Gauss is not a better Volt. He's a better Valkyr (From a former Valkyr main)

[Jarriaga]

As some of you may know based on previous interactions with me, I am a 100% melee-oriented player to the point I only bring a primary/secondary modded for status utility. I love to go berserk and cleave my way through hordes of enemies with my Zaws while tanking damage as fuel to use melee channeling. Valkyr used to be my main frame and my most used frame by a wide margin (24% usage out of 1400 hours of in-game time), but as time went by, melee weapons became more powerful on their own and the meta shifted towards the ability to either nuke the whole map or fulfill multiple roles at once. Her kit started to feel like a stale one trick pony and less useful with terrible diminishing returns for power scaling. Both Khora and Wukong replaced her as my melee frames. That culminated in me proposing a Valkyr rework focused on addressing lack of scaling and synergies.

Back in early September, while leveling Gauss for nothing but mastery (Because I thought he would not fit my melee style and all the Volt comparisons), I got a tingling feeling when I noticed Redline increased my melee attack speed. That, coupled with the Kinetic Plating damage reduction that made me near-unkillable got me thinking I've played this frame before. I didn't give it much thought at the time until the Atlas Prime update and his buffs. Reading the update notes, something caught my attention. I decided to give it a shot yesterday and threw 2 forma at him using Tactical Potato's build.

That's when it hit me. The attack speed buff, knockback invulnerability and full damage mitigation reminded me not of Volt, but Valkyr, albeit with more tools and utility. In many ways addressing the problems I have with her.

Here's where Gauss stands:

- Great forward ability scaling because his abilities ALL benefit from the same stat (Duration) instead of making you choose between 1 or 2 abilities, making him well-rounded.

- Several synergies that work together and encourage frequent ability use, making him feel dynamic.

- Kinetic Plating makes you invulnerable to most enemy damage types while also making you immune to stagger and knockdown.

- Mach Rush works as a better Ripline/Hysterical Assault because it covers more ground, it's faster, and can even deal slash procs when Kinetic Plating is active, priming for Condition Overload hits.

- Thermal Sunder not only strips armor, but leaves a proc area to be exploited by Condition Overload. These procs are guaranteed if cast while Redline is active.

- You can control the Thermal Sunder blast proc behavior depending on the order you cast abilities. Casting heat first then cold will pull all enemies inward to the player like Prolonged Paralysis does.

- Redline's attack speed buff is high enough that you can forgo Berserker from your melee weapon and add another mod for even more damage.

- To my surprise, when both Redline and Kinetic Plating are active, they increase melee damage, not just melee attack speed. Melee also staggers enemies, so they have less time to retaliate.

--------------------------------------------------------

I don't know if people were just so focused on comparing his speed to Volt that they missed the forest for the threes, but he's no Volt alternative. He's a straight-up better Valkyr. He is a terrific melee frame designed to get close and personal while addressing issues tied to covering ground for melee attacks, has great defense that negates the need for additional armor (No need when there's invulnerability), several synergies that deal guaranteed procs for Condition Overload with a damage zone, a melee damage buff, and high attack speed. With my current build, I can stay in Redline and Kinetic plating for over 85 seconds, which is more than enough to reach 100% Redline and recover my energy reserves.

I had made my proposed Valkyr rework thread before this revelation, and I now feel even more convinced that I was before. As frame design is moving towards "Well rounded with synergy so you don't have to build for 1 or 2 abilities", her kit is feeling extremely dated and in need of a revision. Her abysmal power strength scaling diminishing returns with Eternal War feeling mandatory aren't doing her any favors either. And then there's now the new Ember rework which will also favor melee by staying close to immolated enemies. I hope Valkyr gets reworked for melee 3.0 so I can rekindle my love for her.

In the meanwhile? Gauss has me hooked. He's just incredible and a natural fit for my rush-down berserker playstyle. Now I just want a Tennogen skin for him that makes him look more warrior-like than machine-like and I'll be a happy camper.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Jarriaga

[-Krism-]

Gauss is Gauss

Soon we'll have a "Gauss is a better Limbo" if this keeps going

[sleepychewbacca]

Just now, Xenox_Ilz-ot said:

Gauss is Gauss

Soon we'll have a "Gauss is a better Limbo" if this keeps going

Wait wot. 

