A fair comparison between snowglobe and mass vitrify

[Cloud]

Warframe has 34 warframes in its roster, but only 2 of these have a fortification ability: Frost and the new Gara. (I exclude limbo, given that I consider him more a peculiar cc than a defensive frame)
For years, Frost has dominated all defense-oriented missions, and despite being an exceptionally efficient and fun-to-use frame, after so much time it has become monotonous to have only 1 option if you want to put that particular playstyle into play.
Here came Gara, which before the last update, gave an excellent alternative to the usual and consolidated game of frost.
Each skill (Snow Globe and Mass Vitrify) has its strengths and weaknesses, and since many people report how broken Mass Vitrify was, I would like to make a small comparison between the two abilities to better reflect on it:

Mass vitrify was indestructible, it is true, and indestructibility and balance generally do not agree. But this indestructibility did not like without a price to pay:
1) An extremely slow cast time
2) The need to reach a raised position
3) The possibility of being able to place only one shield
4) Weak points from above and bottom
5) Period of total vulnerability at the end of duration

Snow globe instead ...
1) can be literally spammed up to indestructibility
2) has 4 seconds of invulnerability after the cast in which among other uses all incoming damage is used to strengthen itself
3) rejects and freezes all enemies within the spawn area
4) Has not weakpoints from any direction
5) It does not have a duration and therefore does not have a period of vulnerability
6) the cast is instantaneous and the cost in energy is negligible
5) and if all this is not enough, you can get up to 4 globes

People are so outraged that Gara could have an indestructible cylinder for 30 secs, when you can get far better results whit Frost just pressing a button 3 or 4 times more.

What is now Gara? Yeah, on paper is cool that now the shield has sections , each one with its own health and all, but we don't play on paper, what's in practice? Could you call Mass Vitrify a fortification ability now? Sure, while you stay on the solarchart lower missions there is no problem but above that? Now it is just another cc/damage ability, which the game has plenty.

Gara has other abilities, which makes her still good, but I loved to have a real alternative to Frost as fortification. 

[YUNoJump]

To me Gara seems to be more of a CC/attack based frame, with all of her abilities offering some CC or damage reduction while also damaging (or increasing damage on) enemies. Frost meanwhile is a hardcore defence-oriented frame, with all of his abilities casting over a specific area, and mostly requiring Frost to stand still while casting.

Something you don't mention here is that not only does Mass Vitrify block projectiles and bullets, it actually blocks movement as well. Snow Globe expels enemies on cast, and can have a 50% chance to significantly hinder enemies on the way in, but you still need to worry about enemies walking through and firing on objects inside the globe. Mass Vitrify doesn't have that weakness, and was completely impassable until the nerf. Additionally, boosting Snow Globe's health up to massive levels also requires multiple casts and energy expenditures, so the argument that 1 snowglobe = 1 mass vitrify gets more complicated.

I definitely agree that we need more Frosts in the game, with proper projectile-blocking abilities that don't have exploitable weakspots or a reliance on enemy threat judgment, but people believe that Mass Vitrify was OP for a reason, and I don't think that an OP deviation from her purpose is good as a bandaid addition to the defence roster. 

[Tarak]

Counterpoint, Gara's two used in conjunction with her four.

Cast her two on the objective and at least yourself before using her four and shatter (from outside) any remaining wall sections and recast before her two's timer runs out. you end up with a constant 90% damage mitigation for you and the objective and a building per-tick damage area around you.

Doing this on Akkad I had the objective having taken all of 10 damage (toxin only, as nothing else could get past the shield) and by wave 20 I'm doing like 80K damage per tick to anything around me. She's still ridiculously powerful if you actively use her powers as they are meant to be used and aren't just cheesing one ability (as has been an ongoing issue that many frames suffer from and the Devs are trying to work out of the game by having powers work in synergies). Also, for an extra defensive layer, you could pop down her three if it gets hectic to pull heat from the objective and your allies.

Bottom line, use all her abilities actively and you'll find she isn't a decent alternative to Frost, she's a better alternative.

Edit: Side note, when she initially came out I used primarily her four for like the first day she was out, then I discovered her scaling two and started to literally only use her four to refresh her two and charge it up, I think the change they made is a good middle ground. Removing the timer but adding panels that can shatter outwards, letting me focus more on using her two defensively and her four as more a utility to her two (Which I already do).

Edited December 9, 2017 by Tarak

[Marvelous_A]

This change practically killed the potential of Gara's 4th ability as a protective barrier and leaving us only 1 choice, the Frost Globe (like always).

Gara is still good undoubtedly. As a barrier however, her 4th is now in trash tier.

[CrunchyCloud]

People just don't get that any sliver of OP-ness =/= broken. This is a POWER FANTASY, AOE game, not some balance-sensitive competitive MOBA.

