Grineer Suck

[Xianyu]

Lemme preface this by saying that I have 300 hours on record for Warframe. I'm no scrub in this.

 

From a gameplay perspective, Grineer are easily the worst of the three enemy archetypes. And I'm not just going to say why they suck, I'm going to explain why each and every unit that sucks, sucks.

 

Let's start with the light grineer:

 

The Sawman: Suck level: None. Easy to kill. No problem. Even a standard pistol is sufficient.

 

The Flameblade: Suck level: Medium. Here's where the Grineer start to suck. Standard melee unit. Except that this one can TELEPORT and often staggers you when he hits you. Suck level: Medium.

 

The Powerfist: Suck level: None. Same as the Sawmen, except he takes so long to charge his attack that he might have telegraphed you a gilded message telling you when he'll be arriving.

 

The Scorpion: Suck level: EXTREME. I'm not even going to bother explaining why this enemy sucks in every way possible. I'll let you figure it out yourself if you've never had the displeasure of getting within fifty metres of one of these *@##$es.

 

Medium Grineer:

 

The Lancer: Suck level: Low. Simple trooper. Not much to see here.

 

The Trooper: Suck Level: Low. Simple trooper with a shotgun. Also not much to see there.

 

The Shield Lancer: Suck Level: High. A trooper with a shield. Loves to charge at you and cause an unblockable knock-down attack that forces you to the ground. YAY. One saving grace is that his head is hittable if you shoot above his shield. If this were removed, his suck level would be EXTREME.

 

The Seeker: Suck level: EXTREME. Not a particularly bad or evil enemy. But he throws out Grinner Rollers. And they ARE a particularly bad and evil enemy. A small, fast 'weaponized ball' with blades sticking out of it, turns on a dime, and causes INSTANT STAGGERS when it hits you. What's not to love?

 

The ballista: Suck Level: None. Sniper unit. Not partiularly threatening as they die easily and are usually found at close range.

 

The Scorch: Suck Level: Medium. No stuns and staggers here, surpringingly. But a blindingly bright flamethrower that will eat your shields for breakfast while making it impossible to accurately fire back if he gets close.

 

Heavy Grineer:

 

The Heavy Gunner: Suck Level: Major. Major pain in the &#!, and the most common of all heavy Grinner. Will do a radial AOE that always staggers if you bother to get close. Tons of shields, tons of health. Just not fun to fight.

 

The Napalm: Suck Level: Medium. Another major pain in the &#!. Fires slow-moving balls of napalm that explode and cause area denial with constant area AOE wherever it impacts. Tons of health, tons of shield. Very un-fun to shoot at.

 

The Bombard: Suck Level: Medium. And another pain in the &#!. Fires homing rockets that can turn corners and hit you no matter how you try to dodge them. Have fun running away from the magic missiles.

 

The Commander: Suck Level: DEFCON FIVE. This is the single most sucky enemy in the entire game. Period. If there is even one SLIVER of your character sticking out from behind a barell, be it FIVE HUNDRED METRES AWAY, he CAN, and WILL use his 'switch' power to teleport you to where he was. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. It doesn't matter if it's tactically sound, or if you're shooting at eachother from fifteen metres away with both of you at either side of an empty room. He LIVES to switch places with you. And the only thing he loves more than swapping places is hiding behind scenery and waiting for his switch to recharge so he can DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Even better: If there are more than one, and up to even five in my experience, of these bastards roaming the halls, they will take great delight in taking turns teleporting you around the map. The switch is unblockable, and happens instantly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You see where all this suckage is coming from?

 

Stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger. Knockdownn, knockdown, knockdown, knockdown, knockdown. And the crowning jewel on this multi-tier cake of excrement is the Grinner Commander, happily taking control away from your player and teleporting him around the map at whim, and the Scorpion, with her stupid javelin.

 

This is not good game design. Taking control away from the player through staggers and knockdowns is the single worst way to add difficulty to a game, and makes the enemies that employ them seen as a pain in the &#! rather than an actual challenge. And it is something the Grineer have in spades that other enemies don't have.

 

You can kill a Corpus stomp moa before it stomps. You can freeze or run away from an ancient that's going to stagger-hit you.

 

The Grineer are just one slog-fest of avoiding staggers, getting staggered anyway, and teleported, and javelined.

 

Having to close in to melee distance to fight the Phorid because his ranged attacks are so damn powerful, is good game design. That's clever. That's giving us a choice. It makes phorid a challenge and a fun enemy to fight.

