[Maksimum_Fire]

@smilegod Based on everything we've seen in the PvP scene, I don't think we can call Evoker the 'problem' with mages. Hexer and Rune Mage are just as monstrous in their own right. But that's also not the topic we're here fore.

Null shell, yes, counters positive status effects but I need to call out some of the ones you listed. Attrait isn't a buff that needs to be up for crit stackers. It just refreshes Perfect Poise. In my experience, Duelists have decent odds of evading non-sniper gunners when they have even one evade buff up, letting them pick up perfect poise pretty effectively- and with multishots and BoNR, a duelist is guaranteed to get and keep Poise, the 15-less-crit little brother version of Perfect Poise. Nulling off poise and perfect poise is actively detrimental because you're usually just giving them poise again right after the fact anyway- it's a filler buff that counters null shell. Even if I didn't plan on using Crit, I'd take one point in Poise just for that. I think outside of singleshots, 'most' of their statuses is an exaggeration, especially when we recall that mirage walk is also a status; a status you passively gain just by doing something else. In fact, you could even gain more statuses in that action. Ranger flip shot+acrobatics, suddenly you got +55 evade and two statuses. Disengage, suddenly you get 70 evade for one attack and two statuses. Several other statuses get tossed into this kind of combo, too. There are so many buffer statuses it's honestly insane. I already mentioned Initiative, but Skip status is also a thing- jump cancel is a status, for demon hunters- Prophylaxis(very easy to proc against multishots, especially), Spellthief's Margin Manipulation(from bonus shell damage), and more. There are plenty of offensive skills that give you a buff on top of what they already do.

I think that builds don't rely on positive status effects, more often than not. I am gonna acknowledge Fern's point, though. Transformation statuses being nulled is silly, and I'd suggest giving Death Knighting, Shine Knighting, and Mirror Knighting immunity to being nulled so that those sorts of moments don't get just pewed off. A similar problem case like this is Geist Schrit, and the fact it can be nulled off- I'd like to see this fixed immediately as well. Thank you Kameron8 for also putting your two cents on that- It feels like people only really struggle with specific statuses being nulled off, and gutting null shell is not only not the answer to that, it encourages a pattern of leaving the other dispelling effects behind.

I think Shapeshifter is too new for me to comment much on. If it's struggling, I'd love to see Shapeshifter get a buff. I don't think Install should have immunity to dispels, personally, since DW being unremovable makes a lot of matchups nasty.

If you're caught out in a matchup where someone has a null, I really think you just. Need to adapt and fight without using as many status effects- or use the passive status effects you gain to force the magic gunner into using Null. Y'all are acting like null isn't a resource, but it's not the only shell in the game. It's the active opportunity cost from using everything else you could be using in that matchup. Celsius shell to slow your opponent down and cover your escape. Vampire shell to save your FP. Interference shell to handle the youkai encroaching on you, or OC interference shell to handle heavy healing from the opponents. Sonic shell is less important these days but the KD effect and hesitation effect on Singleshots is still very good. Using Null Shell already diverts you from alll those other options that you'd need to use, and in matchups where null is important, oftentimes people are already forced to drop using other overcharge effects in order to hold onto null shell. It's just, good pvp. Know the matchup, and you can force your opponent into certain options, and vice versa. Worth noting also that Charge and Overcharge effects take 3m, still, to charge up if your opponent has decent crit evade, since spark drive loses reliability fast.

Now, the 'ignore resists' or '-25% resists' suggestion as a 'charge' effect. The issue I see with this is physical resistance builds. I think physical resistance is tricky to play against, and it's definitely a rough matchup for MG as things are, even WITH null shell- since MGs are super lined into Pierce Damage usually, and it is possible to remove the Nulled debuff. But now, in this kinda matchup, MG would be far less worried and could just spark drive at an opponent with low crit evade, or occasionally use charge shot and preserve OC if the opponent has crit evade. You could just repeatedly strip the resistance with no struggle. I don't really want to see that; especially since it's ALL resistances. The utility in a team fight is just insane. I don't think that SAN builds should have to shoot for 50% elemental resistance in order to proc Resist on enemy elemental attacks. The only class that can reliable hit numbers like that on multiple elements is Lantern Bearer- and even then, only one at a time.

synopsis; points for null shell being gutted involve the fact that it costs 'too little resources' for what it does. The answer isn't to remove its identity, but to just give it gentle nudges into where people will be happier with it. Statuses that shouldn't be nulled off need immunity to null. If necessary beyond that, a cap, maybe, similar to Sonic Shell's silence duration cap, could be employed to prevent Singleshot weapons from getting out of hand with 6 status effects dispelled.

Anything beyond that and I think we'd need to see a much fuller rework to magic gunner.

