Garuda's clunky awkward kit

[Kingsmount]

Gloom feels great on Garuda and finally makes her feel usable imo; I've always wanted to like her and now I do enjoy playing her because it's nice to be able to use her at all,   but it doesn't change the fact that her kit is terrible.

I understand Garuda is hardly at the top of the list of frames that need a rework, but she's on that list none the less and she doesn't need a huge overhaul like was done to Ember, or like Hydroid and Nyx need.

(One of the) Worst defense ability in the game: Dread Mirror, directional defense that doesn't even work half the time in the intended direction, in a game where enemies are almost always 360 around you, and when half her kit throws her into the middle of enemies.

Blood Altar, a stationary heal requiring an existing enemy to target that then annoys your teammates by holding up objectives, and has no internal synergy with anything other than being a highly necessary heal when  your 3 does so much self damage while being awkwardly unintuitive with Efficiency.  You'd think efficiency would reduce the health cost while strength increases the benefit.

blood bomb that takes a while to charge up to useful numbers,  and REALLY awkward to use 4 with a long charge time wind-up for no good reason, and not to mention how it lifts you in the air and you naturally want to use it in the air, yet if you're in the air your Dread Mirror becomes nearly worthless (as if it wasn't already bad).  Also I feel like the "Hop" it gives when you release it makes me miss targets sometimes. 

 

She has really low base-stats for a "Brawler" intended frame who has half her kit throwing her into the middle of enemies with a non-exalted built in melee claws (That really don't feel good to use).    Two health and two armor mods and you still only have 1k health and 900 armor as opposed to say Valkyr having 1k health but 2k armor with the same.   (UVitality, UFiber, Carnis) meanwhile Valkyr has invulnerability + lifesteal on demand,  but they share a similar aesthetic and purpose.  

 

Her 1 has an Execute, which is one of the worst effects in the game because you never get to use executes because nothing ever is left with enough health in that threashhold that wouldn't be killed from status procs or just another hit with your weapon.    Yet her 2 perfectly keeps a creature from dying yet you cannot use her 1 on pinned enemies from her 2 and there isn't really a benefit to pulling off executions anyway. 

Her passive is hot garbage when so many effects seem to directly damage health ignoring shields and Warframe is terrible at providing feedback on incoming damage or the source of damage taken.  Earlier today I had 2hp and randomly died after falling down a pipe, I can only imagine it gave me a toxic proc somehow but I've never even noticed toxin being an issue in that spot ever before.  Yet suddenly it's hugely relevant when your own abilities put you at 2hp and your passive tries to encourage you to hang out there a bit. 

 

Here is how I believe Garuda can be tweaked to live up to her theme, flavor, and piece together the elements of her kit into a cohesive whole:

