An Adjustment Idea To M-Prime

[Volt_Cruelerz]

This is not a buff; this is not a nerf.  This is an attempt to change M-Prime to make it scale better.

 

The way I see it, Nova's just got so much utility and damage that she works fantastic late-game, but other times, she does kinda overwhelm things.  I'll freely say that I don't have her yet (she's building right now) and maybe she really is ultrasquish and maybe that's okay, but at the moment, it just seems like I'm on the receiving end of Old Overload where one button press would eradicate everything that's spawned and you're just sitting there doing nothing on lower level missions.  If you disagree with what I suggest, feel free to tell me, especially if you do have her.

 

On more difficult or spread out missions, having a Nova on my team makes me happy.  I feel like I'm really contributing when I find an isolated cluster of enemies that have been primed.  I feel like it encourages teamwork at that point.

 

The issue I see then is bridging the gap between when she is overwhelming and when she's really pleasant to have around.  Straight AoE damage has, always has had, and always will have terrible issues with scaling.  M-Prime scales better because it has some secondary effects in addition to the on-death damage.  What I propose then is making M-Prime scale with enemy health.  When you think about it, it's not absurd: you are effectively blowing up an enemy, so their mass ought to factor in somewhere.

 

As a result then, I suggest that the on-death damage be changed from 150/300/500/800 (according to wiki) to 25/50/75/100% of the maximum health of an enemy and mitigated by armor, capping at 2000/2500/3000/3500 per explosion (because bosses) before armor.  While that may not seem like much, recall that M-Prime also doubles damage taken, so enemies with M-Prime would take 50/100/150/200% of the exploding target's health as damage which is really quite high.

 

Perhaps this could give other players a chance to do something on lower levels while scaling well at the end-game.  Thoughts?  As I said, I like the feeling of contributing to the chains that make M-Prime fun, it's just unfortunate when players can't do anything about it.  I know Miasma exists.  I have Saryn.  I'm not terribly happy with that situation either, but I don't have any ideas on how to address it.  Just because a problem already exists elsewhere doesn't mean you need to replicate it.

 

M-Prime really is a very cool ability.  I just hope that people understand here that I'm not trying to nerf her, I'm trying to make her more of a team-player without doing much adjustment to her effectiveness late-game.  Anyways, I'm sure I'll get some hate from both sides for this, but I thought I'd put it out there.  I know it's fun to have map-wiping abilities (I used Old Overload to excess before it got fixed/nerfed), but it is less so for teammates.  That's why I'm saying this.  She's fun to have with you later on, so why not try to make her always fun to have around?  I believe this change could be capable of that.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[AugmentedJustice]

I actually agree. You articulated your point really well. I didn't see it before. This actually sounds really excellent. This could work without having to nerf her. I've always thought that Nova works well when in skilled hands and even better in the hands of a skilled team. She encourages team play and I'm all for that, especially when it comes to T3 and very high level wave defense where Molec Prime is most useful. So yea I like this a lot. What are your thoughts on Anti-matter drop?

[stealthcl0wn]

"I don't have her yet"

Then your opinion isn't really valid.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

"I don't have her yet"

Then your opinion isn't really valid.

You know, I said that so that people can take what I say with a grain of salt and they can feel free to explain to me why I'm wrong if I am.  It was a disclaimer, not a "stop reading here" notation.  If you have her and would like to explain to me why what I have suggested is unnecessary/detrimental, I'd be happy to listen.

 

 

I actually agree. You articulated your point really well. I didn't see it before. This actually sounds really excellent. This could work without having to nerf her. I've always thought that Nova works well when in skilled hands and even better in the hands of a skilled team. She encourages team play and I'm all for that, especially when it comes to T3 and very high level wave defense where Molec Prime is most useful. So yea I like this a lot. What are your thoughts on Anti-matter drop?

 

AM drop is something I hear has to be experienced first-hand.  IMO, it looks great on paper, but apparently it's actually quite clunky in practice.  Beyond that, that's not really the subject of the thread if you don't mind.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Volt_Cruelerz

[ValhaHazred]

"I don't have her yet"

Then your opinion isn't really valid.

Well I do have her, and this guy has a really good idea. This would be an amazing rework. It would make her as effective as she is now, only better at really late game defense, where enemies have 10k hp and 90% armour.

With Volt's idea, when using M.Prime properly teams could do 130k damage!

[litlit]

You know, I said that so that people can take what I say with a grain of salt and they can feel free to explain to me why I'm wrong if I am.  It was a disclaimer, not a "stop reading here" notation.  If you have her and would like to explain to me why what I have suggested is unnecessary/detrimental, I'd be happy to listen.

