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About Maxwell’s Shadow Prison


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Since we’ve all seen the same videos, we know there is an impending nerf of some kind. Still the perk is very useful and fun when used right (not to cheese bosses, that is)

So my suggestion -if they decide to nerf the spell- would be that bosses affected by the shadow walls, will get diminishing returns every successive time they are trapped.
 

EG:

- You trap a boss the first time It lasts for the current boss timer duration.
- You trap it a second consecutive time it will last half time
- You do it again, it will last 1/4 of the current boss duration timer
- Do it a 4th time and beyond, and it will last 1 second only.

This would only affect bosses (not regular mobs, or minions spawned by bosses) and a boss not being affected by any shadow wall for 30 seconds would remove their resistance to it.

Could this maybe work?

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Might be a hot take but I think shadow prison is unironically balanced right now.

It has a duration of ~25 seconds, duration is halved against bosses, casting time is ~3 seconds, costs 15 sanity per cast.
This means if you want to permanently immobilize a boss monster, it costs (60 / 12.5) * 15 = 72 sanity/min. You're also not attacking for 3 / 12.5 = 24% of the fight. During this time the boss can still attack you (unless it's phase 2 dragonfly), it just can't move towards you.

Is it strong? Absolutely. Is it broken? I would say no.

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2 hours ago, Arcwell said:

You're also not attacking for 3 / 12.5 = 24% of the fight.

This is irrelevant since u have duelists to fight for you. 

The game has never had anything like the shadow prison. U either have sleep or freezing (both way more expensive than the cage) and there are bosses who are immune to these effects out of the gate or gain resistances to them over time. 

Having the power to completely immobilise a boss should cost way more than 1/5 fuel and 15 sanity. And/or bosses should gain resistance to it like OP suggested.

2 hours ago, Arcwell said:

This means if you want to permanently immobilize a boss monster, it costs (60 / 12.5) * 15 = 72 sanity/min.

72 sanity/minute (66 when u factor in max’s free tamoshanter) is nothing when two casts of wicker’s most lacklustre books cost as much lol. 

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13 minutes ago, Ohan said:

This is irrelevant since u have duelists to fight for you. 

Relevant because you need to attack to maintain the attack speed buff on duelists. Granted it's not a huge difference but it is a DPS drop.

16 minutes ago, Ohan said:

The game has never had anything like the shadow prison. U either have sleep or freezing (both way more expensive than the cage) and there are bosses who are immune to these effects out of the gate or gain resistances to them over time. 

I guess here's my reasoning: sleep and freeze prevent the enemy from attacking altogether. Shadow prison does not. There are a few bosses where shadow prison is exceptionally powerful (CC phase 1, Dragonfly phase 2, Eye of Terror/Twins of Terror), but I'd rather the bosses be fixed than shadow prison nerfed to compensate for their AI.

14 minutes ago, Ohan said:

72 sanity/minute (66 when u factor in max’s free tamoshanter) is nothing when two casts of wicker’s most lacklustre books cost as much lol. 

Lmao true. It does matter a bit more when your max sanity is 20 (or 50, or 80, etc.) though.

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14 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

I guess here's my reasoning: sleep and freeze prevent the enemy from attacking altogether. Shadow prison does not.

Sleep and freeze also get undone when u attack the target which is another huge downside of these forms of CC, along with their material cost.

The prison freezing mobs in place while u can still smack them is what makes it so powerful. in many cases the prison does what freeze/sleep does: break from the fight (at a much cheaper cost) AND against bosses who r immune to sleep/freeze, while also offering complete immobilisation while ur hitting the target. Its busted. 

19 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

Lmao true. It does matter a bit more when your max sanity is 20 (or 50, or 80, etc.) though.

I think we all know how lenient natural nightmare spawning is.

Thats the entire reason why wicker got the nightmare spawning downside.

Which is why i think the codex durability cost should be increased before they get to the sanity cost. Max should be a fuel hog, on par or worse than wanda. His powers justify it.

