Extra skills (locked skills) need buffs.

[Watermelon]

I recently unlocked engineer's second R ability, and both of huntress's extra skills. All 3 of them are worse than the original ability by FAR. The only one i found to be even close to viable was Huntress's second R, ballista. But even that needs a buff too. Ballista either needs an AOE aspect, or much higher single target damage. It merely tickles anything above the 4th stage on rainstorm, while my M1 and M2 are shredding from my items/level. People should be rewarded for completing these insane challenges, not punished. They need to be at least AS VIABLE as the original ability. This has really ruined any sense of progression for me in this game. I'm not excited to unlock the other character's extra abilities, cause I know i'm just gonna go back to the original abilities anyways.

[Watermelon]

Also, Huntress's second dash ability only needs one change to be viable. With her original dash ability, you can use it in any direction, adding much more utility to it. Her locked dash ability is a shorter dash split into 3 charges. It would be more versatile since the 3 dashes combined equal out to the distance of her original dash, but it only lets you dash horizontally. Why would I EVER give up verticality for a slightly more situational dash? Simply let her locked dash ability be used in any direction. The trade-off would be that the locked ability is more flexible, but you might not have all 3 charges up to do a long dash, while the original will always be long. There you go. Both abilities now have a reason to be used, and don't overpower each other.

[squat_instructor]

idk which game you're playing but in my version of the game Ballista is miles ahead of Arrow rain and is her best ability out of all, what it actually needs is a lower cooldown. Also consider unlocking the following abilities to cure your unmanageable trauma from ruined sense of progression:

- Loader alt Shift
- Loader alt M2
- Commando alt M2
- Engineer alt M2
- REX alt Shift

Those are straight upgrades, few others are preference like Artificers M2 or Commandos R

[Watermelon]

Originally posted by Sailor_seller:

idk which game you're playing but in my version of the game Ballista is miles ahead of Arrow rain and is her best ability out of all, what it actually needs is a lower cooldown. Also consider unlocking the following abilities to cure your unmanageable trauma from ruined sense of progression:

- Loader alt Shift
- Loader alt M2
- Commando alt M2
- Engineer alt M2
- REX alt Shift

Those are straight upgrades, few others are preference like Artificers M2 or Commandos R

Idk man, my arrow rain is outdamaging the ballista with bandolier, full crit, etc. Maybe I've yet to find the perfect god build for it. And thanks for the tips, i like engineer and rex, i'll go for those next.

[Nada Afterwards]

Ballista is one of those skills that changes playstyle. It removes one AoE attack to gain a single target damage ability. It's like how frenzied leap is meant to make Acrid more aggressive (even tho Acrid has no CQC survivability).

I don't know why you're saying it tickles, I play on monsoon and all three arrows take a solid portion out of boss HP bar. Damage is fine if it's viable on hard, maybe you aren't getting enough crowbars?

No objections on the alt blink, I think it's more downgrade than sidegrade.

[Raptor]

I think the big problem is and I think most would agree that many of the skills take way too much effort to unlock and lead to huge disappointment when they don't really feel strong. I think simple kill counters to unlock skills would be fine. That way they could easily tune skills and more people could have access to them.

[Gottfried]

Originally posted by Bologna Windmill:

I think the big problem is and I think most would agree that many of the skills take way too much effort to unlock and lead to huge disappointment when they don't really feel strong. I think simple kill counters to unlock skills would be fine. That way they could easily tune skills and more people could have access to them.

Nah, kill counters would be super lame. The challenge aspect of RoR2 is great, its super fun unlocking all the stuff. And only a few of the challenges are hard, most of them can be completed on drizzle ez pz.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Originally posted by Bologna Windmill:

I think the big problem is and I think most would agree that many of the skills take way too much effort to unlock and lead to huge disappointment when they don't really feel strong. I think simple kill counters to unlock skills would be fine. That way they could easily tune skills and more people could have access to them.

Nah, kill counters would be super lame. The challenge aspect of RoR2 is great, its super fun unlocking all the stuff. And only a few of the challenges are hard, most of them can be completed on drizzle ez pz.

Most of the challenges are things that are mostly out of your control or require a huge time investment to setup.

Again there really isn't a reason that they couldn't just be tied to a kill counter or ability use counter. Saying that as someone who has done all the challenges. Its a huge barrier to entry for some people to have to waste so much time to unlock simple skills.

