Spiral Knights - Lockdown Shield Bash

Lockdown Shield Bash

7 replies [Last post]

Wed, 05/23/2018 - 21:52

Massive-Lag-Spikes

I noticed shield bash isn't a thing in LD, so I thought of some neat possibilities. All of the abilities below require at least half your shield health to be utilized.

Power Burst (Striker)
- Charges forward 5 tiles and breaks the shield and stuns anyone in the way.
- Gives you 15 seconds of attack, defense, and movement speed buff.
- Drains all your shield health and your shield will not regenerate until you die or go to locker room to heal.

Ultra Cloak (Recon)
- Instantly death marks every foe within a 10 tile radius.
- Gives you 15 seconds of latent cloak. You can attack and do actions without losing cloak during this 15 seconds. Attack animations are invisible, but bombs and bullets are not once dropped/fired.
- Drains all your shield health and shield will not regenerate until you die or go to locker room to heal.

Deadly Dome (Guardian)
- Instantly kills every foe and stuns every ally within your shield radius.
- Drains all your shield health and shield will not regenerate until you die or go to locker room to heal.

Wed, 05/23/2018 - 22:27

Tapproot

I like the idea of incorporating shield bash into lockdown as it could add some interesting depth to a stale meta. I'm not sure how warranted giving insanely powerful buffs to a bash is, but +1 to the base-line concept.

Wed, 05/23/2018 - 23:19

Zero-Chill

meow

I agree with Tapproot, it'd be interesting to get shield bash buffs in lockdown but not what you said as it's just so extreme. I suggest the shield bash takes 50% of the shield's health to give a certain buff. Guardian would give you more healing, striker will give you a speed boost to the remaining 50% of the striker boost making you able to chase targets quickly at the risk of depleting your shield and being almost defenseless if you're not careful with it, recon would make you able to instantly deathmark anyone within the cloak radius without the initial warning. The boosts will stay until the shield breaks and the shield won't regenerate health until it breaks. More balanced, don't you think?

Thu, 06/14/2018 - 18:48

Fangel

I'm with the others

I had a suggestion back in 2015 for unique shield bashes along with some other changes. Here's the copy-paste I had for cool LD shield bashes:

* Guardian - gain shield bash ability. Acts like a tortodrone shield shield bash. Any enemies hit by the bash would lose 50% of their total shield health. Still requires a full shield.

* Recon - gain phase-walk ability. Activated through a shield bash. Teleports your player 5 tiles in the direction of your cursor, and can cross over anything you can shoot over. Grants you free cloak for 2 seconds after activating (to allow for more stealthy get-aways). Requires at least 33% shield health, and uses 33% shield health.

* Striker - gain light feet ability. On shieldbash, grants +2 MSI but -4 DMG for 5 seconds, and zips the player forwards 8 tiles in the direction of your cursor, lightly damaging all enemies who come in contact. Requires an in-tact shield, and instantly destroys your striker boost when used (100% shield health), and takes an additional 2 seconds to recharge. Yes, you can use it at 1% shield health to close distance.

I'd love these as they play off a shield's ability while not being overpowered.

Fri, 06/15/2018 - 18:29

Massive-Lag-Spikes

I actually want "overpowered"

I actually want "overpowered" shield bashes as they will help balance the game. Right now a team of good ping Black Kat Acheron+Arcana/Polaris spammers can shut down any opposition. Making shield bashes overpowered tools available to all players allow for more diverse strategies that mitigate camping due to imbalances in gear and latency.

A team that is being camped can profit more from Shield Bashes than the camping team since they are closer to their locker room. For example, a guardian can go out and deadly dome the campers and quickly retreat back to base to regain shield. A recon can death mark campers without leaving base, giving their teammates an extra edge. Strikers benefit more from latent defense, damage, and MSI buffs than striker boost when they are against opponents with better ping.

On the flip side, every class on the camping team would much rather have their shield intact than to use it up on a shield bash. This is because shield bash advantages wear off and do not recharge until they return to their own base. On the other hand, any player they kill will be respawned in the same time, regardless if it is with a shield bash or not.

Sun, 06/17/2018 - 19:46

Tapproot

I don't see how a game filled with invisible people guessing where the opposing team is can be considered any better than what we have now, and that is inevitably what this would turn into.

Recons have the most ridiculously overpowered bash by far. They will bash before every engagement - if there is a guardian they will use slug charges to either get rid of the shield or outright kill with no possible repercussions once they dash away, still invisible as 15 seconds is a long time, reach base, and do it all again. Guardians as a result have no way of dealing with Recons unless they guess and bash, or the Recon is playing braindead. Strikers will also have no way of dealing with Recons unless they spam large areas with a weapon. What's the best way to find an invisible Recon? Spam a Pulsar in the general direction. Good luck fishing for an invisible Recon who can attack back and will retreat after a long enough time with a sword, bomb, or gun that is slow/has small projectiles. Your best bet is to charge an alchemer in hopes a lucky ricochet hits its target or spam with your long range explosive. Other Recons can't even deal with you well - imagine an invisible person spamming flourish hits or their large AoE guns in hopes of hitting once and spreading status.

Guardians may seem to have an overpowered bash at first, but instead they are a boring class to play as you find that nobody will get in range of your bash. Your only hope is that a stupid Striker or Recon doesn't know what they are doing and gets in range of your shield, or another guardian decides to have a battle of "who has the lowest ping" when you have the lowest ping. The bash doesn't even make sense given the class. Why would GH add an instant kill that takes away half of your shield from a class whose only reason to exist is to support with said shield.

