Junior Member
After a fair bit of playing as (and alongside) a variety of classes in the Beta, I've rapidly discovered the Raider is significantly, and objectively, stronger than any other class in the game. Several reasons for this are noted below.
-The Raider has the largest health pool of any class (in the current beta stage). meaning that killing one takes significantly more strikes than other classes like the Conqueror or Warlord.
-the raider has absurdly long range attack hitboxes, being able to contend with the range of a nobushi's backstep attacks.
-a fair amount of his attacks have super armor (they aren't interrupted by attacks from other classes).
-he has a 50% stamina consuming clearout attack that does incredible amounts of damage, and is arguably the most damage in any single attack in the game
-his B attack is a charge that sweeps up the opponent, making them completely unable to attack or counter out, and forces them on the ground after, or worse, against the wall where they take damage. This invariably leads to being combo'd by heavy attacks from the raider, who is not left totally vulnerable.
-due to the range of his attacks, the raider is easily capable of backstabbing fleeing opponents from sprint, dealing massive damage.
what the developers have essentially created is a tank that doubles as the single highest damage dealer in the game, capable of sweeping attacks to clean up assasins, and long range attacks capable of taking out the zoning character entirely. everything in between has to be amazing at blocking -and even then, if they are, the raider can just bypass it entirely by using his shoulder charge.
it is incredibly difficult to defeat a raider Solo, and almost requires the party to work together to take one down. No other class is like this against any other class.
I've found, particularly during Domination matches, that Raiders can essentially shut down a zone and hold it, even to the point of being able to kill three enemies who were attacking him at once losing a negligible amount of health.
I feel that if you're going to make the raider a high offense character, do not give them a health pool that dwarfs the rest of his team combined. however I feel this would render that other viking class thats incapable of getting more than 2 kills a match useless; the Berserker.
if, however, the raider is meant to be a character capable of taking points and holding them effectively until backup comes to deal real punishment, I feel that his attacks-not health- need some pruning in damage, stagger capacity, and range. this would bring him down to the level of the other vanguard characters when under attack from opponents.
his higher health pool in this new style, however, still permits the original playstyle of the Raider; being ballsy and charging into the oponent with a flurry of daneaxe attacks, usually heavy ones. it still keeps him as an intimidating character, however his reduced damage allows Kensai, conquerors, and other characters to be able to go toe-to-toe with him alone.
in addition, I would consider that his shoulder charge should drain him of an extreme amount of stamina, such that a follow up attack would leave the raider exhausted. it still gives the raider the choice of executing that attack and then potentially being vulnerable, or to only execute the charge for his allies to flock to the downed enemy instead.
I hope this is good feedback for the devs.
Junior Member
What class do you play? Raider is slow but hits hard. He's very easy to punish. As a berserker I find he's one of my easiest opponents.
"it is incredibly difficult to defeat a raider Solo, and almost requires the party to work together to take one down" Honestly I see too many people think they can just 2v1 someone by swinging heavies left and right. While it may work against a new player a more experienced player will punish you with revenge. I have barely seen people throw guardbreaks into 2v1s just swing and swing. In a 2v1 I will either guardbreak for my teammate or time my attack when the lone warrior is on the offensive forcing him to play defensively then throwing in guard breaks.
The raider has more sweeping in his attacks so your dodge timing is a little more strict than when you fight other classes. Shoulder charge is easy to side step and if they miss they are open for an attack.
Do a custom duel match with damage off against a raider and spent 20 minutes finding his weaknesses with your class of choice. Start with the level 1 bot and work your way up to 3
Member
I think the Raider is a strong character in Dominion due to the fact that in multi-person fights the unblockable attack is very difficult to deal with. He is not, however, over powered and is far and away from the best character in the game. Here's why!
- The Raider has the largest health pool in this beta, along side the Warlord both having four and a half bars.. He has half a bar more than the Warden, which equates to him taking one extra light attack to kill. Most assassins have four and a half bars meaning the Raider takes two more light attacks to kill than an Orochi.
- None of the Raider's attacks have super armor. I'm not sure what lead you to believe this, but literally none of them do.
- Little known fact about the Raider's unblockable. If you just do the unblockable, no lead up, then it only deals 1 bar of damage. The average heavy attacks deals 1-1.5 bars of damage, for comparison. It's only off the end of a chain (which means you can't guarantee the unblockable to hit) that it deals obscene damage. That's a fine mechanic, and a mechanic that the Kensei shares, although his doesn't cost 50% of his stamina.
