|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 19, 2016 18:19:37 GMT 1
Oh yeah, that's an especially good play in 1v1s at the end. Stealth, they burn a defensive cooldown, you get some health orbs or some energy, or both. Then you frogleap their face or something.
Honestly, my favorite use for stealth is to switch who I'm attacking without it being obvious. It's so disruptive to the enemy team.
|
|
|
Post by platyp on Sept 19, 2016 18:21:24 GMT 1
Having played more after our game and running into higher ranked opponents and also watching some streams, I agree that his ult is a lot worse than I thought. Eventually I ran into people who knew what my ult did and were capable of timing their shields/invulns to counter it, so I started using EX M2 and E more.
Looks like that EX Q + D thing was a ghosting problem, TIL. That makes sense. I guess I'll have to rebind when I play again. EX Q is a stupidly good ability and I want to use it more.
Another random thought: Having played with and against Ranid, and a few times both at once, it seems like landing the initial slash of frog leap is more difficult when your target is closer to you. So I think the best way to escape after he jumps on you is to stick close to him and use your damaging spells while letting him hit you with a few M1s after he leaps once. Then you wait for either the recast timer to expire or for him to recast, and you escape immediately when either of those things happen. He can still chase you with E and Q, but at that point he's spent all of his cooldowns and gotten very little value out of his attack speed buffs.
Also the Ranid mirror is super fun. I think my favorite moments are when the enemy ranid cloaks, and you cloak in response and swing in his direction and hit. You hit him twice with M1 (you can only hit them twice before the stun wears off, I think), then jump immediately to dodge his stun and keep bashing.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 19, 2016 19:58:13 GMT 1
By default, your first EX ability from the left is bound to 1 on the numrow, and the second is bound to 2. So Ranid's EX Q is bound to 2.
All of this counterplay you're discovering is why I say that the Ranid isn't overpowered, but is a really strong newbie crusher.
And I agree - Ranid mirror is one of the best mirrors in the game. Lots of depth of play, plenty of comeback potential if one of you is behind. I quite enjoy it.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 19, 2016 21:53:54 GMT 1
Does anyone want to take a gander a tier lists? Right now, I've got a very rough feeling as follows, not sorted within tier:
For TWOS:
Better than average: Poloma/Pomp, Lucie/Alch, Shifu/Spearmaster, Pearl/Argagarg, Iva/Engineer, Ashka/Igniter Average: Sirius/Astro, Bakko/Vanguard, Croak/Ranid, Jade/Gunner, Varesh/Inhibitor Worse than average: Freya/Ravener, Oldur/Herald, Taya/Nomad
If I had to split the top tier, I'd probably put Lucie/Poloma/Pearl in the top and Shifu/Iva/Ashka in the second. I'm not sure how accurate this is - I haven't played all of these.
For THREES:
Better than average: Poloma/Pomp, Iva/Engineer, Bakko/Vanguard, Sirius/Astro, Jade/Gunner Average: Pearl/Argagarg, Ashka/Igniter, Croak/Ranid, Lucie/Alch, Shifu/Spearmaster, Freya/Ravener Worse than average: Oldur/Herald, Taya/Nomad, Varesh/Inhibitor
I'm much less confident about these, though. My feeling is that mobility and jump/teleport type outs become a lot more important in 3s, and peels/incaps get a bit better, too. If I had to split the top tier, I'd probably put Poloma and Bakko at the top, and maybe Sirius. I might even bump Croak down to bottom tier, although I think his effectiveness in 3s depends a lot on your teammates' ability to force positional mistakes from the opponents.
