Saavedro's Mag Review (Updated!)

[Saavedro]

With Update 7 here, I figure I'd make a quick updated review!

Pull

With the advent of the finisher moves, Pull is quite fun to use every now and then. Still nice being able to yank the riot shields away from Grineer and Pull incapacitated teammates, the latter I've done a lot while fighting Kela! But, sometimes you Pull things too close. Like, if I Pull an enemy, sometimes the finisher move does not activate. Sometimes if I Pull a downed teammate, I have to step back before the revive prompt pops up. I'm not sure if it's lag or what, but I feel with a few tweaks, Pull will be fine.

Shield Polarize

I still find this skill to be completely worthless. As such, I don't even equip it and would much rather take a negative energy drain hit to put in a much more useful mod in its place. I've tried using it on Heavy Grineers, and it only removes maybe half of their shields. There's no reason to cast it on a boss because they regen so fast. There's no reason to cast it on Corpus MOAs and such because they die so fast. There's no reason to cast it on other players because there's no way to really tell if they need it. I've never encountered someone in game ducking behind a crate and saying, "HELP! I COULD USE A SHIELD RECHARGE, MAG!". I would of course go and help, but I'm sure his shields would of recharged on their own by the time I got there.

Simply put, this skill needs a complete redo, or replaced with something better.

Bullet Attractor

I must admit I've been using this more frequently than I thought I would, especially after my previous negative review on it. The skill is extremely useful on some bosses, especially Hyena. Did the boss incapacitate a teammate? Cast it so you can help them and not die in the process. However, it does have it's flaws.

Since Update 7, when cast upon a Heavy Grineer, they don't shoot anymore. I can appreciate smart AI, but not so much that it means they don't damage themselves anymore. It effectively causes a ceasefire. If you're lucky, the Heavy is standing infront of a group of other Grineers, and they'll friendly fire some damage to it.

Also since Update 7, it does not stop missiles from Grineer Bombards anymore, nor does it work on Kela (would be extremely helpful if it did!). Speaking of bosses, it'd be nice if they did a little damage to themselves if Bullet Attractor was cast on them. At least enough to keep their shields down.

The skill does not work on Corpus lasers. I think it would be really cool since the skill attracts bullets, it repels lasers. Bouncing off the "bubble" and flying every which way. Would make a nice shield barrier in Corpus levels when under heavy fire.

It also does not work on Napalm Grineers, but since the projectile they shoot seem to be pure fire, I'm ok with that.

All in all, the skill is fine, but needs some tweaking to make it amazing ;)

Crush

Still Mag's bread and butter. Feels a lot more balanced with the new mod system, as I can no longer grab two rooms of enemies and kill them all. After some mod upgrading, it's still a satisfying skill to cast when surrounded by a hoard of enemies.

**********!!! OLD REVIEW !!!**********

Hello! I've been playing Mag quite a bit, and I'd like to share my reviews and ideas on the frame's skills.

***

Pull

Really nice if you have a shotgun. Pull them to you, then blast'em away while they're stunned. It's also a nice touch being able to yank the metal riot shields away from shielded Grineer. I used to be able to Pull incapacitated teammates, but I don't think I can anymore. The last 2 times I've tried it's given me "Invalid Target". Or I could be just missing them, heh. Other than that... Good for pulling slow people into elevators and extraction points I guess? This skill has potential to be great, but it's not quite there yet. Just needs a little something to give it "oomph".

Ideas:

-Perhaps make it a high damage single target attack. Pull an enemy and impale them on your melee weapon (insta-kills normal enemies). If you pulled them from too far away to reach you, they are temporarily stunned (like how it works currently).

-Keep Mag's ability to pull incapacitated teammates (to a hopefully safer location).

***

Shield Polarize

I've found this skill to be completely useless. It doesn't fully remove shields from shielded targets, and I can't tell if a teammate has their shields up or not. Too much of a hassle to press Z, check, locate them on screen to target, and cast (Does pressing Z even show teammate's shields? I honestly never use it, lol). Just a wasted skill slot since there's really no reason to use this ability.

Ideas:

-Insta-refill of Mag's shields up to X (X = set number)

-Overcharge Mag's shields by % or X

-Overcharge teammates' shields by % or X

***

Bullet Attractor

It's nice to use on Heavy Grineer soldiers with machine guns or shotguns... That's about it. No point in using it on normal enemies since they already die so fast.

Honestly, I'm at a loss on how to make this skill more viable. Probably needs to be replaced by a completely new skill.

***

Crush

This is the bread and butter for Mag. Nothing beats going into a room of enemies, levitating them, crushing/flinging projectiles, and killing them all. Well, except for Heavy Grineers and Ancients. But that's an acceptable downside. This skill is fine and, in my opinion, well worth the Orokin Reactor and energy cost.

