Catalyst Discussion

[Liam]

Yeah, the permanent modifier border is around DOOM in all scenarios.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

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.

Xeno isn't the end-all-be-all solution to rift nodes. She's not the best stat-wise, and her SA is down to chance. You can get really unlucky with shifting between elements and never land on Dark in a timely manner, especially if the enemy AI is aggressive. Often times, one slip up leads to a dead Xeno and then you can say goodbye to victory. Surgeon General is helpful at countering Xenos since it puts players on a stricter time limit to apply Doom before the fight gets really dicey. Bio-Exorcist is also a major counter to Xeno, as she'll just revive with 50% health and then potentially steal the rest back from you. Using the Doom timer to defeat nodes also makes you lose out on that 150 point BB Finish bonus. I personally never use Xeno against a node with Bio-Exorcist. And, of course, Valentines with Forbidden Procedure can throw a wrench in your plan to Doom an entire node to death, and that's pretty easy to come by. Xeno's ability is quite powerful, sure, but not to the point where it is the single answer to every defense node.

 

[Xandoss]

Xeno isn't the end-all-be-all solution to rift nodes. She's not the best stat-wise, and her SA is down to chance. You can get really unlucky with shifting between elements and never land on Dark in a timely manner, especially if the enemy AI is aggressive. Often times, one slip up leads to a dead Xeno and then you can say goodbye to victory. Surgeon General is helpful at countering Xenos since it puts players on a stricter time limit to apply Doom before the fight gets really dicey. Bio-Exorcist is also a major counter to Xeno, as she'll just revive with 50% health and then potentially steal the rest back from you. Using the Doom timer to defeat nodes also makes you lose out on that 150 point BB Finish bonus. I personally never use Xeno against a node with Bio-Exorcist. And, of course, Valentines with Forbidden Procedure can throw a wrench in your plan to Doom an entire node to death, and that's pretty easy to come by. Xeno's ability is quite powerful, sure, but not to the point where it is the single answer to every defense node.

You make it sound like I’m lucky to not have one. Still think she’s broken and needs a fix.

Sorry Tony, thx for the reply. I’m just salty AF, if you couldn’t tell..

 

[Liam]

Valentines with Forbidden Procedure can throw a wrench in your plan to Doom an entire node to death

Random note, but if you launch your opponent as DOOM kills them, you can outtake their corpse off the screen when it lands to prevent Valentine from reviving it. Maybe that will come in handy at some point since most players run outtakes with Xeno.

 

[cappatacus]

I used to hate Rifts, but after reading just one or two of Brother Null's posts (articles?) on Rift Battles, I reframed my way of looking at them and saw them through a positive lens.

I changed "every fight is two hours" to "I'll probably take thirty minutes, but I have two hours to take my time". I changed "winning isn't worth it" to "every win is a step closer to diamond keys and Diamond Sheltered". I changed "Rift battles are too tedious" to "Rift battles are a strategic battle".

Maybe this doesn't seem drastic to anyone else, but it made it so that where I once saw a chore, I now see an opportunity. It's like a game of wits. How will I bypass this Boss node? How can I draw out the longest combo while not losing too much time? How can I use this battle to educate the next?

And, now with catalysts: how can I best use these to my advantage? What combos can I come up with to make a normal defender surprisingly difficult?

Maybe this is exactly the issue to some of you, but let me just say: A) Catalysts have never made or broken a fight for me and B) I have like, only 6 catalysts and all but one is bronze. I'm completely F2P. They're not even all that great, but for me, it's fun. It's fun to see how I can tweak a fight to be difficult in an unexpected way. Possibly more importantly, the Catalyst Relics are another source of income for the Devs. And they should make their money! They don't work for nothing. Everyone has bills to pay. This game is so largely F2P friendly as is - I don't believe spending money has ever actually put you ahead in a drastic way - that allowing people to pay for what is generally a small fly's worth of nusiance in one game mode is fine.

Genuinely, the only change I could see being necessary is not allowing armour and immunity catalysts/nodes being allowed together - or, adjusting it so that they're both nerfed when put together to create something balanced. Again, I will continue to press my Doublicious propoganda, but she really shouldn't be the only viable option along with maybe Silent Kill, but I don't think she's quite as good.

Personally, I could make a whole post's worth about how armour alone can be dealt with, so I don't see the need to nerf but that's ultimately up to the devs. And to the devs, thanks for continuing to listen to the community and make the necessary adjustments!

