Focused Feedback: Battle Axe Revamp

[The Curator]

Battle Axe

Power Order

• Brutes/Scrappers: Beheader, Chop, Gash, Build Up, Pendulum, Taunt/Confront, Swoop, Axe Cyclone, Cleave.
• Tankers: Beheader, Chop, Gash, Taunt, Build Up, Pendulum, Swoop, Axe Cyclone, Cleave.

Beheader

• Now have a chance to apply a defense debuff, chance is tied to the chance to knockdown.
• Cast Time lowered from 1.33 seconds to 1.0 seconds.

Chop

• Now have a chance to apply a defense debuff, chance is tied to the chance to knockdown.
• Cast Time lowered from 1.33 seconds to 1.2 seconds.

Gash

• Cast Time lowered from 1.5 seconds to 1.27 seconds.

Swoop

• Cast Time lowered from 1.83 seconds to 1.23 seconds.

Whirling Axe (now Axe Cyclone)

• Renamed Axe Cyclone.
• New visual FX.
• Now has a tractor effect that pulls enemies into melee range.
• Cooldown increased to 18 seconds. (Damage remains unchanged)
• Radius is 15ft for all ATs.
• Cast Time lowered from 2.67 seconds to 1.76 seconds.

Pendulum

• Changed from a cone to a targeted AoE sphere attack with a 7ft radius.

Cleave

• Changed from a cone to a targeted AoE sphere attack with a 3ft radius.
• Range increased to 40ft (not enhanceable).

[Lazarillo]

Two very initial considerations, just based on the notes and what I've seen in the character creator.  Any thoughts?

 

1. It's always kinda bugged me that Gash and Swoop are so nearly-identical in terms of animation (same goes for Pulverize and Jawbreaker in Mace).  Any chance at all that one or both might get an alternative one, to allow them to be more distinct?

2. One of the set's biggest limitations has always felt like Beheader being kind of a red-headed stepchild due to the low relative DPA (in this case, an issue shared with BS).  The base DPA was improved with this, but somewhat ironically, since all the others got better numbers now too, it still lags.  Is there anything to be done for that, perhaps?

[Yomo Kimyata]

I like the idea of making this different from War Mace.  

 

I would suggest going the same route you are going with Fiery Melee and allow ADD and DD sets to be slotted.

 

Not a fan of the tractor effect.  

 

Very much not a fan of changing Pendulum and Cleave to targeted AoE sphere.  One or the other perhaps.  I'm assuming that the 40' range on Cleave is some sort of a typo.  Ten feet would be just fine.  I'm assuming this is the same "OMG I can't be expected to hit more than one enemy with a 20 degree cone" treatment you gave Dark Melee?

 

As it stands, it seems like dumbing down the set without adding anything particularly useful to it.  Thumbs down from me.

[Vanden]

5 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm assuming that the 40' range on Cleave is some sort of a typo.

 

Oh, it’s no typo.

[@Ghost]

Enjoyed it for the quick spin I took on beta, absolutely love the vacuum PBAOE. No real math-heavy feedback to share right atm.

 

One thing I noticed is that Cyclone Axe only allows for *partial* color customization which is enabled by default if you pick No Redraw (and normally does nothing for weapon sets.) Here I set it to red/red and it still has the white upper cyclone, but a red effect around the character. (sorry for the poor quality, plucked this from a gif I took.)

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

It's not supposed to be customizable at all. But of the No Redraw system, will be fixed (I know it wont be a popular)

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Not a fan of the tractor effect. 

I like it very much.

[hexadecimalwtf]

Initial thoughts on this is it seems great. Like the idea of the whirl pulling in. But I hope the sound effects are placeholder right now because they do not fit at all.

[electric_emu]

Cleave turning into a bomb is fun.  I also like the vacuum.  Nice to see Axe differentiated from Mace and, to a lesser extent, Broadsword.

[BrandX]

Hmmm...with this and Fire Armor changes, looks like my Fire/Axe tank is going to be changed a lot!

