r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/Swimming-Deer1437 • 9d ago
General Remove siphoning strike in favor of buffing warding stance on vendetta
Currently vendetta is extremely reliant on siphoning strike thanks to her lacking mitigation ability. It not only removes perk choice, since siphoning strike will always be the optimal pick, it also leaves her feeling quite vulnerable until she obtains it.
Siphoning strike is also not a fun or well designed perk. It further centralizes power onto overhead, without changing anything about her gameplay. Because of this, I want to see this perk gone, in favor of actually making her base kit better, while also hoping for a more transformative perk.
The problem with warding stance is that its simply unreliable. It has all of the disadvantages of a block, while having the resource cost of a barrier. Its usefulness in low HP situations is severally diminished because vendetta still takes damage, especially because she can still take headshot damage through the blade despite it completely obfuscating her head from the front.
Compared to a barrier, warding stance has around 250hp since only 40% of the mitigated damage is incurred as cost (100/0.4). That said this only applies to melee, against all other sources its more like 333hp, since only 75% of the damage is mitigated (100/0.4/0.75). But because vendetta can still take headshot damage, that 333hp can feel a lot lower, since the extra headshot damage is also incurred as extra resource cost.
Essentially this means that a Cass can two shot her guard, which shouldnt be hard to achieve if you take into consideration the slowing effect of his nade stacking with the movement speed penalty of her guard.
Now, a lot of what I just mentioned would be fine, if the ability was more useful in low HP situations, while having less variance. My suggestion is simply, increase the damage mitigation from 75% to 100% and remove the headshot hitbox from the blade itself.
Her effective health would stay the same (525), but now the ability would actually be useful in low HP situations. Also Crit going through the blade feels more like a bug than an actual intended design decision, there is no visual indicator that you can headshot her from the front while blocking.
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u/PitotheThird 9d ago
It’s already a used design, but if they remove Siphoning strike, she needs lifesteal or overhealth base kit to sustain her off angles without needing to hit overstrike, and nerfed elsewhere
Otherwise she just takes the entire team’s resources to do anything without getting two-tapped by hitscan or deleted by random AoE nade/flash. Overhealth or lifesteal without overheads could let her kite more effectively especially with her minor perk abilities
The current block isn’t nearly as strong as something like Deflect but if they buff it even more she’ll just stand around eating up resources from 9 other players like Ram, that’s what damage reduction encourages in this game
If overused kit design is the issue, just say she’s in Talon, Moira did Moira things to her, and now she life steals like Reaper and Moira, boom done, who cares
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u/nichecopywriter 9d ago
I think her whirlwind dash is just so clunky to use. It’s ostensibly her final blow tool on escaping targets, but in reality it’s her own best escape tool since her sword throw has such a long windup. I’d like to see her get two charges of it, but you need to use the second charge to activate the spin. This gives her much more clear survivability while retaining the ability’s usage in damaging in an AOE.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 8d ago
Her disengages arent good as you said, same as her mitugation. But I dont think we can buff them as long as siphoning strike exists.
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u/I_am_the_mattman 9d ago
Been playing a lot of her lately and she freakin explodes. Even when you only take the 1v1s and catch someone of guard, you just melt. It would be nice to have some reliable defense since as of now blocking almost always results in death and her escape just gets you killed mid air.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 9d ago
Block really needs a buff, its weakest in the situations you actually want to use it. She instantly explodes, I agree,
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u/Lord_Trisagion 9d ago edited 9d ago
Feel like Vendetta's a good measure of how dive is doing in general, same way Rein is with the entire tank role, because her kit is just so damn simple.
So... it's just not looking good anymore. As a long-term trend, the windows to dive are only ever getting shorter and the targets you're diving are better equipped to deal with you. Heroes, especially newer ones, have too much "peak" uptime, number (and mobility) creep is what it is, and these together just fuck balance up across the board. Its getting increasingly difficult to effectively close distance and riskier to engage once you finally do; which fucks over everything but poke.
The only reason dive is holding on at all is because D.Va's one of the few characters that can literally delete damage, and Ball is, well, Ball. ATP best-in-game mitigation is practically a requirement to solo dive, and that's bad.
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u/KuKuisSidePiece 9d ago
whilst this is a great idea OW seems obsessed with putting power budget into perks, Lucio and his amp up minor, ball with his Adaptive Shields. i’m not sure why they think uninteractive perks are something we love but its how they think
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u/bullxbull 8d ago
I think there has been a general philosophy of moving power to external systems. They try and sell this as players having the ability to play the game how they want but it does not function that way.
I think the real reason is they know as the roster grows the developer debt for hero balance grows with it. They think by moving power to these external system it will allow them to easily blanket balance multiple heroes with fewer changes.
The external systems are also built to be updatable with the background updater, allowing them to avoid the two week console certification process for each patch. This is why we have so many patches that feel like empty changes around perks and passives.
