Spiral Knights - Catalyzer changes and 2 more lines

Catalyzer changes and 2 more lines

6 replies [Last post]

Tue, 09/15/2015 - 11:59

Holy-Nightmare

First lets talk about the Catalyzer changes.

The Gun would get a 4 shot clip.

Standard Bullets would still do 1 damage upon contact with the enemy and will still attach to the hit enemy.
The range would be halved for the Standard Bullet.

At the end of the Standard Bullet's range (or if it hits a wall or unbreakable block) it will stop and stay in place. It will stay here for a while before fading, if an enemy makes contact it will deal 1 damage and attach to the enemy (this will reset the despawn timer).

If the enemy a bullet is attached to dies all the attached bullets will become floating again (this will not reset the despawn time)

The Charge attack range would stay the same. The Damage would be reduced and the Charge time slightly increased. The charge bullet speed would also be increased.

If an enemy is hit by the charge attack ALL of the Standard Bullets (whether attached or not) will gravitate towards the enemy (or enemies) hit with the charge. If multiple players are using Catalyzer Charges the Standard Bullets would gravitate towards the nearest enemy.

Once the gravitating bullet hits the enemy it explodes, if the enemy dies before all the bullets make contact the extra ones would revert back to floating (but would not reset despawn timer)

Now you can use this gun in battle without having to worry about missing shots or allies killing your targets since every bullet you fire can be used.

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Biohazard: Yes this is a gun we already have, I would just like for the damage type to be changed to Elemental and for the standard bullet's appearance to be changed to green bubbles. This would be nice for countering the healers in construct levels and devastating undead.

Gelatinizer: This would be a fun little gun and would have some really neat bullets. It would be Pierce and would deal Moderate Stun. The bullets would look like a Yellow Glop drop with yellow spikes. This would be a good gun for dealing with Gorgos and Chromalisks.

GeoSaline: This gun is much like the Gelatinizer in one aspect (that is, if you can figure it out). It would be Shadow and would deal Strong Shock. The bullets would look like small floating crystals with a shock aura around them. This would be great for slimes, gremlin, construct.

Neutralizer: Yes this is an old one too but I want to give it something special. Pure Normal, no status but with one unique effect. IF the player lays out a minefield of the type damage bullets and activates them with the Neutralizer then the damage those bullets would do is increased by 10%.

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But wait, there's more.

If you activate one status catalyzer floaters/Tags with a different status catalyzer then all the bullets that hit that enemy can deal either status. If some are left after and you use the first status catalyzer then only one status is dealt.

Example: You lay down a bunch of Geosaline Floaters and activate it with a Biohazard. Now all the Geosaline bullets that hit that enemy can deal poison as well as shock.

Tue, 09/15/2015 - 12:12

Vohtarak-Forum

interesting, I like it

now all we need is the lockdown bug with the normal shots to be fixed

Tue, 09/15/2015 - 13:54

Fangel

Hmm.

Interesting. I would say give it an inverse pulsar treatment, in that the bullets slow down over time rather than expand. Could travel 50% of current distance before slowing, and an additional 20% before completely stopping.

Charge bullet should still do large amounts of damage to counteract the low initial shots. New mechanics would make the standard shots more workable rather than make the charge shot less viable. It's very satisfying to deal acheron-level damage with the charge attack's bullet.

Faster bullet would be good - why not also have the charge attack have slight homing capabilities? It could deviate 2 tiles off its initial course, and be able to make a single 90 degree turn to hit an enemy. This would make the piercing variants (which I'm iffy about but I'll let work for now, especially since floaty bullets is a good way to make a piercing gun able to hit piercing-weak enemies) less able to dodge the bullet effectively.

I'd say make any bullet that isn't attached to a monster but is activated by the charge not cause knockback on whatever it hits. I'd also say make them track their target until hitting them. This might make a catalyzer able to be competitive in lockdown as a way to create a minefield, or even better send a bunch of bullets flying towards a retreating striker.

Tue, 09/15/2015 - 16:44

Fehzor

An interesting set of ideas. I'll break this down-

Bullets stop in mid air, and become like a minefield

The best part of this by far. It would allow the weapon to fight against things like devilites, would provide a way for many bullets to end up on one side of an enemy for positioning and more.

(A+)

Tweak the charge time, damage, and shot speed.

A decent idea that I've been suggesting in part for a while now. With the other suggestions it makes sense but is generally not explained why this is necessary, except for that it would help the feel of the weapon along.

(B+)

Bullets home in on enemies and explode!

This sounds a bit farfetch'd and incredibly strong. It would make the weapon incredibly powerful and chaotic which would be fun but also rather spammy and impossible. It would also have interesting implications for lockdown, which I would love to see play out but am also scared of.

(C-)

Damage type changes!

