First off, inb4 Brice Allen. Also, I don't have numbers, cast times, etc. Some of that can be found here. Okay, last night I bought some cash pvp dual pistols for my character to practice. I spec'd into all of the weapon combos and headed to the War Room to practice. Spent about 30 mins getting the hang of it, doing loft shot, sweep shot, kick, etc, as well as adding magnum round to the end of those. I was also trying to clip Full Auto with block (the animation clips but the vulnerabilities overlap). It's actually possible to be countered with a lunge or BB doing that... but not really what I want to talk about. Basically, I got a bunch of experience with Dual Pistols (plus I've used them a bunch in PvE content too). So, I decide to run legends as Huntress using only Dual Pistols, as practice. I've run as her in MA stance before and do alright. Her moveset works pretty well with MA (doesn't every moveset though ). I admit, it was a pretty horrid experience. I'll try and preface by saying that I spent a good 4 hours que'ing up and running Legends, all up to the server shutdown. Most, if not all, of my Shadowlands matches ended as 850/900-0. It was very ugly. *Note: Before I que'd up, I ran a scrim against a dummy account to test her combos with Dual Pistols.* Huntress could be such a great player (not OP, just a bunch of fun to play and master) if there was more transitioning. Here are some examples of what I mean/envision of the character: Warning, drastic changes ahead! 1) Make the transition between weapons nearly instant. Right now, the weapon change from DP to MA is ~0.5s. Right now, the weapon change from MA to DP is ~2.5-3s. Both of these animations are unclippable (no powers, no soder, no trinkets clips them). If possible, make them both ~0.2-0.3s. 2) Make the weapon changes clip any combo of powers 1, 2, and 3. What I mean by this is that the weapon change can clip all three of them, or just powers 1 and 2 but not 3, or 1 and 3 but not 2, or 2 and 3 but not 1, or just power 1, or just power 2, or just power 3. This would obviously be up to the dev's choosing and/or help with balancing. 3) After the weapon change, you can start right into the next weapon combo. Albeit, with the alternate weapon now. For instance, you perform her Spinning Punch, clipped with power 1/2/3, clipped with the Weapon Change to DP, which leads into Loft Shot (or any combo). This is an important part of that "transitioning." 4) Weapon changes cannot be clipped with powers (not even backflip). While the change will be nearly instant, there will be a hidden delay on using powers, which makes starting a weapon combo the "clip move" for weapon changes. I am adding this restriction because I could easily see it become an exploit/abuse. I think that's about all I have for making her into much more of a transition-heavy character. I mean, she has two weapons, there should be a very cool way for her to use them. Hard Light users are largely based on chained combos. This is somewhat similar to that, but also different and would make her unique and fun to play. Now, on to the problems I have with Huntress right now. 1) She lacks much more defense/toughness compared to other characters. It makes her too squishy. After doing some testing with Huntress, Robin, and Bane, I found out that they all have 6,552 health. I am deducing that every legends character has this health. Originally, like many others I'm sure, believed that Huntress was squishy due to the low health pool. This is not true, she has less defense/toughness. Frankly, she dies way too fast. 2) Dual Pistols seems almost broken, in a bad way. I'm trying to not pull my hair out thinking about it. -First of all, Dual Pistols are sooooooooooo slow. I didn't realize how slow they were until I picked them back up for this. So different than what I was expecting, tbh... -Also, if you use Full Auto too early (continuing to hold it) and your opponent (tap) blocks, the BB will whiff, and the opponent can come out of the block and counter you with a lunge, all while you have Full Auto spraying on him. It seems that Full Auto's BB works on a small loop. If you hold Full Auto, it will BB right at the beginning of the animation, drop the countering ability of it for a short time, then pick up the BB again for a moment, and drop it again... infinite loop of this. Unfortunately, you're vulnerable to interrupt this entire time, even though the BB window is so short. I don't see why they both can't just be constant. If I'm hold Full Auto, I should counter if someone blocks any time within the animation, and get countered if they lunge me during the animation. -Slip Shot is a similar situation. The BB is right at the beginning of the hold, but since you have to tap range first, timing/expecting someone to block is very very tricky. If you miss the counter, the animation is so long that you're a sitting duck. Even when clipping the animation, the vulnerability is still there. And since you're moving backwards while doing this, clipping with a stun power usually doesn't work. I've tried clipping with backflip (dodge move), but haven't had luck at avoiding oncoming lunges. 3) She seems to lack cohesion with her powers and combos. She has quite a few powers with short cooldowns (especially compared to Two Face), but overall she feels very clunky when integrating them with both MA and DP. It works a little better with MA as that weapon leans towards being OP imo, but she is extremely clunky with DP. I hoped to address this with my "drastic" changes above. I hope I didn't leave anything out, I'm spitballin' these from my head, and how I felt while playing as her. tl;dr Please try and read the whole post to give good constructive thoughts. I'm not a master Huntress player, nor do I claim to be. I don't need someone to tell me to lrn2play (unless you make your joke clear). I just see a bunch of missed potential that could make her a very enjoyable Legends character instead of a giant headache like she is now.
