[vMSA] stage seven imbalance between stamina and magicka characters needs a fix

Letho2469

This might be coming a little late, nevertheless: Stage 7 of vMSA's mushroom rng is ridiculous when playing with a stamina character. While my magicka characters just laugh when eating a mushroom (and this can happen extremely quickly due to rng), for a stamina character this is 99% a guaranteed death. This imbalance is barely acceptable for ppl who want the flawless conqueror title on their stamina main character.

Problem: Poison damage from mushrooms as too much initial damage for stamina characters to surive.
Solution: Adjust the poison damage curve, let it start slowly so that characters that don't have shields actually have a *chance* to run to the cleansing well and increase the damage to 20k @4th tick, 40k@5th tick, etc.

Kanar

So shields stop that damage? Dang must be nice. Coincidentally my run at flawless today was ruined by this stage. I can make about 10 steps after getting poisoned, which doesn't happen very often.

I would be happy if they just fixed it so the poison stops as soon as you enter the circle. Countless times I've died from poison while in the circle. Also fix the enraged attack bug that can happen if you kill the minder at just the right time.

Brrrofski

Honestly, I don't see the big deal.

Some round are easier on some classes than others. But then other rounds are easier on others.

Plenty of people have got flawless on Stam characters.

Letho2469

Kanar wrote: »

So shields stop that damage? Dang must be nice. Coincidentally my run at flawless today was ruined by this stage. I can make about 10 steps after getting poisoned, which doesn't happen very often. I would be happy if they just fixed it so the poison stops as soon as you enter the circle. Countless times I've died from poison while in the circle. Also fix the enraged attack bug that can happen if you kill the minder at just the right time.

I complete the other stages without problems, too, it's always mushroom rng that ruins my flawless runs on my stam sorc. It's unbelievably unfair: If a mag char gets poisoned all he has to do is recasting a shield while running to a pool. Never had to recast the shield more than 3 times before reaching the pool. A stamina character will mostly die by the 2nd or 3rd poison tick as it does not only deal damage but also places a hefty heal reduction debuff on you. => stam characters are fully countered while magicka characters are nearly not affected by it.

Brrrofski wrote: »

Honestly, I don't see the big deal.

Some round are easier on some classes than others. But then other rounds are easier on others.

Plenty of people have got flawless on Stam characters.

I disagree as there is no stage that is easier when using a stam char over a mag char. Ppl already having flawless on stam chars is not a valid point as this thread is not about flawless being impossible for stam chars, but flawlessly completing the 7th stage on a mag char being ridiculously easier. They could also just make the poison dot tick oblivion damage and thus ignoring shields to remove discrepancies between the classes. There would still be the rng problem though.

tommalmm

Letho2469 wrote: »

They could also just make the poison dot tick oblivion damage and thus ignoring shields to remove discrepancies between the classes.

The problem is not in magicka vs stamina, but ranged vs melee. On a ranged caster I don't recall being afflicted with volatile poison there save for few first runs. On melee I pre-emptively disarm the most obvious offenders at the start of a round. Bad RNG (as in complete inability to avoid being poisoned) isn't that common there. I die on a stamsorc to some stupid mistakes there, rarely to RNG (coming too close to the plant is a mistake too, your heavy attacks have a decent 8m range, many skills, like steel tornado/hidden blade, too - use it to your advantage if you can't get closer... even with 2h it's 5-7m on uppercut/reverse slash incl. morphs).

Qbiken

The fact that stage 7 is far from RNG makes the point of OP more or less invalid. Even if a spore happen to spawn under the shield on the last boss (while the boss screams) you can avoid it. The "activation-range" isn´t that big so you can´t stand under a shield with a flower/mushroom/spore under it. The best way to avoid getting killed by those is to manually trigger them in the areas where you know you´ve to be later in the stage to kill adds (and yes that is a valid tactic). Decide on which part of the arena you want to be when killing adds and make sure that area is clean from spores all the time. And sometimes I think the Venom-Callers (that makes all spores activate) are a blessing sometimes when there´s a lot of spores in the room.

The spores got some timer where they go off by themselves after a while, but even if you happen to be in the area of the spore you can actually dodge roll through it (while being inside the red) to avoid it. I do agree that the DoT the spores apply have a weird way of ticking and do too much damage, but that´s an opinion for another topic.

Brrrofski

Letho2469 wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

So shields stop that damage? Dang must be nice. Coincidentally my run at flawless today was ruined by this stage. I can make about 10 steps after getting poisoned, which doesn't happen very often. I would be happy if they just fixed it so the poison stops as soon as you enter the circle. Countless times I've died from poison while in the circle. Also fix the enraged attack bug that can happen if you kill the minder at just the right time.

