Li May be Too Powerful

[Command Line Vulpine]

I'm not usually one of the people that complains when the player can be too overpowered - it's like reminding the teacher that you had homework last night.

But consistently, using Li I was doing 2X the amount of damage my friends were, and then 4X as much as them once I started to figure out what was doing it. Then finally we had a game where I did 177 million damage, while they only did 9 and 6 million each. I've had to self ban myself from the character because they weren't having fun.

The Culprits:
- "Flare Calling" Ascension - Summons Blazing Meteors on the enemy when you shoot them with a gun. At level 3 it spawns 2 meteors with a chance to spawn Spiritual Flame.

- Any Ascension that boosts Blazing Meteor or Spirtual Flame's damage "Spiritual Meteor" "Accurate Crush" "Conflagration""Firefox Blessing" "Energetic Spirit"

- "Cloud Weaver" Weapon - Homes on enemies, very high range, damage procs fast, has a big clip size, reloads fast, enemies can't dodge it, can use abilities while it's out doing damage, can focus on dodging in bullet hell situations while it still does damage.

tl;dr I wanna play the fox but she's so strong my friends won't let me :(

ps: Cloud weaver alone is the biggest problem, I've still done 3-4X damage even when I play other characters if I get one. Doesn't even matter what inscriptions are on it.

[Eudicots]

Flare Calling is fine since it has a decent cooldown. Its comparable to Lightning From the Void. The problem is when it is partnered with cloud weaver. You can cast and attack at the same time drastically increasing the amount of meteors you can summon.

The damage ascensions aren't really the main problem to Spiritual Flame. It has to do with the lack of a cooldown and rapid energy regeneration sources. The ascensions (Energetic Spirit + Endless Wildfires) and the blessing [Raging Inferno] allow for players to quickly and constantly cast full charged attacks.

The main issue with Blazing Meteor is that there is ascensions and blessings that both give it AOE capabilities. Having multiple sources that increase the output of meteors makes this the strongest secondary skill. There is also the issue of Unceasing Blaze giving increased supply and restoration. This wouldn't be that big of an issue if meteor's didn't have 50% chance to inflict burning.

The ascension I find the most broken for this character is Flame Talisman. There is no other defensive ascension as strong as this one in game. It can negative up to 90% damage while boosting up to 100% weapon and Skill damage. The high elemental effect chance of Li's skill's makes it ridiculously easy to maintain this buff.

Cloud weaver is op, but it does not home onto enemies. You still need to aim to land crits.

[BeaR Dragon]

I think any character can be op, it's just a matter of how practical it is to achieve a god run with them, for example you could go with Qing Yan, grab Easy Kill and Cleave Carnival asap, if you're lucky get veteran, then reach the 3rd zone and farm corrupt monk lanterns for unga bunga damage and then slap all of Yoruhime's cannon's away.
Frankly the only character I haven't figured out how to reach god run status with is the Crown Prince, closest I've gotten to that with him is Energy Blade + Electrodominance + Power Source, and just weave between energy orbs and lightning weapon shots.
As for Li May, I'd say she is a touch too practical, in fact I'd go so far as to say she best embodies the phrase "Fire and forget", no pun intended, the spamminess of her skills, coupled with the ease of resupplying mid-battle as well as the flame talisman ascension by itself and lastly her obvious synergy with cloud weaver, a weapon that is op by itself, by doing the attacking for you while you spam abilities.
I personally think they should tone down the cloud weaver a bit, maybe make it return to your hand when you're casting anything, so you cast for the sake of reloading the cloud weaver without stopping your damage and not just because it's off cooldown.
Then for Li May, I guess tone down how often she can spam her abilities, as it stands she can do a run without picking up a single weapon, energy generation is easy to set up, rarely do you get a run without those ascensions popping up at least twice, make it so she has incentive to pull out a scorching pistol at least by making the energy depletion not a myth and lastly tone the numbers of flame talisman way down, 90% damage reduction and 100% total damage increase should not occupy an ascension replenished by setting people on fire with a character all about setting people on fire at the same time.

[chaotea]

Gonna be honest, played along time and with everything, including new heroes and guns.

Neither of the new heroes are particuly OP compared to the rest. What I would say is that its much easier to get a decent build together for them, but compared to the op tiger builds available, they still arnt as strong as that. Still, the tiger builds can be harder to put together.