 

 

 

AM drop is something I hear has to be experienced first-hand.  IMO, it looks great on paper, but apparently it's actually quite clunky in practice.  Beyond that, that's not really the subject of the thread if you don't mind.

Antimatter Drop is broken -- in the sense that it's wonky and doesn't appear to work correctly (or consistently), and in the sense that it's game-breakingly overpowered.

 

First off, I'll start with the wonky-ness I mentioned. 

• If you're lagging or don't have a good framerate, it's hard to use Antimatter Drop -- you've got to aim at a small moving ball.
  
• There's a way to make the ball move more slowly at first when it's very close to you, but I haven't been able to get this to work consistently. It's supposed to happen if you move your crosshair directly onto the ball immediately after you use the ability. For me, this means activating the ability and immediately moving my crosshair just a bit to the left; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. IMO, this can best be fixed by: tapping the activate button fires the ball moving at normal speed while pressing and holding bfires the ball at a slower speed until released (up to a maximum allowed time, so players can't dump too much damage into it).
  
• The ball tries to go to the spot your crosshair is aiming at -- this is fine, but in it would be nice if it only did so when you pressed zoom on your weapon (so for example, it would go in the direction it was originally aimed until I right-clicked to zoom in, at which point it would follow my crosshair).

 

In terms of game balance, I think Antimatter Drop is far too strong, regardless of the energy cost. At maxed rank, it does a base 100 damage (affected by Focus) plus 4x the damage absorbed from all gunfire (not affected by Focus). The explosion area has a somewhat small base, but the range increases with the amount of damage absorbed (not sure of the exact mechanics or if it is affected by Stretch). If you have a potatoed, maxed weapon, it's pretty simple to get 10k-50k damage on the fly. My friends and I can get 20k damage easily with a dozen rounds or a few arrows. That's pretty ridiculous for only 50 energy -- and that's without even trying. If you take the time to set up your ability, aim carefully, and you're with a coordinated group, you can consistently get more than 100k damage. If you're with a group that doesn't care about practicality, you can spend a minute sending your Antimatter Drop all over the place while your team runs around and shoots it until it reaches the maximum allowed damage in the game (around 239,000). Simply put, Antimatter Drop is too strong.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

If you disagree with what I suggest, feel free to tell me, especially if you do have her.

I somewhat disagree, and I have her.

 

As a result then, I suggest that the on-death damage be changed from 150/300/500/800 (according to wiki) to 25/50/75/100% of the current health of an enemy and mitigated by armor, capping at 2000/2500/3000/3500 per explosion (because bosses) before armor.  While that may not seem like much, recall that M-Prime also doubles damage taken, so enemies with M-Prime would take 50/100/150/200% of the exploding target's health as damage which is really quite high.

The problem with this idea is that explosion damage doesn't ignore armor. So for a level 1 ancient, you can cut the explosion damage in half right off the bat. By the time that enemy armor scales up enough that changing this is attractive, enemies generally have upwards of 80% DR anyway, so 20% of an exploding crewman or charger's health is going to be an utter pinprick even to other chargers and crewmen.

On top of that, it's going to necessitate heavily frontloaded weapons (ie vandaltron, lex, etc) because anything else will chew up the enemy's health before the killing blow, reducing their explosion damage even further. (One way to rectify this issue would be to take their current health as of when they're primed.)

In short, it's not going to help her much in high level play.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

I meant max health, not current health. Also, when that ancient does die, it'll vaporize anything around it.

[Kaizz]

I have Nova, I agree with this 99%. I omit 1% because I don't do well with math in video games. I know she's a new frame, but it's getting really boring doing a mission and guess what we have in our squad?  2+ NOVAS! WOOT! Now I can just get carried through a mission! YES! -__-'. Oh god, and in Kappa/Kiste? LOL gl getting a hit in. Stretch+Focus+Frames Direct Damage AoE Room Clearing 4= Fun for 1 person. Not saying she's not fun, and doing damage isn't fun, but Nova is a molecular prime example of the game being trivialized. 

[RoboDoge]

She needs nerf, seriously guys she is overpowered. But not nerf like Rhino got. More like tweaks to her skills. But we all know DE only knows how to nerf.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

She needs nerf, seriously guys she is overpowered. But not nerf like Rhino got. More like tweaks to her skills. But we all know DE only knows how to nerf.

What I tried to do was make it something that scales better so that it's something you always want to have on your team but doesn't just instantly wipe everything that isn't on Casta.  AMD might well be OP (gonna withhold judgement on that until I try it, not to mention I've never seen it in-game), but that's not the focus of this thread.

