Staggeringly Obvious Meta

Battleborn Open Beta Open Beta General Discussion/Feedback
#1

Hello! First time poster, and I don’t typically post on forums, but there is something I absolutely must bring up. Let me start by saying that I’m a huge fan of the game. I’m currently at level 47 in the open beta, and I also participated in the CTT. Still love every match that I play, and have no intentions of stopping anytime soon.

With that said, I have to get something off of my chest, and that is some of the blatant balance issues I see with some of the characters. Two specifically come to mind: Galilea and Ambra. They are consistently a staple in the vast majority of the matches I play.

Ambra: Ahhh I don’t fully comprehend buffing her offensive capabilities. She has really gone from a support role to a front-line brawler since the CTT. I’ve honestly had to stop playing as her, because if she is built right, she can stand her ground while passively keeping her team alive. The quickest fix would be a reduction in range and DPS of her beam.

Galilea: I’ve also stopped playing her. It is incredibly easy to create a build where she is virtually unkillable unless you get swarmed by 3 or more enemies. In a way, this is sort of okay, considering I view her as a “tank” character. It is when this high rate of survivability is coupled with her ridiculous damage output. There have been instances were I’ve stunned someone with the shield throw ability and killed the player before the stun lock even ended. Where in that equation do they even have the chance of escaping. I suggest a fairly drastic reduction in her base damage, but keeping her “tankiness”

Now that the obvious OP characters are out of the way, let me discuss the ones that could use some love:

Ghalt: I played this character once, and promised myself never again. He seems to have a lost identity. He is perceived (in my mind anyways) to be a close-range damage/CC character. He really fulfills neither of these roles. His shotgun damage dropoff is staggering even at close to medium range. I think the highest damage I got off a crit at point-blank range was 140. That isn’t bad, but I was literally in the enemy’s face, and they are well out of that range by the next time I get a shot off, considering the rate of fire is incredibly slow. Traps are cool and all, but I can only place them 2 feet in front of me? Why?

Rath: Talk about getting smacked with the nerf bat hard. His ult does a significantly larger amount of damage, which was greatly needed, but now he gets hit with a sack of dead leaves and he is either dead or in need of retreating. I get that he is more of an assassin type character, but the damage output of his regular attacks do not justify his lack of health. Galilea easily does more damage than he does, and her survivability is significantly greater than Rath’s.

Deande: Similar to Rath. If a character is going to be knocked over by a strong gust of wind, I think they should have the damage output to justify it. I think this character could also benefit from increased damage when attacking from the rear, regardless of coming out of cloak or not. If anything, attacking from the rear while cloaked should increase this bonus further. If that is already the case, please disregard. If it isn’t please consider.

Once again, love the game and the team at Gearbox. Please keep doing what you are doing. These are mostly the rantings of a madman, but it is what I’ve come to observe. Looking forward to the full release!

EDIT: After playing as Rath in competitve mode (before I had only tried him out in the story mode), I recant my declaration for him being underpowered. He is in a pretty good spot right now. If anything, his ult may stand to be toned down, but just slightly.

#2

I agree with your Galilea observations about her survivability and damage. It really is silly and makes playing characters like Kelvin as opposed to her an inferior choice. Ambra’s output is insane as well. She’s more brawler send less support.

#3

Just by browsing around on the forums, it seems like most would agree that Ambra is ridiculous. Haven’t seen too much about Galilea, so I felt I’d address it. I’m curious to see what others feel to be overpowered/underpowered characters. I was debating whether or not to include Phoebe in the OP list and Toby in the UP list, but their imbalances weren’t as obvious to me as the ones listed. Plus, the post was getting pretty long.

#4

Moved to the open beta feedback section. Thanks for your thorough input!

#5

Oops. was wondering if I put it in the right section. Thanks for the help!

#6

No worries. Enjoy the forum!

#7

The general consensus is that Galilea and Ambra are OP and I’ve heard that Galilea is scheduled to get a nerf. Another forum poster told me one of the devs said so in a Twitch stream.

I can’t comment on the others as I have yet to play them although having played against a lot of Raths, he seems fine. Still, without having played him myself I’ll reserve judgment.

Overall, besides Galilea and Ambra, the game is pretty well-balanced and I’m enjoying it. The biggest pvp change that needs to happen (besides nerfing Galilea and Ambra) is Incursion needs rebalancing. Once you lose that first sentry, it’s GG. Something needs to be fixed there though I’m honestly not sure what.

