Grendel Rework Idea

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

One of the most unfun things about Grendel is how fast he loses energy per second when he consumes enemies, but you can't use his other abilities unless you consume enemies. Granted this was probably done so Grendel players don't just spam feast and simply consume every enemy.

So, I came up with an idea to change his feast mechanic. So instead of the Feast ability draining energy per second, it will reduce Grendel's maximum energy capacity until it reaches zero.

How does it work? Let's say feasting on one enemy reduces Grendel's energy capacity by about 5% of his maximum energy capacity. For example, if Grendel's base energy capacity is 225 at MR30 then feasting on 3 enemies will reduce your max energy capacity to 157. At this rate, you can consume up to 20 enemies at a 5% max. energy capacity reduction. This change will allow Grendel to keep the armor he gains from devouring enemies throughout the mission and players can mod Grendel with energy capacity to scale his armor gains but also limits Grendel players from consuming every enemy. This means players that consume too many enemies will not be able to cast Feast until they vomit to increase their energy capacity and collect sufficient energy.

Now let's move on to Pulverize. As fun as this ability is it should be maneuverability similar to limbo's ability to move in and out of the rift. whenever Grendel rolls, he turns into the meatball and when press roll again he turns back out of the meatball, regardless he if has eaten an enemy or not. This would free up his ultimate slot for a more powerful (and useful) ability.

possible change to pulverize.

Pulverize - contaminate the ground before Grendel with toxic bile, inflicting corrosive damage to any enemy that stands in your expectoration.
 

Energy: 0

Activation cost - 10 eaten enemies

Strength:

• 100 /150/ 200/ 250 dps (corrosive damage per second)
• 30/ 35/ 40/ 45% sps (status chance per second)

Duration: 25/30/35/40 s

Range: 

• 90/100/120/180 degree (angle)
• 8/10/12/15m (radius)

Misc:

• enemies caught in the range of abilities' activation will receive a 100% corrosive status chance.

This ability is an armor reduction ability that works similar to Oberon's Hallowed Ground and is a payoff for Grendel devouring enemies.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Honestly I don’t think we need to get that crazy with how to fix Grendels energy issues.

I think just the removal of the scaling drain and just keeping it a static cost per enemy will more than suffice.

[quxier]

 

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Honestly I don’t think we need to get that crazy with how to fix Grendels energy issues.

I think just the removal of the scaling drain and just keeping it a static cost per enemy will more than suffice.

Or like Gloom - can regenerate energy while enemies are not around, only N number of enemies drains energy etc.

Still, having roll for turning into the Ball without enemies inside:

31 minutes ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

Now let's move on to Pulverize. As fun as this ability is it should be maneuverability similar to limbo's ability to move in and out of the rift. whenever Grendel rolls, he turns into the meatball and when press roll again he turns back out of the meatball, regardless he if has eaten an enemy or not. This would free up his ultimate slot for a more powerful (and useful) ability.

would be awesome.

[Uhkretor]

... Grendel rework for one player?

 

pfft, no one uses Grendel except to eat Steel Path Lephantis.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

I like the change for pulverize!

 

As for feast, imo just make it duration based. Cast it once to eat as many enemies as you can to gain buffs, wait for the duration to end or spit them out before being able to eat again. Add a cap for how many enemies he can eat.

Would also be nice if Nourish scaled like equinoxs ability, collecting damage that you deal to enemies in your gut and deal to enemies affected by other abilities. Then when you are ready, activate nourish to deal that damage as true damage to enemies in your gut. Giving you stronger buffs and maybe even bonus health (similar to overshields). Could be a fun game in Steel Path trying to eat enemies and gain as much overhealth as you can without taking to much damage, maybe pass Inaros in health at some point if you are skilled enough.

He'd need an ability for some protection for that goal to be any fun tho : /

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

,

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

4 hours ago, quxier said:

 

Or like Gloom - can regenerate energy while enemies are not around, only N number of enemies drains energy etc.

Gloom works as each individual enemy increases the energy drain up to the max drain possible.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Gloom works as each individual enemy increases the energy drain up to the max drain possible.

Yeah, but I meant "like Gloom" not just copy-paste.

You can swallow enemies if you have energy. Up to N (e.g. 10) enemies in Grendel's belly would drain energy .

For example you have 20 enemies but only 10 (from above example of N) would rain energy.

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

Current Grendel Feast Drain

Per the Warframe Wiki the Base Drain formula for Grendel is (1.5. + 0.05t)s-1
Each enemy is a drain of 1.55 energy a second; So, 20 enemies is a drain of 30 energy a second.
At 175% energy efficiency and like 243% ability duration I got the energy drain of Grendel’s feast to be the following:
1 enemy will equal a drain of 0.38 energy a second, which means 20 enemies is about 7.65 energy per second. This gives Grendel 29.4 seconds before he is out of energy with a base energy capacity of 225.

Grendel’s Feast Ability with a flat drain like Sevagoth Gloom

At base, Sevagoth’s Gloom has a drain of 0.75 energy per second per enemy that’s capped at 7.5 energy a second regardless of how many enemies appear afterward. At max efficiency, gloom is capped at 0.19 per enemy /1.88 (cap) energy drain per second.
If we give Grendel’s Feast ability the same Gloom cap of 7.5 energy drain regardless of how many enemies he devours, then Grendel has 30 seconds before he runs out of energy (at default 225 energy capacity), but at max efficiency, with a drain cap of 1.88 then Grendel has approximately 119 seconds before running out of energy.

119 seconds is a bit OP and even if we increase the energy drain cap or scale it to increase per every 5 or 10 enemies, we cannot escape the problem of Grendel not having a limit to how many enemies he can consume. DE would have to find that magical number to ensure that players cannot just Kirby the entire map or the energy drain of his feast ability is so much that Grendel is back to having a small window to cast his abilities (pretty much the current situation). This is why I think DE did not release Grendel with a capped flat-rate energy drain.