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Sept 19, 2016 22:28:05 GMT 1
Does anyone want to take a gander a tier lists? Right now, I've got a very rough feeling as follows, not sorted within tier: For TWOS: Better than average: Poloma/Pomp, Lucie/Alch, Shifu/Spearmaster, Pearl/Argagarg, Iva/Engineer, Ashka/Igniter Average: Sirius/Astro, Bakko/Vanguard, Croak/Ranid, Jade/Gunner, Varesh/Inhibitor Worse than average: Freya/Ravener, Oldur/Herald, Taya/Nomad If I had to split the top tier, I'd probably put Lucie/Poloma/Pearl in the top and Shifu/Iva/Ashka in the second. I'm not sure how accurate this is - I haven't played all of these. For THREES: Better than average: Poloma/Pomp, Iva/Engineer, Bakko/Vanguard, Sirius/Astro, Jade/Gunner Average: Pearl/Argagarg, Ashka/Igniter, Croak/Ranid, Lucie/Alch, Shifu/Spearmaster, Freya/Ravener Worse than average: Oldur/Herald, Taya/Nomad, Varesh/Inhibitor I'm much less confident about these, though. My feeling is that mobility and jump/teleport type outs become a lot more important in 3s, and peels/incaps get a bit better, too. If I had to split the top tier, I'd probably put Poloma and Bakko at the top, and maybe Sirius. I might even bump Croak down to bottom tier, although I think his effectiveness in 3s depends a lot on your teammates' ability to force positional mistakes from the opponents. Before I respond, early access will now grant all future champions. Good move by them I think and indicative of fair pricing down the road. Thoughts on your lists: 2v2- Poloma- Surprised to see her this high in 2v2. Care to expand? She seems amazing in 3v3, but for 2v2 I find you're rarely getting chain value (not that her kit isn't great anyway) Oldur- I'm obviously not at the level of some of the more skilled people (although the slow slow slow movement of the current system doesn't help since I only got one test in before they shifted me), but I don't see him as worse than average? His q is one of the best anti range spells in the game, as is EX Q, and and his burst seems insanely high for a healer with a borderline broken ult? Freya- sorta the same as oldur. I'm not seeing the issue other than she's a little different to play so she's often played wrong (again at my tier of 2500-2600). On point she's a rather disgusting tank thanks to R and her other defensive abilities, with great potential if she catches you. Alch- I consistently see her listed as one of the worst (not sure I agree), but any reason why you feel she's so good here? 3v3- I'd love to know why bakko is higher here. Kit makes it seem like he should be about the same in either? I'm surprised pearl can be average at anything, ditto on ashka? Oldur- mostly same argument. His heal is still about as good as the rest and I don't feel the rest of his kit is that lacking compared to anyone besides pearl and polo. Varesh- Really curious as to why. Is it just because in 3v3 you can have more people to run him out of mobility options and punish him? Anyway i'm sticking to asking questions for now. I mostly play 2v2 and my feeling is pearl and ashka seem strong, but otherwise the tiers feel way too close for me to organize (part of why I like the game really).
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 20, 2016 0:40:08 GMT 1
eji17002v2: Poloma's CC is amazing in 2s. You don't get as much out of the damage/healing chaining, but panic is super-high value in 2s, because if often gives you 4-6 seconds of 2v1. Similarly, Other Side. You can Other Side yourself or a teammate, but you can also otherside the enemy healer to prevent heals, or a DPS who is chasing you, or something. It's better for this in 2s than 3s because it gets you a 2v1 for the duration (instead of a 3v2 in 3s). And the rest of her kit is, as you mentioned, great. Alch is so strong in general. Panic, as mentioned above, is ridiculously strong is 2s. Her lack of mobility is less of a weakness because the opponents can't bring as much force to bear on her. Shielding a teammate can be amazing when they're forward of you, and your opponents just have no other targets available. Clarity potion has fewer buffs/debuffs targets to worry about. Alch is really strong, and its harder to take advantage of her weaknesses in 2s, and some of her strengths are even stronger. A lot of people think she's bad but I think it's a serious case of L2P. A lot of people thought she was bad in BLC too, and she demonstrably wasn't at high levels. Oldur... His healing isn't actually that good, unless you take a bunch of rites for it. Most of the other healers can out-heal him without too much effort. And while he's personally good against range (and his EX Q provides some protection for allies) his CC in general isn't that good comparatively. He can do a bunch of burst damage if he chains the right skills together, but... he just doesn't seem to carry his own weight compared to the other healers. Freya is kind of similar to the in-kind comparison situation above. Her damage output is lower, so she's less good at focusing people down than the other melees. She's a good anti-melee melee, but in 2s you come up against a lot of healer/ranged comps, and then she spends the entire round being pretty ineffectual, because she doesn't have great gap closers. Her space moves fast, but doesn't travel that far. Her counter lets her move while using it, which helps a bit, but... It's often not that hard to not really attack a Freya at all, kill her teammate, and then deal with her. So she has to get incaps, and because of the way her incaps work, it's hard for her to switch targets fast after incapping someone. But in 3s, her ability to tank becomes a lot more relevant, I think. 