[Ray2064]

I've already made many threads complaining about some aspects of the game that are glaringly frustrating in team-fighting scenarios, mainly such as healing, reviving, etc, that I believe a fair share of those who've read them agreed with. Though an issue that's been brought up time and time again would be those solutions effectively lessening the (already terrifyingly strong) role of an healer/support character.

I however will briefly restate the issue I have here : The omnipresence of Curate, and as a result not only healing, but mainly Reviving spells drags out fights far more than they should, but also can cheat them out completely as a result of completely undoing spent Momentum from the enemy team.

It's pretty easy to do something as simple as a Mass --> Second Chance ---> Graft, or some variance of it with Phoenix, which effectively resets thing back to square 0 if not immediately prevented, leaving not only very little room of error for the opposite side, but an extremely generous margin for the healed side, not to mention counterplays to healing's intended counterplay (Interf) under the form of Lantern Bearer or a Performer's Cantus.


Certain Defeat, on the other hand, by preventing an enemy from being revived for a generous amount of turns, mostly punishes people who were overreliant on their healer's capabilities that just recklessly threw themselves into the fray only to be back with most of their HP a few turns later and instead encourages them to, you know, try to remain alive and careful.

Though it's extremely limited- only to two Skills, as far as I am actually aware.

Checkmate, which while a very good skill in itself, remains BK-exclusive and as such is...obviously not-so widely spread, despite the overall popularity and efficiency of the class.

And the lesser known but still present Magical Nova's potential, which not only costs 9 Momentum, but is restricted to a rather incompatible and expensive stat spread to make full use out of it. (See - GUI, WIL, FAI, LUCK if you choose to still crit with your gun)


So ! What I'm advocating for is a rise in Certain Defeat- specifically for classes that already struggle in teamfights and with general utility , since the status alone'd bring them much needed utility and use in those.


Kensei - It's a STR critter class. It's somewhat decent in 1V1s, but loses relevancy the more enemies are involved.

Hidden Cut would now apply Certain Defeat. Ta-ta.


Monk : It's...Monk. Almost exclusively carried by free stats, BOI and Serpent Strikes, despite it's advertised mix between offensive and defensive utility (fuck Aid I hate Aid) just feels clunky overall, on-top of it's awkward to manage class resource.

30 Ki Kadouha - Also applies Certain Defeat. It makes sense in it's concept of being a huge finishing attack that consumes your resources. As it stands, it's kind of a glorified invoke that on-top of the Momentum cost required to make it useful, drains your Ki entirely.

VA : While the class definitely excels in 1V1s, it's general playstyle makes it really easy and encouraging to take down in teamfights, exclusively due to how much of a threat they are.

Eliminate : It's a pretty rarely seen skill, and for good reason, and once again, it'd perfectly fit the ill in it's role of being a finisher move. 


Execute : The skill needs pretty specific conditions to pull off, and just...kinda sucks now, with it's post-D1 nerf. Due to the way it works, you realistically couldn't pull it off solely with Soldier, unless you Charge---> Bash and get the 1/2 KD before using the skill.





There are probably more skills that could justifiably benefit from the status but like I cant think of em

[MothEnthusiast]

DH's Retaliate would also be a good candidate for certain defeat, given its nature. Boxer's uppercut finisher is another good one.

A point about Kensei, though, is that it's not nearly as 1v1 as people make it out to be. Most attacks, including spells, can trigger Hidden Cut's proc. You can cast an LB spell with a katana and then hidden cut everything hit. Certain defeat on it is probably a no from me, personally.

[Rendar]

I'd love if Retaliate-- above a certain rage level-- was an auto hit. With "if it reduces you to 0 HP, Certain Defeat".

[Autumn]

Just be careful sprinkling them around too many classes, a few more is fine, but too many and you start to disrupt and invalidate strategies that should never leave the game, invalidating healing too much further emphasizes the tired old and unfun strategy of hyper focusing down one person within the first 2 rounds.

[Ray2064]

DH's Retaliate would also be a good candidate for certain defeat, given its nature. Boxer's uppercut finisher is another good one.

A point about Kensei, though, is that it's not nearly as 1v1 as people make it out to be. Most attacks, including spells, can trigger Hidden Cut's proc. You can cast an LB spell with a katana and then hidden cut everything hit. Certain defeat on it is probably a no from me, personally.

Probably. Though it'd probably fit the aesthetic of Kensei as a whole to have a 'don't-come-back' attack, though applying it in an AOE could be too much. Maybe some other single target skill ? If not that, I feel kinda stumped.

As of Retaliate, I thought about it for a while though didn't really want to bloat the Soldier Tree much. Though on second-thought it still could be a pretty valid one, given it's nature. Though I'd find Grandupper applying certain Defeat kind of...weird, given what it already -can- do. Maybe Fels ? "Knock them out of the ring" kinda fashion.

Just be careful sprinkling them around too many classes, a few more is fine, but too many and you start to disrupt and invalidate strategies that should never leave the game, invalidating healing too much further emphasizes the tired old and unfun strategy of hyper focusing down one person within the first 2 rounds.

You still would have a lot more extra effective HP to back you up with the help of said healing, though yes, maybe it'd leave builds on the frailer side in...a weird spot. Though thankfully the recommendations mostly being finisher/resource-heavy Skills somewhat makes up for it, in my opinion, since that means you can't go at it straight away in most cases.

Not to mention you still can wash away , requinite, etc, the status, if I recall correctly. (?)

[Snake]

Why not make Certain Defeat be something we can do to enemies after we attack them while they're down a number of times?

I've seen people accidentally do that a lot, so like, why not just make it a fun mechanic where you can just continue pelting down someone at 0 HP, and once they reach like 50% of their maximum HP in negatives, they become Certain Defeated.

[MothEnthusiast]

It'd promote a lot of bad-blood type IC in spars, first off. It's already bad form thematically to attack someone that's downed. That, and it feeds way more into the 'screw healer gimmicks' complaint by making it way too easy to just nuke down one person and then move on to the next. High damage glass cannons would be eating way too well with a change like that.

Just stick to adding CD to a few more skills, it'll be fine.

[Poruku]

To me, the real solution is nerfing aoe healing, which is the true culprit here. Reviving a single person is annoying, sure. But the problem is being able to revive multiple people, or heal multiple people who were wounded from the safety of the backline. And even if you try to focus the healer, well they can still heal themselves while throwing out those aoes. The whole healing thing needs a serious look at because it's just too polarizing, both in PvP and PvE (going into event fight with a healer vs not is such a big deal), and I don't think looking at any single skill will ever fix the greater issue.

I still think the solution is to make the healing spread out across injured units in range, with the total healing getting a bonus like +20% per target. And it would distribute any over-healing to injured people, up to the base amount. So the aoe is still useful but not a 100% multiplier to your healing per target.

Certain defeat is nice though and could help with the more specific issue of pvp fights being drawn out so it might be good to have one or two more of those.