I thought Gauss was a better Excalibur. 

Tell me you're pulling my leg. 

[Voltage]

Gauss isn't a better Valkyr. 11 Forma, an Umbral Forma, and Triple Umbral Eternal War into my build, and it comes no where close to Gauss in any fashion.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Voltage

[Jarriaga]

9 minutes ago, Xenox_Ilz-ot said:

Gauss is Gauss

Soon we'll have a "Gauss is a better Limbo" if this keeps going

 

9 minutes ago, sleepychewbacca said:

Wait wot. 

I thought Gauss was a better Excalibur. 

Tell me you're pulling my leg. 

I see where you're coming from. It's just that as a former Vakyr main, I can not help it but to compare them based on the experience of playing them. The similarities in playestyle with the respective practical application of their buffs are large enough that I can't ignore them.

[SneakyErvin]

Gauss is one of the better frames to build for melee. Good attack speed, nice extra melee damage, great CC and he is very durable versus the right factions. If he faces the wrong faction he can always freeze them. My only gripe with him that kinda makes me not play him is the need for Mach Rush to build redline effectively.

I still prefer Frost, Wukong, Hildryn, Oberon, Inaros and Revenant as my melee heavy frames.

[Jarriaga]

10 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Gauss isn't a better Valkyr. 11 Forma, an Umbral Forma, and Triple Umbral Eternal War into my build, and it comes no where close to Gauss in any fashion.

I do not agree. I've invested 15 Forma in Valkyr (Check my in-game profile) trying different builds from 308 power strength Eternal War, to full Umbra with 4K armor and 2x maxed-out Arcane Guardian (Yes, two, 1200 additional armor when they happen to proc), to mixed builds with Gladiator and Quick Thinking.

She has awful scaling. Even at 400% power she only gets 1400 Warcry armor because it scales off base armor. On top of that, chasing Warcry, Paralysis, and/or Hysteria duration greatly hurts range for Paralysis unless you forgo Narrow Minded. Eternal War also feels like a mandatory augment considering base Warcry duration is 13 seconds (15 in total with a 2 second cast animation that starts the timer). She also lacks means to deal with heavily armored enemies in a quick manner. Her Hysteria claws are also weaker than Riven Zaws, and she has a useless redundant ability that shows it was designed before Operator Dash was a thing (Ripline). She feels like a one trick pony. Invulnerability is not a good tradeoff in my opinion vs the rest.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Jarriaga

[Jarriaga]

8 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Gauss is one of the better frames to build for melee. Good attack speed, nice extra melee damage, great CC and he is very durable versus the right factions. If he faces the wrong faction he can always freeze them. My only gripe with him that kinda makes me not play him is the need for Mach Rush to build redline effectively.

I still prefer Frost, Wukong, Hildryn, Oberon, Inaros and Revenant as my melee heavy frames.

I do see many complaints about the necessity of using Mach Rush. Some players do not like micromanagement in the middle of combat, which is understandable. I also saw that concern pop up a lot in the Ember rework thread.

Personally, I don't have a problem with this because I'm used to just dashing around to get to enemies.

[(PSN)Mono-Pop]

24 minutes ago, Xenox_Ilz-ot said:

Gauss is Gauss

Soon we'll have a "Gauss is a better Limbo" if this keeps going

Did you even read the post?

What an insultingly vapid response.

Edited October 11, 2019 by (PS4)Mono-Pop

[belanya]

Wisp is the better valkyr.

Attack speed, high survivability, mobility, cc, which is the base kit of valkyr, but wisp does it better.

And in top of that, you can proc 3 elements for condition overload, 1 being a constant aoe around you and you got a stealth damage multiplier.

So yeah you can melt level 165 enemies without putting a potatoe or a forma on your weapon.

 

Gauss, well, its not really a berserk style, you have to take care of his #*!%ing gauge so more a hybrid caster/buffer than a pure straight forward buffer.

