A different way to buff Gibraltar and Caustic, and my legends Tier List

[cheatercheater00]

@ZeptikkHuei really enjoy your arguments. I think they're good counter points to what I say and help flesh out the feature and think about the bad aspects of it.

Maybe the vampire ability should stop when the team mates are down one bar of health? I imagine it would mostly be used to enter a hot zone as a forward unit while the others will stay behind and pick off the runners and create a kill zone. Given they will be a bit further back, they will likely get more armor damage than direct health damage (bypassing armor, like grenades). So they'll have a little of the health to spare.

There's definitely a good way to play with it if you're on a team that understands the mechanic and you communicate with them. Unfortunately the game will mostly suck for people who don't communicate at all, which is some portion of players. But pretty much anyone has a syringe around and if people know about the vampire ability they will know what to do when the character pops their ult.

[cheatercheater00]

@ZeptikkHuebtw I would really like to hear your thoughts of that i don't mind someone telling me why my idea sucks haha

[cheatercheater00]

@kartikins  thanks really appreciate your comments.

I went conservative with the charge passive ability, only allowing bumping people and breaking down doors. The reason for this is that even such a small change could have a great impact. If you look at the changes done to Gibraltar and Caustic, the 10% damage decrease isn't a lot, but it's enough to make a lot of difference. I think invulnerability as a passive ability would be out of balance with other abilities. The only invuln ability we have right now is Wraith's, and here are the trade-offs she has to incur:

- long charge time

- basically blind, doesn't see anyone around

- needs to unholster weapon when it's out

- can't open doors

- confusing "wraith ghosts"

As an ultimate, maybe partial invulnerability would be interesting, but then not coupled with breaking down doors. If you have someone who's invulnerable, AND can break down your last line of defense at the same time, that would be someone who can take out any room at any time. I think that would be overpowered.

Why do you think an invisible dome would be too much of a pain?

[cheatercheater00]

BTW with the new changes I've played the classes I've ranked most poorly here a lot and I'll give them some upgrades in rankings. But I still think playing Gibraltar and Caustic is Hard Mode, it's just not Insane Mode. I want to try some stuff out for Mirage's ult that I haven't tried yet, and see if it's useful.

[kartikins]

@cheatercheater00 You could be right about the invunrability being a bit too OP. I was thinking a lot shorter than wraiths, only a second or so. The reason was to make the ability a bit more versatile and give it another function within combat, as the actual door thing is very situational and in many games could never be needed. I was thinking you could use it like a mini wraith ability, but as you cannot steer it (like l4d2charger) and it is a lot shorter not nearly as powerful as hers... and if you hit something solid you'd get stunned (and not invunerable) which would leave you wide open.

You are correct of course in saying however that any small changes can have dramatic effects, anything like this would need to be balanced carefully. I was simply thinking of a way to not limit the ability to just doors, make it a little more versatile. Maybe you could "lose" the invunrability part if your charge has the effect of breaking a door... you could have something like a charge "shield" which will protect you from one impact, but also break on that impact, so it will break when you hit a door, or will break when the first bullet or damage hits it, or if you run into a wall. It will protect you from that damage but no subsequent damage... this could give the downside that you charge at a door, but if you get shot from anywhere first it will break the shield, and you will break the door but take 30-50dmg in doing so. It could be quite a powerful ability, but you'd always have a risk/reward concern when using it.

The reason I think an invisible dome would be a mistake close up is that many people use this and the skip from one side to another of the barrier to do damage and then protect themselves in close combat, but you often end up kind of dancing along the limit of the barrier going in and out constantly... if one player can see it clearly and the other cannot (except for impacts) then I fear they would have a a huge advantage. I think there is a good case for making it less visible from further away so as not to give so much away, but as players get closer to it I think it should become clearer and clearer to the point where it is the same for both friends and foe when within 5-10 meters. I meant it would be a "pain" to play against, being a bit too unfair for the person who cannot really see it. 

[ZeptikkHue]

Any ability which is built around the idea of punishing your teammates is a very bad idea, so no, even if it only drains 1 bar it is a terrible idea. You can't just ignore those who do not communicate by voice and you can't just ignore the griefers. It takes time to heal with 1 syringe and you might not even have enough syringes for every time the vampire ability is used. It's pain in the neck, forget about it already. :D

I agree with Kartikins that the invisible dome is a bad idea as well, simply because it will feel buggy and uninintuitive for enemies. It could be more transparent than now at a distance though.

I do appreciate the way you structured your tier list though. =)

[cheatercheater00]

Interesting idea with making the dome only invisible from far away.

[cheatercheater00]

@ZeptikkHue  ok I understand your objections to the vampire ability but I still don't agree with them Thanks

[kartikins]

@cheatercheater00 I do agree with Zepti that an ability which has a negative effect on teammates could be problematic, what about the player who breaks from team and runs off alone using the ability and ruining your game... or the player who uses it while you are in the middle of a peacekeeper or R99 close fight and the lower HP gets you taken down. Narratively, for the character Caustic, I think it is a pretty cool idea, but practically, when you have to play online with toxic idiots everywhere I don't think it would fly.

I still like the idea of the opposite though, a character who can take damage on behalf of a teammate... you see your teammate is in trouble and about to go down and you can do something like sacrfice half your HP and half of your shields, and they get however much half your HP was and a 2-3 second bangalore type speed burst (they dont get any shields, your shield powers their speed burst... and if you don't have shields they don't get the speed burst)... Im just spitballing here, haven't considered it in depth.

With gibralter maybe when a teammate comes into your dome you can give them a HP boost when they leave it again which you pay for as above.

Either way, i think with any ability which can have a negative effect on a player, the choice needs to be given to the player who will be effected... having some [Removed - CM] for brains who started out by being a [Removed - CM] and insulting you in lobby then ripping your HP from you in game is not going to get anyone liking the Apex experience more.

[cheatercheater00]

That's an interesting point about the guy who runs off! That could make 2v3 even harder than it is already. Interesting. I wonder how this could be fixed?