[NEW MERCENARIES] Please note that all new forum users have to be approved before posting. This process can take up to 24 hours, and we appreciate your patience.
Finished my largest model to date. She stands at 15 inches tall, with a base of 13 inches by 13 inches. (wingtip to wingtip) I think I'll do a Lynn next and then a Vella. I did a Vella print alongside my Arcana print a few weeks ago, but I wasn't happy with how some of the structures failed to print so I never painted the model. Hope you all like this one and whatever else is to come
I think you're missing the point of what I posted.. I never said that CB should be stuck in the past and not catch up, what I'm saying is that the way she is designed right now does not allow for any significant changes without completely ruining her balance. But to the point of "not catching up to current classes" I'd say she doesn't need to catch up, she's already caught up. Or at least she would be if her dodge frames were marginally tweaked, and her pressing bugs were fixed. I hate using this counterpoint, but go to one of those class ranking things that people talk about in KR, and CB Vella is consistently ranked between the middle and upper tiers. Her numbers are fine, her damage is fine, the only thing that needs tweaking is her quality of life and how buggy some of the her skill set still is. I mean look at CB Vella's kit and if you really sit down and think about it, while it may be very simple in function, her core functionality covers literally all of the bases. I'll do a basic rundown of how this looks on paper.
Primary DPS, stacks and hailstorm: high damage, spammable attack at the cost of no mobility, limited uptime, and high stamina cost. No mobility issue is solved by glint/biting cold, letting you move into a safe position and immediately resume attacking. Limited uptime is solved by blood fountain, letting you slow the decay of heart of ice. High stamina cost is offset by bloodfountain and ice breaker, letting you recover stamina faster while slowing the decay of HOI. Blood chill lets you extend the duration of HOI. Glacial Strike allows you to end HOI early if you need a tiny bit of burst, popped stacks at the wrong time and need to reset, or adds a nice bit of extra damage at the end of your HOI spam. Blade Dance allows you to quickly restack. Frost jack lets you gap close in an instant. Glint itself has tremendous travel distance.
I don't know about you, but when I look at that kit, I see pretty much every single box ticked. I don't know what else I would add to it to make it better without directly changing damage or stamina cost. Yes, the kit is very single focus and you can argue that it's 'boring' and 'simple', but the fact remains that it accomplishes its goal very thoroughly. Now the problem is that once you take out a critical component of her kit, things fall apart ridiculously fast. In this case, Biting Cold is broken and doesn't work reliably. Frost Jack gets stuck on terrain. Blade dance has no range. Glint can get stuck on terrain. Here's what happens:
Hailstorm still works fine, blood fountain is fine, ice breaker is fine. Because biting cold is broken you cannot immediately continue combos after dodging resulting in more decay of HOI time which means a huge loss in dps due to every second of HOI being so valuable. Stacking is slower because you cannot immediately resume combos. Stamina efficiency tanks because you have to fit in more basic attacks in order to pull off smashes. Frost jack and glint get stuck on terrain? Suddenly your mobility takes a huge hit and you're way more vulnerable to the boss. Blade dance has no range? Boss moves an inch, you're now stuck in an animation, gaining no stacks, and vulnerable to the enemy's attack, that's not even mentioning the fact that you wasted 250sp on hitting the air.
Basically, all that's happening here is that a few gears in the machine are broken, and it's holding the machine back. She doesn't need buffs, she needs bug fixes!
This comparison to Kai that you're using isn't very applicable. Kai plays completely different from Vella. Half of the time he is pretty much in melee range for (i think it was hollow shot?) Furthermore, he's not designed around a single stacked skill and spamming that one skill, he has an abundance of abilities and actives that are all rotated and used, meaning his design is not in any way similar to Vella. Ranged class does not mean turret mode, I said cb vella is turret mode because she was literally designed to sit still and spam hailstorm. Comparing her to kai is like literally comparing an apple to an orange.
This comparison to lann that you are making makes even less sense to me. Lann's damage multipliers are completely different. His gameplay is completely different. What does him having buffs have anything to do with Vella? Lann needs those buffs because he's heartbreakingly gimped without them, that doesn't mean that Vella needs those buffs too, does it? Again, this is another apples to oranges comparison. The comparison isn't between the classes, it's what the result is at the end
I think I do understand what you are trying to get at, it's just that I think you may be misidentifying the root of CB Vella's issues. Sure, a rework or a revamp may solve the issues I listed, but that's just a lateral change rather than a vertical one, and also a change that I think is really just unnecessary. Now if you're arguing that her kit is too simple and you want it to be diverse, then that's a completely different argument, and I'd say the only real option is a total rework.
Yep, had the same issues, rolled the update back after I learned that it was causing it. I was also having these really bad fps drops to around 10 fps.
