Spiral Knights - Catalyzer Gun

Catalyzer Gun

10 replies [Last post]

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 01:26

Jes-Turr

TL;DR Please buff the Catalyzer so that the explosion from an ignited charge shot ignites every other charge shot within the initial explosion radius, even if it's on a different monster.

The catalyzer is a great gun, albeit underused, mainly because
a) It's really only effective with a team of them (still lethal on its own, though)
b) It's brother delivers the same area-effect type damage on a shorter, simpler basis

Now I've been trying to figure this gun out for a while now because it's REALLY COOL, but I can't completely understand it. So far, all I can think of where it would benefit in comparison to it's brother is the delayed-damage effect, where things that gradually heal off damage can be killed instantly with several shots, and also as an area-effect gun.

Being a team based gun, however, I thought it was going to be oriented to chain reactions. I was wrong. Loading many bullets on seperate things yields no results compared to a bunch on a single enemy. Shooting an enemy would only ignite bullets surrounding that enemy, nothing else. The metagame for the gun then is to make one creature a mobile bomb, but in that case, the Pulsar is better, so really the catalyzer is just a really bad pulsar for kiting enemies in arenas and killing buffed enemies with healers.

PLEASE make it so that, when you hit an enemy and the charge shots around it explode, any other enemy with charge shots caught in that explosion also have their charge shots explode. This gun will become more team oriented and allow for many more strategies for a lot more situations, E.G. loading a line of enemies with a single charge shot and causing a chain reaction down them all. It will also make it less difficult to decipher which monster has the bullet orbiting it in a large crowd, a problem I encounter a lot.

Thanks for taking the time out to read my Great Wall of China, I love Spiral Knights with all my heart and appreciate what you guys have done for us players so far.

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 01:34

Bluebrawler

*insert subject here*

I'm BAACCK.

Pulsar > Catalyzer

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 01:52

Jes-Turr

The only reason Pulsar >

The only reason Pulsar > Catalyzer
is because the Pulsar is a standalone type of gun with it's own concept and the catalyzer (while it LOOKS and FEELS like a different gun) is practically a bad Pulsar. Everything that the Catalyzer can do that the Pulsar can't is hampered by the fact that shooting an enemy only ignites its orbits. Which is what a Pulsar is for.

Catalyzer = Spoon and Fork
Pulsar = Spork

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 04:45

Zeddy

Dat sticky grenade launcher

The Biohazard's main purpose, I've found, is fighting a cluster of enemies that have a healer amongst them. A healer can not heal away Catalyzer charges, so you're free to unload them without progress on the enemy being set back. You can then detonate these charges and kill an enemy instantly. Failing that, they'll still get poisoned and unhealable. Biohazard is shadow-based, doing most damage to jellies and gremlins, both which are enemy types you can herd around in large clusters.

It's also more effective on single targets. I kill lumbers faster with Biohazard than Polaris.

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 06:49

Aureate

Processing Thoughts of You Always

@Bluebrawler: This is not the place to announce your long-vaunted comeback. Your non sequitur internet pictures are neither necessary nor wanted in this thread, and saying Pulsar > Catalyser isn't helpful and doesn't actually contribute anything.

@OP: +1
It doesn't make much sense that a detonated charge shot doesn't set off other charge shots. I had something of an idea I could start a massive chain reaction and devastate jellies, but instead I just got this midget explosion. It was somewhat disappointing, so I'm all for this.

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 07:03

Dagunner

blue brawler please

blue brawler please stop commenting to post with an irrelevant pic. And that does sound good though what i think also be good if the switch the gun the other way around the normal bullets orbit and the charge attack ignites. the bullet hit then explodes, any bullets hit by the explosion explode. Doing that will make the biohazard equal to the polaris allowing it to collect a large group of enemies and letting them all be poisoned in one charge. the reason it would be good switched around is because in an extremely hard level such as a shadow lair level even though the charge may only take a second, some places doing it 20 times would be too impractical due to the extremely high amount of monsters, obstacles, etc.

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 07:37

Aureate

@Dagunner

I suspect that would make the catalyser WORSE.
It would become more difficult to execute a damaging attack, as you'd need to charge it up just to get any damage whatsoever... not everyone is in a situation where they can set up lots of explosions, and sometimes you just want the plain old bullets.

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 08:32

Hmmnm

Good idea. But I think it needs one slight change.

Two more more useless thing about catalyzer is:
1. you have to reshoot an an enemy to cause damage
2. if an ally kills the enemy that you tagged, all of the orbiting bullets go to waste.

The orbiting bullets should also explode if it stuck to the enemy for 20 sec, or if the tagged enemy dies.

Extra benefits:
1.This would let swordies take advantage or catalyzer tags, and help shove the bombs into crowds of enemies with brandish/sealed sword charges.
2. The gun will work more like sticky grenades. You can just concentrate on tagging enemies.
3. It might be useful for PvP to finish off frozen enemies...

By the way, since the orbiting shots ignores blocks and switches, shouldn't it also ignore shields?

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 09:59

Geregias

i am disappointed whenever i pull out my Neutralizer currently, the concept was great but the way it works is pretty weak

chaining charge shots would make it so much more useful, especially among large groups of enemies where it can become difficult to land a shot on a tagged enemy (playing with lag only makes it worse)

@Hmmnm i would like to say i agree with your points, but i have a feeling that it would change it from a gun with a partially unique function to a ranged bomb (but that doesnt mean i dont get annoyed when the enemy dies before i'm able to set off the charge, or two, and it's wasted)

allowing any catalyser shot (a team of catalyser users perchance) to detonate charges alongside chaining would be a nice addition, myself and a friend often used to use our catalysers together and it irritated me that i couldn't detonate the charges they had tagged enemies with and vice versa - it would greatly increase the effectiveness of a team using catalysers, but if added in addition with the charge chaining again it may become slightly overpowered (in pve at least, the pulsar will still dominate LD)

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 12:53

Jes-Turr

@Hmmnm I agree with Geregias

@Hmmnm I agree with Geregias on the point that it might make the Neutralizer too good xD
In all honesty, the issue of swordsman killing off monsters before I can detonate the charge shot can't really be fixed by buffing the gun. That's just being an insensitive team-mate.

Mon, 07/02/2012 - 14:14

#10

Hmmnm

oh well...

@Geregias i've always thought of the polaris as a ranged bomb, and while catalyzer has the ability to turn enemies into bombs.
So the change was intended to make catalyzer a sort of delayed polaris, except without the reliable knockback.

And really, it isn't an insensitive damage buff. It only makes catalyzer much easier to use.

But point taken. The catalyzer line has some serious potential, if a small change like that can make it OP.

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Catalyzer Gun