Spiral Knights - Not all sunshine and rainbows

Not all sunshine and rainbows

20 replies [Last post]

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 20:47

Holy-Nightmare

The Catalyzer series, prior to the update this gun was looked down upon as a soloer's weapon since using it in a party for the charges never worked. Now this poor gun has sunk even lower, it forces players to use detonations whereas we used to could get through in parties by acting like the Valiance without knockback, now this gun is almost impossible to use in parties and a bigger pain for soloing.

The new charge attack has terrible range when it comes to detonating tags, the charge bullet is super slow, and the tags do hardly any damage, you can get more DPS by just using the charge bullet for damage.

This poor gun has fallen into the pit of forgotten items with Bombastic demo, shards, and the BAB

(aside from this the GU has no complaints from me)

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 22:07

Midnight-Dj

They should have taken my advice:

-Make Catalyzer charge time longer, extending it by three times.
-Instead of shooting one slow charged shot, this charge shoots out 3 and they home in on random enemies within the mob.
-One normal shot, as long as it hits one of the enemy that was tagged, all 3 charged orbs blow up.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 01:05

Godzy

I actually like the change to

I actually like the change to cata line, specifically my Biohazard
But to each their own

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 01:22

Avihr

Void

I also like the changes to catalyzers, but I still find it way too hard to hit things with the dang slow charge to detonate them, specially dodgy enemies like wolvers, gremlins and also fiends, I think that the charge shot should have a wayyyy bigger detonating aura like idk how this is supposed to work but I think that this aura is really unnoticeable and I can barely distinguish if I actually hit a mob or the aura detonated the orbs, if this aura had the range of an actual bomb then maybe it could be used on parties, and it wouldn't be any more OP than the pulsar is.

And yes, sadly, using this gun in parties is still as dumb as it was before, but you can at least use the charge attack for dps, and poison seems to have a very good chance with it.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 02:01

Mtax-Forum

New Catalyzer isn't bad thing... but it's specific one now. I mean, there's no way to use it as only weapon - it will be only supporting weapon now, no other way. It's pretty good to have such thing, but still - as only weapon it sucks to ground and player will die faster than loading time on level.

Also this is now totally PvE gun now - U S E L E S S on lockdown. Totally, totally useless unless whole enemy team is recons or guardians - such team is on like 1 per 1000 games, duhhhhh.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 05:09

Thunder-The-Bright

algorithms are the solutions to any problem.

the charge attack can be used as a normal attack, and it does quite a bit of damage. I use the tags to scatter crowds and single out enemies quicker. you *can* use it the same way as before, but it's longer and less rewarding overall. the gun has changed, so you gotta change your strategies with it.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 06:16

Dreamless-Reaper

The issue

The new catalyzer mechanics is good but the only thing which in my opinion should have changed was the speed of the charged bullet,no matter how you look at it its too slow.
Try to use the charge in a party of 4 and you will end up struggling to hit the enemy with the charge due to players pushing enemies around with their attacks or shields.

What OOO could do to improve the gun is to :
1-Make the charge bullet faster(not as fast as the current in game guns)this makes it easier for players to use the charge and actually hit the enemy.
2-Another option will be to make the charge bullet even bigger without making it faster so that players cant complain that they wont be able to hit the enemy.

( best way to actually make OOO change this is to put a new topic in suggestion forums with all the ideas gathered in here ;0 )

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 07:27

Thunder-The-Bright

algorithms are the solutions to any problem.

dreamless, bombs have the same problem, and the real solution to it is teamwork. if you have a good team, they will take care of an enemy while you shoot the charge.
that being said, if bombers could have 1ce every time someone pushes an enemy out of a bomb, we would be millionares and we would rule SK.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 16:40

Rhagnarock

my 2 cents

If you really played with the Neutralizer with the new scheme, you'd know the only problem is flinging mobs 100 meters away... GOD DAMN it's annoying....

