How to make Kubrow more relevant.

[Bristoling]

Kubrows currently lack damage, durability and utility when compared to Kavats or Sentinels. They are also unbalanced in their own niche. I'd like to discuss each of the points separately, and offer potential solutions, or at the very least, spark up a discussion and bring this matter to DE's attention.

 

Damage:

While it is true that they have better dps than Kavats, they are both far behind Sentinels when it comes to dishing out the damage. In theory, you could equip Maul, Hunter Synergy, Magus Overdrive, Bite and maybe new 60/60 mods to outperform Sweeper Prime or Deconstructor, but in reality your Kubrow will sacrifice either all of its utility or all of its defenses. There simply isn't enough room to have necessary mods like Fetch, Link Health, Link Armor, (Primed) Animal Instinct, 1-2 breed specific mods, Pack Leader/Medi-Pet Kit as well as damage mods. Not to mention, almost nobody uses the new 60/60 mods because 1: there is no room for them, 2: pets have such low base status chance that equipping them is pointless.

Having 3x 60/60 mods on your Kubrow will increase its status chance from 5% to... 14%. The status% also doesn't stack with extra status chance from Mecha Overdrive.

How to fix it:

- Increase Kubrow base status chance to 10%.

- Change dual stat mods from 60% elemental damage / 60% status (60/60) to 60% damage / 180% status (60/180). 

Having unusually large bonuses for companion mods isn't unreasonable and is not new, as evidenced by Bite mod increasing CC and CD by 330%/220%. This would allow a Kubrow with 2 such mods to reach 46% status chance if base status was increased to 10%. I believe this is a better solution than simply increasing base status to for example 20-25%, since it would allow better progression for the players (dual stat beast mods are difficult to farm for the new players, so it would prevent Kubrows from being OP early).

- Give beast companions their own moddable "weapon". 

- Add 90% pure elemental damage mods for beasts.

- Add beast-only attack speed mod.

This would allow our pets more flexibility with their loadouts, allowing some people to finally be able to fit Maul or that rare Bite on their cat/dog.

 

Durability:

While they have rather impressive defensive stats unmodded, with Link-X type mods this advantage over Kavats is somewhat lost. Both cats and dogs are more durable than sentinels, however, Kubrows are at a disadvantage when compared to Kavats, which have access to Tek Assault (can save from death and give temporary immunity) and their specific damage avoidance precepts, Reflect and Mischief. One could also argue, that a Sentinel without its attack precept is tankier, since they aren't targeted by the enemies.

- Increase base armor of Kubrows to 250. 

Currently, base armor of a Kubrow is 50, with hidden multiplier increasing it to 150. This is best seen with 100% Metal Fiber, which increases the armour value from 150 to 200. Increasing base armor value and getting rid of this hidden multiplier would dramatically increase Kubrow survivability, and possibly allow less tanky frames to bring along a Kubrow that can reach 525 armor with rank 10 Metal Fiber. For those who say 525 is a lot, no it isn't, and ranking up the mod is expensive - having it provide only 50 armor is insulting.

 

Utility/Breeds:

Kavats for example gain access to: Pounce (stun), Sharpened Claws (armor strip), Swipe (effectively multishot). Their special precepts like Charm or Cat's Eye are both useful and powerful.

While some Sentinels could also use a rework, there are some very powerful/useful options. Helios + Investigator is invaluable whenever new content drops or you're looking for Codex entries. Carrier + Ammo Case is the only sane option to run some less ammo efficient weapons for longer then 10 minutes. Wyrm + Negate has some niche uses. Djin + Reawaken/Thumper is the go to for long Arbitrations or endurance runs in general. Dethcube + Energy Generator is yet another great combo.

Kubrows, as a whole, are pretty underwhelming.

Raksa:

It's supposed to paralyze its enemies with its howl, but in practice nobody likes them. They are a massive annoyance in modes like Survivals and especially in Defense missions, because having enemies run away from you is not a great thing in a game where killing enemies is the goal. Unless you are playing a nuke frame, having a Raksa on a Defense mission can double or triple the time it takes to clear each wave. Their shield generators are laughable at best, especially because of the poor state of the shields.

- Instead of running away, Howl should only slow down enemies. Reduce range from 24m at max level to 20m, reduce duration from 16s to 7s, but also reduce the cooldown from whooping 60s to 15s. This will stop Raksas being as annoying in those game modes, but make them better overall at crowd controlling enemies.

- Change Protect precept from flat ~300 Shield restoration, to restoring of up to 100% of maximum shields to both player and the Kubrow on a 8s cooldown at max rank. If player/Kubrow has full shields, it provides 300 overshields. This can be useful on any frame that either relies more on shields (Hildryn), or can make shields better thanks to damage reduction abilities inherent to the frame (Gara, Mesa etc.).

