Okay, wolvers are currently the weakest mob in the game. They have long attack telegraphs, medium damage, and they just don't attack much. Normally, this is combated by just piling on the mobs, but with wolvers this doesn't work, as they tend to cause movement issues in parties with mis-handled aggro, due to their speed and teleports. Players often attempt to dodge an attack and find a wolver in their face, and it's pretty much impossible to keep track of every monster on the screen's aggro and the aggroed player's orientation at time of teleport.
Alphas don't do much either. They have a massively powerful attack that has hit me... probably less than three times in my SK career since the patch came out. And their attack buff is really just a window to do more flourish spamming.
Hence, wolvers suck and can't be made into a bulky mob like zombies. So, here's how I propose we fix this. Plain and simple, we:
- Shorten telegraphs
This isn't hard. Seriously, no wolf will ever take a full second to bite you. These guys shouldn't either (at least not in t2/t3).
- Fix issues with wolver teleports
Make a brief pause between the time of burrowing and the time of emergence, in which the telegraph for the conventionally following attack is shown but the wolver is still underground, and attacks immediately without a weird jump or telegraph after emerging. This gives players a brief time to know what square they shouldn't be running into.
- Increase evasiveness
Currently, the vast majority of my hits land. Make wolvers capable of dodging more effectively, expescially in multiple directions, not just strafing around the player.
- Mod Alphas
As of now, alphas are crazy weak. Here's what I'd like to see change:
Alphas should probably keep their long telegraphs, but they should stop charging when there's nothing they're likely to hit. They should also get a bigger hitbox on attacks. Also, I think it would be nice to have a modification to the attack buff that, instead of buffing the alpha's attack, it increases it's speed (at doing everything) and all nearby wolvers' speed (at doing everything) temporarily. It should also cause some localized healing (hence removing silkwings from wolver dens).
Criticism? Alternatives? I'd like to hear what the community thinks about buffing wolvers, I haven't seen anything about this on the suggestion forums.. yet. Sorry if I'm re-posting something.
"weakest mob in the game"
Gremlin Knockers.
A simple way to make them more deadly than something that you need to step a square away to dodge is to make them home in players again, like they USED to. Skellies need it again too. Knockers and maybe Chromalisks should get it too. There's no reason Fiends, Kats, and some turrets should be the only remotely dangerous 'normal' enemies in the game...