A Little Addition To Make Ballistic Battery A Great Skill

[lautalocos]

make the charged shot have unlimited punch trough.

 

this would fix the problems many mesa users have about the ability only targeting one enemy. 

even if the damage is not enough to kill the enemy with fast firing weapons, a slow firing weapon used with ballistic battery would make the ability scale to very high enemy levels

 

that's all

[DarkSoulStrider]

*Readies Vectis*

[Brimir]

But it is already an amazing ability for taking out single tough targets like Eximus or Bombards/Napalms.

And Stalker. Poor ol' Stalker...

[Little-Cunny]

I haven't gotten the WarFrame and would like to know, is this power toggleable or based on duration?

[Brimir]

You activate it once to charge up/store damage.

Activate it twice for bonus damage on your next shot.

[Blakrana]

Just out of curiosity, can you clarify for me what you mean by 'Targets one enemy'?

 

I mean, as I read the ability it sounds like the effect is applied to your shot on release...which by rights should be affected by any Punch-through you have in effect on said gun anyway. Or, is it a case that the 'Charged Shot' only applies damage to the first enemy, then your hypothetically still punch through bullet ceases/continues without said damage bonus?

 

Not to be overtly obtuse, just, I've always stuck Metal Auger/Seeker on my stuff where possible and what you're saying seems to imply that the Ability negates punch-through on the bullet when 'charged'.

 

If that is the case, a pity but I can still see some mileage out of it. Just, well, Punch-through is a feature of my weapons so I'd figure that'd be in effect regardless of an ability.

 

I don't suppose anyone with a Mesa has tested Punch-through shots with Ballistic Battery in effect at all? Clear up the confusion?

[Jinryusai]

But it is already an amazing ability for taking out single tough targets like Eximus or Bombards/Napalms.

And Stalker. Poor ol' Stalker...

So are guns with a lot of power in it and 4th abilities.

 

Such a niche skill is redundant and unused.

 

Why not use Peacemaker instead? With that you'll gun down everything including the Eximus and the heavy.

[Jinryusai]

The bullet should at least bounce from enemy to enemy till the counter hits zero.

[-Mandachordian-Tenno-]

The bullet should at least bounce from enemy to enemy till the counter hits zero.

uhm maybe what you said should be an augment mod for her, call it "rico shay bathory"

[Blakrana]

Why not use Peacemaker instead?

 

You don't have the energy to initiate Peacemaker.

 

You don't see the point wasting 100~ energy on something you can blow to smithereens for 25.

 

It can serve as a good emergency burst in the event you get surprised by a random heavy that needs to die now; cue 'Here's one I prepared earlier' moment.

 

Could be more reasons, but those would suffice.

[Jinryusai]

Peacemaker does not cost 100 energy.

 

And what if there are multiple heavies around, especially infested?

Edited December 9, 2014 by Jinryusai

[Jinryusai]

uhm maybe what you said should be an augment mod for her, call it "rico shay bathory"

Or maybe this skill can stop being too limited and rarely used without that mod.

[Macdermott]

But it is already an amazing ability for taking out single tough targets like Eximus or Bombards/Napalms.

And Stalker. Poor ol' Stalker...

Problem is, it's not objectively better than just pumping those baddies full of two or three shots.

 

Unless you're incredibly low level with minimal gear.

 

Give the shot punch through, and I'll use it more often.

[Blakrana]

Peacemaker does not cost 100 energy.

 

And what if there are multiple heavies around, especially infested?

 

Fair. I'm working off the energy I know most ultimates cost at any rate.

 

As for what you do when there are multiple heavies, same as you always do; adapt based on your circumstances. Infested encourage target prioritisation, so take your charged shot and plant it in the Ancient Healer's cranium whilst moving to better ground. Use your melee weapon if necessary. Although I believe her Shooting Gallery skill does actually affect Infested, so why not use that for your CC needs?

 

Some skills are single target. Is this necessarily bad? Does every skill in the game have to be designed to do large damage/CC in an area of varying size? Ok, so the game has a lot of Horde Tactic enemies, but Single Target skills work great in the hands of players who like a Marksman play style. And a good marksman is never troubled by the count of enemies, rather it's simply a chance to show off how good a shot they are.

 

Ballistic Battery affects one bullet. If that also means that one bullet can only affect one enemy, then make it count. Simple skill, simple use. If it works with a Punch-through modded gun, that's frankly more than enough I think. If not, well, hey, it's still got application for the marksman.

 

A Warframe has 4 abilities and theoretically 3 weapons to choose from when engaging any situation. It just becomes a matter of using the right tool for the job. Pinning everything on just a single item may be what people want to do, but in the end variety is always the greatest tool you can have in your possession.

 

At the moment, I don't see what's so bad about a basic skill not able to 'do everything'. But, hey, I've always been of the mind to use my abilities, plural, based on the situation. Relying on one thing to solve a problem is just stubborn.

