Perks Discussion: Final Vengence

[Mirage Knight]

Final Vengence...This one has to go and for 3 good reasons. None of them fluff reasons mind you.

Firstly, it's used by Assault players to make up for deficiencies in skill - it doesn't encourage the player to play better. Secondly, it punishes Tacticals and Devs / Havocs for being able to beat Assaults at their own game. Thirdly, it almost guarantees a free kill for the Raptor that requires no skill to acquire. Yes you can TRY to dodge the explosion, but oft times that's not even an option or you can't dodge fast enough or your health is too low. Currently it is a perk that serves to instill rage in others and I can't see any reasonable way to make it work fairly.

I'd like to see it replaced with a perk that allows better freedom of movement with regard to where you ground pound / land as right now, it's fairly easy to predict where an Assault is going to land.

[Brenil]

I don't like Final Vengeance, but I don't think it'll be removed. Nor should it, honestly. It's a derp skill for derp players. I can't really remember the last time I died to this as any class. I've gotten to the point where once I kill someone in melee I instinctively jump or roll away. It's a dumb perk, but an avoidable one.

[SpardaSon21]

Final Vengeance needs to be toned down. Just running away isn't good enough, especially if you're in a semi-enclosed area that limits mobility. The damage and/or area need to be reduced.

[Mirage Knight]

The problem is that you'd need to nerf it to the point that the Perk is all but useless, which defeats the purpose of having a Perk...no?

[CommissarRezail]

Perhaps final vengeance could do something else such as cast stun or slow. While doing some damage.

[Pocari]

I is easy to avoid if you have no lag. The only rage it causes me then is teammates dying to it like idiots. But unfortunately lag has just increased since peak player count dropped from 15000 to 2500... so now I can expect to die to it 50 meters away. Yay.

But still, it IS a stupid suicide perk for stupid players. I don't see how the game benefits from it.

[Kresjah]

The biggest problem with Final Vengeance (as with a fair lot of other "balance" issues in Space Marine) is in my opinion not so much that it is overpowered per se, but that couple with lag to/from bystanders as the pack says boom. I honestly feel that it should be toned down a bit... not much, just a tiny bit. Right not it feels like its strength is equal that of a grenade. If you stand in the dead center of it as it goes off, it usually means instant death even at full health and armor (I should probably lab that to be sure, but it feels like that at least).

Now, I usually try to roll away when I kill an Assault (probably 90% of the time), but there are situations where it might be beneficial (or even necessary) to keep on fighting from where you stand when you have killed an Assault Marine, assuming said Assault Marine does not have Final Vengeance.

In order to do figure out whether you can just stay where you are and keep firing at the enemy you'll need to quickly take note of whether or not there are warning beeps and/or jump pack notifications on your screen. If there are a lot of explosions and stuff going on, it can at times be impossible to see the icon among all the flashing on the screen, and it may be impossible to hear it over the sound. It seems wrong to me that you should have to make an evasion move every single time you kill someone of a certain class in order to be safe.

But more often than not, I see the notification almost immediately, I hear the notification almost immediately, and I react to it almost immediately by rolling away. Even with high armour and high health, there are enough situations where it still manages to kill me. Why? Either because:
* The notification arrived to me later than it should have (meaning I may have as little as half or a quarter of the time I should have had to react, roll, and get my marine out of blast radius)
* The host recieves the signal that I started a roll evasion move a fair bit later than I actually did (making it look like I rolled to a safe distance on my screen yet dying, as the host seems to have calculated how far I have rolled based on when it recieved the signal as opposed to when I actually made the roll)
* I'm stuck in additional melee moves trying to kill someone who is already dead, as the time it took the host to tell me the current status of the enemy was too long... and if I'm using a Thunder Hammer, that means I don't have nearly enough time to leap out of the blast zone before the pack goes off.

In other words, what seems to make it overpowered, in my opinion, is the delays introduced by the netcode. Whilst there are a lot of legitimate kills people have gotten on me with Final Vengeance, there are also a lot of kills people have gotten on me when my screen clearly showed I was well safe.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot that it can be overpowering when an enemy team uses extreme amounts of Assaults compared to other classes, with the sole purposes of covering a large area with "explosives". This does mean that the enemy team has less people being able to cover other roles, but this can be a bit too effective in denying the enemy caps on certain maps in certain areas. For instance, Manufactorum, point B. If the enemy team has five Assaults with Final Vengeance, they can effectively lock down the B point by flying in groups of 2 + 3, perhaps 2 + 2 + 1, in order to make sure there is always some Final Vengeance explosions the enemy has to roll away from (or die from) covering the point.

[Gorb]

I have no issues dodging Final Vengeance as long as I don't panic and roll/dodge the wrong way, or get locked into a melee animation (and that's only usually playing as Assault).

