(PC) Grendel & Masseter Feedback

[(PSN)ChaosTheNerd]

Can grendel's 4 be reworked please? Seriously his 4 is SOOO bad on console it's super clunky and slow. It feels like his 4 was made specifically for open world areas because in closed/contained areas it's a nightmare to drive.

Edited November 26, 2019 by (PS4)ChaosTheNerd

[Shadedraxe]

We’re no longer in the old blood update, it’s been nearly a month, and I’m starting to get worried that we won’t be seeing any changes to grendel’s aggressive energy drain and nourish’s poor visual feedback.

Really love the guy, but boy do those two things still bother me when I play grendel.

[Ikusias]

Grendel energy management is an utter mess!

All his abilities depend on having enemies ingested, but ingesting enemies destroys his energy economy!

[MrNaxeros]

So far I have been really enjoying Grendel, especially his Pulverize. Just needed to build him for max duration and efficiency.

However, there is one issue with his Pulverize that just really breaks it for me. His ball is way too sensitive to map geometry. A tiny ledge will stop all of the momentum. This is especially the case when moving between blocks. Moreover, he can sometimes stop after a high enough jump. I blame ping for that one.

Other than that, I would also like some slight adjustments to his damage in the ball form. High level Grineer, even with 10+ consumed enemies, still get only tickled when charging at them full speed.

[Annnoth]

Some suggestions to help improve Grendel function a lot smoother.

Enemies killed by grendels feast have increased chance to drop energy orbs. It's basically his only source of energy outside of rage and when you can press 1, swipe your mouse across the screen, and delete everything shooting you it's counter productive. Also with the current rate the orbs drop, ~36 energy per orb isn't great at 65% bonus power strength.

Pulverize should let you use feast and make it free during pulverize. By using feast you absorb anything you come into contact with using the same duration mechanic as feast. Kind of like how he was originally shown except this won't affect his size, but this will let you more easily maintain a high size since you can quickly kill everyone you ate if you jump around. The idea is eating an enemy would reset the "no enemies eaten" massive building energy drain and go back to the default drain per enemy and you can choose when you want it to be active.

Nourish need to draw buffs from each type at the same time AND heal you for every enemy you have inside you. Perhaps remove the damage from nourish because as it stands, it's gets outscaled hard and overlaps with regurgitates use while being worse. There's really no reason to want a single random enemy dead. It doesn't work for regurgitate either, the way his energy drain works I either want everyone inside me or no one and feast does it all.

Right now, there's a level range where grendel has struggle to sustain  because the damage he can take is greater than how much enemies of that level heal. At 85-100 it's fine enough, but 60-70 weirdly give me the most trouble and I don't think that should ever be the case where a frame somehow does worse at lower levels. There's also no reward for eating a bunch of enemies because of the way nourish works right now. You experience absolutely massive drain past 6 enemies so why just stand there draining the life from one guy slowly over and over while your energy drops. This, ideally, would fix that. This also helps fix the fact that there's no actual incentive to eat a bunch of enemies outside of feast acting as a nuke, increasing the damage/aoe of pulverize, and his passive. Nourish and regurgitate arguably encourage the opposite.

I'm still yet to find a use for his third skill in anything remotely high level. It's just weak and slow. Feast works because it strips a decent amount of armor quick, the damage scales per enemy, and that base damage has 100% toxin proc so it's just guaranteed to do a lot of damage. Since there's rarely a reason to expel a single enemy, just make it instantly vomit everyone out in one projectile where the aoe and damage scales like pulverize. Maybe make enemies hit lose some armor as you're essentially hawking a ball of bile at them.

[Azamagon]

I feel some of Grendel's restrictions are just causing some massively unnecessary clunk:

Feast

• Having an energydrain is understandable, as otherwise you'd just be able to swallow all enemies on the map and win, say, a Defense map without actually killing anything. But the drain is MUCH too excessive at the moment - to the point that there is no point to use energy on anything other than Feast alone - gobble a bunch of enemies up real quick, then puke them out, seems to be the only way to play him effectively at the moment. MAYBE quickly get a buff from Nourish, if it wasn't so extremely clunky. MAYBE Regurgitate if you feel like you want to use it for fun / need the range or something. Using Pulverize is just a total waste of energy, sadly.
• Proposal: Remove the energy rampup. The basic drain is fine, as it makes sense.

