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

[SprinKah]

Just now, Arkvold said:

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.

 

Also...I don't think the boss battle itself is focused on Ambulas itself....I mean, like I said, they don't really pose a real big threat, when they're down, you really just gotta keep your eyes on the Corpus ship, remech ospreys and other infantries....they just don't really get enough attention, they aren't exactly the focal point of the battle, which is quite a shame.

[LSG501]

I wouldn't say 'constantly stomping' to give knock back is well designed.... in one attempt at the sortie yesterday, when it was active, there was so much stomping from the ambulas that it literally had me on my back more than on my feet and that was with handspring.

[SprinKah]

7 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

I wouldn't say 'constantly stomping' to give knock back is well designed.... in one attempt at the sortie yesterday, when it was active, there was so much stomping from the ambulas that it literally had me on my back more than on my feet and that was with handspring.

 

 

man...it doesn't use the stomping ability THAT OFTEN...and it's not even as bad as BURSAS.

Edited May 7, 2017 by SprinKah

[LSG501]

1 hour ago, SprinKah said:

man...it doesn't use the stomping ability THAT OFTEN...and it's not even as bad as BURSAS.

It was literally stomping and then by the time I was back on my feet doing it again... and it kept doing it for ages, not just once or twice... almost like it was trying to tap out a beat to some music (don't think we had an octavia...)

Edited May 7, 2017 by LSG501

[DiabolusUrsus]

Came back on to play the event simply to get the Supra Vandal... and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised by the Ambulas boss fight.

Hands down, it is the best boss-fight in the game.

• Decently telegraphed, regularly avoidable attacks.
• Weak-points rewarding precision without locking players out of damage for neglecting it.
• Dramatic background events... that bombardment sequence was superb.
• Acceptable "lengthening" of the fight WITHOUT invulnerability.

I seriously want DE to go back and rework all the other bosses (even the already-reworked ones) up to this standard of quality. My only gripe with the battle is that it can sometimes take a little too long in-between spawning Ambulas units at the beginning. Later on when you can deal with multiples it's less of an issue, but I feel like players should never really feel like they're sitting on their thumbs during a fight.

3 hours ago, LSG501 said:

It was literally stomping and then by the time I was back on my feet doing it again... and it kept doing it for ages, not just once or twice... almost like it was trying to tap out a beat to some music (don't think we had an octavia...)

Sounds like your build doesn't include any knockdown recovery speed increases. Not saying that this should be required, but the stomp is fairly telegraphed and unless you're sitting in Ambulas' face with its aggro it doesn't use the stomp very often. When you see it coming just bullet-jump straight up, and you'll be fine. And if you have Constitution on it shouldn't lock you into multiple hits as a punishment for flubbing a dodge.

That said... it should knock you progressively further away each time, so it's hard to imagine getting stunlocked for more than a few hits.

Edit: Noticed you said you were using handspring in the previous post... I find your experience very difficult to believe in that case. Were you trying to melee it constantly or something?

Edited May 7, 2017 by DiabolusUrsus

[DrBorris]

Mm, maybe. Jackal is still in a pretty close spot. Jackal definitely hits the threatening presence better than Ambulas, and its invulnerability is very fair (no "phases", you are always progressing towards killing Jackal even if you are not always damaging his main health bar).

 

Honestly, Ambulas pulls a lot from Jackal in fighting style. Both of them rely heavily on telegraphed attacks and responding to us as the player. Jackal is the more stationary tank while Ambulas is a mobile threat.

 

It is sad honestly, Jackal is the first boss created, and everything went downhill from there (some better, some worse). And after all of this time DE FINALLY goes back to Jackal's style of fight. I just hope this is a new trend and not a one-off.

 

And good boss design is what makes me want a Damage 3.0 more and more, the only bosses that can challenge us rely on invulnerability.

 

 

We can all agree that Ambulas/Jackal style bosses are far superior to the Vay Hek style though.

[[DE]Momaw]

17 hours ago, Chipputer said:

You all hate invulnerability phases but at least they give the bosses a chance to fight back.

Pretty much this.

Ambulas is a lot of fun to fight when he can fight.  He has mobility powers, he has multiple kinds of weaponry, he has neat ablative armor plates.  And none of it matters when you can cast Bullet Attractor or Antimatter Drop or use Tigris Prime or whatever you feel like one-shotting him with.

[LSG501]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Sounds like your build doesn't include any knockdown recovery speed increases. Not saying that this should be required, but the stomp is fairly telegraphed and unless you're sitting in Ambulas' face with its aggro it doesn't use the stomp very often. When you see it coming just bullet-jump straight up, and you'll be fine. And if you have Constitution on it shouldn't lock you into multiple hits as a punishment for flubbing a dodge.

That said... it should knock you progressively further away each time, so it's hard to imagine getting stunlocked for more than a few hits.

