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I swear to god if you guys give hero the active shifter shaft weeks after I switched from shad to hero im gonna lose my mind

 

Its not even directly a 1h thing. It all comes down to how often you magnet. If youre too trigger happy on the magnet and use it just to ise it, then it can cause issues. Likewise, if you wait until it faces right then its useless. Fill the left walk gaps when the bucc is unable to snatch due to being in demo cutscene or not even in st, or uncontrolled barrage (you can tell when theyre chasing down the bean. But its best used as a supportive aggro tool, not the main dish since warrior cant do short left pushes on demand, and loses damage by excessive magnetting.

For 1h specific, if it walks right guard will occasionally catch that. If it pushes back, the warrior and bucc need to know the warrior in control for a few seconds and the bucc can attack as they do for a couple attacks until the aggro swaps back. No need to snatch spam to get it back as its still a controlled situation. Personally, warrior+bucc is my preferred pb setup as it covers the gaps in bucc attack sequence, but warrior has to know its role in it; damage first, support as needed.

 

thanks for the insight and yeah, i agree, i'd mainly ever see a use for magnet if the bean walked left and aggro was on me (or not on the bucc), both that and guardian would be used sporadically. i like the idea about filling in the gaps caused by animations, never guessed that was the cause

 

My suggestion is literally to just give the active effect alongside the already existing 20% passive effect. I think it'd give Guardian and by extension the 1h + shield route sliiightly stronger of a niche.

 

what if guardian added a third line

 

Now this is an idea I can get behind. Looks cool

 

a third line to paladin? sign me up

 

Kinda wanted to ramble a bit about my thoughts after a while of this being posted. I apologize in advance for the mess.

Once again, I think getting the full 10 orb damage from just a singular orb is a great change. However, I wonder if it would be even better if we simply made the attack increase a passive bonus that applies even when one has zero orbs with the ACA buff not even active, as others have similarly suggested. Consistent 2 orb generation I also still like, though I can understand arguments against it.
also pls make orbs go behind character ty

Still not huge on the idea of going back to consumption of all orbs on Panic, would much rather see Coma get the "eat 5 orbs" treatment instead if anything. However, I do think it really depends how much other factors benefit the strength of Hero. If the damage from orb scaling changes (both for Panic and the more consistent dmg brandishes leading up to it) ends up giving us stronger damage despite not being able to send out as many panics as before, I can accept it.
The concept brought up later where you may not even need to build up to max orbs to fire off panic is interesting, but I think two things bother me about it.
1. The potential of brandish + panic or brandish + coma macro being a strong tool if your atk is high enough. Genuinely do not think this would be fun to play, though I admit this is incredibly subjective.
2. Might sound dumb, but the aesthetics. As Gurk mentioned, the concept of not even getting to see the full pink orbs as you get stronger feels strange. Maybe a nothingburger petty complaint, but I think things like these contribute to a class feeling fun to play. Heck, one of the bigger complaints regarding MM is how Snipe's visuals are underwhelming to look at.

Armor Crash change doesn't have many complaints from me, aside from the unfortunate realization that not every content has a defense up to dispel with armor crash. As corny as it might be, perhaps some bosses could be given a minor defense up buff to give Hero a chance to utilize this tool, especially in bosses where it might be put to good use. tldr: give pb defense up pls ty
As a side note, it would also be nice if every crash skill had a buff to its cast speed. Their current speed makes it so these skills feel very clunky to use (to the point where it genuinely starts to feel like a dpm loss using them), and if we're going to be making these more important in the future, it'd be nice if they felt way more snappy to use.

Enrage is tricky, because it's a fairly blank-slate skill that has a lot of avenues you could take in terms of buffing it and giving Hero some sort of defining niche that isn't just done better by another class. Because of that though, it's hard to say what it really should be. I will at least say tho that making it revolve around giving party members some sort of flat weapon attack increase, even if stacking, I don't think will do much for Hero's viability, especially in everyone's favorite boss PB where apples and gelt chocolates are being used aplenty.
I do like the idea of Enrage having a Blind/Hamstring-like effect of inflicting mobs with a "take more dmg" debuff, though I feel it would need to be balanced in a way where it feels effective but also cannot be muled very effectively. It may also be soooomewhat redundant with the Armor Crash changes, but it doesn't seem like the IED on crash will be able to be used in every piece of content anyways.

Overall, I personally enjoy the current gameplay loop of Hero, with a few nitpicks here and there (mostly the inconsistency of certain aspects). I really wouldn't want it changed too drastically, and to give credit, the proposed changes don't attempt to take Hero in a wildly different direction. I think Hero, at least in my opinion, should keep a gameplay loop that is more involved than Paladin, but less than DK.
My complaints towards my favorite class moreso come from it's lack of a defining niche, as well as it's rather lackluster power in certain areas (particularly single-target). I think Hero should remain strongest as a cleaver, but its single-target and overall party utility could really use some help to make the class feel less like a one-trick pony.

 

do not hide the message we must speak our truth for fashionstory

 

DrChuchu Any chance we could get a summary of where the balance team is currently sitting after the discussions here please? It might trigger a bit more activity! (Similar to the NL/Shad summaries)

 

I was rereading this thread about Hero removing weapon cancels. As fun as the idea would be, it's absolutely correct that Hero would become a mule class rather than a proper attacker. This can apply to any strong party buff, which puts us in an awkward spot for Hero changes.