 

What do you think of the suggestion of making it scale with enemy health?

[RoboDoge]

What I tried to do was make it something that scales better so that it's something you always want to have on your team but doesn't just instantly wipe everything that isn't on Casta.  AMD might well be OP (gonna withhold judgement on that until I try it, not to mention I've never seen it in-game), but that's not the focus of this thread.

 

What do you think of the suggestion of making it scale with enemy health?

Scaling with enemies health? Or maybe armor? Armor scaling could work better at higher levels.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Scaling with enemies health? Or maybe armor? Armor scaling could work better at higher levels.

How would it scale with armor?

[RoboDoge]

How would it scale with armor?

Fix M prime to do damage based on enemies armor. Lower general damage output and explosion should place debuff that reduces armor by 10/15/20 instead of chain reaction.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Fix M prime to do damage based on enemies armor. Lower general damage output and explosion should place debuff that reduces armor by 10/15/20 instead of chain reaction.

10/15/20 percent?  If it's flat, I hope you realize enemies can have hundreds or thousands of points of defense.

[RoboDoge]

10/15/20 percent?  If it's flat, I hope you realize enemies can have hundreds or thousands of points of defense.

Yea i know. But with the current effect of M prime people will QQ till something is changed. We can give ideas, but you also know that everything is up to DE. Nova will be nerfed ( i am afraid maybe even to hard ) and will end in the same niche as Rhino when they nerfed Iron Skin. But we agree that M prime needs different effect?

[Volt_Cruelerz]

Yea i know. But with the current effect of M prime people will QQ till something is changed. We can give ideas, but you also know that everything is up to DE. Nova will be nerfed ( i am afraid maybe even to hard ) and will end in the same niche as Rhino when they nerfed Iron Skin. But we agree that M prime needs different effect?

Actually, no.  I have nothing against the AoE explosions.  Right now, IMO, the problem with her is that she dominates excessively through most of the game and is only fun to have around when facing very tough opponents.

[direcyphre]

The bigger problem is that people are really only looking at this ability when used in defense, because apparently defense is the only gig in town. Molecular Prime is generally worthless in any other mission, much like Snowglobe doesn't really help at all in any other mission other than Corpus/Grineer defense or select boss fights. It will definitely seem OP in defense because enemies are clustered, especially infestation.

 

With regards to Antimatter drop, it may seem OP, but you can really only use it in select situations such as running a mission solo. The speed of the sphere is ridiculously slow, and in lag (i.e. when you're not the host) it will disappear randomly; though it does still seem to explode at some point. Due to the speed of the projectile, enemies are bound to be dead by the time it reaches your intended target, unless your teammates aren't helping at all. Have people used it to one-shot bosses? Sure, but that doesn't seem to differ greatly from those who use Sonar to achieve the same result.

[Eirshy]

I like the idea. Give it a shot and see if it fixes the complaints.

 

The bigger problem is that people are really only looking at this ability when used in defense, because apparently defense is the only gig in town. Molecular Prime is generally worthless in any other mission, much like Snowglobe doesn't really help at all in any other mission other than Corpus/Grineer defense or select boss fights. It will definitely seem OP in defense because enemies are clustered, especially infestation.

 

With regards to Antimatter drop, it may seem OP, but you can really only use it in select situations such as running a mission solo. The speed of the sphere is ridiculously slow, and in lag (i.e. when you're not the host) it will disappear randomly; though it does still seem to explode at some point. Due to the speed of the projectile, enemies are bound to be dead by the time it reaches your intended target, unless your teammates aren't helping at all. Have people used it to one-shot bosses? Sure, but that doesn't seem to differ greatly from those who use Sonar to achieve the same result.

Outside of Defense MP isn't completely useless. It's like a poor man's Sonar at that point (for double the cost). 2x damage everywhere on the target (including the head), rather than 5x to 6.5x on one spot (not necessarily the head, thus requiring armor bypass). Works very well for boss fights (just like Sonar), and for clearing rooms (not as efficient as Saryn's 4, but still workable).

 

And currently, Defense really is the only gig in town. It's what everyone does for farming and powerleveling, because other than for unlocking things and void runs, there's no real reason to run things that aren't Assassination, Wave, or Mobile. And on top of that, T3 Wave Defense is basically the hardest content in the game at the moment.

 

 

Oh and Frost's bubble is great outside of defense, too. It's cover whenever and wherever you want it, full 360-degrees and with its own anti-flanking debuff.