(PC) Gauss / Signature Weapons Feedback

[Nordenfelt_]

Gotta join the majority of people in this thread.

Gauss' kit seems to be solid, but where it looks and feels pretty, it lacks in efficiency and convenience. I sure love bumping into the walls and trying to manage two energy reserves at once (which are both depleting too fast indeed) while doing damage compared to Loki's 4. Mach Rush should scale from enemy EHP, Thermal Sunder should have better armor stripping capabilities and greater range. And Redline should benefit the whole team as proposed in earlier replies in this thread. And yeah, shield-based passive is terrible. It worked with Hildryn, but it won't do here, since Gauss has average shield capacity. 

Guns are okay. They're unique and design is really good, but they lack a punch, especcialy the Acceltra. Physical damage should be tuned up a notch.

[Raqiya]

2 minutes ago, Nordenfelt_ said:

 And Redline should benefit the whole team as proposed in earlier replies in this thread. 

I don't think Redline should benefit the whole team, we already have enough shared attackspeed/Moment buffing abilities.

[Renzo]

Ok so, the weapons first:

• Both of the weapons seriously need more ammunition, or the players are forced to use carrier when bringing them.
• Akarius has a bug that makes player unable to reload the weapon randomly, I have not been able to figure out why this happens but when it happens I see I have ammunition left but it just doesn't reload. It doesn't matter if the clip is empty or not in this case.

As for the Gauss itself, I pretty much agree with everything that has been said on this thread. For me the warframe feels really clunky to use, the reasons are as follows:

• The first ability is inconsistent, sometimes gauss keeps on sprinting like the ability was active even if you release the button. Also in tighter maps you end up hitting the walls constantly
• The second ability drains the battery too fast when damaged making the damage reduction useless, also I am not really feeling the effect of the damage reduction or the energy regeneration on hits.
• The third ability AOE should be wider, also it should stay bigger longer and start shrinking only when 75% of the ability duration is left or something along those lines. The damage is lacking.
• The fourth ability cast time is abyssmal, please do something about it. Also in order to keep the battery level above redline you have to constantly spam abilities like 1 and 3 to keep it there, this takes too much attention away from actual playing and is detrimental to performing well. Also I noticed that in some situations like jumping, going down stairs and so on I lose a lot of the battery level, even when am constantly moving this happens. So it is not enough to be moving in any possible way all the time to prevent the battery drain, what is going on in here?

My overall feeling of Gauss is that it is very clunky to play with. I have to pay attention to my batterly level to make the best out of it while random things basically ruin it so I am performing worse than I would by just picking up some pacifist frame and just using my weapons and not touching abilities at all.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Renzo

[basgemm]

Passive:

This passive is impossible to notice ingame due to how this frame is supposed to be played, on paper it makes sense; dash into combat take some damage dash out and quickly recharge your shield, but in reality it's more like ; run into combat get oneshot due to shields being a joke and then be near immortal while dashing away due to AI's inability to aim at fast fast thing. In my opinion the 2nd abilities' damage reduction should be moved to the passive; "gain damage reduction based on how fast you move, buff remains in effect for X seconds scaling with power duration after reducing speed"

1st ability:

overall not much I can fault, as written by prior users it desperately needs some form of damage scaling, removal of energy per metre and adding speed scaling from power strength.

2nd ability:

Kinetic plating requires too much setup to be useful and it's usefulness is fleeting, it should provide projectile reflection and damage reduction without requiring a high throttle (think ice chroma, zephyr's turbulence, mesa's shatter shield), instead having the energy conversion scale of the throttle, or maybe having another buff tied to the ability such as sprintspeed (that'd be a meme) or a damage/projectile speed buff.

3rd ability: I think this whole ability should be replaced.... it'll always be a bad ability even if it's range were extended, some form of vent ability that builds throttle in exchange for sacraficing shields, as if moving energy from one system to another, this'd allow you to sustain your buffs after being immobile during instances such as reviving teammates.

 

4th ability:

Redline needs some form of damage scaling, that or increasing the quantity of bolts to make CC more consistent.

summary: I've only played an hour of acceltra so the only complaint is it's non-existent ammo supply, overall DE have made a fun to play frame that lacks endgame potential, yet again gauss seldom dies due to AI being unable to hit him, intentionally atleast (hit by a few stray bombard rockets), It's near impossible to sustain high throttle on normal starchart tilesets, hence why I think atleast the damage reduction should be consistent without the passive.

[linkhunter]

I kinda bummed out he don't do the sprinting animation in noble animation set when dual wielding pistols he only stretching out 

[Peter]

Still wondering why redline don't boost projectile speed, you can easily pass your pojectiles with that speed.

