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8.0 Update Suggestion: Major Bot Re-Balance running from 8.0 to 8.3
Synthwave
Posts: 1,012
So now that the bot roster has been officially capped and we can assume no new bots will ever be added, how about Kabam kills two birds with one stone and do some bot balancing to give some of the lesser-used/underpowered bots more use and utility?
I say two birds because one bird would be the bots themselves and the other is the all-time low confidence the player base has in regards to their perception of Kabam right now. Doing this would help restore some of that lost confidence and show that there are, in fact, some engineers left working on the game.
There are some newer bots that need some help (like Jetfire, Jazz and Blaster) and some bots who have been languishing in mediocrity or worse for quite some time. Other players can feel free to add their candidates to the list, but here's who I personally think needs help and what they need help with:
Brawlers
Grindor - namely his special 3 needs reworked; it's woefully underpowered now and lacks a proper debuff.
Grimock - special 2 needs a chance to stun (how would getting sat on by a giant robot t-rex NOT stun you?). That and/or a 100% chance to gain armor buffs that can be stacked and refreshed by using heavy attacks.
Warriors
Hot Rod - increase chance to land decelerate to 80%. That's it.
Hound - ??????????????????????????????????????????????????. Good luck with him; he's awful.
Scout
Windblade - She's so awesome, but her special 3 is so abysmal that no one uses it. Maybe rework all of the basic attack damage she does during the special itself to Stormfall shock damage that lasts for 12 seconds, thus penalizing the opponent with power failure and instant shock damage if they trigger a special during that time. Players might actually use it then.
Sideswipe - Remove his synergy with Windblade and give it Arcee instead. That's it.
Jazz - There's several ways to fix him for sure, but what I've noticed is that his Confusion ability conflicts with his Signature ability, forcing players to use one ability or the other, but never both together. Because players tend to favor using his heavy attack rather than trying to trigger his signature by attempting to evade or miss attacks, maybe you could offer more incentive to make players use his signature more. One way to do that would be to give him more chances to evade. Maybe make it so that in addition to gaining a critical rate buff for every 5 hits he lands, he also gains an evasion buffs for every 5 hits. This might balance him out a little more. I'd also increase his chance to stun to 30% per hit on his special 1. His special 2 is also redundant because his heavy does the exact same thing. Make it so it drains power or heal blocks or something.
Tech
Soundwave - he's really dated. I'd say out of all the tech bots, he needs the most balancing to freshen him up (OK, Jetfire is worse off at the moment). A higher chance to stun on his special 1 and reworking his special 3 are great places to start. Also c'mon. Give him a unique Lieutenants synergy with Megatron. That was a shameful oversight when Megatron was released. Correct it please.
Rhinox - his signature ability should be reworked so that when opponents face him at higher levels they don't get instantly shocked to death just for hitting him. I still stand by my two suggestions from last July:
SHIELD CAPACITOR - When Rhinox is hit with a melee attack he has an X% chance to regain a lost shield (max 6) and Power Drain X% of power over X seconds. If Rhinox regains all 6 shields back, he induces power lock in the opponent for X seconds.
Another more offense-oriented route that would be balanced for both players and AI could be something like this:
SHIELD SHUNT - Rhinox re-directs all the remaining power from his shields to his chain guns. Rhinox gains X% ranged damage and X% chance to bleed for every active shield re-directed to his guns for X seconds. Shield buffs recharge in 11 seconds. (Hold down block for 1 seconds to redistribute any shields currently active to Rhinox's chain guns).
Blaster - His Interference debuffs need to have some kind of interaction with his signature ability. I think that each stack of interference debuff placed on the enemy should increase his chance to heal from his shield by 10%, so that if an enemy has the maximum 3 stacks of Interference on them, he should have a 70% chance to heal when he blocks ranged shots.
Jetfire - It's very obvious that as the last bot created that he was rushed to market. Lots of problems, but all easily fixed.
1. Expend all energy charges to heal when holding down block instead of one at a time. Put a cap at 75% HP to prevent players from "over-healing" back to 100% if that makes Kabam feel better.
2. Remove his Shieldmaster synergy and fold it right into his Parry Shield instead. He really needs that knock back action to truly parry opponents. As it stands now, he's just getting charges for blocking; there's zero parrying going on.
3. Make his shock debuffs drain X% power per charge. This can be small; like 2% per charge.
4. Give his special 1 the full 20 seconds promised in the Bot Intel report
5. Lose his force shield on special 2 and give him X% chance to stun for 20 seconds when successfully parrying melee attacks. (This could also allow him to have a different synergy with Starscream)
Demo
Waspinator - needs acid debuff on heavies and special 2 and his resistance debuffs need longer timers as well as timelocks when engaging specials.
Mixmaster - needs a way higher chance to inflict acid debuff and needs something for his special 1.
