Buff or remove Longshot from leaders

[wide kayak]

Edit: Title change (Cadence)

Longshot is strictly a downgrade compared to normal attacks, Barrage, Smackback, and even Aimless, as the game currently has a large focus on Front-to-Back combat clearing and combos.

There’s no companion that innately has Longshot. There’s no item that requires you to target the backmost enemy. There’s no charm that applies Longshot. There’s no item that temporarily adds Longshot to a target. Only a few enemies have Longshot (only the snow applying owl?).

Among your own units, only your leader can randomly roll Longshot. When your leader rolls Longshot, it’s from what I have seen most commonly at the cost of mainly attack, followed by suncounter, and lastly health.

Your Leader having Longshot can never hope to do anything other than be disruptive with Snow and Frost application, or if you apply yank to it.

It’s a terrible effect that is seemingly known to be a terrible effect as it is not included hardly anywhere.

Suggestions for buffs, some or all or a few:

• Longshot attackers do not trigger Smackback
• Longshot attackers are unaffected by teeth
• Units with Longshot are not hit by units with Barrage, or a possible target for units with Aimless
• Longshot leaders should be rolled with high attack and instead have a high counter

[rigid bobcat]

Theres nothing wrong with longshot, the only longshot allied units are purely the leaders. And that can be fixed just by having them have stronger stats like a lower cooldown or higher damage

[wide kayak]

I might just not at all have found a use for it, but having gotten every achievement I have yet to win a run with a Longshot Leader. Leader always ends up not contributing enough.

[rigid bobcat]

Oh it's not great

But theres nothing wrong with the mechanic itself

It's just the leaders having abysmal stats that suck

[wide kayak]

So there not being anything wrong with Longshot is an exaggeration?

[rigid bobcat]

Well, there isn't anything wrong with longshot itself at all

It's just it only appears on leaders, and the leaders it appears on have bad stats

[wide kayak]

But they have bad stats because they get Longshot, and it is treated like them having gotten any other effect, except any other effect is better.

So the issue lies in it being treated as any other effect when leaders are generated, so you mean there’s an issue with the leader generation, not with Longshot?

Well for that to be solved Longshot needs to be treated separately from other effects leaders can get

[rigid bobcat]

The issue isn't the status though, it's just the leaders being generated badly
The way you worded it seemed like the status itself was abysmal

[wide kayak]

It is

[rigid bobcat]

It isn't

The longshot leaders are bad, not longshot itself

[wide kayak]

In my experience, the target that dies first is the front most enemy, which the Longshot leader cannot contribute to.

Not contributing to focusfire is bad.

Longshot cannot contribute to frontmost focusfire unless there’s only one target in the row.

Longshot = Bad

[rigid bobcat]

The entire point of longshot is to take out annoying backrow enemies

Which there are a lot of

[wide kayak]

The backrow enemy in row one is the teeth gaining cat, the backrow enemy in row two is a teethgaining cat.

Now you have to snow your leader

[rigid bobcat]

The current flaws of longshot is not how it works, it's 2 thing
1- the leaders with longshot are statistically real weak
2- theres no other way to get longshot

If the leaders were stronger, and there was a charm to give longshot (like maybe have the yank charm give longshot and yank) then it'd be enjoyable to try out

[wide kayak]

The leaders that roll Longshot being prioritized to roll with higher attack is one of my suggested fixes…

[rigid bobcat]

Literally 1 scenerio vs 2 encounters
And that scenerio isn't even very common

[rigid bobcat]

Yea, but you're acting like as if longshot itself is the problem, and not the leader's stats

[wide kayak]

It’s a combination issue, which I specifically mentioned

[rigid bobcat]

"Buff or remove Longshot"

[pulsar quail]

The concept of long shot is technically OK, it’s just not what you want 90% of the time. All of your units are blazing down the front lines, but your leader is doing stuff randomly at the back? Just something I literally never choose

[tall wraith]

The problem is that the game sees longshot as too much of a positive buff, thus giving the heroes weaker stats. Longshot should not been seen as such, thus increasing the stats of the heroes gaining that status.

[rigid bobcat]

It's something that'd work better as a charm rather than a leader gimmick

[pulsar quail]

I think the post should be “buff or remove longshot from leaders”

[rigid bobcat]

Yea

That's what I've been trying to say

[wide kayak]

Buff or remove Longshot from leaders

[rigid bobcat]

Theres nothing wrong with longshot, it's just the longshot leaders that are terrible

[pulsar quail]

I would only ever consider using it if it were a charm, but even then it would need some bonus on top of longshot

[rigid bobcat]

I had suggeted before to make the yank charm also give longshot to units it's put on

[wide kayak]

Updated title

[tall wraith]

Now a low damage long shot hero with frost/snow or some other buff.....heck yeh, i'd give that a try.

