Nullifiers Are The Most Broken, Badly Designed Enemies Ever

[PsiWarp]

Changes I'd like to see:

 

1. Warframe abilities can be cast while inside the bubble, and abilities that buff team and self are not nullified.

 

- So Loki, Limbo, etc are not royally screwed if a Nully creeps up on them.

- Enemy debuffs still won't work against Nullies and bubble bath friends. Spam 4 to win still completely not viable.

 

2. Nullifier now wields an Amprex.

 

- For self defense. They should still prefer to stay at range, shielding their allies from your powers.

- Discourages Tenno from staying too close to each other in Nully's range.

[RyojinOrion]

I covered melee in my post, it's not a credible option in the void since they're often grouped with ground-pounding gunners and bombards.

 

Not a credible option in the void? I must have imagined doing it then. Man, what a vivid imagination I have!

 

Beyond that, the excuse that "oh, it's totally different from 1.0 because you can use specific setups" doesn't pass muster - it falls on its face: "Oh, in 1.0, you could use charge attacks, you could use Sweeper on a sentinel since shotties could achieve 150% AP damage and have it take the enemies out for you, you can get guys to run CP", etc.

 

Those all rely on the same thing though: AP. You had to have AP (or CP, which simulated AP, so it might as well have been the same thing) to be effective.

 

It still got canned because it constrained the viable options available to the player

 

It got canned because there was no other effective option. Here there are other effective options; Therefore, not the same thing.

 

 Functionally, Nullifier shields are no different than the problem posed by armor in 1.0.

 

Let's review...

 

Damage 1.0 problem: You had to use some form of AP to be effective at all later on in the game, leaving you with no other effective builds.

 

Nullifier problem: Their shield is much harder to take down with non-automatic weapons, leaving you with the choices of automatic weapons, melee, kubrows, spectres, teamwork, avoidance, etc, all of which are effective if you know what you're doing.

 

 

Looks different to me. See, the difference is that Dmg1.0 pretty much prevented any different build other than AP based builds, while Nullifiers prevent powers and slow firing weapons from being effective.

 

 Again, it's why the primary sales pitch made to players during 2.0's development was that every weapon would be viable throughout the entire course of the game, not just some of them.

 

Funny, the 'primary sales pitch' I heard throughout the devstreams was not having to use AP + rainbow builds on every weapon.

 

 

Ya know... Clearly we are just going to keep going in circles here and I am getting tired of it, so with the conclusion of this post, I am done.

 

 

Given how poor their AI is, I would not trust them with the task of killing Nullifiers. They can't kill anything faster than their master can, so half of the time they run around frantically looking for a target or sitting by their master. Also, I've heard Nullifiers shoot Kubrows too, and do a lot of damage to them with their Lankas. 

 

 

I personally haven't had that problem. In fact, my Kubrow has saved my ! many times when I didn't have the other means to take them out right then. You do have a point that the AI can be a bit dodgy, though, but that doesn't necessarily rule them out.

 

Same problem as Kubrows, except they cost resources to use, and bullets are free. You're better off doing it yourself than letting the AI do it for you.

 

 

That's just your personal preference. It is still a viable option.

 

 

 

You cannot deny how effective bullet hoses are at breaking the shield compared to bows, snipers, and semi-automatic weapons.

 

 

I'm really not trying to deny that. I will openly agree with that. My point is that there are other options besides bringing in an automatic weapon, though.

 

 

And with that, I'm out.

Edited January 26, 2015 by RyojinOrion

[HibikiGanaha]

Changes I'd like to see:

 

1. Warframe abilities can be cast while inside the bubble, and abilities that buff team and self are not nullified.

 

- So Loki, Limbo, etc are not royally screwed if a Nully creeps up on them.

- Enemy debuffs still won't work against Nullies and bubble bath friends. Spam 4 to win still completely not viable.

 

2. Nullifier now wields an Amprex.

 

- For self defense. They should still prefer to stay at range, shielding their allies from your powers.

- Discourages Tenno from staying too close to each other in Nully's range.

funnily enough, banished targets do not get nullified but riftwalk does.

[HibikiGanaha]

Ran a few dozen T4E and I can safely say that nullifiers are not designed well at all.

