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PSA: [PC] Upcoming Changes to Gara's "Mass Vitrify" (Bonus Volt Info)


aidan890

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3 hours ago, (PS4)BigEffinDud said:

Have you ever built a max power range/efficiency Oberon and dropped Hallowed Ground with frequent uses of his 4? Lol, let’s talk about area lockdown.

I'm using build with a lot of power, neutral range, a bit of duration, minus efficiency and tankiness. Very weird build, I know, but fun lol

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If Gara's 4 gains health from damage during the cast (like Frost's 3 does during it's invulnerability phase) it should help with scaling for higher levels, also if it could also expand upwards, it'll be more useful in open areas. Also to make Gara's 3 more useful, remove the HP and release the gathered damage when it' duration expires, the reflected damage has hardly any effect on anything that could actually be a threat and the mirrors are gone in seconds if a bombard or heavy gunner hits them, and the resulting blast from the mirrors breaking has barely any effect from mid to high levels 

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What concerns me at this point:

Sections

Will we be able to open up specific sections with her 1st? To open up holes to make melee AI walk around rather than damaging the wall? 

- number of sections

Will they increase in number as we increase the radius with added range mods

And what if I want a wall with narrower yet has more sections with more HP

- nullifiers

Will they be able to destroy the sections or remove the whole ability. I suggest make em destroy 2 sections at max and just shrink their ball to get in. 

- synergies

Will her 3rd could be used as a bandage to cover that destroyed section with a weaker but more reflective layer

 

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11 hours ago, FunnyBunny3141 said:

It stopped after a while though... Have you played her? I'm pretty sure that if you have, rather than watching her be played, you'll have realised that from the perspective of the gara player that she was perfectly balanced (except for the splinter storm stacking). She requires a rather insane amount of micro management, and it's fairly easy to forget about all your abilities. You have to: keep your vitrify up, keep your splinter storm up for damage reduction on not only self and companions, but also allies (not for damage dealing, that can just disappear into the void for all I care - it ruins her), somehow place your mirrors in strategic locations to keep the troublesome enemies entertained, all in the span of 30 seconds. Her virtrify takes up 10 seconds of your time; casting it with any less time than that left means your position is likely to become messed up or you risk losing your damage reduction, costing you important energy. And aside from requiring you to cast it well before it ends, it takes a while to cast as well - up to 5 or even 8 seconds if you're unlucky or have massive maps. You also have to keep the position of your squad in mind and hope they're in range, and when they're not, sacrifice protection of objectives for their protection temporarily (in public/non-voice chat squads), somehow get your energy back inbetween everything, not let your energy run out ever, and you still have to kill enemies as well... Yeah and her 4's broken :facepalm:

She already wasn't the frame for everyone, and this will only serve to alienate those who love her.

I HAVE played her, actually. I've forma'd her a couple times too, so you're preaching to the instructed. However, I STILL think her 4 is in need of a second look and I think the health instead of duration rework would help it out considerably. As you stated so arrogantly, it IS easy to forget about recasting something every 30 seconds and to be locked in place for those 10 more seconds you need to cast it. Leaving it as it is is only going to further displace Frost as the main defense tank which is the niche he was built to play. Now it's Gara everywhere and she's not really built for tanking. Her whole kit needs to be revisited so that her 1, 2 and 3 are more viable in the event you can't get your wall back up.

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55 minutes ago, Kromatia said:

Gara is a tank though. I mean, she has 90% damage reduction and puts up wall. And why can’t there be more than one tank playing the niche in a certain way? She already has some energy issues when using her 4 - I say leave it be as is. The only reason I play her over Frost is because Gara is so, so much fun to play with her entire kit being just right. Though now hat last paet is no longer the case.

