Class Discussion: Torchwood & Hovergoat-3000
Since these 2 characters only exist in GW2 and have no alternate abilities, I decided to cover them both here. There was an alternate ability in the works for Torchwood, some kind of sprint ability that we never got. Would have loved to have been able to use it.
Torchwood. The biggest plant character prior to Oak in BfN, and may have been a partial inspiration for it. Lots of health, not very fast, and easy to hit. They nerfed his main weapon quite a while ago, but I say they went a bit too far with it, and that Blazin’ Blast is more of an issue (although extremely fun to use). Often targeted in PvP matches unfortunately, although this seems to be more of a byproduct of them selling the upgrade where you can buy it, then the character itself, you don’t actual see these guys in PvP matches all that much, but it’s a solid character. Fun fact; when you use the character in Ops, he appears as a full-sized Giga-Torchwood at the start and parts of him are visible outside of Penny thanks to that, then he lands and shrinks to the smaller player version size. The costumes are a nice extra touch that foreshadowed the sets that we have in BfN.
Despite the nerf, his main weapon, the Wood Chipper, isn’t bad and is very satisfying to use. A wooden Gatling gun on an angry, flaming tree is something I’ll always enjoy playing. Better close up as it becomes highly inaccurate at range, it’s not too bad on the overheating but could definitely benefit from BfN’s overheat indicator on the HUD.
When you use Smoldering Madness, you not only can fire the Wood Chipper without overheating, it also lets you move faster, it also causes fire damage, and you get bonus XP for getting vanquishes while the ability is functioning! It also turns your head fire from red to blue which doesn’t really do anything, but looks cool. I love this ability.
Blazin’ Blast is essentially, fire breathing. It’s a short-ranged cone that is extremely powerful and can take out a lot of zombies. This makes it excellent in Ops for obvious reasons. A lot of people complain about this ability, and I can see why, but if they did nerf it, they’d need to buff Wood Chipper to compensate. It isn’t all that hard to escape from this ability as it’s short ranged, but it sure can rack up the vanquishes!
Leaf Shield slows you down even more than usual, and that’s saying something as the big guy isn’t speedy in the first place. It cuts damage in half(!) and lasts for 15 seconds or until you cancel it. This makes our tree friend even more of a tank than ever and great for taking/holding key points as the loss of speed is less important when you’re already standing where you need to be.
I have a hard time resolving the overlap between the Acorn’s Oak and Torchwood being playable at the same time, but I’d not complain if they did do this in the next game.
Hovergoat 3000. I admit that when we found out the new ‘zombie’ was a goat, it was a, ‘what?’ moment for me, but once I got the character, and GW2 reference here; the blue trial of recollection and the red trial of hot doom were the hardest for me, I found it’s a solid support character that is fun to play. Being immune to Goatify, as you’re already a goat, isn’t a huge bonus, but certainly not a bad thing. It has a nice hover jump and moves well. I enjoy all the costume sets they made for the character as well and like Torchwood, foreshadowed the many such costumes we have in BfN.
Their main weapon is a fairly typical; high rate of fire, reasonably accurate, and decent magazine size. It takes awhile to reload, but nothing too onerous. Not a lot to say here really; nothing amazing, but not bad.
The Damage Buff Booster Beam is a great ability that not only let’s you help a teammate cause extra damage, but gives you XP for doing so. Obviously, you have to say close to your ally, but it’s extremely effective. This is the number one thing I see Hovergoat players use, and that includes me when I play this character. Again, while it’s a great ability, it never feels oppressive to deal with as a plant unless you get teams of the things, backed up by Scientists, and then it’s a tough not to crack; considering how powerful healing is in BfN, I’m actually glad this character isn’t in the game, although at least it’d be hard to use with Brainium Bashers as they rely on streaking around.
The Mega Awesome Laser is another turret like mode, but as you can move, albeit slowly, it’s one of the better ones. It reminds me a bit of the big beams for Cats and Dinos. There’s not a lot to say about this ability either; it works as advertised and doesn’t feel OP or too weak.
Finally we have Tubular Turbo, which gives you and all nearby zombies a temporary speed boost. This is a nice little boost of speed that feels better than the Double Time ability in BfN, since the Goat can use it as needed and it can be used on the fly, it feels more akin to the BfN version of Rose’s arcane enigma with it’s effect that speeds up nearby allies. Another decent ability without it feeling awful or amazing.
Looking over the character, Hovergoat 3000 just feels like one of the better balanced characters in the game.
For the next game, I’d like to see the character brought forward, with variants like that Scapegoat I posted on the GW2 forums long ago. You could move its abilities to other/new zombies instead if need be, but I can’t see too many people being upset about the goat returning to the game series.