• Passive-   Life Gate.  Garuda gains a "Shield Gate" that happens  when reduced to 2hp or would be killed.   Invulnerability and a status cleanse (Otherwise most status procs would just instakill you anyway when it wears off) She does not have shields, similar to Inaros.  (And has increased Health and Armor base stats to compensate.  Not to Inaros tier, but say double her currently low base stats).    During a Life Gate window, she has +100% Strength. 
• 1a-  Is now contained into just two elements instead of three.   Dread Mirror is separated.  The leaping execute,  and the hold to bomb.  The leaping execute should deal actual damage (Based on Finisher damage?), and the execute kicks in if it reduces them to 40% or less HP or would have killed them anyway.   This execution counts as a Mercy kill, and can work in place of Mercy kills.   
• 1b- The blood bomb effect takes too long to become useful the way it works now.  I propose a change in behavior,  now blood bomb has a baseline damage based on strength as a normal damage ability,  but now it gains an increase to its base damage based on the max health of the last enemy you have executed with your pounce.  A percentage increased with power strength, say 40%, up to 200% with 300 strength.     You can store up to 3 charges via executions,  each blood bomb consuming one of those charges but you can still use uncharged blood bombs normally.    Continuing to hold the blood bomb could deplete multiple charges at once to fuel a single use. 
• 2-   Blood Altar should be a peaceable totem, a literal altar, not dependent on having to target an enemy.   Provides healing as normal, but enemies and allies alike within range gain a "Life Gate" like a shield gate when their health reaches 2hp, providing not invulnerability, but undying.   Status effects remain on targets so if they have a proc they can still die if it runs out.  However,  this allows a "Pause" wherein enemies are opened to Mercy kills, and to executions with her 1.  Allies could use mercies for example.   Meanwhile for allies it gives you a second to intervene and try to avoid dying.  Jump into operator, heal, enter an invulnerability state, rolling guard,  ect.
• 3-  Bloodletting is a really awkwardly simple and direct ability that almost feels like a waste of an ability slot yet is undeniably useful still.   So I suggest that this works as it does now, but using this is also what creates the Dread Mirror.   Damage to the Dread Mirror works like Rage for restoring energy.    While Dread Mirror is active,  Executing an enemy with 1 or a Mercy kill will grant 25% Damage Reduction until the mirror runs out, stacks to 95%.  Poof,  now she can actually be a real brawler and survive leaping into the middle of things better.
• 4- Seeking Talons  is overtly cumbersome to use for no good reason.  Even just tapping it has way too long of a cast time let alone having to hold it for 5 seconds to get a usable size.  There is no reason for this to be so clunky, especially when it does next to nothing on its own.   This should simply be a Tap ability affecting a cone the size of fully charging it as it would be now,  and with half the cast animation/ twice the speed it currently does, and holding it instead causes a radial burst with half the range, but a 360 area.    Enemies killed by Seeking Talons or while they have a Bleed status on them,  leave Impaled bodies  similar to Garuda's current 2.  This way that effect remains something she can do.    These corpses don't count as enemies but are targetable by her 1's pounce and can count as executions.  An impaled corpse breaks into twice as many chunks when the talon-spears disappear after a base duration of 15 seconds. 

 

Things I *Really* want to see with Garuda regardless of  my above examples of changes:

- Damage Resistance.

- Increased base health.

- Remove the charge up on Seeking Talons. 

- Her 1's blood bomb being more usable from the start.

- Her 1 should really be able to execute enemies that are pinned by Blood Altar.  Doing so is a good place to insert the Damage Resistance as a reward for performing executions. 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Quick thinking helps a lot with Garuda’s survivability issues.

One change I want to see is holding her 2 to release all blood altars.

[Rovaeden]

4 hours ago, Kingsmount said:

Gloom feels great on Garuda and finally makes her feel usable imo; I've always wanted to like her and now I do enjoy playing her because it's nice to be able to use her at all,   but it doesn't change the fact that her kit is terrible.

I understand Garuda is hardly at the top of the list of frames that need a rework, but she's on that list none the less and she doesn't need a huge overhaul like was done to Ember, or like Hydroid and Nyx need.

(One of the) Worst defense ability in the game: Dread Mirror, directional defense that doesn't even work half the time in the intended direction, in a game where enemies are almost always 360 around you, and when half her kit throws her into the middle of enemies.

Blood Altar, a stationary heal requiring an existing enemy to target that then annoys your teammates by holding up objectives, and has no internal synergy with anything other than being a highly necessary heal when  your 3 does so much self damage while being awkwardly unintuitive with Efficiency.  You'd think efficiency would reduce the health cost while strength increases the benefit.

blood bomb that takes a while to charge up to useful numbers,  and REALLY awkward to use 4 with a long charge time wind-up for no good reason.

 

She has really low base-stats for a "Brawler" intended frame who has half her kit throwing her into the middle of enemies with a non-exalted built in melee claws (That really don't feel good to use).    Two health and two armor mods and you still only have 1k health and 900 armor as opposed to say Valkyr having 1k health but 2k armor with the same.   (UVitality, UFiber, Carnis) meanwhile Valkyr has invulnerability + lifesteal on demand,  but they share a similar aesthetic and purpose.  

 

Her 1 has an Execute, which is one of the worst effects in the game because you never get to use executes because nothing ever is left with enough health in that threashhold that wouldn't be killed from status procs or just another hit with your weapon.    Yet her 2 perfectly keeps a creature from dying yet you cannot use her 1 on pinned enemies from her 2 and there isn't really a benefit to pulling off executions anyway. 

