Aerolyst is poorly designed

[Ershk]

- moves fast and moves often; in the case of some client interactions it basically teleports

- its window of vulnerability is on a very short timer on top of having sentient adaptation

- for those new to engaging it, the aesthetics of the belt do not give a clear indication that it is what needs to be destroyed, to make it vulnerable

- it can float through and into level geometry, i was host when i witnessed this

- canisters seem to have tight hitboxes, making it difficult to properly aim for them in conjunction with its constant animations

- why is there no operator interaction? operator attacks should just break belt entirely

Edited March 28, 2020 by The_Ignoble

[Infirito]

Yeah, if you have lag or low performance, you're pretty much boned. It also strays way too far from Condrix, so if you get distracted you might need to chase it around the map later.

[(NSW)Katsuro]

magus lockdown and klamora prism amp

[Duality52]

As much as how memey and fun the Aerolyst functions, I do wish they inherit the Nox's damage resistance. Each Canister you destroy not only damages a small portion of its health, but it will also lower the resistance. Once all Canisters are destroyed, that's when it will have no resistances followed by a slightly longer stun of 5 seconds or so.

[Duality52]

Just now, (NSW)Katsuro said:

magus lockdown and klamora prism amp

Not everyone will have access to either of these, and that does not fix the bad design of the Aerolyst itself. Even then, the Aerolyst is a big road block in finishing a Ground Mission in a timely manner, especially when the Canisters can't be damaged while the Aerolyst is inside the Rift.

[Thrymm]

I'd agree, it's a pretty bad enemy.

Instructions as to how to defeat it are pretty much meaningless, because they don't make it any better.  Yes, lock it down and find the ways that you can easily shear the belt off, then lock it down again for good measure as you chug through it, we all get that.  Dorky operator amps aren't the only solution that'll solve that problem, and none of them take away from what it is.

Incidentally, if you've ever once wished the space crew was getting more codes, you should probably take to hating on this thing too.  Odds are at least one of your code givers is chasing one in circles right now.

[Hobie-wan]

I can't hit the canisters at all with Acceltra, but FWIW Plinx works well on the canisters. Perhaps other more pinpoint weapons do as well.

[schilds]

Magus Lockdown + Anomaly, then just smack it with melee.

[Fire2box]

catchmoon with arcane awakening (it's in event shop) and have limbo 4/2 it when it's exposed. 

[Chaemyerelis]

I like them. Finally am enemy that you can't spam mouse click without aiming to kill.  

[Althaline]

On top of all that, they can regenerate the canisters after no delay whatsoever. I've been trained on one with Peacemakers when it's canisters went down, and it still got them back up again before I could kill it (and my Peacemakers are no joke, either).

[GPrime96]

What i noticed about this exact enemy is it can become completely Invincible when you use Stasis inside of Cataclysm, Enthrall, and Magnetize. So if you want to troll your Partners and your Frame have similar Abilities as those three Frames, go ahead.

[Infirito]

8 hours ago, Chaemyerelis said:

I like them. Finally am enemy that you can't spam mouse click without aiming to kill. 

Fulmin does just that.

[GKP_light]

Il y a 18 heures, The_Ignoble a dit :

- why is there no operator interaction? operator attacks should just break belt entirely

my Klamora Prism is very effective.

the catchmoon work also very well.

nova slow give the time to kill in during the window of vulnerability.

 

but most of the weapons are bad on it. 

Edited March 29, 2020 by GKP_light

[Steel_Rook]

I've had no end of trouble trying to explain how this works to friends and team-mates. How it's intended to work is you shoot the cannisters on its belt to remove its invulnerability, then shoot the creature. There are two problems here. All the Sentients look like Flying Spaghetti Monsters with no clear distinguishing features, so even spotting where the Aerolyst's "waist" is can be difficult. The creature is all one colour, as well, so it's hard to tell the cannisters apart from the rest of its body. It's not impossible once you know what to look for, but good game design would have those contrasting the rest of the creature. Look at the Condrix, for instance. Do you think anyone has problems figuring out where to shoot it? Because the Condrix' basic design makes that fairly obvious even to people who didn't grow up playing video games. The Aerolyst needs the same approach to visual design.

