Luminae main here. Played the entire open beta with him, 300+ matches and over 40 hours. The tournament results did not surprise me at all. This unit needs to be reworked because the kit design clashes with itself. The weapons are mid-ranged, but then Ability 1 (Haze) is melee range, and when we say melee range we mean so close that you are standing directly beside the target. Corruption Haze deals AoE dmg and scrambles the enemies FCS, meaning they can't lock on. This makes no sense because melee units do not need to lock on at that distance. So you can't stop melee units, and you also cannot disrupt ranged units unless they are in melee range. This ability needs the same properties as other taunt abilities. You should not be able to lock on to Luminae at all while Corruption Haze is up, that way he can deal with the units in melee range while not getting sniped from across the map or bombarded by the worst offenders, the Transformers (Falcon, Skyraider). Additionally, buff Luminae's defense across the board. Worst in every category compared to Pinaka. B-C-C-D. Not good enough for unit that does very little damage. I have much more I want to say about this unit but I'll leave it there. I'm still going to main him, and hope there are buffs coming.
@@Suryp I thought about making guide and feedback videos but decided not to just case there are other betas before release (excluding the Xbox one). I'm just going remain hopeful. The devs seem like they have ideas about what balance should be so I'll be patient and not overreact, but there are glaring things that need changed at the moment.
That part is fine. Lumine was designed to fly near allies with normal mode and fly near enemies to disrupt lockon/ranged enemies in corrupt mode. Preventing lockon won't stop narukami manual aim. The one that disrupts melee is pinaka. Since it has the shotgun damage or shield that prevents melee stun. Pinaka that shields himself is in the top 3 tankiest mech against pure melee dmg iirc. The problem with lumine is that it takes forever to apply the drones for either healing or dot. Also fyi lumine isn't the squishiest mech, that would be falcon lol.
The damage/regen is too little/too slow for actual relevance. It can do a whole lot of nothing while its lockons are disabled by, say, an ECM storm. The AoE heal/speed buffs are very hard to make relevant. It's a great pick for players who don't normally play these kind of games because it doesn't need to aim, looks pretty, and is really dodgy, plus it's often a low priority target since it doesn't actually do much.
So the lowdown is Pinaka does a lot of things well and it’s mere presence on a team boosts a number of mechs that already perform well in isolation. While the Ultra-Heavy/Lockdowns are good in isolation but don’t benefit that much from a Pinaka since Heavies aren’t mobile enough to benefit from it or there are better targets for the Pinaka to assist, and the reality is Pinaka basically hard counters any lockdown style mech.
There are reasons to pick Lumi over Pinaka, but those reasons are so specific and Lumi is so difficult to play in comparison that Lumi is hard-pressed to see results. Also note that the tourney did happen only a day after the patch so everyone was still trying to learn the new jetwing buff, I know I definitely didn't utilise it to its full potential during the tourney. The main thing Lumi needs right now is more opportunities to intervene in fights to save allies, as their healing is only really effective if allies can survive for longer periods. Right now, Lumi only has supportive jetwing in corrupted mode to jam and peel for allies, but that is often better used elsewhere too such as shutting down multitarget attacks. However, if Lumi were to be able to save allies more consistently, the benefit of Lumi's consistent support can shine much more.
This. It doesn't help that Luminae's tools don't actually pressure the peel target. She becomes a nuisance and then gets targeted. Pinaka can throw a massive amount of offensive pressure at any target within decent range. Not only is he peeling, he's FORCING the enemy away. Stack that on top of his ability to throw a shield out whenever he needs to, and the fact that his healing is DOUBLE that of Luminae's, it's easy to see where she needs improvement.
I really do think that wave-based spawns would shake the game up a lot on the open maps. Getting your spawns staggered is waaay too big of a problem when, like you said, spawn locations are semi-random and you're often uncontrollably dropped right on top of an enemy or two. Make spawns wave-based and make the team drop together.
As a Stego player during the beta i think you summed everything up well. At low level gameplay, it was very easy to dominate but at the way way high level, i felt pretty useless no matter how hard i tried to make Stego work. A good Pinaka will destroy you in seconds. Panther will take all your attention during his guerilla warfare tactics on you. A surprise attack from welkin is also death. Aqulia will chip away at you and force you to reposition constantly. Mobility seemed to be much more important than slow firepower. I found heavies less and less viable the further up you went in the rankings.
Inferno is one of those picks where you can do fantastic if; 1: The enemy team has no melee units which usually doesn’t happen. 2: Your team communicates and stops melees from getting close to you. 3: The enemy melee/s doesn’t/don’t focus you down for some reason, most likely due to either being new or support/sniper focusing.
