Game Design Adjust Blade Fury

I know this ain't gonna be the first complaint about Blade Fury.

Blade Fury makes enemies being hit by Multihit locked in front of you. While this has the benefit of making Multihit chains easier mid-air, it unfortunately has the consequence of said enemies exploding on your face and dealing massive damage to you.

Acrobat builds tend to be on the squishy side, and while I do agree that archetypes should have weaknessess, they shouldn't be punished for doing what they're supposed to which is hitting enemies with spells. A possible change one can make is by making Blade Fury lock its targets near the edge of Multihit's range instead of directly in front of you. While this might make mid-air Multihit chains harder to execute, it does keep enemies at arm's length which I think is more important for acrobats.

edit:
After some discussion, I learned that Blade Fury's enemy lock function is not as popular as I thought. It adds a form of crowd control that can and do put you at risk to melee attacks without being given a choice, specifically if you're going full-acrobat.

I think it's only fair if this functionality is split from Blade Fury (with some of Blade Fury's damage bonus) and is turned to an optional node, turning Blade Fury and this new node to two 1-cost nodes instead of a single 2-cost node. This way, players can choose the enemy lock function if it fits their playstyle without making it mandatory for all acrobats.



Blade Fury hasn't really changed significantly since it got released. The reason there's complaints about it now is because the lootrun update introduced a lot of exploding mobs. Making adjustments similar to this to Blade Fury should be a nice QoL change for acrobat.


additional feedback but is it just me or is multihit range shorter? did far reach got nerfed or is it because of multihit originating from slightly behind you now?

 

This is a certified cool and good post
And yea i think that the mob should be farther away, because to do real damage against non-CCI mobs, you need to use multihit. Blade Fury makes using that ability punish the player, which seems pretty inconsistent with the rest of the archetype.
Maybe Far Reach gets a very small buff, and the mob goes closer to the edge of the Multihit. As to make it easy to chain the spell, but also not super dangerous.

Or maybe you could just get a resistance buff during Blade Fury.

I’m not sure, but something along these lines would be a great addition.

 

I'm glad you like it, especially coming from an experienced acrobat player! (you're an acrobat main, right?)

A resistance buff would be much simpler (probably), but I feel like it should only be from the Multihit targets; you'll only take less damage from the enemies currently being Multihit. There's not much reason to provide acrobats with resistance from other attacks, especially with how easily they can get away with damage with their range and mobility already.

I guess you can just take Distraction but like, that's a trickster node.

________________________________

It's also why I went with a range buff for Blade Fury's target lock instead. Acrobats can already take Distraction conveniently, so I looked for something acrobats can appreciate as a strength they can have for themselves.

I know tricksters can easily take Blade Fury as well but like, I don't think they'd mind...

 

Yeah, Acrobat is the best.
I do think that only resistance from mobs in your multihit would be better than just straight up damage reduction, but it might be hard to implement soo

 

I agree with the issue except I think the lock feature should just be removed, it doesn’t actually do much other than letting you pick up mobs from the ground which often kills you

 

I don’t think it should be removed. It greatly increases your damage potential on non-cci mobs, and rewards using it with skill. It’s also useful in a team. For example, you can use it to pull the Weeping Roots mobs in the tree room in TNA up into the air before they can cast Wave, effectively helping your teammates stay on the platform. That’s just one of the many places Blade Fury can be utilized. It just needs some tweaking in my opinion.

 

I dont see how this works, with acrobat you're hovering over your enemy anyways so as long as you look down your damage output is basically the same

It reduces your teams dps cause you're throwing the enemy around, making it hard to hit

You could instead keep them there and have your teammates kill them with the extra dps

 

1. It works because every single ability you use will be almost guaranteed to hit the enemy. That means Lacerate, Shurikens, Jasmine Bloom, Multihit, and Dancing Blade are all proccing at once in less than 2 seconds, if you do it right. Some of these abilities will rarely hit the enemy if you aren’t very close to them, so having this will increase the use of those.

2. It could reduce the total dps, but if it becomes an issue with, for example, the Despairing Crawler, you can just not use Multihit (or not go too high with it) and have a higher team dps.
However, most of the time if there is a boss, it is CCI. If it isn’t a boss, it likely can be killed rather quickly, alone or with a team.

