Idea Dwarf Rework

I'm really good with original thread names.

The Problem
For the last few years Dwarf has been the subject of significant criticism. It is too powerful in one specific area (the flagroom) because of its incredible potential to snowball and bulky nature. However, outside of this area it is next to useless. Slowness II makes it a sitting duck for multiple classes (archer, mage and elf), weaker at pvp and unable to carry the flag effectively. Due to it's OP nature in the flagroom Dwarf is also banned in competitive matches, a less important but still noticeable problem. These issues mean Dwarf requires a rework.

The good news is, unlike Necro, the class has a sense of direction. It is able to play a defensive role in the flagroom well. The bad news is significant changes need to be made to the class due to the way it is designed, as retaining certain effects (like slowness II) would still cripple the class in certain roles.

Aims
- Retain the role dwarf plays (flagroom defense), whilst giving it a new role in stalemate carrier
- Make dwarf usable in other roles, such as offensive support (ie remove Slowness II)
- Make Dwarf more interesting to play > right now it sits in the flagroom waiting for the enemies to come to it!
- Keep the class simple and easy to play for new players
- Provide a solid counter to a class currently without one - mage
- Rework the class in a way to make it fair and useful in competitive matches

Dwarf Rework
Armour

- Chain Helmet
- Diamond Chestplate
- Diamond Leggings
- Chain boots

Armour essentially remains unchanged from the current Dwarf, retaining bulk. 17 Armour points

Items

- Stone Axe [+4.5 attack damage. 5.5 Attack damage total] IRON Axe [+5.5 damage. 6.5 damage total]
- 3 Steak [Again, the same as old Dwarf to Retain bulk]
- Compass
- Class Selector

Abilities
- Passive Resistance I > reduces incoming damage by 20%. Essentially increases resistance to the equivalent of 20 Armour points. However, as it is a status effect, damage reduction is proportional, rather than protection decreasing with higher damage attacks like regular armour. This means Ninjas will do less damage to a dwarf than a heavy, whilst an archer sword will do slightly more
- Sturdy Part 1 (Passive) > Dwarf takes reduced knockback from melee attacks [Unable to give a specific figure as I don't have the knockback data to fully balance. Testing will be needed] and NO knockback from projectiles. This includes mages lightning spell. All damage effects are as normal [EDIT: This should be around 90% melee knockback]
- Sturdy Part 2 (Passive) > assassinations will deal 6 8 hearts true damage rather than instakilling dwarf for the first hit, and revert to regular hits afterwards.
- Dwarven might (Active) > Click your stone axe to active this ability. For the next 4 seconds, your attacks deal double damage and your Axe gains Knockback II (your stone axe becomes enchanted whilst active). Immediately following this, you gain Slowness II and Weakness V for 5-7 4 seconds (-40% speed, -2.5 damage). There is a cooldown associated with this, equivalent to redstone regeneration (this begins during the time you are weak and slow).

With this rework, Dwarf essentially becomes a brick wall. Other classes sacrifice bulk for damage output. With this class it is the opposite. You sacrifice damage output for your abilities and retain your bulk. Instakills and true damage severely hurt this class, going through resistance. Swarming this class is also more effective than others, as reduced knockback means you can deal more hits before it is knocked out of range. This makes it less useful for offence, but can still be played. This class is much more useful with defensive support as it can brickwall enemies coming into the flagroom, slowing them down or knocking them away entirely with dwarven might. It can also be used as a stalemate carrier as ninjas will find it hard to recover and assassins cannot instakill. No projectile knockback makes it hard for mages to deal with without making it impossible. This also has a nice side effect of being immune to bowspam (so those of you who are interested in killing a bowspamming archer, I've got you covered!). Weaknesses are it cannot deal much damage per hit, and so takes a while to kill other players. Additionally, critting out a pyro is much more difficult whilst pyro can still deal true damage to the dwarf. The class should be simple to use as it plays similar to heavy with 1 right click effect in dwarven fury.

Possible Tweaks/Fixes:
- Not enough damage? Stone Axe > Iron?
- What % of melee knockback should it take?
- Is dwarven fury strong enough for its drawbacks?
- Up damage output of assassin assassinate? [Thanks @Paddy__M ]
- Dwarven Fury cooldown too long? [Thanks @Paddy__M ]

 

... You can do that before the rework (seriously, just pure element a dwarf, it's basically impossible to miss without outside interference)

Very simple, this is a completely new rework. Everything that applies to the class can be seen in the rework. With that in mind:
1. Yes
2. Yes (though it does for some time after using dwarven might)
3. Yes

