Trinity Needs a Re-Work

[OptimumBow0]

I'm a returning player who hadn't touched the game since the month U18 came out (3.5 years gone). I also mained Trinity since I liked being able to support my squad. Liked.

I booted the game up about a week ago to see if I had gotten over burnout, and I found I really enjoyed the game. However, it didn't take long to notice Trinity doesn't behave the same way she did. I noticed this when a Nekros started doing my job for me in a level 40 survival mission (pretty embarrassing). This is par for the course; we've had all manner of awesome reworks throughout the years. Except Trinity hasn't gotten an awesome re-work

I went through her patch history to see what I missed and have made a short list of updates that featured major Trinity changes:

Spoiler

 

U9.8 - WOL increases enemy health x10, EV deals damage. Blessing gets animation changes, but Link is nerfed (fair tho).

U13.3 - Blessing's invulnerability is removed, replaced with a risk-reward heal that grants damage reduction dependent on player health levels. EV gets QOL treatment. Necessary nerf indeed, but a good one and the change to EV is nice.

U18.5 - Well of Life and Energy Vampire synergy is removed. This was too good at killing some bosses, agreed, yet Trinity now has 0 synergy between her powers.

U18.13 - Blessing is given a range cap, Damage Reduction is now calculated using average health of team. That 2nd change hit harder, honestly, since you could only get to higher damage reductions if your team was dying in sync. Risk-Reward and skill are somewhat taken out of the equation.

U18.13.2 - Risk-Reward of Blessing is cut completely in favor of flat 50% damage reduction. This really is just U18.13 Blessing because inconsistent damage between teammates would make 50% the most probable value for damage reduction. They've just made it guaranteed is all.

U 22.20.8 - Self-Damage is no longer transmitted through Link. This nuke-strategy had just surfaced before I burnt out, but an understandable change.

 

TL:DR Trinity has not received a traditional buff since Update 9.8. # of Updates where Trinity was compensated for her nerfs: 0

I do not bring this up to say "Bring the old Trin back!". I don't think that's the solution. But in 5 years of 13 major updates, Trinity has not received any attention that has upgraded or diversified her kit. She has received some nice QOL to be sure, but other than that she's had nothing but side-grades, down-grades, and nerfs. Her skirt has received as many buffs as her powerset. That's not exaggeration. The physics on her skirt have been tweaked three times. WOL has been buffed once, EV has been buffed twice. Link and Blessing have only received nerfs, and some of the Blessing nerfs seemed to come from nowhere (like switching to average team health? What?).

If you look at her patch history, the most used verb throughout is "fixed". Her WOL and EV combo was described as "fixed". It reads like a tragedy, honestly, interspersed with small victories, but one that ultimately has led Trinity to the pit of mediocrity. No one cares for WOL, EV is 70% of the reason people still use her, Link's utility is a small convenience to mitigate knockdown, and Blessing is 30% of the reason people still use her (yet there's no reason to build for duration for a 90% reduced damage modifier). Additionally, there seems to be a body of people who would like EV to go down as well.

I don't want her to stay in this place, and I definitely don't want her losing more of her kit. I'm sure there are plenty of others who would agree.

The goal of this post, sadly, is only to draw attention to the dev history on her. I have little specific constructive remarks to share, or ideas, except from this post:

Spoiler

 

 

I don't know if I agree with the Blessing change, but his 1-3 ability ideas aren't bad.

That being said, I think WoL and Blessing encroach too much on each other's specialty. Blessing is simply better at it. One needs to be changed to play nice with the other, at least to differentiate them, and there's synergy potential for it, too.

Link needs looking into as well. Due to the nature of enemy leveling in this game, its damage reflection is just for show. I made a graph with the scaling equations to demonstrate this:

Look at dat exponential decay tho

The curvature of the graph is a general shape, so it will look the same no matter what base enemy you put in as long as it is Grineer. The bounds of the graph, however, will change and will generally be much worse. The base stats I used for this graph are: 100 damage, 100 health, 50 armor. The y-axis represents what % of enemy health is taken away per shot on Trinity with Link. The x-axis is simply the enemy level. You can see that Link stops being useful around level 15-20. At that point it's just there for show. Apparently these base stats are a little high for level 1 enemies, so I plugged in the information for a Grineer Lancer after taking this screenshot (11 damage, 100 health, 100 armor). The max effectiveness of Link goes down to 10% health taken on a level 1 Lancer. Ten shots to kill ain't bad, but it's down-hill from there.