Other than that in DMG max it's pretty potent, even in FSC with 4 people, I was the only one using it and could make it work. You "choose" one, tag him 7-8 times (3-4 double shot rounds) shield bump into the fray and ignite it to clear the room

It's effective. I would love to have a party of only Neutralizer to see it in FSC (it deals 211 dmg per bombs)

Before it was garbage, now it's potent. Some people may never be able to use it, I'm having quite a blast (litterally) with it

Of course Brandish/Blitz > everything but Neutralizer is REALLY REALLY fun to play with ^ ^

Edit: Also you only have to hit the bombs circling around mobs to ignite them, you don't have to hit the enemy dead on, which is convenient cause you can ignite 2-3 enemy tag with 1 charged bullet

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 16:58

Holy-Nightmare

@thunder

If a catalyzer could out damage some of the more popular weapons or provided an immense utility like vortexes or hazes then teamwork would make sense. This just isn't the case with the catalyzer.

This weapon may find a place in parties with the same weapon but if anything this update has made this weapon worse in standard multiplayer.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 17:48

#10

Godzy

@rhag

I'd love to join a full cata party, most I've seen are fellow Biohazard users
My Neutralizer is ready to go as well

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 21:20

#11

Avihr

Void

Even in FSC with 4 people, I was the only one using it and could make it work. You "choose" one, tag him 7-8 times (3-4 double shot rounds) shield bump into the fray and ignite it to clear the room.

Tagging a slow and stupid zombie and then blowing it up must be like the easiest thing in the world to do and probably the only place where this gun has a bit of usefulness, and even then your team mates have to task themselves to try to work with you and not kill the monsters you're tagging or separating them too much from each other so they don't make your catalzyer detonations be such a waste of time to kill a single mob, then there are other weapons that are way better at dealing with huge crowds of zombies, like polaris, magnus charge shots (wich don't require you to waste as much time and effort to deal damage to a group of monsters) a blast bomb, Divine avenger and the best of all: the good ole brandish spam-to-win. all of these weapons require less effort, skill and teamwork and even luck and also do their job faster and safer than any catalyzer could. (because if something obstructs the way between you and that monster you're tagging you're basically screwed and that is very normal thing to happen especially if you're playing with other people) and I doubt that you will make this gun work anywhere outside FSC or some particular places where there is huge clusters of slow moving enemies, so I'd rather change that "even in FSC" -like it's such an accomplishment for a weapon to deal with the monsters there- to "only in FSC".
Catalyzer still remains as the most impractical and hard to use weapon in my list.
ofc, all of this is assuming that you're playing with a party and not solo, because this gun is still pretty powerful and useful while soloing.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 18:24

#12

Rhagnarock

my 2 cents

@ Aviri the gun is fun to play with

Of course Brandish and blitz > anything

But it's more fun to play with now than before cause it was very slow, now it is much quicker to tag one... IDK what's everybody big deal, go grab a BKC, a black kat raiment, slaps some CTR VH and ASI VH on your brandishes, a flourish, a blitz and stop crying on the forum

The gun is wayyy more fun to have around than the other version of it. DA charge is too slow, Leviathan doesn't do enough dps, DVS not enough DPS, sudaruska too slow... there's brandish that rule supreme and blitz > everything for vana...

Anything can be used for JK/RT/Snarby.... Neutralizer does normal dmg, it can be grabbed anywhere... of course you don't use it against trojan, do you kill one with an acheron? no, but you CAN blow up zombies and the charge deals a good chunk of dps

Have you played with it back then? It was bad, now it's fun to play with and deals enough dmg to actually kill a mob in 5 seconds (as much as a brandish) it just lack the AoE of the brandish

Edit: I see the forumer are as happy going as before...

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 20:03

#13

Avihr

Void

Lol, I am not crying over anything and I certainly do not need more UVs I am pretty happy with the ones I have.

Your failure to comprehend my point is really amazing, IT DOES NOT MATTER if the gun is fun to use or not, I am talking about it being useful in parties and if the changes made to it actually helped, not if it is fun or not to use it, the gunner update was not about making guns fun to use, it was about balancing them and make them useful.

Catalyzers are still the most impractical and hard to use weapons and near useless in a party unless your team fully devotes to your catalyzer explosions, GL finding a team willing to do that, I am just highlighting the fact that this gun sucks because of this when compared to other weapons.