Thus, it punishes people who are overconfident and/or who make stupid mistakes. Working as intended, really.

The issues with regards to how latency affects the perk are more wholesome, and not necessarily an issue with the perk itself. Remember, it's basically a useless perk if you kill the Assault from range.

[Pseudonymn]

Rather than draft up several paragraphs' worth of text, I'll let the following do the talking for me:

Thus, it punishes people who are overconfident and/or who make stupid mistakes. Working as intended, really, provided you or your victim are not lagged to shit.

Fixed that for you.

You may be one of the Emperor's blessed few who are able to find games with little to no lag, but that is not true of everyone by any stretch.

It's a derp skill for derp players

To use a turn-of-phrase that was employed against me in posts elsewhere, "Wait.....[derp]players get fragged by less [derpy] players? So you're saying multiplayer happened. Got it."

Because every game should have a crutch for the derp players to derp around the game with while derping it up for everyone else. amirite?

Unless we're talking about a game that was targeting the casual gamer crowd, any perk whose function is merely that of a crutch to prop up the weak should probably be removed from the game and replaced with something a little more competitive. At the very least replace it with something a little more interesting than the suicide bombers that this game currently seems to promote.

This perk punishes skill and is made all the worse when lag is factored in.

[Edit] Perhaps it's worth noting that I'm not saying the perk is inherently imba. I'm just saying it's inherently stupid. There are other, better game mechanics that could have gone in its place.

[Edit2] Credit given where credit is due: Most of the material in that comic was supplied by Jaimas' earlier comics. I only supplied txt bubbles, character arrangments, jetpack mods, and the Hammermauls. Without the foundation of Jaimas' earlier work, I wouldn't have had the moxy to put any of that together. Thanks, Jaimas!

Also, while the above is intended to be both humorous and informative, the circumstances surrounding it are a source of continual rage for me and I'm sure many others.

[Mirage Knight]

All we need is to get Jaimas into these discussions and we're set for entertainment

[Steel*Faith]

^ hahahah Image says it all!

I think the perk needs to be removed completely and replaced. At the very least, there needs to be a damage nerf from outside the central blast zone - dieing, even after you dodge or get outside the direct blast zone, is just completely unreasonable.

[Vuther]

I'd say it probably is "balanced" (when the game is working well enough to allow you to dodge it), but I wouldn't cry it being removed for being just fairly lame gameplay.

[Gorb]

Fixed that for you.

You may be one of the Emperor's blessed few who are able to find games with little to no lag, but that is not true of everyone by any stretch.

Reading comprehension is something that all people should put skill points in

The issues with regards to how latency affects the perk are more wholesome, and not necessarily an issue with the perk itself.

I am getting tired of having to quote myself these days.

[Pocktio]

That picture is applicable to pretty much any AoE weapon. So yeah, like Gorb said.

[Pseudonymn]

Except that unlike FV, AoE weapons require conscious thought and skill to use. FV only requires that you fall over dead, helped along if you have an abundance of lag lined up in your favor.

[Ap0k]

I think that if the latency issues were solved, the opinion of FV would go from 'what a fucking lamer' to 'what a fucking idiot, he totally wasted a perk' in a heartbeat.

Would FV catch bad players if the latency was fixed? Of course. That's why they're bad players. They have bad reaction times, or they don't consider the possibilities upon killing an ASM, or they can't make the snap decision on the correct way to get out before they get a face full of exploding jump pack.

FV would be perfectly fine if the following things were not breaking it.

Latency.
Getting stuck on fucking stupid little bits of terrain.
Latency.


It's a perk for killing newbs, because they don't know that BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP signals their imminent doom unless they make like a tree. Should it be in the game? Maybe not, because it's probably pretty frustrating to be new (or bad) at a game and to die because the corpse you just ended decided he didn't like your smug self-satisfied look, but the difference is that new players, for the most part either continue playing and become bad players (in which case FV is bad for them), or become good players (in which case FV is wasted on them, because they know how to dodge in ideal situations).


I think you guys are just making a much bigger deal out of it than necessary. 99% of the problem with FV is not the perk. It's the latency and getting stuck on stupid little spikes on the ground that kills you.

[CoraxCartman]

Have to agree with Ap0k there. But still, dying to an exploding corpse when you're well away from it is very very annoying. They should replace the perk with something that requiers skill to use IMO, I know it's been said before but seriously FV has to go. Hmmm...I wonder how WELL it'll work in Exterminatus.

[Pseudonymn]

I'd like to approach this issue not from the viewpoint that the perk is imbalanced, because it's not. Like Apok said, only an idiot would waste a perk choice on it.

But that right there is the crux of the matter!