I complete the other stages without problems, too, it's always mushroom rng that ruins my flawless runs on my stam sorc. It's unbelievably unfair: If a mag char gets poisoned all he has to do is recasting a shield while running to a pool. Never had to recast the shield more than 3 times before reaching the pool. A stamina character will mostly die by the 2nd or 3rd poison tick as it does not only deal damage but also places a hefty heal reduction debuff on you. => stam characters are fully countered while magicka characters are nearly not affected by it.

Brrrofski wrote: »

Honestly, I don't see the big deal.

Some round are easier on some classes than others. But then other rounds are easier on others.

Plenty of people have got flawless on Stam characters.

I disagree as there is no stage that is easier when using a stam char over a mag char. Ppl already having flawless on stam chars is not a valid point as this thread is not about flawless being impossible for stam chars, but flawlessly completing the 7th stage on a mag char being ridiculously easier. They could also just make the poison dot tick oblivion damage and thus ignoring shields to remove discrepancies between the classes. There would still be the rng problem though.

The last round is a lot easier on Stam. You need to dodge roll a fair bit and I found Stam management hard on my mag sorc. Not as much on my mageblade, but it was still really close.

Letho2469

Qbiken wrote: »

The fact that stage 7 is far from RNG makes the point of OP more or less invalid.

No it does not. I can only repeat myself: The fact that spores can be avoided by perfect gameplay has absolutely nothing to do with my claim that magicka has ten times more cheese in this stage by using shields. Not everybody plays like Andy S.

Qbiken wrote: »

Even if a spore happen to spawn under the shield on the last boss (while the boss screams) you can avoid it. The "activation-range" isn´t that big so you can´t stand under a shield with a flower/mushroom/spore under it.

Correct, this is fully avoidable on any class and besides even a mag class using shields will(/can?) die when eating a mushroom under a shield as you cannot reach the pool in time.

Just got another run ruined several minutes ago. Fighting endboss => venom caller spawns => bar swap for attacking him and moving in a lil closer => boss bites into back while mushroom spawns directly under my feet => break free+block => dead. break free+dodge roll => dead. ridiculous npc "cliché pvp macro user timing" => dead. Easy. This is very unprobable to happen you might say, but it happens often enough and ofc it happens when you got your flawless still running. Fix the discrepancies between mag and stam and everything is fine as mag will die to rng too then.

Qbiken wrote: »

[...] And sometimes I think the Venom-Callers (that makes all spores activate) are a blessing sometimes when there´s a lot of spores in the room.

Definetely true, yes.

Qbiken wrote: »

The spores got some timer where they go off by themselves after a while, but even if you happen to be in the area of the spore you can actually dodge roll through it (while being inside the red) to avoid it.

Not true. Spore explosions are aoe zones and thus hit through dodgeroll immunity, just tested it.

Qbiken wrote: »

I do agree that the DoT the spores apply have a weird way of ticking and do too much damage, but that´s an opinion for another topic.

It can be used as a solution for this topic's problem, so it's fine here.

tommalmm

Letho2469 wrote: »

Not true. Spore explosions are aoe zones and thus hit through dodgeroll immunity, just tested it.

What s/he meant was that you can dodge roll out of it. If you're inside of it while the AOE is growing, you're fine. Just make sure you're out of it when explosion happens.

Beardimus

Many rounds are easier on a Stam toon, several bossees even have lower physical res than spell.

You cant say Stam Sorcs have it hard in vMA surely?

Dodging the spores is easier on a Stam toon anyway which is the real goal

Merlin13KAGL

Pretty sure the RNG sucks equally on both classes (mag/stam). The idea is avoidance more than damage mitigation, and the RNG doesn't always make that possible, regardless of whether you're mag/stam.

Izaki

Hmm... You do know why its so random and so punishing right?

Its made to force you to pay attention to your surroundings. Plus you can pop a mushroom yourself by dodgerolling and sprinting through it (it won't touch you). This is actually one of the better mechanics of vMA no matter how much rage and tears and broken keyboards/controllers it caused. Once you understand that these mushrooms are there for you to get better as a player and to teach you to evaluate risks and your surroundings, you'll never die on this Stage.

Now obviously, I've died countless times on this Stage. I've failed Flawless runs heaps of times due to not paying attention to where the mushrooms were. But I'm fairly certain that over 90% of deaths of the playerbase on this Stage is due to player error and not RNG. Mushroom spawns under the Minder? It won't blow up straight away unless you're within 2 meters of it (the radius of the shield is 5 meters). The other 10% is really insanely unlucky situations like for example new mushrooms spawning all around you at exactly the same time as the Venomcaller, which causes all those mushrooms to blow up without any time to react.

If anything I think that the Poison damage should ignore shields, but that wouldn't be consistent with the mechanics of the game.

