So I just started playing around the time drifter released so I am still relatively new to the game. But i do have some experience with other MOBAs and i do have a soft spot for stacking Hero/Champions, but so far drifter feels very underwhelming in general stats department and hits scaling ability
Base stat / scaling suggestions:
Health- so his base health is slightly higher than characters like Abrams and Billy slightly, that part is understandable but why is his health scaling lower by such a wide margin, if anything he should have relatively the same as Billy, the part that confuses me though is why does close range drifter have +39 per Boon and when mid range Paradox has +47
General Gun- his gun sucks, and i know that it's partly by design so his innate scaling doesn't just make him into an all powerful god but why is it SO much worse than everyone else's base. I know there's a pretty big benefit to having the gun work in a way that if one bullet hits it does full damage even though it's kind of like a shotgun, but the base damage is low ,the scaling per boon is low, and the fire rate is slow, and the range is very small. which all equates to his stacks effectively meaning nothing since even if you have 20 stacks, a 20% buff to 30 is still just 6, and on top of that crits have lower bonus damage and i kind of just want an all around overhaul of how his stacks work so the numbers I'm gonna suggest for now are
23 Bullet Damage
14 Ammo
2.4s Reload
Fall off Range 22m-35m
+0.35 Bullet Damage Per boon ( you'll see why I nerfed it in bloodscent changes)
Abilities:
3 - Bloodscent: So overall I think the isolated kills factor is a bit janky and inconsistent and sometimes just uncontrollable, like you can find someone in the jungle, do 95% of their health in a 1v1 then someone shows up just before kill him and no stacks for you. In terms of utility i like it a lot, it's one of the only things that give you pseudo vision in the jungle and it's nice when rotating to be like, "hey guys someone's in the jungle near me probably heading to your fight be ready" so I want to keep the isolation utility but not make it useless in lane either.
Damage amp & isolation range can be kept as is
Bloodscent stacks: on kill get +2 Stacks, on assist and tier 3 jungle creep get +1, each stack adds to your base bullet damage ( +10 Stacks = +10 bullet Damage)
Admittedly the tier 3 jungle creeps is probably overdoing it but I was thinking of a kind of catch up mechanic in the even of lanes not doing too well or the enemy team is just playing turtle under their towers and that seemed like a possible answer to that problem since you probably aren't killing many of these throughout a game and kind of plays a little into the merciless hunter theme a bit in the sense that he kills anything and gets a kick out of kill bigger and badder things
1 - Rend: More or less i don't think this needs to be change all that much but i generally want to make his abilities scale with his stacks more
Melee Damage = 1.1(Melee damage) + 3(Bloodscent stacks)
Close Range Spirit Damage = 42 + 1.1(Spirit Power) +8(Bloodscent Stacks)
and Because of the pretty aggressive scaling on the close range aspect of the ability I think it's fair to adjust the level ups here and make the upgrades fit in with the whole vampiric theme a little more.
1 Boon: Heal for 10% of Damage
2 Boons: -7s Cooldown (current)
5 Boons: Unchanged
2 - Stalker's Mark: Basically unchanged though i do think the channel on the teleport can realistically be cut down to 0.2s from .35s, also i want to change the scaling to stacks instead of spirit.
