Rath's Ultimate is OP

Battleborn Open Beta Open Beta General Discussion/Feedback
#101

I don’t think it would be cool at all. If I want to play Claptrap I’ll go play Borderlands.

Gearbox has the chance to do something truly amazing with this game, it’s why I spend time on the forums discussing the game with you wonderful like-minded individuals. Guest characters in my opinion have always seemed hit or miss to me, and most of the time make no sense as to why they were even introduced into a game/universe where they don’t fit in over a character that’s completely new (not saying that the Borderlands roster wouldn’t fit into Battleborn). Battleborn is more than just a competitive style multiplayer, it has a story to it, it has a decent amount of lore depth, and I just wouldn’t want to see it ruined with the introduction of Vault Hunters from Pandora being somehow warped through some janky portal into the realm of Battleborn. Especially when Gearbox can create a whole new character that has never been seen before, a character that plays nothing like any other in any video game ever.

Example: Injustice: Gods Among Us, it was decided to introduce Scorpion into the game (not sure if he was also added to the continuing comic series). I know that Netherrealm Studios and DC have a partnership so they like to have guest characters in their games, to me, this was such a waste. Instead of adding a hero or villain from the vast amount of choices in the DC universe, they wasted a character slot with a Mortal Kombat staple character, they could’ve even made an entire new character.

Example: Tekken 7, a prominent character from the Street Fighter series, Akuma, is being introduced. I know that this is not the first time Namco and Capcom have done this, and they’ve had an agreement for a long time for a Tekken game to use a Street Fighter character. However, this again seems like a missed opportunity to make another new and unique character such as, Josie, Lucky Chloe, Katarina, Kazumi Mishima, Shaheen, Claudio, etc…

I just feel like guest characters are simple copy+paste characters in games they have no business in, and for Gearbox to add someone like Mordecai & Bloodwing to Battleborn would be the biggest let down to me. Why even bother with 25 + 5 new and unique characters, to then start filling the game with guest characters who likely won’t even translate over well?

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#102

^You’re completely off topic, peoples x)
*[quote=“bemafinn, post:95, topic:1365538, full:true”]
I played about 5 games as melka and got about 100 kills with her in those short game spans, I brought it up cause he said no other ult did what Rath’s did…which is deal a high amount of damage…which is what tons of peoples ults do when his can be countered and someone like Melkas can’t rly unless they somehow know you’re casting it. Just a counter argument to the whole Rath op thing, it’s just people get killed by him a lot because he’s more widely acceptability and easier to use than others.
[/quote]

Just to be clear, i do NOT support the idea that Rath is OP, and never ever did. I just pointed out that if there’s one thing that may be worth to look at, it’s how easily a Rath player can keep you in the area of effect of his ultimate. ImO rather than the amount of damage he’s doing, the question is should it be that easy for that character to do that amount of damage. Because that amount of damage clearly seems to be designed to punish peoples that don’t escape from it. That’s why it’s so high compared to most ultimate. From what I understand, the game assume that you’re going to exit the AoE. If you don’t, you die. It’s similar to boss fight in MMORPG, RPG, and the like, with an AoE attack that will one shot you but is marked on the ground in advance (or start as low damage increasing rapidly): you’re supposed to dodge it and NOT take it. The thing is, in case of Rath’s ultimate, that AoE here is following you as you try to dodge it, and is moving as fast as you. Worse, it does not increase in damage overtime, it’s full damage tick from the start as well.
I don’t know if I’m making myself clear, really. Even if you use quick melee and then get away, you’re still going to take an enormous amount of punishment from the time inside. Is that really an intended mechanism? that’s the question.

Either having rath move slower during it, or the amount of damage dealt by the ultimate done differently (starting with less damage per sec but increasing over time up to higher number than currently, for the same amount of damage dealt to someone who didn’t exit over the full duration) would seem more in line with the “supposed” intended mechanism here. If it starts with lower damage, yo ucan actually do a quick melee without taking a ridiculous amount of damage for a spell that you avoided the best you could. If I avoid Phoebe’s ultimate (and that’s simpler than doing a quick melee) I don’t take any damage for example, and that’s the case for most ultimate, including Mellka’s ultimate. In rath’s case, it seems to me that it’s either you die or you almost die even if you do everything possible.

BTW, 100 kills in your first 5 matches with her, I wish I could learn to use new characters that fast, sigh.

