Duelist Kit Feedback

[Feur 62]

I may of spent a little time disecting the Duelists kit. Thoughts?

 

Google doc.

[eeree 21]

Bump

 

Haven't played duelist but these are good, succinct points

[Feur 62]

Thank you.

 

Some new notes.(Keep in mind, I'm aiming to make his kit feel more engaging. Balance and numbers can be done later)

 

• Still sticking with the idea that he has too many pip spenders, and makes him feel really 1d. LMB spam waiting for Flintlock procs to gen. pips. His final LMB hit should generate a pip.
• Burrow needs to have a timer, or to drain stamina relatively slowly to prevent this infinite  burrow state.
• His mobi. skill in burrow needs to cost stamina, not just be on a CD.

[eeree 21]

 

 

• Burrow needs to have a timer, or to drain stamina relatively slowly to prevent this infinite  burrow state.

 

 

 

I think that won't be necessary when anti-stealth mechanics are in play. To my understanding stalker has something to do with that, maybe something on his melee tray to offset a stronger ranged tray? Anyways, that would break the pattern of burrow->jump on people from burrow, not very useful if you can't chase them down afterwards. Not sure about burrow dash costing stamina, but that might create a risk/reward scenario when anti-stealth is in of 

 

Do I dash at this guy and lose some stamina, because I think I can kill him quickly enough

 

OR

 

Do I save my stamina but risk getting caught

 

But then, if you burrow dash to go in, you cant use it to go out, so theres some risk there too

Edited November 11, 2016 by eeree

[BarriaKarl 1,929]

Right now his steath dont even work and it is still OP! Everybody can you see underground because of the dirt (could in 3.1) but duelist could still disappear easily.

 

I dont know how anti-stealth will work but unless they show a bid red arrow saying "duelist here" they can shadow you forever from a distance away safely.

 

I am only curious about how they will solve stealth other than that i found the duelist kit pretty good, he has multiple ways to disrupt the enemy but yeah he needs another pip generator.

[eeree 21]

Having played duelist a little, heres my thoughts

 

Barrier reflect is a straight up tank skill. The vibe that I get from duelist is that he's this frustrating little hit and run hamster, and I think the skill could do a much better job of reflecting that.

 

I'd suggest reworking it into a short cooldown pip generator. What I'm imagining is a short (5-10 seconds) cooldown, channeled, moving riposte where he reflects the next incoming ranged attack, or absorbs a melee attack, very briefly stunning or perhaps slowing and damaging the melee attacker. If the reflected/absorbed attack hits a foe, he gains a pip. Allowing him full movement during this brief (1 second or so) channel duration is important, because it allows for awesome moments like intercepting skills for your teammates, and it also means he can at least try to avoid the AoE attacks that get through his channel, which I think is very important to maintaining his "nimble" identity, which I'm just not seeing right now.

 

Another addition to this idea that I think would be fun, is rework his Inconceivable! as feur suggested, putting the different buffs on different abilities, and put two separate buffs on this skill. One is a speed boost on reflecting a ranged attack, the other an armor boost on absorbing a melee to help him go toe to fuzzy toe. My hope is that both their durations would be slightly more than double the riposte's cooldown, allowing some fun, and far more engaging, buff juggling gameplay.

 

I was very surprised to see the "fencer" class without something like a riposte skill. Your average assassin/duelist/fencer-archetype player (hi!)  loves this sort of mechanic, as it fulfills a reaction-based melee combat desire many people have. One that I expect will largely be fulfilled by templar, who will be a tank. A tank much better suited to a reflect barrier.

 

I want to reiterate that roll the bones isn't fun, and roll the bones:slightly less frustrating edition isn't fun either.

Edited November 11, 2016 by eeree

[Feur 62]

I don't think relying on anti-stealth archetypes is the answer to steath though. My issue with the mechanic is the longevity, and mobility while in it. So, while an anti-stealth archetype may be good for dealing with in-combat stealth, i wouldn't want a archetype that could spot steathed heroes constantly, say if they got within x-meters.

 

 

I do like your idea for the barriar. Turning it into a classic riposte but with a twist is a cool idea, and is a more active and engaging skill than what I proposed.

[Scree 1,893]

I hate to keep being the voice of reason when it comes to stealth (i'm not biased ... at all), but the stealth model this game offers is exceptional. It exists in this games closest relative (EVE Online) and even EVE has a hard counter to stealth (with probing/scanning). This is a very balanced approach when compared to other games that don't even offer a method of removing stealth.

 

Some might argue for short-duration stealth bursts, and I suppose that's a fine approach for some games. The devs have stated their intent to replicate, to the best of their ability, Shadowbane's stealth system. I doubt, considering the fact stealth is already in-game, they intend to alter this approach due to the time constraints on getting this game launched and the time already spent on creating this system.