Nourish

• Sadly, this ability is just RIDDLED with unnecessary clunk
  • Why are there 3 seperate buffs based on the enemy swallowed?
  • That considered, why doesn't the buff duration STACK when you use the same enemy type? I really can't be bothered to cycle (not that I can even SEE the enemies I have stored in the first place), it's just such a boring hassle in general, but it feels even worse on Grendel, since you have no clue what you're even gonna get next time you use Nourish. Bleh
• Proposal (buff): Combine all 3 buffs into one, so you get the same effect regardless of who you are digesting. Make it stack up its duration when you Nourish multiple times, maybe up to a stack cap. Regardless of anything else, the cycling aspect just REALLY needs to be scrapped.
• Proposal (castability): Maybe allow us to use Nourish without having an enemy swallowed? This could have some downsides to it (like, only granting half a stack, thus half duration of a regular Nourish + half or even 0 healing). This allows him to be of use as a buffer even when there's not any enemies around to swallow (like on certain bossfights and such).

Regurgitate

• I have to admit, it's a fun ability. But I found it much more effective to simply just puke up everything with Feast's holdcast puke. That puke and Regurgitate feel too similar to one another, other than their obvious range and enemy-amount differences (with Feast puke being generally MUCH better). So....
• Proposal (added effect): How about the projectile also causing an acidic pool with the same size as the impact area (so it scales with its Range), which only deals mild Corrosive damage, but has its stronger point more on utility, such as proccing Corrosive on each tick and slow down enemies? The pool's duration would scale with Duration mods as well.
• Proposal (castability): Wether there's an enemy in the stomach or not, holdcast to launch the acidic pool projectile - always without an enemy being launched. This costs 25 energy instead. That gives it some potential utility over Feast + potential independance from Feast.

Pulverize

• The necessity to have an enemy in the gut to activate it just feels really odd, especially when the ability has the potential to be a decent gapcloser-esque ability, which would be a great tool to use to get closer to enemies and use Feast. And its interactablity with the other abilities (can only use Nourish during it) feels lacking:
  • Proposal (General castability): Allow him to activate Pulverize without an enemy in the stomach, instantly starting to drain energy if so.
  • Proposal (Feast): Allow him to cast Feast during Pulverize, producing a moderate-range AoE Feast-vacuum (rather than a longer-range cone of a regular Feast-cast), swallowing enemies caught in the AoE and dragging in items etc. If you catch an enemy with Feast this way, and you were previously empty-stomached, it will stop the energy drain and instead start the normal enemy-DoT (until all enemies are dead, rinse repeat)
  • Proposal (Regurgitate): Allow him to launch enemies while in Pulverize (If at any point you need a ranged ability on Grendel, it's during Pulverize!). This includes both the tapcast and holdcast versions.
  • Proposal (Energy drain): It really doesn't need the rampup cost either when rolling on an empty stomach. Just ditch it.
  • Proposal (Durability): How about making him a big chunk tankier when rolling? As you get mighty vulnerable when curling into this hard-to-control ball form, after all.

This keeps him intact, but gives him ability-independance (even if swallowing enemies with Feast is still much more efficient for all the other abilities), removes a lot of the clunk on them, particularly for Nourish, and allows him to do something even without Feast-able enemies around (albeit not nearly as efficiently).

Edited November 29, 2019 by Azamagon

[PsiWarp]

There is still so much room for improvement for our big boy here.

Feast

• Turn targets invulnerable from damage the moment they are marked by your aiming reticle for Feast suction. Too many times they die before fully entering the belly from nuker frames nearby.
• Allow cast during Pulverize to unfurl Grendel, play the Feast animation, and roll back into a ball automatically. Organic transition between frame and ball for inter-kit flow.
• Exponential energy drain is not fun. It is inevitably unsustainable, while other Warframes with channeled abilities can prolong their powers for much longer with player input. Please revise the energy drain formula.

