Pavonis Interactive Forums

stefan3iii wrote: The poison buff still looks very weak to me. In XCOM, most enemies die in 1 turn, and some enemies die in 2 turns. If something is alive for 3 turns then shit has hit the fan and you're probably taking damage on your soldiers. So the damage output of a poison grenade is pretty awful, because usually it'll have 1 or 2 turns to do damage. As a CC effect it is much worse than a flashbang, there are many enemies immune to poison (Vipers, Chrysallids, Robots), and many enemies that simply cannot be allowed to use special abilities (m2 grenadiers, rocketeers). On top of that, there is a chance it wears off immediately on the the next turn, and the previously poisoned berserker runs in and murders your dudes. The idea of a hybrid cc/damage grenade isn't crazy, but it needs to do one or both better, and adding +1 damage isn't nearly enough.
Some ideas, obviously not all at once:
1) Poison disables melee attacks, and chrysallids are vulenerable to poison. I don't know why this makes story sense, but poison grenades would now have a niche as an anti chrysallid/berskerer utility.
2) You can't shoot at all from inside a gas cloud. Would basically make poison gas a sort of cover denier, would open up interesting tactical play, ex poisoning all cover that can be used to flank your soldiers. Might be a lot of work to implement.
3) Significantly increase damage, something like 5-7 on hit. Yes, they should do more damage than frag grenades, frags work on everything, shred armor, and destroy cover.
4) Make poison last a minimum of 1 alien turn, so you can at least rely on it as CC.

WanWhiteWolf wrote:What people are argue and complaining is that this nerf will simply remove the item from the game.

RookieAutopsy wrote:A funny thing from S2E62 of XWynns campaign: 'Fire grenades are OP as they will take this (single enemy) out of the game (once for 2 turns). I wish I had Combatives on Gee so I could continue to lock down (all) Mutons (and Archons indefinitely and turn Berserkers into harmless fluffy kittens).'

However, Combatives would be even harder to balance without making it completely useless.

WanWhiteWolf wrote:I don't think anyone argues that incendiary is the most powerful grenade. What people are argue and complaining is that this nerf will simply remove the item from the game.

RookieAutopsy wrote:A funny thing from S2E62 of XWynns campaign: 'Fire grenades are OP as they will take this (single enemy) out of the game (once for 2 turns). I wish I had Combatives on Gee so I could continue to lock down (all) Mutons (and Archons indefinitely and turn Berserkers into harmless fluffy kittens).'

However, Combatives would be even harder to balance without making it completely useless.

Saph7 wrote:I'm trying out a different class to replace the Grenadier

Psieye wrote:This is the most interesting post in this thread. For 1.5 if it proves successful? Or 1.6+?

joebill wrote:Why not tie it to armor? If every point of armor dropped the chance from 100 by 5% (10%?), it'd be easy to know who is fireproof, and you'd be rewarded for combining it with shredding weapons.

joebill wrote:Why not tie it to armor? If every point of armor dropped the chance from 100 by 5% (10%?), it'd be easy to know who is fireproof..

wobuffet wrote:

RookieAutopsy wrote:A funny thing from S2E62 of XWynns campaign: 'Fire grenades are OP as they will take this (single enemy) out of the game (once for 2 turns). I wish I had Combatives on Gee so I could continue to lock down (all) Mutons (and Archons indefinitely and turn Berserkers into harmless fluffy kittens).'

However, Combatives would be even harder to balance without making it completely useless.

Combatives can shut one unit down (if it's a melee unit), but only if you place a unit right next to it indefinitely, potentially wide open to damage from any other active enemies. So I don't think it's nearly as much of a balance problem as Incendiaries.

Thrombozyt wrote:It's a much, much bigger problem because the soldier can act fully while locking down the muton/archon/berserker.

wobuffet wrote:

Thrombozyt wrote:It's a much, much bigger problem because the soldier can act fully while locking down the muton/archon/berserker.

Gotcha. Good point!

I guess the question is whether to change the AI melee behavior or to nerf Combatives (e.g., making it an active ability).