Galvatron - with Megatronus out now, this herald of Unicron needs a little more umph to make him relevant again. A simple adjustment to increase both his crit rate on specials as well as increased percentages to trigger dark burn per dark energy charge is really all he needs to make him shine again.
Tactician
Starscream - easily one of the most dated bots in the game with almost zero melee game. Give him some chances to nullify when hitting with a medium on last hit of a combo. His heavy needs a higher chance to trigger burn and he needs a higher chance to evade heavy attacks (maybe for every successful heavy he lands himself, he gains X% chance to evade heavy attacks in return?). Give his special 1 the ability to nullify 3 buffs, dealing X% as instant shock. Give his special 3 Null Ray the chance to nullify 10 buffs of any kind instead of 5.
Dinobot - His special 2 and special 3 need boosting. Add armor break to his special 2. For his special 3, his 50% chance to heal X% per bite should scale up as you rank him; same with the amount he heals. Capping it at 70% chance per bite and 6% HP at rank 5 seems reasonable.
Ultra Magnus - I still think he's terrible after he was reworked. I think it's his weird signature that forces you to use him after all your bots have been KO'd combined with his weak damage output on his special 3 that is off-putting. I'd also like to see some kind of well-timed block mechanic that stuns unstoppable dashes.
Those are my suggestions for re-balance. Regardless of what gets done to these bots though, I do think all 17 of these bots need something and that the game also needs this 8.0 Re-Balance Update, both for the sake of playability and for restoring the aforementioned playerbase confidence.
But more importantly for Kabam, it requires the development of zero new content, a requirement I know Kabam has seemed keen to stick to over the past 8 months. Also, as the title suggests, feel free to roll these re-balances out over the course of the 8.0 update, but I would think 6 bots per update is more than reasonable to achieve, ending at 8.3.
@Kabam Miike @Kabam Vydious can you pass this on to "the team"?
I say two birds because one bird would be the bots themselves and the other is the all-time low confidence the player base has in regards to their perception of Kabam right now. Doing this would help restore some of that lost confidence and show that there are, in fact, some engineers left working on the game.
There are some newer bots that need some help (like Jetfire, Jazz and Blaster) and some bots who have been languishing in mediocrity or worse for quite some time. Other players can feel free to add their candidates to the list, but here's who I personally think needs help and what they need help with:
Brawlers
Grindor - namely his special 3 needs reworked; it's woefully underpowered now and lacks a proper debuff.
Grimock - special 2 needs a chance to stun (how would getting sat on by a giant robot t-rex NOT stun you?). That and/or a 100% chance to gain armor buffs that can be stacked and refreshed by using heavy attacks.
Warriors
Hot Rod - increase chance to land decelerate to 80%. That's it.
Hound - ??????????????????????????????????????????????????. Good luck with him; he's awful.
Scout
Windblade - She's so awesome, but her special 3 is so abysmal that no one uses it. Maybe rework all of the basic attack damage she does during the special itself to Stormfall shock damage that lasts for 12 seconds, thus penalizing the opponent with power failure and instant shock damage if they trigger a special during that time. Players might actually use it then.
Sideswipe - Remove his synergy with Windblade and give it Arcee instead. That's it.
Jazz - There's several ways to fix him for sure, but what I've noticed is that his Confusion ability conflicts with his Signature ability, forcing players to use one ability or the other, but never both together. Because players tend to favor using his heavy attack rather than trying to trigger his signature by attempting to evade or miss attacks, maybe you could offer more incentive to make players use his signature more. One way to do that would be to give him more chances to evade. Maybe make it so that in addition to gaining a critical rate buff for every 5 hits he lands, he also gains an evasion buffs for every 5 hits. This might balance him out a little more. I'd also increase his chance to stun to 30% per hit on his special 1. His special 2 is also redundant because his heavy does the exact same thing. Make it so it drains power or heal blocks or something.
Tech
Soundwave - he's really dated. I'd say out of all the tech bots, he needs the most balancing to freshen him up (OK, Jetfire is worse off at the moment). A higher chance to stun on his special 1 and reworking his special 3 are great places to start. Also c'mon. Give him a unique Lieutenants synergy with Megatron. That was a shameful oversight when Megatron was released. Correct it please.
Rhinox - his signature ability should be reworked so that when opponents face him at higher levels they don't get instantly shocked to death just for hitting him. I still stand by my two suggestions from last July:
SHIELD CAPACITOR - When Rhinox is hit with a melee attack he has an X% chance to regain a lost shield (max 6) and Power Drain X% of power over X seconds. If Rhinox regains all 6 shields back, he induces power lock in the opponent for X seconds.
Another more offense-oriented route that would be balanced for both players and AI could be something like this:
SHIELD SHUNT - Rhinox re-directs all the remaining power from his shields to his chain guns. Rhinox gains X% ranged damage and X% chance to bleed for every active shield re-directed to his guns for X seconds. Shield buffs recharge in 11 seconds. (Hold down block for 1 seconds to redistribute any shields currently active to Rhinox's chain guns).