And your 3 is a weak version of Lenz, has almost the same range and much lower damage.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Peter

[SteveCutler]

Could you make it so that holding the slide key during Mach Rush makes Gauss drift, slipping a bit but allowing sharp turns? This would be fun and useful, and it would fit with Gauss's theme of being a race car / modern Sonic.

Edited August 30, 2019 by SteveCutler

[EchoesOfRain]

Just dumping my overall thoughts on Gauss here

 

MACH RUSH: For some reason, if I start the long run instead of a quick dash, when i let go of the ability and keep holding forward the ability keeps running. If I'm holding forward and let go of the ability, it's because I want to keep moving forward but at a slower, controllable pace. This happens way too often and gets on my nerves. Please fix this

The damage of directly running into enemies should be higher, it feels satisfying running through a crowd at mach speed, but then you look back to realize you just tickled them onto the ground. I'm basically a giant bullet, I expect a lot more damage when running into someone at mach speed

 

KINETIC PLATING: I rarely use this, maybe only for when reviving an ally. I'm moving around and freezing enemies with Thermal Sunder to the point that I'm not getting hit much anyways. Anyways, there's almost no energy regeneration on it. I could only notice it when in the Simulacrum and had 6 Heavy Gunners shooting at me, and even then it was just okay.

 

THERMAL SUNDER: As others have said, the heat version has almost no use. I'd rather just freeze the enemies rather than use the pathetic damage on the double heat or blast procs. Also, the range starts off nice but immediately gets smaller...why? At that point I don't even care if the effect lingers, I only need the initial cast.

As one person said before me, it's weird having a stationary skill on a mobile frame. It'd be cool if Mach rushing through a Thermal Sunder zone picked up the effect and carried it along with Gauss.

 

REDLINE: I really don't like how higher duration makes it harder to build up to 100%, it does not feel good. Also, building the buff stats with duration is strange to me but I can live with it.

The damage on the sparks is pitiful btw, they may as well not even be there.

[Mu_Gera]

Seems to only be a bit faster than a boosting itzal if you pair gauss with a speed volt and wisp. Otherwise it looks like gauss is faster than volt but slower than zephyr, which I get but it's kinda disappointing.

[Umquaptovis]

3 hours ago, Raqiya said:

I don't think Redline should benefit the whole team, we already have enough shared attackspeed/Moment buffing abilities.

I agree with this there are alot of abilities that boost speed when other players might not want them or will actively hamper their playstyle (See warcry, speed, hast mote) speed you can at least deny buy back flipping but there is no way to dispel the others short of falling into a void where you will lose all your buffs. If it becomes a team buff it must be something that is a mandatory opt in, like what they did with speed awhile ago, and have an easy opt out. The reason is that the sudden speed boost can throw some weapons way off making them or their stance so unwieldy to use, and a player should not be punished for using these weapons. weapons like the astella and pyrana that you need to actively fight in order to even get close to hitting something or combos with a specific hold or pause combo that you now do not know the timing of anymore.

[Mu_Gera]

11 minutes ago, EchoesOfRain said:

As one person said before me, it's weird having a stationary skill on a mobile frame. It'd be cool if Mach rushing through a Thermal Sunder zone picked up the effect and carried it along with Gauss.

What if the base ability effect followed you and mach rush left lingering trails of ice or fire?

[Goonigoogoo]

To all those complaining about the Mach Rush ability getting "stuck" on.  If you are pressing w, or whatever your move forward key is, and activate Mach rush, it will lock in the on state to "maintain your momentum".  This is stated in the tips area when reviewing the abilities in the arsenal.  simple fix...  stop moving forward when using the ability.  I know this is counter to the motif, but it is not a bug.  That said, I think it is a poor function and should be scrapped.  If I want the ability to stay on, I will hold down my cast button.

the weapons are fun, but mag size is truly pathetic.

suggest letting 3 ability refresh/reproc if gauss mach rushes through it.  this will add duration and allow gauss to stay moving.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Goonigoogoo
typos

[JohnLemon123]

While every ability seems to have both pros and cons, thermal sunder feels like it's far too one-sided towards ice (and it's not even good then). To elaborate... 

- the ice version causes cold procs, which is itself a relatively good element.  

- the ice version GIVES you redline energy, albeit too little for it to matter much. 

- meanwhile, the fire version CONSUMES redline on top of being a worse element. 

- the ability is in my opinion too expensive for what it does, and really needs to be either cheaper or more effective. This, on top of gauss being insanely energy-intensive, really makes the ability less desirable. 

So, here's a suggestion to remedy this: why not have the fire version consume redline to RESTORE energy, to mirror the ice version consuming energy to restore redline? 

Obviously, the energy/redline gains would have to be symmetrical to prevent abuse, but I belive it'd go a long way towards making the ability more versatile and, ultimately, more effective. 