[Gottfried]

Originally posted by Bologna Windmill:

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Nah, kill counters would be super lame. The challenge aspect of RoR2 is great, its super fun unlocking all the stuff. And only a few of the challenges are hard, most of them can be completed on drizzle ez pz.

Most of the challenges are things that are mostly out of your control or require a huge time investment to setup.

Again there really isn't a reason that they couldn't just be tied to a kill counter or ability use counter. Saying that as someone who has done all the challenges. Its a huge barrier to entry for some people to have to waste so much time to unlock simple skills.

Which challenges require a huge time investment? You can do most challenges in one hour or less. You can ask me a specific one and I can tell you how I did it.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Originally posted by Bologna Windmill:

Most of the challenges are things that are mostly out of your control or require a huge time investment to setup.

Again there really isn't a reason that they couldn't just be tied to a kill counter or ability use counter. Saying that as someone who has done all the challenges. Its a huge barrier to entry for some people to have to waste so much time to unlock simple skills.

Which challenges require a huge time investment? You can do most challenges in one hour or less. You can ask me a specific one and I can tell you how I did it.

Why would I ask when I have done them all? 20 stages on Commando is a time sink and isnt hard in anyway. 12 crowbars on huntress is completely RNG. Again thats the whole point. Most of these challenges aren't hard in anyway and just wastes of time.

[squat_instructor]

You will waste time if you go for them specifically, you will not waste any time if you just play the game normally and they will be unlocked without you even trying that hard, which is how it's meant to be.

It's like going to the gym for a week and complaining you don't see any gains.

[Ittrix]

Originally posted by Watermelon:

Also, Huntress's second dash ability only needs one change to be viable. With her original dash ability, you can use it in any direction, adding much more utility to it. Her locked dash ability is a shorter dash split into 3 charges. It would be more versatile since the 3 dashes combined equal out to the distance of her original dash, but it only lets you dash horizontally. Why would I EVER give up verticality for a slightly more situational dash? Simply let her locked dash ability be used in any direction. The trade-off would be that the locked ability is more flexible, but you might not have all 3 charges up to do a long dash, while the original will always be long. There you go. Both abilities now have a reason to be used, and don't overpower each other.

You are up against a greater wisp. It shoots explosions at you. You use Huntress' shift and get out of the way. Something preps another shot at you and you use Huntress' shift to get- oh wait you're on cooldown.
Wouldn't happen with the alternate. One short dash would avoid the explosion and you'd have 2 more. There are pros and cons to each.

There's a few alt abilities that aren't very good but a lot of them are very nice or preferential. Commando's M2, Loader's M2, Loader's shift sometimes, Rex's shift, Merc's M2, Engy's M2, Huntress' utility and ulti, Acrid's utility- the list goes on.

[Derpykat5]

Originally posted by Sailor_seller:

You will waste time if you go for them specifically, you will not waste any time if you just play the game normally and they will be unlocked without you even trying that hard, which is how it's meant to be.

It's like going to the gym for a week and complaining you don't see any gains.

I never go to stage 20. Ever. My God runs rarely make it past 12 because I get bored of nuking everything. That is a challenge I would never get it I didn't go for it.

Also, don't like prismatic trials. No point in doing them yet, no way will I have a respectable score, no point. Another challenge I will never get unless I specifically go for it.

Ultimately the problem here is that most of the challenges are things that are both too difficult/rng-based to work towards actively and too out of the way to get passively.

[Ittrix]

Most aren't, though. You've picked the two that do require effort to be put towards them and will take awhile. Most aren't like that, and tbh it's fine to have a few that are. They encourage you to jump out of the comfort zone and try a new thing. The only other one that you might need to explicitly chase is Loader's, but that one'll be short if you succeed so I mean...

[Derpykat5]

Originally posted by Ittrix:

Most aren't, though. You've picked the two that do require effort to be put towards them and will take awhile. Most aren't like that, and tbh it's fine to have a few that are. They encourage you to jump out of the comfort zone and try a new thing. The only other one that you might need to explicitly chase is Loader's, but that one'll be short if you succeed so I mean...

Pushing a dunestrider into a pit is another challenging one. Many of the others are mostly chance based.

[Ittrix]

Honestly I did that one in one go when the circumstances lined up. There was a dunestrider so I lured him to a pit and shoved him in. Not really hard, just need to line up the aqueduct and a dunestrider spawn.

Some of them are RNG, and some are RNG beneficial, but they do require some input usually. You can also usually help them along a crap ton if you know your stuff.