Board 8 > The Mercenaries CE build review topic part 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, but that has been a double standard for a lot of builds in the past (and current ones on the CE wiki as well). Giving certain characters limitations to their equipment based on gameplay while others get something like 10x the amount of stuff they can have at once seems unfair.

up

I don't mind removing it and just giving him his default and then one additional (Wee Booties, Sticky Jumper, etc.) as a loadout.

Just dropping this here! It's about time we revived the hypothetical mercs topic series, with a little twist: https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75215699
---

Ok, no discussion is happening on Demoman, so let's move on to Diablo

http://mercsce.pbworks.com/w/page/111359974/Diablo

I forget exactly why I changed the numbers on acquiring souls, but everyone needs to theorycraft how the current setup would work.

Diablo is one of those builds that worked because it was strong but I would actually support changing entirely because

1. Soul mechanic was probably over complicated for the function it gave.
2. Lord of Terror is kind of an interpretation mess. It's also British.

Unfortunately I don't actually have any better ideas at the moment but yeah I don't think he was a particularly good build.
---

Was LoT so messy? 'Target is so terrified they do nothing until they're backed into a corner' seems clear enough. It was super overpowered, but not messy, I don't think.
---

Yes, it was very messy.
---

There is probably a way to word an ability that is conceptually similar where it is no longer messy, possibly by nerfing it, but as is yeah it was not good.
---

Like so maybe?

Lord of Terror (Start of Battle, Recharge 5) - The mere mention of the name Diablo strikes fear into the hearts of men. Once every five weeks he may terrorize a preselected enemy mercenary, causing them to become extremely fearful of about the prospect of facing the Lord of Terror. The mercenary will be overcome with fear upon meeting Diablo and run away or cower, refusing to fight except in self-defense. If Diablo is defeated, they will come to their senses and rejoin the fray as normal, should they still be alive. Perhaps the Lord of Terror was not quite so nightmarish after all.

Removes the 'hurf durf the idiot ally runs away from friends' clause and provides a way to counter the terror effect, but killing diablo is hard enough that it's still very valuable to effectively neuter an enemy.
---

Alternately, it could simply be "the target won't attack Diablo unless in self defense".

Skyridge87 posted...

Alternately, it could simply be "the target won't attack Diablo unless in self defense".

that's boring

let's not be
---

I'd like some feedback and Kan's changes before we move on.

I think Kanz's change is probably fine though I think it'd be Recharge 4 with the wording as is (which would be the one I support as it's been nerfed a bit).
---

whoops yes

I even changed that in the text (it says 'every five weeks') but forgot to change it in the bold

mb!
---

Yeah I mostly pointed it out to be sure which recharge we would actually be using
---

Changing it to Kan's version. I guess we can figure out if the changes to the soul collection will be necessary later.

Time for Donkey Kong: http://mercsce.pbworks.com/w/page/103767759/Donkey%20Kong

DK just needs a full rework

I'm gonna make one tomorrowish or so with the aim of making him a strongly relevant, unignorable tank in low tier

that's all I gotta say here
---

Please do fix it. My build was a nice idea but it's very underpowered and is only as "cute" as it is impractical. Was waiting for your rework, kanz, as I just totally forgot it.

If it's any consolation, my build is gonna borrow some stuff from the LLF one

Because I am positive that build had the right idea with how to make DK a piece that doesn't age.
---

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75215699/876998448

DK remake posted. For CE, just take out the jokey DK Rap Prebattle and you're good to go I think.
---

I like it quite a lot. My only thing is that I do like the idea of DK 'stocking' Kong assists, perhaps with an option that is a Peacetime ability with a recharge as opposed to the every day variant. Otherwise it's a much more fleshed out build, especially compared to the original which was "just Rambi".

My only temptation would be giving him literally just the Banana Horde as a terrain, but that's because my heart yearns for a fight wherein everyone is standing on a giant pile of bananas. And then for it to be set on fire.