3v3: I don't think Pearl is as good in 3s for a few reasons. Like, she's still really good, but she starts to feel her relative lack of mobility and outs, I think. Bubble is good, but hard CC is better and she doesn't have much of that. In 3s she REALLY wants the bouncing heal, which means she can't take the dive charges weapon BR on round 1 (iirc), which means she's got less silence to go around. One of the things that I think is important in evaluating a character is "what can they do if nobody is attacking them?" and in Pearl's case it's basically M1, M2, and bubbles. Oldur... basically the same. His DPS goes up a bit, but his lack of CC is even more painful, I think. Compared to what Pomp and Alch can do, he doesn't really hold up. I think that in 3s, Sirius out-heals, out-DPSs, out-CCs, and out-survivabilitys him. Varesh - basically his lack of mobility. If he can't land counters, he's barely going anywhere. Single-target shields are less valuable in 2s than 3s. And his DPS isn't that stellar. The only saving grace is that his damage-taken debuff will let a team burst someone down more effectively in 3s. But in general, Varesh is really easy to catch with AoE CC (against Astro, he can expect to spend something like 25% of the game or so as a statue.) Bakko is higher mostly because his ability to push people around or no-sell all attacks from a certain angle is much stronger in 3s. And his R is also really good in 3s. Basically, Bakko goes from being an okay pursuit melee to a really good tank who can help prevent the enemy from capitalizing on advantages. Kind of similar to why Freya is better in 3s than 2s in my opinion. I bumped Ashka down because I think a lot of his tools are less good in 3s. His right click becomes an even more likely target for getting nailed with a delayed-impact CC or something, and he gets a lot easier to focus down. One of the reasons he's so good in 2s is that he has enough tools to keep a single melee from bothering him. But in 3s, a team with 2 melees will trade off and run someone out of outs and stay on them. Also unlike all of the other ranged DPS, he doesn't really have AoE, so his damage doesn't scale up that effectively. Compare to the Gunner, who has a much easier time landing snipes because there are more targets and more distractions, and an easier time landing multi-hit snipes because there are more targets. Even the Nomad gets better in 3s, although she's still clearly the worst ranged I think. Note that I don't think these tiers are that wide, and I don't have a lot of confidence in them. The only balance changes I think are warranted are probably a buff for the Nomad, and marginal nerfs to Pomp and Alch. Maybe also a slight nerf to Pearl that affects 2s more than 3s. One of the first places I'd start with nerfing Pomp and Alch is slightly nerfing panic, which is currently the best kind of CC in the game, I think. For buffing Nomad, uh... it's kind of silly that two of her abilities don't deal damage (Q and E). Nomad right now is in a weird place where she's an extremely-hard-to-corner-with-melee ranged character. But... that's not currently a niche that is valuable in 2s at all, and is only slightly more valuable in 3s. Her damage output is better in 3s, though, and things like Wind Bomb and Tornado to protect allies helps more. The fact that she can't Tornado enemies hurts, but maybe allowing that would be too much. But otherwise, my experience playing as/against Nomad has generally been "mostly ignore the Nomad and kill her teammate.) And at the same time, she's really vulnerable to certain kinds of melees. The fact that her max range is relatively low hurts, too. I think for buffing her I might improve Wind Strike a little bit somehow, or switch her EX M2 to an EX of Wind Bomb or Wind Strike to give her some other option for burst damage. Her main attribute as a ranged DPS is that her damage is very smooth, and not very bursty. But that turns out to I think mostly be a disadvantage, because she needs to almost never stop shooting, so getting CC'd drops her efficiency by a lot. And getting max damage from her requires keeping opponents at a very tight range band, which is finicky as heck.
|
|
|
Post by platyp on Sept 20, 2016 1:06:09 GMT 1
Wow, that's fantastic! I was on the fence earlier about Early Access but I'm 100% buying it tomorrow. Part of me thinks they were really intending to do this all along, and it wasn't a decision that was made in the past couple of weeks. At any rate, they got a purchase out of me. Someone was streaming today and they showed Glutton. embed.gyazo.com/74732bc86c2ea2cb56efbc4b6d3331d5.png I think he's named Rook. Re: EX moves, I really don't like using 1 and 2. They feel very unnatural to press for me. I think the best solution for me is to rebind shift to a mouse button. Sidenote: Firebat of HS fame randomly ended up on my team while I was soloQing on Saturday. I've never played a game with an internet celebrity on my team before, so that was interesting.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 20, 2016 4:53:49 GMT 1
Oh my god I'm so excited oh my god.
I hope they get Thorn back into the game.
I... kind of hope they don't bring Harbinger back. If they do, he's going to be super-hard to balance. One of his big "things" was that he could self-heal a ton and was so less dependent on heals. With the way healing was nerfed, Harbinger's self-heals would have to be seriously reduced. I don't even know how they could translate him to BattleRite meaningfully. Which may be why they haven't, yet.
|
|
|
Post by platyp on Sept 20, 2016 5:42:02 GMT 1
Oh wow, how did I forget about Thorn?! He was my main in BLC. I really want to see him back. The move where he dropped a plant on the ground and dragged it and any enemies towards himself was so satisfying when you landed it, especially when you pulled them into your ult.
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Sept 20, 2016 8:32:37 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 20, 2016 17:43:08 GMT 1
I also saw the Stalker at the end, I think. Or something all shadowy with a crossbow, anyway.
Oh god it's out and I'm so excited and I'm at work all daaayyyy WHHHHHHHYYYY
|
|
Juli
New Member
Posts: 12
|
Post by Juli on Sept 20, 2016 20:29:09 GMT 1
I went back and watched it and didn't see Stalker. There's Seeker, who appears covered in shadows, is that what you're talking about?
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 20, 2016 21:03:41 GMT 1
Oh, maybe. It looked like it had a crossbow, not a regular bow.
