Fade Vortex Ideas

zeq

So I was thinking the way to improve Vortex might be to make it a small area effect instead of single target. As fades have the fastest movement among the aliens, it would allow them to get to a hive under attack and vortex out the assaulting force until reinforcements could arrive, or allow a fade to vortex a group of marines so it can pick off a few without dying. As the bane of fades is large marine groups, improving this abilities crowd control capabilities would make it a more useful part of the fade arsenal.
Give thoughts on this idea or the ability in general.

MaLuS

I personally don't think an area of effect would be needed, when dealing with a group i tend to zip in and out harassing them by vortexing one (assuming its researched) and killing another so in essence your disabling one and killing one then zip out check health then go again, depending on the skill of the marines in question a single fade can take or hold off up to 6 man squads on its own (have done so myself on pub matches) with the combos of shadow-step and blink but throw in vortex as well and you have a truly lethal life form, remember the fade is not a tank to take down groups in one hit. The fade is more of the assassin that can get in kill one and be gone before anyone can react and then repeat.

zeq

Essentially my reasoning for this idea is that it is perhaps the most underused ability in NS2. It is never used in competitive matches I have seen, and in pubs commanders only get it if they have nothing else to research except for maybe xenocide. As a third tier ability it does not carry the weight of other ones like umbra or stomp. The fact that almost no one is using it across most skill levels, and threads about how vortex should be replaced with focus are all over the place, both are a clear indicator that the ability is not worthwhile in its current form.

MaLuS wrote: »

remember the fade is not a tank to take down groups in one hit. The fade is more of the assassin that can get in kill one and be gone before anyone can react and then repeat.

The idea of this change is not to make the fade more of a tank, but more effective at its assassin role and also more versatile. The intent is to allow fades to do pick off a member of a group in the few seconds the rest of the group is vortexed. The ability could be countered by having a group spread out so the vortex can only get one person at a time. The idea was to have it effect a small area instead of single target, so tightly grouped marines, or an exo push would be where it is most effective. This ability primarily serves to make it better at its role, but also makes it more versatile, which is a good thing. In NS2, the lifeforms have general roles, but those get altered somewhat at give flexibility in late game, such as the gorge's bilebomb which changes it from a defensive support unit to heavy siege unit. This flexibility is key to not having one unit become obsolete and encouraging a mixed lifeform team. Currently the Fade is perhaps the most specialized alien unit, and one of the most expensive. Skulks fills assault/assassin/harass/recon roles, (albeit not as well as some others) gorges fill defense/support/siege, lerks harass/support/recon, onos tank/assault, and the fade just assassin really.

Lambo

Vortex'ing the PG/IP while your teammates get the Obs/PowerNode. I don't think I'll ever use it on Marines, seems pointless.

Both you and your teammates just need to know how and when to use it, otherwise I don't like the idea of it being AoE.

Kalabalana

It used to be aoe right? Used to use it on arms labs when big fights were going on

Value increased the larger the player count. Now it snaps its effect to what it touches first, which is a nerf on something that needed a buff/rework

MaLuS

I do use vortex and request it if am playing fade at the time when a 3rd hive goes up, typically i will use it to allow an onos to get close to it without taking too much damage.

Another situation is one i just had on a 65 min game in which we had 2 fades (i was one of them) get into the base and 1 vortexed the observatory (me) while the other was vortexing the phase gate this totally prevented rapid re-enforcements for the marines and allowed our gorges and skulks free reign of the base to take it down.

I do however wish that it was easier to aim it or rather that you did aim it as appose for it vortexing the closest thing no matter if its right in front of you or not.

Due to its high energy requirements to use though a fade has to be careful where and when it uses it on said target so that the fade doesn't get caught out with little or no energy to escape, having an AOE version I would think that the energy requirement would be higher and I don't think i would use it as much if this was the case.

zeq

Even if the ability has some uses, it needs a buff or complete rework, and one way to do this might be to make it a small AoE, but something needs to happen. My idea for the rework would be to make it a projectile with speed similar to gorge spit, and vortexes whatever it hits plus anything within a few feet of it. Maybe just making it an actual projectile would be the buff it means, so you could snipe structures like pg, arms labs, obs, etc. Because right now I don't believe it is.