Giving Telos Boltace a Niche

[Voltage]

The Telos Boltace was abused when it was released, and it definitely needed to get changed. Infinite spamming was not why it was broken, but because each spin dealt slash damage which could utilize critical hits (maiming strike) and blood rush (relentless combination). This setup was indeed complete power creep, but the weapon had an amazing utility: You could use it to break objects/crates, and it had a niche in medallion farms. I feel the changes to Telos Boltace were too harsh, and showed lack of observation. If the spin attack dealt impact damage at around 50 damage, and a slightly lower attack speed, we would not have had an issue like we did.

I feel we should make the following changes to Telos Boltace and revive its old passive in a new light:

• Replace its old slash damage with a small amount of impact damage.
• Reduce attack speed on slide attacks only from 1.08 to 1.
• Reduce particle effects from slide attacks.

Thank you for reading and leave your insight on this matter below. 

Edited June 13, 2017 by --Q--Voltage

[(XBOX)Zweimander]

I support this. I want my can opener back nothing else did it quite the same. Or just add a magical invisible AOE the size of what it was before when the effect is on cool down that does no damage but opens crates! Because with the change it got I sold it as all I used it for was breaking crates, R.I.P the dream of being the tin can with the can opener xD

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

I used it when it was great - and now its just - good. So I don't use it.

I don't mind the new mechanics much, but I would much rather it only pull enemies towards and never push them away.  I find I do the pull manuever then just have to wait until the cool down expires fully so I don't accidently push away the enemies I'm trying to kill with a melee attack out of melee range, then pull again.

As for box breaking, well the ignis works as well and I don't wear out my b(melee) button.

[Voltage]

1 minute ago, (Xbox One)Tucker D Dawg said:

I used it when it was great - and now its just - good. So I don't use it.

I don't mind the new mechanics much, but I would much rather it only pull enemies towards and never push them away.  I find I do the pull manuever then just have to wait until the cool down expires fully so I don't accidently push away the enemies I'm trying to kill with a melee attack out of melee range, then pull again.

As for box breaking, well the ignis works as well and I don't wear out my b(melee) button.

I am glad you enjoy the weapons current mechanics, but the Ohma is imo much better with its gimmick compared to new boltace with ridiculous cooldowns. Ignis is not as good as Boltace was and Limbo is an ok alternative. The issue with farming medallions is that spending 4 hours with limbo and ignis is much more tedious than 1-2 hours with volt and boltace. Slash was broken, but not the slide mechanic itself.

[KlutzMeister]

How about just the pull in phase, with no cooldown, the ability to break open boxes , and a chance to pull in loot?

Edited June 13, 2017 by KlutzMeister

[Rioma]

i just want it to open cans again

[RistN]

24 minutes ago, --Q--Voltage said:

The issue with farming medallions is that spending 4 hours with limbo and ignis is much more tedious than 1-2 hours with volt and boltace. Slash was broken, but not the slide mechanic itself.

I farm medallions and caches with max range and spread Ignis and Mirage with Thief withs on.Nothing can be compared to that in matter of effectiveness.

[Voltage]

5 minutes ago, RistN said:

I farm medallions and caches with max range and spread Ignis and Mirage with Thief withs on.Nothing can be compared to that in matter of effectiveness.

I do not think you have ever you ever ran 299% strength volt with old telos boltace and Primed Fury + Primed Reach. It was way faster than mirage, and you could use both Loot Detector and Thief's wit because you can play selfish and not use any range.

Edited June 13, 2017 by --Q--Voltage

[peterc3]

59 minutes ago, --Q--Voltage said:

The Telos Boltace was abused when it was released, and it definitely needed to get changed. Infinite spamming was not why it was broken, but because each spin dealt slash damage which could utilize critical hits (maiming strike) and blood rush (relentless combination). This setup was indeed complete power creep, but the weapon had an amazing utility: You could use it to break objects/crates, and it had a niche in medallion farms. I feel the changes to Telos Boltace were too harsh, and showed lack of observation. If the spin attack dealt impact damage at around 50 damage, and a slightly lower attack speed, we would not have had an issue like we did.

I feel we should make the following changes to Telos Boltace and revive its old passive in a new light:

• Replace its old slash damage with a small amount of impact damage.
• Reduce attack speed on slide attacks only from 1.08 to 1.
• Reduce particle effects from slide attacks.

Thank you for reading and leave your insight on this matter below. 

Dedicating a syndicate weapon purely to blitzing through a level and opening containers. Why?

[Voltage]

5 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Dedicating a syndicate weapon purely to blitzing through a level and opening containers. Why?

Because the weapon as it stands now after its nerf is the worst syndicate melee next to the Vaykor Sydon. These weapons should have small niches, not completely useless passives for 5/6 of them with the Lecta (nerfed as well) being the only decent syndicate weapon passive. If you removed boltace's new passive and gave it the standard syndicate proc like primaries/secondaries, it would be better than the crap we have now.

The Boltace nerf was a quick fix to an abusable mechanic and showed lack of observation. You would think DE knows how slash functions with critical multipliers, but seeing they gave Limbo scaling and had to nerf that (Did Mag not teach you anything about instant scaling damage?), it is quite frankly disheartening they do not see these things.

Edited June 13, 2017 by --Q--Voltage

[peterc3]

10 minutes ago, --Q--Voltage said:

Because the weapon as it stands now after its nerf is the worst syndicate melee next to the Vaykor Sydon. These weapons should have small niches, not completely useless passives for 5/6 of them with the Lecta (nerfed as well) being the only decent syndicate weapon passive. If you removed boltace's new passive and gave it the standard syndicate proc like primaries/secondaries, it would be better than the crap we have now.

The Boltace nerf was a quick fix to an abusable mechanic and showed lack of observation. You would think DE knows how slash functions with critical multipliers, but seeing they gave Limbo scaling and had to nerf that (Did Mag not teach you anything about instant scaling damage?), it is quite frankly disheartening they do not see these things.

Then pick a new thematically relevant passive. Do you think "masters of grinding large piles of loot" fit with the Arbiters? It really is too hard to open a door and fire any number of weapons into the room or use any of the long reach melees and spin.

Truly awful people DE, they aren't omniscient and can't predict how several layers of code will stack and have to change it after a while. From what I've seen on the forums, DE is both too quick to change things and not fast enough. They are terrible listeners, but be careful! They might just read a wall of text/terrible fanfic and implement it into the game.

If they don't immediately act on something, are they not seeing how things play out? Or should they just let the game spiral, and not change anything, regardless of what version of a piece of content ships.

[flameblastguardian]

Its still super strong right now especially when you have new mods like condition overload. Anymore buffs and it would be super overpowered. Here is a demonstration vs 135 corrupted gunners and bombards. 

 

[Voltage]

16 minutes ago, flameblastguardian said:

-snip-

That is more just demonstrating the power of Condition Overload. That was also mediocre compared to many other melee weapons. Certain mods can make any melee weapon good. You also were using defy, so the situation there requires complete immortality. The changes above would be a trade off. Impact damage would not make it "OP" against level 145 gunners/bombards, and slower melee slides would balance it further.

[Stoner]

How about we fix the problem at its core? Being maiming strike and blood rush. 

[shut]

2 hours ago, --Q--Voltage said:

each spin dealt slash damage which could utilize ... blood rush (relentless combination).

The tonfas themselves could use Blood Rush just like any other weapon, but the AoE wave could not.

The wave's damage didn't scale at all from the combo counter-- so even if you had a 4.5x multiplier going, the wave would only deal 1x damage. This meant that mods like Blood Rush were useless on it. (Unless, of course, your goal was to spam slide attacks for Relentless Combination combo gains and then deal obscene damage with the tonfas themselves.)

