Class Discussion: Space Cadet
On to the characters introduced in BfN! I’m going to start with my girl; the zombie Space Cadet. I don’t have a main in any of the games as I tend to play everything, but with some of the BfN changes...
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@Iron_Guard8This is a character that has grown on me in a way.
Her primary having homing has all but destroyed past close range and despite having good health her weapon holds her back and most people seem to agree that the actual cadet ain't all that.
I'm fine with gravity smash but like many other bfn abilities the camera needs to be fixed and fast.
I like how her weapon is a zombot.
The beam is just meh. I don't hate it but I think a more interesting ability could definetly take its place that would be more line with the cadets look like say a meteor shield or escape option featuring her holding onto her flying zombot drone.
And now space station, ughhhhh.
I love how oak got obliterated with nerfs and bugs but station got to roam around just fine.
Her primary is far too accurate and allows her to countersnipe far too effectively.
She can refresh her abilities and all the other cadets as well.
It spawns almost instantly unlike oak or mech.
I remember when the stations beam could SHRED BOSSES in one go. They nerfed it but it still turns every bossfight in bfn even easier than normal. It's conviently also the perfect anti oak and riders weapon.
It's worse when they combine. 4 cadets can practically be invincible unless the plant team specifically focus them. Its worse when you realize they can be overhealed and given a costar from wizard and unlock wallhacks so you can never take them by surprise in already hard to take flank route map design.
The shields can be refreshed and can be stacked so you might as well require the power of the mega flower itself to destroy them. They also protect each individual cadet unlike acorns.
The torpedoes are kinda meh but they still allow the station to attack while out of sight for significant damage.
When you finally wittle down their health the cadets just pop off and book it because they can.
Oak is also vulnerable to electricity which harms his riders while stations shieods protect them from snapdragon. Leaks also showed a toxic zombie coming in bfn which meant the zombies qpuld have the two damage affects which could spread to teamates so another blow against acorn riders.
I'm working my way to the teamwork section on my retrospective and my thoughts right now are well: they wanted to introduce more team play oriented in overwatch esque mechanics but with characters that require stacking such as the team play characters and swarm they all but shot themselves in foot in execution not to mention the problems we already have with upgrades and Overheal. Team play should really be a team be encouraged into working together to achieve a common goal rather forcing teamplay mechanics onto them in a bunch of half baked mechanics that were clearly not thought out since day 1.
Oak and mech feel more alive because they are. Z mech is established as sentient in gw2 with Steve and his call animation has him protecting the imp, same with all of his variants in other ways. If they wanted their plant z mech they should've just made oak slightly different like having a bazooka like weapon while being able to regen and faster movement but with less health and no armor.
Too bad we never got this character in a game with space maps or space themed variants. Imagine playing as cadet, astronaut, z7, and cosmic brainz against the future fighters team comp from gw2 solo play. Such a waste.
@stukapooka I don't mind her primary as it doesn't feel OP and the homing isn't all that hot, so dropping it would just allow us to see how it works on its own. It's not huge damage, but not awful, and I think she'd be fine.
All your points about the station are exactly why I propose to drop the station and tomorrow with Acorn/Oak, why I will post about dropping the treetop riders there and balance acorn/oak with imp/mech to be more of a counter to each other. I do like the idea of her calling on an actual space station though, so that's where the beam I posted here comes from, we've discussed these ideas before too. Oak and Station are supposed to be more or less direct counters and Oak can be nasty, but station is just better, and especially with riders, and you can just activate/leave it whenever you want without timers or penalties. Not a great place to be.
Since I'd drop the Attack/Defense/Support thing, she'd not need a classification anymore.
I'd love Space Cadet on Lunar Landing, Moon Base Z, and other space maps!
@Iron_Guard8Just dropping the homing would leave us with a pretty balanced weapon.
A orbital beam strike ability traveling in a set direction would offer a nice zombie alternative to butter barrage.
I kind of miss the map aesthetics from 2 in general as we fought in very interesting locations across time and space and while I don't mind simpler gw1 esque maps, bfn completely dropping the unique areas of 2 and retreading on gw1 ideas (especially cactus canyon and driftwood shores) feels very dissapointing as I think it gives the series more ideas to work with.
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