LV/Maul [MERGE]
His AI is awful. Overall if they are going to make shiney new toys worse than the previous, what’s the point? He should be targeting CAT 100% on the time with the CD increase. But instead it’s rand...
Forum Discussion
Feedback from my personal testing so far:
My Maul team (DV can be switched out for Shore):
Disclaimer: Everything below refers to the 5v5 format. I have no experience in regards to his 3v3 performance.
Pretty much only went up against JMK, CAT, GAS, AT, GK teams so far, some easier ones with R7 avg and some nearly fully maxed out ones with R8 across the board and mod sets like +190 on JMK (CD triangle, offense cross) and +165 on CAT (CD triangle and offense cross).
On offense he's fine and can actually full auto those JMK teams after the initial manual targeting on CAT for the cooldown increase (will come to that later). I gotta say though that before entering the 2nd or even 3rd ult, the fun factor isn't really there, mainly due to the lack of dmg in the team. LV hits like a wet noodle and Maul can't even trigger the savior on GK with full seething spam and burning all 5 stacks if the GK is propperly modded. As others have alrdy pointed out LV's ultimate is pretty lame. Sure, he upgrades himself, gets a bonus turn and does his nice locked ability block AoE (only 1 turn ability block though) but then you just hope for his ult state to end as soon as possible (unfortunately you have to endure 5 turns) - you actually feel uncomfortable while he's in his 1st ult. That's a serious design flaw, you should never feel bad and hope for it to end when your GL is in it's ult state.
On defense he sucks. But I see this mainly as a problem due to bad AI. Especially Maul doesn't act smart and not only uses his CD increase randomly but also doesn't set himself up for a follow up CD increase next turn - something that he does when he only starts on 3 stacks of anguish against non Kenobi teams. There he actually starts off with his AoE to get 5 stacks and wait for his frenzy to trigger and give him another turn to then use his CD increase. It would be so much better if he would do this aswell against CAT and it would also counter the attempt of JMK users to just wait with the CD reset for 1 turn because Maul could increase CDs again.
Examples:
vs JMK, CAT scenario #1 (JMK uses his CD reset immediately): LV AoE -> JMK CD reset on CAT -> Maul seething rage + CD increase on CAT (4 stacks of anguish left) -> Maul seething rage on GK (3 stacks left) -> Maul AoE (back to 5 stacks) -> ... battle goes on untill it's Mauls turn again -> Maul seething rage + CD increase again (4 stacks left) -> Maul seething spam on GK
vs JMK, CAT scenario #2 (JMK saves his CD reset): LV AoE -> JMK 1st special on himself -> Maul seething rage + CD increase on CAT (4 stacks of anguish left) -> Maul seething rage on GK (3 stacks left) -> Maul AoE (back to 5 stacks) -> ... battle goes on untill it's JMKs turn again -> JMK CD reset on CAT -> Maul seething rage + CD increase on CAT again (4 stacks left) -> Maul seething spam on GK
Other flawed AI's:
Piett - not using his mark on LV first but instead starting off with his AoE
DV - using his AoE first instead of going straight into MM and not only get several turns and feeding LV with underestimated stacks but also not spreading out those ability blocks
Bug / can't be WAI:
LV decreasing his mastery when activating his ult because an opponents SLKR has siphoned LV's allies' mastery into negatives
Things that I wish would be changed/fixed to increase Vaders defensive viability (right now even a JML with mostly "leftover" jedi can 1 shot a full R9 LV - and keep in mind that R9 is a huge boost to all those tank chars surrounding LV - as could be seen on Xaereths stream yesterday where he technically 1 shot a full R9 LV team with JML, KAM, GMY, Shaak and Jolee if he would've used Jolees revive at the end):
1) AI fixes (see above)
2) a buff to his ultimate - several things that could be used here: increase duration on that locked ability block, reduce duration of his ult stance so he can start charging up his next ult sooner, grant healing for the team, lots of buffs for the team (buffs = mastery = good), reduce cooldowns on his specials so he can use them more frequently, add undispellable buff and healing immunity to his AoE, protect his allies by putting a mark on him and stealth on all his allies, etc.
