Catalyst Discussion

[educavalcantee]

Armor Rating should be less potent across the board. It's already popping up as a meta for rift battles. And with the limited number of anti-armor characters and the limits on how many times you can use each fighter, it's just too difficult to deal with multiple nodes with armor rating on them. Armor Rating catalysts should have a 5% chance to proc armor when hit, maximum. Otherwise, you're able to make multiple nodes that are as tough or tougher than the Reactive Armor node. I thought catalysts were supposed to represent a lateral shift in difficulty, not a vertical one.

At the very least, there should be some incentive to diversify catalyst usage so that you don't just put an Armor Rating on every node in your defense.

Agreed. But keep in mind that we are in "beta testing" of the catalysts. I'm sure the tweaks will come soon.

 

[xcapibara]

Armor Rating is broken, please do not nerf it, remove it and kill it with fire.

 

[Starsmore]

Not only bad matchmaking (gold 2 vs diamond 2), vs player with 5 natural diamonds (i have also 5 but just levelled for skill points and with any node unlocked since they're Stand Out and Furry Fury), 10 gold turned diamond (i have 5, the other was a bronze), but also impossible catalyst against mine, I don't think the system check the catalysts of both players when crate a rift match. And also I don't think the devs tried all the combinations of catalysts with every fighters.
Just an exemple of impossible rift: boss node with a level 60 diamond Resonant Evil with those catalysts on:
1) Darknut: start the match with 5 armor on, one stack of armor is removed after a 10 hits combo. Plus 15% of chances to inflict bleed for 15 seconds while benefitting from armor.
2) Curse of knowledge: 50% to inflict curse for 10 second when gaining a buff.
3) Futile resistance: opponents suffer death mark for 10 seconds AND take 6% damage when landing a hit that deals less than 1% of Big Band max hp.
Surgeon General as a support...
Tried Silent Kill, Firefly (bluer tresher), Filia (drill tempered) and Eliza (chaos banish) to remove the armor, nothing of these works. The only way to try to beat him is to inflict doom with Xenomorph, but it takes too much time, or try to tag him out, but when I put on a tag out move the enemy turtles a lot more. Plus there are other two enemy and Valentine can still revive him.

 

[xcapibara]

Not only bad matchmaking (gold 2 vs diamond 2), vs player with 5 natural diamonds (i have also 5 but just levelled for skill points and with any node unlocked since they're Stand Out and Furry Fury), 10 gold turned diamond (i have 5, the other was a bronze), but also impossible catalyst against mine, I don't think the system check the catalysts of both players when crate a rift match. And also I don't think the devs tried all the combinations of catalysts with every fighters.
Just an exemple of impossible rift: boss node with a level 60 diamond Resonant Evil with those catalysts on:
1) Darknut: start the match with 5 armor on, one stack of armor is removed after a 10 hits combo. Plus 15% of chances to inflict bleed for 15 seconds while benefitting from armor.
2) Curse of knowledge: 50% to inflict curse for 10 second when gaining a buff.
3) Futile resistance: opponents suffer death mark for 10 seconds AND take 6% damage when landing a hit that deals less than 1% of Big Band max hp.
Surgeon General as a support...
Tried Silent Kill, Firefly (bluer tresher), Filia (drill tempered) and Eliza (chaos banish) to remove the armor, nothing of these works. The only way to try to beat him is to inflict doom with Xenomorph, but it takes too much time, or try to tag him out, but when I put on a tag out move the enemy turtles a lot more. Plus there are other two enemy and Valentine can still revive him.

I agree, your example seems horrible. Try this ridiculous one i faced recently though:
1) Gold Armor Rating (the general one) upgraded.
2) Gold Armor Rating (water element fighters) upgraded.
3) Gold Autoimmune upgraded.
All 3 water element opponents of course: Heavy Metal Big Band, Untouchable Peacock and Silent Kill Valentine.
Autoimmune prevented debuffs most of the time and granted them inmunity instead, every single hit granted long-lasting armor (assume 50% defense because 2 stacks was enough to get 0 damage), constant damage reflection back to my characters, Valentine’s marquee ability provided final stand, Heavy Metal gained armor from his own SA and beneffited from its boost, Untouchable unflinching and damage avoidance.
Threw everything i got at that node: Doublicious, Sketchy, Silent Kill, Stand Out, Bad Hair Day, Parasite Weave, fighters almost twice the fs (those 3 waters weren’t even maxed out!): nothing. Timed out several times until i ran out of fighters to use.