This is obviously a result of enemy eHP (Effective HP, not just HP) scaling waaaaayyyyy faster than their matching damage output, but the result blew my mind. Intuitively, Link is an ability that seems like it's meant to scale, but it scales in reverse.

Like come on, guys. There are a ton of abilities that lose their effectiveness as enemies scale, but is there any other ability in this game that does so inversely? Ignoring the damage reflection, the 75% damage reduction sounds an awful lot like the reduction cap on Blessing. A second instance of redundancy in her kit. Although the knockdown protection is great.

Other than pointing out chinks, it's hard to come up with ability ideas/changes for a Warframe that is centered around health and energy. I mean, there's only so many ways you can manipulate the logistics of it. However, I think an area worth exploring is to broaden the definition of "support". To give an example, Trinity could potentially boost weapon/warframe stats with her kit rather than just throwing out health and energy willy-nilly. Maybe 1 or 2 of her abilities just need to be tossed for new ones. I don't know.

OR, since the devs seem so keen on eliminating the usefulness of a dedicated healer, let's just not have a dedicated healer anymore. If you don't want her doing what she does, then instead of gutting, please start retooling. Bring her closer to Harrow's kit and Oberon's, but give her a larger emphasis on healing and at least something for energy recovery. At this point, I don't care how much you have to change her, just bring back the modicum of fun she had when she was Ms. Risk-Reward. Not manifested the same way, necessarily, but please.

Please show this frame a tender touch.

Anyway, post ideas. My catharsis is satisfied.

[(PSN)Edwardo57]

I honestly think Trinity is fine as she is. Of course she can use some tweaks and possible a new visual appearance of her abilities maybe, just throwing that out there, but if I had to decide on changing her in anyway I would have to say WoL. I personally dislike her 1st ability and how it functions. I just can't think of any way of changing it or a new ability every time I think about it.  

[PoisonHD]

Right now, Trinity is one of our best tanks, and remains an A+ frame to me. What job was Nekros doing better then you? All I can think of is healing/energy, but I don't know how you could be outdone by him with either. EV is faster for energy, and Blessing is an instant full heal. Link isn't really meant to be a damage ability either, it's just meant to be survivable, which it does extremely well in combination with blessing.

Edited June 24, 2018 by PoisonHD

[BoomyGordo]

the only thing that needs looked at on trinity is her 1 because no one ever uses it. Why would they when they have a 4 that does it far better?

 

[Archeyef]

Trinity was my main back when I started. I've seen her go through these changes, and I'm not happy with where she is now either.

The major problem I have with Trinity as she is now is less about her efficiency or effectiveness than it is about her gameplay. She is... extremely boring and extremely clunky in her current state. Sure she does her job well but it's so very boring to play her. If I can achieve a similar role or effect with a fun frame, I'm not gonna play the boring frame.

I posted a thread about Trinity's kit myself, with some of my own change suggestions. I'll just link that rather than copy+pasting the contents here.

 

[OptimumBow0]

11 minutes ago, PoisonHD said:

What job was Nekros doing better then you?

Well, I was trying to play Trinity while ignorant of her range cap. While Nekros can't heal, this particular one was far better at rescuing our teammates and myself than I was.

You guys don't think Trinity is boring though? I mean, compared to the first Blessing change. That's what I've felt the past few days at least.

2 minutes ago, Archeyef said:

Trinity was my main back when I started. I've seen her go through these changes, and I'm not happy with where she is now either.

The major problem I have with Trinity as she is now is less about her efficiency or effectiveness than it is about her gameplay. She is... extremely boring and extremely clunky in her current state. Sure she does her job well but it's so very boring to play her. 

Yep. Was there a point where you did have fun playing her, though? Or has it been a snooze-fest all the way?

[PoisonHD]

Just now, OptimumBow0 said:

Well, I was trying to play Trinity while ignorant of her range cap. While Nekros can't heal, this particular one was far better at rescuing our teammates and myself than I was.

You guys don't think Trinity is boring though? I mean, compared to the first Blessing change. That's what I've felt the past few days at least.