[Mentat_Of_Dune]

Hi. In my opinion Gauss is too energy demanding and his 4th ability is good only when you can  reach a high percentage of the gauge.

So you find yourself casting 1 and\or 3 no stop to keep the gauge at a percentage that is worth to be used,  then you end your energy and you're basically playing a warframe incapable of using abilities...

Also, even with sprint boost and rush a Volt with a good build is way faster while his 2 is  active...

My suggestions:

-make Red Line boost the sprint speed too. 

-Make the attacks, all of them, counting as movements too, so that when we meele and we fire the gauge won't drop or make it drop less fast while we're attacking.

-less cost for his 1st ability to bypass the draining energy problem and the gauge problem too.

-more energy back from his 2nd to solve the same problem.

 

Otherwise a  Volt with a good build is faster and more reliable cause we only need to cast 2 one time to get the same buffs  (more or less) and then we can immediatly go back to think only about fighting, while with Gauss you constantly need to keep an eye on the gauge and keep recasting 1or 3 just to fill the bar every 5\8 seconds.

SAD EDIT: well nvm, now that all the speed frames are like 20/30% slower in their speed abilities you still got the fastest in Gauss without any other effiort 😞

 

Thanks.

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by LightningStorm84

[Lone_Dude]

Just like Hildryn and Wisp, Gauss has amazing visuals and audio, but needs some tweaks when it comes to his abilities. As of now this frame is, well, meh in terms of power. Anyway, here's the feedback:

Mach Rush.

1. Steering restriction. Slamming into walls should be a choice, come on. Steering is especially important because flying off the map causes all abilities to be reset.
2. Ragdoll is bad, please stop. Enemies fly all over the place. Melee attacks might lead into ground finishers which are VERY restrictive and unreliable. At least make it a simple knockdown, the ground finishers will still be an issue but at least I won't have to chase my targets constantly.
3. Damage scaling is terrible, slash synergy is too weak.

Solution - remove ragdolls, at least from the non-wave impacts; remove steering restrictions; and, if you're feeling adventurous - allow melee combo counter(and maybe even mods such as Pressure Point or even IPS mods) to affect the damage of impacts and impact-waves.

Kinetic Plating.

1. Battery charge consumption on hit is too high, even a single gunner can shred it and thus reduce it's defensive capabilities.
2. Doesn't remove staggers from Quick Thinking. RiP possible synergy.
3. Energy gains provided by this ability rely on being damaged and it's problematic because of how this ability has to be sustained during actual gameplay. To sustain this ability one would have to do one of the following:
   • Dodge all incoming attacks and move constantly to regain the battery charge, rendering Kinetic Plating obsolete because parkour elements already provide damage reduction and allow to avoid damage completely.
   • Spam Mach Rush, rendering Kinetic Plating obsolete because everyone is ragdolled.
   • Spam the Ice Thermal Sunder, causing enemies to freeze, rendering Kinetic Plating obsolete because everyone is frozen.

Kinetic Plating is basically a "oooops lemme take 2 hits for you, give you some energy and then Im GONE" kind of ability that's only really useful if you don't use any other abilities AND only for a short period of time. It requires same amount of energy as the radial CC, consumes Kinetic Battery charge and has a TIMER. It's way too weak to require so much work for it to barely function, especially because this "Rage-like" ability is directly linked to AVOIDING damage.

TL;DR "on hit" ability doesn't work because you have to avoid getting hit for it to work.

Solution - reduce or REMOVE battery consumption/increase energy gained on hit; if you're feeling adventurous - work out a system that will create delays between hits reducing the battery charge, example: when Gauss is hit, charge drops by 5%, in next 2-3 seconds(make it duration base WOOO!) charge won't be reduced no matter how many times you are hit, it's still spent on other abilities, however.

Thermal Sunder.

1. Doesn't scale well in terms of damage.
2. Ice is a much better CC tool than fire or blast.
3. Kinetic Plating relies on Ice as well, since it builds battery charge.
4. All of the above negatives lead into a single big issue - high energy consumption. Why would I bother casting the ability TWICE for an inferior form of CC? Why would I bother with the fire variant against ANYTHING remotely dangerous?

Solution - reduce energy and battery consumption, at least for the fire variant. When it comes to the damage, it's problematic. Fire attacks are very strong against low level targets, so buffing that would result in Ember situation, especially because of how much this ability reminds me of her. On the other hand, Saryn exists, so why even bother? Unless you give it some kind of special quality it won't ever be good(properly balanced for low and high levels) with a current damage system in place. So yeah, just CC and battery managment is fine.

Redline.

1. The cast time is disgusting. It really looks weird when you run around full speed and then suddenly the whole flow of combat is interrupted by a single cast. What even? Do you want us to use Natural Talent for 1 ability? Please don't, that's not how fun works.
2. Damage scaling is terrible. Again.
3. Sounds from it's projectiles make feel like I'm getting shot at.

