Alternatives To Snow Globe In Tower Defense

[ShardsSuperior]

We should probably clarify few things:

I think most of us get it when I say longer defenses (60+)

And I think everyone here understands that we are taking about protecting the cryopod.

The last time I ran with Limbo the cryopod was destroyed at wave 82 while I was recasting cataclysm.

The last time I ran with Volt the cryopod was destroyed by gunners on the balcony much sooner.

If you have a 60+ run without Snowglobe, post it man. Enlighten us!

Well... you apparently made it past wave 80 with Cataclysm...

And you could have definitely done it with Volt if you were more careful, and put shields on top of the Cryopod as well.

 

Slow Nova (Very, very slow) + Nyx (Max range) + Loki (Disarm + Long duration) + Banshee (max range with decent power strength, neutral duration).

Nyx starts off Absorbing at Pod, and Banshee sits in Sound Quake, while Loki runs around and disarms enemies, as well as kills any Nullifiers seen. Once they are more or less all disarmed, Nova M.Primes, Nyx Chaos, and Banshee Sonar + Silence; if a single bullet is seen, everyone goes back into that first job. With the MPrime slow + Silence + Chaos Disorient, enemies were in constant stagger mode. if any enemies got too close, Banshee Sonic Boom to blast them back.

 

Or. Nekros, calling back dead Nullifiers and Ancients and other enemies to both shield the pod and body block for it by drawing aggro. Needs an Slow Nova to make sure Shadows always have upper hand. Limbo is nice for that initial invulnerability.

 

Or, Loki + Vauban with Repelling Bastille + Banshee + anything. Preferably a Nova to make it even slower.

 

All of these have been tested, up to at least wave 40. The first one went to wave 60, but we got the part we needed. The pod's shields hadn't even been completely taken away.

 

But the point stands. Each of these scenarios took perfect teamwork and relied a lot on stalling the wave, while a poor man's Frost protects the pod.

Frost is like Carrier or Boltor Prime. Extremely easy to use and pretty strong, and very popular, but not required.

 

We begged for nerfs on frames people demand be brought to a mission. However when everyone demands a Frost in their defense mission since **literally** since his introduction, their ok with it.

No. The real problem with those frames is that they sat there and did nothing. A monkey - or Homer's drinking bird - could have played the game for them. In the case of Mesa, you didn't even need a drinking bird. Just a piece of tape on the mouse, and then you could leave for minutes at a time.

[Racter]

Absorb doesn't protect the pod completely and hasn't for quite a long time. Even if it did, Bombard missles/grenades hitting your absorb just killed Nova and Banshee GG. You could replace Nyx's CC with a Loki augment and Banshee with anything else (a Sonar build but that's buggy atm, Frost can literally spam AOE kbs so no point in using Sonic Boom), there is no reason to use them for this. You can go to wave 40 with just the slow Nova and the Loki, and run 2 of anything else for the other slots, wouldn't matter. You can also use a max range RB Excal w/ augment and Bladestorm everything to death etc. There are many ways to do it without Frost, but they are all collectively much less reliable. Not to mention most if not all of the strats not involving Frost can instantly get ruined in .2s by a Nullifier with a bombard under his bubble. Pre Nullifiers, many other things were fairly reliably workable if you really didn't want to use a Frost for some reason. Then, for a while at least, we had Limbo + Volt options. Of course, that was nerfed, so now we're down to just Frost.

 

On top of all that, they took much longer to get there in a game type most people already don't enjoy, largely due to being slow and boring IMO. I don't understand why people are trying to make Frost a scapegoat for this, he is literally the only option we have left to reliably protect a pod that doesn't require 2-4 other frames working in perfect synergy, and the only option to reliably go for longer runs without dealing with RNG one shots. With the Limbo/Volt combo nerfed, and that already being a difficult to use strategy due to very few good Limbos or Volts, SG is really the only way to do this now.

 

TBH I'd rather see defense removed completely and replaced with something else than more ways to defend a pod. The game play is not engaging, the time it takes to get through a wave is way longer than it was before staggered spawns (which IMO was already too long) which means fewer rewards for the time spent and a longer time before enemies scale up enough to matter. Honestly, if it wasn't for DSD rewards and being the only way to get certain prime parts, I don't think people would bother with the game type at all.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Racter0325

[ShardsSuperior]

Absorb doesn't protect the pod completely and hasn't for quite a long time. Even if it did, Bombard missles/grenades hitting your absorb just killed Nova and Banshee GG. 

