Gestalt Abigail is in a much worse spot right now, my thoughts and ideas.

[Yeah_No]

With the most recent hotfix, Gestalt Abigail (Goopigail)'s damage got nerfed from 400 to 200, and the lunar elixir getting the planar damage lowered from 100 to 50, essentially halving her DPS. She also had the invincibility while attacking removed. In exchange, she got improved in terms of survivability, such as stopping attacking under 25% health, as well as surviving any hit at 1 HP while above 25% health.

The Damage Nerf: This, I think, was the worst part of the hotfix. Halving her damage ends up with her DPS lowering to around regular Abigail's, regular being around 40 at night and gestalt's being around 50 at night. This, along with the loss of AoE besides a tiny amount and dash, makes her a lot less useful. 

However, I don't disagree with it. 400 damage at night or with nightshade nostrum was FAR too much. However, the raw damage was not the only place where gestalt abigail thrived. She had incredible survivability, mostly due to her invincibility while attacking (which got removed, for good reason). I will get to the changes I want to make later on in the post.

About Gestalt Soloing Bosses: It's a big issue. And one that I don't think got solved very much. The main reason (that I seemed to find) with Gestalt Abigail being able to take down bosses with little to no intervention from the player was that she could survive. Yes, the damage helped, but the fact she could last long enough to deal enough damage to bosses to take them down was also a big issue - being helped by her being smarter and trying to kite, and having invincibility while attacking.

This was partly solved, but I don't think it was actually solved. The removal of invincibility with attacking was a good change, but ultimately Gestalt Abigails independence is what made her too good. 

The Role Gestalt Abigail Would Be Good To Fill: Nobody likes the game being played for them. As such, I don't like that gestalt abigail is something I am encouraged to just... leave to do things. Regular Abigail is somewhat like this, as she is effective at dealing with most hordes (spiders, frogs, hounds) with the simple press of the rile up command. The tradeoff is she requires more management in big fights, with different elixirs or commands to take a break and recover. 

Gestalt Abigail should function without Wendy, but much worse. In exchange, when attacking with Wendy, Abigail gets a big performance upgrade. The dynamic between the sisters is of mutual exchange, with regular abigail being tailored to supporting Wendy through Vex and natural AoE. So what if it were reversed, almost?

Now, Wendy is incentivised to join Abigail in combat, with Wendy improving Gestalt Abigail's dps like how regular Abigail improves Wendy's dps. This makes her role as a "boss fighter form" of Abigail improve, where she deals devastating damage but only if Abigail is there to take some heat off. 

The Actual Changes: Adjust Gestalt Abigail's mechanic where she stops attacking to only be at below 10%, giving Wendy a chance to command her to escape with Team Spirit 1 and apply a restorative/defensive elixir while still keeping her at risk most of the time. Keep the threshold for surviving attacks at 1 HP at above 25% health, so there is a point in time where she is attacking but at risk of being killed, increasing the likelihood she will die without Wendy being attentive. The increased risk of death is not as bad considering there are restorative elixirs and an elixir to fully upgrade Abby as a part of the skilltree. 

Lower the Vex duration of Gestalt Abigail, preferably to just 1-2 seconds, but can be extended to 3 if Wendy is attacking the enemy the Vex is applied to. This makes her less of a supporting role for Wendy (as we are trying to almost flip that with this concept) and works well with the next point, along with giving incentive to fight alongside Abby.

Have Gestalt Abigail improve when Wendy is involved with the fight - I have two ideas of how to do this. One is to make it similar to Maxwell, where if Wendy is attacking with Abigail the attack rate improves from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. The second idea is to improve Gestalt Abigail's attack rate from 5 seconds to 3 seconds when she is not the target of attacks, meaning the Wendy or other players would need to be active in the fight to keep the dps high. Both ideas reward being in the fight WITH gestalt Abigail.

Increase her damage to being 300 at night or with the elixir, 200 at dusk, and 125 at day. This will help improve her single-target DPS to be significantly higher enough than regular abby's, who gets AoE. (Keep the lunar elixir at 50 planar damage though)

Summary: The goal of these changes is for Abigail to be supported by Wendy's involvement in combat, as without Wendy being attentive or involved she will deal less damage and be more likely to die, but when Wendy is fighting with and taking care of abby, her performance is improved and she will last much longer in a fight.

I'd also just like to clarify that I am very happy with pretty much all of the skilltree besides Gestalt Abigail, besides some minor nitpicks that I've seen other people mention already. It has had a lot of effort put into it, and it is a very nice skilltree with many perks I will be using often when I play Wendy. 

Thanks for reading <3

(Edit: Adjusted the Vex duration change idea)

[Koomin]

4 minutes ago, Yeah_No said:

With the most recent hotfix, Gestalt Abigail (Goopigail)'s damage got nerfed from 400 to 200, and the lunar elixir getting the planar damage lowered from 100 to 50, essentially halving her DPS. She also had the invincibility while attacking removed. In exchange, she got improved in terms of survivability, such as stopping attacking under 25% health, as well as surviving any hit at 1 HP while above 25% health.

The Damage Nerf: This, I think, was the worst part of the hotfix. Halving her damage ends up with her DPS lowering to around regular Abigail's, regular being around 40 at night and gestalt's being around 50 at night. This, along with the loss of AoE besides a tiny amount and dash, makes her a lot less useful. 