Her passive is hot garbage when so many effects seem to directly damage health ignoring shields and Warframe is terrible at providing feedback on incoming damage or the source of damage taken.  Earlier today I had 2hp and randomly died after falling down a pipe, I can only imagine it gave me a toxic proc somehow but I've never even noticed toxin being an issue in that spot ever before.  Yet suddenly it's hugely relevant when your own abilities put you at 2hp and your passive tries to encourage you to hang out there a bit. 

 

Here is how I believe Garuda can be tweaked to live up to her theme, flavor, and piece together the elements of her kit into a cohesive whole:

• Passive-   Life Gate.  Garuda gains a "Shield Gate" that happens  when reduced to 2hp or would be killed.   Invulnerability and a status cleanse (Otherwise most status procs would just instakill you anyway when it wears off) She does not have shields, similar to Inaros.  (And has increased Health and Armor base stats to compensate.  Not to Inaros tier, but say double her currently low base stats).    During a Life Gate window, she has +100% Strength. 
• 1a-  Is now contained into just two elements instead of three.   Dread Mirror is separated.  The leaping execute,  and the hold to bomb.  The leaping execute should deal actual damage (Based on Finisher damage?), and the execute kicks in if it reduces them to 40% or less HP or would have killed them anyway.   This execution counts as a Mercy kill, and can work in place of Mercy kills.   
• 1b- The blood bomb effect takes too long to become useful the way it works now.  I propose a change in behavior,  now blood bomb has a baseline damage based on strength as a normal damage ability,  but now it gains an increase to its base damage based on the max health of the last enemy you have executed with your pounce.  A percentage increased with power strength, say 40%, up to 200% with 300 strength.     You can store up to 3 charges via executions,  each blood bomb consuming one of those charges but you can still use uncharged blood bombs normally.    Continuing to hold the blood bomb could deplete multiple charges at once to fuel a single use. 
• 2-   Blood Altar should be a peaceable totem, a literal altar, not dependent on having to target an enemy.   Provides healing as normal, but enemies and allies alike within range gain a "Life Gate" like a shield gate when their health reaches 2hp, providing not invulnerability, but undying.   Status effects remain on targets so if they have a proc they can still die if it runs out.  However,  this allows a "Pause" wherein enemies are opened to Mercy kills, and to executions with her 1.  Allies could use mercies for example.   Meanwhile for allies it gives you a second to intervene and try to avoid dying.  Jump into operator, heal, enter an invulnerability state, rolling guard,  ect.
• 3-  Bloodletting is a really awkwardly simple and direct ability that almost feels like a waste of an ability slot yet is undeniably useful still.   So I suggest that this works as it does now, but using this is also what creates the Dread Mirror.   Damage to the Dread Mirror works like Rage for restoring energy.    While Dread Mirror is active,  Executing an enemy with 1 or a Mercy kill will grant 25% Damage Reduction until the mirror runs out, stacks to 95%.  Poof,  now she can actually be a real brawler and survive leaping into the middle of things better.
• 4- Seeking Talons  is overtly cumbersome to use for no good reason.  Even just tapping it has way too long of a cast time let alone having to hold it for 5 seconds to get a usable size.  There is no reason for this to be so clunky, especially when it does next to nothing on its own.   This should simply be a Tap ability affecting a cone the size of fully charging it as it would be now,  and with half the cast animation/ twice the speed it currently does, and holding it instead causes a radial burst with half the range, but a 360 area.    Enemies killed by Seeking Talons or while they have a Bleed status on them,  leave Impaled bodies  similar to Garuda's current 2.  This way that effect remains something she can do.    These corpses don't count as enemies but are targetable by her 1's pounce and can count as executions.  An impaled corpse breaks into twice as many chunks when the talon-spears disappear after a base duration of 15 seconds. 

 

Things I *Really* want to see with Garuda regardless of  my above examples of changes:

- Damage Resistance.

- Increased base health.

- Remove the charge up on Seeking Talons. 

- Her 1's blood bomb being more usable from the start.

