Balance Request - Katars & Lucien

[Raidhyn]

Since Lucien was implemented, we've finally been able to see some high level Katar play in a 1v1 setting. Kreutzberg is one of the best Lucien players right now, and recently we've also been able to see other players, such as my good friend Binks, use Lucien's blades with great success. Lucien's attack speed is significantly higher than previous blade wielding characters, so this balance issue didn't previously exsist before 1.4 when our masked friend was introduced.

I currently believe that Blades on Lucien are broken.

Currently the best way to deal with the blades is to just stay away. The only weapon that deals with them well is the lance. Every other weapon right now completely loses to the blades as soon as you're in range. The best and only way to deal with blades is to throw weapons and stay away.

Blade Neutral Air - Out prioritizes every move and completely covers the hurtbox of the character.

Blade Tilt Air - Comes out so quickly you can punish dodges with it so long as you keep spamming attack.

Blade Recovery - Beats everything clean.

Blade Down Air - Beats everything clean except for hammer grab. It's essentially the unarmed dive kick with three extra points of damage.

Blade Heavies - I know these are going to be moved out of the game, but right now they come out faster than every other heavy in the game and do a ridiculous amount of force. The range is short, but again, the only way to deal with this is just to NEVER GET IN RANGE>

Blade Neutral - Pops people in the air allowing for an immediate guranteed hit confirm with either Air Recovery at low health or tilt air or air-neutral into tilt-air.

Blade Down Heavy - Beats dive kicks and any other air approach.

--- Combo Potential --

The blades are currently the only remaining weapon with good combos. Sword got nerfed to the ground and spear damage is pretty balanced. Currently you can get 80+ points of damage with good blade usage that is impossible to escape if your opponent knows what he is doing and you DONT HAVE A WEAPON TO THROW.

Currently throwing is the only thing that consistently deals with blades which is why I believe they need to be nerfed, or every other weapon needs to be brought up to the level of combo goodness that the blades have.

You guys know me. I don't normally call for nerfs. This is after three weeks of playing on the new patch. I've been learning Lucien recently just so I can understand this better and some of the things I've been able to do with him just feel broken.

Relevant Videos: 4-0 against MiSfit. Me on Lucien, him on Hattori. http://youtu.be/9LbzM3UXsQ8?t=14m50s

1-0 Against Binks. Him on Lucien me on Gnash - http://youtu.be/cdAYIqAkAIM?t=30m51s

ComptonEMT getting destroyed by bladed Neutral Airs in two matches against Binks on Lucien - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO-ZaTmAsmE


I believe the only way right now to play against the blades is by throwing items. You can't dodge through them, you can't run away from Lucien fast enough to make space, you can't react to him attack immediately out of dodges, and you can't out prioritize his moves. You have to stay out of distance entirely in order to beat the blades, or just get punished for getting close. Even when the sword was OP as everyone likes to say, you could still dodge through most of it's moves, or just out prioritize the moves with good counter selection of moves and prediction. With the blades, you just have to stay away or get hit making it extremely frustrating to play against and NOT FUN.

Please either nerf the blades so that the recovery time goes up, or start up frames go up, or bring all the other weapons back up to a point so that we can get our own hitconfirms into guranteed damage back.

Because right now, Blades are broken.

[Binks]

Sorry for all the Katar players out there, but I'm pretty sure I got them nerfed.

[Binks]

I think throwing your weapons is the worst thing you can do if the player dodges and you lose your weapon you are at even more of a dissadvantage. Unarmed vs Katars is terrible. Unarmed vs any weapon is bad but vs the katars theres not much you can do.

[Raidhyn]

Vs Katars any short range weapon is terrible, but unarmed is at a distinct disadvantage against the katars compared to other weapons.

Unarmed is actually better against certain weapons such as the hammer and guns.

If you watch me play, most of my wins are from better use of unarmed than average.

[Binks]

I can see it being good against hammers if you play like I do and just try to get inside people, but the guns have a lot of short ranged attacks and I've never had a problem dealing with unarmed having the guns.

Also I watched the match with you for the first time just now and something you said really stands out to me. "I was trying to do this earlier and couldn't. I'm actually more interested in how Binks does it." "Because I can't get that kind of movement from Lucien".

You're very right as far as I can see nobody moves like I do with Lucien or plays him like I do. So thanks for that :D!

Also Darkwing Duck is top tier.