Cloud walker is fun, as its different compared to most weapons, but its not OP. Its good, but not great. You will see alot of people using them, because they are new, but they arnt OP. I'd say its about the same as the angelic aura.

Also, alot of the foxes abilities may seem OP, but its worth remembering shes really a glass cannon. She has alot of strong abilities, bet very few defensive or utility options and doesnt work well with non-fire weapons, so shes limited in that way.

[ggAkatsukiP]

Originally posted by Command Line Vulpine:

I've had to self ban myself from the character because they weren't having fun.

Me too, but my case is on Lei Luo. Heck even in random multiplayer room, veterans tend to avoid Lei Luo players. Only clueless newbies cherish getting carried

[TakeMyLunch]

What difficulty are you playing on? I did a Reincarnation 6 run with my friends and we all seemed pretty even. I cleaned up mooks with my fire and they went after key targets like tankier more dangerous keyworded enemies. We had a great.

[Lunacy]

I had a run with lightning tiger where everything would die instantly to my fire tower (mostly from powerful ability ascensions where kills reset it) and my Li friend couldn't get any damage in because stuff died too quick. It didn't perform as well against bosses but stage enemies just evaporated.

[Rugged Lemmings]

Originally posted by Lunacy:

I had a run with lightning tiger where everything would die instantly to my fire tower (mostly from powerful ability ascensions where kills reset it) and my Li friend couldn't get any damage in because stuff died too quick. It didn't perform as well against bosses but stage enemies just evaporated.

This. That's one of the "balances" to Li in terms of her bustedness: it takes time to charge up that fireball and even if she's going meteor Cataclysm is still on a 4 second cooldown. For people wanting to beat Li's potentially ridiculous numbers: you gotta play high speed burst. She can't rack up those numbers if there's nothing to rack them up on.

[Eudicots]

Originally posted by Rugged Lemmings:

This. That's one of the "balances" to Li in terms of her bustedness: it takes time to charge up that fireball and even if she's going meteor Cataclysm is still on a 4 second cooldown. For people wanting to beat Li's potentially ridiculous numbers: you gotta play high speed burst. She can't rack up those numbers if there's nothing to rack them up on.

Fireball charge up isn't a valid point when there is no cooldown. It also doesn't take more than a second to charge up to 2 bars (minimum to evolve). What makes this ability unbalanced is how readily available it is. Li having abilities that allow energy to be recovered and maintained makes this the strongest primary mid-late game.

Cataclysm can be brought down to a 1 second cooldown. There is no way someone doing a proper secondary skill build will maintain a 4 second cooldown throughout a run. Not to mention there are multiple ascensions that can increase meteor production. Blazing meteor is her burst damage build that allows for quick speedruns. If you are aiming for a R8 less than 30 minute run then this is one of the best builds to go.

Sure there are other builds that are better, but they require far more RNG. The issue with this character is how easy it is to get her builds working. There are too many sources available that strengthen her weaknesses.

[Irrelevant]

Same as usual for me... in some runs the fox was pretty op and in others it was crap. On top of it a ton of her dmg comes from overkill dmg and as long as the devs don't give us valid damage end screens we can't tell how op something is. Look at the monkey... he can pull far bigger numbers then the fox.

[Rugged Lemmings]

Originally posted by Eudicots:

Originally posted by Rugged Lemmings:

This. That's one of the "balances" to Li in terms of her bustedness: it takes time to charge up that fireball and even if she's going meteor Cataclysm is still on a 4 second cooldown. For people wanting to beat Li's potentially ridiculous numbers: you gotta play high speed burst. She can't rack up those numbers if there's nothing to rack them up on.

Fireball charge up isn't a valid point when there is no cooldown. It also doesn't take more than a second to charge up to 2 bars (minimum to evolve). What makes this ability unbalanced is how readily available it is. Li having abilities that allow energy to be recovered and maintained makes this the strongest primary mid-late game.

Cataclysm can be brought down to a 1 second cooldown. There is no way someone doing a proper secondary skill build will maintain a 4 second cooldown throughout a run. Not to mention there are multiple ascensions that can increase meteor production. Blazing meteor is her burst damage build that allows for quick speedruns. If you are aiming for a R8 less than 30 minute run then this is one of the best builds to go.