Secondly, the period of vulnerability for the the Aerolyst is PUNISHINGLY short. It can't last for more than half a second, I don't think. To me, it often feels like the cannisters reappear in full as soon as they're destroyed. The majority of the time, I've only really been able to damage it with either the Pencha Scaffold on my Amp or the primary fire on my Corinth, usually by hitting the Aerolyst's body with the same shot which destroyed its cannisters. That's simply not good design. Someone already proposed going the Nox route, and I agree. Give the Aerolyst 150% damage resistance (hear me out) and strip 25% damage resistance per cannister destroyed. Make the individual cannisters a lot tougher (say, half of a similar-level Nox's glass visor) but don't let them regenerate. That way, the Aerolyst becomes a true "heavy" that you need to first strip of weak points THEN kill.

Also - and this is off-topic, but... Can we please get rid of the disco ball of death attack on the Sentients? That was already pretty dumb when they were meant to be minibosses on Lua, but now that they spawn all the time in large numbers, it's just an annoying cheapshot. There's no obvious wind-up to it, the attack itself is really hard to see when it's running and there doesn't seem to be a lot one can do to avoid it if two or three Sentients are doing it at the same time. I guess stunning them works, but come on, now...

[Thrymm]

10 hours ago, Chaemyerelis said:

I like them. Finally am enemy that you can't spam mouse click without aiming to kill.  

Thank you, made me snicker there a bit.

This annoying little sucker actually encourages you to bring weaponry that doesn't require aiming.  I did a solo run last night with the ignis and I was accidentally killing the things before I ever finished the boss.  See also, all the ways folks point out to kill it.  The general theme is "lock it down then hose it down".

The aerolyst all on it's own encourages bringing a weapon that DOESN'T require aiming.

[Althaline]

58 minutes ago, Thrymm said:

The aerolyst all on it's own encourages bringing a weapon that DOESN'T require aiming.

Actually, they're immune to a variety of AoE weapons, but not all of them. The only trick to killing the Aerolyst is apparently just finding which AoE weapon isn't on the blacklist.

[Althaline]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

Can we please get rid of the disco ball of death attack on the Sentients?

I actually don't mind that this attack exists, I just think it needs to have its damage lowered to compensate for the fact that Sentients scale now. The lasers never go up at all, and directly below the Battalyst is safe (until the other enemies shoot you). If you're already watching the Battalyst, it's very obvious when the lasers are about to start, and they come up one at a time. It's certainly better than getting trapped in a Conculyst's knockdown hell or the more general doom-flashlight.

But as you said, off topic.

[DSAUSAGE]

increase 10 times its size, and make in to a boss fight then

[Kilypse]

I feel that, for a non boss enemy, having to hit like 8 small canisters is excessive.
Them taking AoE damage would resolve the issue, but that was fixed away because they were dying too quickly.
As someone who is soloing this and doesn't have access to a lot of the fixes here (arcanes, specific amps, fully optimized kitguns) and can't sacrifice my primary weapon for use against just a singular enemy, the aerolyst is nothing more than just a timesink. I have to deal with an unending tide of grineer and then I have to camp out in operator plinking away 8 canisters on a highly mobile enemy? One that I can't kill before it regenerates it's invulnerability due to sentient resistances and my shots just not registering any damage despite watching them connect visually?
I wouldn't be so frustrated with this if it didn't halt all progress while it was alive.
All in all, I feel that the enemy is just too "excessive" for an enemy that isn't a boss. Too many things going on with it at once.
I'm not saying it needs removed, because it is an interesting enemy, but I think it needs toned down or relegated to a formalized miniboss event.

[Thrymm]

5 hours ago, Iamabearlulz said:

Actually, they're immune to a variety of AoE weapons, but not all of them. The only trick to killing the Aerolyst is apparently just finding which AoE weapon isn't on the blacklist.

Yup, that's true.

