[Ranylyn]

In SL2, there is one thing, one hideous thing, that completely forces all characters to have at least 30 defense, if not much more. Between softcaps destroying glass cannons and this other thing destroying glass cannons, even magic gunners or evokers are god damn space marines in their builds, simply because the alternative means being completely shredded to pieces the absolute second you step foot anywhere near Tannis or Dormeho.

I am of course talking about Dark F****** Calling, which I will refer to as DFC for the rest of this post. A skill that needs a very, VERY important change to be made to it, for reasons I'll be getting into. The "DFC" is to differentiate it between disconnecting, which is a very different problem, and to troll people who are into loli characters. Yeah, I went there. Come at me.


Scenario: Steadfast Black Knight and his partner, Glass Cannon Gunner/Rogue are in a party and go to Tannis to fight beasts, spawning on the opposite ends of the battlefield. The two begin by moving closer together so they can concentrate their attacks and drop the beasts quickly, but due to the terrain are not yet beside one another by the time DFC begins. While ordinarily, Incognito would mean they'd charge towards the Black Knight, Dark Calling is an action with a range spanning the entire battlefield, allowing the three beasts so teleport straight towards the gunner/rogue and spam Black Roar. "Okay, fine, Roar doesn't do all that much damage, even a glass cannon can take a few roars." Except Roar jacks their attack up, and DOES NOT COUNT AS AN ATTACK, MEANING THEY CAN IMMEDIATELY DFC TO THE GUNNER AGAIN, EVEN IF IT RUNS AWAY AND HIDES BEHIND IT'S FRIEND. Without fleeing as an option, the gunner has one choice: "Do I sit here and attack twice, and die, or do I run and die tired?"

There's no defense besides raw numbers. There's no kiting, there's no keep away, there's no strategy at all. You either tank or you die, end of story, goodbye, see you. And I'm seeing it more and more with the mountain raid. There'll be that one utility/support character or maybe someone lower levelled, etc. DFC ganking. No keepaway, no kiting, just raw numbers or death.

The change: Obviously, Dark Calling was added as a failsafe - if the town terrain made the battle impossible to resolve, the beasts would teleport. The problem is, they can teleport successively since a basic attack is the only thing that counts towards "If it hasn't done X in X many turns." Dark Calling is important, and can't be removed. But what absolutely NEEDS to happen is that Black Roar needs to count as an attack towards preventing DFC Spam. It also needs to prioritize characters without Incognito if someone DOES have it.

[Oni Princess]

Somebody spilled the salt.

[Lonestar]

I don't think Black Beasts needs to be changed considering that they're pretty easy and predictable to fight against, Black Roar hits on around 50~40 per roar, and they get shitted at for everything except Water/Earth. (Specially Fire.) Dark Calling is just a teleport, not the real attack, and the basic attacks after Black Roar is hella easy to dodge.
Plus, in your example:
- They wouldn't Black Roar the gunner twice per beast, they only do it once until the Fear wears out, which is time enough for the Black Knight and the Gunner to take 'em down.
- They will try to basic attack the gunner, which for a Rogue/Gunner, they shouldn't have problem in dodging it.
- The only problem is the Black Knight taking the damage, but he's there for that same reason.
I just find this unnecessary, but that's my opinion anyways.

[Ranylyn]

- They wouldn't Black Roar the gunner twice per beast, they only do it once until the Fear wears out, which is time enough for the Black Knight and the Gunner to take 'em down.
- They will try to basic attack the gunner

That's exactly the issue. Their real damage is from their bite; Roar does like 1/4 to 1/2 of the damage that their bite does, even if you have single digit res and decent defense. They teleport to you and roar, and then you have a dilemma. Do you stand still and risk taking a crit and take two bites? Do you move and waste an action but take a bite anyways because it doesn't matter what kind of setup you use (Fire/Ice/Gust/Entangle traps, etc) since they'll just teleport straight to you even if you have a way to completely go from one corner to the other in a single turn. Their skill is also pretty good so they aren't going to miss too often unless they're feared or blinded.

All I'm proposing is "Make the roar count as a bite for the sake of Dark Calling so they can't repeatedly teleport" Since the only defense is quite literally pumping defense. There should be a strategic way to take minimal damage from them. Dark Calling, as is, makes Black Beasts several times more threatening than BDP bosses and Rampage.

[Oni Princess]

Unless you have like, 200-300 max hp,(Which I doubt) you should be more than fine killing beasts before they kill you even if solo.

[Lonestar]

I'm not sure if you just ignored this point, so I'll just repeat it.

and the basic attacks after Black Roar is hella easy to dodge.
which for a Rogue/Gunner, they shouldn't have problem in dodging it.

Black Beasts at Level 60 have hardly 60 SKI and less than 5 LUC. If we count that, their hit is still low that even a Black Knight, building for tank, with heavy armor and subbing Kensei could dodge them.

