[Poruku]

In today's evade landscape, one must constantly grapple with hit in their build. Or, in some cases, simply abandon hit entirely in favor of an evade ignore build, or a full support build / minion-user. 

Evade ignoring abilities have a place as a way to make matchups against evade enemies more consistent, as well as, in some cases, guarantee that a secondary effect activates on something important. Evade ignore builds are sometimes balanced as well. But sometimes not.

However, a few skills remain that allow a bit too much evade ignoring power... I wanna talk about some specific examples. In many cases, I think Great Accuracy is a better way to balance evade ignoring abilities, unless the ability really makes sense with full ignore. In some cases, a high cooldown is enough. And in other cases, the ability or combo is difficult to land so it makes sense to have a payoff.



Firebird's Falcon Strike + Lift Off (feat. Lance De Lion and Soaring Spear)
This combo has a low cooldown and allows firebird to consistently wreck an evader in close quarters. Though I think it's not that broken, firebird's evade ignore gameplay could use a little nudge down as it's the most consistent class versus evade in my opinion. I think making falcon strike GA would be fair, as it's also a movement skill that is very useful. They both have a 2 round cd, so it's easy to spam it. On top of that, firebird has access to lance de lion to round things out, and soaring spear in certain situations.

Plisfa's Masochism
This single skill makes any matchup against a basic attacking hexer essentially impossible to win as an evade build unless you have a summon or some way to avoid taking on the curse. I feel kind of bad using it when in a 1v1 with a poor evasive duelist and I get to guarantee some 300 damage crits as soon as they touch me. I'm not sure what the nerf is here. I rarely see this used, perhaps because it feels just unfair or it's just unreliable. So yeah idk.

Grenade Launcher
Spamming this skill every round, on its own, can allow you to slowly kill any evade build. In fact it's like 50% of the reason why engineer is good. It's crazy! This skill could really use the Greater Accuracy tag because it has a 1 round cooldown. It's simply too good. This should also be done with the bomb item.


Suzaku's Lord's Flame
The spammable skill of Suzaku is pretty crazy strong at deleting evaders. I think it should either have a cooldown or become GA or just become a normal skill and you give youkai more consistent hit in general so summoners aren't constantly forced to use suzaku and sazae oni. Whirlpool isn't too broken since, well, it does have a cooldown. But it is still quite strong.

Shaitan's Painful Grip
I think I daydreamed this being nerfed at some point. But it's still crazy good right? Either way it deserves a little nerf in my opinion. Since it ignores all protection and all evasion, it's good against every kind of opponent, though, mostly really tanky and really evasive ones, being less overall effective if your opponent has poor defenses. I think that dynamic is interesting and it should keep its consistency, but perhaps receive a tiny little small nerf to make it less devastating. The fail chance is already quite annoying and I think it's a liiiiittle bit overrated in many cases but still, definitely one of the OGs of evade ignore and it's been very powerful for a long time, not to mention shaitan in general is a goated race.

Divine Shower
I think slapping Greater Accuracy on this one would be fair. It's a skill that can turn the tide of a fight, and it's on a class that is very powerful. I don't see why the Evade Ignore is warranted on it.

Dancing Tentacle
Aquamancer has a few good tools to deal with evade builds, with steam sear, water to wine, and most importantly the spammable dancing tentacle. This skill has been very good for a long time. It even immobilizes! Since it's such a solid skill with no cooldown that has a powerful effect as well, I think it deserves Greater Accuracy.

Solblader
The evade ignore of solsphere goes pretty hard. I have little experience with this class or against it, but I hear it's good. I'm sure someone has a better take than me on this.

Ice Point Guard Icicle Spear
I'm not sure if this is too strong... Thoughts?

Frigid Formation
This should have a lower cooldown....

Retaliate
GA retaliate anyone?....

[zericosmic]

I dunno..

I feel like one of Firebird's big niches and strengths is being the Anti-Evade class.

