Discussion Annihilation Update - Immobiliser Ionite

PASSAGE I - Statement

Immobiliser is extremely overpowered when:
1) Targeting a lone individual disconnected from their crewmates.
2) Minerushing (Obnoxiously destroy a full diamond only using a leather immo combined with a leather warrior)
3) Defending (+Mining fatigue)

PASSAGE II - Introduction

Immobiliser was a class that always received a negative eye from the general public, but it never reached a point of "This class is broken" status until the 1.12.2 base update came along. This update has magnified the class to a point of "if you're immo'd, you're 100% dead". Of course, because of the magnitude of people abusing its effectiveness due to this update, it has generally increased the popularity of the class & has reached the point of peak obnoxity. The fact that you're OBLIGATED to craft / spawn with a shield now to have a possible chance of outrunning an immobiliser just explains why it needs to get fixed/ patched/ reworked slightly. As it is right now, immobiliser is undoubtedly, the strongest support class that does not need a single ounce of skill besides right-clicking close enough to an enemy in order for you, to ruin their day.

PASSAGE III - Question

I honestly have no clue whether i'm reaching / overreacting with this post, hence I'd like to pose the following question;
Q: Does immobiliser need balance-changes?

PASSAGE IV - Advantages

α) hold the right-click button near an enemy to completely freeze the player from moving / running away for 5 long seconds.
β) the cooldown is very short (30 seconds) & it doesn't take very long before you can re-immobilise your target.
γ) The mining fatigue can totally mean life or death of your nexus when it comes to being rushed, it's extremely powerful if tag-teamed together with a wizard.
δ) Easily able to ruin an individual if used properly with a well coordinated & combined class-attack (immo, merc, bloodmage, succubus, bard). There is little to nothing you can do to counter that (besides having a gapple or surviving long enough for your mobility class to save your life).

ε) The class itself is high reward & no skill. Quite easy to pick up and get going with it.


PASSAVE V - Disadvantages

a) Whilst immobilising the target, you suffer the same curse as him.
b) Not effective if you're by yourself, the class requires at least one more person to assist you.

PASSAGE VI - Changes

During this section, I want to generate some changes that I'd happen to think of randomly in order to keep the kits effectiveness but have it require slightly more skill for it to work like it should. ( Not all the changes listed are things I vouch for, but it may help the dev team to think up something that will bring out something optimal).

1. During phase 1, you're able to immobilise your target for 1 second, phase 2 it increases to 2 seconds, ... at phase 5, you're finally able to immobilise your target for 5 seconds like it was originally intended to be.
2. Something that requires more skill, but would actually be quite effective, is to make the slime-ball a throwable item, just like the scorpio hook or ninja shurikens. A slightly smaller throw distance & upon hitting your target, you immobilise them for 5 seconds indefinitely.
3. Increase the immobilising interval simply because having around 10 seconds before being immobilised again is insanely short & gives you a brim amount of freedom to work with. I believe 15-20 seconds should suffice.
4. The further away you are from base, the less effective it is. (your base/ defender zone, 5 seconds. outside your base but on your island, 4 seconds. at mid, 3 seconds. enemy bases, 2 seconds).
5. An immobiliser is able to free a teammate who is immobilised (by left-clicking near or at them)
6. An immobiliser is unable to immobilise someone who is invisible. (defeats the purpose of alt accounts afk defending their nexus with immo).
7. The slime-ball has a similar way of operating compared to the famine ability. If you right click it, a radius of X by X blocks will be shown with particles, if nobody is in that radius, you waste your ability and are forced to wait X seconds before using it again. (forces people to time the ability correctly instead of afk-spamming it).
8. Rework it entirely to not freeze enemies, but to stun them with X amount of debuffs (A combination slowness, blindness, mining fatigue). That way, there is still a way for the targeted player to fight back against it.

PASSAGE VII - Closing Statement

To answer my own question in passage III, I'd easily say yes. As it is right now, the class is most definitely a high reward no skill type of class & there is hardly a counter to the class besides making a shield. The fact that shields are forced to be made to counter one class is ridiculous, it shouldn't be a thing. I agree we need effective ways to defend but the way the class itself is constructed is ever so slightly broken. If I had to choose the suggestions I'd vouch for, it'd be changes: 2, 3, 5, 6 & 7.

I really sincerely hope I'm going to hear some comments, critique or any other points I haven't listed down below. Feel free to comment anything.