- Her 1 should really be able to execute enemies that are pinned by Blood Altar.  Doing so is a good place to insert the Damage Resistance as a reward for performing executions. 

I hated Garuda for a long time and now I love her. She rips through Steel path with her claws and abilities.
It just took me finding the right build.

When I first played her, I tried to build her tanky and focus on health and she didnt work... at all so I put her in the toybox and forgot about her. Then randomly one day I saw a video with an interesting build.
That build made me look at her differently.
I was originally looking at her as a stationary, high health, hang out near her Blood Altar kind of frame.

Abilities.
The build I am using now is amazingly highly mobile and active ability use frame.
I have replaced Blood Altar with Reave and wow it completely changes the dynamic of the frame. Reave deals massive damage when you use it against enemies with your slash procs on them. It also heals you to max health with ease and is an additional oh S#&$ button if things get bad and you need to quickly relocate. Plus you feel like a vampire using super speed to run around and destroy your foes!

Build.
I am now running Rejuvenation, Primed Sure Footed, Umbral Intensify, Augur Accord, Streamline, Primed Continuity, Quick Thinking, Adaptation (unranked), Primed Flow and Natural Talent. I have put 4 Forma into her and 3 forma into her claws.

On her claws I run Bloodrush, Sac Steel, Sac Pressure, Virulent Scourge, Condition Overload, Primed Reach, Vicious Frost and Volcanic Edge for a very solid crit / status build that shreds.

Breakdown.
There is a lot of synergy in the mods on the frame and it took me playing with it to see the elegance of them. I will briefly go over each mod.

* Rejuvenation is useful for keeping your energy topped up. Think of it like a better version of Energy Siphon. Also, people say that this mod is stupid on her given her passive but I utterly disagree with them. She is utterly capable of shredding steel path enemies with just her claws. Think of Bloodletting as a burst damage and survivability buff for when you need it. Rejuvenation helps you stay in the fight if you get your energy drained by Ancients for instance.

* Primed Sure Footed is a personal preference because I hate knockdowns. Also, you cant defend yourself when on your ass and most deaths I get on any frame are getting stomped while lying on my face unable to do anything for half a second. This therefore is a defensive mod to keep me alive.

* Umbral Intensify. Simple. More power strength. She doesnt need a lot.

* Augur Accord. While there are other mods that give shields, this is particularly useful for the energy to shields given that you have unlimited energy and will be constantly using your abilities while playing her.

* Streamline. More effortless ability spam.

* Primed Continuity. Duration for Shield and Bleeds. Range for Reave.

* Quick Thinking. This is your health pool. Maxed out you have 240% of your energy pool as life. Given that you can drain your health to refill your energy and use Reave to refill your health, as long as you are paying attention you should never die.

*Adaptation (unranked). Adaptation simply reduces the value of hits you take. Unranked so you can save on capacity for other things and because it still stacks to 90% very quickly.

*Primed Flow. This along with Quick Thinking are you health pool. The bigger the better.

Natural Talent. Speeding up your Casting of Seeking Talons makes a huge difference. Faster casts on all her abilities is just frosting.
 

Arcanes.
I use Arcane Nullifier and Arcane Barrier.
I use Nulli just to add a little bit extra protection for her valuable energy pool. Her energy is her life.
You could swap out barrier for really anything you wanted. I use it because I dont really have anything else that makes that much of a difference to her.

Gameplay.
I use Dread Mirror to leap across the battlefield and annihilate an enemy. I bullet jump into the air and levitate with Seeking Talons while I decide where I want to launch my slash procs. I either keep levitating and spam cast Talons or I glide to the ground, or Dread Mirror Leap to a target to destroy, use Bloodletting twice to top up my energy and buff my damage and then I Reave through enemies I slash procced, usually killing them in the process. My health and energy are now both usually full at this point and I repeat the process.


Gloom.
I did put Gloom on one of my loadouts and it really is amazing for Garuda! I love that my slash procs fill my life within my Gloom radius. However, I still really enjoy the mobility of the build I detailed above. I kinda wish I could have both Gloom and Reave!

Anyway, check out Reave and let me know what you think. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do.