[pulsar quail]

Longshot snow would be cool

At least that is always useful

I still just think almost any application even if it’s by choice of Longshot is trash lol

[wide kayak]

I’d rather have the Bigfoots have Longshot than Aimless

A true negative effect to rationalize their high stats

[pulsar quail]

But my super cool electromancer thread makes it useful lol

[rigid bobcat]

That'd be a great way to balance big foots

Cause their random targeting is just pain

[pulsar quail]

That’s a good idea actually

[hollow dew]

Longshot combined with Yank is cracked

[maiden river]

Maybe, unless the unit that WAS in front was nearly dead.
I haven't had any success with LS. The leader basically contributes nothing to fights, averaging 1 damage/tick to a unit that no other ally is attacking. Removing enemy units from the board as quickly and efficiently as possible is key and they inherently split your damage.

[gleaming hedge]

I'd like it as a charm

you could give it to units you build for oneshot builds like with sac deck + monch

since its gonna oneshot any enemy it starting back to front could be a benefit

[versed garnet]

agreed; longshot is fundamentally unsupported by the current game design on the players end as a generic trait, but if it's on a charm it could be a fun addition to certain play patterns

[random frigate]

I think another part of the issue with Longshot as opposed to regular attacking is that enemies flow in from the back. It's entirely possible (especially if only 1-2 of your characters have it, in the hypothetical where it's added as a charm) that after either building up damage with items or waiting for their timer so you can apply a status to a back row threat, just before it's about to pay off a new enemy joins the fray and undermines that investment.

Not that I don't think it's salvageable or that it can't have value. Just... not well supported/rewarded by the current state of the game, as I presently understand it.

[mint zinc]

I like the idea of some special properties to avoid teeth/smackback, i also like the idea of buffing longshot. Idk if they should be the same idea tho

[pulsar quail]

I almost just think longshot should be removed from the game lol

99% of the time it's useless on heroes and I can only think of like 1 enemy who even has it (the snow bird thing who snows with longshot)

[pulsar quail]

basically I agree with this, it doesn't really fit into the game mechanics that well

[azure marsh]

Longshot ignoring teeth and smackback is pretty cool to be honest. Also would be a two way street, since the few monster with longshot (that i wish there were more) sould also bipass it. Also I wish there were more player units/pets with longshot. It is a fun ability to be honest, and if buffed would to ignore smackback/teeth would be pretty amazing.

[west vapor]

One of the key issues with longshot is that like most tactics games it’s generally better to focus fire to remove units quickly, and longshot actively works against that (whilst giving a leader stat penalty as a cherry on top!). In a game where weaker units occur behind a line of tanks longshot makes sense, but that’s … not how enemies are arranged in this game?

[mint zinc]

Well...not always. I think the problem is that enemy position manipulation is mostly onl keyword in this game so it's pretty rare as a strategy wich makes longshot weak in the big picture

[digital river]

I got a yank longshot leader and that was good.

[rigid bobcat]

Longshot can be real good vs annoying backrow clunkers an similar enemies

[west vapor]

But my point is that enemy waves are rarely designed like that? Like an annoying enemy is just as likely to be in front or mid. And generally direct damage cards are far more capable of dealing with enemies out of formation because they don’t seem to have the stat penalties longshot does

[strong rock]

I think clunkmaster leaders can have natural yank with their longshot too

Unsure about other tribes

[spring juniper]

I personally like longshot since it give you more incentive to prioritise enemies to make best use of positioning, its a fun play style.

If I pick a longshot leader, then I usually end up picking more tanky or stalling companions/cards and use the leader to pick off enemies. However, a grabber is necessary to grab chump blockers off the back line, especially in the later stages.

[pulsar quail]

I found a longshot yank earlier which is hypothetically interesting but I still didn’t take it

I don’t want to be forced to move units ahead

I think Longshot is just trash lol

There’s also essentially zero builds that benefit from it which you can’t say for any other keyword or effect

Arguably aimless isn’t great but that is by nature a negative effect, you’re bad at aiming

The idea of tactically moving units is a generically solid idea for a game like this, but in practice the only movement you’d ever want is yank

[deft mountain]

longshot is so weird that there isn't a charm for it

[rigid bobcat]

It's something that should just be a charm, unless they make it so leaders with long shot have better stats than average, like it's a downside like aimless

[robust crystal]

I think that longshot leaders should have better stats, or at least better dmg/effects than regular ones and no Counter trade-off.

• Longshot doesn't synergize with the rest of your units since they mostly attack the front enemies first.
• Longshot+yank sorta sucks cause it requires a lot of attention if you don't want to screw the fight (pulling a high hp unit in front for example).

-> Imo, the stat tweaks with Longshot should rather be +20% dmg/effects for -20% Health.
-> While it is smart, I do not agree with Longshot not triggering on-hit effects. This might result in situations when the leader can stomp some foes without any trouble.

[rigid bobcat]

...you're reviving a dead thread just to restate things that have already been said multiple times