It's a wasted slot. Not only is it a wasted perk choice, it's a wasted perk OPTION in the first place. If given the choice to replace it with something more competitive, something more interesting; something that isn't stupid and does not reward additional stupidity; why is there so much resistance to that? What is this attachment people seem to feel toward this perk?

Can't we all just let it die in a fire and, like the phoenix, witness the perk slot rise again anew as something better?

Also,

Getting stuck on fucking stupid little bits of terrain.

Personal pet peeve. A lot of games do this, unfortunately, but SM has a nasty habit of it. Like certain spots on Shattered Bridge; specifically, the broken Thunderhawk fuselage connecting the first and second capture point platforms.

And then there's,

I wonder how WELL it'll work in Exterminatus

This wasted perk just sank to new levels of waste in my mind. I cant wait to see my comrades suicide rushing the Ork hordes when the time comes. /sarcasm

[Mirage Knight]

So if the perk is such a waste...why do we even have it? What's the point of keeping it? There's certainly no fluff justification for it and as has been pointed out, it's abusable and annoying.

The only people I see that would object to the removal of this slot waster are the players out there who the perk benefits the most - Thunderhammer / Daemon Maul wielding trolls who equip this cheesy gimmick so they can be guaranteed a kill if they get gunned down at close range before their weapon can get the finishing blow.

[CoraxCartman]

I know the perk is a total waste, trust me, barely used it when I reached the required level and now I don't even look at it's general direction. But the fact remains that it is very effective in laggy games which are 70% of 'em for me, I dodge 'em but still I'm lying dead on the floor and wondering why the hell does anyone even use this perk other than to annoy and induce rage in enemy players.

I dunno how it will work in Exterminatus but if one of my mates takes that perk I'ma laugh my ass off when he blows up in the middle of an ork horde. I'll just stand back and enjoy the fun as well as doing my part of the killing.

[Gorb]

So if the perk is such a waste...why do we even have it? What's the point of keeping it? There's certainly no fluff justification for it and as has been pointed out, it's abusable and annoying.

I would rather we don't bring fluff justification into the discussion at all, as most of the perks don't have fluff basis or background.

[Mirage Knight]

That's the thing - my points for the most part have to do with legitimate balance and gameplay concerns that have been been pretty well illustrated.

I hope that you are not foolish enough to toss out that entire statement I made, let alone my entire position on FV, on the basis of one remark I made that you don't appear to like terribly much.

[konfeta]

What if Final Vengeance was replaced by a 1-2 second post death grace period where you can only use melee attacks?

[Gorb]

Not at all, MK. It was simply that I've seen the line of "fluff justification" being used before, also embedded into an argument as to why "feature X" shouldn't be in the game. Not necessarily by yourself, of course.

If you want me to focus on the rest of your post, I'd say you have an issue with Thunderhammer/Daemon Maul wielders that is affecting your otherwise objective viewpoint

@konfeta: inspiration from the Ven Dread, eh? I like the idea, actually.

[Mirage Knight]

I'd say you have an issue with Thunderhammer/Daemon Maul wielders that is affecting your otherwise objective viewpoint

And I'm saying you're incorrect. I'm merely pointing out that these types tend to use that perk a fair bit to increase the chances of a kill if they miss.

I detest any ASM player, regardless of the weapons he has, that relies on FV for achieving cheap and completely undeserved kills. If an Assault botches an attack on me regardless of the class I'm playing as and I'm able to exploit that mistake and defeat him either with ranged weapons or in CC, he deserves to lose, not potentially gain a free kill and rob me of my victory. Just because a feature or item is in a game doesn't mean that it works well in that game or that it even belongs in that game. You certainly don't see a feature like this in other good shooters - with one exception IIRC, can't recall the title.

I feel that I can safely say that FV is one of the things that is starting to turn Space Marine MP from a fun game into a rage simulator for a fair number of people.

[Gorb]

Except that dodging the ability isn't that hard, especially in the situation that you described where you gun down the ASM "troll" shortly before he is able to land a (presumably) killing blow on you. This has already been explained.

Which takes us back to the lag, and Ap0k's point, I think.

[Pseudonymn]

Can we PLEASE stay away from the "Except you can dodge it" arguments? That point has been made now ad nauseam. Have we not established that at it's very core it's a wasted perk that only fools would take? Can we focus on that please?

Konfeta's suggestion isn't half bad. I still feel that it cheapens the victors kill if the victor gets taken out after the fact though. The only way I would accept this sort of perk is if I, as the victor, have the option to put a round into the crippled, almost dead corpse's brain pan and silence him for good, once and for all and deny him his vengeance cheese. If someone's going to be dumb enough to walk off and not make sure, then yes, they deserve a few bolter rounds in the ass.

