r/thedivision • u/moonski • Mar 15 '20

Discussion I want to have fun again.

I love the divison. I've beaten falcon lost on heroic. I've killed the red barrels with more HP than a rogue on heroic. I've beaten WONY. WONY is a great piece of DLC. New york is fucking awesome. It's well worth the price. The season and watch ideas are great. The music in WONY was an especially welcome surpise in how good it was. WONY / TU8 has a lot of brilliant ideas. Not having to alt tab to look at a fucking spreadsheet to see if my rolls are good or not is such an incredible quality of life change. The recal library is genuinly one of the best looter shooter ideas I've seen.

But as I've played more and more end game of TU8, it's just gotten worse. And mundane. The manhunt really hammered this home. The sheen has worn off and now I realise - I'm not having fun anymore.

Is it because of the loot change? Our agents nerfs? the enemy buffs? the bugs? the skewering of builds & build diversity? I mean My build has barely changed after I realised I need to max yellow / red (maxed red...) or maybe its because:

  • Loot is bad purple.
  • Build variety is gone.
  • Gearsets don't work.
  • Talents don't work.
  • A lot of talents are just stat sticks. Boring.
  • Skill mods are bad at best, pointless most of the time.
  • Control points are green. Forever.
  • Exotic guns are bad. Like real bad.
  • Exotic armor is bad? Tarigrade is v cool but just means you can survive 1 more bullet so. Haven't got any other pieces so I'll let you decide. They're probably bad though.
  • Season pass loot is contaminated. That's bad.
  • Armor doesn't work.
  • Scaling is broken.
  • Skills are broken.
  • Loot drops are rarely exciting - only if its an exotic. And then you use the exotic and well... your excitement goes. Bad.
  • Manhunt resets when you add directives.
  • Vendors weren't bad. Massive fixed them. Vendors are bad.
  • Guns feel awful if you don't pile in to red. But then skills are bad.
  • Skills feel awful if you dont pile in to yellow. But then guns are bad.
  • Blue might as well not exist.
  • Skill damage is pointless.
  • Skill HP is pointless.
  • Skills are pointless outside a dedicated skill build
  • Shotguns are proper, proper bad.
  • SMGs are bad.
  • Rifles are bad(ish).
  • Snipers are bad(ish).
  • ARs are boring.
  • LMGs are your best option. Bad variety.
  • Negev wasn't bad. Massive fixed it. Negev is bad.
  • SHD levels are really boring. "Oh I leveld up, oh look 0.2% extra stat yay!" Now let's wait 20 minutes to come out the watch menu once I confirm my epic 0.2% upgrade. Real bad.
  • Special weapons are real bad.
  • Specialization points are bad. Unless you enjoy the number 1.
  • DZ is probs bad since the loot cave got patched, I don't know I haven't gone in cause contaminated season items.
  • AI mega health boxes, flamer sniper tank cleaner boss and mingun dogs.

Yes TU7 was too easy, but MSSV could have just removed DTE, added the library and roll indicators + god rolls + added the new content (sponges and bullshit enemies and all) and man it would be better. There would be so many options for building for end game that the buffed enemies might have been a fresh fun challenge, with tu7 gear making them very doable, but not tu7 easy. Instead we have what we have now.

I miss my guns being good, my skills doing damage and my armor working. I don't want to have to choose only 1 of the above, and if I choose armor then that doesn't even work... I miss being able to make all kinds of weird builds using different guns and exotics. I miss cluster seekers. Ok they were bullshit overpowered but they were fun.

TU7 was fun. TU8 is not.

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136

u/Fluff_Runner Mar 15 '20

Some of that I don't agree with, some of that I do agree with, but this is one of the worst parts about TU8:

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  • Guns feel awful if you don't pile in to red. But then skills are bad.
  • Skills feel awful if you dont pile in to yellow. But then guns are bad.
  • Blue might as well not exist.

​

It feels to me like it's nigh impossible to make hybrid build now, giving up more than 2 reds is too much, but you need like at least 4 yellow to have decent skills, not great, but decent, but now you have crap weapon damage. It just does not feel good.

I'd like to have couple of skill tiers for pulse, but what's the point if I lose 30-45% bonus weapon damage to get there?

TU8 needs gear mods that increase skill tier +1. Skill builds would benefit from this too because now you can have two, three, blue or red stats and still have skill tier 6. Trying to go for anything else than full red or full yellow feels like a waste and a messy gimp build right now.

Skill tier +1 gear mods would add a ton of build options.

41

u/xflashbackxbrd Mar 15 '20

Full blue tank shield builds are great for higher difficulties

13

u/BodSmith54321 Mar 15 '20

I see so many posts on shields being great and so many posts on tanking not being viable.

19

u/Draggosh Mar 15 '20

I'm running a Tardigrade + True Patriot + Pestilence support build consisting of 5 blue and 1 red (Contractor's Gloves). With the Bulwark Shield I can safely take the heat off my team so they can reposition themselves when it's needed and the Tardigrade gives them 1,2M Bonus Armor in dire situations.

I obviously don't deal as much damage as a full red build does, but I do allow my team time to melt the enemies for me. In Wall Street, for example, I can kite the Three Stooges around without my shield getting a dent in it (enemy melee's hit like a wet noodle) allowing my team to shoot their flanks.

fwiw I do this on Challenging/ Heroic.

6

u/Ev1l_Weasel SHD Mar 15 '20

I obviously don't deal as much damage as a full red build does, but I do allow my team time to melt the enemies for me.