I would totally be up for a Banana Hoard terrain because it would lead to wonderful clusterfucks arguments. Can you make a writeup for it? I have no issues using that instead.

As for Kong stocking, my main worry is that if DK can stock Kongs, he ends up having a LOT of Strong Kong mileage - like imagine if you get a low-mid-high-high-mid-low schedule, he gets all four Kongs to go ham with during the second lowbie match and I think a DK with 50 seconds of invulnerability and a 500% speed, strength and size boost basically solos low tier unless you throw in a really convincing 6/week merc or higher. Pairing it to customs makes it a bit more difficult to achieve the King Kong Bomb because you have to use abilities that let allies borrow Kongs instead of just biding time, so it's a proper resource investment that can be countered more easily without just resorting to KOs.
---

That's fair and I hadn't considered that much. I was more thinking of making it every other week in order to stock a kong so that it essentially turns into an incredibly telegraphed once every eight weeks ability. That's a fair concern, though, and works nicely as an ability combo as well.

Anyway for a write-up uh...

Banana Hoard - A cavern with bananas piled high as far as the eye can see, as it appears in the boss fights of Donkey Kong Country. Teams start within view of each other.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/diS6WpjKegU/maxresdefault.jpg

For reference.

I'm all for the banana hoard terrain, but I'm hesitant to give DK invincibility. It feels like it's over correcting for DK's current respect levels.

Skyridge87 posted...

I'm all for the banana hoard terrain, but I'm hesitant to give DK invincibility. It feels like it's over correcting for DK's current respect levels.

Considering this build is taking away the one thing people usually respect about DK (ie Rambi) I figured this was legitimate compensation. Gotta give him SOMETHING he can use.
---

Strong Kong's also exclusive to DK in DK64 so it's not like giving "all Marioverse characters a Starman". The fact that it doesn't increase speed or give off a damage aura and is just strictly invincibility also makes it far more limiting than other invincible-making techniques.

Worst case you could just make him immune to damage but not knockback or flinch resistant.

And the key reason I love the idea of giving DK Strong Kong (and why I lifted that from his LLF Mercs model) is that it works pretty much perfectly to simply get him into position to DO something. It's not some kind of overpowering effect that allows him to solo in combat unless you engage in shenanigans to drop a fat chunk of the DK Crew into battle with him and use Bigger Faster And Stronger Too (in which case it's an entire strategy and why shouldn't you be rewarded for it?) - it just lets him bypass the usual arguments of 'a mage casts a spell at him, gg DK on approach', which I remember happening to him once upon a time. DK's always been decently respected if he can get in, he just needs the tools to do so.
---

KanzarisKelshen posted...

'a mage casts a spell at him, gg DK on approach',

That's true of EVERY low tier melee person though.

Rather, that argument is not exclusive to DK.

Skyridge87 posted...

KanzarisKelshen posted...

'a mage casts a spell at him, gg DK on approach',

That's true of EVERY low tier melee person though.

Rather, that argument is not exclusive to DK.

Not particularly? Somebody like Tidus doesn't care because he gets cred to no-sell some spells or dodge them, for example. DK gets no respect because...hell if I know why, but he doesn't get any against magic last I checked.
---

If you're really against the invincibility (which I wouldn't be because it is needed and DK does have no approach options), we could turn it into something similar with DK Barrels allowing him a free respawn per Kong rostered and make it a "he's invincible inside and can be carried". I like that SIGNIFICANTLY less than Strong Kong, but it does alleviate the issue. Or he shoots out of a barrel cannon at the enemy and there's a barrel cannon maze across the terrain that only DK knows how to navigate. Those are both very inelegant solutions to what's a very easy solution though.

I'd argue DK is already on the faster side of low-tiers, plus we're giving him the coconut gun and orange grenades. Again, I think this is an over-correction of his current respect. Giving DK of all people limited invincibility because "he can't get in" when that applies to so many other mercs just doesn't make sense from the perspective of a new Mercs game.