That's a change they made a while back when they changed all BBs trigger on activation rather than impact. It screwed up HBs as well, since now pulse beam only triggers at the start - if they block during it does nothing. The same with power discharge. Bloody annoying.
Also, I forgot to add two more things to my Weapon Change suggestions: 5) The Weapon Changes won't do damage like it currently is. They also wouldn't cost power like it currently is. 6) The Weapon Changes would have a 2 second cooldown on the power. This is to prevent players from switching back and forth really quick without using the other weapon. One more problem I had with the current Huntress: 4) When she dies, she goes back to her MA stance. Please respawn the player in the stance they were in when they died.
appreciate your post Huntress used to be my number one toon, ( it WILL be WW and Circe ^^ moving forward) here are my thoughts on her: 1. Huntress is actually pretty beast tbh, there are a lot of higher burst dmg toons, but she is so clippable ( you can hide everything) and fast if you mix it up she can be very hard to read, and the backflips & well timed stuns can help you avoid dmg a lot. 2. Pistols are hard to use in legends regardless, joker has them as well, i sued to LOVE using pistols before all the counters timing got screwed up i could own people with them but it was very much a challenge, they are one of the worst weapons for fast/burst dmg, you can however out play your opponent and confuse them easily with pistols, though harder to do now with the immunities and counter timing out of sync. a risk to run them but can be rewarding if you can outplay your opponent. 3. She does less dmg in MA stance than batman and a few other MA toons, and its quite significant, I think she might do less precision based dmg cause she has three powers that hit multiple toons and doesnt split, as opposed to batman. This was a change that was made about 6 months ago when they made a heap of weapon changes, she was nerfed slightly, her elbow drop used to hit for 600-700, now it hits for 350-500. 4. yes the weapon stance change is annoying after each death -_- 5. Keep practising she can be very deadly, like all legends in the right hands.
I think the emphasis on DP for criticism is warranted. Since she's MA, she's got some love. It's out of context a bit but I wanted to share some tips I find helpful. Tap Melee->Tap Melee->Hold Melee Little kick. Decent to get power clips sooner, e.g. in healing barrel. Still, not likely to be used often. Tap Melee->Tap Melee->Tap Melee->Hold Melee Elbow Drop. This is your most often ability to clip. Tap Melee->Tap Melee->Tap Melee->Tap Melee->Hold Melee Go big or go home. I go for this after a counter or when the opponent is being predictable / not blocking. Tap Melee (as many times as you want)->Hold Range This is where you're playing mind games. Ride out your taps to bait the block and them break em. Power clips: Wrangle (ability 2): Good opener since no CC or counter immunities exist and it stuns EMP Canister (ability 3): First choice for clipping the final hold melee in any combo Spinning Backhand (ability 1): Second choice for clipping the final hold melee in any combo Backflip (ability 6): First choice for clipping the final hold range to block break in a combo
The real question with huntress is WHY DOESN'T SHE HAVE SMOKE BOMB?? (5 tap hold MA combo) 2 hard light characters have smoke bomb and Batman and Huntress don't? Something is wrong here
That would be a big help for burning through the non-blocking clueless noobs I occasionally come across.
Ha! i totaly agree with her transition delay from ma to pistals!I have gotten killed based on the delay time!
Yea, i support this.. As well, Huntress since the beginning is the best char you can use till you get your respectives 'MoL' to purchase new chars (this is just who likes her dynamic moves, depends on each player)... but i have found the same issues as you TheLoneLattern, specially on weapon change, takes too long and its unclippable.. and get ko'd too fast.. that's the only problem i find myself using Huntress.. but you stated a very detailed info too, most of the time i prefer MA mode style..
Yes Dual Pistols and Hand Blast were royally messed up when they made the changes to how blockbreaker works. It's as if the devs want to make those weapons useless. If you use full auto.... you are vulnerable to lunge the whole time you use it.... but it only BB when you start using full auto??? Good job screwing DP and HB devs.
I used to love pistols.... topping dmg constantly using them was hard but oh so rewarding... now it always feels the lunge window is too big and very risk to use them...
As part of an agreement at SOE Live, I offered to help the devs with some of the balancing issues with legends. I have addressed Huntress in my first draft with a decent buff however she will probably need more in the future (also regarding dual pistols, the weapon itself is more the problem than huntress herself) but the new buff proposed should help improve her DPS enough to make her a serious force. If they implement even a quarter of the suggested changes then it should change up the legends meta quite a lot and hopefully put a few legends on a much more even footing. I'll be keeping an eye on these legends to see what needs to be fixed and I'll make sure to notify the devs.