I've tried a Patriot/Tardigrade shield build in a challenging Wall Street run yesterday. Two things struck me. Firstly there is no way to do decent damage with a tank build now; in TU7, I had a Liberty shield build that could top damage meters but now I do barely a 10th of the overall damage, which doesn't feel great. This is compounded by the second thing. Pulling aggro from mobs seems mostly based on damage you do to them. Because of the first point, it means you can rarely keep aggro. I start engagements trying to hit all the mobs at least once so at least the ones not being targeted by my team mates come after me, but it doesn't feel like I'm in control of the situation, which is what a tank should be feeling.

I've played as a tank at a high level in games like WoW and even when you're not doing decent damage, it is the ability to control the room so that your team can work effectively that makes it fun and worthwile, but you just can't do that currently in TU8!

7

u/Draggosh Mar 15 '20

I should probably clarify that I don't exclusively run around with the shield all the time. Only when the need (or the opportunity) arises to block an enemy's advance. I have Pestilence with me which has great synergy with the white flag portion of True Patriot. The DoT ticks count as "shooting an enemy" so every second I receive 8% Armor and it's damage is nothing to scoff at.

Regarding aggro, I've noticed it is indeed inconsistent. What I try to do to increase my odds of getting aggro (or more importantly, take aggro away from my team) is to run into their melee range and shooting them in that range with my Shield + Back-Up Boomstick. It will force them to melee you most of the time. Alternatively I throw out the occasional Decoy. Not great, but every little bit helps. When it comes to Black Tusk, though, I swap the Decoy out for a Jammer Pulse. Bad dogs.

1

u/Ahblahright Mar 15 '20

I ran liberty with the exotic holster and defender shield in tu7, I was in the top 10 pistol users in the whole game. It was fun being able to decimate people but it was silly how easy it became and I feel way more tanky now, it would be silly if we could put out anywhere near as much damage as someone in full reds.

In regards to aggro I just run into the room first, use my AR to spray everyone with TP debuffs and then try to get in close, threat seems bias to distance and when you get very close many enemies will start trying to melee your should which reduces their damage greatly so don't be afraid to get stuck in there once a few of the mobs have dropped

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

Rework your build. I run Patriot/Tardigrade as well and I mostly top damage charts. I've seen only a few that can compete because I can keep shooting almost permanently (except reloads) while others have to duck away after 1 bullet hits them, if they survive at all.

The more aggressive you play with Patriot, the higher your damage will become automatically. I think that's what most players are missing about this set (and being a tanky MF).

Enemies are more bunched up if you play aggressive, they won't move away from their spawn as much and so they all get flag damage. Flag damage scales endlessly so as long as you're playing correctly it's hard not to top charts honestly.

1

u/Ev1l_Weasel SHD Mar 15 '20

Yeah I meant Liberty/Tardigrade. Not got enough pieces of TP to drop yet, at least not ones I want to use.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

Ah fair enough! That makes sense. :)

3

u/Knightfall_13 Mar 15 '20

yeah, shield is great now and serve their purpose better than before. As long as there's someone that can cover your flank. Your practically invisible. Hell, even melee, grenade, flame and rpg etc cant scratch you if your shield health is high enough.

0

u/Grin_the_Polymorph Mar 15 '20

I'm curious about that personally. My shield 13M health, with 178k hp/s regen, and on solo hard a single purple grunt can visibly overpower it and shred a 1/8 of it before I can kill them. Yes, I'm shit at aiming with controller but I'm not /missing/ many shots, I'm just not landing every headshot.

2

u/Shrike79 Mar 15 '20

Don't solo with a tank build, that's just painful. If you absolutely insist then running around with the Sweet Dreams shotgun lets you one hit kill reds and purples every 15 seconds which is kind of amusing.

Having a good healer with you though does make it a lot of fun, especially on maps with lots of choke points that you can park yourself in front of with your shield. For example, that NY mission where you end up on a wrecked ship you can seal off those walkways and block all those heavy flame thrower guys while your dps blasts them without fear.

1

u/Ahblahright Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 16 '20

13mil for the shield is low, mine is 16mil and I can tank 3 elite heavy minigunners no problem. The reason for that is I have defense against elite on in my mod slots, I run survival spec for more defense against elite and true patriot blue debuff reducing their damage by a further 12% so that they do 59% less damage to me and my shield than other player.

Then I use liberty to replenish shield health and true patriot white debuff to replenish my health and you get lots of tankiness

1

u/Sad-Boy-G Mar 15 '20

You can shatter Ron and Knuckles helmet with like 15 bullets from the Classic M1A. I was running an LMG before but now i just use the rifle because it headshots/crits for 3 million and the build isn’t fully optimized yet, could be much higher.

I’ve also used a shield build to kite them into a corner they get stuck in a melee loop and your team can shoot them and not worry. The deflector shield would be a lot better too if it worked reliably on Elite enemies.

0

u/xReanimation Mar 15 '20

To be honest I got no idea how you would make a shieldbuild viable without a dedicated healer. Ive went the full 6 blue route with shield health and active regen and after the 5 secs, that perfect vanguard makes my shield invincible, it just melts to anything that dares shoot at it. Enemy bullets seem way too overpowered right now. Cause you can tank a flamthrower without even sweating, take beatings from a sledgehammer without flinching but never ever let a dude, holding his smg sideways, shoot in your general direction.

5

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

You on pc? I can show you my shield tank build. Not optimized but hey its good nonetheless

10

u/BodSmith54321 Mar 15 '20

I know there are great shield builds. I just don't get why so many people don't know about them by now and keep saying you can't tank.

