lucifer

[Name Lips]

I want him to be worthwhile, mainly because he looks cool and I like flamethrowers, but I can't find a good role for him.

Close range aoe, can't fire over walls, immune to fire, causes friendly fire damage, and the same oil cost/upkeep as Thanatos (thanatos does cost iron too, but I've never had the problem of "lots of oil but no iron" ).

They seem useless for defense, which means they must be for offense. But they can't synergize well with other units because of the friendly fire risk, so they need to be massed with each other. They seem vulnerable to all special zombies.

In theory they could guard a choke point against a horde of regular zombies, if walls aren't up in that area.

I'm surprised at the friendly fire thing, since the other aoe units don't suffer from it. If it wasn't for friendly fire, I'd feel OK mixing them in with soldiers just for the aoe damage.

maybe they're intended to be a tank for longer range units like snipers?

But as far as I can tell, an equal number of Thanatos would always be a better bet.

[sweeper]

true they dont many use, but you can put them behind gates as they will fire behind them (I think). thanatos are best. lucifer is for fun. titans are to expensive.

[morbin time]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από sweeper:

true they dont many use, but you can put them behind gates as they will fire behind them (I think). thanatos are best. lucifer is for fun. titans are to expensive.

They can't fire through walls

[Celebrim]

The Lucifer is one of the few really unbalanced units in the game - it sucks. It's so bad, you could more than double its effectiveness, and it would still be overshadowed.

My list for rebalancing it.

Increase width of cone by +1.
Increase range of cone by +1.
Increase attack damage to 30.
Increase movement speed to 2.4.
Give the special ability: Takes half damage from acid attacks (such as the venom's spit) before applying armor.
Give the special ability: Does double damage to infected buildings (such as 'Tavern of Doom', etc.)

Even then it would be situational.

[sweeper]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Don Ramon:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από sweeper:

true they dont many use, but you can put them behind gates as they will fire behind them (I think). thanatos are best. lucifer is for fun. titans are to expensive.

They can't fire through walls

not the wall, but gate them self

[Morphic]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Celebrim:

The Lucifer is one of the few really unbalanced units in the game - it sucks. It's so bad, you could more than double its effectiveness, and it would still be overshadowed.

My list for rebalancing it.

Increase width of cone by +1.
Increase range of cone by +1.
Increase attack damage to 30.
Increase movement speed to 2.4.

I agree with those. I've felt the same way for quite a while thinking about how to Buff Lucifer.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Celebrim:

Give the special ability: Takes half damage from acid attacks (such as the venom's spit) before applying armor.
Give the special ability: Does double damage to infected buildings (such as 'Tavern of Doom', etc.)

Even then it would be situational.

I don't agree with the DMG reduction from Venom. I don't think that's really needed, especially for a unit that is, effectively, a Melee unit. IMO, this is where you want unit composition to make up for that.

That said, the double damage to infected buildings I totes agree on. I think that's a great idea since it would make Lucifers the "hard counter" to Villages of Death etc. IMO it would make you require less units to Clear a VoD, thus allowing faster and slightly more varied play.

[Celebrim]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Setzway:

I don't agree with the DMG reduction from Venom. I don't think that's really needed, especially for a unit that is, effectively, a Melee unit. IMO, this is where you want unit composition to make up for that.

Two things.

First, to be effective melee units are going to need special abilities like I just described or they will never cut it. Right now the game is all about damage avoidance. Melee units will never work without some sort of damage mitigation.

Secondly, among the Lucifer's many problems is that it is terrible against all 3 current special infected. Giving it a little break against the spitter would at least make it somewhat viable, albeit still not as good against the spitter as snipers.

[Arreghas]

You could also change the Lucifer's attack to something more like a real flamethrower, which is a stream of liquid fire that splashes onto the target and burns it.

Basically if it could attack once per second with a ranged flame stream that does massive and lingering AoE, it could then be used in towers and reduce the chance of it doing firendly fire.

All in all :

1) Give it a range of 4 or 5
2) Allow it to be in towers
3) The flame streams does contact damage and leaves an AoE fire damage on the ground that all infected that walk into take DoT damage
4) All infected hit by the original flame stream take DoT damage, and can transfer fire for a short amount of time to all nearby infected

[Rammstein]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Setzway:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Celebrim:

The Lucifer is one of the few really unbalanced units in the game - it sucks. It's so bad, you could more than double its effectiveness, and it would still be overshadowed.

My list for rebalancing it.

Increase width of cone by +1.
Increase range of cone by +1.
Increase attack damage to 30.
Increase movement speed to 2.4.

I agree with those. I've felt the same way for quite a while thinking about how to Buff Lucifer.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Celebrim:

Give the special ability: Takes half damage from acid attacks (such as the venom's spit) before applying armor.
Give the special ability: Does double damage to infected buildings (such as 'Tavern of Doom', etc.)

Even then it would be situational.

I don't agree with the DMG reduction from Venom. I don't think that's really needed, especially for a unit that is, effectively, a Melee unit. IMO, this is where you want unit composition to make up for that.

That said, the double damage to infected buildings I totes agree on. I think that's a great idea since it would make Lucifers the "hard counter" to Villages of Death etc. IMO it would make you require less units to Clear a VoD, thus allowing faster and slightly more varied play.