Because whatever the sanity cost is, without a similar downside as wicker, it will be largely meaningless like it was for pre-refresh wicker reading. And especially for max with his innate tamo. 

23 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

Relevant because you need to attack to maintain the attack speed buff on duelists. Granted it's not a huge difference but it is a DPS drop.

Tiny dps drop on ur autobattling minions that cost next to nothing and can deal basically darksword dmg in exchange for constant boss immobilisation…. The horror… :lol:

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8 minutes ago, Ohan said:

The prison freezing mobs in place while u can still smack them is what makes it so powerful. in many cases the prison does what freeze/sleep does: break from the fight (at a much cheaper cost) AND against bosses who r immune to sleep/freeze, while also offering complete immobilisation while ur hitting the target. Its busted. 

A break from the fight is pretty much necessary when spawning shadow duelists midfight. Summoning 6 shadow duelists takes around 6 seconds, during which you can't move and taking damage cancels the animation. With the suggested changes, shadow prison would last about 3 seconds after casting twice (1/4th of 12.5), meaning you can only safely resummon your duelists after they die once. And if your suggestion is Maxwell should be forced to summon duelists without the safety of shadow prison, I just disagree. He's already inclined to give up the safety of kiting (due to damage falloff based on Maxwell's distance to duelists) and sanity.

As for attacking during the immobilization: it's powerful on some fights (CC, Dfly, Eye and Twins), but a waste of time on others (AG, Toadstool, CK, Deerclops, Bearger, Moose/Goose). Funny enough the duelists do a pretty good job of immobilizing most enemies just by keeping their aggro.

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41 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

A break from the fight is pretty much necessary when spawning shadow duelists midfight. Summoning 6 shadow duelists takes around 6 seconds, during which you can't move and taking damage cancels the animation. With the suggested changes, shadow prison would last about 3 seconds after casting twice (1/4th of 12.5), meaning you can only safely resummon your duelists after they die once. And if your suggestion is Maxwell should be forced to summon duelists without the safety of shadow prison, I just disagree. He's already inclined to give up the safety of kiting (due to damage falloff based on Maxwell's distance to duelists) and sanity.

Getting ur minions killed is a consequences that every minion character has to deal with. Maxwell already has an easier time than everyone else in this regard because they spawn from the codex in his inventory which can hold 20 of them and be refueled on the go. 

what happens when all of webber’s spiders get one shot or wurt’s merms die?  They dont get the chance to walk all the way back to their spawners and recruit new ones mid combat. Max pulls loyal merm guard level minions out of thin air for 1/5 fuel each.

The reading animation to summon new ones is the least of what he should have to deal with mid combat when they die lol. He also has any of the remaining duelists to distract mobs while he summons. 

And then theres wickerbottom, she summons minions out thin air too, 2 at a time for 33 sanity, with 180 hp and 30 dmg from a book with only 3 uses that needs bookcase to unlock and materials to craft. And the same reading animation as max or even worse since she cant animation cancel it to summon multiple rounds in the same duration! 

Not to mention vanilla wilson with crazy expensive bunny hutches. 

Theres no comparison to be made. New duelists completely blow every other minion out of the water. They can survive 5 aoe hits that would one shot most other minions. As long as he has nightmare fuel on him he can keep spawning them anywhere, anytime.

Allowing the cage to indefinitely immobilise every mob in the game for barely any cost with duelists spawning as the justification is crazy to me, since other minion characters have to deal with much worse when their minions who arent even as cheap/survivable/hard hitting as duelists die. 

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this will basically make it so the prision can not be used on bosses, limiting its practical uses, the prision is powerfull but its also uselles for half of the bosses.

Crab king, fuelweaber, Ancient guardian, shadow pieces, klaus, antlion, bearger, clops are all bosses where the prision doesnt add anything good.

And on the fights where it really shines like bee queen and celestial champion, it leaves you incredibly exposed and you actually need to measure very well distance and time it perfectly.

