Spiral Knights - Lockdown Class Balancing (Alternative to Holy-Nightmare's suggestions)

Lockdown Class Balancing (Alternative to Holy-Nightmare's suggestions)

4 replies [Last post]

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 12:26

Deleted-Knight

Striker
Inflict strong stun when boost is broken.
Both recon and guardian shields take longer to fully recharge when broken, striker shields recharge instantly after 3 seconds regardless if broken or barely used. Since strikers rely a lot on their shield, there should be a bigger penalty to overusing it. When the boost breaks, it creates a minor, non-damaging, blast that stuns the user. After 5 seconds, it instantly recovers.

Recon
Allow recon deathmark to break shields.
In the rock, paper, scissors of Lockdown, recons are supposed to beat strikers. In reality, they get shredded 90% of the time. Instead, give recons shield breaking abilities so they can beat guardians. Guardians are slower and make better targets for the slow recon.

Guardian
Make guardian shield flinch-proof
Guardians are built to check strikers. They have much more health and can stall out boost with their tanking ability. The main reason strikers can beat guardians is because they can stun lock and break down the shield without having to run away that much. Making guardian shield flinch-proof will allow guardians to lash back at strikers more easily.

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 12:44

Holy-Nightmare

.......

Walk speed is still going to be a problem with these classes. A smart striker will just boost out of gun range while he/she waits for shield to regen with no penalties other than missing out on damage. Making strikers only fast when boosting and slower than other classes when not boosting will let other classes be able to attack them with swords more easily (the real damaging weapon class in LD).

Recon Footsteps shouldn't exist as it gives away their position and with deathmark constantly telling your enemies when you are near it gets hard to sneak up on people.

Guardians used to be OK but with so many sets capable of dealing high damage their shields can't tank as well as they used to.... what is the point of being flinch immune when your enemy can just kite about you with a gun?

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 13:42

Fangel

Um.

In the rock,paper, scissors of Lockdown, recons are supposed to beat strikers.
Pretty sure recons have always been anti-guardian, especially since the shield is centered around guns whereas the guardian has gun penalties. Then you have the fact that recons take away all defense (what guardians should rely on), making them easy targets.
Guardians are better striker targets because they always are visible, and so they're good against strikers because of counter-attacks. No flinching would make counter-attacks more viable.

As for walk speed as Holy-Nightmare is saying, I believe that a broken striker boost should give the player a 5-second MSD of medium or high. Players that boost for the entirety of the boost will be punished for breaking their shield (as every other class is punished for doing the same, for striker it is more or less encouraged). In doing so the boost should be extended an additional 0.1 second.
A 5 second cooldown combined with slower walk speed makes the shield a little too much, so I'd recommend keeping the 3 second recharge (but make it not instant to recharge, perhaps takes 2 seconds to full recharge for that full 5 seconds of punishment)

To balance recons breaking shields, give guardian shields the ability to recharge teammate shields faster within, like a seraphic aura. Also, guardians who are shielding require 3 "death marks" before being deathmarked. Recons cannot destroy the shield of another cloaked recon.

Wed, 03/25/2015 - 15:04

Deleted-Knight

Made Edit to Striker

In addition to increased cool down, the striker boost also inflicts stun when broken. This makes it easier for guardians/recons to take down strikers who aren't careful.

I think it's reasonable to let recons destroy shields in one mark. There is a warning before the deathmark and skilled players can prepare for an ambush.

The footprint mechanic is a gimmicky byproduct of walk animation effects. It isn't very obvious, especially for people with low graphics settings. A skilled recon will not give the opponent time to track down footprints. The fact that recons can often deathmark strikers without being revealed means ambushing is not the main problem. The main problem is losing the advantage of surprise after coming out of cloak once.

Making guardian shield immune to flinch also allows them to walk toward gunners with shield up. Pulsar spam can't lock them in place. You may be surprised how much easier it is to dodge bullets when you don't flinch every time a stray one hits you.

Mon, 03/30/2015 - 11:49

Holy-Nightmare

@ Deleted

I like the Stun idea.... it would make them much less of a threat when their shield breaks but most strikers keep and eye on their shield gauge anyway (just walking can keep them at a distance from all classes that aren't striker. Stun on shield break plus an MSD when walking would help out. Make them easier to chase when they walk and punish them hard when they make a mistake.

Recon Shield break would be OP..... especially since ally recons can almost instantly mark an enemy when working together. Footsteps need to be removed.... PERIOD.... it is incredibly annoying when you are being chased down by a striker and you haven't even uncloaked.

Guardians need a bit of extra defense on their shield to account for all the VH and Max damage sets in LD trying to break their shield..... sure guardian works great when everyone doesn't use damage buff classes but you are more likely to run into a T1 LD than one of those...

Making guardian only tank the base weapon damage and not the damage modified by a set would help them out a lot.

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Lockdown Class Balancing (Alternative to Holy-Nightmare's suggestions)