If rapid attack counts armour in then it's trash, If it bypasses armour then it's too good. Maybe make it factor 1 less defence, I don't know.
you forgot Con: Tank beefy champion is hindered by your own units It's why I wish range 1-2 was the default "melee" for 2x2 champs
I think its those sort of things that make it a unique attack type, not just a better one. Plus it sounds like it's activated, not just on hit. So you probably won't do it 100% of the time.
Quick comparative: RA on a champion with 10 dmg vs a champion with 1 def. A regular attack would deal 9 dmg. RA would deal: At rank 1, that is 30%: A) If it does not ignore DEF: 3 (dmg) - 1 (def ) ×3 = 6 dmg. B) If it does ignore DEF: 3×3 = 9 dmg. At rank 3, that is 50%: C) If it does not ignore DEF: 5 (dmg) - 1 (def ) ×3 = 12 dmg. D) If it does ignore DEF: 5×3= 15 dmg. For starters, if the player actually employs it to remove block or dodge, they would effectively loss one of those attacks, so in the situation A the net damage would be 4dmg, which is almost negligible. In the best scenario, D, the net damage would be 10, so basically there is almost no difference from a regular attack. I suppose many jump right now and tell "but you just removed block!", which seems like a good deal. However, there are two things that bug me. At one hand, once RA catches on the meta, most players would adjust to target block/dodge to another champion without RA, which is something that happen quite often nowadays, that is, select the biggest menace and ignore champions that may be there just to poke and remove this kind of abilities. And at the other hand, the scenario D is the absolute best situation. However, I do not think the devs will spread rank 3 everywhere, and I doubt they would made it bypass DEF. I think a situation E would be more common; rank 2, does not bypass DEF, so it would be 3 dmg per attack for 9 net damage, IF all 3 attacks goes through. I have to ask: what was wrong with determined? "If this champion fails its basic attack, it attacks again for free against the same target". Both RA and determined seems to be roughly on the same level, and is not like determined is a meta tier ability anyway.
Regarding the damage, I always tend to consider the numbers to be mutable, but it's a good discussion to have either way so the numbers are correct. For some reason, I missed the line where it says 3 ranks and misread the ability as doing 30%, then 40%, then 50%, for a total of 120%. I'd argue that the ability doesn't really need ranks and should just be 40 or 50% the whole way, since you are paying 1 AP extra and subject to multiple defensive triggers. That's a really great point regarding Determined being a suitable counter in most cases. Currently, RA is not worded to be a basic attack, so it wouldn't trigger many abilities, but it could be more interesting if it was a basic attack so it does apply debuffs like Sunder. That gives it a purpose outside of triggering things like Block/Dodge.
I would keep only rank 3, because ranks of abilities should be removed now, considering that each ability has to be more impactful given that champions will have less of them, In fact, I hoped that most ranks of abilities would have been removed with phase 3 of the revamp, I guess it was a wasted chance. About the determined/RA situation, I think that RA is more interesting from a synergy stand point, where you can add things like mark/flanking/soften/sunder (fixed damage increasements) to get lots of damage.
Huge loop hole using rapid attack would be train strike or a champion with sunder idk if the devs thought about that or not yet but thats a crap load of damage with train strike for one ability.
By the wording, it should proc defense, like all normal attacks do. Good thing too, because throw that on a champ with sunder and it is awesome even if it did 1 damage.
I don't see how that stuff qualifies as a "huge loophole." Whether it procs Sunder will depend on if it is classified as a basic attack (currently isn't based on description).
Even at rank 3 it counts as just +50% damage when strike is counted. That's a minor damage boost (pummel is 100%, power is 6-9) for an ability at +1 AP.
And -6 DEF with sunder. Thats a giant hole in DEF, and if any swarm-ish BG would get that combo it would be good night. Soo hopefully its not a basic attack.
I thought it may or may not be depending on which direction they take it. The only woe I truly have with the ability in general is against the detriment for the viability of safeguard champs and safeguard-like mechanics.
I think this is an over-reaction. I hope it is a basic attack so that those combos are possible. It's not like it's easy to get Sunder on a specific champion. Pummel and such are basic attacks that deals FULL damage and no one says anything about the potential of Sunder on them.
I ran my Packleaders with Sunder+Pummel for a while there. 2x Sunder + 2x Dogpile, that basically boils down to -6 DEF because of the additional 2 damage from Dogpile, provided you have another Hyaenid ready to target the victim. It's pretty much a guaranteed kill if you can get it off.