 

[TonyPartridge30]

You make it sound like I’m lucky to not have one. Still think she’s broken and needs a fix.

Sorry Tony, thx for the reply. I’m just salty AF, if you couldn’t tell..

I'm just pointing out her limitations. She's useful, to be sure, but she's not perfect. I've lost plenty a match trying to apply Doom to an entire team who was too strong for me to fight any other way. But when you do finally get one, you'll find she's a worthwhile investment. But I doubt there's players out there with 20 Xenos tackling every node with Doom timers.

 

[educavalcantee]

I used to hate Rifts, but after reading just one or two of Brother Null's posts (articles?) on Rift Battles, I reframed my way of looking at them and saw them through a positive lens.

I changed "every fight is two hours" to "I'll probably take thirty minutes, but I have two hours to take my time". I changed "winning isn't worth it" to "every win is a step closer to diamond keys and Diamond Sheltered". I changed "Rift battles are too tedious" to "Rift battles are a strategic battle".

Maybe this doesn't seem drastic to anyone else, but it made it so that where I once saw a chore, I now see an opportunity. It's like a game of wits. How will I bypass this Boss node? How can I draw out the longest combo while not losing too much time? How can I use this battle to educate the next?

And, now with catalysts: how can I best use these to my advantage? What combos can I come up with to make a normal defender surprisingly difficult?

Maybe this is exactly the issue to some of you, but let me just say: A) Catalysts have never made or broken a fight for me and B) I have like, only 6 catalysts and all but one is bronze. I'm completely F2P. They're not even all that great, but for me, it's fun. It's fun to see how I can tweak a fight to be difficult in an unexpected way. Possibly more importantly, the Catalyst Relics are another source of income for the Devs. And they should make their money! They don't work for nothing. Everyone has bills to pay. This game is so largely F2P friendly as is - I don't believe spending money has ever actually put you ahead in a drastic way - that allowing people to pay for what is generally a small fly's worth of nusiance in one game mode is fine.

Genuinely, the only change I could see being necessary is not allowing armour and immunity catalysts/nodes being allowed together - or, adjusting it so that they're both nerfed when put together to create something balanced. Again, I will continue to press my Doublicious propoganda, but she really shouldn't be the only viable option along with maybe Silent Kill, but I don't think she's quite as good.

Personally, I could make a whole post's worth about how armour alone can be dealt with, so I don't see the need to nerf but that's ultimately up to the devs. And to the devs, thanks for continuing to listen to the community and make the necessary adjustments!

I couldn't agree more. I started to look at the rifts with positive eyes. In my mind, it will prepare me to be a better player, who actually thinks about a more elaborate strategy. I'm starting to leave behind the "low level" mentality. Now I use taunts, tag out moves, switch moves to key ones that apply specific debuffs... I didn't do these things before, and all of this contributed for me to become a better player, and this is all thanks to the rifts.

 

[Fel]

While catalysts do provide much needed variety and planning for Rift Battles, I personally feel some of them impact the strength of your node too much, especially when you can equip multiples on a node.
This hasn't been an issue for me personally as down in Gold 4 most fights are still winnable as long as you read the catalysts before you fight. However, in higher tiers where catalysts are more optimal, some fights aren't winnable without extremely specific counters. Like a Silent Kill that actually does damage or a Xenomorph.
I worry that as time goes on, more and more defense maps will become "optimal". Catalysts were made to promote variety, but the strongest defenders get the strongest catalysts and as time goes on there will be less and less "outlier" nodes. Variety is welcome, but when that variety brings along nodes that are more difficult than sacrosanct, I feel there's an issue.

Now while some of us can think more positively and play rifts more casually, this isn't the case for a lot of the playerbase.
The vocal Korean players have been voicing their complaints and its not very pretty. I'll be writing a separate post that outlines their point of view.
I think catalysts have so far caused more stress than relief.
There is also the issue that catalysts and move levels aren't considered for matchmaking as far as we know. This does give advantages to P2P players as their fighters can still be lower strength giving them easy matchups. While I still personally think the game isn't very pay-to-win, this is much more apparent than anything we've had before.

