Balance Thread

[[Einherjar]]

Discussion about balance of champions, shells and ships.

Thought it deserves it own thread from suggestions, since its nice to just have discussion of balance too, especially if metagame changes (like how Aether Discharge cost was raised to 8 from 7 aether because people just go for ship damage, etc. EDIT: Now it has been raised to 10 ^^ Go figure)

:-) Especially important to write about new things that come out and feedback.

[[Einherjar]]

New shells

-Scorching Zone should be 9 aether cost. It can be used like Aether Discharge (3 damage to ship), but also burn champions in the zone of effect. Either that, or remove ship damage (which wouldn't seem right)

-Exitus is a bit powerful for 9 aether. for 1 aether more than Aether Discharge, it does 2 damage to ship plus kills a champion entirely (which could remove a defender blocking a direct attack to ship). Although for 10 aether, hard to also be on the same level as LEM

I thought the rest were pretty balanced. Team effect costs are a bit iffy, but we will see how they affect gameplay


New champion

-Luna seems a bit underwhelming. She can hunt down low health champs, but she is low health herself, so when she jumps in, chances are she'll be dead before she jumps out. Since her teleport has same range as her basic movement, its only useful with impediments in the way; so that teleport would be useful on New Detroit, South Pole,and possibly Mount Whitney. I would say she needs +1 health or consistent 3 damage. >< why more RNG champs!?!

New Ship

Too beastly to talk about! :D

[Synisill]

As an alternative, Luna could get +1 range for her teleport, but that would probably make her to strong. Good argumentation, roder, i totally agree with you!

[Sines]

I'd also like for Lunas blink to cost only 1 Aether. It's primary use is for getting into position, so having it available at the start of each turn would be nice. Or, if you were to ever introduce some 'haste' mechanic, where a champion always comes out of the ship with 1 Aether already in stock, that would do it to (blink at start of turn, attack the enemy, begin next turn with 2 aether to continue the cycle). As it stands, she looks like Harlequinn, but weaker in most aspects.

One of the things I like about Harlequinn is his ultimate. On the off chance that Harlequinn can survive to 5 Aether, then he suicides, taking himself out before the enemy can, which means you don't lose the 2 health. Generally speaking, if Harlequinn survies to 5 Aether, he's probably really low on health, so you'll want to do it immediately, even against a champion he could kill with a regular attack.

Luna, on the other hand, is rewarded with an ultimate that plops her right into the middle of several enemies. Now, 2 AoE damage is pretty potent, especially if you can catch the ship in it, but I think Luna would be better off if suicide were added to that, because she's not gonna survive.

I'll admit, I haven't played her much (once F2P comes out and the pre-season rewards are placed, I'll engage in all sorts of new tactics and tricks), but I can't help but compare her to Harlequinn, and she seems inferior in every way. Harlequinn does more damage, his special means he can threaten 6 damage at Aurora range, which means he'll almost never use it, because who is dumb enough to put themselves into range for a Harle-double-attack. As such he easily gets to his ultimate, which allows him to rob his enemy of the reward of killing him. A perfect kit that matches together incredibly well.

Luna has the same health, and less damage, and her secondary encourages her to jump into the enemy. But she's not a great assassin, because if she can't kill an enemy, she's in big trouble, and without stable damage output, you can't risk throwing her at a 3 HP melee champ to finish them off. Her ultimate is nice, allowing her to do 2 damage in an AoE from range 3, and then follow up with 2-3 damage to one more enemy, but getting to that ultimate is another question entirely.

Stable 3 damage or +1 HP seems to me to be a must. I'd be really surprised to start playing her and find out she works as is. However, even with that I'm not too sure. Mobility is important in this game, but more so is the ability to double attack. Harle is best when he can double attack or threaten it. But Luna needs to make use of her mobility in order to not just be another Harlequinn. This discouragement from double-attacks is fine, but it needs to be counter-balanced with something powerful.

It's important to recognize what it means to make a champion who isn't designed to favor double attacks. Double attacks and re-positioning enemies are what wins games. Luna does neither, and does it on a skimpy frame. She needs something to make up for that, and doing slightly above average damage doesn't really cut it.

As it stands, Luna has worse base stats than Harlequinn, and secondary abilities that, while good, don't really match up so perfectly with those base stats. She deserves at least that extra health or damage, again, stable 3 damage doesn't just mean more damage output, it also means you don't have to risk your life assassinating a 3 HP target. And I can see a real niche for Luna in finsihing off (or setting enemies up to be finished off) targets with 3 HP. But in a gamble between killing the enemy, and your 5 HP champion getting double attacked, you're risking a lot.

It's a coin toss as to whether you get the kill, or they do. I'd be better off double-attacking with Bug, who may have one less range than Lunas single attack range, but who can more reliably deal that 3 damage, and who will remain safe even if he does only two damage, and will charge up more Aether for his other abilities, whereas Luna either only gets 1, or has a net loss of 1 Aether (depending on whether she needs to blink).

I'll give her a try when I don't need to worry about my League points, and we'll see where things stand then. I could be wrong, of course. This is just my incredibly long-winded first impression. Perhaps she's best used in a defensive posture at first, and only really going on the offensive when she can start that offense with her ultimate. But even that might really warrant 6 HP rather than 5.

[prokeke]

Some shell is more powerful than others indeed. But those powerful shells are usually rare, so I think it's best to leave it as it is.

As for Luna, I agree with you guys. Maybe should beef up her hp a little.