Nourish

• UI elements much more visible please. Three types of buffs to cycle through and three little icons covered up by Nourish's ability timer. To the trained eye, the top of the icons can help distinguish the buffs, yes, but squinting my eyes every time is getting very tiresome.
• Nourished Armor's damage is negligible, it's more used for the on-chance stagger effect but even that is unreliable. Suggest changing it to Viral damage with a chance to proc.
• Please let the healing apply to teammates and companions in the buff radius.

Regurgitate

• Damage can be far outclassed by Feast's vomit once enough enemies are stored, due to enemy count and guaranteed Toxin proc. This is without factoring Ability Strength for the vomit, as it's still bugged (please fix).
• Suggest a knockdown on enemies hit, and Corrosive proc. As is, all Regurgitate has going for it is range and damage, and Feast already does both well enough on its own.
• Allow Regurgitate to be cast during Pulverize, similar to the Feast suggestion above.

Pulverize

• Same feedback for Pulverize as Feast, regarding exponential energy drain.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

On 2019-11-25 at 2:54 AM, EinheriarJudith said:

i think with the grendel missions they could have done "all mods are rank 0". that would have been a bit better than no mods. i platted him so i feel bad for anyone who played through them, hated them, and then found that grendel is lack luster (because he is imo).

I feel like people are going to find Grendel lackluster regardless of changes to his kit because his core concept is literally just eating something and rolling around.  It's not like he doesn't have nice aspects to his kit. He's got decent passive armor strip, good survivability, and good damage with a little bit of cc in his kit.  He appeals to me for sure, but like Gauss and other frames I think you need to be invested into the style the frame offers rather than what the kit itself is capable of.  As most kits these days are all running the same sort of benefits just with different plays on how said benefits are achieved.

On 2019-11-25 at 4:20 PM, (XB1)TyeGoo said:

Oh someone with the same opinion :3 grendel is the first frame where I actually felt that any investment was a waste..

On topic:

Anyway, reduce the energy consumption on his 1.. it's too harsh that it blazes through energy in a couple of seconds.. makes me not want to use it, which renders all other three abilities literally useless.. it should be a fixed amount, no matter how long and how many enemies you hold.. think of it as oberons renewal.. just a small but steady drain. (I mean the standard drain, not the all targets took DMG drain lol)

That was hyldrin for me.  And there is a big difference between renewal and feast.  The extra drain is warrented.  I could be fine with finding some middle ground to make energy consumption feel a bit less harsh (though I personally don't struggle with energy at all for him,) but I think simply making it one small drain is going too far.  The whole idea with grendel is to manage the enemies you eat.  Making it a forgettable drain means you never should not have enemies inside you/never spit enemies out.  It would be a lot better if DE pushed the idea of actually using the enemies he ate more proactively.  As this will both keep the core loop intact but also make expelling enemies feel like a worthwhile thing to do rather than being forced to simply because of potential energy problems.

On 2019-11-26 at 3:28 PM, (PS4)ChaosTheNerd said:

Can grendel's 4 be reworked please? Seriously his 4 is SOOO bad on console it's super clunky and slow. It feels like his 4 was made specifically for open world areas because in closed/contained areas it's a nightmare to drive.

I play on console and don't particularly struggle with it.  Perhaps you're thrown off by it being a momentum based ability.

On 2019-11-26 at 5:04 AM, (PS4)yikesitsthatguy said:

For Nourish Indicate which buffs are available and if available allow you to cycle through them how wisp does therefore making the ability much more easier to use

Cyclical buffs are kind of a poor design in general (see titania.)  Plenty have suggested that you just get all 3 buffs whenever you nourish.  But that's a bit extreme imo.  I think the buffs should just be based on how many enemies you have in your gut at one time.  And having more enemies past the ability to get all 3 just innately boosts the effectiveness of said buffs in addition to modding.  What the buffs give is another sort of discussion to have though.

On 2019-11-27 at 3:07 AM, Shadedraxe said:

We’re no longer in the old blood update, it’s been nearly a month, and I’m starting to get worried that we won’t be seeing any changes to grendel’s aggressive energy drain and nourish’s poor visual feedback.

Really love the guy, but boy do those two things still bother me when I play grendel.