 

Cyclone seems like it will be useful in bringing targets back into Burn for those Scrappers with no taunt aura or just back to the Scrapper's with no Taunt Aura.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Man, what a really whacky and silly change. I'm really digging the identity Battle Axe is given with all the changes. Cyclone Axe is such a unique idea.

 

I threw together an Axe/Bio Scrap with max offense in mind and it was stronk. A very "maximum aggression" play style.

 

My secret hope is Broadsword gets the same love later on down the line.

[Dispari]

The Cleave change is REALLY fascinating (and so is the Cyclone pull attack), so I want to muse about that.

Cleave previously was one of those "well TECHNICALLY it's an AoE" powers, which broadsword/katana also have as their tier 9s. The kind of extremely thin and narrow cones that you would be hard-pressed to hit two people with even when trying. And I heard from a friend of a friend that they once saw someone align all the stars in the sky to hit THREE people with it, but that might just be an urban legend.

Cleave now has a ranged attack effect (ala Focus or Impale), with an extremely small AoE radius of 3 feet which nonetheless might actually occasionally hit a second or even third target, maybe. But with an enhanced ability to aim the thing, it might be a lot more fun to use. I'm also all for more targeted AoE attacks in melee sets, having liked the implementation of Touch of Fear.

At any rate, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head but IIRC these types of powers tend to be endurance-balanced as if they're single target powers and the (very rare) ability to hit another target is treated more like a secondary effect. Is that still the case for Cleave as a targeted AoE?

Edited October 5, 2022 by Dispari

[Lazarillo]

I made a Fire/Axe Tanker to mess around with the changes to both sets, set to 50, auto-enhanced, and turned up enemy numbers.  My overall take on the Battle Axe side of things:

 

Speedier ST attacks:

Lumping them all together here, but they're nice.  Piggybacking off my initial response, Beheader's still kind of needed, I suppose, to keep up a fluid attack chain, so it being kinda wimpy is...acceptable.  Less fun, but acceptable.

 

Axe Cyclone:

Neat. I'm not sure how much difference the tractor effect really made for me, since on a tank, most stuff wanted to get in my face anyway.  I saw enemies pulled in close a couple times, but I don't feel like it made a huge difference.  That said, I figure it's probably not supposed be huge.  So this feels solid.

 

Pendulum:

I don't have much experience with Battle Axe on live, so I'm not sure how well the change from a cone to an AoE works.  It felt perfectly useful, though.

 

Cleave:

This, I think, is kind of interesting.  First up, it's solid in terms of oomph.  But the combination of range and AoE creates an interesting result, where it can used very easily for one or the other, but not so easily for both.  With enemies around me, I could hit it on someone up in my face, and it'd smack down a few other guys nearby too.  If I tried to use it to punish someone a little too chicken to get into the mosh pit, or who ran away, I had that option, too, allowing me to stay put, but generally meaning there was no one else near enough to the enemy to get caught in the blast.  I actually really like this "multitool" aspect.

 

Suggestion: Swap the animations for Swoop and Cleave.  That's my only wish.  Everything else is solid, but as noted in a previous post, I dislike how two attacks with mostly the same function have such similar animations (Swoop and Gash).  I feel like Swoop looks more like something that would produce an attack with Cleave's effects anyway, so that would both give some nice differential, and kinda capture the feel better, visually, IMO (granted, Cleave looks less like something that'd do Knock-up, but I can handwave that as hitting them so hard they bounce off the ground).

Edited October 5, 2022 by Lazarillo

[Gobbledigook]

Scrap that post it was IO's doing it lol. 

 

I like the changes  🙂

Edited October 6, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[Gobbledigook]

Perhaps this is a good time to give Stalkers Battle Axe. Drop Pendulum or Cleave for the AS. 🙂

[KeepDistance]

All I can say is axe was fine, why not fix kinetic melee?