Feasted enemies lowering maximum energy capacity instead draining energy
My solution for Grendel’s Feast is not perfect and I’m sure I’m missing some exploit or something, but I feel at least on paper, addresses the energy drain issues that limit the time Grendel has to use his other abilities, allows him to have 1000 bonus armor for more than 30 seconds and hopefully avoids Grendel from being OP by devouring the whole map.
 

[PsiWarp]

Honestly if they capped the drain at 10 enemies for both Feast and Pulverize then I'd be happy. I don't need to hold onto 20+ enemies in the gut and slow the spawns in a mission. For funsies with the puke shotgun sure, but otherwise 10 is enough to make him functionally OP in damage and able to utilize the whole kit.

[Leqesai]

1 hour ago, PsiWarp said:

Honestly if they capped the drain at 10 enemies for both Feast and Pulverize then I'd be happy. I don't need to hold onto 20+ enemies in the gut and slow the spawns in a mission. For funsies with the puke shotgun sure, but otherwise 10 is enough to make him functionally OP in damage and able to utilize the whole kit.

The energy ramp up needs to go. That's he biggest issue IMO. 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, PsiWarp said:

Honestly if they capped the drain at 10 enemies for both Feast and Pulverize then I'd be happy. I don't need to hold onto 20+ enemies in the gut and slow the spawns in a mission. For funsies with the puke shotgun sure, but otherwise 10 is enough to make him functionally OP in damage and able to utilize the whole kit.

I've been wondering if it slows the spawns, I managed to eat 40 enemies at one point from being in a really good room with lots of doors and when I looked at my map it seemed like 30 more enemies spawned in.

[Alpheus]

6 hours ago, PsiWarp said:

I don't need to hold onto 20+ enemies in the gut and slow the spawns in a mission.

This is the opposite of how it works in Survival. Once those enemies pass through your maw, they no longer count toward the enemy cap. One mission I was able to suck in over 50 enemies in one gulp by just looking at all the different spawn points as they passed through the doors.

[baked]

On 2022-01-25 at 8:28 PM, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

I've been wondering if it slows the spawns, I managed to eat 40 enemies at one point from being in a really good room with lots of doors and when I looked at my map it seemed like 30 more enemies spawned in.

As far as I'm aware, eating enemies functionally removes them from the game. This means the game will instantly spawn more enemies. It's a relatively unexplored ability.

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

That new augment is definitely gonna have Grendel players dying pretty fast.

[kapn655321]

Why doesn't he gain energy from eating things, rather than lose it? Ya know... like how eating works..

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

9 minutes ago, kapn655321 said:

Why doesn't he gain energy from eating things, rather than lose it? Ya know... like how eating works..

Lol. Very true.

I feel the only reason they don't do it is because Grendel trolls would simply vacuum every enemy in the map. 

[kapn655321]

5 minutes ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

Lol. Very true.

I feel the only reason they don't do it is because Grendel trolls would simply vacuum every enemy in the map. 

That's where I feel you had an elegant solution with reducing max energy. Once he's overfull, he'd barf out the enemies.

Like some of the other comments mention, having a fixed cost per enemy is something... I'd even venture to say having the cost be an asymptote.

Think of like... the mental feel to the difference between eating a few chips, a pile of chips, or a bag of chips. There's a tipping point where you're in for a penny, in for a pound, you know? lol Like, once you hit the point where it's bad for your health and you're going to feel like garbage, there's little other difference in how 'full' it makes you feel. Actually eat the whole bag, and feel barfy... but when you're at a half a bag in, it's easier to commit to the whole thing.

In retrospect, that shouldn't be a relatable example.

Like a sunk cost fallacy maybe? Ah to heck with it. I'm not the only person here to eat a whole bag of chips. Y'all know what I mean.

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

43 minutes ago, kapn655321 said:

That's where I feel you had an elegant solution with reducing max energy. Once he's overfull, he'd barf out the enemies.

Like some of the other comments mention, having a fixed cost per enemy is something... I'd even venture to say having the cost be an asymptote.

Think of like... the mental feel to the difference between eating a few chips, a pile of chips, or a bag of chips. There's a tipping point where you're in for a penny, in for a pound, you know? lol Like, once you hit the point where it's bad for your health and you're going to feel like garbage, there's little other difference in how 'full' it makes you feel. Actually eat the whole bag, and feel barfy... but when you're at a half a bag in, it's easier to commit to the whole thing.

In retrospect, that shouldn't be a relatable example.

Like a sunk cost fallacy maybe? Ah to heck with it. I'm not the only person here to eat a whole bag of chips. Y'all know what I mean.

I know what you mean. My son ate like 24 pop tarts in like a 2 hour span and puked up a rainbow afterward.

[kapn655321]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Nightseid said:

I know what you mean. My son ate like 24 pop tarts in like a 2 hour span and puked up a rainbow afterward.

That's the kind of energy we need to see from Grendel! =D

I'm super fond of my Grendel, but his energy econ is by far the most frustrating and off balance.

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

Oh snap! It might be happening!

https://twitter.com/PabloMakes/status/1573411754603909120?t=Y5iSBRnq94Ow9rRe27_zbg&s=19

[YikersDikers]

On 2022-01-24 at 6:30 PM, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Honestly I don’t think we need to get that crazy with how to fix Grendels energy issues.

I think just the removal of the scaling drain and just keeping it a static cost per enemy will more than suffice.

Yeah I agree. Been loving him in the Archon Hunts. I just wish he could actually make use of any of the new Archon Mods.