Strikers buff is nothing more than a faster version of what we have right now. The buff does not encourage bringing anything other than black kat or chaos as damage is still king, and the same weapons will be used. In Striker battles alone. Otherwise, Strikers will pressure Guardians with guns, like normal, as the Guardian can't do anything when someone dances out of range, and Strikers will get destroyed by Recons who spam their Alchemer charges or other fast projectiles (such as Arcana) all of which are unavoidable when they have Auto-Target and you don't know where they will come from.

Recon is the only class that has no bad match-up. People play Lockdown to win, if you have no bad match-ups you are more likely to win, most people will choose Recon. This is why many people currently play Striker with Black Kat or Chaos - it's the best way to win. In my opinion, playing a fast paced match between strikers is more interesting than invisible people shooting their overpowered guns. These bashes do not support any diverse weapon usage, and I don't even see how it even makes people who play with poor ping enjoy the game any more than they do now. You can't win a fight if you have no idea where the enemy is, so every fight will begin with the Recons bashing, and every fight will end with the Recons running back to base to do it all again.

Fri, 06/22/2018 - 20:14

Massive-Lag-Spikes

From the way you are

From the way you are speaking, recons are already overpowered. After all, they can hit someone then run away without the person having any idea of where they could have went! That is clearly not the case because (most) people tend not to be dumb machines that only attack when they have visual.

Guardians may seem to have an overpowered bash at first, but instead they are a boring class to play as you find that nobody will get in range of your bash.

Gee, I wonder how deterring people from getting close to their shield aligns with the purpose of the guardian class. Also, protecting your team is pretty boring in general, which is why few people do it (sadly).

Strikers buff is nothing more than a faster version of what we have right now.

Yeah, because what we have now is overpowered given the mechanics of this game. Contrary to popular belief, the MSI given by BK is more important than damage bonuses. MSI applies even when you are using striker boost, which gives them an incredible speed advantage. With the shield bash, you trade off your boost for temporary bonuses. This gives no benefit to BK users since they already have a more reliable form of speed, but non BK users can now temporary become a BK-ish user with added defense buffs.

In my opinion, playing a fast paced match between strikers is more interesting than invisible people shooting their overpowered guns.

If everyone is invisible, that makes your prediction ability more important than your latency or your gear. In contrast, strikers win by hitting fast and preventing the opponent from responding. I can see the appeal of the latter to a casual player, but people playing for "skill" ought to appreciate the former more.

You can't win a fight if you have no idea where the enemy is.

Sounds like you are a full time striker player. The objective of Lockdown is not to win fights. It is to capture points. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why a point is shrinking when nobody can be seen standing on it. It is naive to think people will give up fighting when they can't see enemies.

Sun, 06/24/2018 - 15:54

Tapproot

No, it doesn't sound like I think recons are currently overpowered because they do not have full attack and movement capabilities while invisible. To attack, a recon must unshield and attack. Reshielding does not even give full invisibility until about a second later. Your bash would make it where Recons have full attack and movement capabilities, all while completely invisible.

Guardians will "protect" the area they are around, but due to buffs to the other two classes, as soon as their shield is below half durability they can't do anything. Which is why guns will be used almost exclusively vs them - they are safe poke to get rid of an instant kill effortlessly. If the guardian doesn't put up his shield, he will still be outpaced by strikers and will still have to predict where recons are that have a 15 second invisibility that allows them just as many movement options as the guardian has. Like I said earlier, his bash will never come into play unless he faces a stupid player.

Making strikers faster doesn't "solve" the Black Kat movement speed problem. Black Kat users will still have at least medium msi more than everyone else, and now they can become even faster. How does a person with a high ping become better equipped to deal with BK Strikers by making the fight even faster? Is your proposal to make it where Black Kat users can't obtain the speed buff? You might as well propose a balance change to lockdown nullifying msi in LD instead of making the game even faster and more difficult for people with high ping.

If everyone is invisible, predicting where people are is simply spam shooting or swording at invisible people. A game based on lucky guesses is not skill based - it's luck based. Even if an invisible recon is found using spam, the moment they get hit they can retreat to live. The recon won't stay in place conveniently for you to down him, he will move and you will have to find him again.

I play as a recon bomber when I go on Lockdown, and when I feel like trolling I run around as a striker only using my zapper. You cannot capture points if someone from the opposing team is there unless you win a fight. So in that sense, the objective of Lockdown is to win fights to capture points, and win fights to protect points.

I can play out how a fight would proceed if there is an invisible person on a point for you.
Option 1, the person sees someone coming and retreats.
Option 2, the person sees someone coming and moves off the point. The other player must guess where the invisible recon is, and a guessing game is not skill based. If the other player guesses correctly, he is much more likely to win. Otherwise, good luck.
Option 3, both people are invisible recons, and the incoming recon spams a large AoE gun or sword in order to instant kill or find the capturing recon before they can do anything. Afterwords, unless status is spread to the capturing recon, both will be completely guessing where the other is - one may have retreated, have fun spamming air.

Sounds truly fun and skill based. My point still stands that this doesn't provide any incentive to diversify weapon usage. Guns are even stronger than before, especially ones with large AoE and status *coughPolariscough*.

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Lockdown Shield Bash