Handmaiden the Everqueen feedback

A bit of feedback on the Handmaiden the Everqueen mod, at the request of Mr @janoti1 :

*Quick note:* I'm very new to modded, and haven't gone very high in the modded difficulties (the highest I've done is C3 ONS / C1 DW). So while I try my best to frame my feedback in the context of very high difficulty, keep in mind that all the sentences I write below should be prefaced by "In my humble opinion formed on a few dozens of games on the modded HM on difficulties higher than C1 but lower than C3DWONS, ...".
Another note: this feedback is too long to be sent in one message, so I'm sorry for making you click a pastebin. :')


*****
Overall, I think the rework offered by the mod is very interesting, and makes HM feel very good to play by furthering her identity and making it clearer and feel better-defined, with both numerical and mechanical changes, without *changing* that identity at all. On top of that, some talents enable the use of some weapons / builds / team synergies that are very interesting, and bring a lot of diversity to how she can be built, and how her team can be built around her.
*****


Here is some more specific feedback on some talents/passives/etc:

- The increased stam regen aura AoE and buffed health to 180 feels very good and necessary to bring her in line with other frontline careers. This is also changed in the regular TB mod, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

- I have not managed to play with people who played around my stamina regen aura, and thus my teammates never made full use of it, but 100% stamina regen with such a large AoE feels like it *could* be too strong with certain optimised comps. I really can't say if it could actually be the case, especially when you compare the utility that SoTT can bring to her team as an alternative to HM, but it could be worth looking into by people who can play higher difficulties and have more people to play with than I do. If it feels like it's too much, maybe lowering it to somewhere around 80% stam regen could be considered.

- The change of the on-revive effect from 15 health to damage reduction for 15 seconds feels *amazing*. 15 green health really isn't that useful in practice - it doesn't give you more total health gained of revive, it only replaces some thp with green hp, and 15 addition green hp is not enough to save a healing item by clearing wounds through healing someone else with med supplies. 50% dam red for 15s, however, makes allies you revive - which, if they got downed, are nearly always in a tough fight - much tankier, and this helps them a lot in their fight, and the 15s duration is almost always enough to have it last for the whole duration of the "tough situation". So, overall, an amazing change, and it makes being revived by a HM feel much more impactful.

- Another thing about the on-revive effect: like I said, it's great, but I feel like it could contribute to reinforcing HM's identity and usefulness when it comes to the whole "good at reviving allies" aspect to also improve her ability to rescue teammates after they died, in some way. My most immediate idea to do so would be to also grant the dmg reduction buff when she rescues an allies, and to increase her rescuing speed on top of her revive speed, but I'm not going to claim I know for sure there couldn't be a better to do it. Maybe there is, but the possible change I mentioned seems like a fair way to do it (if, of course, it is deemed that improving her rescue-dead-teammates ability is desirable).


***Lvl 10 talents***

-- Asrai Alacrity --

This is the only lvl 10 talent I've used, since the weapons I enjoy using the most, Spear and Shield & Spear, use a push during their horde clear combo. Having it affect 4 attacks is one of the things that made HM feel so much better to play than in live/TB. I remember that change being mentioned and explained in the document presenting the thoughts behind the mod's changes, so I won't go into too much detail about why it's such a good change - it can simply be summed up by "it works exactly as intended". Having the buff affect 4 attacks, in my humble opinion, is simple enough and has enough of an impact on HM's gameplay feel and overall efficacy with specific weapons that it could warrant it being added to the main TB mod, but once again, that's only my limited opinion (especially since I never played any tourney).

As for the added headshot damage, I think it's a very nice stat to add. It reinforces the "deadly accuracy" aspect that makes WS and Shade really feel like an Elven warrior thematically, and, from a more pragmatic point of view, rewards HM for precision, which contributes to make her gameplay feels more complex (in a good way, as opposed to her feeling a bit "too simple" to many of the people I've played with).

Both the "lasts for 4 hits" thing and the "added headshot damage" thing also help HM reach some ranged breakpoints; the former by making it easier *(well, doable, rather)* to keep buff stacks after killing enemies in melee, and the latter by... well, giving more damage. This requires a bit of attention at the end of hordes / when killing ambients, but is very gets HM closer to how other elf classes feel, *to me*, like they perform at special sniping:

WS has weapon zoom and her ult, among other tools (but she's literally an archer, so it's natural for her to have more special sniping tools than other elf classes).
Shade has some stacking HS damage, access to Assassin, and some ammo sustain - as a kind of "last resort" talent, mind you, as its alternatives are very strong, but still exists if her team relies on her a lot of sniping.