Solution - just shorten the cast time. Speed buff it gives is more than enough for me.

Electrokinetic Battery.

Just replace the shield part of the passive with something else. Something useful, like sprint speed buff based on the battery charge. We don't even have proper shield gating. And Hildryn exists, she's the Shield Maiden. Did you add this shield part of the passive just because of the Mag+Gauss connection? I really don't appreciate such gameplay sacrifices for the sake of lore.

 

Can't wait for this frame to receive a 10% range buff to his 3 and +25 energy pool buff over the month lmao.

^{also, imagine stealing someones ideas from a forum post, what a meme}

Edited September 1, 2019 by Lone_Dude
typos

[Hixlysss]

I'm...weirded out by how strength doesn't affect his 4, duration does...I *kind of* like it. But as someone else mentioned, I was expecting his 1 to scale off melee mods(it needs it for sortie level stuff IMO). His 3 is...decent for CC late game. So far my biggest issue with Gauss is keeping his Battery charged. Sprinting alone is "enough" to keep it stable, but not enough to 'build it up' so to speak, he is wholly reliant on his power 1 to charge it up, much more so once using redline. And then...well, this is where the problems come. My poor pinky finger! Sure, I can toggle sprinting but still something happens and then I have to tap it and toggle it on...again. What ever happened to sprint being the default movement Steve showed so long ago? That would be glorious about now.

But yeah, his battery. Keeping it charged...isn't difficult, he has a lot of things on paper that make it look that way at least. His power 2 drains per hit, near as I can tell anyway. Each hit drains your battery, but gives energy yeah? Energy to be used on power 1 or 3 to charge up his battery because if you're getting shot at by enough things...you *need* to do this. Tested this out against Profit Taker. Was not fun. I spent more time sprinting with his power 1 than actually...fighting, just cause he was so squish the moment that battery went down, and it's always draining when kinetic plating is active.

ON TOP of that...you can't use kinetic plating and melee. I mean, you can, but if you stop to melee...you aren't sprinting. If you aren't sprinting, you aren't keeping the battery charged, you aren't keeping your survive ability up. A change i'd propose would be to make melee count as enough movement to charge the battery. I'd also increase how much sprinting charges the battery.

Alternatively, i'd suggest tweaking how the powers...kinda revolve around the battery, or interact with it. I love how it's a active thing, how the powers do more or less damage based on the battery's charge level at the time, rather than "Oh, battery is max charge, let's press 2 for 100% DR for 30 seconds!" Which...honestly...if the battery charge problem isn't addressed, i'd recommend doing the powers this way, having them go off the battery charge at the time of activation, rather than constantly changing.

Honestly, for some things, i'd treat the battery like Nidus' stacks. His power 3 wouldn't vary based on charge, just use it as a resource. Kinetic plating would be much the same as it is now but i'd increase how much his minimum DR is or just give it a flat DR bonus, and remove the duration and replace it with the battery charge(I.E. So long battery is charged, it keeps working). I'd honestly would love to see kinetic plating give a DR bonus, but you could increase the energy conversion amount in exchange for reducing the DR bonus(So say the DR is 85%, Energy Conversion is 5%, efficiency would boost the 5% to like 15%, reducing DR from 85% to 75%).

TL;DR, Donno if I like how strength doesn't affect anything other than damage. Sprinting should charge the battery more, or powers should be affected by the battery at time of activation rather than constantly changing. Melee should charge the battery if it's going to affect Kinetic plating's defense constantly.

[TuxedoCatfish]

Gauss is extremely disappointing, and in particular, two things about his first ability:

First, it drastically limits your turn rate. This is "realistic" but it's pretty much the single worst thing you can do to a movement ability. It's impractical for the vast majority of maps. It completely rules out hairpin turns and other tests of precision. It feels awful and mushy. It's also completely contrary to every other powerful mobility option in Warframe.

Second, all of Gauss's extra momentum disappears the moment the ability ends. This isn't as bad as the first point -- for any momentum-based system, the ideal is that the player should be able to retain or cancel it at will, since mandatory momentum is arguably even worse than losing it. But, for example, if Gauss activates his 1 and then jumps, it seems fairly obvious that he should keep moving forward at high speed. Instead, he instantly slows down to normal jump velocity.

I really hate how the majority of modern video games handle movement. There's this tendency to try and simulate real life physics rather than emphasizing player freedom; a tendency to restrict mouse-look or turn rate when the player is going fast; a tendency to minimize the rewards of precision if the game is multi-platform (e.g. for both PC and console.)

