Is Norseman supposed to hit like a wet noodle?

[warriorofthewind]

Ok I unlocked Beast Huntress and Norseman after a good Icy Caverns run with the Cleric. My next quest was 10k enemies on Viaduct so I started with Norseman first because I figure this is a barbarian guy with axes he's gotta be good and he had trouble with just regular mobs no matter what abilities I tried. I had starter ability, glacier surge, arcane stars, spirit warrior, astral orbs, and kugelblitz and he kept dying halfway through no matter how many dps bonuses I picked up.

After three unsuccessful tries I decided to break in Beast Huntress. had the imp and skele summon rings and for starter ability started out with spirit warrior. Later on picked up radiant aura, stone golem, and arcane stars. I STEAMROLLED viaduct, chewed through the champions, and melted the lord at the end. Radiant Aura was just melting trash but the icy spear just tore through entire columns of enemies. Did I pick a bad loadout for Norseman or was he nerfed at some point because both were new heroes without any unlocks and Norseman felt just so weak in comparison. Armor was fairly basic starter armor aside from the rings and the diadem crown. I did not have the summon gloves because i didn't buy them from the well.

All in all enjoying the game immensely just curious if anyone else has had similar experience. I saw one post listing a good dps build for Norseman but not sure if thats a different map or if viaduct is just tuned hard.

[failsafe]

Norseman is okay. Im not sure about your build, I wouldnt use this one personally, but this is a subjective thing. My fav builds for Norseman (not made for record gameplay, but just easy and smooth game) used transfixtion, needles, meteor strikes and lightning. Just try different build. Loadout is a secondary thing, unless you want to break a record. Go for crits, multistrike and attack speed, this should help in any case.

[Ulyaoth]

Hi,

Norseman recieved some nerf (I think it was during beta phase), because he was a insane powerfull killingmachine.
He is still a very strong character, but his Main Weapon starts off very weak.
Since his main buffs are Attack Speed and Crit Chance for Physical, this is something that scales better later in the run.

You can use anything you like, as long as it can keep you alive in the beginning.
As @failsafe said, Transfixion is one good ability to start with.

For an insane Synergy Build, start off with Phantom Needles and pick Ring Blades/Astronomer's Orbs as 2nd and 3d.

Equipment wise you can easy use Berserker Boots, since his Movement Speed is very fast.
Building around Scars of Toil with Hood and Chain Mail to boost his max HP is another good strategy.
For Rings i would recommend Copper Ring and Echoing Band, since his physical attacks will trigger AOEs and you and up with over 100% crit anyway.

He is a bit harder to master, than other chars, but escalates after picking the right Tier IV character traits.

Cheers!!

[warriorofthewind]

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

Hi,

Norseman recieved some nerf (I think it was during beta phase), because he was a insane powerfull killingmachine.
He is still a very strong character, but his Main Weapon starts off very weak.
Since his main buffs are Attack Speed and Crit Chance for Physical, this is something that scales better later in the run.

You can use anything you like, as long as it can keep you alive in the beginning.
As @failsafe said, Transfixion is one good ability to start with.

For an insane Synergy Build, start off with Phantom Needles and pick Ring Blades/Astronomer's Orbs as 2nd and 3d.

Equipment wise you can easy use Berserker Boots, since his Movement Speed is very fast.
Building around Scars of Toil with Hood and Chain Mail to boost his max HP is another good strategy.
For Rings i would recommend Copper Ring and Echoing Band, since his physical attacks will trigger AOEs and you and up with over 100% crit anyway.

He is a bit harder to master, than other chars, but escalates after picking the right Tier IV character traits.

Cheers!!

cool ty for the tips!

[Tarciryan]

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

Hi,

Norseman recieved some nerf (I think it was during beta phase), because he was a insane powerfull killingmachine.
He is still a very strong character, but his Main Weapon starts off very weak.
Since his main buffs are Attack Speed and Crit Chance for Physical, this is something that scales better later in the run.

You can use anything you like, as long as it can keep you alive in the beginning.
As @failsafe said, Transfixion is one good ability to start with.

For an insane Synergy Build, start off with Phantom Needles and pick Ring Blades/Astronomer's Orbs as 2nd and 3d.

Equipment wise you can easy use Berserker Boots, since his Movement Speed is very fast.
Building around Scars of Toil with Hood and Chain Mail to boost his max HP is another good strategy.
For Rings i would recommend Copper Ring and Echoing Band, since his physical attacks will trigger AOEs and you and up with over 100% crit anyway.

