I think the ability is fine as it is. If anything remove the haste, but the slow and stagger is what makes it an S tier ability. They’re turning hatchet into more of a side weapon
5 Likes
They should add stagger back to the heavy attacks and not go on killing more of the impactful combat… This game will be to be given up for the actual action fans soon…
I just think that it’s funny that they went through all of the trouble of reworking the throwing tree only to nerf it at the last second and ensure that only one of the skills is used
3 Likes
by the way they are buffing / nerfing hatchet it becomes more and more support weapon,after this change I know healers are preparing to use hatchet instead of rapier. Imagine how bad they messed up with hatchet when a healer is going to be using weapon as support.
they are ruining the weapon tbh
The fact that this ability is being messed with at all is not a good thing at all. Especially now that the slash damage meta is a thing right now. The ability was fine and balanced and it’s one of the few on the throwing side that people actually enjoyed. If the stagger is removed, the hatchet wont really have anything to answer a target that’s charging them like it used to, hence the “Social Distancing”. On live you can, stop Burnouts, Vault Kicks, and other similar gap closing charges.
Crazy thing is that people are making suggestions to drop this or drop that. I say nah. Leave the ability alone. Like they’re adding a QOL change by adding the ability to not let the move kick you back like the Blundy does. Yet that feature is somethin that differentiates the 2 skills. It forces you to have a choice to make. Do you use the ability to defend or to aggro. And if you aggro with it, will it kick you into a crap position? You CAN cancel the kickback with a block, but you can’t throw hatchets if you choose to do that. If you choose to throw hatchets, you can’t block to cancel, but you CAN dodge cancel… but you’ll waste your dodge roll and your stam leaving you vulnerable. Literally all of these tradeoffs and choices that you have to make where you use the ability for offense instead of defence. Make the ability not kick you back and ALL of that advanced player thought goes away. But yeah, let’s make it NOT kick you back because casual JOE the PVBot Farmer is whining that it’d be better if “it was like the Blundy’s net shot.” They aren’t even remotely the same and the main draw of the Social IS the stagger, NOT the slow. The slow is there to make you not COMPLETELY defenceless if you end up forced throwing a Social at a gritted target so that you AT least get some breathing room on top of the kickback, but with the light changes, that kickback isn’t as strong as it was and that’s, again, kind of ok because it’s not a get outta jail free card. IT NEVER WAS. It’s a hatchet, not a rapier. This is why healers wanna run it, instead of rapier, but it’s not the same. You gotta LAND throws to be able to off-hand it. We call that balance.
Meanwhile, the perks and buffs don’t really all happen at the same time unless you really make it a thing which is niche. You cannot really chain the stagger into anything. No one-shots. No schizos are doin easy cheap combos with it. Can you combo it into some things? Yeah, but you gotta LAND IT and that ain’t easy even at close range. Especially at close range and if the target moves even a little (this is actually a good thing). Like the root, the target’s gotta be 6meters away. The movement, you gotta have a debuff on your target. The reset, well, they gotta be 6 meters close… Oh, and let’s not forget that the throwing hatchets are actually pretty difficult to land. They have travel time AND a narrow hitbox (that’s actually a REALLY good thing). Like legit, leave ability alone. Don’t buff nothing. Don’t nerf nothing. Go take your heavy handed changes somewhere else.
And POOR HEALERS by the way. Not only did you nerf their weight class, which woulda been fine, you also introduced a weapon that they CANNOT get away from because it’s tracking is overtuned (great sword), you made them really vulnerable to great axe bloodlust as well, and you killed their defensive offhand in the rapier. They really don’t have better options. They COULD use the hatchet, but they’d have to land the throws to benefit and if ya take that one ability from them too which they coulda used to defend themselves with all of it’s nice pros and cons… lol That’s just cruel. Doesn’t matter if they can cheat death on a 2 minute CD that doesn’t reset upon death if they can’t get ANY room to breath for a reposition. No, I did not say get away. GOOD healers don’t “get away”, they reposition and KEEP HEALIN.
Who cares about increasing Social’s damage… that does nothin and it’s mean. Worried about the utility? Mess with the cooldown. Mess with how the reset works. For the LONGEST time Social Distancing would refresh ALL hatchet CDs. You know how many hachets we had this past meta during that time? Not that many and that’s WITH an overpowered broken version of it.
LEAVE throwing side alone. Leave hatchet alone.