Doesnt make much sense to me tbh. Im clearing VoDs with 10-15 snipers. I have these snipers way before i have lucis. So even IF luci does double damage to VoDs i usually have cleared most VoDs before i can build him (without hurting my economy too much)... And then, after VoDs hes just useless again, even tho i didnt even need him, since 10-15 snipers do the job already...
Sry, but these buffs wouldnt make me trains Lucis.

[Morphic]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Celebrim:

Two things.

First, to be effective melee units are going to need special abilities like I just described or they will never cut it. Right now the game is all about damage avoidance. Melee units will never work without some sort of damage mitigation.

Secondly, among the Lucifer's many problems is that it is terrible against all 3 current special infected. Giving it a little break against the spitter would at least make it somewhat viable, albeit still not as good against the spitter as snipers.

I don't disagree, perhaps I should have reworded myself.

What I meant was: I think unit composition is supposed to fix this. Melee can't close by themselves, so you bring ranged units to cover them etc.

I mean it'd be like making Firebats in StarCraft get 50% dmg reduction from ranged because they are Melee units.

As for giving them a break against specials; I suggested Lucifers do a lasting DoT effect on anything they hit. I.e. they get a burst off and now all those Infected will burn for ~20 dmg per sec until they die. IMO, this would make Lucifers effectively soft counters to Chubs/masses ... and even if the Lucifer dies he is still effectively dealing damage. Plus I think it'd be really cool to see a wave of infected buring, overcome that defense line then die on their way to your next line from DoT lol.

But the game is Early Access so I don't really care what kinds of changes are implemented as long as it's intended to improve stuff. In this case, I don't care if the Devs make Lucifers shoot Fireballs that do 100 damage ... as long as they recognize that Lucifer needs a serious buff lol.

[Xinn0bun]

Spitters are the main reason why any lucifer strats are failures.

[Name Lips]

Maybe if he was entirely immune to melee damage?

[ToxicCalamari]

Spitters seem to be the biggest issue in game balance atm and why everything but sniper and thana are seen as pointless.

While I agree that Lucifer needs a rework and that DoT may give him a very interesting use, I say we attract our attention on how to make spitter not be so heavy in defining the Meta as it currently is.

Other then straight nerf though I dunno how. As I am against straight nerfing anything, but a single special should not be So heavily defining I'm a games meta. I'm not good at thinking up percentages and ideas like that.

While I don't feel Lucifer could intrude on snipers field as a special killer, perhaps make him more of a tank. Beef up his HP. And give him damage reductions to a great many things. Perhaps make it so his weapon attracts attention to,him and off other units.

[Morphic]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Granberia:

Spitters seem to be the biggest issue in game balance atm and why everything but sniper and thana are seen as pointless.

While I agree that Lucifer needs a rework and that DoT may give him a very interesting use, I say we attract our attention on how to make spitter not be so heavy in defining the Meta as it currently is.

I think part of the problem is that Infected Venom is the only ranged infected. On top of this it does a lot of damage and has a, IMO, massive AoE which sets it over the top.

IMO a nerf to the Venom's AoE or Fire Rate should curb them into tolerable levels. A single Venom isn't that much an issue unless you aren't paying attention to your blob of units. However when there's 2+ Venoms things get ridiculous due to their DPS and AoE being able to wipe everything in 1-4 shots.(collectively, not individually)

Perhaps if there were more Ranged Infected or other units beside Sniper could outrange them, Venoms wouldn't seem so OP

[ToxicCalamari]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Setzway:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Granberia:

Spitters seem to be the biggest issue in game balance atm and why everything but sniper and thana are seen as pointless.

While I agree that Lucifer needs a rework and that DoT may give him a very interesting use, I say we attract our attention on how to make spitter not be so heavy in defining the Meta as it currently is.

I think part of the problem is that Infected Venom is the only ranged infected. On top of this it does a lot of damage and has a, IMO, massive AoE which sets it over the top.

IMO a nerf to the Venom's AoE or Fire Rate should curb them into tolerable levels. A single Venom isn't that much an issue unless you aren't paying attention to your blob of units. However when there's 2+ Venoms things get ridiculous due to their DPS and AoE being able to wipe everything in 1-4 shots.(collectively, not individually)

Perhaps if there were more Ranged Infected or other units beside Sniper could outrange them, Venoms wouldn't seem so OP

a reduction in venoms range forcing him to get in range of other units like soldier or titan could make sniper less of a god tier unit that He is.

But I dunno If that would solve the issue. It would open up viability of other units in last wave though as spitters would have to get closer to,the shock towers then, but I dunno,


Feels like that special might need a bit more attention

[Morphic]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Granberia:

a reduction in venoms range forcing him to get in range of other units like soldier or titan could make sniper less of a god tier unit that He is.

But I dunno If that would solve the issue. It would open up viability of other units in last wave though as spitters would have to get closer to,the shock towers then, but I dunno,

Feels like that special might need a bit more attention

Yeah, I dunno either.

Though I agree that Venoms need to be looked at or something. They definately seem to be the root cause of the current "Meta" right now.