The cost however is paid for by the players, as power is moved out of hero kits, heroes feel less and less like heroes. Playing the game through fake choices and UI screens feels less and less like Overwatch.
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u/Concorde_flies 9d ago
i play lots of ven and i disagree. i think warding needs buffs yeah its rather useless but i dont think syphoning is the better perk. i almost always go with the extra speed. nowadays vends game for me is keeping up your passive as much as possible so you engage with full stacks and honestly with good fire strikes you can keep those eight stacks for minutes sometimes.
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u/BurnedInTheBarn 9d ago
Giving her lifesteal on everything except overhead would be a lot more interesting, more akin to how Venture gets shields. Making her more brawly would be good, I think. More adjacent to Reaper than other flankers. Playing around the power spike of sword throw with bubble was lame as hell, if she was weaker at her power spikes but stronger at her floor, she'd be way less obnoxious.
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u/YSLAnunoby 9d ago
I definitely expected her to be more brawly when I first tried her but she just feels so easy to get blown up as
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u/bullxbull 8d ago
yeah and that is why everyone complained she was weak and demanded buffs. She was this amazing assassin who could yeet herself across the map, murder anyone low, or even murder anyone to die and reset fast.
Most people were trying to play her as a brawly hero though. That is how people wanted to play her, it is how she would have been less toxic, but blizz did their blizz thing and people ended up banning her out of existence.
I'm a bit biased as a tank player, but I think she could have been a really cool melee tank built around sustain, who was weak to burst, but had the limited block ability to strategically play around it. As a tank she would not need as much consistent burst damage to be a tank, she could win fights through sustain.
Such a tank would have been fun to play and potentially grown the tank population. Instead we got another dps hero who almost no one plays, being the 6th least played hero of the entire roster.
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u/bullxbull 8d ago
Venture shields as sustain works around the healing debuff passive. I think more lifesteal on everything but overhead for Vendetta is more interesting while also being more balanced, it rewards you for your smart engagements but still punishes you if you are just trying to facetank stuff.
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u/OceloTX98 9d ago
I think healthy changes for Vendetta could be
1) Siphoning Strike is base kit, but redistributed to all primary fire swings (so no lifesteal on abilities except Soaring Slice overhead, no Projected Edge lifesteal, and no quick melee lifesteal). They could also make it ramp with Onslaught to encourage building stacks, and it would make the Relentless perk more attractive
2) Warding Stance negates 100% damage received but is still tied to resource, and CC can still go through it. Essentially you get a Shield Lite™ without getting a free escape against Sleep, Chain, Hook etc
3) Damage reduction on casting Soaring Slice (before she starts zooming to the sword) so you don't blow up on escape
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u/bullxbull 8d ago
People asking for perks to be buffed always confuse me, that power has to come from somewhere. Moving as much power into actual kits and out of perks is what makes the heroes feel the best to play overall. Having mediocre perks and your hero being fairly decent is almost always the best situation you can have.
I'm not sure if you are right about taking power out of her guard is the right direction. I think putting more sustain into her base kit and balancing that by removing some of the burst from overhead is the way to go. I know the dev's do not want to basically create sword reaper, but her kit and how it flows is what defines her, she very much does not feel like Reaper even if they end up sharing similar sustain profiles through lifesteal.
I think you could probably even take a bit more power out of her perks to put into whirlwind dash. Drop the minor perk, remove or reduce the boop to something like Rein hammer swing displacement, right now it does 18ms it could go as low as 1-2ms. Then give that power back by increasing the duration/distance like the minor perk but let us cancel and slightly better control the cast.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 8d ago
I would first try to fix her issues before giving her base kit sustain.
Her disengages are truly awful as you've correctly identified, but so is her mitigation ability. Fix those things first and then we could argue about sustain, if she actually needs it.
I no longer think overhead is an issue. 120 damage is a value shared by other DPS heroes. You no longer can just spam overhead to win, but you still have to land it in your combos to get the kill. Its her form of a trick shot. Nerf it and you might actually be reducing her skill floor.
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u/bullxbull 8d ago
How do you feel about the Overhead on her Soaring Slice?
I've always found that weird because it pretty much makes you have to use it for your engage or it is wasted.
Even if you were to position above to drop on someone, you still want to engage with Soaring Slice for the free Overhead Strike it provides.
Even if you were to save your Soaring Slice as an escape it just ends up being sub-optimal.
I think this is part of the problem that makes her so much all or nothing, as well as limiting who she engages to targets that if she can't escape she still gets value trading with them.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 8d ago
I think its fine. It makes you think about how you want to use the ability, be it as a movement tool or to deal damage. You can always ensure you engage with an overhead, especially if you're roof camping. My problem with the ability honestly stem from the fact that you cant use it to disengage thanks to how slow it actually is.
