The ideas behind these perks are solid, but after a little bit of testing, I've found them to be heavy nerfs to existing perks.
Azalea's shock tower bomb in theory should have the overall power of a shock tower but in a single burst. In practice, the ability leaves husks alive in situations where a regular shock tower would have killed them due to the lower dmg of the bomb. Shock tower activates almost instantly and pulls husks closer, while the bomb takes a second or two to charge, leading to missed kills when husks walk away from the blast radius.
My two possible Azalea tweaks:
- Shock bomb acts like regular shock tower while charging the blast.
- Blast radius is increased by 15% and/or damage is increased to a point where it can equal the dmg of an ideal shock tower placement (one where it damages husks from placement to expiration).
Z.A.P in its current form is just a pacifist pet taking up a Team Perk slot. Comparing it to Azalea's shock bomb, Z.A.P deals 2 less base dmg to a small area around its target every 6 seconds. The bomb deals similar dmg in a large area every 20ish seconds. BUT WAIT, the 6 second delay is only between target acquisition, not shots, because Z.A.P takes around 2 seconds to charge the shot before firing, and if that target is killed before firing, Z.A.P must reset and acquire a new target. Z.A.P also randomly targets enemies, and in a large fight, you can't try avoiding its target because you're too busy trying to protect an objective. In my experience, I can unleash two shock bombs and kill 20 husks before Z.A.P can kill one, because Z.A.P's other issue is that it can't kill a basic husk in a single shot unless dealing with much lower lvl husks.
My proposed Z.A.P tweaks:
- Z.A.P insta-shoots the lowest level husk within a 10 tile radius every 3-4 seconds, no charge time. The charge animation can still be used for the period between shots so animation efforts aren't wasted.
I hope this post can cause a rethinking of the hero and team perk. Since the hero rework STW has taken a special place in my gaming heart and I want nothing more than to see it succeed. The STW dev team is something special, I don't want to disregard their work, but I also want the game to have new perks that aren't weaker versions of existing perks.
TL;DR: Azalea's bomb needs more dmg and a way to stop husks from escaping the blast, Z.A.P needs insta-shots.