I completely agree. But... (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, December 07, 2020, 06:45 (1451 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV

I take your point (on a certain level, the counter to every ability is “shoot them” ;p) but I was thinking more specifically about the potential for various abilities to counter each other. My favourite class-based shooters are often built around a kind of rock/paper/scissors dynamic, and I’ve always wished Destiny would lean further in that direction. There are hints of it present, but I’d love to see more. There are abilities currently in the game which should have more direct interplay with each other, but don’t. The Hunter dodge, for example. When you dodge, your hitbox actually stays in place until the animation finishes, and then it snaps over to your new location. But until the end of the animation, your hitbox is just sitting in place where you began your dodge. What this means is that it doesn’t actually “dodge” anything. If a dawnblade’s super attack or ranged melee is homing in on you and you dodge to try to avoid it, the homing attack will just keep moving towards your now stationary hitbox. Even though the dodge does technically break the lock-on homing effect, it’s often pointless because your hitbox isn’t moving, so the homing attack just needs to continue on the path it was already heading to make contact with your hitbox. When this combines with other factors like splash damage, lag compensation, and the general squishiness of D2’s hit detection, it makes it extremely unlikely that your hunter dodge will ever effectively dodge anything. It should be the perfect counter to shoulder charges or homing attacks, but the chances of if actually working to dodge those attacks are extremely rare.

Going back to my warlock vs shoulder charge question, what if warlocks had a rift that slowed enemies who ran into it? Or what if they could do the opposite of that useless Phoenix dive and launch themselves trailer up into the air? Those are just a couple thoughts off the top of my head, but I’m sure you get the point.

I do want to quickly comment on stasis, since you mentioned it. I firmly believe that stasis is the worst gameplay element that Bungie has ever added to Destiny, and this topic of conversation is a great illustration of why I believe it is so awful. Stasis is the counter to EVERYTHING. It counters every single subclass ability, it shuts down every super, and the only viably consistent counter to stasis is... that’s right, more stasis. The warlock is the worst offender, as every single warlock stasis ability can freeze your opponents. Grenades, melee ability, rift, and super are all universal shutdown abilities that trump any other ability in the game. So rather than play into an interesting rock/paper/scissors dynamic, stasis is just a simple “win button”.