One of the biggest selling points for Warframe is that, up until now, the devs seemed to understand the importance of these things (unsurprisingly for a bunch of former Unreal Tournament developers, of course). Warframe's movement is amazing, and generally the only real limit on the player's ability to change direction as they're navigating an environment is their own ability to react and orient themselves.

Gauss, however, seems to have inherited none of that wisdom. Please consider letting him turn like a regular Warframe while sprinting, and if possible find some way to allow his speed and momentum to interact with the parkour system. (Allowing him to jump, land, and continue without cancelling the sprint effect would be a good start.)

Edited August 30, 2019 by TuxedoCatfish

[DenoDagor]

I'm not gonna waste everyone's time with more ideas, I dont have many, but I must be at least another voice saying these two:

1- His 1 should deal damage, maybe 33% of max health + 1000 or whatever, something that lets it kill trash enemies by running into them, but still scales into Lv 100+

2- His battery energy drains too quickly, it shouldn't get lowered from being shot with 2 activated and maybe not even when casting his 3 on burn mode. 

[Wandrecanada]

16 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

About 99% sure Console Players  are going to be unable to cast his other abilities while in Mach Rush due to how casting abilities works with controls. So maybe don’t have synergies that would be completely impossible for Console Players.

This has always been a major issue that was ignored for new Warframes and reworks. Directional control and powers are on the same thumb.

It's why I posted about speed power and direction on the same thumb. It makes most power use impossible while steering.It also makes aimed powers nearly impossible to use while moving with a controller.

Gauss could use a form of glancing hit directional adjustment to smooth out navigation. Make his 1 a modal effect and have the blast on end regardless if it is manually activated or when you are stopped due to clipping. Glancing angle can set a threshold for when he "bounces" or "stops and explodes".

[Peter]

Gauss 4 should have sprint speed boost too

[Modus-Pwnens]

1. The Mach Rush slam seems really inconsistent - half of the time when I hit a wall, running directly into it, there's no explosion. It seems that the slam only activates if you hit a wall within the first 4 or 5 meters of the dash, but not if it's nearer the end of the dash. It also doesn't activate if you're too close to the wall.
2. Why is it better to run into a wall than it is to run into an enemy? This seems completely backwards. Running into enemies should do something beyond briefly ragdolling them - at the very least Kinetic Plating should apply Slash procs when you run into enemies. Probably it should just apply whatever the AoE effect of the wall slam would be, only to each collided enemy individually instead of as an AoE. This is especially problematic during Redline because I want to be spamming Mach Rush a lot, but that only does anything particularly useful if I run into walls over and over. The wall slam should be a consolation prize - yes, you ran into a wall and that sucks, but at least you get a little something out of it - not an incentive to play Gauss by charging into walls. I equip Gauss because I want to play Sonic, not the Kool-Aid man.
3. Redline feels pretty strange because I'm limit-breaking to double-fill a gauge I didn't really spend any time thinking about single-filling. It's trivially easy to keep it at 100% since only one mode of Thermal Sunder drains it (and is castable even when it's empty, and the other mode fills it), so limit-breaking the gauge and filling it even more doesn't have much impact.
4. The way the percentage and the Redline top of the gauge work is incredibly confusing and is really hurting a lot of people's perception of the frame. It's extremely confusing that there's both a top of the gauge that's pretty easy to fill out and gives you your max buffs, and then also this percentage that doesn't directly affect the buffs, but stops gauge loss at 100%.
5. I really wish Gauss's scaling abilities scaled off of his speed in some more direct way. This would also have meant that he would scale off of speed mods (which most players otherwise avoid in favor of bullet jumping everywhere) which would fit him better than this bizarre Duration scaling he has right now and also push players towards modding him to be faster rather than ignoring speed mods in favor of mechanically stronger mods, which is what they'll mostly be doing now.
6. Kinetic Plating only applying to some elements is silly. I understand the fictional logic, but it makes the ability unnecessarily confusing, and Warframe is too fast-paced a game for players to try to avoid certain elements, and Gauss just makes that worse by making the gameplay even faster. A good middle ground would be protection from other damage types, but energy only from kinetic damage types, or at least reduced effectiveness for other damage types. Feeling tanky enough to ignore most damage, then getting instantly downed by a non-kinetic damage type feels awful.
7. The visuals for Kinetic Plating are extremely lame, especially given what an absolute treat the rest of the visuals on Gauss are. What part of "Kinetic Plating" suggests a weird glowy orb that clips through the frame?
8. The AoE of Thermal Sunder would have made a lot more sense if it followed him instead of dropping a field. Then you could turn it on and rush through a bunch of enemies instead of having a strangely stationary thing. It would make the double-application and combo application more sensible too - instead of casting twice, rush through enemies twice, and change elements between rushes to make blast procs. Keep it about moving fast. The shrinking field would also feel more meaningful if the field were moving with Gauss rather than how it feels right now, which is very strange on an ability that has a basically instantaneous effect on everything within it anyway.
9. The way Duration works on Gauss is extremely confusing given the UI. The things you expect to be affected by Strength are affected by Duration instead, and Duration has an undocumented, huge effect on the gauge (and thus Redline too). It's not really intuitive why Duration has this effect either - what part of abilities lasting longer makes the capacitor charge slower? And this effect is completely undocumented - it isn't even mentioned in the Tips!
10. Redline with high duration works in a very satisfying way, but one that virtually everyone is misunderstanding. Because hitting 100% with no Duration is so easy and the percentage and gauge are confusing, a lot of people are thinking that the idea of Redline is to activate it and then get to 100% rather than realizing that the 100% is a perk, not the main point and not the thing which governs the buffs. The actual mechanic is a lot better than that: you're trying to keep the gauge up throughout the duration, keeping it near the top gives you max buffs, and if you keep it up long enough you can also hit 100% before the end to avoid the gauge loss. The two big parts of this misunderstanding are the gauge/percent confusion and how easy it is to get complete immunity from Kinetic Plating with no duration mods - people are looking at it and asking "why would I make it harder to fill Redline to 100% and get bigger buffs if keeping it lower means I can get it to 100% and be immune to most of the damage in the game?" I'm guessing the idea was to create two builds: a low-duration Redline build that can trigger the explosion more easily, and a high-duration that makes more of the buffs. This is a fine idea, but it's unintuitive, and most players are not getting it/not going to get it.
11. Not putting Sprint speed on his list of Redline buffs is insane. It just needs to be smaller that Volt's full power-strength speed. Stop worrying so much about stepping on Volt's toes! Volt has other toes!

