Sawbutcher overpowered or campaign too easy?

[Arakes]

I just won the Embers of Rage campaign as an Orc Sawbutcher on my first try - I died four times but all deaths were due to me being careless.
The Paladins and Sun Mages from the Sunwall gave me some trouble and I had to run away from Aeryn a few times until I was able to beat her (in a closed environment with no escape routes to recover, I´m pretty sure she would have killed me) - but everything after it was smooth sailing.
As soon as you have two good steam generators and can afford to keep Grinding Shield + Overheat Saws + Tempest of Metal + Furnace on permanently, and have the Subcutaneous Metallisation prodigy, there is almost nothing that can stop you or even just slow you down - you can charge right into the middle of huge crowds of monsters (which due to Tempest of Metal is actually one of the best strategies for crowds!) and watch everything around you die quickly. The only thing you have to look our for are *very* powerful psionics that can survive more than one round against your saws, put you to sleep and conjure your inner Demons(e.g. level 100+ Dreaming Horrors), or a crowd of very powerful spellcasters - just one is no trouble at all because you can either close the distance with Saw Wheels and kill them before they are able to do anything if their Hit Points are not too high, or just easily silence them with explosive saw.
No boss after Aeryn was any challenge at all, I mawed down the last boss and the five Steam Giants from the council without having to heal or retreat or resort to any other tricks - just charge with Saw wheels, activate continuous Butchery, then a saw to the spine (Spinal Break), then a saw To The Arms and repeat.
I don´t think that the Sawbutcher is too strong, I rather think that most bosses (especially the final boss!) in the campaign should be buffed.

The Saw Wheels talent should maybe nerfed a little. I think it was designed as an escape and mobility tool (and it is great for that purpose!), but it really shines as an offensive tool - if you have it on 5/5, then everything you walk past (which can be more than one monster in a crowded room) is hit for 98% weapon damage.
And since you move at 437% speed, this effectively increases your number of attacks per round (4 or 5 attacks or even more per round are easily possible if you are in the middle of a crowd) AND allows you to strategically reposition yourself and monsters (since everything you hit is knocked away) all at once, it almost feels like cheating. (EDIT: One possible nerf would be to increse the cooldown of Saw Wheels - it is very low right now (4) so you can easily use it as an offensive AND defensive tool - charge with Saw Wheels, use your strongest attack talents, and then retreat with Saw Wheels again, if the cooldown would be, say, 8, instead, using it as an offensive tool would be a calculated risk unless you have other good escape options)

[Keemossi]

Yeah, I had the same experience, and yeah they're way overpowered. But afaik they're already set up for nerf as well, one of the devs was talking about nerfing Saw Wheels on the chat.

Though I'm not sure if it's just Saw Wheels. SBs are damn tough and still deal great damage even if stuck in a corridor and can't use Saw Wheels.

Also, Inner Demons. - the whole tree and any mob that uses it. The moment you see a Nightmare Horror you'll be permanently sleeping/confused/whatever and just waiting until a clone of you spawns and kills you. That's not SB specific, that's most classes. It's absurdly stupid skillset on mobs and the new campaign highlights that with the horror filled endgame.

[erikkustrife]

You died four times? but how did oh...nvm i mean if your playing adventure mode im sure a lot of people could beat the orginal campagin on their first attpemt, my friend mike on his first try made it to 40 but died to a orc pride he was on roguelike. This campagin is much much harder if you play on insane or even nightmare.

[Arakes]

Yeah, I had the same experience, and yeah they're way overpowered. But afaik they're already set up for nerf as well, one of the devs was talking about nerfing Saw Wheels on the chat.

Though I'm not sure if it's just Saw Wheels. SBs are damn tough and still deal great damage even if stuck in a corridor and can't use Saw Wheels.

Also, Inner Demons. - the whole tree and any mob that uses it. The moment you see a Nightmare Horror you'll be permanently sleeping/confused/whatever and just waiting until a clone of you spawns and kills you. That's not SB specific, that's most classes. It's absurdly stupid skillset on mobs and the new campaign highlights that with the horror filled endgame.