[Black Zot]

On 10/4/2022 at 8:14 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm assuming that the 40' range on Cleave is some sort of a typo. 

 

On 10/4/2022 at 8:14 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

40' range on Cleave

 

Damn, they went full anime on that.

[WindDemon21]

On 10/4/2022 at 5:36 PM, The Curator said:

 

Pendulum

 

• Changed from a cone to a targeted AoE sphere attack with a 7ft radius.

Cleave

• Changed from a cone to a targeted AoE sphere attack with a 3ft radius.
• Range increased to 40ft (not enhanceable).

NOOOOOOOOO! NO! These TERRIBLE tiny radius taoes are precisely why the aoe on street justice's spinning strike, and touch of fear, are TERRIBLE on anything besides tankers who get the increase radius. Please, leave these as the cones they were, and just make them a ltitle bigger maybe, and make pendulum 10 targets/16 targets to match crowd control. And seriously, 3ft radius on Cleave, that's not going to hit ANYTHING else but the target. Do NOT do this.

 

While you're at it, please fix spinning strike to a pbaoe like it should be even per it's animation and finally fix STJ's aoe issue. ToF can make sense as it is, but should still have a radius increase to 10ft.

[WindDemon21]

On 10/4/2022 at 8:12 PM, Captain Powerhouse said:

It's not supposed to be customizable at all. But of the No Redraw system, will be fixed (I know it wont be a popular)

Can we actually get all the weapon powers fixed to be customizable for those special aura and spark animations. Sparks should be color-able. And the glow ground to target effects for things like headsplitter, cleave, golden dragonfly, we should be able to color those. Same goes for like, ALL of trick arrow and other weapon attacks. We can't even color the fire on ignite and flamethrower in assault rifle for heaven's sake!

[WindDemon21]

On 10/4/2022 at 5:36 PM, The Curator said:

Whirling Axe (now Axe Cyclone)

• Renamed Axe Cyclone.
• New visual FX.
• Now has a tractor effect that pulls enemies into melee range.
• Cooldown increased to 18 seconds. (Damage remains unchanged)
• Radius is 15ft for all ATs.
• Cast Time lowered from 2.67 seconds to 1.76 seconds.

This is a good change. I've been thinking about an attack getting this effect for a while since Sing got it. This is a good start. Please also give that pull-in to tornado in storm as well before this patch goes live!

 

In relation to it's radius too, please do this to other melee's as well. No aoe should be less than 10ft IMO. As much as scrappers were one of my favorite AT's for the longest time, those small radii on most of the aoes just makes them really annoying to play on teams. 10ft on most of the main aoes/cones wouldn't OP anything but help ease that suffering. Likewise all dom/blaster aoes should be 15ft standard as well. *stares hard at atom smasher*

 

Edit: relating to thoughts of the attack getting the pull in, also been thinking about an armor set getting that MUAHAHAHAHA. Honeslty, mud pots seems like a good first place to have it, esp relating to granite, you're heavy, so you create your own sink-hole, and enemies are drawn into it. Even if it only worked when granite was on with mud pots combined, would be interesting!

Edited October 7, 2022 by WindDemon21

[Gobbledigook]

6 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

NOOOOOOOOO! NO! These TERRIBLE tiny radius taoes are precisely why the aoe on street justice's spinning strike, and touch of fear, are TERRIBLE on anything besides tankers who get the increase radius. Please, leave these as the cones they were, and just make them a ltitle bigger maybe, and make pendulum 10 targets/16 targets to match crowd control. And seriously, 3ft radius on Cleave, that's not going to hit ANYTHING else but the target. Do NOT do this.

 

While you're at it, please fix spinning strike to a pbaoe like it should be even per it's animation and finally fix STJ's aoe issue. ToF can make sense as it is, but should still have a radius increase to 10ft.

Pendulum works well with Axe Cyclone. AC brings them in close for Pendulum to hit them easily. 

