Is Magma Miner Just Bad?

[reedyxbug]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Magma Miner outright sucks compared to most other characters. Bonk is the weakest move in the game and Leaping Strike is just an AoE Bonk. It's very difficult to scale his passive without dumping all of your will into Bonks, which essentially requires you to build for a WIll or Shattered Will set. He has no magic damage whatsoever which walls him off from some of the most powerful builds in the game, and makes half of his burn-related upgrades useless. If all of his attacks were buffed by 1.5-2x it would make him SO much more playable.
If it were just that his kit felt lackluster, it would be one thing, but aspects like Chainbreaker get double his damage on a basic attack that also teleports AND grants movement. I can't wrap my head around this balancing decision. As it is right now, the "difficulty stars" read more to me like a tier list; 1 star is bad, 2 star is pigeonholed into certain builds, 3 star has more build variety, 4 star is very good, 5 is OP. I haven't played with Star Captain or Godkeeper yet, but at this rate, I may not play enough to unlock them. They need to compensate the "easier" mechanics with more damage or this character will never be played except when needed to complete a quest or challenge.

[Deathtroth]

This Is The Base Character, So The Rest Should Be Better Than Him - That Said:
You Can Stack Burn, Get Omnidamage, And Use The Third Ability Upgrade To Multiply The Damage; You Can Definitely Get Into The Thousands Per Hit.

I Have 3-Hit Multiple Bosses With Miner, Would've Been Less But Phase Changes Stopped Me.

Molten Set + Bastion Set = Ascension 20 Defeated.
Multiple Trinkets Stack Burn + Flat Burn Damage And Poison + Flat Poison Damage.
With These You Can Ignore Stacking Magic Damage Altogether.

Burn Only Loses 1 Stack Per Turn, Makes Poison Look Bad, But You Can Definitely Get Them Both To Clear Anything In The Game, On Almost Every Character.

Will Stacking Is Nice For Every Character, But None Require It.


Good Luck!

[Bubby]

Originally posted by reedyxbug:

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Magma Miner outright sucks compared to most other characters. Bonk is the weakest move in the game and Leaping Strike is just an AoE Bonk. It's very difficult to scale his passive without dumping all of your will into Bonks, which essentially requires you to build for a WIll or Shattered Will set. He has no magic damage whatsoever which walls him off from some of the most powerful builds in the game, and makes half of his burn-related upgrades useless. If all of his attacks were buffed by 1.5-2x it would make him SO much more playable.
If it were just that his kit felt lackluster, it would be one thing, but aspects like Chainbreaker get double his damage on a basic attack that also teleports AND grants movement. I can't wrap my head around this balancing decision. As it is right now, the "difficulty stars" read more to me like a tier list; 1 star is bad, 2 star is pigeonholed into certain builds, 3 star has more build variety, 4 star is very good, 5 is OP. I haven't played with Star Captain or Godkeeper yet, but at this rate, I may not play enough to unlock them. They need to compensate the "easier" mechanics with more damage or this character will never be played except when needed to complete a quest or challenge.

I actually don't think miner is that bad, I would honestly say Star Captain is the worst, but I would have to see some performance stats to really make an opinion.

[Purple Sauce]

Originally posted by Bubby:

Originally posted by reedyxbug:

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Magma Miner outright sucks compared to most other characters. Bonk is the weakest move in the game and Leaping Strike is just an AoE Bonk. It's very difficult to scale his passive without dumping all of your will into Bonks, which essentially requires you to build for a WIll or Shattered Will set. He has no magic damage whatsoever which walls him off from some of the most powerful builds in the game, and makes half of his burn-related upgrades useless. If all of his attacks were buffed by 1.5-2x it would make him SO much more playable.
If it were just that his kit felt lackluster, it would be one thing, but aspects like Chainbreaker get double his damage on a basic attack that also teleports AND grants movement. I can't wrap my head around this balancing decision. As it is right now, the "difficulty stars" read more to me like a tier list; 1 star is bad, 2 star is pigeonholed into certain builds, 3 star has more build variety, 4 star is very good, 5 is OP. I haven't played with Star Captain or Godkeeper yet, but at this rate, I may not play enough to unlock them. They need to compensate the "easier" mechanics with more damage or this character will never be played except when needed to complete a quest or challenge.