#103

Sure but with Phoebe - and many other characters - she can cast her ult and still be on top of you dealing dmg or escape if needed, Rath cannot do that, as soon as he casts his ult he’s locked…
He cannot escape if it goes wrong, he cannot add dmg on top of it, he cannot escape if he’s canceled, its a big tradeoff so i sure hope that if i cast his ult, i want to do much dmg as possible because otherwise i’m in deep water. As such i’m pretty sure his ult is working as intended.

#104

Rath is meant to be an easy character to be effective with. Battleborn is interestingly situated in that some characters simply require more or different skills than another character. Playing marquis is completely different than playing rath, they share almost nothing.

I think rath is good for new players, he’s one of the two characters in the game that can contribute with little to no real skill (Along with oscar mike), and that should exist for what the game is trying to do. A lot of the game is “Skill vs crutch”. Level 2 helix as reyna is homing bullets on a market target, or a 3 second slow every time you shoot a marked target. The second one is obviously better, but the first allows someone who isn’t that good to remain effective. I’m sure there are other uses for the first option other than it being a crutch, but you get my point.

Rath should exist because it lets newer players help their team even if they’re not that good, I just think people should be told, perhaps in the tutorial, how to deal with this because it confuses way too many people.

If I wanted to suggest an honest change to rath ult, maybe make it last a second or two longer, but do the same total damage over the duration. It might give people more time to react and deal with it, I dunno.

Miko Only Real Healer
#105

Ok Ok I see your point, and ya that could be a good solution right there: making it start low damage and progressively getting higher. Although, I just personally don’t want to see this change just for the pure fact that I had A LOT of fun using him and don’t wanna see him changed…haha no but selfish reasons aside I think the game needs an assassin this strong for the competitive scene; like a guy that can just take over and give a team an x-factor when getting pelted by ranged characters and are against a good miko. I feel as if the ult is what makes him powerful enough to do so, and even though he’s pretty easy to play, I’ve seen plenty of people that don’t do too great with him so I feel like if they change the ult he’ll just be almost irrelevant IMO when pit against people that can poke him down like oscar, whiskey and marquis…all just my opinion tho, not saying you don’t make good points

BTW, yes dude it was crazy, at first I thought she looked super boring but then when I played her I was like ohhhh mmyyyy goooddd(first 3 games):
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgIakQoUEAA5xJw.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgIaekcUIAAwz8S.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgIZzuvXIAA2nEf.jpg

1 Like
#106

But you don’t deal a single damage with your ultimate in that case. To compare with Rath, it’s like not using your ult at all.

Him being simple is one thing, but escaping him without taking tons of damage being that hard, and the fact of being punished heavily even by playing well to escape his ult are another. The opponent player has the right to be inexperienced as well, don’t you think?
Anything making his ult deal less damage at the beginning would make things better, yes.

@bemafinn : plenty of players with rath rush in like they can take the whole other team and win, so those peoples should perform badly with the character as they do now, that’s a learning curve, the game is supposed to be played as a team playing together after all.
Nice scores indeed. The number of kills on both side in the last one is ridicuous lol. I enjoyed playing her as well, although I never did such neat scores.

#107

But if you cancel Rath ult he also doesnt deal any dmg and he now doesnt have a exit strategy, your point is pretty moot…

#108

Cancelling Rath ult before he deals damage is usually almost impossible, because right before he does his ult you’re usually flying in the air and fall back in his area of effect after he started the ult. So you’re going to take damage. And a lot.

#109

But now you’re putting specifics into it, the issue here is weather his ult is OP or not, not if he can chain skills to make most damage because if thats the case i can think of a few characters that do that much better *hint Gali.
From your statement it seems your problem is not his ult itself but that he can chain skills together, again there are better characters doing it.

If you allow yourself to be caught 1v1 with him AND let him prime his E, well that was a blunder on your part not really his char fault. Thats pretty much his job…
If you go against him 1v2 and neither of you two cancel his ult, its your fault. People dont seem to realize that during his ult his movement IS lowered and you CAN out flank him, ive done it dozens of times and people did that to me when i played him.

#110

Rath’s ult is very slow moving. The only ways to really get caught in it are to A. try to walk backwards away from it (there is a backwards walking movement penalty), or walk away from it with a very slow character, B. continue attacking him in melee range without deactivating his ult, or C. being temporarily incapacitated when he starts it, and even then if you aren’t using a particularly squishy character you usually have enough time to turn around and use an exit strategy before death (and the characters that squishy are generally snipers, like Marquis or Toby, who have messed up if they let a Rath get that close). You might even be able to turn around after using your exit strategy to finish him off. I do feel that it should deal damage slightly more slowly, perhaps, but not much slower.

