Vortex is a cool idea but it's too difficult to use IMO. The stuff you see in trick videos is not practical for average players in real situations. The ability needs to be streamlined somehow. For example, change it to Vortex Strike - a swipe attack that automatically teleports you to where you were 1 second ago when you use it. All it does is make it a one-step process instead of two-step, but it would make all the difference in usability.
Why would we need to dumb a mechanic down when it's not crucial for being an effective fade? Nobody's going to quit playing the fade because they can't utilise something like vortex to a maximum, so why should we take the satisfaction and advantage away from those who can? Sounds like a terrible idea.
Every ability should be crucial. Vortex deserves better than just being a way for top tier players to show off. More importantly, the current implementation often tricks players into wasting their time with ineffective poking tactics, making them a liability to the team.
Vortex is a cool idea but it's too difficult to use IMO. The stuff you see in trick videos is not practical for average players in real situations. The ability needs to be streamlined somehow. For example, change it to Vortex Strike - a swipe attack that automatically teleports you to where you were 1 second ago when you use it. All it does is make it a one-step process instead of two-step, but it would make all the difference in usability.
Why would we need to dumb a mechanic down when it's not crucial for being an effective fade? Nobody's going to quit playing the fade because they can't utilise something like vortex to a maximum, so why should we take the satisfaction and advantage away from those who can? Sounds like a terrible idea.
Every ability should be crucial. Vortex deserves better than just being a way for top tier players to show off. More importantly, the current implementation often tricks players into wasting their time with ineffective poking tactics, making them a liability to the team.
Vortex and/or stab will never be crucial, since the bread, butter, salt and vinegar of fading will always be blinking and swiping. I could understand your argument if we were talking about the basics of a lifeform being too hard for inexperienced players to utilise, since that would effectively remove that lifeform from the arsenal of anyone else than seasoned players. But I will never understand the mentality that every single aspect of the game should be easy enough for everyone to pull off with minimal effort, be it basic or advanced mechanics.
It shouldn't be crucial, but it should at least be partially useful.
Right now all I see are Fades wasting time with the ability. I've even started ignoring them as a Marine.
Maybe change the regular swipe so it doesn't teleport you to the vortex point. Fades could then swipe once or twice before the stab (making it a little more useful) The slow speed of stab would cause a lot of lesser skilled Fades to die (so it would take some timing and skill) Plus the top tier players would still be the only ones able to fully utilize it.
Vortex+Stab is very useful for attacking marine positions where a Fade cannot stay around for long. The key is that you need to go in fast (with Blink), maneuver towards your target without losing speed, hit Stab before you reach it, and use Shadow Step to compensate for the target's final dodge attempt. Together with Aura, this is perfect for finishing Marines when they retreat to an armory, which helps breaking down Marine turtles.
Another great use for it is taking down Exos with support, either offensively or defensively. The key here is to pick a good entry route, otherwise you will end up with a mouthful of minigun bullets instead. You also have to place the Vortex fairly close to the enemy position, otherwise they will just outheal the damage you're doing.
The pitfall is that Vortex can lure players into playing things ultra safe, and therefore inefficient. If you use Vortex+Stab two times to take down a single marine instead of just going in and Swipe him to death, you are wasting your time. Against a good shotgunner, it might be worth it, though... so in the end, it all comes down to situational judgement, like most of Fade play. But Vortex+Stab are far from useless - actually, I'm always looking forward to Biomass 8 if I'm Fade.
Vortex *without* Stab feels pretty useless, though. While these trick videos are neat, I don't see a huge benefit over confusing the Marines with Blink+SS for a similar energy cost, as you always have the risk of a marine camping the Vortex. (That's assuming that they *can* see the Vortex... if they don't, that would change a *lot*.)
So what I would like to see is Stab and Vortex getting swapped in the Biomass order. Stab at about Biomass 5 or 6 would allow for high-risk, high-reward attacks (making Phantom much more useful than now), and Vortex would be the three hive end-game turtle breaker. Right now, the Fade has no useful unlocks between Biomass 2 and 8, which is a huge part of most games.
I have one idea that would certainly make things interesting... Change stab and make it do no damage, but instead teleport the Marine with the Fade to the vortex point. [...]