-soto

While I don't necessarily think that a change is required for immobilizer, as most players are simply paying the price by being too aggressive at an enemy base, a lot of other people do. With that in mind I think a proper solution to the class could be found that doesn't render it completely useless as you are suggesting above. I do however think you have some good idea's, just not all of them.

Point 1 renders immobilizer pretty much uselss up until phase 4/5, and you also have to throw it now. Doesn't really seem that usefull of a class for the first 3 phases.
Point 2, I think this could work as it definitely makes it a skill-based class rather than just holding right click (which seemed to be the biggest problem with the class). I think having to hit on close range like that could be hard though, so I think a test would have to show if that is a viable solution or not. I think point 7 balances this out pretty fairly.
Point 3, if you go ahead and take points 1 and 2 in consideration, I think that already nerfs the class A TON, since it will be a skill-based class now I think the current interval suffices, you could still miss quite easily. The current interval is 15 sections btw.
Point 4, I would void this suggestion completely, why wouldn't you be able to do this at mid or an enemy base? This point will render the class pretty much useless for anything other than sitting in your nexus the entire game.
Point 5, actually a great suggestion in my opinion, gives the class another use and could be very clutch in certain situations. Pretty cool.
Point 6, I think this shouldn't be the case. If the class is changed into a skill-based class as you suggested above, you can no longer just hold right click to immo an opponent, managing to hit an invisible player like that should be rewarded rather than prevented.
Point 7, I think this is a great suggestion. As I said above making it so you can't hold right click is probably the biggest concern, this way you can no longer hold right click but it isn't impossible to hit either due to the radius. Great suggestion imo.
Point 8, I'm not sure what to think of this change, while it might give you a chance to fight back, I do feel like it would need to give you weakness as well. It would depend on the strength and duration of the effects to see if this is worth it.

Overall I think some of your idea's are certainly good and might be good for the class, the entirety of your suggestions would make the class useless though. For me a combination of throwing it with an effective radius would be a good start, as it prevents people from simply holding right click. I do feel like many people are overstating the issue as their death is a result of their playstyle rather than this class.

Keep in mind these changes aren't supposed to be mixed together. These are all individual suggestions, not meant to be mingled together, however, some of them certainly could of course. I listed a variety of changes that came up in my head or things other players have suggested prior. As I've stated in passage VI:

The argument ''as most players are simply paying the price by being too aggressive at an enemy base'' Like jeti and some other people say I find very unreasonable considering the state of the game at the moment. where any rush with more than 3 people late game is game over. against clanless teams.

I think the game should encourage less effort and less people required to rush teams. Immobiliser is the only class that heavily discourages solo/duo rushing and you need to eat a gapple every time you get immobilised.

My suggestion would be to keep immobiliser doing what it is doing and let it keep the 5 seconds but prevent damage coming in for those 5 seconds. This allows your team to get down at the nexus. at the same time but at least gives the rusher a chance to survive.
Or change the immo duration from 5 seconds to 3.

Another point I'd like to make is that Immobiliser is a bad class to defend with if it is against a rush of more than 3 people. So the point of this class is only to defend rushes from 3 people or less.

You should see the amount of people that I have to explain to that going in all the way to an enemy enderfurnace or melon farm might not be the best tactic when they complain about me using immobilizer within the walls of my own base. I think this has nothing to do with any state of the game but rather their playstyle being overaggressive and therefore their own fault rather than this class causing it. That argument wasn't focused on full on rushes.

I don't think you need to eat a gapples every time you get immobilized as it only lasts for 5 seconds. Immobilizer is one of a few options against The still too powerful gapples (complete invincibility while active) so the class can help out to counter this. Not being able to hit the person that is currently immobilized would change the class in a pretty drastic way if you ask me. I don't like it.

The point of the class isn't just to prevent rushes from 3 people or less, you can try to isolate rushers / strong opponents in an attempt to kill them. As I said against gapples, immo is a good counter while it still leaves the rusher the bigger advantage because of how strong these gapples are. Not all maps allow for good voiding.

what y'all talking about is being in their base, as i see it, it shouldn't be focus in players being too aggressive because they are not, most of the time when someone complains about immo isn't at ender furnace or melons as you said, they always try to stay near gold, iron mine, etc. not literally in their base lol.
You'll say "go get gear and rush, don't minerush you weirdo" but i feel minerushing is an important part of anni, if you think it is not go play The Walls then, you won't get minerushed in that game mode. That being said I've seen so many times guys that camp mines with immo the whole game and most of the time you end up dying against an enchanter and an immo, you could've been in any part of the base, even in yours, and you still will die. Immo requires no skill to be used, just hold your right click and that's it, you can kill a full diamond easily, it doesn't matter where he is, gold mine, his or yours you can still kill him with immo easy peasy.