I think the biggest contributor to Pinaka's dominance is that there are no other good supports, because of how underpowered Luminae is. Which is something that definitely should be addressed before other changes. If there were multiple choices for a support, the win rate would also drop without need for huge nerfs.
I'm not even slightly surprised that Pinaka did so well. I only tried it a few times and I got MVP even on my first go. That thing is decently fast, does insane DPS, yet is tanky when it needs to, and it can give that tankiness to anybody whenever it wants. I've won 2v1 as well as several back to back 1v1 encounters because it does it all. It's a tank, DPS, and healer all at the same time and doesn't slouch in any of those roles. Even though it can't do it all at once, it can switch between them seamlessly and almost instantly, while always being on the upper end of speed. I'm also not that surprised that the tanks didn't do well. Of all the missions, only two were ones that wasn't basically about "rush to this place and do this thing asap," screwing over the latecomers if one side can rush their entire team to set up before the other. That said, I still hate the elimination mission a ton. It's the only one that disallows respawns and has no real mechanic to force players into encounters. I really hope that we can remove one or two missions while searching for a match.
problem ive notice with Tricera was people havent learned to play it well on the other maps to become MVP. i managed 3 v 1's with Tricera. each time atleast 1 or both enemies were Welken or Panther or both. while being fired on by something else... Tricera can parry going into fortress mode and you can active the repair bots and they repair even when you are out of fortress mode... which is something i didnt see anyone else taking advantage off. ... Parry, Cannon Fire, Repair Bots, Release Fortress mode.... thats literally the rotation to Triceras survival
i'd say Falcon is probably easily an A- for me it's damage may be low but it's ability to harass the squishier mechs and it's ability to quickly run over and support allies tied up in a 1vs1. the fact that most teams in open beta got destroyed when they had nothing to counter a falcon. it's main weakness is it's inability to carry so you are reliant on your team being able to capitalize on the additional damage and chaos the falcon causes also let's not ignore how easily welkins can cap objectives. if a team doesn't lock a welkin down they can easily cap an objective. Edit: this is coming from a falcon main and i agree with the placement
Funny that a Japanese team I followed went through the exact opposite process during the official Japanese tournament. They ditched super heavies during practise session then found out that the top 3 teams all ran Hurricanes and they absolutely can't deal with it. With a crack falcon/skyraider on both teams at all times, they cannot touch the objectives as they are getting interrupted constantly--Welkin's box is destroyed too quickly to be useful that's on top of getting penetrated by skyraider. They had to watch the victory slip when the objective they are trying to get was locked down by a falcon and the enemy just grabbed their target under the bubble of Hurricane. The other two super heavies are getting way too many walls dropped on them, maybe they would be fine once Pinaka is further nerfed. Narukami is certainly a surprise pick as it also performed poorly in Japanese tournament. The flyers are just too good to let it snipe in peace and it just can't help contest the objective as much.
@@kaio0777 ru-vid.comv2DV6HbLJag?si=tD-NnjODo7EjQ5LN Around 2 hr mark it's their quarterfinal, then after it battle for the 3rd place. Their op in 3rd place battle ran Steigo and despite the huge amount of walls dropped on him he's doing huge amount of damage.
I definitely feel like tier lists in this game are going to end up being more based on map and overall team comp rather than specific Strikers (aside from Pinaka probably). My group had 75-80% win rate after 60~ games and we primarily played double air+sniper+pinaka or double dive(welkin/panther)+sniper+pinaka. Only time we used heavies was if we wanted to specifically queue Docks for free wins.
It's easy to see how Lumine is a bad striker. It has low damage, almost useless healing, and no tanking. Heals are pretty much less significant than giving shield like Pinaka. When your armors are getting damaged, it means you are already in a tough spot, either shield broken and at the brink of death, or getting pummeled by Melee striker.
I have forseen the above in my tierlist that was created 2 weeks ago and after editing i finally published it on Monday ! Slight differences but when i was saying Luminae is really bad people in games wouldnt listen :D So spot on thanks for your video aswell !
Alysnes is actually a very decent and forgiving starter Mech too. I mean sure it might lose or lack getting MVPs, but the fact that it could actually bypass Heavy's Shield with its Halberd when you kite around them and retreat firing constantly. It does feel like a decent mech to counter Panther when you get Armor Purged.
@@Leonix13 Yeah wish it could do that but if the enemy is low health enough, you can still pick them off slowly using it. However for guaranteed damage, the Railguns had to be it.
Welkin cant stunlock people unless theyre out of energy. The reason Welkin is strong is because the box traps people for their teamates to finish off, as well as being a strong objective control tool. Welkin also counters themselves, with jammers being able to instantly destroy a box.