Anyway, let's move on.

http://mercsce.pbworks.com/w/page/111360718/Dr%20Eggman

I'm honestly not sure the hover pack and dark shield thing are a necessary part of the ability. They seem like random additions.

Skyridge87 posted...

I'd argue DK is already on the faster side of low-tiers, plus we're giving him the coconut gun and orange grenades. Again, I think this is an over-correction of his current respect. Giving DK of all people limited invincibility because "he can't get in" when that applies to so many other mercs just doesn't make sense from the perspective of a new Mercs game.

Spoilers I don't expect those things to get taken seriously

I'm just giving them to him because it was weird that he didn't have them
---

Dark Shield and Hover Pack give solid defensive options which ultimately raises the viability of the merc in question. I selected them specifically as those would prove to be advantageous and would allow for a quantifiable upgrade to the Roboticization process as opposed to just "uh they're robot now so they're probably better". Also to prevent potential backlash from "lol eggman robots" because I have learned my lesson when it comes to trusting Sonic anything.

Also as much as I'd love to argue that rapid-fire homing coconuts are a viable offensive option... they're not. The thing is that DK HAS something that is exclusive to him and isn't just being given to him free while also mixing with the themes of DK64. It at least beats the Hell out of "he gets big and stuff I guess", which is a Smash Bros 64 reference of all things.

I think changing Eggman's ability to more of his M1 incarnation (make a robot duplicate of an enemy merc) could work. He'd just have to be a late game release and have some sort of drawback associated with it.

I significantly dislike that. At its worst, it creates an equal to an opposing combat mercenary to invalidate their battle worth if it's used reactionarily. Even if you M4 Banjo Collectathon it and require Eggman to be rostered, but he goes off instead to copy an enemy mercenary, unless that mercenary is single-use and requires rostering, it's an overwhelming boon that any owner could easily make deals for if they had any brains at all. If it is single-use and requires rostering, it's far too great an investment on the part of Eggman's user to be practical unless you were specifically stocking a mercenary for, say, an elim encounter, which is a VERY losing strategy.

up

Any more opinions on Eggman?

Apparently not. Time to move on I guess:

http://mercsce.pbworks.com/w/page/113851678/Dr%20Nefarious

That Peacetime is completely obnoxious and will randomly bone a LOT of teams with no counter.

I get he has the be rostered on a loss twice (on upgrade) but if there are forfeit deals, that's very attainable.
---

Not enough abilities that attack specifically humans, it's proven to be by far the safest classification to have. I wanted something to combat that.

Sure, but this is a BIT overboard.
---

Would you have a suggestion on how to make it less so? I feel like it's more destructive if you target a single team, requires a team to be built around it, and is not inherently as damaging as Shellmageddon - doesn't count as KO's, still allows for Peacetimes, incredibly telegraphed, and not abusable. If it were limited to just "Nefarious's match if he is rostered", would that be more or less combative?

That also does hamper it.

I'm thinking make it 50% of humans on each divided randomly (not rolled individually)?
---

Perhaps highest upkeep human from each team eligible to be rostered?

speaking of

should we split the human classification up a bit? It's kinda true that it's super broad (most mercs are human by necessity, anthropic principle at work) and that makes it kinda hard to build anti-human abilities because they end up basically reading as 'everything that isn't a 7/week gets owned by this'. I kinda like Johnbobb's Human/Superhuman split - it's always felt wrong to me that Sephiroth is JUST human, for example, but he's not spoopy enough to count as otherworldly. Makes it so only people who are 100% tech-reliant count as humans, allowing us to create targeted anti-normie or anti-super effects that aren't overly indiscriminate, since there's Superhumans even in lowbie.
---

Hell yeah classic Mercs learning from TV/Movie Mercs

innovative all the way
---

DK can totally deal with magic, he fought the Snowmads after all. They can freeze entire islands over in seconds.
---

Been toying of a new Dracula ability involving that one quote. It would obviously target Humans.