***

Thank you for reading!

-Saav

Edited March 26, 2013 by Saavedro

[KuroiMajutsushi]

You've convinced me 100% to get this frame next. I was already about 90% sure I wanted to go for her. You made it a 100% with your review. Sounds like a lot of fun. Time to get some revenge on those riotshield using bastards soon:P

[Cyler]

-Allow Mag to pull incapacitated teammates (to a hopefully safer location).

GREAT idea! +1 for that one. Can't wait for the devs to release that :D

Amazing for teamplaying.

Does pressing Z even show teammate's shields?

Nope, just HP :/ And when you press it, you can't walk. Maybe another bug.

PS: Been working on Mag for the last 2 days, too :)

[Saavedro]

After testing with a friend, Pull ability still works on incapacitated teammates! Maybe I didn't have the people targeted well enough when I tried earlier, sorry.

[Kokurai]

-Keep Mag's ability to pull incapacitated teammates (to a hopefully safer location).

Yeah it should be able to do that. Question, can mag pull teammates(that are not incapacitated) to her? Like how loki can swap positions ( which is really a fun but annoying troll thing to do. Friend of mine met a disruptor in his face n decided to run from it by swapping me....nt fun)

[Saavedro]

Yeah, you can pull teammates around. Not really useful except for pulling people into the extraction point and/or annoying them, lol.

[Kokurai]

After testing with a friend, Pull ability still works on incapacitated teammates! Maybe I didn't have the people targeted well enough when I tried earlier, sorry.

Oh nice haha. Makes her more viable

[baka111]

Does the pull move do any damage?

Thinks the only use for bullet attractor is for bosses. Does bullet attractor and polarize shield work on infected? Curious if it does anything to them.

[Foxbyte]

It would be neat if Pull also could be used to disarm enemies in a small cone. Kind of like Loki's Radial Disarm; give him Radial Hack instead, make enemies in a radius attack random targets instead.

[Saavedro]

Does the pull move do any damage?

Thinks the only use for bullet attractor is for bosses. Does bullet attractor and polarize shield work on infected? Curious if it does anything to them.

Pull does 0 damage. Bullet Attractor can be cast on bosses, but its only value is using it on ones that shoot weapons (so they end up shooting themselves). Only the bullets that are shot into the "bubble" are redirected to the target. The "bubble" is not that large, so it doesn't make that much of a difference anyways. Infested do not have shields nor shoot weapons, so both Shield Polarize and Bullet Attractor are pretty useless on them.

It would be neat if Pull also could be used to disarm enemies in a small cone. Kind of like Loki's Radial Disarm; give him Radial Hack instead, make enemies in a radius attack random targets instead.

That would be neat. Maybe if they dropped their weapon while being pulled? Would be especially nice on those darn Napalm Grineers.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Saavedro

[Cleverbird]

I would love it if Pull did some damage... It's kinda annoying that Mag only has one true damaging skill (Bullet Attractor is more of a debuff, since it doesnt deal damage on its own)

[baka111]

Okay. Thanks. Good to know. Forgot to ask this before. Does the bullet attractor work for bullets that are shot from teammates as well or is it only for the bullets that come from the enemies and from your own gun? Can the skill be aimed for a long distance debuff or is it a close range move. Never seen it in action.

Edited January 21, 2013 by baka111

[Saavedro]

You can cast Bullet Attractor from pretty dang far away. The "bubble" encases the enemy, and travels with them as they move. All bullets fired from you and enemies are redirected to the target.

Say if like, you cast it on an enemy who's between you and a group of enemies behind him. All the bullets the enemies shoot will go to the target instead (if they pass into the "bubble"). All the bullets you fire into the "bubble" would go to the target too. Have a crude drawing, lol:

So all bullets that hit the "bubble" would hurt him (including his own) :)

Edited January 22, 2013 by Saavedro

[Mockeryangel]

Pull really should instakill and stun because tbh I don't see much use for it, I like your ideas for shield polarise and agree on bullet attractor.

[baka111]

lol awesome pic description. It is a singular target only skill correct? Would it affect more than one if it was casted into a group hunched close together? Does it work with laser/napalm/grenade projectiles or is it only bullets? Only bullets passing through bubble requirement makes it sound very useless when fire is coming from all sides sadly.

[Saavedro]

It is a single target skill, yes. I honestly don't know if it would affect a group of people if they were all close enough to being in the "bubble". It might!

No, it does not work on Corpus laser guns. I've seen it work on a Napalm Grineer ONCE, but never again. Glitch? I don't know, heh. No idea about grenades.

