Telos Boltace (Actual Feedback)

[Smilomaniac]

I'm making a separate thread because the 8 page one from February has gone way into subjective territory. I'm not here to say how it should be, just how the weapon performs after the adjustments of Update 20, and the effect it has on my personal gameplay.

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The mechanical change of the weapon has gone from a ranged "wave" attack to a vortex that draws enemies towards when performing a slide attack and ragdolls them away from you upon a subsequent one. The vortex is named "Stormpath" and the ragdoll effect is named "Blast".

1. Stormpath:

Pros:

• It draws in enemies from above (flying units), making subsequent melee attacks against these easier.
• It does not draw in nullifiers, so you are not unintentionally subjected to their bubble (arguably a con, but I prefer it this way)
• It affects Bursas, surprisingly enough.
• Slight crowd control effect (stagger) as enemies are drawn towards you, interrupting heavier enemies.

Cons:

• When executing Stormpath, the player attacks and hits enemies that are adjacent or near your attack point, however the speed at which enemies are drawn towards you is relatively slow compared to the attack of the weapon, meaning that unless they are very near you, your attack is done before they bundle up, meaning you miss them with your attack.
• The reach of Stormpath seems to be rather short.

2. Blast:

Pros:

• Ragdolling enemies away provides ample crowd control time to make subsequent combat choices for you and your squad.
• Ragdolled enemies are sometimes open to finishing moves (somewhat irrelevant for me, but more gameplay choices are usually a good thing).

Cons:

• As a follow up to Stormpath, Blast will blow away the remaining enemies with you as the center point, meaning they are spread to all sides, complicating further melee attacks.
• As enemies are ragdolled, slide attacks will "miss" these enemies while they are lying down, due to the very short/narrow vertical attack span of the Boltace.
• Ragdolled enemies are often harder to notice as being alive (causing you to backtrack, occasionally multiple times to finish them off).

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My personal take:

I'd be lying if I said that I don't care about the change, I do, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered testing it and writing this post.

While the stats of the weapon itself are still great, the push and pull mechanic of this weapon complicates fighting. I'm struggling with it and the aftereffects rather than being helped, making it a chore to go around killing the ragdolled enemies and being frustrated when I can't hit them, because they're below my arc of attack (because they're lying down). That is, if I notice that they're there in the first place because for all I know they're dead.

The bottomline is that the mechanic subtracts from the weapon and it would be just fine if Stormpath/Blast weren't there at all.
I'm not advocating for the return of the wave attack, I'm just saying how the weapon is at present.

In terms of what I miss most about the waves, it's really just the convenience of opening all nearby containers with one or two attacks. If I had to suggest a change, I'd say replace Blast with a crowd control effect that makes enemies stand where they are as staggered; It would eliminate most of the cons which seem unintentional.

[Fallen_Echo]

You have missed that now the strompath deal 100 impact damage, not much but atleast we can break boxes.

[Smilomaniac]

3 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

You have missed that now the strompath deal 100 impact damage, not much but atleast we can break boxes.

You're right, it is on a cooldown however and not exactly a reliable can-opening move :D

[Fallen_Echo]

35 minutes ago, Smilomaniac said:

You're right, it is on a cooldown however and not exactly a reliable can-opening move :D

better than nothing:D

[DarcnyssWolfe]

5 hours ago, Fallen_Echo said:

better than nothing:D

Ignis + Maiming Atterax. Break all the containers, cc (if status'd) and still delete anything in a wide range around you. Weapon is definitely still viable and nice and all... If there wasn't alternatives with lesser MR and easier to get that still greatly outperform the Telace.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

I need to ask:

1. Does Storm Path pop Saryn's Spores?

2. Does the follow-up slide concept, Blast, pop Saryn's Spores?

[Zendadaist]

Does the Boltace still have to be in full melee mode to trigger Stormpath or can it trigger with quick melee? If the former then it's back to the display case it goes. If its the latter then I will still have a use for it.

[DarcnyssWolfe]

Still needs melee mode. 

14 hours ago, Zendadaist said:

Does the Boltace still have to be in full melee mode to trigger Stormpath or can it trigger with quick melee? If the former then it's back to the display case it goes. If its the latter then I will still have a use for it.

 

[Smilomaniac]

On 29/3/2017 at 3:00 AM, (PS4)Lei-Lei_23 said:

I need to ask:

1. Does Storm Path pop Saryn's Spores?

2. Does the follow-up slide concept, Blast, pop Saryn's Spores?

Having done some testing in the simulacrim, storm path pops spores yes. As for blast, I've tried this ten times and while blast doesn't do damage but does seem to pop them regardless.

Here's what happens though, the stormpath damage is still a "wave" so spores that spawn on their feet or heads are not popped as the vertical attack of both the wave and weapon itself don't reach that far up or down. I believe most, if not all melee weapons, are like this so unless you're ground-pounding through an enemy, you're unlikely to hit the bubbles. The stormpath doesn't circumvent it, unfortunately.

I assume you're going for a quick melee attack that'll allow you to pop all spores, in conjunction with toxic lash. While I haven't tried it, it may be that you can use a high status melee weapon with the blast (cold+fire) proc. While it doesn't do damage to nearby enemies, it does do 0 damage, meaning it may trigger the spores regardless.

