{{
`${userDetail.user.displayName}${userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode ? `#${standardizeBungieGlobalCode(userDetail.user.cachedBungieGlobalDisplayNameCode)}` : ""}`}}
{{getUserClans()}}
Edited by Lost Sols:
10/27/2019 3:27:39 PM
14
Warlocks need a much stronger neutral game and other adjustments I would like to see for the current sandbox
We are almost a month into Shadowkeep and the latest Destiny sandbox and having played PvP almost exclusively since release, I have some thoughts on the current sandbox and where it can be improved.
I want to start with Warlocks because that's what I've been playing this expansion after running my Hunter in Y2. I'm currently about to complete my 6th Valor reset and have genuinely enjoyed playing the class, but also it's really spotlighted for me the drastic deficiencies they have vs Hunters and Titans.
D1 did a fantastic job with the rock, paper, scissors balance of classes and their abilities and neutral games. D2 at launch tried to make everything generic across the board, but as the sandbox opened up, it hasn't translated well.
Titans. They now have access to Shoulder Charge across all 3 subclasses. They have the best base melee and grenades in the game as well as better suppression than the Hunter class built for it. Throw in their barricades, which are hugely effective in objective based game modes and they're incredibly strong outside of weapon play.
Hunters. High jump. Dodge. Shade Step. Invisibility. Smoke Grenades that can snare, poison and ping radar. The ability to instantly load/reload any weapon or recharge melee simply by dodging. Thrown knives. The class has lethality built into it's neutral game and gives play advantages everywhere.
Warlocks. Healing Rifts that don't allow any extra damage and Empowering Rifts that give a slight damage buff, but both require locking yourself to one spot with a bullseye on you and can't be cast in combat because you're dead before the animation begins to finish. Blink, Arc Soul and... that's about it. Worst base melee in the game. Horrid range and melee speed from what was the strongest melee class in D1. Grenades are okay, but nothing stands out as great.
The class has nothing remotely on par with Shoulder Charge, Dodge, Smoke Grenades, invisibility or the base melee abilities of other classes and where a Titan barricade can be cast in combat to save them, rift cannot.
What I would like to see is Warlocks have their D1 melee advantages returned in both range and base melee speed. That change alone would greatly offset the advantages the other classes hold, particularly Shoulder Charge and Dodge.
That's my thoughts on Warlocks. Beyond that I would like to see:
-Fusion Rifles returned to bolt travel time vs hit scan. I see all the FR complaints and while I personally don't have a real issue playing against them, I also realize they are [i][b]much[/b][/i] more forgiving to use than they used to be and particularly at range (Erentil) since they only require being on target on the trigger pull vs the bolts having to actually travel that distance. I believe a lot of the frustration stems from that alone as players feel they should have successfully moved out of fire, but since it's hit scan, the bolts still kill.
- Base primary time to kill is too fast. Not overall, but the fastest killing weapons are too quick. I don't believe anything should kill in under .70 seconds. I actually believe weapons are fairly well balanced across all classes as far as there being great options in all weapon classes, but right now there are dozens of weapons that are as extremely lethal as Thorn and Red Death were at their peak in HoW. I also believe we're at the dawning of a massive Scout Rifle meta.
I don't think scouts as a weapon class should be nerfed, nor pulse rifles, hand cannons, fusions or any other weapon class. But I do think across the board, the fastest kill times need to be dialed back .15 of a second.
- Blade Barrage is an easy button. If it does, it shouldn't have any damage resistance during cast. BB is so quick to cast, it's almost impossible to kill without them at least getting a trade. They're basically D1 FoH and Nova Bomb on steroids. FoH required giving up Shoulder Charge for Unstoppable and even then it's success/kill rates had nothing on BB.
-less heavy in Comp modes. At most one round like trials in D1.
Other than that, I think play is pretty stellar right now obviously since I've been living in Crucible since launch. I think the overall weapon balance is again really good with every weapon class able to not just compete, but excel and the change to roaming super damage resistance really brought them back in line to where players need to think about where and when they use them now.
Thank you.