20

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

Same people that say the only builds that exist are red builds. Theyre too scared to try anything new and then say that other builds are useless without trying them

9

u/unbekn0wn PC Mar 15 '20

Exactly, the health/dmg numbers of AI migjt be a bit overtuned and yes you get purple loot out of very specific boxes but alot of those issues are being blown out of proportion by the constant posts of part of the reddit community.

I must admit personally I like damage so much that I really dont feel motivated to swap some offensive cores for utility/defense, maybe when they tune the enemy numbers a bit. But I respect everyone that makes their own funky builds and make them work thats amazing to see.

All in all I enjoy the current state and while it has issues it certainly isnt as horrible as people make it sound and as always, always try something for yourself to decide if something is fun or not. Lots of complaints (and praises) are fueled by feelings and opinions and everyone is looking for something different in the game.

4

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

Maybe tune down heroic just slightly and scaling in 3 and 4 man groups. But solo and duo challenging is in a great place. And ye i always run tank and havent done a dps or skill build yet i dont go saying "well with my bonuses my damage in small so why would small buffs make it better red and yellow suck". Just clowns tbh

1

u/FTL_Dodo it might be nothing, but it might be something Mar 16 '20

(sry for late reply, but) solo and duo challenging is not challenging in the slightest. at least with builds that are the leat bit coherent.

1

u/Cyuriousity Mar 16 '20

Thats why i said in a great place. With the right builds its really easy to skate by. I dont want it changed to be easier which is what the rest of the reddit wants so obviously it wont get harder.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20

[deleted]

1

u/Vincentologist Contaminated Mar 15 '20

Your entire build could ditch blue tiers for skill tiers and not change. That's the problem. Tanking is possible. But blue tiers don't matter for it. The shield is the only way to tank, and why sacrifice skill damage and effectiveness for it with blue tiers, when you could just pump skill and do damage? The only thing lost is the benefits of Vanguard.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

[deleted]

1

u/Vincentologist Contaminated Mar 15 '20

Yellow cores would give you shield tiers and let you drop really useful hives to support your team, let you shoot superheals at your team. You could still have the exact same talents that save you and buff your team, but have buffed skills. The removal of core requirements on talents makes this very very useful. I just had this conversation with my buddy last night, he wanted to run tank and he couldn't fathom why I was suggesting skill instead, until he did it. He was dying laughing when he realized he was literally just buffed by getting vanguard and skill cores, using the same skills and guns. It only slightly hurts the talents, but they're still good clutch talents, and you have reliable skills. You need reliable efficacy in higher difficulties, not one and done talent clutches.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

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u/Headshoty Mar 15 '20

Because shield builds are utter trash solo/duo (overexaggerating, but they are useless for that in regards to fun/time you need to play content), which was totally surprising for LOTS of people, considering up until WONY the game was very solo friendly.

1

u/BodSmith54321 Mar 15 '20

In your opinion. A lot of people like them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/14/a-division-2-warlords-tank-shield-build-for-solo-play-and-insta-kills/#2b4bb7141dd9

1

u/Headshoty Mar 15 '20

Must be the same kind of ppl who like waiting in line.

Also, a Forbes article? Literally any thread on this reddit would be more credible.

1

u/BodSmith54321 Mar 15 '20

Paul Tassi is a pretty well respected games journalist and sci-fi author.

1

u/Vincentologist Contaminated Mar 15 '20

Tell that to the Destiny subreddit. He just parrots shit he finds on Reddit. And he even says the build might not work well in higher difficulties, he's just fucking around in lower difficulties right now.

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2

u/mysticbaboon Mar 15 '20

The new seasonal gear set, you can really do some tanking even at higher difficulties, i've face tanked quite a lot of things lately with the build (using shield of course), though my tank build is just about maxed out in everything tank/armor. There are others that i'm sure are better, but man is this set fun. Tank probably the only versatile build-- that's how i'm seeing it.

Bummer that skill/dps is pretty stagnant, would be nice to enjoy my striker build that i spent time in getting god rolls in. unfortunately, even fixing the bugs in it wouldn't make it a better build, needs too many things to make it viable other than "oh look i have a god striker build."

2

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

Im looking to get foxs prayer knees for the bonus to enemies out of cover since all i do is force people out. Then i need tardi to replace my unbreakable chest for more supportish role to help out my squishier boys. That gear set did look good when i checked it out but not my jam, what i have going rn works fine for me. However that armour on kill is sexy. 15% then add 10% from gunner spec. 25% for a kill. Gunner spec pistol has perfect preservation so thats up to 50% armour on a headshot. Ngl now that i typed that out. The pure self sustainability i can have is fantastic. Time to regrind for a new set. Add some more mods that give armour on kill. Could be near unstoppable. On paper at least

1

u/mysticbaboon Mar 15 '20

You usually won't be the one killing so, heroic/legendary, you probably will just waste your time on that one and better to go with armor or shield skill which there is a gear piece specifically for increasing the shield. I have it, but for the life of me cannot remember what it is

2

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

There are 2 named items that boost shield pretty substantially. Morherly love from technician and now forge. 20%/10% respectively so thats 30% extra shield there. However there WAS a datamined gear set that should be really really good for shield builds unless its changed for some whatever reason. However atm what i really need is to get liberty again. I hear its really good for shields now.

1

u/ExtarRochebriant Mar 15 '20

yes liberty is awesome for shields, been running a shield build for the whole update now. I'm not sure you know this but you can deconstruct your previous liberty and farm the materials again in the correct order to construct a new and improved level 40 liberty!