However, I don't disagree with it. 400 damage at night or with nightshade nostrum was FAR too much. However, the raw damage was not the only place where gestalt abigail thrived. She had incredible survivability, mostly due to her invincibility while attacking (which got removed, for good reason). I will get to the changes I want to make later on in the post.

About Gestalt Soloing Bosses: It's a big issue. And one that I don't think got solved very much. The main reason (that I seemed to find) with Gestalt Abigail being able to take down bosses with little to no intervention from the player was that she could survive. Yes, the damage helped, but the fact she could last long enough to deal enough damage to bosses to take them down was also a big issue - being helped by her being smarter and trying to kite, and having invincibility while attacking.

This was partly solved, but I don't think it was actually solved. The removal of invincibility with attacking was a good change, but ultimately Gestalt Abigails independence is what made her too good. 

The Role Gestalt Abigail Would Be Good To Fill: Nobody likes the game being played for them. As such, I don't like that gestalt abigail is something I am encouraged to just... leave to do things. Regular Abigail is somewhat like this, as she is effective at dealing with most hordes (spiders, frogs, hounds) with the simple press of the rile up command. The tradeoff is she requires more management in big fights, with different elixirs or commands to take a break and recover. 

Gestalt Abigail should function without Wendy, but much worse. In exchange, when attacking with Wendy, Abigail gets a big performance upgrade. The dynamic between the sisters is of mutual exchange, with regular abigail being tailored to supporting Wendy through Vex and natural AoE. So what if it were reversed, almost?

Now, Wendy is incentivised to join Abigail in combat, with Wendy improving Gestalt Abigail's dps like how regular Abigail improves Wendy's dps. This makes her role as a "boss fighter form" of Abigail improve, where she deals devastating damage but only if Abigail is there to take some heat off. 

The Actual Changes: Adjust Gestalt Abigail's mechanic where she stops attacking to only be at below 10%, giving Wendy a chance to command her to escape with Team Spirit 1 and apply a restorative/defensive elixir while still keeping her at risk most of the time. Keep the threshold for surviving attacks at 1 HP at above 25% health, so there is a point in time where she is attacking but at risk of being killed, increasing the likelihood she will die without Wendy being attentive. The increased risk of death is not as bad considering there are restorative elixirs and an elixir to fully upgrade Abby as a part of the skilltree. 

Lower the Vex duration of Gestalt Abigail, preferably to just 1-2 seconds. This makes her less of a supporting role for Wendy (as we are trying to almost flip that with this concept) and also gives incentive to use the Dash command from Team Spirit 2 to keep Vex up. Also, keep Gestalt Abigail being affected by Vex - it will further incentivise using dash.

Have Gestalt Abigail improve when Wendy is involved with the fight - I have two ideas of how to do this. One is to make it similar to Maxwell, where if Wendy is attacking with Abigail the attack rate improves from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. The second idea is to improve Gestalt Abigail's attack rate from 5 seconds to 3 seconds when she is not the target of attacks, meaning the Wendy or other players would need to be active in the fight to keep the dps high. Both ideas reward being in the fight WITH gestalt Abigail.

Increase her damage to being 300 at night or with the elixir, 200 at dusk, and 125 at day. This will help improve her single-target DPS to be significantly higher enough than regular abby's, who gets AoE. (Keep the lunar elixir at 50 planar damage though)

Summary: The goal of these changes is for Abigail to be supported by Wendy's involvement in combat, as without Wendy being attentive or involved she will deal less damage and be more likely to die, but when Wendy is fighting with and taking care of abby, her performance is improved and she will last much longer in a fight.

I'd also just like to clarify that I am very happy with pretty much all of the skilltree besides Gestalt Abigail, besides some minor nitpicks that I've seen other people mention already. It has had a lot of effort put into it, and it is a very nice skilltree with many perks I will be using often when I play Wendy. 

Thanks for reading <3

They increased Gestalt Abigail's vex duration in this recent patch when they lowered her damage per hit.  This made Abigail + Wendy's combined damage per second be equivalent to what it was before the patch (and Abigail and Wendy fighting together is the whole point of the character).  The "damage nerf" was not actually a nerf (unless you were letting Abigail solo the bosses for you I guess). So the "worst part" you were mentioning above is actually not an issue!

[Wendigail]

9 minutes ago, Yeah_No said:

One is to make it similar to Maxwell, where if Wendy is attacking with Abigail the attack rate improves

This is good idea, prevent Wendy AFK and Abigail kills the boss alone

[Yeah_No]

34 minutes ago, Koomin said:

They increased Gestalt Abigail's vex duration in this recent patch when they lowered her damage per hit.  This made Abigail + Wendy's combined damage per second be equivalent to what it was before the patch (and Abigail and Wendy fighting together is the whole point of the character).  The "damage nerf" was not actually a nerf (unless you were letting Abigail solo the bosses for you I guess). So the "worst part" you were mentioning above is actually not an issue!

During my own testing, I found that Gestalt Abigail + Wendy fighting together was still at least slightly worse than it was before, even with the Vex increase (though this could just be an issue of my testing). It isn't a big issue, but I don't like it as it makes Gestalt Abigail feel like regular abigail in that she is just there to support Wendy (but now for single target), when I want the difference in the forms to be more than just AoE vs single target. I also want there to be more incentive to using the dash command with gestalt abigail to fill in the dead time between attacks if you want the Vex to be applied constantly. 

[Apple49856]

Honestly I have genuinely no disagreements with this at all 

 

10/10 change ideas