Varglet Howl Tweak to make late game Hound Waves more manageable

[QuartzBeam]

My biggest gripe with the day 100+ hound waves is that the number of hounds you have to deal with is so overwhelming that they are practically impossible to kite. This forces you to either run back to your tooth trap/houndious shootious setup to dispatch the hounds with ease (not always feasible) or brute force your way through the encounter and incur a heavy resource cost (armor, health and whatever expensive AoE tool you might have on you).

 

Varglets are a good first step to rectify that by (theoretically) replacing quantity with quality. But their howling mechanic minimizes any benefit that is gained from adding them to hound waves. If the game assigns you 10 hounds, the Varglet will replace 5 of them, but it will also summon 2 more of its own just a few seconds after it spawns, so instead of dealing with 10 enemies, you have to deal with... 8. Once again, we're back to the "tooth traps or massive cost" dilemma, except now one of the hounds trying to kill you has 2x damage and 4x health.

 

I think hound waves would be much more manageable (and enjoyable) by limiting the Varglet's howling to happen only when a hound spawned from the wave itself dies. That is, if the game assigns 1 Varglet and 5 Hounds to the player, the Varglet will only summon another hound to replace one of the original 5 that spawned as part of the wave. (Up to the current limit of 3 summoned hounds in total.)

This would ensure that a player caught away from base during a hound wave (most notably, in the Lunar Island, which I should point out has a habit of reviving the hounds you kill) will need to fend off no more than 6 enemies at a time, which is still difficult if they don't act fast enough, but nowhere near as overwhelming.

[Left 4 Sharkb8]

I think maybe you should get good

[NikMik]

I think maybe you should get good

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i dont think is a big problem when is something that now you experience few times per year (and less if you go sailing or to the caves). I had experience years with only 2 hound waves

but that is just my opinion

[Owlrust]

I'd be down for their ability to howl be removed entirely. They're meant to serve as a replacement for a certain number of hounds, so them adding yet more hounds to a Hound-Wave kinda defeats the purpose.

[HowlVoid]

54 minutes ago, Owlrust said:

I'd be down for their ability to howl be removed entirely. They're meant to serve as a replacement for a certain number of hounds, so them adding yet more hounds to a Hound-Wave kinda defeats the purpose.

Im not too versed in what's going on due to Elden ring, but sounds like it summons hounds? 

I think they could do better than add a varg 2.0. Id be up for different attacks than just a rehashed varg. Maybe it can use a fire breath and a ice pound aoe?

[ALCRD]

You know what's funny?

I thought Wendy was the only character that can mince meat late game hound waves without effort.

I found out that Wanda with alarming clock can too. That bit of range paired with damage helps greatly to massacre late game hound waves without getting hit even once.

But i digress yea some kind of rework for the hound waves in general would be nice.

[Yuuko]

9 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Im not too versed in what's going on due to Elden ring, but sounds like it summons hounds? 

I think they could do better than add a varg 2.0. Id be up for different attacks than just a rehashed varg. Maybe it can use a fire breath and a ice pound aoe?

more like varg 0.5.  They're smaller, less health / damage, but are still basically 2 hounds+ worth of damage and health and summon 3 more, so its kinda 5 for 5...  They replace 5 hounds out of the wave and replace it with 3 + 1 super hound...

[CaptainChaotica]

IS it still supposed to be post Day 100?  Because...

This happened roughly a (real life) day and a half ago...yet the first post in this thread still says "100", and was written only 13 hours ago.

(No, I do not have any mods on, although I do have weird season lengths.)

I am confuse.

...Notorious

[QuartzBeam]

1 hour ago, CaptainChaotica said:

IS it still supposed to be post Day 100?  Because...

This happened roughly a (real life) day and a half ago...yet the first post in this thread still says "100", and was written only 13 hours ago.

(No, I do not have any mods on, although I do have weird season lengths.)

I am confuse.

...Notorious

Varglets do not have a minimum day requirement, they just need a hound wave with 5 or more hounds. The more hounds there are, the more likely it is for 5 of them to be replaced by a Varglet.

Day 100 is just the point where hound waves max out and can send up to 10 hounds, which is now virtually guaranteed to turn into 5 hounds + 1 Varglet + 2 summoned hounds.

[CaptainChaotica]

Ah.  THAT'S the bit of information I was missing.  The way everyone was talking about "Varglets in hound waves" and "after Day 100", I was getting the impression that NO varglets appeared UNTIL Day 100.

...so you can imagine my "wait WHAT?!" face when they showed up on Day 52 in my game.  : P

...Notorious

[GodIess]

it seems to me that it would be better to make him an aura from howling that increases the damage of the hounds, rather than calling in this case, taking damage will be more punished and good dodging will give a great advantage. And spawn the hounds to leave only the warg