Landfall and Stormtrance are both complete bullshit. (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, April 06, 2016, 18:10 (2961 days ago) @ squidnh3
edited by Ragashingo, Wednesday, April 06, 2016, 18:36

Bungie started signaling a nerd to Stormcallers and a buff to Sunsingers months ago. I just hope they do enough... and that they dispense with the notion that it's ok for a single subclass (the Defender) to have a significantly worse k/d and point spread than every other subclass.

A Sunsinger buff would be an unthinkable disaster in Trials.

Just a question: have you tried playing as a Stormcaller? I don't think it's quite as easy to dominate with the Super as you are making it out to be. I'd say I'm normally pretty happen with 2-3 kills, and I am much more confident making better use of the Golden Gun. Also, trying to use Landfall usually gets me killed rather that killing anyone, it's AOE really isn't that large.

Well, two things:
1. I rarely play with classes or weapons I think are overpowered. I didn't go Thorn when Thorn was everything. I don't have a 1000 Yard Stare. Etc. Back in the Halo days I'd rarely pickup a shotgun, preferring to beat enemies fairly.
2. I actually don't like Stormtrance very much as a Super even when I'm using it. The hover animation annoys me. Losing my guns annoys me and leave me open to long range attack.

There are times, though, that its duration and ability to kill via arcing absolutely make it extremely over powered... like when someone kills you on one side of Frontier then spawnkills you on the other before their Super runs out. But my hatred towards Stormtrance is as much or more about how it popped by "indestructible" Ward of Dawn without the other player so much as looking my way or even attacking, and how Stormtrance very much blurred the lines between classes as it essentially gave the Warlock most of the powers of a Striker Titan all at the same time (blinding, area of effect attack, health regen) and then went on to last another 20 seconds.

I will once again argue that a lower k/d for Defender is just fine. Wasn't there also a statistic that said that Defenders had a higher win percentage than any other class? Don't forget that in addition to the Ward of Dawn itself, you drop 2-3 orbs for every other player on your team in a place of your choosing, helping them to charge their supers. Perhaps instead of trying to use Ward of Dawn aggressively to take ground, it's best used to consolidate areas already under control? There is that +15 points for each kill your teammates get when under Blessings effects.

Remember, the Defender was considered so amazing by the Destiny community that Bungie could not fit their label into the Crucible subclass usage chart!

That boost to a team's winning percentage? None of us knew it existed (see chart above) because it isn't exposed in any of the in-game data. No, most people think the Defender is a PvE only class because its sole way to contribute (besides getting your team killed as they hide in your "indestructible" bubble) is to Suppress enemies.

Similarly, that 15 point Support bonus is pretty crappy. Think about it, you put down a bubble and just how many people do you expect to kill if everything goes perfectly? 6. (Any more than 6 and your enemies are just complete idiots) Well, 6*15 = 90. Congrats, you almost earned your team the equivalent of another zero control point, zero bonused kill. More typically you + your team will get two to three kills that can be attributed to your bubble. That's only 30 - 45 extra points... That's less than a single Assist! All the Blessings or Weapons of Lighting you did for your team typically don't matter as much as a single Assist, according to the Crucible's scoring...

Now, you and I know that the above chart is kinda dumb. A single Defender can, if played well, shut down enemy Supers, hold down a point, get your team an area of the map they were struggling with, or keep a Heavy Ammo crate in your possession. I am very sure I have been the Guardian that has turned many games around, not by killing, but by using Ward of Dawn at the right place and the right time. But playing a Defender well is a good deal more difficult than any other class.

Of course, the Defender still has some very odd limitations. Like, it is the sole Subclass whose melee ability does absolutely nothing unless you get a kill. It, along with the Sunsinger, cannot earn credit for Super kills. Titans are also the only Class that does not have access to an auto-targeting grenade like the Fire or Arcbolts or Axion Bolts. Heck, it took Bungie a year and a half to decide that maybe just maybe having all Titan melees be 15+% shorter than every other class was a bad move...