Garuda's Talons - a frustrating weak link in Garuda's build diversity

[-SkoomaPrince-]

Garuda - The Crimson Maiden or 'The not-so-good killer' 

First of all let me remark on how well designed Garuda is from a gameplay standpoint - she's a few inches from greatness, which is actually a common theme in WF I find. (Looking at you Harrow) She doesn't even need a rework she literally just needs a few QoL tweaks.

But her talons are a massive flaw in Garuda's kit. Her passive, on the surface sounds SO exciting! FINALLY a character I can play ON THE EDGE. Except, no matter how you build her talons, her damage is absolutely awful. It's honestly dreadful and you can't properly build Garuda to lean towards melee without actually sacrificing the use of her iconic talons. Her kit 'almost' syngergises with her melee but it just misses the mark completely.

So her only real viable build is basically a boring tank or some sort of bizarre blood-mage build that never gets the kills in before anyone else because bleeds and 'long cast-spells' are pretty pointless when someone blazes by turning the room into a meat blender. 

I feel like Garuda's selling point is high-risk/high-reward gameplay that makes people get a rush from seeing her commit bloody slaughter, always on the edge of death. But instead there's absolutely zero reward in playing Garuda this way, having her constantly low on health doesn't even remotely make the talons worth using. The passive would - at minimum need to provide up to 200% critical chance before it would start to become viable. 

I'm not a game developer, but it would be nice if we could see some buffs to her passive. I think Garuda's passive should perhaps provide 200% Damage  / 200% Critical chance the closer she is to death - perhaps this is too much but I don't really think it is, not after testing her. 

Anyone else have any suggestions? 

Edited May 22, 2020 by -SkoomaPrince-

[(XBOX)ShonOfDawn]

Garuda's talons are fine for most of the game's content, up to sorties and arbitrations. Is yours the perspective of someone wanting to go for endurance? Then yeah in that case she could be buffed, but DE has already shown they don't balance around endurance. 

[GPrime96]

Even though her Passive is 100% Damage after Mods, it works better when using a Weapon that hits hard since weaker Weapons don't get that much of a Boost (unless you're blowing up Crewship's Reactor. Although she can make Explosives destroy it in one shot with her Damage Buff except for the Kuva Bramma) and her Talons are at the middle line of not that strong, but not that Weak, atleast after Status Rework made her Talons proc 3 Statuses in one Swipe with Weeping Wounds. But i still don't use it over normal Melees, especially when doing 2+ Hour runs at Mot Solo. 

[-SkoomaPrince-]

Not particularly in Endurance, no - I do believe Warframes should be balanced around 3-5 rounds of Arbitration though. 
So around Lv.110-120 enemies should be where all frames begin to struggle. Obviously that's not currently the case as there are some frames/weapons that totally monster this content. 

Garuda on the other hand seems to struggle before this point. Perhaps my perspective is simply skewed from using ultra-powerful frames. 
I know that Valkyr's claws put Garuda to absolute shame when it comes to damage though. On one hand I understand why - as Valkyr consumes power to do this, but I think Garuda still puts demand on the player/build similarly to Valkyr's claws. Perhaps my own builds are in question but I think I'm building her Talon's to the highest point available. 

Sorry GPrime but could you confirm that I am understanding you correctly - Garuda's passive applies to other weapons than her Talons? I thought it was explicitly for her Exalted Talons only? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Edited May 22, 2020 by -SkoomaPrince-

[-SkoomaPrince-]

 

8 minutes ago, GPrime96 said:

Even though her Passive is 100% Damage after Mods, it works better when using a Weapon that hits hard since weaker Weapons don't get that much of a Boost (unless you're blowing up Crewship's Reactor. Although she can make Explosives destroy it in one shot with her Damage Buff except for the Kuva Bramma) and her Talons are at the middle line of not that strong, but not that Weak, atleast after Status Rework made her Talons proc 3 Statuses in one Swipe with Weeping Wounds. But i still don't use it over normal Melees, especially when doing 2+ Hour runs at Mot Solo. 