- The pick up charge the Raider can do is actually really easy to dodge and punish. If he does happen to get you, fret not, the most he can confirm off this is a light attack! Doesn't matter if he throws you to the ground, or kicks you into a wall, he CANNOT land a heavy attack of this, all you need to do is block!
- The Raider is capable of dealing insane damage, however it's actually really difficult to. He is the only character in the game right now who has no way to guarantee a heavy attack, whether it's off a wall stun or a parry. Every other character can do this, except for our beefy Viking. In 1v1 scenarios where the opponent has a solid defence, that leads to the Raider actually being one of the least damaging characters in the game. It takes some work to get used to his attacks and learning to parry the unblockable, but when you do, I promise you'll have no more issues!
Hope this helps, if I can shed any more light let me know!
Junior Member
1: how do you know he has THE biggest health pool? also it doesn't matter when the Warlord and Conqueror as you mentioned have a guard mode where they can block all damage from all sides.
2: he has a giant poleaxe, obviously he has long range? and he most certainly does not have as much range or speed as Nobushi.
3: that's just not true, he has 1 attack combo (Light+Heavy) that is unblockable and all of his other moves are very easily interrupted by any faster attack.
4: clearly you did not play any before the the 3rd test, all he had to do was charge at the air next to you and you would be picked up and carried off. on another note for this the best way I can explain how to deal with this is "Git Gud", I've been grabbed and thrown against a wall or on the floor by a raider more times than i can even remember, so you mash your dash button or key and then block from the direction you see him swinging...it's very simple to do and all he's done is taken you away from the fight and maybe stunned you but you're more or less fine for health (apart from a knee to the face). He can also be damaged the entire time he's carrying you and stunning you and there's no chance of him being able to cancel that animation.
5: have you tried chasing someone as raider? he has a sprinting attack which is it and most characters have those with equal range and are less dodgeable than the raiders, and his jumping attack is pitiful.
how do you defeat a raider you might ask?
is he hitting you a lot? just block and move closer
is he guard breaking you a lot? just light attack spam
is he doing too much damage? just light attack spam
is he spamming unblockables? either double tap dodge backwards or dodge to the side
the raider is balanced.
Junior Member
I do struggle with raiders in general. like many of the classes and folks saying this is balanced or this isn't balanced, everyone is afraid of getting their favorite class nerfed in the finial game; or simply don't have a problem fighting X, Y, or Z character. As frustrating as the raider can be I can say something similar to most classes.
With that said does the raider need a total rework? No it doesn't. Does it need some tweaking? Like all of the other classes; yes, yes it does.
1.The Raider's guard break needs to shortened. Many people including myself have noticed that the raider's guard break seems a bit to pushy. it is a unique mechanic that allows the raider to stand out class wise as well as strategically on the battlefield. But poses to much of a frustrating threat to a beginner or to the average consumer that can simply stop playing. which in the end is no way to keep players base high well after launch day. On launch day people will find his advantage quickly and will exploit it. Us in the beta will have an advantage simply by playing the game before release date, but what of the influx of new players on launch day?
2. Even Though we don't have any hard numbers on health pools. The health bars do give a vague representation as to how much health a hero has. raiders are undoubtedly on the higher end of the spectrum. I do think their health pool does needed to be lowered. Lowered enough to make them a bit less brave in a 1v1. All other classes reward patience to a certain degree while the raider in particular doesn't carry that same feel, rewarding brashness. A slightly lower health pool would bring their brashness down enough to be more manageable to all but the more experienced players.
Each vanguard class has a clear weakness to overcome them if exploited properly, the raider has the same but the inability to reliably close the gap and stay there as well as the large health pool makes it all that much harder to overcome a raider in particular.
Member
This is a git gud issue.
Junior Member
If you go against the raider with another heavy, you will lose hard, making you right in some respects. i play almost exclusively as the warden and i can get double teamed by raiders and usually kill them both. once you can score hits on them, they are remarkably easy to keep scoring damage on, as they block ungodly slow. starting off against a raider when you are inexperienced would probably be a death sentence. once you have a few kills under your belt, they are no longer a threat unless they pick you up and through you off a cliff. I feel that all of the characters are very balanced, where you don't have to actually take any damage in a match, if your reaction time is good enough.
Senior Member
ThisOriginally Posted by Duckbit Go to original post
Member
Raider's light+heavy attack is blockable - just use your heavy attack on left side and it will block, after you can light or guardbrake and so on.
Member
Raider is king of Dominion "new people" but extremely bad in every other scenario.