 

The feedback, other then on stealth, however is interesting.

 

Flintlock Shot: This almost always seems to miss for me. I have my cursor directly on an NPC or a player, and it misses. Not sure whats going on with this. I've also aimed to the side and sometimes scored a hit. Seems completely random to me, and makes this fairly useless so far.

 

Pepperbox Shot: I find myself ignoring pretty much all of the other powers in favor of using the pip building LMB, and dumping it with a 5 pip Pepperbox Shot. The stun seems so much more useful then any other power accessible to us at this point.

 

Impale: Much more useful if their wasn't a bleed-ceasing threshold on it. If instead it just caused a specified bleed amount, 10k or so with 5 pips, it might be integrated with my rotation... right now its barely usable. 

 

Inconceivable!: The buffs seem useful, and the duration seems reasonable. I find myself skipping it though, even if it warrants a chance at Humiliations Galore (increase pip generation). I'd much rather see this re-envisioned to be honest.... 

 

Redirect Pain: I also find myself skipping this in favor of the stun. stuns > damage absorption.  In group vs group fights, I find myself using this more. I really need to incorporate this more into my rotations.

 

Stealth Tree

Ambush: Perfect. Needs a range description though... doesn't seem clear how it works just by reading it.

 

Go For Broke: Perfect, seems mildly abusive however. Might need to increase cooldown.

 

Tunnel: Obviously love the greater uses of this in the game as a whole. This test? hard to really see this in action. I tried to use it against the castle and I was unable to tunnel through the walls.

 

Recon: Only seems moderately useful to self, but I really love the concept that other specialists can key off of this. Gives me goosebumps when I consider the implications of this one.

 

Final Thoughts:

I like the ideas of incorporating riposte into this archetype. I'd replace the Opportunist passive with a ~50% (impacted by skills) chance to generate pips on being the target of an attack; Riposte itself should halve incoming damage if successful. Would seem more in-line with a rapier-carrying guinnea pig. The extra pip generation would give the archetype more of an ability to utilize all of the pip consuming powers. I'd prefer to see this archetype overwhelmed with pips in combat, giving well-skilled players the incentive to pip dump regularly in combat. To balance this, I'd suggest dropping the hp pool a bit. Although after reviewing this, it would make this class quite tanky (perhaps an incentive to turn this into another promotion role?).

Edited November 13, 2016 by scree

[Feur 62]

Huh, never got a notification that someone replied. Guess that's unchecked in the notification settings?

 

That's fine, we can differ on stealth. I just find steath to be an unfun mechanic for anyone without the skill. I'm not really advocating for a short duration, just a limitation somewhat. I guess to expand on the idea, I want stealth to drain stamina slowly. Think 10%(who knows, just to give an idea of how slowly I'm thinking), or so the rate stamina drains when sprinting. You can of course stop and regen stamina while burrowed. But I do want tunnel to cost stamina. Not as much as RMB, but still a decent chunk, like 20% or so while maintaining its CD. I want the duelist to be able to scout while stealthed, I just don't want them to get a free method of mobility that hides them without having some drawback.

 

Never played Shadowbane, but seems this thread did a good job explaining what you're talking about. Only issue I see is that in shadowbane, according to the thread, to detect stealth you needed equal or greater value in detect than they do in stealth. There was also track

 

Additionally, there were 'track' ability given to the scout and granted by the bounty hunter rune that when used brought up a list of people near by, selecting one put a directional arrow above your head pointing in their direction. If you were following it and it suddenly went the opposite direction you just walked through a person in stealth.

Which it looks like you may be able to train when the skill tree for that is out. But what about stealth? I don't see anywhere on the duelists tree that increases your stealth skill. So presumably, we'll get something like track or detect in the coming skill tree, and all it's going to do is maybe increase the radius of the skill? Hopefully it's like a 160 degree cone in front of your character and not a 360 AoE.

 

 

Do the duelist pistol skills have spread if you're missing, or is it just ping based and the pistol is using a projectile instead of hitscan? That would kind of suck if they had a chance to miss when properly aimed. :/

 

Otherwise, yeah pretty much. Pepperbox is too good.

 

 

Final Thoughts:

I like the ideas of incorporating riposte into this archetype. I'd replace the Opportunist passive with a ~50% (impacted by skills) chance to generate pips on being the target of an attack; Riposte itself should halve incoming damage if successful. Would seem more in-line with a rapier-carrying guinnea pig. The extra pip generation would give the archetype more of an ability to utilize all of the pip consuming powers. I'd prefer to see this archetype overwhelmed with pips in combat, giving well-skilled players the incentive to pip dump regularly in combat. To balance this, I'd suggest dropping the hp pool a bit. Although after reviewing this, it would make this class quite tanky (perhaps an incentive to turn this into another promotion role?).