Letho2469

Izaki wrote: »

Hmm... You do know why its so random and so punishing right?

Its made to force you to pay attention to your surroundings. Plus you can pop a mushroom yourself by dodgerolling and sprinting through it (it won't touch you). This is actually one of the better mechanics of vMA no matter how much rage and tears and broken keyboards/controllers it caused. Once you understand that these mushrooms are there for you to get better as a player and to teach you to evaluate risks and your surroundings, you'll never die on this Stage.
(...)

I'm not talking about "ordinary" mushrooms, but by combos like these:

Finghting endboss > mushroom caller spawning (position and time rng as far as I can tell) > bar swap to bow > .... and then sth. happens that put every pvp macro user to shame: boss bites your back at the same time mushroom caller puts a growing shroom under your feet. Even with instant breakfree (I am very good at using break free due to the fact I pvp mainly) there is not a single chance that you get out of it in time.Bite gets you down to 50/60% hp + heavy bleed dot + shroom dot => no *** way to make it to the pool, I was dead in 1 or 2 GCDs. If i had a shield I would have easily done my flawless.

You cant say Stam Sorcs have it hard in vMA surely?

Dodging the spores is easier on a Stam toon anyway which is the real goal

Stam sorcs run through the stages like a hot knife through butter. But if you eat a mushroom, you are toast.

The last round is a lot easier on Stam. You need to dodge roll a fair bit and I found Stam management hard on my mag sorc. Not as much on my mageblade, but it was still really close.

It is definetely not >.> All a mag char has to do is keeping the shields up. Where do you have to dodge except for the lightning bolt add spawn?

J'skaar Habasi

OP makes a good point. Stam should have a shield that costs 4k they can spam under every hypothetical situation.

While we're at it, I'm having trouble reaching a 600k score on my mag character. I'd like a magicka version of caltrops, rearming trap. I'd really like a maelstrom weapon that buffs an actual skill as opposed to light or heavy attacks.
Can I get one of those hurricane things too.

I also get cc'ed a lot. Let's balance that out a bit. My stam characters just laugh when they get cc'ed, it often means death for my mag character.

This is barely acceptable for those of us who want a 600k score on their main mag character.

Letho2469

Please waste your troll breath on another topic, thanks.

Izaki

Letho2469 wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

Hmm... You do know why its so random and so punishing right?

Its made to force you to pay attention to your surroundings. Plus you can pop a mushroom yourself by dodgerolling and sprinting through it (it won't touch you). This is actually one of the better mechanics of vMA no matter how much rage and tears and broken keyboards/controllers it caused. Once you understand that these mushrooms are there for you to get better as a player and to teach you to evaluate risks and your surroundings, you'll never die on this Stage.
(...)

I'm not talking about "ordinary" mushrooms, but by combos like these:

Finghting endboss > mushroom caller spawning (position and time rng as far as I can tell) > bar swap to bow > .... and then sth. happens that put every pvp macro user to shame: boss bites your back at the same time mushroom caller puts a growing shroom under your feet. Even with instant breakfree (I am very good at using break free due to the fact I pvp mainly) there is not a single chance that you get out of it in time.Bite gets you down to 50/60% hp + heavy bleed dot + shroom dot => no *** way to make it to the pool, I was dead in 1 or 2 GCDs. If i had a shield I would have easily done my flawless.

Nah only the position is RNG, the time is set to about 45 seconds IIRC.

By the way I don't know how the Boss' Headbut puts you down to 60% HP, plus you can see it coming pretty easily so... Just block. #mechanics. Now I get that you're talking about the most RNGiest combos, but still your example is flawed: why not just roll dodge closer to the pool, Injection or 2 on the Venomcaller and then keep DPSing the boss. I know that sometimes you get mad RNG and there's nothing you can do about it, but like I said, 90% of the time its avoidable.

Frankly, the poison stage isn't the hardest one for Flawless. Everytime I've done it a Flawless title on one of my characters, the one that had me reset the arena the most was the 5th Stage. Now obviously, when I do my clears I always focus on the score first so I do things very risky most of the time, so that probably plays a big role in the fact that the only source of my deaths nowadays is the 5th Stage. Once you get used to the 7th Stage, its going to take some insane RNG to kill you there (or trying to burn the boss without killing minders...)

Lukums1

Ive shown so amny people... all the time...

That there are "Safe spots" which can be used. On twitch on forums... with screenshots sooo many of these posts come on people

Letho2469

The Maelstrom FLAWLESS Guide volume 2 is not available anymore on twitch

/edit:
Appareantly the link in your signature is just broken, I found it under the "Videos" section. And now I really feel damn stupid....... Standing inside the pool is just a damn good idea man. (Although mostly I died when I tried downing one of the two adds he summons).

Nevertheless volume 2 is a great guide!