As someone who exclusively plays Geist, I would like to see her get put into the Meta. Ive noticed while playing Geist Early game is an extreme struggle, Just using my abilities is punishing because of how much damage i do to myself. Using my abilities causes me to give the lane advantage to my enemy because i have to play back due to lack of health and little regen ability. I notice I am always getting souls stolen because her gun does not have shotgun spread or rapid fire rate. Punching isnt the best option because i am constantly losing health due me trying to build Malice stacks or using my Bomb. I have to keep in mind when using abilities that im going to take basically take double damage if an enemy hits me with an ability while im using my Bomb or Malice. This all ties back into her gun not being that useful for collecting soul orbs or doing consistent damage. If I am so much self damage that I cant use my abilities now I have to fall back to her Mediocre gun. Please look into reworking how her abilities work.
I also play Geist almost exclusively. I never had a problem in solo lanes previously, I would usually go about even in souls even against lane bullys thanks to being able to get boxes early and make up for being forced to be passive in lane.
Since boxes changed to 3minute mark this has been a lot more difficult. I dont disagree with the malice nerfs in this recent patch (or the boxes changing from 2mins to 3mins), but i think Geist was at a good place, and now having most other heroes buffed there has been a mini power creep that puts Geist really far behind in laning.
Yes her malice used to be strong, but all heroes have something strong for poking in lane, without it she cant keep up. And ofc it still costs her her own HP to get stacks.
On the community DL discord even in the Lady Geist specific channel, I dont see any Geist only mains and i never have her purpled and not gotten her so idk what the pickrate is for her but it doesnt seem high. In this channel all the people there I have spoken to are not playing geist anymore due to these nerfs.
To answer
@xenxe7777 , ofc extra regen, enduring spirit, and restorative shot are the first things you buy, no offence but you are talking to Geist mains here... We go for life sustain first. But the issue is in the first couple mins of lane, before you can even buy these items.
All it takes is for the enemy to get a couple body shots on you, 1 or 2 pokes with some abitity and youre dead or need to zipline back to base already because bombs and malice have taken a third of your health, the rest from the enemy and creep.
Its easy to be on 150hp around 3 minutes in, even playing very safely. (because youre healing at a rate of 1hp per second)
You say Malice is broken, well Malice now has to be upgraded to tier 2 to get the same damage amp that is was, upgrading this and throwing it 5 times literally takes me from full 650hp to 330hp (test it in the sandbox yourself)...also in lane when someone is hit with it they ofc do what they should and get out of line of sight, they dont just stand there open to being put multiple stacks on. you might take a bit of damage from creep, your might get shot once or twice, or god forbid hit with an ability for 100-200hp, and youre dead. It seems like you understand Geist on paper and not in practice.
I agree with OP that her regen is too low right now, it makes this self dmg even more punishing. You need to invest your first 2k souls into mitigating how much health she loses. And the next 2k into building weapon to make her clip have more than 8 bullets in it. Because if you do get into a squirmish with the enemy in lane and youre both low, you cant use your abilities on them bc you will kill yourself, you only have your gun.
Geist is strong mid-late game but she was already not very popular and now most people that had her in rotation have dropped her.
My suggestion is to fix her base regen level, and maybe scale self damage early game.
I dont think she should be a lane bully ofc, but as it stands she cant keep up in lane with others.