It’s not like Gara replaced Frost though. Frost is stupidly good at crowd control, has a defensive ability that stays up indefinitely that guarantees objectives to be completely covered even from the air. If anything rather than giving gara a nerf I feel like they need to buff Frost to remove to allow him to use more of his kit at once, and make his ice wave impedance augment innate. Also they should change his 1 to be able to cover areas in ice while channeling it. Do all that, and perhaps remove armour scaling from the globe and change the health mechanic somehow and you have a frame that is on par with Gara in terms of usability, being stupidly fun, while not replacing her as a tank (assuming her 3 and enemy casted 2 get a rework).

 

P.S.: If you have grief with Gara replacing Frost as a defense tank you should take a long, hard look at Volt, Vauban, Banshee, Atlas, Oberon, Mag, Nidus, Inaros, Equinox, Harrow and Limbo.

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If you slap a rooftop on vitrify so the constantly swarming flying units in the plains don't murder squishy allies inside, then it would be a fair exchange for the breaking vitrify walls. Currently I don't bother with her in the plains because areal targets seem to come out of the wood work, but only when I use vitrify. Any other frame, maybe one or two areal targets once in a while other than drop ships. Gara vitrify and I usually see about five to ten show up. Don't know if that's a bug on the ps4, or intentional, but I'd trade damaging glass sections for some skyward defense.

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3 hours ago, Kromatia said:

I HAVE played her, actually. I've forma'd her a couple times too, so you're preaching to the instructed. However, I STILL think her 4 is in need of a second look and I think the health instead of duration rework would help it out considerably. As you stated so arrogantly, it IS easy to forget about recasting something every 30 seconds and to be locked in place for those 10 more seconds you need to cast it. Leaving it as it is is only going to further displace Frost as the main defense tank which is the niche he was built to play. Now it's Gara everywhere and she's not really built for tanking. Her whole kit needs to be revisited so that her 1, 2 and 3 are more viable in the event you can't get your wall back up.

I somehow doubt you've played anything higher than sortie lvl. (Implying there's any reason to do so.) Her 4 is fine the way it is. Consider how some enemies aoe's can still dmg while you're in a wall or how enemies can poke their guns through it if they get 2 close. Her 1 and 2 are okay as is but her 3 is useless at sortie lvl since the mirrors just get one shot.

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On 4.12.2017 at 7:53 PM, [DE]Aidan said:

In Gara’s case we just didn’t feel it was appropriate to her kit to be able to lock down some maps indefinitely or otherwise.

In Gara's case. What about others? Here is the video I made where I use different frames to lock down area. How Gara is different to them? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YUM2DyUokA

 

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OK, I've done quite a lot of meta-criticism towards the way DE approaches changes, the way the community responds to prospective changes, and the way DE deals with the community in general. Guess it's time I finally address the actual changes. 