[Autumn]

Its not like null shell is being gutted or having its identity removed, you're just moving the effects around so that the actual dispel effect has a drawback, not being able to use shells again for 2 turns, and denying it from being so easily applicable via spark drive, you're definitely blowing this out of the water I think as it isn't that drastic of a change, but one that feels more fair in my honest opinion.

FYI a good portion of the statuses you are listing disappear on basic attacks even landing, such as disengage and miragewalk, so they don't get nulled by null shell unless it were lead storm applying it, an issue for multi-shots specifically on poise I'll give you that, but due to the damage threshold, poise also disappears when a single shot gun hits the target and dispels all of its statuses, so if anything landing an attack dispels 3 more statuses than intended.

[HexGirlBestGirl]

So this is cool and all but if you want my take, since my thoughts are relatively simple on the matter as someone who abuses the ever loving fuck out of Null Shell whenever I can.

That being that i'm of the belief that the number of effects and the overcharge effect (more so this), added in with how hard it is to fit in crit evade into most commonplace builds that aren't made to counter one to three specific things/people or being shoehorned into certain classes and races (understandably) in order to realistically avoid/duck a proper Magic Gunner who fights you, is the real issue.

(You have no reason to read the rest of this if you have no desire to try and figure out what the hell I said below since it's more a scrambled mess of why I believe as such above. tl;dr of super awesomeness is at the bottom.)


Y'know, where if you rely on statuses, you just outright lose if the MG can touch you with null shell. Be it for power, more versatility with skill, whatever. Magic Gunner has an option for near everything and if they can hit you, most the solutions are often granted by poor play on the MGs part more than anything. This is doubly true if they can crit you consistently.

Still more of a severely uphill battle than anything.

Null can go screw people's statuses up for all I care. Balance is all out of wack in a multitude of ways that causes that to be a big yikes but that's like thirty threads about to become one there.

My main (and I do mean main) issue really just stems with one basic and simple thing. The overcharge effect. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not too fond on just literally eradicating people's resistances, no matter how obtained, and having to either cleanse it via Wash Away, Burn Away (but hey, that only works on allies, not yourself) , a Cleanse potion, you name it.

Add atop the fact that it's a 3 round duration effect while also stacking atop all the buff removals (and also being entirely unaffected by One Overcharge, so any weapon will work the same with it, even ghetto mutated guns.) and doing damage is a bit much. Even if it's a 6m minimum investment. It's near to equally the same in terms of investment for someone to remove that or just get fucked, to put it quite simply. There's arguments to be had for that. Cooldown of Shell Effects, Cleanse Skills being 3m, blahblahblah. More on that later. (No, really.)


Most builds within realistic and feasible amounts of viability on a more global PvP scale currently will get heavily shafted or heavily countered by MG in this current state of balance and that's fine, whatever. Cool.

That's a byproduct of most people just going tanky hours and only about half of those tanks having crit evade without shoehorning themselves into Black Knight.

Teamfights change the entire dynamic as well and MGs are arguably far worse (as in, very potent and powerful and harder to deal with) in teamfights than 1v1s. It's just easier to produce that salt in a 1v1 since it's easier to make sure people dance to the tune of your gun and either give up or suffer trying.

But I shall not excuse the crime that is that overcharge effect. No matter what the landscape. Why the fuck can I invest 6m minimum to remove someone's racial identity partially or entire resist item slots or anything related to this?

"Because it can be cleansed/removed!" or "Because they can be easily reapplied/are mainly evade buffs anyway which are just fodder/filler!" If that's the logic we're gonna be going with, personally i'd start advocating for bringing a lot of crazy and outlandish stuff back. Since at the end of the day, yes. You can cleanse and remove a lot of what people would consider 'absolutely stupid/imbalanced' and the fault is on the opposing side for not using what they could.

God forbid you want to play a class or class combo that can't easily reapply things or use some ghetto resources or something else more horrific. Since from my experience, i'm positively sure the only time i've not suffered at the hands of Null Shell is when I was stacking evade buffs which serves its purpose either way just from the fact I have to be basic hit and if I did get cleansed, they took most the hit. I've only been able to consistently do this on Duelist Classes, Spellthief, Bonder and Ranger.

I would include being a Black Knight but i've proven that against the more evasive MGs who like to either run Cobra or have an abnormal amount of evade or more evade than what I can feasibly raise my hit to in order to make my build tanky enough to not die like swiss cheese to most the game, that the extra hit can come really in handy from Prop or Zuwang and what have you. (Although the latter isn't really a status effect so much as an innate bonus to feared enemies.)


Even then, if I don't waste enough turns buffing a ton?

"haha 6 statuses get cleansed" which, sometimes is less investment on the Magic Gunner's part to cleanse the far more horrific investment on the afflicted' side. Common status buffs that aren't "gain X while doing Y" tier are usually 3m in nature. Y'know. Rogue Wind Skills, Charge Mind, Enchants for Mages, Weapon Charges, things like Black Elixir, Tactician Orders, Body of Iseip or whatever, so on, so on.

