make Maxwell great again

[SullyD]

Quote

• Damage absorption gradually becomes less effective for Duelists that aren’t being attacked, and resets once they are hit.

This was the only good and balanced thing with the recent patch, everything after that is completely BAD.

Quote

• Attack speed now scales based on the summoner’s proximity and participation in combat.
  • When the summoner is attacking the same target, Duelists will attack slightly faster than before, and when the summoner is idle, they will be slower.

This change makes no sense, generates more problems and confusion than improvement, waste of time programming it too. The idea of Maxwell having minions is to avoid direct confrontation because of low HP. If Maxwell is to have aggro on him, it is better to increase his damage instead of minions.

Quote

• Attack damage now scales based on the summoner’s equipped shadow gear.
  • At the current max attainable level, they will be stronger than before, and with no shadow gear, they will be weaker.

Another thing that makes no sense, to have decent damage you need to use only this kind of equipment, it completely takes away the freedom and variety of gameplay, please, leave the minions damage as it was before.

 

Maxwell before only needed balancing to avoid tank minions. Now everything is more complicated, many times the bosses aggro is in Maxwell and not in minions, summoning costs sanity, you have to fight and escape from shadow creatures, and your minions will not have enough damage and DPS, then the minions die and you will have the Boss and the shadow creatures chasing you at once, summoning has a TERRIBLE DELAY, enough to take many free hits, you will need to worry about armor, life and will probably take more free hits trying to heal. All these changes made the gameplay catastrophic and boring.

I saw many people complaining that Maxwell was OP, but playing using Too many items is easy anyway, in the real game there are many different situations you have to face to survive, so stop crying. Maxwell deserves a decent rework, there are people who have been waiting for this for a VERY, VERY LONG time, don't make Maxwell "unplayable" again.

[YouKnowWho]

What are you saying? Yeah, I guess playing with cheats would make the game easier, but I don’t really see why that should have anything to do with game balance?

[Mr Giggio]

These changes are engaging and Im here for it. A strong perk doesnt bother me, but if u have no interaction with it then it turns a problem. 

Now the player HAS to engage battle to usufrute the best of it and I think its a really good way Klei found to make it fun. 

[Gi-Go]

Maxwell was a perfect summoner character and didn't need nerf of any kind. 

Have you guys ever played Wurt? Merm guards are stronger than duelists ever were. And before you say it - YES wurt needs to spend a lot of time and energy to get her army ready, while Maxwell was at his prime the second he joined. But THIS is exactly why Wurt is the least played character of all, and Maxwell was the best. 

I've conquered constant with merms before. It was fun while it lasted. But I'll never do it again. It's a waste of time and efford to replay Wurt. Maxwell's replayability however was infinite because any time you wanted to watch bosses die to your minions - pick Maxwell and go nutts. 

[KilliasK]

7 hours ago, SullyD said:

 

I agree with everything you said and I'm glad you typed it all out because it saved me plenty of time. I just want to add on to it.

 

To Klei: What is the point of playing Maxwell in his current iteration? What does he offer that others don't? As of right now, the answer to that is shadow trap and shadow prison, neither of which are worth selecting him for. You can get a similar effect with a pan flute or sleepytime stories. It's not the same, I know but differences are negligible outside some niche situations and is actually worse in some situations due to the cast time. The trap doesn't even effect bosses so it's usefulness. My point being, neither of these abilities are enough to sell a character. Of course, you may be thinking his minions and I'd say you're thinking wrong. His minions, currently, are the worst in the game. The damage they do is pityful if you're not engaged, which means they are little more than a killable dps boost. The raises the question: why bother using Maxwell's minions to fight when you can use Wickerbottom, Wolfgang, Wigfried, Wanda, or Winona? Since they can't taunt and force you to fight the same way as everyone, they act as a sanity draining dps boost. If you want more dps, why not pick someone who does more damage and avoid all the problems that come with the minions including a long cast time? At least Wolfgang or Wigfried, you don't have to constantly cast a spell to increase your dps. It's a one and done thing. But if you must have extra bodies, why not Wickerbottom or Winona or just using pigs/bunnies? With Wickerbottom, you just have an upfront sanity cost on bees. Once they are out, they stay with you till death. This is alongside the other tools Wickerbottom has. Mind you, Wickerbottom can kill every/most bosses while hiding in  a bush. She can do it much more easily now thanks her rework. So what about, Winona? She can do some similar things but at a lower cost than Maxwell while having greater possibilities. She's limited only by how many catapults you feel like building and fuel. Fuel which isn't that expensive. Her catapults are ranged and hit in an area so they are much more usable. 

