Apparently the lifting ability has a 40 second cooldown against specials.
Doesn’t seem to last more than 2-3 three seconds before it drops the target.
Fills the overcharge meter.
Soulstealer Staff
RMB fills the overcharge meter.
RMB doesn’t one shot specials despite the lengthy cast time and filling of overcharge.
These weapons are so terrible that they’re a detriment to use. A couple other weapons with odd damage numbers are the Briar Javelin and Beam Staff.
Briar Javelin one-shots with a head shot or crit which is fine, but at distance it can take 2-3 shots to kill a special. For being so susceptible to aim punch and the arcing shots at long distance, it should not deal such reduced damage that it takes more than two shots at any point.
Beam Staff seems to do very little damage with the beam and it does not stagger specials with the pop, so it’s very easy for specials to move/attack through it and hit Sienna.
It’s hard to test a lot of the weapons without seeing the other side’s hit points, but the two big ones are different the Deepwood and Soulstealer staves. Those two desperately need buffs so that they are at least viable options.
Briar should under no circumstances be buffed for versus, its Keris best weapon by far.
Sure you cant snipe very distant gunners well with it, however, you oneshot assassins&gasrats and you stagger any other that you dont oneshot. On waystalker in particular this is beyond deadly when paired with bloodshot.
But even when not playing WS, the stagger is the bane of any skaven special that isnt extremely far away. Getting staggered and having your attacks&movement stopped is fatal since the second jav is nearly guaranteed to land.
Comparatively, her longbow does not stagger anything and it can need as many as 3 shots to kill a single target. Her other bows are only worse.
If it wasnt for javs then Ker would have the worst ranged options in versus by half a mile.
“Edit”
Actually upon further testing, moonbow might have some potential for WS with bloodshot&ammo refund ability, the bow is defo inferior to javs for short/mid range but being able to hitscan kill gunners at longer distances is absolutely a boon.
2-3 seconds is all your teammates need to eviscerate a special you lifted. It’s an “I win” button every 40 seconds, I think it’s fine as is. Deepwood and Clatter Staves were nerfed significantly because they were so unfun to fight against in the alphas and betas - as soon as a Sister or a Necro locked on to you, you just died instantly. There is no aim test or hiding behind a corner.
SS staff, torpedo and Deepwood staff should be deleted from versus entirely like Lingering flames.
Just because they are ABSURDLY oppressive to Skavens.
They are no aim no brain click to delete buttons and you cant do anything against them. No counter play
Trollpedo is plain stupid only in good teams, but with good team it is just insane.
It makes packmaster, troll and warpfire just useless.
Every weapon that:
Not hitscan and in the same time cant oneshot in the head or body
Exceptions:
MVP is hitscan and can oneshot in the head. But fire delay and low accuracy makes this weapon not good even in PVE. And in PVE you can oneshot bodyshot Warp and ratling as OE.
Sienna bolt can oneshot but it has such long and telegraphed charge that i never see it as threat. I see her charging at me - i go behind cover or just start dodging
In the same time Moonbow is not that bad. It is very accurate and hard, almost imposible to dodge.
Those weapons are not useless but you give a Skaven player ability to make mistake and survive. You just give them second life for free.
I found most Siennas weapons horrible. Coru staff only feels good but limited.
That’s assuming your team mates know where the target is, aren’t being suppressed, and can hit it in time. The LMB damage is terrible, so if the RMB isn’t doing anything of value, it may as well not exist. Specials have a respawn time of around 20 seconds with a full party, so that’s potentially 1/8 specials every 40~ seconds in the best case scenario. If the special doesn’t die, then we’re talking maybe 1/16 if you get one next time? It’s just not good.
The other big problem is the lack of an indicator for the player as to when the RMB can lift a special again. I imagine most players will think it’s just really buggy.
The problem with Soulstealer is the nerf is way too heavy handed. Currently you can cast RMB once which immediately fills your overcharge meter and doesn’t kill the special. Now you have to vent and take damage or dispel a skeleton to vent. Then you need to cast it again and vent or dispel a skeleton. So take lots of damage or lose two skeletons to kill 1/4 specials that spawned.
There are so many steps involved for a pitiful result.
Imagine PVE SS or PVE Staff when you are playing Skaven.
You show up - you die instantly and you cant do anything about that.
Enemies even dont need to aim, you cant use meatshields or cover. from any range. You cant supress them with fire, you cant blind them, you cant dodge.
It is just “press X to win” button
Those weapons should be nerfed to unusable state.
They should be deleted from Versus, and Trollpedo too
Buffing Skaven instead of nerfing the problematic stuff only makes people use the problematic stuff even more, leaving non-meta options even more in the dust
Question is, how does one nerf it? Make it need 3 throws? Remove the stagger?
I feel the line between strong and very weak is thin here, i am not opposed to change but i dont want it becoming another Versus longbow, nothing good at all about it.
I think the stagger makes the 2 shots needed to kill just way too easy. When you get hit you can’t move at all and so the 2nd shot just gets way too easy for Keri. In general playing the rats is just so frustrating sometimes, even tho it should be fun and easier than the heroes
The main reason why Javelin and BOP are so absurd is their almost non existent aim penalty.
For Javelin aim penalty can be huge, but you need to stand on constant fire for like 3 seconds for it.
Most of the time that what you have. I was ambushed by ratling.
Isnt it very similar to rifles in this sense? Only weapons that really typically suffers massive aim distortion are…longbows. Maybe bows in general, i forget. But well it wouldnt really be an issue to add that in and nothing else as a counter.
That´s a thing, it doesnt exist for any weapon as far as i can tell, there is no ranged weapon at all that has its aim disturbed by fire. Not even the bows.
For HM specifically, yes i agree, i´ve had my darn hooks dodged by them too
It certainly feels that way against a cata-level team, it has some conditionally good uses against a team that doesnt respond quickly enough but…cata BH/javelin elf or someone with a rifle will instantly hit you which staggers and stops the fire, even if you survive the second shot is never far behind.