SoTT, while she doesn't have any tools to help her special sniping in her passives/talents, does have access to the staff, which still gives her special *control*, if not *sniping*, as well as enhancing her team's ability to snipe significantly, and still has somewhat decent sniping by itself with no gravity on thorns, no ammo (though hate is still a limitation of course), and can benefit from its own control to snipe rather comfortably, if not very quickly, if push comes to shove.

To come back to HM, the changes to Asrai Alacrity help a lot with sniping, and made HM's ranged weapon use feel much better, and more in line with her elf competitors.

-- Focussed Spirit / Oak Stance --

Like I said, I didn't use those personally, but I am confident that the way they work will be much smoother to use than old Focussed Spirit, and allow HM to invest in damage or crit chance in a non-trivial, but still rather generic, and thus easily used on many different builds, manner (as opposed to Asrai Alacrity, which is not a "generic" investment in the sense that it requires frequent pushes).


*** Lvl 20 talents ***

-- Willow Stance --

I haven't used that one, but I don't think there's much to be said about its change, it was and will still be a very consistent and strong dps boost.

-- Dance of Blades --

The only lvl 20 I've really used. The idea of gaining a buff by dodging when blocking or not blocking was something I've loved all the way back to live realm, as I've always felt like it perfectly fits HM's identity as a mobile combatant who fluidly flows between offense and defense in a way that should feel like a dance. That feeling was already present in the live realm's, and the TB's version of this talent, but the actual buffs granted felt like they lacked identity, and the new buffs gained from it in this mod feel much better, when it comes to identity/uniqueness, thematic correspondence to HM's identity, and actual power of the buffs.

The "infinite dodges" buff feels great to use. It grants HM a lot of mobility while in combat or while kiting, in a way that is much more interesting that simply adding dodge distance, which was redundant with her passive for one, and for two, granted her high bursts of mobility at first (very high dodge distance), which still decreased in the end (by reaching the dodge count limit). The mobility gained from the new version of this passive is more consistent over time.

On top of that, it makes a lot of weapons viable / better to use. Two examples of that are the Spear and the Glaive (outside of the discussions of whether those weapons are good or not). The spear has a good dodge distance (15%), but a low dodge count (3). The new Dance of Blades allows HM to fully use the Spear's dodge distance, while compensating its low dodge count. The Glaive is a very glass-cannon weapon, with abysmal dodging ability. The infinite dodge count, combined with the 15% dodge distance that HM gets, can compensate for it, and could allow HM to exploit its strong offensive capabilities.

As for the damage reduction part, it's a very welcome addition to HM's defense. The 180 hp did a lot to make her into the frontliner she's supposed to be, but the lack of access to damage reduction in her kit still made her feel squishier than other frontliners - granted, I think she should still not be able to take as many hits as an IB or FK, for instance, since she has a lot of innate mobility (and, like Bardin points out frequently, she *should* wear thicker armour), but absolutely no dmg red still made her feel squishy.

Adding a reasonable amount of dmg red to her kit allows players who want to invest in tankiness to do so, and making it 1. part of a talent you have to choose, and not a global passive, mean it *is* an investment you have to make, and 2. conditional and not permanent, helps make her feel not like an immortal frontline tank who can pretty much tank a whole chaos patrol like an IB, while still giving her more tankiness.

-- Wraith Pact --

I remember reading in the mod document that this talent was very experimental, and I completely understand why. I already talked about the role of damage reduction on HM in the previous talent, so I won't repeat myself; I will however note that the *permanent* dmg red she gets here is compensated by a heavily reduced dodge distance, which still contributes to the aspects I mentioned above, and makes her a bit closer to a more classic frontliner.

As to whether it's good - I feel like it is, or at least, can be. Subtracted from her passive dodge distance, it's a net -20% dodge distance, which would make low mobility weapons feel awful; but used with a high mobility weapon, like dual daggers (which already is a rather popular choice on HM from what I've seen) could reward her investment in dodge distance *and* this talent with a sizeable amount of power and *permanent* dmg red.

So overall, objectively, I think it's a very interesting talent that can help some specific builds play a certain role better. From a more subjective point of view, I feel like drastically reducing dodge distance and giving permanent dmg red doesn't match the feel of HM as a whole - the whole "combat dance" theme is gone -, or an elf in general. But this is completely subjective, and purely based on an aesthetic view of the mechanical identity I usually associate with elves, and HM in particular, so take that with a grain of salt, and, of course, me saying this is *not* me implying that I think the talent should be reworked because of it.


