Mines: A Suggestion To Replace Bounce (Round 2)

[Rahetalius]

Please read through this post and then vote for your favorite mine concept here: http://strawpoll.me/6330446

So after reading through all the positive feedback/responses I got in my last mine thread, I decided to attempt to improve on what mines Vauban could have.

If you're new to this, I'll give a quick explanation on why I believe mines would be a great replacement for Bounce.

-Mines are in the game, technically speaking, but at the moment, only enemies have access to mines, namely the Corpus. We've all had that dreadful death or two at the hands of a Sapping or Mine Osprey, so why not give Vauban similar weapons to fight back and give the Corpus a taste of their own medicine?

-Vauban has abilities that can hold large amounts of enemies (Vortex and Bastille), but he does not have one that can hold a specific area, preventing enemies from passing. You could argue for Tesla, but it only fits if you're on a low level mission.

- Mines would fit Vauban more than a bouncy orb. They would really help Vauban be in the area-of-denial role as well as the crowd control role, further improving his already engineer-themed kit, WITHOUT a turret. The purpose of Vauban is to lockdown enemies by 'zapping, trapping, and dimensionally crushing' with his abilities, not throwing enemies upwards 'for the giggles'.

I believe the basic framework for mines should be a mixture of Vauban's Tesla and Bounce. By that, I mean that only a certain number of mines can be active at once (can be increased with Strength mods), and each mine has a lifespan of 5 minutes, implying it's not detonated before that time is up.

Anyway, I currently have 2 concepts that Vauban could use as a mine ability. Previously, I had 3, but I removed 2 of them because they either didn't exactly make much sense for Vauban, or they were a bit redundant to Vauban's Bastille and Vortex.

1. Gravity Mine - 40 or 50 energy per use

(This was the most popular concept I had in my last thread, so obviously I'm bringing it here.) Vauban throws a mine that activates upon an enemy being in close proximity. Upon activation, the mine sends out a pulse of anti-gravity energy, which suspends all enemies struck by the pulse, similar to a Bastille, but it keeps all struck enemies in suspension for 4 secods. The mine then detonates, sending a powerful blast that then damages all suspended enemies and ragdolls them away in random directions, also dealing Impact damage.

Note that Gravity Mine does not have a cap on how many enemies it can hold like Bastille does.

 

Strength mods affect Gravity Mine's damage.

Duration mods affect how long enemies are held in suspension.

Efficiency mods (obviously) affect how much energy Gravity Mine costs.

Range mods affect the size of the anti-gravity energy pulse sent out by Gravity Mine, AND the size of its detonation blast.

2. Sapping Mine - 40 or 50 energy per use

Think of this as Vauban's counter to those pesky Sapping Ospreys. Vauban throws a mine that activates upon an enemy being in close proximity. Upon activation, the mine begins to generate an AoE damage field that affects ALL enemies that cross it, including airborne enemies like Ospreys. The mine creates pulses of damage over several seconds, then after a certain amount of time, it explodes, dealing further damage and applying a Magnetic proc to all enemies nearby.

 

Strength mods affect the damage of Sapping Mine's pulses and detonation blast.

Duration mods affect how long Sapping Mine can send out its pulses of damage.

Efficiency mods (obviously) affect how much energy Sapping Mine costs.

Range mods affect the size of the pulses sent out by Sapping Mine.

Thanks for reading through my stupidly long post. If you haven't already, vote for your favorite mine concept here: http://strawpoll.me/6330446

 

Edit: Posted how mods would affect both mines.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Rahetalius

[Viedra_Lavinova]

Gravity Mine seems redundant as we already have bastille.

Sapping Mine seems more original and worthy of a new replacement power.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Gravity mine would be much better. Especially if it does constant impact damage once tripped. Also has a 50% chance to reroll loot table upon contact would be nifty.

Edited December 21, 2015 by (PS4)big_eviljak

[SethAlvory]

I kinda want more information on how gravity mine functions before I decide whether or not I want it. specifically how much time traspires between the moment enemies are levitated and the moment they get ragdolled. if it's immediate, why not just ragdoll all enemies in the immediate area, rather than adding the extra step of levitating them? if the levitation portion lasts a minute, then we have a situation where bastille becomes redundant since this ability has the advantage of being a mine(so you can cast it and leave it), doesn't have the enemy count limit bastille has, and is probably also cheaper than bastille given its status as a second ability.

Sapping mine is difficult to decide on as well. On the one hand, it's an ability that seems like it'd work well alongside bastille or vortex. On the other hand, I worry that it'd become yet another ability that falls off in usefulness as the enemy levels go up. That and we already have an ability that does magnetic damage(vortex) as well as a whole frame styled after it(mag).

[Rahetalius]

Sapping mine is difficult to decide on as well. On the one hand, it's an ability that seems like it'd work well alongside bastille or vortex. On the other hand, I worry that it'd become yet another ability that falls off in usefulness as the enemy levels go up. That and we already have an ability that does magnetic damage(vortex) as well as a whole frame styled after it(mag).

 

Remember that Vortex and Bastille are still awfully similar. DE could end up just replacing one of them, as they do pretty much the same thing, albeit one of them has a cap on how much it can hold.

 

Not sure if it would be a good idea for Sapping Mine to scale with a portion of your primary weapon's damage or not.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Bastille is the better of the two, especially with repelling bastille augment. Gravity mines would compliment it if they also do damage.

[SethAlvory]

Remember that Vortex and Bastille are still awfully similar. DE could end up just replacing one of them, as they do pretty much the same thing, albeit one of them has a cap on how much it can hold.

 

Not sure if it would be a good idea for Sapping Mine to scale with a portion of your primary weapon's damage or not.

hmmmmm, if that were the case, we'll need two new abilities.