How to easily balance Caustic. [ Edited ]

[WoahItsTea]

How to easily balance Caustic

I've played Caustic for over 4,000* games; he's great - everyone knows he's still really unbalanced in the current state of the game, as of Dec 6th 2019 (Date of when I'm editing this), including myself.

I propose a few changes which I feel will make him significantly more comfortable to play, dependable in a team composition and more consistent when in battle.

Caustic Legend Changes

• Nox Vision should allow Caustic to see almost perfectly through his own gas, alongside the outline of players who are caught in the gas.

• Nox Gas Canisters should not be able to be deactivated.

Currently, it feels as through 100% of players know exactly how to destroy Caustic traps with ease - even new players are fully aware just to shoot the red section of the barrels. This is no longer a learning curve and makes Caustic traps almost redundant in most combat situations and effectively makes Caustic an even easier target to deal with as most players have no problem removing his traps before they can be set off.

• Caustic should have almost no delay on casting his Ultimate.

Currently, Caustic goes through a small animation of pulling the pin out of his Gas Grenade before he is able to deploy it. Caustic is already a very vulnerable legend and forcing a 1 second delay where he is fully open to fire counts for a lot during a firefight and many times is the reason why I get knocked in game. Caustic's Ultimate is clearly a more aggressive version of the passive Gas Canisters - which also have a small delay before they are fully active - and as such should be an Ultimate which allows Caustic to blanket an area in gas almost instantly. Other legends, such as Bloodhound, Bangalore or even Gibraltar, don't suffer nearly as much from having a delay or opening where they can be fired at when using their Ultimate as they have other abilities or hitbox sizes which compensate this window of vulnerability. Even with the Fortified passive, Caustic is extremely wide open when casting his Ultimate. 

• Caustic Gas should be able to hit players through certain* walls in game. 

Take the buildings in *Swamp for an example, every building has walls and floors which have openings you can shoot other players through and currently Caustic gas doesn't go through these walls. I think it would help if the Nox Gas could effect players through these particular surfaces as it would make gameplay more consistent and allow Caustic to be more effective in certain parts of the map.

• Both Caustic's Nox Gas Canisters and Nox Gas Grenade are prone to clipping through or getting bugged in certain areas on the map. This along with the rule that Caustic gas doesn't effect players if there is an object or wall obstructing the gas leads to active Canisters or Grenades not effecting players in their range.

This just requires a bug patch to fix and I have noticed that Gas Grenades specifically tend to get bugged out if they land near any of the trucks on the map, for reference.

• When active, Nox Gas should slowly extend it's range in all directions, increasing the range of gas from Nox Gas Canisters from the current range of 250 to 400 over the course of the 12.5 second duration and the Nox Gas Grenade from the current range of 500 to 700 over the course of the 20 second duration.

Currently, the risk of going into Caustic gas isn't very threatening if you know what you're doing. Most players can run into the gas, knock or kill the Caustic if they're low on health and escape the gas easily, only losing around 9-15 health doing so. Subsequently, players who walk into a gas trap or have a gas grenade thrown onto them can also escape the gas with relative ease. If the gas were to slowly extend it's range over time, I think it would be more effective are deterring players, sectioning off larger areas of the map and increasing the effectiveness of well placed gas traps or gas grenades.

Thank you if you took the time to read through my proposals. I hope at least some of these changes reach the guys at Respawn and they take some into consideration as I strongly believe that these changes would bring Caustic up to par with the other legends in the game. Most of these changes are rather small but I think they would have a big impact of Caustic gameplay if implemented.

Thanks for reading,

-WoahItsTea 

[EA_Blueberry · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the well written feedback on Caustic! I'll save this post and will likely throw some other feedback on Caustic in here if others weren't able to gain any momentum on a discussion so we can get some Season 2 chatter around Caustic. 

Good luck with your experiments!