I actually don't think miner is that bad, I would honestly say Star Captain is the worst, but I would have to see some performance stats to really make an opinion.

Star Captain is far from the worst, the star captain is a support unit for larger group runs. The miner is hands down the worst of them all. He doesn't function in solo runs and in group runs he still has the same problem, ie. he can NEVER survive ANYTHING!

[Bubby]

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Originally posted by Bubby:

I actually don't think miner is that bad, I would honestly say Star Captain is the worst, but I would have to see some performance stats to really make an opinion.

Star Captain is far from the worst, the star captain is a support unit for larger group runs. The miner is hands down the worst of them all. He doesn't function in solo runs and in group runs he still has the same problem, ie. he can NEVER survive ANYTHING!

We just have to agree to disagree then. Im talking solo play by the way. Star Captain solo is worse than Magma Miner solo. I have had so many easy runs with magma miner solo just because you can build easy "near infinite" builds where you get ridiculous amount of actions in a turn. Magma miner works well with vestiges and ascensions that give you more cooldown reduction and will as you can build heat easily and clear things with your skills. Unless Star Captain has been buffed recently, I also recall a ton of people saying similar things to what I am. I am not saying Star Captain is useless or unusable, but I believe they take more to get running good damage wise.

At the end of the day, its probably just our run choices that explain our differing opinions, but I have very rarely lost Magma Miner runs.

[Purple Sauce]

Originally posted by Bubby:

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Star Captain is far from the worst, the star captain is a support unit for larger group runs. The miner is hands down the worst of them all. He doesn't function in solo runs and in group runs he still has the same problem, ie. he can NEVER survive ANYTHING!

We just have to agree to disagree then. Im talking solo play by the way. Star Captain solo is worse than Magma Miner solo. I have had so many easy runs with magma miner solo just because you can build easy "near infinite" builds where you get ridiculous amount of actions in a turn. Magma miner works well with vestiges and ascensions that give you more cooldown reduction and will as you can build heat easily and clear things with your skills. Unless Star Captain has been buffed recently, I also recall a ton of people saying similar things to what I am. I am not saying Star Captain is useless or unusable, but I believe they take more to get running good damage wise.

At the end of the day, its probably just our run choices that explain our differing opinions, but I have very rarely lost Magma Miner runs.

Are you running 20s because if not, that's why we disagree. The Star captain is mostly fine, the miner is not. I've completely multiple star captain level 20 runs without an issue. The star captain is not easy to use and needs to have his moves planned out in advance. The miner simply doesn't work in 20s.

[reedyxbug]

Originally posted by Bubby:

I have had so many easy runs with magma miner solo just because you can build easy "near infinite" builds where you get ridiculous amount of actions in a turn. Magma miner works well with vestiges and ascensions that give you more cooldown reduction and will as you can build heat easily and clear things with your skills.

What is it that you're using to build these "near infinite" runs? From what I've seen his potential for additional actions is mainly linked to Mine/Extracting Bonk/Whack-A-Bonk, which is still just a 35% total chance to spawn an orb. That's not bad, of course, but it's hard to call that "near infinite" when you're just hoping the RNG hits.
My main issue is that his damage scaling isn't great, unless you run Marker of the Unbound. But I shouldn't be pigeonholed into a picking the same trinket every time in order to succeed.

[Purple Sauce]

Originally posted by reedyxbug:

Originally posted by Bubby:

I have had so many easy runs with magma miner solo just because you can build easy "near infinite" builds where you get ridiculous amount of actions in a turn. Magma miner works well with vestiges and ascensions that give you more cooldown reduction and will as you can build heat easily and clear things with your skills.

What is it that you're using to build these "near infinite" runs? From what I've seen his potential for additional actions is mainly linked to Mine/Extracting Bonk/Whack-A-Bonk, which is still just a 35% total chance to spawn an orb. That's not bad, of course, but it's hard to call that "near infinite" when you're just hoping the RNG hits.
My main issue is that his damage scaling isn't great, unless you run Marker of the Unbound. But I shouldn't be pigeonholed into a picking the same trinket every time in order to succeed.

