NarfwakJoin Date: 2002-11-02Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
Vortex is most powerful for swipe if you have two or more fades and good focus fire coordination. If you can get the hits with stab it's quite scary even for a solo fade.
Stab does normal damage, by the way, so while it does cost a lot of energy that means 160 damage per hit to exosuits and structures.
Fuck. Man. This is the LAST thing I ever thought I'd see on these forums. "Gorge OP" threads seemed more likely than this. You're probably the first person who I've ever heard of that really liked vortex. The projectile vortex was a little more useful than the other old version, but the new vortex is much more useful imo. I did like using vortex to permanently disable exo suits though. That was pretty hilarious.
Fuck. Man. This is the LAST thing I ever thought I'd see on these forums. "Gorge OP" threads seemed more likely than this. You're probably the first person who I've ever heard of that really liked vortex. The projectile vortex was a little more useful than the other old version, but the new vortex is much more useful imo. I did like using vortex to permanently disable exo suits though. That was pretty hilarious.
Vortex cancel beacon. That was pretty much the only thing worth useing it for last build. I mean it worked on phase or arms lab or exo, but wasn't all that useful on any of them. If you hear a beacon and hit the obs with it though that messed with the marine team in so many ways...
The vortex change is actually one of the few things they got right with this update, I think. It was entirely useless before and now it is actually a viable ability (and the fade needs it, what with the nerfs to movement and its normal attack).
NarfwakJoin Date: 2002-11-02Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
Vortex is quite early in the alien tech progression (biomass 5) as well as long as the commander buys the fade upgrade. It's entirely feasible to have it available right around the time the first players would be going fade, although you'd need a strong fast expand to second hive without losing too much in the process.
I never used vortex much myself (mostly because I rarely play fade) but it did have some powerful uses so it's not fair to say that the old version was totally useless. It did feel pretty marginal, though, and I strongly dislike any kind of player disabling abilities in NS2. Stomp is about my limit for forcibly removing player control from the game. Like, if devour ever gets brought back I will raise the biggest tantrum humanly possible.
I really don't like the gameplay the vortex ability allows and promotes. It makes fades both overly cautious and good at being overly cautious... i think improving the old vortex ability (which was mega cool btw) would have been a better idea.
As it stands, we have what i term the mobile clog wall, a bunch of fades blinking at you and then attacking as soon as they take damage, sometimes managing to land a hit on a marine at which point they just vanish. its kinda lame. Fades are supposed to be mobile and the skill of having an escape route was important, as well as trying to trap fades in.
I repeat, the old vortex was a cool idea but needed to both be moved up in terms of biomass and be more powerful. And for the love of god dont be afraid to change something like this back.
If you do that Necro, then marines know exactly where to aim at.
Anyway, I prefer to use it against high risk targets. Put a vortex right around the corner before I go in. Sort of makes solo fading a bit less risky. Works well in combination with stab.
yeah vortex is actually not that great as is and its your new energy saving movement mechanic as fade so enjoy.
I actually did like the old vortex. Watching marines try to turtle with the armory constantly vortexed and healthy xeno spore spam.
Also it was very useful in killing the welders on exos. new vortex is cool but its a bad combat mechanic without stab imo.
Stab is so late game that you have been doing very little and playing safe to have your fade alive when its out. Even players that were awesome fades in the last build i see fumbling around to move through the map.
I still saw some fades carry the team to a win but it was more related to bad marine play than strong fade play . The overall use the fades had was delaying the marines until onos were out. They killed 0 rts, its basically impossible even with 3 fades to res harrass at all.
The majority of kills they racked up were grinding phase gates. Hardly any slow wear downs of a large group of marines which basically what dominated last build and started the fade QQ. I had no problem with another marine making previously good fades run without taking a hit in the new build.
And once jets are out it feels like im playing with a fade, just laughing at it try to catch me and wasting its energy as my jet never dies.
It's amazing at pushing back a rine attack... vortex far side of hive, hit rines comming into hive, teleport back next to hive/shift, and repeat.... No real danger to fade just methodical destruction of incoming rines...
destruction implies things actually dying 1 swipe per 20-30 seconds doesn't lead to things dying. if the marines are near you hive it has some limited use. I would say about as much use as the awesome night vision aliens can use a couple times a round for 4 seconds.
I actually thought the last Vortex(long range) was more useful than this one. New Vortex is good with Stab but otherwise more likely to result in embarrassing deaths or non-productive goofing off than to really make a difference.