I don't have an exact time frame but i'm pretty sure it took them a significant period of time to have any meaningful buffs for Gauss.  I'd imagine the team is just swamped right now with trying to make liches/melee 2.5 feel 100% done.  In addition to also making railjack available by the end of this year.

[darkbrick]

grendel..
not worth it.
and also the missions to get grendel part are too hard.
not worth it.

[Hekkatos]

On 2019-11-29 at 8:24 PM, PsiWarp said:

There is still so much room for improvement for our big boy here.

Feast

• Turn targets invulnerable from damage the moment they are marked by your aiming reticle for Feast suction. Too many times they die before fully entering the belly from nuker frames nearby.
• Allow cast during Pulverize to unfurl Grendel, play the Feast animation, and roll back into a ball automatically. Organic transition between frame and ball for inter-kit flow.
• Exponential energy drain is not fun. It is inevitably unsustainable, while other Warframes with channeled abilities can prolong their powers for much longer with player input. Please revise the energy drain formula.

Nourish

• UI elements much more visible please. Three types of buffs to cycle through and three little icons covered up by Nourish's ability timer. To the trained eye, the top of the icons can help distinguish the buffs, yes, but squinting my eyes every time is getting very tiresome.
• Nourished Armor's damage is negligible, it's more used for the on-chance stagger effect but even that is unreliable. Suggest changing it to Viral damage with a chance to proc.
• Please let the healing apply to teammates and companions in the buff radius.

Regurgitate

• Damage can be far outclassed by Feast's vomit once enough enemies are stored, due to enemy count and guaranteed Toxin proc. This is without factoring Ability Strength for the vomit, as it's still bugged (please fix).
• Suggest a knockdown on enemies hit, and Corrosive proc. As is, all Regurgitate has going for it is range and damage, and Feast already does both well enough on its own.
• Allow Regurgitate to be cast during Pulverize, similar to the Feast suggestion above.

Pulverize

• Same feedback for Pulverize as Feast, regarding exponential energy drain.

This. All of this.
 

• The massive exponential drain of feast makes it so I can't even get to my team mates and use nourish before my energy is gone.
   
• because of the nature of his kit you end up paying energy three times to use nourish. you need to spend energy to stockpile enemies then you're constantly losing energy, and then you're allowed to spend energy to get a buff. You see what I'm getting at here? changing the energy drain to a timer would make far more sense. You still can't hold them indefinitely without spending more energy but you only have to pay twice to use nourish.
   
• The readability of nourish with regards to what buff you have selected is just awful. I'm honestly shocked you'd make it like this considering what a good job you made of Wisp's motes and the readability of that UI element.
   
• You should just combine vomit and regurgitate into one move. they are too similar and it makes one or the other feel either undercooked or redundant. merge both abilities and add a knockdown.
   
• Pulverize is odd. maybe give it slightly more acceleration. currently if you're stopped at the base of stairs or a ramp it's very difficult to get up them. As has been said, you should be able to use feast while in this form and in addition pulverize should receive a bonus based on either the number of enemies consumed or the types. ie knockdown, toxic aoe etc

[vFlitz]

25 base, increased to 75 at rank 30, serves no purpose whatsoever. The only thing it can accomplish is being incredibly annoying to people who might want to take him to a Hijack mission.

Please just remove them entirely and make him a HP-only frame like Nidus and Inaros.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

Shields are generally useless, but it doesn't benefit him any more to remove them either. 

It doesn't hurt to have them. Just don't take him to Hijack, problem solved. 

[TKDancer]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

but it doesn't benefit him any more to remove them either. 

It doesn't hurt to have them. 

it does tho? like OP said, it gets in the way of hijack missions so he cant use his HP like inaros or nidus to power the vehicle and it gets in the way of rage/hunter adrenaline in lower-to-mid level missions, it doesnt serve any beneficial purpose due to its tiny size, even if shields in general arent very good for most frames, in this case its actually detrimental

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

11 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

he cant use his HP like inaros or nidus to power the vehicle

Then they could make an exception for him to allow health as well. He doesn't have to have 0 shields to be given appropriate exceptions.

