Survivor buff?

Neo Monsters
1

Continuing from another thread!

In the interest of diversity of monsters and teams in the game, as well as helping newer players, I think survivor and maybe double survivor (not vanquish) could use a buff, where they are charged after 250. Reasons:

  • They’ve always taken 300 secs, but the TU on moves is so much smaller these days. So the survivor has to survive more moves than before.

  • The visible icon makes it easy for enemies to deal with Survivor monsters, knowing exactly when it’s charged and dealing with it at the time.

  • Even a 250 TU is a much harder restriction than the likes of slayerbane, confidence strike, retribution, fast strike and other moves.

  • Survivor causes recoil damage to the user :slightly_frowning_face:

  • It doesn’t do a ton of damage either so won’t affect buffed PvE events much.

  • It’s a move much more accessible to lower ranked players! :partying_face:

Any thoughts? Or other ways to buff?

  • Hell yeah!
  • Absolutely not!
0 voters
2

That would also affect many other skills related to survivor status - vanquish, bow out, survivor bane and other versions of survivor like (double) survivor drain. There are a lot of other skills and status effects with 300tu - death sentence, sleep, deathmark, duel. Do you suggest lowering them as well? Now they overlap quite good because they last for the same amount of tu. What about megabombs (400tu/250tu in link)? If you want stuff to charge faster then we should talk about the rest of time related skills and status effects.

3

No I wouldn’t change the others.

Survivor bane is a weird one because it kills at 200 TU before survivor is charged.
Megabomb is a huge payout. Not like survivor which causes self damage and poor damage
Vanquish can stay the way it is because the piercing adds value

I see your point, but I think a lot of the time based skills you have mentioned have much bigger payoffs than a measly survivor :+1:t2:

4

I replied to the other thread before seeing this. I’ll paste my reply here (and delete it from the other thread).

A better comparison is to blood moves. Both require staying alive on the battlefield for a while, both get reset by a repulse, both are the secondary part of the moveset (always plan A, and then survivor/blood). The difference is that one has the requirement of getting kill(s), but on some monsters it can be done faster or very reliably.

So basically survivor is kind of like bloodthirst, a move we rarely complain about a monster having!

It’s true there are a bunch of old monsters who have bad moveset + survivor, but the fault is with the rest of the moveset being super lacklustre. We have more modern monsters like Bundam who performs well with power slash and then can switch to double drain survivor later on, proving that survivor itself is a good move. Gabrielle is another example where it has plenty to do in the short term with slayerbreak, purifying mist and give turn then later (at a time bloodthirst would be charged) it can use drain survivor to start damaging any enemy rather than just ones with kills.

You might think of XYZ-999L or Aethereon being deserving of a time decrease on their double drain survivors, but honestly it’s just that they can do so little in the meantime which is the issue. Imagine XYZ had dreaded strike changed into a 50TU stun by +50s repeatable move that could only be used after cobalt coating, or Aethereon had assisted nova changed into a relevant support move. Then they’d be a much more cohesive and rewarding design.

I know that’s a lot, but I hope you can see where I’m coming from how the move itself has a good place in the game and 300s is a fine time to wait as long as the moveset of the monster is well designed.

1 Like
5

One extra comment I want to make is in response to this quote…

Honestly, this same argument was made 4-5 years ago and it’s got the same level of relevance now as it did then… yes the way PvP is played is faster than a survivor move will easily charge but that’s the point of a survivor move, it means that monster will be a big threat if it’s left for too long. The power level we play at now is way higher than 5 years ago but the speed of sweeping is pretty much the same, besides building teams with specific monsters like Cynthia or Na’turgoul. Things are also offset but the much better access to control and disabling effects as well as monsters being tankier.

It was only at the very beginning of the game where critical damage moves were slow or less reliable to line up so the gameplay actually allowed survivor to get going.

6

Sorry for the multi-post but what I’d personally like to see is them introducing a faster-charging survivor move. Maybe something that charges in 200s.

They already made survivor+ and that charges in 150s, which makes it a bit messy. However, since that’s only on three monsters maybe they could simply rename that and we have a 150s version that they barely revisit.

I think the freedom to design monsters which have a survivor that charges in 300s or 200s is good. Also, various monsters that would benefit from a buff could be switched to the 200s variant, while most remain at 300s.

7

I’m gonna need to book a day off work to read all that :joy:

@Killerdog you’re referencing other moves in the majority of your post. Not the move survivor. See my reply to Coltraz above.

8

Post an idea and ask for any thoughts or other buff ideas.

Proceed to be condescending to someone offering exactly that and not even read their posts.

Yeah okay mate, no more input here from me. I know you don’t see any problems with your idea so aren’t open to any of my thoughts anyway.

9

Wow that escalated quickly lol. That was clearly a joke. If I didn’t read your post I wouldn’t have known that you spent most of it talking about Double drain survivor :sweat_smile:

My point is that I’m not sure you’re responding to ‘survivor’ you seem to be talking about other moves. I was simply referring you to my post to Coltraz so you could see that I don’t believe double drain survivor needs a buff.

