Embolist should have punch through

[GrowthProfitGrofit]

The Embolist lost punch-through as an undocumented part of the beam reworks. I think it should be brought back.

Let's compare Ignis Wraith with Embolist, using the two highest rated builds:

Ignis Wraith - 34K burst damage, 30K sustained damage

Embolist - 35K burst damage, 20K sustained damage

It's pretty clear that the Embolist is not doing great compared to the Ignis Wraith based on that. And then you throw in the 9 meter range, no punch through and terrible magazine size. You can fix all of these with mods of course but then you'll be doing such terrible damage that you might as well not have bothered.

Even if you restore punch-through to the Embolist it will not be an overpowered weapon. It will just be a more comfortably usable weapon.

Edited November 6, 2018 by GrowthProfitGrofit

[GinKenshin]

1- that build is terrible and serves no comparison 

2- these are 2 very different weapons, believe it or not 

3- embolist is the best corpus killer out there due to its innate toxin. You can make a build that is both good on dmg and has a lot of utility. I’ve been using this against corpus for 3 years now and can safely say that 

 

  It’s pribably one my greatest weapons ever, mostly because it using a traditional build on it actually is worse than a specialized one, and that you need to see it from a different PoV. Having said these things, I can safely say that the embolist doesn’t need innate punchthrough and it’s one of the best secondaries out there.....though I’m not arguing against your point per say, I’m talking about your last sentence specifically and how you think it’s a bad weapon.......with that build, ofc it is :P 

[Thundervision]

Didn't they remove innate PT from the Ignis, too? Seems pretty intentional it would hit the Embolist as well.

Quote

Flame passes through all avatars damaging them but will now be stopped by level geometry and require Punch Through Mods to penetrate

 

[GrowthProfitGrofit]

12 minutes ago, Thundervision said:

Didn't they remove innate PT from the Ignis, too? Seems pretty intentional it would hit the Embolist as well.

 

Oh yeah I should have clarified, what I was referring to is the new Ignis style punchthrough - I don't mean general geometry punchthrough. The Ignis has infinite punch through against enemy bodies and zero punch through against geometry. It feels super weird to have it missing on the Embolist since it visually and stylistically feels extremely similar and yet the handling is completely off. Phantasma has the same punch through fyi.

[GrowthProfitGrofit]

1 hour ago, GinKenshin said:

1- that build is terrible and serves no comparison 

2- these are 2 very different weapons, believe it or not 

3- embolist is the best corpus killer out there due to its innate toxin. You can make a build that is both good on dmg and has a lot of utility. I’ve been using this against corpus for 3 years now and can safely say that 

 

  It’s pribably one my greatest weapons ever, mostly because it using a traditional build on it actually is worse than a specialized one, and that you need to see it from a different PoV. Having said these things, I can safely say that the embolist doesn’t need innate punchthrough and it’s one of the best secondaries out there.....though I’m not arguing against your point per say, I’m talking about your last sentence specifically and how you think it’s a bad weapon.......with that build, ofc it is 😛

1 - would be glad to see which build you use. I don't use either build actually, I threw together one with a lot more QoL and a riven... and it still feels awful to use, which brought me back here.

2 - they're both aoe beam weapons which both had punch-through prior to the beam rework. Phantasma is also similar feeling and also benefits from the Ignis style punch-through. I'm not trying to say that they're identical but they're close enough that it feels super weird that Embolist misses out.

3 - to be clear, the point of my comparison was less "this gun is underpowered" (though I do think that is true, you are free to disagree) and more "this gun would not be made overpowered by adding ignis-style punch through". It would still have less damage, tiny range and a tiny magazine. It would still be dealing less damage than a melee quick-attack that covers the same range. At least the melee gets infinite punch through vs enemies.

I edited the OP though to address your points more closely - I'm not trying to argue about the power of the Embolist so much as to argue that it feels super weird to dispense a cloud of gas which suddenly comes to an abrupt halt as soon as it touches enemies, and that adding Ignis-style punch through would not make it overpowered.

Edited November 6, 2018 by GrowthProfitGrofit

[GinKenshin]

41 minutes ago, GrowthProfitGrofit said:

1 - would be glad to see which build you use. I don't use either build actually, I threw together one with a lot more QoL and a riven... and it still feels awful to use, which brought me back here.

2 - they're both aoe beam weapons which both had punch-through prior to the beam rework. Phantasma is also similar feeling and also benefits from the Ignis style punch-through. I'm not trying to say that they're identical but they're close enough that it feels super weird that Embolist misses out.

