Why Lurkers shouldn't be able to pick offweed regen

[Boersgard]

Please just remove this godforsaken mutator entirely.

Why am I even getting rid of weeds as a marine? What's the point in clearing an area when it doesn't matter and a xeno can just heal up regardless? All this did was remove a layer of strategy and counter-play. Beforehand, xenos had to get drones to weed in support of an attack. Marines had reason to remove those weeds. Marines knew if they were moving into weeded territory, that this is where they could expect aliens to lurk.

Now it doesn't matter. This mutator didn't add anything to gameplay; in fact it objectively reduced the strategies used and available in exchange for letting xenos play lazily and with less risk.

On the xeno side, it's just rolling eyes worthy. I can run around as a lurker wherever I want, moving as fast as a runner, going invisible to pounce/kill isolated marines, healing while I'm stalking around behind lines, and if I get in trouble I can take off and be 20 tiles away in a couple seconds, heal up within a minute, and be maiming/critting/killing another marine within another minute. All by myself, without any need for any support castes, teamwork, or any real sense of danger or tension. NEVERMIND the fact I can REST as an elder lurker and OUT-REGEN the damage being on fire does, while OFF WEEDS. And while I'm running around, I'm constantly healing smaller amounts, which enhances survivability tremendously for the faster castes that only get popped by a bullet once every 20 seconds.

Yes, we need more mutators that aren't just pure stat buffs. But holy christ this is actually cancer. Why can't the devs just add common-sense mutators? Take ideas from the playerbase after some round-table discussions on gameplay and balance effects on the forum. I guarantee you'll get better ideas and better balance.

Just stop adding these gay xenobuff mutators. You aren't making xenos more fun to play, you are making xenos easier to play for shitters.

I hate this mutator as a xeno player, and I hate it as a marine player.

[Boersgard]

The one weakness all castes have is that they have to sit near weeds to prevent them from crushing marines mercilessly. This is one of the benefit of cutting weeds apart, to have a safe area to be in and to punish xenos that decide to combat you in non healable turf. Now, when you introduce a mechanic around this weakness you essentially give a caste the green light to be more autonomous from their turf. Lurkers themselves are already more free from needing to be a team, the thing that was leashing them to their team was the fact that they needed Drones to plant weeds for them so they can scout out more areas. It was a high risk high reward game to run out without weeds. Now. Mix both weedless heals and Lurkers autonomy. What you're going to find is one lurker going around and the map and decimating marines more than any other chaste. Now guess what will happen next. Lurkers will group together and walk around decimating squads alone at that lurker speed, why would they need to slow down for a weeder if they can sustain themselves alone. Fuck Ravagers, Lurkers are the true T3 chaste.

Essentially, the ambush tree from the xeno evolutions shouldn't really have this keystone.

The biggest problem with lurkers right now is they are way too fast. They are borderline too fast without any mutators at all, but with them they're just ridiculous. Not even getting into what this keystone mutator does for them, even without it they are unbalanced as hell right now, and it comes entirely from how fast they are on top of their damage output.

The lurker is not a caste that plays risky. You fucked up a lunge? That's okay, you can be out of there in two seconds. Lunged at a group of 4 marines? That's okay, by the time they've even been able to get their guns up and clue in where you are exactly, you've run off into the shadows again. I'm an above average but not excellent lurker player and I'm able to take on 2-3 marines at once with next to no risk. Killing 5-10 marines entirely by myself in a round is normal. The only things I worry about are shotguns and rockets - everything else I can just laugh at because it's too fucking hard for anyone to consistently hit me.

Lurkers are too fast to chase
Too tanky to kill
And if you get remotely isolated or strung out from other marines, you're as good as dead to one.

Balance wise, lurkers need a dramatic speed reduction - particularly for elder/ancient. Young/mature isn't as much a problem. As it is right now, they are not lurkers, trying to ambush prey, they are more like fast mini-ravagers.

I would rather play a lurker than a ravager in current game balance. Hell, the only T3 I'd pick over a lurker is the Praetorian. Lurkers - particularly elder/ancient ones - are strong enough to be T3's in their own right.

[MasterShakeEZ]

Why am I even getting rid of weeds as a marine? What's the point in clearing an area when it doesn't matter and a xeno can just heal up regardless? All this did was remove a layer of strategy and counter-play. Beforehand, xenos had to get drones to weed in support of an attack. Marines had reason to remove those weeds. Marines knew if they were moving into weeded territory, that this is where they could expect aliens to lurk.