*edit* I will also say that this gun was definitely not worse than it was before the change than now, It is arguably still the same, sucks for parties and it's hard to detonate tags with it but you could always just use it for dps and poison, now it is simply easier and faster to tag enemies with orbs but detonating them is still quite hard and risky, this gun didn't see a huge an improvement from before to after the gunner update, now it just has a different way to be used.

Btw a DA takes less than 5 seconds to charge up and that is faster than tagging a monster 7 times and then hitting it with a charge (assuming that you don't miss your target a single time) and there is less risk in using it than your neutralizer.

Anyway, I see the forummer are just as ignorant as before...

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 22:30

#14

Qwez

I used the stun bug on my Neutralizer charge. Gratifying instant explosion at a distance.
If I could get stunned on demand... I'd totally take it even it if did damage.

Sun, 12/07/2014 - 22:41

#15

Holy-Nightmare

Even in a bad party you could

Even in a bad party you could use the old catalyzers to act as a non interfering gun, basically a slower valiance that people wouldn't get mad you for using on something they were about to brandish blast. We even had one with a higher poison rate than the OC.

The new ones are less viable in bad parties.

Mon, 12/08/2014 - 04:04

#16

Thunder-The-Bright

algorithms are the solutions to any problem.

sorry, I cannot see how you cannot use the charge as a main attack. it's fast to charge, it deals quite a bit of damage, and you pretty much use it as holy described "the old ways". if I'm solo, I'm definetly using the tags to scatter crowds cause it's not a crowd weapon anymore, but if I'm in a party with someone I usually stick to a target and charge shot him to death, which only takes 4-5 hits mind you.

Mon, 12/08/2014 - 08:09

#17

Rhagnarock

my 2 cents

The long range of the catalizer makes it extremely nice to finish off mobs in the distance without even being close to them.

It has some pros and cons but I think it's more useful the way it is now. Bare in mind I only play with friends I have on vocal that I have over 1k hours of gameplay with them. They instantly switch gameplay to use brandish charges to pile mobs together so I would finish them off with few tags...

I also see it as a moving time-bomb. You can use a remaining zombies to fully tag him, press a button to spawn enemy, shield bump into them and explode for quick clean-up.

IDK I'm loving it, it's better than before, the charge attack deal a lot of dmg (500 I believe?)... it's way better than what it was before IMO. I personally think a lot of people will dust off their Neutralizer and use them. But then again, I could be wrong.

I've always been a situational player, supporting and helping people while doing a lot of dps, the Neutralizer fit this role for me as it is great to save noobier people (long range). With more practice I will be able to choose where mobs will go according to the tags exploding around it (I got a mob that was in spikes, couples tiles in front of me, w/o aggro, fired 2 bullet, a charged and the mob was next to me)

I see great potential with this gun, plus shield switching with bio is kinda easy to do and a good indication of "maxed" tag since the green dot is easier to spot fading then the sea of Neutralizer

Edit: I also haven't used it as much before, but the tag system was pretty bad IMO and felt awkward. I didn't feel as powerful as I do now

Mon, 12/08/2014 - 12:13

#18

Holy-Nightmare

With such a massive change in

With such a massive change in mechanics it would be nice if we could have both versions of the catalyzer. The new mechanics are basically a new weapon entirely.

Mon, 12/08/2014 - 12:14

#19

Gbot-Vtwo

Ok....

Tue, 12/09/2014 - 14:15

#20

Fangel

Catalyzers are still good

A catalyzer is only as good as its user. The only change I'd like to see would be orbital detonations setting off other nearby orbitals.

Also the neutralizer charge shot did more damage than an effective acheron swing. At max damage with a damage up orb (both had these boosts, mind you). My neutralzer is only level 7 as is and I think it's great.
You can't use catalyzers as a gun like you used to. You have to use it as a utility. What it does in utility it does great. In a party, a catalyzer shouldn't be your primary damage source, but it should be used to spread enemies out, get them towards you, or deal a hefty sum of damage.

And just a quick note I wanted to say Rhagnarock is that it's not exactly simple to just "go grab a BKC, a black kat raiment, slaps some CTR VH and ASI VH on your brandishes, a flourish, a blitz", especially for the standard player. Most players don't have millions upon millions of crowns laying around and don't have optimal gear to their playstyle.

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Not all sunshine and rainbows