There is also the synergy between Saw Wheels and Tempest of Metal that was probably not intended and is OP.
Although I still think it´s partly the campaign itself, I´d love to play a Sawbutcher in the original campaign and see if the Prides and High Peak are as easy as the end of the Orc campaign with a Sawbutcher - especially the final bosses, the two mages in the original campaign seem WAY more powerful to me than the final boss of the Orc campaign.

RE Inner Demons - I could kill the lower level psionics before they could do anything (close with Saw Wheels, then Spinal Break and the fight is over), but that level 117 Nightmare Horror with 3500+ hit points in one of the vaults of the last dungeon gave me a LOT of trouble because I had no way to cure mental effects.

[Keemossi]

The campaign overall does seem easier as well, that's true. There's no build check like Master in the midgame, and the last boss is easier. No High Peak random bosses either.

I finished the campaign on nightmare with SB earlier, now doing a psyshot run. So far (lvl 40 ish) it's been about as easy/hard as on SB overall, though knowing what tinkers to pick earlier certainly helped.

I always play on adventurer, there's way too many bullshit deaths that can only be avoided by tedious gameplay if you play on nightmare+. Like most of my deaths go to patrols, because cba move slowly on the world map, and the patrols are often lethal.

[sajberhippien]

You died four times? but how did oh...nvm i mean if your playing adventure mode im sure a lot of people could beat the orginal campagin on their first attpemt, my friend mike on his first try made it to 40 but died to a orc pride he was on roguelike. This campagin is much much harder if you play on insane or even nightmare.

That doesn't really say anything though, as difficulty is compared to a given players skill/patience. If a player that will usually fail in the standard campaign on normal difficulty can easily win this campaign on normal difficulty, it means that on normal, the campaign is too easy or the class was too powerful.

If it's the campaign being too easy, then it might be that it scales better to Nightmare+, but Normal still needs to be adjusted. If it's the class being too powerful, it may be that it can't leverage those strengths as well due to the lethality of nightmare+, but then it might still need to be adjusted to be less strong in normal.

(I say this as someone who haven't played the campaign due to being unable to donate, and also as someone who's not that skilled or patient - but the game needs to be balanced for a wide variety of players, not just for the absolute best ones)

[Arakes]

You died four times? but how did oh...nvm i mean if your playing adventure mode im sure a lot of people could beat the orginal campagin on their first attpemt, my friend mike on his first try made it to 40 but died to a orc pride he was on roguelike. This campagin is much much harder if you play on insane or even nightmare.

Not so sure about that. I doubt that many would beat the original campaign on their first try with one of the standard classes, even in adventure mode - there are several bosses that can easily kill you if you don´t know what to expect (Urkis, Grand Corruptor, the Master etc.) and the bosses in the slime tunnels, the High Peak stair guardians and the two sorcerers at the end are all much more powerful than anything Embers of Rage throws at you in the last dungeons. For Embers of Rage - Aeryn was the only boss that put up a real fight.

[Micbran]

The campaign overall does seem easier as well, that's true. There's no build check like Master in the midgame...

I would argue to say that Aeryn is a midish game build check, but irregardless, I agree that the campaign seems a lot easier. It took me quite a few "serious" tries to beat the main campaign and so far, it seems the first character I've made on Embers has a pretty good chance of winning.

[Arakes]

Btw, I watched some episodes of Ash vs Evil Dead before playing the Sawbutcher - highly recommended, there is nothing better to set the mood for the gore and mayhem you´ll cause as an Orcish Sawbutcher

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm not sure if "easier" is the best way to put it. The campaign has a better difficulty slope. Vanilla tends to be a straight line with the occasional horrible jagged mountain, whereas this is a simple upwards curve. The problem with the Master isn't that he's super duper hard in of himself, it's that nothing before him is as hard. Once you know what the deal with the Master is, he loses a lot of his threat.

I think the sawbutcher is absolutely OP. It's super fun, but even without cheese wheels, it got more then a little ridiculous.

Mind you, I'm a steadfast normal player, who hasn't even tipped his toe into Nightmare, so take this as you will.

[Arakes]

I'm not sure if "easier" is the best way to put it. The campaign has a better difficulty slope. Vanilla tends to be a straight line with the occasional horrible jagged mountain, whereas this is a simple upwards curve.