I find her fun to play, constantly keeping tabs on my Teammates energy, over shield, and health levels, plus doing all the normal gunplay is very fun to me. I don't think I've ever been bored because I was playing her. If I'm playing a blessing build I'll use a focus node in Vazarin to increase my affinity range if I care enough, but even if I don't I've never really held back by it.

[Archeyef]

Just now, OptimumBow0 said:

Yep. Was there a point where you did have fun playing her, though? Or has it been a snooze-fest all the way?

Oh yes. There was a time when I would love jumping into the thick of the fray with Link active and tearing enemies apart with melee. There was a time when I'd keep Blessing in reserve while I monitored my team's health, ready to save them from whatever they'd gotten into. Those days are gone, though. Link, though still good with the damage reduction, feels lackluster these days. Other frames can tank better without having to recast 4 times a minute. Other frames heal damage as it occurs so there's no need to watch the slowly increasing damage buildup on your team. So now I don't play Trinity when I just want to play. Instead I play Inaros or Oberon. Either one gives me healing, tanking, and crowd control. They fill the role I like to play so much better than Trinity does now.

I want to be able to run Trinity while being able to actually play the game, in the thick of the fight. I don't want to have to play Quicktime Event: the frame.

[Sloan441]

She's fine--aside from maybe whatitsheal. The one I use so rarely I can't remember its name. 

She can still play Horatius at the gate and keep a team up and running...assuming they stay in affinity range. 

Not seeing a problem. At all. 

[Klokwerkaos]

Bring back link self damage but in a sane and reasonable way would be the only thing I'd want to change.

[OptimumBow0]

13 hours ago, PoisonHD said:

I find her fun to play, constantly keeping tabs on my Teammates energy, over shield, and health levels, plus doing all the normal gunplay is very fun to me. I don't think I've ever been bored because I was playing her. 

 

12 hours ago, Archeyef said:

Oh yes. There was a time when I would love jumping into the thick of the fray with Link active and tearing enemies apart with melee. There was a time when I'd keep Blessing in reserve while I monitored my team's health, ready to save them from whatever they'd gotten into.

When did the two of you start playing here? Archeyef, sounds like you began in the old days when she was yet untouched.

11 hours ago, Sloan441 said:

Not seeing a problem. At all. 

I mean, yeah, technically Trinity is fine as is. She can support the team with heals and EV, but it's the overlaps in her kit and how basic she is to play that's bothersome. Her 1 overlaps with her 4, her 4 overlaps with her 3, and the mechanics of 1 and 2 are the same (single-target paralysis that requires you to shoot at it, but ability #2 is more rewarding). 1 and 2 are ok to use, 3 is just a button to avoid knockdown. 4 is also, technically, a quick-time event.

When Blessing's DR was in a state of player control, not just a flat value, it was definitely more fun to pop on your team. It also meant that building for duration to keep a high DR going was worth it. An EV build goes against that, so you had to weigh between the two (or just bring 2 Trinity's). Now, I see very little reason to not go for an EV build, because the power strength benefits Blessing's DR regardless, and the rapid energy recovery means you can compensate short duration on Blessing with 4-spam. 

I'd hate to see the aftermath of a nerf to EV, too, because that isn't impossible.

The question is then, do you want her kit to remain the way it is, or would you like to see it improved upon?

10 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

Bring back link self damage but in a sane and reasonable way would be the only thing I'd want to change.

Honestly, I don't know how it was unreasonable. I tried it once and killed myself. Never tried again. So the stories I've read since coming back seem impossible, but if it was re-done such that Link over-rides Blessing's damage reduction or some-such, it would probably be fine.

[Klokwerkaos]

3 minutes ago, OptimumBow0 said:

 

 

Honestly, I don't know how it was unreasonable. I tried it once and killed myself. Never tried again. So the stories I've read since coming back seem impossible, but if it was re-done such that Link over-rides Blessing's damage reduction or some-such, it would probably be fine.

To be honest it was flat out OP, but it could have been handled a lot better and I have a lot of salt about that.

It could have been nerfed rather than destroyed, and I think DE gets a full demerit in my eyes for that.

[Archeyef]

6 minutes ago, OptimumBow0 said:

When did the two of you start playing here? Archeyef, sounds like you began in the old days when she was yet untouched.