*** Lvl 25 talents ***

-- Heart of Oak --

I've barely even played deathwish (two games, only one of which I managed to complete), so I can't say how useful it is to deal with poison gas. I expect that 50% dmg red for the whole team will be amazing to handle gasrats, though, especially when combined with barkskin. I also think it's rather interesting mechanically, and gives a very specific defensive buff that is, as far as I know, not found anywhere else in live or TB, which would contribute to 1. giving HM a strong identity, and 2. making her a strong pick for certain situations, like on maps that are particularly problematic with gasrats (in my experience, closed maps can get very claustrophobic very quickly when two gasrats synchronize their throws, for instance), or with teams that don't have a lot of mobility / benefit from holding in linearised places even more than most team comps, like engi (lol).

-- Birch Stance --

This is the talent I've mostly been using. Combined with the 100% stam regen aura, it makes the whole team *much* tankier, and gives everyone a *lot* more control through pushes. +2 stam shields is of course always insanely good, but two situations where my teammates mentioned they were glad to have extra stam and stam regen were 1. an IB who was very happy to have more crowd control and be able to block more in tight situations and against a chaos patrol, and 2. a billhook WHC whose melee was made a lot smoother and stronger. And even on the HM herself, having +2 stam shields makes her able to take a few more blocked hits in rough situations, which is welcome on a frontline career.

This is, however, a talent that I *feel like* might be overtuned. Granted, the two alternatives are also very strong, and other elf classes can also bring a lot to the team; and, on top of that, I want to once again insist that I haven't play high modded diffs, and haven't had a team that played around the stam regen aura, let alone the +2 stam shields. But it was already *very* strong in my "casual" games, so I can only imagine how it could be in higher-difficulty, better-optimised teams. Would most likely need feedback from players who play such games.

-- Quiver of Plenty --

I really like the idea behind this talent, but once again, it's one that I was not able to fully exploit due to my team not playing around it. It didn't feel that useful on HM herself since I'm not sure a ranged weapon accessible to HM would want crit chance on it, and as such would probably not benefit much from ammo on crit - that being said, that might change if one uses the lvl 10 and the lvl 30 crit chance talents.

But I could make the exact same remarks as I did for Heart of Oak: very specialized buff that, afaik, doesn't exist anywhere else (apart from Scrounger itself of course, but the aura frees up a trait for the whole team), and as such would give HM a strong identity; and could be very useful is specific situations / with specific comps. One example would be with crossbow BH, who usually uses Scrounger to get ammo back from his frequent crits, who could replace Scrounger with Hunter, for instance.


*** Lvl 30 talents ***

-- Gift of Ladrielle --

I like that the invis still exists - like was said in the mod's document, it feels like a staple of HM at this point, and having it remain a possibility is great. I also like the extra bleed application.

-- Bladedancer / Power from Pain --

I really like how those two now work. They both reward HM from dashing through enemies, which fits her aggressive/melee focussed gameplay, and gives her specific buffs that help her fulfill a specific role - for Bladedancer, that of a frontliner who can handle very dense hordes thanks to a lot of cleave and healing effectiveness, and for PfP, that of a crit-focussed killing machine, who focusses more on elites (or low density hordes). Both feel like they perfectly fit a kind of HM build that plays a specific role in a team, which is exactly what you want from a class's talents/passives - opportunities for specialization and thematically fitting power.


*** Overall thoughts ***

Like I said in the beginning, I love the mod's changes as a whole. They made me rediscover my passion for HM - she was the first class I "mained" when I started playing VT2, and played her and her only for around 1 month straight. It's a pleasure seeing her identity not only kept, but further developed and clarified, along with a reasonable amount of increased overall power to bring her in line with what some other classes can do, as well as having more opportunities to specialize in specific mechanics (like crits) or, on the contrary, compensate some builds' weaknesses to be able to make use of their strengths (like the Spear/Glaive + Dance of Blades note). All of this is exactly what I personally look for in classes, and what I feel should be the goal of a class.

Please let me know (@Vatinas) if you have any question about my feedback, if you'd like more feedback about something I didn't go into enough detail about, or if I can help in any way with the mod. I'm no game designer, but I'd be happy to try help you think of some possible changes / improvements a best I can, if you want me to.

Also, thank you so much for spending the time to make this mod, as well as all the others you contributed to. It's an absolute pleasure to play modded, I feel like I'm rediscovering the game all over again, and it's all thanks to people like you. :)

Take care, and have a nice day! <3
- Vatinas