 

End of the day, give someone a limited set of tools and ask them how they'll solve problems with it, and they'll come up with answers based on those limits. I like games and skills that encourage Limitations in order to lead to varying applications at the end of the day.

 

I can see a use for a single target skill, others may not. It's just a matter of different mindsets in the end, but that doesn't make it objectively bad.

 

I expect you'd disagree with me on that, so that's that.

 

Honestly, all I care about is whether or not it negates Punch through when modded into the weapon in question for that 1 Shot, but I can always test it myself if necessary.

[Jinryusai]

^All this goes against what they devs want. They want people to use all skills, even granted them all the skills via the update so they have no excuse to use it.

 

If they only use 1 or 2 skills, this makes their work redundant.

 

Why not have a multipurpose 1st ability?

 

One for marksman and one for rapid shooters that like mobility?

 

Why can't all skills have alternate effects activated with the "Hold" function?

 

That would bring more variety to warframes?

 

They once spoke of a second set of powers. This is a start.

[Blakrana]

^All this goes against what they devs want. They want people to use all skills, even granted them all the skills via the update so they have no excuse to use it.

 

Sorry, what? I think you've missed my point.

 

I explicitly suggested using the other abilities, plural, to resolve problems you may encounter along with the use of weapons. If I'm not mistaken, that's exactly in line with the Dev intent of 'use everything at your disposal'. Just because you have access to all abilities at all times, however, does not mean that they are necessarily useful in all situations. That's why you've got four of them; to adapt as necessary.

 

The Dev intent is that a Warframe always has their abilities available, yes. I do not think, however, they are working on the belief that every singe ability a Warframe possesses is going to be useful in all situations, hence the fact there are 4 abilities to choose from to ensure you can react, relative to the current problem. Low Health? Heal/Life Strike. Heavy Enemy? Damage/CC/Leg it etc etc etc

 

The fact that people may only use a handful of abilities is simply the problem in any game whereby people capitalise on something and use it again and again because it's efficient. Much like spamming Blade Destruction in Phantasy Star Portable 2, people spam whatever AoE nuke they have going.

 

Sure, in theory there's nothing wrong with a multi-purpose ability, but there is such a thing as 'doing too much'. Ballistic Battery working with Punch through is an acceptable limit as it'd reward a well timed skill shot. Making it 'Run and gun' viable is odd as it's a single shot, ergo demanding you make sure to aim it in order to have not wasted it. Different things.

 

I don't quite know whether or not this is going to make sense to you, as you missed my point before admittedly, but at the end of the day, my point is thus:

 

Limits are necessary in order to encourage a decision between two items. Ideally, these items should be incomparable as they offer different benefits in different situations, and should not be in competition with each other. If something has objective benefits over the other, that is a mere logical calculation, something people are inevitably going to do and cannot be avoided by any means.

 

In other words, the comparison between abilities should be akin to Apples and Oranges; different things for different situations/preferences.

 

Making something half Apple, half Orange is not going to make something better than just a straight up honest Apple or Orange.

 

I am not opposed to different abilities or types there of, just a case of dealing with reasonable limits. The very crux of the current Meta of 'use one or two abilities if any' is because these few abilities do far, far more than the neglected abilities. The fact that they can be made extremely cheap and spammable just compounds it. Why use Mind Control when you can use Chaos etc etc etc.

 

Things aren't Apples v Oranges. It's Crab apples vs Granny Smiths vs other kinds of apples. Or relevant Orange analogy, whichever you prefer.

 

As long as there is an objectively better choice you will make that choice. Basic logic I'm afraid. Abilities need to move towards encouraging choices that are not logically superior if we're ever to hope to move away from these problems.

[Jinryusai]

So many games have powers with a use that is so limited, it may not even be worth considering. ballistic is one of them.

 

You can see people hardly use it if they use it at all.

 

Therefore it's really not fun to use and making it more fun and more viable is the way to go.

 

Giving it inate punch through is a start. Making it ricochet to each enemy is also good. Making it shoot out many bullets with infinite punch through would make it pretty fun to use and pretty unique 1st ability much like Hall of Mirrors.

 

So giving it two functions(rapid fire and single shot) to please everyone is a good thing they can do to make it more viable and fun to use.

 

it does a good job of making your warframe more aesthetically appealing as you search for that rare opportunity to make good on that single shot w/o your teammates or your gun making it irrelevant.

 

In the end, it's nice to have 4 skills that are fun to use rather than only 2 out of 4 which are fun. It's almost as if the warframe only has 1-2 powers or 2-3.

 

Multi purpose is the way to go and it's all about fun and not comparing skills or competing. Simply having fun alternatives to kill enemies.

 

people may prefer to have this http://youtu.be/qNGVwa0MS3k (ignore the mod) than a single shot.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Jinryusai