Go mess with mages. They’ve been cryin in these forums lately. And their cries are valid. No one slots them in wars because other stuff just does it better. Like legit. Stop listening to the loudest noobs and PLAY YOUR OWN GAME? If not, just watch even some 30 minutes VODS of REAL players that play EVERYDAY! Not Redbyrd, NOT Xaryu, but REAL PLAYERS that PAY YOU MONEY literally every month for skins and extra accounts and do actual mutators AND/OR wars AND/OR OPRs all day EVERYDAY. They exist. You have telemetry data. You’re AMAZON. You know when I take a deus… Quit playin ignorant and go mess with things that MAKE SENSE.
3 Likes
Dis right here.
For the love of all that’s (un)holy can we just leave the effin hatchet alone!
I like the changes they’re making to social distancing, but the stagger needs to stay for sure. It’s the only thing the right side of the tree has going for it.
Maybe make it stagger only when you trigger the “leap backwards” animation. I think that would be fair. @Luxendra
I hear you on that, let’s gut hatchet in PVP. I mean you don’t see mages or muskets or anything other than hatchet in high end pve. And according to dev balance philosophy that is a fair trade off.
I do agree about it stagger shouldnt be removed on social distanced,hatchet doesnt have a proper CC which makes the weapon running simulator
I disagree personally, social distancing will still be a great ability with stagger removed. You still are getting haste, reduced dodge cost, root, slow, CDR, mobility, and invulnerability. That’s way more utility than most abilities in the game.
1 Like
none of things are doing what stagger does
Ingenious observation. Removal of stagger won’t make the ability not worth taking so it’s obviously not as crucial you claim.
stagger was what making the skill good for hunting healers,those are just debuffs even tho debuffs and getting speed is good stagger was the key part which u could kill the healers with.
You can say that about any nerf though. Sounds like it’s just a git gud problem you’re gonna have to learn to adjust like the rest of us.
1 Like
I gave you all the information you need. I’m waiting.
you didnt say yes if u would quit the game. Are u gonna quit the game and forum if u lose to 280 ping player yes or no. for ur information i’ve been on ygg couple of times so its not an issue for me to transfer there again.
And this is how it should work. Some empower buff and fortify buff + haste + drop all cc when you init skill. It still would be super good skill, one of best in game.
Yea, but it would require from hatchet users use more tactic. So far whenever they passive pop up they just keep going without thinking, often just dying… it is just so brainless that i am speechless
Again, the stagger AND the kickback are what make SD what it is and what it is most useful for. You could remove the haste and the slow and the ability would still be viably useful. Yet, these are the 2 changes (removing the kickback and the stagger) that are on the PTR (I’m aware of the % DAM increase, but I’m not focusing on that, it’s pretty irrelevant).
If the stagger is removed, the hatchet will have 0 ways to stop a healer’s casts (or the fire mage’s channeled abilities, if fire mages even still exist in this game anymore). The point is that the weapon will have no way to stop them aside from bursting the healer down which is pretty bad gameplay and design when that’s your only tactic. There’s no choice there. You have 1 option. Burst. Without the stagger, healers can heal right through the DPS.
If the kickback is turned into an OPTIONAL kickback, then the balance of the weapon becomes worse, not better. It’s good game design for the ability to have the negativity of forcing a reposition into a more defensive location. Especially because the weapon is used to skirt quickly and attack the backline. Currently, if the ability is used aggressively, the hatchet has 2 choices:
A: BLOCK. If the Hatchet user chooses block, they MISS OUT on thrown hatchets. This automatically puts them into a riskier position given that the hatchets range is the LOWEST.
B: Dodge. If the hatchet user chooses to dodge, they MISS OUT on 40-50 STAM while also placing themselves into a more vulnerable position. (This is good because their targets are healers and if that healer is peeled for, the hatchet will have 2 dodges left. 1 That will reposition them and 1 that will exhaust them. High risk. High reward). This also balances out the Defy Death that people seem to hate on so much. Because if GOING IN (to cancel the kickback) the hatchet user has LESS STAM, it increases the likelihood of them BEING CAUGHT.
Removing this choice of high-risk high reward is bad game design. This isn’t a question of convenience. It’s a genuine question of balance and breaking a well-designed ability/weapon.
As an aside, by the way, Defy Death isn’t that bad because it DOES have counterplay. The buff CAN be removed and the cooldown of like 2 minutes persists and does not reset on death.
1 Like
Oh, and making the obligatory kickback on SD OPTIONAL, will solidify it as a healer’s off-hand because if they use it for defense they’ll NEVER get kicked back into harm’s way lol. Food for thought.
Cheat death, a cleanse, a slow, movement speed… hmmm… wonder why it’s not already.
Probably because on live it’s just not as reliable as the rapier. But it will be if you make the Social Distancing’s repositioning factor both brainless AND free.