Ambra's Strengths and Weaknesses

Battleborn Open Beta Open Beta General Discussion/Feedback
#1

So it’s starting to get to a point where there is an Ambra in every game, and she does fairly well every game. I played an Incursion where she went 33-4; in other words, she won virtually every fight she picked, and even ones she didn’t. My command rank is 28, and I’m pretty sure the past dozen games have featured an Ambra on one or both teams.

So why is that? Let’s look at her kit and find out what the possible pros and cons are.

Passive: Flame Shield- This is definitely a good factor in her strength. It’s effectively a lifeline; If she gets too low, she gets an overshield. If she keeps healing during that overshield, without good burst, she can heal herself back to the point where she is no longer in danger, but becomes the danger.

Weapon: Staff of Radiance- Probably the biggest reason she’s so good right now. As long as she keeps that tether on you, she is healing, regardless. Rath must continually bring the fight to you if he wants to sustain, while Ambra can tether you from a medium distance away, combining that with her other abilities, meaning she has arguably the best survivability in the game right now.

Talent: Scorching Strikes:- I don’t see too many Ambras use this- Why would they? You can get some good melees in, or you can perform a ranged sustainable heal. I think a good balance would be to weaken her SoR heal, in exchange for more damage in SS; that way, if she wants to really do damage, she has to commit more to putting herself in danger, rather than standing a distance away and healing.

Skill 1: Sunspot- I don’t like this ability because it is Miko’s ult without having to put a point in the Helix for Damage. It always heals and does damage. She can drop this in a 1v1 and the scales tilt more in her favor. I think she should have to choose between whether this is a damage ability or a heal. Miko, for example, can’t do both, but Ambra can at level one, and I’m not a fan of that.

Skill 2: Solar Wind: Here’s what’s interesting, I very rarely see Ambra’s use this. The majority of the time when an Ambra kills me, I was exclusively damaged by her SoR. I actually like this ability where it is- it’s possibly the most balanced piece of her kit.

Ultimate: Extinction Event: Like this one as well. Like with Phoebe and Shayne, as long as you don’t stand in it, you are fine(God Help you if you don’t have the foresight to notice a meteor falling on you).

Now that we’ve talked skills, lets touch on her pros and cons really quickly.

The biggest Positive she has is her sustain. As of right now, no one, not Rath, not Miko, sustains like Ambra. She is a healer but her entire kit is based around being selfish lol. You could heal teammates, or you could go full damage Ambra and literally wreck entire teams. I’ve had Ambras who’ve never taken the SoR Ally Heal in the helix, and never used Sunspots defensively. Again, why would you when you benefit so much more from being an aggressive mage rather than a supportive healer? Kill more things, get more objectives, win more games.

I’m going to end this post now just because wall of text for one thing, and I also would like to play a few games of her myself to better understand her. I will update this post if I make any interesting notes.

#2

She is definitely over powered at the moment. She is a mage as well as a healer, I stopped playing her because of how unbalance she is.

#3

Just finished a 30 minute Incursion with her, and want to add two very quick notes: Her Helix 3 and her SoR.

First off, her Helix 3 involves choosing between using your SoR to heal allies at the cost of your health, or getting an extra 15% Lifesteal. I admit I chuckled a bit when I saw this. Referencing Miko again, she can do this with no health cost. Ambra has to literally bleed for her team. As it stands now, I feel like Ambra is Top-tier damage, and Miko is just shy of top-tier healing(As I said in another thread, positioning determines a strong Miko and a trash one).

I have yet to see an Ambra take this. Again, when her survival is already top-notch, they would be hard pressed to not take an extra 15%. I don’t like this Helix tier because the choices are basically ‘Be below average healer or above average sustainer’ and that doesn’t seem like a balanced trade-off.

And finally, a quick note on her SoR; just like with Miko(You could make a drinking game of how much I reference Miko in an Ambra thread), the tracking is clunky, but- unbelievably- better than Miko’s. I didn’t lose track of my target nearly as much as I do when I use Miko’s L2. I just find that…odd, for lack of a better word.

#4

I think she could lose flame shield and agree SoR self-heal could be weakened but in my opinion sunspot is fine.