Luminae might need to have its healing and damage at the same time, and not having to switch between red and green. so if she is using the haze it would heal friendlies but damage enemies in the same area. Or have left gun heal drone, right damage drone and maybe to keep the light up the wings, have it in a gradient between red and green so if 2 drones healing 1 drone damage it will be 2/3 lit up green with 1/3 tips of the wings light up red. If that's not enough maybe replace the corruption toggle and simply give her Pinakas shield and give Pinaka a liquid shield regen/heal grenade or something.
I agree with you casual list for sure. Everything felt good in casual testing. For the coordinated tournament Pinaka and Welkin show they need to be tuned down a little. Luminae might need to go back to the drawing board, and I just did not like Inferno.
Tried Pinaka once, and I knew I had to main it. The shotgun ring? Amazing. The wall from heaven? Amazing. The ability to make ANYBODY on my team practically immortal for a period of time? Amazing. All I have to do is not be the main character, so the enemies forget that to even beat the guy who has a shield around him, they have to kill me first.
Not too surprised by Aquillas stats, absolutely loved him in the playtest and consistently popped off, even getting a nasty 14-1-8 game with him. Sniper being that mobile and tanky is already insane, but throw in his own peal, and its just insane. Its like MW2 quickscoping cranked up to 110
To begin with, there aren't that many teams in this tournament at all, so the sample size is paltry at best. Second, I know of at least ONE team who screwed up when picking Luminae. They were going for Luminae support, but accidentally picked Pinaka+Luminae instead. Since they lost the match they weren't able to progress.
Stego, the new support and welkin are s tier. That’s all I know for a tier list. Panther would have been s tier before if welkin didn’t exist. At least these are my thoughts before the video.
this tier list open my eye by it not the be all end all but the data is good. first anybody and there mom could have told you panaka is the GOAT. welkin with his 1v1 box as a melee fighter is insane. what kinda shock me was hurricane been the best heavy i still think this a tourny bia here as i think stego could be up there with it. i know inferno was bad i told ppl in the discord that hurricane is better. and poor lume what can i say but RIP. great video tho really put thing into view of what the devs needs to do.
The one reason I questioned that tier list with all the heavies on top was that Narukami was at A tier when Narukami was basically the counter to all of them. Also why were so many strikers in s tier, s tier was almost half the strikers. Oh also panther is good against the super heavies. Pinaka being S tier is right, but inferno, stego and tricera can get destroyed by a panther being supported by pinaka and a Narukami or an Aquila sniping them. By strategizing, strikers in b tier and a tier were better than most of the s tier. Like let's say 3v3 both sides of the fight have a pinaka but one side is panther and Narukami, the other is stego and tricera, narukami can focusvon whoever has the shield whike panther gets the shield and kills off their pinaka first, then it can go after the other 2 who don't have the firepower to outlast a shielded panther, a pinaka that blocks their shots and shotguns them while dropping walls on them and a Narukami just doing Narukami things. Which also shows that the game is kinda well made, overwatch had that issue where tanks and supports were meta before they forced positions on people. This doesn't. Tanks are good for objectives they're not as good everywhere else. Others aren't so good at objectives, Narukami will get murdered instantly. Which also means there's a high chance luminae is getting massively buffed
Air Boost Modded Build with Panther is very deadly. Most of my gameplay with Hurricane is very nice, I could 1v2 if I could mod faster Energy Regen. Stego really needs a pilot who knows where to position in the map. (Other than beside the objectives)
Trying to play Stego by sitting on an objective in turret mode is just the wrong way to play the character. You need to be at a distance to use that enhanced lock on range and to actually make use of the shield. Going turret mode at close range is never a good idea, the shield is easily countered and more often than not the enemy will just go behind you, and micro missiles cannot turn enough to save you. Additionally playing behind your team allows you to somewhat mitigate the weakness of melee characters hard countering him.
i want to write something about pinaka and luminae as those are the only strikers i play. but i have to go in 5 min so hopefully i remember to write it later lol
Welkin + Pinaka team I had with a friend was stupid strong lol. I do think the game needs more support strikers (and a fix to the luminae) though, we got 2 choices and 1 was mediocre at best so Pinaka would obviously get the highest pick rate due to lack of choices.
as the welkin from gun bunnies i can safely say fk falcon punch >:). but on a srs note welkin has FAR too many stuns. his axe and cage are so good you can go games without using 2 or 3 unless u bump into another welkin.