Edit: Noticed you said you were using handspring in the previous post... I find your experience very difficult to believe in that case. Were you trying to melee it constantly or something?

Not melee, getting in close to give a good full hit from my tigris prime.  And yes it is telegraphed with the leg being lifted etc but this wasn't just like the single one, it was a lot quicker and one after another.  I wasn't being stunlocked either because I was just being knocked onto my back and then springing straight back up due to handspring and literally being knocked straight back down again with follow up stomps.  There wasn't enough time to 'bullet jump out of the way'. 

Edited May 7, 2017 by LSG501

[DiabolusUrsus]

28 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

Not melee, getting in close to give a good full hit from my tigris prime.  And yes it is telegraphed with the leg being lifted etc but this wasn't just like the single one, it was a lot quicker and one after another.  I wasn't being stunlocked either because I was just being knocked onto my back and then springing straight back up due to handspring and literally being knocked straight back down again with follow up stomps.  There wasn't enough time to 'bullet jump out of the way'. 

That... was not my experience in the least. Unless you were running into something weird with latency, or maybe DE threw in some odd behaviors in Sortie, but there is a good 1s or so in-between each stomp. Plenty of time to bullet jump away; I've done exactly that multiple times and I've only run the boss once. That was running Constitution only, too. It sounds more like you're walking into each knockdown. Simply approach from the air and you won't have that problem unless you stick around for the final radial AOE stomp in the combo.

Otherwise you may have encountered a bug.

[DiabolusUrsus]

50 minutes ago, Momaw said:

Pretty much this.

Ambulas is a lot of fun to fight when he can fight.  He has mobility powers, he has multiple kinds of weaponry, he has neat ablative armor plates.  And none of it matters when you can cast Bullet Attractor or Antimatter Drop or use Tigris Prime or whatever you feel like one-shotting him with.

So to me that sounds like a problem with our damage output being too high instead of invulnerability phases being a necessary evil. Same goes for enemy damage output being so high that we need shield-gating to avoid one-shots. Nobody wants to fight bullet sponges either, but at the very least we should step away from OHKOs on both sides of the table.

[[DE]Momaw]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

So to me that sounds like a problem with our damage output being too high instead of invulnerability phases being a necessary evil. Same goes for enemy damage output being so high that we need shield-gating to avoid one-shots. Nobody wants to fight bullet sponges either, but at the very least we should step away from OHKOs on both sides of the table.

....which I've been saying for at least 2 years now...  :(

[LSG501]

2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

It sounds more like you're walking into each knockdown.

I'm MR21... I'm not that stupid....

[SprinKah]

6 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Came back on to play the event simply to get the Supra Vandal... and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised by the Ambulas boss fight.

Hands down, it is the best boss-fight in the game.

• Decently telegraphed, regularly avoidable attacks.
• Weak-points rewarding precision without locking players out of damage for neglecting it.
• Dramatic background events... that bombardment sequence was superb.
• Acceptable "lengthening" of the fight WITHOUT invulnerability.

I seriously want DE to go back and rework all the other bosses (even the already-reworked ones) up to this standard of quality. My only gripe with the battle is that it can sometimes take a little too long in-between spawning Ambulas units at the beginning. Later on when you can deal with multiples it's less of an issue, but I feel like players should never really feel like they're sitting on their thumbs during a fight.

Sounds like your build doesn't include any knockdown recovery speed increases. Not saying that this should be required, but the stomp is fairly telegraphed and unless you're sitting in Ambulas' face with its aggro it doesn't use the stomp very often. When you see it coming just bullet-jump straight up, and you'll be fine. And if you have Constitution on it shouldn't lock you into multiple hits as a punishment for flubbing a dodge.

That said... it should knock you progressively further away each time, so it's hard to imagine getting stunlocked for more than a few hits.

Edit: Noticed you said you were using handspring in the previous post... I find your experience very difficult to believe in that case. Were you trying to melee it constantly or something?

Still think they should focus more on the ambulas and not the corpus ship...

Heck if anything, the boss fight is more...fight against corpus ship than fight against ambulas...theyre like background dummies...a shame

I think they should have like some sort of defensive mechanic against us...something more...like aura that jams certain ability types like scrumbuses, nullifer bubbles like bursas or SOMETHING to help them withstand against us better...theyre so underwhelming...

[SprinKah]

I think some kind of...invulnerability would help ambulas....i mean, not 100% invulnerable EVERYWHERE but certain spots...

I mean, god damn theyre slow as hell and not at all durable, they are so vulnerable it hurts.

I dont even understand why invulnerability is not good, our damage output is super high already so is it REALLY a problem? No.

[Cosmic_Elf]

Nice upgrade to Ambulas boss fight.. It used to be a meh assassination, now it is just awesome 

[DiabolusUrsus]

3 hours ago, Momaw said:

....which I've been saying for at least 2 years now...  :(

Well, best we can do is continue to say it until something gets through. :P

2 hours ago, LSG501 said:

I'm MR21... I'm not that stupid....