12 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

it gets in the way of rage/hunter adrenaline in lower-to-mid level missions

That's true of literally everyone but Inaros and Nidus. They are far from the only two that use those mods. Heck, i use them on Ember so I really don't consider that a convincing enough reason for it. 

 

[TKDancer]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

That's true of literally everyone but Inaros and Nidus. They are far from the only two that use those mods. Heck, i use them on Ember 

most frames dont have as much health or armor as grendel tho? he is designed to be a health tank that gets armor from eating and can self heal with nourish, shields serve no purpose for him and are, again, actively detrimental

ember can actually make use of shields as she can get 90% DR that applies to both health and shields

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

31 minutes ago, TKDancer said:

 

So he basically has all the meta defense that DE designs most high level content for these days with no downsides aside from a tiny bit of shields that he has to tolerate in low levels.

There's only a couple hijack nodes in the game and dozens of frames you could still do them with when needed. Most frames these days can hardly say they are an ideal choice for all content. Some don't do as well in low level content, some don't do as well in high level content. Weapons can easily fill the ability gap in low level content when low on energy.

[(PSN)thegarada]

Can we do the same for Valkyr too? All the shields do is get in the way of hunter adrenaline. 

[(PSN)Gorbihn]

With how little shield he has, as well as how much Nourish takes to utilize, I would think a little bit more life replenished when digesting enemies would be nice. Possibly a small bit with enemies in the belly over time, and keep the nourish health bonus as is.

It would also be nice to tell which bonus you'll get when using Nourish.

[PsiWarp]

While we're discussing Regurgitate, I think it can benefit much more from a Vector Pad-esque design that plays right into Grendel's Pulverize gameplay-loop.

The idea is for Regurgitate to create a trail or an AOE of short-lived bile, that speeds up allies (slippery) and slows down enemies (sticky) moving across it. This in turn allows Grendel to rollerball down a straight path or boost pad for quick traveling, likewise for his allies, while doing something else that Feast doesn't do to enemies.

Also a nod to Gauss' friendship with the big lug, who can speed the speedster up even more! I think it would be incredibly fun and an optional speed bonus to teammates.

[Hekkatos]

13 minutes ago, PsiWarp said:

While we're discussing Regurgitate, I think it can benefit much more from a Vector Pad-esque design that plays right into Grendel's Pulverize gameplay-loop.

The idea is for Regurgitate to create a trail or an AOE of short-lived bile, that speeds up allies (slippery) and slows down enemies (sticky) moving across it. This in turn allows Grendel to rollerball down a straight path or boost pad for quick traveling, likewise for his allies, while doing something else that Feast doesn't do to enemies.

Also a nod to Gauss' friendship with the big lug, who can speed the speedster up even more! I think it would be incredibly fun and an optional speed bonus to teammates.

that would be really annoying for anyone who accidentality walks on it.

[PsiWarp]

1 minute ago, Hekkatos said:

that would be really annoying for anyone who accidentality walks on it.

Well, not actually makes you lose control and slip across, just a speed bonus like Speed or Haste Mote.

[Hekkatos]

an alternative to the current nourish could be this: instead of basing it on enemy type just let us be able to cycle through the buffs like we do with wisp motes. make one a health restore, one a damage bonus, and one a status aoe. make the number of enemies consumed affect the strength of the bonus. tap to cycle and hold to consume. the longer you hold it the more enemies are consumed.

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

Grendel has a shield value to benefit from overshield (1200)... which Nidus and Inaros can't have

[(PSN)Gorbihn]

2 hours ago, Hekkatos said:

an alternative to the current nourish could be this: instead of basing it on enemy type just let us be able to cycle through the buffs like we do with wisp motes. make one a health restore, one a damage bonus, and one a status aoe. make the number of enemies consumed affect the strength of the bonus. tap to cycle and hold to consume. the longer you hold it the more enemies are consumed.

Or at least increase the buff and damage the dealt to the enemies currently eaten.

[Silvertap]

Grendel is fun and strong, his builds are all very tight mod wise, but we can make a do i guess...

Masseter goes a bit to the weak side, because of the damage tipe and crit multiplier, i think crit mult for the masseter should be a bit higher, 2.4 like scindo prime sounds right, but this is a regular weapon, so i gues it is as it should be(?)...