Most of all, Gauss is just wildly overcomplicated. It's a kitchen-sink of design ideas. Duration works weird in an undocumented way, with benefits and drawbacks; his damage reduction applies to some damage types, but not others, and refunds energy; there are two ways to cast Mach Rush and it does something special when you hit walls and gets an added effect if you have Kinetic Plating on; Kinetic Plating only works against certain damage types and interacts with Mach Rush and adds melee damage when Redline is on; Thermal Sunder is by far the worst offender with two modes, a radius that works in a special way, each mode doing something special when you recast it, a combination that does another thing, and Redline making each of the modes work differently and adding an armor strip to the combined cast; Redline adds buffs, buffs the other abilities, limit-breaks the gauge, and also adds a percent for the amount of the duration you've been above the limit.

Each of the abilities makes sense thematically, and there are cool things here with speed, charging capacitors, and equating motion with heat, there are interesting synergies, but it feels like kind of a confusing mess. The biggest issues are the display of the gauge vs. percentage during Redline, the lack of reward for dashing without running into enemies, and the confusing mess that is Thermal Sunder, which is overcomplicated and doesn't feel like it fits on the frame even if the heat/cold thing fits thematically. The frame honestly doesn't feel like it needs any significant number tweaks, but those three things would go a long way to making the frame more fun.

As for the guns, self-damage is still incredibly silly in Warframe when exploding Warframe abilities don't cause self-damage, there's no team damage, and there are so many incredible guns that don't have that drawback. It's even worse when modding the weapon to be better makes the self-damage more deadly than any enemy in the game. Please just get rid of self damage - it's a relic of the past. Also, it would have been much better if reload speed scaled with sprint speed rather than just having two speeds: sprint and non-sprint. As it stands, for anyone with sprint toggle on like a sane person, the guns just have one reload speed. If they scaled based on sprint speed instead, suddenly speed mods would matter, speed boost Warframes would matter, the weapons would be better choices for some frames than others, etc.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Modus-Pwnens

[houselyrander]

17 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

About 99% sure Console Players  are going to be unable to cast his other abilities while in Mach Rush due to how casting abilities works with controls. So maybe don’t have synergies that would be completely impossible for Console Players.

It's a problem on PC as well if you're like me and want to use a gamepad. Then again, DE seems to think that anyone who uses gamepad should feel like they're riding the tilt-a-whirl so I don't think they're too concerned with PC gamepad users

[Ekzarcun]

Gauss is very FUN but he will get in the pool of frames used a few times and forgotten he has no scaling and is extremely energy hungry. His speed cant be buffed apart from his normal press Shift to run speed doesn't impact his mach rush a whole lot. I tried running natural talent to reduce the Red line casting time and see if i can spam rushes his 1. There is a delay of 1-3 seconds between using them winch i find weird it probably is something animation set.

as for his guns i loved the stat line but the ammo pool bites i try using prime mutation mods on the pistols but i cant on the rifle.

[ADirtyMonk]

My thoughts after 4 Forma into Gauss and about 3-4 hours of gameplay, ~2-3 hours of simulacrum testing.