As best I can see, it involves weapons and AE's that essentially either ignore LOS or pass through significant portions(Ignis, Arca Plasmor, Catchmoon, stuff like that) or modding in a ton of punch through on a higher RoF weapon.  It's a finicky deal.  For example, the Detron couples with tons of multishot and punch through doesn't really cut it as it won't let you simultaneously hack off the pieces with them for some reason(I've got a pretty meaty Riven that supplies enough of both to magnify this thing beyond what most people can field in those categories), but put a comparably equipped twin Grakata to it and you'll pretty much shear it in half.

Essentially, once you find a weapon that works you lock it down and wipe it out.  Double points if you can lock it to the ground because melee will make short work of it.

Playing the actual mechanics, however, is truly awful.  Without a hard CC you'll never keep it from going back to invulnerable long enough to actually pinpoint the belt off it and then kill it,  and most of the time you'll never even get the belt off before it grows it back.  The nature of the mission and the fact that somebody is probably literally sitting on their hands waiting for you to overcome this thing means that chasing it in circles, taking off a tenth at a time isn't really much of an option.

I do think it's got the potential to be an interesting enemy, but it sorely needs its timing retuned.  It's clearly designed with the intention of having to target and destroy a certain area(the belt), causing a vulnerable period.  The phases are so fast, however, that the only truly viable way to kill it is to essentially bypass the mechanics by smothering it while it's helpless, and this could be fixed substantially by tweaking the timing on it.

[yles9056]

Aerolyst's concept is fine, but it really needs more visual cue to let players know where to shoot or what's going on.

And I agree that the duration is also an issue if you need to swap weapon or reload during its vulnerable phase.

[Althaline]

1 hour ago, yles9056 said:

And I agree that the duration is also an issue if you need to swap weapon or reload during its vulnerable phase.

Or sneeze, or blink.

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, Thrymm said:

I do think it's got the potential to be an interesting enemy, but it sorely needs its timing retuned.  It's clearly designed with the intention of having to target and destroy a certain area(the belt), causing a vulnerable period.  The phases are so fast, however, that the only truly viable way to kill it is to essentially bypass the mechanics by smothering it while it's helpless, and this could be fixed substantially by tweaking the timing on it.

Agreed - as the mechanic is implemented right now, the only practical way to deal with it is to bypass it entirely. Fighting that enemy as it's designed is a pain in the ass... Because it seems to have been designed to be a pain in the ass. I still don't understand why DE insist on using these kinds of cheap mechanics. While we tolerate it to an extent, nobody likes enemies with invulnerability states, ESPECIALLY not proper boss fights. The underlying mechanic of breaking parts off the Aerolyst is solid, but why do the parts need to grow back and why does it need to be invulnerable until they're broken?

For the first time in a long while, DE did "breakable weakpoints" right. The old Sentients always had this, where you could blow off their "arms" and remove attacks from them. Some of the new Sentients follow the same design. This is a good design - you can try and overpower the enemy, or you can try breaking weakpoints to weaken it, making it less dangerous and easier to kill. Why couldn't the Aerolyst follow the same design? Why couldn't we debuff it in some way by breaking the cannisters, but still fight it normally even when they're there?

[DrakeWurrum]

All I know when encountering this unit is: How am I expected to hit it's weak-points with pinpoint accuracy when it's constantly friggin' moving.

The unit should at least be designed so that there's a couple seconds where it literally and obviously exposes itself and ceases all movement, so that players are looking for that specific moment knowing "Now I can kill it!"

18 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

The underlying mechanic of breaking parts off the Aerolyst is solid, but why do the parts need to grow back and why does it need to be invulnerable until they're broken?

I don't mind that it's invulnerable until then.

What I mind is that:

1. It's constantly moving, making those weakpoints very difficult to hit
2. It regenerates them in the blink of an eye, meaning you can waste a lot of time just trying to get it killable only to reload

If they address those two points, I'd be fine with it. They should handle it such that it's regular attack patterns place it into a position where, for at least a few seconds, it's really really easy to hit the belt, and then once the belt is broken it stays broken - even to the point of changing its behavior, because it knows it's vulnerable.

Edited March 30, 2020 by DrakeWurrum