Pirates

[Cybrid 0x0t2md2W]

can we please talka bout how pirates do double the damage of other enemies? it'd be fine if their damage was a LITTLE higher with the double hits. but both hits being the same high damage as other swtrong enemies? compared with regular pirates not counting bosses? my characters are around 27 and even cakewalk pirates are extremely dangerous on hardcore. their double hits need to somehow be more reasonable. never mind that their single hits which may do 300, some like maniacs can do 400-500 with a normal. this wouldn't be a problem if the only excuse was to "build tanky" around skills, buffs, debuffs and armor. the only enemy that comes close are the astral worms and their giga variety and even those hit for 250 for a normal worm and up to 500 for the giga size.

if we're gonna have enemies this strong we need skills to reflect usability to buff, debuff and allow taking on enemies like this easier. I'm not saying nerf their damage, though I think pirates and double hits doing the same high damage is abnormal and kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ since it adds up to more than 300(pirates do about 500-600) damage(most enemies do around that where I am). because this right here makes me feel like dodge and blind are a requirement just to survive if not more debuffs. like other buffs outside of dodge aren't important.

[Anelyn]

Are you running a full dps team with no taunts / CC? If that's the case then yeah you could get in trouble.

I don't have any problems with the pirates even on hard missions with my groups, as I can either taunt them and kill them before they can do any real damage to my tank, or I can CC them and kill / debuff them enough to not risk getting hit by several pirates.

Dodge isn't as important as skills that reduce incoming damage, regenerate hp, and debuff enemy damage. There are even enemies that debuff your dodge so unless you run a stealth ninja team that buffs your dodge really high, is not reliable.

So when you make a party, try to have at least 2 characters in it that have some active & passive skills to help with what I said earlier (all classes have something in one of their trees if not even a full tree dedicated to that). You can't simply tank the damage of multiple enemies outside of specific skills (usually last skill in a tree in case of soldier for example) no matter how epic your armor & shield are. You have to use CC or taunts, or both.

[Lycidas]

Smugglers Flash Bang (Blind/Daze/Confuse/Stun), Bag of Wonders (Stun even on Boss Mobs) or Hackers Hyper Thread (Dodge) help a lot vs them. Smugglers Kalmonri to taunt them (I like it via Trap Card passivly or use a Soldier). Hackers Multi Core to regenerate and Void Psyker to send them to hell...don't forget to load them with void energy for the next fight on the last Victim standing ^^

I did not try Engineers and Force Psykers yet but the Sentinel tree looks pretty cool for defensive play.

[Cybrid 0x0t2md2W]

oh I have taunts, see my other thread about teams we could present to each other and thunder how we are playing. but the soldier's taunts can't degrade that amount of damage enough with explosive crits, taunts and more enough(juggernaught taunt charges not saved after each fight). this is about the scaled damage from pirates(and I guess giga astral worms sorta..) that hit twice for about 250-300 damage non-critical. while security drones deal 70-150, maybe 250 if a boss. so I'd like it looked into if this is abnormal or actually correct. and yes I'm watching the mission difficulty, but pirates are exceptionally more powerful than everything else.

[Anelyn]

Engineers rock, and will be even better once some skills that are bugged will be fixed (got confirmation from dev that next patch will adress those, among other things), Force Psykers are very good for support or tank duty, and perform decent as DPS as well.

[Cybrid 0x0t2md2W]

also to relay it here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/318970/discussions/2/1318835718940346443/
is my setup. it's not meant to tank as much since prototype seems garbage at that and soldier isn't as durable as one would hope and don't tell em juggernaught. that skill doesn't save charges and I need far more damage reduction or debuffs/buffs to stand that kind of damage pirates throw at me.

[Anelyn]

Ummm... allow me to correct you on soldier, he's a beast of a tank built properly and in a team that supports him (like extra regen, or shields, or some CC etc).

Obviously you can't tank forever like putting a shield and saying You shall not pass! while rest of the group throws ducks at enemies :) You need either some good AoE or high single target DPS so that you can take out targets between soldier CDs.

For example, my current party (lvl 30), is Hacker - starting character - with maxed malware tree, and then the passive from right tree (to give lowest hp target regen) and some root skills, then engineer with left tree - constructs, auto bolty, and the passive from middle tree that also gives regen, soldier with left tree as main tree, then picking passive from shooting tree and the overwatch, and lastly the smuggler with traps and shoot first from middle tree.

