Grendel First Impressions

[AndouRaiton]

Overall i like what they showed off with Grendel in the Devstream. However there are some problems.

1. Holding his first pukes out all the enemies in his belly infront of you, his third regurgitate turns one enemy in your belly into a toxic projectile. These are essentially the same ability.

In all honesty, you can get rid of regurgitate all together by fusing it with his first; hold the ability button to charge, if it is below half charge you puke 1 enemy as a projectile, below full charge and over half charge will puke out half of the enemies as projectiles and at full charge will puke out all enemies as projectiles. To balance, simply reduce the range they are shot out; more enemies puked = less distance they go.

This also means he now has a free ability slot, so maybe make it something that isn't about eating, such as causing fear or dealing damage as he is inspired by an Oni and you do have a list of ideas from the Oni the Gluttonous fan concept Grendel is based on.

2. Projectiles deal toxic damage.

Why toxic? If we are talking about stomach acid, that should be corrosive damage, as you know, the stomach has UNDILUTED (or close to undiluted) hydrochloric acid, which easily melts metals. I suggest turning the damage of the projectiles to either corrosive instead of toxic OR enemies in his stomach will have corrosive procs placed on them the longer they are in your stomach (say every ~5 seconds), this way he has a way of stripping armour and thus allowing his toxic damage to deal more damage to armoured enemies.

3. Meatball looks unwieldy.

As shown, meatball is physics based, and as such a pain to use when going up hill or trying to direct yourself down hill. My suggestion is that, by pressing shift (or whatever your roll/dash/dodge button is) you perform a small dash in whatever direction you are facing, this will give us better control on where we are going. Alternatively you could make the dash charge up by how long you hold the dodge button, similar to Sonic the Hedgehogs spin dash.

Overall, he looks fun, but he still needs work.

[BlachWolf]

I would also like if the enemy received corrosive procs while in his belly, it makes thematically sense and would give him good scaling vs armor.

[Somi_xD]

vor einer Stunde schrieb BlachWolf:

I would also like if the enemy received corrosive procs while in his belly, it makes thematically sense and would give him good scaling vs armor.

This could be a nice augment - armor eater/desovler

[Blexander]

13 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

1. Holding his first pukes out all the enemies in his belly infront of you, his third regurgitate turns one enemy in your belly into a toxic projectile. These are essentially the same ability.

Yup.

13 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

hold the ability button to charge

No. Charging abilities slows down gameplay. I don't think it's a good idea for frames to have charging required for their abilities outside of Augments.

13 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

2. Projectiles deal toxic damage.

Why toxic? If we are talking about stomach acid, that should be corrosive damage, as you know, the stomach has UNDILUTED (or close to undiluted) hydrochloric acid, which easily melts metals.

While this is factually true, do we really need another frame to have Corrosive procs/damage just because the enemies' armor scales immensely? It seems like a form of compensation because of how overblown enemy scaling is. I'd rather have a better armor/damage system than ANOTHER corrosive proc/armor stripping ability. To find a common ground, how about the enemies inside the stomach get corrosive proced after being tossed out, and enemies hit by them take Toxin damage?

 

13 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

3. Meatball looks unwieldy.

Yeah, having a dash would make the ability control better. I completely agree.

And I would like to add that 2/3 of the buffs from his 2nd ability are pretty bad. Armor buff is good. Energy orb boost is very rng based. Toxic explosions on hit, it's either going to work for melee hits, and if it doesn't, as in, projectiles proc it, it won't have enough range to hit them. And if it does, it's pretty broken.

[Teridax68]

3 hours ago, Blexander said:

While this is factually true, do we really need another frame to have Corrosive procs/damage just because the enemies' armor scales immensely? It seems like a form of compensation because of how overblown enemy scaling is. I'd rather have a better armor/damage system than ANOTHER corrosive proc/armor stripping ability. To find a common ground, how about the enemies inside the stomach get corrosive proced after being tossed out, and enemies hit by them take Toxin damage?

Counterpoint: does it really add to diversity when adding a damage type nobody really wants? While yes, armor shredding is overused, it's overused in part because it's necessary in the current state of the game for frames to do okay against armored enemies. In this respect, I think the common ground solution you propose is the best.

As for the OP's assessment, I very much agree: Grendel's 2 and 3 could be condensed into a single move, and I think the 1 could be used to perform the dash specified in the OP, so that Grendel's eating of enemies would still be done via the 1, rather than made redundant by the 4. I'd be interested in seeing what an additional ability can do, and I agree with the general impression that there's more that could be done to emulate the oni theme.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

On 2019-08-17 at 6:10 PM, AndouRaiton said:

Overall i like what they showed off with Grendel in the Devstream. However there are some problems.

