Garuda is a nice frame, but she really need some changes

[Genomega]

Garuda is easily becoming one of my favorite frames but while I really like her, I think she need some changes. After reading a few other posts on Garuda I come down to this sort of mini rework/tweaks to her. 

Passive - Damage buff lowered to 75% from 100%. Maximum damage buff now applies when she is at 50% HP or below.

Reasoning: Currently, Garuda passive is strongest when she is at only 2 HP. While reducing the damage buff to 75% hurts her damage output, having the damage fully kick in when she is 50% HP or below will allow her to still have a good damage output while allowing her to still have a good chunk of health.

Base Stats

Health at max rank increased from 300 to 450

Armor increased from 300 to 500

Shields removed

Reasoning: Combined with the bloodletting changes and blood altar pounce change, there isn’t really a reason to continue allowing Garuda to have shields, especially when those abilities and her passive revolve around health damage. Removing shields and buffing health and armor will increase her general survivability as enemies levels increase.
 

Dread Mirror

Now has a base damage, starting at 150 at rank 0 and capping at 500 damage at max rank

Percentage.

Percentage HP damage increased from 10% to 12.5%

Instant Kill indicator added to enemies health bars

Holding down the ability 1 hotkey still charges the blood orb, but when released the orb goes back to hovering Garuda. To release the orb you have to click the fire button used for weapons.

Reasoning: While having percentage HP damage is very good for late game scaling, casting Dread mirror on a infested maggot and having them only take 10% HP damage at level one is one of the most hilarious things I’ve seen. Adding a little damage on top of the percentage HP damage will help deal with lower level enemies. The orb charging mechanic change would help the ability not go to waste when playing in a squad with other people where a crowd of enemies you were charging a orb are wiped before you can fire the orb.

 

Blood Altar

Heal radius increased from 6 meters to 10 meters.

Altar limit increased from 3 to 5

During the pounce animation Garuda is invulnerable to damage

Reasoning: The current Heal radius is just too low and hurts the ability purpose overall. Increasing its range allows for it to serve as a better conduit for healing for allies and Garuda. Adding invulnerability to the pounce animation allows Garuda to have a reliable healing ability when low on HP.

 

Bloodletting

Garuda can no longer fall below 25% HP when casting

Casting Bloodletting grants Garuda 35% damage reduction for 20 s if she is above 50% HP, 50% damage reduction if she is below 50% HP.

Slight tweaks to the way energy is generated from the ability to remain relatively the same as it is now, as with the base health buff mentioned above, the energy generation could be overkill.

Reasoning: Allowing the damage cap to be 25% prevents a Garuda from accidentally getting themselves killed and adds further flexibility with her HP. Adding a stronger damage reduction for the lower Garuda HP is allows her to retain her high risk, reward playstyle while also complementing her survivability buff with shields being removed and Health and Armor being increased.

 

Seeking Talons

Tapping the 4th ability hotkey will now target the first 10 enemies in Garuda line of sight and mark them with Seeking talons.

Holding: Time to reach maximum charge reduced by 1.5 s, but total cost of the ability increased by 25 energy.

Ability cast animation slightly sped up.

Reasoning: While this ability has amazing scaling as it stands, it is still annoying to use. The charge mechanic is nice for targeting hordes of enemies, it still takes forever to charge the ability and the casting animation following it isn’t particularly the fastest. Reducing the time we need to fully charge the ability as well as speeding up the casting animation would greatly improve it. Also allowing us to be able to tap the ability key to release a mini seeking talon effect onto nearby enemies would improve the ability against smaller crowds.

Please leave any further suggestions below.

[MudShadow]

I would probably scrap her entire kit if I was a dev because none of it makes any sense. I mean she is definitely a functional frame if you equip the correct primary weapon and capitalize on the slash debuffs. But a part from her "4" all she seems to have are three abilities which revolve around building her EHP. her lunge attacks seem more suited to a brawler than a long range caster frame. But her "1" nuke and "4" and dread mirror definitely signify she is a caster.

I think if I was going to design Garuda I would give her a short range teleport instead of Blood Alter.

Keep her "4".

Remove the lunge on her dread mirror.

The ball of blood floating above her head should be used to increase the base damage of her "4".

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

1 hour ago, MudShadow said:

I would probably scrap her entire kit if I was a dev because none of it makes any sense. I mean she is definitely a functional frame if you equip the correct primary weapon and capitalize on the slash debuffs. But a part from her "4" all she seems to have are three abilities which revolve around building her EHP. her lunge attacks seem more suited to a brawler than a long range caster frame. But her "1" nuke and "4" and dread mirror definitely signify she is a caster.

I think if I was going to design Garuda I would give her a short range teleport instead of Blood Alter.

Keep her "4".

Remove the lunge on her dread mirror.

The ball of blood floating above her head should be used to increase the base damage of her "4".

I thought they were simply aiming to make a gory frame, not make her a brawler or a caster or something

Edited November 12, 2018 by (PS4)Ghost--00--

[Autongnosis]

il y a 10 minutes, (PS4)Ghost--00-- a dit :

I thought they were simply aiming to make a gory frame, not make her a brawler or a caster or something

If anything i think they succeeded at making her a brawling caster tbh. 

My main gripes with her come down to the near mandatory Natural Talent and her 3 being a very boring battery ability with no side effects. 

And, tbh, if i were to say sometjing about her kit i think my wish would be to have her marks sinergise with the rest of her kit a bit more. 

 

That said i do like the changes to her passive the OP proposed. 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Autongnosis

[Fallen_Echo]

Here are my base ideas on how to improve her as a whole:

Enforced synergy variant (every bonus is dependant on getting the mark, you must always use it):

Dread mirror: It takes 0.5 second to charge the projectile, it uses up 250 (or whatever number) of charge and both deals low damage while also marks the targets.

Blood altar: When used on a marked enemy it instantly restores 100 hp to every ally in range OR alternatively using it on a marked enemy could generate an energy orb every 5 second.

Bloodletting: Garuda loses 1% less hp for using this skill while there are marked enemies nearby. Marked enemies take 1% max hp damage if in range.

Seeking talons: Marked enemies take drastically increased damage and on death explode creating a field of corrupted blood what increases allied damage by 10% and decreases enemy damage by 10%.

Marked enemies take bonus slash damage equal to 25% of all weapon damage they suffer.

 

Optional synergy (the player can choose what effect they want to use and they dont necessearly lose out much if they ignore certain effects):

Dread mirror: It takes 0.5 second to charge the projectile, it uses up 250 (or whatever number) of charge and both deals low damage while also marks the targets. Marks increase damage dealt by garuda's skills by 50% and allies including the player get bonus slash damage equal to 5% of the total damage they dealt.

Blood altar: When hit by seeking talons enemies suspended release 4-12 bone shrapnels in random directions dealing half of the damage of the talons splitted up between each shrapnel.

Bloodletting: Can be cast on allies who get an energy bonus and their shots now mark enemies like dread mirror does. Can be charged up to affect more allies.

Seeking talons: Allies who are under the effect of bloodletting now release void talons from themselves seeking and attacking the closest enemy/blood altar.

[Holonomic88]

I think this is a great guideline for improving her abilities.  I would just add a few things.  Remove the lunge from her first ability all together.  The ability is obviously meant to be used for ranged/ semi ranged combat, so the melee part of the ability is out of pace.  I would also like to see her second ability changed altogether rather than simply buffed.  Garuda is a very mobile frame, so stationary healing breaks her combat flow, at least IMO.