Did you find the end harder than the beginning? My experience was that the middle was the hardest (attacking the Sunwall was by far the most difficult part of the campaign for me) and everything after it was easier even than the beginning - the Steam Giant fortress was the easiest dungeon in the entire game for me, easier even than the very first dungeon, and the five council members were a complete pushover.

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm not sure if "easier" is the best way to put it. The campaign has a better difficulty slope. Vanilla tends to be a straight line with the occasional horrible jagged mountain, whereas this is a simple upwards curve.

Did you find the end harder than the beginning? My experience was that the middle was the hardest (attacking the Sunwall was by far the most difficult part of the campaign for me) and everything after it was easier even than the beginning - the Steam Giant fortress was the easiest dungeon in the entire game for me, easier even than the very first dungeon, and the five council members were a complete pushover.

I mean...I was a sawbutcher, so pretty much none of it was really "hard" . Once that class gets going, it doesn't stop going.

I'll get back to you after I try out some other classes in the campaign!

[Nnnghzhdd]

Saw Wheels is really OP (Doombringer on steroids), I only used that power + Overcharge as activable talents, the hardest parts were the forest with rares spawning and the (fortunately few!) dreaming horrors.
When you have access to (or craft) good weapon tinkers (the fire one synergies amazingly) and the new str prodigy, you're truly invincible (save for the horrible mental effects of course).

[Ravenholme]

I'm not sure if "easier" is the best way to put it. The campaign has a better difficulty slope. Vanilla tends to be a straight line with the occasional horrible jagged mountain, whereas this is a simple upwards curve.

Did you find the end harder than the beginning? My experience was that the middle was the hardest (attacking the Sunwall was by far the most difficult part of the campaign for me) and everything after it was easier even than the beginning - the Steam Giant fortress was the easiest dungeon in the entire game for me, easier even than the very first dungeon, and the five council members were a complete pushover.

I'm solidly in the mid-game now and I think the early game is pretty easy with one exception - the Ritch Hive, I've had some nasty deaths in there (Maybe because I've tended to do it before the Port) simply down to the huge volume of enemies that can come at you there. Mostly getting pinned by melee enemies whilst a Flamespitter burns me to death. Get past that though and then the only really difficult parts are the Sunwall, because Sunwall mages are not fun as a Sawbutcher.

[AbsoluteO]

Okay, I just beat it nightmare roguelike *so* easily. http://te4.org/characters/140043/tome/5 ... 72c562aa28

Problems
Tempest of metal (30% dmg every turn, etc.) it procs every movement. So if you run 700+ movement speed (*easy* to maintain) you effectively do 7*3=210% dmg every turn AOE for free. This is a lot, but it becomes problematic when you combine that with other talents such as Overheat saws (fire dmg stacking every hit), every game turn I stacked up 3000 fire dmg (per 3 turns) from that. So that's 1k dps from *just* that ability. But, the real problem becomes when you combine it with Continued butchery (unlock tree, adds +8% dmg per attack made), I stacked that to +380% dmg over 5 turns (I left the ability at level 1(!!!!) because it was so OP (I never used it because of that, still easy win). With that running I maintained 60,000 DPS against a single dummy with no resists. How is that balanced? Without continued butchery I maintained 22, 000 dps with just running around left right left right (procing tempest of metal and saw wheels). Meanwhile if I bump attacked I only did 5k dps, and if I used skills + bump attacks I had around 8k. Moving at 700% speed should never x5 your DPS, using skills became useless.

Fixes: fix tempest of metal so it's only once per TURN. Increase the cooldown on saw wheels. nerf continued butchery, it has to have a max roof, set it to 50% or so on all ranks, and ranking it just reaches it faster, or set it at 5 stacks max or whatever. It's too good. Give them another tree. I had pretty much everything maxed lategame, no build diversity with class points.

Whitehoofs: Absolutely broken. They trivialize the game by giving you 50 flat DR early game, and +50% ALL Dmg (that is bugged atm so it gives +100%, (it gives +50% all dmg, and then another +50% to all types, so effectively +100%)). The first ability is really good, fine but good. Second and third need changing.

Fixes: The second one should max at 5-6dr per stack, and the third should max at 5-6% all dmg per stack.

Like someone said above, it felt like cheating. I kinda regret finishing it, wanted to quit at several points, especially when I saw I did 6k dps at level 20something.