Class Discussion: Rose
Onto Rose. A character I don’t play all that much, barring specific reasons, like when I need to get certain quests done (teleporters, vanquish streaks and especially with Druid Rose, assists). Another character that changed a lot in BfN, and mostly in a bad way to be honest.
I’ll start with the models; they look great in GW2, especially Nec’Rose, but in BfN, as Zero said; ‘She looks more like a tulip’. Rose is my least favorite model in BfN, although some of her cosmetics and gestures are very good.
Again, as they are so very different despite the obvious similarities, I’ll cover the GW2 and BfN versions separately. The GW2 version had 125 health originally, and early on in the game’s life, she was so overrepresented in PvP and ruined so many matches that I was worried for the game’s future; it was THAT bad. Luckily that didn’t last and they cut her health to 100 and made some other adjustments. Still, she can be an Imp’s worst nightmare in GW2 as her guided shots are one of the best ways to take the little double jumpers out, and Druid Rose, my favorite one, is even better at it thanks to how toxic works! Long range guided projectiles are extremely effective and only their slow speed keeps them from being oppressive in PvP. Nec’Rose could use a nerf as her jinxing is extremely effective, but she’s also the best looking one in my opinion, really nice work on her whole look.
Time Snare is useful and can really mess with your plan as a zombie. I’m not a big CC (crowd control) fan but it fits her, and while it can be difficult to deal with as a zombie, it’s not as bad as EMPeach or Gravity Grenade can be in GW2. It does what it says on the tin.
Arcane Enigma and Arcane Lotus. Back on Reddit, someone who likes BfN the most complained about Rose in GW2 and I should have pointed out how that makes no sense. His complaint was about how she can be invulnerable in GW2 and still attack, whereas she can’t in BfN. That would be a valid complaint if not for the fact that the BfN Rose can stay in Enigma form much longer, moves faster and buffs her teammates to also go faster, can grab an upgrade that lets her heal while in the form, and that not only is that attack in GW2’s version not all that great at damage and range, but that it shortens the duration as well. I wouldn’t be against them removing the attack in the next game, but it’s hardly as big a problem as it is in BfN. I actually prefer Lotus after they buffed it (it was poor when first released), as it let’s me heal myself upon using it and teammates nearby during it and now only use Enigma for quests.
Goatify and Psychedelic Goat. These were changed a long time ago now but they really made the wrong adjustments. I’d say to speed the abilities projectile up again, slow down the goat’s speed, make the psychedelic version harder to steer, and make any other balance adjustments needed to make it be effective without being too good. It’s in an odd place ever since that last patch that changed it. Personally, I use the psychedelic one the most.
Moving on to the BfN Rose, the first issue is that her projectile’s homing ability is sporadic and unreliable. I’m not a big fan of homing projectiles as it is, but when they’re supposed to home and they don’t, it needs to be fixed. Like GW2, the projectile is slow, so losing the homing, especially at close range, makes her often frustrating to play. I enjoy her floaty jump in BfN and seeing how she’s a sorceress, it fits her well. I’d like this to come forward to a new game.
Jinx has moved from a variant’s weapon effect to an ability. This makes sense as Nec’Rose is probably the best Rose in GW2, and jinx is a big reason why. They moved Time Snare from an ability to an upgrade effect, which is fine, as while it’s useful, Jinx is more useful. It’s very good to use against high health zombies, and especially mechs and stations as they’re big targets with a lot of health so very easy to take advantage of Jinx being applied to them. I don’t have any real issues here.
Arcane Enigma is where we have real problems with BfN’s Rose. The biggest issue I have with it is how long it lasts. Unlike in GW2 where it lasts longer if you don’t move and rapidly burns through its duration if you move and/or attack with it, it just lasts till it runs out of time or you manually deactivate it. Being able to turn it on and run so far away with it is another one of BfN’s many frustrations to deal with, but it’s made worse with the Epiphany upgrade that let’s her heal while also being invulnerable and faster, and also making her teammates move faster! I actually like the part where it makes teammates faster as it’s far more useful than the Engineer’s double time, but stacking that on top of everything else makes this one of the worst changes from GW2 to BfN.
And of course, we have Goatify. When it doesn’t bug out and randomly decide to fly straight up or straight down when you wanted to send it forward (although I see this less after patches to be fair), the fact that it goes through terrain and has a huge area of effect makes it another bad change in BfN. It takes awhile to completely change you, but that’s small comfort when the enemy team has 3 or 4 Roses and sends them at you, one after the other, and forces you to constantly get off of an objective to not transform. This is an issue in all the PvZ shooters to a point; oversaturation of a particular class can really ruin matches; Peashooters and Foot Soldiers in GW1 (Toxic Peas and Super Commandos especially), Imps (mostly from mechs) and detonation characters in GW2, and in BfN, they include too many healers and/or citrons, and while Goatify barrages aren’t the worst, they can be much harder to avoid than one may at first think possible.
Thorn Apart is her only legendary upgrade and it’s an interesting one. It can one shot several zombie characters at full charge but it takes work to do so and can’t do it all that often. I don’t use it much myself, as I find it a bit slow to use in a firefight. I’ve never been big on charged weapons like Plasma Pea, Mystic Flower and so on, so this is in that same group. Both plant legendary upgrades just don’t match the zombie ones as far as effectiveness.
BfN seems to want to encourage more teamwork and fewer lone wolves than the GW games with the team classes, overhealing, and other changes, but like the Engineer, Rose’s new kit makes her more of a lone wolf than ever. Yes, you can use upgrades that make her a very effective support, I have at least 1 of my 3 builds set that way, but most I’ve seen in matches focus on Epiphany and how annoying it is to deal with, more even than Electric Slides with Defibrillated, which is a similar situation I’ll mention in more detail when I get to that character soon. One more reason to drop the attack/defend/support idea added to BfN that we don’t really need.
For the new game, I’d return Goatify to GW2 levels with some tweaks to make it more useful, including buffing the psychedelic alternate ability a bit, as the BfN Goatify is awful to deal with. Arcane Enigma/Lotus would work more like GW2’s although I would have the default speed up nearby teammates as that’s a nice bonus that helps your allies which I fully approve of, maybe remove the attack portion as it’s not all that great anyway. Lotus heals around you so it would lose the speed up ability for allies as you could choose heal or speed based on which you grab. As far as Time Snare and Jinx, I’m not against them going back to GW2 for Time Snare being an ability, but if only Nec’Rose has Jinx, she really needs a nerf in some way. If Jinx was an ability like in BfN, Time Snare could remain an effect of an upgrade or an alternate for Jinx but it would have to be made into an appealing alternate so people would want to choose it over Jinx, while Jinx is such a good ability. Keep her floaty BfN jump, as I love that. Make the model back to GW2 as the BfN model just doesn’t look right.
