Did anyone notice the changes made to the Jester?

[kappahun]

With the Color of madness patch the Jester go a huge buff.

Finale Buildup
Dirk Stab, Harvest, and Slice Off buff Finale DMG by 30% for 8 rounds
Inspiring Tune and Battle Ballad buff Finale DMG by 30% and CRT by 10% for 8 rounds
Solo buffs Finale DMG by 75% and CRT by 10% for 8 rounds

This makes the Jester the Ultimate Boss Slayer. You Battle Ballad 2-3 rounds to buff up your team, then Solo + Finale = boss dead.

Don't know how many noticed this, could not find many mentions in the forum.

[RopeDrink]

The ramp-up isn't new, it's just slightly easier now thanks to practically all of his abilities increasing its potency, so even spamming stress-heals can help provide a whopping finale later.

However, he is still infinitely better as a stress-healer primarily. Finale is a solid tool for one-shotting meaty targets on demand, yet at one-cast-per-battle he is by no means a boss killer, especially when all his other tools pale in comparison vs bosses, moreso when dealing with those impervious to bleeds or as part of compositions that really don't want Joe Soap dancing around and pushing others OOPosition.

I still take it as an anti-shuffle or for having the option to take my buffed finale, buff it more by moving into position (Dirk) and blowing up, say, Endless Horses in one go. It resets each time you get phased to a new area, so you still have to use it sparingly. Bosses come directly after a phase, so you lose all previous stacks - hence need to re-build it for a boss-fight.

Regardless of all that, it is a welcome change.

[Curious Fox]

Though compared to the old Finale which literally started the round killing one enemy from turn 1....meh.

Didn't use then, don't use now. My Jester is a trusted buffer and a bleeder.

[mkz_place]

You can still do that on Darkest. Maybe not on Stygian/Bloodmoon, but you still can remove a backline stress dealer as your first move (only tested in apprentice runs, but that's where you need it the most I'd say)

[RopeDrink]

^ This.

The problem is that doing so means he'll have +Stress and other negative stats for the rest of the battle - which isn't too bad if there's no stress-nukers around (seeing as he can monitor his own stress anyway), but not the best idea in some fights. While I do still use the 'opener' in apprentice/veteran, I leave it as an anti-shuffle and a stacking nuke-tool in higher content or endless.

If you know something is going to go on longer than you would like, and you happen to have taken a few turns with the Jester, then you end up always having a spare nuke in your pocket. This, to me, is infinitely better than having two variations of a smiliar DoT, Dirk and Stress Heal. I've since swapped entirely to Dirk, ST-Bleed, Finale and Stress Heal, ensuring he has movement for both directions to get to where he needs to be and back to doing what I want him to do.

[dont_ask_me_again]

Grave Robber is better overall - you get 3 attempts at stealth lunges - doesn't garentee a crit but there's usually atleast 1... and that does basically the same amount of damage as the jester and she doesn't get a downside. Plus you can blight the enemy with someone before attacking with her to get her bonus and also use a trinket bonus.

[RopeDrink]

Grave Robber is better overall

This is entirely dependant on whether you are banking on burst or stress-heals. If the JES is there, 99.99% chance is he's there to stress-heal and bleed - Finale being a raw burst option that increases no matter what you're doing.

This is not the same as someone who provides burst as standard - because they are there to do that. He rarely ever is.

Furthermore, not all comps want heroes that dance all over the place, which is what a GR will be doing most of the time if you're banking on Lunges (and if so, you're only getting one per two turns unless you have additional shufflers). The Jes is far less likely to fart around unless you wish it to be so (and only x1 per go). Finale is also now castable from Rank 2, not just Rank 1 like before, which makes it a lot easier.

I love GR's, but no, calling her better is entirely dependant on what you want either to achieve.

[TSense]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

The ramp-up isn't new, it's just slightly easier now thanks to practically all of his abilities increasing its potency, so even spamming stress-heals can help provide a whopping finale later.

Old Numbers are:
Inspiring Tune Finale DMG +20% for 7 rds
Battle Ballad Finale DMG +20% for 7 rds
Solo Finale DMG +50% for 7 rds

They all got a extra round
20% became 30%
Solos 50% became 75%
Crit 10% is totally new

Old Finale had base crit chance of 4 at lowest level to 6 at higest, new one has 5 to 9.

This is a rather insane buff i would say.
use Solo, have the other heros move in front of him, use solo again -> Now is 150% and 20% crit were it used to be 100% and nothing.
50% more damage and 20% (!!!!!) crit is a little more than "slightly easier"

[No One]

...and you'll still do more damage simply hitting dirk twice.

[Regrettable Acts in 1 Step]

Originally posted by kappahun:

This makes the Jester the Ultimate Boss Slayer. You Battle Ballad 2-3 rounds to buff up your team, then Solo + Finale = boss dead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK7gBaID2-k

Indeed, nice observational skills friend.

[RopeDrink]

...and you'll still do more damage simply hitting dirk twice.

This (for the most part). As said, I like having it stack up for if I feel like randomly taking a nuke out of my back pocket, or for positioning/deshuffle, but until then, doing other things would often trump wasting rounds on Solo (which you would take for Finale-centric builds where you are focusing on that rather than other tasks) -- at least as far as generic trash-mobs go. There's very few worth finale'ing unless you want to blow up something ASAP or you get those rare/obnoxious/nasty mobs later in Vet/Champ.

I could have setup recovery rounds via bleeds instead of forgoing that (or stress-healing) by using solo instead just to ensure a bigger finale. The fact it gives +100% stress for the remainder of the battle is also a dicentive unless you can be certain there's no risk of additional stress-nukes, or (in the case of bosses which typically cause above-average stress) a one-shot (or damn close to it).

Naturally you can make it work as a BAH-GAWD-BIG-BUTTON, but his standard play is more streamlined / less niche.

[kappahun]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Naturally you can make it work as a BAH-GAWD-BIG-BUTTON, but his standard play is more streamlined / less niche.

I would consider boss fights as "niche". You need the BAH-GAWD-BIG-BUTTON to bring them down. During the build-up phase the jester can still contribute to the killing of any supporting enemies with dirk and/or slice-off, and bring out the big gun when the killing blow is needed.

This works for me just fine, and I find it as of today the best way. Your mileage may vary.

[RopeDrink]

Well that was largely my point. I play for the slog, not so much the final battle. I've approached it from a generic mob viewpoint, you guys from the big-fight perspective -- neither are wrong as they are both part and parcel of the game.

No matter how people decide to use it, we can all happily agree and unite on the fact that the change to Finale was a very positive one regardless.