I call it a flagroom class for a few very good reasons:
1. Even though it is bulky, it has limited capacity to deal damage, meaning it will take a lot of damage in return
2. Anti-knockback works against it when playing offensive roles. This is because more players tend to play defensive (casual and competitive alike). When this happens, if a dwarf is swarmed, they can get many more hits off before you're knocked out of range, making it more easy to kill the dwarf. Moreover, unlike heavy, dwarf does not do enough damage to crit out other classes easily, especially pyro which would walk all over it. Additionally, other offensive classes can block assassin, which this one can't (taking severe damage in the process. Just because it can't instakill does not mean 6 hearts true damage doesn't hurt). Finally, unlike offensive classes, Dwarf does not have any mobility benefits. Medics have webs, soldiers have wall-climb, elves have wind element, chemist has speed and jump boost. You could argue heavy is an offensive class and that it has the same mobility, but heavy has a different benefit in that you can deal significant damage.
3. This class is designed so you can play it defensive but it can also play other roles. It's not as good for offence but you can use it for offence. The point of this rework wasn't to make it good at that role, it was to make it usable in that role. Archer is usable as a carrier but I bet you that you wouldn't use it for that role all the time, same thing applies here. Old Dwarf made it basically impossible to do anything outside flagroom defence. This changes that

Also people seem to really like sturdy part 1 and it's not as OP as you'd think. The ranged effects:
Archer > Bowspam is negated, but you can still be dealt damage and headshot
Pyro > Bow doesn't knock you back, but you still take all the damage (including fire)
Ninja > Eggs might not knock you back lightly, but they do still slow you and limit sprint so little change at all
Mage > Spells still deal damage without the knockback. Lightning would cause serious damage, whilst you could also freeze a dwarf
Chemist > I wouldn't even call this much range really but they still do damage
Medic > Webs still trap the dwarf so the knockback means little to nothing...
Engineer > it comes from a turret, so you'd be able to knock it out more easily.
The major benefits are against archer and mage. The rest change relatively little.

^this basically (eggspam not so much, but the other two). It should be mentioned that I think mage is relatively balanced, just could use a solid counter. This rework provides it

That is the point, yes. This is meant to counter mage as I said in the first post. It's not meant to completely shut it down (which this doesn't, its damage is still pretty low) but to solidly counter it.

I don't know why since fundamentally they are not the same thing. Heavy does significantly more damage...

See above

I can't test it because I don't have the tools to do so (this will have to be left up to the mods to do if they want to use parts of this rework). I could see it being a problem, but I don't think it's OP in its current form

That does significantly less damage and still takes knockback on melee attacks (albeit a bit less than normal).

 

Removing slowness 2 automatically makes it harder for elf to kill as dwarf would no longer be a sitting duck for pure element

but you also failed to mention that
Dwarf: 5.5 damage
Heavy: 8 Damage
That's a big difference in damage output, enough to change out the class dynamic works even if the playstyle is similar.

It's better to play it in the flagroom already due to how the class works. Players are more likely to get round if they are mobile as dwarf cannot wall-climb etc. Having an enclosed area like a flagroom already benefits the dwarf. I don't see why it would need additional benefits. Even if it did, I've already given dwarf resistance 1, resistance 2 would be too much.

 

You have no slowness where you did have before. It is still significantly better, equivalent mobility to a heavy.

not 7, +7. You have a punch that deals 1 damage. A diamond sword increases it by 7 to 8 damage overall. Stone axes have +4.5 attack damage (axes in 1.8 etc. are always 1/2 damage less than a sword of the same material)

Although they share the same role, the playstyle is completely different. You have mobility where you didn't before. With the old dwarf you had to wait for an enemy to come to you, which could be boring and time consuming (I personally don't find spending 6 minutes crouching for 1 enemy to come in and insta-die fun, but whatever works for you).

Was planning to up the damage of assassinate, but I don't want it to instakill.

So basically you want to turn it into old dwarf?

 

Any class can just run back after it dies! Why don't we just make everything instakill? In all seriousness though, the reason it's there is because I didn't want dwarf to be weak to assassin, but I wanted it to use axes. I couldn't let the assassin instakill a dwarf in those circumstances, but equally I couldn't let the dwarf get away. 6 hearts was a compromise. That can be upped/downed depending on the situation.
Any form of slowness cripples a class.

 

Dwarves are sturdy endurance-based mythical creatures. It only makes sense that they'd be able to take more punishment than other classes.

 

I don't think literally putting that in the description is necessary. I specifically state that my rework is to make it bulky and these abilities do that

 

It doesn't take a genius to work out why a dwarf is sturdy. Have you seen a dwarf?

EDITS:
- Melee knockback should be around 90% (so only slightly less than usual)
- Stone axe has been replaced with Iron
- Assassins now deal 8 hearts true damage (makes it easier to take down).