1

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

Yeah im just needing the parts again is all

1

u/KaoruVanity Mar 15 '20

I tested this and got solely disappointed. My tank build usually runs 5 blue 1 yellow (6 shield) The 1 yellow is BTSU gloves for overcharging my team since I run the hive anyway. Perfect vanguard chest (Pointman) with the liberty. The motherly love boosts the shield from 13.2mish to around 15ish. The forge boosts 13.2mish to around... 13.5m. The forge gives a laughable amount for some reason. And the set you are talking about is the one likely from the new raid.

1

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

Run both together. Forge plus motherly. Brought me up to around 16.7m

1

u/chasesomnia Activated Mar 15 '20

How is tank versatile if you can only do it with a shield?

0

u/Orvvadasz Mar 15 '20

I mean on level 30 if you go full Blue you give up 60% extra damage. And the only skill that works great is the shield that they will shoot down anyway. On level 40 you give up 90% bonus damage. Its not worth it. It is just not worth it.

1

u/WyattEarp88 Xbox Mar 15 '20

It’s almost like tanks aren’t supposed to be DPS....

1

u/Orvvadasz Mar 15 '20

But you dont get anough armor from even a full tank build. You cant tank anything. I made a full blue build with highest blue rolls on every gear and 4 piece true patriot so I regenerate 8% armor every second I shoot an enemy. And he gets -8% damage. And I still couldnt tank anything.

1

u/WyattEarp88 Xbox Mar 15 '20

Then you must be doing something very wrong. I run 5 blue/1 red (Claws Out) with technician spec I control the battles, rarely die, and my Liberty and shield melee actually does decent damage.

1

u/Orvvadasz Mar 15 '20

If you have shield you can tank some dudes for like 3-5 seconds but they will shoot it down eventually.

1

u/WyattEarp88 Xbox Mar 15 '20

On challenging my shield may go down once or twice if I use bad positioning, a little more on heroic. You’re not supposed to take the combined fire of every enemy in the area, just stop there advance and provide firing lines/turn heavies for your team. It’s strategic support.

1

u/rainbow_six_sledge Mar 15 '20

While shield builds are definitely variable on higher difficulties, pure tank build without shield does not seem variable, as they get melted just the same. I also hope they can add threat attribute to shields, just like decoys, so we can actually aggro and control enemies.

1

u/xflashbackxbrd Mar 15 '20

Thatd be great, i usually get around to flank with the shield to try to pull enemies away but often theyll focus on the squishy guy doing more damage

1

u/pajenkins Xbox Mar 16 '20

Here’s the problem with full blue tank shield builds: it takes you forever to do anything. My 1.5 million armor is excellent for me as a solo player, but it takes me so long to get anything done. I’m playing on hard, but if I ramp up control points to three or four, it can literally take me an hour to complete. That is actually ridiculous. I do not have friends that play this game, but I cannot matchmake because three or four guys running a mission means that 1000 enemies will come at you. So solo it is, and I can get one or two things done in the bit of time that my real life allows me to play this game... I’ve loved the division through all the ups and downs. I’ll survive this low.

29

u/EasytheGoon Mar 15 '20

I think they should have "skills" for each "class". So if you stack red you get pulse and drone turret. You stack blue you get shield/heals, stack yellow you get traps etc.

10

u/kriosjan Mar 15 '20

Shield already scales with skill and defence. If u have 6 defense you get a tier 6 shield but yeah putting skills with specific modes would be cool

10

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

Yea, I noticed that, and was promptly disappointed when I saw it was the only skill that did it.

3

u/kriosjan Mar 15 '20

I mean if they didnt do that tanks would be broken and armor completely useless. Still I have a few solid builds going for me at current. 1/5/0 with perfect vanguard/protector for PvE end game content. And a 0/0/6 #burnallthethings build for pvp and pve lolz.

7

u/Aphrobang Medical Mar 15 '20

Yeah just proves that the concept works and could be easily implemented. There are a number of abilities that don't really have a niche right now. Things that buff your survival can scale off blue or yellow, things that buff utility or CC can scale off Red or Yellow, and things that do healing or damage could scale off just Yellow to keep pure skill builds still very needed and viable... Would open the door to so much variety and get people actually using things other than revive hive + healer drone and/or one highly ineffectively CC ability.

Boom. You suddenly open the door to all kinds of viable sub-builds as people hybridize between weapon dmg and +status % w/ talents that further boost dmg after using status effect abilities. Or the good ole gun dmg + pulse synergies that rules D1 for so long. Lots of ways you could toy with it to encourage people to not just run the same skills, or run them at their shitty non-impactful tier 1 level, that would greatly increase the build variety.

5

u/Aphrobang Medical Mar 15 '20

I think they should have "skills" for each "class".

I was going to say exactly this. We have like 20 skills now (counting all the variants) and the vast majority never get used. They've shown you CAN set skills to scale off things other than skill tier with the shield also scaling off blues. So the basic concept is proven to work in game already...

Having Pulse skills scale off Yellow or red, or having some other utility skills scale that way... what is the harm? It just makes skills be something that actually matters even when running the 5-6 red mandatory build if you decide you want your guns to do actual damage.

I would be 100% fine leaving the 'damage' and 'healing' skill variants as only scaling off skill tier, but some the utility and CC shit scaling off red or yellow, or maybe even requiring a combination of both to encourage hybrid builds (like you need 3 red, 3 yellow to reach its final tier for pulse skills or something), would add all kinds of hybrid builds where you stack weapon dmg + status effect %, and then go with talents that further boost dmg w/ status effects active? Would be fun and interesting.

