Spiral Knights - Revamp the Catalyzer series?

Revamp the Catalyzer series?

22 replies [Last post]

Wed, 11/30/2011 - 18:07

Pyrosaber

I've just got a catalyzer and noticed that it's not a very used gun. I think that because the pulsar series makes the catalyzer obsolete.

So here are some suggestions to improve the catalyzer.

Slightly increase the damage (maybe) (weaker than an expanded pulsar shot)

Make the charge shots have a "chain-reaction" effect.
Example: You charge shot 5 enemies each with 1 shot stuck to them. You then shoot a bullet and if the explosion from the charge shot is closer to the other charge shots they will explode too.

Wed, 11/30/2011 - 18:30

Slayzz

I only think the catalyzer

I only think the catalyzer series needs to be improved in two aspects: (Biohazard in particular):
1) Anyone notice that the bio's DMG bars and umbra DMG bars are the same? Yet umbra damage does 30 more DMG in tier 3 stratum 3 than bio. (got info from random video). They need to make the bars match the damage.

2) Neutralizer has slightly more DMG than bio, which is normal because of it's effect. Compared to pulsar line however, it is unbalanced. Polaris damage bars are exactly the same as the supernova, yet it has a status effect too. Maybe this is why Polaris is OP....It's not balanced correctly.

Thu, 12/01/2011 - 08:52

Happyapathy

@Slayzz

overall your saying the amount of damage the catalyzer deals needs to be increased, I do agree the catalyzer would be more useful if the resulting blast it makes did enough damage to be worth the time it takes to set it up.

Thu, 12/01/2011 - 09:52

Myphenox

id agree here that the

id agree here that the catalyzer is a bit outranked by other guns. needs to have something done about it. like the charge attack idea by the way pyrosaber.

Thu, 12/01/2011 - 10:27

Orangeo

It's actuualy good for PVE,

It's actuualy good for PVE, but it's horrible in PVP. Too hard to hit things with the slow moving charge. Slow bullets, and a slow fire rate since using the normal bullets sucks. I think that making the normal shots attatch to people and having the charge detonate would make the cata very useful along with some ASI and CTR. (Need gun CTR armor)

I also like your idea for the charge. How about making it so the bullets don't die out if they detonate something? So if you got a bunch of guys in a row, all with bombs on them, the bullet will travel through all of them and detonate each one. Coupled with the large reach on the detonater you suggested, you'd be able to make up for the time it took to set all the bombs.

Fri, 12/02/2011 - 00:55

Kimahso

I agree with this, I've got a

I agree with this, I've got a Volatile Catalyzer and it isn't great.

Fri, 12/02/2011 - 13:16

Espeonage

Chain reaction effectThis

Chain reaction effect
This already occurs most of the time, actually.

Stat info
The bars never have and aren't intended to be precise.

Charge damage
The damage from the charge attack is over 240% base, as it is.

Neutralizer vs. Biohazard
Biohazard. Unfortunately, Neutralizer just doesn't fill a niche.

@topic:
I would love if the charge shots homed-in at long range.

Fri, 12/02/2011 - 16:50

Mohandar

this

I would love if the charge shots homed-in at long range.

I think this would solve many of the problems. Give the charge shots the homing capabilities of a T2 rocket/howlitzer, and it'll be sufficiently easy to stick shots to monsters. As it stands, it's a serious pain to stick enough charges to get a satisfying boom going.

Fri, 12/02/2011 - 17:42

Thimol

-----

I would love if the charge shots homed-in at long range.

Three cheers for Espeonage, and three votes for his idea.

Sat, 12/03/2011 - 02:26

Triplescrew

!!!

1) "chain reaction" must be fixed. Now it work like: " If your detonated sphere HITS another sphere it will also explode" FIX: If u set up some spheres and hit 1 of them with normal shot they all will explode (even if they in different places)
2)Bullet velocity fix...well now bullets fly slower than i walk. Its kinda suc and i dunno why it wuz made that way....I suggest to make them as fast as any 2* alchemer's bullets (exept for "charged" which is fine as it is )

Sat, 12/03/2011 - 03:14

#10

Gwenyvier

1) Anyone notice that the

1) Anyone notice that the bio's DMG bars and umbra DMG bars are the same? Yet umbra damage does 30 more DMG in tier 3 stratum 3 than bio. (got info from random video). They need to make the bars match the damage.

Biohazard can Poison, Umbra Driver can not. You pay for the ability to inflict a status or being better vs a certain monster type with slightly lower base damage. It can be seen on many weapon lines, most notably the Flourish lines, Elemental Alchemer lines, and Calibur lines.

