Heartseed redux

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Comments

  • Shecks said:
    Serpent is garbage at bashing, at all levels.  I don't think that @Daeir realizes that for something to be "above average", there have to be a few things below it.  There's always Shaman I guess.  Maybe "better than Shaman" would be a better summarization.
    Lol, pretty sure Shaman is still one of the top bashing classes in the game. Monk level DPS at 2.5x faster balance. Its not better than monk due to monk's damage recovery and 3x crit chance, but its pretty damn close.
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  • How the fuck did this go from heartseed to serpent/shaman bashing comparison. 

  • edited February 2014
    @Jacen bashing with swiftcurse doesn't count, as your average dps drops off a lot while you're meditating / begging for grove rains every 30 minutes.  The only reason shaman isn't -completely- hopeless at bashing is that you have runes at your disposal.  I do believe they have been tweaked a little since I was shaman though (~4 years ago), so I can't be too certain.
  • edited February 2014
    Camus does less damage than garrote, even with silver fangs (if silver fangs even affect NPCs, not sure).  The only reason its "better" is that it doesn't miss, so can be useful against super high level guys, like DKs/Delos/Yudhi.

    Garrote also does a ridiculously small amount of damage, especially with speed whips (including lashes).  WoT was decent, for the price (350cr?), which if anything should be the level 1 last, not the level 3.  That or make dex / str impact garrote damage.  Having all these stats that do precisely nothing is pretty lame, compared strength/int classes that get 3+ layers of arties (stat, weapon, and accuracy/magic damage boost)  Even shaman bleed gets buffed by high Int, and they just got a new artie (arguably a huge boon to bashing speed).

    Classlead note to self:  Give garrote a dex/str input.  Preferably dex, since it both makes sense for the action of garroting, and no serpent is ever going to spec for strength.
  • Just to comment on something I noticed on the previous page, nothing was changed in regard to how weapon speed modified the whip-based abilities. If they were modified previously they still are, and if they weren't they still aren't. Flay is on that latter list, its always been a fixed speed outside of racial balance bonuses until the potential additions from dex.
  • Daeir said:
    Jacen said:
    Daeir said:
    That is because Serpent bashing is arguably amongst the worst in the entire game in terms of raw speed, made bearable by higher-than-average tank via scales.

    Serpents are for bashing people with Lupine arrows, not for dedicated hunting.

    This isn't even related to the topic anymore.
    How many times must @Sena disprove you before you will actually believe her?
    Sorry, but 250+ hours of playing as a Serpent across 3 characters compared to other classes leveled in a similar timeframe informs my intuition to a point where I am inclined to say that Sena's stats are incorrect.

    Garrote is terrible, simply put. I've heard it deals asphyxiation damage, which might be why it does such poor damage to denizens that aren't falcons or baalzadeens (assuming that they have different resists somehow, giant extrapolation). Biting camus is okay, but drains endurance very quickly.
    What other classes are you comparing to, though? At least two are monk and blademaster, which are two of the best bashing classes out there; no one's going to argue that serpent is comparable to either of those. Afaik, denizens don't have resistances.
  • Flay used to be based on whip speed.  The change away from that came a few years back (not sure when, I was not playing at the time), not with the change to Dex.

    I'm not sure why this was done, but it seems to be part of an elaborate scheme to rid serpent of any variation based on character or weapon stats.  The Dex change is pretty cool, but ended up not affecting bashing at all, which I think was a little unfortunate for serpents.  Something should affect flay/yank speed, be it Dex or weapon speed, especially since we lost rajamala, and with it the ability to get 3 bites in per flay (massive nerf to bites).
  • You may have had bite nerfed, but how much has serpent actually been buffed since then? So yeah, you're trading flay speed for other massive buffs. 

  • BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THIS this is a thread about heartseed, not serpent bashing/combat abilities. 

