suggestion [Edited for clarity] Shield elixirs: why they are not used and a way to fix them (no simultaneous use with other elixirs, no buff to Wendy)

[Pig Princess]

Out of all elixirs Wendy has at her disposal unyielding draught and distilled vengeance are hardly ever used, and for a good reason. But they are not hopeless and with a small changes could allow creative use of generic tools survivors have and alternative fighting strategies emerging without making Abigail Bernie 2.0 (tank). Especially in the fights where other elixirs like spectral cure-all or vigor mortis can’t do the job properly (phase 3 celestial champion is one example) and where team spirit commands lack flexibility (when Wendy is trying to kite simultaneously commands lock her in stationary animation).

My suggestions are the following:

-          Give Wendy ability to trigger Abigail’s shield if Wendy attacks Abigail instead of unsummoning. Requirement could be planar weapon, or it could be default outcome of Wendy attack so long as Abigail has either of the 2 shield elixirs active. Animation could be adjusted to it doesn't look like real attack, but rather as pushing/hitting with non-dangerous part of the weapon. 

-          Make weapon in the hands of Wendy deal 0 damage to Abigail even if it has planar component.

-          Buff duration of shield up to 2 seconds with elixirs. It’s still too little to block 2nd hit of many creatures if Abigail is fighting solo, but it would allow just enough margin of error for those who want to play in a more glass-cannony way.

-          Make distilled vengeance reflect all damage that hits the shield, including type of damage (physical/planar).

-          Make Abigail attackable with mouse. Currently one needs to both hold attack button and select her with mouse for attack because she is an ally, but it could be nice to make it a setting (one can attack hostile entities solely with mouse after all so it's not something entirely new).

I think those changes should be baseline because problem of shield elixirs existed long before skill tree, but if it's absolutely not an option, making it a skill would be better than such features not making it into character kit at all.

What actually happens when shield elixirs are applied

Spoiler

Both elixirs double duration of the shield that appears after Abigail takes hit, with the more expensive one adding 20 recoil damage to shield. While it might look good as anti-swarm option, in practice it’s still a hit every second that gets through, because when hit is blocked by shield, shield is not extended. This leads to the situation when as long as attacks are happening at a rate of 1 per second or more frequent, shield only cuts overall damage in half, and otherwise it does nothing because shield doesn’t last until next attack. Overall damage itself that is taken doesn’t even depend on size of the swarm Abigail fights or health of the targets, and instead it is damage a single creature deals per second multiplied by amount of seconds fight lasts. Meaning that as long as enemies keep coming, like during hound wave or frog rain, recoil damage doesn’t really matter, as well as Abigail’s own damage; one’s best options are still healing elixirs because they allow Abigail to outheal damage so long as it’s less than 21 per second or to continue replenishing her nearly lost 600 hp pool while she is unsummoned in order to come back for the second round of frog rain battle. And from my experience shield elixirs don't save enough health for Abigail to last for the entirety of average frog rain duration.

As for non-swarms, even if creature manages to have attack period of less than 1 second (phase 3 of CC and phase 2 during blender attack, shadow bishop), the first hit which triggers the shield gets through and hits hard - 150, 120, 20-30-60 damage respectively, - and it’s this damage per second that is dealt to Abigail as long as attack doesn’t end within 1 second, which wipes out her hp in an instant or over the course of roughly 4 attacks, and one has to loose shield in order to heal her anyway. So why bother with shield at all?

Proposed fix

Spoiler

If only player was able to trigger shield by attacking in some conditions instead of unsummoning Abigail, it would be great option for fights where kiting with Abigail is not worth it and damage it too much to outheal, while giving shield elixirs much needed niche and still requiring precise timing and player interaction. And attack animation is much faster than unsummoning or communicating, which makes it perfect in a fight - just like unsummoning through attack instead of unsummoning through animation.

Currently one can trigger shield by weather pain, but random nature of tornadoes is unreliable – it might hit Abi for 7 damage and save her from 150 CC hit, but might just miss, because even force attack consistently tries to pick another target even if player holds the button and left-clicks on her, should player try to reposition themselves to not get hit a microsecond earlier. It gets even worse for longer attack sequences since it’s entirely random for first hit after shield is down to be tornado or real enemy attack.