I like the idea of the new Vortex, but I find its current energy usage too high for anything except repeated Stab/Vortex runs.
Looking at the ideas on how to use Vortex in combat (mostly, placing them above the marines), I always find them inferior to using the same amount of energy on Blink or SS.
I would love to see that you can blink to your vortex by using a button, not on attack.
Would be OP, as wouldn't be forced to leave the fight early and could fight down to 20% percent and insta-vortex to a hive.
Then Vortex should be made the tier three Fade ability, instead of Stab.
As I wrote in another thread, swapping the biomass levels of Vortex and Stab would be far better, as Vortex without Stab is pretty much useless (except for drawing some fire, while dealing virtually no damage). Stab without Vortex at biomass 5, however, could be used as a high-risk/high-reward move, but not against fortified positions - that's what Vortex at biomass 8 would be for.
So instead of the huge gap between early SS (2) and late-game Stab+Vortex (8), we would get a much smoother skill progression. And making Vortex trigger on demand, as @stibaer suggested, would not be OP if it was a late-game ability where you'd be usually up against JPs, W2/W3 shotgunners, Exos, GLs, etc.
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And even so, it's fun to disorient marines in 1v1/1v2's with the new Vortex.
Stab does normal damage, by the way, so while it does cost a lot of energy that means 160 damage per hit to exosuits and structures.
Vortex cancel beacon. That was pretty much the only thing worth useing it for last build. I mean it worked on phase or arms lab or exo, but wasn't all that useful on any of them. If you hear a beacon and hit the obs with it though that messed with the marine team in so many ways...
I never used vortex much myself (mostly because I rarely play fade) but it did have some powerful uses so it's not fair to say that the old version was totally useless. It did feel pretty marginal, though, and I strongly dislike any kind of player disabling abilities in NS2. Stomp is about my limit for forcibly removing player control from the game. Like, if devour ever gets brought back I will raise the biggest tantrum humanly possible.
As it stands, we have what i term the mobile clog wall, a bunch of fades blinking at you and then attacking as soon as they take damage, sometimes managing to land a hit on a marine at which point they just vanish. its kinda lame. Fades are supposed to be mobile and the skill of having an escape route was important, as well as trying to trap fades in.
I repeat, the old vortex was a cool idea but needed to both be moved up in terms of biomass and be more powerful. And for the love of god dont be afraid to change something like this back.
Anyway, I prefer to use it against high risk targets. Put a vortex right around the corner before I go in. Sort of makes solo fading a bit less risky. Works well in combination with stab.
I actually did like the old vortex. Watching marines try to turtle with the armory constantly vortexed and healthy xeno spore spam.
Also it was very useful in killing the welders on exos. new vortex is cool but its a bad combat mechanic without stab imo.
Stab is so late game that you have been doing very little and playing safe to have your fade alive when its out. Even players that were awesome fades in the last build i see fumbling around to move through the map.
I still saw some fades carry the team to a win but it was more related to bad marine play than strong fade play . The overall use the fades had was delaying the marines until onos were out. They killed 0 rts, its basically impossible even with 3 fades to res harrass at all.
The majority of kills they racked up were grinding phase gates. Hardly any slow wear downs of a large group of marines which basically what dominated last build and started the fade QQ. I had no problem with another marine making previously good fades run without taking a hit in the new build.
And once jets are out it feels like im playing with a fade, just laughing at it try to catch me and wasting its energy as my jet never dies.
Would be OP, as wouldn't be forced to leave the fight early and could fight down to 20% percent and insta-vortex to a hive.
Like I said in the other thread, a good comm basically negates the entire effect of a single-swipe vortex attack with meds...
Looking at the ideas on how to use Vortex in combat (mostly, placing them above the marines), I always find them inferior to using the same amount of energy on Blink or SS.
Then Vortex should be made the tier three Fade ability, instead of Stab.
As I wrote in another thread, swapping the biomass levels of Vortex and Stab would be far better, as Vortex without Stab is pretty much useless (except for drawing some fire, while dealing virtually no damage). Stab without Vortex at biomass 5, however, could be used as a high-risk/high-reward move, but not against fortified positions - that's what Vortex at biomass 8 would be for.
So instead of the huge gap between early SS (2) and late-game Stab+Vortex (8), we would get a much smoother skill progression. And making Vortex trigger on demand, as @stibaer suggested, would not be OP if it was a late-game ability where you'd be usually up against JPs, W2/W3 shotgunners, Exos, GLs, etc.
Vortex the armoury with a lerk gassing everyone, fun times.