Forum Discussion

Monhulio's avatar
Monhulio
4 years ago

Caustic's Defensive "Roll"

I truly feel like the question needs to be asked with caustic: What kind of defensive roll does he provide? 

Problem:

Gas is a double edged sword in that it's 50/50 if it provides visual cover while also potentially blinding team mates, and with the number of recon characters in use (also maggie), you will likely be spotted. Not to mention damage numbers are an immediate giveaway + some players have better eyesight than others and can spot enemies in the gas.

Solution's:
- Disable hit confirmation on allies within the gas, can't keep shooting at what you don't know is definitely there.
- Increase team visibility within gas, maybe caustic shares goggles with allies.
- Prevent scans from penetrating the gas (he IS a defensive legend so it would make sense to defend against info)

Problem:

The gas isn't a large deterrent in mid to low tier lobbies against skilled players. Caustic is in a situation similar to wattson was, in that his kit functions better the higher the lobby tier + skilled players and worse in lower tier lobbies or pubs, where it is largely pushed into with ease by skilled or highly aggressive players with minimal penalty. The advantage a caustic gains from an enemy who just entered the gas is: 5 pips of damage, slight slow, maybe visuals if they remain inside long enough and he's actually looking towards them. At which point many players are likely to have already escaped the gas or ignored it and initiate the firefight.

Solution's:

- Create an immediate penalty for entering the gas (10/15 dmg).

- Potentially hide info from the intruder (bullets in the magazine, ping and recon information, hit confirmation, intruders allies shield and health state)

Problem:

Caustic's passive revolves entirely around his gas and it being accessible, which is easily disable-able due to repeated gas barrel nerfs. On-top of this it isn't an appropriate defensive perk as it only assists Caustic in seeing enemies within his gas, requiring that enemies consistently exist within the gas to provide any value. The only IMMEDIATE gas access for emergencies is the ultimate, which has a lengthy cooldown and is often largely treated as if it were an offensive tool rather than defensive (3 minute cooldown).

Solution:

- Rework passive into better defensive perk

- Provide gas sight benefit to allies

- Cause gas sight to linger on enemies that leave gas within a duration (2 seconds) or improve sight to include enemies near but not necessarily in the gas (as enemies can still casually sit at gas's edge and often easily fire upon allies throughout).

- Provide better consistent access to gas and allow caustic: improve barrels design to allow better play in open area's, adjust caustic ultimate cooldown and radius

Rework Solution: Swap ultimate and tactical

- Ultimate is now giant gas barrels that last a lengthy duration and are durable but destructible, maximum stack of 3, maximum placement of 3, 1 minute cooldown each. These would require thoughtful placement as before with barrels but cover an area similar to gas canisters. Area ramps-up to it's large radius rather than immediately covering it.

- Tactical is now gas canisters, providing immediate access to gas for caustic when it's time to defend allies, radius is similar to old gas barrels while covering that area instantly. maximum stack of 3.

 

Note: Barrels take time to cover the area in which they are placed, and are a delayed defense, in that they don't necessarily provide immediate defense, even when activated. Having a readily accessible delayed defense that's easily destructible is bad defender design. Meanwhile his ultimate is near instant for defense, but is an all or nothing piece, in that it either does exactly what you want it to in that instant you have to react and decide or provides no benefit whatsoever. No other legend possess these flaws to such an extent. It really would be better to have an ultimate that can and should be placed wisely rather than recklessly and a tactical that can be more forgivingly mastered. 

 

Problem:

Caustic gas can easily be overcome by players near and far by height.

 

Solution:

Increase gas height to provide appropriate cover.

 

Problem:

Caustic traps have been heavily nerfed repeatedly with no power returned.

 

Solution:

Give Caustic more gas traps, minimum of 8 at least, preferably more with existing gas.

legends

11 Replies

  • Kinesis862's avatar
    Kinesis862
    4 years ago

    Personally my only and biggest gripe with Caustic right now is that he utterly fails at his intended purpose, keeping people at distance. Too many streamers and "delete caustic" types all scream every time they hit a gas trap that does all of 5 damage and they easily walk right out of it, yet they keep screaming that caustic is overpowered somehow.