3 - to be clear, the point of my comparison was less "this gun is underpowered" (though I do think that is true, you are free to disagree) and more "this gun would not be made overpowered by adding ignis-style punch through". It would still have less damage, tiny range and a tiny magazine. It would still be dealing less damage than a melee quick-attack that covers the same range. At least the melee gets infinite punch through vs enemies.

I edited the OP though to address your points more closely - I'm not trying to argue about the power of the Embolist so much as to argue that it feels super weird to dispense a cloud of gas which suddenly comes to an abrupt halt as soon as it touches enemies, and that adding Ignis-style punch through would not make it overpowered.

I do also have a riven, but the funny thing is it's probably one of the best rivens you can get for it, and I got it pretty cheap and unexpectedly too....almost a miracle XD 

Still, I know it can do just fine without it. my build is: 

x3 essential mods, range mod, syndicate mod, riven (dmg+toxin), scorch, infected clip 

With this, you get gas. it melts lvl150 techs in 20-ish rounds if you're aiming for the head. This is an up for the embolist compared to the ignis I feel. Since the embolist has shorter range, and needs you to get closer, it's easier to land headshots, especially with the corpus because it's easy to get headshots on them, especially crewmen 

Another thing worth compared that in shield sorties, the embolist gets the upperhand since it's innate toxin, and can melt enemies in seconds compared to the ignis

Even if it's weird, and I'm sure they had their reasons, I don't think it'll do anything more to the weapon than what it's already capable of. Sure it'll make it objectively better, but so is any other stat buff. Plus, I never felt the 'why does X have A when Y doesn't and they're similar' argument a good one
 

I guess we did end up disagreeing which is ok, but try out the build I mentioned and see what how the weapon feels then. Again, it's not meant to be used against everything, it's only good at a specific job, but it's probably the best at it 

NOTE: I don't know the stats of your riven, but I'd suggest you replace it with primed expel corpus. I haven't tested yet since I didn't buy it from baro, but I'm pretty sure it'll give you similar results to my dmg+toxin riven 

[GrowthProfitGrofit]

4 minutes ago, GinKenshin said:

x3 essential mods, range mod, syndicate mod, riven (dmg+toxin), scorch, infected clip 

With this, you get gas. it melts lvl150 techs in 20-ish rounds if you're aiming for the head. This is an up for the embolist compared to the ignis I feel. Since the embolist has shorter range, and needs you to get closer, it's easier to land headshots, especially with the corpus because it's easy to get headshots on them, especially crewmen 

Ah yeah that's actually extremely similar to my build for anti-Corpus, I didn't find it very impressive though since Ignis can also deal pure gas damage and has much higher damage in that config even with the riven involved. Headshots also benefit the Ignis much more than they do the Embolist because of the x4 multiplier on crit headshots and I don't really find much difficulty in lining up headshots with the Ignis.

You're right that Embolist is pretty strong in shield-only sorties, personally I generally just use a melee weapon for those since I have a nice +range +toxin +damage riven for my polearm zaw but yeah it's definitely a strong choice there. I absolutely wouldn't say it's useless, my comparison of the damage with the Ignis was more to establish that it's not some exceptional game-breaking super weapon which is only held back by punch through.

4 minutes ago, GinKenshin said:

Even if it's weird, and I'm sure they had their reasons, I don't think it'll do anything more to the weapon than what it's already capable of. Sure it'll make it objectively better, but so is any other stat buff. Plus, I never felt the 'why does X have A when Y doesn't and they're similar' argument a good one

Yeah you're right, I was talking about the Ignis both in terms of its damage and in terms of its practical effects and it's misleading. Specifically I was trying to say two separate things:

1 - It's weird that the Embolist doesn't have Ignis-style punch through when you consider that it did have that before and that it has very similar VFX and feel to the weapons which do have innate enemy punch through. Which makes it feel super strange and unexpected to fire your gas cloud AoE and have it suddenly vanish as soon as it contacts with an enemy.

2 - I do not think there is a gameplay balance reason for this to be the case, since it is definitely not an overwhelmingly powerful weapon which is only held back by its lack of punch through - in fact there are several weapons with similar or higher damage stats which do have innate punch through, for example the Ignis.

It was a mistake for me to list the Ignis for point 2 when I could have listed e.g. the Atomos, since it's thrown off some of the conversation on to a separate point which I never made - that the Ignis and the Embolist are 1:1 identical and the Embolist is just bad!Ignis.