 

I would rather fight five phorid at once rather than play against Grinner, what with their constant melee staggers, radial AOE staggers, AOE burn attacks, roller-ball staggers, homing missiles, the absolutely ridiculous 'scorpion' javelin, and the just as stupid switch magic that can LITERALLY hit you from three rooms away through a 'keyhole'.

 

Grinner aren't a challenge; they're a CHORE.

[Zenith_Grey]

I stopped reading when you said Seekers spawned Rollers that stagger

[34Brewster]

The seekers don't send out rollers, they sound out the small bombs that you can easily shake off. Rollers spawn like any other enemy.

 

EDIT: Tenno'd.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Rule34

[Xianyu]

The seekers don't send out rollers, they sound out the small bombs that you can easily shake off. Rollers spawn like any other enemy.

 

EDIT: Tenno'd.

Ahhh, I always thought it was those green guys who threw them out. Oh well, the rollers are still the epitome of terrible design.

[CharlesSnippy]

This guy seems to have equated something "sucking" with something that actually poses a threat. This guy is also missing the point of a shooter entirely. This post sucks.

[Sasha-]

I can kinda see where he's coming from.

 

The Grineer do like to troll....

 

I remember someone making a point somewhere about being able to shoot Scorpions whilst they pull you over, that would be a good idea... But I still never get why this small, fragile looking unit can knockdown and drag a massive, hulking Rhino or Frost as if they're nothing.

 

I'm not massively bothered, to be honest. They die like all the others, but I can see where he's coming from with irritating ways of making enemies harder.

[silversponge]

Due to these units being threatening and having knock downs it makes you learn to play strategically for example if you see a shield lancer when would anyone consciously stand near it and let it knock you over what you should be doing is staying back. So it's all about strategy and placing which is why the commander was put in to ruin this placement and may force you to use abilities or teamwork, in my opinion due to them actually being a threat and requiring tactics not just a mad dash to the end of the mission they are more challenging and fun than all the other factions.

Edited July 3, 2013 by silversponge

[neKroMancer]

Huh, guess you never acquaint with Nervos. Think the roller and AOE radial blast a pain? Think again. 

[Verazix]

The Commander: Suck Level: DEFCON FIVE. This is the single most sucky enemy in the entire game. Period. If there is even one SLIVER of your character sticking out from behind a barell, be it FIVE HUNDRED METRES AWAY, he CAN, and WILL use his 'switch' power to teleport you to where he was. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. It doesn't matter if it's tactically sound, or if you're shooting at eachother from fifteen metres away with both of you at either side of an empty room. He LIVES to switch places with you. And the only thing he loves more than swapping places is hiding behind scenery and waiting for his switch to recharge so he can DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Even better: If there are more than one, and up to even five in my experience, of these bastards roaming the halls, they will take great delight in taking turns teleporting you around the map. The switch is unblockable, and happens instantly.

I don't even care that I disagree with 80%+ of this post, that it's quite a long read, nor the fact that most of it sounds like rage. This paragraph alone made it all worth reading.

[MJ12]

This guy seems to have equated something "sucking" with something that actually poses a threat. This guy is also missing the point of a shooter entirely. This post sucks.

 

The point of a shooter is to have fun. If you're not having fun, it doesn't matter how much or how little of a threat units the enemy have are. If an enemy is unfun, it doesn't matter how threatening they are, they're a bad enemy.

 

Also, Grakata-armed Lancers who can vaporize your shields in about a second aren't a threat? Note that he says they're "Suck Level: Low", which is totally acceptable in my book.

Edited July 3, 2013 by MJ12

[Phoenix86]

This guy seems to have equated something "sucking" with something that actually poses a threat. This guy is also missing the point of a shooter entirely. This post sucks.

 

101% agree

[truci4]

The Commander: Suck Level: DEFCON FIVE. This is the single most sucky enemy in the entire game. Period. If there is even one SLIVER of your character sticking out from behind a barell, be it FIVE HUNDRED METRES AWAY, he CAN, and WILL use his 'switch' power to teleport you to where he was. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if it makes sense. It doesn't matter if it's tactically sound, or if you're shooting at eachother from fifteen metres away with both of you at either side of an empty room. He LIVES to switch places with you. And the only thing he loves more than swapping places is hiding behind scenery and waiting for his switch to recharge so he can DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Even better: If there are more than one, and up to even five in my experience, of these bastards roaming the halls, they will take great delight in taking turns teleporting you around the map. The switch is unblockable, and happens instantly.

I don't even care that I disagree with 80%+ of this post, that it's quite a long read, nor the fact that most of it sounds like rage. This paragraph alone made it all worth reading.