Although i suspect that most of the poeple that wanted Gara nerfed were butthurt Frost mains.

Edited December 9, 2017 by CrunchyCloud

[Jago47]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb YUNoJump:

I definitely agree that we need more Frosts in the game, with proper projectile-blocking abilities that don't have exploitable weakspots or a reliance on enemy threat judgment.

Atlas stone wall could also use a buff to proper block enemys or bullets effectively. 

[Tokens210]

13 hours ago, Tarak said:

Counterpoint, Gara's two used in conjunction with her four.

Cast her two on the objective and at least yourself before using her four and shatter (from outside) any remaining wall sections and recast before her two's timer runs out. you end up with a constant 90% damage mitigation for you and the objective and a building per-tick damage area around you.

Doing this on Akkad I had the objective having taken all of 10 damage (toxin only, as nothing else could get past the shield) and by wave 20 I'm doing like 80K damage per tick to anything around me. She's still ridiculously powerful if you actively use her powers as they are meant to be used and aren't just cheesing one ability (as has been an ongoing issue that many frames suffer from and the Devs are trying to work out of the game by having powers work in synergies). Also, for an extra defensive layer, you could pop down her three if it gets hectic to pull heat from the objective and your allies.

Bottom line, use all her abilities actively and you'll find she isn't a decent alternative to Frost, she's a better alternative.

Edit: Side note, when she initially came out I used primarily her four for like the first day she was out, then I discovered her scaling two and started to literally only use her four to refresh her two and charge it up, I think the change they made is a good middle ground. Removing the timer but adding panels that can shatter outwards, letting me focus more on using her two defensively and her four as more a utility to her two (Which I already do).

what you just detailed out is exactly the reason why im guessing with 100% certainty that her splinter storm will now receive a cap on it, the damage reduction also scales with the damage out by means of a multiplier your just not shown it in game, splinter storm and shatter a wall once youll notice your taking less damage, splinter storm and spam shatter about 10 walls and your seriously unhurtable while the storm is up, ive seen guides and video from before the 'fix" of people getting her to excess of 150k damage per tick very very quickly like within the first minute of being on the map, since back then people wanted duration for wall, strength for everything and sometimes a bit more range that left out eff. which made casting her wall kinda expensive energy wise which is why all the videos i came across had them using about 20 energy restores to stack that much damage reduction and damage out

 

now with the fix making her wall strength based i can easily take a shot in the dark guess that efficiency and strength gara build will become the new trend with spam smashing the wall to make everyone gods for the rest of the time, harder to maintain on teammates since the splinter storm description saying all allies within range get it is a flat out lie and you need to specifically pin point target a team mate to actually get it on them, but really easy to do it for just yourself

 

 

basicaly to me the jist of what this "fix" was, was gara's splinter storm is either supposed to be a godly power if your able to get/have energy to do it, or it was broken out the gate but instead of looking at that DE made a change to her wall that makes the splinter storm even easier to abuse....go figure lol

Edited December 10, 2017 by Tokens210

[Azlen]

14 hours ago, Cloud said:

Warframe has 34 warframes in its roster, but only 2 of these have a fortification ability

As someone already mentioned, you missed Atlas. Not saying it's a good ability to compare to by any means. But it does indeed make this statement untrue.
I agree with all your points though on Gara, they either need to tweak numbers or figure something else out, otherwise they just "Ash'd" her 4.

[Tsardova]

Dunno.... There's some pros that came out of it true but all of it entails us to resorting to her other abilities instead of her supposed "ult"/4.

As is, it's functionally inferior to Frost's snowglobe that it just feels like DE is lost in terms of direction in how to differentiate it from the former that it ended up being a confused near unusable skill in later difficulty environment.

 

If this is DE's idea of skill synergy, it's objectively bad on my book. It pretty much demotivates people to use her 4 to the point Gara might as well be a frame with 3 skills instead of the usual 4. Remember how DE "killed" Saryn's 4 nuke? Now THAT is a good skill synergy on my book, at least compared to Gara's treatment........ not my best analogy/ comparison but admitably finding a silver lining in nerfs is kinda hard for me.

 

Most if not all other frame's 4 are at least functional and are actually fun to use in gameplay environment, even in "endgame/ post-endgame content". Gara's as is? it's a hassle to use and is in dire need of a rework/ rebalance again already.

 

I've seen one too many times that people shoved their "fix" to the situation but all still amounts to being a hassle/ nearly disregarding her 4 while all the talk has been all about how her 4's nerf is too much. "recast her 4" = more energy lost for her other skills = "then use her other skills instead of her 4" = that's the problem that started the discussion to begin with.....

