Ambulas is possibly the most well-designed enemy in the game

[AdunSaveMe]

Primarily the boss fight, but also the actual unit itself.

It has no cheese. It has well-telegraphed attacks that are punishing if you fail to avoid them. Instead of being a blob of health, or taking no damage and having one ridiculous weak spot (i.e. Kril), it has plates of armour that reduce its health and shields when shot off. Overall, its mechanics make it quite possibly the most engaging and enjoyable enemy in the game. Its boss fight adds an extra layer of semi-unique play to the game, in that you have to stop it from being reactivated, rather than run in, nuke it, run away. This alone is what keeps the fight engaging even if you outgear it. It may seem tedious at times, but it's still a great to have in a boss fight; it's a phase that doesn't rely on health and damage. It practically scales with player power because of this.

As well as this, its effects are great, and the ship in orbit blasting the battlefield is pretty damn kickass.

There is no cheese, no invincibility phase, no invisible instakill razor spines, no tiny weak point that becomes vulnerable once a year. Because of this, it's also very forgiving to your choice of Warframe; as long as you can aim and dodge, you can beat it. You don't have to have a frame that can turn invincible or bypass armour in order to win within a decent amount of time.

Though it does still fall victim to the issues of scaling (they die pretty fast quite often), it's still, in my opinion, the most well-designed unit yet.

Edited May 7, 2017 by AdunSaveMe

[BansheePrime]

Yeah. I like his attacks, the fact that it's actually dodgable, and best of all... no invuln phases!

But the Ambulas sortie made me notice something... does his fusion beam damage even scale?

Edited May 7, 2017 by maj.death

[o.0-]

The ship was a pleasant surprise, but that beam is able to stunlock you until you go down. Noticed that in trying to revive downed pets and players, otherwise it was a fun fight.

[Arezael]

The breakdance beam shuffle didn't seem to do much more in today's Sortie - I was reviving some clown when he aimed it at us and winced in advance expecting the worst.

Though this isn't a complaint - I much prefer the mechanics on the new version of Ambulas - just an observation that I anticipated getting one shot, and it didn't happen.

I'm guessing that move hasn't been fully 'tuned' yet, since the event is only a few days old.

[AdunSaveMe]

Just now, Arezael said:

The breakdance beam shuffle didn't seem to do much more in today's Sortie - I was reviving some clown when he aimed it at us and winced in advance expecting the worst.

Though this isn't a complaint - I much prefer the mechanics on the new version of Ambulas - just an observation that I anticipated getting one shot, and it didn't happen.

I'm guessing that move hasn't been fully 'tuned' yet, since the event is only a few days old.

It's possible that it might not scale with level. And you know, that wouldn't be the worst thing ever. Scaling is bad enough, it'd be nice to not see it on a big spinning laser attack. It would only ever result in an instakill.

If non-scaling enemy attacks can be tuned to the right level of damage, it'd mean less artificial difficulty.

[(PSN)iBoiz]

It feels a bit like one of the machines from Horizon Zero Dawn which I loved playing.

[NinthAria]

Tons of points to the modeling and animation crew on this too. I love all the little design touches, like the breakable armor and auxiliary weapons and such. And unlike its cousin the Bursa, the Ambulas moves like...well, like what it is: A big, heavily armed, heavily armored mobile weapons platform. It's like a Metal Gear, but smaller; really nails that "walking tank" vibe.

[Chipputer]

You call him well designed yet I've not gotten a single chance to see him do anything but die. Immediately. Even during the boss fights.

You all hate invulnerability phases but at least they give the bosses a chance to fight back. Current Ambulas is nothing more than a slightly tankier moa and is nothing more than a boring distraction for some exclusive mods, at the moment.

[Misgenesis]

I just wish it was a little more aggressive and faster with its attacks.

[AdunSaveMe]

26 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

urrent Ambulas is nothing more than a slightly tankier moa and is nothing more than a boring distraction for some exclusive mods, at the moment.

It's a hell of a lot more than a slightly tankier MOA.

[Nez-Kal]

3 hours ago, Chipputer said:

You call him well designed yet I've not gotten a single chance to see him do anything but die. Immediately. Even during the boss fights.