  1. Mass Vitrify getting Health:
    • Is it an improvement? Yes. it prevents it from being stupidly unbalanced. Adding health to a defense object is the most sensible thing to do when it's duration isn't relevant (i.e. There is no downtime between casts), and frankly for it to make enemy attacks irrelevant is woefully unbalanced. I welcome these changes. Definetly an improvement, but introduces problems of its own:
    • Are there problematic aspects? Making it affected by armor mods hinders modding synergy between powers. , excessive disparity results in an impossibility to make the frame more effective, and at the worst cases lead players to completely discard some powers over making others more effective. That should never be something enforced. 
    • Sujestions: Make Mass Vitrify's Health scale from Health and Shield mods instead of Health and Armor mods. Shields are much more useful for Gara than Armor is, and therefore this prevents the erosion of modding synergy 
  2. Mass Vitrify breaking off in sections:
    • Is it an improvement? Not at all, as I describe in the next sections:
    • Are there problematic aspects? The supposedly positive trait of preventing the whole wall from getting destroyed by focused fire is irrelevant at best. The break down in sections prevents a distribution of damage dealt to the Wall, which means that the most attacked sections will be destroyed much faster. Since these are logically the most relevant ones (they are the ones defending against the biggest danger), the Wall is rendered functionally irrelevant (because it no longer exists where it actually matters), and the natural consequence is that the player will simply cast another wall. The change is ultimately made irrelevant, safe for the damage component that, itself, is rendered mute as levels go up. It's pointless at best, downright negative at worst. 
    • Sujestions: either do not introduce this change, or allow us to rotate the panels. Even then, chances are the only thing players will do will be to cast another wall, so either prevent that (which would introduce an interesting tactical management challenge to all Gara players) , or don't introduce this change at all. 
  3. Mass Vitrify no longer being affected by duration:
    • Is it an improvement? In this particular case, since the present duration is quite acceptable and it is a recast able power, doubtfully. Indeed, I'm quite sure it's overall a bad change, due to the the problems it brings:
    • Are there problematic aspects? Most definitely. Like making the wall's health be affected by armor, this change makes duration mods irrelevant - and therefore reduces its modding synergy with Splinter Shield and Spectrorage (though that power is already irrelevant, and therefore in need of a buff). Perhaps more importantly, it makes one stat irrelevant to one of her most important abilities, which encourages min-maxing and the effective discard of powers, making the most abusive and boring playstyles the most effective one. I'm quite sure this should not be encouraged. 
    • Sujestions: simply do not introduce it. 
  4. Final Veridict: though the base argument behind these changes is beyond legitimate - the power is grossly overpowered, and is grossly overpowered at next to no effort - the proposed changes themselves bring many more unnecessary issues than required. So, while I do think a nerf is warranted, it should not be done this way. More importantly, it does not address the rest of Gara's issues; namely, Spectrorage utter uselessness. Frames are more than the sum of their parts, they can be in need of both nerfs and buffs in different aspects. Gara needs to have her Mass Vitrify nerfed, no doubt - but she also needs to have her Spectrorage buffed. Only then she'll be a fully realized frame: useless powers are by definition incompatible with that. 

 

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38 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

OK, I've done quite a lot of meta-criticism towards the way DE approaches changes, the way the community responds to prospective changes, and the way DE deals with the community in general. Guess it's time I finally address the actual changes. 

  1. Mass Vitrify getting Health:
    • Is it an improvement? Yes. it prevents it from being stupidly unbalanced. Adding health to a defense object is the most sensible thing to do when it's duration isn't relevant (i.e. There is no downtime between casts), and frankly for it to make enemy attacks irrelevant is woefully unbalanced. I welcome these changes. Definetly an improvement, but introduces problems of its own:
    • Are there problematic aspects? Making it affected by armor mods hinders modding synergy between powers. , excessive disparity results in an impossibility to make the frame more effective, and at the worst cases lead players to completely discard some powers over making others more effective. That should never be something enforced. 
    • Sujestions: Make Mass Vitrify's Health scale from Health and Shield mods instead of Health and Armor mods. Shields are much more useful for Gara than Armor is, and therefore this prevents the erosion of modding synergy 
  2. Mass Vitrify breaking off in sections:
    • Is it an improvement? Not at all, as I describe in the next sections:
    • Are there problematic aspects? The supposedly positive trait of preventing the whole wall from getting destroyed by focused fire is irrelevant at best. The break down in sections prevents a distribution of damage dealt to the Wall, which means that the most attacked sections will be destroyed much faster. Since these are logically the most relevant ones (they are the ones defending against the biggest danger), the Wall is rendered functionally irrelevant (because it no longer exists where it actually matters), and the natural consequence is that the player will simply cast another wall. The change is ultimately made irrelevant, safe for the damage component that, itself, is rendered mute as levels go up. It's pointless at best, downright negative at worst. 
    • Sujestions: either do not introduce this change, or allow us to rotate the panels. Even then, chances are the only thing players will do will be to cast another wall, so either prevent that (which would introduce an interesting tactical management challenge to all Gara players) , or don't introduce this change at all. 
  3. Mass Vitrify no longer being affected by duration:
    • Is it an improvement? In this particular case, since the present duration is quite acceptable and it is a recast able power, doubtfully. Indeed, I'm quite sure it's overall a bad change, due to the the problems it brings:
    • Are there problematic aspects? Most definitely. Like making the wall's health be affected by armor, this change makes duration mods irrelevant - and therefore reduces its modding synergy with Splinter Shield and Spectrorage (though that power is already irrelevant, and therefore in need of a buff). Perhaps more importantly, it makes one stat irrelevant to one of her most important abilities, which encourages min-maxing and the effective discard of powers, making the most abusive and boring playstyles the most effective one. I'm quite sure this should not be encouraged. 
    • Sujestions: simply do not introduce it. 
  4. Final Veridict: though the base argument behind these changes is beyond legitimate - the power is grossly overpowered, and is grossly overpowered at next to no effort - the proposed changes themselves bring many more unnecessary issues than required. So, while I do think a nerf is warranted, it should not be done this way. More importantly, it does not address the rest of Gara's issues; namely, Spectrorage utter uselessness. Frames are more than the sum of their parts, they can be in need of both nerfs and buffs in different aspects. Gara needs to have her Mass Vitrify nerfed, no doubt - but she also needs to have her Spectrorage buffed. Only then she'll be a fully realized frame: useless powers are by definition incompatible with that. 