Alternatively, I'm more in favor of a perk that allows a high level ASM greater freedom of movement, specifically as it applies to the ground pound targeting range. If that range could be broadened, maybe not as far as it was in SP but close perhaps, I think it would open up the ASM's utility and make the kit more interesting on the whole. Maybe call the perk "Thrust Vectored Nozzles" or something like that.

[Mirage Knight]

Except that dodging the ability isn't that hard

Really? What if you wind up getting stuck on some random bit of terrain on a map? You know, the bits of debris where you have to make a monumental effort to move, let alone dodge roll, and the bit of debris is only 1-2 inches high. What if you find yourself up against a wall or backed into a corner? Dodging is not possible or very restricted in situations like these and there are times where you simply can't dodge fast enough to avoid the blast or you were previously injured to the point where even the outer area of the blast kills you. Gorb, most of us are definitely smart and aware enough to hear the damn ticker and take steps to try and avoid the detonation but to repeat myself again IT IS NOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO DODGE FV.

I swear, it's like you're deliberating ignoring all the other excellent points that have been made that point out the need to either nerf or outright pull FV from the game.

[Servius]

I think it's fine. You can dodge it easily enough, at least as well as you can dodge a frag grenade, which is basically what it is.

It's also one of the only ways to regularly get the Revenge kind of kills, which are a required type for a certain suit of Chaos armor I think.

[Kresjah]

Apologies in advance if this post has some errors. Got much bigger than planned, and I'm tired of staring at the screen right now, so I'm posting it as is without doing any further checks.

So, after reading the rest of the posts since my last one, I must say I'm quite honestly stumped. Most of it seems to be either "i can maek dodge, u b noob" or "i always go kablooey, theirfour unbalaence"... it's as if I've got an HD color TV, only to be treated with nothing but 1930s black & white movies. Metaphors aside, it doesn't have to be an "either or".

I think all of us, regardless of which camp we are swaying towards, agree that lag itself is not a balance problem but a technical one. Some people have a lot of luck either by having relatively lagfree games, or by having the lag benefit them in such a way that 99% of the time they won't get struck by Final Vengeance. However, regardless of how lucky some of us have been, there are enough complaints (as well as official acknowledgements) that this game has some serious issues with lag... meaning someone has to be on the other end of that stick; the ones who hear the beeps and roll out of the blast zone in time, and perhaps even keep running for another second. After that comes a rather sudden death, sometimes losing a full 100% armor and 100% health.

So, is this a balance issue, or is this a technical issue? In my opinion, it is both.

Firstly, as long as lag is as rampant as it is, it is rather hard to determine if it is unbalanced or not. In order to fully evaluate that, lag issues would have to be fixed so it could be tested on it's actual merits rather than advantages or disadvantages that lag gives it... but there is no guarantee that such a day will ever come. As far as I've gathered, Relic has stated that the Exterminatus patch will contain a lot of fixes for the lag problems. Even so, we don't know how well that will really work and how many will be helped from it. If the netcode in the game is "good", but just had a bunch of bugs that needed weeding out, then we may finally see how balanced Final Vengeance is. If the netcode in the game turns out to be a horrible piece of craftmansship, the chance of them redoing the entire netcode is slim and will likely end in patching up what can be fixed without a major/complete rewrite. What then?

Then we're back to were we are now. As is, even if it is an unintended one as a consequence of really nasty bugs, it is still a "game mechanic" (in lack of better wording) that one will have to keep in mind both while playing and thinking balance consideration. If they can't iron out the lag issues, they will need to be somewhat compensated for instead. Put Final Vengeance and lag together and it is one of the most annoying and unforgiving (for the one who kills the Assault) perks in the game, to the point of being quite unfair in my eyes.

Now, lag aside, there are still other things that can make it hard or impossible to dogde away from Final Vengeance;
* "Terrain pebbles with superglue" (a.k.a. getting stuck in almost invisible debris)
* Heaps of explosions and nearby fighting making it extremely hard to hear or see the warnings... can't remember if Blind Grenades completely remove your UI or leaves the explosion warnings intact. If it does cover the visual warnings in white, how would you know where to dodge if you ended up killing the enemy Assault Marine with a glancing blow as he dodged but the Blind Grenade went off just in time for you to not see where he ended up dodging?
* Assault Marine gets a stun move on you (or some other enemy does) before someone shoots him in the back (or he suicides). You don't recover fast enough from the stun to also be able to fully dodge out of range.
* Assault Marine suicides with a grenade. He is weak enough to kill himself, but you stand victorious over his dead body, but since grenade explosions can also stun somewhat...
* You end up locked in a corner. Assault Marine ends up dead in front of you blocking your ability to move anywhere before he's dead. You kill him, or he kills himself. Unless you yourself are an Assault Marine, in order to get out of range you will have to dodge through the explosion radius... which you probably won't have time to, and/or you will be weak enough after the fight that no matter how far you dodge you will still die from the damage of the very outer edge of the explosion radius.
* The game seems somewhat inconsistent at times (also in the singleplayer portion) with how it chains melee keypresses. Sometimes it seems that if you first do one melee attack which lasts for 30 frames, then hit the melee button again at the 3rd frame of that animation, it will force you to do a second melee attack after those 30 frames have completed... even if the enemy died at the 7th frame of your melee animation, and you reacted to it by frame 15 and started hammering the dodge button. (Disclaimer: The exact number of frames are fictional numbers as I don't know the exact length of all animations in game, and the exact times at which the game checks your input and decides to chain it into the second attack... numbers used are for illustrating the principle). If you are using a Chainsword you might still have a chance to dodge away in time, but with a Thunder Hammer you are almost definately screwed. This might be a technical issue, but it is still present and part of the current game mechanics.

