Nova's Null Star Tweaks (Along With Neutron Star Tweaks)

[Renegade343]

Hello all,

 

This thread will be detailing some tweaks to Nova's Null Star (and its Augment mod Neutron Star), to become more useful against enemies as a 1 skill. The content is below: 

 

Null Star is an ability that will spawn particles of antimatter around Nova, shooting off to the nearest enemy every second or so. While this is a pretty good 1 ability, it feels somewhat lacking, as all it does is deal damage, and cannot be recast until the last particle is shot out. 

 

Thus, to make Null Star be more useful other than its average damage, the suggestion is to bring back its stagger, through having the particles have a 100% of dealing an Impact status effect to an enemy that is hit by the antimatter particle, allowing Nova to have a quick breathing space with Null Star.

 

Also, allow Nova to recast Null Star even if there are particles still swirling around her, so that the skill would be more friendly as a 1 skill that is meant to be used more frequently. These two changes would allow Null Star to act as her quick defensive tool. An alternative to this would be to move the Neutron Star effect to become innate when the player presses 1 again while there are still Null Stars around Nova (with decreased damage [around 25-30% damage decrease] in exchange for 100% Blast status effect), giving Nova a small, personal defensive tool.

 

As for Neutron Star, Neutron Star is an Augment mod that allows Nova to detonate any remaining Null Stars on her for area-of-effect damage and a chance for a Blast status effect. While this is a rather useful tool at times, it feels a bit lacking for a Syndicate mod, as it feels like a quality of life augment that should have been integrated with Null Star at the start. Thus, to tweak Neutron Star, the suggestion is as thus: 

 

Enemies hit by Null Star will spawn two daughter Null Stars from them, in which they will have a 12.5%/25%/37.5%/50% of shooting two daughter Null Stars again. 

 

Each daughter Null Star (since this is mimicking nuclear fission) will have half the damage of the parent Null Star. An example calculation is as thus: 

 

An enemy is hit with a Null Star (200 damage), which makes it spawn two daughter Null Stars (100 damage each), in which they hit two enemies, one per enemy.

Both daughter Null Stars split again from the hit enemies, meaning there will be four daughter Null Stars (50 damage each), in which they will hit four enemies, and stop. 

 

This Augment would allow Null Star to be a more CC-focused 1 ability, being able to stagger a small group to allow Nova and her allies a bit of breathing space (other than using Molecular Prime). 

 

Please take the time to read this thread, and provide constructive criticism and feedback.

 

Renegade343

[LordMelvin]

I like it a lot. Null Star is Nova's only close range defensive tool, and it lacks somewhat in that department now that enemies can just walk through it. Giving it back it's stagger would be lovely.

 

I feel like Neutron Star's effect is unique enough that it can remain that way. I'd actually like to see the fission effect you proposed wrapped into Null Star's base function. It doesn't do enough base damage to be used as a nuke, but it gives Null Star a much larger potential range against clustered enemies.

[Issun135]

I think neutron star should also kinda work like the old radial javelin. Push 1 again to shoot the stars in a radius around you (they still deal the same amount of damage) and explode on contact or have no explosion and hone in to enemies.