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Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Printable Version

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Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Kameron8 - 01-20-2016

The last thread for rebalancing classes currently in the game. This one has several changes for the Soldier class promotion [strike]Dante[/strike] Demon Hunter. Being the special little snowflake it is, this class was the most difficult to reach any sort of consensus on. Here is a starting point.

1. Winged Serpent now costs 2 momentum unless the airborne status is caused by Leaping Lizard.

Justification:
Winged Serpent's interaction with things like Crane Hop, Burn Up, and Dragon Hover end up giving people 8+ tiles of 1 momentum movement. It is almost universally accepted that movement for 1m without a catch (aka voidgate) is bad, and this cuts down on that. It gives Cobra Demon Hunters the ability to still fly all over the place if they jump on someone's head with leaping lizard, but doesn't allow things like burn up -> overcharge -> shoot in the face. #ClipDante'sWings.

2. Matador's Know No Pain is significantly reworked.

Know No Pain - Required: Matador Stance rank 1
Toggle Skill. Must be in Matador Stance to gain the benefits.

Off - When you take physical damage, you gain Rage (Rank*4) based on Rank or equal to the Damage Taken, whichever is lower.
On - Physical damage dealt to you is reduced based on Rank (Rank*4), but you lose Rage equal to the damage reduced by this skill. If you have no Rage, this skill is automatically toggled off.

Justification:
Matador Demon Hunters are, with a few exceptions, Black Knight 2.0. They gain damage resistance to types of damage they have no business reducing (multihit guns, ice point greaves, phoenix talon, mad chop, and rapid kick all do 0), things that are 'unresistable' are shrugged off, and to top it all off, they have one of the most powerful offensive attacks of any tank class. Up to 300 unresistable dark damage with no scaling. Matador needs something to give it a better identity, so having Know No Pain leverage off of rage is a great way to let it still feel useful compared to Black Knight, but not strictly better 99% of the time.

3. Crashing Bull's damage scaling changed to Str + 15 + 5/10/15/20/25 unresistable Dark damage. If cast with 300 Rage, Crashing Bull will cost 50 more Rage to cast and strike the entire map.

Justification:
Adding a strength modifier to Crashing Bull makes it NOT entirely godawful. 40 damage tops? Seriously? There's a reason nobody uses Crashing Bull and Bellowing Stag, and it's because their damage is nonexistent. Adding a bonus for max rage helps it pull from the rage system, to incentivize not just using Retalliate.

4. Bellowing Stag now consumes 35% of your current rage energy for damage, instead of 15%. Furthermore, if Bellowing Stag is cast with 300 Rage, it will instead consume 70%.

Justification:
The only issue with this skill is the low damage. By upping the AoE capabilities of Matador, we can prevent it from being Retalliate: The class. If a Matador can get to max rage, it can unleash 210 unresistable AoE dark damage, which is very high for tank standards.

Overall these changes promote adaptability, which is a core theme to the class. When to toggle Know No Pain, when to save up for a heavy offense, etc.

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Slydria - 01-20-2016

If nothing else, the change to Know No Pain is what I want most.

While it is a nerf, I think it makes Matador more mechanically interesting. Currently, it's just set and forget but with the change, it gives you more strategic thought. Do you save up Rage to deal a massive blow or do you use it to cut down on damage?

It also treats multi-shot guns in a fair manner in my opinion. While they build up Rage faster, they also reduce it faster when active as opposed to now where if a multi-shot gunner goes up against a Matador, they are at a clear disadvantage.

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Soapy - 01-20-2016

I seriously disagree with Crashing Bull scaling on STR; Reaver's a thing. Maybe if it used DEF instead?

Other than that, everything is great.

Know No Pain is seriously unfair, but I don't see any numbers change fixing that and keeping it worthwhile.
The proposal sounds a bit weird, but more interesting, and definitely a whole lot more balanced.

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Chaos - 01-21-2016

#1: Not when Winged Serpent is restricted to a line. This isn't pre-nerf Crane Hop that can just jump to whatever tile within X range it pleases. If a nerf is necessary, we're better off lowering the line's range instead of making the skill virtually xenophobic.

#2: I'd rather just cut the Damage Reduction in half and make Matador (see: the skill) gain rage better. Making KNP unreliable except to provide any sort of reasonable access to the remaining Matador skills is completely unnecessary.

#3: I have the feeling that Crashing Bull will become quite overpowered if it was given this boost, but it might be worth a shot. Also, keep DEF-based attacks over in Black Knight or something.

#4: Again, I feel like this will become a bit broken, but I'm not opposed to trying it out.