I literally just tested that out and you're right it affects other melees!!. 
 

Time to create some NEW GARUDA builds! Haha! 😆😁

 

[GPrime96]

2 minutes ago, -SkoomaPrince- said:

 

I literally just tested that out and you're right it affects other melees!!. 
 

Time to create some NEW GARUDA builds! Haha! 😆😁

 

Yeah it affect all of her Weapons/Abilities up to 2x more damage (so you can multiply the damage of her Dread Mirror). The description of her Abilities is so straight forward, it dosen’t tell her exact mechanics of her Kit.

[-SkoomaPrince-]

Just now, GPrime96 said:

Yeah it affect all of her Weapons/Abilities up to 2x more damage (so you can multiply the damage of her Dread Mirror). The description of her Abilities is so straight forward, it dosen’t tell her exact mechanics of her Kit.

You made my day! Haha, My favourite blood-queen is finally back in my deck of warframes!
 

[GPrime96]

In the Home Devstream, it's confirmed her Claws are getting buffed when Deadlock Protocol comes. 

[Krenlik]

23 hours ago, -SkoomaPrince- said:

Garuda - The Crimson Maiden or 'The not-so-good killer' 

So her only real viable build is basically a boring tank or some sort of bizarre blood-mage build that never gets the kills in before anyone else because bleeds and 'long 

...

Anyone else have any suggestions? 

Well, don't use talons as a melee weapon.  Garuda doesn't have to be a "boring tank."   I play her with 2 health, but use a critical based fortuna Pistol (gaze) to rip things apart (easy to get headshots with this one.)  If you get something REALLY tough, or that you need to slow down, hit 4, then start stacking the slashes  If you're getting targeted from too many directions, invest in a Dread Mirror to block a good portion of the shots.  If you need more energy, 2 then 3 a couple of times, jump out, and keep going.     

She's damned competent.  Hard to kill as long as there is cannon fodder around.  Using talons though... not a good idea.  Personally, I use a Zaw with Exodia Brave on it for energy return, so I don't even need to slow down on the 2/3 combo very often.   I feel like the biggest problem is trying to utilize all of her abilities to the detriment of common Warframe tactics.  Pick and choose the ones that are appropriate for your playstyle or situation.  While the 1/4 combo is awesome, it takes long enough to build up to decent levels I generally don't even bother.  🙂

The Dread Mirror pounce worked great on the sentients in this last event though.

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Krenlik

[-SkoomaPrince-]

2 hours ago, Krenlik said:

Well, don't use talons as a melee weapon.  Garuda doesn't have to be a "boring tank."   I play her with 2 health, but use a critical based fortuna Pistol (gaze) to rip things apart (easy to get headshots with this one.)  If you get something REALLY tough, or that you need to slow down, hit 4, then start stacking the slashes  If you're getting targeted from too many directions, invest in a Dread Mirror to block a good portion of the shots.  If you need more energy, 2 then 3 a couple of times, jump out, and keep going.     

She's damned competent.  Hard to kill as long as there is cannon fodder around.  Using talons though... not a good idea.  Personally, I use a Zaw with Exodia Brave on it for energy return, so I don't even need to slow down on the 2/3 combo very often.   I feel like the biggest problem is trying to utilize all of her abilities to the detriment of common Warframe tactics.  Pick and choose the ones that are appropriate for your playstyle or situation.  While the 1/4 combo is awesome, it takes long enough to build up to decent levels I generally don't even bother.  🙂

The Dread Mirror pounce worked great on the sentients in this last event though.

 

If you read above, you'll see that I actually didn't realise that other weapons could benefit from her passive. 
Apologies for the confusion. 

Basically it was my own lack of knowledge regarding her kit. Having since used a few different weapons with her she's very competent indeed. 

Thanks for the comment though. 

[z3us32610]

Good thing her talons are getting a damage buff when Deadlock Protocol drops.