LONG POST! Caustic is a very bad legend. As a Caustic main I am happy the new map came out because it shows everyone how bad he really is. It is very open, and players are starting to see that he can't do anything without buildings to be inside of or around, and even then his traps are easy to push past. Here are the changes he needs to be decent imo.--->GAS SHOULD NOT AFFECT TEAM MEMBERS<---- Caustic has a doctrite, I'm sure he is smart enough to pack extra gas masks for team members-There needs to be some kind of punishment for setting off a gas trap. People set one off, take two ticks of damage at most and walk back out again-Gas Damage needs to be buffed again-Traps need quicker animations for throwing and activating by at least 30%-Traps and ultimate need at least 10% more gas range-Traps either should not go off if doors aren't fully opened, or seep through walls -Cooldown on traps should be buffed slightly, (maybe 20 sec instead of 25), carry 4 instead of three, and place 8 instead of 6 at a time. (At least) This is because he needs to be able to secure open areas and multiple ways to get to him in these new buildings-Traps need a buff to throw distance by at least 15%.-Remove trap shootout. You can already activate by shooting it, it will go away in 12 secs. Having the ability to shoot them down takes the threat away completely. (If it if behind a door, you'll need to think! Caustic is defensive so this is the point.)Even if all of these things were implemented he would not be op, he has no mobility still, he has no way to disengage unless he uses his ultimate, and he is very large, so even with a 15% less damage buff, you are hitting way more shots than you would have on that wraith or lifeline anyway. (Don't give him more fortified tho that would be pretty strong)

Of course he's awful in open space but most battle are fought in a named area where you can trap your enemies in a room or simply annoy them by throwing canisters around them and setting them off yourself. This way, your team takes the lead while you draw focus. I had a game just last night where my teammates left to fight a team while I fought another team in a building. Through my knowledge of how great Caustic is, I manage to set traps up and cornered all 3 enemies into a small room where I blocked the exits with gas and began throwing in arc stars before finishing the job with my Ult. It wasn't easy as Caustic in general isn't an easy Legend to use but it was sure satisfying seeing them run around like ants and die.

@CausticCoffey @heme725 Yeah as a Caustic main myself he does need some buffs. His tacticals deploy slower than a snail crawls. And is ultimate is easily dodge-able.Caustic is a defensive type. This can be taken a couple of ways. In Caustic's case though, this means pushing enemies off of your allies and giving them some breathing room. So just like a good defense can be made from a good offense, the vice versa is true too. It is really difficult to use caustic aggressively because: most fights take place outside of buildings, your own allies are avoiding you, his abilities activate slowly, and all of these combined usually means that if you're downed you are getting revived last. I've personally seen that happen time and time again. "Oh he's a Caustic and just saved our * with his ultimate inside this building? Let's revive him last." or "Oh its Caustic and we chased down an enemy to fight outside where I know Caustic is weak, so now he's down? Lets revive him last after we've looted."Here are the buffs I suggest: 1) First and foremost, allies should no longer be affected by Caustic gas, period. You gotta think in a real world and as a scientist he'd be smart enough to bring masks for his "friends". 2) The second biggest thing that any Caustic player can tell you, is that his tactical needs a major deployment time fix. Decrease the time by 40% if I had to guess. I don't know that actual dead set time so I can't be accurately reasonable. 3) Again, related to his tactical mostly, but somewhat his ultimate as well. The damage of the Nox. There's a few ways to handle this. You could: A) increase the rate at which the damage pings. B) Increase the starting damage at 7. C) Increase the damage peaking point to 15. D) Some sort of modified combination of the previous. 4) Then there's his ultimate. The Nox Gas Grenade. Again, most combat takes place outside. Outside Caustic's ultimate is easily avoidable, from backing up to going around to climbing on a loot container or small boulder. Personally I don't have a problem with its spreading range, or it's duration. It's the height I have a problem with. His ultimate should climb higher. Take 30-50% of what it's volume currently is and add that to it. It should climb two people high. 5) Next we circle back around to his tactical. Lets say you have a small building loaded with Caustic's traps and blocking doors so enemies can't get in. All the enemies do is simply crack the door and close it. Trap activated and the enemy waits it out. Comes in or around. Kills you. Enemy tosses grenade in activates all traps, waits it out. Comes in or around. And kills you. The sensitivity of the Traps needs fixed. So that enemies can't just crack a door, close it, is unaffected waits it out, kills you. If that's too complicated to adjust then, the cooldown time on getting new traps needs decreased. Try from 25 seconds to 18. On top of needing to be able to store 4 traps, and deploy 8.And just for extra credit: Why does Caustics traps disappear immediately upon death? Canisters, the gas, all of it. Just gone. Gas canisters that would have saved your allies when you died, gone. Gas from a nox bomb that would've killed enemies after your death, because you damaged them so much? GONE. But Wattson's traps sure stay on the field. Octane's "traps" sure stay on the field.

