Characters That Need To Be Brought Down A Notch

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#63

Yeah, they’re definitely not a super strong character, but they’re one of the only characters I really, truly dread running into. They have enough durability to live through a strong combo, enough damage to still be a threat, crowd control to keep you from being able to move freely, stealth for an escape, and a ranged attack that, while not great, still works to harass, kill turrets, and take pot shots at retreating enemies.

I’ll also add that El Dragon’s clap could definitely use a nerf to range. I’m not sure why Gearbox thinks that so many melee characters need to have range on their basic attacks, but they don’t, and El Dragon’s is probably the most powerful one.

2 Likes
#64

24 out of 26 was in the DC outline. Galilea was mentioned as confirmed by forum members I respect.

#65

^ /thread

#66

el dragon in general is without exception the strongest and only viable melee assassin in high level incursion. there arent really many other ults that once you are hit by it, everything it hits dies. spin to win, kind of, but it seems to be slightly more telegraphed, via the incoming silence. el dragon can much more easily come out of absolutely nowhere and get a triple and gtfo, unlike rath.

#67

i think you are looking at boulder the same way you would look at maybe rath or gali. you are looking at him based on his ability to 1v1 100-0 people. do you play mostly meltdown or something? phoebe is one of the best at 100-0 in a 1v1 situation, but she is b tier on a good day in high level incursion. boulder can take the entire sentry’s aggro and allow your team to 100-0 dive a sentry in seconds once him and his team are level 5. the boulder will walk out nearly unscathed, and his team will walk out completely unscathed.

a couple shots from marquis and montana is having a very rough time. the same cannot be said about boulder. your only hope against boulder is chaining cc against him while he sits in a napalm, blight, pillar. and no team will ever probably even have 2 out of those 3 on one team.

1 Like
#68

I definitely agree. His skills give him enough move speed that he can come and go WAY faster than any other melee character, and faster than most any other character in general. His ult and available helix options also give him a substantial amount of crowd control, he has insane damage using only his base attacks, and his animations are so erratic that they make him a hard target to hit.

#69

Say that they reduce dmg on OM and then try to do advanced mode and u wouldn’t get past henchm4n on algorithm

#70

Buff everything.

People like buffs and hate nerfs. So buff buff buff!

It’s not rocket appliances.

2 Likes
#71

@scratson

Yeah. I know. As I said a ways above, 99 per cent of the problem is that people base their ‘nerf this character’ on a position of ‘oh noes, they beat me’ rather than ‘I played this character and I think they’re hilariously OP.’

I think Ghalt is OP in PvE, for example. But that’s from the perspective of actually having played him and watched every boss in The Algorithm go down in mere minutes (it was an incredibly silly experience).

But if you’re only beating them, you’re not taking other factors into account. Such as the player they were competing against had: better tactical knowledge / more knowledge of the map / a better understanding of their own character / an overall superior comprehension of the meta (whom they should fight versus avoid) / better team composition to support them / a higher level of skill at playing Battleborn.

I won’t stop saying that either since no one who’s posting PvP threads has yet to give a fully detailed, rationalised reason for nerf(s) with numbers as backup and an explanation from the perspective of having played them.

Some of the nerfs suggested would destroy characters in PvE. Some of the nerfs that have already hit have severely affected the viability of heroes in certain PvE maps, and that’s just unnecessary.

Gearbox shouldn’t listen to their community in this instance. They should hire more balancing experts and listen to those. Also they should unlink the balancing of PvE and PvP. >:I

1 Like
#72

Oscar Mike has zero CC aside from his level 10 mutation, which means giving up orbital strike. All he has is area denial and a pea shooter.

He does not need a nerf.

2 Likes
#73

That’s a bit of a straw-man. People don’t want everything to be buffed, that’s ridiculous and the viewpoint of an ignoramus. No, we want an easily understood baseline. And then we want the weaker characters to be buffed according to that baseline so that they can be viable.

I understand that nerfs need to happen, but understnad that since the launch of Battleborn, there has not been even one single buff. Before the launch of Battleborn, the only buff was Ghalt, which was hilariously ill-advised.

They’re not showing us that they know how to balance. So how are we supposed to have confidence in that?

Nerfing every single character down to the baseline of the weakest characters doesn’t do anything because there will always be ‘weakest characters.’ That’s why you need a general baseline with varying quantities based upon what the character is supposed to do best (healing, CC, DPS, tanking, et cetera).

As I said, the way it’s going we’re going to end up with everyone just doing 1 damage and 1 healing, because that’s the inevitable outcome of this style of balanicng. It’s self-destructive.

