Rath needs a buff

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#12

Rath is nowhere near A tier… his ultimate is S tier yeah, but he is B tier at the most overall. And I think, the buff he needs is not Damage, as I have said earlier, damage is not a problem with Rath. His helix has little flow to it as I personally think it doesn’t build upon Crossblades enough, and no I don’t mean damage, I mean overall usefulness. Nobody here has yet to address the fact we have 2 whole upgrade to increase the range of both Catalytic Smash and Crossblades. Tell me, does anyone here actually pick those? No. Well, they shouldn’t. And everyone who has played Rath knows they shouldn’t.

But again, this is not a DPS buff I am calling for. I am asking for a buff to other things, one his sustainability is awful. He isn’t sustained enough as, again, his health falls faster than he can gain it, not just against other heroes, but MINIONS in PVE. Because there have been endless amounts of times where Rath, either me or another player, was on the brink of survival going against a minion. And in PVP it’s even worse, granted, yes, I realize there are times when it can and does save you. But those times are few and limited. I figure a 2% buff to the life steal should do okay, as Rath, again, is very fragile. Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

And, no this is not a buff my favorite character thing. I am already well off the way he is, however, I would just like to round out the edges, in a way. For instance, can we agree that doubling the range of crossblades and catalytic smash could be replaced by something else? I am sure one of you will try to convince me of its uses, and trust me I am well aware of the once in a blue moon chance you need that length, but seriously? What can we replace those skills with? That’s what I meant when I said he needs a buff. So… would an upgrade that allows him to sprint while he attacks or get faster when he attacks be too OP or would it be good for him? As an assassin, speed is essential, and Rath is one of the fastest characters in the game, but just for those who aren’t getting what I am saying.

Rath doesn’t need damage. No skill of his need a damage upgrade.

#13

Every character needs weaknesses. There’s no doubt that Rath’s Catalytic Smash -> Dreadwind is enough to ruin the day of most characters, and he sure as heck doesn’t need any damage buffs in any regard. However, because he deals so much damage, he needs to be weak in other areas so that he doesn’t just start stomping everything. If he wasn’t fragile, he could just charge at enemies with little fear of death and then use his skill lifesteal to keep himself alive. As it stands, he needs tthe weaknesses and poor helixes that he has to balance his immense damage potential.

#14

I can respect that answer. I guess he needs something to justify that ridiculous ultimate.

#15

3000 kills and 700 deaths with Rath and you think he needs a buff? Go play with Foxtrot for a week and tell us how underpowered Rath is.

#16

Poor helix choices? If you are choosing 15% damage on crossblade instead of double range of Smash, you are not playing Rath to his highest level. Rath is perfectly fine how he is. Life-steal shouldnt be a thing thait keeps you up during battle. It is for sustaining in lane and not having to teleport back nearly as often because you can hit minions to heal up for the next fight.

There are many different characters that need to be addressed before Rath gets any changes done besides lowering his Ult Damage.

#17

This. He arguably has the best ultimate in the game so something has to balance him out.

#18

I would have to disagree. Not a Rath master, but I know how to play him damn well. He is perfectly balanced ATM. His helixes flow smoothly imo, because the slow is insane, the shield restore compliments his agressive playstyle, the double-jump is for when you are up against snipers hiding in difficult-to-reach places, the leap on Cataclysmic smash is meant to go with his stun helix to close gaps, 18% more damage is nothing to ignore, more cooldowns is always helpful, extra damage on Crossblade after Cataclysmic Smash is again nothing to ignore, and then movement on his ultimate is amazing for keeping with targets like Orendi or Thorn.

Let’s just take a moment and understand how insanely broken his ultimate is.

As for how the skills work together: Cataclysmic Smash, Crossblade while they are airborne. No reason to miss that, it’s a free freaking shot. Cataclysmic Smash, Dreadwind = win. For the stun helix, its shotgun the Crossblade, then leap at them with Cataclysmic Smash for the stun, then profit.

Rath is in no way, shape, or form underpowered or in need of a buff. His squishiness is the drawback to such a high damage character.

#19

He’s meant to be a glass cannon type of character. I think more lifesteal would make him OP, it’s meant to keep him alive and it does. It’s his job to get in, do damage and get out. Any more sustainability and he wouldn’t be an assassin anymore, he’d be an OP brawler. We don’t need people hating him like they hate Galilea lol. I agree that the extended crossblade range is a pretty lame helix choice and should definitely be replaced, it could be useful but not in enough situations to justify ever choosing it over a reduced cooldown. But I do see a use for the extended shockwave length of catalytic smash. It already goes pretty far and the helix doubles it. That’s even more range on an already great popup attack. At the very least it slows them down for you to catch up and deal some damage. At its best it’s an easier way to set up a teammate to finish them off and you don’t even have to be close. The increase in crossblades damage isn’t great but it’s there to slightly up your damage. Not every helix choice needs to be a huge game changer. Most characters have helix choices that don’t make major changes and I think that’s fine

#20

I hate the long rang leap augment on his flash ability ally collision CAN ruin a stun moment so that leap is the most disappointing augment imho with him. The rest of his augment kits are perfect if people would stop using the same cookie cutter rath build they will know he has probably the most flexible helix in terms of how you can augment his first two abilitys.