~Gwen

Sat, 12/03/2011 - 05:00

#11

Ufana

Also umbra driver is 2shot,

Also umbra driver is 2shot, bio is 3shot.

Homing would be great though. The charge attack as it is is a neat idea but mostly inefficient to the point that it's useless. My guess would be whoever designed that only tested it playing solo and not even to the extent of comparing it to other ways to clean a room.

Wed, 12/21/2011 - 07:19

#12

Myphenox

heres a thought. the charge

heres a thought. the charge attack is one that obits enemies right and doesnt do any damage itself? then why is it blocked by shields? could perhaps be a attack that ignores shields. meaning attach even if theyre shield is up. going through shield would be unfair. i also think it should have a larger blast radius or perhaps shoot two orbiting each other or three on higher star levls.
e.g.
2 star- 1 round
3 star-1 round
4 star- 2 rounds
5 star- 3 rounds

really the blast is just getting bigger and the damage higher on the unfortnate centre victim, right at th center of all three blasts. also damaging to those around him. within 1 or more of the blasts. bullets could also travel a bit faster on both charge and normal. just a bit.

Wed, 01/04/2012 - 09:28

#13

Hmmnm

The charge shots should explode

I really love the catalyzer's sticky bomb gameplay idea. However, the fact that charged shots disappear if you don't shoot them really ruins this gun.

Why?
1. It makes this gun difficult to use on very large crowds because the enemy with the charged will be "folded" back into the middle of the crowd, making it very difficult to set the explosions off. The fact that this gun also only has very slow and small bullets makes this problem even worse.

2. Your teammates might kill off the enemy with all the charged shots before you can set off the explosion, thus wasting all your charged shots.

THE CHARGE SHOTS SHOULD EXPLODE INSTEAD OF DISAPPEARING
after approx. 20 sec or if the charged enemy dies.

Pros:
1. You don't have to worry about wasted charged shots. You can concentrate on tagging enemies.
2. You can use sword charges to throw charged enemies into the crowd instead of shield bumping. It might also help sword users out by knocking back enemies while they are recovering from their attack.

3. Although it is still very hard to hit enemies in PVP, you can turn other knights into TIME BOMBS. Just imagine successfully tagging a couple enemies, sit back, and watch them scatter in panic.

Cons:
The explosions might go off unexpectedly, throwing enemies all over the place.

What do you guys think?

Wed, 01/04/2012 - 09:31

#14

Hmmnm

By the way, I totally agree

By the way, I totally agree that the charge shots should ignore shields

Thu, 01/12/2012 - 14:22

#15

Seiei

Personally, I would prefer if

Personally, I would prefer if they removed Catalyzer, and combined it with the Pulsar. Keep the Pulsar's normal shots, and add the Catalyzers charge shot. Kind of what they did with the sealed sword, have an elemental damage and a shadow damage gun, except you would also have a normal damage gun.

Thu, 01/12/2012 - 22:31

#16

Buckdida

A wall of text from a Biohazard user

Hmm. I find the Biohazard to be amazing, myself. Menders around? No problem. Poisons everything. I've actually cleared a gremlin/slime danger room this way in T3. And... there's also the hilarity of one-shotting a lumber if you stack up enough charges. You more or less use the gun as... a bomb. Except the bomb has a different kind of fuse. But it's still amazing for AOE damage like a bomber, but with the safety of a gun. The shadow bomb that bomers want? Really, it's this gun. Well, as a loose comparison.

I utilize a tactic I call "Carpet Bombing," which I find to be very effective way to use the gun. Simple: Just spam charge attacks into the crowd, while kiting normally as a gunner. After you've laid out about 4-7 charges, fire a three shot clip into crowd and watch the fireworks and poison. It can even work on mecha knights faster than normal guns, do to the fact the charge hits and sticks before the shield goes up- follow up shot detonates it, makes mecha go boom.

More or less, 1 v 1 there are many other better weapons to use to kill something faster. In a group of enemies against you, however, the gun can be as effective, or even more effective, than a bomb. Situation depending, of course. Still not a replacement for a good bomber, and fairly useless on wolvers and not as effective on Mecha Knights. But those three gunpuppies stacked together? Stack charges on the one in the middle and watch them all go up. That crowd of Jellies? Carpet bomb! Crowd of Gemlins? Carpet bomb then laugh as the menders mop up for you with a healing rune + Poison. Using this gun along with a piercing sword (should you be limited to two slots for weapons) is an extremely effective loadout.

