Mesa 2.0: Making a Gunslinger from the ground up

[DrBorris]

Warning: This is a massive rework of how Mesa is actually played, probably even greater than that of Excalibro’s rework.  

 

I’ll be honest, I never liked using Mesa¹. When DE first showed off her artwork in a Devstream I was very excited for another frame that would support/encourage run-n-gun tactics the way Banshee encourages ranged gunplay. What we got instead as a frame that played those tactics herself, completely ignoring player style. If you guys don’t get what I mean I’ll expand on that later, but for now let’s get to the rework.  

The only ability that keeps its relative current form is Ballistic Battery, I am completely dropping Shooting Gallery and Shatter Shield for other… things.  

1. Ballistic Battery: Basically the same as it is now, just some tweaks. Unlimited Punch through, 100% status chance and a “soft cap” for damage rather than a hard one (diminishing returns as you get to absurd damage numbers). Damage added NOT affected by critical hits. 
2. Bullet Time: Mesa creates a shadow that imitates her actions .2 seconds after her, Mesa herself becomes invisible to enemies but the shadow does not. Also has a 25% damage bonus to ranged weapons. 30 second duration. 
3. Blind Sight: Mesa will home in her aim to enemies within a range of your crosshairs. Basically think of how Peacemaker works now with the circle of affected area (except less visually jarring), but no longer locks you in place (full movement) and can work with whatever weapon you have equipped. Locks on to nearest enemy. 15 energy per second drain.  
4. Peacemaker: Mesa Equips her regulators that increase in damage for consecutive hits. Regulator stats: 5 round/sec, 60 damage, 25% crit chance, 3x crit multiplier. Every consecutive hit adds 5 base damage (capped at 100, not affected by multishot or punch through), every shot that misses reduces the damage by 5 (capped at 60). Regulators CAN BE MODDED SEPERATLY from the Abilities screen. 

This is a Massive change for Mesa, it would take her from a tank to a mobility centric frame. She could have a similar invincibility to Ash/Loki/Ivara with Bullet Time if she is continually moving. It has a much higher duration (30 vs 12 seconds) and does not have the downside that enemies do not cluster around you (this is a horde shooting game, sometimes the invisibility abilities make enemies too spread out).  The .2 seconds behind is something that would require playtesting, but hopefully you can get the idea.

Right now Ballistic Battery is a bit skewed. It obviously has the drawback of almost being able to scale into end game, but that cap ruins it. Also, using 25 energy to get a max of 1600 damage (after charging) is a bit unfair. There are a lot of 1 abilities that are now scaling off melee mods that can do absurd damage and don't require charging. Having a hard cap is comparable to capping Equinox's Maim. Another issue with it now is that it gives crit guns (another) unfair advantage. Thus its bonus damage (that would theoretically be infinity) would be added AFTER the normal critical multipliers would be added. As for the diminishing return, I would say the diminishing part would cap at 10% damage transfer (which could still lead to some epic one-shots).  

Blind Sight would be interesting, as much as you could say that an aim-bot skill makes it “too easy”, a 15 energy per second drain will not allow for you to spam it. Also, it only locks your aim, not the projectiles. Shotguns will still have spread and there will still be travel time, it is not a guaranteed hit (don’t ask me if/how Glaives and Gunblades could/would work with it). This is not just a win button and still requires strategy (not really much skill because, you know, aim-bot) to prioritize areas and sometimes you need to turn it off to prioritize a specific enemy.  

Then Peacemaker is pretty self-explanatory. I did not want just another exalted weapon, something that required you to keep your gunslinger status up in order to keep up massive damage (They would be insanely powerful at full damage). An alternative to having the damage increase with consecutive hits would be to make the critical chance (and/or damage?) increase. The base stats would need to be adjusted of course, but having a pseudo Blood Rush for her regulators that can get them red crits could be interesting.  

 

As for “synergy”, well, there is nothing to add. Synergy does not mean abilities that have statistical benefits from using them together, it just as much if not more alludes to all abilities synergizing with a playstyle. I bring up Banshee again. None of her abilities synergize directly with each other, but all of them encourage/reward ranged play thus they all synergize with each other. IMO, the rework above would all very well promote the use of all her abilities, but not require it (cough* limbo*cough) and not promote a contradictory playstyle (cough*Zephyr*cough).  

 

1)

Don’t you dare start that “If you don’t like her don’t use her.” Mesa pains me, not because she is bad, she is far from it in her current state (more like painfully mediocre), it pains me because the gunslinger frame is not a gunslinger. Sue me for trying to come up with things that make the game better. Sure, I may be way off base with that, but if you believe that to be true tell me why I am wrong, not why I shouldn’t care.

 

[Infinitoar]

Just saying, while in Peacemaker I would like Mesa to be able to move. That alone, would be awesome to me.