Biohazard to elemental

Elemental + poison would be mediocre for undead/fiends as those are typically resistant to it while gremlins are weak to poison. This would make for a very interesting variant, but I'd much rather have the shadow version. Having all four damage types would be questionable as well, since pulsar did not receive such treatment.

(C)

Piercing+Stun

This combination is acceptable but somewhat over used. A piercing variant would however complete the set quite nicely, and provide a wonderful counter to beasts/fiends if applicable. It would however have trouble fighting many of the enemies if the homing mechanic (or something similar) was not presented.

(A-)

Shadow+Shock

Generally I'm a sucker for this combination because it ROCKSalt. The synergy with shock would be huge for the line, and this combination would be quite respectable while working with biohazard, regardless of its elemental status.

(A+)

Neutralizer gives +10% damage! Other types share status!

Another stroke of genius! A reason to mix up the types would be very welcomed, as it would provide incentive for players to cooperate and plan out their missions rather than just bring all of the same weapon type.

(A+)

Holy-Nightmare's Overall GPA (relative to my opinions)

--This suggestion; Catalyzer changes--
A+ = 4.0
B+ = 3.0
C = 1.66
C- = 1.33
A- = 3.33
A+ = 4.0
A+ = 4.0

This suggestion's average: 3.04 = A-

Which is pretty good.

What I would change about this-

I would like you to consider making Catalyzer's charge simply detonate all bullets with the effects you've given sans homing; i.e. they'd just explode wherever they are, regardless of floating status. This would make it much safer and reliable to detonate, and would make it so that team mates pushing mobs in random directions could only help you by moving enemies into your bullets. I would also leave biohazard as it is now, though changing it wouldn't be the worst thing.

Wed, 09/16/2015 - 08:21

Holy-Nightmare

Addressing concerns

@Fangel

I do like the bullets slowing down as they reach the end of their range, this would greatly help players realize the range of the gun.

Despite Peirce weak enemies dodging all you need is one charge attack to land to get a kill. Especially if you follow the current Catalyzer attack pattern: Standard shot, Standard Shot, Hold 3rd for Charge. These new mechanics would allow you to put 3 mines on the field before holding your charge. A slight trajectory deviation on the Charge would be useful though but it would have to be kept manageable.

@ Fehzor

The charge attack is getting nerfed a bit due to how much more viable these changes would make the weapon. The massive damage of the charge shouldn't easily surpass the regular bullets. Right now the charge deals about 4 times as much damage as the standard bullet, has knockdown, and no knockback. To get the most out of this gun you should setup floaters/tags before using a charge.

Enemies would still have their bullet reactions (shields, dodge, teleport, etc) and while a bit faster the Charge would still travel slow enough to not make AT effective. Not to mention in LD Invinciframes would still kick in, but you'd be getting better damage than the current catalyzer.

Poison Shadow already has 3 weapons to choose from, all more powerful and viable than the Biohazard, despite being event weapons. Poison/Elemental would be a unique combo that would make for great damage stacking vs. Undead/Construct. The whole point of this change is to make the Catalyzer a barrage weapon rather than a single blast. Some of the first targeting bullets would likely cause poison and those following it would deal even more damage making it far more devastating than the current version.

I had thought about Peirce/Freeze but the whole "breaks it's own freeze so it sucks" argument came to mind. Besides.... there are only 3 weapons that deal Peirce/stun (5 Fire/elemental, 4 poison/Shadow, 6 Shock/elemental, 4 Freeze/elemental).... clearly not as overused as other combos.

I do like Fangel's slight homing on the charge suggestion and for the kill all you need is to land one charge. Wolvers are easy to read and Pit Bosses are sitting ducks. The only real threats would be Devilites, Trojans, and of course Greavers.... but lets face it, they're meant to be hard.

I suppose that if bullets are left to expire on their own they would explode... with a penalty of course. 1/3rd the power and no status on the explosion and only damage to the enemies tagged (if floaters then range is reduced).

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Lockdown use:

You (and maybe another player) lay and maintain a minefield of floaters and launch charges at incoming enemies.

LD counter: strafe your opponent and strike when they miss. If you collect tags you can go to base to remove them on the HP pad or allow an allied Guardian to cover you. (Guardian shield will block charge bullets)

Wed, 09/16/2015 - 11:31

Vohtarak-Forum

for lockdown

what I meant was that in lockdown detonating tags does no damage at all
the only fix to this would be make the charge and tags actually deal damage like theyre supposed to, right now its bugged, so even with these changes its original intent will still be useless

Wed, 09/16/2015 - 15:21

Dibsville

Honestly just cbf to give my opinion anymore because I've not once seen a realistic balance change to something suggested despite some of them being absolutely amazing.

So I'm just going to say +1 to everything and move on.

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Catalyzer changes and 2 more lines