3. This would take a lot of coordination for a small payoff, though. You could have all of your teammates attack the one Weeping Root, leaving the other mobs free to attack the platform person, or you could just drag it into the air.
Furthermore, you will likely be airborne, having a good aerial view of the area. You will be able to see the Weeping Roots before your teammates do, allowing you to clear them out before they can even do any damage.

I see what you are saying with the inconveniences of it, but I feel like the useful parts far outweigh the small drawbacks.

 

1. you could also just get close to the enemy normally, blade fury doesnt actually help
2. the fact that it makes multihit a spell not to be used is why im suggesting that
3. i guess you're right but still thats a really niche use

 

1. Blade Fury helps a lot as getting close to the enemy means getting close to the ground, which is very, very risky. The enemy is going to be close to me anyway, so I’d much rather take them into the air, where I am in control, than be near the ground, where my abilities cannot be used to their fullest.
2. It is a pain to not be able to use Multihit sometimes. Maybe you could hold shift before casting Multihit to disable Blade Fury?
3. One of many.

By the way, I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful here in any way. I’m just trying to share my reasoning for liking Blade Fury as an ability. I hope you take my responses in the way they were intended.

 

1. getting close to the ground isnt really risky cause blade fury is basically doing that for you. Also, smoke bomb cant hit blade furied enemies if you dont take sticky bomb. Plus you can control your relative position to the mob as long as its below you without blade fury, and be able to retreat or quickly jump up. For example, a blade furied enemy casts self explode. You take the hit. If you didn't blade fury it, you could piro up or lacerate hop. Not to mention non-blade fury multi keeps the enemy in place which is really useful.
2. yeah this is probably a good solution
3. i dont really see any other cases

 

I've never seen this perspective on Blade Fury before.

What I've learned is, acrobat mostly thrives as a hit-and-fly archetype that relies on poke damage instead of continuous burst, especially when working with a team. I personally like chaining Multihit after Multihit (I do lacerate-multihit-lacerate-multihit, and I don't take stronger multihit so Fatality can proc), but it can be incredibly mana-intensive and it puts you at risk by being close to your targets (so I take Distraction and Blazing Powder).

However I do believe that both these playstyles have a place in acrobat. One has consistency, while the other has more dps potential.

So uhh, just split Blade Fury into two nodes?

________________________________

I gotta say tho, it's hard to gather info about this bc most players that talk about acrobat just use mythics, which gets rid of most of acrobat's problems. I don't think that's a good baseline to make decisions off of since majority of the players don't got mythics.

 

Yes. There isn’t a “right” way to play Acrobat. I never thought about taking Blazing Powder for the blinding, though. That might actually be really strong.

Blade Fury splitting into two nodes would probably be good. Maybe they could both be white nodes, and the position locking part of it would be optional.

 

I honestly dk if it's any good at all. I should really pay more attention to logistics lol

Yep, that's the idea!

 

I’m going to test it out later. But whenever I use blade fury, I use Lacerate once the enemy gets near me, so the stun might be enough to stay safe from any possible attacks.

I’m not sure why I treated it like it was a new amazing scientific discovery lmao

 

In my experience acrobat isn’t very mana-intensive, and you can still do constant dps. I’m using morph oblivion rn with 16/5 mr and I’m sustaining fine. To keep dealing damage, you can either hover over the enemy with lacerate multi hop, the last move sending you upwards into safety, or a more risky dash dash multi or dash multi which nexts more single target dps. However, I do agree with splitting blade fury into 2 nodes

 

I was referring to the Lacerate-Multihit combo with the "mana-intensive" statement. That combo is gonna ruin your mana. It maximizes Multihit's dps because it's basically gonna be going all the time with Fatality hits in between, but you need really good mana sustain to keep the combo going.

Also morph acrobat just sustains in general with any weapon.

But yes I'm glad you like the idea of splitting Blade Fury into 2 nodes!

 

Remember to use shurikens, they are insane

 

That’s the point of the dash multi, and on lacerate multi hit I use mana steal

 

I play Acrobat and very rarely cast multihit at all. Using lacerate-dash-main-lacerate-dash-main on top of enemies deals plenty of damage keeping you out of enemy range (excluding burstranged ai in some cases).
The lack of range and the opportunity cost - casting multihit means not casting a lacerate that keeps you in the air or a dash that gives you shurikens - just mean that I never find it to be useful.
Blade fury doesn't really have a use for the +5 jump height +150% ws playstyle.