[Kreutz]

Okay, let's see... I agree that the katars should be tweaked in someway, but we have to keep in mind that nerfing this weapon it will hurt another characters. If we get a nerf only based on Lucien, the weapon can be almost useless in the other katars users. So, I think we need another type of balance. It might be over all weapons, I guess.

But at the same time, we should have to pay attention at the spear. Specially at it's tilt attack. It has HIGH priority, LONG range and it's REALLY fast. I mean, look at those fights of me VS Raidhyn (Lucien VS Hattori), I just can't fight by the sides. It's impossible. Unless I manage to get closer (what I think it's really frustating to keep trying sometimes), I'll be punished over and over again. And katars is not the only weapon that suffers against that. Hattori can spam that tilt attack like there's no interruption at all. You are obligated to attack by other way: throwing or going from above or below.

Let the balance begins!

[Binks]

Right if you continue to go in this direction I really feel guns and spear need a nerf along side the Katars. Probably Hammer as well.

[Kreutz]

Binks původně napsal:

Right if you continue to go in this direction I really feel guns and spear need a nerf along side the Katars. Probably Hammer as well.

I'm not sure what could be nerfed in the guns except it's damage output. And the hammers? I think it's pretty balanced now, specially for 1v1. Because the high knockback attacks have a long recovery time already. And we know what that means.

[Binks]

We're going the nerf route. I would of much rather gone the buff route but we chose nerf. Sorry Jacob :(

[Raidhyn]

I think all of you guys bring up some really good points so far. I personally don't think the Hammer needs any nerfs, it feels incredibly solid right now and I never feel like I have too much of an advantage or a disadvantage when I play against hammer mains.

I don't think that nerfing blades is the only route either. I think that if you created opportunities in the other weapons to reliably perform combos the way the blades can now, I would love to see that because I think it would make the other weapons more fun.

This post is more for the devs benefit so they can see evidence of the issue and decide what to do about it. They're the game designers, and so far they have made pretty smart choices when it comes to how to go about balancing and improving Brawlhalla. That being said, I know they value community opinions so I'm glad we're all sharing our thoughts =)

[SolarFlar3]

I started a week ago, and i chose to main katars first day because I liked them so much. All of my favorite legends have them so I definately can't disagree with you. That being said, if you didnt notice a problem before Lucian wouldn't the correct solution be to give Lucian a different weapon?

[Raidhyn]

SolarFlar3 původně napsal:

I started a week ago, and i chose to main katars first day because I liked them so much. All of my favorite legends have them so I definately can't disagree with you. That being said, if you didnt notice a problem before Lucian wouldn't the correct solution be to give Lucian a different weapon?

I don't think that's it because having tested it on the slower characters, most of the hit confirm combos exist. The different with Lucien is that his speed lets him stick to characters easier making him much harder to deal with.

Also, no one at the higher levels of 1v1 play really played blades before. So honestly I don't think people were using the blades very effectively until Lucien came out and top players started using him.

[Binks]

And than good ol rush down binks saw a magical moments with kruetz and decided you can rush people down in brawlhalla :D

[Nysos]

I think that for the recovery move, and the down air it is just a matter of the angle that the moves come at, it is a lot harder to deal with the diagonal angle that the moves come at then it is to deal with a strictly vertical or horizontal move, but I don't think that it is an issue in itself.

I also think that it is possible to zone out blades with atleast spears and hammers (these are the two weapons that I have the most time in that I think can out space them) Lucian is obviously harder then the other blade weilders to keep out because of his speed.

Last thing I'd want to say is that I -really- hope that the devs opt to add more hit-confirms and combos for other weapons as opposed to just nerfing every weapons that ends up with combos. I think that having combos makes the game more fun, because having to get a hard read to get a kill or rack up damage gets frustrating when everyone learns all of the options.

[Bondrewd]

Combating Katars requires good spacing if done so the Katars get wrecked. From my knowledge with them while battling Koopa (Hattori main) he can usually keep me at bay quite easily I just need to wait for openings when he flubs up to get combos, but if he is on point with spacing me back I dont really have much of a chance. With the actual barebones of Katars and Lucien his attack speed is quite high but the range and damage are actually quite low requiring the player to think about there actions and focus on making good entry points (Unique Katar Strategy) therefore I think it isnt an over powered weapon. If your getting hit by those crazy combos you arent dodging correctly therfore deserving to get hit.

[sinatra💸]

I think the katars are fine like come on they already have really short range, your spacing and dodging has to be on point to counter them though if not prepare to get wrecked :)