Plisfa's is really strong, but rarely picked due to just how Skill Point hungry hexer is, a lotta hexers just take more invokes and tools they can use in most matchups, caster hexers also tend to double hit (using up 2 stacks) and their damage is often not too frontloaded.. The big draw for Plisfa's is usually for basic hitter hexers, who are running Hexer, as a subclass for its many tools, instead of the raw power of the many other subclasses. It can also be played around, and removed with negotiate.. I've personally only struggled to deal with this ability in one specific matchup. (Hi Fern)

Grenade Launcher has already been nerfed to GA last patch, in this instance, I do agree it was busted.

Lord's Flame IMO is one of summoner's important buttons, and having lost Evade Ignore on Wild Waterfall, has nerfed summoners against Evadies already. While I do think Lord's Flame is strong, I think rn it's not too oppressive.

I don't have much to say on Shaitan Grapple, but I do kind of also feel like it's overrated, it can suck as some class combos, but others can deal with it without too much trouble.

Divine Shower, is one i can sort of agree with, it can feel borderline opressive in some matchups, but granted it has a CD, and it does take 9m to use.

Dancing Tentacle has been nerfed last patch, not to immobilize unless it's on water tiles, which i feel like is already enough of a nerf, it usually also doesn't do too much damage, and right now to immobilize you, the aquamancer has to try to hit you with water dragon, or waste momentum on putting down water that can be planned around.

Ice Point Guard Icicle Spear... This one is a pain in the ass, and is what makes zoner verg really oppressive, evade ignore, good damage, infinite range, spreads ice and sets up for ice skate, and inflicts a huge amount of LVs of frozen.. If any of these would get nerfed, this is probbably the one I'd most likely give the middle finger to on their way out.. It can be counterplayed with mirror, but this can be counterplayed right back by the Verg equipping a mirror too. Does it need a nerf? I can't really say, If I had to see it hit, I feel like I'd rather it's range gets hit, so that it is not a siege tool.

Frigid Formation.. Yeah probbably.

Retaliate, I feel like doesn't need a buff, it already keeps all your rage energy if you miss, and matador DH is in a good state.

[Collector]

Lift Off's evade ignore requires class resource, Falcon Strike is very easy to space against, Lance de Lion is conditional and won't grant you a third action, and soaring spear is ALSO conditional. While firebird has evade ignores out the ass, they're also fair; all of them have cooldowns and aren't going to delete a dodgy with good positioning. In the same vein, a guile build with 60+ flanking isn't going to have an effective 300+ hit against you if they can't flank you - something that's arguably easier.

Firebird is god's answer to poorly positioned evades trying to wall you out, and I love it dearly.

I've always been of the opinion that if you set your only defensive layer is dodge in an environment that encourages you NOT to do that, you deserve it. Build a hybrid, have fire res to deal with the evade ignore roster that heavily favours the element, or just don't end your turn directly next to guy staring saucy at his falcon strike > lift off; all of the problem-child evade ignores are already gone, and the rest are manageable if you play well.


also being walled by dodge is the WORST feeling and I hope you explode violently

[Poruku]

I didn't know Retaliate, tentacle and grenade launcher got changed... That's awesome!

For firebird, I guess I don't mind it terribly but I feel like people aren't really abusing it as much as they perhaps should(?) But I guess nobody really complains about it so it's not a big deal.

That being said I think divine shower definitely deserves the nerf. It was given a cooldown a while back but that basically doesn't change how good it is.

Shaitan grapple is definitely overrated but yeah. I dunno. I think a lot of people choose not to spam it cause it's boring as hell, but a shaitan build focused entirely around being super tanky and spamming evade ignores and grapple is pretty powerful. But I don't actually see it being abused as much as it perhaps could be.

[zericosmic]

I think Shaitan grapple was actually indirectly nerfed by the bodyguard nerf.

I think bodyguard is still decent, but post nerf you just don't see many people running it, and from what I could tell from experience at least, is that a lot of these grapple builds rellied on being super tanky, and were hard as hell to actually take out for a lot of builds when they got to low HP.