2% + 0.01 (Bloodscent Stacks)
4 - Eternal Night: This has to be the most underwhelming ult to use and simultaneously annoying ult to play against. it honestly might as well just be called "Spook em" because the only times I feel even relatively good about this ult is when my team is taking Mid boss or some other objective and i press it so the enemy just decides to go anywhere else for the duration, hell half the time i press it while I'm in the jungle just to confuse the enemy in a nearby lane if their fighting. it is this games equivalent to a flash bang and it isn't even as good, the damage bonus is negligible and it gives you SPRINT speed instead of MOVEMENT speed which translates to, not giving you anything during a fight so you can't even put up a decent chase because his kit has 0 movement and he doesn't have doorman stamina
Honestly i think everyone (including enemies) would be so much happier if instead of giving him the vision manipulation you just give him a weaker but longer lasting version of Vampiric Burst's Active to him with like +2m/s if you want to keep the speed increase concept but actually make it useful for chasing & being agressive (which is kind of the point of the character's kit)
Wrapping up:
When looking at other characters kits, Especially Billy since he was released around the same time and has a kind of similar gameplay loop, it's just remarkable at how much more his kit has, his 1 has charges even though he can't organically get more through his kit, his 2 is extremely versatile movement and CC while also doing a good burst of damage, and his 3 is just insane, free reloads on melee hits (Including his 1) passively, and actively giving BONUS HEALTH on melee hit (I'm not even entirely sure healbane has an effect on this i haven't tested it), Gun Amp, and a fire rate buff, THAT CAN TECHNICALLY LAST AN ENTIRE FIGHT. his 4 is also just more cc that also does a burst of damage and that forces enemies into close range where you want them to be. i know he's very susceptible to parries and he has a really high skill ceiling but drifter doe's not have any of that level of coverage when i comes to movement, CC, or sustain.
Honestly I just want to say thanks to the devs, the game is fun and genuinely something special, currently it has a lot of balancing issues but thats not great but it is fair for a closed alpha and I feel the team definitely have the players best interest in mind. Also particularly to the devs and designers behind drifter, I think the concept and visual design are phenomenal, that's why i gravitated to him the first chance i got, I just think you guys played it too safe with him and Lowballed just about every number on his kit except the close range damage on rend which is basically the only thing keeping him afloat. I want my guy to feel good to play more than anything and to have fun doing it, even if this exact concept gets used and all the stacks scaling is cut in half i would still probably have more fun with it than current drifter for the sole reason that getting stacks is fun and feels rewarding when it has a meaningful impact on how you play the game. but right now its basically boils down to "oh cool i got 30% free weapon damage that game," it's definitely nice to have, but also something you can get by farming some jungle camps and/or side lanes and buying just one more item.
Thanks for reading this if you made it this far I spent and annoying amount of time looking at the numbers of the characters in this game and I appreciate all the work the devs do. I just want a better life for my man Drifter, After all he's 12 million years old and if shawty chose to be with a demon, sounds like her problem to me
-Drifter Flow 2013
Base stat / scaling suggestions:
Health- so his base health is slightly higher than characters like Abrams and Billy slightly, that part is understandable but why is his health scaling lower by such a wide margin, if anything he should have relatively the same as Billy, the part that confuses me though is why does close range drifter have +39 per Boon and when mid range Paradox has +47
General Gun- his gun sucks, and i know that it's partly by design so his innate scaling doesn't just make him into an all powerful god but why is it SO much worse than everyone else's base. I know there's a pretty big benefit to having the gun work in a way that if one bullet hits it does full damage even though it's kind of like a shotgun, but the base damage is low ,the scaling per boon is low, and the fire rate is slow, and the range is very small. which all equates to his stacks effectively meaning nothing since even if you have 20 stacks, a 20% buff to 30 is still just 6, and on top of that crits have lower bonus damage and i kind of just want an all around overhaul of how his stacks work so the numbers I'm gonna suggest for now are
23 Bullet Damage
14 Ammo
2.4s Reload
Fall off Range 22m-35m
+0.35 Bullet Damage Per boon ( you'll see why I nerfed it in bloodscent changes)
Abilities:
3 - Bloodscent: So overall I think the isolated kills factor is a bit janky and inconsistent and sometimes just uncontrollable, like you can find someone in the jungle, do 95% of their health in a 1v1 then someone shows up just before kill him and no stacks for you. In terms of utility i like it a lot, it's one of the only things that give you pseudo vision in the jungle and it's nice when rotating to be like, "hey guys someone's in the jungle near me probably heading to your fight be ready" so I want to keep the isolation utility but not make it useless in lane either.