Well... obviously, that didn't happen. -.-

Edited October 21, 2015 by ShardsSuperior

[Racter]

Well... obviously, that didn't happen. -.-

Lucky. I used an Absorb/Soundquake comp in the past (pre Nullifiers/Absorb nerfs/EV+ Plates worked for both Absorb and SQ) and had 3/4 people get downed by a Bombard rocket into Absorb at wave 59. Extremely frustrating.

[Roboplus]

No offense, but saying "longer defense games" already show an aspect of this game that is problematic as a whole, that being that "Endless" has no balance, so people have to resort to cheap tricks like perma Snow Globes to counter the incoming bullets that hit like rounds from a Starship main guns.

 

By asking for MORE shielding methods you are compounding the problem by band-aiding even more classes to a role of "keep a protective lid on this objective".

 

How abut instead if the damn Crypod was ALREADY under it's own special protective effect, and we had to defend that not from taking hits, but from the enemies trying to get to consoles and shut the field down or something, then we can still take whatever the hell Frames we want, and rely on killing, and not baby sitting a protective shell.

Sort of a Defense/Interception hybrid? That'd be interesting.

[Racter]

Sort of a Defense/Interception hybrid? That'd be interesting.

 

That game type exists, it's called interception. That idea would literally just be redoing the voice over for Lotus in interception missions.

[(PSN)l0r3n7step]

 

2. Cataclysm

It should be re-castable without having to deactivate first.

 

 

I forgot. THAT DOES NOT WORK.

As annoying as the need to deactivate is in everyday situations, have fun staying alive without the current mechanism in 1h+ T4 surv.

I would imagine that mechanism actually came from user-testing/feedback for once.

 

But why not make it a bit like snow-globe (aside that 80% of Frost's dont seem to know how to bring their snowglobe down voluntarily and not through the enemy). Let Limbo put the crosshair on an existing cataclysm and use his first ability (banish) to take it down - with unlimited range for banish in that case.

 

 

Idk, doesn't sound like a very good solution either.

[(PSN)StoicStria]

Guys relax - Take a minute and re-read the suggestions. We are not looking to make anything OP. For the most part just making turbulence and cataclysm re-castable will help stop the issue where the pod gets one-shoted between castings.

[Roboplus]

That game type exists, it's called interception. That idea would literally just be redoing the voice over for Lotus in interception missions.

Interception has points that you take, can lose, and retake. Losing all of them isn't even a huge deal, since it's not hard to recover them.

 

I imagine this would be more like, you lose a point it's gone. If they're all gone the objective is vulnerable. If the objective breaks, you lose. Staged conditions to create a more varied experience.

[DSpite]

Lucky. I used an Absorb/Soundquake comp in the past (pre Nullifiers/Absorb nerfs/EV+ Plates worked for both Absorb and SQ) and had 3/4 people get downed by a Bombard rocket into Absorb at wave 59. Extremely frustrating.

 

"Wave 59" is not "regular gameplay". Saying that you are having problems fighting enemies when they have become over three times your max level should not have been a surprise.

 

It used to take about 8 hours in Dungeon Defenders to get to Wave 30 and get "end game loot", it was not technically normal game play either, and we never treated it as such, it's just something that it's there if you wish to test your luck, because the smallest variable gets out of whack, and everything folds like a deck of cards.

 

By choosing to stay on a mission way past any reasonable enemy scaling, you are simply pulling off cheap Frame tricks to stay alive because you are simply farming the hell out of the map, for no good reason other then what is basically a physiological addiction to loot drops.

 

This mentality of "we should be able to stay alive under ANY circumstances just promotes this game not being a "Ninja" type game but another Tower Defence game like Sanctum.

[Racter]

"Wave 59" is not "regular gameplay". Saying that you are having problems fighting enemies when they have become over three times your max level should not have been a surprise.

 

It used to take about 8 hours in Dungeon Defenders to get to Wave 30 and get "end game loot", it was not technically normal game play either, and we never treated it as such, it's just something that it's there if you wish to test your luck, because the smallest variable gets out of whack, and everything folds like a deck of cards.