#21

Maybe in the early game he needs a slight, very slight buff, but you should not be complaining at all about his post 5 game play at all.

Once you get Dreadwind you can not be 1v1’d by anyone in most situations. Even without Dreadwind the extra 11% lifesteal on melee is almost good enough in itself to let you drain tank anyone in the game.

Then once you make it to lvl 7 its pretty much GG for anyone who wants to fight him without specific counter play being done and even then you can almost always bulldog your way through with a AS and Damage gear. You can just about half the AS every other sword user can but they can’t even get near the Melee damage he gets.

I will say though only Spin to win, Catalytic Flash, Not a Vampire, and To the point are Rath’s only major helix mutations you actually need to get. The rest are more well I guess I can take this one over that one. Even so he spikes at lvl 7 just like every other sword melee and can be just as good.

#22

Rath cannot drain tank anyone in the game. Unless you are 100% headshotting every single hit(unlikely) it does not happen. I’ve been(somewhat embarrasingly) out tanked by good Ambras now and then and I’m like “whut?”

Also Dreadwind is good but only against bad players/bad comps. Good players know how to knockback with middle attack(PC) and good comps have knockups/stuns to deal with it.

I went against a Toby last night that was an absolute monster. Everytime I went to ult on someone there he was, locking me down with his Mine ability that apparently gets a stun helix or something. Proceed to annihilate me before it wears off.

I think Rath is mostly fine, however I’d like to see some power taken out of his Ult and put into his raw stats. I think his abilities hit hard enough already.

#25

lol, “My KD is over 3.0 with him… but he needs buffed…”

You’re not helping your case here, pal.

#26

Please don’t buff Rath ;-; he was my first love and I don’t want hate from people for picking him the way Galilea players got hate :frowning: you would make him far to OP

#27

Rath doesn’t need a buff so much as a readjustment of power.

Lower Ult power by like 15-20% and add that into raw HP/Attack damage stats so he can actually like…do his outlast playstyle.

Right now he’s just a CC>Burst>Get out.

1 Like
#28

On the positive side, I do agree with you on the Double Jump critique!

It feels like he needs a roughly ~6-12% Movement Speed or Sprint Speed buff there instead (8 is probably the correct number).
Maybe even make Double Jump for Rath an Innate thing.

#29

You feel he is not strong enough ?
Thank ‘lord’ his spin to win is weak else you will be 3k to 0death :slight_smile:

#30

I’d just want the double-jump to be higher so I can jump atop the cliff past the 1st sentry on overgrowth as a double-jump Rath player. He can double jump atop the cliff on Echelon past the 1st sentry, but it’s not the same for overgrowth since the cliff is taller.

But Rath isn’t a weak character his skills deal the damage though so it’s fine, you can even solo the double thrall camp if you go for headshots with the autoattack. A lot of the problems people with Rath (as you do) is that he isn’t amazing in a head-to-head but that seems fine, with all his skills i’d say he fulfills his role as an assassin adequately. He just needs to be played like an assasin and not like Gallilea, I treath Rath like a higher DPS but squishier Shayne and Aurox.

On the list of Battleborn characters that need to be addressed balance-wise, Rath is very distant from the top of that list.

#31

Rath is only weak levels 1-5. He can easily recover post 5.

#32

@OP You kicked the hornets nest… I salute you.

The only thing I can see them changing with Rath is changing how Dreadwind pretty much backloads his entire kit. I’d much rather see him get a sustained damage/survivability boost, to increase his viability against coordinated teams.

Scrapping Dreadwind completely might be the best idea to remedy this. Giving him a different ult even if it’s just a big attack/movespeed steroid “maybe” even some boosted lifesteal (Maybe with limited CC immunity as a helix). Someone brought up the idea of unsheathing precipt as well which is a really cool idea.

#33

That would go some way to getting Rath to traditional balance, but imo that’s exactly what he’s made to avoid. If power were distributed across Rath’s kit more evenly, he’d become pretty similar to Phoebe or Boldur, which would be pretty disappointing to see. As it stands now he’s heavily based on strong power spikes, which to me is really fun to play against because of how dynamic it makes a game with and against him.