My account is 5 years old. When I first got her, Trinity had flat 100% damage reduction and mapwide range on Blessing.

[Birdframe_Prime]

While I agree that Trin needs an update I... with respect to you, the thread's writer, don't agree with this direction, or with my friend's thread that you linked in as well.

You see, to me, what Trinity lacks is mechanical survivability. Not damage reduction or healing, or even damage, as such, but a way to affect more enemies with something that will genuinely control the battlefield.

Trinity needs, if I put it simply, more CC and debuffs to go along with her healing and buffs. And her healing... well, this is where I find it a little more interesting, because I want Trin to be effective to all allies, not just the ones that aren't using Drain abilities like Exalted Blade or Prowl.

For example, what if instead of a single-target mark for life-steal, Trin's first ability would be a cone-of-effect blast that staggers enemies and marks them all for a Health Orb or a Health Pulse on death. Simple, ties in with mods like Health Conversion, and also means that (if the health Orb drop version was chosen) you would leave these drops for allies to pick up when they needed them.

I won't ramble on anymore about this when I could make a thread myself ^^ but I won't be making that thread any time soon (not until I've worked it all out anyway).

Just putting down the general disagreement with this direction for a rework, because Trin's functional healing is great as-is, she doesn't need to hit harder in that respect. It's that she lacks a way to not get hit, which is a staple of a lot of other warframe kits.

[Cibyllae]

can you post the equation you used for that graph

[EinheriarJudith]

if you dont like playing a full support play harrow or oberon. i dont see why a frame needs a rework on the basis of "shes boring to play". i will say WoL definitely needs something to bring it up to "make me care about using it" standard.

[swodaem]

Every warframe in this game has been overnerfed. DE are infamous for terrible balancing and being directionless. 

[OptimumBow0]

3 hours ago, Thaylien said:

While I agree that Trin needs an update I... with respect to you, the thread's writer, don't agree with this direction, or with my friend's thread that you linked in as well.

Honestly at this point, I am totally on board with whatever changes they make to Trin that can be put in the "Buff" category, regardless of the direction they move her in. Because, again, her skirt and her kit have been buffed the same number of times. 

2 hours ago, Cibyllae said:

can you post the equation you used for that graph

Sure, and this is only the math for the Grineer. The curve against Corpus probably looks much better, and maybe I should've chosen them for my test.

Level = [0:150]

Current Health = Base Health × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )2 × 0.015 )

Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )1.75 × 0.005 )

Current Effective Hitpoints = Current Health × ( 1 + Current Armor ÷ 300 )

Current Damage = Base Damage × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )1.55 × 0.015 )

Link Damage = 1 - (Current Effective HP - Current Damage)/(Current Effective HP)

So, basically, scale the scale the HP taken into a percentage once damage is taken. Then, subtract it from 1 to get the damage Link dealt. Easy Peezy. I knew how enemies generally scaled beforehand though, so I expected the graph to look the way it does. HP scales faster than damage, so the leftover HP asymptotes to a value of 1, and the damage dealt  by Link, likewise, to 0. I didn't expect the threshold of usefulness to be as low as it was though, and that was the main reason for doing the math. "Usefulness" is also dependent on the DPS of the individual enemy as well.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Enemy_Level_Scaling

1 hour ago, EinheriarJudith said:

if you dont like playing a full support play harrow or oberon. i dont see why a frame needs a rework on the basis of "shes boring to play". i will say WoL definitely needs something to bring it up to "make me care about using it" standard.

Yep, don't worry, I am. I just have a fondness for Trinity developed over 2 years of using her that I'd like to justify. That's all. Do you play her though? Do you find her as much fun as any other frame? Cause I don't think "she's boring to play" is a bad reason to re-work her, but, I think there is something objectively wrong when abilities 1 and 2 are mechanically twins, 3 does what half of 4 does, and 1 does what 4 does better. I think she's the only frame with that much explicit overlap (I could be wrong; I've been gone a long time), and I don't think overlap is a good thing. Would you agree, or do you not care about it that much?

7 hours ago, Archeyef said:

My account is 5 years old. When I first got her, Trinity had flat 100% damage reduction and mapwide range on Blessing.

awww yessss

59 minutes ago, swodaem said:

Every warframe in this game has been overnerfed. DE are infamous for terrible balancing and being directionless. 

