For as long as I've been playing (since whatever the season before Witch Queen was), Bubble has always struggled to find use in PvE, which was even further exacerbated by the unnecessary nerfs in Final Shape. Now that Sentinel Shield has been buffed to do the exact same job as Bubble, but better in every way, there's literally no reason to use it anymore, except in certain PvP scenarios. For the purposes of PvE though, it may as well not even exist in the game. Now part of the reason it's been allowed to remain in such a useless state for so long is because buffs to Bubble could make it a problem in PvP, but after a lot of mental workshopping, I think I've finally come up with a way to make Bubble a real ability again in PvE, without affecting it too much in PvP. The proposed changes would be as follows:
Players inside Ward of Dawn can now fire weapons and abilities through it, dealing 100% damage to combatants and 1% damage to guardians. Shots fired while inside Ward of Dawn are immediately refunded to the magazine from thin air.
The ability to fire out of Bubble is something people have thrown around for a long time, and since we know Bungie can tune damage modifiers differently in PvE vs PvP, they could just make it so the Bubble acts as a -99% modifier against players, preventing it from making much of a difference in PvP, while finally allowing Bubble to compete with Well and Sentinel Shield in PvE. As for the ammo refunding mechanic, I was originally thinking of giving Bubble back its damage buff, but then it would just be competing with Shield again, and one of them would inevitably feel like a worse version of the other, and no one would use it. By refunding ammo instead of giving a % damage modifier, it still gives Bubble value for boss dps, through essentially infinite heavy and special, while making its benefit different enough from Shield that there's a clear reason to choose one or the other, based on your team's needs. It also shouldn't cause much of an issue in PvP, since it's refunding ammo, not generating it, meaning that you leave with the same amount of ammo you came in with.
What do you guys think? Would these changes be enough to bring Bubble back?
I was thinking max out weapon and super stats with plus 50 to grenades and and melee stats. Titan casting would be given max melee stat IN bubble.
This would give ut endgame play, the buffs would stack with Well, not step on Wells toes....help generate more ammo in PvE activities.
Not break PvP.....as 200 weapon stat is less than Well Weapon buff.
If we want to get crazy...give the same hidden perk bubble gives on can't to all teammates....it refills ability energy and add a slight void burn effect to enemies coming into the bubble, with casting adding a knock back/ weaken effect.
That’s actually a pretty good idea, I like that!
They need to buff Helm of Saint 14 while they’re at it. Something like “Your void weapons gain volatile rounds while you have an overshield” would be cool, some sort of neutral game option.
It needs buffs but pulling ammo from thin air would be busted
It would only pull as much as you fire, so you couldn’t just generate a ton of reserves. It would basically just mean that you wouldn’t consume ammo while inside it. I feel like that’s not too strong when it’s gotta compete with things like Well and Sentinel Shield that can give everyone 25% extra damage.
Wow, that's an old memory. In D1's TTK release, we got a Titan-specific legendary shotgun called Immobius. If you ran Ward of Dawn with Weapons of Light, your shots while inside the Ward wouldn't consume ammo. Neat in concept, but was a lot of hoops to jump through. The class-specific legendary weapons for Hunter & Warlock weren't locked to subclass, let alone a particular super variation.
Huh, that’s cool, I never knew that. I’ve never played D1, but it’s funny that the same concept sort of existed even back then.
It was Armor of Light and kills. Weapons or Blessing and all shots might've made the thing at least a fun toy to mess around with
The problem is it would become the default for all damage phases and thus render the heavy ammo economy pointless, as the vast majority of the time you’d be firing heavy ammo would be in a bubble.
Probably better to make it a flat damage bonus or something. Basically turn it into what well used to be
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found there are a decent number of boss encounters where I never really had to worry about running out of heavy ammo. It would be really strong for things like Vesper’s Host, where the boss has a lot of health and long damage phases, but I don’t think most people would care much about it for something like Crota. I think there’s enough of a mix of bosses where it would be really important vs not very important that it might end up feeling reasonably balanced.
You realize one of the limiting factors to rockets and GL for DPS is that they have limited reserves, right? You'd get people loading up on bipod cluster rockets and a rally barricade to just spam far more damage than is possible today. Most DPS phases are long enough you can consume all your rockets and have plenty of time to dump special.
Just make it 35% again
if you cant shoot out of it, it will just get parked behind a warlock and ignored, expect for the damage boost.
Then what would be the point of Shield? Also even back when it was 35%, people didn’t use it that often, since you had to constantly storage in and out of the Bubble.
People used bubble often specifically because of the 35% buff. Bubble was the source of damage boost, Well was what kept us alive during damage. Going in and out still counts as using the bubble.
Sentinel shield autoreloads your weapons, deals tcrash damage and allows you to shoot through it while enemies can't shoot back, and is also mobile.
