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On B.E.A.S.T. pvp
Let me preface this by saying that I am unsure if it goes here or in feedback, so I put it here. If possible and it's in the wrong place, someone with power and authority please move it.
On B.E.A.S.T.,
Some recent changes (most notably, the removal of limb damage) has left the B.E.A.S.T. class in an awkward place. It can do more internal damage than it can muscular damage, but no matter what it has a slower potential for subsys damage than Scoundrel or Nanoseer, both of whom only have to push down a single subsystem to get to their instas AND who have several bursty mechanics available to them to make this happen.
The removal of limb damage overall was a good thing, but it removed (solo) access to one of our most important skills for pushing down muscular damage: pound. It also removed our biggest source of muscular damage (a broken limb), but that was probably not a very bad thing overall.
Playing BEAST, since the changes, has felt a lot like a fighting game in PVP situations. I like this. I like this a LOT, actually. I enjoy fighting games and, whether intentional or not, whether I am playing the class well or not, a lot of its parts have felt like the fundamentals of one of my favorite genres; jousting etc thorugh the use of airshot and wallop, just to close the distance for an in-your-face damage combo (legclamp, armvice). Firing a projectile to defend your approach (airshot) to trade hits (armvices), or hitting them with a volley from afar (airshot into overclocked railgun hits), so on and so forth. It's exhilarating to play, from a fluff standpoint - but unrewarding right now.
Along this same vein, I have two suggestions for the B.E.A.S.T. to both further our ability to compete as well as really hammer on that fighting game vibe, both applying to SUITTECH BOOT.
Currently, SUITTECH BOOT is basically just a weapon-agnostic (and slower) versiion of wallop. In practical use, it's not super useful, as our main focus should be on muscular damage, not internal regardless of whatever weapon we are wielding - if we get to the point we have the minigun, for example, we have a much better tool to push internal damage down.
* Change BOOT to afflict with VERTIGO instead of WINDED, providing us a chance at actually landing POUND in this century;
* Add an effect to BOOT where, if the target already has Vertigo and the Weakknees affliction, it "launches them into the air" for 2.5 seconds. Realistically, this would be an affliction indicating that someone is vulnerable to being GRAPPLEd, without the other benefits/penalties to being caught in the air. You will note that BOOT takes 3 seconds, so this would not be usable normally; instead, it would mean that the BOOT needs to be OVERCLOCKed, which can only be done once every five minutes.
This kind of setup requires a big investment and some luck, not to mention risk/reward, but if it pays off then it would help bridge the gap between BEAST and other classes's regular subsys damage per second.
I know this was long, and thank you for taking the time to read it. You may now flame me for being trash.
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Comments
One thought I had was to have scorched give 3% or something muscular damage, instead of the measily 0.5% it does now. Would require we have already damaged their muscular system some, would sacrifice the hinder of armclamp/staggering, and couldn't be spammed because any scorch afflictions past the maximum they can hold would be resisted. Though, changing the scorched system damage would probably make Engi's flamethrower turret absolutely insane.
I agree with the general statement that the kit feels fun conceptually. For the most part it matches the visuals of how I imagine somebody fighting as a BEAST would look.
The change to give Boot vertigo instead of winded is one I support. A big part of this class's kit is heavy muscular damage, and the best way to get that is Pound. Currently there is *almost no way to use pound, as nothing in our kit will leave an opponent prone long enough. Vertigo would help provide an opening for this key ability.
I like the suggestion of boot launching airborne for grapple, but I think writing this in the way you suggested hardly ever leaves room for the ability to be used. It is good in concept, and would be very strong, but maybe we can think of some other limitation other than a 5 minute cooldown.
I think an interaction I would like to see introduced is something that scales with afflictions on our target. The Boot launch-up-in-the-air suggestion was along those lines. Have certain attacks give additional effects if there is a combination of afflictions present. We have some simple interactions like this already: WB when daze/stagger, arm or leg damage with Airshot/Hobble debuffs respectively, plasmablade with scorch stacks.
Other than airshot+Armvice though, these are not combos usually worth using right now for varying reasons, like prone not doing much currently, WB giving little subsys and no aff, scorch being bad, etc. However, these interactions are fun and if their effects are worthwhile, I think they provide more strategic and fun combat.
Other than plasmablade/incin with multiple scorch stacks, I don't think there is anything that scales with raw number of afflictions in a subsystem. That could also be something to consider.
