I don’t see why Thorn doesn’t get a shield. If the trade off was insanely good at damage, like a glass cannon, I could understand but Marquis does just about as good as damage and he still gets a shield.
Of course I’m still new to Battleborn as we all are so maybe I’m not seeing something…
Lore can be changed
None of the Space Hippies, sorry, the Eldrid, have shields.
Oh… but what’s the trade off for not having shields? MOBA’s need to be balanced or else…
Yup, that.
The health regen that would take extremely long to get back anywhere near full health? Yeah that’s not worth it.
Mellka can poison enemies and gains significant (whole chunks at a time) health regen when meleeing poisoned enemies.
The Eldrid don’t use shields because it’s not natural. They all have default health regeneration (something that none of the other factions have), and have more base health. That’s your trade-off.
Well, idk about the other eldrige but Thorn’s tradeoff for having no shield is she gets the absolute worst primary attack in the entire game by a long shot and can heal less than 50 health every 12 seconds if you level her to 7 first.
Shields aren’t nearly as infallible as you seem to think. Shields already aren’t that thick and break easy, and once those shields are gone all you have is health that slowly whittles away. All you have to do is break someone’s shields enough and they’ll have nothing. And rocking Reyna or Orendi with some Shield Pen and in even the thickest barriers turn to paper. So as natural game mechanics are that there’s a counter to everything, Eldrid are great with healy supports and against those that tear through shields.
There are a bunch of items that increase +max shields and their recharge delay/speed even without those items the shield recharges a lot faster than health. In single player I don’t mind the characters without shields but in versus it’s really good to have them especially when characters have abilities(or buildables) will overcharge your shields.
Without them there’s a mess of game mechanics you’re not getting. Maybe other characters have ways around this but for Thorn she’s a squishy glass cannon - the cannon. Even with healing and items that increase health regen you can’t run behind a wall quickly to regen. Shields you run behind something for a sec and bam they’re back.
As stated it is in their lore that they don’t use shields and yes they get health regen that gear can amplify. Personally I think it’s cool that they commit to the lore it adds charm to the characters
I do too, Heroes of the Storm and DotA had some great lore behind it. Although it wouldn’t hurt to increase the health regen a little.
on the flip side of that you can use gear to maximize health regen, and also use gear that has negative efects on shields and not suffer the negative effects since you dont have any to begin with. you also would have a distinct advantage against enemies that are focused on dealing with shields.
sure you can argue that its better to have shields, but thats a view point not a fact, and there in lies the trade off. If you dotn think that trade off is worth it, then thats up to you and there are plenty of other characters. but the trade off is there, and some people will find the use for it
One nice thing about not having shields and having a health advantage and health regeneration advantage due to that is many pieces of gear and skills simply do not work against Eldrid characters (unless they have overshields, of course).
Shield penetration does nothing at all, so all that gear and all those Helix mutations that many players take do not help a lick against the Eldrid. If you look though a lot of skills, many feature shield penetration so this is a pretty prevalent bonus.
Is it entirely balanced? Probably not. I do think that, in general, having a shield that recharges very quickly when out of combat is better, at least for hit and run, because as long as you flee before taking health damage you get back into the fight faster. Eldrid take nothing but health damage, so unless you can regenerate it quickly you cannot dance in and out of battle as often.
Thorn is also insanely slim and agile. She is hard to hit and takes less damage from incoming fire by virtue of that alone.
I also think the Eldrid character’s base health regen should be increased.
I disagree with this entire topic. It’s pretty balanced right now. And you haven’t even factored in gear loadouts yet that will further increase healing.
Eldric characters are squishy. Play smarter instead of asking for changes that would imbalance the game.
Makes items like this pretty useful. Especially in a mode like Capture where you don’t have much shard income, being able to start the game with buffs from gear can make a big difference.