[-Bluhman-]

Yeah this all checks out. Garuda really cannot make up her mind as to whether she's meant to be charging into melee or staying at a distance.

Doubling what others are saying, having something like Quick Thinking or Hunter Adrenaline plays super-naturally into Garuda's style: creates a constant feedback loop of Health that can fuel Energy, which can fuel Health. Basically she's benefitting from one the best passives in the game, but doesn't really have a kit that can sustain it naturally.

On 2021-04-22 at 1:53 PM, Kingsmount said:

Passive-   Life Gate.  Garuda gains a "Shield Gate" that happens  when reduced to 2hp or would be killed.   Invulnerability and a status cleanse (Otherwise most status procs would just instakill you anyway when it wears off) She does not have shields, similar to Inaros.  (And has increased Health and Armor base stats to compensate.  Not to Inaros tier, but say double her currently low base stats).    During a Life Gate window, she has +100% Strength. 

I'm not sure I like this - we already have two non-shield Warframes that already cover Offense and Defense pretty effectively (Inaros the ultra-tank, and Nidus, who can get obscene crit rates when he's using Teeming Virulence). The ramping-up of damage as health goes down, combined with a shield, works really well once you put a Quick-Thinking styled mod in place.

 

Dread Mirror I use almost constantly when I can get the opportunity - preserve my shields and energy when I can, and it's pretty good at opening up finishers. That all said, however, it's one of the components of Garuda that puts her melee focus at total odds with the barricade it makes.
There's only like two situations where I ever use the charge mode on this thing:

1. Huge burst damage to a few targets from behind a shield, which almost is never the case
2. When I'm on a team with other Warframes that constantly restore my health - When I'm on a team with somebody like a Wisp it becomes a double-edged sword because on one hand I now have basically infinite energy. But on the other, my Passive never comes online, which is basically the whole reason somebody even uses Garuda in the first place. That leaves my only option for doing any kind of exceptional damage to this thing, which I find extremely difficult to use - precisely for the reasons you've given.

On 2021-04-22 at 1:53 PM, Kingsmount said:

1a-  Is now contained into just two elements instead of three.   Dread Mirror is separated.  The leaping execute,  and the hold to bomb.  The leaping execute should deal actual damage (Based on Finisher damage?), and the execute kicks in if it reduces them to 40% or less HP or would have killed them anyway.   This execution counts as a Mercy kill, and can work in place of Mercy kills.   

I like it. As Dread Mirror's execution is now, the leaping pounce can be used to basically instantly set off a finisher attack, but the timing on doing it is really strange and delayed. This would basically roll the lunge and finisher into a single maneuver.

On 2021-04-22 at 1:53 PM, Kingsmount said:

1b- The blood bomb effect takes too long to become useful the way it works now.  I propose a change in behavior,  now blood bomb has a baseline damage based on strength as a normal damage ability,  but now it gains an increase to its base damage based on the max health of the last enemy you have executed with your pounce.  A percentage increased with power strength, say 40%, up to 200% with 300 strength.     You can store up to 3 charges via executions,  each blood bomb consuming one of those charges but you can still use uncharged blood bombs normally.    Continuing to hold the blood bomb could deplete multiple charges at once to fuel a single use. 

Not only does it take too long to be useful but it suffers from really similar problems to things like Ember's Fireball in that its effect is waaay too short-term and fallible if you miss with it. In Garuda's case the problem's triple-exacerbated because it's something you have to devote activation, time, and energy to building up your blood bomb for something you can easily whiff at an enemy that also might already be dead.

One thing I should also mention: because her Talons are technically not an Exalted Weapon, they also are the only Warframe-specific weapons that get removed in terms of mission or sortie restrictions (i.e. rifles only). What if the hold activation of her 1 was what deployed them? A tap is what enables her to do a quick lunge with it, and a hold is what allows her to toggle using them on or off. And with that, you can put other synergistic traits on the talons, like perhaps:

• While Garuda's Talons are out, she becomes immune to healing and will not pick up health orbs.
• Blocking, heavy attacks, and executing finishers removes status effects.
• Alters how her actual 'dread mirror' shield operates.