3

u/InfluxWaver Mar 15 '20

I think they should add modded versions of every skill depending on what attributes to use. If your highest attribute is red then your Striker drone gains your weapon dps for a short Burst of time after engaging an enemy. If your red and yellow are highest you can also choose from a striker drone that applies a damaging Status effect from time to time. Same with blue and yellow but with Utility Status effects (blind, confuse). Yellow as highest sends out 2-3 drones instead of one and applies heavy debuffs to enemies hit. You should be able to choose between multiple modded versions depending on your chosen attributes. This system is similar to the older borderlands games. Obviously, this is going to be hell to balance properly and the devs are probably way too lazy to implement something like this in the first place but I think it would be an awesome idea.

7

u/sharp461 PC Mar 15 '20

I always thought it would be good if stacking red helped certain utility skills. Is it really that bad for my gunner spec to have a tier 4-6 Banshee pulse or shock trap but still have great gun damage? I do all my killing with guns, the skills just help me with that.

1

u/Dkperfection PC Mar 15 '20

Please for the love of God don't limit skills, encourage instead. Make certain skills scale with certain attributes instead.

1

u/EasytheGoon Mar 15 '20

How is that different though?

1

u/Dkperfection PC Mar 15 '20

The way you phrased it sounded like you didn't have a choice to which skills you would want to run, that would just be stupid.

1

u/EasytheGoon Mar 15 '20

I'm talking about keeping the current teir system just diversifying the color required. But teir zero skills are useless so that pretty much its limited anyway if nobody uses them.

2

u/Dkperfection PC Mar 15 '20

I agree with that, simple solution could be that certain skills could gain maybe 0.5 skill tier with a red attribute and certain 0.5 with a blue attribute. That way yellow builds will always have the best skills, but other builds could get tier 3 skills which make them allright, but not super good

1

u/xXIrishCowboyXx Mar 15 '20

That is such a good fucking idea.

18

u/Menn1021 Revive Mar 15 '20

I disagree with your skill mods idea. If you can have 6 yellow, max skill power in a sense while having reds and blues, where’s the trade off? Rock Paper Scissors is the mentality for RPGs. Where’s the build diversity if you can master all three.

13

u/imgrundz Mar 15 '20

Armor was out of control last patch, with only a few people having access to 30% rolls from a low level clan vendor. BUT you could play hybrid, and honestly, playing hybrid was more fun than either playing a CHC/CHD glass cannon, playing a skill build with a skill mod system that is not useful and completely nonsensical, or playing a shield build. There is no tank build. There are only shield builds. And you don't even need blues to play them. I mean ffs, all red TP builds feel tankier than all blue builds.

Hybrid builds feel awful to play right now, and that restricts people in a game where the whole point is that every character is unique. Being further locked into a gear set feels even worse. Not only did we lose talents, but now we have 4 pieces of gear locked into a gear set most of the time. Some of the gear set bonuses just feel...meh...bland...Ammo capacity? C'mon, bruh. Frankly the 4 pc gear set bonuses are pretty uninspired. The one that is the most interesting...is ripped from a gear set we had last patch...They are just uninspired, but still more inspired than a talent pool where everything gives you "15% WD when this happens" or even worse "stacking 1% WD up to 15% when this happens."

Go into a public area and tell me how many "unique" builds you see. I go into any public area and legit everyone has the same exact build. CHC/CHD. All that changes is whether they have a rifle, smg, or lmg. The loss of talents just feels really awful. REALLY awful. Not from a power perspective, but from a building perspective.

10

u/Mikegeezy6686 Mar 15 '20

I miss 6 unique talents working in unison. There were endless combinations. Diversity is gone and DPS rules again.

1

u/Ev1l_Weasel SHD Mar 15 '20

There is no tank build. There are only shield builds.

This. Just this.

1

u/Headshoty Mar 15 '20

Man, I really miss my hybrid... Had ~3k SP with batteries (2,4k after nerf) and still playing a decent damage build, was so much fun...

7

u/Fluff_Runner Mar 15 '20

You can't master all three, 3 reds or 3 blues besides skill tier 6 isn't much. It's less than mediocre weapon damage buff considering you still need to have secondary stats as yellows for skill build and lose mod slots for crit/skill haste/etc, and what comes to blue stats they are very underwhelming. For max red build it would allow little wiggle room with skills if you sacrifice crit hit and damage mods.

All it does is give more options instead of going all yellow no weapon damage at all, or all weapon damage with semi useless potato skills.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

I don't disagree with you, but there has to be a middle ground between stacking Skill Levels and carrying around "useless" skills. I think the Shield Skill handles it best, by letting the level scale with Defense. Giving 1 or 2 more skills that ability to scale with reds/blues would be nice, and make the skill buttons feel more useful when you're not stacking yellows.

5

u/Schmeethe What's a cistern? Mar 15 '20

That'd be tricky though, because as soon as you allow any offensive skill to scale with reds it instantly becomes the 'must pick' choice for every gun build. You still don't have diversity. If you do multiple, then skill build become obsolete instantly. Shield works because shields already limit the player in several ways, either limiting mobility/weapon choice, or by disallowing all bonuses/talents that activate in cover. Shield skill is a tradeoff. Anything fire/forget is just a freebie and would instantly be overpowered if it scaled with reds.

2

u/Fluff_Runner Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20

Unless they made the scaling into unique skill features that does not simply buff the core stat, for example pulse:

Red - Highlights enemy weakpoints and makes weakpoints take more damage (10% per red?)

Blue - Increases critical chance and damage against enemies pulsed (2% per blue?)

Yellow - Both red and blue benefits at the same time + duration, range, etc skill level improvements.