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Sept 21, 2016 2:07:23 GMT 1
There's actually splash art of seeker.
|
|
|
Post by Kraetyz on Sept 21, 2016 6:29:34 GMT 1
The two gigantic statues in the middle of Blackrock, those are Armored Stalker statues.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 21, 2016 23:07:44 GMT 1
Glutton/Rook:
I've been having some back and forth about this guy with eji. My feeling is that he's probably too strong in most situations and is going to get nerfed. Eji thinks he's too weak.
The crux of our disagreement is over whether the fact that he can have trouble getting in compensates for the fact that if he gets you at melee range he wrecks your face.
Have any of you guys seen a Rook perform solidly without being carried or without someone on the other team being bad?
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Sept 23, 2016 4:44:42 GMT 1
I've been playing him today and while he will just destroy people who fuck up I really don't think he's viable vs a lot of characters. He might be ok as a counter pick sort of thing (great vs other melee), but I feel like there's so many heroes who he really just cannot handle, and is then totally reliant on his allies to do anything.
Alch and jade both seem to ruin his life, and bakko as well (as bakkos dash will interrupt his space but still put it on cd).
|
|
|
Post by Kraetyz on Sept 23, 2016 6:44:03 GMT 1
The issue with Rook, IMO, is this: Initiation and survival is much harder than other melees, but the payoff is (supposedly) much greater. This is the same as with Glutton in BLC (the character he's based on), so it's very fitting. All characters have their own windows of time where their abilities can be used to initiate and deal damage, and still not die. Rook's window for that is very different from other melees. Why? Because:
Rook has NO way to actually avoid taking damage. Enemies might trigger his Q invuln, sure, but that is short as hell and if you're using it to run away you've wasted your incredible damage potential. He can dodge things with his ult too, but that's not reliable. So, Rook has to rely on being really really good at initiation and judging situations in order to ever deal damage and not die at the same time. A Shifu can do an aggressive jump in versus 3 people, because he has a million escapes. Croak doesn't care if both enemies stand clumped up, he'll just burst one of them from camo and then jump away if he has to. Rook? ROOK CHARGE. ROOK PRESS Q. Q WAS INTERRUPTED. ROOK DEAD. The same aggressive openings that other characters can afford, the most aggressive character in the game can't.
I don't think he's that strong of a counter pick. He has an easier time getting in on some characters, but after that he doesn't do a whole lot more than he would anyway.
Background: I'm almost to level 9 on him. #MLGpro I also have 500+ wins with Glutton in BLC, who despite all the differences has a sort of similar playstyle.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 23, 2016 7:01:35 GMT 1
Man, I dunno. He ruins so many people's lives. Why are you trying to space from inside Bakko's dash range? It's worth noting that he's way way better in 3s. He goes from "maybe good" to "obviously really strong." So there are a bunch of axes you can evaluate characters along that I think are probably valuable, and are generally how I evaluate them, especially for quickly evaluating an enemy team comp and what their strengths and weaknesses are. - Can handle being focused / can't handle being focused
- Can be effective when enemies are ignoring them / can't be effective when enemies are ignoring them
- Can operate effectively even when teammates are doing their own thing / relies on teammates knowing how to work with them
- Rook falls on the far left for the first, but kind of in the middle for the second two. In order to be effective when opponents are ignoring him, he needs a teammate that knows how to help him help them.
- Croak is kind of in the middle on the first and third, but far left for the second.
- Shifu is reasonably far left on all three.
- All healers are pretty much far left on 2. Pearl and Sirius a little less so.
- Lucie and Poloma are a bit further right on 1 and 3
- Ashka is pretty far left on all 3, which is one of the reasons he is so easy to pick up and relatively strong.
- Jade is middle of the road on 1 - she can spec to be able to kite one person forever, but falls over hard when two people take turns. But she's pretty far left on 2 and 3
If you play with randoms, the third criteria may be more important than the first two. If you play with a premade, though, it becomes a bit less important, and the first two become more important. In particular, I think that the thing that's going to render characters "nonviable" in 2s is limited ability to help a teammate who is being ganged up on. This is especially true in no-healer games. A character who doesn't handle being focused that well can work with a character with good peels and incaps (or a good support), but a character who can handle being focused relatively well is still going to fall over with a teammate who can't be effective.
Cases like that are DPS races where one character does not have escapes/incaps/defense to speak of, and the other has limited CC and poor sustained DPS. In those cases, focusing the squishy can be a pretty solid win. I see this a lot in melee/ranged DPS teams and support/bursty DPS.