Blaster - His Interference debuffs need to have some kind of interaction with his signature ability. I think that each stack of interference debuff placed on the enemy should increase his chance to heal from his shield by 10%, so that if an enemy has the maximum 3 stacks of Interference on them, he should have a 70% chance to heal when he blocks ranged shots.
Jetfire - It's very obvious that as the last bot created that he was rushed to market. Lots of problems, but all easily fixed.
1. Expend all energy charges to heal when holding down block instead of one at a time. Put a cap at 75% HP to prevent players from "over-healing" back to 100% if that makes Kabam feel better.
2. Remove his Shieldmaster synergy and fold it right into his Parry Shield instead. He really needs that knock back action to truly parry opponents. As it stands now, he's just getting charges for blocking; there's zero parrying going on.
3. Make his shock debuffs drain X% power per charge. This can be small; like 2% per charge.
4. Give his special 1 the full 20 seconds promised in the Bot Intel report
5. Lose his force shield on special 2 and give him X% chance to stun for 20 seconds when successfully parrying melee attacks. (This could also allow him to have a different synergy with Starscream)
Demo
Waspinator - needs acid debuff on heavies and special 2 and his resistance debuffs need longer timers as well as timelocks when engaging specials.
Mixmaster - needs a way higher chance to inflict acid debuff and needs something for his special 1.
Galvatron - with Megatronus out now, this herald of Unicron needs a little more umph to make him relevant again. A simple adjustment to increase both his crit rate on specials as well as increased percentages to trigger dark burn per dark energy charge is really all he needs to make him shine again.
Tactician
Starscream - easily one of the most dated bots in the game with almost zero melee game. Give him some chances to nullify when hitting with a medium on last hit of a combo. His heavy needs a higher chance to trigger burn and he needs a higher chance to evade heavy attacks (maybe for every successful heavy he lands himself, he gains X% chance to evade heavy attacks in return?). Give his special 1 the ability to nullify 3 buffs, dealing X% as instant shock. Give his special 3 Null Ray the chance to nullify 10 buffs of any kind instead of 5.
Dinobot - His special 2 and special 3 need boosting. Add armor break to his special 2. For his special 3, his 50% chance to heal X% per bite should scale up as you rank him; same with the amount he heals. Capping it at 70% chance per bite and 6% HP at rank 5 seems reasonable.
Ultra Magnus - I still think he's terrible after he was reworked. I think it's his weird signature that forces you to use him after all your bots have been KO'd combined with his weak damage output on his special 3 that is off-putting. I'd also like to see some kind of well-timed block mechanic that stuns unstoppable dashes.
Those are my suggestions for re-balance. Regardless of what gets done to these bots though, I do think all 17 of these bots need something and that the game also needs this 8.0 Re-Balance Update, both for the sake of playability and for restoring the aforementioned playerbase confidence.
But more importantly for Kabam, it requires the development of zero new content, a requirement I know Kabam has seemed keen to stick to over the past 8 months. Also, as the title suggests, feel free to roll these re-balances out over the course of the 8.0 update, but I would think 6 bots per update is more than reasonable to achieve, ending at 8.3.
@Kabam Miike @Kabam Vydious can you pass this on to "the team"?
14
Comments
Starscream: His SP3 is absolutely pitiful when there is nothing to nullify. His SP2 should also give 100% armour break, otherwise, if there's nothing to nullify (SP3) and you aren't guaranteed an armour break with an SP2 then what exactly are you using those specials for.....their exceptional damage output??
I know he has his null ray the whole fight but if there's nothing to nullify it's useless, meanwhile, there are bots like Optimus and Megatron that can stick an armor break on for an entire fight against any bot whether the bots have an armour buff or not.
Agreed his 5* synergy is weak and unfair.
Magnus...yeah apparently he was buffed a year ago....wow, how bad was he then because to me he is still ordinary. Yes he can be exceptional when there are armour buffs to break but if there aren't, he doesn't really do anything special. He's more about being able to take hits then dish out damage. HIs SP1 with that huge hammer should give a minimum of 1 armour break just like Megatron's ball and chain and like Optimus can almost always do with his axe.
Wasp....for me, his SP3 aside, his damage output is on the low side. Even with resistance debuffs applied his 1 and 2 seem to do little damage, maybe I'm wrong but that's my perception at least. I agree give his heavy an acid or burn, step up the damage and you could do away with those resistance debuffs altogether. Maybe give his 2 a chance to stun.
Soundwave...meh, I don't think he's so bad but I agree his SP3 could use some touching up. Also not a fan of "against autobots only" synergies. Autobots give Autobots synergies even against Autobots.