 

They have no tell at all that they are going to shoot you.  Compared to the bombard and the Heavy-Gunner, they are not even close to as good in design.

 

Bombard - Moderate speed missiles that you can avoid.  You can force out a ground pound if you get close.  Feels good when you beat a bombard because you out maneuvered him.  Feels bad when you lose to a bombard because you messed up somehow.

 

Heavy Gunner - The slow winding click noise of the gun firiing up tells you how fast they are trying to kill you.  You can move away or try to kill them before they really get going.  Same as bombards, you can force out a radial blast.  Feels good when you kill them because they can kill you fast.  Feels bad when you walk into a blast and lose your shields from getting shot on the ground.

 

Nullifier - No animation, no sound, no warning at all to potentially reward counterplay.  Getting close does nothing, they still just shoot you in the face.  You might get lucky if you are the client, but you have a massive handicap as the host.  Feels really bad to get one-shot out of nowhere by ONE BULLET.  There is nothing you can do to prevent it.  When I ran into a lower level one I was lucky to get hit with only a 1300 damage shot!  A shot with no possible way of dodging in some rooms.

 

Bombard missiles only do 1000 if you decide to see what missiles taste like, and those decay from the center of the explosion.  Heavy gunners take the entire duration of a recovery animation just to deal 700 damage.  So why is this guy allowed to deal double the damage of any other unit without any tell animation?  and instantly to boot?  It is a coin flip if you get the bullet or the guy next to you does.

 

Every unit in the game has some sort of counter play.  Hellions fly up into the sky before shooting you with the missile storm.  If you don't prioritize killing them when they fly into the sky, it is your fault for not killing them fast enough.  Corpus tech deploys shield drones after shooting for awhile.  They give you time to kill him before he unleashes his specialty.  Arctic Eximus doesn't walk out towards you with a frost bubble already up, he shoots you for a bit before deploying it.  The orange glow/slow aura are the tells that that guy is a huge priority and you should kill him first before he makes your mission harder.  Even Ancients from the infested have a tell.  They meander about for a bit before charging at you.  They are the only units that glow/cause a glow.  If you see a charger with an orange outline you need to go kill an ancient healer.  If you let them pile up then that's your fault.

 

Melee isn't an answer.  You can only copter and slam attack so fast.  The dude has his lanka charged everywhere he goes.  You are literally using RNG whether you get shot or not.  That is not skill.  I do not want RNG in my enemies.

 

Damage aside, the dude is a bullet shamwow that comes pre-deployed.

 

tl;dr huge rant with thoughts all over the place and i hate nullifiers

[DeadlyBard676]

just make them all prodmen. at-least then you know to make sure to prioritize them before they even get close you you.

 

EDIT: added more explanation.

Edited January 26, 2015 by KiryuKusakabe

[fatpig84]

Using Loki + Dread + Synnoid Gammacor.

Owning them like a boss.

 

1) Loki is usually invisible. Personally i use a disarm loki, but 12 seconds of invisibility is enough.

I normally see his big ! bubble before i end up in his crosshairs anyway.  

So go dark and this sneaky bastard won't be one shotting me as I stroll up to him.

 

2) Synnoid Gammacor can be cranked up to 5 rounds a second, enough to cut them open while still packing a crap load of DPS.

 

3) IRD messes up his crew forcing him to engage them sometimes.

 

But here is the thing, I can use 1 and 3 merely to distract him.

But if I use dread, I will probably run out of invisibility before I even get his shield down.

Neither is walking into the globe an option since Loki is usually made of wet tissue, especially if there are heavies in there.

 

With Synnoid Gammacor, I can just stand in front of his dome and do shrinkage and pwn him in seconds.

 

Again use an auto weapon.
Use an auto weapon and youu circumvent him completely.

Tada no challenge.

 

That is why I use Loki for T4 ints. I just waltz around doing my thing.

I even level un-maxed primary/secondaries weapons there now since farming jewcats is a thing.

I just need only 1 automatic weapon and I raep him side ways.

 

Anything that spews at least 5 rounds a second and he is a non issue anymore.

So that is the problem. 

 

 

He is too easy to negate with auto guns, but at the same time he is too unfair to slow ROF weapons.

