Marauder: Cheapshot ability!

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Rias
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Marauder: Cheapshot ability!

Post by Rias »

Marauders can now learn the Cheapshot ability!

This one is a little more situational, but I think it's pretty neat! It can be used solo based on the Marauder's own staggers/knockdowns with its during-roundtime aspect, and can be a nice little boost in groups for those cheapshot opportunities set up by friends.

As always, feedback is appreciated! I hope it ends up as effective in practice as it sounded to me on paper. (I did play with it a bit myself and found it fun, but I am quite biased.)
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saladbowl
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Re: Marauder: Cheapshot ability!

Post by saladbowl »

I've found this to be lackluster. I do like that it's a choice instead of an automatic strike. Abilities with risk and reward are great and help push some split second decision making into combat: variety and all that stuff. I also like the idea of it having two separate functions and appropriate situations for use depending on Roundtime.

In solo play, sacrificing 5 balance and eating two additional roundtime for unaimed halved damage is almost never worth it, especially versus high reduction armor and Armor Deflection. My tries at using it often resulted in scraping a far off limb, burning resources and time I could've used on staggers/hitting my chosen vital in the process.

Followup Punch isn't valued for its (often 0) damage, but because it's free, and might inflict stagger. Stagger is multiple penalties rolled into one omega-debuff and is very powerful. Roundtime Cheapshot is Followup Punch with a bit more damage depending on your luck, but with two price tags and a prayer you hit the vital you're aiming for. Otherwise you're shredding your chance to breathe and press advantage after landing a stagger.

In group play, it's difficult to line up properly, more so in massive brawls where it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. It can be difficult to set an enemy as your target before someone slams into them and the one by one dogpile begins. I've had more success with playing how I usually do and mostly ignoring the prompts to instead throw out a stagger, circle, feint, or what have you.

It's not worth it to wait for the prompt when that time could have been spent on something else. The rewards aren't relevant enough for me: everyone has damage to spare, and you have Shameless Opportunist already pushing your offensive rerolls to the moon. When the timing does line up it feels no different compared to a normal attack. I feel like I did nothing special.

Balancing this so it has use in solo play and group play is difficult. If there were auxillary effects which activated on hitting different hitzones, be they tricks or worked into the Cheapshot itself, the feeling of a wasted attack would be alleviated. For group play, I don't think more damage and more rerolls is the way to go. What if it still dealt 50% damage but reduced armor effectiveness? A three-qaurter damaging attack but adds 25% to the next group member's action? Something noticable.

That's my feedback. Calling all Marauders to talk about their own experiences with it. All four of us.
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saladbowl
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Re: Marauder: Cheapshot ability!

Post by saladbowl »

From testing I've found the RT version of Cheapshot can be useful when fighting someone able to recover from staggers, i.e. Duelists with Deft Recovery (Stability ignores and gives no proc). Dirtkick can activate off it and might reapply the stagger. However there's another problem to tack on when trying to do this. Duelists might either be standing up already, and have an ability to stand up which can activate off Dirtkick. Your attack might be fended off/tumbled/etc, and almost certainly will be once Combat Analysis ramps up. The risk of getting 8 to 10 RT makes attempts unfeasible at that point.

The hefty balance cost would make sense with additional automatic buff/debuff tricks available on attack. Especially if they were limb specific. It's a good base for the future.
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