-I understand your viewpoint on gas effecting teamates, however, I don't agree. There should be distinguishing team colors or effects like on wattsons fences for example. Not being able to play with your team in the gas is a huge holdback on Caustic.-The spread out effect on the gas is Interesting, however in order to have someone actually run into the gas in the first place, it needs to be hidden which usually means you are putting it against a wall of some sort to hide it. The rage would not reach as intended. If the range increases to Max say in 3-6 seconds however it would make Caustic very strong. You could place one down, shoot it, and smoke out a whole room or area. So maybe this would work.-I still think Caustic needs more traps and a cooldown buff. Even with 30% increased range over time he needs to be able to cover large open area, or he is restricted to staying around and inside buildings, and his kit should not be situational like it is now. Other legends have something about their kit that is useful Almost all the time.-I read your post and I like it. I think our Caustic visions are a little different and with a different goal in mind and I am fine with any buffs at this point lol.

For S3 I switched to Caustic from Pathfinder because I wanted as big a change as I could get to keep the game fresh. About 1k kills and 55 S3 wins so far and I'm loving him. I don't think he needs a buff other than the ideal but totally not happening "different player model about the size of mirage" and get rid of fortified :PI think he's unpopular among better players not because he himself isn't good to use but because if you're about padding your stats, you want the characters that enable to you to push as aggressively as possible all the time : this means mobility or faster healing to get into thicker fights/new fights faster. I really don't think his gas needs to be buffed or changed, he's in a fairly decent spot imho. It might be an idea to have it so that when someone shoots the base of your trap to deactivate them, a small cloud appears for 1 or 2 seconds, so that the often lamented issue of a player with a good shot nullifying Caustic isn't as pronounced - but honestly, if your traps are all getting shot out then you're putting them in the wrong place.[edit] - Re the map, I think it's significantly better for Caustic than Kings Canyon ever was. There are far more buildings and enclosed spaces. In HUGE sections of the map you can deny access vertically by trapping ziplines, elevator shafts, stairwells etc. In most of the buildings you can render a floor effectively a 'safe-ish zone' to med up etc because the gas totally covers the entire floor. So much comes down to CQB in a lot of this new map in buildings that Caustic has never been more relevent in the hands of a solid player.

@CausticCoffey "Gas should not affect team members." A lot of players are in favor of this and some against. I'm not sure if this change would make things better or worse so nothing to say about this."Gas damage needs to be buffed." Why? Well I'm fine with buffing the damage if you're ok with getting rid of the slow and blurred vision. Too many players focus on damage and ignore how significantly players are affected by the little things."Traps need quicker animations for throwing and activating..." I'm in favor of this for most legends. A character that's highly dependent on their ability to compete needs to be able to use it quickly. Wraith is fine with just a gun because of her small size but bigger characters need their kit to do well.I'm too ignorant of Caustic to have an opinion on most of your other suggestions outside of removing the ability to shoot out his traps. Its the only real counter to him and without it I have to give up if I see a single trap.