Hmm 🤔. Maybe it would be enough. I dunno, I almost never saw anyone using Bubble even back when it gave 35% damage though. I kinda doubt anyone but the most die hard Bubble fans would use it even if it got it back. I think people just don’t like the extra step of strafing. I always got asked to use a different super when I was running it.
Did you do end game pve?
Some. I think I’d just started getting into dungeons and raiding a while before the damage bonus got nerfed down to 25%.
You'd see bubble being used in raids like argos, calus, the one in the city where you fight the servator (forgot name), even when vog was rereleased
Can't forget about Taniks. One bubble outside the damage area, one well inside. A classic combination
Sadly that was before my time. It would be nice to see it regain its popularity though. I like the super.
Give bubble similar features as the vex deflector dome from renegades - but tune it to void instead:
Right now bubble is like the easiest thing to sneak up on if you are invis and drop a tether or a well into. If the titan in question doesn't have something like synthos or that aspect (that gives higher melee dmg when having an overshield) then the bubble is one of the easiest things to counter with a well of radiance or something
You can't suppress guardians walking in unless its a different version of suppress....as it woukd have ZERO counter in PVP
Could add a delay to suppression. This still allows entering the bubble and quickly executing the titan. Lets be honest unless you were able to burst the titan down inside the bubble you weren't going to kill them anyway.
That just sounds stupid....sorry
Not really, it still allows counterplay but punishes you for staying in the bubble.
Drop a well next to the bubble and punch y8ur way out? It's not that hard lol. Bubble and well are some of the easiest things to counter outside of trials (and to some players easy to counter in trials too)
Well has always been stronger than bubble...shit casting the sword is like 500 damage itself.
Point is most of the other counters... silence and squall, tether, nova bomb in the bubble would be suppressed....even a Tcrash as soon as it made contact with bubble would be suppressed.
No abilities would work in bubble, as usually I'd throw a grenade at titans feet as I start punching or to maybe get Titan out of bubble.
It’s a super, the counter is to stay away (or toss a witherhoard puddle into it (which was the best counter back when people were using bubble to cap in iron banner) it outdamages the health regen and will kill the players inside if they don’t leave
K....and with not swap in most pvp playlists, you won't have it u less you started playing with it.
Yeah, that could be a good option 🤔
I love the sound of this but it would also totally break PvP so it'll sadly never happen.
I'd like to avoid some situation where it just becomes 'okay now we NEED a bubble titan AND a well lock or we're leaving damage on the table".
Unless we just drop weapons of light as a concept - re-work helm of saint 14 and make bubble focused on neutral play and defense like the vex dome so it's not looked at as a DPS requirement.
I played some bubble Titan on the Frontiers a few minutes ago. Bubble slaps! Seriously. It was Royal Rumble/Hell in a Cell!
The bubble needs to be bigger. 75% bigger is a good start. Whatever it boops needs to be suppressed. That's it. That's the fix. And an exotic that facets the bubble into panels that are destructible. So you can shoot out of it. The facets you destroy grant volatile rounds. Doesn't matter what element your weapon is.
Personally I want the Saint-14 change to Bubble or an exotic that does it.
Casting Ward of Dawn grants "Starry Night". Bubble has increased size, is unbreakable and grants 25% Damage Buff to allies. Animation can be held infinitely by The Wielder granting an extra 15% Damage (This would be a total of 40% buff) to allies. (Only works in PVE)
Casting Bubble and holding the animation gives Bubble infinite Health/Uptime. This means the Titan would stay at the center of the bubble holding their Super Button the entire time, but teammates could infinitely dip in and out of the bubble. You'll lose 1 person doing DPS but you'll gain a massive Damage buff.
Hmm, it could work 🤔. Probably shouldn’t require an exotic though, otherwise Titans would always be forced to run that exotic, or Bubble just wouldn’t be useful without it.
See that is the thing, maybe as an Aspect it could work as well but I think the idea of losing a person during DPS still might keep people from forcing the Titans to use nothing but that. I like that it has a downside for that reason. Yes it would be the biggest damage buff in the game, but you'd also lose 1 person during a DPS phase and since almost all DPS phases in the game are time locked to some extent it might not be make or break as an exotic.
Omg i would love this.
This might be more of an exotic idea, but I wish bubble had the ability that banner shield just got where if you absorb damage, a meter would charge up. However in this instance, the bubble would form spikes all over it as it absorbs damage, and then when the bubble ends or breaks, it would explode for big AOE damage. Could maybe even grant overshield to everyone inside when this happens
That would be a pretty fun idea for an exotic
all it needs is to be the well but for ability damage instead of weapons and it will have a niche forever
That’s actually a really great idea!
I’d agree Bubble should allow shooting out of it with increased ammo generation.
Applying Invisiability to your fireteam and Weaken to combatants would be great as well.