I find that the gun is easy to use in solo play, but not in group play. Very difficult to use in group play, actually. Why? Because, as noted, the charge shots move slow, so it's hard to land on enemies that are agroed on other players. It's harder to predict where they're going to move, and the explosions that do happen can have the "Calibur Charge/Nitrome Spam knockback problems"- which, might I add, are harder to control because you have little control over the charge's orbit and placements when it all goes up. There have been plenty of times where I accidentally blasted a mid-attack lumber into my face. Ouch.

Noting that, I think the idea of timed exploding charges isn't the change we need. The knockback from the charge *I think* matches Nitrome levels, and can surpass that with stacked charges. I'd want to use my gun in a group, not get yelled at like the Caliber-charge-spammer that gets teammates killed.

I love the "homing shot on the charges" idea, but... I'm wondering if that might become overpowered? That little tweak might actually make the gun a weapon of choice for solo gunners, because it allows that carpet bombing strategy with greater ease, allowing gunners to use a "Fire and Forget" playstyle. In particular, note how gremlins dodge- backwards. With homing, the dodge would do absolutely nothing against this gun. Jellies wouldn't stand a chance because they would not ever get close enough.

I'm unsure of the charge shots being able to stick to shielded players or enemies. Again, this could get overpowered and it WOULD become the weapon of choice for gunners in ANY arena, and possibly many others, due to the mecha knight wave in the last room.

By the way, little known fact, to those complaining about the bullet speed. Yes, it's insanely slow at 2/3*, but as the gun ranks up to 5*, the bullet speed increases, making it far more useable. 4* is when it becomes far more easy to use (bullets become faster than your walking speed), 5* is amazing (more in line with "normal speed" gunshots, but still slowest compared to other 5* guns).

All this said: That's all for the Biohazard. I can't speak for the Normal Damage line Catalyzer. But knowing they're similar... I never need to use the Biohazard on Zombies or Chromalisks, as they're easy enough to kill- good luck with dodgy Kats, with and I'd feel sorry for anyone who tries to use the slow bullets on Fiends or wolvers. Nevermind the shadow damage- there's no reason to use *either* of the Catalyzer guns on Beasts, Undead, or Fiends, leaving Gremlin and Jelly (both weak to shadow) and constructs. There's only one reason you'd get the normal damage Catalyzer, and that'd be for more damage on Constructs... Which, in that case, as I'm sure we all know, Polaris is the better choice. And the Polaris actually has a better chance of dealing with undead, too.

Final thought is that the Shadow/Poison Catalyzer line is... fine, for the most part. A buff for that gun might make it too useful over the Nova Driver and many other weapons, actually. Biohazard already kicks the crud out of the Sentenza for PvE vs Gremlins (though I'll have to see how it compares if they DO change the Sentenza to pure shadow+Gremlin damage bonus). Consider- what you lose with the Biohazard is the ability to hit reliably (via bullet speed) but I was still able to clear out gremlin rooms without pulling a sword, even with their old dodging abilities and the poison! Give the charges homing, and that trade off is lost. The normal damage line, however, could use a decent buff, and the homing shots might be the buff that it needs to make it stand out and be useful.

My suggested change would be: Change the Normal Damage Catalyzer to Elemental (intended target: Constucts. And this would also make it useful against large mobs of zombies and stacking charges on Howlitzers) OR Give it the homing shot. I'd side with the homing shot- That'll give it far more use and make it more unique than the Biohazard and keep it from overlaping with the Polaris.

Another possible buff- one that I think would capitalize on the main idea of the gun, to do long range AOE damage- is to increase the blast radius of the charge attacks when set off. I'd LIKE that, and think it to be a buff that isn't overpowered for the Biohazard.

TL;DR: My opinion is that the Shadow catalyzer line is okay if you figure out the ways to use it- namely, not using it like a gun, but as a powerful shadow status bomb with a different detonation. However, the normal damage catalyzer line needs a buff to make it match the Biohazard and other guns in usefulness; the homing charges might be a good idea. A buff that might benefit the gun's series without overhauling it would be to increase the size of the charge explosion, allowing the gun to do more AOE damage reliably, perhaps even allowing it to match the pulsar in taking out clustered gunpuppies, etc. Combine the two buffs for the normal damage catalyzer and it might just see more use!

Thank you to whomever has the patience to read all of this! Any thoughts?

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 00:27

#17

Holonimbus

^^ (@Buckdida)

Whew - read the entire post! /wipes brow *admires carpet bombing technique*

I find myself agreeing with pretty much all you said, even though I dont have much personal knowledge on the Catalyzer guns, not owning either of the Bark Module guns. BUT I have watched countless videos, and have partied with several of my buddies (two) who have the Neutralizer/Biohazard (or both), and I have to say that the Biohazard far outclasses its normal damage counterpart; as you have said, the Neutralizer really doesn't have a niche in which it excels - the Valiance is definitely a better Normal gun.