And because so much of what this ability does is now so separate from the actual Dread Mirror, we might as well rename the ability to something like Talon Dive or just Garuda's Talons or whatever.

 

Once you have a lot of things to work with, it's almost never pertinent to use Blood Altar, because you gain options such as Magus Repair that allow you to restore your HP without spending any energy. Then in their place people usually subsume stuff like Breach Surge in its place to give Garuda a quick damage option that better leverages her 2x damage output. And why wouldn't they? Blood Altar's an ability that actively works against maintaining her passive bonuses, forces her to stay mostly in one location, and is just downright awkward to interact with.

On 2021-04-22 at 1:53 PM, Kingsmount said:

2-   Blood Altar should be a peaceable totem, a literal altar, not dependent on having to target an enemy.   Provides healing as normal, but enemies and allies alike within range gain a "Life Gate" like a shield gate when their health reaches 2hp, providing not invulnerability, but undying.   Status effects remain on targets so if they have a proc they can still die if it runs out.  However,  this allows a "Pause" wherein enemies are opened to Mercy kills, and to executions with her 1.  Allies could use mercies for example.   Meanwhile for allies it gives you a second to intervene and try to avoid dying.  Jump into operator, heal, enter an invulnerability state, rolling guard,  ect.

There's elements here I really like (the finisher-opening things, sort of) but thing is, self-healing's never felt really central to what Garuda is about, which is essentially super-danger-mode. When you're doing risk/reward, why have this thing that's a safety net that doesn't actually address the central conceit of Garuda before leveraging her passive (that she has only average health/shields) and then also works against it? I suppose however that's what subsuming something else in its place is for.

This could grow to have some interesting interactions with the "Talon Dive" mechanic I explained above, and be the one source of healing that actually works on Garuda while she has talons out.

I still kind of like the theming that current Blood Altar has as well, impaling a person on a bunch of spikes to bleed them out for your own survival. However, the current implementation is also super-clunky because it then creates an enemy target that shows up on radars, but is invulnerable and will usually be killed when released anyways. What if, instead, Blood Altar kept the ability to impale enemies at low health in addition to the 'totem' concept here? Have it also be a finisher like her 1, and if you execute that, the effects become stronger. (note, I see now you brought this up later though it's more relevant for me to mention it here since blood altar in my mind would still be a blood altar.)

 

On 2021-04-22 at 1:53 PM, Kingsmount said:

3-  Bloodletting is a really awkwardly simple and direct ability that almost feels like a waste of an ability slot yet is undeniably useful still.   So I suggest that this works as it does now, but using this is also what creates the Dread Mirror.   Damage to the Dread Mirror works like Rage for restoring energy.    While Dread Mirror is active,  Executing an enemy with 1 or a Mercy kill will grant 25% Damage Reduction until the mirror runs out, stacks to 95%.  Poof,  now she can actually be a real brawler and survive leaping into the middle of things better.

Moving the actual 'mirror' of dread mirror here does make a lot of sense, though the Rage mechanic proposed here would legitimately make her way too overpowered - that would essentially be a Quick-Thinking + Rage loop you wouldn't even have to spend mod slots on. Personally, I'd have this be a hold/tap distinction, with the tap being what does the old-fashioned bloodletting, and the hold what deploys the mirror shield.

Going along with elements of what I've described above, the shield could also change shape depending on what you're doing - have it be a singular, wide shield when using normal ranged weaponry, but when Garuda's Talons are out (or perhaps any melee weapon?) it separates into three narrower mirror that orbit around her, providing surround protection.

 

On 2021-04-22 at 1:53 PM, Kingsmount said:

4- Seeking Talons  is overtly cumbersome to use for no good reason.  Even just tapping it has way too long of a cast time let alone having to hold it for 5 seconds to get a usable size.  There is no reason for this to be so clunky, especially when it does next to nothing on its own.   This should simply be a Tap ability affecting a cone the size of fully charging it as it would be now,  and with half the cast animation/ twice the speed it currently does, and holding it instead causes a radial burst with half the range, but a 360 area.    Enemies killed by Seeking Talons or while they have a Bleed status on them,  leave Impaled bodies  similar to Garuda's current 2.  This way that effect remains something she can do.    These corpses don't count as enemies but are targetable by her 1's pounce and can count as executions.  An impaled corpse breaks into twice as many chunks when the talon-spears disappear after a base duration of 15 seconds. 

