How to Chomper
How to Chomper
Ahh, chomper, my favorite class.... ever. having got to 313 in the first game, and currently 1601 in GW2, I have gotten pretty damn good at this game. I just recently mastered my un...
Forum Discussion
I can completely agree with how the harsher punishments in the first game (like regenerating to half) can hone skills, but i feel like because of how the first was vastly less forgiving than its predecessor, I feel that also made it..... easier. Here me out, because of the less forgiving system in the first game affected not only you, but of course every other player, I feel i was able to adjust rather easily, and be number one almost every time. The reason I feel was not because i was just better than everyone else (ok maybe that), but i adjusted to the games ways to the point it just felt natural. In GW2, the game feels almost.... padded. Because of this, I was actually doing worse than in GW1, BECAUSE everyone's experience was made easier. Using the same survival skills from GW1 to GW2 just......doesn't work. Chomper is a perfect example for me. In the first game, I could go on flawless games with him all the time, but in this game, I still struggle to pull off K/Ds of like.... FIVE! Like I said, part of less chomper success in this game could have come from lots of more powerful chomper counter weapons and abilities, or just better players. I do feel like I am slowly progressing towards chomper perfection once more, I just had to start over again.
I totally agree that the games offer two different experiences and it may be when I hit Rank 313 and switch back to GW2 I very well might have the same adjustment issues that you did.
GW2 is much more forgiving in the health regeneration so I would strongly suspect that part of any Chomper difficulty will be coming from trying to do take downs which involve Spraying or Biting the target. In GW1 you could count on at least a chunk of the Zombies to be below maximum health once they started engaging if a Scientist wasn't nearby taking care of the team so it could be argued that at least a portion of the Zombies which you try to take out without resorting to swallowing them whole would be vanquished quicker because the game doesn't allow you to shrug off all of your damage without help.
On the other hand GW2 allows anyone to charge off with a "Lone Wolf" mentality because you can fully regenerate your health without assistance and your regeneration isn't paused simply because you're firing your weapon or making use of an ability so chances are an opponent that you square off against with Spray or Biting is going to be at full health and consequently take longer to eliminate. It also means that the effects of the Toxic Chomper will give you fewer incidental kills which you get just by being near enemies who are really damaged to begin with and setting your opponent on Fire with the Fire Chomper breath is less likely to finish him off if you get KO'ed or otherwise retreat.
Add in the fact that the Zombies have an expanded arsenal of easy to use stuff which tends to explode violently and I think we do have an environment which makes like more difficult for the Chomper. If you aren't swallowing someone whole you likely need to spend more time taking the out with Bites or Spray which means that you are exposed to both taking more return fire from them as well as from their nearby teammates.
While you can build a good vanquish streak from Chomping alone that period of time when your digesting and helpless means that you need to take more care with your targets since a quick escape is denied and you can't count on a quick non-swallowing vanquish to pad your streak.
Agreed, and adding to this, the lone wolf strat in the first game was so easy for me. I could just pick targets off one by one on my own. But in this game, at times its very difficult to do that. I need the constant help of my team much more so than in GW!. Yes I can easily go 1v1 with a player, but when it goes to a 1v2, it gets pretty dicey, and pretty much comes down to who has what abilities on cool down, skill level, etc.
So I earned my Unicorn Chomper and returned to GW2 and played around with him a bit in Garden Ops to adapt to having a Warp rather than a Burrow to use and when I was comfortable with that I reentered Multiplayer to actually use him.
Granted, my preferred Chomper is one with a Spray rather than a Bite and I was deliberately not using the Burrow ability in favor of the Rainbow Warp so I didn't expect to do well but on Turf Takeover I managed to hit my average of 30-40 vanquishes per session, which is about what I was getting in GW1, despite using what I was considering to be a less desirable Chomper at the time.
The on thing I can say for certain so far is that in comparison to GW1 you are more likely to encounter Zombies in GW2 who are more "bunched up"; either grouping together on purpose or forced into close proximity by the map design. While I was able to achieve about my average total vanquishes during the game I couldn't really get a vanquish streak of more than 3 going because it was actually difficult to get individuals isolated so that I could vanquish and make a get away to finish digesting and select a new target.
With GW1 the Zombies seemed to spread out more so I had more opportunities for a safe Chomp and swallow and in GW2 I am noticing, as expected, that the more generous Health regeneration means I'm taking more time to put down an opponent.
But again, I was using the Unicorn Chomper rather than one of my preferred variations so it remains to be seen how I do when I switch back when the attraction of using the Unicorn Chomper wears off.
On the subject of the Rainbow Warp ability, I find it inferior in some ways to the Burrow and superior in others. The Burrow, of course, means that your opponent can see you coming if they aren't distracted so there is time for countermeasures or escape.
The Rainbow Warp is instantaneous movement like the Scientist's Warp so the opponent has almost no time to react and you can move completely past any countermeasure, but you move a set distance each time so you are very likely to move completely past your target unless an obstruction, like a rock tree or wall, halts you. Towards the end of my Multiplayer time with him I started to be able to gauge the distance the Warp would take me better so I started to be able to simply appear directly behind my target more often, spin around and Chomp them reasonably quickly before they even knew what had happened- it definitely carries a big "Surprise!" factor since most players aren't expecting a Chomper to teleport. It definitely requires more finesse to use and you really need your Goop since you can't easily overtake a target with the extra speed that Burrow imparts.
Well congrats on the the unicorn chomper! :D And yes, I think the biggest difference from GW1 to GW2 is that zombies use to be spread out, now they are much more conformed.
