Make shamblers suck less

[Berrik]

Currently a shambler is hideously vulnerable to even two people-- it's slower than the normal changeling and it's super easy for all sorts of people to stay out of it's reach and pelt it with chemicals, lasers, et cetera.

For something that's supposed to be a tank this thing sucks ass.

[Frank_Stein]

I think there's two ways to handle this. One would be to make the Shambler take and dish out more damage. The other would be to make the Shambler much quicker and heal faster.

[Sundance]

Naw. Shambler's speed is fine and they regenerate quick as shit. Once you're close to an abomination you're pretty screwed. The problem with this is Screech is could do with a small buff. Slowing down people and dropping their shit isn't helpful enough. What would be more helpful is there was a % that others would be dazed (as in there movement is fucked) for a very short while.
Like if you imagine a situation of a ling in a hallway and it's chasing 4 people who are armed and fleeing. If it was a 40-50% of it dazing people, in this situation 2 people, then it would force closer combat and make things alot more interesting

[Ebumwell]

Screech could use the aforementioned buff imo.

Also it'd be pretty radical if the punching/attacks had a chance to impale dudes and remove organs/cause bleeding damage instead of throwing them 4238423823 tiles.

[Berrik]

I started a fight in medbay as a shambler. I spat and stung in every direction and even tried to disarm, but I got set on fire, splashed with all sorts of horrible chems (including mutagen) and slowly got dragged to the reclaimer despite anything I could do to anyone. Not being able to eat people because of hats didn't help any.

One really obnoxious thing is that the shambler's special disarm (ripping a limb off) doesn't hit real often.

[Sundance]

Not being able to eat people because of hats didn't help any.

Uh-oh is this that same bug, I thought that was fixed. What should happen is that aggressive grab should be enough to eat them whole. You don't need a neck grab. The wiki kinda contradicts itself in that regard:

It can voraciously devour crew members with only an aggressive grab (just click on yourself with the grab)

and

The abomination quickly eats whoever they have grabbed whole, absorbing their DNA. Requires a neck grab.

Unless i'm mistaken, aggressive grab is stage 2, neck grab is stage 3 and choking 4.
Hat's block stage 3, when in reality it should only be stage 2 to devour in changeling. At least it USED to be that way. Unless i'm an abominable fool.

[Berrik]

Hats block stage 2 period. Shamblers have to grab people by their hands first.

[Berrik]

On another note shamblers should be immune to getting shitty mutations (and good ones I guess). They already don't pick them up from people they eat.

[hipBEE]

let aboms wear shoes

[UrsulaMejor]

Not being able to eat people because of hats didn't help any.

Uh-oh is this that same bug, I thought that was fixed. What should happen is that aggressive grab should be enough to eat them whole. You don't need a neck grab. The wiki kinda contradicts itself in that regard:

It can voraciously devour crew members with only an aggressive grab (just click on yourself with the grab)

and

The abomination quickly eats whoever they have grabbed whole, absorbing their DNA. Requires a neck grab.

Unless i'm mistaken, aggressive grab is stage 2, neck grab is stage 3 and choking 4.
Hat's block stage 3, when in reality it should only be stage 2 to devour in changeling. At least it USED to be that way. Unless i'm an abominable fool.

you need a KILL grab to devour someone now

[Xeram]

Bad bad things about the shamblers accursed screeching

Please no. Can we just not talk about the screech and think of something completely different to make the shambler more useful? Because that damn screech is impossible to balance. Before, it was the most nightmarish thing ever because it just flat out stunned everyone onscreen and it's cooldown was shorter than the stun, leading to a massive murderfest once the ling could go abom. Then the first nerf that gave people the daze effect with a chance of stun was nightmarish because the daze effect would just never go away ever if it got applied twice. Which it would, because the cooldown was short as hell, and would make things harder for everyone involved, especially if the dazed guy had a gun. Now he could just hold one key to run the fuck all around everywhere while shooting and the ling will never be able to click anyone ever. There's just no balancing the damn thing.

tl;dr - Shambler screech is not the key to making it suck less, needs something else entirely to make it useful in any practical way.

[Paineframe]

The problem with shambler is that usually you end up popping it in a public place when you're outnumbered, and people come running from all over to join in the fight when an abomination gets called out. No matter how buff the shambling abomination is, new fighters are going to show up faster than you can kill them, and since you're way too slow and obvious to run away and reverting back to normal stuns you, you have no opportunity to exit the fight. You've got basically no choice but to stand and fight all comers until literally everyone who could possibly want to fight a shambler is dead, and "making shamblers powerful enough to fight the entire station and win" isn't a realistic balance goal.

[Frank_Stein]

The problem with shambler is that usually you end up popping it in a public place when you're outnumbered, and people come running from all over to join in the fight when an abomination gets called out. No matter how buff the shambling abomination is, new fighters are going to show up faster than you can kill them, and since you're way too slow and obvious to run away and reverting back to normal stuns you, you have no opportunity to exit the fight. You've got basically no choice but to stand and fight all comers until literally everyone who could possibly want to fight a shambler is dead, and "making shamblers powerful enough to fight the entire station and win" isn't a realistic balance goal.

I think Shambler should be taken in a new direction. It should be used in situations in which the Changeling has been discovered, and needs to fight and flee. Less of a tank, and more of a wounded tiger.

[atomic1fire]

Maybe give shambler a shed mutant power or something.

"A chunk of flesh has fallen off the shambler, it's alive!

Wizard has golems, and skeletons. Vampire has bats. Things that by themselves could be killed by the crew, but serve an all important goal of "Here, hit this thing instead"

Why not give the shambler a hostile mob diversion, something that will attack and more importantly distract people while it makes a clean getaway or continues eating. Make give the power a cooldown so that he can't just spawn mutants everywhere, and make them kinda sorta weak enough that it's not like geese or bats.

[Marquesas]

No. Shamblers really don't need a buff.

That being said I'll fix devour when I get the time.