I'm kind of surprised no-one has had anything to say about this, good or bad. I'd really let it just slide into obscurity, but I'd also really like to hear at least SOMETHING from the playerbase on it..
But, I guess, if no-one cares then no-one cares.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Well, despite me not having played a War Macer, it'd still be nice to add some form of.. slight flashiness to the heaviest hitters one has, as it's been done with other sets, so perhaps with War Mace having a 'flash' moved from another attack to Clobber might be an agreeable/workable solution?
But yeah, i'm all for adding an oomph effect to Clobber, be it transferred from another attack or not. 
Ive also never used war mace, but im never against making stuff look cooler!
No, you're right. Clobber deserves an effects boost to match its damage boost. I don't have any suggestions better than yours off the top of my head, though. The thing I worry about is that they might change animations to a longer one.
My personal preference would have been to balance out the set a bit more, assuming they've hit their overall DPS/DPA goals for War Mace by sliding a bit of damage off Clobber back on to Shatter and Crowd Control, mainly because Clobber really is surprisingly powerful--perhaps too much--for its animation, and like I said, I'm afraid that another look might warrant an animation slow down.
Well, Clobber already pays a high price for what it does in cost and recharge, plus it robbed the set of a true control power, so I don't believe it's any problem what duration its animation is. Shatter's animation isn't that much longer, anyway. It's also important to remember that both Battle Axe and Broadsword end in big hitters that can clip up to 10 targets, whereas War Mace has Clobber, which is limited to one, yet still hits only as hard as Cleave. I don't believe the set is overpowered even now.
The problem with the animation that I see is it just doesn't look big enough, not nearly for what it does. It's like BANG! BANG! Plink... Bloody mess! It's a decent animation, but it needs some more graphical power behind it. Merely cloning the shiny and screen shake of Shatter to Clobber would be enough as a baseline, in my opinion, though I wouldn't refuse a brand new effect, either.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Let's get something out of the way: We all know that War Mace, Battle Axe, Broadsword and Katana share the same family of powers, consisting of a selection of reliable attacks, neither too strong nor too weak (in terms of scale damage) and ending up with one or two "flashy" attacks to denote the most powerful. Katana gets one - Golden Dragonfly, and all the others get two. Broadsword gets Disembowel and Head Splitter which display a red "pillar of pain," Battle Axe gets Swoop and Pendulum, which display an odd yellow trail, perhaps a ripping pattern, and War Mace gets Shatter and Crowd Control, which display a blue effect reminiscent of splashing water or possibly what one sees when one sees stars.
Here's where the trouble is with War Mace, however - neither Shatter nor Crowd Control are the set's strongest powers. As of fairly recently, this honour is given to Clobber, the once low-damage, high-stun attack turned set's heaviest hitter. I'm not sure what War Mace's original design was (low damage, high control, maybe?) but it's left the set with attacks which are, comparatively, on the weaker side, essentially what Tremor is to Foot Stomp. When that was changed and Clobber was turned into a very heavy hitter (on par with Cleave, in fact), however, nothing in its effect changed. It's the same old swing (Hack/Chep) with the same old non-effect. Perfect for a low-damage utility power, but for the set's heaviest hitter...
This brings me to my suggestion. Could we do something about that? It's bad enough Shatter has the cooler, heavier-looking animation of Head Splitter, but it also has the very evident, very flashy effect it has, yet it does lower damage. True, it extends in a cone, but still, the set's heaviest power has to have SOMETHING to it. Personally, I'd be happy as punch to just have the blue splashy effect cloned over Clobber, just to signify its strength. I wouldn't mind an ever so subtle screen shake to it, too. But that's just one possibility.
In truth, ANYTHING done to Clobber to "spice it up a bit" would be just dandy in my book. I know BABs has a hard and fast rule about not changing the look of powers "just because," and in most cases I agree. Long-established powers don't really need changing most of the time. Clobber's current incarnation is not a long-established power, however. It may be old news by now, but on the time scale of the whole game, that's still pretty new. In fact, I honestly expected the power's appearance to change to reflect its damage when it was changed. I just didn't really have any Mace characters at the time to know one way or the other.
So, that's my suggestion - make Clobber's effect reflect the power of the attack. Simple as that.