Rampart ability mod discussion

[Nekojin]

I don't really have much to offer at this point, partly because I haven't put time into playing Rampart yet. That said, I see two things here.

1.) Your focus seems to be solely on what your character can do for himself, with zero consideration of teamwork and team interaction. While I'll admit that adding in the teamwork adds to the complexity immensely, it's still something that needs to be looked at, because you're not doing these powers in a vacuum - what your team is doing is important, too. And that leads us to...

2.) Your complaint on Gone Fishin' being broken. It's not broken, that's intended to work as it is. The ability doesn't say anything about ignoring walls (nor should it), nor does it say anything about going around obstacles. His attack is simply - grab the opponent, and yank them in. Making them take a roundabout path to get to the spot you want is far from an immediate yank. And the Gone Fishin' mod doesn't change that... it's still a straight-line pull to the location, and if an obstacle blocks the path, it stops, in the same way that Bulwark will make Lockwood's Trick Shot bounce instead of hitting you. So instead of complaining why you can't drag someone to X, look at whether dragging them to Y might be useful to your team:

F
..............Y
..###R
.......X

[FogRaider]

I don't really have much to offer at this point, partly because I haven't put time into playing Rampart yet. That said, I see two things here.

1.) Your focus seems to be solely on what your character can do for himself, with zero consideration of teamwork and team interaction. While I'll admit that adding in the teamwork adds to the complexity immensely, it's still something that needs to be looked at, because you're not doing these powers in a vacuum - what your team is doing is important, too. And that leads us to...


2.) Your complaint on Gone Fishin' being broken. It's not broken, that's intended to work as it is. The ability doesn't say anything about ignoring walls (nor should it), nor does it say anything about going around obstacles. His attack is simply - grab the opponent, and yank them in. Making them take a roundabout path to get to the spot you want is far from an immediate yank. And the Gone Fishin' mod doesn't change that... it's still a straight-line pull to the location, and if an obstacle blocks the path, it stops, in the same way that Bulwark will make Lockwood's Trick Shot bounce instead of hitting you. So instead of complaining why you can't drag someone to X, look at whether dragging them to Y might be useful to your team:

F
..............Y
..###R
.......X

But which mods interact directly with your team mates? Very few of them. None of the primary attack mods, none of the bulwark mods, disruptive value across basically EVERY fusion lance mod, Special Forces and Terrifying Presence on Unstoppable Force, and most of the ultimate mods.

So, what then did I miss? A root is not always superior to a slow, but when it is it's typically equally useful across the team (though there are a million situational things to account for there. ) That goes for all CC effects; specifically talking about how CC helps your team is redundant to basic-level strategy.

Gone Fishin', likewise, is an enhancement to that disruption...just like rocket lance and radamantium-tipped blade are. If you disrupt two foes, that's better than disrupting one. If you are better able to target select, that helps your team as well when that choice becomes relevant. As for Gone Fishin', whether the current behavior is intended or not is largely irrelevant: Current UI for the mod is lacking, and whether power level is appropriate to cost is up for debate.

But here's the kicker: "Dead" is the best debuff in the game. This is something very, very easy to misunderstand at mid-levels of play in many games, but your job is ultimately not to fill some idea of a role, but to win the game. How you do that often (and ideally) is heavily linked with your role, but this is commonly misunderstood: the role is a map to your goal, not the goal itself. Whether that role-map presents the ideal route to victory is part of your job of thinking through your plan as a player. Your job is to do the maximum you can do to push your team towards that goal, and ultimately that will almost always include some mix of "selfish" and supporting techniques. Value-in-supporting is not inherently better or worse than "selfish value"; either can be greater than the other depending on what is being accomplished.

In terms of fusion lance mods, what's better for the team? Five less health on the target? A set of additional tiles from which you can select targets? Up to seven additional tiles to which you can place your target? The possibility of a second target? How does this affect the other mods which you can use to add value to your team? If that question were easy to answer, it'd be representative of bad balance.

There is nothing automatically "worse" about greedy mods. Helping your team is good...but killing foes is a form of helping your team. Helping your team is good...but you're not helping while you're dead. Maybe the other options available help your team towards their goal more, but maybe they don't.


The TL;DR is, your goal is to pick mods which provide the best chance of winning. Trying to "support your team the most" is an honorable notion, but not the goal. Sometimes the two will be the same, but keeping your eyes on the prize is the best way to evaluate mods.

(This might be an overblown response. No offense is intended, but I like to wax philosophical about game theory sometimes.)

[Nekojin]

But which mods interact directly with your team mates? Very few of them. None of the primary attack mods, none of the bulwark mods, disruptive value across basically EVERY fusion lance mod, Special Forces and Terrifying Presence on Unstoppable Force, and most of the ultimate mods.