Maxwell's minions aren't just pointless, they're a liability.  So the inability to taunt means you have to fight just like most other characters, right? Except now with a constant nightmare fuel cost and resummoning time which is likely going to result in you getting hit even if you are playing multiplayer unless you get very far away due to both the shadows taking damage as well as duration (which other minions don't have). Herein lies the liability: once your minions attack something, anything, the mob runs straight towards you to attack you. This has the potential to add more enemies to a fight while also doing little to protect you from these threats. Why waste time summoning minions to fight hound waves? This should be their greatest use. The minions, however, aren't reliable in stopping hounds from attacking you. Low damage + no taunt = you still have the problem, but at least you're doing a little bit of damage and the hounds get distracted every once in a while. 

[Cheggf]

8 hours ago, SullyD said:

The idea of Maxwell having minions is to avoid direct confrontation because of low HP.

 

8 hours ago, SullyD said:

Maxwell before only needed balancing to avoid tank minions

These seem contradictory.

11 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

To Klei: What is the point of playing Maxwell in his current iteration?

By far the best gatherer (now uniquely including things like grass & twigs), among the best fighters, plenty of unique setups for various situations, teleporting items, having a big inventory, having infinite sanity, reading Wickerbottom books, doing all of that for basically free, etc. If anything the question is why play anyone other than Maxwell.

[KilliasK]

6 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

 

By far the best gatherer, among the best fighters, plenty of unique setups for various situations, teleporting items, having a big inventory, having infinite sanity, reading Wickerbottom books, doing all of that for basically free, etc. If anything the question is why play anyone other than Maxwell.

He doesn't have infinite sanity, not even close. Surely you'll elaborate on "among the best fighters"?

[Cheggf]

6 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

He doesn't have infinite sanity, not even close. Surely you'll elaborate on "among the best fighters"?

He can spend 1 nightmare fuel to spawn 6 dudes who swing dark swords?

[KilliasK]

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

He can spend 1 nightmare fuel to spawn 6 dudes who swing dark swords?

Is that it?

[Arcwell]

There's a lot to unpack here.

9 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

To Klei: What is the point of playing Maxwell in his current iteration? What does he offer that others don't?

Storage space, gathering speed, an immobilize (which doesn't exist anywhere else), minions that don't immediately die to boss AoE and require almost no prior setup.

10 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

You can get a similar effect with a pan flute or sleepytime stories. It's not the same, I know but differences are negligible outside some niche situations and is actually worse in some situations due to the cast time.

This is not negligible at all. Shadow prison is completely unique in that you can attack during its entire duration and it can completely stop damage from some boss attacks like CC's phase 1 roll and Eye of Terror/Twins of Terror's dash attack.

12 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

His minions, currently, are the worst in the game.

...No? With full shadow gear they deal 60 damage per hit, 90 on a lunge. A Maxwell with 6 duelists facetanking AG can kill it in 30 seconds flat.

16 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

Since they can't taunt and force you to fight the same way as everyone, they act as a sanity draining dps boost.

They kinda do taunt though. Enemies prioritize attacking the last thing to attack them, and since 6 duelists attack so often, your target has a good chance of attacking a duelist instead of you even while facetanking it. This is especially noticeable on CC phase 3, where just having duelists alive basically disables the laser attack entirely.

32 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

Except now with a constant nightmare fuel cost and resummoning time which is likely going to result in you getting hit even if you are playing multiplayer unless you get very far away due to both the shadows taking damage as well as duration (which other minions don't have).

This is where shadow prison comes in. Immobilizing the enemy buys you time to summon minions without taking damage.

34 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

once your minions attack something, anything, the mob runs straight towards you to attack you. This has the potential to add more enemies to a fight while also doing little to protect you from these threats.

This isn't true. When your duelist attacks an enemy, the enemy will attack a duelist. The only situations where it would aggro you are if A: you attacked it last or B: the duelist was attacked and no other duelist attacked the enemy before the enemy attacks again.

[KilliasK]

46 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

No? With full shadow gear they deal 60 damage per hit, 90 on a lunge. A Maxwell with 6 duelists facetanking AG can kill it in 30 seconds flat.