#74

Let’s wait and see what the 24/26 characters being changed brings.

6 chars getting a wound sounds like a buff-fest is coming (and Miko might finally get her comeuppance).

1 Like
#75

No need to get personal, rude person. You have said the same thing as me - I was just putting a light-hearted spin on it. Keep your hat on - it’s just a game.

#76

Now now. We’re all frands. Group hug.

#77

So your saying if he had cc effects he needs nerf? Wrong.

#78

Disclaimer: this is not an argument about having more nerfs.

Buffs are always going to be trickier than nerfs.

We will always see fewer of them than we see nerfs, at least when it comes to smaller updates.

This is for two reasons:

  1. Avoiding power creep.
  2. The explosive complexity involved in balancing buffs.

Power Creep. Buffs tend to reduce the amount of time it takes a character to kill something, make it easier for a character to kill something, or make it harder for a character to die.

Buffing, therefore, will always tend to either reduce the difficulty of the game (PVE) or alter time-to-kill (PVP).

In the former case, whether you like the change or not, depends on whether you play PVE for the challenge, or to indulge in some good old fashioned blowing-stuff-up.

In the latter case, you usually want to avoid having your TTK float too far from its initial point, as that can really change the complexion of the game.

The more you buff, the stronger this effect. So designers are always cautious when they buff.

Explosive Complexity When you nerf down to a baseline, the number of changes you make are relatively small.

When you try to buff characters up to a baseline, the number of changes you need to make can be massive.

Since this a multiplayer game, each and every one of these changes can react and interact in unpredictable ways.

Since it’s a 3D FPS with tons of customization options (Helix / gear), the number and kinds of these interactions is breathtaking.

I can’t even imagine how you would build test cases to properly vett all the different ways your newly buffed characters would interact across the maps/modes.

There is no amount of play testing in the world that is going to allow you to model all of these interactions to any degree of accuracy.

As a result, what ends up happening, is that you are going to create a situation where a round of buffs is followed by a round of nerfs, as you work to correct the mistakes you were unable to pick up in testing.

Since all changes are met with a certain percentage of people being unhappy, having your character buffed and then subsequently nerfed, is going to lead to a ton of unhappiness.

This is why designers tend to nerf downward, rather than buff upwards. It’s honestly easier, and tends to engender less anger in the mid-term.

As a thought experiment,

Lets say we made the following changes:

  1. Raised Ambra’s beam damage by 10%
  2. Added a hard CC somewhere earlier in Attikus’ kit so he has better lethality early game.
  3. Raised Deande’s sprint speed by 15% and movement speed by 10%.

What effects would these changes have in Meltdown? Incursion?

Would these changes cause more players to pick these characters, thus increasing overall play experience with them, thus increasing quality of play beyond what the buff provides?

Do these changes infringe upon other characters roles in negative ways?

Personally, I have no idea, but there is one of these that I have an inkling absolutely would.

2 Likes
#79

They are stuck in an inbetween range. Her cc is not as extensive as you think she can only slow, pull, knockup and stun and two of those are helix only, the stun removes the pull, the ult only really can hurt players at level 10. Her damage helix choices are also very limited so the damage front is limited

1 Like
#80

In my limited play time in regular PUG queues I have to agree with the OP on almost all of his points. Any team that has Oscar Mike, Miko/Alani, and Thorn is going to beat the other team (and rather easily if the other team doesn’t have any of those 3). Gali and Boldur I don’t see too often in PUGs but I can see the points the OP makes.

Also, I think the reason most people can’t see the true power of Boldur is because in most PUGs there is hardly any communication or teamwork. I think its kinda hard for a someone to play him, or any tank for that matter, if their teammates aren’t talking to him letting him know if he’s overextending, or if they are retreating while he’s still going strong. There have been more than a few times I’ve been on a team that has gotten 2-3 enemies killed and instead of following through to take the sentry down, they have retreated or something.

If someone like me has noticed that OM, Miko, Alani, and Thorn are impacting solo queue PUGs they way they are only playing 2-3 matches a day, there is definitely something to the OPs suggestion that these characters need to be looked at.

3 Likes
#81

well if his napalm was a slow, then yes, they have to drop the damage or lose the slow.

However, if child grenades was given a slow/wound it might be useful.

#82

Wrong. Calderius got a buff to his TMP damage because it was too low. I do agree with you that we need a baseline and characters should be brought up to it instead of brought down unless it’s really necessary.