 

This. This is Grade A analysis here. I would have added how the nullifiers can break the wall while it is building already in addition to when it is complete, and how the wall can be easilly circumvented through going over, under, or even just poking their weapons through.

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As for the Gara's changes, I won't comment that. Enough was said. As for volt... Tell me DE, would it hurt you to give volt more sprint speed? I mean, lightning strikes fast... Why he is doomed to be the slowest when he cast speed (in most cases)? And what's with that shield cost per meter? He is one of the slowest frames in game with sprint = 1.0, carrying shield makes him even slower and he is further chained down by cost per meter... Ok, shield is cool, he is invincible from one direction... but there are other frames that are literally (or almost) invincible from all directions by just presing single key, without weapon restrictions or speed loss. He wouldn't be OP even with sprint speed =1.5...  He would be what he was suposed to be - a lightning. Volt needs to be fast.. He deserves it!  #MakeVoltTheFastestFrameAlive 

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I know I'll get a lot of hate about this, but I don't know why DE doesn't just add mod caps or inherent caps to certain abilities' attributes that aren't affected by mods on Frames that tend to be game breaking in their eyes in the way Efficiency has an overall cap in the game.

Purely for example, if Ember's WoF is such an issue with certain builds, make WoF specifically capped at 75% additional range while allowing range to continue being modded fully on her other abilities. 

If Gara's Mass Vitrify is an issue, make the invulnerability period set at 15 seconds, for example (not modifiable by mods or stack-able), and then health based (affected by mods) with no duration after that period. It will still give her a degree of uniqueness and scale-ability and not drive her into the ground. 

I don't have a problem with DE balancing things. I think it's necessary. The way they do it, however, isn't necessarily right. By capping certain aspects of powers, rather than the whole power, they can have better control over the Frame without ruining a full kit or build diversity.

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2 hours ago, LEGION346 said:

In Gara's case. What about others? Here is the video I made where I use different frames to lock down area. How Gara is different to them? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YUM2DyUokA

 

She only has to do the skill once every other minute for absolute protection? Most frames is they want to lock down a room have to be involved and actually put up some level of effort/activity, Gara can just plop her four and take a nap until it expires. 

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il y a 11 minutes, Cubewano a dit :

Most frames is they want to lock down a room have to be involved and actually put up some level of effort/activity, Gara can just plop her four and take a nap until it expires. 

Take Limbo for exemple: press 4 then press 2. Your are right you have to press 1 more button, such a huge effort....

or

-Banshee : press 4

-Nova: press 4

-Vauban: press 3 or 4 a couple of time

-Frost: press 3 a couple of time

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Just now, Veisper said:

Take Limbo for exemple: press 4 then press 2. Your are right you have to press 1 more button, such a huge effort....

Cute, with Limbo's combination you lose the use of two weapon slots (primaries and secondaries) or otherwise will be regularly recasting that 2, you can only harm enemies in said globe, and the globe is constantly shrinking as the duration goes down. Far more limitations and interactions than Gara's one and done combo. 

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