Pendles first impressions!

Battleborn Pendles
#82

It’s called situational awarenes. He’s not completely invisible. And, as has been stated, using a character that can reveal cloaked enemies. But you don’t need to, all you need to do is look for him and you’ll spot him eventually. If not, then you lucked out and he outplayed you. And so what? That’s what he’s supposed to do.

That’s exactly the point of a stealth assassin, what else did you expect? Drande will punish you in the exact way if you’re not paying attention. The argument “learn to see him” is not “totally off” because he’s not totally invisible. Also, your bet is a presumptuous one, I’ve played him once in a private bot match and have no desire to play him again until the hype dies down.

Again, Deande does the exact same thing, because they’re stealth assassins. One backstab isn’t going to kill you, unless you just forfeit and let him kill you because you were bested. You know he’ll be actively seeking you out, so gain the upper hand by better positioning yourself and seek him out. If he’s prowling around the battlefield and nobody’s paying attention to their surroundings then you’re just making his job easier, tunnel vision is what will get you killed against Pendles.

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#83

You do realize he doesn’t just teleport to your back, right? He has to maneuver behind you. And its not like he can one shot you or anything.

You can see him running around the field and even if he gets to your back and hits you, either turn around and chase him off or run away.

Only got to use him in PvP a couple times but he’s more about suddenly popping up and scaring people off or finishing off stragglers.

If he can’t smoke bomb away he drops super quick.

Like id be running around their base taking out their resources and scaring off their snipers, and flanking them when they engage teammates. Barely ever got to finish em off though because of having to run after popping out of cloaks or he dies. Unless they already had low health.

Except every team had ambra which kept me from getting kills but I still got to scare em off lol.

But as far as fighting him its really no different than Shayne, Deande or Oscar. Except for the initial ambush he can’t skirmish like they can as a tradeoff for the permastealth.

#84

To put some objective numbers to the claim I will compare Phoebe vs Rath vs Pendles damage output. Note: I only have the mutations unlocked for Phoebe, so I might be missing obvious changes, and I am using the data from battleborn bible and command screen information, so the damage might be off if they scale oddly as they level up.

Base Attack DPS:
Phoebe: 192
Rath: 198
Pendles: 172

Base +Helix boosts to base attack:
Phoebe (3R,7R) : 1921.181.2 = 272
Rath (7R): 1981.18 = 234
Pendles (3R): 1721.25 = 215 (only from behind)

Base + Helix boosts to base attack + Ult + Injection spam (pendles):
Phoebe: 439 DPS over 5 seconds, 356 over 10 seconds
Rath: 415 DPS over 4 seconds, 306 over 10 seconds
Pendles: 300 dps over 10 seconds (Assuming he can apply injection 3 times, and that it doesn’t interrupt his baseline DPS)

Now obviously this is a gross simplification, I have left out lots of synergies, Helix choices, and gear sets and other factors that would need to be taken into account to give a real DPS comparison, but I think the trend is easy enough to see.

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#85

As Ambra is fast becoming my main and favourite BB, and she seems to be the most direct counter to Pendles I’ve identified so far, I will continue to play her until the Pendles hype dies down. Poor Pendles!

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#86

Not sure why some people are looking for a specific counter. This new character can be killed just like any other. Stun/slow/blind/silence him, block his escape path, ambush him from behind, interrupt his skills. Etc. You can see him when he is in stealth if he is close to you. Also, some characters like Caldarious, Toby, And Orendi can make his stealth useless.

All you have to be aware is that when you are in low health or standing in one spot by yourself for too long…he is hunting you. Finally, if you are going to teleport to charge your health make sure he is either dead or occupied with someone else.

#87

She is very good at countering him, but I did play in a game of capture as Deande and I killed Mr PenPen so easily, even though he got the first attack multiple times. He’s so squish.

#88

All of these people complaining about Pendles are probably the same people who never stay with the group and are always going off on their own. After playing Pendles for a few games, I can say that the games that net me the most kills are from people just like that, you paint too big a target on ya.

Having Pendles show up on the enemy team should start forcing you to stay with group and move as a unit. Even if you just run with one other team mate, keep a watchful eye on your map because as soon as he attacks, he shows up and you can take him out.

Again, to put it simply, if people are not going to run together, Pendles is going to feel overpowered. If you stay in group you’ll find that he isn’t as much of a threat as you originally thought, and that’s where us who are playing him will say he starts to feel rather underpowered.

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#89

Exactly. He’s a scavenger he picks off stragglers

#90

When he’s cloaked, he moves as fast as Ambra with her Flame Shield. Uncloaked, he moves slower than day 1 Alani.

Shocking as this may be, you’re meant to stay cloaked as much as possible. His entire playstyle revolves around stealthing in, doing damage and getting out before he gets smacked down by a rocket up his reptilian cloaca or somesuch. So yeah, he’s not as fast out of stealth; he’s not meant to be a sustained melee character.

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#91

I love him and think hes so fun and unique. But like with all other characters i felt this way about. Gearbox eventually changes them in some way.

#92

All of these people complaining about Pendles are probably the same people who never stay with the group and are always going off on their own.

