small Garuda review

[MrFrog9]

I played with the new Garuda for, let's be generous, about 30 minutes so obviously all of this is Very Very Not Final

I like:

• Garuda's fundamental gameplay is kept basically intact. This, more than anything, is what I want most from these revisions and why I kinda dread them. She still jumps on enemies and charges up massive nukes in a shower of blood and viscera. I am happy with this.
• I really like being able to pounce on a Corrupted Crewman without fear of being shot out of the air, so thanks for that.
• Better support for mobile gameplay is kind of important in a game sold on its smooth parkour movement so I like the bloodball and Seeking Talons letting you move faster while charging.
• Seeking Talons seems to have a slightly different graphic when charging unless I'm mistaken, and I quite like it. It feels more flow-y, and doesn't seem to obscure my screen as much.
• Bloodletting cleansing status is a neat idea. A lot of the time it'll probably do more damage than the status effect would have done anyways (albeit while generating energy), but I will accept literally anything that lets me clean Magnetised off of myself, because I do in fact like being able to see my HUD.
• Tapping to initiate Seeking Talons' charging feels a lot nicer on keyboard than holding down 4.
• The new passive also running off of assists is a godsend and avoids the endemic problem of turning kills into a limited resource your squad must compete for. Unfortunately, this is hamstrung a bit by the passive's economy being a bit wonky (see below).

I don't like:

• The massive invulnerability on Seeking Talons feels a bit excessive. It makes Dread Mirror kind of redundant because you can just spam Talons for full invulnerability, and it's not like Garuda is ever in danger of running out of energy.
• The new passive is hilariously unbalanced. 1 kill or assist every 15 seconds isn't a remotely difficult benchmark to maintain in a game like this; in my time messing around I rarely saw my meter even go below 95%. You could probably literally triple the decay rate and it'd still be trivial to maintain. Even in Interception, which features extremely low enemy density and lots of forced waiting around outside of combat, the meter inexorably rose up to maximum and continually stayed at 90+% thereafter just from me popping stray enemies while running between pylons. Beyond a waste of a decent idea, I don't think a character running around with perpetually doubled damage at basically no cost outside of basic participation really fits in with the game? But there are much worse balancing problems in Warframe so whatever.
• The new charging animations for bloodball and Seeking Talons don't super do it for me; I'm not sure why she insists on floating. Granted, it's still an improvement from her old awkward duck-walk.
• What was the point of Bloodletting's energy gain buff? It's so small (+5%?) and it's not like Garuda didn't already have functionally infinite energy. I'm not really complaining, because (again) Garuda already had infinite energy so it literally doesn't matter either way, I'm just... confused.

I want:

• Maybe tone down the invulnerability on Seeking Talons? I think at least some is fine, because otherwise the only safe way to use it is to hide behind a wall which really doesn't fit Garuda's characterisation, but being able to just press 4 to become entirely invincible for three seconds while charging a gigantic AoE nuke/debuff is a bit lame.
• Take another look at the passive's economy because at the moment it really just boils down to "Garuda deals flat 2x damage, forever".

Despite my criticisms, I do feel this is overall a positive change. I liked Garuda before and I think I like her a bit more now, so I guess it's a net success. I'm a bit ambivalent about her old passive being removed but it's probably for the best; it was already difficult/awkward to maintain low health in a game where everything and its mom wants to heal you, and shield gating just kinda drove another nail in that coffin by making it even harder to sustain health damage without just mashing 3. While it's mildly annoying that Blood Altar's %lost life heal no longer has a reason to exist, nor does Dread Ward, the new passive does feel a lot more natural.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Can you shoot and melee while charging the 4? Why would anyone spam the 4? 

Also, the regular star chart has loads of gaps to miss that damage passive.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

On 2022-03-17 at 12:09 AM, MrFrog9 said:

•  
• Take another look at the passive's economy because at the moment it really just boils down to "Garuda deals flat 2x damage, forever".

 

So you mean basically old Garuda?  If it wasn't a problem then it isn't a problem now.