1. Holding his first pukes out all the enemies in his belly infront of you, his third regurgitate turns one enemy in your belly into a toxic projectile. These are essentially the same ability.

In all honesty, you can get rid of regurgitate all together by fusing it with his first; hold the ability button to charge, if it is below half charge you puke 1 enemy as a projectile, below full charge and over half charge will puke out half of the enemies as projectiles and at full charge will puke out all enemies as projectiles. To balance, simply reduce the range they are shot out; more enemies puked = less distance they go.

This also means he now has a free ability slot, so maybe make it something that isn't about eating, such as causing fear or dealing damage as he is inspired by an Oni and you do have a list of ideas from the Oni the Gluttonous fan concept Grendel is based on.

Disagree.  His 1 can be used to either quickly suck up a lot for DR or a quick and cheap cc by sucking and then dumping at his feat.  His 3 is meant to weaponize what he eats.  I would not want charging mechanics on this frame.  Generally not a fan of them to begin with.  Fear causes enemies to run.  You want enemies coming at you and harming you with his current kit.  I find nothing wrong with the fact that his kit is based around eating and spitting when he has the fluff of being a team buffer as well as some mobility.

On 2019-08-17 at 6:10 PM, AndouRaiton said:

2. Projectiles deal toxic damage.

Why toxic? If we are talking about stomach acid, that should be corrosive damage, as you know, the stomach has UNDILUTED (or close to undiluted) hydrochloric acid, which easily melts metals. I suggest turning the damage of the projectiles to either corrosive instead of toxic OR enemies in his stomach will have corrosive procs placed on them the longer they are in your stomach (say every ~5 seconds), this way he has a way of stripping armour and thus allowing his toxic damage to deal more damage to armoured enemies.

Both Gauss and Grendel have Dot in their kit.  They're likely expirementing with DoT based offense.  Corrosive is meant for stripping and that's not really his function.

On 2019-08-17 at 6:10 PM, AndouRaiton said:

3. Meatball looks unwieldy.

As shown, meatball is physics based, and as such a pain to use when going up hill or trying to direct yourself down hill. My suggestion is that, by pressing shift (or whatever your roll/dash/dodge button is) you perform a small dash in whatever direction you are facing, this will give us better control on where we are going. Alternatively you could make the dash charge up by how long you hold the dodge button, similar to Sonic the Hedgehogs spin dash.

I would be fine with some added movement options to his4 beyond jumping.

On 2019-08-17 at 6:10 PM, AndouRaiton said:

Overall, he looks fun, but he still needs work.

Hard to say as it looks like these were not finalized.  We still have lots of questions left unanswered.  Most I can say is that there is potential for his abilities to have alt functions while he's in the ball form.  A creative suggestion I saw was allowing Grendel to vomit enemies in ball form as sort of a way to propel yourself in a direction.

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

On 2019-08-17 at 7:10 PM, AndouRaiton said:

Overall i like what they showed off with Grendel in the Devstream. However there are some problems.

1. Holding his first pukes out all the enemies in his belly infront of you, his third regurgitate turns one enemy in your belly into a toxic projectile. These are essentially the same ability.

In all honesty, you can get rid of regurgitate all together by fusing it with his first; hold the ability button to charge, if it is below half charge you puke 1 enemy as a projectile, below full charge and over half charge will puke out half of the enemies as projectiles and at full charge will puke out all enemies as projectiles. To balance, simply reduce the range they are shot out; more enemies puked = less distance they go.

This also means he now has a free ability slot, so maybe make it something that isn't about eating, such as causing fear or dealing damage as he is inspired by an Oni and you do have a list of ideas from the Oni the Gluttonous fan concept Grendel is based on.

2. Projectiles deal toxic damage.

Why toxic? If we are talking about stomach acid, that should be corrosive damage, as you know, the stomach has UNDILUTED (or close to undiluted) hydrochloric acid, which easily melts metals. I suggest turning the damage of the projectiles to either corrosive instead of toxic OR enemies in his stomach will have corrosive procs placed on them the longer they are in your stomach (say every ~5 seconds), this way he has a way of stripping armour and thus allowing his toxic damage to deal more damage to armoured enemies.

3. Meatball looks unwieldy.

As shown, meatball is physics based, and as such a pain to use when going up hill or trying to direct yourself down hill. My suggestion is that, by pressing shift (or whatever your roll/dash/dodge button is) you perform a small dash in whatever direction you are facing, this will give us better control on where we are going. Alternatively you could make the dash charge up by how long you hold the dodge button, similar to Sonic the Hedgehogs spin dash.