Long term I’d love to see Bungie really start experimenting with the Supers. I’d love to see an Arc or Solar Bubble. Or a Solar or Void Chaos Reach (used by Ikora in a cutscene!).
I think giving Bubble weaken and invis, on top of everything else, would be too much. Bubble style supers for other subclasses would be kinda cool though 🤔
I don’t think it would be that crazy.
Ammo generation is for shooting enemies at range / recovering ammo.
Invisibility is potentially for rescuing teammates / getting out of sticky situations.
Weaken is only for enemies that walk into the Bubble and are within melee range. It would also be a good for placing directly on the boss if doing sword DPS (alternative to using Well).
I think invis would be straying too much into Hunter’s territory. It’s literally the only thing void Hunters can do right now. The weakening effect on enemies inside the bubble might be balanced though, if it’s only the 15% version of weaken.
Eh, but all classes gained Devour and Vortex Grenades from the Warlock toolkit in Void 3.0. Warlocks already have access to Invisiability from an Aspect.
Oh and lets not forget the Titan Exotic that applies Blind to enemies inside the Bubble even though that’s an Arc verb. I think Invisibility for just the Super is balanced enough.
Spectre Blades needs a complete rework for PvE anyway, but that’s a topic for another day.
Yea elements and ability behaviours need to be uncoupled imo. It'd solve the problem with darkness subclasses having no super variants nicely too.
A Stasis Super that shoots out sharp Stasis shards would be sick. A mix between the Hunter Solar Super and the Warlock Strand Super.
It’s super bizarre to me how rarely Bungie adds in new abilities. Meanwhile Destiny Rising has actually been having fun with the concept.
Yea I really have enjoyed my time with destiny rising eh.
Yea I'd love to see stasis chaos reach....strand hammers... Solar slam.... Void barrage...just all of it...it's not just so I can be an arcblade Hunter with blink again I swear ..
Just make the damage buff better. Allow people to shoot out of it and give you destabilising rounds.
I feel like if it’s just a damage modifier, it’s gonna be competing with Sentinel Shield though, and then one of them is just gonna be a worse version of the other.
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What are you talking about when you say “the negative”?
Edit: Just realised you might’ve gotten confused by the phrasing of “1% damage to players”, so I changed the wording to make it clearer.
Ward just needs some nerfs reverted
It’s close to former glory
Honestly, with how strong Sentinel Shield is nowadays, I don’t know if that would be enough. And if it was enough, then Sentinel Shield might become the obsolete one.
Firing out of Ward of Dawn would add some neat utility, yeah. What if that was added to the functionality of Citan's Ramparts? They already give a barricade that you can fire through. Granting that function to Ward of Dawn would make sense. Like the barricade, the Ward of Dawn could be weaker as well, and potentially be broken.
I still have a hard time justifying use of Ward, always have. I would only run Defender Titan when raiding with friends in D1. In D2, I wanted some added function or neutral game for Helm of Saint-14, because I like the appearance, but just didn't need to use it. At least I can transmog it on my Precious Scars or Mask of the Quiet One now.
Some good ideas in here. I'd like them to lean into the Saint-14 fantasy a lot and less about "how do we make this the same but different verses well".
Void is SO close to being a great end to end class with a diverse set of possible playstyles. The other things that should be changed:
I really love the idea for Bastion, that would be such a cool change!
I wanna see bubble buffed as much as the next guy, but do Titans really want to be the next Well Bitch? Because that's how you become the next Well Bitch.
(Unironically no hate, I have no idea how to rework that super)
With more options in the game for the “Well bitch” role, I think there would be less pressure to ALWAYS swap to Ward, people would just be more appreciative if you were running it with these changes, instead of always asking you to switch off it.
hear me out: not saying it could be useful for pve (maybe, depends how implemented) you should be able to siphon part of ur super as void energy to allos for ultimate deflection and possible even double the damage of it, depending on how long you hold it, it could also also for a bit much room for adjustment in tactical positioning, idk if it should be 360 degrees or a partial shield, (depends for pvp) however could be a great addition. Essentially what the ability is is a ward, it should be able to defend, as well as reflect in some type of capacity, allowing that to provide some type of defensive capability- or boost tankiness/viability in some sort to make it nigh hard to kill. there must be variations on the abilities if sentinel and ward are to both be kept in the game. To that point somthing similar to a unique buff maybe in the form of weaken/exhuast that only affects combats/pve
I… think you’ve just described Unbreakable?
😂 sorta, but it would be more powerful, and just an added on quality not necessarily the whole super per se, you trade time for it possibly similar to well how the super stat affects duration this ability would do something similar. Or even give it something like. Subverted suppression blast if within aoe. Just think how ascension was essentially taken from base arcstrider and is now an aspect
Hmm 🤔