Caustic is terrible, and the new map shows it

28 Replies

heme725
6 years ago
@CausticCoffey "Gas should not affect team members." A lot of players are in favor of this and some against. I'm not sure if this change would make things better or worse so nothing to say about this.
"Gas damage needs to be buffed." Why? Well I'm fine with buffing the damage if you're ok with getting rid of the slow and blurred vision. Too many players focus on damage and ignore how significantly players are affected by the little things.
"Traps need quicker animations for throwing and activating..." I'm in favor of this for most legends. A character that's highly dependent on their ability to compete needs to be able to use it quickly. Wraith is fine with just a gun because of her small size but bigger characters need their kit to do well.
I'm too ignorant of Caustic to have an opinion on most of your other suggestions outside of removing the ability to shoot out his traps. Its the only real counter to him and without it I have to give up if I see a single trap.
CausticCoffey
6 years ago
@heme725 wrote:
@CausticCoffey "Gas should not affect team members." A lot of players are in favor of this and some against. I'm not sure if this change would make things better or worse so nothing to say about this.
"Gas damage needs to be buffed." Why? Well I'm fine with buffing the damage if you're ok with getting rid of the slow and blurred vision. Too many players focus on damage and ignore how significantly players are affected by the little things.
"Traps need quicker animations for throwing and activating..." I'm in favor of this for most legends. A character that's highly dependent on their ability to compete needs to be able to use it quickly. Wraith is fine with just a gun because of her small size but bigger characters need their kit to do well.
I'm too ignorant of Caustic to have an opinion on most of your other suggestions outside of removing the ability to shoot out his traps. Its the only real counter to him and without it I have to give up if I see a single trap.
First I would suggest playing about 10 games in a row with Caustic to get a feel for him and experience the game from his perspective.
"Why? Well I'm fine with buffing the damage if you're ok with getting rid of the slow and blurred vision. Too many players focus on damage and ignore how significantly players are affected by the little things."
-The slowness and blurry vision are the only thing keeping people in the gas for the laughable 2 ticks as it is (4 at most) which comes out to a whopping 9 or (22 with 4 ticks) for staying inside way longer than you ever need to. You can push into a gas trap and through it before you hit 4 ticks. I think damage needs to start from 6 and tick up to 10, not 4.
"I'm too ignorant of Caustic to have an opinion on most of your other suggestions outside of removing the ability to shoot out his traps. Its the only real counter to him and without it I have to give up if I see a single trap."
-Again you can shoot traps to activate them. If you can just shoot out the bottom it forces Caustic to camp in buildings, and he can't be out in the open between cover points using the traps to deny area. As for a caustic that camps in a building, even now you wouldn't be able to shoot them out anyways as you can't get to them.
-Also not being affected by caustics gas as a team member let's you play with caustic and strategize with him, rather than trying to avoid being around him. Too many times I've died to people pushing through my gas with no help because my team does not want to enter and play around me.
-I would like many more people to play caustic so that respawn gets the data they need to confirm all of this. I am also going to make a thread on Mirage, Bloodhound, (both more buffs), and Pathfinder. (Further nerfs)
heme725
6 years ago
@CausticCoffey Fair enough. I've played around a Caustic with little issue but haven't used him much. Going to give him a shot for a few days to see how he feels.
CausticCoffey
6 years ago
Sounds good! I hope you enjoy him. He isn't very strong but his personality and aesthetic are very cool :D Maybe main him and see what you can do? Very satisfying kills as him when you can pull it off.
GreenxxFire
6 years ago
@CausticCoffey
@heme725
Yeah as a Caustic main myself he does need some buffs. His tacticals deploy slower than a snail crawls. And is ultimate is easily dodge-able.

Caustic is a defensive type. This can be taken a couple of ways. In Caustic's case though, this means pushing enemies off of your allies and giving them some breathing room. So just like a good defense can be made from a good offense, the vice versa is true too. It is really difficult to use caustic aggressively because: most fights take place outside of buildings, your own allies are avoiding you, his abilities activate slowly, and all of these combined usually means that if you're downed you are getting revived last. I've personally seen that happen time and time again. "Oh he's a Caustic and just saved our * with his ultimate inside this building? Let's revive him last." or "Oh its Caustic and we chased down an enemy to fight outside where I know Caustic is weak, so now he's down? Lets revive him last after we've looted."

Here are the buffs I suggest:

1) First and foremost, allies should no longer be affected by Caustic gas, period. You gotta think in a real world and as a scientist he'd be smart enough to bring masks for his "friends".

2) The second biggest thing that any Caustic player can tell you, is that his tactical needs a major deployment time fix. Decrease the time by 40% if I had to guess. I don't know that actual dead set time so I can't be accurately reasonable.

3) Again, related to his tactical mostly, but somewhat his ultimate as well. The damage of the Nox. There's a few ways to handle this. You could: A) increase the rate at which the damage pings. B) Increase the starting damage at 7. C) Increase the damage peaking point to 15. D) Some sort of modified combination of the previous.

4) Then there's his ultimate. The Nox Gas Grenade. Again, most combat takes place outside. Outside Caustic's ultimate is easily avoidable, from backing up to going around to climbing on a loot container or small boulder. Personally I don't have a problem with its spreading range, or it's duration. It's the height I have a problem with. His ultimate should climb higher. Take 30-50% of what it's volume currently is and add that to it. It should climb two people high.

5) Next we circle back around to his tactical. Lets say you have a small building loaded with Caustic's traps and blocking doors so enemies can't get in. All the enemies do is simply crack the door and close it. Trap activated and the enemy waits it out. Comes in or around. Kills you. Enemy tosses grenade in activates all traps, waits it out. Comes in or around. And kills you. The sensitivity of the Traps needs fixed. So that enemies can't just crack a door, close it, is unaffected waits it out, kills you. If that's too complicated to adjust then, the cooldown time on getting new traps needs decreased. Try from 25 seconds to 18. On top of needing to be able to store 4 traps, and deploy 8.

