How to responsibly buff Caustic
This topic is meant for players aged 21 and older.
Bad jokes aside, how can Caustic be buffed without whipping the Average Joe into a frenzy? (Average Joe = mediocre player who never touches Caustic but think he's "OP" because gas is annoying). What AJ doesn't understand is that annoying =/= effective, or contributing meaningfully to a team in a team-based game.
Caustic is one of the only legends that not only offers no direct benefit to his team, but also can actively screw up his teammates vision / movement speed with poor planning or unfortunate circumstances.
Which would be fine, IF his ability set was potent enough to justify this. As it stands, he is not strong enough to warrant being picked in competitive games*. How much of this is due to map design versus how much of this is due to undertuned abilities is a good (and tough) question, but I'll make a few suggestions that may help answer that question. (We will find out if he ends up being overpowered; just like buffing anyone else: see Gibby.)
Problems That A Caustic Main Noticed
A Subjective Account of Alexander Nox
1) Caustic's passive should either A) be an innate effect, or B) Caustic's passive should apply to his teammates as well.
Crypto's passive allows his robot to "scan" enemies; while this could also be an innate ability of his drone, it at least shares the information with his allies. Caustic's does not.
Caustic gets the worse of both worlds; an ability that should be innate is instead made into his passive -- AND his passive isn't shared with allies. Ouch.
SOLUTION: Either give Caustic an actual passive that isn't an attribute of his gas; or make his passive also give his allies vision of his gassed victims.
2) Caustic's gas inhibits his allies vision AND slows them. The only thing it doesn't do is damage them. This is extremely detrimental to his allies, as the vision hampering and slowing effect are the most dangerous aspects of the gas -- and they both apply to his teammates.
SOLUTION: Allies are slowed but not visually impaired, or visually impaired but not slowed. My suggestion: since your allies are not hurt, they should not be slowed either.
3) Caustic's gas traps are wonderful in very select areas, but most of the time they're simply a delay of the inevitable, or a mere annoyance. Only a few times have I used them to actually win a game. Much of this is because they can be destroyed by shooting them. Any amount of damage to the bottom rung will instantly destroy a trap, meaning that good players aren't actually affected by gas traps unless they are surprised; this is doubly hard to do because Wraith automatically detects traps, BH can scan them, and Crypto can scan them.
SOLUTIONS: A few suggestions. Not all of these should be implemented at once, they're just ideas:
1) Gas traps could activate mid-flight - meaning that when thrown far, they are ready to release gas as they hit the ground, not delay even longer after their flight. This would make them useful as throwing tools instead of limiting them to only being surprise traps.
2) Gas traps could have an HP bar instead of being destroyed in 1 hit no matter what; this would make a trap at least a little threatening as they'd require a measure of sustained fire instead of a snapfired single shot. Think Crypto's drone now vs back when it had 1 HP.
3) Gas traps could have a larger radius, as right now they are surprisingly easy to avoid once activated.
4) Gas traps could have a larger max capacity. 6 at any one time seems awfully low in today's meta.
4) Caustic's ultimate is in dire need of some improvement. As it stands, his ultimate is a glorified gas trap with a larger AoE and double the duration.
Problems:
A) The duration is rarely significant
B) The increased AoE is almost as likely to injure your allies as it is your opponents
C) The time it takes between pressing Z and actually throwing your ultimate, and then your ultimate's travel time midair, and then the time it takes to blow up after it lands, is entirely too long; we're talking like 3 full seconds from intent to use ultimate to ultimate being realized. In a FPS, 3 seconds is an eternity -- especially in the middle of a gunfight, which is exactly when you want to use your ult.
SOLUTIONS: Everything about Caustic's ultimate should be faster and smoother. From pulling out the grenade, to the flight speed, to the grenade blowing up after landing: the time it takes should be cut in half, if not faster. This is supposed to be a small-scale ultimate that creates a massive advantage for the user in a limited area.
As it stands: it does this, but so slowly that good players can react and escape before it truly begins or has time to create the advantage. E.G. Wraith counters the ult via tactical; Pathfinder counters the ult via Tactical; Octane and BH (during ult) literally runs out of the ultimate.
If Caustic whipped out his ultimate and tossed it much more quickly, he would get a precious second or two of advantage before someone can escape or counter his ult.
End of the day, Caustic is literally the weakest legend outside of his abilities: he has a large hitbox, no gun-shield or dome shield, no movement speed or grapple, nothing in terms of combat prowess. He has gas: and his gas is literally everything he revolves around. Even his passive is Nox Gas-related.
He needs to be able to use his gas more effectively, and his gas needs to be more potent. Otherwise, he's just going to be an example of a bargain-basement Legend that was interesting in concept but fell victim to the numbers game, where more conceptually-busted legends like Wraith and Pathfinder continue to dominate despite nerf after nerf.
And yes, Mirage / Revenant need a buff or two just as much as Caustic (if not more) but that doesn't invalidate Caustic's dilemmas. EA simply needs to pull itself together and buff everyone who needs a buff.
I don't think there's a person around who wants to see Pathfinder or Wraith nerfed. We just want other legends to be equally viable.
(*I realize that Caustic has been picked in tournaments before, but his pick rate is far lower than would is generally considered "competitively viable." Outliers exist but the exception isn't the rule.)