 

Cleave has good damage and does hit extra targets which is nice. Increasing it's radius would lower it's damage. The new set already has 2 AoE attacks.

 

I have tried the set and it works well. It certainly gave me much more interest in playing the new BA set.

 

The only thing i would like now is the Chainsaw Visual for halloween so i can go....

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[WindDemon21]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

Pendulum works well with Axe Cyclone. AC brings them in close for Pendulum to hit them easily. 

 

Cleave has good damage and does hit extra targets which is nice. Increasing it's radius would lower it's damage. The new set already has 2 AoE attacks.

I did forget about the pull in, which more so ruins the cone, but the main issue here, is the radius on those taoe type powers. They need to increase it to 10ft .

 

As per cleave, NOTHING is going to get in its 3ft aoe enough to matter on any scale. This NEEDS to be kept a cone. Ranged is fine, and use its aura it does as the cone similar to how Piercing bullets works on DP. Lets actually USE that energy wave it does.

 

Edit: fyi im constantly hitting 2-3 enemies in its current cone, it's not that tough if you know what you're doing. Even If the "aoe" does less damage to the rest and the main damage is still on the single target (which we know is possible via poison debuffs, thunder strike etc) that would still be a much better option.

Edited October 7, 2022 by WindDemon21

[BrandX]

8 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

NOOOOOOOOO! NO! These TERRIBLE tiny radius taoes are precisely why the aoe on street justice's spinning strike, and touch of fear, are TERRIBLE on anything besides tankers who get the increase radius. Please, leave these as the cones they were, and just make them a ltitle bigger maybe, and make pendulum 10 targets/16 targets to match crowd control. And seriously, 3ft radius on Cleave, that's not going to hit ANYTHING else but the target. Do NOT do this.

 

While you're at it, please fix spinning strike to a pbaoe like it should be even per it's animation and finally fix STJ's aoe issue. ToF can make sense as it is, but should still have a radius increase to 10ft.

 

I don't know, having a Fire/Axe Tanker, I like it.  So much so, I would think to change my fire demon firewoman from tanker to scrapper if I thought the Fire Armor changes would actually make a Fire Armor user survivable 😛

 

Right now, I feel sturdy on my tank with just Max Resists and High Recharge (more Healing Flame!)

[Gobbledigook]

27 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

I did forget about the pull in, which more so ruins the cone, but the main issue here, is the radius on those taoe type powers. They need to increase it to 10ft .

 

As per cleave, NOTHING is going to get in its 3ft aoe enough to matter on any scale. This NEEDS to be kept a cone. Ranged is fine, and use its aura it does as the cone similar to how Piercing bullets works on DP. Lets actually USE that energy wave it does.

 

Edit: fyi im constantly hitting 2-3 enemies in its current cone, it's not that tough if you know what you're doing. Even If the "aoe" does less damage to the rest and the main damage is still on the single target (which we know is possible via poison debuffs, thunder strike etc) that would still be a much better option.

It may not hit as many but it is hitting them much harder than the other AoEs.  Axe Cyclone brings them in, follow with Pendulum for more AoE, you could even add an epic pool AoE on top, then finish the few/boss remaining with Cleave which hits pretty hard and take out any others remaining also. It easy to chain an AoE rotation.

 

If cleave were the only AoE i could see your point but it isn't. With Axe Cyclone pulling enemies in it is better being a small AoE than a cone. The old cone arc was small and you needed to reposition if there weren't and mobs left in the frontal arc.  This version is easier. Maybe the radius could be increased to 4ft though, need to keep it realistic without losing it's damage.

 

The set now has 3 AoE attacks with one being quite small but hitting much harder than the others. It will hit more than one foe and with it's decent damage is not bad at all.

 

I like the new changes. Try it out a bit more and hopefully you will like it also 🙂

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Gobbledegook

[BrandX]

12 hours ago, KeepDistance said:

All I can say is axe was fine, why not fix kinetic melee?

 

Wouldn't mind a reduction in CS's animation time while they're here >_>