Bullet Attractor is a very neat skill in concept, but actually using it you'll find it to be pretty useless. :(

[baka111]

Mag's abilities does sound neat in concept. Initially, I thought shield polarize was going to take away all the shield from the bosses. Pull could have been a super technique where the foe is ripped apart into pieces or their armor is pulled off. Sadly, Maggie's playstyle is like Volt where one has to save power for Volt/Crush and forget about the other 3 skills.

Edited January 22, 2013 by baka111

[RainDreamer]

Pull

Really nice if you have a shotgun. Pull them to you, then blast'em away while they're stunned. It's also a nice touch being able to yank the metal riot shields away from shielded Grineer. I used to be able to Pull incapacitated teammates, but I don't think I can anymore. The last 2 times I've tried it's given me "Invalid Target". Or I could be just missing them, heh. Other than that... Good for pulling slow people into elevators and extraction points I guess? This skill has potential to be great, but it's not quite there yet. Just needs a little something to give it "oomph".

Ideas:

-Perhaps make it a high damage single target attack. Pull an enemy and impale them on your melee weapon (insta-kills normal enemies). If you pulled them from too far away to reach you, they are temporarily stunned (like how it works currently).

-Keep Mag's ability to pull incapacitated teammates (to a hopefully safer location).

You can use pull to pull incapacitated teamates now. Just used it to pull someone to a safer location in Jackal boss fight.

Bullet Attractor

It's nice to use on Heavy Grineer soldiers with machine guns or shotguns... That's about it. No point in using it on normal enemies since they already die so fast.

Honestly, I'm at a loss on how to make this skill more viable. Probably needs to be replaced by a completely new skill.

Bullet attractor also attrack enemies's bullets. I used it on Jackal and all his machinegun shot got direct to the ground instead, thus nulifiy his attack.

[Wolfereign]

With just a few power range mods mag's crush can clear 1 -> 3 rooms of mobs with 1 use (minus the really tough elites). Killing that many enemies at once will 99% of the time drop more then enough blue orbs to refill your power. This means you can easily clear entire levels only having to engage heavily weakened elite units and a boss if there is one. This is insanely op and either needs to be nerfed or some sort of limiter or cap needs to be placed on its modded range

Edited January 31, 2013 by Wolfereign

[Saavedro]

You can use pull to pull incapacitated teamates now. Just used it to pull someone to a safer location in Jackal boss fight.

I know. That's why I striked it out. I goofed :\

Bullet attractor also attrack enemies's bullets. I used it on Jackal and all his machinegun shot got direct to the ground instead, thus nulifiy his attack.

Yeah, I know. But it's only good on Boss enemies that shoot bullets. No point to cast it on regular enemies since they die so fast. Useless on Infested, Corpus, and Napalm Grineers...

[Saavedro]

With just a few power range mods mag's crush can clear 1 -> 3 rooms of mobs with 1 use (minus the really tough elites). Killing that many enemies at once will 99% of the time drop more then enough blue orbs to refill your power. This means you can easily clear entire levels only having to engage heavily weakened elite units and a boss if there is one. This is insanely op and either needs to be nerfed or some sort of limiter or cap needs to be placed on its modded range

Oh Crush got nerfed pretty hard in the last update. That or it's a bug in mod calculations. I do agree the range on the ability was a bit much, but at the moment, Mag is just useless.

[Wolfereign]

Oh Crush got nerfed pretty hard in the last update. That or it's a bug in mod calculations. I do agree the range on the ability was a bit much, but at the moment, Mag is just useless.

That is confirmed to be a bug. Running the new planets with my friend in his mag and crush is still as op as ever (after first update 6 hotfix).

If they made it so the ability couldn't go through walls or closed doors it would fix the range issue easily, just make sure it can hit behind crates and such

Edited January 31, 2013 by Wolfereign

[Saavedro]

He must have a more than a few Power Strength mods then, because it takes me 2 or 3 Crush casts to kill anything in the new areas dealing with Grineer. The Infested, however, die in one cast.

A one room limit would be ok in my book.

[Wolfereign]

Just range mods hense the op range achieved. the lowered damage is just a bug as far as I know

[PrickleyPete]

I've seen it work on a Napalm Grineer ONCE, but never again. Glitch? I don't know, heh. No idea about grenades.

Yeah this works awesome on Heavys. Grenades bounce around in the bubble and blow up everything in there with very satisfying and high-flying results. I find that recognizing the opportunity to use Bullet Attractor is half the battle, and then putting yourself in good positioning to manipulate where those bullets and grenades are going, is the other half. Personally Its not a power I use frequently, but I'm always looking for a chance to use it because the payoff is so satisfying.

Loved the diagram Saavedro.