LOL!
I load first almost every single time but if I’m with the same group of randoms for more than one match, I’ll ask if anyone else wants Pendles or if I can take him again.
In a game that launched w/ 25 in the roster and that is currently at 27 I think it perfectly reasonable that some of those characters be specialist that only really excel in the hands of experts. We don’t need to dumb everything down. Leave the specialists alone so that we the players have to work our way up to be able to fully utilize a “hard to play” character instead of dumbing them down.
One of the many things I 
about Battleborn is that it doesn’t treat me like I’m an idiot. In fact, it does the opposite, it rewards intelligence. At its PvP best it demands a solid understanding of your and the enemy Battleborn, strategic thinking, situational awareness, and good communication. I say that to say this. If the Benedict changes represent a change in direction toward dumbing this game down, then @Jythri, please don’t!
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Only gripe with Benedict is his reload speed. He can shoot unlimited rockets with no cool down. So basically, when you got Benedict in the air blasting infinite rockets-- looking like my dude Bahamut from Final Fantasy-- destroying everything in site from a mile away.
I know, I know… “Use your team, use your range”. By the time you get to that “good” Benedict you will be dead, get the kill and someone else kills you or team has to concentrate on him which will give the enemy players free reign on everything else. This is not the issue if you get blessed with a god tier Toby or Marques & truthfully or if I’m playing Phoebe… No one is “good” when they take advantage of a loading glitch unless the devs say that’s part of the character.
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I think Ambra is overbuffed too…
I never thought she needed any buffs to begin with, she has always been one of my faves, but I did welcome the heat for cooldown mechanic… then they also reduce the base sunspot cooldown, increase its health regen, buff solar wind, all of which is only made even stronger by her legendary effect… ok, stahp it, increase the base sunspot cooldown at least, it’s silly how much you can spam those things right now, jeez.
And yes, Benedict is ridiculously stupid right now, I’m glad everyone agrees on that at least… well, except the devs for now… 
On the topic of the thread, Pendles, I think he’s annoying as hell, but I definitely feel more scared about Phoebe phasegating on my position than I do about being ganked by the snake, so there’s that.
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I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree there, she’s been nerfed then buffed then nerfed again, it’s been hard for Ambra. I know many of the Ambra fans waited a long time for this, I certainly don’t think she’s “OP” but she’s Benedict-level unkillable and Orendi-level wave clear, as well as a better overall team healer than Miko. She just lacks the combat capability and raw DPS of the top-tier slayers but she’s a defensive powerhouse.
200%
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Ever played Solitaire? Every time you hesitate for a second, someone will show up and tell you where to play a card. Even if you’re alone on the moon.
Same with Pendles. If you’re fighting one or 2 enemy BB and your health is dropping, turn around and take a potshot - there will be a Pendles there about to backstab you - even if no one picked Pendles.
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I’ve gone 17-2 a few times as him but I’ve also went 3-3 4-5 4-4 3-5 etc. he’s easily countered by Benedict Ambra Mike Alani pendles and pretty much anyone with a reveal but ive had the most issues with those. The only reason Benedict is tough is how hard he is to catch. Even though Pendles is invisible most of the time you can still easily kill him and see him. Just like invisible enemies in other games such as halo. He also has issues killing minions since it leaves him very vulnerable. also never go into in a 1v1 against him. Solely bc he can disappear easily not bc his dps is good. You’ll only be a target for the other players then. Not really him. He’s only a threat and a minor one late game. His drop on movement speed makes he easy to escape to once the slow from injection wears out.
I’m a level 6 with him now so I know how to beat him. It only took me one game though.
I played pendles 1st time ever on pvp went 17 and 0 i think he is a it op and he needs a nerf but when gearbox nerfs a character they make them useless.
I’m still gonna give this theory some time, but as of now I don’t see it. I ran a few -CC specific loadouts yesterday, but with Pendles’ TTK (at least, a Pendles that is being played properly), I’m not sure -CC is the answer for him. Granted, I gave up on the loadouts after I think 4 games, and one of those games had a Rath + Pendles duo that was inseparable, and there might be some more tweaks I can make to the loadouts, but for now I’m skeptical.
Not that anybody asked, but I think the debate around CC in this game should start to focus more on CC duration relative to TTK. I’ve seen requests to buff CC duration, but, even though the time to kill is longer in BB than other FPSs, it’s still shorter than other MOBAs (at least, as far as I can recall from my brief time playing LoL). Point being, CC, when used properly, should be at least slightly reducing TTK already, so buffing it too much runs the risk of players being killed before CC even runs out (which is the main “issue” I see with Pendles at the moment [THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR A NERF].
Anyway. I’m veering off topic again. We’ll see how the -CC vs Pendles stuff works out.
*Slightly edited for clarity
*And edited again so that last sentence says -CC, and not CC
[quote=“DevonS3, post:71, topic:1542362, full:true”] with Pendles’ TTK (at least, a Pendles that is being played properly), I’m not sure -CC is the answer for him.