[EA_Blueberry · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the well written feedback on Caustic! I'll save this post and will likely throw some other feedback on Caustic in here if others weren't able to gain any momentum on a discussion so we can get some Season 2 chatter around Caustic. 

Good luck with your experiments!

[WoahItsTea]

Appreciate the reply and thanks for reading my post! 

[Popa2caps]

All characters should be the same size plus hitbox. Resapwn will never fix their mistake with unrealistic damage reductions and/or boost. I would like to point out, Caustic's first ability is already over what other characters get for their Q (L Bumper).

I think it's a cheat there are traps for the character with a 15% damage reduction for their first ability, How much camp do you really need? The gas traps should be the ult, not a passive throw around and wait for someone to hit them. What other character gets something like that plus the reduction? Caustic is not even a tank, why does it even get a reduction, cause it's fat?

Caustic's first ability should be a huge plume of gas (escape ability - like most have) and the ult should be the traps. Damage reduction should be taken away and hitbox and size should be changed. The issue with caustic is people have the traps at the start of the map, they feel save, they should have the same warning of wanting to move to loot like every other character.

What did the team at Respawn do, use up all the ideas and can't come up with real ones, Just look at Wattson. The change above should make Caustic used in and out of fighting and made less of a camper. 

[Pretzelnutcake]

@Popa2caps Play Caustic a bit before embarrassing yourself mate. Caustic IS a tank but his defence is area denial, but because of how slow and clunky his tactical is it's more of a liability to him than a threat to his opponents. Try to use it during a fight for some quick cover and 9/10 times you'll get killed before it deploys. And the 15% DR is probably good on Gib because of his passive but doesn't help Caustic out except if the enemy is using a unmodded P2020 or something because you could hipfire a LMG and hit every shot on him even at mid range.

[WoahItsTea]

@Popa2caps I disagree with the idea that his hitbox should be changed. Currently his hitbox is fine with no real bugs or issues, big yes, but it's fine. Secondly, I hate to tell you this but if you're having difficulties with Caustic Traps and your solution is to make his ultimate his new tactical - allowing Caustic to place a blanket of gas down whenever he wishes - you would soon see how broken and abusive that idea would play out. It would 100% make Caustic more offensive, in fact it would make him the most offensive legend in the game - you would always be at a disadvantage in a fight against him. Furthermore, Caustic players would be just as 'campy' even with your changes...

I'd say play Caustic for a couple of days. He can be used effectively in both offensive and defensive playstyles, depending on how you utilise your Gas Traps and Ultimate. You would also realise that there is always an incentive to go out and look for more loot - most buildings and locations never have enough loot to fully kit someone to the point that they will kill a full squad if they happen to walk into a room with you.

Caustic is a big chunky boy. And should be treated with respect, young man. 

[Aciddraggon]

i love caustic he's been my mane since season one over 7k kills as of november 11 2020 .Season seven has really hurt caustic I get taking away the blurr but that destroys his passive and hurts his kit majorly. As I see it to fix it and giving people what they want is to make the gas as thick as Bangalores smoke. Like one gas canister equals one smoke grenade as to compare the thickness that way it's hard to see but visions not blurred and caustics passive has use again  being a defender healing reviving in gas has been my go to to support my team now I've even tested it the gas isn't thick enough to do this anymore everyone can see through it  and regardless of aoe the gas bomb isn't even thick enough to push away or to push in or to hide in it's now useless mostly  so his passives useless and he can't defend other than to temporarily block doors wich people just walk through now so please fix this he needs it if he can't be fixed he's going to end up being the new pathfinder 

[Sir_Named]

@Aciddraggon You should probably make a new thread for that. This thread was from July of 2019, the arguments here are way outdated.

[editicx]

@WoahItsTea I would like to see the "shoot the bottom" concept gone also. I wouldn't mind the traps having a health pool like the horizon gravity thing or the loba ult etc. It would also be nice to not make a caustic trap invincible so you at least have a chance of surviving it while stuck in a building. This should not apply to grenade though.

[WreckingVi]

REMOVE?