Don't care about the rest of your salty rant, but this part I would like to point out that weeds slow marines and boost xenos run speed. It also gives lurkers a place to hide because dark tiles are way harder to see invis lurkers than light tiles like sand where the weeds are covering. You cant build any resin structures without weeds. You cant place traps without weeds. You cant put sticky down without weeds (except for praetorian spit). Not everyone takes off weed healing either. So there is a point to destroying weeds with or without off weed healing.

[Cre77]

Yeaah, as the Raid Boss Praetorian and having played around with it on most other castes, I can definetely agree it's overpowered in comparison to other mutators. Combat castes become a nightmare once they lose their critical need for weed, especially so when infiltrating Almayer.

It'd actually be a bummer to lose such a unique mutator, but I'd be all for giving it less regeneration power and restricting it to work only on th Queen's Z-level.

[That Happy Cat]

I think Offweed Regen can stay if there's a meaningful tradeoff, e.g. if it locks out other crucial mutators. The thing with mutators like Offweed Regen is that they make it easier to play at your best (so to speak), but don't necessarily make your best "better" (so if drones are on top of things and have weeds everywhere Offweed Regen loses a chunk of its power).

For example, if Lurkers had a keystone that, say, lets them keep their cloak for a few seconds after switching from walking to running (please don't debate the pros/cons of this mutator, it's just an example), then Offweed Regen might not look as attractive.

I think if we have more Keystones and no more stat boosting mutators then Offweed Regen, even as it is, could be balanced; and actually provide some interesting customisation for xenos.

[MasterShakeEZ]

I think Offweed Regen can stay if there's a meaningful tradeoff, e.g. if it locks out other crucial mutators. The thing with mutators like Offweed Regen is that they make it easier to play at your best (so to speak), but don't necessarily make your best "better" (so if drones are on top of things and have weeds everywhere Offweed Regen loses a chunk of its power).

For example, if Lurkers had a keystone that, say, lets them keep their cloak for a few seconds after switching from walking to running (please don't debate the pros/cons of this mutator, it's just an example), then Offweed Regen might not look as attractive.

I think if we have more Keystones and no more stat boosting mutators then Offweed Regen, even as it is, could be balanced; and actually provide some interesting customisation for xenos.

It is a keystone and locks out other keystones, its just the only other keystone for lurkers is longer pounce which is meh.

[RuAlastor]

Today the whole Almayer crew got meme'd by a single lurker again on lowpop. Thanks for balanced mutators. (yes, put all the blames on bald PO again)
Have a CM day!

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

They could've made it so that :

* Off-weed Regen gives a penalty to healing on weed, so that you're forced to rest off-weed if you want to heal quickly
* Off-weed Regen gives a slower regen rate while off-weed, so while you can still heal off-weed, doing it on weed is still superior
* Give a lot of interesting keystone options so that Off-weed isn't as much of a "must have"
* Limit the castes that can take Off-weed regen

But no, there's nothing interesting about it, no trade-off, no penalty, no downside. Just pure and straight upgrade, just like the rest of the mutations. Isn't their sales pitch on this mutation system for xeno "Will change up xeno playstyle tremendously" ? It's been 2 months now and there's yet been any mutation with interesting trade-off or downsides.

[MasterShakeEZ]

They could've made it so that :

* Off-weed Regen gives a penalty to healing on weed, so that you're forced to rest off-weed if you want to heal quickly
* Off-weed Regen gives a slower regen rate while off-weed, so while you can still heal off-weed, doing it on weed is still superior
* Give a lot of interesting keystone options so that Off-weed isn't as much of a "must have"
* Limit the castes that can take Off-weed regen

But no, there's nothing interesting about it, no trade-off, no penalty, no downside. Just pure and straight upgrade, just like the rest of the mutations. Isn't their sales pitch on this mutation system for xeno "Will change up xeno playstyle tremendously" ? It's been 2 months now and there's yet been any mutation with interesting trade-off or downsides.

Well with body bloc king removed they make you pick between 1 tile faster charge to try to not get bodyblocked or off weed healing to beable to roam the map without needing weeds to get plasma back. So I guess that's a choice.

[Oatzandhoes]

>and the staff had to bwoink them telling them to knock it off

This is honestly the part of the story which bothers me the most. Why are we punishing good players for being good? The Lurker managed to accomplish something most lurker mains only dream of. He had the perfect combo of being a robust lurker with an unrobust crew. Why punish him for almost single handedly winning the round. This should be a legendary achievement that should be celebrated, not punished.