Ability discussion: The warp trinity

For quite a while, several members of our community complained about scientists being essentially assault characters that on occasion heal, and warp is part of that. So why they changed the scientist's healing kit in BfN to be more supportive with the hose but then made warp more OP than ever is mystifying.

Regular GW warp is fine and the short activation time means it can be used in a hurry, but plants can react to it, even if only briefly. In BfN, it's just too good. Instant warp with 3 charges is extremely powerful and frustrating to deal with as the plants.

I used to use energy warp almost exclusively when I got it in a pack in GW, but swapped back to regular warp later on. Energy warp is great for setting off potato mines and spikeweed harmlessly, and of course can be used to cheese that last point in Wall-Nut Hills.I like Electric Slide but if she returns to a new game, I do hope they revisit her kit, something we talked about in an older post of mine here.

Cheesy Warp is something I don't use much either but it is amusing to get a vanquish with it, rare as that is.

The non-BfN warps are mostly fine, but BfN's is crazy good, and the old one(s) should be used for the next game.

@Iron_Guard8Scientist broke the game but everyone saw how stupid it was when steam blaster came out.

They keep trying to make scientist a dead-set healer when that simply wasn't what he was in the gw, yeah, he had great healing options but in gw1 he really just threw down his station for his team than ran off to get vanquishes and set traps with his sticky bombs (gw1 in general had the zombies hard set into a wandering nomad combat philosophy that clashed with the plants hard set defensive playstyles). They added more options for him in gw2 with the beam but that was mainly because of herbal assault and zombies having to play defensively. His variants in both gw games focused more on dps than the sunflowers variants which did provide healing capabilities. He's really an offensive flanker who can escape danger and set traps while occasionally healing people however now popcap's trying to force him into a healer and its obvious that the two designs are clashing. I see what they were going for in bfn and on paper it looks good but in practice it doesn't really work compared to the gw scientist. Even in bfn his regular primary can be deadlier at range than his older shotgun given that it arguably does more damage overall than the slug rounds of gw (the actual projectile had to be combined with the spread in gw to really be effective).

The old warps are the best their gonna get tbh. They provided great mobility (especially with how open some gw1 maps were) but they weren't unpredictable or uncounterable. Not too mention that with upgrades bfn's warps allow you to reload.

I hope electric slide just goes a whole rework and redesign. She's one of the most forgettable zombies on the team and her kit doesn't seem like a lot of thought went into it. Energy warp should go back to scientist as i feel it fits him more due to his small health.

It's so wierd going back to gw1 and seeing the cheetos and aquafina characters. Don't get me wrong they're fun as heck and i actually really like the designs but its just too wierd for me when i look at them compared to everything else in game. They should take cheesy warp and make it a third alt for warp just like how they made chester spikeweeds the spikerocks in gw2.

WARP

Warp is an ability for Scientist which is an interesting but really cool ability. This ability allows Scientist to teleport around, which makes traversing maps quite easily with decent distance per use of Warp. These Warps stack up to 2 in the GW games, and 3 in BFN. This ability does not directly add to the support power of the Scientist, but it can allow him to get out of difficult fights or to get to allies much easier for healing. If you are healing an ally and you use a Warp, you will actually continue to heal that ally if they are still within range when the Warp ends. While this ability does not directly assist the supportive nature of Scientist, I love this ability. Being able to Warp around where needed for extra mobility can really be useful in specific situations, I feel that in the GW series, the delay before the Warp comes out is quite high and if it was reduced slightly, that would be cool, although in BFN, this is completely different, being able to warp instantly. I would not mind if they added a small delay. This ability can be useful in so many situations and having stacks of them with not too long of a cooldown allows you to make use of them more easily.

GW Alternate Abilities

Energy Warp: This ability changes the way that Warp works, instead of teleporting, you become invincible for a short time, similar to Arcane Enigma or Electric Slide's Outta Fight ability in BFN. This ability only stacks to up to a single use at any given time, so this should be used wisely. This ability can actually be used to set off traps without risk of being vanquished and to avoid incoming damage. I have really enjoyed using this alternate ability before, it can make specific objectives much easier (such as Wall-Nut Hills) and gives Scientist a chance to become invulnerable to damage if needed, which is not normally something Scientist can do.

Cheesy Warp: This ability is only available in GW. It works in a very similar way to the regular Warp, although when you come out of the Warp, it creates an explosion that deals 30 damage to surrounding enemies, which can be used to get closer to weaken enemies before you fight them, however this ability only stacks up to a single use at once. It has a slightly reduced cooldown though. Now, I have not ever tried out this ability as it was only available in the first GW game, although this actually sounds like a really interesting ability. You can use this to somewhat safely engage enemies, deal some additional damage to them, and then finish them with your weapons. Cool synergy.

BFN Alternate Upgrades

Wormhole (2 upgrade points): Your Warps travel much further, which makes your Warps much more effective for getting around, including if you need to retreat from a battle, need to get up to enemies, or get to allies to heal them. I genuinely think this upgrade is actually incredible, because it doubles your distance traveled per Warp or something like that, and because Warps are instant and stack up to 3 in this game, it just makes this upgrade even better. Not only that, but the upgrade is cheap. This upgrade should cost more because of how good it is, really good upgrade.

Materalize (2 upgrade points): Whenever you use a Warp, you gain half of your maximum ammo clip, which is adapted on which primary weapon you have (Goo or Steam Blaster). This can be helpful, you can use your Warps to keep your ammo supply up during a battle and to avoid having to reload. If you run out of ammo, you can simply use a Warp and you gain half your ammo back instantly. This Warp or Warps can also be used to confuse your enemy by changing your location, possibly giving you free attacks before your enemy can react. This upgrade seems to be useful from my standards, as well as cheap, but this is especially prevelant if you like to go offensive with Scientist, do consider that it will be less useful if you prefer to heal your allies more. This becomes even better because you have 3 quick use warps.

Conclusion

The Warp is an interesting ability, but without a doubt a really useful one that can be used in many situations. While it cannot deal damage by default, it is really useful for other reasons including getting up to and confusing enemies, catching up to allies or retreating in bad situations. It is in an interesting state right now, with it potentially being able to benefit with buffs in the GW series and it sort of needing nerfs in BFN, there you go. I find this ability to be awesome, simply because it is an ability that I get a lot of use out of for many reasons.