-
14 RepliesEdited by DuBChiri2: 10/27/2019 7:05:25 PMI'm just going to comment on what you said about titans...but the best grenades? I can understand suppression and pulse grenades are potent (I'm only excluding lightning grenade and thermites because the geometry of the maps can really screw them over) but to say they have the best is kind of...untrue, or at least not entirely true. Warlocks have pulse grenade, arc bolt, fire bolt, axion bolt, storm grenade, and vortex grenade. All of these grenades are potent for finishing off targets or to deal easy first hit damage to them. People like to say they suck because they aren't as easy to kill with, but they also aren't as difficult to set up as a suppression grenade or lightning grenade would be when you need damage. Nobody can deny that the bolt grenades have value but people will try. I almost forgot about handheld...you said that warlocks have nothing on par to shoulder charge, but handheld is just shoulder charge on crack. Not in pve, but in PvP it's insane. First time using it, I killed 3 people at full health with it, instantly. That gave me most of my grenade back and I didn't even have to leave my position to do that. It is incredibly powerful and it works as a pocket fusion rifle that the incredible neutral game can work off of. Hunters also have a fairly mixed set up for grenades as well. Incindieary grenade (I know the titans have this too), skip grenade, swarm grenade, flux grenade (ass), tripmine, etc. They have the most diversity among grenades and although most of them aren't the most damage dealing, their utility is there. As for your comment on the shoulder charges...not sure why that matters when the better crucible set ups for 2 out of 3 of them don't have that melee. Bottom tree striker, top tree or middle tree sentinel. I would argue bottom tree sunbreaker is better, because it technically is, but it's also a lot more finicky and harder to use correctly. The overall melees on titans being the best makes sense because most of their neutral game procs off of that alone. No other class in the game has a perk that specifically states that they heal on just melee kills. Warlocks on the other hand have more niche melee. Middle tree void walker has one of the best melees for PvP in the game, dealing 160 damage (when it wants to) and knocking targets back. Unlike bottom tree sunbreaker, you don't lose base melee damage in exchange for higher overall damage, so you really don't lose much if by chance it does the damage and not the boom. The dawnblade melees suck, pretty much just a crappy burn or boom that doesn't do anything. Voidwalkers overall utility for melee is pretty solid,top tree regenerates your grenades, bottom tree procs devour on kill, already went over middle tree. Stormcaller has some niche crap too, chain lightning...whatever the hell bottom trees does, and arc ball...meh. Warlocks aren't really a melee class so them not having great melees is understandable and whatever the rock paper scissors stuff you were talking about made no sense when warlocks dipped into both paper and rock in d1. I'm not going to get into that because d1 is ancient history now. Hunters i wouldn't say have great melees either. The knives are fine, but not that great. The void melees are definitely incredibly good for PvP, but they are terrible for pve. Arc melee is meh, it's pretty much just a bootleg titan. The titans overall have much more tools suitable for PvP this time around, but a lot of the things people like to tag titans for that makes them great is suppression and the shoulder charges, when quite honestly nobody uses those skill trees in higher end competitive play because they aren't always valuable. I got to legend in comp this season using bottom tree sentinel and suppression grenade. I barely ever caught anyone with the shoulder charge and I basically never suppressed supers because of how fast the best ones are. The super also could get stomped easily at times, because of things like arc strider, nova bomb, blade barrage, bottom tree strikers and spectral blades. I saw maybe 2 hammers when I got to mythic and was too afraid to use it myself because of all the snipers. There's a lot of stuff in Destiny that could be tweaked but honestly, most of what the warlocks rock is more potent for pve, which doesn't turn out in the titans favor at all. It's still pretty much nothing but melting point and some form of sentinel. Thundercrash is still bad, burning maul is meh, top tree striker sucks. Which is funny because sentinel is incredibly potent in pve but not so much in PvP. Specific neutral games play a big part into these things. Warlocks definitely got the short end of the stick for PvP this time, but pve is a COMPLETELY different story and nobody can deny that. Nah, I'll also comment on your other stuff. Leave fusions alone and just dial back the damage and range of high impacts. Nobody uses the other archetypes still and to nerf them all because of a single one is stupid. No the ttk does not need to be dialed back. We would literally be dipping straight into the d2 year 1 ttk which was quite honestly too slow and would give special WAY too much power. That would lead to special getting a nerf across the board which is a no go.