So they do lots of damage while you're attacking? You do know I wasn't talking purely dps, right? As stated before, you can do something similar with Wickerbottom, without face tanking. If the point of minions was just to increase your dps, why not just give Maxwell a damage boost? Not that this is impressive to begin with.

54 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

This is not negligible at all. Shadow prison is completely unique in that you can attack during its entire duration and it can completely stop damage from some boss attacks like CC's phase 1 roll and Eye of Terror/Twins of Terror's dash attack.

Most enemies can also attack you all the same (and likely will if you're solo). Only a few attacks are actually halted by it, hence the "niche situations". Yes it is negligible considering all you can do with a panflute while completely stopping the attacks of any vulnerable enemy.

1 hour ago, Arcwell said:

They kinda do taunt though.

"Kinda" is the problem.

 

1 hour ago, Arcwell said:

This is where shadow prison comes in. Immobilizing the enemy buys you time to summon minions without taking damage.

Have you tried this? The time it takes for you to immobilizing combined the limited range means you're likely to get hit in the process.

1 hour ago, Arcwell said:

This isn't true. When your duelist attacks an enemy, the enemy will attack a duelist. The only situations where it would aggro you are if A: you attacked it last or B: the duelist was attacked and no other duelist attacked the enemy before the enemy attacks again.

You don't think I just made that up, do you? While normal mobs are a bit fickle(see: attached video), bosses almost exclusively target you.

[Arcwell]

1 hour ago, KilliasK said:

So they do lots of damage while you're attacking? You do know I wasn't talking purely dps, right? As stated before, you can do something similar with Wickerbottom, without face tanking. If the point of minions was just to increase your dps, why not just give Maxwell a damage boost? Not that this is impressive to begin with.

Most enemies can also attack you all the same (and likely will if you're solo). Only a few attacks are actually halted by it, hence the "niche situations". Yes it is negligible considering all you can do with a panflute while completely stopping the attacks of any vulnerable enemy.

"Kinda" is the problem.

 

Have you tried this? The time it takes for you to immobilizing combined the limited range means you're likely to get hit in the process.

You don't think I just made that up, do you? While normal mobs are a bit fickle(see: attached video), bosses almost exclusively target you.

1: Wickerbottom's grumble bees don't taunt either. If your argument is that Maxwell's duelists are bad because they're only a killable DPS boost, I don't see how this makes any other minion in the game better.

2: Summon more than one duelist. The hound in your video dropped aggro because of phasing (happens when it lunges and when it takes damage). If there's no other duelists to maintain aggro, it will shift to you.

3: I have tried shadow prison mid-combat, and I'd say it's not too hard to do without taking damage. You can artificially extend your range by aiming in front of the enemy as opposed to centered on it:

[Cyber_Joueur]

11 hours ago, SullyD said:

Another thing that makes no sense, to have decent damage you need to use only this kind of equipment, it completely takes away the freedom and variety of gameplay, please, leave the minions damage as it was before.

Exactly how I see the last hotfix, it reduces our possibilities, not everyone wants to be directly involved in melee combat, I do and there is nothing wrong with that. if I wanted pure melee combat, I would play another character like wolfgang or wigfrid.
It doesn't fit Maxwell's character who sends his shadow puppets to do the dirty work.
The DPS increase when Maxwell joins the fight is quite substantial, even before the latest hotfix. This left us with the choice to actively take part in the fight for more damage or to stand back and take less risk for less damage to the bosses. This is no longer possible because of the 20 damage and the armor that is not taken into account to boost the damage when the player is at a distance.

[Gashzer]

7 minutes ago, Cyber_Joueur said:

Exactly how I see the last hotfix, it reduces our possibilities, not everyone wants to be directly involved in melee combat, I do and there is nothing wrong with that. if I wanted pure melee combat, I would play another character like wolfgang or wigfrid.
It doesn't fit Maxwell's character who sends his shadow puppets to do the dirty work.
The DPS increase when Maxwell joins the fight is quite substantial, even before the latest hotfix. This left us with the choice to actively take part in the fight for more damage or to stand back and take less risk for less damage to the bosses. This is no longer possible because of the 20 damage and the armor that is not taken into account to boost the damage when the player is at a distance.

20 damage x 5 is 100 damage every 4secs at worst? Thats absolutely loads of free damage! Plus all the other utility maxwell has atm. His shadow prison is insanely good as well. If you have enough fuel and sanity healing, you can permanently imprison bosses and still let duelists kill them without your direct help even with only 20 damage.