Nah, you don't want to rely on taking damage to generate pips, I think the current passive is great.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Feur

[Scree 1,893]

Stealth and Anti-stealth are currently located within the General trees, not the archetype trees. This is to take advantage of the fact that both stealth and anti-stealth are going to be open to multiple archetypes.

[Feur 62]

Ah, you're right. I completely forgot about the stealth icon in the combat section.

[Scree 1,893]

Huh, never got a notification that someone replied. Guess that's unchecked in the notification settings?

 

That's fine, we can differ on stealth. I just find steath to be an unfun mechanic for anyone without the skill. I'm not really advocating for a short duration, just a limitation somewhat. I guess to expand on the idea, I want stealth to drain stamina slowly. Think 10%(who knows, just to give an idea of how slowly I'm thinking), or so the rate stamina drains when sprinting. You can of course stop and regen stamina while burrowed. But I do want tunnel to cost stamina. Not as much as RMB, but still a decent chunk, like 20% or so while maintaining its CD. I want the duelist to be able to scout while stealthed, I just don't want them to get a free method of mobility that hides them without having some drawback.

 

Never played Shadowbane, but seems this thread did a good job explaining what you're talking about. Only issue I see is that in shadowbane, according to the thread, to detect stealth you needed equal or greater value in detect than they do in stealth. There was also track

Which it looks like you may be able to train when the skill tree for that is out. But what about stealth? I don't see anywhere on the duelists tree that increases your stealth skill. So presumably, we'll get something like track or detect in the coming skill tree, and all it's going to do is maybe increase the radius of the skill? Hopefully it's like a 160 degree cone in front of your character and not a 360 AoE.

 

 

Do the duelist pistol skills have spread if you're missing, or is it just ping based and the pistol is using a projectile instead of hitscan? That would kind of suck if they had a chance to miss when properly aimed. :/

 

Otherwise, yeah pretty much. Pepperbox is too good.

 

Nah, you don't want to rely on taking damage to generate pips, I think the current passive is great.

 

 

Actually, go take a look at the promotion skill trees. I think they already planned on doing exactly what I'm talking about. The mention a "riposte" skill which sounds exactly like what I'm talking about.

 

Coincidence? Great minds think alike; <shrug>

[Kith 331]

You realize that Impale is *brutal* against Myrms, right?  My go to Myrm killer is a duelist!  Because they keep healing the bleed ticks, it keeps stacking tons of damage, and as a the only archetype with an instant cast stun, it's easy to prevent Myrms from getting their crash avoidance off.

 

Duelists are wonderful as they are, and incredibly effective combatants, particularly as guerrilla skirmishers.  Yes, they have a few bruiser/tank skills to keep them from getting swallowed whole in melee.

[Feur 62]

I mean, I'm not arguing his effectivness, at all.

 

First paragraph.

 

Overall, the kit of the duelist seems solid, with an odd addition to a skill here or there. It is my intent to streamline the duelist, and make the combat more fluid via more short range mobility, an additional pip generator via Sabre(3), modified pip spenders(four spenders seems a bit much), and archetype fitting changes with suggestions heavily on the 4 skill Inconceivable, and the burrow 2 skill, go for broke.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Feur

[Tempura 39]

I gotta give you guys all huge Kudos, this was a great read and everyone did it cordially and with constructive criticism......this community is one of the reasons I'm invested in the game. I really like a lot of the suggestions and clarifications on the skills, of which I agree with a few.

 

And....Duelist for life yo!

[Meurto 12]

On 11/10/2016 at 0:03 PM, Feur said:

Thank you.

 

Some new notes.(Keep in mind, I'm aiming to make his kit feel more engaging. Balance and numbers can be done later)

 

• Still sticking with the idea that he has too many pip spenders, and makes him feel really 1d. LMB spam waiting for Flintlock procs to gen. pips. His final LMB hit should generate a pip.
• Burrow needs to have a timer, or to drain stamina relatively slowly to prevent this infinite  burrow state.
• His mobi. skill in burrow needs to cost stamina, not just be on a CD.

The point highlighted in this post was my single biggest complaint when playing the duelist.  Nothing about combat felt dynamic or fun and there are far too many spenders.  I don't like or understand the damage threshold on the bleed and would like to see that removed.  The buffs are interesting, but the rng nature makes it less reliable (how I loathed crappy roll the bones rolls) and really exposes the one dimensional nature of the duelist.  The absorb spender seems to come out as a wash when you consider the loss of damage for the pips spent.  I really like the idea of the class, but they could certainly use a bit more utility other then lmb spam -> spender with flintlock used when available.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Meurto