 

Also, valkyr doesnt benefit so much from strength but it doesnt matter so much. You dont need so much strenght to get a very good attack speed. And triple umbral ll provide far enough armor (2k before warcry). So i dont see so much issue here.

But yeah armor is armor, its not really great especially if you want to buff your team.

[Jarriaga]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)Mono-Pop said:

Did you even read the post?

What an insultingly vapid response.

Automatic dismissals are sadly a common occurrence here.

EDIT:

3 minutes ago, (XB1)Kuljack said:

Gauss is a better Vauban.

See?

Edited October 11, 2019 by Jarriaga

[RX-3DR]

5 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

I do see many complaints about the necessity of using Mach Rush. Some players do not like micromanagement in the middle of combat, which is understandable. I also saw that concern pop up a lot in the Ember rework thread.

Personally, I don't have a problem with this because I'm used to just dashing around to get to enemies.

With the changes, you don't even need Mach Rush, especially so for a melee Gauss where you can stand in front of an enemy, mashing melee for 5 seconds and see the battery increase. This was why I was against the melee hits recharging the battery. It takes away the value of keeping on the move and just put him into the same category of mashing melee while standing in front of an enemy.

[(XBOX)Kuljack]

Gauss is a better Vauban.

[Jarriaga]

4 minutes ago, belanya said:

Wisp is the better valkyr.

Attack speed, high survivability, mobility, cc, which is the base kit of valkyr, but wisp does it better.

And in top of that, you can proc 3 elements for condition overload, 1 being a constant aoe around you and you got a stealth damage multiplier.

So yeah you can melt level 165 enemies without putting a potatoe or a forma on your weapon.

While I agree Wisp also provides significant buffs, her survibavility comes from regeneration rather than mitigation. She doesn't feel like a frame that should be in the frontlines tanking damage. Hence why her discharge mote to decrease the chances of getting hit.

Gauss on the other hand directly benefits from getting hit. At least when Redline and Kinetic plating are active.

8 minutes ago, belanya said:

Gauss, well, its not really a berserk style, you have to take care of his #*!%ing gauge so more a hybrid caster/buffer than a pure straight forward buffer.

Agree to disagree then. Having to constantly cast Mach Rush not only gets me close to enemies and primes them with slash procs, it feels like I'm, well, rushing down on them with no regards to self preservation. Feels very berserker-like to me.

10 minutes ago, belanya said:

Also, valkyr doesnt benefit so much from strength but it doesnt matter so much. You dont need so much strenght to get a very good attack speed. And triple umbral ll provide far enough armor (2k before warcry). So i dont see so much issue here.

But yeah armor is armor, its not really great especially if you want to buff your team.

2K armor is only 86.96% damage reduction. 4000 armor is only 93.02%. The effort it takes to reach those numbers (Either through armor mods or power strength) is not worth the diminishing returns considering how it affects her overall kit.

[Jarriaga]

8 minutes ago, RX-3DR said:

With the changes, you don't even need Mach Rush, especially so for a melee Gauss where you can stand in front of an enemy, mashing melee for 5 seconds and see the battery increase. This was why I was against the melee hits recharging the battery. It takes away the value of keeping on the move and just put him into the same category of mashing melee while standing in front of an enemy.

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression the battery charge was when he got hit instead of hitting enemies. If it actually works like you say then I'm even more pleased with the melee focus.

[(XBOX)Kuljack]

See what?

Am I required to write a wall of text to explain a point to an audience I had the impression was well versed in logical thinking and inquisitive points?

Gauss is a better Vauban. He, with coming heat procs, will over a pretty dope CC ability in combination with his ability of self-sustainability, further pushing himself to S class with his ability to buff damage output and mitigation. 

He has an excellent stun ability that puts you right on enemies for quick and personal kills while never forfeiting his well being by getting close. 

Vauban will still be squishy and need to keep distance to feel reliable. 

Ergo, Gauss is a better Vauban.

Do not be so quick to assume a short response is vapid or not thought out. Arrogance is an ugly shade.

[Jarriaga]

4 minutes ago, (XB1)Kuljack said:

See what?