In other news, I'm still waiting for the Poloma and Pearl nerfs and Taya buffs.
|
|
|
Post by platyp on Sept 23, 2016 21:47:56 GMT 1
Rook is about a thousand times stronger in 3s than he is in 2s. I watched zai's stream yesterday (he got up to 4k in one day lol) and he and his EG stack kept running into this absurd grade 14 stack of Rook/Poloma/Lucie. Zai's team just could not do any damage to anyone. I don't think they won a single round. The best target was Poloma, because if they focused either of the other two, those two would get double healed. The problem was that Poloma has so many outs that they couldn't pin her down. The endless CC also meant that they just didn't have a good way to approach the healers without going through Rook. Rook also won them orb every round because nobody wanted to be near him while he was standing by it, and he could just right click it to take it down from half health. Cr1t was not pulling his weight in those games, and his positioning was pretty bad, but to be honest I'm not sure what he could have done at all without feeding Rook berserks. It's so much easier for Rook's teammates to cover his weaknesses in 3s than it is in 2s. He doesn't need to initiate, his teammates can peel/heal/protect him, and all he has to do is be dumb and do deeps and that's enough to make people scared. One of the best suggestions I saw for improving him in 2s was to make Q reset his Space cooldown when he gets hit by a projectile. This would actually let him counter projectiles effectively by giving him another approach method, and it would give him a second way to chase after an enemy uses an escape if they try to be cheeky and kite while projectile spamming (and if they don't, they've either moved in range of the rest of your team or they're not doing anything at all). I don't think this would affect his 3s strength too much because countering a projectile and charging into 3 enemies before the rest of your team can follow up is a pretty bad idea, even with Berserk's damage reduction. But it's less risky to do that in 2s. www.twitch.tv/zai/v/90822203?t=8h22m56s
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Sept 24, 2016 1:14:08 GMT 1
Man, I dunno. He ruins so many people's lives. Why are you trying to space from inside Bakko's dash range? It's worth noting that he's way way better in 3s. He goes from "maybe good" to "obviously really strong." So there are a bunch of axes you can evaluate characters along that I think are probably valuable, and are generally how I evaluate them, especially for quickly evaluating an enemy team comp and what their strengths and weaknesses are. - Can handle being focused / can't handle being focused
- Can be effective when enemies are ignoring them / can't be effective when enemies are ignoring them
- Can operate effectively even when teammates are doing their own thing / relies on teammates knowing how to work with them
- Rook falls on the far left for the first, but kind of in the middle for the second two. In order to be effective when opponents are ignoring him, he needs a teammate that knows how to help him help them.
- Croak is kind of in the middle on the first and third, but far left for the second.
- Shifu is reasonably far left on all three.
- All healers are pretty much far left on 2. Pearl and Sirius a little less so.
- Lucie and Poloma are a bit further right on 1 and 3
- Ashka is pretty far left on all 3, which is one of the reasons he is so easy to pick up and relatively strong.
- Jade is middle of the road on 1 - she can spec to be able to kite one person forever, but falls over hard when two people take turns. But she's pretty far left on 2 and 3
If you play with randoms, the third criteria may be more important than the first two. If you play with a premade, though, it becomes a bit less important, and the first two become more important. In particular, I think that the thing that's going to render characters "nonviable" in 2s is limited ability to help a teammate who is being ganged up on. This is especially true in no-healer games. A character who doesn't handle being focused that well can work with a character with good peels and incaps (or a good support), but a character who can handle being focused relatively well is still going to fall over with a teammate who can't be effective.
Cases like that are DPS races where one character does not have escapes/incaps/defense to speak of, and the other has limited CC and poor sustained DPS. In those cases, focusing the squishy can be a pretty solid win. I see this a lot in melee/ranged DPS teams and support/bursty DPS.
In other news, I'm still waiting for the Poloma and Pearl nerfs and Taya buffs. Bakko stands next to target. I hit space outside his dash range. Bakko hits E and dashes into me intercepting my dash. This does not proc the stun or the zerk if you took the rite. It literally just cancels the entire dash. Ergo if a good bakko is next to my target I cannot dash at them. This has actually happened to me during a match. Dashing at bakko leads to space, E, or Q as possible ways to interrupt. I'll look around at him in 3's , but i can't ever see him in 2's, and I'm having a hard time believing 3's because polo, pearl, and alch all make his life a living hell. Edit- watched the vid. I really feel they could not be running a worse team vs rook (oldur, sm, taya). Oldur can't save anyone besides root, SM is melee who rook is naturally good against, and taya has a lousy escape. Further most of those wins looked like polo showoffs (especially polo with alch)? I don't really feel rook did that much that couldn't have been done by a freya.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 24, 2016 3:12:10 GMT 1
Oh. Haha.
Yeah, "Bakko standing next to target" counters a fuckton of stuff. I played Jade against a Oldur/Bakko combo the other day. I felt like I basically didn't get to play. Even if I baited a shield with snipe cancel the other one had a shield to use, and forget trying to use my ult. I was basically reduced to M1, shotgun, disabling shot, and occasional blast vault interrupts. Felt pretty bad. 0/10 would not play Jade again.