I really like that all my favorite strikers are at A tier in the competitive scene, that means they most likely wont get nerfed anytime soon I am very interested in seeing a high level Aquila play, I main narukami so I absolutely love snipers but aquila seemed fairly weak to me and it was consistently the 3rd best in the tournament to my surprise
Why did Aquila seem weak? Extremely good mobility, a large health pool, an excellent crowd control ability and solid damage at high range make Aquila very versatile.
@@randomexcalmain4512 his damage seemed a bit lack luster especially in comparison with Narukami even counting with the charge, maybe we could say he's a marksman and not a sniper It's true idk how much more HP he has over Narukami so it might actually be a huge advantage Yeah the claw is crazy can't argue there Guess I'll give him another try when the game is back up, maybe this time with a poke and DMR style mindset things might go differently
I've got not fucking idea about anything about this game in a competitive level but you used Red Alert 3 music so I will now listen to everything you have to say
I want to give my take with 150+ matches with Luminae, for starter the heals are enough. Sure Pinaka has a higher burst single heal but that don't matter under the same scenario where Luminae cannot heal through is the same for Pinaka. Luminae offers soft lock jamming post buff and boast very flexible speed with a secondary job of picking off low hp and light mechs. Those matches where Luminae did not win in often are primarily because well the peak dmg it can do is 250k to 300k true dmg. Depending on enemy team, this is just barely enough to offset half the total heal a healer can potentially do. Obviously with a small sample size this will make it look trash. Luminae also scales both bad and good depending on how good your teammates are. Like previously mentioned comments on this video, if the mech does not last very long your kit is effectively useless your dmg isnt enough to save yourself. soft lock jamming is useless if they have a projectile based weaponry all they have to do is just aim at you. In no way it should be label as bad, but the keeping it in D tier is fine.
stego and tricera are both damn near unplayable into a good team with a good skyraider so I'm not too shocked to see the outcome there. Pinaka being overwhelmingly present also makes all the heavy characters a lot worse since she can make more mobile strikers just as mobile as well as produce the highest potential DPS on a turret form stego or tricera. Welkin and Panther are definitely both a lot worse without Pinaka, she really was just meta warping over the course of the beta. No luminae based teams even exist as a result, in theory luminae should be strong when picked with ultra heavies but as I said earlier all the characters she's meant to be supporting are being perma countered by the entire enemy team.
before i even see this if my main isnt high enough i riot (edit) within the first 5 seconds of the video luminae has a 0% win rate im gonna lose my mind (edit again) i just talked to axelottol in the discord great guy but he said luminae sucks so i dont like him dont care if its true (edit again again) nerf welkin they bully me
Pinaka needs a complete rework, idk what the design team was thinking. The lack of natural healing means that at least one support is mandatory but the way respawning work contradicts that. As you've said it's impossible to group up as 6 but that also means once you win a fight, the other teams will need to spawn in one by one as stragglers. They really need to look at the respawn system again, just make you spawn on a battleship or something and let you wait before dropping, having to wait up to 20 seconds before teammate(s) spawn in is a huge disadvantage especially when you've already lost a previous fight. Ultra-heavies felt like the ultimate noob stompers so I'm not surprised tbh, in a coordinated team most of the Heavies can be disabled by one single Skyraider right click. I've also had matches as Stego where the other team would just use invisibility from respawning to drop right behind me. You went a little bit into the Falcon but I think there's a serious discussion between Falcon and Skyraider. Falcon needs the support and immense skill level to just stay alive, and it's only good into specifically Narukami and Skyraider. Skyraider on the other hand is good into pretty much everything while also especially disruptive against Heavies, has decent dps and an armor-piercing charged shot to threaten low health targets, while also has incredibly good offense and defense capability with the jamming missiles. I'm an SR main during the beta and my thought every time I try out the Falcon is that I could be contributing much more to the fight as SR instead.
Pinaka was stupid as fk. Too much damage for being able to shield and heal like that. They need to balance it a little. Tricera was very meeeh tier for me. Only very usefull in one game mod(the one with the objectifs moving). On somes maps Stego was a godtier pick, combine with pinaka it was stupid
@@kaio0777 Has dps striker output dmg with his shotgun, heals, a shield that blocks melee dmg, has a wall that nukes stego/tricera and makes them into a 20s spectator mode. This makes Luminae obsolete and yes, i do agree with you that we need more variety of supports but man, Pinaka does everything.
as a panther and welkin player, ya, I know. Sky raider is still the most broken and aquilas is the second to me. Idgaf what others say. The sniper char with perma stun is absolute bullshit.
I hope later on Weiken gets a some nerfs to its kit. His spin attack should be able to parry able because its feels too free in melee fights. As well its spin drones should not be able to stun stagger people.
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