  • edited February 2014
    Overall, serpent has been nothing but nerfed*, up until the darkshade/lightwall change.

    Please don't refer to execute and/or nechamandra as upgrades.  They are 100% pointless.


    *say what you will, but dozens of "bug fixes" nerfed serpents.  Not to mention Vadimuses' nerf called SVO.
  • BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THIS this is a thread about heartseed, not serpent bashing/combat abilities. 
    Oh, I figured that was dead, and the guy in charge of closing threads passed out at the keyboard (probably watching replays of curling in the olympics).
  • I imagine that heartseed looks a bit like someone throwing a curling stone. 

  • edited February 2014
    @Cooper a well deserved WTF, thanks. I'm curious, what was changed for serpent before lightwall that could possibly be considered an upgrade? The reduction of flay speed, dramatic reduction of Camus damage, loss of rajamala speed?

    And let's be realistic about lightwall. It rarely matters, and when a serpent does manage to find someone outdoors, during daytime, and casts a light wall, all you have to do is move, or go indoors to complete ignore this "upgrade".

    Or we're you going to explain how execute is somehow better than behead (not even close to true)? I personally hated this round of changes, because it led mom-serpents to believe we got upgrades, because we got new abilities, when in reality they were purely cosmetic.
  • Daeir said:
    Garrote is terrible, simply put. I've heard it deals asphyxiation damage, which might be why it does such poor damage to denizens that aren't falcons or baalzadeens (assuming that they have different resists somehow, giant extrapolation). Biting camus is okay, but drains endurance very quickly.
    Damage type doesn't matter against denizens, and they don't have any resistances (in general at least, it's possible that some might). That's pretty easy to confirm, by simply using attacks with different damage and comparing them, or comparing to punch/kick/headslam (which scale to the denizen's max health).

    I'm also not sure what you mean by "camus is okay". If camus is okay and garrote is terrible, are you saying that camus is better than garrote? Unless garrote is missing too much or you don't have a good whip, garrote is a lot better than camus. Camus is the equivalent of garroting with a 33 damage, 200 speed whip (with perfect accuracy and high endurance drain).
  • I used to kill DKs with Camus faster than with a good forged whip. Somehow I have to wonder if that's not entirely accurate. Then again, DKs dodge a -lot-, even with the level 3 lash.
  • Shecks said:
    I used to kill DKs with Camus faster than with a good forged whip. Somehow I have to wonder if that's not entirely accurate. Then again, DKs dodge a -lot-, even with the level 3 lash.
    Yeah, dodging is what kills garrote at high levels. Before that though, when it isn't missing, it's good (if you have a good whip).
  • Shecks said:
    @Cooper a well deserved WTF, thanks. I'm curious, what was changed for serpent before lightwall that could possibly be considered an upgrade? The reduction of flay speed, dramatic reduction of Camus damage, loss of rajamala speed? And let's be realistic about lightwall. It rarely matters, and when a serpent does manage to find someone outdoors, during daytime, and casts a light wall, all you have to do is move, or go indoors to complete ignore this "upgrade". Or we're you going to explain how execute is somehow better than behead (not even close to true)? I personally hated this round of changes, because it led mom-serpents to believe we got upgrades, because we got new abilities, when in reality they were purely cosmetic.
    I'll bite here... I presume he WTF'd because serpents got a handful of buffs recently, like increased(decreased?) cap for dstab speed, even if it's 0.1s to a Thoth's, it's something you can get. If you want to bemoan having to dex spec for that, then you can just not change anything, and you're no worse off. The inline envenoming on dstab too is a majestic buff too, retardation is now your dream (providing that still works), or you're much less likely to over envenom needing your dirk to get wiped. 

    All in all, serpents have been quite buffed even since I was 18, what happened before that idk/idc, but right now, we're sitting quite pretty.