I'm sure I had one or two more examples, but after writing this giant of a post I have ended up forgetting them by the time I got here. It's long enough though, perhaps I'll remember it later and it might still be relevant by then. Summing up: Just because you may be able to dodge it most of the time, that doesn't mean it is automatically balanced and other people simply just need to learn to play. Alternatively, just because you always die from it, it doesn't necessarily mean the perk itself is imbalanced. My personal opinion is that in the game's current state, it is unbalanced. With bugs ironed out I still believe it will remain unbalanced but not nearly to the same degree as it is today, but it is hard to judge until that time actually comes (if it ever does).

[Gorb]

Really? What if you wind up getting stuck on some random bit of terrain on a map? You know, the bits of debris where you have to make a monumental effort to move, let alone dodge roll, and the bit of debris is only 1-2 inches high. What if you find yourself up against a wall or backed into a corner? Dodging is not possible or very restricted in situations like these and there are times where you simply can't dodge fast enough to avoid the blast or you were previously injured to the point where even the outer area of the blast kills you. Gorb, most of us are definitely smart and aware enough to hear the damn ticker and take steps to try and avoid the detonation but to repeat myself again IT IS NOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO DODGE FV.

I swear, it's like you're deliberating ignoring all the other excellent points that have been made that point out the need to either nerf or outright pull FV from the game.

There's no need to drag the discussion down to the mud-slinging level, you know

If you get stuck, it sucks. However, you deal with it. If you get backed into a corner, you deal with it. You messed up, it happens. The game messed up, it happens. The same argument you put forward disadvantages you against all melee attacks, grenades and short-ranged weapons (mainly the Meltagun, but a lesser extent the Storm Bolter).

It is perfectly possible to dodge the ability, just like it is perfectly possible to dodge a grenade. If you are forced into a corner then either one may kill you, and it's either your fault you got stuck in the corner and/or your opponent's skill for driving you into a corner.

[Pseudonymn]

This broken record keeps going 'round and 'round and 'round and we're not even off the first page yet.

Aye or Nay time:

Everyone who agrees that FV can be dodged most of the time, raise your hands. "Aye."
Everyone who agrees that FV is heavily impacted by lag, raise your hands. "Aye."
Everyone who agrees that FV is imbalanced, raise your hands. "Nay."
Everyone who agrees that FV is effectively a useless perk in the grand scheme of things, raise your hands. "Aye."
Everyone who agrees that FV should be replaced with something more interesting/competitive, raise your hands. "Aye."

[Vuther]

Everyone who agrees that FV can be dodged most of the time, raise your hands. "Aye."
Everyone who agrees that FV is heavily impacted by lag, raise your hands. "Aye."
Everyone who agrees that FV is imbalanced, raise your hands. "Nay."
Everyone who agrees that FV is effectively a useless perk in the grand scheme of things, raise your hands. "Aye."
Everyone who agrees that FV should be replaced with something more interesting/competitive, raise your hands. "Aye."

Aye. Uh, I mean-this.

[Gorb]

I don't agree that it should be replaced, because the primary motivator for disliking it, from this thread, seems to be that "it's a cheap no-skill ability that allows people to get kills they shouldn't".

Which, as I believe we've managed to conclude, Pseudonym, it's not. Or haven't we?

[Pseudonymn]

Are you talking about it from a position of balance or from the position that the perk's sole purpose appears to be there to annoy the crap out of people? If the former, then yes, it's not a contributing factor toward balance issues under ideal circumstances (little to no lag). If the latter, then no we haven't because it still robs people of their rightful victory and rewards the loser for dying. Unless your going to argue that it took skill on the part of the loser to die when and where they did, it really is an ability that requires no skill to use and rewards a kill to someone who patently did not deserve it.

The annoyance factor persists and while it's perhaps not the best reason to use for removing something from the game in and of itself, it's not the only reason. There's is at least some consensus that the perk is a pointless one, given that it consumes a perk slot and provides no competitive advantage and that it's really only used by idiots or by those who are trying to farm revenge kills.

