The Puppet Brigade arguably has the most wacky/inconsistent org buff in Nin. There's a whole list of frustrations that players have regarding the Grand Puppets so I'll break them down into two categories: playing with the puppets, and playing against them. After which, I'll be giving suggestions driven by consensus of the current Puppet Brigade roster.
Firstly, Playing with the Puppets:
Pros:
Spammable meat shields to block projectiles/cover revs or retreats
Infinite spam can be used to break traps
Can be used somewhat reliably to cancel Revs (mostly because medics get scared and run, thinking the puppet is stronger than it is)
Hail Mary, completely RNG and unpredictable Water Wave casts
Cons:
Completely RNG based jutsus:
Water wave - which was the only objectively strong jutsu - was recently nerfed (more on this later)
Lightning current which would be alright if it wasn't inconsistent (read below)
Fire dragon which is a completely and utterly useless, slow moving projectile that does an incredible 46 damage
Finally, a Lightning Senbon attack. Does anyone know what the lightning senbon does or looks like? No? Exactly.
Nearly immobile, barring a flicker which occurs rarely. Running away from a Puppet after flicker will remove it entirely from the fight due to its movement speed and long CD on flicker. It has next to no chasing ability, making it a defensive tool first and foremost. A defensive tool with zero ranged capability, as of right now.
Unusable Fortitude buff on the Puppet. In order to re-summon the Puppet, the user needs to re-equip the Puppet, which removes the buff and leaves you needing to be healed to full. Considering the puppet has very little HP, it will need to be re-summoned constantly. The stat buff may as well not exist.
To summarise the experience of using the puppet, it boils down to clicking on a target in the distance in the hopes the puppet will flicker there and cause havoc. We have no more control beyond this, besides returning the Puppet to us the same way anyone can with their summons. We cannot control what jutsus are used, we cannot guarantee when, if ever, the puppet will move to its target.
There is very little room for skillful use, unlike the 7sm blades which are infinitely stronger when used by strong players, or even adjusted/buffed builds like the 12g and Akat. The Puppet behaves the same as any regular summon, with less health and less reliability (compare what I'm about to show you below to a Bear or Clam stun). The strength of the Puppet relies almost entirely on abusing what is certainly a bug to infinitely respawn the puppet. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and even a mediocre summon will put in work if you respawn it 20 times a fight.
Jutsu Discussion:
At present, only two of the four jutsu are even worth addressing.
Lightning Current:
Its low base damage of 6 is acceptable due to having a stun, although again it is completely random and as such cannot be utilized reliably and skillfully like the Clam, for example.
Note that not only is it not an AOE, which would actually make it strong, but it hits whoever it feels like. The targeted player was not hit in the image above, instead the medic was stunned. We assume this is a bug, which extends even further as the stun can sometimes hit a target 20+ tiles away from the puppet. Let alone being useless, it can actually hurt the Puppet user who thinks a stun just went off.
Water Wave:
For a very long time, this has been the only saving grace of the Grand Puppet, besides being an Earth Wall. Prior to the knockback changes, water wave was a long range piercing ability that multi-hit if the player ran with the wave. Situationally devastating, particularly in team-fights, but manageable if you had the presence of mind to run through it rather than with it.
The recent knockback changes made all piercing knockbacks drag players along, leading to instant death if you were touched by a water wave. As a result, the wave distance was nerfed to what you see below.
The Knockback still exists, meaning you can get up to a triple hit if you catch a player with the water wave while directly on top of them:
I can personally attest that this can still be strong; catching two people in a full water wave is 738 combined damage. I cannot reasonably ask for more. However, it remains the only somewhat viable Grand Puppet jutsu, and it is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was.
The water wave typically fires at a 4-5 tile distance, at which point you'll only take 1 tick of damage. It is no longer capable of impacting team fights like it used to. Its maximum potentially has been locked significantly lower than it's pre-knockback bug state. Additionally, it now relies on a rare flicker that can't be controlled on top of a random roll among the 4 jutsus. This was a net nerf to one of only 2 pillars keeping the puppet afloat. Water wave can no longer carry the Puppet.
Playing against the Puppets:
Killing the Puppets is a meaningless exercise, they will instantly respawn
Particularly painful to trappers who have their preparations undone, for no gain
Getting hit by a water wave full to zero completely at random feels like shit (less of an issue now)
There is no sense of being outplayed by the PB member - if the puppet gets you, the user had nothing to do with it
The two major complaints come down to infinite puppets and water wave, as they feel like BS mechanics to fight against. We can agree that these are broken mechanics (in the literal sense, not the OP sense), but they are the only things keeping the buff from being worthless. We can also agree that there is little room for skillful use, as outlined above. We will try to address these in the suggestions.
Suggestions:
The Puppet needs to be more aggressive and flicker about twice as much to targets. This will allow us to better influence the position of the puppet e.g. flicker to an enemy aggressively to throw out damage and pull it back to keep it alive/shield the front lines.