Also, @bemafinn what happened during that third game…?

#111

Galilea is Op so comparing Rath to her isn’t going to be really convincing. And considering that most Rath do that I see no reason to not take it in account, because if you don’t, you’re going to theorycraft something that doesn’t happen in reality at all. So it’s better to assume the following because that’s what will happen most of the time :
You cannot stop rath to activate his ultimate.
The ultimate will start with you inside of the area of effect.

Based with those specifics, then Rath’s ultimate deals too much damage at the start of it. That’s why I said, change the way the damage is dealt to have the damage quickly increasing if you remain inside of it.

#112

I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you.

#113

I thought that was obvious.

Phoebe uses her ult on you, and you play better than her player :
->You takes no damage from the ult (she can damages you with other attacks, but she could do the same without using her ult, so that’s basically like she wasted her ult completely) and ult 's cooldown triggered.
—> Phoebe is “punished” for being outplayed by you by wasting her ult to no result

Rath uses his ult after reaching you, and you play better than his player :
-> you take massive amount of damage, he takes little damage, and used his cooldown.
----> Rath is rewarded even though he was outplayed, because he has now an opponent that can be easily killed by further attacking. You’re punished no matter what you do, even though you couldn’t stop him from getting close due to be tossed in the air from very far away, and clearly outplayed him afterwards by stopping his ult as fast as it was possible for you.

Put like that, asking the same question again : Is this really working as intended right now? If the damage of Rath’s ult were progressively rising over time, a player outplaying rath would be rewarded by still surviving with the majority of their life bar, a player not outplaying him would be punished by taking heavy damage/dying. Sounds far more logical.

#114

So now your defense is that ANOTHER char is OP too? And this is not “theorycrafting” anything, im just stating what its wildly known.
Sorry but this is just starting to sound like “i cannot beat this particular character thus its flawed”.

To be honest i think this discussion has run its course.

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#115

In summary, something should probably be done about his ability to juggle with his ultimate, but other than that, meh.

1 Like
#116

sounds like that’s the biggest issue. Just make it a pulse AOE, and no juggle problem, afaik. No one would even notice. Of everyone I fought against, Rath was never a huge issue. I’d just hose him down with my Sasha! (Heavy reference.)

#117

Maybe you should start by reading properly, this would help the discussion to not go in strange directions. I’ve said several times that I do not think that Rath is OP, and that I am not asking for a nerf.

And also, obviously, if you’re going to take the worst example ever (AKA as galilea) when it comes to “working as intended” and “balanced mechanism” I’m going to point out that it’s the worse ever.
Rather than throwing a tantrum and exiting the conversation when I point it out, if you want to convince someone of something, maybe you should start by picking your examples better.

And I agree with the two others that the juggle needs to be addressed indeed.

#118

Wow, this conversation is going some places.

The thing with rath ult that I felt while playing was that it had a vacuum or slowing effect. It felt like I actually couldn’t run out of it because of some other force, and I don’t know if this was intentional or not. However I can say that on a few occasions I stood inside a rath ult and just fought him, and he died. Rath, like gally, is another character who punishes people who go alone though. Both of these characters decimate 1v1, for different reasons of course. I don’t think these is a problem with this, it’s people just being out of position or caught alone. In a team of 5 someone has to have a slow, knock back, knock away, stun, anything to help your team escape a rath ult. Some characters have really really great escapes like orendi nullify, benedict liftoff (I believe benedict in general counters melees), whiskey with the right helixes, and plenty of other characters.

Also a dev? has come in here and said to middle mouse melee rath and turn and run, and I have to admit I never actually tried that, but if that’s the intended design then maybe we should hold some judgement until we can get back into the game and start trying to push rath ults away from us.

As far as gally being op, sigh. She’s…she’s not, alright? All of her damage comes from her requiring full health to proc “It’s dangerous to go alone”, and if she has a support on her of course you’re going to die to her while you’re solo. Just be aware of where she is, don’t get stunned out of nowhere, and don’t get caught out of position while alone guys! There are characters in the game who excel at punishing this!

#119

Yup, excellent point. People seem to think this is Call of Duty…when it’s simply not.

#120

hahahahha idk man I was zoned in. With the ps share button I was only able to save like 15 minutes of the gameplay :frowning: