cuz apparently i'm completely [silly]...despite despising grinding i keep wanting new things.
instead of getting something i end up hating, i'd like to hear what owners of this weapon have to say about it. what are some pros and cons of the weapon with regards to usage? note that i do not have gunner gear but i do plan to get a full gunning set in the future.
I myself own a neutraliser, and take it almost everywhere (except fiend/gremlin levels). The thing I love most about it is it can reliably interrupt anything, save for bosses and giant lichens (there might be other stuff). As a note, do NOT use auto-aim with this gun; it will totally mess you up. The charge attack does roughly 4x that of a normal bullet. And one other thing, the damage from the charges originates from there, so if they are activated in a wall, nothing will happen.
Don't get this gun if you want to be super-efficient.
PS: I heard it works wonders with shivermist and vortexes.
Sorry, but... it sucks. Well, I only have.. whatever my 3* poison catalyzer is called. If you don't have resources to get the gunner CTR trinket or a CTR UV, I wouldn't recommend it. Mind you, I love the concept. It's all very clever and creative... and underpowered. If you don't mind taking much longer to solo through levels, then go for it... but any party will probably kill your victims before you set the charges off, though there are exceptions like trojans and lumbers.
I was awfully excited for a poison-gun when it was first released but pretty disappointed once I actually had it in my hands. (Ok, what I really wanted was a poison alchemer. Still do, actually. Shadow damage, same amount less from Umbra Driver as status-Drivers are to Nova Driver, dunno why that was so impossible... ) Ahem. Anyway, if such a theoretical alchemer existed, the catalyzer line would be totally useless instead of mostly useless due to the relative damage differences. For that same reason, the nonstatus catalyzer line is essentially useless. You could always do better with another gun.
Like I said, you can't complain about it if you never went past 3*, it gets a huge jump in power. I'll probably be making biohazard over christmas.
I heard your comment. I can also look at damage tables on the wiki. It's less underpowered at higher *, but it still doesn't compare to alchemer line's damage.
From what I hear, alchemers outdamage it a whole lot. Here are some pros:
-The charge doesn't break freeze. (In fact, it doesn't break anything.)
-The charge does no damage until you detonate it. (This is an advantage if there are healers around. You can save up all your damage until you've racked up enough charges for an instakill, completely negating healers.)
-This is a fun weapon.
-With a bit of timing, you can keep turrets interrupted through tactical detonation of charges.
-No weapons charge faster than catas. It's a really short charge for spitting out 300 ranged damage. With max CTR, you can nearly shoot the charges as fast as alchemer shots.
-It's a goddamn sticky bomb launcher.
-Sometimes if you hit a charge between two enemies, both enemies get a charge planted on them for effectively double damage on both of them since the explosion from one will also damage the guy next to it.
-It looks way cool.
-Encourages teamplay.
Here are some cons:
-People are jerks who'll kill your stickied targets before you get to detonate them.
-Bullets are super slow, hard to hit things.
-The increase for Biohazard against shadow targets is like 30% while the decrease against resistant targets is more like 60%. Since catas are close
to useless on gremmies without shivermist or constant vortexing, I regret not making mine a neutralizer.
-The regular bullets (and charges before detonation) have no interruption to speak of.
-Polaris has better crowd-control.
-Alchemers and autoguns have better damage.
-Even Iron Slug is easier to interrupt turrets with.
-It's horrible against enemies with shields.
-Requires teamplay.
Versus neutral enemies, the Neutralizer has a bit of a stronger raw charge than Biohazard (which of course, does more damage vs shadow enemies, or matches/passes it when it deals poison).
It is a really fun gun line to play with though, whether you're creating a 'monster bomb' (stack a bunch of charges on one monsters, shield-push it to its friends and then run up and falcon punch it to blow them up) or with a vortex, doing single-charge-detonations.
With max damage, each Neutralizer charge will do 500 damage per charge on zombies at depth 24 (ahem... FSC). compared to the 270+ damage you could be doing per regular Nova Driver bullet. Of course, this is a little skewed because Nova does bonus vs undead, but in terms of setup, Drivers are usually the better deal in terms of damage/speed/effort - for each bullet, if you want to hit multiple enemies, you just have change the angle you're shooting from, but for Neutralizer, you have to move the MONSTER towards others (and when you detonate it, it sends them flying away from each other). For Neutralizer to do well, you'll need to spend some time with setup (bringing and keeping monsters next to each other), and it's usually best combined with Vortex.
