel, and take agro, so the dps can kill stuff, and there are no green circles for that, so it’s easy to look at the score-screen and “that’s it?”. If you don’t like that, maybe you’re playing the wrong class.

Anything below Legend is invalid as far as balancing is concerned, since any experienced player can solo or hardcarry with any class over lvl25. But…

This is evidence that SS is not OP or broken at all. If SS undercuts all these mechanics, the way you say it does, these players would be able to transition more easily. My advice to those players is to git gud.

Because you’ve said that SS is making Cata too easy. I say it’s fine. Neither of us has the numbers FS does to provide evidence, so we are both relying on our personal experience. I put out my numbers, which are mostly from pubs, and in my experience Cata is extremely difficult. But I imagine it is easier with a pre-made coordinated team, so I’m aware that my experience isn’t everyone’s experience. So I was curious about how you came came to the conclusion that SS is making Cata too easy. I got even more curious when you described yourself as an “average/below-average” player, which I gave my definition of above (feel free to correct/clarify), because an “average/below-average” player (imho) can’t complain that the highest difficulty is too easy.

I can absolutely tell you that, because the “average/below-average player” struggles to be 50% on Legend. You’re also putting all those “balance issues” on SS. It seems more like you have a problem with imbalanced plaver-vs-player skill, which FS can’t fix and shouldn’t try to.

Until they die in silly ways. Bots are also unreliable in so many ways that getting into it is pointless. The main point is that making the game essentially un-winnable for anyone remote, non-peak-hours, or lacking good internet is a bad idea.

They don’t work “the same”. IB with shield+trait is more effective than RV (because stamina-effectiveness is a factor here, just like crit% is a factor with the classes/weapons it favors). Also the fact that not every class (2/3rds of Elf, Salty, Wizard) has access to shield-weapons is a class-dependent factor in itself.

Parry works the same on all weapons because the effect is to restore the block-cost of the parried attack. It isn’t even really weapon-dependent because it’s only condition is: have a melee weapon and do the thing. Heroic Inspiration is the same way, but that doesn’t make it a good trait. Also, Parry does still favor stuff like FK, IB, Zealot…anything that take a hit if they don’t get the timing right.

SS also works the same way across all weapons, it’s just that some weapons/classes have a higher crit-chance than others.

Only if you can actually trigger it, which is why Perry is a mediocre trait. Otherwise you’re now taking damage or have no stamina. Better to just dodge and kill the attacker with SS (Buhahahaha!!!)

Shade, BH, Pyro, Huntsman are all balanced by being squishy. Having more than 2 of them in a Legend/Cata run makes carrying books and general survival much more difficult and likely to fail (in my experience). This isn’t imbalance. It’s the inherent trade-off between DPS and tankiness. Or were you talking about trait-vs-trait balance? Because (as I pointed out above) all traits favor certain classes.

I haven’t played enough WHC to refute this, but the core concept (stagger everything and then hack away) is the same. My feeling is that the speed/ease difference is probably negligible. You’re also excluding Maulers/CWs which are the more important units (and which Slayer is better at cutting down). Slayer can 1-2 shot most specials too, but the limiting factor for those is being in melee range.

But my point is that other classes can already do what you’re claiming would be broken (CC and hack through hordes…any staff, drake-gun, zealot, merc, whc, slayer, hm). Reducing or removing the RC cap to make it more competitive wouldn’t break the game (imho).

Sure, if you’re being biased and limiting the field to Kruber careers. But I think across all careers the tanks are IB, FK , Zealot, UC, Merc. He’s absolutely in the top 5, which makes him the most or 2nd most tank-like member of many possible squad-combos. He’s arguably a better tank than UC despite having less health, since he can provide those support-like benefits to his team (health, damage reduction, paced strikes). I think those support abilities fall under tanking, since temp-health is effectively damage-reduction.

Her survivability is what makes her tanky (she’s probably 6th most tanky career in the game). Tanking doesn’t explicitly mean taking damage. Nobody (except Zealots) wants to take damage. The more traditional tanks are certainly better at it, but being a tank is more about being able to handle agro, provide CC, and survive, and she can do all three very well. She is a hybrid.

Bringing the other traits up to SS teir isn’t powercreep, just balance.

Oversimplification ignoring game-elements that don’t exist anymore.

Provided you’re playing a high-crit class/weapon and have an infinite stream of trash enemies w/ no armor or specials.

Refuted by video evidence of the allegedly undercut mechanics being used effectively by a SS user. Also refuted by your own statement that Champion players reliant on SS have trouble transitioning to Legend.

No it doesn’t.

SS is kinda inherent to solo-runs because you have to move quickly and attack-speed effects movement-speed, and makes it easier to dodge specials. You wouldn’t pick any other trait.

But here:

Two videos of Parry/Opportunist being used on Cata. Note how the Shade (who I’m guessing is running SS because Shade) dies. I don’t see SS breaking anything in either of these runs either.

I’ll mirror that. GG and GL.