 

By choosing to stay on a mission way past any reasonable enemy scaling, you are simply pulling off cheap Frame tricks to stay alive because you are simply farming the hell out of the map, for no good reason other then what is basically a physiological addiction to loot drops.

 

This mentality of "we should be able to stay alive under ANY circumstances just promotes this game not being a "Ninja" type game but another Tower Defence game like Sanctum.

 

The fact that it happened at Wave 59 just made it more annoying than happening at Wave 9. Pretty sure 25? 30? rocket would one shot as well, do you consider that "regular gameplay"? Because wave 25/30 is a joke. A Mk1 Braton modded well is still a contender for a decent weapon at wave 25 lol

 

All of which is beside the point. You can avoid the whole issue by running a Frost. No other frame can 100% reliably protect the team and pod 100% of the time. I don't think that's a problem, but I do think it'd be nice if we had more options. Or, just didn't have to play defense as the only way to get certain parts.

[Roboplus]

Anything past wave 20 isn't regular gameplay, because there's nothing new to gain past that point. The only reason to stay is key conservation.

 

And there are plenty of frames that can survive a Bombard rocket to the face at wave 20, even on T4.

[Thrymm]

The fact that it happened at Wave 59 just made it more annoying than happening at Wave 9. Pretty sure 25? 30? rocket would one shot as well, do you consider that "regular gameplay"? Because wave 25/30 is a joke. A Mk1 Braton modded well is still a contender for a decent weapon at wave 25 lol

 

All of which is beside the point. You can avoid the whole issue by running a Frost. No other frame can 100% reliably protect the team and pod 100% of the time. I don't think that's a problem, but I do think it'd be nice if we had more options. Or, just didn't have to play defense as the only way to get certain parts.

I agree that it's entirely beside the point.  A simple T4 defense played well within the first loot rotation shows fairly conclusively that Snow Globe is much more effective than any other means of defense.  With Frost there, you don't have the "on your toes, there is a moment of vulnerability" thing, nor stray rockets, nor elevation causing enemies to be able to circumvent your defenses.  You just have an entire impervious shell.

 

Frankly, well within the "normal" mission times, it's more fun too(in my opinion, obviously).  If you're using a defense ability, you expect the thing to work.  Snow Globe works, the other options give you RNG moments of potential loss.  Potential loss because of a genuine play screw up are all good, but only Snow Globe virtually guarantees that you'll have to make that mistake, no RNG is going to cost you your mission.  Other abilities having that level of security would be a good thing, in my opinion.

 

And no, incidentally, losing "king of defense" as his title wouldn't relegate Frost to the scrap bin.  Clearly those that would believe so haven't seen an augmented and stretched Ice Wave.  Two of these, cast 180 degrees from one another will bring an entire room to a screeching halt long enough to dispatch it with relative impunity.  Frosts other tools, combined with his higher armor/shields/health mean that he has extremely strong CC and survivability in pretty much every environment.  His last rework left him very versatile and strong.

[RealPandemonium]

Anything past wave 20 isn't regular gameplay, because there's nothing new to gain past that point. The only reason to stay is key conservation.

 

And there are plenty of frames that can survive a Bombard rocket to the face at wave 20, even on T4.

I usually count up to wave 40 for argument's sake, since two rotations are reasonable for a key.  Anything past that, though, and you start to see number ratios breaking down even to an irreconcilable extent.  

[(PSN)aiptekfanboy]

Doesn't matter if ppl mod for it or not, it creates chaos and mess.

I don't rely on a shadow to kill or stop and enemy that is close to the pod, nor I rely on a shadow to stop a enemy who as a clear view of the pod and is shooting it, yet I also cannot stop the enemy who is close to the pod, nor i can stop the enemy who is shooting the pod, since there is so many shadows everywhere, blocking my view of the battle field.

More often then not, whenever there is a high concentration of shadows there will be a downed nekros or any other tenno, the strategic advantage of this ability is as harmful for the enemy as it is for us.

 

 

 

Have no idea what ur talking about, nor I believe you do either.

You must have misinterpreted something I wrote, very badly.

defending the pod?...yes?

 

avalanche on enemies regardless of level equals frozen enemies

 

but, but, but bombards level 300!

all frozen for 20 seconds

 

just move around the pod recasting avalanche before the 20 seconds expires.

