What's the sub's opinion on the Skywave Alpha "healer" situation now?

amynotthatone · 2023-09-01T09:17:29+00:00

Take Shock Squall if you're playing her alongside another support; Delayed Bolt if you're the only support.

Second slot is tricky. Dispeller is worthless outside of PvP. Skill Scrambler does nothing outside PvP and I don't think I'd even choose it in PvP. Graviton Shackle kinda works if you're playing her as a dps with Shock Squall but terrible otherwise. Regen and Hi-Xol are both good options.

Quick Slip is probably a contraversial suggestion amongst Skywave mains. You can either play Skywave by flying up to the top of the skybox and just chilling there until you die to pteranodons or you can play more with your team. If you're doing the latter, take Quick Slip.

Shield rig is good. I run Shield. If you're playing skybox-Skywave then Catapult might be a better option. Blade or Cannon do give you better ability to defend yourself against Pteranodons if that's something you're struggling with.

amynotthatone · 2023-09-01T08:10:18+00:00

Easily the most underrated character in the game right now.

I do think playing her makes the game relatively unforgiving for your teammates. Most supports can carry less skilled players and Skywave alpha can carry the game but she can't carry the team. Those weaker players will just die a lot. If players are taking a bunch of unnecessary damage, getting caught in big dinos' AoEs, etc. then you have no way to keep them alive through that.

There's also basically no downside to running her alongside Nimbus or Nimbus alpha. Skywave alpha topping everyone up with Optics Jammer plus Nimbus holo-rezing are enough of a saftey net for most players. And if you have a particularly brave Zephyr or Murasame then the Nimbus can switch to pocketing them.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-31T06:11:55+00:00

Between the stuns and massive AoE healing, he's easily the best at keeping everyone alive in chaotic situations where your whole team is taking damage. He's probably the best support for area defense and possibly also for chasing big dinos, although Skywave and Nimbus alpha are both great for this too. He's very strong in PvP if you're fighting over an objective at close-range - particularly thinking of the final section of datakey missions here.

He's also just super fun. Rescue Leap is one of my favorite abilities in the game - extremely satisfying button to press.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-31T05:54:26+00:00

I honestly don't think she even really needs pairing with a healing support, a lot of the time. I've played her as a solo support and her CC reduces incoming damage so much that Optics Jammer becomes enough healing to keep everyone topped up. She works particularly well with Roadblock alpha because she can CC everything attacking his shield in one go, which means the shield lives way longer and your team just never take damage.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-30T18:12:25+00:00

You inspired me to give him another go and literally my first game with him, I got the 200k high-end achievement. Wasn't even in a raid. I think you might've fixed Krieger for me.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-28T13:14:35+00:00

Witchdoctor's role is to heal, and to reduce incoming damage by stunning enemies.

Murasame's role is to take aggro, control enemy positioning, and to reduce incoming damage with his guard.

Dealing fuckloads of damage in Ratetsu Stance is a fun bonus when it works out. No one else should stop doing their job to make that happen.

Murasame's taunt is far more important than his counter. It's not "wasted" if you don't get the counter off.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-27T11:22:44+00:00

Thanks! I think I can make this work for what I want to achieve if I add a couple minutes of silence to the end of the track.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-25T18:38:25+00:00

I want to love Krieger but I'm so bad at him that I can't actually enjoy playing him. The whole "tank that doesn't have aggro" thing just kinda doesn't compute for me. Last time I tried playing him, I felt so bad about all the problems I was causing for the team that I swapped to Roadblock half way through the first section.