 

DE, if you want rebalance with Gara's current 4 stats, at least make it so her other skills fortify her 4's durability in some shape or form. Let enemies killed with her 1 and 3 add hp to the walls to a certain FUNCTIONAL degree in later difficulties, have her 2's damage reduction bonus effect for teammates transferable via teammates to the wall's sections within proximity/ contact. ANYTHING that would make her 4 functional at this point.......

[YUNoJump]

6 hours ago, Jago47 said:

Atlas stone wall could also use a buff to proper block enemys or bullets effectively. 

 

5 hours ago, Azlen said:

As someone already mentioned, you missed Atlas. Not saying it's a good ability to compare to by any means. But it does indeed make this statement untrue.
I agree with all your points though on Gara, they either need to tweak numbers or figure something else out, otherwise they just "Ash'd" her 4.

The problem with Atlas (and Volt for that matter) is that single-direction fortification isn't reliable enough. Either you have to be super finicky with getting multiple barriers to cover all the openings correctly, or enemies just circle around or attack from different angles. Warframe is too much of a horde-mode game for single-direction shields to work well consistently. You see directional shields in tonnes of games, but most of those games also allow you to actually provide cover for objectives by shooting down approaching enemies. Warframe is far too chaotic for players to be able to prevent enemies from ever firing on them, using standard attacks alone.

Add to that the fact that a lot of the time you really can't let enemies through for more than a second (corpus techs, Napalms, literally anything in a mid-high level excavation), and the result is that you can't consistently defend any objective at all unless you use a MASSIVE pile of CC, or use an omnidirectional shield. 

[PhotriusPyrelus]

I don't really understand why the change wasn't just to emulate snow globe's mechanics.  Invulnerability during the set up, damage taken strengthens the shield.

[LameLaYou]

10 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

I don't really understand why the change wasn't just to emulate snow globe's mechanics.  Invulnerability during the set up, damage taken strengthens the shield.

Perhaps this would have been better, but then people would just go on and build her like Frost and complain that her Lash and Spectorage are useless. Of course they're going to be useless if you don't have power range.

18 hours ago, Tokens210 said:

what you just detailed out is exactly the reason why im guessing with 100% certainty that her splinter storm will now receive a cap on it

I am pretty positive that it's not going to be changed. Why? Because it's definitely nowhere close to fire-and-forget, the kind of mechanic DE has been trying to rid the game of. Saryn's changes, Mag's changes, you should probably be able to tell that DE wants active gameplay. With Shatter Storm you are constantly required to actively cast Mass Vitrify, actively reposition yourself and break Mass Vitrify, actively manage your timer and energy pool, actively close in on targets and actively avoid/counter power disrupters like Nullifiers and Scrambus. It's high effort high reward - should you be able to maintain Shatter Storm properly you are granted one of the most powerful skills both offensively and defensively, but a lapse in any one of the above points and all the damage you've stacked is gone in a flash.

Mass Vitrify was totally the opposite. You cast it, and then just left it there. It blocked enemy fire, it blocked enemy pathing, and there was nothing enemies could do about it. As a consequence, it got the IQ-up treatment.

[Tokens210]

22 hours ago, LameLaYou said:

Perhaps this would have been better, but then people would just go on and build her like Frost and complain that her Lash and Spectorage are useless. Of course they're going to be useless if you don't have power range.

I am pretty positive that it's not going to be changed. Why? Because it's definitely nowhere close to fire-and-forget, the kind of mechanic DE has been trying to rid the game of. Saryn's changes, Mag's changes, you should probably be able to tell that DE wants active gameplay. With Shatter Storm you are constantly required to actively cast Mass Vitrify, actively reposition yourself and break Mass Vitrify, actively manage your timer and energy pool, actively close in on targets and actively avoid/counter power disrupters like Nullifiers and Scrambus. It's high effort high reward - should you be able to maintain Shatter Storm properly you are granted one of the most powerful skills both offensively and defensively, but a lapse in any one of the above points and all the damage you've stacked is gone in a flash.

Mass Vitrify was totally the opposite. You cast it, and then just left it there. It blocked enemy fire, it blocked enemy pathing, and there was nothing enemies could do about it. As a consequence, it got the IQ-up treatment.

you can cast splinter storm, spam and smash the wall about 12 times right at the beginning of the mission, then its a duration based power like the wall was, where you no longer even need to shatter the wall at all, just recast anytime splinter is about to run out to reset its timer, and youll be a god, any enemy within your AoE dies, doesnt matter what enemy type or what level they are since the splinter storm multiply has no cap all while you take 0 damage, even with the wall being duration based at 250% duration it was only 55sec, so about 1 minute