General: Fantastic Job. Going so fast is fun. This is a frame that demands constant input, awareness, and buff upkeep from the player, but unlike Harrow and Garuda it rewards you handsomely for it. The kit works very well together and has some very interesting scalings which allow me to build him with mods I dont normally use. As a speed/melee nut this warframe ticks so many of the boxes that I wanted in a warframe it makes me giddy just thinking about it. I rarely ever buy non prime warframes and 700ish plat is an immense amount for me to drop on a bundle but absolutely no regrets thus far. I am having a a blast with Gauss and I suspect he will be my go to melee warframe whenever I feel like swapping out of my trusty Umbral Volt.

• Aesthetics: Theme, visuals, audio, are all fantastic. This is a very good looking and sounding warframe. 

Major Problem: stat clarity is a massive issue with this warframe

• Stats of both Kinetic Plating and Redline are dependent on the battery AND they have an enormous range of possible values. An in game display of what these are would remove a lot of guesswork. 
• I have no idea what the % value that appears next to the battery in Redline mode means Figured it out.
• Armor stripping of Redlined Thermal Sunder - blast is not explicitly given a value
• It is never stated how much stronger the Enhanced Fire Proc of Thermal Sunder is
• What is the capacity of the battery and the redline battery?
• Exactly how much does Mach Rush and Thermal Sunder-Cold recharge it?
• How much extra melee damage when Kinetic plate + Redline?
• I know I'm forgetting others.

Passive: Its on the better end of the passives. It is easy to fill the battery so you basically always have 70-80% bonus. Works very will with Kinetic Plating's damage reduction.

Mach Rush:

• Review:
  • Overall it is a very fun ability. One of the most fun I've used in quite a while. I like how inexpensive and spammable it is. Good for movement however with higher levels of the ability it is very easy to overshoot targets due to the large minimum distance.
    • The ability feels very odd when you collide with an enemy at that speed and the only thing that happens is they stumble, although I appreciate that they do not randomly ragdoll.
    • Explosion damage AND slash proc is very poor as well. Insignificant damage against higher leveled enemies. I do not like how the explosion ragdolls enemies significantly.
      • 100% PS vs Lv 100 corrupted heavy gunner. Slash proc only does 280 a tick. Couldnt even see the explosion damage.
    • Currently gauss will always dash in the direction of the crosshairs. An omnidirectional dash would make him feel much more agile. If I am gunning, I want to keep my crosshairs on target instead of having to constantly turn away to dash to recharge the battery. This is an especially big deal when vs nullifiers/scrambus/demolysts. 
    • I do not like how momentum is not preserved if you are Mach running and perform an action like jumping or if you release the direction button. Feels strange to suddenly stop like that.
• Suggestions: 
  • Direct collision with an enemy will bring gauss to a halt and trigger a radial stagger. If only one change can be made, make it this one.
    • 
  • Enemies within 1m of the impact take finisher damage as follows:
    • Current battery level = base damage (0 battery = 50 damage, 100% battery = 400 damage) -> modified by distance traveled, warframe mods, melee mods, auras, and other buffs.
    • The idea is that one or two enemies (or a group of pulled enemies to synergize with other warframes) will take a single large melee hit which adds to the impact of the ability.
      • Ex. Grendel swallows a ton of enemies. Gauss runs into him and all the enemies take the big damage.
  • Enemies more than 1m away but within a base 5m of Gauss during the dash are pulled along with him and deposited at his feet at the end of the dash. Up to a limit of X enemies.
    • 
  • The radial explosion now staggers enemies instead of ragdolls. Strips a small (5-10%) percentage of current armor/shields.
  • The dash is now omnidirectional allowing for side and backwards dashing. This will add an element of skill to the gameplay especially when dancing in and out of demolyst nullifier pulses.
  • Momentum is preserved on jumping/rolling/aim gliding
• Augment Suggestion: On activation, gain 0.5/1/1.5 seconds of invincibility.

Kinetic Plating

• Review:
  • IMO this is a top tier defensive ability. YOU ARE EXTREMELY RELIANT ON THIS TO SURVIVE. Even though it has a massive range of DR, it is not difficult to keep towards the top of the range. Works very well with Gauss' theme encouraging frequent dashing (again omnidirectional dash would make this ability even better. Complements Gauss' energy hungry kit extremely well. Freeing up a slot that would otherwise go to handspring/pain threshold is significant. Massive duration and near instant recast makes upkeep of the ability near painless. Very interesting implications for survivability as well however the stagger immunity does NOT apply to Quick thinking. it should.
  • It is far too easy to unintentionally deactivate the ability. On PC 1 is next to 2. And the player is required to spam 1 to live. I've fat fingered 2 a few times and was immediately exploded.
  • I am not a fan of the look. Its a simple bubble that clips through the warframe's torso? The geometric waves when it is absorbing shots is pretty nice though.
• Suggestion:
  • turning off the ability should be a Hold down. Not another press. To prevent fat fingering a critical defensive ability.
  • display the current % damage reduction on the ability icon below/above the timer
  • Stagger immunity also applies to Quick thinking (or fix Quick thinking to not allow chain staggers and so that pain threshold works with it)
• Augment Suggestion: 15/20/25% of Energy restored is also restored to allies within 30m