 

[Dusty00]

Here is a rough attempt at a tier list of catalysts I've encountered so far:

Broken-Tier/Needs Nerf

• INTO THIN AIR
• AUTOIMMUNE (Character specific so it's 100%)
• BLOCKBUSTED (Even bronze tier is great!)
• ARMOR RATING (Even bronze tier is great!)
• FROST ARMOR (Even bronze tier is great!)
• SCRATCHING POST (Ms. Fortune)
• FUTILE RESISTANT (Big Band)

Annoying but not OP

• DARK NUT
• HEXY TIME
• RETURN TO SENDER (Squigly)
• LIGHT WEIGHT
• WITHER FORECAST
• DON'T POKE THE BUER
• THE GREAT ESCAPE

Some Use / Collector's Item

• SHOT IN THE DARK
• OVERLOAD
• HIGH WATERS
• LAST WORDS
• CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE
• TO BE PRECISE
• STRONG-ARMED
• PHARAOHMONES
• IMMINENT THREAT
• MEGALIXIR
• HOLLOW-POINTS
• CORROSIVE ELEMENT

Useless / Sell Immediately

• CRIPPLE DECKER
• BLEEDING GUILTY
• REGENERATION X
• RISING TEMPERATURE
• TAG'N TAG
• SPECIALS DISABLE ONE (forgot name)

 

[MrZsc]

How does the Light Weight catalyst work? It says light fighters will start with unflinching and immune but does it matter if they’re not the first fighter in the node?

 

[Dusty00]

How does the Light Weight catalyst work? It says light fighters will start with unflinching and immune but does it matter if they’re not the first fighter in the node?

Yeah it doesn’t matter. The first X seconds of the game is unflinching and immune. You can do outtake on the first and the second light character will come in with the remaining cool down until the timer of catalyst is up. You basically have to throw and def for that time. It works best on the node immediate to the left of the bottom single node since blocking will super charge the meter there.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

What's the max level a Catalyst can reach? 15?

Certain descriptions of Catalysts have multiple values in blue text. Can all of those values be upgraded? For instance, what does the description look like on a max level Futile Resistance?

 

[Reshiram18]

What's the max level a Catalyst can reach? 15?

Certain descriptions of Catalysts have multiple values in blue text. Can all of those values be upgraded? For instance, what does the description look like on a max level Futile Resistance?

The max catalyst level right now is level 11.

 

[Pepperlunatic]

I never trusted that this catalyst idea was going to be good because I know the dev teams aren't "that" creative to make it unique and fun from what I have seen thus far. Well now we all see the mess it has created in the rift that it makes people get disgusted even more with rift battle. The catalyst is good on paper but the problem is that the devs can't make catalyst that actually make variety of different new tactics and playstyles and instead just make the game hard. There is a huge difference between Sekiro hard and cliche jrpg hard and this game is basically cliche jrpg hard. I personally do not think making the defense team strong is the key to make the rift battle fun. After all, the defense team aren't really played by human players so winning a defense isn't as satisfying as winning an offense. The solution to making rift fun is not making the defense team ridiculously strong, but it is to make new win-conditions and promote various new playstyles.

Now lets look at details on why these catalyst are making the game unfun. First, it is just giving additional bonus without any compensation. To simply put, they just make defense strong and that is it. Without drawbacks or penalties, it is very difficult to control the difficulty of defense nodes and most likely make the defense op. Second, the catalyst are not making other characters more suitable for defense but fortifies the standing of those staple defense characters like RE or SG. Cataylst is suppose to make variety in rfit not make every single game filled with RE with armor rating and Dread Lock with armor rating (you would probably see other guys too but still you get the point). As of right now, not only it is just making the defense harder but also making the meta more stale and dull.

The point is that catalyst need not to be just make defense more difficult but promote new possibilities and new meta to make rift more unique and fun. It had great potentials but I am very irritated that the devs did not played around with the concept enough to make game more fun and instead made the game disgusting and unpalatable. I'll make another post on example catalyst that might make the rift battle more interesting but as of now, I hope devs understand their mistakes and make SGM better than ever.

 

[Dusty00]

I never trusted that this catalyst idea was going to be good because I know the dev teams aren't "that" creative to make it unique and fun from what I have seen thus far. Well now we all see the mess it has created in the rift that it makes people get disgusted even more with rift battle. The catalyst is good on paper but the problem is that the devs can't make catalyst that actually make variety of different new tactics and playstyles and instead just make the game hard. There is a huge difference between Sekiro hard and cliche jrpg hard and this game is basically cliche jrpg hard. I personally do not think making the defense team strong is the key to make the rift battle fun. After all, the defense team aren't really played by human players so winning a defense isn't as satisfying as winning an offense. The solution to making rift fun is not making the defense team ridiculously strong, but it is to make new win-conditions and promote various new playstyles.