I feel people want Maxwell to be the new improved wendy 2.0, by having his duelists do 100% of all combat. Kinda like how abigail does 100% of all non-boss fights atm.

Sorry lads but the age old gamer saying still applies to Maxwell, if you want to kill bosses you need to.... git gud. Simple as that 

 

[KilliasK]

41 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

1: Wickerbottom's grumble bees don't taunt either. If your argument is that Maxwell's duelists are bad because they're only a killable DPS boost, I don't see how this makes any other minion in the game better.

1. Yes, they can taunt and hold aggro of even bosses. Did you even test this?

2.They are summoned with a rechargeable book at a small temporary sanity loss

3.They are permanent followers.

4.They can kill hounds unassisted no problem.

 

59 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

2: Summon more than one duelist. The hound in your video dropped aggro because of phasing (happens when it lunges and when it takes damage). If there's no other duelists to maintain aggro, it will shift to you.

Do you think that video was the extent of my testing? You don't think I've been testing in a variety of different situations? The video and the statement referring to it points out the problem clearly. I specifically chose one hound and one shadow to make the normal mob part of the problem abundantly clear. This statement isn't even worth addressing any further. 

 

1 hour ago, Arcwell said:

3: I have tried shadow prison mid-combat, and I'd say it's not too hard to do without taking damage. You can artificially extend your range by aiming in front of the enemy as opposed to centered on it:

Have you tried mobs who move faster like to get closer to you, like say, a group of hounds? Admittedly, I didn't test this one all to thoroughly. I have tested it a bit, but I need to do more testing. As of right now, I know it's impossible to cage without taking damage Bee Queen and Dragonfly without a walking cane unless you were already far from them. This is assuming bee queen isn't screeching. Once that happens, bees will interrupt your casting. I think Klaus is much more difficult when he in his second phase, but I need to retest that to make sure. 

[BB Marioni]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

20 damage x 5 is 100 damage every 4secs at worst? Thats absolutely loads of free damage! Plus all the other utility maxwell has atm. His shadow prison is insanely good as well. If you have enough fuel and sanity healing, you can permanently imprison bosses and still let duelists kill them without your direct help even with only 20 damage.

I feel people want Maxwell to be the new improved wendy 2.0, by having his duelists do 100% of all combat. Kinda like how abigail does 100% of all non-boss fights atm.

Sorry lads but the age old gamer saying still applies to Maxwell, if you want to kill bosses you need to.... git gud. Simple as that 

 

they are not free. they cost durability which is repaired by nightmare fuel, and max sanity,for fighters who exist temporarily. Wickebottom can summon tentacles that could potentially deal more DPS for only the cost of sanity. Any other follower types would do the same thing. 

Edit: I see there's a debate about the aggro. I think it was mentioned by a dev in one of the threads that they tweaked the AI to target Maxell as soon as a duelist phases and evades the enemy's attack.

[KilliasK]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

I feel people want Maxwell to be the new improved wendy 2.0, by having his duelists do 100% of all combat. Kinda like how abigail does 100% of all non-boss fights atm.

 

According to you, we already have that so wouldn't people be satisfied?

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Sorry lads but the age old gamer saying still applies to Maxwell, if you want to kill bosses you need to.... git gud. Simple as that 

 

I don't understand. Git gud was a statement made in response to pc players complaining about Dark Soul's "artificial difficulty" after running into traps. DST is a game where you can kill bosses in 30 seconds with an easily acquired explosive. Do you seriously believe that, in the game full of exploits, that boss difficulty is why people don't like the recent nerfs? Again, according to you, we can already cheese the bosses.

[Gashzer]

17 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

I don't understand. Git gud was a statement made in response to pc players complaining about Dark Soul's "artificial difficulty" after running into traps. DST is a game where you can kill bosses in 30 seconds with an easily acquired explosive. Do you seriously believe that, in the game full of exploits, that boss difficulty is why people don't like the recent nerfs? Again, according to you, we can already cheese the bosses.

If explosives and other "cheeses" were so easily acquired people would use them all the time... the fact that they dont, tells us these other "cheese" methods take alot of time/resources to prep hence are balanced with "great grind comes great reward" philosophy...

Maxwell before the hotfix needed very little prep to use both his duelists and prison spell. Which previously rivaled these other "cheeses" but without the grind. Only needing the occasional nightmare fuel plus cooked cactus. Hence the recent balance hotfix was needed. 