Dragon needs +50-60 damage and needs to act like an actual dragon. Ie. It needs the dragon fire combo's second hit and AOE damage.
The stun damage needs to increase by about 44 points and needs to effect the selected target, not at random.
+600 HP but 30s cooldown rather than infinite spam.
The lightning senbon it does needs +40-50 damage.
Equipping Puppet grants Summoning Jutsu, similar to Jailing jutsu in that it uses Locked slots. Or any similar mechanic that is workable, that doesn't force us to re-equip the puppet and lose the buff constantly.
Bonus: Improving the jutsu selection logic to favor senbon and dragon at range, water wave and current close up. At present, the puppet has no idea what to do when it's further than 6-9 tiles from the target except wait for another flicker. I can understand if there are limitations or this is overly hard to code, which is why it's a bonus.
The specific numbers are up for debate of course, but the intent is 3-fold: make the org stat buff usable, give increased control over the puppet and reward good positioning with jutsus that are not useless, and finally add consequence to misuse of the puppets by putting them on CD when killed.
HITSPARK
Question
Imhotep
The Puppet Brigade arguably has the most wacky/inconsistent org buff in Nin. There's a whole list of frustrations that players have regarding the Grand Puppets so I'll break them down into two categories: playing with the puppets, and playing against them. After which, I'll be giving suggestions driven by consensus of the current Puppet Brigade roster.
Firstly, Playing with the Puppets:
Pros:
Cons:
To summarise the experience of using the puppet, it boils down to clicking on a target in the distance in the hopes the puppet will flicker there and cause havoc. We have no more control beyond this, besides returning the Puppet to us the same way anyone can with their summons. We cannot control what jutsus are used, we cannot guarantee when, if ever, the puppet will move to its target.
There is very little room for skillful use, unlike the 7sm blades which are infinitely stronger when used by strong players, or even adjusted/buffed builds like the 12g and Akat. The Puppet behaves the same as any regular summon, with less health and less reliability (compare what I'm about to show you below to a Bear or Clam stun). The strength of the Puppet relies almost entirely on abusing what is certainly a bug to infinitely respawn the puppet. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and even a mediocre summon will put in work if you respawn it 20 times a fight.
Jutsu Discussion:
At present, only two of the four jutsu are even worth addressing.
Lightning Current:
Its low base damage of 6 is acceptable due to having a stun, although again it is completely random and as such cannot be utilized reliably and skillfully like the Clam, for example.
Note that not only is it not an AOE, which would actually make it strong, but it hits whoever it feels like. The targeted player was not hit in the image above, instead the medic was stunned. We assume this is a bug, which extends even further as the stun can sometimes hit a target 20+ tiles away from the puppet. Let alone being useless, it can actually hurt the Puppet user who thinks a stun just went off.
Water Wave:
For a very long time, this has been the only saving grace of the Grand Puppet, besides being an Earth Wall. Prior to the knockback changes, water wave was a long range piercing ability that multi-hit if the player ran with the wave. Situationally devastating, particularly in team-fights, but manageable if you had the presence of mind to run through it rather than with it.
The recent knockback changes made all piercing knockbacks drag players along, leading to instant death if you were touched by a water wave. As a result, the wave distance was nerfed to what you see below.
The Knockback still exists, meaning you can get up to a triple hit if you catch a player with the water wave while directly on top of them:
I can personally attest that this can still be strong; catching two people in a full water wave is 738 combined damage. I cannot reasonably ask for more. However, it remains the only somewhat viable Grand Puppet jutsu, and it is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was.
The water wave typically fires at a 4-5 tile distance, at which point you'll only take 1 tick of damage. It is no longer capable of impacting team fights like it used to. Its maximum potentially has been locked significantly lower than it's pre-knockback bug state. Additionally, it now relies on a rare flicker that can't be controlled on top of a random roll among the 4 jutsus. This was a net nerf to one of only 2 pillars keeping the puppet afloat. Water wave can no longer carry the Puppet.
Playing against the Puppets:
The two major complaints come down to infinite puppets and water wave, as they feel like BS mechanics to fight against. We can agree that these are broken mechanics (in the literal sense, not the OP sense), but they are the only things keeping the buff from being worthless. We can also agree that there is little room for skillful use, as outlined above. We will try to address these in the suggestions.
Suggestions:
Bonus: Improving the jutsu selection logic to favor senbon and dragon at range, water wave and current close up. At present, the puppet has no idea what to do when it's further than 6-9 tiles from the target except wait for another flicker. I can understand if there are limitations or this is overly hard to code, which is why it's a bonus.
The specific numbers are up for debate of course, but the intent is 3-fold: make the org stat buff usable, give increased control over the puppet and reward good positioning with jutsus that are not useless, and finally add consequence to misuse of the puppets by putting them on CD when killed.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
5 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now