I might be out of it, but I can remember Excal, Saryn, Ember(ish), Hydroid, and Frost receiving some good treatment. I don't know the state of them now, but I'd say DE ain't terrible at their jobs. I think they overlook Trin or find it hard to deal with her because, if she wasn't in the game, enemy scaling and difficulty might be completely different systems to what they are now. I'd still like them to try, though.

 

[Sloan441]

8 hours ago, OptimumBow0 said:

 

When Blessing's DR was in a state of player control, not just a flat value, it was definitely more fun to pop on your team. It also meant that building for duration to keep a high DR going was worth it. An EV build goes against that, so you had to weigh between the two (or just bring 2 Trinity's). Now, I see very little reason to not go for an EV build, because the power strength benefits Blessing's DR regardless, and the rapid energy recovery means you can compensate short duration on Blessing with 4-spam. 

 

I'm beginning to wonder if you actually play her as a Blessing build. You do know that the DR stacks? It's layered. If you keep both 75% Blessing and Link up it gives you something like the equivalent to 90-odd% DR (someone can chime in with the actual math). 

I wouldn't complain if her durations were buffed a bit (less work), but she's capable of maintaining both Blessing and Link pretty much indefinately. The best thing about this is it's predictable. You hit the buttons and keep the buffs offset and running and you know what to expect. There are no conditionals, no downtime, no cool downs...none of that. If you've got the energy (and you do have to means to always get it), you've got very heavy DR. Not so much your team, but they need to learn not to get shot and they still have guaranteed 70-odd% DR and heals on demand. 

I like this playstyle. It works. It's effective. It makes Trinity one of the great defensive warframes. 

[Cibyllae]

30 minutes ago, OptimumBow0 said:

Current Health = Base Health × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )2 × 0.015 )

Current Armor = Base Armor × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )1.75 × 0.005 )

Current Effective Hitpoints = Current Health × ( 1 + Current Armor ÷ 300 )

Current Damage = Base Damage × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )1.55 × 0.015 )

I'm going to assume you either forgot the carrots or did not put them there on purpose and are not mistaking an exponent for a coefficient

[(PSN)deathwolfclaw666]

9 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

To be honest it was flat out OP, but it could have been handled a lot better and I have a lot of salt about that.

It could have been nerfed rather than destroyed, and I think DE gets a full demerit in my eyes for that.

Yep, all that was needed was to limit damage to only the linked enemies and if a linked enemy was to die have a delay before re-linking. 

Removing self damage has put an end to nuke Trinity but also means that you can no longer self damage just to stun or knock down an enemy, which is something that I use a bit in my support build when it comes to revives or tough enemies.

[EinheriarJudith]

4 hours ago, OptimumBow0 said:

Yep, don't worry, I am. I just have a fondness for Trinity developed over 2 years of using her that I'd like to justify. That's all. Do you play her though? Do you find her as much fun as any other frame? Cause I don't think "she's boring to play" is a bad reason to re-work her, but, I think there is something objectively wrong when abilities 1 and 2 are mechanically twins, 3 does what half of 4 does, and 1 does what 4 does better. I think she's the only frame with that much explicit overlap (I could be wrong; I've been gone a long time), and I don't think overlap is a good thing. Would you agree, or do you not care about it that much?

i do play trin. i actually love that she is full support. i used to play healer pretty heavily in FFXI, FFXIV, EQ2, and Rift. being a full healer is not boring to me at all. if i dont feel like playing full support i switch to obe or harrow or nightquinox. i like the different options DE has provided me just in case i want to mix it up. i said it before a while back WoL should function just like EV. they both have the same animation style, they both CC 1 target.

[OptimumBow0]

4 hours ago, Cibyllae said:

I'm going to assume you either forgot the carrots or did not put them there on purpose and are not mistaking an exponent for a coefficient

Yeah, I copy pasted as plain text and didn't notice the superscripts were lost. What is on the wiki page is what I used. 

58 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

I'm beginning to wonder if you actually play her as a Blessing build. You do know that the DR stacks? It's layered. If you keep both 75% Blessing and Link up it gives you something like the equivalent to 90-odd% DR (someone can chime in with the actual math). 

...

Not so much your team, but they need to learn not to get shot and they still have guaranteed 70-odd% DR and heals on demand. 