Sure there are other builds that are better, but they require far more RNG. The issue with this character is how easy it is to get her builds working. There are too many sources available that strengthen her weaknesses.

Her cooldown isn't the issue with her. What slows her down is needing to save up energy for bigger fireballs. That and the fireball's rather slow travel speed.

Case in point: just completed a run with a buddy, I was the fox, he was the birb. I got nearly everything I wanted in terms of ascensions (Fiery Heart, Conflag 3, Firefox Blessing 3, Endless Wildfires 3 (didn't get the last point till the mountain), and Energetic Spirit 2...was hoping for 3 but didn't make it). I picked up Dual Edge on the first stage of the water level, had the spellbook early on, got Elite Assassin in the desert, had Core Member activated...lots of good scrolls.

And yet he beat me 954million to 677million. Why? Because the birb is faster than the fox by a wide margin. His kick is faster than her fireball, and his resets are faster than her No Cooldown (not to mention it's pretty easy to get him to have infinite kicks with a couple scrolls and/or ascensions). Even with Endless Wildfire giving me free energy, the couple moments it takes to fully charge and launch a fireball is more than enough time for him to get off 3-4 kicks.

As I said previously: it doesn't matter how much damage she deals if she doesn't have targets to hit. Take them out faster than she can and you'll out damage her every time.

[Command Line Vulpine]

On further review we mostly think the Cloud Weaver is the real problem.

Homing, long range, can't miss, point at faces for crits, high damage proc rate, use abilities while it deals damage, dodge while it deals damage, abilities don't interrupt reloads.

I can have just one normal inscription and still be better than a weapon with full rare, gemini, and unique inscriptions.

And then it just happens to be peak synergy with Li because of Flare Calling, and being able to buff Blazing Meteor to make Flare Calling even better.

[NeroDivergent]

please dont complain about it, enjoy it while it lasts cuz the devs will surely nerf it anyway despite it being a good thing shes so strong.
so please delete this thread so we dont risk her being nerfed early

[Rugged Lemmings]

Originally posted by Command Line Vulpine:

On further review we mostly think the Cloud Weaver is the real problem.

Homing, long range, can't miss, point at faces for crits, high damage proc rate, use abilities while it deals damage, dodge while it deals damage, abilities don't interrupt reloads.

I can have just one normal inscription and still be better than a weapon with full rare, gemini, and unique inscriptions.

And then it just happens to be peak synergy with Li because of Flare Calling, and being able to buff Blazing Meteor to make Flare Calling even better.

Now on the point of Cloud Weaver, having goofed around with it some and seen what it's truly capable of I do agree that it's a bit much. No other weapon has a fire-and-forget playstyle the way it does. The fact that you can just run around spamming abilities while your weapon just kinda does it's thing. They might as well have the next new hero's ult be an auto-turret. That said I really don't mind it being a clear frontrunner for best weapon in the game. I've always held that the entire point of this game is to break your character as hard as you can each run. And to that point...

Originally posted by Nero:

please dont complain about it, enjoy it while it lasts cuz the devs will surely nerf it anyway despite it being a good thing shes so strong.
so please delete this thread so we dont risk her being nerfed early

Granted I haven't been here since the beginning in early access, but from what I've seen if the devs agree with this thread and think the fox is clearly more bustable than the rest of the cast they're more likely to buff the rest rather than nerf the fox.

[ggAkatsukiP]

Originally posted by Rugged Lemmings:

from what I've seen if the devs agree with this thread and think the fox is clearly more bustable than the rest of the cast they're more likely to buff the rest rather than nerf the fox.

Tbh if Li receive a nerf, Lei would be in a questionable position, since Li is nowhere near the optimize level of Lei.

I am more likely to believe that dev intended to have a most powerful male cast and a most powerful female cast, then the rest will have their own unique way of gameplan.

[Kudegra]

Li is literally walking thru reincarnation instantly nuking rooms with her abilities lmao, Lei isn't doing that. He has a chain lightning not a piercing wide aoe, Her meteors are probably the strongest secondary too.

It's poorly tuned numbers making her cap out damage faster then anyone else, it becomes un-interactive to co-op when someone can walk into one room remove any threat from the game and move to the next with just a couple of short cooldowns.