I think the pain elemental needs a nerf in battlemode

[chester]

I've started playing battlemode more recently, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but something that ruins the fun a little is fighting against a pain elemental as the slayer.

It seems like someone chooses the pain elemental in every match that I join, and a lot of them use the same strategy: pull up the soul shield and attack the slayer, dash behind cover right as the shield is about to run out, pull up the shield again once the slayer is in your line of sight, and repeat the process.

The soul shield is easily spammable because it has a short recharge time, and trying to land any shots on a decent pain elemental can be extremely annoying sometimes, especially when they get the upgrade that makes their dash recharge faster.

I think the dash should be kept the same, but I feel like the soul shield recharge time should be increased by at least two seconds.

Maybe I'm wrong though. If anyone has some legitimate tips for dealing with pain elementals then feel free to let me know

[Vinlander]

I can attest to this. I was dominating in battlemode just now then a pain elemental showed up. The soul shield is completely op and is spammed hard. It should have a much longer cool down or not able to shoot while using it. It's very difficult to kill an elemental spamming a shield in a map with lots of cover and especially pillars they can circle around.

[[RKB]Il Saggio]

Counter it with Chaingun energy shield, it is op as f as well since it blocks all damage while the Slayer can damage the demons. Shield v shield, 1v1. The Slayer can dash too.

[Ashley]

The super shotgun meathook is really good at killing the Pain Elemental because you can get right on them.

[Firaeveus Carron]

Interesting you say this, OP.

In my experience, an overwhelming majority of my Pain Elemental allies get gibbed in mere seconds after our matches have started. They all seem to be spamming their main attack and using their soul shield on cooldown without even firing it at the end, but Slayers just seem to be able to keep reliably hooking into them and then buristing them down with some quick swapping SSG > Ballista combos.

[Salamand3r-]

Originally posted by Firaeveus Carron:

Interesting you say this, OP.

In my experience, an overwhelming majority of my Pain Elemental allies get gibbed in mere seconds after our matches have started. They all seem to be spamming their main attack and using their soul shield on cooldown without even firing it at the end, but Slayers just seem to be able to keep reliably hooking into them and then buristing them down with some quick swapping SSG > Ballista combos.

Aye, a well timed combo can take down a PE during the shield cooldown pretty easily.

[Viewbob]

for real? i think the pain elemental is the second weakest one tbh

[RevolverBigBosselote]

I don't have much trouble with them. Its not too hard to hit them past their shields with rocket detonation and you can reach them and deal a lot of damage with super shotgun

[Exp]

I think slayer needs a nerf with rocket launcher spam and not the pain element

[spearten.com]

I think they are really annoying and should work differently than they currently do. The PE is completely reliant on the shield to do anything. The dashing should be more of the focus with the shield being more akin to the Archvile's in terms of cooldown. That and the attacks you get are limited.

Not super fun to play as or against for me. And when I play against a decent PE it's really just a game of Ring Around the Rosie until its shield recharges. Meanwhile we have all these badass demons jumping around using other cool abilities. And because it is so reliant on the shield the PE sucks without it. But is too annoying with it. Very weird position.

[sBuckler]

Agreed, and whatever you listed appears to be the common strat for PE. In the hands of good PE player, it gets really irritating.

[sBuckler]

Originally posted by Rarity:

Counter it with Chaingun energy shield, it is op as f as well since it blocks all damage while the Slayer can damage the demons. Shield v shield, 1v1. The Slayer can dash too.

Not a bad strat. However, demons can use Noxious hazard to get rid of Slayer's shield real quick. Smart demons use this as bait.

[jesse]

my only suggestion is meat hooks and ballista or the energy shield on the chaingun - I cant really get into battlemode but the times I play against PEs this works

[Ryncage]

I don't play enough good P.E's to have a good countermeasure against them. Playing around teleporters and focusing their ally would seem like a safer bet, but again: not enough experience on my part.

most P.E's are average to bad players who leave themselves completely out of position after shield ends, and can be subsequently burst and killed.

Sometimes when a P.E turns out to be a pretty good player, their teammate turns out to be the weak link, and i only focus PE long enough to lure out the other player and kill them for stack.