I'm sure DE can reach a happy medium maybe 5 months down the road, but right now, it is not a good balance.

Edited January 26, 2015 by fatpig84

[Synzekhar]

I agree to the point that they are rather annoying when all their buddies hide in that shield with them. The only thing I personally think they need changed is their shield should have a set hp amount dependant on the level of the enemy.

[RMark12]

Why are Althran's tests considered conclusive about high RoF being favored the most?

How about not testing with an unmodified Braton, but an unmodified Grakata/Amprex/Glaxion, with their hefty 20 RoF, and record the time needed to break the shield? Next, test again by adding all RoF increasing mods, bringing the RoF of the above-mentioned weapons to 56, and see if it takes ~1/3 of the time to break it. Finally, test with an actually viable DPS build of the weapon, and report the differences.

 

Also, why is ammo consumption not taken into consideration? He spent ~4.7% of his total pistol ammo pool with his Marelok, but ~7.2% of total ammo with the Braton. This is very conflicting with the statement that "there is no difference" - either the damage per shot matters, or RoF doesn't matter that much.

 

Finally, do void nullifiers work differently from regular nullifiers found on the solar map? Because my favorite way of dispatching the latter turned out to be letting them literally two-shot themselves with melee blocking + the Reflection mod. Apparently, reflected bullets go straight through the nullifier shield - could be a bug, but I'm sincerely hoping it's intended.

[Feallike]

Nullifiers lankas are the only thing i hate because when i play mirage they can oneshot me at 10 minutes in T4S..... -.- I don't like having to reset a solorun because i #*($%%@ up a bit.

 

 

 

BTW you can dodge a Nullifers shot.... its just at close range it gets to you instantaniously. Its fast but not as fast as a Greneer snipers shot. 

 

 

So yes if you are skilled you could probably outmunover a Nullifer. 1v1, though with a bombard with a nullifier it is impossible.

 

 

Edit: I think a sane sollution would be to have magnet damage permanently destroy the bubble completely. (making magnet status good high end)

Edited January 26, 2015 by Feallike

[Feallike]

Why are Althran's tests considered conclusive about high RoF being favored the most?

How about not testing with an unmodified Braton, but an unmodified Grakata/Amprex/Glaxion, with their hefty 20 RoF, and record the time needed to break the shield? Next, test again by adding all RoF increasing mods, bringing the RoF of the above-mentioned weapons to 56, and see if it takes ~1/3 of the time to break it. Finally, test with an actually viable DPS build of the weapon, and report the differences.

 

Also, why is ammo consumption not taken into consideration? He spent ~4.7% of his total pistol ammo pool with his Marelok, but ~7.2% of total ammo with the Braton. This is very conflicting with the statement that "there is no difference" - either the damage per shot matters, or RoF doesn't matter that much.

 

Finally, do void nullifiers work differently from regular nullifiers found on the solar map? Because my favorite way of dispatching the latter turned out to be letting them literally two-shot themselves with melee blocking + the Reflection mod. Apparently, reflected bullets go straight through the nullifier shield - could be a bug, but I'm sincerely hoping it's intended.

 

 

Void ones aren't effected by damage

 

 

Nonvoid ones are..

 

 

DE kept their promise, we just assumed they fixed the whole problem. -.-

[NickBoay]

nullifiers are a cheap way to counter to much ability usage... i am a player that uses alot of abilities, i can already hear people think like " 4 spammer" but not really, i throw shurikens, teleport cuz im lazy , and i bladestorm when there is just to many of em, and there comes the nullifier, and next thing i know i cant play like i want to play and am forced to follow a certain strategy, okay okay fine so i jump in the bubble with my dragon nikana ready for his troat and then i find out that this guy first of all , slows down my movement , secondly 1shot me , ( or 2-3 shots me if im blocking with melee and miss while jumping for his troat) whatsup with this nullifier fo real, im okay with the fact that they can disable powers , but sup with freezing my movement + 1 shotting me soon after that, cheap , means im forced to bring a gun and take him down from far, while im more the melee type of player, at least allow me to Melee him, remove that icey aura thingy...  he already has his blue or gold bubble ( depends if normal map or void )

Edited January 26, 2015 by NickBoay

[BLI7Z]

I love them

[tris1]

900 hp 1 shooted by a nullifier that's just over powered what's the point of having hp if its just going to be 1 shooted

 

hp should either have 50 per cent damage resistance since its hp and not shields

or

nullifiers need to be nerfed otherwise you need a frame that must have a defensive skill that can stop there bullets or hide while being shot by others.