He is a bit harder to master, than other chars, but escalates after picking the right Tier IV character traits.

Cheers!!

Just tried this on Ice level, unfortunately it turned out about as awful as the rest of my Norseman runs, he still hits like a wet noodle.

Ended up running away from mobs most of the level and took about 10 minutes to kill the boss. For comparison a random run with summons I can expect to kill boss in 5 seconds or less.

Something very wrong with this character.

[warriorofthewind]

think he needs to be fine tuned some more maybe in a future patch. squishier characters like cleric and sorceress MELT mobs on sight but you got this beefy brawler and he's got LARPing weapons?

[Ulyaoth]

@Tarciryan @warriorofthewind
No i dea if you stumbeld accross this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3038035307
There is Norseman in Depth Build, which I described earlier, but with more details.

I agree his Main Weapon alone is weak compared to other classes, but he probably has the most powerfull Synergy Traits.
He recieved a huge nerf hit during BETA, if I remember correctly, because he wast the most OP character from the getgo.
Maybe there will be more tweaking in the future.

[Tarciryan]

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

@Tarciryan @warriorofthewind
No i dea if you stumbeld accross this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3038035307
There is Norseman in Depth Build, which I described earlier, but with more details.

I agree his Main Weapon alone is weak compared to other classes, but he probably has the most powerfull Synergy Traits.
He recieved a huge nerf hit during BETA, if I remember correctly, because he wast the most OP character from the getgo.
Maybe there will be more tweaking in the future.

Cheers, will have a read through and give it another go.

[peremptor]

He's super strong imo his only real weak point is his range isn't amazing but it's good enough. You just need to get the right items like the HP deficit damage enhancing necklace and get as much multihit/strike as you can with him.

[Tarciryan]

Just did a Norseman run according to the above guide, and it's just as bad as the runs I was trying before... took 6-7 minutes to kill the boss, and only got to agony 3 on Ice level. I don't know what you guys are playing, but it doesn't seem to be the same game as i'm playing. That run I came the closest to dying i've done in dozens of runs.

Compare to other chars and builds that nuke the boss in a couple of seconds... in what sense is this character strong????

[warriorofthewind]

Originally posted by Tarciryan:

Just did a Norseman run according to the above guide, and it's just as bad as the runs I was trying before... took 6-7 minutes to kill the boss, and only got to agony 3 on Ice level. I don't know what you guys are playing, but it doesn't seem to be the same game as i'm playing. That run I came the closest to dying i've done in dozens of runs.

Compare to other chars and builds that nuke the boss in a couple of seconds... in what sense is this character strong????

had similar issues other guides recommended crit and multi etc and even with all that he just feels weak compared to beast huntress. don't get the logic behind such heavy-handed nerfs its a single-player game where you're supposed to atomize hordes of monsters why can't he be strong?

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by warriorofthewind:

he just feels weak compared to beast huntress. don't get the logic behind such heavy-handed nerfs its a single-player game where you're supposed to atomize hordes of monsters why can't he be strong?

This i can understand.
Before nerf he was just OP, after he feels quite weak compared to others. On top Phantom Needles recieved a nerf as well, so one powerful ability, especially for him, got reduced in power.
The nerfs in general came probably to the fact, the game became way to easy to early and i think Devs had another plan in mind.
TBF, balancing this all out might be an impossible task.
Still i would say, he is not bad.

I died once because to greedy and considering this reduces Agony Meter for around ~50%, this run wasnt to bad. The Lord was dead in around 2 minutes.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3049117757
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3049117646

[Tarciryan]

Just tried a random cleric run, I messed it up a bit but still got to agony 4.5 or so, and half the run could have almost been afk. Boss was a joke in less than a minute, even with a bad build.

Felt like a world of difference..

[Tarciryan]

Did another on Sorc, absolutely wrecked ice level, only to around agony 4.5, but was very squishy. Did boss in less than a minute easy. Whole different world than viking man.

[warriorofthewind]

Cleric just DISINTEGRATES mobs.

[Moldredd]

In my opinion, what makes the Norseman weak is the fact he relies on proccing Nova Blast but right now Nova Blast feels weak, resulting on not clearing the screen fast enough and that is the point of good runs.

Sure blowing the screen up once in a while feels and look amazing, but in reality it isn't as efficient as simply burning or electrifying enemies which get the job done in way less time.

Also, the Huntress, I feel she outclasses him in most departments right now.

Another thing that hurts both him and the Huntress is the lack of Frost type abilities at the moment with Frost Avalanche being the only one. But yeah, that's probably changing in the future so I'm not too worried about it.