Ok so thing about Garuda's Talons - yes charging it is a massive waste of time, and it can be very clunky to use, especially in midair and how it somehow manages to ALWAYS force a hard-landing on you. That all said,  however, this thing's a sleeper-hit in Garuda's kit, because even when you don't charge it up (note that personally, I've never felt that an uncharged Talons really took that long...) the area it covers is quite substantial (it's a narrow cone, but also a long one) and - this is a very big factor - it ignores walls and cover. So if you have enemy radar and have a rough idea of where enemies are located, you can just Seeking Talons them through a wall, severely weaken and stun them, then close in to deal some real damage. With the breach-surge thing above, this is basically the perfect lead-in for its use - though obviously not nearly as strong as it could be for this purpose.

With the "strike enemies with talons from behind any cover" thing in mind, having it always be cast at its full angle would be nuts. Aside from that, having all the inscrutable self-stun and sluggishness toned down on the ability really would make it a lot easier for Garuda to actually follow up on using the skill. But I do think that, unlike the Blood Ball, having its charge does add a fairly effective element to the ability.

The hold being suggested here sounds kind of similar to her existing Blending Talons augment, which is basically kind of doing this suggestion but in reverse, with the tap being a sphere AoE around her. Also apparently the ability just inherently has an AoE area around her that does do slashing damage but it's stupidly small (2 meters.) Seems odd since the charge on it always seemed like it, you know, should damage and shred enemies that are within it?

The ability absolutely could stand to have more setup/debuff effects tied to it. Could also stand to have its effects last just a smidge longer by default - or heck, be permanent. Why's Garuda only get 10 seconds of bleeding vulnerability when Nova can inflict a target with a speed reduction (or increase), doubled damage taken, AND explosion on death, on all enemies in a massive sphere around her for 30 seconds? When you put Garuda into that context she absolutely is getting the short-end of the deal.

[Rovaeden]

3 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Ok so thing about Garuda's Talons - yes charging it is a massive waste of time, and it can be very clunky to use, especially in midair and how it somehow manages to ALWAYS force a hard-landing on you. That all said,  however, this thing's a sleeper-hit in Garuda's kit, because even when you don't charge it up (note that personally, I've never felt that an uncharged Talons really took that long...) the area it covers is quite substantial (it's a narrow cone, but also a long one) and - this is a very big factor - it ignores walls and cover. So if you have enemy radar and have a rough idea of where enemies are located, you can just Seeking Talons them through a wall, severely weaken and stun them, then close in to deal some real damage. With the breach-surge thing above, this is basically the perfect lead-in for its use - though obviously not nearly as strong as it could be for this purpose.

With the "strike enemies with talons from behind any cover" thing in mind, having it always be cast at its full angle would be nuts. Aside from that, having all the inscrutable self-stun and sluggishness toned down on the ability really would make it a lot easier for Garuda to actually follow up on using the skill. But I do think that, unlike the Blood Ball, having its charge does add a fairly effective element to the ability.

The hold being suggested here sounds kind of similar to her existing Blending Talons augment, which is basically kind of doing this suggestion but in reverse, with the tap being a sphere AoE around her. Also apparently the ability just inherently has an AoE area around her that does do slashing damage but it's stupidly small (2 meters.) Seems odd since the charge on it always seemed like it, you know, should damage and shred enemies that are within it?

The ability absolutely could stand to have more setup/debuff effects tied to it. Could also stand to have its effects last just a smidge longer by default - or heck, be permanent. Why's Garuda only get 10 seconds of bleeding vulnerability when Nova can inflict a target with a speed reduction (or increase), doubled damage taken, AND explosion on death, on all enemies in a massive sphere around her for 30 seconds? When you put Garuda into that context she absolutely is getting the short-end of the deal.

I run Natural Talent to speed up the cast of Talons and I find it to be quite effective.
Additionally, you can negate the hard landing by aim gliding.