Yes, Rhinox can be a pain. I'd still like to know how Primal can possibly get shocked when hitting Rhinox with a heavy???
Jetfire: Can be fun to parry but ultimately he's high risk, low reward relative to other bots.
While we're on the topic of things working as advertised...Megatronus is not getting the power rate bonus from 5* Tech bots as advertised. Passive power gain or not, there's no reason that he shouldn't get it other than poor testing/developing.
Blaster: I'm not his biggest fan, he's definitely not bad but he seems like a beast compared to Jetfire.
Hound: he needs some work but even he seems like a beast compared to Jetfire. His precision ammo is great though, they got that right.
Grindor: Agreed with SP3, it's a tickle. While we're on it even Primal's SP3 could use some more oomph, even if you use a heavy before activating it (to get a melee buff) it doesn't seem to do much more damage. The bark much is louder than the bite with his SP3. These are supposed to be brawlers right?
I'm okay with Jazz, but yes maybe give his 1 a bit higher chance to stun.
These are all fun to play but all these I mentioned need to get powered up as at times kinda lacking something there
Please power them up Kabam
Yeah I kind of knew that (and the Bonecrusher issue), but logistically that makes no sense. There has to be some way they can remove it. Yeah yeah I get it, it's a game, it's fantasy, make-believe so odd stuff can happen but getting shocked without even touching the bot is rather extreme.
Five-six months ago Kabam Miike said they would look into the possibility of Primal not bleeding when heavying Bonecrusher but alas like a lot of stuff around here, nothing came of it.
It's not that easy, because then to purify you have to heavy and you can end up getting shocked again.
But anyways this kind of off the topic of this thread.
And Kabam please acknowledge if you're doing rebalance or not, before some of the potential top tier bots went out as forge fodders.
Some ideas would include: disable all forms of power generation during special attacks and give dark burn only a chance to activate, not 100%. I would also cap life/power steal to once per fight, and freeze all power generation while he's under the effects of immortality.
That would be a good start, because he's clearly overpowered, especially when teamed with Robot Resource on base defense.
Tronus is only a threat with Robot Resource. Thats what needs a nerf. Prevent Robot Resource from stacking with other power gain abilities. Done.
What? Why? He doesn’t need a nerf. Once you get used to his specials, and know what bots to bring for him then you should be good. And plus, I don’t want those countless hours of raiding for his chips to go to waste. With RR and tronus, yeah, that could probably use a nerf
Megatronus even ploughs through Primal in AMs. Tell me any other demo bot that's a serious option to solo Primal from 100 to 0. He dark burns through the armour buffs, caps damage every other power bar gain, prevents Primal from buffing at times, has an immortality contingency, can block all fight to build power for various specials, then can either drain power or heal with his special 3.
Someone in our alliance casually uses him to dispose of Primal. That's after he kills pretty much anything else in his path, except for Rhinox, maybe.
It's not just Robot Resource, but that certainly exacerbates the issue.
Any bot can blow through AM Primal. Its player skill that does it more than bot choice.
If you can honestly put your hand on your heart and tell me that Megatronus in balanced and equivalent in power to most other bots, then you can cross 'play balance tester' off your list of most suitable jobs.
You're correct, but it doesn't stop me wanting bots buffed or nerfed that I don't have. I want to collect different bots for different match-ups, not one bot to rule them all. It takes the fun out of having a roster, don't you think? This is the reason why raids are so tedious. If bots and mods were better balanced, you wouldn't take the same team every time.
There's nothing worse then collecting bots you never use e.g. Mixmaster, or bots that make the game too easy e.g. Megatronus. If bots were balanced, people wouldn't cheer or moan when they open 5 star crystals. If everyone considers Mixmaster to be a disastrous pull, or Megatronus to be a fantastic pull, there's something wrong.
Because bots like ratchet, arcee, Wheeljack were meant to be balanced. Megatronus was made to be the bot that is the best. Why would you want to nerf a bot if you csn use it to your advantage anyway? People were getting angry when wheeljack was nerfed. He isn’t stupidly overpowered, but just a very good bot. I think just leave him.
The fact that they did this coupled with the 7.0 "update" tells me they at the very least knew way back in September/October that the game was done. It was probably well before that though. I'm guessing as far back as June.
Also, change his Signature; it's AWFUL. They should make that just a normal Passive, while decreasing the percent damage. I haven't been able to come up with a replacement signature yet, but it'll have something to do with his belly flabs. He was voted Thiccest Bot in the Game after all.
Hound needs to have better utility because his playstyle is clearly shooting and countering... But it sucks
As for grindor, higher crit rate on heavy attacks maybe if the special 3 rockets crit then that's a DEFINITE burn debuff, since it's seriously pointless (minor note: I included grindor because I have him as a 5* duped twice and have everyone that synergises with mv Megatron, he just doesn't feel worth it right now 😥)