Thus I also agree that the Neutralizer should be buffed, and this homing idea is pretty awesome :D
But instead of making it exclusive to the Neutralizer, you should make it so that the Neutralizer has better homing abilities - the Neut could have the homing of a T3 howlitzer skull missile, while the Bio would have that of a T2 skull missile...although that's probably just way too OP...

I know there are some other things I havent addressed, but that'll have to wait for another day...

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 03:27

#18

Renpartycat

A solution.

Penetration.

Think about it for a moment. Think of how the Catalyzer would be if it's charge attack could penetrate.

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 04:10

#19

Quotefanboy

Hm...

I agree, that thing is an amazing solo gunner weapon due to its carpet bombing ability, but sadly I believe the weapon needs a bit more pizzazz. Granted, you're right, the weapons at that point where it's good, and perhaps something too much might make it too good.

It's actually my favorite gun out there, I love the idea of it, but the sad truth is a gun should be viable in team play as much as it is in solo play.

I've thought a bit about this weapon, and here are my suggestions on it. Granted, some of these ideas might be over the edge, but I'm not expecting this to happen anyway so why not say all of them?

A.) Tier 5 will obtain a much larger bullet, much like the pulsar round when it gets big, and this will enable the idea of charge shots hitting multiple enemies to be easier.
B.) Tier 5 charge shots will have a "fade" effect. Once it hits something, it fades out quickly (nearly instantly), but it's just enough time to hit the enemies behind it. That way, it can hit more enemies with a single charge. This would penetrate enemies, but it wouldn't be too much due to too much penetration of enemies might make it overpowered.
C.) Flip the attacks. Now, hear me out, the charge attack will do nothing but make a spark (which detonates every charge active), and the normal attacks will set the charges; however, to balance this the damage will obviously be lowered to nearly what the damage does now with normal damage, but maybe more or less. The way this would work is the gun is now heavily aoe. It'd essentially be the ranged bomb of sorts. The purpose of this is to get a bunch of charges on a field of enemies, then blow them all up for minimal damage. This would damage enemies near the explosion, so if you got 6 charges on 2 enemies, but there's 5 enemies all clustered together (2 of them being the charge victims). Kaboom, all of the enemies just took 6 normal bullets in damage. Not too powerful, maybe a grand total of 200 damage or something to each individual monster, but then again that'd be no different then running up with a nitronome and blowing them up twice. This also wouldn't make the nitronome useless because that bombs pushback can be used in support, while this would be made for self safety.
D.) Homing attack, which has been discussed
E.) Exploding after taking too long instead of disappearing, or never disappearing in general (yet exploding if the monster dies).

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 13:06

#20

Icee

Expanded shots instead of homing shots

I don't like the idea of homing shots. That would allow players to shoot around corners, which would make catalyzers too safe.

How about instead of homing, the shots (charged and uncharged) expanded at a distance like pulsar shots? Unlike the pulsar, they wouldn't do extra damage when expanded. Instead, the larger radius means they would connect more often and, if carefully aimed, you could stick a charge to multiple enemies with a single shot. That would be a nice buff that shouldn't be too powerful.

I like the idea that stuck charges should explode rather than disappear after whatever the time is. If charges explode rather than disappearing, though, they should only do the damage of a normal shot, not the bonus charge damage.

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 16:55

#21

Holonimbus

@Icee

I think the homing shots could work if they didn't have an OP homing system - they could have homing abilities similar to Howlitzer's skull attacks in T2, which have some slight homing. This should make it so they wouldn't be able to be shot around corners...

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 13:48

#22

Hmmnm

+1 to quotefanboy

Flipping the charge and the regular attack would be absolutely awesome!

Other thoughts:

I don't think shooting around corners would make homing guns too safe. Tagging an enemy does make them chase after you; there's only a couple levels that comes to mind where you can stay safe shooting at gunpuppies from around a corner.

Homing attacks won't be overpowered if they work like t2 & t3 howlitzer skulls or rocketpuppies in t2 arenas. It should be fine as long as its homing capabilities isn't like the rocketpuppy in firestorm citadel (where rockets can actually go around blocks to chase after you).

Homing bullets would still have trouble hitting all the dodging enemies except gremlins. But we're already blasting gremlins with biohazard anyways, right?

There are times, however, when you want to shoot an enemy in the middle of a crowd. I'd say making catalyzer shoot homing bullets if the autoaim is on, and bullets that travel straight when autoaim is off.

...I do like using my Industrial Catalyzer on zombies; I love the explosions. But at the rate which OOO is going... I'm starting to use sword charges in place of guns....

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Revamp the Catalyzer series?