[Arcwell]

35 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

Have you tried mobs who move faster like to get closer to you, like say, a group of hounds? Admittedly, I didn't test this one all to thoroughly. I have tested it a bit, but I need to do more testing. As of right now, I know it's impossible to cage without taking damage Bee Queen and Dragonfly without a walking cane unless you were already far from them. This is assuming bee queen isn't screeching. Once that happens, bees will interrupt your casting. I think Klaus is much more difficult when he in his second phase, but I need to retest that to make sure. 

Yeah it sucks against hounds specifically, they're too fast and spread apart. 
For Bee Queen it works fine if you just walk away from her like Deerclops. Though tbh the cage is more valuable on the grumbles than the queen.
For Dragonfly it only works damageless if you catch her on the first hit or after she returns from spawning lavaes.

29 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

Edit: I see there's a debate about the aggro. I think it was mentioned by a dev in one of the threads that they tweaked the AI to target Maxell as soon as a duelist phases and evades the enemy's attack.

Yep! Duelists drop aggro whenever they phase, but usually one of the other duelists will retake aggro before a boss has time to attack you. Doesn't work 100% of the time but it works more often than not:

[KilliasK]

32 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

the fact that they dont, tells us these other "cheese" methods take alot of time/resources to prep hence are balanced

No, it doesn't.  Not it matters. Your point was pointless and that's based entirely on what you said.

[Gashzer]

49 minutes ago, KilliasK said:

No, it doesn't.  Not it matters. Your point was pointless and that's based entirely on what you said.

You are making be doubt myself, so i re-read everything, i have made perfect sense, what arnt you getting? Haha

People don't like the recent nerfs (in my sassy opinion) because 90% of dst players are terrible at the game and don't know how to kite. If you know how to kite, maxwells duelists now do 5x60 damage = 300damage every couple of seconds. They are actually stronger now for people who are good at the game by fighting with the duelists and only weaker for those who rely on getting carried to win boss fights.

KillliasK consider yoself outdebated! 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

16 hours ago, SullyD said:

The idea of Maxwell having minions is to avoid direct confrontation because of low HP.

this was never a thing

[SullyD]

Again, people using "Too many items" to do tests, with PERFECT fighting conditions.

Test with "Ancient Guardian"? For God's sake, this boss is d*mb and st*pid, sorry.

Using "shadow prison" as an argument, try to use this skill and minions several times, it will get insane fast, and will be chased by nightmares and you will get FREE HITS if you try to use any summon again.

Try summoning 5 minions in a fight against a Dragonfly, it will turn aggro on you quickly and your sanity will go down, and the nightmares and boss will chase you, and at worst spawn the "Terrorbeak" shadows to chase you. GG

You WILL TAKE FREE HITS if you try to summon again, in the end you will be low on HP and have lost all sanity at the beginning of the fight.

This with perfect fighting conditions, imagine in survival with all the RNG, my god.

For experienced players, maybe it is still possible to get around this situation (or not), imagine for new players...

With all these conditions and nerfs in the recent patch, Maxwell is not viable.

[yourAnty]

Sorry sir, these are the forums, no fun allowed, if there's any detected, the 'stat lords' come out of their cave once again to suggest 'balance changes' aka 'character killing changes' most of the time, can't wait for the prison spell to become useless and for the rework to make maxwell overall weaker.  

[Dragonboooorn]

25 minutes ago, yourAnty said:

Sorry sir, these are the forums, no fun allowed, if there's any detected, the 'stat lords' come out of their cave once again to suggest 'balance changes' aka 'character killing changes' most of the time, can't wait for the prison spell to become useless and for the rework to make maxwell overall weaker.  

Its funny how people want to nerf Maxwell to the ground while we have "fair and balanced" characters such as Wanda and Wortox. I mean, Wortoxs status can be arguable, but Wanda? Best character in game. A straight fact. She is literally better than anyone else! Damage? Check. Improved movement? She can literally teleport anywhere she pleases. Farming? who cares for that, just put some bee boxes. Gathering Wood and Marble? We got Bearger!

I see literally no point of nerfing Maxwell even further. We already have characters with barely noticeable downsides, and lets be honest, the game isnt hard. Its tedious.

With all this nerfes, I simpy cant see anyone playing Maxwell. Not like he was popular before rework, few people actually enjoyed him, and get him updated and intresting with new perks, and now you want straight up kill him? is that Wolfgang rework situation happening over again?