Beta 2 Shaman Feedback

Reborn Beta
#1

Hi folks, you’re now able to try out the new Shaman class, a dps class that is all about placing totems down and hurling spells at your enemies! You can read all about the class here.

To play it, simply equip your new Shaman mask in the weapon slot, and then equip some totems. Unlike the other classes, you do not need to unsheathe a weapon to play it, doing so will simply hide your toolbelt for convenience.

Let us know what you think of it so far!

Note: the Shield Totem is not implemented currently, and the class’s Super ability is not in game yet either.

#2

Shaman is fun on first sight! Very nice with the different debuffs and dmg and all. Yet the small range could be an issue. I have to basically stand as close to the mob as a tank to reach him, not only for the AoE totems, but also to throw the balls at them.
Now if it would be any wider it would pull nearby mobs all the time so it’s likely difficult to adapt, at least for the debuff-totems, but see below.

The frequent throw-mechanics seems more arm-taxing than the ranger, I got exhausted with it quickly. I would like a smoother method to cast the balls than “throwing”, more similar to the mage like picking them up and releasing them with the controller, targeting the mob, which would allow to cast frost etc. from wider ranges once totems are down, too.
In dungeons currently tank and shaman will both be very close at any mob.

(Apart from that it sucks to not be able to access Highsteppe or discard any items (because of the broke menu), there’s numerous other bugs like the weapon hand completely disappearing until relog, so the gameplay is very limited, even without the expected crashes. Gonna be back tomorrow when some of these bugs are perhaps worked out specially the menu bug is almost gamebreaking for me, it does work all fine in the current Orbus so I am not sure why it is so messed up now.)

#3

Didn’t Riley say there was a button that would “Throw” the ball for you?

#4

If so I didn’t find it but with my hand disappearing every like 3mins (along with the health bar btw) it is hard to tell. I come back tomorrow.

#5

Been playing only for about 5 minutes… The throw mechanic is extremely easy to get the hang of, and I’m glad that you added a little bit of ‘magnetism’ to the mobs.

My first concern with the class is that when the totems disappear, even if you have grabbed an orb or grabbed + thrown an orb, the orb disappears with the totem. This is bad because:

  1. There’s no timer on the totems letting you know when they’re due to disappear. I think having a graphical timer or making them change colours when close would be awesome!
  2. The totems can’t be directly replaced. If you try to drop a totem ontop of another one, it kinda bounces and rolls and lands wherever, which is not conducive to keeping steady on hits.
    If you had a timer and allowed replacement ontop of the original location, that would be perfect!
2 Likes
#6

“You can grab this with your hand and throw it, hitting enemies. Note that if you want to save your arm strength, if you hold the orb with your palm facing outward (like an “Iron Man” attack) and release the orb, it will have a burst of force applied to it. Useful when fighting close up enemies without needing to actually throw over and over again.”

I guess this is a small force applied for melee minions. My mistake, haven’t played yet :slight_smile:

1 Like
#7

Additionally, the throw seems to glitch a little bit on fast overhead throws. If you throw underhand or overhead slowly, it sometimes seems to hit nothing and then bounce backwards.

Edit: I change my mind - the throws are very difficult to control in general. The aforementioned glitch doesn’t help and makes it so only side-throws are effective for long-distance shots. Which is problematic because:

  1. The orbs seem to ‘stick’ a little in your hand sometimes. Releasing doesn’t always release when you want it to
  2. If you accidentally release it at the tail-end of a swing (i.e. when your arm has stopped moving), it releases as if your hand were stationary, which causes:
  3. The default throw, which is supposed to launch things forward easily to combat too many arm motions in melee doesn’t throw forward. Sometimes it throws to the side, sometimes it throws up…

Edit: the default throw apparently is meant to travel in the direction the palm is facing… but does not always do so, so my point remains.

1 Like
#8

I’m in love! and it’s a DPS class! I’ve been healer and tank before so this is great! Got a few notes though.
For one, the totems on my belt are at the same level as the fireball/lightning/stunball to throw. I find myself grabbing my totems instead of the fireball a lot.
Second, gripping behind your head like for other classes just hides and shows your tools. The totems still stay up all the time and I did grab a tool instead of a totem a few times and vice versa.
Kinda related to that, when I first put on the class my healthbar was constantly showing on my screen. At some point it went away, even when I went into combat.