In my opinion your best bet is still any thrown weapon with concealed explosives on it, which pops all spores in a decent radius of where you hit. Mind the self-damage though.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

10 minutes ago, Smilomaniac said:

Having done some testing in the simulacrim, storm path pops spores yes. As for blast, I've tried this ten times and while blast doesn't do damage but does seem to pop them regardless.

Here's what happens though, the stormpath damage is still a "wave" so spores that spawn on their feet or heads are not popped as the vertical attack of both the wave and weapon itself don't reach that far up or down. I believe most, if not all melee weapons, are like this so unless you're ground-pounding through an enemy, you're unlikely to hit the bubbles. The stormpath doesn't circumvent it, unfortunately.

I assume you're going for a quick melee attack that'll allow you to pop all spores, in conjunction with toxic lash. While I haven't tried it, it may be that you can use a high status melee weapon with the blast (cold+fire) proc. While it doesn't do damage to nearby enemies, it does do 0 damage, meaning it may trigger the spores regardless.

In my opinion your best bet is still any thrown weapon with concealed explosives on it, which pops all spores in a decent radius of where you hit. Mind the self-damage though.

Hmm, so verticality was nerfed even further. That's pretty unfortunate. I am a Toxic Lash Saryn, so I'll have to see this myself when consoles get the Telos Boltace change.

I really would like to see the Telos Boltace get "buffed" by just keeping the Storm Path mechanic and removing the follow-up "Blast" mechanic, and a complete removal of the cooldown time on the wave. What you get is pretty much a gimped version of Valkyr's Prolonged Paralysis, which imho isn't op by any means on the Telos Boltace slide attack.

[(PSN)HSomDevil]

21 minutes ago, Smilomaniac said:

In my opinion your best bet is still any thrown weapon with concealed explosives on it, which pops all spores in a decent radius of where you hit. Mind the self-damage though.

About that radius. Wiki doesn't say anything about actual range and whether it can be increased with reach.

Do you have any idea?

Edit: nvm that... got it mixed up with thrown melee's.

Edited March 30, 2017 by (PS4)HSomDevil

[Smilomaniac]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Lei-Lei_23 said:

Hmm, so verticality was nerfed even further. That's pretty unfortunate. I am a Toxic Lash Saryn, so I'll have to see this myself when consoles get the Telos Boltace change.

I really would like to see the Telos Boltace get "buffed" by just keeping the Storm Path mechanic and removing the follow-up "Blast" mechanic, and a complete removal of the cooldown time on the wave. What you get is pretty much a gimped version of Valkyr's Prolonged Paralysis, which imho isn't op by any means on the Telos Boltace slide attack.

You're using them now, yeah? I thought the waves were just as narrow, but you'd know better than me. So yeah, that's an additional nerf.

The blast alone puts this weapon near or in the 'trash tier' category, so I would have to agree with you. While I think removing the cooldown on stormpath would be extremely fun, it'd also be exceedingly powerful, even with its somewhat short range.

I would argue lowering the CD, absolutely or instead have stormpath function during quick melee sliding.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

2 hours ago, Smilomaniac said:

You're using them now, yeah? I thought the waves were just as narrow, but you'd know better than me. So yeah, that's an additional nerf.

The blast alone puts this weapon near or in the 'trash tier' category, so I would have to agree with you. While I think removing the cooldown on stormpath would be extremely fun, it'd also be exceedingly powerful, even with its somewhat short range.

I would argue lowering the CD, absolutely or instead have stormpath function during quick melee sliding.

Yeah, I'm using them now and on the same leveled field on LoS for the wave, Saryn can consistently pop her Spores from head to toe if Toxic Lash is activated. Maybe there's some imbalance if the enemy character models are in a staggered state, or the wave's Impact damage isn't applying the damage like the old Telos Boltace wave did (as in instead of player to enemy, damage is applied from the max range the wave is modded for to the point of contact the player executes the slide attack).

I honestly wouldn't think a complete removal of "Blast" and the cooldown would be op at all. The power on the current Telos Boltace wave is 100 Impact, which is neglegible compared to the original slide wave's 510 with guaranteed Bleed procs. Valkyr's Prolonged Paralysis, her augmented Power 3, is spammable, energy efficient, and good crowd control.

Proposal: Maybe give the Telos Boltace a trade-off for keeping Storm Path and removing Blast and the cooldown, give the slide attack an affordable energy cost like Excalibur's Exalted Blade Radial Blind slide? That'll give griefers less to complain about the slide attack's "op-ness" with some semblance to balancing the weapon, and it'll keep the weapon "fun."

Because, y'know, we play this game to have fun. Right?

Edited March 30, 2017 by (PS4)Lei-Lei_23

[Harikusa]

I puted in forma in my lovely Telos Boltace but when I used them I was confused on what was going on and when I found out I realised that I wasted my forma on waste named Telos Boltace.

[Mousarchy]

all i want is for blast to be optional...as a tonfa class weapon they were always used for there massive slide attack damage. what i would like is if the blow back was optional...you know like after you spin and pull them in. you wont blow them away unless you channel...or something of that. 

[Smilomaniac]

On 4/4/2017 at 0:05 AM, Ordosan said:

all i want is for blast to be optional...as a tonfa class weapon they were always used for there massive slide attack damage. what i would like is if the blow back was optional...you know like after you spin and pull them in. you wont blow them away unless you channel...or something of that. 

Yup, a channeled blast could be a fine fix. Or a charge attack, like some of the other syndicate melee's.