 

nullifiers

bubble isn't effected by crit damage

blocks ability's

blocks bullets

1 shots people

the lanka shots way to fast

there shield actually has a cap at which the rate decrease at meaning you could 2 shot with a gd damage weapon and stop and the shield will decrease but at a rate which cant go any faster

 

nerfed by not stopping bullets on the bubble

decrease the fire rate of there lanka

decrease the damage

[Hatzeputt]

Why not replace all shield drones with propaganda drones that debuff everyone except the Tenno. The catalyst alert was most awesome and given the feedback seems exactly what people want, feeling like a god while punching puppies (debuffed kubrows).

 

Hell why not replace every single void enemy with sheep, oh wait PETA might have something against that, oh I know, straw men! Yes straw men! 

 

But when I think about it replacing all corrupted shield drones with propaganda drones should be appropriated! 

 

/sarcasm.

[GeneralArmchair]

The simple solution is to remove the Lanka and make the bubble a purely anti-power defense. Bullets should pass right through. The nullifier should be comparable to other supporting units like the shield and propaganda drones.

[PureMalice]

Question, why does it even have to be an enemy? couldn't they just throw grenades that do this effect in a given area? a much SMALLER area but more of them possible.

Then they'd be small enough to pop with slower weapons, we could shoot the damnable grenades in midair too like we can missiles.

[Heidrek]

DE could give them another weapon. They were a bit lazy and pasted the shield shield generator on a sniper painted black. :P At least like give it a tetra.

[Scryed]

DE could give them another weapon. They were a bit lazy and pasted the shield shield generator on a sniper painted black. :P At least like give it a tetra.

Nope give them a Dera problem solved...

[Heidrek]

Void ones aren't effected by damage

 

 

Nonvoid ones are..

 

 

DE kept their promise, we just assumed they fixed the whole problem. -.-

Yeah... seems like they don't like my triple formad paris prime.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Heidrek

[Loswaith]

...  Bombard missiles only do 1000 if you decide to see what missiles taste like, and those decay from the center of the explosion.  ..

Actually at about level 30 a Corrupted Bombard can do enough damage to one shot a full redirection and vitality Zephyr (about 2200 health) in a single rocket deflected towards the ground near her (so not even a direct impact).  Abet Zephyr has low armour so no real reduction to the damage on health is factored into the equasion (which actually makes her good to test these things).

For close to the same damage from a nulifier they need to be about level 40+, and even then you can use heavy cover.

 

 

The simple solution is to remove the Lanka and make the bubble a purely anti-power defense. Bullets should pass right through. The nullifier should be comparable to other supporting units like the shield and propaganda drones.

Having them not immune to bullets make them completly trivial (not to mention making the corpus seem like complete morons as a race, becuse the unit is useless against grineer, the more common enemy).  A Nulifier has no more health than a normal crewman.  This is why few people even notice Corpus Snipers that are armed also with the lanka.

 

Take a comparison:

Corrupted Bombards:

- High damage

- Homing, Large AoE shots

- Fast repeat fire

- Huge Health

- High Armour

- Close combat knockdown

- Blends with other units, for a poor visibility unit

 

Corrupted Nulifiers:

- High damage

- Hitscan single target shots

- Slow fire rate

- Trivial Health

- Removeable shield

- Close combat dispel

- Highly visible unit

 

You can see in that list that bombards actually have no weaknesses other than they arent hitscan (though one can argue with AoE you dont need it), while Nulifiers have quite a few weaknesses comparitivly.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Loswaith

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

Actually at about level 30 a Corrupted Bombard can do enough damage to one shot a full redirection and vitality Zephyr (about 2200 health) in a single rocket deflected towards the ground near her (so not even a direct impact).  Abet Zephyr has low armour so no real reduction to the damage on health is factored into the equasion (which actually makes her good to test these things).

For close to the same damage from a nulifier they need to be about level 40+, and even then you can use heavy cover.