The fact that Rook's dash is interruptable is pretty dumb. Invulnerable would be too strong, I think, but super armor would be reasonable.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 24, 2016 7:17:52 GMT 1
Further Rook silliness - despite the fact that M2 is CLEARLY an AoE, Shifu can counter it. Maybe only on direct hit? But it's still weird and silly.
|
|
|
Post by Kraetyz on Sept 24, 2016 13:57:32 GMT 1
Further Rook silliness - despite the fact that M2 is CLEARLY an AoE, Shifu can counter it. Maybe only on direct hit? But it's still weird and silly. I asked about this: Turns out Rook's M2 and R, Sirius' R and Shifu's R all count as "melee attacks" and not AOEs. So it's consistent in that regard, but then I question why in the heckydeck Freya's E doesn't follow the same rules. -_- kohake please fix.
|
|
|
Post by kohake on Sept 25, 2016 23:06:53 GMT 1
Further Rook silliness - despite the fact that M2 is CLEARLY an AoE, Shifu can counter it. Maybe only on direct hit? But it's still weird and silly. I asked about this: Turns out Rook's M2 and R, Sirius' R and Shifu's R all count as "melee attacks" and not AOEs. So it's consistent in that regard, but then I question why in the heckydeck Freya's E doesn't follow the same rules. -_- kohake please fix. Freya's E is an AoE circle. The abilities you talked about are all cones. She's also not hitting you with the hammer, there is lightning. Taya and Poloma Q can't be countered either. Neither can Bakko Ex Space or Ashka Ex Q. We probably need to iron out some details to make it 100% consistant but I think that it's a pretty solid rule. "Melee attacks" are cones and circles around you (like Shifu's ultiamte) are AoE. Oh. Haha. Yeah, "Bakko standing next to target" counters a fuckton of stuff. I played Jade against a Oldur/Bakko combo the other day. I felt like I basically didn't get to play. Even if I baited a shield with snipe cancel the other one had a shield to use, and forget trying to use my ult. I was basically reduced to M1, shotgun, disabling shot, and occasional blast vault interrupts. Felt pretty bad. 0/10 would not play Jade again. The fact that Rook's dash is interruptable is pretty dumb. Invulnerable would be too strong, I think, but super armor would be reasonable. Well if you're baiting their sheilds with snipe then you're still getting value out of the ability. You could also use it to grab the mid orb or use Ex Snipe to root Bakko in place. Ex M2 > M1 x6 = 36 damage.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Sept 28, 2016 21:38:26 GMT 1
Oh. Haha. Yeah, "Bakko standing next to target" counters a fuckton of stuff. I played Jade against a Oldur/Bakko combo the other day. I felt like I basically didn't get to play. Even if I baited a shield with snipe cancel the other one had a shield to use, and forget trying to use my ult. I was basically reduced to M1, shotgun, disabling shot, and occasional blast vault interrupts. Felt pretty bad. 0/10 would not play Jade again. The fact that Rook's dash is interruptable is pretty dumb. Invulnerable would be too strong, I think, but super armor would be reasonable. Well if you're baiting their sheilds with snipe then you're still getting value out of the ability. You could also use it to grab the mid orb or use Ex Snipe to root Bakko in place. Ex M2 > M1 x6 = 36 damage. I guess? It still feels pretty bad to not be able to use a character's signature move. I'm not claiming this is a balance issue at all. But I've also been seeing a lot of players now not even trying to pre-emptively shield long range snipes, and instead reactively shield them, which is definitely possible at longer ranges. Now, I have no problem playing Jade close-in. I think you have to do so to be effective. But Jade's average sustained DPS/overall efficiency plummets dramatically if she's not landing snipes. So it feels like you're not really contributing or being effective if you're using Snapshot instead of Snipe. Unfortunately, my teammate in that game was not very good and was not doing a good job of taking advantage of the fact that both opponents were reserving their shield abilities for blocking me. Mostly because he was a melee (Freya I think) and was just diving in 2v1. Bleh. I asked about this: Turns out Rook's M2 and R, Sirius' R and Shifu's R all count as "melee attacks" and not AOEs. So it's consistent in that regard, but then I question why in the heckydeck Freya's E doesn't follow the same rules. -_- kohake please fix. Freya's E is an AoE circle. The abilities you talked about are all cones. She's also not hitting you with the hammer, there is lightning. Taya and Poloma Q can't be countered either. Neither can Bakko Ex Space or Ashka Ex Q. We probably need to iron out some details to make it 100% consistant but I think that it's a pretty solid rule. "Melee attacks" are cones and circles around you (like Shifu's ultiamte) are AoE. This is fair. This is probably something you should cover in the tutorial then, because it's visually weird when someone isn't in the area hit by the weapon (in Rook's M2) but still procs counter. He slams the ground and then the shockwave/earthquake effect is what the visual for the rest of the cone is. So just saying "cones are melee attacks" is completely reasonable game design, it's just confusing to discover through play.