Or more likely, you'd have fades dropping marines into Lava/death traps constantly.[...] the fade can use blink to escape. the marine would drop to his/her death before they even realized what happened.
Damn, didn't think of that.
Maybe prevent the Fade from using blink for 1-2 seconds after teleporting (just long enough to ensure they'd fall to death with the Marine) - That would also give the Marine a slightly better chance to win the battle.
You would have to disable Shadow Step as well, though, which would turn the Fade into a sitting duck in any other place.
I really like this idea, though. How about this: Instead of using the current Vortex placement, and teleporting the Fade and the target there, both players are teleported to a separate mini-Arena instead (called "the Vortex", maybe? )... basically, a pocket reality where both players fight one-on-one for a few seconds, after which the survivor(s) return to the normal battlefield.
This would get rid of any "death trap" exploits and give the marine a true chance to fight back, but it should still be very useful for the Fade. It would not allow him to rush into a huge group or a base turtle solo, as the remaining marines could predict and focus fire him if he wins and returns to the normal reality. So it would be most useful to split up small groups, which sounds pretty sweet for balance.
The downside is that this would be basically a complete rework of the Vortex that UWE just re-worked. So I don't think it's very likely to happen...
So what I would like to see is Stab and Vortex getting swapped in the Biomass order. Stab at about Biomass 5 or 6 would allow for high-risk, high-reward attacks (making Phantom much more useful than now), and Vortex would be the three hive end-game turtle breaker. Right now, the Fade has no useful unlocks between Biomass 2 and 8, which is a huge part of most games.
Stab (in it's current state) without vortex is surely gonna lead to tons of dead fades, who would've been better off just playing traditionally. Also, vortex seems to be one of the few abilities currently capable of at least slowing down an exo train push on pubs.
Both are interesting abilities, but the downside is that they don't work very well without the other. And the other ability is always locked behind that biomass requirement, which once met usually means that you've won the game anyway.
EDIT: Oh, one thing the vortex ability desperately needs is it to remember the direction you were facing. It's extremely confusing to come out of the vortex in the same angle as you were when swiping. (And I usually end up blinking in the wrong direction, right back to the waiting exos..)
Stab should be like Focus ability in NS1, you hit fast and then must wait 2 second to recharge and hit again.
The original Focus was over-powered since everyone got it and there was basically no reason you'd ever not get it unless you were going to dedicate yourself to attacking structures somehow.
I do think that the original model is more workable with the right draw-backs.
Make Stab:
1. Attack instantly so it's actually viable in most situations.
2. Preserve the longish cooldown and higher energy cost
3. Add in a "global cooldown" so that you cannot switch to swipe and attack immediately after stabbing.
This would effectively give players 2 real options: the "killing frenzy" style of Swipe where you are looking to deal as much damage as possible to a target with a high risk to yourself, and the "hit n run" style of stab where you minimise risk to yourself but limit your ability to quickly kill exos and multiple targets.
Alternative 2:
Once Stab is researched, fold it into Swipe by turning Swipe into a charge up attack like Railguns. This is a good tie-in with the Stab animation which looks like the Fade tensing up for an attack.
If it was how you said, then vortex would be very OP. I mean, vortex + stab is powerful enough against marines (assuming that they dont have jetpacks or you sneak up on them) though I thought stab is 1 hit kill?
The point of vortex without stabbing is, get in, draw fire, use juke them with vortex. This great for distracting them, which can either be used to slow them down for a good deal of time, or, draw fire away from your teammates.
You know.. having vortex only teleport you on stab is a good idea. Me thinks
Having Swipe as a "Vortex panic button" is kinda useful, though.
The most useful way IMO would be the first activation of Vortex marking the destination (like it does now), and the second activation teleporting there, after which it resets. Neither Swipe nor Stab would cause a teleport... how quickly you could use Vortex (to teleport out) after Stab would be a matter of balancing. The advantage would be more flexibility (stay in combat as long as you want), with the downside that you can't "move" your teleport destination without teleporting to the old one first.
If it was how you said, then vortex would be very OP. I mean, vortex + stab is powerful enough against marines (assuming that they dont have jetpacks or you sneak up on them) though I thought stab is 1 hit kill?