MR is only an indicator of how much grinding you've done, not how skilled you are... but I'm not trying to suggest that you don't know how to play. I still don't understand how you ran into a problem with the stomp knockdown. The stomp is like once every second, it stomps 3 times and then does a radial AOE stomp. Easy to see coming, easy to avoid, and not particularly punishing even when you do get hit. Heck, unless you're chilling point blank the knockdown shockwave itself isn't particularly fast.

If you can provide some clarification, that'd be great. Otherwise you may have actually stumbled on a bug that would be worth reporting.

45 minutes ago, SprinKah said:

I dont even understand why invulnerability is not good, our damage output is super high already so is it REALLY a problem? No.

It feels particularly cheap to be fighting against an enemy that has dangerous damage output while simultaneously not being able to fight back effectively. Invulnerability phases are just "run around waiting for the next opportunity" events used to artificially draw out an otherwise uninteresting fight. It'd be fine if they did something interesting with it, but it's literally just a time-gate.

Layered invulnerability where you have to exploit weaknesses to create an opening? Fine.

Partial invulnerability that requires you to hit weak-points to do damage? Fine, provided you supply options for non-precision weapons and melee.

Invulnerability phases that progress completely independently of player actions and simply slow things down for the heck of it? Laaaaaaame.

[S0VEREIGNSK]

Do not forget Alad V

[StabbyTentacles]

On 5/7/2017 at 1:43 PM, (PS4)iBoiz said:

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

Agreed, make more please.

[SprinKah]

2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Well, best we can do is continue to say it until something gets through. :P

MR is only an indicator of how much grinding you've done, not how skilled you are... but I'm not trying to suggest that you don't know how to play. I still don't understand how you ran into a problem with the stomp knockdown. The stomp is like once every second, it stomps 3 times and then does a radial AOE stomp. Easy to see coming, easy to avoid, and not particularly punishing even when you do get hit. Heck, unless you're chilling point blank the knockdown shockwave itself isn't particularly fast.

If you can provide some clarification, that'd be great. Otherwise you may have actually stumbled on a bug that would be worth reporting.

It feels particularly cheap to be fighting against an enemy that has dangerous damage output while simultaneously not being able to fight back effectively. Invulnerability phases are just "run around waiting for the next opportunity" events used to artificially draw out an otherwise uninteresting fight. It'd be fine if they did something interesting with it, but it's literally just a time-gate.

Layered invulnerability where you have to exploit weaknesses to create an opening? Fine.

Partial invulnerability that requires you to hit weak-points to do damage? Fine, provided you supply options for non-precision weapons and melee.

Invulnerability phases that progress completely independently of player actions and simply slow things down for the heck of it? Laaaaaaame.

Yeah, like i said, not 100% would be nice

[SprinKah]

2 hours ago, Cosmic_Elf said:

Nice upgrade to Ambulas boss fight.. It used to be a meh assassination, now it is just awesome 

I think it's more...corpus ship boss fight...than ambulas

[rudman88]

any boss is good as long as :

1. they dont have the invulnerability like leech krill

2. have 4 panel to shoot liek keyla and do raktum 2 roudns to kill keyla 1 time

[[DE]Momaw]

6 hours ago, SprinKah said:

Heck if anything, the boss fight is more...fight against corpus ship than fight against ambulas

You're not wrong.  It's a boss fight against Animo.  Animo is a neural-net AI built into the ship.  Ambulas is just a robotic platform that Animo downloads part of itself into. Your objective in the fight isn't to destroy all the Ambulas robots, which are being made in an underground factory and are presumably almost endless.  Rather, your objective is to get hacked robots onto the ship so that Glast can reestablish his command authority over Animo and order the self destruct.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Momaw

[SprinKah]

Just now, Momaw said:

You're not wrong.  It's a boss fight against Animo.  Animo is a neural-net AI built into the ship.  Ambulas is just a robotic platform that Animo downloads part of itself into.

 

I guess you're right about that

 

still though...the Ambulas were still treated as background punching bags, you really just gotta look out for anything else BUT the Ambulas....truly a waste of such a good redesign.

I mean, it lacks that...Imposing feel like the Raptors, Lephantis or Razorback you know...

Or you know, they can be strength in number but they're not.

[Lancars]

Oh oh! When it goes down to prevent you from just running to hack all nonchalant like it should do a fast spinning beam attack you have to slightly worry about if you have enemies around you. Just another thing to watch out for and it doesn't just flop.

[(PSN)VariantX7]

Yep, cant wait for this to drop on console. Ambulas looks like he has a lot of varied  and dangerous attacks and behaviors, something most older bosses don't have. They just have absurd hit point pools in conjunction with invincibility phases. At least things have been better on the boss front starting with Kela's rework I think.