Request Potential Storm Sphere buff discussion

Does The Storm Sphere deserve a buff?

  • Total voters
    23
Bort Greasegorb

Bort Greasegorb

Pirate Lord
There's been a lot of talk of how strong The Storm Sphere is and most users of it aren't too impressed, me included. It has really cool looks and I love the demolitions boost but otherwise, it doesn't seem up to par for Hollowed Woods' greatest treasure from a 100k+ HP boss. What it boils down to is that in its current state, the Green Ornament Grenade does more regular damage than The Storm Sphere does due to a larger long volley boost, and I don't believe a rare weapon should be stronger than a legendary one on average.
In addition, I find that the Maelstrom Charge ability isn't too good; it does less than a siege charge, has no powerful unique effects and hurts the user no matter how far away it's thrown. It seems like its only upside is that it's infinite and therefore can be used as a backup for siege charges. However, it's very rare that you run out of sieges.
If you want a more detailed description of this, @Beggar did a good write-up on the weapon in his legendary tier list thread: https://piratesforums.co/threads/legendary-weapon-tier-list.27236/post-380350
I have two solutions as to how to make this grenade stand out more and both of them are fairly small:
  • Change the Long Volley +1 boost to a Long Volley +2 boost. This will give it enough power to take out the gold room efficiently.
  • Add a special effect to Maelstrom Charge. Maybe it could paralyze all enemies it hits.
What do you think? I'd love to hear some more options for potential buffs in the replies, so let me know.
 
Bort Greasegorb said:
There's been a lot of talk of how strong The Storm Sphere is and most users of it aren't too impressed, me included. It has really cool looks and I love the demolitions boost but otherwise, it doesn't seem up to par for Hollowed Woods' greatest treasure from a 100k+ HP boss. What it boils down to is that in its current state, the Green Ornament Grenade does more regular damage than The Storm Sphere does due to a larger long volley boost, and I don't believe a rare weapon should be stronger than a legendary one on average.
In addition, I find that the Maelstrom Charge ability isn't too good; it does less than a siege charge, has no powerful unique effects and hurts the user no matter how far away it's thrown. It seems like its only upside is that it's infinite and therefore can be used as a backup for siege charges. However, it's very rare that you run out of sieges.
If you want a more detailed description of this, @Beggar did a good write-up on the weapon in his legendary tier list thread: https://piratesforums.co/threads/legendary-weapon-tier-list.27236/post-380350
I have two solutions as to how to make this grenade stand out more and both of them are fairly small:
  • Change the Long Volley +1 boost to a Long Volley +2 boost. This will give it enough power to take out the gold room efficiently.
  • Add a special effect to Maelstrom Charge. Maybe it could paralyze all enemies it hits.
What do you think? I'd love to hear some more options for potential buffs in the replies, so let me know.
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I think Sphere only needs a small buff.
Right now, Maelstorm Charge's base damage is somewhere in the 4000-4500 range. That's pretty low compared to siege. But compared to siege of Green Ornament Grenades, a rare, that's embarrassingly low. As it currently stands, there's no good reason to use anything but siege.

My suggestion is to simply increase the base damage of Maelstorm Charge.
 
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In the interests of preserving the weapon's uniqueness, I favor some type of buff to the Maelstrom Charge ability. A more powerful Siege Charge would indeed make it the best grenade, but a buff to Maelstrom Charge would make The Storm Sphere a bit more than simply "the highest damage grenade."

I recognize that choosing and implementing an appropriate buff probably isn't easy, especially if a brand new skill has to be modified. My recommendation is to just increase Maelstrom Charge's base damage if possible. If it's not, adding a +1 Siege Charge boost would be ideal.
 
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I too have had the good fortune of being able to test this weapon for myself, and I must agree with everything above. Maelstrom Charge in it's current state is just completely pointless to use except to show it off or have a little fun. Definitely not ever worth using in combat, as it has no special effects applied to enemies or more dmg than a siege, AND dmgs you whenever you deal dmg. (side note I tested in pvp and it deals you more dmg than your enemies, yes out of range of demolition). The Demolition boost is cool but also may hinder it's use in arenas like pvp or ctc.

What I think this weapon most needs is a buff to Maelstrom Charge so it has actual utility except to show off. Taking dmg no matter what for less damage dealt makes no sense. I'd say give it a decent 5 second slow effect, and take less dmg yourself, or make it's damage quite a bit higher so it's worth using over siege for the high inevitable self dmg. This grenade looks cool, but is definitely not worth looting for except as a number in it's current state.
 
Every post here so far has suggested a buff to Maelstrom Charge's damage value. I'm personally down with this but the problem comes with balance; how strong is too strong for a new ammo type that can be used any time with no sort of charge? It'll be tricky to figure out but I believe some buff to Maelstrom Charge is the primary way to make The Storm Sphere a real treasure.
 
I don't have the weapon but from what I've heard in game and on the forums, I think that I agree that the unique ability it has should be buffed. Other than being flashy I've heard that the skill has no real use and will even do more damage to yourself than to your opponent in pvp (as seen above). That paired with the fact that the Green ornament grenades still do a good deal more damage really makes the legendary seem kinda underwhelming.

