Welcome Sonatians. The upcoming patch contains a considerable adjustment to shield-stealing. Here’s what you need to know.
Stealing vs. Healing
Something we’ve struggled with since we released the new Shield Monkey class is the balance between stealing shields and healing. We envisioned shield-stealing as something that healers would do to supplement their regeneration, but this hasn’t proven to be very popular. On the flip side, “draintank” Shield Monkeys who use stealing as an all-in-one tank-healer-DPS mode proved to be much more powerful than we had envisioned. Eventually, we realized that it all comes down to resource use. Healing an ally or stealing shields with the main focus of healing yourself are just not as valuable as “draintanking,” which allows the player to deal substantial damage while tanking and healing themselves all at once. This realization led us to the following two concrete positions:
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Shield-stealing should cost more energy than healing with the same weapon.
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Shield-stealing should heal the user considerably, even if they aren’t specialized for DPS.
After playtesting with a few helpful Paxian Disciples, we arrived at the following implementation. Shield Monkeys now receive 3 units of healing for every 1 unit of shield-stealing damage they deal. Shield stealing now costs 2.75x the firing energy of healing.
This change may end up buffing or nerfing your Shield Monkey setup, depending on how you play. Here’s the breakdown on that:
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If you play a Shield Monkey who focuses on shield regeneration, this change won’t affect your setup at all. You may even find it useful to steal shields now and then.
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If you play a Shield Monkey who sometimes steals shields to stay alive, this change is a buff to your setup. You may be able to re-gear toward more HPS since you’ll receive more healing whenever you steal shields.
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If you play a Shield Monkey who focuses on dealing damage with shield-stealing, this change is a nerf to your setup. You will probably experience lower uptime on stealing since it costs a lot more energy to do so. Moreover, you will receive more healing when you do steal, making it harder to keep some empty space in your shield bank.
If you’re anything like me, you are probably curious to know a few more details behind this change to mechanics. Here’s how we’ve implemented the increased firing energy.
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Transference weapons now operate at around 36% DPE when used for stealing shields.
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The extra energy cost is extracted in a single chunk whenever you steal shields.
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If your shield bank is near full or if your target is near death, the server automatically adjusts the amount of stealing damage and extracted energy to keep DPE constant, giving you a smooth gameplay experience.
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If your energy bank is near empty, the server automatically reduces your stealing damage and extracted energy to keep DPE constant. Your rate of fire on an empty energy bank will be the same as it always was.
Weapon Stat Tweaks
There’s one other adjustment we want to make to healing, but it didn’t make the cutoff for this patch. Here’s what you can expect with the next patch (which will still hit before Universe Reset on June 26).
When it comes to transference weapons, we have tried our best to create a sandbox scenario with lots of interesting options. However, players have helped us realize that some of the options we’ve offered are a bit too wild and niche to provide competitive alternatives to the current meta. We believe the following stat tweaks should address the majority of these issues.
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Low-tracking transference weapons have had their tracking increased (20º to 30º) and firing energy reduced in exchange for some weapon range.
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Transference weapons with 45º tracking have also received reduced firing energy in exchange for weapon range.
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All transference weapons have gained a little range (100-150) and reduced recoil time (3 seconds per shot at most).
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Many Tech 22 transference weapons have been adjusted to offer more competitive alternatives to the Vaidaya Bhisajamzu.
We thank the players who have offered feedback on the balance of transference weapons and hope to hear your opinions on these changes!