I’m really scratching my head as to what Gearbox was thinking with Galilea though, giving a tank that high a damage output just seems ridiculous from square one. I wish I could have sat in on the meeting where they were deciding Galilea’s kit, I’d be like, "You guys crazy or what? Let me explain how a MOBA works to you . . . ". :stuck_out_tongue:

#8

It’s kind of a shame, because I knew that I’d fall in love with Galilea from the moment she was announced. She fits my play style perfectly. I just can’t have fun with the game playing as her in the state she is in right now, though. She just steamrolls any kind of opposition, especially if you have a Miko in tow. With that said, I don’t want her to be nerfed into oblivion. I hope they can hit the right chord with her rebalance.

#9

As someone who’s currently level 59 I used to always get pretty giddy when I found an enemy team that had a few higher level players in it, just for the sense of intense challenge and battles that I felt were about to come, but as of late it usually just spells out an Ambra or Galilea player and my sense of excitement for these high level challengers has been completely jaded now. It’s really starting to get ridiculously aggrivating.

Galilea not so much, if i’m playing with my roommate we can usually shut her down together, but against high level Ambras the game becomes sigh city.

#10

Ambra is a far bigger problem than Galilea. I can usually manage to handle Galilea, but Ambra is hit or miss. I’ve been running Mellka with health regen boosts and can usually take out Galilea with a little finesse.

#11

I ran Mellka against an Ambra and she was my worst nightmare.

#12

Spike her, from midair charge her get some distance and you should be able to take her out with a clip + reload or two.

#13

I could just have used him wrong but Boldur seemed really weak. I was also constantly attacked by galilea and ambra when I played him though.

#14

He has mad move speed and great defensive capabilities. You just gotta use him right, yea. Throw your axe as much as possible and I reccomend not picking it up so you can keep the move speed, get his slow punches and bleed axe and he’s
pretty ace.

#15

Never played Boldur, honestly, so I don’t have much room to talk. However, I’ve never really faced one that instilled any real fear in me. Regardless of which character I’m playing as, disposing of Boldur isn’t a difficult task.

#16

Boldur becomes a monster late game with his 50% health gain on all damage inflicted with his shield. If you pick the correct path on his helix he can pump out some decent damage while also being almost neigh invincible in the right hands. If you add the knock-up on his charge and slow on his fists he can become really annoying for the other team and be almost impossible to deal with.

#17

I dunno. Guess I’m not facing against any Boldurs that use the build you suggested above, because they feel pretty squishy for being “tank” role to me.

With that said, I’d like to add one to the UP characters that I’ve been on the fence about: Caldarius. Maybe I just don’t understand how to play him, but he feels like he is little more than a mild poke nuisance with both his ranged and melee attacks, while having no health. I also hardly see him picked on my or the enemy’s team. He has improved a bit since the CTT, but I think he could use…something. I don’t know if it is an increase to damage or health, because I don’t really get what role he is. Thoughts?

#18

I would be happy to since Caldarius is my 2nd favorite character. His mobility is the key to winning as they gave him so much it’s almost staggering. You might think he doesn’t do a whole lot of damage as his gun late game only pumps out 26 damage a shot (without any attack damage modifiers) but combined with his god like ability to kite and easy exp farm it’s easy to harass anyone out of your lane and even pick up kills. I could go over all of his helix ability’s that i grab but i don’t want this to turn into a whole Caldarius guide. The most important skills are any boost to his grenade launcher and the horizontal boost to his dash.

For gear I typically grab skill damage, attack speed and a shield recharge delay/bigger shield as you shouldn’t be fighting them after your shield goes down. Just weaken them with your harass (and trust me they will be really angry after about 10 seconds of fighting you) and after they try escape with about 50% or so of health remaining just grenade them and finish them with a satisfying dunk from your ult. whenever the minion wave is pushed go and gather as many shards as possible as shards are key to leveling up and controlling your lane.

Hope that helps!

#19

Ahhhh, no. Went out on a limb and tried Boldur. He sucks. Like, he really sucks. By far the worst in the game, imo.

#20

I really like what they changed about him since the CTT since he was only really good at wave clear and harassing. I encourage you to give him another try but keep in mind he isn’t mean’t to pump out high damage but rather soak obscene amounts of damage. He has great CC with his axe slow, knockup/stun whichever you prefer and slow on his punches. You want to grab all the health regen you can from his helix and the movement speed when his shield is up. After hitting level 5 “he has a pretty weak early game” prepare to soak damage and never have to back because your shield not heals for 50% of the damage it soaks while your runes are up.

If you can save his axe runes until your ult goes off cooldown you can burst pretty well since activating your ult returns your axe to you. Put up some skill damage and you can do some really good aoe burst damage while remaining practically immortal. Hope that helps!

I forgot to mention to always have your shield up when your not actively attacking something since his regen gets pretty high with his helix alone.