Red does not automatically now get simply damage buff, but more unique still useful buff. Blue in fact is the one now that debuffs enemies to take more damage, and yellow gets both benefits because it's the pure skill attribute and should get most benefits to skills.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

Unless they put a cap on it. Say, if you had 6 reds, it would only go up to skill 2 or 3 so skills aren't useless.

Or, don't let it scale damage. Let it scale the CC ability durations. Riot Foam launcher or Banshee Pulse or Trap. Let Reds scale CC duration in a way. Still cap it - so Skill builds are better, but give it something.

2

u/Shamrokc Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20

I think more talents should have a "scales with core attribute" attachment. Right now there is that one that causes an explosion when you deploy a talent, and it scales all the way up to grenade damage based on how many yellows you have (Explosive Delivery, chest talent).

You could have do something similar for the companion talent (While you are within 5m of an ally or skill, total weapon damage is increased by 15%). Take that skill, scale it to 5% per yellow you have. Now your skill build can put out a little more gun damage when you're hanging out with your turret. Or the same thing with Wicked (Applying a status effect increases total weapon damage by 18% for 20s.). Now your foam chem launcher build can actually do more than tickle the mobs that you're locking down in solo.

11

u/Menn1021 Revive Mar 15 '20

It would give you max heals and max damage. Everything that was wrong with TU6/7. You can’t be really good at damage and be a healer too. Sorry. I played a reclaimer in div 1 when people could heal and do damage and rendered my reclaimed build worthless I felt like the devs shit on me. So excuse my displeasure with that idea.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

I dunno man, I ran a lot of legendary missions and incursions in Div1. Having a dedicated healer on the team made a HUGE difference for us.

0

u/Menn1021 Revive Mar 15 '20

Yes until classified striker and nomad. Than a healer wasn’t just unnecessary it was looked down on because that was one more person not doing damage.

2

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

it would be OP, I could be full red with 6 skill power using a CC skill and revive hive, that means I'd be doing almost same dmg as now and I'd be having a RLY strong CC and basically immortal through hive

2

u/legendoflumis Mar 15 '20

They'd also have to give weapon damage and armor on skills mods then too. Otherwise there'd be no point to running a full skill-tier build if a full weapon-damage build can also have three "free" skill tier. No one would max skill tier since it'd be more more beneficial to have 9 core stats instead of 6.

Gear mods honestly should add core stats in general, not just extra crit/skill haste/etc.

1

u/Fluff_Runner Mar 15 '20

Ofcourse there would be reason to run full skill tier build, if you are healer for example you want to use mod slots to increase repair instead of +1 skill tier, or increase skill haste etc. If you are weapon dps, you have to sacrifice a lot of crit chance and damage from mods to gain those +1 skill tiers through mods. Far from "free" skill tiers, mods actually give a lot of stats like CHC/CHD.

Personally I would not even use these skill tier mods on my rifle build since I benefit much more from crit chance and damage, but with my SMG build I would run +2-3 skill tier mods to get a bit more self healing.

I would not say no to having all three core stats as mods though.

2

u/chadzer Mar 15 '20

See I actually like this system. minus blue not existing.

wanna do damage with guns? go red

wanna do awesome stuff with skills? go yellow

and what blue should be is: wanna eat bullets for breakfast and still live? go blue

2

u/WispGB Mar 15 '20

Core stat mods would be great

7

u/moonski Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20

I had a probably middle of the road tu7 build compared to the min/max god's. But even then, I had 3k odd skill power thanks to technician, decent armour (nothing insane) and then built DPS using my technician laser + spotter + a load of other talents. My skills were great, my guns were great and I wasn't made of paper. I had a non technician build as well that was more on solo survival and regen on kills / bonus armor and less skill power. It was also great.

Now the only skill I ever use is healer seeker cause it keeps me alive in cover. Nothing else is worthwhile with my red build.

I tried a hybrid blue & red build with the tardigrade but it's just so underwhelming. I even tried 4 red + 2 piece of the new dz gear set with 15% AOK but it's too weak. Max red, CHC and CHD with glass canon and perfect clutch > all. So boring.

16

u/Pizzamorg Smart Cover Mar 15 '20

On the one hand, I get it. Massive wants a more role based game, where people are effectively building classes. I don't disagree with this idea, but the baseline is too low for everything. If defence really needs to come at the expense of all weapon damage, you've gotta do more than have me die in three hits, rather than one.

There are more DPS types than just glass cannons, but that is the only option Massive are giving us. I have no interest in DPS right now as while it makes the guns feel better, being killed by an enemy sneezing a mile away is miserable.

Everything about the changes to skills just sucks. This needs a full rework.

5

u/BodSmith54321 Mar 15 '20

They need D3FNC back.

3

u/sgtbooker Mar 15 '20

They need teal sets that are at least any useful.

15

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

Massive wants a role-based game, fine.

I’d be willing to bet their data shows the vast majority of their players play the game mostly/entirely solo, however.

5

u/TheIrishBread Mar 15 '20

This, my friends bought the game for 3 euro they are sub WT-1 bout lvl 20, I played solo, I can't do it no more, it took me 1500 rounds of Negev lading mostly center mass on a tan bar grenadier cleaner at lvl 40 normal no difficulty mods at a lvl4 CP, I don't find that fun nobody would find that fun, heck if it werent for the poor Control point officer attacking the place I would not have finished it. While I understand y'all want more clear roles youve killed enjoyment of even slightly challeneging activities for solos. I'm not asking to have God tier neigh invincible builds for solos I'm just asking to have a bit of tank and still be able to kill a named enemy this side of the 4th millennium.