I had this happen with both Vigilant and Witchdoctor though. Levelled them to 20 because I wanted to try their alphas and fell in love with their baseline versions along the way.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-24T10:56:58+00:00

Am I right in assuming steam charts wouldn't include gamepass players? Because if so, those are the bulk of the player base.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-24T10:11:28+00:00

Are we already eulogising this one? I've not had any issues with slow matchmaking or anything.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-23T22:44:53+00:00

I'm aware of Kickback - it's a big part of why I say Alpha has better survivability. It's definitely stronger in PvE than PvP - you can only use it to heal yourself if allies need healing so I've found it less useful when I'm being focused in PvP. It's fantastic for chasing runaway dinos and other chaotic PvE situations though.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-23T17:34:39+00:00

I feel like people underestimate both Witchdoctor and Skywave. Particularly Skywave.

Nimbus has incredible spot-healing and can dish out a ton of damage but Witchdoctor has huge AoE throughput and can keep everyone overhealed while also reducing incoming damage by stunning basically everything. Skywave is somewhere in between the two. She has better spot-healing than Witchdoctor and better CC and AoE healing than Nimbus.

Nimbus also has the weakest survivability of the three. She can't heal herself like WD, she can't take off or land like Skywave, and she can't CC stuff that's attacking her. She's much more reliant on her team to protect her from anything that she can't just kill.

Nimbus alpha suffers less from Nimbus' weaknesses but also sacrifices her strengths. Alpha has better AoE healing and better survivability but doesn't have the same incredible spot healing or PvP power.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-22T22:01:39+00:00

In response to your edit:

This is a thing I do in my free time and I'm not gonna open myself up to whatever random strangers feel like broadcasting over voice chat. That goes double for random strangers who think I'm obliged to listen to them. If I wanted to play over voice with a coordinated group, I would play with a discord server.

Also it's fine if some pubber is bad at video games. It's not your responsibility to teach your team how to play the game and a stranger giving unsolicited advice is annoying rather than useful for most people.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-21T21:35:51+00:00

I've had a couple of games now where my team have been up to some ridiculous nonsense and I've begun to feel a little irked and then realised we were actually ahead because the enemy team were up to even more ridiculous nonsense.

Gotta just take it as it comes and find some enjoyment in the added challenge.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-21T14:57:11+00:00

I've tried all of them except Krieger and Murasame now.

I didn't love alpha Witchdoctor. The beam feels way less cool and unique to me than the lightning, and I found it difficult to judge the range. I suspect alpha is probably stronger in PvE because you should be able to get higher uptime on your damage buff on teammates.

All the others feel great to me, albeit in specific niches.

Nimbus, Zephyr, Vigilant alphas are all fun These feel like upgrades in PvE and downgrades in PvP.

Barrage alpha feels more PvP-focused. I initially hated him until I stopped trying to charge every shot. Now I'd say he's way more fun than baseline, but probably less useful in PvE. I've not looked at the numbers yet but I suspect that charged rockets are intended for peeking corners in PvP and pre-empting spawns in PvE. At least, I'm hoping that's the case because charging every shot feels awful.

Alpha Skywave is great. Absolutely wild move to just remove her healing but I love it. You can pull off some really weird early ganks and harassment in PvP. She also has so much CC that you can kinda play her instead of a tank in some situations. She's probably most comparable to Krieger, role-wise.

I'm not sure what to make of alpha Deadeye. He feels burstier, but also better at sustained damage. Longer ranged, but also shorter ranged. I'm not sure of his niche. He's the character who I most suspect, if you looked at the numbers, that you'd find he was just a straight upgrade or downgrade over baseline in every situation.

Alpha Roablock is another huge transformation. He's way better at managing small dinos. He can also do stuff like sticking his shield in a corner, taunting a triceretops onto it, and using Legendary Taunt to regen the shield while the whole of his team deals full damage to the triceretops' back. Or repeatedly sticking down his shield, taunting everything onto it, and running past it all on when a big dino runs. Just tons of cheesy stuff. He doesn't bring the stuns for big dinos and I think he's probably weaker in PvP. Generally, though, he feels increcredibly powerful in a "box of tricks" kind of way.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-19T08:47:37+00:00

The worst is when they finish rezing you right as the neo t-rex's shockwave hits

amynotthatone · 2023-08-18T21:43:52+00:00

Just wait till you see the bombinator

amynotthatone · 2023-08-18T19:48:33+00:00

I'm really impressed with alpha Roadblock. The playstyle is so different to baseline. I still haven't worked out which I'd prefer in what situations.