So i agree with suggestions 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8. Just to make me clear, i see these suggestions as individual ideas, not mingled ideas.

1- It would be good to see an iron guy getting immo for 2 seconds in phase 2, he won't die so easily (this has happened to me a lot ;w; ).
2- This will give the skill factor that the class needs,
3- you can have prot 1-2 on diamond, and there's a team with a clan or at least active (not afk) people in it, there will always be 2-3 immos,and you stay immo for your whole rush, if there's a clan on, minerushing gets worse since they get 2-3 immos to follow you or go kill you in your own mines.
4- i like the idea of making it less effective, i think it would be better to make it so, when you're in nexus area immo should be as it is now (so people will stop complaining about immo being useless to defend), but if you're outside of that area it would be cool to get an throw able slimball instead of current immo.
7- It will prevent people from immo afking defending and actually play the game, since i've seen so many people join and just immo afk def because they know they're going to win (Stacked teams).
8- i think this would be the best rework you could do to immo, since it will kind of fix everything what people is complaining about, getting killed while you only see pain and you can't do nothing to prevent it.

POV of a minerusher.

I agree that immo needs to be fixed. Shields shouldn't be a thing u should rely on to survive. It's dumb how it's either a dumb shield or a gapple than can save you from an immo. It definitely needs balance changes!

The suggestions i liked the most from ur post are:
2 - nice skill factor
5 - that would be so useful as the only way to stop it now is to kill the immo user, which is lacking.
7 - i love this, as it stops people from spamming the slime ball

thanks for the nice suggestions

the amount of times ive been dropped trying to play solo cuz of a dumb immo and a warrior is insane. immo b broken g fix it fr. suggestions 2 5 7 are nice, especially immo releasing another immo with left click, shit sounds dope as hell my slime.

omg yes ye yes yes yes !!!

I'll have to disagree with you here. As someone who prefers playing this gamemode solo most of the time, gearing has become quite a problematic chore. The fear you'd have by simply seeing 2 leathers rushing you while you're properly geared in full iron or diamond is unimagineable these days. 2 leathers shouldn't have that much impact on someone who's properly geared. I agree this issue is mostly significant with the agro players, but it doesn't mean we should entirely kill off people trying to solo-carry as well.

this mostly sums up what I've just said, coming from another solo player.

I agree. Shields shouldn't become the main livelihood because there's no other way to counter it. The fact that we are obliged to use a shield to survive just points out the issues with the class. (this slightly goes for sniper too).

If you'd have to ask me, I would also highly vouch for suggestions 2, 5 & 7.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your reasoning. 2 leathers shouldn't be able to take on a full diamond without any skill involved. It just bothers me how many people just join the bandwagon without any real reasoning behind it (as I mean with the aggro in an enemy base). You and some others gave some good examples, so I'll come around and agree that a change could be nice. I just hope the class isn't completely killed off. Some of the listed suggestions would render it completely useless, you say they should be seen as individual suggestions but if a developer takes suggestion 1,6 & 8 and implements those, the class will become obsolete. I hope some of the other suggestions are taken into account but in my opinion it would be better just to list those that would balance it without making it useless as these suggestions are all getting likes it could be chosen.

I do also play solo quite frequently so I understand the issue, I just think some of these changes would be too much.

Immobilizer is a fucking garbage class and needs a COMPLETE rework, not just a nerf. It is BORING FOR ALL INVOLVED. You sit there and stare at eachother for awhile, and maybe someone else is there to kill the victim while they are defenseless. What a DOGSHIT design. It is nearly impossible to play solo because of this class and is part of why I quit this server. It shouldn't be a 2v1 WIN button.

Immobilizer needs to be more skill based, and needs to allow the victim some opportunity of escape. My suggestion is that immobilizer can throw the slime ball, and it will trigger an AOE slow (Think ninja's smoke bomb). Those caught in the AOE will be unable to jump and be inflicted with slowness IV and mining fatigue. This will make immobilizer much more fun to play for the immobilizer AND the victims. It also allows for some really cool plays.

Whatever changes are made, please make immobilizer FUN to play with, for both the immobilizer AND the victim.