No, it does 160 normal damage IIRC, which is just enough to insta-kill a marine at A0. Which won't usually be the case when aliens are at biomass 8
it's completely new so of course people will be experimenting... and experimenting is anything but efficient. why are people here so impatient? it's like they play 2-3 games and think they're seeing a fully evolved metagame cross section.
given time it could easily be useful in comp play, and it's certainly more useful (and more suits the fade) than the previous vortex which was just terrible and annoying.
I read the whole post + replies, and saw the first one who knew how to utilize vortex + stab as late as the second page...
Seriously, what's wrong with them? I do better on a fade than I have ever before because now fades can actually do something when the marines get defensive, since vortex --> SS + stab is just so awesome.
Combine this with aura and you'll be racking up kills in the middle of the marine base
it's completely new so of course people will be experimenting... and experimenting is anything but efficient. why are people here so impatient? it's like they play 2-3 games and think they're seeing a fully evolved metagame cross section.
given time it could easily be useful in comp play, and it's certainly more useful (and more suits the fade) than the previous vortex which was just terrible and annoying.
actually, having a disable was particularly effective in certain circumstances, and may I hazard, more team oriented. theoretically, you could just have had everybody focus the power node while chain disabling a phase. and canceling beacons is pretty useful too. also, disabling dualies for the onos to close without losing half their life.
my solution, up the dps on stab so it's got parity with skulk on structures, and swap vortex and stab in the biomass req. then limit vortex to triggering on stab. also get rid of the timeout on vortex. why exactly does it timeout again?
it's completely new so of course people will be experimenting... and experimenting is anything but efficient. why are people here so impatient? it's like they play 2-3 games and think they're seeing a fully evolved metagame cross section.
given time it could easily be useful in comp play, and it's certainly more useful (and more suits the fade) than the previous vortex which was just terrible and annoying.
actually, having a disable was particularly effective in certain circumstances, and may I hazard, more team oriented. theoretically, you could just have had everybody focus the power node while chain disabling a phase. and canceling beacons is pretty useful too. also, disabling dualies for the onos to close without losing half their life.
my solution, up the dps on stab so it's got parity with skulk on structures, and swap vortex and stab in the biomass req. then limit vortex to triggering on stab. also get rid of the timeout on vortex. why exactly does it timeout again?
use it on a duallie?
but you die in a nanosecond, that's like saying skulk leap is good against shotgun. besides, it's irrelevant because noone takes on a dual minigun exo as fade unless the exo player is dire.
Actually the former vortex was pretty cool. It was just underused, barely researched, came to late into the game and there was no public awareness for it.
Vortex is a cool idea but it's too difficult to use IMO. The stuff you see in trick videos is not practical for average players in real situations. The ability needs to be streamlined somehow. For example, change it to Vortex Strike - a swipe attack that automatically teleports you to where you were 1 second ago when you use it. All it does is make it a one-step process instead of two-step, but it would make all the difference in usability.
Why would we need to dumb a mechanic down when it's not crucial for being an effective fade? Nobody's going to quit playing the fade because they can't utilise something like vortex to a maximum, so why should we take the satisfaction and advantage away from those who can? Sounds like a terrible idea.
Every ability should be crucial. Vortex deserves better than just being a way for top tier players to show off. More importantly, the current implementation often tricks players into wasting their time with ineffective poking tactics, making them a liability to the team.
Vortex and/or stab will never be crucial, since the bread, butter, salt and vinegar of fading will always be blinking and swiping. I could understand your argument if we were talking about the basics of a lifeform being too hard for inexperienced players to utilise, since that would effectively remove that lifeform from the arsenal of anyone else than seasoned players. But I will never understand the mentality that every single aspect of the game should be easy enough for everyone to pull off with minimal effort, be it basic or advanced mechanics.
I just don't agree with that at all, what other lifeform has all their good abilities at Hive 1 and everything else is just gimmicks? Every other ability on every other lifeform is pretty simple to use effectively.
The main use I have found for vortex is learning to fade. Sure, I might not be effective jumping out at the slightest damage, but I live, and as an inexperienced fade player, that is very helpful. It looks like it has some more advanced applications that could be applied once one learns it better.