[[Einherjar]]

+1 range on her teleport may be too much, I think 6hp/2damage or 5hp/3damage would be the two right options for her. suicide on her ult seems interesting too.

anyone try out the team buff shells yet (aether control and healing)? seems powerful, but also very situational (more healing than aether), i guess you can always use aether.

[Sines]

6 HP and 2 Damage seems very underwhelming. Butcher can get away with it because of the incredible utility of his special attack. However, the primary purpose of Lunas special ability is to get her in range to use her basic attack. As such, the basic attack needs to be something I'd want to put her in range to do.

If her damage was reduced to a flat 2, then I'd want to put her health up to 7 instead. And by that point, we've gone WAY too far from her original concept. +1 HP or Flat 3 Damage (and I favor the 3 damage) are the two options. Especially since going up from 5 to 6 HP is somewhat underwhelming. The primary concern of Luna is that she sets herself up for double melee attacks, which means 4 damage usually. The extra point of HP only means that she can survive Martel or Corporal double attacks, or has a 50% chance to survive a double attack from, say Butcher, and followed up by a move and shoot from Bug. It doesn't buy nearly enough extra survivability to warrant reducing her damage output.

Suicide on the ult is a side-step, however. Like I said, Harles ult suiciding is basically a bonus, because of how much HP Harle has lost by the time he gets there. I recently used Harles ult on an enemy with 1 HP, because I knew he had no chance of surviving until his next turn, and I wanted to deny the kill.

However, Harles ult already ends the engagement anyway. Luna ulting into enemies, then hitting them with her regular attack produces a rather powerful 2 damage AoE followed up by an extra 2-3 damage to another target. That kind of damage output, as well as the actions taken by your opponent to finish her off, are probably well worth dying for. Since her ult STARTS an encounter, rather than ends one, means that suiciding denies the second attack.

Still it does make sense, just have the rocket explode when it hits. Not entirely sure whether it should be done or not. I'm thinking 5 HP / 3 Damage Luna should suicide, but 6 HP / 2-3 Damage Luna should not.

[[Einherjar]]

Imo I see her for two purposes: (1) aiding allies by attacking their target that would be usually unreachable except for teleport involved. (2) teleporting beside ship to setup for damage

1. would happen in new detroit, where you go from one side to the other and set up a 2v1 scenario which wouldn't ever happen usually, and can help setup a kill on the champion

2. would happen in mount whitney, where you can jump on healing tile, heal to full and then teleport beside ship jumping over the blocker, very surprise move.

imo i think the fact that her ult is meant to drop into the middle of enemies, should point to her having 6HP. ive rethought it, and 3 damage is just too powerful, equipped with teleport itd be too easy to just pick your shots. its one of the reasons martel is so useful, and scorch is one of my most used shells. even though i hate RNG, i guess 2-3 is really the right way to go (or just 2!)

i don't like the idea of another suicide champ. just because a champion is easily killed, doesnt meant it should have a get-out-of-jail card and just kill itself when its low without -2 damage to yourself lol

[Sines]

I totally understand not wanting that get out of jail free card on low HP melee champs. I'm just saying, that is a balance option, and one worth noting. However, since we have no truly high risk champions yet, I am inclined to side against suiciding her now, just for the sake of greater diversity.

[Black Mirror]

So first we had random dmg on ranged champios cause it would be to OP for them to deal stable amount of dmg, now we have random dmg on melee champions cause what?
They would be to OP to deal normal dmg? Harle can have stable dmg with leap, so if he happens to charge 2 aether he will deal 6 dmg to you, while Corporal deals 1 dmg on knockback that is even not working in all directions like Crunk, and deal random dmg.
Luna 2 dmg on ulti, its area but its hard to find enemy champs put in the group next to each other to use Luna ulti. She will just die next turn.

Way to much RNG at the moment, it is getting on who will roll higher dmg.

I want to use all champions not only ones that don't happen to have random dmg yet.
I can live with random dmg on ranged champs but leave melee alone.

[loquee]

I really like Luna for the fact that you can´t block her as easily as harlequin and she usually requires the enemy to have at least somebody left back at his ship.

I like her super to get out of trouble, although you usually need to team her up with another champ for that.
Jumping to the basline with her ulti and attacking again is also fierce.

I think additional health or 3 damage granted would make her a little too strong.

Her animations are also marvellous

DarkStar, we took the criticism about random damage from you and many players before you very serious, but in our eyes it adds to the game.
Of course it is a little frustrating if you miss a 75% chance to crit once with two attacks or having the enemy getting lucky with the 25% chance to do max damage, but these factors should be taken into account when using or facing a champ with damage range.

roder, you have this tendency to be right about shell balancing and we should have another look at those two. I know Michlebert and other Devs already read this and I guess they will soon let me know what I didn't take into account about it

And thanks for the thread, as always very nice how constructive feedback and criticism appears in this forum!

[Schein]

I used my 2 scorching zones and both times they did not deal damage to the ship.

[Sines]

Could just be that I'm not a fan of direct ship attacks. I usually only ever attack the ship with Bug, Mary and Aurora, and I generally prefer to attack people instead of the ship. Heck, I use Harlequinn as a defender! As such, a champion who'se good at rushing the ship just isn't going to appear good to me.

Also, Luna is more of a dwarf than Martel. Was her model meant to be that tiny?

[[Einherjar]]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Schein:

I used my 2 scorching zones and both times they did not deal damage to the ship.

Oh really? I thought it did, because the description of it has a champion and ship symbol (meaning it deals damage to both).

[Sines]

I tested myself, no ship damage.

[Schein]

Yeah Roder the symbol is there but that's it xD