On top of that, the weapon drops from a boss that is harder than Palifico and requires you to be level 40 to do two quests to be able to find it, along with only being able to be found in a 1 month span (2 months next year i'm guessing). When it was first found out that it had this unique ability people were wondering if this weapon were the new Lost Blade of Leviathan. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to come close.

I understand that with grenades being probably the most powerful weapon in the game, that there were concerns pf making an extremely overpowered weapon. I'm fine with the The Storm Sphere's base siege charge damage being worse than a rare grenade, but I really think that the ability it has should be better to compensate.

Regardless, I will say that whichever developers came up with the idea of this weapon and it's skills, along with actually creating the weapon + the awesome and super unique ability it has, did a fantastic job in creating something special. They honestly made exactly what I wanted when I had a legendary grenade in mind and avoided exactly what I feared when I heard that the new legendary might be a nade. As for looks, aesthetic, uniqueness and story- the devs nailed it in my opinion. Okay, the name is admittedly a little weird. Did pirates even know what a sphere was lol?
 
Bort Greasegorb said:
Every post here so far has suggested a buff to Maelstrom Charge's damage value. I'm personally down with this but the problem comes with balance; how strong is too strong for a new ammo type that can be used any time with no sort of charge? It'll be tricky to figure out but I believe some buff to Maelstrom Charge is the primary way to make The Storm Sphere a real treasure.
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Due to the exclusivity and fact that it's a legendary, being a super powerful legendary would be totally justified.
 
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I'd like to add that the trade-off between infinite ammo and damage taken to the player, is a good idea.
If the devs do buff Maelstorm Charge, people wouldn't necessarily be able to solo twins because they would be losing health - making Maelstorm not a direct replacement for siege.

I completely agree with Daniel that the uniqueness and specialness satisfied the expectation we had of this legendary. Which is why the change I'm suggesting is quite small.

The new grenades are great. They just need a little boost to push them to the top.
 
They do feel kind of weak for a legendary and I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to buffing the damage but seeing a utility buff to them would also be a good solution

I feel like the a utility buff in the form of explosion immunity ( or resistance) on these grenades would be a good buff without making grenades (which are arguably to strong in their own right) wickedly powerful.

It would also pair with the huge range increase given by these grenades as is giving them a really strong use case over other grenades
 
Christopher Cannonskull said:
I feel like the a utility buff in the form of explosion immunity ( or resistance) on these grenades would be a good buff without making grenades (which are arguably to strong in their own right) wickedly powerful.

It would also pair with the huge range increase given by these grenades as is giving them a really strong use case over other grenades
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That would actually be really unique! I remember back in early beta, grenades never did damage back to the user and it was really fun, albeit overpowered. Prehaps a grenade of this caliber could use that.
 
Bort Greasegorb said:
That would actually be really unique! I remember back in early beta, grenades never did damage back to the user and it was really fun, albeit overpowered. Prehaps a grenade of this caliber could use that.
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That was my biggest concern. The ability to walk into a group and just start blasting siege at close range without taking damage is super powerful. Not sure if immunity or just damage reduction would be better tbh
 
Christopher Cannonskull said:
They do feel kind of weak for a legendary and I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to buffing the damage but seeing a utility buff to them would also be a good solution

I feel like the a utility buff in the form of explosion immunity ( or resistance) on these grenades would be a good buff without making grenades (which are arguably to strong in their own right) wickedly powerful.

It would also pair with the huge range increase given by these grenades as is giving them a really strong use case over other grenades
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I disagree with this approach to Storm Sphere. While adding utility is certainly a good idea, I think this undermines the bit of balance that I pointed out in my previous post.
Beggar said:
Adding nothing but explosion immunity to an otherwise normal grenade would make it the best item in the game, arguably.
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I'm not so sure I agree with this, or that it'd be a good thing. If the player received no damage while using grenades, they'll essential become pistols with shorter charge time and probably higher damage.

While making the grenades stronger is the aim of this thread, I'd prefer the grenades behave like grenades.
 
Fortune Burnrose said:
I disagree with this approach to Storm Sphere. While adding utility is certainly a good idea, I think this undermines the bit of balance that I pointed out in my previous post.

I'm not so sure I agree with this, or that it'd be a good thing. If the player received no damage while using grenades, they'll essential become pistols with shorter charge time and probably higher damage.

While making the grenades stronger is the aim of this thread, I'd prefer the grenades behave like grenades.
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Yes, I was trying to make an argument for why adding Explosion Immunity would be too strong of a buff.
 
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Also - I love how this reads like it was written by a Texan explaining the pros and cons of his hunting rifle. "This here 12 gauge can down an Alaskan moose with one pop to the noggin'"
 
Storm's damage right now is great, but I think that the difficulty to obtain and exclusivity (a level 55 boss legendary only after level 40) of this weapon were not weighed heavily enough against it's effectiveness in comparison to the other grenades. I would say that a very fair minimized buff to this grenade is increasing it's attack power from 21 to 24. This is enough to make the long volley attacks from Storm be only ever so slightly better (a difference of 8 damage with siege) than the Green Ornament. I think it's fair to suggest that a weapon from the highest level boss with 50% more health than Palifico and a timeline of one month should be definitively the best in category by having interesting perks and the most baseline damage.
 
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