I also have a interesting idea for a rebuild of the fade. Shadowstep is pretty useless now, except with stab. So why not move blink to the shift key, then vortex teleports back on right clicking. As someone else mentioned, make stab a charge up of the normal swipe. Tier one ability would be the stab charge, tier two would be vortex, and tier three could either be the old vortex, or perhaps a pull ability, so you could fling a marine out of a group toward you and quickly finish him off alone. That fling would be allow fades to create more ideal attacking situations, at a high energy cost, or help against exos by pulling the guy's welder off of him. It may work best if it pulls a distance based on the marine's weight, so they move small distances in an exo, especially a dual minigun, and farthest as a marine who has dropped his primary weapon.
Actually the former vortex was pretty cool. It was just underused, barely researched, came to late into the game and there was no public awareness for it.
I absolutely loved old vortex. It was underutilized because for whatever reasons comms never researched vortex. Disabling one marine to kill another, cancel beacon, block phase gate, prevent marines from spawning. I bet with enough coordination with your team you could disable arms lab at the right time for your team to push in without taking additional damage. It was actually a teamplay tool.
If old vortex was at this build (5 biomass, unlocked with fade upgrade), everyone would see how awesome it is.
I wish UWE could rename new one and bring old vortex back.
Vortex is a cool idea but it's too difficult to use IMO. The stuff you see in trick videos is not practical for average players in real situations. The ability needs to be streamlined somehow. For example, change it to Vortex Strike - a swipe attack that automatically teleports you to where you were 1 second ago when you use it. All it does is make it a one-step process instead of two-step, but it would make all the difference in usability.
Why would we need to dumb a mechanic down when it's not crucial for being an effective fade? Nobody's going to quit playing the fade because they can't utilise something like vortex to a maximum, so why should we take the satisfaction and advantage away from those who can? Sounds like a terrible idea.
Every ability should be crucial. Vortex deserves better than just being a way for top tier players to show off. More importantly, the current implementation often tricks players into wasting their time with ineffective poking tactics, making them a liability to the team.
One word: Xenocide.
Is critical for dealing with JPs. It's not that hard to figure out how to use it to murder JPs either, not a pro-only strat anyway.
Yeah, xenocide is hardly pointless. For the record, vortex and stab aren't either.
I can see some use for stab on a pub level, specifically because it does normal damage. You'll run out of energy before you destroy anything, but it should help doing damage to buildings especially.
I personally tend to try to use vortex+stab on exos, but it doesn't seem to be too effective.
Vortex is a cool idea but it's too difficult to use IMO. The stuff you see in trick videos is not practical for average players in real situations. The ability needs to be streamlined somehow. For example, change it to Vortex Strike - a swipe attack that automatically teleports you to where you were 1 second ago when you use it. All it does is make it a one-step process instead of two-step, but it would make all the difference in usability.
Why would we need to dumb a mechanic down when it's not crucial for being an effective fade? Nobody's going to quit playing the fade because they can't utilise something like vortex to a maximum, so why should we take the satisfaction and advantage away from those who can? Sounds like a terrible idea.
Every ability should be crucial. Vortex deserves better than just being a way for top tier players to show off. More importantly, the current implementation often tricks players into wasting their time with ineffective poking tactics, making them a liability to the team.
Vortex and/or stab will never be crucial, since the bread, butter, salt and vinegar of fading will always be blinking and swiping. I could understand your argument if we were talking about the basics of a lifeform being too hard for inexperienced players to utilise, since that would effectively remove that lifeform from the arsenal of anyone else than seasoned players. But I will never understand the mentality that every single aspect of the game should be easy enough for everyone to pull off with minimal effort, be it basic or advanced mechanics.
The basic usage of a mechanic should be able to be put to use on DAY ONE of playing the game. That doesn't mean a green should be anywhere near as good with it as a Div 1 comp player, but if they can't use it at all they can't improve with it, and if they can't improve with it they will never get as good as the comp player with it. It's called being intuitive.