I put it to you that the call to remove this perk from the game and replace it with something better is a combination of these two considerations with greater weight placed on the actual utility of the perk in the game beyond being a troll's wet dream.

[CoraxCartman]

Just to add something about revenge kills. You can easily obtain them with grenades alone. Whenever an ASM jumps into my face, and if I know I'll die, I just throw nades under my feet, kill myself and the ASM, plus I just denied him a kill OR the other matter if he kills me before I blow him up and afterwards he goes boom I get more exp cuz ya know...REVENGE! Never really cared about revenge kills (they are required to unlock a piece of chaos armor correct?) and besides most of the times I throw nades like that end up killing myself (so no revenge kill lol).

[Pseudonymn]

Heh. Nade spiking your way to revenge at least shows some forethought and application of a little skill. I have no problems with final vengence in this form whatsoever.

[shrp]

I think grenade is unbalanced. If you find yourself stuck in the terrain or in a corner, you cannot dodge the explosion. And everyone has at least 2 of them ;-) Seriously, I do not find the final vengeance to be much of an issue. When I picked it up, noone really died, everyone pretty much dodged. So list of effective targets was narrowed down to stationary devastators with heavy bolter. Most of the time I die because of final vengeance is when I jump on top of a dead body. The evasion / death ratio is like 8/1.

[Gorb]

Are you talking about it from a position of balance or from the position that the perk's sole purpose appears to be there to annoy the crap out of people? If the former, then yes, it's not a contributing factor toward balance issues under ideal circumstances (little to no lag). If the latter, then no we haven't because it still robs people of their rightful victory and rewards the loser for dying. Unless your going to argue that it took skill on the part of the loser to die when and where they did, it really is an ability that requires no skill to use and rewards a kill to someone who patently did not deserve it.

The annoyance factor persists and while it's perhaps not the best reason to use for removing something from the game in and of itself, it's not the only reason. There's is at least some consensus that the perk is a pointless one, given that it consumes a perk slot and provides no competitive advantage and that it's really only used by idiots or by those who are trying to farm revenge kills.

I put it to you that the call to remove this perk from the game and replace it with something better is a combination of these two considerations with greater weight placed on the actual utility of the perk in the game beyond being a troll's wet dream.

It's both, really. There are grounds for the perk being an effective way to get a kill on someone you perhaps should've gotten (considering that going up against a Devastator is usually amusingly silly if the Dev is halfway competent), however, as you have pointed out, it is ridiculously easy to use the perk to get kills on the more fragile classes (Assaults without Air-cooled Thrusters who can't dodge as easily, for example. I believe that if a Tac gets hit by Final Vengeance, they deserve to die. The only times when I get hit by it is when I roll the wrong way - I personally believe that the Tac roll is the best evasion tool, hands down).

Yes, it consumes a perk slot. Yes, it is quite useless in a lag-free competitive environment, but even then it may have it's uses (Death From Above and Final Vengeance, for example? Might actually make short work of a Devastator or two, thus freeing up some map control that otherwise would've been locked down. I mean, Devastators are arguably very strong on a lot of the maps; it's evident that this perk helps defeat them even with Iron Halo). The problem, again, is the ease of killing other Assaults (and possibly other Tacs, but if we're looking at competitive uses then I refer back to my previous statement on the skill of Tacs and their ability to dodge).

Would I be against the perk being replaced? Nope. Am I against people complaining because it's "cheesy" or "cheapens skill" or such justifications? Yes, I am. There are plenty of "cheesy" combinations in the game; we probably haven't actually explored enough effective class/perk combos yet (I was brainstorming a couple last night; I think I'm going to make a thread out of it) to call any one combination "trollish" or "unfair". Perhaps barring certain Devastator builds, but eh.

I think the perk is perfectly fine and as useful as quite a few other perks in the game . The perk teaches you to dodge effectively (if you continue to be unable to dodge, you're not going to perform well against decent players anyhow, regardless of what weapons and perks they use), and rewards the Final Vengeance user if you fuck up or if he positions himself effectively. There is a time and a place for virtually everything in Space Marine; even the things people think are objectively useless.

[Mirage Knight]

You recall that scenario that Kresjah mentioned wherein a team has 5 Assaults with FV whose task is to swarm and take out point defenders in suicide runs?

It happened. 3 times today.

But it wasn't 2 Assaults assailing a single point, it was 4. All with FV, one with Killing Blow and a Hammer, one with Impenetrable, and the other two with Ground pound perks. All had the task of smothering a point with explosive bodies and opened up with mass grenade spam, and ground pounding that stunned almost all around them...and it worked fantastically. All 3 games lost and there wasn't a single god damn thing my team and I could do about it. If you dodged, you wound up rolling into either another FV detonation caused by a teammate killing an opponent, or into another Assault that carved you into pieces.