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Ranylyn - 01-21-2016

I feel that the current rage gains aren't quite enough to justify the KNP change. I completely get why people want the change, but it's not like rage builds obscenely quickly unless you're fighting an Akimbo MG or something.

Basically, my thoughts pretty much mirror Chaos's on every point.

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Kameron8 - 01-21-2016

"[url=http://neus-projects.net/viewtopic.php?p=11728#p11728 Wrote:Chaos ยป Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:10 am[/url]"]#1: Not when Winged Serpent is restricted to a line. This isn't pre-nerf Crane Hop that can just jump to whatever tile within X range it pleases. If a nerf is necessary, we're better off lowering the line's range instead of making the skill virtually xenophobic.

Since the Matador changes are largely what I couldn't get people to agree on, I won't comment on those since we're certainly looking at alternatives. But for this I just want to briefly reiterate that 1m movement is, in almost everyone's opinion who I have spoken with in the game, negatively impacting the game by existing. Adding 'catches' to movement skills like Voidgate make them something both players can interact with and around, which is good. But when you are able to sit outside of your opponent's range and then suddenly close the gap and use an entire turn's worth of momentum on them, it becomes a problem.

Take, for example, a Magic Gunner / Demon Hunter who runs Cobra and Desperado. They can remain untouchable by (practically) all sources of damage just by remaining at roughly 8 or 9 tiles of range. If your opponent is an Archer or also a rifle wielding gunner, that range can go up marginally. At 9 tiles, the only things that can really hurt you is a Martial Artist with Shukichi, a soldier with Charge, and a Void Assassin with Western Wind. So, don't stand in range of that either. Let's go SIXTEEN tiles away. Now those pesky punks with the highest possible movement in the game can't penetrate your wall of Snake Dancer, or your almighty Bullet Barrier. So the opponent can't approach the gunner, or it will do an inevitable zero damage and be struck with a game ending overcharge shell (Sonic or Celsius, almost exclusively). But the opponent can't NOT approach, otherwise the gunner can Burn Up / Dragon Hover and fly 8 tiles over, then strike them with a game ending overcharge shell ANYWAY.

The core issue with 1m movement is it allows one person to operate at full capacity at a range the opponent can barely operate at half. I don't want to give Winged Serpent the Crane Hop treatment and make it tiny range. Leaping Lizard and Winged Serpent are powerful and interesting to use together. But really, 1m movement should be all but denied without a solid drawback or setup required. At least, that's what several of us believe.

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Rendar - 01-25-2016

Another issue with Matador.

You know how before, Dev, when you said "Why should Ensui apply to every hit of Thousand stab/Madchop? That'd be dumb!"

Well you did exactly that Dev. Except it gives a shitton of bonuses if someone uses it against you.

MATADOR NERF WHEN?!

Re: Class Balancing: Demon Hunter - Rendar - 02-05-2016

Blue Haired Woman takes 287 Darkness damage.


So. I know that like. Know no Nerf/Matador/Retaliate need a nerf but.

Can we seriously get this checked? It's kind of dumb that it's doing unresistable damage that can, and will, instant kill a person without dark resist. Mind you, this was from nearly point blank range.. but still. This is 300 damage that, sure. It needs to be 'built up' over time. However against a tanky character.. I, as a friggin arbalest was doing about 20-40 damage until I lowered his defense by 48 and was able to start hitting somewhere in the 70s on crits ( then -20 from KnP ). In the time it took me to actually wittle him down, he got in range and then proceeded to teleport in my face with a matador and insta-gib my 380 HP with that + a kick that did something like 120 damage because #FunTimes.

After a little bit of testing.. 8 hits from a half-health Arbie/BK (of madchop) gave a 90 rage spike... Hell. His bow-shots of 50~ damage raised my rage by 30 each one. If it filled more slowly ( since its 13% of damage taken and then an extra 20 from all physical damage )... It might be okay. however it getting 20 Damage Reduction, ontop of whatever else goes with it. (( God help you if you're a dodge tank with matador and can evade-auto hits like nothing else. )).

So I'd really like to see it change to either you get to ignore the 20 points of damage for maybe 10 points of rage (so as to make it good to actually not ignore it for awhile for build up)... or just to flat out change know no pain because god damn is it awful. This only gets worse if the person you're fighting is a heal tank or someone who can sustain for a long time to take a ton of damage because. Well.

At best, 300 unresistable dark damage. This gets to reduce the target's max HP by 300 (which stops healing just about as good as interference). Puts you in melee range for a follow up. and costs about 5 FP.

It's also the best of the Matador skills because the other ones actually suck ass in comparision. (admittedly, 65 damage from a full-rage bellow is kinda decent).