1 hour ago, flameblastguardian said:

-snip-

I think it says a lot about the weapon's state that you were forced to use combos instead of the weapon's main source of damage. I can guarantee that you would have killed those enemies MUCH quicker by spamming slide attacks with TBoltace's quick-melee, even with the same build.

The TBoltace needs a buff. At the ABSOLUTE least, it shouldn't have a detrimental passive.

26 minutes ago, Stoner74 said:

How about we fix the problem at its core? Being maiming strike and blood rush. 

The TBoltace was overpowered for several reasons. Blood Rush wasn't one of them.

Edited June 13, 2017 by SortaRandom

[shut]

OT:
As a person who spammed the TBoltace way too much back in the day, I think that reintroducing the spam-wave in any form can be harmful. Let's say we weaken the crap out of it, like removing the slash procs and giving it a piddly 50 wave damage (as OP suggested). This just means that the wave is useless outside of can-opening for nearly everyone-- and is potentially overpowered on frames like Chroma, who can multiply the damage so much that they'll insta-nuke the damage anyway. That's kinda sucky.

 

Honestly, I kinda liked DE's push/pull concept for the weapon. What I absolutely hate is that the pushing part actively works against the weapon, throwing enemies away from melee range and discouraging slide attacks.
I think DE could build on this a little bit and everything would be dandy:

- Reduce the cooldown to 3s or something. (5s is much too long for comfort.)
- Move the "push" effect to Slam attacks. (The push effect can have a wider range and deal 100 un-moddable damage, for can-opening.)
- The cooldown is triggered when either the "push" or "pull" is activated.

And badabing, badaboom. The weapon is no longer a downgrade to Boltace, it has a new and interesting playstyle, it can CC a bit, and it can act as a semi-decent can opener.

 

Obviously, not perfect, but you get the general idea. Keep the push/pull concept, reintroduce can opening if possible, but DON'T discourage slide attacks.

[flameblastguardian]

30 minutes ago, SortaRandom said:

I think it says a lot about the weapon's state that you were forced to use combos instead of the weapon's main source of damage. I can guarantee that you would have killed those enemies MUCH quicker by spamming slide attacks with TBoltace's quick-melee, even with the same build.

Spamming slide won't even come close. The attack speed is too slow for slides and you can't strip armour fast enough.

Edited June 13, 2017 by flameblastguardian

[shut]

5 minutes ago, flameblastguardian said:

Spamming slide won't even come close. The attack speed is too slow for slides and you can't strip armour fast enough.

The fact that slide attacks have, like, 12x the damage of regular swings is something worth considering. In an ideal situation (i.e. in a world where the stupid push wave didn't exist), you'd be able to smack them with combos to strip a bit of armor and then vaporize them with slidespam.

Edited June 13, 2017 by SortaRandom

[flameblastguardian]

1 hour ago, --Q--Voltage said:

That is more just demonstrating the power of Condition Overload. That was also mediocre compared to many other melee weapons. Certain mods can make any melee weapon good. You also were using defy, so the situation there requires complete immortality. The changes above would be a trade off. Impact damage would not make it "OP" against level 145 gunners/bombards, and slower melee slides would balance it further.

From my personal experience, only lesion, silva prime, mios and lacera are better than telos boltace in killing 145 gunners/bombards. And i wouldn't say its mediocre compare to them since the killing speed is quite similar. Can you tell me what other weapons beat it and makes it looks mediocre?

Can you also tell me what other melee weapon that doesn't requires complete immortality in the same situation? You have to be in dangerous position to use a melee weapon.

[flameblastguardian]

3 minutes ago, SortaRandom said:

The fact that slide attacks have, like, 12x the damage of regular swings is something worth considering. In an ideal situation (i.e. in a world where the stupid push wave didn't exist), you'd be able to smack them with combos to strip a bit of armor and then vaporize them with slidespam.

You really don't have to slide them after you strip the armour. They are already dead.