They didn't need anything other perks because their task was that of suicide bombing. Impenetrable works wonders for allowing you to get close enough so that you can toss a grenade, kill yourself and stun and wound defenders and blow up, taking out anyone that survived the grenades. The remainder of the team sweeps in and captures while at least half of our team has to wait to respawn.

Starscream was in those games and can testify to what happened.

Final Vengeance is broken and can, has, and will be abused to hell by teams and it needs to be pulled. If you honestly can't see how negatively FV is affecting the game, then you're either dense or in outright denial.

[Starscream]

I jumping into this since i experienced this with Mirage Knight today. This happened and i assure you its a nightmare to experience especially to the effect i did. Its amazingly game breaking and almost impossible to counter once it happens. All it takes is 4 FV ASMs and a few havocs for support and it works as hell on Seize ground. Both Waste management and Shaterred bridge work in favor of this strategy.

It will soon turn the Seize Ground MP into a frustrating experience since games will be judged on which team manages to pull the strategy off 1st.

[konfeta]

Out of curiosity, what tactics did you try to defend against this? 4 ASM and a few Havocs is literally almost their entire team.

[Mirage Knight]

This is arguably worse than PC Dev rushing the points on the opposite sides of Waste Management and Manufactorum at game start...and at least a few of us know how well that works.

[Kresjah]

Meh, this thread seems to just be turning into an allotment of petty squabbles rather than a proper and thorough balance discussion. That said, let me recap a fair few games I've had lately;

I mentioned it in an earlier posts but no one seemed to react, so let me ask, have you guys tried going up against an enemy team of something like 5 members of the Raptor's Front of Graia, Crack Suicide Squad before? Take Manufactorum for instance. You and some of your team go towards B with intent to cap the point whilst the remainder cap your home point A. Well aware that B tends to always be heavily contended, and often quite early too, you have your weapons ready. Suddenly you see 5 Raptors flying out of the enemy base, all jumping in towards B. You open fire at them and make a few decent hits, but whilst they are still in the air, you see a hail of grenades coming in... you pray that you're not within the radius of more than one of them as you attempt to find a location that might be relatively unharmed from the 5-8 grenades saturating a large part of the area you reside in. Ahh, brilliant, since only bad players can't dodge stuff, you're still alive.

So, you survived the barrage. Rest should be piece of cake, right? I mean, Final Vengeance is easily dodgable and almost doesn't have any effect on players unless they are either bad or have put themselves in a very bad position. All that remains is to dodge, run and gun. The Graian Raptors' Front is pleased though; the Impenetrable perk did exactly what it was supposed to... ensure that a majority of them survived through what will likely be the only jump they'll make this battle. You see them take aim, ready with their Daemon Mauls as they tell their thrusters to go into overkill mode. It won't take much more than one hit with the Daemon Maul to get you killed. Luckily, it is a slow weapon, and you'll just roll away. In fact, you start rolling at once knowing that they will be pounding the ground by you in less than a second... and as predicted, pavement bits start flying but you are have rolled outside its range.

However, there was this second Raptor who was about to ground pound, and he chose to not land in the same spot as his comrade in arms... and lands nicely on you. So whilst you have your little moment of stun whilst hammering the dodge button, the first one has recovered from his and you now have a Daemon Maul in your face. Miracles are on your side today, 'cause they still haven't taken you down. You unload a round in the face of one of them and he goes down. Beepbeep... ffff-, another dodge. Thankfully, your teammates are keeping that other Raptor busy as you are still in the process of getting up again from that last dodge. Usually, you'd be happy that your teammates kill the people attacking you, but the Raptor hadn't managed to fly far before he died, and his body lands right in front of you. And so ends the story of Brian, as the brave Tactical Marine dies at the hands of the Graian Popular Raptors' Front, Crack Suicide Squad.

Should he have survived though, the three other Raptors had already respawned by that time, loaded with a total of six grenades and three flying bombs. If he had decided to cap the enemy base point (C), the Raptors would just split up for a bit... those still alive at B keep on trying to die there, the 2 or 3 already dead for point C, before attempting suicide there and afterwards head for B again. If you attempt to move the battle away from B, they will always have a steady enough influx of Raptors to keep denying a point whilst a small team of the other Raptors start a hunt.

Almost true story, names have been changed. No, this is not the game Mirage just mentioned (I was busy half-way writing through this post when he told me he had just experienced it). And that story was told from a slightly fictional perspective where lag doesn't exists.

And Gorb, I have generally few problems taking down Devastators. I'd like to know about what build the Devastator can do that perhaps might warrant a "trollish" or "unfair" label, whilst we "probably haven't experienced enough effective class/perk combos yet"... mind sharing those unfair builds?