As it is right now the shadow prision its an incredibly usefful perk, that requires skill to use it and once master can not save you on every situation, nerfing it will simply make it unsuable on bosses, which isnt very fun.

And also every time you cast it you go insane if you have 5 duelist so you have to chug one cactus per cast, which i think is already a good disadvantage.

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47 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Theres no comparison to be made. New duelists completely blow every other minion out of the water.

Against most bosses, yes. Other characters' minions are stronger for general mobbing due to the removal of health regen, damage reduction not being as effective, and the limit of 6 duelists at any given time. This is all to say Maxwell is fundamentally different from other minion characters in that his minions are designed for boss fights. Removing his ability to resummon safely during boss fights takes away this perk.

You could argue Maxwell shouldn't be strong against bosses, but I for one love the idea of a minion character that can actually combat AoE. It's not like Maxwell can AFK with his minions like other minion characters, and frankly, it's just fun to play with them.

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18 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

Against most bosses, yes. Other characters' minions are stronger for general mobbing due to the removal of health regen, damage reduction not being as effective, and the limit of 6 duelists at any given time. This is all to say Maxwell is fundamentally different from other minion characters in that his minions are designed for boss fights. Removing his ability to resummon safely during boss fights takes away this perk.

You could argue Maxwell shouldn't be strong against bosses, but I for one love the idea of a minion character that can actually combat AoE. It's not like Maxwell can AFK with his minions like other minion characters, and frankly, it's just fun to play with them.

How many bosses even deal aoe damage? 2 that nobody fights and 2 fake ones?

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42 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

This is all to say Maxwell is fundamentally different from other minion characters in that his minions are designed for boss fights. Removing his ability to resummon safely during boss fights takes away this perk.

What non-boss applications do other minion character use their minions for? Fighting spiders and pigs? Frogs?
The biggest advantage in using any minion is against bosses or other tough high hp sponges like treeguards. 

Duelists are so cheap it doesnt even matter if their “armor” is less effective against low dmg targets. They cost 1/5 fuel. and are spawned out of thin air anytime, anywhere. 

making the prison cost more or have diminishing returns against the biggest and baddest of end game bosses the game has to offer does not remove its use as a break for summoning.

And why should there not be some risk in reading during combat? Thats what wickerbottom has to deal with too. And much more severe and with a smaller payoff. The cage is a near instant root in the circle, before the pillars even appear. Try comparing that kind of crowd control with the slow reading of sleepytime stories. 

the fact that he can spam the duelists to summon nearly all of them in +- 1 wicker reading animation is already extremely generous. 

And you know well enough that the duelists themselves make for fine distractions for summoning:

2 hours ago, Arcwell said:

Funny enough the duelists do a pretty good job of immobilizing most enemies just by keeping their aggro.

—— 

everything maxwell does is cheaper and better than similar things on other characters that require massive material/time investments and setups. With only 75 max hp as the counterweight that is itself softened by his affinity with one of the best armors in the game. 

Its absurd.

and the fact that he can also read wicker’s books on top of all of that makes him even more absurd. 
 

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1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

How many bosses even deal aoe damage? 2 that nobody fights and 2 fake ones?

Most of them.

  1. AG (only applies to leap attack which only happens if not in melee range EDIT: Oh and the shadow tentacles. Nearly forgot.)
  2. Eye of Terror (dash attack)
  3. Klaus (spells)
  4. Deerclops
  5. Shadow Pieces (Rook and Bishop, not Knight)
  6. Antlion
  7. Bearger
  8. Twins of Terror (dash attack)
  9. Malbatross
  10. Toadstool
  11. Celestial Champion (everything except the phase 2 melee attack)
  12. Ancient Fuelweaver (main attack has directional AoE only)
1 hour ago, Ohan said:

What non-boss applications do other minion character use their minions for? Fighting spiders and pigs? Frogs?
The biggest advantage in using any minion is against bosses or other tough high hp sponges like treeguards. 