#9

After a couple of hours of playing:

  1. The sticky-hand situation is very problematic. Being able to throw accurately and quickly is going to be heavily skill and practice-based, but in order for it to be like that and not just problematic, the sticky-hand thing has to be fixed. Also happening to totems, not just orbs.
  2. ‘Fast’ throws seem to hang up and end up throwing backwards, just dropping, or moving forward only a few meters. My guess is that this is lag-based, as the hardware can typically pick up fast motions for things like beatsaber or swinging swords in orbus. Also happening to totems when thrown, not just orbs.
  3. The orbs are laggy! My FPS drops like crazy because of all of the effects. While pretty, they are heavily graphics-intensive. I can experience a huge difference just by turning away from them or turning towards them.
  4. I stand by my comment on the totem timing; it can be very difficult to time these turrets and I think having some kind of visual indicator would be good.
  5. Please make the totem drop ‘through’ the dragons or already existing totems, if possible? Or make it like the dragon treat where it pops back up to the slot if it’s not registering correctly after a few seconds post-throw. I’ve had a bunch of instances when I tried to place a turret and then found that it was rolling on something (a rock, my dragon, another turret) instead of being properly raised.
  6. It is extremely difficult to get throws to go further than a low-medium range accurately or at all. Increasing the ‘magnetism’ of a mob slightly might make this work better, to give a little leeway (much like the musky has AOE splash on their orbs)
  7. Flying mobs do not seem to get hit by orbs if the orbs are rolling on the ground, which makes it again a little more challenging (read: nigh impossible) to hit ranged flyers who run away from the low-medium range that you can accurately throw into.

Observations:

  1. This class does some very good DPS. I love it tremendously and think you’ve done a great job (barring bugs and issues aforementioned)
  2. This class is definitely low-medium range as it stands. I have often found myself having to set up shop (throw all my turrets down to prep for combat) multiple times just to get a single mob, simply because the useful range is so tight.
  3. As I mentioned, very laggy.
#10

What graphics setting are you playing the game on and what are your specs?

Those effects definitely are heavy, I will work on tuning them down more.

Also are you getting lag when it’s just your orbs you are seeing? Or just if there are like 3 other Shamans around throwing them?

#11

Standard. On standard game, I run without issue except in huge combats. In the first reborn beta or when I’m walking around without the totems, it’s not an issue. Turning to low doesn’t help.

I’ve got a GTX970 and an i7-5930K, 32GB Ram.

Lag when the totems are active and have orbs ready to throw. Lag goes down a little when I pick them up. Limited effect from other people, since you can’t seem to see other peoples’ totems’ orbs.

#12

Okay thanks for the info!

#13

I’m having an issue with the shaman balls bouncing off the totems. (they probably shouldnt do that) the hitbox for the totem is also almost 3x the size of the totem itself in width. (almost a full extra totem in each direction) This only makes it worse.

Sometimes on underhand throws, the orb just drops to the ground. I didnt see the same lag issue as atro, but i did see the bug where you have to switch to ultra and back to fix the latency (fps doubled after doing so).

#14

sometimes the orbs glitch out and stop spawning despite the totem still being up
orbs roll down hill… adds even more difficulty with aiming.
orbs also bounce off eachother if you throw multiple at the same time.

sometimes it can be hard to grab the totems if you have the gun on your side slot (it grabs the gun instead)
Dropping totems can also be quite random as to where they appear if you drop them at your feet.

#15

I think the apparent ‘magnetism’ earlier is just the rolling feature… that so happened to coincide with mobs being downhill from the orb. I think adding that if it’s not a thing already would be very helpful, especially for those long-distance shots. Also think that if it is a thing, it definitely needs to be increased.

#16

Agreed. the longer distance shots could definitely use a magnetism of some kind, i’ve seen my orbs literally just go right by them within a foot and not hit. Hard enough to hit as-is… but when they move, there’s no chance of you hitting them.

#17

I would personally like to see a visual indicator on personal totems. Having multiple shaman in a group dropping totems can be jarring. Would be nice to know which ones are ours in group play in situations where we all have to stack.

1 Like
#18

Totems block all projectiles, If you drop the totems between yourself & an enemy that shoots spells, you can generally negate all damage, Enemy players can compensate for this, but some mobs can be made trivial to fight, at least as long as the enemies spells don’t have an AoE effect that you would be within. It could be left the way it is, but then it may need enemies to compensate for things blocking their spells.

The totems also trigger the warriors shield bash ability, which can be an issue if the shaman gets close to the warrior as it can throw the warriors shield bash timing off.

Also I’m guessing that weapon drops aren’t in for the shaman yet, I still am using the starter mask & seem to still be doing good damage to the enemies at level 5.

Aside from those few issues (and a few others stated above), I’m loving the shaman class! I would love to see how this class evolves in the future, I think I finally found my main DPS class!

1 Like
#19

Oh whoops you’re right, I don’t think it’s dropping. I will fix that.

So the original plan at one point was to actually have the totems be killable. Like, only have 100 hitpoints or something so in PvE if they got hit by a projectile like that they would expire, and in PvP players could choose to try and take them out. It looks like they are doing that right now but their hitpoints are just way too high. I will either make them much weaker or I will make it so they don’t count as Monsters that can be attacked.

#20

Haven’t gotten online yet to try anything, but will shaman totems block musketeer heals or turrets? Thinking of the issue we had with the little dragons getting in the way of turrets from long ago.