Now lets look at details on why these catalyst are making the game unfun. First, it is just giving additional bonus without any compensation. To simply put, they just make defense strong and that is it. Without drawbacks or penalties, it is very difficult to control the difficulty of defense nodes and most likely make the defense op. Second, the catalyst are not making other characters more suitable for defense but fortifies the standing of those staple defense characters like RE or SG. Cataylst is suppose to make variety in rfit not make every single game filled with RE with armor rating and Dread Lock with armor rating (you would probably see other guys too but still you get the point). As of right now, not only it is just making the defense harder but also making the meta more stale and dull.

The point is that catalyst need not to be just make defense more difficult but promote new possibilities and new meta to make rift more unique and fun. It had great potentials but I am very irritated that the devs did not played around with the concept enough to make game more fun and instead made the game disgusting and unpalatable. I'll make another post on example catalyst that might make the rift battle more interesting but as of now, I hope devs understand their mistakes and make SGM better than ever.

I have to say that 90% of the time I genuinely find having catalysts has made rift more challenging in a positive way for players who have the tools to work around them. It takes more time to analyze the map and prepare but well worth it.

I fought someone last week who had no catalysts (probably took a break) and it was just way too easy. However, there definitely needs an adjustment. A couple of adjustment ideas:

1. 3 catalysts for the boss node is too much. With how broken some catalysts are, max 2 would be more ideal. For example, my boss node is almost unbeatable even for top 20 players. Most top 20 boss nodes are unbeatable.

2. Set a restriction to how many of the same catalysts you can use. For example, 1 armor rating for the entire map! Maybe allow 1 of each tier (gold, silver, bronze). This encourages diversity.

3. You get to pick 13 Catalysts from say 20 Catalysts for your opponent. So basically you eliminate 7 of their best ones or duped OP armor rating. You then take what is picked for you and apply them to your map. If someone has 20 armor ratings then perhaps back to idea 2 of limiting how many of the same kind you can use.

General Rift adjustment ideas:

Limit rift battles to 1 ticket per day. 2 is just wayyy to time consuming. It takes a good 10-15 minutes to plan before you start if you want to do well. And more if your lose a match and have to come up with a plan B. Battles are almost always drawn out to 3 minutes thanks to Catalysts, so overall clearing a top 20 rift map takes an hour rather than 30 minutes.

1 rift battle per day will also allow a change in matchmaking - instead of trying to match someone within 5 minutes, you get matched with someone when the day changes and have a full day to work on it. This will help match people living in different time zones and hopefully make things more even. There should be a 1 hour down time to rift each day for matchmaking to happen.

 

[Dusty00]

The most annoying catalyst has to be BlockBuster. I have to manually equip my characters’ moves so there are more specials and that BBs don’t have same charging time. That plus how crappy the equip move UI currently is is just a huge time sink for every battle. We desperately need more Quality of Life improvements before we get more new features!

 

[Scorialimit]

TBH I have opinions about everything you said but would rather emphasize this point

Limit rift battles to 1 ticket per day.

Please don't, and if you have to lower the rift requirement to 4 per week. Otherwise it'll be impossible for me to actually get rewards unless I just throw half of the days.

 

[Pepperlunatic]

I have to say that 90% of the time I genuinely find having catalysts has made rift more challenging in a positive way for players who have the tools to work around them. It takes more time to analyze the map and prepare but well worth it.

I fought someone last week who had no catalysts (probably took a break) and it was just way too easy. However, there definitely needs an adjustment. A couple of adjustment ideas:

1. 3 catalysts for the boss node is too much. With how broken some catalysts are, max 2 would be more ideal. For example, my boss node is almost unbeatable even for top 20 players. Most top 20 boss nodes are unbeatable.

2. Set a restriction to how many of the same catalysts you can use. For example, 1 armor rating for the entire map! Maybe allow 1 of each tier (gold, silver, bronze). This encourages diversity.

3. You get to pick 13 Catalysts from say 20 Catalysts for your opponent. So basically you eliminate 7 of their best ones or duped OP armor rating. You then take what is picked for you and apply them to your map. If someone has 20 armor ratings then perhaps back to idea 2 of limiting how many of the same kind you can use.

General Rift adjustment ideas:

Limit rift battles to 1 ticket per day. 2 is just wayyy to time consuming. It takes a good 10-15 minutes to plan before you start if you want to do well. And more if your lose a match and have to come up with a plan B. Battles are almost always drawn out to 3 minutes thanks to Catalysts, so overall clearing a top 20 rift map takes an hour rather than 30 minutes.