Even if their classes don't matchup for it necessarily at times. That's fine. Why? Since technically, if you don't want to get fucked by basic hits, as shitty as it sounds and as awful balance as it is, you have class and race combos that can easily make an MG, within realistic expectations, unable to hit you. It might not fit your IC or suit your tastes, but the option most certainly is there.


But fuck having all my resistances removed and me either having to have a cleanse class on or risk having racials and entire item slots that aren't my arm slot invalidated. Arm slot being invalidated is fine. Cooldown for MGs existing also makes me shiver as depending on circumstances, they too, can just easily fuck me over as hard. God forbid i'm a race with an elemental weakness and they're running something on the side that can screw it over piss easily.


tl;dr "haha MG is strong primarily within the constraints of the current and commonplace meta in 1v1s and overall powerful in general when used right but fuck that null shell overcharge effect, that's the real issue I, me, myself, have with Null Shell. Also, lower amount of buffs removed from single shot null charge shot by like 1 or 2 pls thank you but pls focus on cucking the overcharge effect"




...


Now I know what you're thinking. "Why not give a potential change yourself?"

The answer is simple. If I had the brain capacity for suggesting a proper change, i'd have done it a long time ago. That's not within my capabilities of doing. I've thought long and hard about it but everything just comes back to what's been said in posts prior. It'd just remove the identity or not make it as worth/potent. I want a change where it's not as overbearing of an effect while not losing its identity but also not just becoming "okay, only a fraction of your resist" instead. Even if that latter part would be the most effective without doing something convoluted. (But the point about Physical Resistance Builds being affected by that is pretty worth listening to.)



tl;tl;tl;dr: I'm too stupid to think of a good change for Null Shell's overcharge effect.
That's all, folks.

[Kameron8]

But I shall not excuse the crime that is that overcharge effect. No matter what the landscape. Why the fuck can I invest 6m minimum to remove someone's racial identity partially or entire resist item slots or anything related to this?

I don't really understand the long tirade here.  This already exists in the form of Winter's Bite, and to lesser extents Splash and River Sword, but this one at least comes with a reloading period.  I don't see a reason that a counter to 'resist all' shouldn't exist, given how universally powerful trying to slap a bunch of resist messages on a tank usually is to begin with.

It's an enormous amount of utility, but that's (from what I can tell) what the class was designed to provide.

[HexGirlBestGirl]

But I shall not excuse the crime that is that overcharge effect. No matter what the landscape. Why the fuck can I invest 6m minimum to remove someone's racial identity partially or entire resist item slots or anything related to this?

I don't really understand the long tirade here.  This already exists in the form of Winter's Bite, and to lesser extents Splash and River Sword, but this one at least comes with a reloading period.  I don't see a reason that a counter to 'resist all' shouldn't exist, given how universally powerful trying to slap a bunch of resist messages on a tank usually is to begin with.

It's an enormous amount of utility, but that's (from what I can tell) what the class was designed to provide.

Mostly the fact that it's every resist more than just one or increased weakness to a resist instead. Null Shell just outright sets it all to 0 before accounting for weaknesses. I'm perfectly fine with get hit, get one singular hit of Water Damage with -40% Resist temporarily.

I'm fine with 1m Lightning Weakness as a spell.

I'm fine with Winter's Bite fucking all forms of "no, you don't get to run Ice Stuff on Verg" solely due to its range more than anything.

I'm just not fine with "lose all of your resists in all the world temporarily if this hits you" more than anything. You would not be wrong in saying that MG was designed to provide a ton of utility though. It just rubs me personally the wrong way is all, especially when it can be done from miles away and be paired with classes other than MG to be horrifically devastating.

Don't forget Cooldown is also a skill that can make that a bit more woah, or tied in with other effects from MG.

A counter to resist all should exist, yes. I wholeheartedly agree. But at the very least, don't make that shit affect racial bonuses or SAN Bonuses or something. Anything but "I will reset it all to zero..." the gunshot special.

[Maksimum_Fire]

@Spo making the reason people currently use null shell less accessible and the thing that's much nastier in a global sense but less accessible more accessible shifts the identity of null shell entirely. I think you're not clearly understanding that, at least. If you want me to name more buffs, too, I certainly can- Narcus is a weapon that loses some immediate damage from getting the status nulled off, but as a benefit, you've always got an extra status when you get null shelled to block for other statuses. Narcus is also pretty solid right now, too.