Am I required to write a wall of text to explain a point to an audience I had the impression was well versed in logical thinking and inquisitive points?

Gauss is a better Vauban. He, with coming heat procs, will over a pretty dope CC ability in combination with his ability of self-sustainability, further pushing himself to S class with his ability to buff damage output and mitigation. 

He has an excellent stun ability that puts you right on enemies for quick and personal kills while never forfeiting his well being by getting close. 

Vauban will still be squishy and need to keep distance to feel reliable. 

Ergo, Gauss is a better Vauban.

Do not be so quick to assume a short response is vapid or not thought out. Arrogance is an ugly shade.

While I do not agree with your post, I now thank you for at least elaborating on it instead of leaving a drive-by post with no context that seemed like an automatic dismissal based on other posts with the same structure prior to yours in this very same thread.

If you think that I was being arrogant for pointing out that I can not read your mind and understand where you're coming from with just one sentence then so be it.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Jarriaga

[(XBOX)Kuljack]

2 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

While I do not agree with your post, I now thank you for at least elaborating on it instead of leaving a drive-by post with no context that seemed like an automatic dismissal based on other posts with the same structure prior to yours in this very same thread.

If you think that I was being arrogant for pointing out that I can not read your mind and understand where you're coming from with just one sentence then so be it.

I did not call you arrogant. I simply stated it’s an ugly shade.

I do expect mind reading though. It’s time our species evolved.

[RX-3DR]

8 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression the battery charge was when he got hit instead of hitting enemies. If it actually works like you say then I'm even more pleased with the melee focus.

From patch notes : 

On 2019-10-02 at 2:00 AM, [DE]Megan said:

Kinetic Plating:

• Decreased Battery drain from damage by 33%.
• While active, Melee weapon hits will grant a small amount of Battery charge.

Refer to video for practical example.

Spoiler

 

Defeats the purpose of centering a system about moving around when you can play him exactly like Valkyr, a frame that doesn't have a system that requires you to move around.

[Jarriaga]

4 minutes ago, RX-3DR said:

From patch notes : 

Refer to video for practical example.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Defeats the purpose of centering a system about moving around when you can play him exactly like Valkyr, a frame that doesn't have a system that requires you to move around.

Thank you very much for the clarification! While I do agree it kinda defeats his design purpose, I'm not going to complain about it perfectly fitting my playstyle.

[Sharkgoblin]

40 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Yes, two, 1200 additional armor when they happen to proc

from arcane guardian  you get a 40% chance to get 600 armor not 20% to get 1200 

some arcane stack stats some arcane stacks the chance of an effect to happen

[-Krism-]

46 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

I see where you're coming from. It's just that as a former Vakyr main, I can not help it but to compare them based on the experience of playing them. The similarities in playestyle with the respective practical application of their buffs are large enough that I can't ignore them.

Well I don't really play Valkyr 'cause she's a bit boring to me

All I know is that when I play Valkyr, I usually use Hysteria pretty much all the time, (yes, I like melee :p), so for me they aren't similar at all since I just move all around the tileset when playing Gauss

36 minutes ago, (PS4)Mono-Pop said:

Did you even read the post?

What an insultingly vapid response.

I got ADHD to a pretty extreme degree, so no, I can't read the whole post without forgetting 3/4 of it, I do what I can with what I have, sorry

[(PSN)thegarada]

Regardless of Gauss being a better Volt or a better Valkyr. Valkyr needs to be a better Valkyr. While I do not think she is terrible, she is seriously out dated. She needs better flexibility and better damage.

[Liam]

Cant compare Volt and Gauss, Volt can help on deal more dmg with his shields and can be used in Eidelon hunts. 

[Jarriaga]

2 minutes ago, Sharkgoblin said:

from arcane guardian  you get a 40% chance to get 600 armor not 20% to get 1200 

some arcane stack stats some arcane stacks the chance of an effect to happen

No, Arcane guardian does not stack chance. Each Arcane guardian has an individual 20% chance to proc 600 armor (It behaves like Arcane Avenger). It's just that the user interface only shows 1 of them being active.