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NDB -> What I suggest, take it or leave it I guess (6/15/2019 12:32:49)
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Rant portion:
Well, few days later, CH's are everywhere. And BH too, because that seems like the only reasonable counter to CH. The two hunter classes are ruling the game, mercs are in the middle, and both mages are nowhere to be seen. BM is still no good at all and even though TM would seem like it would be decent, it's been completely overshadowed by CH. And seeing all those boss fight wins on Twitter does rub me the wrong way a bit. Anyone who attempted a boss fight after this update basically got the free win just by clicking Static Charge and heal. Maybe they needed to be nerfed but that's silly considering they're supposed to be a challenging end game thing.
Dex is also become secondary again because nothing will stop Focus. Spam builds have been dead for a loooooong time now. The Focus build's secondary stat is Dex, so changing Malf just helped Focus builds. I thought Dex-Focus would be decent, but nah. Cyber Hunters are forced to continue using Tech because they fight each other and they lack an active resistance shield. Tech is still just more reliable since a lot of battles since malf isn't mandatory to win (and who has the time to use gun?), which is okay, but then what was the point of changing Multi-Shot to Dex? Maybe for 2v2, but for 1v1 any caster skill needs Plasma Bolt or Plasma Cannon/Bunker scaling to even be considered to be used by a Focus build let alone by a spam build. As for TM, Malf + gun + Deadly Aim is indeed a pretty great combo, but it's still awkward because gun is too hard to use when robot could be stronger, not to mention you have to heal and shield non-stop these days. By using Dex instead of Tech, you sacrifice Plasma Bolt and Super Charge, too. Basically, the average amount of turns people actually attacking has decreased due to the poison/debuff and heal meta, so you'll never be able to take advantage of using a strong gun with a 2 turn cooldown. CH certainly won't be able to. So in the end Dex Malf didn't produce builds that actually rely on Dex as their main stat or even Strength + Dex builds, it just helped the builds that happened to already had Dex in their build, which was Focus. Which, of course, was already the only build in the game that works these days for any class.
Debuffs and poison has made the game too chaotic in my opinion. Battles are too hard to predict since they last for multiple turns. Whoever goes first is more important than ever, which ironic because Support is a completely dead stat. Whoever goes first will immediately reach for that poison or debuff and the next few turns will be spent stalling with heals, shields, energy manipulation. Then, repeat. People just land these particular skills because they know they have to, not because they are thinking about it; then they just wait and see what happens and react from there because they have no idea what's going to happen exactly. Especially poison. It used to be a skill that had to be used really skillfully, but now it's the spammiest skill in the game.
Suggestion portion:
Therefore, I think
1. Poison and heal need to go back to the way they were in terms of cooldowns. That would solve a million problems right off the bat, I think. From there, maybe Toxic Grenade could even be nerfed by 10 points whereas Venom Strike could be buffed by 10, still keeping the -20 energy cost. That'd be a more reasonable change to help Venom Strike, and Toxic Grenade always sort of needed a nerf, not a buff.
2. Surgical Strike should be buffed to the way it was. Nerfing it didn't make much sense; all this does is kill skill tree diversity and any attempt at a pure Tech build.
3. Frenzy needs to be buffed one way or another.
4. Malf and Smoke both need a slight nerf. They're more powerful than they need to be to be viable. People would still use them if they're nerfed a bit. Currently, they are too heavily relied on so caster skills are completely overlooked.
5. The above changes would help sort the hunter and merc situation out, but the mages still need major buffs. Deadly Aim needs a really good buff, especially since Shadow Arts got a buff, so that gun is a more appealing move. The problem is even if you're using Botanical Hazard, robot will always be prioritized before gun, so in a sense Deadly Aim is an all-or-nothing skill: if you don't use gun at all, you lose 100% of the benefit. We need to tip it over to the "all" side by making these classes reach for their gun first before robot in more cases.
6. Dex and Tech caster skills need a way bigger buff to revive pure Dex and Support builds because Support is dead and Dex is only utilized in the form of Focus build's secondary stat. The changes to Overload/Stun Grenade and Rain was a step in the right direction but didn't do nearly enough.
- All three multi skills needs a humongous buff. Energy cost needs to be reduced and damage needs to be increased to get them similar to Plasma Bolt. The percentage and energy cost for 2v2 can be changed accordingly so that they aren't overpowered in 2v2 or Jugg. Simple as that. I think for far too long they've been neglected due to 2v2 and Jugg issues which is weird since they can be balanced independently.
- Similarly, the stun skills have been neglected because stun is an overpowered effect when it happens. The skills need to be buffed a lot more as well for anyone to make a build with them, but maybe we can change it so that if a skill stuns, it only does 85% damage. Don't know if that's a good idea or not but it could do the trick.
7. The Strength skills need an overhaul too to get actual Strength builds to use them. The Cheap Shot and Bludgeon buff didn't help with Strength builds. Strength as a build doesn't need to be buffed insanely since that'll trigger Katherax meta all over again, but the thing is is that more than half the Strength skills are pretty worthless. I suggest that the % should scale off of the entire primary damage, the way that Blood Shot does with gun, but have the percentage lowered accordingly. It's silly that any build can use Strength builds to the exact same effect (they don't actually improve with Strength at all). It's a simple change but it'll make Strength feel like an important stat again because right now it literally only improves primary damage whereas the other stats have a boatload of secondary effects.
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