You all hate invulnerability phases but at least they give the bosses a chance to fight back. Current Ambulas is nothing more than a slightly tankier moa and is nothing more than a boring distraction for some exclusive mods, at the moment.

I'm not sure how they designed Ambulas's weak points, but for the most part I've only ever one shot it once with a Tigris Prime...and I believe that's only because of how the pellet spread was juuuust right to hit all the important areas as it fell from the Drop Ship.

 

Other than that, I've mostly noticed in Public missions that the Instant death Ambulas only really happened when multiple people had heavy hitting hit scan weapons all firing at once, or when one person had an Over Powered (read as "They definitely had a Riven") AoE weapon, like the Zarr.

When I've soloed the Ambulas, even my most over powered Automatic weapons (That could melt a level 110 Bombard in 1.8 seconds) seemed to take a few moments before they finally killed it, at which point it got off maybe 2 or 3 attacks which, if I wasn't careful, could have floored me, especially with any squishier frame.

 

To be fair though, I'm not an expert at killing Ambulas, and my knowledge only really goes slightly higher than "Shoot it till it dies" to "Shoot sorta bulky red glowing bits till they break off....and it dies".

[FLEXXIMUS]

Most well designed enemy in the game?

Are you kidding me?

Stalker and his acolytes are easily the coolest enemies in the game by FAR.

They are dark evil twisted variants of warframes and DE equivalent to Evil Ryu and Akuma.

Those ambulances ( that's what I call them ) are better than their previous versions but nothing SPECIAL.

I just wish I could fight them more often. (Stalker and his boys)

Edited May 7, 2017 by FLEXXIMUS

[Nez-Kal]

25 minutes ago, FLEXXIMUS said:

Most well designed enemy in the game?

Are you kidding me?

Stalker and his acolytes are easily the coolest enemies in the game by FAR.

They are dark evil twisted variants of warframes and DE equivalent to Evil Ryu and Akuma.

Those ambulances ( that's what I call them ) are better than their previous versions but nothing SPECIAL.

I just wish I could fight them more often. (Stalker and his boys)

How to fight Acolytes:

1.) Equip Valkyr

2.) Press 4

If they're not Violence, You Win.

 

Yeah, I enjoyed them, but they were really no different than any other Warframe boss, and just as easily cheesed to no end. Ambulas at least has Boss-like moves and animations. The Acolytes were (being totally honest right now) just Copy and Pastes.

[FLEXXIMUS]

3 minutes ago, Tangent-Valley said:

How to fight Acolytes:

1.) Equip Valkyr

2.) Press 4

If they're not Violence, You Win.

 

Yeah, I enjoyed them, but they were really no different than any other Warframe boss, and just as easily cheesed to no end. Ambulas at least has Boss-like moves and animations. The Acolytes were (being totally honest right now) just Copy and Pastes.

Respectfully, this thread is about the views on the best designed enemies in the game and although you may feel that the acolytes are nothing more than "copy and paste" jobs, they are still warframes and stand above all the other enemies in the game in my opinion.

How easy or hard they are to beat is irrelevant.

[Little-Cunny]

5 hours ago, NinthAria said:

Tons of points to the modeling and animation crew on this too. I love all the little design touches, like the breakable armor and auxiliary weapons and such. And unlike its cousin the Bursa, the Ambulas moves like...well, like what it is: A big, heavily armed, heavily armored mobile weapons platform. It's like a Metal Gear, but smaller; really nails that "walking tank" vibe.

I would disagree with their heavyness. It's much sleeker and lighter than its sound implies... But that might be because I have FOV on max.

 

As for he best enemy, I would think an enemy with telegraphs and dodgeable weaponry would be the best but everything is escaping me at the moment. :P

 

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

6 hours ago, Chipputer said:

You call him well designed yet I've not gotten a single chance to see him do anything but die.

dis.

[VentiGlondi]

3 hours ago, FLEXXIMUS said:

Stalker and his acolytes are easily the coolest enemies in the game by FAR.

They are dark evil twisted variants of warframes and DE equivalent to Evil Ryu and Akuma.

That's so cool, almost as cool as my OC.

 

Honestly Ambulas shows why DE has resorted to invulnerability phases for so many bosses. But I guess the hacking mechanic makes up for it.