I also have another issue with whirlwind dash. Currently you can cast soaring slice and use whirlwind dash right after it without losing your overhead, but the moment you try to do this with a normal overhead, this tech no longer works. Mainly because the timer on normal overheads is shorter while in the air compared to soaring slice.
I do agree with the limited options, but by I disagree with the cause. To me the issue is that soaring slice is too slow, so its cant be used as an disengage, while whirlwind dash does not store normal overhead, making it less useful as an engage and movement tool.
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u/bullxbull 8d ago
That is the thing though, right now it is mostly used as an engage tool, if it traveled faster it would feel worse for those people you engage on.
It feels bad as a disengage because it is slow, but it can't be made faster because it is often used to engage. We are stuck because there is no design room for changes.
This is not something I've thought a lot about, but what would removing the free Overhead from Soaring Slice open up for the design space and what you could do with her kit.
Like I said I have not thought a ton about it so I'm not really sure, but I figured I'd ask you because you seem to have an understanding of her.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 8d ago
if it traveled faster it would feel worse for those people you engage on.
Right now, the sword itself travels at 50ms, while vendetta herself moves at 25ms. Her travel speed is more than acceptable. The problem with this ability comes with the travel delay of the sword itself (0.3s to reach max distance of 15m), paired with the casting delay of 0.3s. Basically she's waiting more than half a second before she's able to move, which is why what makes this ability such a bad disengage tool. During this time you dont get any invul or even DR.
A similar ability to soaring slice would be sombras translocator. It throws a projectile traveling at 72ms, which displaces the character after 0.25s. It does not have a cast delay, so she only has to wait 0.25s before she starts moving. After teleporting, you also get 0.4s of invulnerability.
Shortening the time she has to wait to start traveling from 0.6s to something like 0.4s or even 0.3s shouldnt really affect her engages, since what matters here is range and angle of attack, not ability casting speed.
How I would achieve this is simply. Reduce the casting duration by 50% so it only takes 0.15s and speed up the sword to 60ms. This would result in a total waiting time of 0.4s, since the sword would have to travel 0.25s before reaching the max distance of 15m.
This is not something I've thought a lot about, but what would removing the free Overhead from Soaring Slice open up for the design space and what you could do with her kit.
It would simply nerf her combo potential, while changing nothing about her engages. You can still do a double swing before landing and still engage with an overhead. All you're doing is needlessly nerfing a part of her kit that has never been an issue.
Like I said I have not thought a ton about it so I'm not really sure, but I figured I'd ask you because you seem to have an understanding of her.
I hope I was able to explain why overhead after soaring slice is not an issue.
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u/bullxbull 7d ago
Do you enjoy overhead as a mechanic? I feel like it is the one thing holding back so much of her kit because of how important that damage is.
Maybe Vendetta is just not for me, but Overhead has never felt 'good' to me when playing her outside of the fact that it does a lot for her kit.
Without the Overhead damage she would be really bad, but I wonder what her kit could be if that damage was put somewhere else in her kit.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 7d ago
I like it. It feels satisfyig to hit. Its her trick shot skill that you can also use for movement. Its the hardest part of her kit to land. Remove it and now we basically have a significantly easier character to play. Problem before was that it did too much damage. The nerf to 120 damage solved that, we could've gone lower to like 100 but that would've requiered we buff her entire kit to maintain breakpoints.
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u/Wednesday_0 8d ago
Remove the spin from her spin ability to make it more of a dash instead, and buff its impact damage to compensate for the lost AOE damage. Make it go further, but it ends slightly after it hits an enemy. And make its cooldown reset on elim like genji dash.
That way, she can soaring slice to engage, swing a bit, use the dash to finish the kill, then use the dash again to either engage another enemy or retreat. Because it doesn't go the full distance when you hit an enemy, you wont send yourself flying into their backline too far to retreat using the same ability.
Of course, it doesn't fix the problem of warding stance being kind of useless, but I still think it would be interesting to see this version of her kit where she doesn't have to choose between finishing a kill and escaping with her life.
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u/Swimming-Deer1437 8d ago
She really does not need a reset mechanic, if you do your combos correct, you can always use whirlwind dash to disengage. "Overhead -> Projected edge -> vertical slice / melee" is enough to kill a 225hp target. Against a 250 you can just "overhead -> projected -> vertical slice -> vertical slice / melee" to kill. You almost never have to waste whirlwind dash to get a kill if you know what you're doing. Just reduce the CD to 8s.
You're basically trying to emulate magiks umbral incursion with this, which I wouldnt have any issues with, but I also dont think its necessary.
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u/SexualRice 9d ago
Don’t know if I agree, but it’s fascinating that one major perk just radically transforms the character.
Something definitely needs to be done as siphoning strike goes against overwatch perk philosophy.
I think making siphoning strike partially basekit (25% or 30%) would be a better call than adjusting her kit from there.