SO..
As any dev reading suggestion and or bug reports that have come in within the past hour and a half know.
Gremlins. They are broken.
And by broken I mean. I really don't want to play the game with them at the level they are.
Let me run the list and I'll start with my disclaimer - I solo. I primarily solo because health distribution is, in my opinion, busted. Every time I open party with people someone who is new, or just not paying attention ends up slurping up WAAAY too many of the health capsules thus nerfing the rest of the party. Since there is currently no way to redistribute this health, even if you're the party leader, It makes partying a chore at best.
THAT SAID. I've soloed every other core run except for Van. Some of them were BRUTAL, painfully so, even with min maxing defenses. You know, doing the weird gamebreaking BS reserved for other games. I do this because it is A. Fun. B. Helps me find where/what people are going to min max and let the devs know.
With that in mind I just spent 8k in energy attempting to get to floor 25 of the Iron Falcon gate.
Let me repeat that. 8k in Energy.
The most I've ever had to spent getting to a core since you added rezzing in? 1k total, and that's because I was acting greedy and sloppy.
Here I'm being cold, calculating, tactical. Actually attempting use of vials, gun shots, lure ins, vial strike poisoning then switching to Khorovord to finish things off.
But no, can't get past depth 25 and why is that? Let's break it down.
Shield Gremlins:
They have shields, wrenches, and now have an apparently infinite bag of small health capsules so that even if I tactically remove their healer they can be sure to stay standing for far longer than they should if I'm not in their face immediately -
Which I am no longer able to due BECAUSE they now have knockback with every attack that you don't block. At least from what I'm experiencing. So you get in, have to 2 swipe with a Khorovord, then hit em while they're down or they will knock you away, capsule, throw a wrench at you, cause you to be stunned (even if you blocked it!) then capsule again.
They're also fast. Their standard swipes are doing 3-5 bars of health. Their charged 4-6.
So you figure, be tactical, use the vile striker or a poison vial to show they what its like to lack healing - nope. Because they can still pop capsules AND still be healed by any priest gremlin. You can't win.
Speaking of their "squishier" brethren.
Priest Gremlins:
The healers. Also they have magic missile, which tracks worse than a homing missile from a Puppy and does decent dmg, I won't waste time complaining about that because there are far more broken things to talk about.
Their healing range is rather large, nearly triple what a charge shot is with either my Magnus (complete) or my Cryotech Alchemer Mk II (almost complete). So that sucks. But hey, you have to be tactical, lure them in.
If you lure them in the Shield Gremlins defend them (Good AI!) and mercilessly beat the snot out of you. For one they don't seem to be much squishier than their Shield weilding counterparts. I have a maxed out Khorovord with a sword trinket and it still takes two 2-hit combos to kill them. Same as with their Shield Buddies.
The other problem is, if you don't immediately burn them down and only slightly damage them - they bubble. Invincible golden shield that heals all allies, insanely quickly, that are nearby them, also making them invincible if they stay in the bubble, and lets the Priest continue doing Heal (Target) to those that need it. This lasts for, and I timed it multiple times, 10 seconds.
OR dropping the healing circles. Which heal the same as a Heal (Target) spell but instead cover a LARGE area.
And by Heal a large amount this is what I want you all to understand.
The shield heals those nearby for +15 per hit and it happens at roughly 4 times a second.
The area heals are healing for 100-150.
Target heals are for 120-150.
Also they can resurrect fallen Gremlins if they get to the body. Mind you as far as I can tell that gremlin will have full health.
Also when they die they leave a bubble aura for their friends to chill in, get healed, and continue throwing wrenches at you.
Now as I said, I haven't tried with a party of well geared people, but sitting in emberlight while I've written this I've been commiserating with people and everyone is saying the same thing, only that they did it in a party. Floor 22 or 24, gremlin packs just wrecked them. Highly geared, etc.
Now, I'm not one who wants to waltz to the core, but here's the big issue at hand.
This isn't fun.
In fact it makes me want to stop playing the game entirely.
It is aggrivating to no end because of one key point - as a player I'm feeling WORLDS lesser than this NPC monster.
What do I mean?
I mean - I can't do anything as fast or as cool as these gremlins. So they're a ridiculously over the top challenging COMMON ENEMY. We aren't even talking a boss.
Which, I can run circles around Horse Knights, Flame Puppies, Large Ghosts, Turtles. They give me a good fight, I will sometimes die. But I know what they can do. They've got a limited bag of tricks and it fits.
Gremlins feel like they have Far too many tricks.
Shield Gremlin:
-Strong Standard Swipe
-Charged Swipe (Causes Stun)
-Dash Behind or Away From Enemy
-Wrench Throw (Causes Stun)
-Self Heal (Seems limitless if no Priest is around)
-Shield Usage
Priest Gremlin
-Magic Missile
-Heal (Target) Fast Rate, High Level of Heal.
-Bubble (Heals Self, Heals Others, Makes Self and Others Invincible, Can continue healing others)
-Revive Ally
-Bubble On Death
-Large Range
I have:
Shoot
Sword
And the charge varieties of each of those. I can use capsules (If I find them, which it seems like healing capsules drop rate got HUGELY nerfed since yesterday) and any debuffs I could potentially put on them don't seem to effect them.
Which let's touch on that.
Poison:
-They can still use capsules
-They can still be healed by priests
-Priests can still heal others and use bubble while poisoned.
-They still do regular damage.
-Big vial and from Vile striker the effect lasts for less than 5 seconds.
Stun:
-They are initially interrupted (Good!)
-They can still dash. (Bad!)
-Their standard movement seems slowed. (Good!)
-Their attacks are seemingly not slowed. (Bad!)
-This also lasts for less than 5 seconds.
Fire:
-Doesn't show me the tick for dmg. It doesn't kill them if they aren't healed, so it cant be that good.
-Lasts for, doesn't matter since it seems to do diddly.
Shock:
-Saw one suffer from the shock status once. Then nothing.
Curse:
-Didn't try because it is so pointless. If fire and poison didn't do anything I don't think the saddest of the ailments is going to have an effect.
Frost:
-This is nice, But since they just heal themselves, or get healed by priests, only good in running away. Which you really can't do.
I've managed to kill a few of the Healer + 2 Shield Gremlin packs. But once I run into a pack of 2 Healers + Shield Gremlins. Game over. Every time. This is what I'm hearing from everyone else too.
That said let me be positive - they're incredibly well designed in terms of AI. They are brutal, they are not glitching or doing anything I don't see as incapable within the game world EXCEPT that they greatly dwarf the players in power.
And as I mentioned I don't mean just power to kill them, I mean in the players view of what the gremlins can do in comparison to their own powers. They blow us out of the water. We just can't compete. It feels like the players are second fiddle to the Gremlins. That we're just the pushover fodder in "Clockwork Gremlins - The MMO!" because they feel like they've had more attention and love than the players.
Which, considering that steamroll well geared individuals with tons of health and energy to spare and well geared groups with the same. I'm left to believe that they are, in their current form - meant for another game. Certainly not this one.
Also, if this was a clever way to get me to stop ranting about demons having their attack item appear when i kill them then sail through the air and hit me for tons of dmg it came CLOSE. But then you had a level with Gremlins AND Demons. So, yeah.
Yes.
I completely agree that gremlins have long been disproportionately powerful. The counter argument here is that they are much easier when you have friends with you. I've tried it both ways, and that is true, but even in groups they feel disproportionally difficult to the point of not being fun.
I remember being able to lay bombs that fast...