While I'd also love to agree re: miragewalk and disengage, I know that things don't always work the way they should. I've nulled off an opponent's miragewalk before, despite the fact I'd literally hit them with the attack that nulled them.

idk about you but I'm gonna be miserable if I hit a tank with a shotgun or something and wind up doing 48 damage due to a 1m guard and only nulling off poise, prophylaxis, narcus, initiative, gust arrows, and battle rush.

that said, 6 buffs is excessive for singleshots. I think any issue of null shell being oppressive, with its accessibility, would be nulled(hah) by reducing the dispel count to 2 for multishots, and either 3 or 4 with singleshots; meaning charge power/3 instead of /2, possible with a cap at 3 to prevent singleshots from nulling 4 statuses.

While I don't agree with everything Detema mentioned(from some perspective you could say most meta builds have to 'make a mistake' to be counterplayed, and it's still not quite correct), I do agree with a lot of it.

Nulling off all resistances at once is nasty in ways that are less fun than the simple status effect footsies game. And that's all, really. The reason it's not a hot topic is because it's not as accessible, and as such not seen quite as often. Making it spammable doesn't sound fun.

I'm gonna refer again really quick to Pressure Fletch from ranger. Null shell is more accessible than it. Making it less accessible makes it get dropped as a tool 90% of the time regardless of how nice the numbers on the dispel are. We see this already in pressure fletch; null shell's overcharge effect will literally just become 'pressure fletch 2, electric boogaloo', the rarely whipped out tool that people will go 'wow, that got used' when it comes out.

The above line especially applies if the charge shot resistance reduction goes through. I love coyote and all, but I don't want to see it get buffed even more with the ability to shut down fire resistance with a rolling shot in, overcharge, and then do more than 400 armor ignoring statless fire damage in a turn with just blaze shell to a single target. Swapping null's charge effect and overcharge effect opens the door to less fun gameplay and more braindead builds.

[Autumn]

Changing its identity would be re-tooling it for a different purpose or use, changing it in a way that makes it less useful in your eyes is not at all changing its identity, I think you are mistaken in that regard. No its quite as simple as moving the effects to be less abusable by another mechanic in MG that makes the effective momentum sink cost of Null Shell under specific circumstances 3m instead of 6m, while changing it to be the overcharge effect would erase that specific momentum cost and also cause such a powerful null to have a cooldown associated to it as well. (As well as removing double tapping the charged effect under specific circumstances)

Changing the amount of statuses being nulled would draw away from the effect which has never really been regarded as strictly being too powerful in this thread? Only that the effect is terrifyingly oppressive in its current state and the ease of application and lack of drawback, if anything the amount of statuses it dispels helps combat the whole filler status thing, no other nulls in the game dispel as many statuses as null shell does.

[Maksimum_Fire]

Cutting in on 'useful in my eyes'.

Null shell's charge and overcharge effects would have their identities swapped is exactly what you've suggested already. They'd be used for different reasons. Rather than being able to penetrate nasty buffs with a low-cost resource, you'd make it a high cost resource(refer to pressure fletch etc). And the more egregious matter, honestly, is moving the overcharge effect to the charge effect, something I don't think has been given a solid argument in support.

Ease of application ceases to be an issue when it's a less impactful dispel. A three-buff dispel is completely insignificant when it takes a full 3m to charge, and then another 3m to activate(see pressure fletch). I would agree with you that pressure fletch should definitely dispel more buffs. However, a 3m dispel that does no damage and only affects a single buff(see wash away) is still insignificant. It takes away the charge time from a more lengthy effect, but with the minimal actual application, it falls into disuse.

Null shell is in a middle ground. It does require a charge shot, so it's not spammable- especially when you're unable to proc spark drive. The reason it feels oppressive is because the multishot(accessible) version is more impactful than pressure fletch and the single shot version (less accessible, but still accessible) is far and above, way better than pressure fletch.

The identity of null shell 'is' a middle-ground of accessibility dispel, accompanying damage. Making its dispel count approach lower numbers makes it much less impactful, but maintains the feeling of null shell as a tool within combos, rather than being a combo finisher.

I don't want all abilities to be the same. Variety is the spice of live. Making Null Shell's dispel an Overcharge effect is seriously just, annorum pressure fletch, but again.

I think you understand entirely the meaning behind all this since you're pretty familiar with the PvP scene. Null shell is not some indomitable wall, and you've definitely proved that; I think we really need to be focusing on buffing the two lacking dispels rather than taking tools away from classes that are in decent territory.

...Well, taking tools away might not be the right way to put it, because the cheese you're suggesting to replace null shell is easy to argue as much worse. I get that you might even want guns to be better, but making guns ignore resistances isn't the way to do that.

[Shujin]

I agree that Null shell in itself isn't the actual problem.

the problem are the "Wrong" things its currently washing away, as listed above. I disagree on transes not being cleansed away however. Its painful when it does but, kinda the point of a buff remover, isn't it? At the very least it should lower the duration.

Outside of that I also agree with Spo, that certain other cleansers could need a little knock up.