A combo that I personally love to do is to bullet jump high into the air, use Talon charging to levitate there and decide where I want to aim and release my fully charged Talons. (Also launching Talons from the air seems to cover a lot more area than launching from the ground.) Then I aim glide immediately after the cast. Now, while gliding I can either just glide down, I can jump in a direction of my choosing or I can Dread Mirror leap onto an enemy that I want to kill.
 

[Kingsmount]

5 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

Moving the actual 'mirror' of dread mirror here does make a lot of sense, though the Rage mechanic proposed here would legitimately make her way too overpowered - that would essentially be a Quick-Thinking + Rage loop you wouldn't even have to spend mod slots on.

There are frames that almost literally cannot die.   Nezha, Rhino, Sevagoth, plus Loki, Octavia, Ivara with invis almost being as good as invulnerability.   The rage effect is primarily compensation for how awkward bloodletting currently is.  Now you'd restore 20-80% of your energy and the awkward remainder can be compensated for, as well as not having to spam the ability as much to maintain.   If there is any warframe that merits a built in rage mechanic, it's Garuda. 

5 hours ago, -Bluhman- said:

and - this is a very big factor - it ignores walls and cover. 

It really isn't though.  It does next to nothing itself.  It's a bleed primer, but that isn't even that helpful when most meta weapons are forcing slash anyway and at worst you can just swing a second or even fourth time for the same amount of time without energy costs.   

 

It's useful but niche and often irrelevant.  I find I almost never use it unless I'm bored and throw one in for no particular reason other than I felt like it..   But then, I pretty much only use her as a Gloom mule, blood letting to sustain it, and sometimes keep a dread mirror up because might as well but it's almost too annoying to activate to feel worth my time since it'll throw me into the enemies and waste time that could have been spent killing them with weapons. 

 

So when it's purely a primer - set up tool, it in no way deserves to be awkward to use, but needs to be as quick and efficient to use as possible, otherwise what's the point.  Kind of like my problem with pull abilities not effecting a large enough when you could instead spend that time and energy using whatever DPs ability you were going to use another 2-4 times within that same time to cover the same area.  Pulls need long range to be worth the opportunity cost.  Likewise, primers need to be quick to be worth the opportunity cost.

With forced slash already being a thing without the ability, the opportunity cost is pretty high.   So it needs to be more convenient to use.   And tbh even then I'm not sure I'd use it with the way I play, doesn't add a lot when my favorite weapons already slash and one-tap steel path.     

Unless it did something else on top of the bleed like the impalement gimmick I added to make some more use of her finishers if a living target isn't available, as well as some useful synergy if you have an nekros teammate.

 

OH.

What if when charging her 4, it could deal the stored damage as a blood bomb could do?   Even abandon blood bomb entirely in favor of talons, similar to what you said in a way.  So it could actually get some kills and would actually feel like a damage ability and ult,  and bypass the problems with blood bomb because it's effecting a larger area and wont miss.   Then killed enemies get impaled by the talons similar to bows and boltor weapons, with the satisfying thunks and pinning the bodies to walls.    Now THAT could solve my problems with both the blood bomb and seeking talons.   

Either that or if DE really wants to keep the blood orb,  tap could be seeking talons in its current form but with full cone, and hold could throw a straight up buffed blood bomb balanced as being a 4 instead of a 1 with a large area but with a forgiving line of sight check with punch through (So it can still damage an enemy hiding behind a pole but reduced damage through a wall, down to nothing if the wall is too thick). 

And since blood bomb is now on 4, that frees up space on the 1 to instead be a toggle that pulls out her claws as you've suggested. 

[sunderthefirmament]

Garuda is fine, though I will admit that Gloom feels a little too good on her.  I don't think I'll ever go back to Blood Altar.  To be fair, I would always use Hirudo on Garuda anyway.  Gloom just lets me use different melee weapons and not have to magus elevate every 2 seconds.

 

I wouldn't want a rework for Garuda.  A small tweak here or there?  Sure.  She could do with a status cleanse on her 3, baseline.  And she could do with someone erasing all of her current augments and just trying again, please.  They are all just so bad or so very, very niche.