    Like the whole dang point of that trap was to keep you from flanking me, yet you walked right through it like it was nothing and took all of 10 damage from such reckless behavior.

    I would like to see caustic's traps do more at inhibiting players, keeping them in the gas with slow movement if they dare pass through and damaging shields first rather than damaging them directly to health incredibly slowly. As is, traps are just a joke to anyone who even remotely wants to push on you. You can throw traps all around yourself and people will just walk up, trigger them, and walk right out barely any worse for wear, and so quickly that by the time you check the activated trap your threat vision of them is already gone.

  • Monhulio's avatar
    Monhulio
    4 years ago
    @Kinesis862 I wholeheartedly agree and feel the exact same way. It's a "trap" that does 5 damage and prompts the enemy to either push through and ignore it recklessly or backup before Caustic players even have time to react to their presence.

    The sad part is, the gas does already slow enemies, and they can't sprint within. However this doesn't really feel like any kind of detriment unless they are 100% immersed in the gas, which is actually quite rare unless the player is reckless and the caustic literally sets up a trap every 5 feet or so (or final ring). It's also why I thought if the ultimate was the gas barrels, maybe they would ACTUALLY get stuck in the gas trap, because the radius is legitimately large and they can't just push through or double back. While you would have 3 less traps, you would have double the radius and the trap would actually do its job.

    Too many non-caustic players say "the gas is OP" and "his hitbox" is the problem. Thing is, the more skilled players are already less likely to miss their shots, so that 15% damage reduction and not being slowed can be really good.

    Enemies rarely feel "trapped" by a caustic. Part of the issue as well is that his entire kit revolves around the gas. When they buffed the damage output people screamed about it, and it was really powerful when players actually did get stuck in the gas, but they still rarely ever did.

    I'd sooner see the gas deal shield and life damage simultaneously tho rather than convert it all to shield damage. 5 and 5 maybe, and if the shield is empty different values because 10 straight life damage was apparently too much.
  • BigMacAttack8u's avatar
    BigMacAttack8u
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    @Monhulio My best solution to caustic, is a full revert to his season 10 state. After that you could increase reach of the gas, just a fraction, so you can get three ticks in. This would make gas traps indestructible again, instead of the pointless waste of time they are now. You could also make his ult count as 3 extra damage when combined with a trap, to make using ALL of your abilities more useful. Right now, there is no be if it to using all go your abilities at once. I don’t like the idea of swapping the ult with the tactical, as it might make caustic a less scary legend, as there would be no chance of him leaving traps behind, therefore making him less defensive. Let me know if you think this would be viable please!
  • Monhulio's avatar
    Monhulio
    4 years ago
    @BigMacAttack8u The idea was to make him have an ultimate that actually has 3 charges, an can have upto 3 active ultimate gas traps with the same radius as his current gas grenade. How is that not scary as hell? lol

    The was a problem with the gas traps being completely indestructible, not sure what all of it was but one of them was that you could literally use a gas trap as a shield to block bullets. With having 3 giant traps potentially hidden in an area or even in plain site to be detonated tho, that's fairly potent defences while giving him that easy gas access for his passive to even do anything.

    Also making his gas "just deal more damage" just makes him ridiculously lethal with health damage direct and pretty sure that was also part of the problem.
  • BigMacAttack8u's avatar
    BigMacAttack8u
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    @Monhulio His gas traps being indestructible aids his defensive qualities, as he is a defensive legend. My point with the damage in my other post was to say that using all of your abilities is not rewarding. His gas traps being indestructible is crucial. If not indestructible, it needs to have at least 350 health like Newcastle's tactical.
  • Monhulio's avatar
    Monhulio
    4 years ago

    ----Update----
    Problem:

    Caustic traps have been heavily nerfed repeatedly with no power returned.


    Solution:

    Give Caustic more gas traps, minimum of 8 at least, preferably more with existing gas.