 

now what part needs an explanation?

the frozen regardless of enemy level or the enemy being statues regardless of level?

 

avalanche 15 seconds later avalanche  rinse repeat

add mirages disco ball with long range and who needs snowglobe?

for lols toss in long range radial blind and its yawn t4 interception till wave 45 or everyone says finito time to eat lunch and we stop at wave 45 or wave 50

 

go play the game bro.

[tnccs215]

I was expecting another basic post with basic ideas, but, honestly... I like your ideas. Specially Ember's, that would be nice. And the rest are simple, but usefull changes that are very welcomed. You have my support

[7grims]

defending the pod?...yes?

 

avalanche on enemies regardless of level equals frozen enemies

 

but, but, but bombards level 300!

all frozen for 20 seconds

 

just move around the pod recasting avalanche before the 20 seconds expires.

 

now what part needs an explanation?

the frozen regardless of enemy level or the enemy being statues regardless of level?

 

avalanche 15 seconds later avalanche  rinse repeat

add mirages disco ball with long range and who needs snowglobe?

for lols toss in long range radial blind and its yawn t4 interception till wave 45 or everyone says finito time to eat lunch and we stop at wave 45 or wave 50

 

go play the game bro.

 

Yup, there it is.

You are completely babbling about whatever.

Notice I'm not disagreeing with you, and notice that I don't think you are wrong.

Its just, you are talking about whatever for no good reason, way off topic, and dont even get why its directed at me.

(please don't reply)

Edited October 22, 2015 by 7grims

[TangyBlueBerry]

Lets take into enemy level. The higher their level the tougher the missions get. Particularly defense, as the pod does not scale and in later levels gets 1 shot-ed easily. Now what is regular level? People saying anything past wave 20 on a T4D is nor regular are simply wrong. The mission starts out at enemy levels around 30 and end up around 40 by wave 20. But lets take DE's highest base level content, the trials with level 80. With this we take it all weapons and frames must be able to perform up too level 80. Reason why defense is so horrid and reliant on Frost is because missions objectives don't scale with anything.

 

Also side rant: Why do the grineer have shields that make their crap immune to our @(*()$ rocket launchers and death beams, yet we can't seem to shield our own cryopods for a stray @(*()$ bullet or a clever swipe?

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

Surrounding the pod in volt shields has worked really well for me with my duration volt. Since the shields are indestructible, plus i use the amprex so it synergizes well with the shields.

 

Yup, he's 100% valid for 40 rounds at the very least from my experience as well. Only problem is you have to cast quite alot of em in a large radius because of those dang bombards...

[More-L]

Lets take into enemy level. The higher their level the tougher the missions get. Particularly defense, as the pod does not scale and in later levels gets 1 shot-ed easily. Now what is regular level? People saying anything past wave 20 on a T4D is nor regular are simply wrong. The mission starts out at enemy levels around 30 and end up around 40 by wave 20. But lets take DE's highest base level content, the trials with level 80. With this we take it all weapons and frames must be able to perform up too level 80. Reason why defense is so horrid and reliant on Frost is because missions objectives don't scale with anything.

 

Also side rant: Why do the grineer have shields that make their crap immune to our @(*()$ rocket launchers and death beams, yet we can't seem to shield our own cryopods for a stray @(*()$ bullet or a clever swipe?

I think a good idea for making them scale with mission level would be to give them an increase in armour and not hp/shield so their display value is always constant, would probably save some UI issues but idk. As for the OP I do agree that there should be other 'easy' alternatives to defending a pod, ofc I know about volt etc. (maybe even max range Zephyr?) but like others have mentioned, frost is just AFK spam 3 even on high rounds cause I'm fairly sure they still have that 5 sec invuln/damage absorb ability.

 

As for your side rant, it might be because nearly all of our tech was invented by the orokin who thought their towers were 100% secure so creating an impenetrable shield was something not needed or that they were unable to finish that kind of research before they went bye-bye. Where-as with corpus/grineer defence it is normally their tech so they want to destroy it over us getting it. Or you know, DE just made it the simplest way possible, might get a rework like spy.

