NEUS Projects

http://www.neus-projects.net/viewtopic.p...amp;t=5255

Trexmaster post_id=27650 time=1503957771 user_id=76 Wrote:Bellowing Stag, as it stands, is so powerful you can have it as your only means of offense and still remain in the top tier of builds with the tankiness to back it up.

Right now it can exceed 100+ unresistable (bar dark resist) damage, which also subtracts from maximum health. As it stands it's a tank buster that scales off a tank stat and is equally if not more effective against non-tanks. If you happen to not resist dark, you'll lose roughly 20% of your health a turn to it, and damage racing Bellowing Stag tanks is often futile since their offensive stat is RES, leaving them plenty of points to spare to bulk up, not to mention freedom with their equipment.

For a skill that scales solely on Dark ATK with a minor bonus from rank + rage, it can afford to be toned down. Bellowing Stag is a better version of Retaliate right now, being not only more Rage efficient, but it deals its damage in an AoE to boot instead of a single target.

A simple suggestion to bring it into line: make Bellowing Stag go vs Mag DR from RES, at the very least.

All of this still applies today, for some reason I thought Bellowing Stag actually got adjusted to go against Mag DR but it didn't. The only difference is now you can potentially replace the RES requirement with WIL using Luminary Element.

I would go so far as to suggest a 2-3 round cooldown be attached to it as well, or require more rage energy to cast it with. 1 Rage energy can be generated by just about any tick of damage that deals higher than 0, making it trivial to upkeep. Adjusting the duration of Cursed Wounds Bellowing Stag applies may also be appropriate.

I'd also like to emphasize the Cursed Wounds part as well--nothing else in the game aside from Gae Baed's trivial 10 on hit inflicts this outside Matador's kit. Retaliate dumps all your energy (on one target), Crashing Bull requires Airborne and spends it to cast(but is an AoE), then you have Bellowing Stag which can be repeated ad infinitum if you have more than 4-5~ energy at round start(and is also an AoE). CW is one of the most potent statuses in the game for anti-sustain, beating out even Interference in that you're removing an enemy's max HP entirely, thus countering %HP heals (and healing in general) on top of preventing bonuses an enemy would get from being at certain HP thresholds (Rising Game, Instinct).

So you have a skill that requires no weapon to use, has no cooldown, deals unresistable damage that is effectively applied as a max HP penalty instead, has a 2x2 AoE, and scales entirely off of elemental ATK with minor flat bonuses. On top of all of this you can also apply an elemental effect to it.

TL;DR Make it goes vs Magic Defense and or give Bellowing Stag a cooldown, as it's overwhelmingly powerful right now.

If it goes vs Magical Defense then it becomes one of the worst skills to use damage wise, and would need a much more significant scaling rage wise.

My suggestion here would be not to give it a cooldown, but make it go through magical defense with better rage damage scaling, so that it may have the potential to do damage, but just having dark ATK alone doesn't make it deal the most consistent damage in the game for tanks.


But if it does get a cooldown and keeps ignoring magic defense, I think 2 rounds can suffice, if not just 1, its damage is not absolutely bonkers its just only oppressing when spammed.

Pretty much this, it does too much for too little. I made a joke build with it on a dullahan super tank stun regen memes. It beats most builds effortlessly by just spamming that (barring high dark res people.)

4 turn cursed wound is also darn long, for how easy it is to use. So what I think could tune it down a bit:

-As spo says increase it's rage needed and adjust its power a little upwards, but let it go against Mag. defense
-Reduce the Cursed wound duration. 2 Rounds is fair enough for it. Maybe 3 if its less spamable.
-make it a knockback 1 tile while on ground. Also prevents double tapping in many cases and gives you some breathing room.

Just remove the wounds thing and give matador a new mechanic tbh. I never really saw a good collation with defensive stance and reducing your enemy's max HP.

But that's purely an opinion on my part.