Random Schmucks Thoughts on Garuda

[Knight_of_the_Fall]

There's a lot of these right now so I thought I'd go ahead and throw out my own 2 cents.

Garuda is fun as hell, honestly she's now my favorite frame. She's strong and has a ton of potential. However, she is clunky. I saw several people point out how she's rather slow for a damage frame when it comes to using her abilities, especially considering in order for her to ramp up she needs to get into the thick of the fight and even with her frontal shield and 300 armor she's still very squishy.

Her 1 is slow to activate, where she kinda just hangs in the air for a second, and she has a second of animation tearing the enemy she hit. She's still vulnerable during this time too, which is REALLY BAD considering she's likely right next to a bunch of enemies the guy she just ripped and tore a new one is buddy buddy with. Her 2 is fine in my opinion, my only issue with her 3 is that its too easy to use accidentally, and her 4 is amazing but slow to activate.

Heres changes I would make to her abilities:

1: 2 big points on this one. First, I'd make it faster for reasons previously stated. I'd change the lunge to be like her rushing her target with her 2 rather than the awkward hovering she does, and the animation of her ripping and tearing to a sort of quick slash instead. Second, and this isnt an original idea, I'd change her frontal shield into a global damage reduction that converts the damage it mitigates into damage for the blood orb. I don't know exactly how it would work for balancing purposes; Scale off her power strength, how much damage/enemy health she's absorbed, both, needs to use her 1 multiple times to get max reduction, I dont know. I'm not saying make her Rhino, its just that in situations where you really need defense, a shield facing one direction isn't enough for a squishy frame that needs to be in the enemies face to be effective. Damage reduction would fit the bill and still give the sense that Garuda is vulnerable since she can still take damage, especially when making the decision of removing said damage reduction for a solid Spirit Bomb. It would still have the timer as well as disappear if she throws out the blood sphere. Speaking of, make the ability more responsive to charging the explosion attack. I get that the game needs to register that you're holding the button down rather than just quickly pressing it, but it feels to me like it takes the game a bit longer to register what I'm trying to do when attempting to charge the gore ball than it does for other charging frame abilities. That might just be me and a keyboard issue though.

Small point, not a big thing, but if Garuda has her claws equipped as melee weapons, using her lunge on an enemy would also cause a melee attack as part of the ability. Maybe do some additional damage too, maybe get rid of the 35% health execute to balance it out (though that can be nice in certain situations, feel free to counterpoint). The ingrained melee attack would also count towards the combo counter and things like Growing Power. Basically if Garuda has her claws equipped, her lunge would also count as an empowered melee attack.

2: I like her 2, no real changes here.

3: Only change I would make is that you have to hold down the button for half a second rather than it being on a hair trigger. The number of times I've accidentally killed myself from fat fingering is not something I'm proud of.

4: Again, make it faster to use. The traveling time of the talons is fine, but the area the ability covers for how long it takes to cover it feels wrong. Garuda is a frame that wants to dance, to leap across the battlefield tearing people apart and making it a gruesome masterpiece. Having to walk slowly (comparatively) for five seconds charging an ability that only hits those in front of you, especially on maps that get extremely saturated with enemies, cuts down on that feeling and makes her less powerful than she should be. I can live with the charge, but make it faster to activate and use. Maybe the initial size of the circle, as well as how quickly it grows is based on power range. Also, like with charging her 1, make Garuda's 4 more responsive to the button press, as well as act faster to someone just quickly tapping it.

So that's my opinion of Garuda so far. I've taken quite the liking to her as you can probably tell, so I really want to see her shine. Hopefully this is close to the way to do that, but if not feel free to call me out.

Also: While not a change to base Garuda, Release a mod for Garuda that applies her mark to enemies she's hit with her lunge. Pretty Please

Edited November 16, 2018 by SeraiSol