100% this. I find the same. I got 15/2/7 on a match with him recently. All 7 assists were with the team’s Boldur, who was more than able to distract them while I snuck up and re-organised their spinal column before they could escape from the pair of us. All 15 kills were against people who were off up in the middle of nowhere on their own; snipers perched on high terrain, attackers fighting thrall camps solo, etc.
My 2 deaths? Both from getting caught in the main melee whilst trying to flee for my scaly life. Once intentionally (I thought I could do more damage with Miasma running than I could), and once when Montana’s big old booty body-blocked (or booty-blocked) me and Benedict crammed up a rocket up poor Pendles’ cloaca.

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#95

The answer is then “Loose every meltdown match because you spent the entire time ignoring 1 lane for fear of pendles”. Not sure that’s balanced.

And you better never die in a team fight, after all when you res you aren’t with your team and that super skilled pendles may find you isolated as he’s stealing your shards and killing your buildables with no response.

Better not play any other assassins either, cause soon as you go for someone, OMG you are no longer humping your team mates.

And none of this matters because pendles does enough damage and has a good enough escape mechanism to actually be useful in a team fight. He’ll pop out of stealth from where you can’t see him and never knew where he was to snipe, say, your healer, and then he’ll be gone. For a bit.

Every single other character in the game you’ll know where they are.

If stealth is to be his over arching gimick, then you need to nerf his damage or his CC. He does A LOT of damage And CC and there is simply no way for a large chunk of the BB roster to survive it, and VERY LITTLE way to see him coming.

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#96

Did you miss my second point? You don’t have to neglect a lane in meltdown, just stay together or near enough that you can help each other out. Pendles is going to be slinking for opportunities, which means your team will have a distinct advantage of being 5v4 should you guys work together. If one lane is having no problems, send one person over to the other for help. Pendles is far from the be all/end all Battleborn, his damage is no where near as fatal as you’re making it out to be, CC is only 2 secs, and some Battleborn can outrun him while backpedaling and taking shots at him while he’s unstealthed. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around why you’re so upset about him, unless you were the target of his entertainment on numerous occasions.

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#97

Why weren’t people whining this much about the OTHER three characters with cloak we’ve had since launch? XD

After years of playing games with active camo like splinter cell and metal gear, and being used to spotting cloaked characters in Battleborn before pendles, I’m finding he’s not that big an issue to find.

Plus if its a GOOD Pendles you can also predict when they’ll try to ambush you. Its the bad players that are a hassle because they’ll just rush in whenever.

Seriously though his damage is actually low. He can do a lot on the initial ambush but then not much after that.

Like pendles plain can’t compete with deande Shayne or om for a straight fight.

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#98

Okay, so then why can Deande move so fast then? Pendles is LITERALLY just Deande with more cloaking time and poison. How would it make sense if Pendles moves slow as dirt and Deande doesnt?

#99

Because deande isn’t cloaked all the time with a speed bonus.

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#100

That doesnt mean Pendles should move slow as molasses though. Again, why bother with being an assassin IF YOU CANT EVEN CATCH THE PERSON YOUR FIGHTING. THERE’S NO POINT. I’m not saying make his base speed ungodly fast, but his victims shouldnt outrun him within 0.5 of a second. Sure you can use Injection to slow them, but for 2 seconds (Unless you use the Mutation: Potent Venom for 1 extra second of slow.) but even then they still easily get away without much effort.

#101

:smile: Made me chuckle since I saw a rage-post yesterday about how freakin fast he is^^ Its interesting how the perceptions of his speed differ so far.

I agree that he feels rather slow compared to Rath, Orendi or Thorn, but his speed equals Phoebes pretty much.
Thats why I geared him towards MovementSpeed exclusively, with some regards for buildables. At best wear a gear that grants you +movementspeed after the shield is broken, very usefull that one.
“GoGo Juice” seems great as well, but cheap Jennerit drinks should do the trick too.
I also tried the “Firmware Upgrade 151C” + green movement speed/shield gear, its a nice combo as well.

I think a general buff to his speed would make him to powefull if not even OP in skilled hands, so its best to tweak on his abilities with gear.

#102

True, his Cloaked speed is insane, but i don’t see him being anywhere on the same speed as Phoebe uncloaked-wise. She actually has great sprint speed and movement speed. Pendles’ base movement speed and sprint speed uncloaked is just horsewash. Especially if he gets slowed. Sure i can use gear to increase his speed, but i shouldnt have to base his gear in that one direction.

I can use Firmware Update, Lorrian Skill Spike (Sadly, no perfect stats…), and his special Wyrm-Skin Kicks but i feel that it’s unecessary.

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#103

[quote=“PlasmastormX15, post:102, topic:1542339, full:true”]True, his Cloaked speed is insane, but i don’t see him being anywhere on the same speed as Phoebe. She actually has great sprint speed and movement speed. Pendles’ base movement speed and sprint speed uncloaked is just horsewash.
[/quote]

Pretty sure cloaked Pendles is loads faster than even Phoebe (except maybe Phoebe using her teleport and move speed helix for that teleport). While uncloaked, though, yeah, he’s slow as ■■■■.

I could easily see them buffing up his uncloaked speed a bit (like Alani pre-buff levels, since I think he’s slower than she used to be, so that he’s slow but not so ludicrously slow) while reducing his cloaked speed (so that he isn’t basically able to cover the entire map by the time even fast characters are only halfway there).

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