The Bites have a clear counter, which is dodging. Black Beasts aren't more threatning than BDP bosses, not even close to it. If you're squishy, and have no dodge, then the problem isn't them but you.

Their skill is also pretty good so they aren't going to miss too often unless they're feared or blinded.
Since the only defense is quite literally pumping defense.

This is also wrong for the reasons I stated above. They're fine the way it is, if not a bit weak. Making them even more weak is basically asking for them to not exist.

Also, if the problem is the biting, since they can just walk to you instead of teleporting, Dark Calling shouldn't be the real problem ,right?

EDIT: Corrected a few stats regarding the BBs.

[Ranylyn]

60 skill is more than enough to still get a good (Not perfect, but good) hit rate against 40 cel (which might I add basically no one does anymore due to the benefits of going last) unless you go all out on evade stacking, which has been taking hits (See: The nerf to the spellthief one) While some people - such as the people who played the GBA FE games may look at... say... 60% hit and think, "Ha, I'm not getting hit," I know that's not true; it's still a 3/5 chance, which is pretty good. I'm sorry, but if your solution is just "get lucky," that's not even a remotely acceptable answer.

Furthermore, If the black beasts walked instead of teleporting, there'd be the following counters:
- Traps to slow/stop their movement
- Ice/Cinder tiles to shred them or stop them getting close
- Movement skills to get the hell away in the first place. Heck, a gunner would be able to keep away with Parting Shot + Movement, even though the beasts DO have good move.
- One big player-based advantage to that initial teleport, though, IS, as you said, the predictability. If you have the means (Such as evoker) you can lay a brutal trap for them and they won't GET that second turn. But not every class has those kinds of options, and others still downright suffer from close quarters with several enemies at once.

Not every character should have 1000+ HP and really good defense. Not every character is that ICly capable, and honestly, Dark Calling is just a giant middle finger to the clever yet less physically capable types.

[Lonestar]

While I do agree that 60 SKI is a good bunch of Hit, they don't have LUC. They're losing 37% Hit just from that.
I'll use an example that's been happening to me recently.

I have a Zeran Destiny Duelist that has 17 CEL and 40 LUC. Their Evade is at 103, because they're not a dodgy build.

The only thing that benefits them to get more Evade is Kensei's passive, Kenki. So in technicalities, they lose 15 Hit off the bat, without counting things like Rising Game, since she dodges at full HP anyways.

While she isn't dodging most of the attacks, she's dodging in a very frequent pace against LV 60 BBs. I'll also let know that his Evade is without Traits like Agile Feet/After Math.

Someone with an Unarmored Torso with decent Evade, 40 CEL and the traits, while using like in your example, Rogue/MG, they would have at least around 150~170 Evade without buffs, which is more than enough to dodge everything they throw at you.

Also, a good thing about Dark Calling? You don't need to move again to hit them. They come to you.

And my solution isn't 'get gud' or 'get lucky', it's just that they don't need a nerf, like for reals.

[Snake]

Black Beasts are fine.

The heck is this now? If you're having trouble with Black Beasts, you can always 1- ask someone to help you, 2- ask someone to give you a Mars Badge 3- be a VA. Or just simply be a Vampire scum.

If we nerf BBs more than what they are right now, we might as well as substitute them for Jammers holding rubber toy knives.

[Ranylyn]

Lonestar: Yes, but that's also assuming they're built for dodge at all. That class combo was just a theoretical example of "glass cannon built to support allies without coming under direct attack, with stats pumped into things like raw damage or healing output." In that example, the rogue was aimed mostly at incognito, traps, and spellthief for buffs and heals. And, especially with the mountain pass part of the raid now, that kind of character ends up just being dead weight instead of a treasured helper due to Dark Calling ignoring incognito and just completely ganking them. I've seen parties boot people with under 800 HP because of this (And I was not the one getting the boot, for the record.) Also, you just plain have better luck than me, seriously.

Snake: Ah, yes, the tried, tested, and lazy excuse of "Oh, it's no problem that class A trivializes PVE while class B can't grind for shit, just get someone else to do everything for you!" You DO realize that if we fix this issue with Dark Calling we could potentially make other changes to make them a more credible threat besides teleportchompies, right? Such as giving them new attacks that are deadlier than their basic bite, or debuffs, and even magic attacks to circumvent people's high physical DR, etc. Your spiel in another thread awhile back calling people cowards for wanting beasts to be accessible because they're one of the best ways to level and not everyone fighting them at 60 comes to mind, and I have to wonder if you're just shitposting, here. Heck, I WANT to buff beasts, but ONLY if they lose their double teleport bullshit that makes kiters completely unusable against them. I WANT them to be equally threatening to everyone without being completely laughed at by tanks and shredding fragile people to pieces even if there's tanks to hide behind. But that can't happen as they are now.