Chesa:

Chesa was pretty bad before the rework, and after changing how the looting abilities stack, it is bad after the rework. 

- Neutralize should have a 5m radius at max rank, disarming multiple enemies. This would greatly enhance defensive ability.

- Reduce cooldown of Retrieve to 7s at max rank, down from 10s. If a successful roll from body/container is credits, add half the amount of Endo to the drop. Reducing cooldown would make Chesa more reliable, as looting a single corpse/container is not as useful, especially since we are killing dozens of enemies in 5s period. Having Chesa loot extra Endo for the player would certainly make it more attractive.

Sunika:

Arguably has the weirdest, most game-mode specific precept out there. Sunika is supposed to be ferocious, but unless you play Capture missions, you won't really see it.

- Instead of working only on Capture targets, Unleashed should instead be what Savagery is. It should allow dealing finisher damage, and target most dangerous units, based on similar order picking as Nekros's Shadows for simplicity. It would mean that Eximus Units, Bombards, Heavy Gunners, Nullifiers etc would be picked as priority targets.

- Since Unleashed now would do what Savagery does, Savagery should simply be a Critical Chance/Status Chance mod specific to Sunika. For example, +10% base CC, +10% base status chance at max rank. Note these are base increases, not modded.

Sahasa:

Honestly isn't as bad, but not great either.

- Dig could use small numeric buff of reduced cooldown, from +270% to +350%. Since Kubrow can only dig out of combat, it is not as powerful in game as it seems on paper.

- Replace Ferocity with a precept similar to Kavat's Sense Danger. However, to make it actually usable, let it show enemies through walls, have much shorter cooldown. This would fit with the reconnaissance theme of this breed.

Huras:

Also not bad, but not great either.

- Stalk is almost fine, but there are some issues with its activation/sustain. Also, can we have Kubrow's energy color being used for cloak instead of default teal?

- Hunt could instead open enemies to finishers when attacked by Huras, regardless of their alert status.

Helminth:

I don't have any specific changes in relation to the Helminth, as the best way of making it usable is through buggy mess that is Strain mod set. More in-depth analysis here: 

 

[Oreades]

Hopefully all Companions will be more relevant once they get around to getting rid of the Stasis system all together. Please be in Railjack Please be in Railjack Please be in Railjack. 

Edit: I err mean Emperyon? 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Oreades

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

5 hours ago, Bristoling said:

Currently, base armor of a Kubrow is 50, with hidden multiplier increasing it to 150. This is best seen with 100% Metal Fiber, which increases the armour value from 150 to 200. Increasing base armor value and getting rid of this hidden multiplier would dramatically increase Kubrow survivability, and possibly allow less tanky frames to bring along a Kubrow that can reach 525 armor with rank 10 Metal Fiber. For those who say 525 is a lot, no it isn't, and ranking up the mod is expensive - having it provide only 50 armor is insulting.

Are you using the Kavassa Prime Collar? Because that adds 100 armor to the Kubrow, but it might be bugged. I also don't know if that extra 10 health is affected by DNA degeneration or not. Still, quite strange.

 

5 hours ago, Bristoling said:

- Since Unleashed now would do what Savagery does, Savagery should simply be a Critical Chance/Status Chance mod specific to Sunika. For example, +10% base CC, +10% base status chance at max rank. Note these are base increases, not modded.

Increasing the chance for a crit or status effect by one out of ten hits doesn't seem the greatest. On the other hand, this would make the Sunika into fully built for combat rather than "only breed with a great combat precept." Compared to the current Sahasa where it has a weaker version of Savagery where it's the same, except if the enemy doesn't die the dog gets stunned.

[Bristoling]

On 2019-08-08 at 6:44 AM, Grey_Star_Rival_Defender said:

Are you using the Kavassa Prime Collar? Because that adds 100 armor to the Kubrow, but it might be bugged. I also don't know if that extra 10 health is affected by DNA degeneration or not. Still, quite strange.

 

Increasing the chance for a crit or status effect by one out of ten hits doesn't seem the greatest. On the other hand, this would make the Sunika into fully built for combat rather than "only breed with a great combat precept." Compared to the current Sahasa where it has a weaker version of Savagery where it's the same, except if the enemy doesn't die the dog gets stunned.

Sorry for late reply, yes I do use Kavasa Prime, which I didn't realize affected armour. In which case it is working as intended, 100% increase adding 50 armor, but that only means that the base value is simply tragically low.

 

Sure 10% extra base Crit might not be a lot, but since I was basing my suggestions on existing mods, it adds up to a lot once you slot in a Bite mod.