Steeles4500
New member
Something I have had a massive issue with in the game ever since I began to play was Lash's ultimate. I feel like ultimate is terribly designed:
1: The Ultimate's impact is far too strong
Often more impactful than dynamo despite being much higher range, lower risk and nearly half the cooldown. If lash connects an Ult on someone, even very tanky characters are just dead since the entire enemy team will hit them at the same time.
2: The Ultimate is disproportionately effective against weaker players, while being ineffective against more skilled ones
Despite its potential strength, it is completely hard countered by counterspell. This combined with the ult instant fight winning power creates a very toxic dynamic. Skilled players have the option to just buy counterspell and be mostly safe from lash ult, or can purchase curse to cancel the ultimate. But if lash buys unstoppable, there is literally nothing a more skilled player can do to help his team mates who did not buy counterspell, unless he is playing a specific characters (dynamo and paige for example, can help teammates who got hit by death slam survive)
So the result is an ultimate that is underwhelming and inconsistent against highly skilled players, while completely centralizing and almost impossible to counter in lower skills lobbies.
3: The Ultimate is not a thematic fit
Lash being an underground fighter, and a character based around verticality, the ultimate seems very odd and out of place. Lash moonjumping into the air is already odd, but that being his core character concept is acceptable (Perhaps he could have some sort of jetpack or magic on his body to show how he jumps around so high?)
But a long range, lock on and delayed stun move where he picks you up and slams you with a rope is...not exactly the most intuitive choice for a fighter like this. Even more oddly, there is literally 0 melee incorporation in lash moveset, which is odd because his counterpart bebop has it with his uppercut.
Proposed Ultimate Rework Concept:
NUMBERS ARE PLACEHOLDER, VERY LIABLE TO CHANGE
"Duel"
Target enemy player. After a 2 second delay, the target cannot parry and you gain Scaling spirit damage on your melee attacks. Lasts for 10 seconds. Getting a kill with this ability grants a stack. Each stack increases stamina recovery speed by 5 percent.
I feel this Ult concept accomplishes multiple things:
1: It is unique. There is no other way to disable parrying in the game, and the extra spirit scaling on melee attack is also novel
2: It is much more thematic to Lash as an underground fighter, and calling out a player and essentially saying "I am going to beat the shit out of you!" is very in character for lash to do. Also, the stacks concept makes him a better counterpart to bebop being a stacking character.
3: More teamplay potential, as the debuff could potentially be used to enable other melee characters on your team
4: Far more general counterplay, as you want to get away or somehow shield yourself from lash rather than needing very specific items of mechanics
5: It fits lash playstyle, of being a hyper mobile hit and run/assassin type character. If gives him the extra damage to make his pickoff before he jumps away.
6: It simply replaces the old ult, which I believe to be so terribly designed that almost anything would be a much better replacement.
THE OVERALL GOAL BEHIND THESE CHANGES, TLDR:
I do not want lash to be weaker. I feel that lash should be a more consistent power level and not be as tied to the ultimate. Even if the developers or community do not like the specific concept I have presented, the larger goal behind this post is that LASH'S ULT MUST CHANGE!
It is no exaggeration to say that lash's ultimate is a problem that could threaten the longevity of deadlock as a whole! It is so overly powerful and centralizing at most skill levels, while lacking counterplay that can save your teammates specifically, that I can see (and have already seen) getting crushed by this ult many times in a row leading players to general frustration and even quitting the game as a whole!
1: The Ultimate's impact is far too strong
Often more impactful than dynamo despite being much higher range, lower risk and nearly half the cooldown. If lash connects an Ult on someone, even very tanky characters are just dead since the entire enemy team will hit them at the same time.
2: The Ultimate is disproportionately effective against weaker players, while being ineffective against more skilled ones
Despite its potential strength, it is completely hard countered by counterspell. This combined with the ult instant fight winning power creates a very toxic dynamic. Skilled players have the option to just buy counterspell and be mostly safe from lash ult, or can purchase curse to cancel the ultimate. But if lash buys unstoppable, there is literally nothing a more skilled player can do to help his team mates who did not buy counterspell, unless he is playing a specific characters (dynamo and paige for example, can help teammates who got hit by death slam survive)
So the result is an ultimate that is underwhelming and inconsistent against highly skilled players, while completely centralizing and almost impossible to counter in lower skills lobbies.
3: The Ultimate is not a thematic fit
Lash being an underground fighter, and a character based around verticality, the ultimate seems very odd and out of place. Lash moonjumping into the air is already odd, but that being his core character concept is acceptable (Perhaps he could have some sort of jetpack or magic on his body to show how he jumps around so high?)
But a long range, lock on and delayed stun move where he picks you up and slams you with a rope is...not exactly the most intuitive choice for a fighter like this. Even more oddly, there is literally 0 melee incorporation in lash moveset, which is odd because his counterpart bebop has it with his uppercut.
Proposed Ultimate Rework Concept:
NUMBERS ARE PLACEHOLDER, VERY LIABLE TO CHANGE
"Duel"
Target enemy player. After a 2 second delay, the target cannot parry and you gain Scaling spirit damage on your melee attacks. Lasts for 10 seconds. Getting a kill with this ability grants a stack. Each stack increases stamina recovery speed by 5 percent.
I feel this Ult concept accomplishes multiple things:
1: It is unique. There is no other way to disable parrying in the game, and the extra spirit scaling on melee attack is also novel
2: It is much more thematic to Lash as an underground fighter, and calling out a player and essentially saying "I am going to beat the shit out of you!" is very in character for lash to do. Also, the stacks concept makes him a better counterpart to bebop being a stacking character.
3: More teamplay potential, as the debuff could potentially be used to enable other melee characters on your team
4: Far more general counterplay, as you want to get away or somehow shield yourself from lash rather than needing very specific items of mechanics
5: It fits lash playstyle, of being a hyper mobile hit and run/assassin type character. If gives him the extra damage to make his pickoff before he jumps away.
6: It simply replaces the old ult, which I believe to be so terribly designed that almost anything would be a much better replacement.
THE OVERALL GOAL BEHIND THESE CHANGES, TLDR:
I do not want lash to be weaker. I feel that lash should be a more consistent power level and not be as tied to the ultimate. Even if the developers or community do not like the specific concept I have presented, the larger goal behind this post is that LASH'S ULT MUST CHANGE!
It is no exaggeration to say that lash's ultimate is a problem that could threaten the longevity of deadlock as a whole! It is so overly powerful and centralizing at most skill levels, while lacking counterplay that can save your teammates specifically, that I can see (and have already seen) getting crushed by this ult many times in a row leading players to general frustration and even quitting the game as a whole!