Take aiming for example, every mechanic should work like that. From the moment you pick up the game, you can aim the gun. You can't hit jack shit, but there's no obscure little secret you have to learn before you can get good at it, you just need lots and lots of practice. Also, just because you can't aim for shit doesn't mean you would perform better by not even trying to aim. If they had instead designed this mechanic so that your shots would always miss unless you were drawing a spiral on the screen with the mouse while firing that would be unintuitive and stupid (IE just like bunnyhop). If they had designed it so that you would autoaim if and only if you didn't move the mouse at all, that would discourage practice by making a non-aimer better than an aimer, even if a perfect aimer would be better still.
it's completely new so of course people will be experimenting... and experimenting is anything but efficient. why are people here so impatient? it's like they play 2-3 games and think they're seeing a fully evolved metagame cross section.
given time it could easily be useful in comp play, and it's certainly more useful (and more suits the fade) than the previous vortex which was just terrible and annoying.
actually, having a disable was particularly effective in certain circumstances, and may I hazard, more team oriented. theoretically, you could just have had everybody focus the power node while chain disabling a phase. and canceling beacons is pretty useful too. also, disabling dualies for the onos to close without losing half their life.
my solution, up the dps on stab so it's got parity with skulk on structures, and swap vortex and stab in the biomass req. then limit vortex to triggering on stab. also get rid of the timeout on vortex. why exactly does it timeout again?
it's completely new so of course people will be experimenting... and experimenting is anything but efficient. why are people here so impatient? it's like they play 2-3 games and think they're seeing a fully evolved metagame cross section.
given time it could easily be useful in comp play, and it's certainly more useful (and more suits the fade) than the previous vortex which was just terrible and annoying.
actually, having a disable was particularly effective in certain circumstances, and may I hazard, more team oriented. theoretically, you could just have had everybody focus the power node while chain disabling a phase. and canceling beacons is pretty useful too. also, disabling dualies for the onos to close without losing half their life.
my solution, up the dps on stab so it's got parity with skulk on structures, and swap vortex and stab in the biomass req. then limit vortex to triggering on stab. also get rid of the timeout on vortex. why exactly does it timeout again?
use it on a duallie?
but you die in a nanosecond, that's like saying skulk leap is good against shotgun. besides, it's irrelevant because noone takes on a dual minigun exo as fade unless the exo player is dire.
yeah, you died pretty fast to dualies, but vortex was insta cast and had range in the latest iteration. and I never said take on a dualie, I said disable. you shouldn't be in the room long enough for the miniguns to spin up, and if the vortex connected he couldn't shoot you anyway.
I remember so many different iterations of vortex now. Used to disable everything close to it at one point and was kind of aim-able. Then you had to drop it where you were, did the same thing. Next it could only do 1 thing at a time. Then it you had to be touching the thing you wanted to vortex, and now this. I mean it could be useful as a means of drawing marines out.... sort of. Say you drop it on one side of a base, blink through and past everyone. Let them follow you for a bit then teleport back and attack them from behind or attack the base. But I still don't think it has any more of a use than it did before, maybe even less now.
I don't know, what happened to Acid Rocket, I liked that. It's not like the fade is particularly tough anymore, a high energy consumption ranged attack would probably be a better answer than playing with vortex.
And then as far as stab goes... Yea like everyone said it's just not useful by the end of the game, perhaps if there was a focus upgrade or it did 1.5x damage when attacking from behind. It just needs to be stronger in the end game somehow, you can't really afford to use it when the marines have a3 w3 since you'll probably die in the time it takes to get 2 attacks off.
One way to improve Stab currently is to allow you to switch back to Swipe in the middle of the animation so you can follow up. Right now, switching to Swipe mid-swing causes the Stab animation to play, but it will only do normal Swipe damage, making it feel really clunky to use. This would be a minor change that would significantly improve usability without directly making the ability itself stronger.
Comments
One word: Xenocide.
Vortex and/or stab will never be crucial, since the bread, butter, salt and vinegar of fading will always be blinking and swiping. I could understand your argument if we were talking about the basics of a lifeform being too hard for inexperienced players to utilise, since that would effectively remove that lifeform from the arsenal of anyone else than seasoned players. But I will never understand the mentality that every single aspect of the game should be easy enough for everyone to pull off with minimal effort, be it basic or advanced mechanics.
Right now all I see are Fades wasting time with the ability. I've even started ignoring them as a Marine.
Maybe change the regular swipe so it doesn't teleport you to the vortex point. Fades could then swipe once or twice before the stab (making it a little more useful) The slow speed of stab would cause a lot of lesser skilled Fades to die (so it would take some timing and skill) Plus the top tier players would still be the only ones able to fully utilize it.