I actually don't have a problem with the miner's damage. In fact, his single target damage is very good, his multi target damage is trash. In other words, in solo play the miner is god awful and the worst class for it. The miner also has no survivability whatsoever built into his kit. Take the godkpper for example, a single aug on his 2 can give you both shield and a blur. You can EASILY find ways of casting his spear 2 times in a single turn giving him great tankiness for solo runes while still focusing on pure DPS. The miner basically gets a shield for his 3, if you kill a unit. Yea, none of the other classes have this prerequisite, they get it for free, and many of their shielding abilities are not on their most expensive ability either. You also have the fact that the godkeeper's spear also buffs his damage as well for his other abilities for even more DPS, and you can leave it on the ground to have more options later.

The miner simply doesn't work in challenge level 20 runs. He's horrible because he cannot survive. If you want to use DoTs well, the thing you DoTed doesn't die until the end of their turn, so you need to be able to tank some damage to use a DoT build. The miner doesn't have any innate tankiness so RIP to that. Even the clairvoyant can tank more than this melee mess and that's a ranged class that out DPSES the miner anyway in both AOE and single target damage. I HIGHLY doubt this dude is running challenge level 20's back to back like I am if he's saying the miner is better than the star captain which I've run back to back and successfully cleared 20's. I think he might not know how to play the star captain at all which I'm not even throwing shade at because a lot of people don't. The star captain requires planning and set up, you can't just "do stuff" and the character will just work. That's precisely why I would list him below other characters just because of this alone. But in terms of being consistent the star captain does just that and has a few viable builds and augs he can make use of. I rate the obelisk higher than the star captain, for example, but really the obelisk is either going hulk smash or thorns. There's no inbetween. The star captain can use a build with his 1 as a focus, use 2 spam which gives shield and omni, or his 3. Overall all 3 builds are solid rather than just going for hulk smash which can get boring pretty quickly.

But there is no way I'm saying the miner is better than the star captain in a rank 20 run. I would like to see quite a few of those with the miner before I change my mind on that. DoT doesn't work because the miner has no built in tankiness. Raw damage doesn't work because it's single target damage and you have no built in tankiness. The miner just takes so much damage in return for dishing out damage that the class can't even really function unless in a team setting and why use the miner when there are literally better classes for a DPS that can't take hits?

Edit: Oh and I've seen people use the miner in group runs, they didn't play poorly either, they died because they cannot soak up damage nor can they heal. The thing about vigor is that it's best used with a shield so you can maintain your HP bar rather than just losing a ton of HP and trying to heal it back. And by the time you get vigor it's towards the end of the game. I'm LUCKY if I can get vigor running by the first boss, but the miner needs this build into his kit because without it he doesn't do jack. He either needs shielding aug buffs or he needs vigor.

In level 20 runs there is also no way in hell you're getting most of your runs completed either because it's RNG. So yea, not believing this dude on the "I rarely fail with the miner" argument he/she is using because all classes will fail level 20 runs. Of course you aren't going to fail piss low runs, I can do those in my sleep, whenever I speak about balance it's typically going to be about the hardest options available in a game. You get maybe 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 done on average with the rest being failures. Group runs are easier because you only need one DPS so you can just give whoever the DPS role while the others support/spread damage but that's a different topic for another day. The hardest part about level 20s is beating the first boss. If you can beat the first boss you have a VERY high chance of completing that run. The miner simply struggles because it's innate kit is horrid.

[Bubby]

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Originally posted by reedyxbug:

What is it that you're using to build these "near infinite" runs? From what I've seen his potential for additional actions is mainly linked to Mine/Extracting Bonk/Whack-A-Bonk, which is still just a 35% total chance to spawn an orb. That's not bad, of course, but it's hard to call that "near infinite" when you're just hoping the RNG hits.
My main issue is that his damage scaling isn't great, unless you run Marker of the Unbound. But I shouldn't be pigeonholed into a picking the same trinket every time in order to succeed.