Damage amp & isolation range can be kept as is
Bloodscent stacks: on kill get +2 Stacks, on assist and tier 3 jungle creep get +1, each stack adds to your base bullet damage ( +10 Stacks = +10 bullet Damage)
Admittedly the tier 3 jungle creeps is probably overdoing it but I was thinking of a kind of catch up mechanic in the even of lanes not doing too well or the enemy team is just playing turtle under their towers and that seemed like a possible answer to that problem since you probably aren't killing many of these throughout a game and kind of plays a little into the merciless hunter theme a bit in the sense that he kills anything and gets a kick out of kill bigger and badder things
1 - Rend: More or less i don't think this needs to be change all that much but i generally want to make his abilities scale with his stacks more
Melee Damage = 1.1(Melee damage) + 3(Bloodscent stacks)
Close Range Spirit Damage = 42 + 1.1(Spirit Power) +8(Bloodscent Stacks)
and Because of the pretty aggressive scaling on the close range aspect of the ability I think it's fair to adjust the level ups here and make the upgrades fit in with the whole vampiric theme a little more.
1 Boon: Heal for 10% of Damage
2 Boons: -7s Cooldown (current)
5 Boons: Unchanged
2 - Stalker's Mark: Basically unchanged though i do think the channel on the teleport can realistically be cut down to 0.2s from .35s, also i want to change the scaling to stacks instead of spirit.
2% + 0.01 (Bloodscent Stacks)
4 - Eternal Night: This has to be the most underwhelming ult to use and simultaneously annoying ult to play against. it honestly might as well just be called "Spook em" because the only times I feel even relatively good about this ult is when my team is taking Mid boss or some other objective and i press it so the enemy just decides to go anywhere else for the duration, hell half the time i press it while I'm in the jungle just to confuse the enemy in a nearby lane if their fighting. it is this games equivalent to a flash bang and it isn't even as good, the damage bonus is negligible and it gives you SPRINT speed instead of MOVEMENT speed which translates to, not giving you anything during a fight so you can't even put up a decent chase because his kit has 0 movement and he doesn't have doorman stamina
Honestly i think everyone (including enemies) would be so much happier if instead of giving him the vision manipulation you just give him a weaker but longer lasting version of Vampiric Burst's Active to him with like +2m/s if you want to keep the speed increase concept but actually make it useful for chasing & being agressive (which is kind of the point of the character's kit)
Wrapping up:
When looking at other characters kits, Especially Billy since he was released around the same time and has a kind of similar gameplay loop, it's just remarkable at how much more his kit has, his 1 has charges even though he can't organically get more through his kit, his 2 is extremely versatile movement and CC while also doing a good burst of damage, and his 3 is just insane, free reloads on melee hits (Including his 1) passively, and actively giving BONUS HEALTH on melee hit (I'm not even entirely sure healbane has an effect on this i haven't tested it), Gun Amp, and a fire rate buff, THAT CAN TECHNICALLY LAST AN ENTIRE FIGHT. his 4 is also just more cc that also does a burst of damage and that forces enemies into close range where you want them to be. i know he's very susceptible to parries and he has a really high skill ceiling but drifter doe's not have any of that level of coverage when i comes to movement, CC, or sustain.
Honestly I just want to say thanks to the devs, the game is fun and genuinely something special, currently it has a lot of balancing issues but thats not great but it is fair for a closed alpha and I feel the team definitely have the players best interest in mind. Also particularly to the devs and designers behind drifter, I think the concept and visual design are phenomenal, that's why i gravitated to him the first chance i got, I just think you guys played it too safe with him and Lowballed just about every number on his kit except the close range damage on rend which is basically the only thing keeping him afloat. I want my guy to feel good to play more than anything and to have fun doing it, even if this exact concept gets used and all the stacks scaling is cut in half i would still probably have more fun with it than current drifter for the sole reason that getting stacks is fun and feels rewarding when it has a meaningful impact on how you play the game. but right now its basically boils down to "oh cool i got 30% free weapon damage that game," it's definitely nice to have, but also something you can get by farming some jungle camps and/or side lanes and buying just one more item.
Thanks for reading this if you made it this far I spent and annoying amount of time looking at the numbers of the characters in this game and I appreciate all the work the devs do. I just want a better life for my man Drifter, After all he's 12 million years old and if shawty chose to be with a demon, sounds like her problem to me
-Drifter Flow 2013