Another great use for it is taking down Exos with support, either offensively or defensively. The key here is to pick a good entry route, otherwise you will end up with a mouthful of minigun bullets instead. You also have to place the Vortex fairly close to the enemy position, otherwise they will just outheal the damage you're doing.
The pitfall is that Vortex can lure players into playing things ultra safe, and therefore inefficient. If you use Vortex+Stab two times to take down a single marine instead of just going in and Swipe him to death, you are wasting your time. Against a good shotgunner, it might be worth it, though... so in the end, it all comes down to situational judgement, like most of Fade play. But Vortex+Stab are far from useless - actually, I'm always looking forward to Biomass 8 if I'm Fade.
Vortex *without* Stab feels pretty useless, though. While these trick videos are neat, I don't see a huge benefit over confusing the Marines with Blink+SS for a similar energy cost, as you always have the risk of a marine camping the Vortex. (That's assuming that they *can* see the Vortex... if they don't, that would change a *lot*.)
So what I would like to see is Stab and Vortex getting swapped in the Biomass order. Stab at about Biomass 5 or 6 would allow for high-risk, high-reward attacks (making Phantom much more useful than now), and Vortex would be the three hive end-game turtle breaker. Right now, the Fade has no useful unlocks between Biomass 2 and 8, which is a huge part of most games.
You would have to disable Shadow Step as well, though, which would turn the Fade into a sitting duck in any other place.
I really like this idea, though. How about this: Instead of using the current Vortex placement, and teleporting the Fade and the target there, both players are teleported to a separate mini-Arena instead (called "the Vortex", maybe?
This would get rid of any "death trap" exploits and give the marine a true chance to fight back, but it should still be very useful for the Fade. It would not allow him to rush into a huge group or a base turtle solo, as the remaining marines could predict and focus fire him if he wins and returns to the normal reality. So it would be most useful to split up small groups, which sounds pretty sweet for balance.
The downside is that this would be basically a complete rework of the Vortex that UWE just re-worked. So I don't think it's very likely to happen...
Stab (in it's current state) without vortex is surely gonna lead to tons of dead fades, who would've been better off just playing traditionally. Also, vortex seems to be one of the few abilities currently capable of at least slowing down an exo train push on pubs.
Both are interesting abilities, but the downside is that they don't work very well without the other. And the other ability is always locked behind that biomass requirement, which once met usually means that you've won the game anyway.
EDIT: Oh, one thing the vortex ability desperately needs is it to remember the direction you were facing. It's extremely confusing to come out of the vortex in the same angle as you were when swiping. (And I usually end up blinking in the wrong direction, right back to the waiting exos..)
The original Focus was over-powered since everyone got it and there was basically no reason you'd ever not get it unless you were going to dedicate yourself to attacking structures somehow.
I do think that the original model is more workable with the right draw-backs.
Make Stab:
1. Attack instantly so it's actually viable in most situations.
2. Preserve the longish cooldown and higher energy cost
3. Add in a "global cooldown" so that you cannot switch to swipe and attack immediately after stabbing.
This would effectively give players 2 real options: the "killing frenzy" style of Swipe where you are looking to deal as much damage as possible to a target with a high risk to yourself, and the "hit n run" style of stab where you minimise risk to yourself but limit your ability to quickly kill exos and multiple targets.
Alternative 2:
Once Stab is researched, fold it into Swipe by turning Swipe into a charge up attack like Railguns. This is a good tie-in with the Stab animation which looks like the Fade tensing up for an attack.
The point of vortex without stabbing is, get in, draw fire, use juke them with vortex. This great for distracting them, which can either be used to slow them down for a good deal of time, or, draw fire away from your teammates.
How about if you use vortex, you dont shadowstep but vortex back?
Having Swipe as a "Vortex panic button" is kinda useful, though.
The most useful way IMO would be the first activation of Vortex marking the destination (like it does now), and the second activation teleporting there, after which it resets. Neither Swipe nor Stab would cause a teleport... how quickly you could use Vortex (to teleport out) after Stab would be a matter of balancing. The advantage would be more flexibility (stay in combat as long as you want), with the downside that you can't "move" your teleport destination without teleporting to the old one first.
The question is if this would be OP or not...
No, it does 160 normal damage IIRC, which is just enough to insta-kill a marine at A0. Which won't usually be the case when aliens are at biomass 8
given time it could easily be useful in comp play, and it's certainly more useful (and more suits the fade) than the previous vortex which was just terrible and annoying.