Duelists are so cheap it doesnt even matter if their “armor” is less effective against low dmg targets. They cost 1/5 fuel. and are spawned out of thin air anytime, anywhere. 

making the prison cost more or have diminishing returns against the biggest and baddest of end game bosses the game has to offer does not remove its use as a break for summoning.

And why should there not be some risk in reading during combat? Thats what wickerbottom has to deal with too. And much more severe. The cage is a near instant root in the circle, before the pillars even appear. Try comparing that kind of crowd control with the slow reading of sleepytime stories. 

the fact that he can spam the duelists to summon nearly all of them in +- 1 wicker reading animation is already extremely generous. 

And you know well enough that the duelists themselves make for fine distractions for summoning:

—— 

everything maxwell does is cheaper and better than similar things on other characters that require massive material/time investments and setups. With only 75 max hp as the counterweight that is itself softened by his affinity with one of the best armors in the game. 

Its absurd.
 

I mainly use non-Maxwell minions for hounds and ruins clearing. Sure every minion can be effective against single-target bosses, but most bosses deal AoE, rendering non-Maxwell minions obsolete in those fights very quickly.

If the problem is the cost of Maxwell's spells, the solution should be changing their costs as opposed to nerfing their effects.

Wickerbottom can summon bees without being anywhere near the fight and has little use for resummoning them in boss fights when the likes of Deerclops will 2-shot the entire group. There is danger for Wickerbottom resummoning minions in combat because you're not expected to. There is safety for Maxwell resummoning minions in combat because you're expected to. Even with damage reduction, duelists die to AoE pretty quickly. Not as quickly as grumble bees obviously, but again, that's what they're supposed to be good at. As for them already being distractions: the issue with fighting AoE bosses is they all die at once. If you go from 6 to 0 instantly, you have no duelists distracting the boss while you summon more.

And 75 health isn't Maxwell's only downside. Remember all of this costs sanity. You can argue it's not as excessive as Wickerbottom's sanity downside and that's certainly true, but the kicker is Maxwell needs to deal with that sanity loss mid-combat whereas Wickerbottom can deal with it outside of combat.

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59 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

There is danger for Wickerbottom resummoning minions in combat because you're not expected to.

Who said so? And minions arent the only reason why wickerbottom would want to read in combat and she has to deal with the long reading animation just the same. 

59 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

Wickerbottom can summon bees without being anywhere near the fight and has little use for resummoning them in boss fights when the likes of Deerclops will 2-shot the entire group.

Bees can die even against single target bosses/enemies and need to be replenished mid combat if u want to maintain ur dmg.

The deerclops scenario is exactly what makes max so busted. No other minion character can come back from that or enraged dfly stomp wipe out. Definitely not webber and wurt. And loyal merm guards r 100% intended for boss combat since theyre immune to panic screeches.

Only wickerbottom can at an insanely high cost of both sanity and several bee books mid combat + the sanity for sleepy time while ur summoning bees. 

But max?
1/5 fuel + 15 sanity for the cage and 1+1/5 fuel for 6 fresh new loyal merm guards on steroids. Its absurd. No risk, no cost. 

Its “minion character” on easy mode like hes also gathering character on easy mode.

Everything he does is cheap and the best in its category. 

59 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

And 75 health isn't Maxwell's only downside. Remember all of this costs sanity. You can argue it's not as excessive as Wickerbottom's sanity downside and that's certainly true, but the kicker is Maxwell needs to deal with that sanity loss mid-combat whereas Wickerbottom can deal with it outside of combat.

His sanity costs r minuscule especially considering the payoff.
Like i said above until he starts spawning nightmares when sanity is insufficient, mid combat insanity is largely meaningless.

especially on max who has duelists to distract bosses or cage to completely immobilise them while he deals with the sporadic crawling horror. 

it was largely meaningless for old wickerbottom and even more so for new max. 