  • Geckur0's avatar
    Geckur0
    4 years ago

    the gas traps being indestructible were a huge broken problem, as others have pointed out. games were ending with literally just caustic hiding behind his traps with no counterplay because they couldnt be destroyed. and why should their health be buffed to have the same health as something thats entire purpose is to block bullets? i dont even play caustic and i can tell a lot of people here simply have the wrong idea about him. hes not any kind of trapper, he doesnt have some hunter background like bloodhound. hes a mad scientist. the entire point of his character is area denial. ive also seen people in this thread complain that people respect his area denial by immediately backing out, then in the next sentence complain about idiots that push through the gas and fight you anyway. so which is it, do you want people to respect your space, or push in and fight you at a disadvantage? people wont be happy until their character is either invincible or can kill someone outright with their tactical.

    someone said they should be able to layer the ultimate on top of the gas trap damage, and i think thats reasonable. i also think his traps should disappear if he moves far enough away from them, say 100-200m. far enough that you arent going to run into one just at random, because thats annoying for the victim, and only provides random evo damage to the caustic and nothing else.

  • Monhulio's avatar
    Monhulio
    4 years ago
    @Geckur0 Actually someone randomly running into a gas trap, at any range, is part of his best qualities. I can see which trap you've triggered, how far away your team is, and even prevent you from bunkering in a building I previously left for a few moments. OR hinder you on your way to ring by filling a tunnel and preventing your advance. These are actually caustic's strong points, what you are attempting to make out as pointless is incorrect and since you said it yourself "I don't play caustic" so asking for MORE nerfs isn't appropriate, because you literally are asking to break his legs without having actually experienced the problems when playing him.

    With regards to people respecting or not respecting the gas, the problem is his lategame ranked play is great, just look at his pickrate during ALGS, but elsewhere his performance drops because of skill gap. There are two sides of the spectrum. The cautious enemy players respect the gas, allowing the traps to do the job of area denial. However the reckless and / or skilled player pushes through and ignores the gas. The problem is there is no punishment for this. There is very small consequences for someone bulling past the gas when they know you are at a disadvantage beyond it, taking 10 at best pips of damage. We can no longer put the traps in plain sight, so layering gas traps is even more difficult covering an area, ontop of being basically neutered if the ring should end in an open field, at which point I can't deny an area with anything other than my ultimate, which has a 3m cooldown. His kit is out of date compared to the other defensive legends, most of which have a long lasting ultimate that continues to work while caustic has only one chance to stop you from advancing should the gas traps fail or be useless because of the location.

    As for the gas being indestructible I agree that was an issue, as invincible walls are bad.

    I don't want to outright kill you with my tactical, I want to be able to defend with something other than my ultimate if you swoop in from behind catching my character unaware. I want to hold down a building properly without having to literally drown my teammates in my own gas doing so (because it hinders allies sight too). I want my damn tactical to be a colour other than lime * green so I can see the damn outline properly.

    I want a balanced character database that doesn't take a plural of SEASONS to achieve.
  • BigMacAttack8u's avatar
    BigMacAttack8u
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    @Monhulio I have the perfect solution to caustics problems.
    1. Increase gas trap health, as of now it is silly, and useless. Newcastle’s tactical has a lot of health, and is also mobile, gas traps are stationary. We just need more health for them, so there isn’t so much of an easy out.

    2. Gas trap damage should be a constant 10 damage. This is not as extreme a change as you think. It reduces the amount of time you can sit in the gas without dying from 13 seconds to 10. It makes it more scary to push through making it a more effective deterrent.

    3. Make his ult have a large linger effect, it would hit you, then you can exit, and it would linger on you for 3 seconds, decreeing from 10 to 5, then 2. You would also look like you had a little bit of gas around you, for the visual during this.

    4. Remove highlighted passive, he is defensive, not recon. Instead, implement healing catalyst, a perk from mobile. It allows for faster healing and reviving while he actively in HIS gas. Passive is an does not extend teammates.

    These points form the perfect way to fix caustic, and make him viable.