How do folks feel about some kind of buff tied to repeated panic / coma usage? Let's say you gain 1 combo stack per panic/coma cast at 10 orbs, with stacks expiring if you do not land a valid hit within a set window of time. Combo stacks can be consumed to empower existing buffs within a Hero's kit. The goal would be to require active gameplay to unlock any fancy Hero buffs, allowing the class to have a higher skill ceiling while increasing the difficulty of muling. If there is more than one buff locked behind Combo Stacks, then it gives Hero some agency to decide what route works best and make appropriate tradeoffs.

Spoiler: Some example changes using this structure, assuming a larger Hero rework similar to DK.

Assumptions

• Combo skills cost 5 orbs. (plsssss)
• Acquiring a stack will take around 1.8 seconds assuming 3x brandish -> 1x combo skill and good RNG.
• Acquiring stacks will not always be a clean process depending on the content, increasing the time between buffs. (noob hero got stunned again gg)
• These values will need to be adjusted, I am not a BT member!

Advanced Combo Attack

• Every Combo or Panic usage with 10-orbs grants 1 Combo Stack (or a cooler name zzz... momentum?)
• Combo Stacks are lost if no new stack is added within 30 seconds. (or whatever value makes sense - might be too lenient in some content, while too punishing in others)
• Combo Stacks are capped at 100. (or some other value that makes sense)
• Can be toggled to determine if stacks are spent or not. Toggled is swapped to OFF as soon as stacks are consumed.
• Icon will appear in the 2nd buff row similar to Sair's boat and Bucc's bubble, showing stack count and countdown until stacks expire.

Coma

• Coma consumes the same number of orbs as Panic. (pls let it be 5)
• Damage: 200% -> 260% ~ 300%
• The goal is to ensure that using Coma is not a cleave DPS loss by at least matching lvl 30 Brandish damage. (ik the scaling here isn't apples-to-apples, but having Coma be an active way to boost cleave DPS would be nice)
• Having the same combo cost as Panic ensures Coma will not gain stacks at a slower rate.
• (For reference, Brandish damage is 260%. Panic damage is 350%)

Armor Crash (Empowered)

• Consume 100 stacks to grant a party-wide Ignore Enemy Defense buff, without requiring a successful crash.
• Duration of the buff should be determined by how powerful this buff ends up being relative to the time it takes to build up.
• (or 200 stacks and grant a party-wide buff to ignore WC for 30s) haha jk.... unless?
• Assuming a 100 stack cost, this buff could be activated at most every 3 minutes.

Rage (Empowered)

• Consume 65 stacks to provide a stacking +5 Weapon Attack party buff for 2m30s.
• Assuming a 65 stack cost, this buff could be activated at most every 1min57s
• (This comes with the assumption that Enrage is buffed in some other way, or stacks with Enrage.)

Power Guard (Empowered)

• Consume 45 stacks to provide a small reduction in incoming damage for 2 minutes.
• This is not a party buff.
• Assuming a 45 stack cost, this buff could be activated at most every 1min21s

What do y'all think about the idea of something like this? Too complex? Too broken? Too underwhelming? The goal would be to expand on Hero's potential without removing the combo-chaining identity, while also locking good party buffs behind active gameplay. None of the above buffs need to be kept as-is, but instead provide an example structure of how something like this could work.

 

Really enjoy this idea, as it keeps the core gameplay relatively the same but just rewards it more without gigabuffing Panic, even if it would come at the cost of those who enjoy holding brandish brrr gameplay (but I think most who do this accept that its the weaker option barring high gear and apple shenanigans anyways).

My only concern though is if it's even possible for the engine to do the empowered skills concept? Mostly with the whole "swapping between empowered and regular skill casts" thing. Not really an expert in this area though, obviously.

 

I like the idea of the mechanic, tho wonder if the additional resource tracking would be a bit too clunky, if presuming the stacking counter would be on the Combo icon along with the duration timer.

Rolling with this mechanic for a bit - why not have the Empowered skill effects be tied to the charging mechanic (Ex: corkscrew, big bang; charge time TBD) that costs Orbs, while regularly tapping the skill casts its normal effect and doesn’t cost additional* Orbs?
*If on a skill that costed Orbs in its normal effect to begin with.

Thus, as an example:
Charged Rage: Accessible by having 10 Orbs (gating it to Hero and ACA 25+).
Releasing the button consumes 5 Orbs and casts Rage with +25wa and -25 wDef (heh) instead of its usual +20/-20; duration is unchanged (4 minutes is fine IMO).
• This would also leave Fighter and Crusader progression intact, since normal Rage still has merit at those levels.

 

Oh yeah, the main concern with an idea like combo stacking would be how intuitive tracking and using stacks would feel. For the buff I pictured it falling under the "blue digits" category where the number displayed on the buff would reflect stack count, very similar to active zerk's hit count. Duration could be reflected by the standard buff getting vertically darker as it expires. (Not sure if active zerk shows expiration in this way, my DK is hard stuck at lvl 100.)

For buffs associated with orb counts, we run into the Hero mule problem. If we want to slap any significant party buff on Hero, we need to make sure it's helping active hero players get invited into content rather than a handful of sweaty players busting out Hero mules to pop buffs every few minutes. Charged Rage would be a nice boost, but still becomes useless as soon as boss clear buffs or attack pots are considered. Doesn't mean it's not welcome, but it might not move the needle much as far as class health goes.

 

JSOOOOOOOOOOOOH. Yeah it works like that. Thank you for saving maplelegends Mr. billionaire hero philanthropist.