 

 

I do not agree to this post but it was so much fun to read it.

 

Making enemies be a pain is the best way to learn everything about the game. I love beeing thrown away by 3 shield masters one after the other. And then beeing killed by an overpowerd pistol xD

[Xianyu]

The point of a shooter is to have fun. If you're not having fun, it doesn't matter how much or how little of a threat units the enemy have are. If an enemy is unfun, it doesn't matter how threatening they are, they're a bad enemy.

 

Also, Grakata-armed Lancers who can vaporize your shields in about a second aren't a threat? Note that he says they're "Suck Level: Low", which is totally acceptable in my book.

I also said that I enjoy taking on Phorid. It's a challenge, but fun!

 

Should probably point out that I do it solo, too.

 

The enemies rated as 'high suck' are all enemies that take control away from your character. Note that the piss-weak Scorpion and the Grineer Commander are both rated the highest in suckage, and yet I've never even died to any of them. Even when I got teleported around the map by five commanders in a row. I never died to them.

 

The enemies are easy. But avoiding their staggers is not.

 

 

This guy seems to have equated something "sucking" with something that actually poses a threat. This guy is also missing the point of a shooter entirely. This post sucks.

 

'This guy' also plays solo on pluto. I do boss runs solo, too. I've been recently solo'ing that *@##$ Hyena for control modules. So uhhh, I think that a challenge is sucking? Lolnope. I just think the fact that the grineer have three times as many stagger-based enemies as the other two factions is a little bit BS. Not to mention that they have techniques to wrest control from the player for no reason.

 

Even low-level Grineer can constantly stagger you, because they use cheap, insipid techniques to add difficulty rather than anything of substance. Make their armor really tough, make body shots do 10% damage. Make them throw grenades like candy. But making them knock you down every time you get close to them is just irritating. Irritating and stupid.

 

Every faction has troops designed to stagger you.

 

Corpus have the stomp moa and one or two melee units.

 

Infested have the leaper and the ancients.

 

Grineer have the Commander, Scorpion, Roller Balls, Teleporting melee warriors, the heavy gunners with the AOE knockdown, and the shield lancers.

 

Starting to see my point?

[Xianyu]

Huh, guess you never acquaint with Nervos. Think the roller and AOE radial blast a pain? Think again. 

Yeah, I've never come across those before. I like to solo because people are $&*^s and I hate rushers. Kinda hard to find materials when everyone is just mad-dashing for extraction.

 

But the nervos look like the worst @(*()$ idea ever. And they would instantly make me stop playing against grineer in groups. Period.

[Phoenix86]

I also said that I enjoy taking on Phorid. It's a challenge, but fun!

 

Should probably point out that I do it solo, too.

 

The enemies rated as 'high suck' are all enemies that take control away from your character. Note that the &!$$-weak Scorpion and the Grineer Commander are both rated the highest in suckage, and yet I've never even died to any of them. Even when I got teleported around the map by five commanders in a row. I never died to them.

 

The enemies are easy. But avoiding their staggers is not.

 

 

 

'This guy' also plays solo on pluto. I do boss runs solo, too. I've been recently solo'ing that $#*(@ Hyena for control modules. So uhhh, I think that a challenge is sucking? Lolnope. I just think the fact that the grineer have three times as many stagger-based enemies as the other two factions is a little bit BS. Not to mention that they have techniques to wrest control from the player for no reason.

 

Even low-level Grineer can constantly stagger you, because they use cheap, insipid techniques to add difficulty rather than anything of substance. Make their armor really tough, make body shots do 10% damage. Make them throw grenades like candy. But making them knock you down every time you get close to them is just irritating. Irritating and stupid.

 

Every faction has troops designed to stagger you.

 

Corpus have the stomp moa and one or two melee units.

 

Infested have the leaper and the ancients.

 

Grineer have the Commander, Scorpion, Roller Balls, Teleporting melee warriors, the heavy gunners with the AOE knockdown, and the shield lancers.

 

Starting to see my point?

 

Beside Rollers and Scorpions who are a 'real' stagger-treat, all the other will stagger you only if you are so dumb to go meele with them or let them come meele to you.

 

You should also hate infested as a whole, they ALL staggers, ALL units can stunlock you to death.

[neKroMancer]

Yeah, I've never come across those before. I like to solo because people are $&*^s and I hate rushers. Kinda hard to find materials when everyone is just mad-dashing for extraction.

 

But the nervos look like the worst @(*()$ idea ever. And they would instantly make me stop playing against grineer in groups. Period.

