Vauban Retool

[Hixlysss]

Sitting around, looking at what the latest frames offer vs older frames and I come to one frame in particular. Vauban. Vauban is very stationary, all his powers are stationary, which feels very limiting, it is very limiting actually. Plus there has been some complaints about his passive, it's okay but it could be better. So let's see about fixing that.

First off, what is Vauban? Originally his theme was described as the Engineer frame. Other people say  Trap frame because of how he works currently, So I'll have 2 different 'versions' here for each way it goes.

First one, Engineer frame because he is named after a military engineer. So, his passive, let's start off with a great engineer kinda passive and give him a Support Sentinel, have it mostly provide healing, shields, ammo, think the TF2 Engineer dispenser but mobile, maybe give it a gun.

Next up, abilities. Remove bounce, replace with Tesla, new power slot is opened up, and replace the 'mines' with 'latchers' like the grineer seekers or even rattels, basically make the mines into things that will roll after the nearest enemy and explode on them rather than being the stationary mines they currently are, adding to vauban's mobility. 
Bastille and Vortex are basically the same power, so one of the two needs to be removed or they should be combined into the same power. Second power slot opened up.

So, new powers, well the new "Seeker Grenade" power I proposed can be a power one, so power 2 could be tied to his passive sentinel, like Khora with Venari, switch the sentinel between it's states and have it target enemies. Combining Bastille and Vortex would free up a slot which I would give him a new ultimate, an idea i've seen pop up a few times and that is...Deployable turret. Duration based auto turret, it will fire at enemies in LOS of it, or it could piggy back off the 'mark target' of power 2 and focus on enemies, or Vauban could hop into the turret himself and then it becomes Channeled, draining energy for a boost of damage, fire rate, ect, and possibly providing a boost to allies as well?

 

But that's his "Engineer" tool kit, so because people view him as a trapper due to his current set up so let's focus on that.

Trapper Passive, what he currently has is good for this, but maybe tweak it around and basically have him have condition overload, having him do 25% more damage per status/cc effect affecting the target. And/Or have it increase stun duration of status effects.

Now for the powers, remove bounce and combine tesla into Mine layer again and buff the range/duration a little bit. Tweak the Tesla mine to be an Electrical Ensnare, have it latch on to one to three enemies(More enemies, less duration), and stun lock them for the duration. Trip laser should give a cold or slash proc or have a chance to disarm. Shred and Concuss are fine, just bump up their range and duration a little bit. So now he has a new power opened up, and as everyone knows...trappers need Bait, so his new power 1 would be "Bait Beacon", throw it down and it will for X duration distract/pull aggro of enemies in range/los, this way you can lay mines around it and lure enemies right into them.

So now Bastille and Vortex, I have a bit more specific ideas for these two, I'd rather focus on removing vortex and keeping Bastille, but enemies ensnared in bastille get a boost to status effects dealt to them, I.E. Slash does more damage or lasts longer, Corrosive strips more, ect. Also, certain traps, Ensnare/Tesla, Trip laser, Concuss, should not trigger on Bastille enemies.

So now, removal of vortex for bastille, let's make Bastille his new ultimate, with that comes the buff to duration and range yeah? Now he has a slot for a new power 3, Camouflage, a cloak without being a cloak, a channeled/duration power that makes vauban blend in with the background, making him 'invisible' to enemies so long he stays still, but while moving he gets +% evasion.

 

And...that's pretty much it. What do you all think?

[Fil089]

Great ideas, but i think they modify him a little too much.

Vauban was name after a military engineer, so I see him as more of a tactician frame than a purely trapper. His abilities should revolve more around area denial / crowd control than damage. I have some sugestions but they mainly focus on changing Tesla and Minelayer, but I agree that Bastille and Vortex are redundant.

I think I'll make a post explaining better what I have in mind for Vauban, but what you showed here is very interesting already.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Fil089

[Aetrion]

Any suggestion that removes Vortex would turn this from my favorite frame into one I never use, so no thanks. Vortex is the superior CC for builds that run weapons with high pierce or AoE, like Vortex Opticor, and while I'm perfectly fine with changing it up a bit so it isn't so similar to Bastille, removing it just because some people don't use it would be stupid. I wouldn't ask for them to remove Bastille either just because I don't use that, because obviously other people do.

What should be changed is Tesla and Minelayer which cannot really be relied on to make any build work. 

[Solarsyphon]

All of his abilities could use a buff. The grenade mechanic is over used encouraging ability spam and making his kit feel disposable it hurts of his abilities. In my opinion only mine layer should use the grenade mechanic and his 3 and 4 definitely shouldn't. If his 1 is going to use it the charge mechanic is important to making it feel important but it also needs to be more visual. That will be true even if they changed his 1 to say the shred grenade or a bazooka. 

On 2018-10-24 at 6:04 AM, Hixlysss said:

So now, removal of vortex for bastille, let's make Bastille his new ultimate.

1 hour ago, Aetrion said:

Any suggestion that removes Vortex would turn this from my favorite frame into one I never use, so no thanks. 

Don't remove vortex. I'd much rather see Bastille go. In my opinion Bastille is one of his most boring abilities to use and kills Vaubans game play. Often he is  forced to just run in circles dropping these things with the only effect being reminiscent of turning ai off in simulacrum . I know people rely on this ability allot  so you probably can't remove it so maybe just swap positions with vortex, give it a buff and change how it works so it's used less. 

On 2018-10-24 at 6:04 AM, Hixlysss said:

Next up, abilities. Remove bounce, 

I like bounce. I think people just hate it because it effects players and they've been trolled by it in the past. It has allot more character than generic mines and if it was reworked into an offensive tool by triggering more often and not effecting players it would probably be the best one in mine layer. You could completely block corridors and consoles with it for hilarious effects. If they really want to help player jumping with it, it would work similar to Titania's passive giving a buff.

If any mine layers should go it would be concuss, you barely notice its effect in game play. Rad procs are already extremely common and it has no visual or practical character. When you throw this thing out in a match you'll have to look around a check that it actually did something because all you will see is a slight blurriness to enemies and slightly changed ai. 

[Aetrion]

Bounce isn't actually useful ever since you can bullet jump and glide though. I get that it's fun but it doesn't make sense to lock down an entire ability to some legacy toy that nobody actually uses in earnest.