[Nazrethim]

8 hours ago, Arezael said:

The breakdance beam shuffle didn't seem to do much more in today's Sortie - I was reviving some clown when he aimed it at us and winced in advance expecting the worst.

Though this isn't a complaint - I much prefer the mechanics on the new version of Ambulas - just an observation that I anticipated getting one shot, and it didn't happen.

I'm guessing that move hasn't been fully 'tuned' yet, since the event is only a few days old.

That, or it's DE's first step into fixin enemy scaling by making boss attacks not oneshot you, which is a serious problem with Kela Da Thaym's missiles at Sorties, among others.

[DSpite]

From memory, probably after the event was up for 24 hours, every time I saw one they were getting one shotted, and never by me.

Mesa I think was the worse (best?) as she just started the bullet cascade as the ship dropped the enemies and nothing landed alive on the ground.

I think the unit is fine, it's just us that have too many tools in the toolbelt to deal with everything.

[TheGuyver]

I found the boss fight pretty underwhelming, but found the units themselves to be pretty interesting. I thought they would have had tougher enemies and more of an onslaught during the hacking/defending part instead of just a bunch of crewmen and ospreys.

[AdunSaveMe]

5 hours ago, FLEXXIMUS said:

Stalker and his acolytes are easily the coolest enemies in the game by FAR.

They are dark evil twisted variants of warframes and DE equivalent to Evil Ryu and Akuma.

Those ambulances ( that's what I call them ) are better than their previous versions but nothing SPECIAL.

I'm not talking about visual design. I'm talking about gameplay mechanics.

Sometimes it dies right away. Cool. That's not the point. It's still better designed than anything else.

Edited May 7, 2017 by AdunSaveMe

[SprinKah]

6 hours ago, FLEXXIMUS said:

Most well designed enemy in the game?

Are you kidding me?

Stalker and his acolytes are easily the coolest enemies in the game by FAR.

They are dark evil twisted variants of warframes and DE equivalent to Evil Ryu and Akuma.

Those ambulances ( that's what I call them ) are better than their previous versions but nothing SPECIAL.

I just wish I could fight them more often. (Stalker and his boys)

 

you mean the Acolytes have cool awesome animations, unique abilities and not recycled, existing warframe abilities slapped onto warframe models with stalker helmet?

[Volinus7]

At last, it took 4 years to start looking like an actual action game with proper telegraph attack and reaction check, still doesn't solve dps gap and abilities spamming though. 

Edited May 7, 2017 by Volinus7

[SprinKah]

Despite that man....as much as I love the new AMbulas and the new animations and boss fight and everything...

I think they're a bit too lack luster....heck, they're probably even easier to kill than BURSAS. Ambulas now has cool abilities but they just don't use them enough to be as effecient as bursas' radial slam spam...

And I think Ambulas's dps isn't as good as Bursas I  mean.

You may think it's a good thing that they're like that but I don't know...it just feels really wrong and underwhelming....I mean, the ONLY real threat in the Ambulas boss fight is the Storm dropship, the mobs of moas and, rollerblade dudes and Corpus ship's artillery. The Ambulases are barely a threat...which again...is really underwhelming...

[Arkvold]

Ambulas itself is well-designed.

The Hades node boss fight needs some serious work.  To whit:

1. Informing players of Glast's plan prior to the actual boss fight, so that you know you're supposed to defend hacked Ambulas until Frohd sends a dropship to pick them up
2. More warning for the capital-ship laser, so that you can actually avoid it.  Alternatively, more cover that can actually stop the mega-laser's beam.
3. Have the cap-ship laser ignore/be unable to damage companions (It's seriously unfair for it to target your pets, since it will park the beam on them and they'll bleed out with no chance of reviving them)
4. Have the cap-ship laser deactivate if a Tenno goes down (mostly for the same reason - it's unfair for the beam to just park itself on a downed Tenno, making it impossible to revive them since nothing can stop the beam)
5. Take another look at the cap ship beam's damage.  Right now it's a hitscan impact-proccing stunlock beam that can inflict upwards of 300+ DPS, making it impossible for lighter 'frames to survive if they get stunlocked for the entire duration of the beam.  Either remove the impact proc (so you can jump out of the beam without being stunlocked) or lower the damage so that more Warframes can actually survive the beam.