*okay, if an opponent had Weakknees, we waited for them to do something that took more than 3 sec of balance, and immediately Legclamp and queue pound, we might make it in time. The stars have to align too much for this one IMO.
This could all work with Nykara's ideas, although putting vertigo on boot might be kinda crazy because Vertigo is a really strong aff! I think it'd be balanced by being on headshot. We both like the 'setup' idea, as evidenced by the grapple idea Nykara has!
Here are a couple of ideas that are still very rough:
Sunder path
Lower the requirements for a successful Sunder to 50% muscular damage and a total of 80% muscular and internal.
This puts Beast somewhat closer to what the other classes have in terms of instakill requirements. This also cements the focus of the Sunder kill path on the muscular subsystem.
Incinerate path
Change scorched stacks to require 10% internal each.
Change Incinerate to be a health-based instakill. Each stack of scorched increases the threshold 10%. So at 1 scorched stack they will die at 10% health. At 5 stacks they will die at 50% health.
Tune (i.e. significantly buff) the formulas for skills that scale with scorched like plasmablade, incendiary, and conflagrate so they are actually worth using. Lower damage of most MWP/Suittech skills.
This changes the incinerate kill path to firstly be internal subsystem focused while also consolidating the pseudo-kill path that Beasts have in damage overload into Plasmacasting as well.
edit: Sorry, hit post too fast. For one, vertigo doesn't tick at all on the STAND command, or work right now; it's bugged; but when it does I can't imagine it ticks more than 50% of the time.
Both Sunder and Incinerate have very similar requirements. Both require a large amount of muscular damage and then have it topped off with extra muscular or internal damage for Sunder, or even more muscular and a few balances to apply scorched. Because of how similar the conditions are, what will be most effective for building towards one will be most effective for building towards the other. This means that the Beast offence will almost always start with the same setup. With how straightforward Beast is to begin with, this makes Beast a bit boring
I would like to propose the following changes: Sunder pathLower the requirements for a successful Sunder to 50% muscular damage and a total of 80% muscular and internal.
Give a way for Beast to give tender.
This brings the Beast instakill requirement closer to the other classes and cements this path as the muscular subsystem focused one.
Incinerate path
Change scorched stacks to require 10% internal each.
Change Incinerate to be a health-based instakill. Each stack of scorched increases the threshold 10%. So at 1 scorched stack they will die at 10% health. At 5 stacks they will die at 50% health.
Tune (i.e. significantly buff) the damage formulas of scorched-based skills such as Incendiary, Plasmablade, and Conflagrate. Lower damage of most MWP and Suittech skills.
This changes the Incinerate path to focus on the internal subsystem and consolidates the damage of Beast into Plasmacasting.
[edit] I do agree that dla/dra/dll/drl could use a bump to 250 sys damage, though, 100%.
[edit2 as I just saw boop's post]
I actually like this a lot. I haven't the faintest issue with us taking longer than other classes, because we do good health damage, but 100%+ is an exceptionally difficult number to get to, until you get there, and then it happens very suddenly. It feels WEIRD.
I would like to see the scorched synergies be more impactful, plasmablade is awful because its still a damage malus if they have one scorched stack, barely breaks even at 2 and only starts to get worth it at 3 stacks. By the time they can hold 3 scorch stacks, their muscular damage is almost low enough to switch to spoolup and sunder them instead. Conflagrate is such a joke, at -5- scorched stacks with douse, it does 600 damage and cannot be spammed due to the insane amount of plasma it consumes. Douse doesn't even increase plasmablades damage too, from what I found.
Not to mention that you can't refresh scorched duration if they are at the maximum amount of stacks they can hold, because the effect gets resisted and doesn't refresh the 12s timer. And that even when adding up the damage ticks, combust does less damage then an armvice or legclamp and a pitiful 0.5% muscular damage. It is really hard to justify spending balance on any plasma stuff right now.
I don't think BEAST is in that bad of shape, I honestly don't think any class is right now. Just a lot of classes, including BEAST, are narrowed down to fewer skills and have odd synergies or absolete kill paths. It'll take time to balance them out, but the combat will feel richer and more versatile once they are.
Nanoseer just got a really cool QoL change with oblivion swap being usable off-balance; perhaps we could get the same thing for most self-buffs that don't do anything? For example, SUITTECH OVERCLOCK and MWP SWAP both don't do anything to our target & take no balance, but are really clunky to use with the way queueing is.