Thermal Sunder

• Review:
  • Only the cold proc is useful for the slow/freeze and the gauge refill. Heat proc is completely useless, not to mention the drain on the battery. Armor stripping from the Redline blast proc is too small to be noticeable. Blast proc is clunky to use. Having to cast in the same area twice while also having to spam 1 to keep moving is annoying. The benefit of a brief knockdown is also quite poor for the effort. At least at 100% power strength. For how much energy and battery it costs the ability should be doing much much more.
    • 100% PS vs lv 100 corrupted heavy gunner -> 66 damage a tick on Redline heat proc which is piss poor
• Suggestion:
  • Display the values for Redline procs. How much stronger is the heat proc? (It seems to be 100% stronger). How much armor stripping is done? Is it % based? Is it a flat value taken off of base armor like shattering impact?
  • Remove the blast proc mechanic.
  • Simplify the ability by baking armor/shield stripping into the heat proc. Like Pillage but a much smaller area.
    • Increase those values for Redline heat proc.
• Augment Suggestion: Allies that run through the affected area are granted 100% blast damage to their attacks and +50% movement speed for 40s.

Redline

• Review:
  • Very fun buff. Nice visuals and audio. Casting speed could be ~33% faster. This is an ability that demands 100% uptime so it needs to be cast very frequently. The long animation lock is frustrating each time I cast it. Even on a very long duration build where I am casting every 1.5min. I am glad that it is not a movement lock.
  • I am pleasantly surprised that every aspect of the ability scales with duration. It allows power strength to essentially be a dump stat, which is extremely rare and really opens up a lot of mod slots to play around with.
  • The % value that appears next to the redline gauge is NOT EXPLAINED AT ALL. Nor is it intuitive what that number means. Given the consequence of not hitting 100% on that counter while redline is up results in a very large drain to the battery and that the dependence of survivability on Kinetic shield means this is absolutely unacceptable.
  • The particle damage on the ability is useless. The stagger is also so short it is useless.
    • 100% PS vs lv 100 corrupted heavy gunner: 18 damage
• Suggestion:
  • Must explain the "backup charge % number" that appears in the ability box.
    • Ex. When above the redline, the reserve capacitor will charge. If the capacitor is below 100% when the ability ends, the difference will be removed from the main battery.
  • Display how strong the current redline buffs are. I know there are a lot of them but there's no reason why they could not fit next to the battery gauge.
    • 
  • Current battery level + redline battery level = base damage (up to 800 damage) -> modified by distance traveled, warframe mods, melee mods, auras, and other buffs. The damage area is now base 5m wide damage wave. Gauss will still stop on direct impact with an enemy/wall.
  • Instead of doing damage, particles stagger and debuff enemies. Debuffed enemies hit by mach rush increase the duration of Redline by 1-2s base.
• Augment Suggestion: Allies allies struck by Mach Rush now receive 50/75/100% of Redline's buffs for the duration of the ability.

 

Edit: Still working on forma-ing the Acceltral and Akarius but so far both are fun to use, deal good damage, look very cool, and are relatively safe for self damage explosive based weapons although I somehow still manage to kill myself on them from time to time. Again self damage needs to be reworked to be a percentage of current warframe HP, not the full damage value.

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by ADirtyMonk

[Modus-Pwnens]

1 hour ago, ADirtyMonk said:

• I have no idea what the % value that appears next to the battery in Redline mode means

It's something related to how far past the end of the gauge you are, and at 100% your gauge won't go down until Redline's duration is over. And if you haven't hit 100% by the end of the duration, you lose a big chunk of your gauge when it ends.

I'm unclear whether it's directly related to the buff strength though. I can't tell whether you get the full buff strength at 100% Redline or if you get it when the bulb at the top of the gauge is full.

Edit: I get it now. The top of the gauge really is the top of the gauge. When you Redline, your buffs hit their max value when you fill the top of the bulb (the part above the literal red line that Redline opened up). The percentage is what percentage of the duration of Redline you were over the red line - it doesn't affect the buff strength, but if you're over the red line the entire (or close to the entire) duration of Redline, you get a brief period of free gauge and you don't lose any of your gauge when it ends.

Which means there is basically no downside to high duration. The UI just makes it seem like there might be.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Modus-Pwnens