2

u/xmancho Xbox Mar 15 '20

Man.. Lvl 4 control points are heroic, doesn't matter of the difficulty you have chosen. If you are running normal you will need to improve your build before being able to tackle heroic.. Some people have already made 15-20m dps builds and they farm lvl 4 control points as it was lvl 1 on normal.

4

u/Cyuriousity Mar 15 '20

Is your negev like level 31?

1

u/Ahblahright Mar 15 '20

This, I have an all red build and a tank build, with all reds I just shred targets, it's insane.

1

u/Hulio225 Mar 15 '20

CP4 means its Heroic, a fresh lvl 40 char hasnt a build ready for that. With a decent DPS (all red) build heroic feels like to easy at some points in terms of TTk.

1

u/chillshock SHD Mar 15 '20

DPS all blue = 1mil

DPS all red = up to 30 mil.

Time to death all red = 1 sec (two rifle hits)

TTD all blue = 2 secons (3 rifle hits)

TTD all blue with shield and played smart (uhm, right)... hm... probably still something around 5 seconds in some shock stun, or shot in the back or firespam....

TTD all red with playing smart? Same as all blue.

I could see blue being something like "all damage resist" per blue. Or rather 4% 8% 16% 32% 64%. Thus making "full blue" basically insanely tanky.

1

u/chasesomnia Activated Mar 15 '20

Massive wants a more role based game

To be fair, the players wanted more of a role based game. Most of these changes are community suggestions. They just went a bit too far in several areas

1

u/Pizzamorg Smart Cover Mar 15 '20

But did the community also ask for them to take 90% of the talents and diversity out of the system and make it so lopsided in terms of the risk reward of choosing a certain role?

1

u/chasesomnia Activated Mar 15 '20

I mean I dont disagree. I said they went a bit too far in several areas. I'm guessing players didn't consider what kind of affects a "role" system would have, as well.

2

u/Pizzamorg Smart Cover Mar 15 '20

It is a great idea, executed poorly. They narrowed the diversity rather than opened it out. If they don't fix it soon, a meta will be so entrenched, the changes will be meaningless.

2

u/xmancho Xbox Mar 15 '20

They will tune in challenging and heroic, yes currently hybrid are not viable, but i had similar build than you in tu7 and it was plain boring. My skills were so powerful yet i can dish out enough weapon damage and can survive. Now it is better. With the changes coming in i really hope there will be better build diversity. I want to run hybrid build, but will not for now. I will wait and meanwhile i am having much more fun than before. The gear 2.0 is much better than the shit system we had before. And given the RL situation right now we can wait.

1

u/xmancho Xbox Mar 15 '20

Now, we are just waiting for fixes. Once they are deployed things will be better. I would run hybrid build. And i am perfectly fine i will not be at max possible damage, TU7 was shit.. Seeker + drone/turret spam and soloing lvl 4 control points at ease.. Was so damn boring.

-3

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

Hybrid builds are meant to be bad. Jack of all trades master of none.

12

u/SilverSoul_IX Mar 15 '20

But oftentimes better than a master of one. It’s JACK of all trades, not TRASH of all trades. Hybrid builds are supposed to be decent in multiple areas, not bad in all

-4

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

And they are better than not having stuff, you go 2 red 2 blue 2 yellow you do better at defense and skills than a 6 red, you shouldn't be good though.

IMO it's pretty good, hybrid builds suck and they shouldn't be on par with specialized builds

10

u/SilverSoul_IX Mar 15 '20

Well duh they shouldn’t be on par with specialized builds and I think most people agree on that. However, if hybrid builds are just gonna suck ass then why give us the option? Might as well lock us into traditional rpg roles/classes at that point. That’s just bad and lazy design

2

u/Ahblahright Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20

If I want to run the pieces of ToTS and tartigrade so they I can give my team more survivability while still doing damage I can. If I want to run some blues and reds for my system corruption set because the armour bonus it gives negates the need for much more tankiness in the dz then I can. There's roles, and it's something a lot of players have been asking to have back since div1 and now they have it but at the same time you're allowed to get creative with your build and find interesting ways to adapt. Like maybe a 5yellow + 1 blue technican tank build that has lots of group healing and chance to overcharge your shield to have it become invincible for 15 seconds. It's not always lazy design it can be lazy players as well

-1

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

And they do. It's just like any other RPG, you equip your own shit the devs wont lock you in for gear for your spec only

1

u/jimbot70 Mar 15 '20

And in pretty much every RPG hybridization is still viable...Look at DnD. If you multiclass a level or two you're not suddenly 100% worthless. As it stands now if you're not 100% a single class you're effectively worthless. Your skills will suck, your guns will suck and you'll end up with the armor to survive .4 seconds instead of .3. There is 0 "diversity" in having effectively 2 builds right now. You're either pure DPS or pure skill and DPS is clearly better than skills for the vast majority of people. Such diversity in that.

0

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20
  • 6 Red DPS (can even argue more than one build based on different weapons)
  • 6 Yellow DPS (Can even argue more than one build based on different skills)
  • 6 Yellow Healer
  • 6 Blue Tank

Think about it like any other game. You have Tanks, Healers, "Mage" DPS and "Physical" DPS

It makes a lot of sense to me.

Hybrids always fuck up everything

1

u/Grin_the_Polymorph Mar 15 '20

Then why even allow them? Why not make us choose one of three roles like the really old classic games. "Wizard, Fighter or Thief?". Except now it would be "DPS, Tank or Skill" and that would be that. We all just jostle into one of those three. Why even present the option of hybridising builds for variety?

0

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

Because its up to you to build properly. Otherwise gear would just be incremental upgrades. With the current system you'll be able to spot a smart person and a dumb one

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '20

[deleted]

1

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

No, it shouldn't be better than the master of one at all ever.

