GRG Idea

from Sins Forums

Since we are talking about fixing some of the weaker abilities in this patch and seeing as GRG has already had a buff (but is still considered very weak by the majority of the community) I though I might voice a simple idea to help this ability.

For starters, the buff is in the right direction. GRG is now not a complete waste of antimatter (though still quite bad), however when used on something without shields (pirates or structures outside the range of an advent hanger) it does reasonably well. But to be honest, I don't know how you can push it much further down this line of buffing without causing problems as the Kol levels up. The community saw this with what the guys did with the community balance patch done last year. 

However, instead of a speed decrease as a secondary effect, why not give the Kol an interrupt? It IS a battleship after all, and the other two battleships seem almost built to take down other caps. If GRG was given a secondary interrupt effect then that would certainly give this ship another reason for a player to build other than Flak Burst.

Now some of ya's might say "But the TEC already has the Dunov's EMP? They don't need another interrupt!". Well if you take a moment to think, the other two races have a couple of interrupts.

The Advent has Detonate Antimatter on the Radiance, but also Reverie on the Revelation does a pretty good job of this as well as freezing ships for a good period of time.

The Vasari have Disruptive Strikes on the Kortul but also Phase Out Hull does a decent job of this as well.


So why not give the Kol a part-time role of being a counter to other caps like the Kortul and Radiance? 


Edit: Oh and I know the Akkan's Ion Bolt is a capable interrupt but does nothing for the long-term when it comes to Cap ship abilities. Detonate AM destroys a targets AM reserves and Disruptive Strikes practically disables all its targets ability usage.  

10,683 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

TEC already has two interrupts as well; ion bolt and magnetize.  That said, I'm not opposed to adding a third to the list.

I've never been able to come up with a solution I've liked for GRG.  I strongly believe it needs a (new) secondary effect, since it's never going to scale appropriately as a pure-damage ability, but that also has to mesh well with the Kol's unique antimatter limitations and role as a front-line brawler.

I think this is the checklist for a viable GRG:

  • Must be reasonably good against militia
  • Must have a practical utility in the early, mid, and late game
  • Must not be too weak at level 1 nor too strong at level 3
  • Must have a sufficiently unique role that cannot be replicated by a sufficient number of frigates or other capital ship abilities.
  • Must have antimatter consumption requirements that a Kol can manage

I've played around with lots of ideas, from low-antimatter cost variants to secondary effects to massive-damage variants, but I've never found one that really felt like the silver bullet.


While we're on the topic of the Kol, I feel that it should probably get an antimatter cost decrease on flak burst and adaptive shields.  With level 6+ Kols now having less antimatter to play with thanks to the FH nerf, there's more leeway to buff these abilities to help level 1-5 Kols without pushing the higher level ones over the edge.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

First: donov emp is not an inturrupt, magnatize is.

Second: I think this idea is fantastic.  replacing the useless and (lore wise) silly speed penelty with an interrupt would give the kol immediate viability.

The kol's damage is so silly... I was playing multiplayer, and someone was testing out the kol's GRG... I had a starbase... it was almost dead.  he was like! Ill use grg to finish it!  all i noticed was that there was a speed debuff on my starbase for some reason... and i was like! Ill use overseers to keep it alive!  I think it did about 1 overseer's heal worth of damage.  (and the math suggusts that thats right... it was a lv 4 kol... so... 290 damage before armor... ya.

Giving the kol an inturrupt would definately allow it to be usefull in ship battles, while still being able to hurt unshielded things (buildings)

 

Honestly, I would still prefer the removal of all secondary abilities, and allow it to ignore shield mitigation . With its current damage and antimatter usage, itll still be inferior to scramble bombers and missle batteries in damage dealt, but... it would almost be exactly as effective as a deathegg in militia clearing (save for the shield bypass and armor reduction)

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Ahh thanks, yea its Magnetize not EMP. My bad. 

Oh and yes I don't want to take away from Magnetize and Ion Bolt. I would like to see GRG become a long-term disabler or dampener of Cap abilities like DA and DS, not a Cap freezer like Phase Out Hull or Ion Bolt. 

