Sawbutcher overpowered or campaign too easy?

[Marcas]

Saw wheels just oneshotted me upon opening a chest, hilarious

http://te4.org/characters/104996/tome/0 ... 285620e43b

An object rolls from the chest!
Velildalaith the troll pirate deactivates Saw Wheels.
Velildalaith the troll pirate performs a melee critical strike against Sizzle!
Saving game...

Not gonna play roguelike difficulty for a few months I guess, when things like this can happen.

[cybaster]

So much knee-jerk hate against a new playstyle. The problem with Sawbutcher was never moving and attacking as a primary means of offense. That was just something new, and fun, and there's no reason it couldn't have worked. Attack on move is a really cool concept - it was the freshest thing on the menu.

To repeat what I said in the general forum thread complaining about tempest of metal - most or all of these problems go away by giving Sawwheels the property of assigning a fixed movement speed value for while it's up. Or a max movement speed value, if you want to preserve movement speed debuffs. So what's going on with completely plundering the uniqueness of the class, instead of trying to make the fun work?

[Toranth]

So much knee-jerk hate against a new playstyle. The problem with Sawbutcher was never moving and attacking as a primary means of offense. That was just something new, and fun, and there's no reason it couldn't have worked. Attack on move is a really cool concept - it was the freshest thing on the menu.

To repeat what I said in the general forum thread complaining about tempest of metal - most or all of these problems go away by giving Sawwheels the property of assigning a fixed movement speed value for while it's up. Or a max movement speed value, if you want to preserve movement speed debuffs. So what's going on with completely plundering the uniqueness of the class, instead of trying to make the fun work?

As it was, it was broken. Insane was EASY. I could have done a Madness winner without too much difficulty, and I'm a mediocre player. All because it is much easier to get move speed bonuses than attack speed bonuses. Which means you'd need to balance the attack power out expecting a move speed of 700%-1000% late game, which would render the damage part almost worthless the rest of the game.

On the other hand, if you give Sawwheels a fixed speed, you've determined a fixed point where the skill is useful. Before that, it's OP; after that, it's useless. Neither case is much fun. Would anyone use Sawwheels if it fixed at 150% speed? Would anyone NOT use it if it fixed at 500% speed?

I'm of mixed emotions on the change. I agree, the idea of a character whose primary offensive action was moving is pretty cool. But the Sawbutcher class is designed for grindy rough-and-tumble melee fighting. Adding in the ability to pound on enemies 10+ times a turn while having a strong escape permanently enabled? That's just too much.

[Micbran]

The other issue with saw wheels is that it oversimplifies the class the class is merely reduced to moving around. I've beaten EoR twice, once with Gunslinger and once with Sawbutcher. After discovering the saw wheels abuse, I will say the class was only fun because saw wheels was so broken and even then, I had far more fun playing gunslinger.

[cybaster]

On the other hand, if you give Sawwheels a fixed speed, you've determined a fixed point where the skill is useful. Before that, it's OP; after that, it's useless. Neither case is much fun. Would anyone use Sawwheels if it fixed at 150% speed? Would anyone NOT use it if it fixed at 500% speed?

Would you use it if it was 300%? Suddenly the answer becomes maybe, depending on what you're up against.

The other issue with saw wheels is that it oversimplifies the class the class is merely reduced to moving around. I've beaten EoR twice, once with Gunslinger and once with Sawbutcher. After discovering the saw wheels abuse, I will say the class was only fun because saw wheels was so broken and even then, I had far more fun playing gunslinger.

Sawwheel the Hedgehog should be less effective than proper use of your other cooldowns against strong single targets, but it should remain a highly effective way of ripping up weak to medium strength monsters. It should not be the only thing one uses, and it wouldn't be with a reasonably fixed speed bonus. At 300% or so, you'd be likely to get yourself killed against rooms full of casters without depending on other talents and strategies. You'd find youself using corners and corridors again, and that'd mean things are balanced.