Armor rating catalyst is broken and should be removed.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

Not only bad matchmaking (gold 2 vs diamond 2), vs player with 5 natural diamonds (i have also 5 but just levelled for skill points and with any node unlocked since they're Stand Out and Furry Fury), 10 gold turned diamond (i have 5, the other was a bronze), but also impossible catalyst against mine, I don't think the system check the catalysts of both players when crate a rift match. And also I don't think the devs tried all the combinations of catalysts with every fighters.
Just an exemple of impossible rift: boss node with a level 60 diamond Resonant Evil with those catalysts on:
1) Darknut: start the match with 5 armor on, one stack of armor is removed after a 10 hits combo. Plus 15% of chances to inflict bleed for 15 seconds while benefitting from armor.
2) Curse of knowledge: 50% to inflict curse for 10 second when gaining a buff.
3) Futile resistance: opponents suffer death mark for 10 seconds AND take 6% damage when landing a hit that deals less than 1% of Big Band max hp.
Surgeon General as a support...
Tried Silent Kill, Firefly (bluer tresher), Filia (drill tempered) and Eliza (chaos banish) to remove the armor, nothing of these works. The only way to try to beat him is to inflict doom with Xenomorph, but it takes too much time, or try to tag him out, but when I put on a tag out move the enemy turtles a lot more. Plus there are other two enemy and Valentine can still revive him.

Drill Tempered removed Dark about armor stacks for me. Since it’s not a permanent armor buff, it should be removable with armor break abilities and buff removal abilities. I’m surprised that Chaos Banish didn’t work. Is there anything else you remember about the fight that would explain how Chaos Banish didn’t work?

 

[viperbite]

Not only bad matchmaking (gold 2 vs diamond 2), vs player with 5 natural diamonds (i have also 5 but just levelled for skill points and with any node unlocked since they're Stand Out and Furry Fury), 10 gold turned diamond (i have 5, the other was a bronze), but also impossible catalyst against mine, I don't think the system check the catalysts of both players when crate a rift match. And also I don't think the devs tried all the combinations of catalysts with every fighters.
Just an exemple of impossible rift: boss node with a level 60 diamond Resonant Evil with those catalysts on:
1) Darknut: start the match with 5 armor on, one stack of armor is removed after a 10 hits combo. Plus 15% of chances to inflict bleed for 15 seconds while benefitting from armor.
2) Curse of knowledge: 50% to inflict curse for 10 second when gaining a buff.
3) Futile resistance: opponents suffer death mark for 10 seconds AND take 6% damage when landing a hit that deals less than 1% of Big Band max hp.
Surgeon General as a support...
Tried Silent Kill, Firefly (bluer tresher), Filia (drill tempered) and Eliza (chaos banish) to remove the armor, nothing of these works. The only way to try to beat him is to inflict doom with Xenomorph, but it takes too much time, or try to tag him out, but when I put on a tag out move the enemy turtles a lot more. Plus there are other two enemy and Valentine can still revive him.

I think I fought the same person, and it was definitely frustrating. I'm not sure how to fight the boss node because though Drill Tempered could remove armor stacks, you'd have to allow your blockbusters to charge first, which usually involves hitting the opponent and losing all your health (each hit takes 6% health away), and Drill Tempered may not always work. I haven't tried with Summer Salt (although I probably should have). At the end, I realized that if I didn't save fighters to attempt the boss node at all, I could have won.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

Catalysts need to be considered in collection strength when matchmaking. At this point in Rifts, Catalysts are arguably more important than the fighters. Certain combinations make nodes at boss-node levels of difficulty, which wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to a lateral shift in difficulty.

The meta for rifts now is definitely Armor Rating and damage reduction/nullification. It’s boring. Honestly I feel like armor and damage reduction in general need a rework.

 

[Shabellwoo]

I'm rage when playing rift battles.
I'm Korean and My Grade is Diamnond 3.
But I didn't win however Never clear boss room or another rooms Because Catalysts.

Example : room buff Reactive armor + Catalysts: Autoimmune + Catalysts: Phraohmones
It's not a boss room but I didn't Clear
My Party is Claw& order(51lv, 19.3k) / Diva(51lv, 19k) with chaos banish / sketchy
But enemy get always in Immune and 5armors...
My chracter lv is low? My controls bad? really?

I'm possible streak 60 that 1 character paying(main + 2 bronze) in prize fights Gold
my controls bad? really?

But I didn't clear...... something wrong. Where is balance?
I want playing fighting game, do not want sims. really no funny

 

[cappatacus]

I feel like the amount of catalysts per node should be limited just to one. I've only skimmed a page or so of complaints so far, but the context seems nasty. While I may not mind the idea of armor+immunity because I'm bringing my Doublicious to diamond anyway, that shouldn't be the one viable fighter for players beyond an expensive SS or a few unreliable moves. If it were just immunity or just armor, problem solved. Now you have debuff removal, curse, armor break, or bleed to bypass armor. Or maybe certain combinations shouldn't be allowed. I haven't gotten super deep into the Rift, I'm only G2 bc I'm not very dedicated, but I've been playing more recently and I could almost guarantee I wouldn't be if I came across this more than twice. I know the devs hear us though so I'm sure changes will be made in the next update.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

The point of catalysts was to allow people to create unique defense maps. But given the burgeoning meta, the only reason defense maps are probably still different is because some people haven’t gotten certain catalysts. If everyone had the catalysts for it, I bet we’d see defense maps that were not so unique between each other. Rather than strategy, it looks like time and luck are the deciding factors on what catalysts get used.