1 rift battle per day will also allow a change in matchmaking - instead of trying to match someone within 5 minutes, you get matched with someone when the day changes and have a full day to work on it. This will help match people living in different time zones and hopefully make things more even. There should be a 1 hour down time to rift each day for matchmaking to happen.

tbh i am a memer and a causal player who does ridiculous things like shaco support in LoL or make Nearly Departed guide so I don't know how competitive high level players think of but as of casual perspective, it isn't challenging in positive way but more repressive and VERY dull. First, you DON'T have the tool that is require in some to most cases if you are playing casually. Sure counters should exist but not everyone is lucky to have the blessing or RNGESUS to have the counter. Second, the gameplay mostly revolves heavily around armor on hits, fast blockbuster refill, and blockbuster preventing elements which can be repetitive. Having even more variety of strategy other than those elements would be nice for those who prefers to see interesting and unique defense nodes other than those typical ones that we have seen for years(this is actually a criticism of not just rift but the entire game). Third, the power level of defense in this game in general are stupidly high that it just feels uncomfortable in some cases. It is like how Hearthstone had stupidly powerful sets of cards that makes the game stale and unfun last year. Actually it is even worse because until the devs does any cataclysmic changes, these power creep will only get worse and worse.

I do agree that the system itself is a nice addition and it does give some variety and promote strategic thinking. I am just annoyed that the catalysts in this game right now are not as refreshing nor interesting as it should and only making the rift battle overall less palatable to majority of players. Also, I completely agree on your thoughts on adjustments.

 

[fanghoul]

I'm of the opinion that Catalysts have weirdly made Rift Battles more uniform, rather than less. Immunity, Armor, and Blockbusted are so powerful and popular that I'm fighting these same modifiers not just for every Rift Battle, but often times on multiple nodes of each Rift battle. And I can only see this as getting worse as people have more Rift Coins and opportunities to buy these from the Cabinet.

With a few exceptions, most of the rest of the possible modifiers out there just don't do enough to even really make an impression on me to even notice they're there. Part of the problem is that so many catalysts are offensively based, but if inflicting armor break or giving defenders precision was really a huge boon, then That's All Folks would be considered one of the best defenders out there. Like Hollow Points might inflict heavy bleed on me, which is annoying on a couple points, but the best way to actually make me lose a lot of the 3v3 battles is just to make the fight time out.

I think the another problem is the way catalyst slots are distributed. Having more of them on the hardest 3v3 nodes really incentivizes stacking as many time killing catalysts as possible, making those battles horrible annoying slogs. Meanwhile, having only one catalyst slot on the 1v1 nodes is very limiting, because you're certainly not going to time out that fight, so maybe this is where offensive catalysts would actually help you win? Except that it's often so easy to win a 1v1 fight before the enemy has a chance to really do anything, that hardly matters. You'd really need at least two catalysts here, so you could boost survivability and still give them some fighting power. That combo is why I generally hate seeing Buzzkill on these nodes.

I feel like there's other early nodes that might benefit from having more catalyst options too for this reason. Maybe take some from the boss nodes, and redistribute them elsewhere.

 

[Dusty00]

TBH I have opinions about everything you said but would rather emphasize this point

Please don't, and if you have to lower the rift requirement to 4 per week. Otherwise it'll be impossible for me to actually get rewards unless I just throw half of the days.

Right, adjusting the requirements to 4 per week would be necessary. Thanks for pointing that out.

Curious to hear your other opinions.

I'm of the opinion that Catalysts have weirdly made Rift Battles more uniform, rather than less. Immunity, Armor, and Blockbusted are so powerful and popular that I'm fighting these same modifiers not just for every Rift Battle, but often times on multiple nodes of each Rift battle. And I can only see this as getting worse as people have more Rift Coins and opportunities to buy these from the Cabinet.

With a few exceptions, most of the rest of the possible modifiers out there just don't do enough to even really make an impression on me to even notice they're there. Part of the problem is that so many catalysts are offensively based, but if inflicting armor break or giving defenders precision was really a huge boon, then That's All Folks would be considered one of the best defenders out there. Like Hollow Points might inflict heavy bleed on me, which is annoying on a couple points, but the best way to actually make me lose a lot of the 3v3 battles is just to make the fight time out.

I think the another problem is the way catalyst slots are distributed. Having more of them on the hardest 3v3 nodes really incentivizes stacking as many time killing catalysts as possible, making those battles horrible annoying slogs. Meanwhile, having only one catalyst slot on the 1v1 nodes is very limiting, because you're certainly not going to time out that fight, so maybe this is where offensive catalysts would actually help you win? Except that it's often so easy to win a 1v1 fight before the enemy has a chance to really do anything, that hardly matters. You'd really need at least two catalysts here, so you could boost survivability and still give them some fighting power. That combo is why I generally hate seeing Buzzkill on these nodes.

I feel like there's other early nodes that might benefit from having more catalyst options too for this reason. Maybe take some from the boss nodes, and redistribute them elsewhere.

Good thinking here on switching around catalysts slots. I agree that more than 1 catalysts for the single and double nodes would make those more challenging. Definitely don’t need 3 for the boss node...

tbh i am a memer and a causal player who does ridiculous things like shaco support in LoL or make Nearly Departed guide so I don't know how competitive high level players think of but as of casual perspective, it isn't challenging in positive way but more repressive and VERY dull. First, you DON'T have the tool that is require in some to most cases if you are playing casually. Sure counters should exist but not everyone is lucky to have the blessing or RNGESUS to have the counter. Second, the gameplay mostly revolves heavily around armor on hits, fast blockbuster refill, and blockbuster preventing elements which can be repetitive. Having even more variety of strategy other than those elements would be nice for those who prefers to see interesting and unique defense nodes other than those typical ones that we have seen for years(this is actually a criticism of not just rift but the entire game). Third, the power level of defense in this game in general are stupidly high that it just feels uncomfortable in some cases. It is like how Hearthstone had stupidly powerful sets of cards that makes the game stale and unfun last year. Actually it is even worse because until the devs does any cataclysmic changes, these power creep will only get worse and worse.

I do agree that the system itself is a nice addition and it does give some variety and promote strategic thinking. I am just annoyed that the catalysts in this game right now are not as refreshing nor interesting as it should and only making the rift battle overall less palatable to majority of players. Also, I completely agree on your thoughts on adjustments.

I am with you on not everyone has all the tools. The RNG heavy model of the game certainly contradicts the very core condition for fair competition. Why would anyone play chess if they don’t have the queen and knights, right?

Even if you did get lucky to pull the character you need, it still takes a tremendous amount of time and resources to level, unlock skills, and gear. Pulled a Natural Diamond? Yeah wait 3 months before you can use it in high level rift maps... Got a gold? Good luck farming elemental essences and 5 more golds to evolve to diamond.

Okay, so I thought of some ideas for nerfing some of the existing OP catalysts.

Into Thin Air - Remove 1 debuff instead of ALL debuffs every 10 seconds... and reset 1 BB rather than ALL BBs.

Armor Rating idea 1 - Gain 1 stack of armor every X seconds that lasts X seconds. Basically, you will always have one stack and only one stack of armor for the entire match which reapplies itself every X seconds.

Armor Rating idea 2 - when suffering a hit that does more than 5% of your HP, gain 1 stack of armor. You cannot gain more than 1 stack of armor at a time.

Frost Armor - similar to armor rating. I think the main problem with armors is that you can gain up to 5 stacks so easily and that they last for too long. If sticking with 5 stacks max, then reduce the duration to no more than 5 seconds. There is certainly no need for it to reflect damage..

Futile Resistance - instead of losing up to 6% of health, make it reflect the amount of damage back.

Blockbusted - The duration is way too long. Even just disabling to up to 5 seconds is already very strong as it messes up your combos. Another idea is to make it reset one BB, or drain them by a percentage. Complete BB shutdown is just absurd.

Immunity - this isn’t as prevalent as the others because on its own it’s not too bad. However, combining it with Armor rating just makes it that much more powerful.

Scratching Post - it’s too easy for Ms. Fortune to hit you 5 times in a row with just her normal attacks when blocking. Again, I think there needs to be another effect that gives it a downside, like while it stuns your opponent it also gives a stack of armor or regen.

Overall, I think the whole idea of “gives X effect when hit” is just too easy to trigger powerful defensive mechanics. Giving it a 5% doesn’t mean anything as the game heavily promotes multi-hits and combos. Unless this is the devs secretly telling us to use less Multihit BBs and use single hit special moves instead.

What are your ideas for adjusting and tuning oppressing catalysts?