I’m certainly open to discussing survivor and reasons why it does or doesn’t need a buff, I just don’t think you’ve done that yet :sweat_smile:

10

To be fair, Lemons question was if you like apples and you replied with stating that you dislike pizza Hawaii (that’s a metaphor please don’t educate me about Pizza Hawaii)

Or in other terms: Nobody was talking about drain survivor which is particularly strong on annoying mythics like XYZ or Aetheron. You’re absolutely right on that

I think the benefit you get from survivor is quite bad compared to bloodcrave. Usually the damage sucks. So the reward for surviving 300 seconds usually falls a bit short. I’d say either make it 250 seconds or buff the damage. Otherwise it’s kind of a wasted move unless the monster has “modern” (high) stats.

3 Likes
11

I am open to my shadow link megabombs being 50tu :v:
And to be honest, from my own playstyle and team I am currently using, it is pretty easy for me to charge 250tu bombs, idk why 300tu is too high on the other time related moves. If you want to play those monsters then you should build some heavy control setup / slowing setup to make sure you got enough time for your monsters to charge.

12

Definitely open a thread for it :joy:

13

I might be good with survivor to be changed but then double moves and other similar mechanics should get a revamp too.

14

Okay so you’re talking about which form of survivor? Specifically single survivor 130TU? Which monsters even have that which you’re thinking about? Also, are you really suggesting that some survivors change to 250s while others stay at 300s? That’s going to be super confusing for everyone.

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Yes. The move called survivor. I would change them all. I didn’t say I’d change some.

Open to double survivor.

16

Okay so you want to change all but when I comment about double drain survivor you ridicule me for talking about pizza vs pineapple and apparently that obviously didn’t need buffing?? Sorry to be a pain, but you’re not helping me here much.

So to be clear: all single survivors you’re suggesting the change but double survivor you’re unsure and double drain survivor is a definite no? What about drain survivor? Also, any difference between the 80TU survivor and 130TU survivor?

One of the things I’m puzzling over is which are the monsters that will actually benefit from this buff in a way that matters (i.e. they become playable when they weren’t before). If there aren’t really any then I’m struggling to see the worth in it. I’d argue that in basically every case what’s holding back those monsters is the rest of the moveset being lacklustre. That was my original point: that survivor is a very functional alternative to bloodthirst and the movesets should be functional by themselves (without survivor) to make the monster good. If that’s not the case then survivor isn’t the problem.

17

I didn’t mention pizza lol. That was Sherlock. You often think I’ve said things to you that he does.

No! :joy: :joy:

I’m honestly trying my best.

The move called Double survivor I’d personally buff too.
But don’t worry, all community members each get a single vote on the poll as equal representation , that’s all we really need to do. If buffing survivor has a big majority, which it currently does, then it seems the community agrees so we don’t need to get upset or go back and forth. :+1:t2:

18

Yeah, it’s ridiculous he did that to you. @LemonSqueezy please behave.

1 Like
19

I’m :innocent:

20

I used his phrasing because it was funnier, but you said basically the same thing…

There are many forms of survivor and honestly it didn’t occur to me when I originally read this thread that you’d consider changing the timing for some forms but not others. In my mind that’s really poor game design because it’s going to confuse lots of players.

The move “survivor” is on literally 0 mythics. The closest one is drain survivor on Gabrielle.
For legendaries it’s…
80TU: Nightrider, Apollo, Talo, Talo(s), Heavenswyrm, Heavenswyrm(s), Wraithhost, Dusicyon, Oakthulhu(s)
130TU: Chronotitan, Crimseias
The standard double variant is: Galliodragon, Oakthulhu, Terragar, Stratustrike
For super epics there are a few but I don’t think there are any relevant ones so I won’t list them.

Dusicyon and Wraithhost already see a lot of play. I don’t think they need buffing. Apollo crew, shiny Oak and shiny Heavens are terrible, it won’t matter even for newer players. Chronotitan has a strong survivor anyway, Nightrider especially so because it has a low TU variant.

I think the ones we’d see a genuine positive impact are only Heavenswyrm and Crimseias. I think most of the double survivor monsters listed there would benefit the most and those I could maybe get behind (I promise it’s nothing to do with me liking Stratu lol).

Unfortunately, I think needlessly buffing Dusicyon and Wraithhost outweighs the benefit of making Heavenswyrm (which probably still wouldn’t see play) and Crimseias better. An easier fix would be to make both the 130TU survivor monsters have 80TU instead (Crimseias here) and to alter Heavenswyrm’s moveset to make it better for PvP (it’s already great in PvE).

@LemonSqueezy I know I keep asking you to read a lot here but what are your thoughts on this? What’s your hope about what would change in practice and be a benefit? I know you came in just loosely thinking it would be a nice thing to buff and would add to diversity, but now you can see the reality on paper so it should be easy enough to talk about it more specifically.