 

 

Having them not immune to bullets make them completly trivial (not to mention making the corpus seem like complete morons as a race, becuse the unit is useless against grineer, the more common enemy).  A Nulifier has no more health than a normal crewman.  This is why few people even notice Corpus Snipers that are armed also with the lanka.

 

Take a comparison:

Corrupted Bombards:

- High damage

- Homing, Large AoE shots

- Fast repeat fire

- Huge Health

- High Armour

- Close combat knockdown

- Blends with other units, for a poor visibility unit

 

Corrupted Nulifiers:

- High damage

- Hitscan single target shots

- Slow fire rate

- Trivial Health

- Removeable shield

- Close combat dispel

- Highly visible unit

 

You can see in that list that bombards actually have no weaknesses other than they arent hitscan (though one can argue with AoE you dont need it), while Nulifiers have quite a few weaknesses comparitivly.

Corpus are underpowered because they're the only enemy group that DE hasn't created artificial difficulty for. See the issue.

[Heidrek]

Corpus are underpowered because they're the only enemy group that DE hasn't created artificial difficulty for. See the issue.

Nah it's because all their shields can be bypassed by toxin damage. When I see the way grineer and corpus fight I cant really see a difference. They sorta just stand or sit there then rambo their way into the enemy, if they see them.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Heidrek

[(PSN)Kish_Lat]

Just throw a charger specter in the bubble and let them devour the nullifiers

[GeneralArmchair]

Why should nullifiers get bullet protection to keep then from being "trivial?" why not corpus techs? Why not moas? Maybe grineer butchers should get bullet protection to keep them from bring "trivial. "

Why is the nullifier so damn special that it should out perform every single other common enemy. The closest things it has to peers are the assassins like stalker and the g3. They aren't even in the same ballpark as older troops. Hell, they aren't in the same ballpark as elite eximi variants of older units.

So I ask again. Why should nullifiers have bullet protection when none of the other units (with weaker firepower no less) can not be so fortunate. Give me one good reason (nullifiers would be weaker than they are right now is not a reason).

[HibikiGanaha]

Actually at about level 30 a Corrupted Bombard can do enough damage to one shot a full redirection and vitality Zephyr (about 2200 health) in a single rocket deflected towards the ground near her (so not even a direct impact).  Abet Zephyr has low armour so no real reduction to the damage on health is factored into the equasion (which actually makes her good to test these things).

For close to the same damage from a nulifier they need to be about level 40+, and even then you can use heavy cover.

 

 

Having them not immune to bullets make them completly trivial (not to mention making the corpus seem like complete morons as a race, becuse the unit is useless against grineer, the more common enemy).  A Nulifier has no more health than a normal crewman.  This is why few people even notice Corpus Snipers that are armed also with the lanka.

 

Take a comparison:

Corrupted Bombards:

- High damage

- Homing, Large AoE shots- Can be dodged

- Fast repeat fire

- Huge Health

- High Armour

- Close combat knockdown - Can skillfully be used to stop them from shooting missiles.

- Blends with other units, for a poor visibility unit - They are taller and fatter than any other unit, they don't blend in at all

 

Corrupted Nulifiers:

- High damage

- Hitscan single target shots - Unavoidable, untelegraphed damage.  I can't possibly see how anyone thinks this is good design.

- Slow fire rate

- Trivial Health - Gives 3 seconds of invulnerability from bullets to himself and all other units inside his bubble.  That is WAY MORE effective health than a bombard.

- Removeable shield

- Close combat dispel

- Highly visible unit

 

You can see in that list that bombards actually have no weaknesses other than they arent hitscan (though one can argue with AoE you dont need it), while Nulifiers have quite a few weaknesses comparitivly.

Never got one shot by a bombard even while walking directly into a missile.  740 shields and 450 health saryn and the lowest a missile ever took me was ~360 health.  I ran over 100 T4E so it wasn't just a one time thing.  Nullifiers on the other hand were completely random.  Huge problem in the long hallway room with the two golden globes or in the generator room with the tall elevator.  Even shooting thems from a distance with the soma prime i would randomly die, they have no telegraph to tell you when they are about to shoot.  You could die as soon as you popped out of cover.

 

See comments in your quote for the other stuff I have to say in reply.