[Tesseract7777]

Cataclysm doesn't need to be changed in order to make it great for defense. Limbo is already just as good or better than Frost at defense, depending on the team setup, etc. In fact I would argue Limbo can be a LOT better when the level's get high, because Limbo's Cataclysm keeps the pod invincible from ANY ranged damage whatsoever outside the bubble, and he doesn't need to keep casting it every four seconds to keep that invincibility up. It's ALWAYS invincible. When you get to much higher levels Frost has to babysit the cryopod and be relegated to a renew Snow Globe every few seconds bot. Limbo on the other hand can cast it, know it will remain invincible as long as it's up, and go do other important things. 

 

There is literally no need to change Cataclysm in order to make it viable as an alternative to Frost's Snow Globe. I and I'm sure plenty of others have been using Cataclysm as an alternative already, and it works great. 

 

Electric Shield already works fine as a defensive tool, it doesn't take more than four of them to get a point well protected and if you have decent efficiency and duration keeping that up is cake. I've helped teams go long into excavations without any Frost or Limbo because my Volt could keep protecting Excavators from fire with ES. It doesn't need a change either to make it good for defense. 

 

Think outside the box more. Just because a power doesn't work exactly like Snow Globe, doesn't mean it needs to be changed to be a good defensive alternative. 

Edited October 23, 2015 by Tesseract7777

[Unholyrequiem]

Cataclysm as it is, is actually very rubbish. While it offers no way to shoot in it also prevents you from shooting out negating damage. This means enemies have to be inside the Cataclysm. That's right, they have to be inside and if they are on the scale of wiping out Frost's globes in seconds the moment more than one enters they will wreck you.

 

No internal line of defense to impede the enemies leaves limbo and his allies very vulnerable by comparison of Snowglobe which actually slows enemies down and with an augment freezes them momentarily. This allows you to address enemies inside the globe too. Another feature of snowglobe is its ability to be recast over another globe, where as it not only gains bonus hp from the new cast but actually pushes enemies outwards while recasting cataclysm causes the field to disappear momentarily leaving you open and then staggers enemies on cast. As it stands only powers can pierce the field unless you too are standing in the rift from the outside and being unable to collect energy or health only adds to the failure of cataclysm. 

Edited October 23, 2015 by Unholyrequiem

[Tesseract7777]

No offense, but if you think Cataclysm is rubbish you have no idea what you are talking about. And it sounds like you clearly don't use it much. Yes, it takes a little more thought than Snow Globe, but it can be just as good or better. People use Limbo to solo very, very high waves of defense on T4 missions -- Cataclysm works great for defense. 

 

Just because it doesn't fit your personal play style doesn't make it rubbish. Of course it takes a different strategy because it's a different ability. All the stuff you mentioned are drawbacks that balance the things that make it better than Snow Globe. Overall it's just as good or better, it's just an alternative strategy. 

[Unholyrequiem]

No offense, but if you think Cataclysm is rubbish you have no idea what you are talking about. And it sounds like you clearly don't use it much. Yes, it takes a little more thought than Snow Globe, but it can be just as good or better. People use Limbo to solo very, very high waves of defense on T4 missions -- Cataclysm works great for defense. 

Show me a video of Limbo actually soloing T4 defense on high waves. If it were survival I might buy it since Limbo can remain untouchable for long periods of time but that does in no way affect cataclysm.

 

I would also like to see a video of how a limbo backed team survives T4 defense after wave 20 after volt's shield stopped affecting bullets passing through cataclysm.  Seriously or at least show me a video of Limbo doing it without using Volt's electric shields.

 

I've used Cataclysm a plentiful number of times but now it's very much below Snowglobe in terms of it's defensive abilities. Why? Simply because Snowglobe offers so many more advantages with no real disadvantages besides from the finite HP and being unable to shoot in. However casting in general is always a positive.

 

Only true advantages I see from Cataclysm, protects you from outside fire, slowly regenerates energy, Limbo's rift surge and invincibility. To be honest even in practice you lose most of your offensive capability which is an integral part of defense.

What Cataclysm as it is offers isn't effectiveness or an alternative Snowglobe but a very unrewarding niche that puts players to try even harder to put out the same result. 

 

Edit: Also in regards I would like the people above to note that in the void and corpus missions a rogue nullifier can disable a volt's shields leaving you vulnerable.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Unholyrequiem