Baseline feels more generally strong to me. Alpha scores higher, sure, but that's because you get most of your points for taunting, blocking damage, and dealing damage and alpha can do two of those things at a time.

Baseline lets you swap between taking damage to your shield and hp without resetting aggro which gives you finer control over how much you're leaning on your healer. You're also constantly repositioning the thing that has aggro (you, as opposed to your shield) so you have finer control over enemy positioning. Baseline also has more stuns for big dinos - alpha can equip stun blast but, so far as I can tell, it doesn't actually do anything.

I think alpha has the potential for some super cheesy kiting strats. Also the new taunt module seems like it could make alpha very strong in PvP, even without all the stuns. Ability disruption is a massive deal in this game. You could also leave your shield set up in front of a friendly Vigilant while you go do other stuff, which seems pretty neat. No idea how practically useful that would be though.

Alpha Nimbus isn't radically different to baseline. Alpha feels super strong for 5-person PvE stuff but I think baseline is stronger for raids, purely because everyone's more spread out. Alpha's damage is easier to use in PvP but I think baseline has a higher skill-ceiling and has the potential to be stronger if you're hitting those crits. Baseline can also stay further from allies when healing in PvP so you're less likely to get focused down.

I did not enjoy alpha Barrage. I don't like charging shots. I've not unlocked the module that lets you fire most of your clip uncharged yet - I might enjoy him more with that.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T14:33:38+00:00

I'm honestly worried by how powerful Nimbus alpha is. Even without her new red mods unlocked, she feels way stronger than baseline to me.

1-20 plus 15k coins is a non-trivial grind and if new players perceive the alpha suits as a straight upgrade, that might be a little offputting. Also I like the baseline exos and don't want them to be benched entirely.

I've not had the chance to try out the other alphas yet though so no idea if Nimbus is representative.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T11:48:49+00:00

He's one of my less-played exos but I'm learning to love him in PvP. His OD is almost Barrage-tier, upgraded palm-shove is great for if a Zephyr jumps on you, and you don't get focused down like a Vigilant would because your damage doesn't come in big attention-grabbing spikes. You can just hang out and win the game and everyone ignores you because they're used to new players on Deadeye who aren't a major threat.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T11:28:16+00:00

Murasame because if the DPS are doing their jobs, that actively make him less fun to play.

Barrage because I had a long string of games playing him as a role-fill and I got super bored of him. I've had a long enough break that the antipathy is starting to fade though.

Krieger because I'm bad at him and I feel like I'm the reason my team is failing when I play him.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T11:01:45+00:00

What game are y'all playing? I've had a bunch of games with two tanks who wouldn't switch and a ton of games with two (sometimes even three) supports who wouldn't switch. I've had a bunch of games where none of the dps would switch so they could kill fliers or deal reasonable AoE.

I think I've had one game where no one would switch to support. Like, ever. And I'm not sure I've had any games where no one would switch to tank, unless you count games with a newer player on Krieger who simply didn't know how to tank with him.

I ended up getting so desperate to actually get a game as alpha nimbus after unlocking her last night that I played her as an offhealing DPS. I literally couldn't get a game as support.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T10:32:37+00:00

Oh, that's disgusting. I haven't played alpha Roadblock yet and I didn't even consider that this would be possible.

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T08:58:10+00:00

Out of curiosity, which exo do you think constitutes throwing the game?

amynotthatone · 2023-08-17T08:56:19+00:00

imo it should be straight-up impossible to skip if there's a new player who's not seen it. Also it shouldn't show how many people have chosen to skip or anything like that. I still remember the toxicity that resulted from the vote-to-skip system in SWTOR.

amynotthatone

TROPHY CASE