Rebalancing the (Hollow) Thrax enemies

[Duality52]

For context, the (Hollow) Thraxes are the Void manifestation of the Orokin era Grineer fought: on board the Zariman, in Duviri, on Lua via Conjunction Survival, and the Undercroft. The latter three only features Hollow variants, but only on the Circulus node will require the Operator to finish off the ghost of the Thrax. The normal Thraxes on the Zariman are the first and original variants in terms of game development.

The issues come in form of both their abilities and attacks.

• (Hollow) Thrax Centurions

Their primary Hespar swings deals rather too much damage to defense objectives such as Mobile Defense terminals and Excavators in the Undercroft. This is especially prominent during a Steel Path run, where near level 600 Hollow Centurions will destroy Excavators within two to three swings. The defense objectives should either take a cap percentage of their health as damage or innate damage resistance.

Hollow Centurions can throw a sword beam, but the effects feel too subtle. In addition to increasing its visual appearance, I would have the projectile have minor homing, but reduced damage. That way, Centurions can use it to catch players off guard from a distance, but not without have the same damage potential as its Hespar swings or being unavoidable.

Finally, the normal Thrax Centurion's ability to perform a Magnetic Dash Slash. The moment it performs the ability, it renders itself invulnerable, which negates any meaningful counterplay. Instead, have the Centurion take reduced damage instead of being invulnerable.

To spice things up, you can either Void Sling into the Centurion during the dash or damage it to briefly drop its spectral copy of its Hespar. Picking it up will have your frame or the Operator/Drifter can allow you to throw the spectral copy as a bomb, much like Exodia Contagion or Nihil's Glass Bombs. If you slinged into the Centurion, you immediately have a spectral copy at your disposal.

• (Hollow) Thrax Legatus

Legatus should be able to use the primary fire of the Aeolak than just solely the Alt-Fire. Instead, the Alt-Fire is tied to a cooldown if the Legatus wish to use it. Have the barrel of the their Aeolaks glow if they wish to use the Alt-Fire, providing visual feedback to the player of the impeding Alt-Fire.

Both forms of the Legati can use the Clone Magnetic Beam attack, which constitutes as the worst designed attack for enemies to use in the game.

1. Renders the Legatus to be incorporeal. Can't be targeted until the animation ends
2. No visual feedback of casting it. It's instantaneous, and the Legatus loves using it upon first slight of you within closer range.
3. Only the Host can destroy the copies, leaving the Cilents to scramble for cover.
4. Beams that stagger, while inflicting too much burst damage. Can kill several unshielded frames and with some degree of damage resistance (Harrow's Covenant provides proof of that damage)
5. Even if you destroy the copies, the original Legatus emerges with no ill side effects

No good counterplay and an attack that just stalls the encounter, along with a number of bugs that softlocked the Circuit back at April earlier this year.

The Legatus will now have a channeling animation of it cloning itself. The original Legatus will manifest a shield around itself instead of going invisible. The clones can be damaged and targeted by all damage types, but the damage taken is amplified by Operator/Drifter. If the clones are killed by the latter, the clones will release a Void explosion, damaging enemies only like a Void Sink in a Void Storm. Number of clones killed will take off 30% of the Legatus's total health, much like how destroying all of the canisters on a Aerolyst will deal a percentage of damage to it. The Legatus will also be staggered even through its Overguard if one of its clones die.

Lorewise, the Thraxes are interesting. While DE intended the Thraxes to be minibosses, their burst damage is a little too excessive and their abilities is a free "get-out-of-jail" card.

TLDR: Make the damage of the Thraxes to be more fair to both players and defense objectives. Adjust their abilities to have meaningful counterplay than just dodge and stare.

[CrownOfShadows]

Hm, well I agree and disagree. I think the Thrax are well rounded, and the only thing I'd really change about them is to make them even tankier in the Circuit, they're too easy to evaporate (if your team has an armor strip or any kind of strong dmg multiplier), and to some degree also in the Zariman but not as much.

I'm okay with your suggestion to make them just have DR instead of invulnerability; it should be a basic rule that nothing should ever be completely invulnerable, but the magnetic attacks feel fine to me, they're fun to try and dodge. As for their burst - it sure can hurt, no denying that, but if you take that away they'll instantly be a trash mob that's just bigger than the rest... and we don't need more of that. I like that they're an actual threat - they're pretty much the only thing that is, unless you want to count acolytes.

However I'm also okay with your suggestion to make them not do as much dmg to defense objectives... but... this kinda gets into larger problems with the defense and excavation modes in general. It definitely sucks to have one of them come up and insta-kill your excavator, had that happen plenty. And it's a serious problem with trying to solo Circuit defense when you have like 5 or 6 of them all coming in at once, but again, these game modes need more help than just fixing Thrax imo, although that might be a good start.