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Oct 7, 2016 1:11:49 GMT 1
the more I play the more I wonder if Oldur is ok. I love time goat, but so far i've found that he's built around landing E, and if they're smart enough to cancel their "hold still and hit me" moves, he drops off hard
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Oct 7, 2016 18:16:04 GMT 1
His E doesn't have significantly more airtime than most similar AoE's, I think? And it's got a pretty short cooldown (7s iirc).
He does really well, I've found, with melees like Bakko and Rook, but less well with characters like Jade or Shifu. It's not just landing his E that can be difficult, though - most players know not to attack him with ranged attacks, so you have to use that EX Bubble effectively against ranged. It can guarantee you wins of the center rune in some circumstances, though. I've played a bunch of games with him where I felt like the only things I was landing were M1, M2, and EX M1.
A lot of players are also really really bad at playing on a team with Oldur. Which I guess is similar to players working with Sirius, but moreso. Because you can't dive and then expect Oldur to help you get back out. He can't shield you or otherside you or put up a bubble (or bubble shield you) or petrify the enemies. Maybe he can snare/root them or put up an EX bubble to cover you. What he can do is heal you a bit and help you burst someone down before you get yourself out. Which means it's super-important to attack the player who is in Oldur's line of fire if you're in a big hairball. Oldur is kind of like a ranged DPS who can also heal his team during breaks in the action.
He also does a LOT better if you don't yield the center - then his bubble and his aoe can block off chokepoints and earn lots of space control.
|
|
|
Post by Caphriel on Oct 7, 2016 23:40:39 GMT 1
Crossposted from the Other Forum:
I got my last dude (Oldur) to 6 last night. I'm still going to play everyone until I get them all to 10 (because of course) but I'm feeling like I have a pretty good grasp on the characters right now.
I'm not sure I can tier them by power level because I can't play all of them at that level. What I can do is rate them more or less based on straightforwardness to play "correctly", difficulty of execution, and number of things you need to juggle. I'll try to order the characters within categories by approximate effectiveness, though.
------
Ranged is in my opinion the simplest archetype to play. There's slightly less to keep track of and things are a bit less chaotic. You usually have a bit more time to respond to most potential hazards. Dealing with a melee who wants to kill you can be challenging though.
Ashka is probably the easiest ranged DPS to pick up and play, and he's strong. He's got a good long range poke, a good M2 against anyone who has no defensive ability, good mobility, and some good extra skills. His EXes are also great. At higher levels, he can be much more aggressive and output a lot of damage and CC.
Jade is not hard to learn, and relatively easy to be effective with. The round 1 rite to give her immaterial on stealth is very strong and instantly increases her survivability a lot. Her strategy is straightfoward.
Taya has the most damage output against a clumped, organized team of maybe anyone in the game. But she's pretty hard to learn, relatively speaking, because she doesn't have outs and her damage needs setup. She's kind of reliant on her teammate early in the round to help set her up. And she has to get in and mix it up against some enemy compositions.
Iva is kind of an odd duck for ranged characters. Her M1 is barely longer than melee range, but what she's got going for her is a selection of good support skills, and ridiculously high burst/sustain at close range. If you jump on someone who has no outs left, unload your shotgun and then flamethrower them, that's like 100 damage in 5 seconds or something. Her ranged spellblock into stun is good, and her ranged EX incap is amazing for setting up combos. And her ability to shield a teammate is pretty good, too.
Varesh is maybe the hardest ranged to play, in my opinion. I was able to play at-level with him without feeling like I was being particularly efficient. You have to juggle maintaining multiple debuffs on multiple people, consuming those debuffs for effect as often as reasonable, landing lots of hits and small AoEs. Varesh punishes you more than most for missing a hit and dropping your combo. But if you can do it, he's really, really strong.
In terms of tiers, I can't point to any and say "this one is significantly worse than the others." I think Ashka and Taya are "probably" better than Jade, and Varesh might be S-tier if anyone can actually reach his skill ceiling.
------
Melee are harder to play than ranged because you have to get in. This exposes you to taking a lot more burst, and can be hard in general. So it requires more positional and situational awareness, I think. You also have to know when to get out, and how to do that.
Bakko is I think the easiest melee to learn, and he feels pretty easy to be effective with, to me. But that's kind of subjective? He's got a solid toolset and a lot of panic buttons. He also has a hilariously good ranged poke on his M2. He can work in basically any team comp, too.
Freya is also pretty straightforward - get in, get shields, kill stuff. The execution can be a bit harder - she has fast animations and short cooldowns, and if she gets stuck in a bad situation it can be hard to get out. I didn't click with her, but I know she can be effective.
Shifu is also relatively straightfoward, but a bit harder to play well. He's really good at chasing, but it's also really easy to get tunnel vision and Just Die with him. He's got good survivability between his R1 healing rite, a counter that provides immaterial, and a space that provides immaterial. And his damage output is solid and sustainable, although his burst isn't that great. The biggest challenge with Shifu is I think working as part of a team instead of just doing your own thing and hoping it all works out.