I actually don't have a problem with the miner's damage. In fact, his single target damage is very good, his multi target damage is trash. In other words, in solo play the miner is god awful and the worst class for it. The miner also has no survivability whatsoever built into his kit. Take the godkpper for example, a single aug on his 2 can give you both shield and a blur. You can EASILY find ways of casting his spear 2 times in a single turn giving him great tankiness for solo runes while still focusing on pure DPS. The miner basically gets a shield for his 3, if you kill a unit. Yea, none of the other classes have this prerequisite, they get it for free, and many of their shielding abilities are not on their most expensive ability either. You also have the fact that the godkeeper's spear also buffs his damage as well for his other abilities for even more DPS, and you can leave it on the ground to have more options later.

The miner simply doesn't work in challenge level 20 runs. He's horrible because he cannot survive. If you want to use DoTs well, the thing you DoTed doesn't die until the end of their turn, so you need to be able to tank some damage to use a DoT build. The miner doesn't have any innate tankiness so RIP to that. Even the clairvoyant can tank more than this melee mess and that's a ranged class that out DPSES the miner anyway in both AOE and single target damage. I HIGHLY doubt this dude is running challenge level 20's back to back like I am if he's saying the miner is better than the star captain which I've run back to back and successfully cleared 20's. I think he might not know how to play the star captain at all which I'm not even throwing shade at because a lot of people don't. The star captain requires planning and set up, you can't just "do stuff" and the character will just work. That's precisely why I would list him below other characters just because of this alone. But in terms of being consistent the star captain does just that and has a few viable builds and augs he can make use of. I rate the obelisk higher than the star captain, for example, but really the obelisk is either going hulk smash or thorns. There's no inbetween. The star captain can use a build with his 1 as a focus, use 2 spam which gives shield and omni, or his 3. Overall all 3 builds are solid rather than just going for hulk smash which can get boring pretty quickly.

But there is no way I'm saying the miner is better than the star captain in a rank 20 run. I would like to see quite a few of those with the miner before I change my mind on that. DoT doesn't work because the miner has no built in tankiness. Raw damage doesn't work because it's single target damage and you have no built in tankiness. The miner just takes so much damage in return for dishing out damage that the class can't even really function unless in a team setting and why use the miner when there are literally better classes for a DPS that can't take hits?

Edit: Oh and I've seen people use the miner in group runs, they didn't play poorly either, they died because they cannot soak up damage nor can they heal. The thing about vigor is that it's best used with a shield so you can maintain your HP bar rather than just losing a ton of HP and trying to heal it back. And by the time you get vigor it's towards the end of the game. I'm LUCKY if I can get vigor running by the first boss, but the miner needs this build into his kit because without it he doesn't do jack. He either needs shielding aug buffs or he needs vigor.

In level 20 runs there is also no way in hell you're getting most of your runs completed either because it's RNG. So yea, not believing this dude on the "I rarely fail with the miner" argument he/she is using because all classes will fail level 20 runs. Of course you aren't going to fail piss low runs, I can do those in my sleep, whenever I speak about balance it's typically going to be about the hardest options available in a game. You get maybe 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 done on average with the rest being failures. Group runs are easier because you only need one DPS so you can just give whoever the DPS role while the others support/spread damage but that's a different topic for another day. The hardest part about level 20s is beating the first boss. If you can beat the first boss you have a VERY high chance of completing that run. The miner simply struggles because it's innate kit is horrid.

You can believe what you want, but you don't have to be ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Notice how you have to attack me instead of my arguments. I have seen plenty of success with Miner at high level runs and I have seen people succeed besides me with Miner. They are not the best solo character, but they aren't the worst solo (that would be star captain). They aren't the best group, but they aren't the worst. I never argued miner is the best, but I do not think they are the worst at all in the game. We can agree to disagree, but you being ♥♥♥♥♥♥ is telling of your character.