Perhaps lore-wise, the weapon could target Antimatter infrastructure inside the target causing a leak or somehow increasing the AM cost of its abilities for some time. We already see a smack to cooldowns with Kortul's DS and a removal of AM with Radiance's DA, so maybe a Antimatter price jump for all targets abilites? That way, say, a Halycon could still fire its Telepush but it would drain its AM much faster than if it was using it without being under fire from the Kol.

It would be fun for the Kol to spread its own weakness (low AM reserves) to other ships for a change :P Im sure a Kols crew would get some satisfaction from that! 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

One idea I keep batting around my head is to give it Massive Range and let the speed debuff scale in magnitude and duration, maybe buff the damage a bit more. (Say they target the engines or something in the description.)

Why? It's already got the slow effect. Caps running away and carriers like to stay at range and run away. Orkulus is slow already and tries to get into range. Stick 'em in mud and see what happens.

On a side note, for an interrupt and perhaps other debuffs (Physics reset like repulse?) can call it charged with antimatter in the description. I did like the idea of making it an interrupt. And yes, the Kol needs better AM management.

 

:fox:

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I've got a couple of ideas..I don't know if they're any good, so I'll post them for viewing.

 

Looking at the Gauss Rail as a kinetic weapon, I keep coming back to something that I think should be part of the TEC on the whole: Armor penetration.

 

Just looking at GRG (since the rest of that idea is something that can be discussed elsewhere and not derail this thread) it's a big, piercing bullet fired at some insane speed in a place where there is no friction.

 

Idea 1.) So, if it's fired at something with < 10% shields, it ignores some % of the targets armor, and deals damage accordingly. Have it keep the speed debuff and throw in a small push away from the Kol on anything smaller than a Starbase/Orbital Structure, proportional to it's size (frigate gets pushed farther than a cruiser, which gets pushed farther than a Cap Ship).

 

Idea 2.) Or, perhaps, have it hit everything in a straight line. Everything. Friend and Foe. It is, after all, a big dumb bullet. Have it slow everything it grazes ("Sir, big bullet just knocked us about, we're getting back on track") Give it a % based on the number of hits, stopping after X (e.g. 100%/50%/10% stop at level 1, 100%, 75%, 50%, 10% stop at level 2 and 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 10% stop at level 3) and perhaps have it synergize with FH - Cooldown increase, but no friendlies are hit, add 1 100% hit to the number of targets.

 

Just a couple of ideas. I have no idea about multiplayer, since I only play with friends and stomp the comp, so I'm making these with no balance considerations.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

I belive grg is supposed to be armor piercing already... but i dont think it actually is.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Pbhead, reply 6
I belive grg is supposed to be armor piercing already... but i dont think it actually is.
No.

 

:fox:

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

ehh... care to elaborate?

do you think it is not supposed to be armor piercing? or is it not armor piercing?

 

The tool tip... or the kol description... somewhere says "armor piercing"

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

double post. yay.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Tooltip may say so, but it's never been in the game files.

 

:fox:

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

thats what i mean, tool tip says so, but its not in the game files, so it never existed.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Well, either way the current (beta) GRG isnt much better than the old one.

Could the devs give us some feedback on this? O:)  

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

I would like to see the following...

GRG damage as is

GRG stops complete momentum of fleeing ship but does not disable or prevent it from starting movement again or phase jumping.

GRG decreases the armor of the effected ship by 2/4/6 or stacking with other kols with a base of 1/2/3.

Personally I would like to see stacking added to some capital ships to make them have more utility late game when fleets become much larger, but the 2/4/6 would suffice. Adding more stacking potential may be a change I make for my own mods...

 

 

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

.....

 

After so much thoughts a while ago, I strongly believe that only way to make this GPG thing worthwhile is make it percentage based.

 

Should be like this.

 

At level 1 It does 200 + 10% of total hp of the target.

At level 2 500 + 20% of total hp of the target.

At level 3 800 + 30% of total hp of the target.

 

Of course, the damage is migrated and reduced by armour.

 

For example. 625 HP scout frigate, it will do 262.5 / 625 / 987.5 damage which is quite similar to current number (325 / 650 / 975) before reduction.

 

But, unlike current one, it scales, for example let's say 15000 HP SB, it will do 1700 / 3500 / 5300 damage before the reduction.

 

Make things simple and understandable. Just make Kol damage absorber with sniping ability to take a single strong target down quickly (while Marza is more specialized in killing planets and dealing multiple targets)