[/quote]
I actually think that Pendles might be one of the characters most apt for +hp. I could see a shard gen, Symbiotic Gauntlet (+attack, +hp, and +attack damage based on % of max hp), and Vampiric Vestment (+hp, +attack damage, +hp per kill til death stacked 10 times). With an extra 490-770 hp, you’re talking about an absolutely massive increase to his TTK (he’s got 300 shield and something like 1300 hp at 10; with full stacks, you’re talking about almost 50% increase to TTK) and decent buff to his damage (~25% attack damage), and, with smoke bomb for escapes and his ability to finish off low health characters, I could easily see him being able to generate and maintain those stacks pretty effectively.
Sorry, should’ve been more clear, though I agree with your points.
What I was referring to was Pendles’ ability to burst down much of the cast (at least the ones I used against him) without having a chance to fight back.
Earlier in the thread I had mentioned that the addition of -CC to some legendaries might have been directly related to Pendles’ upcoming debut, and maybe -CC loadouts would be a good counter against him. It still might be, but not for certain characters, because the TTK by Pendles against those characters (or against anyone not being vigilant about their health) is too low. (Based on my limited experience so far.)
I’m used to always seeing TTK used as a measure of survivability, not kill speed. I can understand what you’re talking about with that clarification though. What’s important to consider is that he’s really good at taking out weakened (or already squishy) opponents but not particularly good at taking out nice hard targets (at least in my experience), which means that one of the better ways to counter Pendles is to have a support that can keep people topped off (or use Supply Stations heavily).
[quote]Earlier in the thread I had mentioned that the addition of -CC to some legendaries might have been directly related to Pendles’ upcoming debut
[/quote]
The problem with -CC gear is that the values are too low to be relevant with the already low CC durations in BB. 14% reduction against a 1 second stun (which is about standard, honestly) means you’re going to be getting out of that stun .14 seconds sooner, which isn’t really particularly noticeable, especially since one of the advantages of stun is that it interrupts whatever the target happens to be doing (so even a fraction of a second of stun is going to be doing a lot, especially if you use it while the target is using or winding up for a skill).
If they really want to make -CC gear relevant, they need to make it chance to ignore CC. If you can just straight up ignore CC ~30% of the time by stacking -CC gear, that’s actually really nice (though still highly situational). It’s not reliable, but it’s definitely noticeable and valuable. I would probably keep Pendles’ -CC as duration reduction, since otherwise he’d basically be able to become impossible to CC at all, but the gear should be converted to “chance to ignore CC” rather than “-CC duration”.
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Yeah. Trust me, I’m not a big believer in -CC in this game. I just figured the -CC additions coming out about the same time as Pendles wasn’t a coincidence. Unless the devs really are out to destroy legendary gear (I don’t think they are).
But, yeah, CC itself isn’t long enough for current -CC values, and noticeably buffing CC duration (I think) would be a problem given the average TTK in this game (longer than most shooters, but still not that long in a brawl situation.) Plus, higher CC duration would mean even lower TTK.
I actually like your suggestion. Or maybe do a combination. Like giving X% chance to reduce CC by, for example, 66%. That way --CC can have a noticeable effect on survivability, but there won’t be situations where people feel like they completely wasted their CC skills.
I havent read all the posts, but the one thing I have to think about the perma stealth, is that they nerfed ISIC from his perma ultimate cannon thing, dont remember exactly what they call it, but anyways. ISIC could go into his ultimate and had some severe drawbacks for doing so. I dont really see how it is fair at all for someone to have near perma-stealth with very little drawbacks.
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Once you know what to look for, he’s too easy to deal with. His health pool is super low, his damage is low without augments, and if your team has an Orendi, Ambra, or Whiskey Foxtrot, his reliance on stealth is apparent, because all you need to do is reveal him, and focus fire.
His movement speed is reduced to the level that an accelerator would slow Oscar Mike when Pendles isn’t in cloak, so if you can catch him out, he’s dead.
Pendles doesn’t work well against experienced players who know what to look for, he preys on the unaware players, most common in pubs. Don’t soloQ, play with a premade of 5.
Communication and awareness are the best counters to Pendles, and makes him useless.
Remember, FOCUS FIRE.
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Plus you can hear his super sweet sneakers when he gets close. Whenever that happens you could use a skill (if you are playing a character who can) to uncloak him to get rid of some of his bonus damage.
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xD I know, I love the little details in this game.
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One more note, because I didn’t have it in my previous post. The one thing that needs a little fixing before they nerf anything on Pendles is is auto cloaking. I’m sure other have noticed that he can still autocloak even when you’re staring dead at him. If he’s in full view of the player I feel like he should HAVE to smoke bomb to get away in stealth and not just luck out and the game stealth him while you’re staring directly at him. Yes it’s easy to see him when he’s stealthed, but if an enemy is locked onto him in PVE (most of the time not always) his auto cloak doesn’t work, so it should be similar in PVP.
Again, not screaming for nerfs, just maybe a little fix and he’d be perfect. He’s nowhere near broken, GBX really learned their lesson from Alani’s release, and hopefully they’ll keep at it.
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That’s not supposed to happen. If you can capture it on video and file a bug report on GBX’s support site that would be gr8! He is new so there are probably bugs that their QA testing didn’t catch.
Yea, it happened a few times last night, but I didn’t even think to record it. You can even notice it in solo story missions occasionally too.