[Leto]

Not gonna reply to all the walls of text, but just wanted to add that Magma Miner functions very well at high tiers in solo. Generally you'd want to get the cooldown reduction and aoe increase augments for Leap first, cause those give you the best earlygame heat generation, which you can then build on. Recorded the T20 solo run I did today to showcase some tips and tricks if you're struggling with MM at high tiers

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141093511

[Bubby]

Originally posted by Leto:

Not gonna reply to all the walls of text, but just wanted to add that Magma Miner functions very well at high tiers in solo. Generally you'd want to get the cooldown reduction and aoe increase augments for Leap first, cause those give you the best earlygame heat generation, which you can then build on. Recorded the T20 solo run I did today to showcase some tips and tricks if you're struggling with MM at high tiers :ibscribbles:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141093511

Thank you.

[Purple Sauce]

Originally posted by Leto:

Not gonna reply to all the walls of text, but just wanted to add that Magma Miner functions very well at high tiers in solo. Generally you'd want to get the cooldown reduction and aoe increase augments for Leap first, cause those give you the best earlygame heat generation, which you can then build on. Recorded the T20 solo run I did today to showcase some tips and tricks if you're struggling with MM at high tiers :ibscribbles:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141093511

No one is saying that's is impossible to do. I'm talking about consistency. How often do you complete a run with the miner not using BS like thorns?

[Bubby]

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Originally posted by Leto:

Not gonna reply to all the walls of text, but just wanted to add that Magma Miner functions very well at high tiers in solo. Generally you'd want to get the cooldown reduction and aoe increase augments for Leap first, cause those give you the best earlygame heat generation, which you can then build on. Recorded the T20 solo run I did today to showcase some tips and tricks if you're struggling with MM at high tiers :ibscribbles:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141093511

No one is saying that's is impossible to do. I'm talking about consistency. How often do you complete a run with the miner not using BS like thorns?

Seems like a skill issue on your end, you have multiple people saying its not only possible but very feasible and instead of being able to accept that you have to be defensive. Its a character that can work, and is not useless. Its not that complicated.

[Purple Sauce]

Originally posted by Bubby:

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

No one is saying that's is impossible to do. I'm talking about consistency. How often do you complete a run with the miner not using BS like thorns?

Seems like a skill issue on your end, you have multiple people saying its not only possible but very feasible and instead of being able to accept that you have to be defensive. Its a character that can work, and is not useless. Its not that complicated.

I've completed almost the entire victory board and have just about every single achievement but yea, totally a skill issue and not the character being flat out worse than all the others. I didn't say jack about whether or not the character can be used, again, I have stated multiple times, it's about consistency and this character CLEARLY has the short end of the stick.

[Purple Sauce]

Okay, here's an idea, if you want to prove to me that the miner is useful then someone do a 3-4 hour stream using nothing but the miner in level 20 back to back runs. If you can't complete at least one out of every 4 runs that class is dog water because I've already done that with every other class in the game consistently as the minimum benchmark. If you quit out of a run for ANY reason to include not liking the starting books, that is automatically considered a failed run and yes, those are included in my minimums as well so I'm not being biased. If this class is usable this is the minimum I must see. I don't care about a one time run obviously, not only have I already done that, that is not the point nor is it the discussion being made here.

[Bubby]

Originally posted by Purple Sauce:

Okay, here's an idea, if you want to prove to me that the miner is useful then someone do a 3-4 hour stream using nothing but the miner in level 20 back to back runs. If you can't complete at least one out of every 4 runs that class is dog water because I've already done that with every other class in the game consistently as the minimum benchmark. If you quit out of a run for ANY reason to include not liking the starting books, that is automatically considered a failed run and yes, those are included in my minimums as well so I'm not being biased. If this class is usable this is the minimum I must see. I don't care about a one time run obviously, not only have I already done that, that is not the point nor is it the discussion being made here.

Maybe you just aren't good at the character dude, its not that complicated. You made the attack on the claim that the character wasn't that good and had evidence shown otherwise. Its not on me to go bend at the knee for you to learn. Sometimes characters don't mesh well with a player, look at ANY game in the history of gaming and you will see differential results player to player. Miner is fine, so go on being a crybaby now.