 

[Ozpin]

Catalysts killed rift for me. I used to be able to clear almost any node in gold 2. That is no longer the case... it seems every character or at least the top three nodes have a maxed armor buff and it’s impossible to break. I can go at a 35k team with a 62k team and lose because they have 2-5 stacks of armor the whole match.

It is super infuriating trying to move up a tier to just get matched and lose to some armor catalyst.

Also why do some characters take 0dmg at 2 stacks of armor while others take 0dmg at 5.

I really want to get back into rifts but please first balance them so they are not game breaking.

 

[xcapibara]

Also why do some characters take 0dmg at 2 stacks of armor while others take 0dmg at 5.

1 stack of armor grants 25% defense, if a character already has the maximum of 50% defense then 2 stacks is enough to get 100% and therefore 0 damage.

 

[Dusty00]

Any idea how Doom interacts with squiggly’s signature catalyst? See attached. My hope is that it would auto revive her but not transfer it back.

Haven’t been matched with other D1s since the patch... my collection is just too low compared to others. The D2-4s that I’ve been matched against all have equal or stronger collection.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

Any idea how Doom interacts with squiggly’s signature catalyst? See attached. My hope is that it would auto revive her but not transfer it back.

Depending on the modifier/ability, Doom is not treated as a debuff. I recall back when the Rift boss node had Sacrosanct, Doom could be used universally and was not transferred back.

 

[Dusty00]

Depending on the modifier/ability, Doom is not treated as a debuff. I recall back when the Rift boss node had Sacrosanct, Doom could be used universally and was not transferred back.

Hmm interesting. So the autoimmune catalyst here is actually counterproductive when paired up with Squiggly’s signature?

I think while catalysts are tricky to deal with, there are always workarounds given that you have access to the right variant and setup. Took a few days but someone actually took down my boss node after 3 tries. Most give up after 3 or fail up to 5 attempts.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

I think while catalysts are tricky to deal with, there are always workarounds given that you have access to the right variant and setup.

Those are two very big "ifs". Not to mention that when people make multiple nodes heavy on Armor buffs, it becomes difficult to deal with because there's only so many variants/setup that counter that.

 

[Liam]

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone! Just catching up on all of it now.

I know there are some general concerns with the strength of some Gold Catalysts, so we'll be sifting through feedback and examining the data on those ones.

Armor Rating is at the top of the pile to be looked at. Don't have specifics on what will happen there, but we'll look at it first for sure

At the very least, there should be some incentive to diversify catalyst usage so that you don't just put an Armor Rating on every node in your defense.

This could be cool! I'll share it with the rest of the team and we'll see where it stands.

Doom is not treated as a debuff. I recall back when the Rift boss node had Sacrosanct, Doom could be used universally and was not transferred back.

DOOM is a debuff, but permanent debuffs cannot be removed in anyway. When reflect / debuff transfer activates, it has no effect.

 

[Xandoss]

DOOM is a debuff, but permanent debuffs cannot be removed in anyway. When reflect / debuff transfer activates, it has no effect.

On the topic of DOOM, is there any issue for the devs in the fairness of having a character like Xenomorph? Particularly in Rifts, she makes or breaks so many nodes in being doable or not. “Xeno cheese” is a relied upon strategy for every level of Rifting. So, because there’s no way to guarantee getting any gold, not having a Xeno puts you at such a strict disadvantage and the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it, just makes the situation really toxic. @Liam if you’re going to have a character that breaks Rifting why do you even bother with nerfing relatively benign characters like AF, Sketchy, TaF, etc...

 

[TonyPartridge30]

DOOM is a debuff, but permanent debuffs cannot be removed in anyway. When reflect / debuff transfer activates, it has no effect.

I guess I never considered that doom was treated as permanent debuff. Generally I look for that quad-pronged border for permanent buffs/debuffs. It makes sense though that doom is just a permanent debuff.

 

[evilgordo]

I guess I never considered that doom was treated as permanent debuff. Generally I look for that quad-pronged border for permanent buffs/debuffs. It makes sense though that doom is just a permanent debuff.

Yep, those 'bolts' are there, but I'm usually too busy watching the timer to notice, lol. A permanent debuff with a countdown timer...explains the confusion.