I firmly believe more novel play styles is good, and less novel play styles is bad. We've got a massive number of stand-and-slap melee fighters already and anything that takes away from the novelty of new classes takes that much purpose away from them.

[Micbran]

IMO, keep the knock back, keep the high move speed, keep the low cooldown, remove most the damage component (if not all) altogether and perhaps make it so that it pushes enemies out of the way when you move into them. That way it becomes more of a gap closer talent, which is what saw butcher needs.

[twas Brillig]

What if it were less controllable? Rather than straight up giving you movespeed, while sustained you could target a tile within a range determined by your adjusted speed and fire yourself at it like a missile. This could be combined with Micbran's point about pushing through enemies: either you go through them and keep pinballing around, or you hit them, stop, and trigger the AoE on break effect.

[HousePet]

So much knee-jerk hate against a new playstyle. The problem with Sawbutcher was never moving and attacking as a primary means of offense. That was just something new, and fun, and there's no reason it couldn't have worked. Attack on move is a really cool concept - it was the freshest thing on the menu.

Its not new. The same situation used to exist on Mindslayer.

[cybaster]

Its not new. The same situation used to exist on Mindslayer.

Ahh, you're right! I was obsessed with Corrupter at that point, I don't even think I gave Mindslayer a fair shake until long after.

What's your take on this? Do you think Sawwheeling around enemies to deal damage can, with judicious controls, be part (but not all of) Sawbutcher gameplay? Or do you think we're mostly better off without it?

[HousePet]

Better off without.

[Nimmy]

I haven't played Sawbutcher (or gunslinger) yet, but I finished the campaign in my second real try with a boring bulwark build (you can see it in the char report forum). I finished the main game only once, so I would say the campaign is clearly easier. I think part of it might be because there are not as many magic intensive portions in the DLC as in the main campaign: No Daikara, Spellblaze, Dreadfell (to some extent) and Vor Pride.

Possibly the DLC could do with an additional dungeon with a magic theme (but not more. I think the main game suffers from too many dungeons and the DLC is clearly better in that regard).

[hatsuyume]

Does anyone have a more up-to-date guide on Sawbutcher? Most of the things I can find online are from when EoR was first released and it seems a lot changed in the following patch.

Just looking for some direction in terms of talent order, good tinkers, etc.

[ster]

Does anyone have a more up-to-date guide on Sawbutcher? Most of the things I can find online are from when EoR was first released and it seems a lot changed in the following patch.

Just looking for some direction in terms of talent order, good tinkers, etc.

i got p far with insane sawbutcher and discord had a lot of better players so here's a shit load of fairly random tips (an actual guide might come soon)

in no particular order (focus on mastery and sustains first tho): 5/5 steamsaw mastery | 4/5 spinal break | 1/5 tempest of metal then 5/5 when you have good steampower (also max that generic that gives you 90) | 3/5 grinding shield then 5/5 later | same with sawwheels | invest in offensive skills (punishment, to the arms, bloodspring) whenever you're done with the rest | also battlefield veteran gets you a lot of flat EHP early so you could 3/5 or 5/5 it | 5/5 overcharge saws very late

go inscription -> autobutchery 1/2/2-3/0 then max continuous butchery at some point -> inscription -> furnace 5 in first skill then do whatever and Arcane Might/Cauterize + Flexible Combat prodigies

use a second steam generator until you can afford your sustains with 2-3 extra steam margin (btw turn off overheat saws, it's bad, you only need about 9 for tempest of metal + grinding shield), and replace your starting salves with a wild and regen since they suck - go back to salves when you get good injectors and T3 frost and water salves.

ogre gets better injectors, more HP and 2H steamsaws while shalore can extend cont. butchery and overcharge saws. all other races are bad as usual and if you're in EoR just use yeti

best tinkers in slot are crystal edge (use acid grooves/viral injectors until you find and can make these), white light emitter, fungal web, ablative armor, headlamp and spring grapple or iron grip (sb has bad mobility so spring grapple really helps) and rocket boots (switch to kinetic stabiliser for Vor Armory, not doing this killed my last dude)