Overall, he looks fun, but he still needs work.

I'd have to look at it again but I thought grendel's first was a channeling ability, like chroma's first ability, that lets grendel devour enemies in front of him until he was full.

[Mu_Gera]

You forgot his passive, which I hope the enemy cap, armor bonus, and energy drain are generously reasonable. Also hopefully the damage grendel takes and done to the enemies inside him works like zephyrs tornados; includes crits, status, and damage from allies.

I also wondered if feast and meatball consumes pick ups and if those gave him buffs.

 

On 2019-08-17 at 7:10 PM, AndouRaiton said:

2. Projectiles deal toxic damage.

Why toxic? If we are talking about stomach acid, that should be corrosive damage, as you know, the stomach has UNDILUTED (or close to undiluted) hydrochloric acid

Thought that was kinda weird too, though if the damage has a chance to proc toxin then it might be decent enough to overlook it. Though otherwise it should definitely be corrosive.

Edited August 19, 2019 by -Bv-Concarne

[(PSN)chris1pat8twins]

At least he doesn’t fart and inflict gas damage to nearby enemies and throw off their aim. Lol

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

 I was hoping Grendel would have been a health based frame with no shield where the more enemies he ate the more health he would have. Maybe even have more health than my boy Inaros. 

[AndouRaiton]

7 hours ago, (XB1)Nightseid said:

I'd have to look at it again but I thought grendel's first was a channeling ability, like chroma's first ability, that lets grendel devour enemies in front of him until he was full.

Nope, you press it and it sucks enemies in a cone in front of you. The amount of enemies in your belly drains your energy: more enemies = higher drain.

4 hours ago, -Bv-Concarne said:

I also wondered if feast and meatball consumes pick ups and if those gave him buffs.

Nope, they don't get consumed but they do get dragged towards.

[LunaSelenis]

On 2019-08-18 at 2:13 PM, Somi_xD said:

This could be a nice augment - armor eater/desovler

that shouldn't be an augment, because it'd be one of those that feel like you have to use them.

[Deminisis]

1 and 3 should be the same ability. Tap 1 to consume and hold to regurgitate. The roller form as his "ultimate" skill 4 seems uninspired and underwhelming. Meatball is just and aoe version of his 1 and i don't see it being very useful in tight corridors and rooms. I would like to see meatball become skill 3 and maybe have 4 become and exalted hammer or some other useful ability.

[AzulMage]

6 hours ago, Deminisis said:

1 and 3 should be the same ability. Tap 1 to consume and hold to regurgitate. The roller form as his "ultimate" skill 4 seems uninspired and underwhelming. Meatball is just and aoe version of his 1 and i don't see it being very useful in tight corridors and rooms. I would like to see meatball become skill 3 and maybe have 4 become and exalted hammer or some other useful ability.

These were my thoughts exactly. When they showed off meatball they explicitly stated that because it's physics based, you can get stuck in a corner. This game has way too many of those. Why would you create an ability with such a big weakness? Whether they keep it as his 4 or not, it should have a charge spin feature like Sonic or Choji from Naruto so he can build momentum and launch himself.

His current 3 really should be scrapped. As of now, his 2 and 3 seem to only do something if his 1 is in use. That's not good frame design

Edited August 20, 2019 by (NSW)SantCruz

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

22 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

Nope, you press it and it sucks enemies in a cone in front of you. The amount of enemies in your belly drains your energy: more enemies = higher drain.

I dunno. I feel I would prefer a channel/toggle ability to vaccum enemies until my belly was full. Also why the high energy drain, why not just slower movement.

[GigabearPRIME]

I noticed the developers seemed to be in a bit of a quandary as to a matter of scale. Specifically, how high to cap Grendel's size increase from eating enemies to avoid issues on some tilesets. A valid concern to be sure. I've noticed this on the titanic rumbler myself, having it get hung in a doorway.

 

I would suggest the best way to resolve this is via an augment. under my proposal, the default growth effect is fairly tame, but players who don't mind dealing with some annoyance could equip the augment to go bigger. This would be especially sensible to use on an open world map where height is much less of an issue. 

 

Usually size issues are pretty divisive, so the best way to resolve them is leaving it to player choice. Default Grendel should be issue-free at full size, augment Grendel would require a bit of adjustment.

 

Just my thoughts on the matter, I played a pandaren in WoW for several years and was pretty much addicted to growth potions, so working around doors that are too small is a non-issue for me personally.