Sunspot is barely adequate as a party heal already and easily destroyed. It has nowhere near the healing power of Miko’s ult, even his healing beam is a stronger with no cooldown.

Her solar wind is borderline useless as it prevents you from doing any other abilities while it’s in use. Her ultimate is almost as bad, so slow to hit that I really only find it useful against minions and sentries.

#5

My opinion on Ambra’s state in regards to her primary fire (Staff of Radiance) and her passive flame shield (why not anything else? Because I haven’t exactly seen too many Ambra’s need to use something besides just those in order to be very succesful) :

  • So I basically agree with the entirety of what you said about Staff of Radiance, the numbers are simply a slight bit too high, however the one thing that is giving me constant headaches is the tracking. From what I can tell that thing will follow you 360 degrees from a medium range once she has locked onto you, which is obviously ridiculous, especially when compared to Miko’s (drink up :slight_smile:) clunky tracking (which could be a bit better), I think we can all agree on the idea of her being able to hit you without even looking or even walking away (not sprinting) is unfair, additionally the concept that the fire is 100% unavoidable unless you can interrupt her with hard CC, one should at least be able to get behind her to disconnect the tether… And then again the numbers are a bit too strong…

  • Flame shield: So in theory I believe this was implemented as a means of escape and survival to compensate for her lack of mobility, while also being helpful against assassinations. I believe the reasoning behind not giving her mobility and instead creating this flame shield was because it went well with her kit (wording will get clunky), as mentioned she is constantly siphoning life both due to her primary fire and sunspots, therefore this allows her to have in advantage in sustained fights… Yeah. Second reason: Although this helps defensibly as a substitute to mobility, it’s nigh useless when compared to mobility for chasing down targets offensively and aggressively… Which is good because she is supposed to be a supportive character. What it currently enables her to do (partially due to staff of radiance): Tank damage from 2 and maybe 3 people, win any duel and possibly some 1v2’s, and be nigh unkillable should she choose to run away instead of continuing the fight (generally the alternate scenario in duels or 1v2s).

Anyways me and my rambling think it would be balanced if her primary fire’s tracking was cut down significantly, additionally slightly lowering the scary numbers on her passive and primary fire would be great :slight_smile:!

Edit: Maybe give some support to the rest of her kit on the other hand, mainly her sunspots, they seem a little weak, but again in most Ambra games I will generally only sight but a single sunspot over the entire duration of the match so don’t take my word for it on that subject…

#6

Don’t underestimate her helix to sacrifice life to heal allies. Her sunspot healing is actually quite weak even with all helix upgrades, and this helix takes her from a weaker healer than Miko to on par. The issue is she just has too much defense and offense wrapped in one package, but the two go hand in hand for her so changes need to be slight until the right balance is found. Taking her life siphon damage down by a few points should make a pretty big difference.

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#7

I play Ambra alot, and I do like her. But I have to agree that she needs some tweaking somewhere, she doesn’t feel like a ‘support’ character at all.

Though if you check in her lore, there is a conversation between her and Ghalt, where he says she is support, and she counters with “I am not some support unit, I belong on the front lines!”

So, that is kinda funny thing in the lore, maybe Ghalt just ‘mis-classed’ her on the roster because he feels she is support lol.

#8

Exactly. I said the same thing. As far as the shield goes, I think a tweak there could make all the difference. For instance, they could change it so it activates sooner (40% health for example). That would make it trigger earlier in the fight and the player would have to choose whether to bail or go for a kill knowing they will be more vulnerable if they stay. Right now, there’s next to no down side, because you are already at very low health when it triggers. The cooldown on the shield could also be adjusted to be a bit longer.

I think a light touch is in order rather than a massive nerf (like removing the shield completely).

#9

I think something they could do would be to not allow you to use this attack if your heat bar is full. That way she couldn’t dominate as easily with this attack and it would force players to use the alt attack mechanic that releases heat. To make it effective, they could reduce the capacity of the heat bar, so it’s an actual limit in combat.

#10

Or they could limit her health regen when the bar is full.

#11

It’s not just the fact that it can heal, it’s also powerful because she can maintain damage while dancing around her attacker.