And just for extra credit: Why does Caustics traps disappear immediately upon death? Canisters, the gas, all of it. Just gone. Gas canisters that would have saved your allies when you died, gone. Gas from a nox bomb that would've killed enemies after your death, because you damaged them so much? GONE. But Wattson's traps sure stay on the field. Octane's "traps" sure stay on the field.
CausticCoffey
6 years ago
-I think 15 per tick would be a little much. It would only take 10 ticks to down a completely undamaged player.
-Starting at 6-7 and having a punishment for activating a trap, (say and arch star slow effect at the start or being stuck in a coughing animation where you can barely move for 2-3 secs), would be better anyway as the damage would never even get to 15 if players aren't new. This also makes it to where Caustic won't be helplessly running back and fourth to activated traps to find no one standing there lol
-If he is too strong they'll nerf him or become overplayed and we definitely don't want a Wraith Pathfinder or Lifeline playrate on our hands lol
-I do like your suggestions and I hope all of mine are added to him as well as everything you said minus the 15 tick damage.
heme725
6 years ago
@CausticCoffey After playing with Caustic for a bit I came away feeling "meh." He wasn't at any real disadvantage but his kit was almost useless. Since he has to be set up before an engagement to be useful his traps were worthless in most of our fights.
Every game I played had my squad roaming the map aimlessly looking for kills so I never bothered setting up unless we knew a squad was nearby.
There are now 3 Legends who can spot my traps (Bloodhound, Crypto, Wraith) so the chances of them being taken out or avoided are pretty high.
If I tried to use the traps in a fight they would never activate in time to do anything. My ultimate was the only thing that had any real value and I needed an opening to use it properly.
Surprisingly Caustic isn't in any disadvantage in a fight but there is next to zero reason to pick him. I can block escape routes with his ult, ult an enemy that isn't looking at me, or block paths towards my team with my tactical but Gibraltar can do the first 2 things better and the last 2 require map knowledge while being minimally effective.
His gas damage is still fine to me and I'd like for the traps to come out faster but... I care less about that after using him. I'd want his traps to activate almost instantly when thrown next to an opponent or for him to be able to recall traps placed across the map so Caustic doesn't have to care about needing to move and set up again.
Either useful in active combat or able to setup more frequently. Thats all I care about for him. Of course I'm no Caustic main.
CausticCoffey
6 years ago
He is at a disadvantage -because- his kit is useless. (And because he is wide but I'm fine with that because he is defensive so you wouldnt push on people often when you are both at equal health) If you had a grapple, invincibility, a sheild, ect you would have been able to do something. You can't leave a fight, heal quickly, trick anyone, protect yourself, or get extra info on where the enemy is coming from which other legends have. This gives them the advantage.
-You can't use your traps at all because they don't activate quick andt just get shot out (which is why shoot out needs to be removed. You can just go around it or shoot it to activate it and wait 12 secs)
-Maybe the damage is fine, and if all of the implementations I mentioned were added, maybe it would be fine.
Furthermore, THANK YOU, for playing him and seeing for yourself he has no value as a legend. This is how we make progress. (Mirage needs attention too)
@heme725 wrote:
@CausticCoffey After playing with Caustic for a bit I came away feeling "meh." He wasn't at any real disadvantage but his kit was almost useless. Since he has to be set up before an engagement to be useful his traps were worthless in most of our fights.
Every game I played had my squad roaming the map aimlessly looking for kills so I never bothered setting up unless we knew a squad was nearby.
There are now 3 Legends who can spot my traps (Bloodhound, Crypto, Wraith) so the chances of them being taken out or avoided are pretty high.
If I tried to use the traps in a fight they would never activate in time to do anything. My ultimate was the only thing that had any real value and I needed an opening to use it properly.
Surprisingly Caustic isn't in any disadvantage in a fight but there is next to zero reason to pick him. I can block escape routes with his ult, ult an enemy that isn't looking at me, or block paths towards my team with my tactical but Gibraltar can do the first 2 things better and the last 2 require map knowledge while being minimally effective.
His gas damage is still fine to me and I'd like for the traps to come out faster but... I care less about that after using him. I'd want his traps to activate almost instantly when thrown next to an opponent or for him to be able to recall traps placed across the map so Caustic doesn't have to care about needing to move and set up again.
Either useful in active combat or able to setup more frequently. Thats all I care about for him. Of course I'm no Caustic main.
CausticCoffey
6 years ago
@heme725 To be honest he shouldn't even have to "set up" He is about area denial, so let him deny area.
IAmTheMeddler
6 years ago
As a Caustic main (currently) I have noticed that the traps are getting triggered more and more whenever I place them inside a door, sometimes without any enemies around, like if I throw it too close to a door.
I feel like this was a hidden change they implemented at the last part of season 2 and it is definitely frustrating when you are trying to secure an area. A good fix would be more doors to not trigger the traps.
Also, since this map is more open all of his abilities are becoming a lot less useful. I love Caustic in small circle scenarios and close quarters, but there is a lot less of that with this new map. So I also agree that the range should be increased for all of his abilities, especially his ultimate, in order to make him more worthwhile in this new season and map.