Anyways, sleep is way-waaaaay overdue. Have fun in here whilst I go do some inhuman hibernation.

[shrp]

From my experience the ASM will rape just about anyone unless he hides in a pipe or something. Final vengeance is not required. The Death from above and Air cooled thrusters combined with lightning speed of the chainsword is probably the most lethal combination that pretty much can't be countered. As long as you land behind and not in front of enemies, they are dead no matter what. Devastators will either not be able to turn fast enough with HB or they die because of their own plasma cannon blast as long as you soften them a bit with plasma pistol or grenades from the air. As soon as tacticals switch to meltagun, you can use your grenades and plasma pistol to weaken their armor and then finish them with Death from above. They won't even have a chance to fire one meltagun shot. And if the odds are against you, you can always flee and heal. I play as ASM / Raptor very often and it's obvious that the other 2 classes have really hard time to compete against the assault class. While my death / kill ratio is nothing special with tacticals / devastators, the assault class usually ends with 3:1 or more. I think the damage of ranged weapons (perhaps with the exception of plasma cannon) needs to be raised a bit so that the assault class becomes easier to counter. After that, you might not see yourself being killed by final vengeance so often.

[Mirage Knight]

Interesting idea there, but the problem with buffing ranged weapons is that it WILL affect the other classes as well and not in a good way either: Storm Bolters and HB's already do a decent job of shredding opposition when used well. I think a better idea would be to lower the attack speed of Chainswords and Power Axes and make the combos interruptable so that they're less guaranteed insta-rape, remove FV altogether, and increase the cooldown time for Grenades to 5 seconds.

mind sharing those unfair builds?

I'd gather an HB Dev with Expertise + Iron Halo or Feel No Pain... or an HB Dev with FNP + IH. And yes those builds are quite tough but not outright impossible to kill. The first build allows you to soak and dish out pain and quickly uproot to double stomp / kick if worse comes to worse. However, the first build is not as resistant as the second build which turns you into a goddamn tank that can dish out pain. Mind you it is counterable with well placed grenade spam, a ground pound behind and chained attacks. Plasma pistols help immensely here.

[Pseudonymn]

Gorb,

I don't really have a problem with anything you said there at all. Aside from what we think should be done with the perk perhaps, I think we're mostly on the same page except for this:

The perk teaches you to dodge effectively

I honestly can't see how this perk is a learning aid for the dodging impaired. As you said, if a person hasn't learned to dodge from everything else they've experienced in the game they never will, especially not with this as their teacher. This probably isn't the best defense of the use of this perk.

Out of curiosity, what tactics did you try to defend against this? 4 ASM and a few Havocs is literally almost their entire team.

I wasn't there but I would hazard a guess that it would have to be the only viable one that doesn't involve surrendering the point everytime they show up and and losing the game?

To quote a maxim from another popular game, which I will not mention by name here, "Standing near ze point does nussing, Get on ze point, Dummkopf!"

[shrp]

Interesting idea there, but the problem with buffing ranged weapons is that it WILL affect the other classes as well and not in a good way either: Storm Bolters and HB's already do a decent job of shredding opposition when used well. I think a better idea would be to lower the attack speed of Chainswords and Power Axes and make the combos interruptable so that they're less guaranteed insta-rape, remove FV altogether, and increase the cooldown time for Grenades to 5 seconds.

Yes, that might be a better solution. The assault class can easily evade grenades while having the best opportunity to use them - from the sky. Power axe and Chain axe are not as dangerous, people can run backwards and shoot, often managing to get some space between them and the attacker and turning it into an even fight. But ASM / Raptor weilding a chainsword makes so huge and fast leaps forward that he will quickly dispatch anyone running away. I think the combos are interruptible already but whenever a devastator or tactical uses his stun I can just fire the jetpack before he manages to kill me, cause some more damage with Death from above + place myself behind him again.

[Codex]

Raptor's Front of Graia, Crack Suicide Squad before?

Wait, isn't it the Graian Raptor's Front? We're the Raptor's Front of Graia, and we're at war with the Graian Raptor's Front. Also, I want to have the right to bear children.

Further, Brother Brian can't die, he's the Messiah.

[Dimension]

as an aside, I find that single grenades are much easier to avoid as tacs, because often you're in some kind of CC animation for a split second longer. as a tac, you roll the second you see the grenade.

I will grant though that given enough time, a raptor can evade far better, because he doesn't suffer explosion saturation the same way as a tac would. given enough grenades, a tac will just have nowhere to roll, while a raptor can choose to just stay in the air, and then land where there is no nearby grenade.

however, I rarely experience such explosion saturation, so I still feel more confident as a tac than as a raptor when evading, and I do die a lot less to nades when I am a tac.