 

the wall was broken out the gate,

intersecting and climbable objects allowed enemies to vault thru the wall

casting at standard height allowed 3 osprey to stack on one another and enemies used them as a ramp and ran over the wall

enemies intersecting the wall once cast could shoot thru the wall

enemies with longer weapons like snipers could shoot thru the wall as their weapons clipped thru it

the wall couldn't be cast correctly without paying attention to environments with ramps as the wall would only recognize the terrain changes if the floor of the level lowered

any 2 story type levels enemies could simply jump over the wall from the second floor even if you made the wall clearly high enough that they shouldnt have been able to jump over it

 

i dont disagree that the wall itself needed some tweaking, i just feel having it be duration based one day then strength based the next isnt the way to fix her nor was it really what she needed, feels like a quick band-aid

Edited December 11, 2017 by Tokens210

[(XBOX)FISTO ROBOT0]

Gara needs another look for sure. Her mass vitrify makes enemies "easier to kill" yet prevents them from taking status procs while they are glassed. 

[BethTheBean]

1. Build Gara similar to Frost and Rhino.

2. Turn "Castle of Glass" to volume level 10 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScNNfyq3d_w

3. Become the Gara of Old. If not, surpass her.

Am I the only one with a backbone?


 

Edited December 11, 2017 by GrazewoundZero

[LameLaYou]

4 hours ago, Tokens210 said:

you can cast splinter storm, spam and smash the wall about 12 times right at the beginning of the mission, then its a duration based power like the wall was, where you no longer even need to shatter the wall at all, just recast anytime splinter is about to run out to reset its timer, and youll be a god, any enemy within your AoE dies, doesnt matter what enemy type or what level they are since the splinter storm multiply has no cap all while you take 0 damage, even with the wall being duration based at 250% duration it was only 55sec, so about 1 minutere

True, but once again you have absolutely no room for error in maintaining Splinter Storm uptime. Even then an Ember WoF build, Equinox Maim build or whatever AoE build will be able to massacre rooms while you're running around trying to touch enemies. If you're actually taking this build to a mission where you really need the 12 stacks of Mass Vitrify damage on your Splinter Storm then you'll probably be under even more pressure to maintain it because of the more frequent appearances of energy drainers, power disrupters and sheer fear of losing all your damage stacks.

 

4 hours ago, Tokens210 said:

the wall was broken out the gate,

intersecting and climbable objects allowed enemies to vault thru the wall

casting at standard height allowed 3 osprey to stack on one another and enemies used them as a ramp and ran over the wall

enemies intersecting the wall once cast could shoot thru the wall

enemies with longer weapons like snipers could shoot thru the wall as their weapons clipped thru it

the wall couldn't be cast correctly without paying attention to environments with ramps as the wall would only recognize the terrain changes if the floor of the level lowered

any 2 story type levels enemies could simply jump over the wall from the second floor even if you made the wall clearly high enough that they shouldnt have been able to jump over it

 

i dont disagree that the wall itself needed some tweaking, i just feel having it be duration based one day then strength based the next isnt the way to fix her nor was it really what she needed, feels like a quick band-aid

While I don't disagree that there are many flaws to Mass Vitrify, it's extremely easy (like, just position yourself properly and bullet jump up) to set up one that's pretty much impenetrable. Enemies sticking their guns through the wall is definitely busted though, but that was the only major issue stopping Mass Vitrify from becoming a Donald Trump wet dream.

..which completely left out all the other useful things Mass Vitrify could do such as, you know, actually vitrifying enemies? I mean, why would DE call it Mass Vitrify and give us that CC component if they intended for that skill to be used like Snowglobe? And surely that invulnerability period health absorption mechanic would surely have been the first thing to cross their mind when re-looking the ability but they give that mechanic to stuff that's actually meant to soak up damage. Like Snowglobe or Iron Skin. And the bar's apparently pretty high up for an ability to be considered 'meant to soak up damage' because Saryn's Molt or Loki's Decoy don't have that mechanic on them, even though they're a higher priority target and hence draw fire to themselves.

I think to most of us it seems like a quick band-aid, but it might actually be an indirect sign from DE that this isn't how they intended for Gara to be played.

[mchaggis79]

 

I'm currently tweaking this build to see how i like it.  atm i think i might swap out augur message for streamline as 30+ seconds of splinter storm is more than adequate and makes it easy to pay attention well enough to just cast mass vitrify to refresh and then stack it onto gara's 2.  for me the stacks just keep building naturally over time.  Other than while I was building her up I never really had any "oh S#&$ splinter storm is about to end" moments and scramble to cast mass vitrify to refresh it.  While I agree her mass vitrify should have nothing to do with her armor stats as it currently does, I do agree it needed a nerf.  Maybe instead of her MV being based on power strength and her armor stats it should just be based on power strength as other than her MV i see no reason to mod her for armor.