Ok. I'm referring to the ~90% DR that the whole team used to experience, not the flat 75% cap. I don't play Trin to keep high DR on just on myself, although it's easy to cast Blessing and Link for my own benefit, yeah. That's always been a part of her kit.

Here's the way I see it:

Previously, layering Blessing and Link was a thoughtful choice that involved strategically timing Blessing with the health of squadmates to maximize DR, both on your team and yourself. You could also use Link as a buffer to slow DPS and fine-tune your Blessing cast's effectiveness. 

Now, with 75% guaranteed on another 75% guaranteed, you're right, you can hit 3 and 4 without a thought. Duration build on Trinity is OK, sure. However, if I want to sacrifice duration for an EV build, it's good. Great, even. You just have to press 3 and 4 more frequently with some more 2 to keep the button combo going. There's no balance to be struck between her powers now. That's the biggest thing I remember from my last time playing, the choice between Blessing+Link max duration or power-strength, min-duration EV, and it's gone. EV all the way and no consequences. Yay.

30 minutes ago, EinheriarJudith said:

i do play trin. i actually love that she is full support... i said it before a while back WoL should function just like EV. they both have the same animation style, they both CC 1 target.

I guess, from your manner of talking, I gave the wrong impression that I don't love playing "full support". I do/did. It's just that, in her current state, I can't bear it so much anymore. How long have you used her for by the way or what update did you acquire Trinity? Also, overlap: bad? Would you be staunchly opposed to changing WoL to not be EV's twin?

[EinheriarJudith]

11 minutes ago, OptimumBow0 said:

I guess, from your manner of talking, I gave the wrong impression that I don't love playing "full support". I do/did. It's just that, in her current state, I can't bear it so much anymore. How long have you used her for by the way or what update did you acquire Trinity? Also, overlap: bad? Would you be staunchly opposed to changing WoL to not be EV's twin?

since before her bless nerf and the nerf on its map wide range. if they changed it to something else that alteast feels better than it does now ill be all for it. there is only overlap because of not having a temp HP mechanic sadly. not having a temp hp is also nightquinox problem with mend. alot of it just gets wasted.

Edited June 25, 2018 by EinheriarJudith

[Sloan441]

2 minutes ago, OptimumBow0 said:

 

Previously, layering Blessing and Link was a thoughtful choice that involved strategically timing Blessing with the health of squadmates to maximize DR, both on your team and yourself. You could also use Link as a buffer to slow DPS and fine-tune your Blessing cast's effectiveness. 

 

Lets look at it this way: 

We used to have full invulnerability, but that went by the wayside since it was viewed as...lets call it too easy mode. As long as Trin kept Blessing rolling, you could throw any thought to tactical gameplay out the window since, well, you're invulnerable. 

So DE ditches invul and we get 90%DR. But it's the same thing. Just now you take some damage. Slight damage that Trin is going to touch up every 24 sec or so. And that's all she does. She doesn't need Link. You just spammed Blessing as your timer came up since it was the only thing of significance and if you built for extreme duration (and a lot did), Link became an also-ran since it had no range. Some of us did layer Link and Blessing back then (for something like 99.4% DR) which meant the next change didn't affect us much...

So DE makes it 50% with some strength scaling. Now Link matters (to Trin anyway) more. So now you actually have to balance how you set Trin up. You can do the EV thing with minimal duration, but it's all you do (sound familiar?). Or you can build around layering defenses and make yourself both an anchor for the team, a buffer for the team, and a healer for the team. There is some degree of choice here. Not much, but some, which is more than the last two iterations. 

Now I've played Trin since I started the game. She was my second warframe and the one that basically got me to try the game. I've always built around Blessing (and frankly regard the EV build as an abomination). I build around both Link and Blessing and EV is there to keep that all rolling. It benefits the team (assuming they're in range, which frequently they are not...), but it's all part of a gestalt. 

That I don't want to see changed just because of some flavor-of-the-week suggestions or someone wants her to be Saryn or Mirage or Gara or whathaveyou. She works and fills a need. You don't always need her, but if she's around you can do more. And if you do need her, then there's no real substitute. Also, she can do her own thing if necessary. She might not be best, but she's always consistant: you can play Horatius at the gate on demand.