Seriously, what's wrong with them? I do better on a fade than I have ever before because now fades can actually do something when the marines get defensive, since vortex --> SS + stab is just so awesome.
Combine this with aura and you'll be racking up kills in the middle of the marine base
actually, having a disable was particularly effective in certain circumstances, and may I hazard, more team oriented. theoretically, you could just have had everybody focus the power node while chain disabling a phase. and canceling beacons is pretty useful too. also, disabling dualies for the onos to close without losing half their life.
my solution, up the dps on stab so it's got parity with skulk on structures, and swap vortex and stab in the biomass req. then limit vortex to triggering on stab. also get rid of the timeout on vortex. why exactly does it timeout again?
use it on a duallie?
but you die in a nanosecond, that's like saying skulk leap is good against shotgun. besides, it's irrelevant because noone takes on a dual minigun exo as fade unless the exo player is dire.
I just don't agree with that at all, what other lifeform has all their good abilities at Hive 1 and everything else is just gimmicks? Every other ability on every other lifeform is pretty simple to use effectively.
I also have a interesting idea for a rebuild of the fade. Shadowstep is pretty useless now, except with stab. So why not move blink to the shift key, then vortex teleports back on right clicking. As someone else mentioned, make stab a charge up of the normal swipe. Tier one ability would be the stab charge, tier two would be vortex, and tier three could either be the old vortex, or perhaps a pull ability, so you could fling a marine out of a group toward you and quickly finish him off alone. That fling would be allow fades to create more ideal attacking situations, at a high energy cost, or help against exos by pulling the guy's welder off of him. It may work best if it pulls a distance based on the marine's weight, so they move small distances in an exo, especially a dual minigun, and farthest as a marine who has dropped his primary weapon.
I absolutely loved old vortex. It was underutilized because for whatever reasons comms never researched vortex. Disabling one marine to kill another, cancel beacon, block phase gate, prevent marines from spawning. I bet with enough coordination with your team you could disable arms lab at the right time for your team to push in without taking additional damage. It was actually a teamplay tool.
If old vortex was at this build (5 biomass, unlocked with fade upgrade), everyone would see how awesome it is.
I wish UWE could rename new one and bring old vortex back.
Is critical for dealing with JPs. It's not that hard to figure out how to use it to murder JPs either, not a pro-only strat anyway.
I can see some use for stab on a pub level, specifically because it does normal damage. You'll run out of energy before you destroy anything, but it should help doing damage to buildings especially.
I personally tend to try to use vortex+stab on exos, but it doesn't seem to be too effective.
The basic usage of a mechanic should be able to be put to use on DAY ONE of playing the game. That doesn't mean a green should be anywhere near as good with it as a Div 1 comp player, but if they can't use it at all they can't improve with it, and if they can't improve with it they will never get as good as the comp player with it. It's called being intuitive.
Take aiming for example, every mechanic should work like that. From the moment you pick up the game, you can aim the gun. You can't hit jack shit, but there's no obscure little secret you have to learn before you can get good at it, you just need lots and lots of practice. Also, just because you can't aim for shit doesn't mean you would perform better by not even trying to aim. If they had instead designed this mechanic so that your shots would always miss unless you were drawing a spiral on the screen with the mouse while firing that would be unintuitive and stupid (IE just like bunnyhop). If they had designed it so that you would autoaim if and only if you didn't move the mouse at all, that would discourage practice by making a non-aimer better than an aimer, even if a perfect aimer would be better still.
yeah, you died pretty fast to dualies, but vortex was insta cast and had range in the latest iteration. and I never said take on a dualie, I said disable. you shouldn't be in the room long enough for the miniguns to spin up, and if the vortex connected he couldn't shoot you anyway.
I don't know, what happened to Acid Rocket, I liked that. It's not like the fade is particularly tough anymore, a high energy consumption ranged attack would probably be a better answer than playing with vortex.
And then as far as stab goes... Yea like everyone said it's just not useful by the end of the game, perhaps if there was a focus upgrade or it did 1.5x damage when attacking from behind. It just needs to be stronger in the end game somehow, you can't really afford to use it when the marines have a3 w3 since you'll probably die in the time it takes to get 2 attacks off.