So I’ll start this by saying I Deande is one of the characters I have mastered. She can be fun to play at times but considering she is one of the last characters you unlock, I would have figured she’d be stronger. Here are my problems with her. Since I’m currently mastering Rath I’ll be looking at the differences between the two which allow one to dominate and the other, not so much. There’s a reason you always see a Rath in a game but rarely a Deadne any more. That’s because, right now, she stinks like poop.
Movement Speed
Deande is so slow when compared to a Rath or El Dragon. She’s tiny! She should be the fastest of the melees but right now Rath’s natural speed is far faster. You can use your strike or clone attack to close distances but that requires giving up the AOE on her strike and she already has ■■■■ lane clear. Most ingagements I get into before I have my slow or uppercut, the enemy can escape by running backwards. When you get the slow, this helps but only when you uncloak. Having her speed boosted would allow her to enter and exit engagements and still utilize her cloak to finish stragglers. If you’re using your cloak for the slow, it’ll probably be on cool down when you need to escape.
Strike Zone
I call the area where melees are thrown by a character the strike zone. Rath has long swords and, generally, strikes in horizontal and vertical strikes. His strike box is huge when compared to Deande’s. In many fights you will be hitting multiple enemies at once. Deande has a problem since her fans are shorter and SHE SWINGS DIAGANOLY. Instead of having a large square in front of her to land attacks, she has a vertical rectangle. So she is basically limited to single target attacks. I would be ok with this, if other aspects of her design made up for this but they don’t. The uppercut helps in single target engagements but in group fights you are basically knocking up yourself as well when you knock up someone else. Good luck trying to lane clear with a stupid uppercut. It’s handy for thrills, sure but it sucks for minions and turrets. So as we stand now, she is slow to navigate and/or engage, has single target damage but what about her ult?
Ult is Underwhelming
I imagine early on that maybe she was built strong but they feared her being to powerful because almost all aspects of her are inferior to other melee characters. So her Ult, yes it can stun a whole team but you must be very lucky. If it does, you did very little damage to each of them. This ability is sting on incursion but is very meh on other maps. Yes you stun them for other people but you probably won’t get the kill. If you catch a single target full health. I’d be surprised if I got the kill for my Ult alone. It doesn’t slow afterwards and since there’s a delay for Deande when she comes out, they can just walk away. But a dreadwind can kill a squishy every time, sometimes two or three.
In conclusion, she is a wasted character right now. I’m not saying other characters should be weaker, I’m saying she should be stronger. I like her skill set and I think she’d be fun to use if she were improved but as it stands, she just can’t hold up against the big boys.