 

Nervos was removed from the game, temporarily. DE will probably make a planet of Nervos as ultra hard mode for hardcore fans in the future.

[Xianyu]

Beside Rollers and Scorpions who are a 'real' stagger-treat, all the other will stagger you only if you are so dumb to go meele with them or let them come meele to you.

 

You should also hate infested as a whole, they ALL staggers, ALL units can stunlock you to death.

Yeah, but don't forget the commanders with their super unblockable switch move that works with laser accuracy at any range. Oh, and the melee guy that teleports to you.

 

I don't hate infested. They're a nice challenge. They stagger, yes, but they're MELEE stagger. They're not doing it from ages away. They're managable.

 

The ancients take their sweet time about hitting you, and with a freeze mod, it's just a matter of shooting them. The runners are laughably weak, take 300% damage from HEAPS of melee weapons, and the runners pause to give you ample time to get out of range/behind cover before leaping. They're stagger done RIGHT. Yes, it's annoying when an ancient melees you, knocks you down, and then saps all your energy at once before moving on. Or when a single dog enemy type staggers you and then the others all take turn stagger-locking you to death giving you nothing you can do about it.

 

The infested use stagger as a part of their plan. Grineer use it as the entire lynchpin. Roller balls, scorpion, shield lancers, they're only even a mild threat BECAUSE they stagger. Because they knock you down with no chance of stopping them.

 

Come around a corner, and BAM, knocked down. Or teleported into another room three tiles away.

 

There's really no way to avoid them in any confident sense. The switch works instantly from anywhere no matter what you do, the roller balls can only be counteracted by standing on TOP of something they can't reach, and you have to be moving constantly to stand a chance of the scorpions not knocking you down. Those three are the main perpetrators of the massive suckage of the Grineer. They are the epitome of the 'style' of the grineer to take control away from your character completely.

 

And at close range, they abuse this so @(*()$ badly. Try playing a solo run of high-level grineer on the spaceship tileset. Every second corner you turn, a unit specifically designed to knock you to the ground will, you guessed it, knock you to the ground. And there's no way to avoid it except GO PLAY AGAINST SOMETHING ELSE.

 

And that's the problem.

 

Grineer suck.

[fatpig84]

I want nervos back.

[CharlesSnippy]

I posted before the commander was added to the main post, that, or I never noticed it the first time I read it. The commander is the one time I'll concede that they need looking at. But complaining about the fact that shield lancers can knock you down is like complaining that corpus crewmen carry weapons. It's a ludicrously easy to avoid attack, a lot of the grineer "sucking" simply comes from something that can, and will, F*** you up if you are hit by it. Getting instakilled by the Jackal sucks too, but its you that was hit, the thirty other guys who didn't wouldn't say it sucks, they'd be glad that there was a threat, and that they overcame the threat.

[WhisperByte]

^But I still call bullS#&$ when I turn invisible, run behind shield lancer and still get knocked down

[Phoenix86]

tbh it's a lot of time i dont see grinner's commanders around... anyway i dont know man... just rollers and scorpions are 'troubles' to me, the rest is laughable

[Taranis49]

It's not that they're challenging, particularly in the case of the commanders, scorpions, and rollers they're tedious and unfun. Massive difference.

 

They don't test skill, since I've never been downed by any of those three, all they test is the limit of your patience. It's frankly lazy to give commanders what is essentially a Loki's Switch Teleport, particularly since a frame's abilities are what supposedly make it unique. It also doesn't help that Scorpions can still magically snare you through cover... granted it's not as bad as they were when they could do it to you from rooms away through solid walls, but they're very much a case of you can't shine poo - they were annoying and unfun when they were first introduced and they still are.

 

Slapping someone's hands away from the controls is the kind of tactic I expect from a five year old.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Taranis49

[notlamprey]

Slapping someone's hands away from the controls is the kind of tactic I expect from a five year old.

This. Oh, so much this.

Dearest dev team, this forum has yielded up for you a sparkling golden nugget of wisdom. Don't you dare squander it.

[TheHeraldXII]

This guy seems to have equated something "sucking" with something that actually poses a threat. This guy is also missing the point of a shooter entirely. This post sucks.

I don't agree with OP entirely, but the Commanders and Rollers are all the wrong kinds of difficult. Those particular enemies are more annoying than actually threatening, and the amount to stunlock in this game is fairly ridiculous. Most shooters don't have stunlock at all because you want to be playing the game, not watching your character get dragged around the room for 10+ seconds by Scorpions.

[Xievie]

I like how the Grineer are.