    Also, as an edit, to say svo is a nerf is ridiculous, if you know everyone is using X manner of curing, work your ass off to figure out how to break it, then just PLAUGH at them. 
    Achieved dragon on the 13th of Aeguary, 634 - aged 21 and 1 month and 21 days.

    Elder dragon on the 6th of Chronos 635 - aged 22 and 8 months and 14 days.
  • edited February 2014

    I wholeheartedly agree with you about everyone using photocopies of SVO, but it's the top-end guys who know how to priority swap using SVO that are the tough ones to crack, not the people who just install and forget.  Before SVO, I knew literally 3-5 people who did this, now that number is closer to 25-30.  SVO is also a lot better with checks than systems in the past, making anti-illusion considerably more powerful than I'm used to, especially if set up correctly (Vadi was kind enough to leave that a little open-ended).
  • Cathy said:
    Shecks said:
    @Cooper a well deserved WTF, thanks. I'm curious, what was changed for serpent before lightwall that could possibly be considered an upgrade? The reduction of flay speed, dramatic reduction of Camus damage, loss of rajamala speed? And let's be realistic about lightwall. It rarely matters, and when a serpent does manage to find someone outdoors, during daytime, and casts a light wall, all you have to do is move, or go indoors to complete ignore this "upgrade". Or we're you going to explain how execute is somehow better than behead (not even close to true)? I personally hated this round of changes, because it led mom-serpents to believe we got upgrades, because we got new abilities, when in reality they were purely cosmetic.
    I'll bite here... I presume he WTF'd because serpents got a handful of buffs recently, like increased(decreased?) cap for dstab speed, even if it's 0.1s to a Thoth's, it's something you can get. If you want to bemoan having to dex spec for that, then you can just not change anything, and you're no worse off. The inline envenoming on dstab too is a majestic buff too, retardation is now your dream (providing that still works), or you're much less likely to over envenom needing your dirk to get wiped. 

    All in all, serpents have been quite buffed even since I was 18, what happened before that idk/idc, but right now, we're sitting quite pretty.


    Also, as an edit, to say svo is a nerf is ridiculous, if you know everyone is using X manner of curing, work your ass off to figure out how to break it, then just PLAUGH at them. 
    If your comment about inline dstab envenoming in retardation means being able to envenomx2+dstab in a single command (with a single retardation delay), I'm fairly sure that's not how it works. With that, as with the same syntax for dsl or the combo syntax for tekura, only the last of the commands should go in retard, so you'd just get a dry dstab (or whatever you had pre-envenomed.
  • It is how it works. Inlined envenoms work in retardation exceptionally well.

  • If that's how it works, file a bug. That's not how it's supposed to work.
  • It 100% does not work like that. 
  • It is how it works. Inlined envenoms work in retardation exceptionally well.
    Note:  Just because someone's able to dstab venoms on you with ease in retardation doesn't mean that's how the change is working.

    However, the change allows you to effective walk around with a pre-envenomed dirk (or dsls) without ever having to worry about it because you don't have to WIPE ENVENOM ENVENOM DSTAB/DSL anymore.
    [2:41:24 AM] Kenway: I bet you smell like evergreen trees and you could wrestle boreal mammals but they'd rather just cuddle you
  • Well, yes. Otherwise, people would whine that that was too easy, as well. Gotta have something to set yourself apart from others after putting some work into it, eh?
  • Teach me your ways vadi

  • I know that originally you could dstab <venom> <venom> in retardation with a dry dirk and two affs would hit. I'm not sure if they fixed/changed that, but that is how it was at release.
    Achieved dragon on the 13th of Aeguary, 634 - aged 21 and 1 month and 21 days.

    Elder dragon on the 6th of Chronos 635 - aged 22 and 8 months and 14 days.
  • Cathy said:
    I know that originally you could dstab <venom> <venom> in retardation with a dry dirk and two affs would hit. I'm not sure if they fixed/changed that, but that is how it was at release.
    If so, it was a bug, and sounds like it's been fixed.
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