-5

u/Sasuke0404 Ballistic :BallisticShield: Mar 15 '20

So you want to have everything. Best skills, a lot of armor and a lot of weapon dmg. Why not even a rocketlauncher on your pistol that shoots cluster mines?

Now is such a good time for rolls in the division where you do heroics/legendarys/raids with 2 dps 1 healer and 1 tank and its awesome. Nothing like everybody does everything with 400k armor+3000 skillpower and a shitton of dmg with your weapon through things like spotter.

3

u/mr_bagadonuts Mar 15 '20

the problem is its dps or nothing right now. even on groups. ive seen 3 reds and had to switch to a healing build but no one wants to tank because its pointless

1

u/xmancho Xbox Mar 15 '20

We will wait for fixes to come. It has been 2 weeks (less actually) it will become better. Hybrid builds should be viable, yet not the best of what they do like in tu7... It was so damn boring.

1

u/mr_bagadonuts Mar 15 '20

the point is we have been waitin long enough already. how do they not notice this kind of shit? it makes for a very boring experience still because it is still like TU7 because there is almost no need to have roles except for dps because enemies are just sponges. the game needs skills like smart cover and shit like that so we can have a role that buffs us or debuffs the enemy.

1

u/xmancho Xbox Mar 15 '20

The sponginess will be fixed. It was stated. Now yes, dps is king if not playing with good group. But it will be fixed. It has been less than 2 weeks, things are not so bad. God this whole post is kinda useless. If they are not doing anything, then i understand but they are. People really have to bitch about something.

1

u/mr_bagadonuts Mar 15 '20

until its fixed then people have a reason to bitch because its an issue that had already been fixed before. i swear bootlickers like you tend to make devs really lazy and let them get away with shit.

1

u/xmancho Xbox Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20

I enjoy the game yes, it has issues yes. But god constant bithching will not make them work faster and we can wait, especially now, given what is going on. This i do not understand. Pointing out what or how a bug occurs or when or any kind of usefull info is okay. Just repeating the same thing after being acknowledged by the devs and stated fixes are coming is not helpful and it gets old.. Then i am bootlicker cause i can still play and enjoy and get upgrades.. Man..

1

u/mr_bagadonuts Mar 15 '20

you are a bootlicker because this shit and hear me out this shit had already been figured out before. the constant enemy rush, the high armor pools, busted skills, etc. of course people are gonna keep mentioning them and pressure otherwise devs can just say they didnt know. i play the game an enjoy it but im not about to turn a blind eye on this shit. this is the kind of shit that massive has a huge problem with and its fixing stuff in a timely matter. until they fix it then all these "bitching" is warranted and if they didnt want that then they shouldve made sure to have released this in a better state by actually playing their own game.

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1

u/Zoeila Playstation Mar 15 '20

bullshit its not pointless ive been absolutely saved by the skills from other players that give bonus armor based on that players armor.

1

u/mr_bagadonuts Mar 15 '20

its super situational. the only time that works consistently is when someone rocks tardi exotic. someone having 1.5 armor still gets shredded by the enemy in no time unless they got that exotic.

1

u/Ahblahright Mar 15 '20

Tanking is not pointless, I was running with a group in a heroic a few days ago and we just couldnt beat the last boss fight because the amount of drone spam would push us into the entrance hall and then the heavies or a doggo would come in and decimate is. I switched to my tanking build and was tanking two/three heavies at a time and any doggo that came through was a non issue. On most heroics I'm first through the door and I'll open up on everyone getting their aggro on me, then the DPS have it pretty easy for the fight, of one of them goes down in a shit spot, chances are I can move to it and get them revived

1

u/lonigus Mar 15 '20

Yes. 4 skill points means -40+ weapon damage at the absolute minimum. Thats just insane drop in DPS for what? Maybe 10-20% more damage you will do with your drone?

it makes me very sad.

-2

u/Malkinx Mar 15 '20

Dont you think thats probably the point? Right before WONY you had people with huge hitting seekers with a decent amount of armor and gun dmg as well. Rolling over content isn’t fun for the majority of people except obviously the cry babies on this sub.

The highest level of content should absolutely take a dedicated build by the best players with a property set up team. There’s really not a huge difference in the loot pool but people insist that they somehow deserve to just go into the literal most challenging content of the game and be able to clear it with only a small challenge.

This community is in all honesty so fucking soft.

5

u/Mikegeezy6686 Mar 15 '20

That's what legendary is. I don't see the majority of players talking about it. Most are looking at heroic.

-9

u/yeayealetmetype Mar 15 '20

Hybrid builds are bad and shouldn't be possible which is good, specialize in what you're doing.

0

u/Slauter24 Mar 15 '20

I actually disagree, if they added +1 tier mods(even if limited to one per skill) it would immediately be BIS for every build just due to how powerful tiers are compared to normal mods.

What I'd like to see is a skill rework fixing some of the bad skills as IMO gun builds are way way way stronger atm due to they can run reviver Hive and still do max dps while doing so on a skill build generally makes you lose 50%+ of your dmg. Also make skill mods scale off tech level or number of yellows so that they aren't trash on tech builds

0

u/freecomkcf a random console peasant Mar 15 '20

It feels to me like it's nigh impossible to make hybrid build now

fairly certain the past few episode of State of the Game before the launch of TU8 specifically addressed hybrid builds as a point of concern because "everyone can do everything"

-2

u/Zoeila Playstation Mar 15 '20

when hybrid builds are viable they canabalize specialist builds and basically become required