So, let me preface this by saying that I have Siren. I’m not calling for a nerf because I can’t beat her - I’m calling for a nerf because I’m nearly unstoppable when I play with her. I’ve played something like 150 matches with her today, and I’ve lost one (and I lost that one because I misread how to play against the other team). I lost 8 hearts total. It’s pretty fun, but that’s a little ridiculous.
I like the idea of a rocker that rocks so hard she drowns out all other noise. A mass silencer is unique, and a very interesting hero possibility. But her platinum siren song does an insane, insane amount of damage. All mid/rearline bio heroes are dead after one good song, and even non-bio heroes are going to be hurt really bad. I think the damage on her siren song should be toned way down, but I think a cool compromise would be making it easier to stick her mass silence.
I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of naysayers, but let me reiterate - I played 150 matches and lost…once. That’s a little imbalanced.
Panzer, Dogface and Hideo can take her off air before she belts her debut, especially if you pilot them and have good aim. Now some would probably say "But the opponent will probably carry someone to help her survive until she can start singing (e.g. Flat,Mandrake and Butter) but then again, Dogface,Kuno and Castellan are also hard to beat with those guys on tow. So i give a no to a severe nerf. A minor one is ok though
P.S. i’d love to see the team you used. My longest winning streak was 25 games using Cindy,Oda,Keel,Matador and Heckler
She, like Astrix and Kunochi, is a glass cannon. She can levy a whopping amount of damage, but will melt when faced against a elementally-advantaged DPS slugger. It’s all a matter of team comp, and who you choose to bring into pvp.
Also, many heroes have interruption capabilities (I.e. Caine and Panzer). The skill only works provided she can pull it off uninterrupted.
She has a decent amount of health though. At 5 stars plat, she has more health than my 6 star kuno.
I think the problem right now is that Siren is kind of rare and not enough people have built her up in abusive ways. But the potential is very much there. My build isn’t the only one that can make it work.
You say that because you never played against good pvp players, who knows who to kill first.
Top players have already left because this game is going the wrong direction and you are getting matches against below average players.
In 150 matches, I think some of those players were good enough to understand kill priority. I’m also pretty good at protecting Siren. The payoff for protecting her is just insane though.
There’s nothing wrong with nerf convos. When characters are balanced, there’s more-diverse metagame. And a diverse metagame is the hallmark of a good strategy game. You can’t expect the characters to be balanced if they don’t fine-tune them on an ongoing basis.
I agree, a small damage nerf seems appropriate. Rock on Grasher.
I’m actually building out an Astrix too right now, because she seems to occupy a similar place in the meta as Siren. She’s a DPS that is pretty mediocre outside of her skills, which are game wrecking once they come online. It’s a really interesting departure from prior heroes, most of whom have had good, but not game wrecking active skills, and who have primarily relied on their guns to do damage.
I like the departure and the increased emphasis on highly damaging skills, but it makes their skills so far outshine everyone else’s skills that I feel like everyone else should get buffs or Astrix/Siren should be nerfed.
Siren is still pretty reasonable in terms of HP and damage and is reliant on her skills for DPS like most heroes. Shivs on the other hand has insane DPS, insane reload and without a need for her skills, you can’t silence her to stop the DPS. No issue with consistency since no reliance on skills. Not to mention she isn’t built like a glass cannon?
How is high damage, high reload, high shooting rate and moderate health even a fair balance? That’s like a 5, 5, 5, 3.5 in terms of skill rating. Which other hero has this balance? None.
Well 2/3 of your team will still be easy prey for her. I would hardly call that a weakness. She can slowly dispose of the back when most of your team located in the front is gone.
Min maxing helps especially if you manage to out power level the opponent’s Shivs but otherwise…
A good example of the unbalancing is in Hero Drafts going on now. Even as equal powered heroes, no one stands a chance if you face an experienced user.
I haven’t started hero drafts yet (still at work), but I’ll be curious to see what it looks like playing against Shivs there. I’ve played against her in some min maxed team combos and almost always lost (I even lost once when I was using a Mauler permastun team with Caine and Moss, which I found infuriating - that team is basically built to destroy single DPS mech teams). But whenever I’ve played her and she’s at the same level as the rest of the team, I’ve won. I don’t know what to take away from that.
Open PVP is different. Too many factors. Hero Drafts is the only real equalizer. All skills equal. No chance to min max in different ways (even if overall power is equal, you can neglect plat skills for Gold for e.g. to keep power down). There you can see for yourself.
Also hardly anyone in top ranks runs a Bio DPS so it’s likely you either lose with an Energy DPS or try to outgun her with a Mech.
Note: Just noticed Shivs got a 10% damage reduction next update, I don’t think it changes anything, but hopefully.
Yeah, it’s really disappointing how rare bio DPS characters are in PVP lineups. I put together a plat Odachi to see how good he would be, but this is definitely a situation where the apprentice has surpassed the master - Kuno is way, way better. Odachi is an amazing finisher, but with his small magazine and slow reload, he has a hard time getting a character to the point where he can finish them.
Mauler used to be good with his permastun combo, but with all the nerfs he’s gotten, nowadays you 100% need to run him with Moss and Caine to get the permastun, which really dramatically limits the teams you can run. I have a team with him that’s quite good, but it’s pretty dependent on getting an early stun lock, which is 100% luck. If it doesn’t happen I can be in real trouble.
another nerf convo…