Bug? Could turn into a feature

Spoiler

Recently I discovered what I believe to be a bug, but what has potential to be a feature with some adjustment. So long as weapon has planar damage, Abigail is not unsummoned while Wendy hits her, instead shield is triggered. However, planar damage is also dealt at full force, meaning that even aligned Abigail with shadow affinity buff takes 17 planar damage from  shadow reaper (and 32 otherwise), and it alone considerably reduces her health and usefulness of a strategy, not to mention prospect of killing her at low health. Technically it is possible to trigger shield without damage to aligned Abigail by switching to brightshade smasher or generally to something that deals less than 15 planar damage, but it’s clunky and usually player ends up within attack range of closest enemy one tries to kite (due to holding attack button before being able to click on Abigail). Plus shield triggered this way have a good chance to be expired before 2nd CC attack since one has to hit before the first attack (especially if one wants to kite as Wendy as well), while tornadoes are immune to damage and thus don’t have such problem.

Distilled vengeance

Spoiler

As for distilled vengeance specifically, 20 damage doesn’t help even with swarms, no wonder it’s completely useless against bosses that typically have 10000+ hp. It's also just an expensive version of another shield elixir, and even if shield itself was fixed, cost should be justified by making it actually worth it.

Team spirit skills

Spoiler

I would like to highlight that it would not invalidate team spirit commands, as they serve different purpose, and they would still be better against opponents like Nightmare Werepig or Armored Bearger, who gain benefits as long as they hit something, even if without damage, or if one wants to tank as Wendy and use safer approach with healing elixirs (vigor mortis for kiting at the cost of dps) applied where viable. Even against normal enemies that don't benefit from hitting player it would provide variety of strategies and a little (or not little) more damage dealt (Toadstool is one example).

Additionally, it would actually improve gameplay a lot if team spirit command animations could be skipped with effect still applied because it would promote kiting with both Wendy and Abigail, and I find it be much cooler than tanking as Wendy. And I would still use both team spirit commands and shield elixirs because one is cheaper and about kiting, and another is about feeling timing as well (so not just holding F) but has a potential for more damage and control (like biting CC on melee attack instead of ranged one).

 

[Pig Princess]

Bump to 1st page because 8 hours is too soon to be buried. Especially for suggestion on baseline kit. 

[ColdHeaven]

bump

[Pig Princess]

Bump.

[Dingle]

I initially misread this as "make abigails shield trigger when Wendy attacks an enemy".

[Pig Princess]

2 hours ago, Dingle said:

I initially misread this as "make abigails shield trigger when Wendy attacks an enemy".

Edited post to be more clear, thank you. 

I wish I knew that "trigger shield on attack" could be misread like this despite the context. Initially I planned to put summary in the end, but decided to put it in the beginning at the last moment, so people who don't like to read long posts and/or don't care about detailed explanations, intentions and examples posted under spoiler would get general idea. No wonder re-reading before posting didn't help, since I knew the context beforehand. 

[Pig Princess]

I just thought that maybe suggestion can look less suitable for a lot of Wendy players because it may feel wrong to attack Abigail in any circumstances, and one could be uncomfortable on the character theme level. I wonder how much people in general know about a way to unsummon Abigail via attacking though, which seemed perfectly fine for developers to implement, and it actually was a suggestion during Wendy rework, not something that was initially in her kit. 

Anyway, I like to think of unsummoning via attacking as pushing Abigail to the flower that Wendy does in desperate wish to not let her fade, even if that means she has to fight on her own for a while and/or it's not the gentliest thing to do to her sister. I think lore-wise she would be perfectly fine with enduring battle alone for a while to let Abigail come back at full force a bit later, as well as to appear a bit mean to Abigail if that means she can save her. 

I think different-looking animation that would take the same time, be cancellable and take the same control inputs could make it more visually pleasing - essentially I propose reskin for attack animation when it's specifically Wendy who attacks Abigail. Let it be gentle pushing with elbow or something for regular attack with unsummoning, and pushing with sword hilt/shaft of shadow reaper for shield-triggering attack.