So depending how the fight starts regarding positions on the Time Line, I can either aoe taunt with soldier first, to load up on vengeance stacks, then CC with smuggler and soldier goes on overwatch shooting at every enemy (Crits heal for % hp) to get back up, then taunt again and vengeance should be at 6+ stacks minimum, meanwhile everyone is dotted, debuffed, and can unleash dps with engineer and hacker.

[Nakaruru]

I think the main point is that pirates seem to be much more of a threat than any of the other enemies you might run into not that pirates can't be beat. I know pirates were the only ones that out damaged my defensive cc/heal team consistently, to the point that I was having to use several med kits per mission ( I normally used zero per mission otherwise ). I'm not sure if that means that pirates are to tough or that other enemies are to weak, or maybe its intended that pirates are harder, but there does seem to be a clear difference in power.

[Cybrid 0x0t2md2W]

yes that's why I brought it up, to clarify if they are abnormnally strong or if that's a new base line for skills to try and buffer against. I'm not atgainst higher difficulty, but I'd really like the skills to do more rather than force selective characters just to deal with them. my group isn't made to be some kind of meta synergy but it is designed to have some statuses, debuffs/buffs and tank ability. because pirates hurt way too much compared to other enemies currently as skills stand with random character selection for a group of 4.

[Anelyn]

Oh I agree that they are more tricky because they can buff with rage which greatly increases their damage output due to the shoot & melee attack.

Also there is something - not sure if it's related to a specific mob or my engineer passive is bugged, but several times I had a debuff on whole team called Empowered Engineer something II or something like that which was increasing damage taken by 100% which was SCARY.

Personally I am more afraid of the mutation bots, I find the most dangerous (hence why am trying to make groups w/o void psyker tehehe, if she has full void energy and starts attacking your party it will be a wipe) :)

Am sure they will do a balance pass before final release on all enemies, maybe tweak the frequency of double attacks or reduce their damage to some extent?

[Lycidas]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't for example Voidstorm corrupt...thus Rage should be converted? I don't know by know as I had no Pirates for ~7runs now, but it works at least on most other buffs.

[Cybrid 0x0t2md2W]

it takes a turn to corrupt buffs(from wehat I've seen). the problem is they do this damage BEFORE the buffs. even more afterward.

[Anelyn]

Actually the corruption happens on the enemy affected by it turn, not on yours. That means the same in gameplay, as they will lose the buff when their turn comes. Keep in mind that stunned targets skip their turn, so the purge / debuff might not happen.

[TormDK]

Originally posted by Anelyn:

Are you running a full dps team with no taunts / CC? If that's the case then yeah you could get in trouble.

I don't have any problems with the pirates even on hard missions with my groups, as I can either taunt them and kill them before they can do any real damage to my tank, or I can CC them and kill / debuff them enough to not risk getting hit by several pirates.

Dodge isn't as important as skills that reduce incoming damage, regenerate hp, and debuff enemy damage. There are even enemies that debuff your dodge so unless you run a stealth ninja team that buffs your dodge really high, is not reliable.

So when you make a party, try to have at least 2 characters in it that have some active & passive skills to help with what I said earlier (all classes have something in one of their trees if not even a full tree dedicated to that). You can't simply tank the damage of multiple enemies outside of specific skills (usually last skill in a tree in case of soldier for example) no matter how epic your armor & shield are. You have to use CC or taunts, or both.

The problem with pirates specifically is as mentioned though - if they come in groups larger than 3, then your heavy tank is either going to take a serious beating to the point where death could occur - or you have to not use taunt at all initially in order to spread damage out, and in which case - whats the point of the tank role?

[Anelyn]

Dunno, personally am not having big problems with dem pirates (playing on challenge diff), am more scared of mercs and paladin teams since they have skills that can really wreck you up in 1 turn. But let's wait and see the next balance pass on enemy damage / skills / crit chance etc.

[Cybrid 0x0t2md2W]

paladins and others arew bosses, so they are rather different in how they show. pirates how ever are a constant you can find depending on mission. I've played on ahrdcopre almost exclusively and missions ranging fromc ake walk to extreme, even cakewalk pirates hit hard. their first turns can knock down someone form 900hp to 450 by one pirate.