3) have RG also heal non-empire dark side characters, maybe by a lower percentage like 4% and with the condition that the allied leader must be an empire character
My Maul team (DV can be switched out for Shore):
Disclaimer: Everything below refers to the 5v5 format. I have no experience in regards to his 3v3 performance.
Pretty much only went up against JMK, CAT, GAS, AT, GK teams so far, some easier ones with R7 avg and some nearly fully maxed out ones with R8 across the board and mod sets like +190 on JMK (CD triangle, offense cross) and +165 on CAT (CD triangle and offense cross).
On offense he's fine and can actually full auto those JMK teams after the initial manual targeting on CAT for the cooldown increase (will come to that later). I gotta say though that before entering the 2nd or even 3rd ult, the fun factor isn't really there, mainly due to the lack of dmg in the team. LV hits like a wet noodle and Maul can't even trigger the savior on GK with full seething spam and burning all 5 stacks if the GK is propperly modded. As others have alrdy pointed out LV's ultimate is pretty lame. Sure, he upgrades himself, gets a bonus turn and does his nice locked ability block AoE (only 1 turn ability block though) but then you just hope for his ult state to end as soon as possible (unfortunately you have to endure 5 turns) - you actually feel uncomfortable while he's in his 1st ult. That's a serious design flaw, you should never feel bad and hope for it to end when your GL is in it's ult state.
On defense he sucks. But I see this mainly as a problem due to bad AI. Especially Maul doesn't act smart and not only uses his CD increase randomly but also doesn't set himself up for a follow up CD increase next turn - something that he does when he only starts on 3 stacks of anguish against non Kenobi teams. There he actually starts off with his AoE to get 5 stacks and wait for his frenzy to trigger and give him another turn to then use his CD increase. It would be so much better if he would do this aswell against CAT and it would also counter the attempt of JMK users to just wait with the CD reset for 1 turn because Maul could increase CDs again.
Examples:
vs JMK, CAT scenario #1 (JMK uses his CD reset immediately): LV AoE -> JMK CD reset on CAT -> Maul seething rage + CD increase on CAT (4 stacks of anguish left) -> Maul seething rage on GK (3 stacks left) -> Maul AoE (back to 5 stacks) -> ... battle goes on untill it's Mauls turn again -> Maul seething rage + CD increase again (4 stacks left) -> Maul seething spam on GK
vs JMK, CAT scenario #2 (JMK saves his CD reset): LV AoE -> JMK 1st special on himself -> Maul seething rage + CD increase on CAT (4 stacks of anguish left) -> Maul seething rage on GK (3 stacks left) -> Maul AoE (back to 5 stacks) -> ... battle goes on untill it's JMKs turn again -> JMK CD reset on CAT -> Maul seething rage + CD increase on CAT again (4 stacks left) -> Maul seething spam on GK
Other flawed AI's:
Piett - not using his mark on LV first but instead starting off with his AoE
DV - using his AoE first instead of going straight into MM and not only get several turns and feeding LV with underestimated stacks but also not spreading out those ability blocks
Bug / can't be WAI:
LV decreasing his mastery when activating his ult because an opponents SLKR has siphoned LV's allies' mastery into negatives
Things that I wish would be changed/fixed to increase Vaders defensive viability (right now even a JML with mostly "leftover" jedi can 1 shot a full R9 LV - and keep in mind that R9 is a huge boost to all those tank chars surrounding LV - as could be seen on Xaereths stream yesterday where he technically 1 shot a full R9 LV team with JML, KAM, GMY, Shaak and Jolee if he would've used Jolees revive at the end):
1) AI fixes (see above)
2) a buff to his ultimate - several things that could be used here: increase duration on that locked ability block, reduce duration of his ult stance so he can start charging up his next ult sooner, grant healing for the team, lots of buffs for the team (buffs = mastery = good), reduce cooldowns on his specials so he can use them more frequently, add undispellable buff and healing immunity to his AoE, protect his allies by putting a mark on him and stealth on all his allies, etc.
3) have RG also heal non-empire dark side characters, maybe by a lower percentage like 4% and with the condition that the allied leader must be an empire character