So, what then did I miss? A root is not always superior to a slow, but when it is it's typically equally useful across the team (though there are a million situational things to account for there. ) That goes for all CC effects; specifically talking about how CC helps your team is redundant to basic-level strategy.

You're correct that Root vs. Slow is a situational thing, and which is "better" is more of a personal choice - since you won't get to choose between them when it actually matters, you have to decide ahead of time. But I don't agree that discussions of how CC effects benefit the team are irrelevant, since it IS a team game, and the one-on-one interactions against single opponents are usually rare and fleeting. But I'll agree to shelve it until later, if you wish.

Gone Fishin', likewise, is an enhancement to that disruption...just like rocket lance and radamantium-tipped blade are. If you disrupt two foes, that's better than disrupting one. If you are better able to target select, that helps your team as well when that choice becomes relevant. As for Gone Fishin', whether the current behavior is intended or not is largely irrelevant: Current UI for the mod is lacking, and whether power level is appropriate to cost is up for debate.

I'm not sure whether the UI is lacking, here - I'd have to see it. But I'd rather keep that choice, and have it go somewhere other than I'm choosing, than have that choice removed completely. With some creative positioning, I'm willing to bet that it's possible to put them somewhere that you couldn't normally get them to go (that is, a position that isn't in your 8-perimiter, but still more useful to you than them). But even if that isn't possible, planting them on a square with no cover at all is almost always a win.

In terms of fusion lance mods, what's better for the team? Five less health on the target? A set of additional tiles from which you can select targets? Up to seven additional tiles to which you can place your target? The possibility of a second target? How does this affect the other mods which you can use to add value to your team? If that question were easy to answer, it'd be representative of bad balance.

Agreed, which is why with good, active admin maintenance, the selections will mostly be a matter of style and personal preference, instead of "The Win Button". At least, we hope. Balance is always a difficult thing to nail down.

The TL;DR is, your goal is to pick mods which provide the best chance of winning. Trying to "support your team the most" is an honorable notion, but not the goal. Sometimes the two will be the same, but keeping your eyes on the prize is the best way to evaluate mods.

I agree completely on this - which is why I feel that disregarding the team benefits makes the analysis a little too shallow. But I'm willing to agree to disagree on this, and move on.

(This might be an overblown response. No offense is intended, but I like to wax philosophical about game theory sometimes.)

No worries. I overanalyze things sometimes, myself. It's all good. That's what discussion boards are for, right? ...

[Urza3142]

Having played Rampart a fair bit now, I feel pretty confident in giving my two cents. This mod discussion was very helpful for me, and helped me build my two standard loadouts I use for different situations.

1.) Your focus seems to be solely on what your character can do for himself, with zero consideration of teamwork and team interaction. While I'll admit that adding in the teamwork adds to the complexity immensely, it's still something that needs to be looked at, because you're not doing these powers in a vacuum - what your team is doing is important, too.

Here's my philosophy of playing Rampart, based on what I've seen playing him so far.

Rampart, unlike most characters in the game, is a hero built around supporting his team more than helping himself. This becomes apparent when you look at the other frontline heroes. Garrison, Rask, Asana, and Titus are great for disruption, crowd control, and survivability (and cqc damage), but aside from Asana's and Garrison's ultimates none of them support their teams in meaningful ways outside of keeping the enemy attention on them. Rampart's shielding mechanics, coupled with a ranged pull/root and a very large health pool make him the closest this game has to a guardian character. His biggest contribution to his team (just from his default qualities) is keeping his friends alive through the use of shields, body blocks, and CC. I was initially attracted to him because he reminded me of another character I've played a lot, Reinhardt from Overwatch.

That said, this leaves him in a tricky spot in terms of frontline balance. To balance out his shield, he has no dash abilities aside from his catalyst. He also lacks the on-demand regeneration and shielding abilities of Rask and Asana. These two facts combined means that while he is very resistant to burst damage he can get worn down after continuous combat and without a good support to help him he is very vulnerable to sustained poke damage. Without modifications, he also puts out relatively low damage.

His strengths and weaknesses make for a very interesting playstyle. Since his shield is on a relatively low cooldown, I believe he is best used when trying to fit as many effective shields into a game as possible. The collary to this is that in order to maximize this efficiency he needs to be close to his allies and alive for as long as possible. Therefore, perks that increase his survivability are disproportionately useful in my opinion , since they effectively give you more shielding chances per game. Since he has to remain as close to allies as possible to effectively use his shield, he does't get as many opportunities to use his melee damage to its full potential. Therefore, maximizing the damage on his hook and single-target melee attack is a good way to offset this somewhat and add additional damage for his team. I think this is justifiable for Rampart because his basic abilities already provide a lot of team-support at the expense of his other attributes.

This is a hero whom staying alive will help your team far more than an area of effect unstoppable or a refined version of an already powerful CC device.