Rook is very feast or famine (hah hah.) If you get in, he's great. If not, he's hard. Playing him well is non-obvious, because you have to be extremely patient and careful... or have a teammate set them up for you or help you get in. But his plan once he gets an opportunity is extremely straight-forward. Smash, eat, smash some more.
Croak is probably the hardest melee to play effectively once you get passed the level of opponents not knowing how to deal with Stealth. I see more Croaks being completely ineffectual than anyone else. He has a hard time getting in against careful players, and his sustained damage is pretty low. But as a disruption/burst melee, he's pretty strong. You should be using EX stealth whenever you can, and his EX M2 is pretty good also.
Overall, I think Bakko and Croak are probably the strongest melees. Bakko's toolkit is just so good and his burst is so high. Croak's EX Q can be a gamewinner if you get a single incap one, stun the other and your teammate helps with the burst. Freya and Shifu are solid, but I feel like Bakko and Croak are just a little bit better. Rook... I don't think is bad, but I think his lack of mobility can be a problem.
Worth noting is that Croak and Rook may be the most game-warping characters in terms of how opponents have to respond to their presence in the game.
------
Supports are the most complicated type to play, I think, because you have to have even more field awareness and make more complicated decisions.
Pearl is definitely the easiest support to play and the easiest to be effective with. All of her abilities are straightfoward and strong. Her heal can be a little hard to land, but there are no shocking complexities to her abilities, or weird interactions.
Poloma is probably the next easiest support to grok and play well. If you hold M1 all the time when you're not using other abilities, you'll do okay. There's some judgement on Otherside and how to use her space that can be complicated, and EX space is harder to know how to use correctly. But she's got a strong kit and can handle being focused without too much trouble - she arguably has 3 escapes.
I'd say Oldur is probably more straightfoward than Lucie or Sirius. He's got a "normal" set of skills. You M1 and M2 from range, more or less. The tricky bit about Oldur is recognizing that you're not going to really help keep your teammates alive as much as you're going to help your teammates kill people faster. If your teammate is a melee, you use your heal charges, bubble if they try to disengage, and otherwise just DPS your face off. You can do a lot of DPS. If your teammate is ranged, you can help peel for them with snare and protect them with bubble or interpose with normal shield. Oldur is a little squishy against melee pressure if he doesn't have energy, though.
Lucie is a bit harder to play. She needs good positional decision-making because she's not maneuverable at all. Ideally, you want your opponents to attack your teammate so you can shield and heal them. If you get focused, EX fear is great. Otherwise, her panic flask is great. She also needs to be careful with energy so she can always roll if she needs to, but also use EX M1 as much as possible for that sweet, sweet damage. Using Clarity effectively also takes a lot of game knowledge.
Sirius is maybe the hardest support to play, because he's not a ranged support like the rest. In order to play Sirius you have to get up and personal. So you've got the mental overhead of being a melee with the mental overhead of being a support. He also has no extra panic buttons on his EX or R abilities - if your space and Q are on cooldown, you're boned. But if you play him well, he can do oodles of control and protection and damage. His EXes give him pretty shocking burst. His EX space is one of those "you should almost always use the EX version if you have energy" abilities.
Overall, I think in 2s they're all pretty solid, although Oldur may be the weakest just because he has fewer control options, so if he can't deal damage he can't do much. In 3s, I think Oldur and Sirius may be approximately unplayable, and Poloma becomes S-tier because of the way her heal/damage sharing scales. Pearl is maybe a little strong and I think Poloma is probably going to get nerfed more (probably with Wolf damage reduction or cooldown increase, if nothing else.)
-----
Cross-archetype, I think probably the hardest character in the game is Varesh, then Sirius, then Croak. The highest skill ceilings I think are Varesh, then all the supports, then maybe Croak and Freya, then Iva and Taya. But I don't know if peak performance will necessarily correlate to skill ceiling.
I don't really have any interest in trying to do "best" character comparisons or tier lists that try to go cross-archetype because I think those are kind of apples-to-oranges comparisons.
I think Poloma is "too strong" relative to other characters - she has the most heals of any support and very-high damage output. I expect Pearl to get slightly nerfed eventually, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see nerfs to Freya, Shifu, Bakko, Jade, or Ashka. I also except a buff or rebalance of Rook at some point. I wouldn't be surprised to see a small buff to Sirius or another small buff to Oldur. But I have pretty low confidence in most of this except the Poloma and Pearl nerfs and the Rook and Sirius buffs.
By which I mean that the only ones I'm >50% confident in are those last four. Seriously the balance in this game is pretty good.
|
|
|
Post by eji1700 on Oct 8, 2016 23:41:49 GMT 1
Iva's full shotgun range is actually way longer than melee, but unlikely to hit clean on a moving target. It's easy to test vs dummies though. You can get a full damage hit at max range on a non moving target, which is worth knowing when your ally gets a stun or an incap and M2 is down.
|
|