Contrary to what someone else said, I feel it's easier to keep a turret interrupted if you're the one starting the attack (charge - pause for .5-1 second, shoot again to detonate).
All that said, it feels kind of like a bad gun, but it really suffers from a mismatch of playstyle:
Catalyzer playstyle is defensive/up close - unless you are a master of latency, you can't count on hitting moving monsters unless they're chasing you (and the best times to get them are up close, so you can bait an attack and sidestep+release charge). Usually, swordsmen run around and push monsters away. But imagine if you had a team of (catalyzer) gunners standing together: all the monsters would move towards you as you set up your charges on one enemy. Standing in one area, they'll all come close together, and at that point, one person can just push them together (and easily, since they were moving towards the same area) and actually kill all the monsters with a charge.
It's a team gun, but only with a team of other catalyzers (hence its name).
but with all this time since they were released, I have still not done a 4-catalyzer party (well not one where everyone had a 5* catalyzer) :/
PS:
in lockdown, charge is bugged. I did a test a few days ago, and came up with this:
- Normal shots (with my loadout) did about 4 hp each
- Charge did 1-2 hp each.
It's broken, and not just because of invincibility frames :/
Also, normal shots are the only way to really use catalyzers in Lockdown anyway. It's a close range punching weapon that also doubles as a longer-range bullet wall than Polaris.
I'd be game for a Catalyzer run and have both of the 5* versions. Message me in game and maybe we can throw a run together.
thanks for the wealth of responses! i feel like i have a much better grasp of the gun. originally i kept hearing the "non-optimal" critique of the catalyzer, but it seems to not be nearly as weak as i thought. though biohazard does seem very fun, one of the posts above reminded me that it wouldn't be useful in fsc where i spend most of my sad, sad time grinding so i think i'll go with the neutralizer.
People don't like this gun simply because its hard to master. Catalayzer lines are somewhat better than pulsar lines if properly used. The only down side of the catalayzer lines for me is the knock back because there is no knockback at all but if you get used to having no knockback you will do fine.
It kinda sucks really would barely kill anything with it unless your alone and its not really effective at all to mobs because if you can't hit that stupid flying bomb it wont detonate so I guess it's pretty useless on most fights and would barely even hit Wolvers... so I advise not to get it if you wish to fight like a pro....
It's not the bomb you have to hit, it's the enemy it's sticking to.
#6>
Here are some cons:-Polaris has better crowd-control.
-Alchemers and autoguns have better damage.
-Even Iron Slug is easier to interrupt turrets with.
What a great facepalm i have there.
How is Neutralizer against Vana while soloing?
Has anyone tried soloing Vana with a Neutralizer and a Shivermist? It seems like a safer alternative to Blitz and AP.
-Great for poking Trojans backwards. they slide like half a block when they block my bullets. (able to do constant interruption)
-Only problem is one needs to learn to cope with lag.
-Catalyzers have great crowd control, if you know what you are doing.
-Main thing about Catalyzer, is knowing where the Catalyzer charges are on the enemy in relation to other enemies.
However, if you have/plan to have lots of guns, Biohazard would be preferable since it has poison and special damage.
Catalyzers can be good, just don't expect it to be fast. Only kept it since it was the only Poison gun line available.
I sold my Virulent Catalyzer 4* because the entire line was painful slow. Got a Sentenza, and Master Blast bomb to replace it.
i'm not sure i heard from my friend do it but he say its slow,i have tox cat and do rjp run i stack it to RJ i bit hard but i manage to do that after alot of stack 1 hit freeze my screen for 3 second XD (dangerous)
I dont have biohazard yet, but I'm pretty pleased with virulent catalyzer. At 2* and 3* it seems kinda weak and pointless, but once it reaches 4* the damage ramps up quickly. And I dont really use gunner stuff either. If anything, it makes you play more like a bomber. Set a few charges on an enemy, gather them together, and KA-BOOM
Just don't expect it to be much use on gremlins, at least in my experience. It works AWESOME on big, slow targets though.