Also, i read STS, Temperatures, arachnophobia, apiculture and even Tentacles for chip damage, mid combat all the time as wickerbottom.

Her reading is definitely not relegated to out of combat only. 

59 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

As for them already being distractions: the issue with fighting AoE bosses is they all die at once. If you go from 6 to 0 instantly, you have no duelists distracting the boss while you summon more.

Spawn x, after theyre hit once, spawn the rest. You’ll always have duelists up. 

Max is already lucky that he can bring his cheap minions to an aoe boss. At least some semblance of difficulty should be maintained no? 

A single old duelist cost 2 whole fuels and a spear. The new ones cost 1/5 fuel, a crumb of sanity and are better in almost every conceivable way. Idk how anyone can genuinely maintain theyre not busted. 

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21 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Bees can die even against single target bosses/enemies and need to be replenished mid combat if u want to maintain ur dmg.

Against which bosses? The only one I can think of is Dragonfly, in which case you'd be summoning while she's off spawning lavae, giving you plenty of time and space to deal with the sanity loss. Moose/Goose can put a dent in the bees, but 16 is enough to solo it anyhow. Unless we're counting multiple treeguards and spider queens as bosses? .-.

27 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Idk how anyone can genuinely maintain theyre not busted. 

Nah I mean, I think they're busted too. But busted in a good way, like Wanda: double damage and across-shard teleportation are some of the strongest mechanics in the game but she's fun to play. Imo the same thing applies to Maxwell and his duelists.

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The reason why I think that the bosses gaining resistance, and the values given, are a better option against increasing the sanity or fuel cost of the spell is that in the end you can stockpile to overcome increased costs: sanity food, fuel, more codex books, etc. But if the bosses resist it after consecutive strikes, it does not matter if it’s an army of maxwells fighting or they are rich in resources.

Also with the values given in the original post it would mean that you can capture bosses 3 times, for about 20 seconds in total (adding the diminished timer of each consecutive use), and then you’d need to wait about 30 seconds before you can capture it again, which reminds me of the forge’s cooldowns. The 30 seconds cooldown is something that seems reasonable in pen and paper, since I didnt’t test it, it could also be less than that (like 10 seconds or something)
It’s not like it doesn’t work against bosses, it just doesn’t allow you to keep them perma stuck, you could still use it and therefore battles like bee queen or Dfly would be a little less cheesey. And since minions are unaffected by this change, it could still prove invaluable in some fights.

8 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

I think the base duration should be increased if going this route.

Agreed, since this con would limit the spamming, they could also Increase the boss duration of the first use.

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11 hours ago, Ohan said:

This is irrelevant since u have duelists to fight for you. 

you need to consider the fact that duelists can do over triple their base damage if maxwell is participating in the fight. The lost damage from casting the cage, along with all the sanity you need to recover does make quite a big difference in how quickly a fight can finish.

I think the shadow prison is pretty balanced because even though it can make a select few fights easier, itll slow down the fight against most bosses when compared to just kiting them.

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17 hours ago, ShadowDuelist said:

- You trap a boss the first time It lasts for the current boss timer duration.
- You trap it a second consecutive time it will last half time
- You do it again, it will last 1/4 of the current boss duration timer
- Do it a 4th time and beyond, and it will last 1 second only.

This would only affect bosses (not regular mobs, or minions spawned by bosses) and a boss not being affected by any shadow wall for 30 seconds would remove their resistance to it.

Monster hunter be like

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27 minutes ago, Joey9Baka said:

Nerfing the cage would be a terrible idea as he needs the thing to buy time to summon. Without it every minion he summons will just die since minions hardly draw aggro now so you can't use them to buy summon time

To be honest, I too hope it stays as it is now. It's true that it does have a long casting time and during many bosses fights, I found myself doing better just not using it (during my last run my tamed beefalo died because of trying to overuse it).
But if they do nerf it, I hope its something among the lines of what I proposed, so there is no change for the general non-boss usage.

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