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Now I'm not only here to complain as I do have suggestions on ways to fix/change the UE, and before the trolls and people with negative attitudes get up and start saying how "the game isn't just for you" and "let the devs create their vision" so on and so forth I am aware of all these things, all I've done is some objective testing of balance and mechanics and gave my take on what I would do to fix the problems I've found.
Okay, so I know I'm not the only one who is thinking this and I'm sure I'm not the first to say anything but I feel I need to. The Phaelanx Weapons unique effect (UE) just DOESN'T WORK and are not at all worth the effort it takes to craft them or even worth building around.
Let's do some comparisons, the first place to start would be to compare to the other blaze options. The Embermane and Charrog weapons as a base point are far more consistent damage and that's saying something considering one is a part damage UE and the other is based on a slightly clunking stamina mechanic but still has potential depending on the weapon used, but neither of them compares to Hellion which, let's face it, is hands down the strongest UE for basically any build on any weapon type that is using blaze. Now I for the longest time have felt that hellion needs a bit of a nerf anyway as IMO it is too strong for too little work but that's a discussion to be had another time, the point that matters here is that the Hellion UE far outclasses the Phaelanx UE in every conceivable category.
So already Phaelanx doesn't hold up against its own element counterparts, but maybe that isn't fair maybe we should compare it to something more similar in mechanics. The obvious option is the Pangar UE as both are a 90-second cooldown "burst damage" based UE.
I did some training grounds testing with both the Phaelanx and Pangar UE equipped on repeaters. I had no perks, no Omnicell, recruit lantern and both weapons were power surged so the only dividing factor was the UE itself.....and the numbers speak for themselves. I made sure that I took the screenshot after every single missile from Phaelanx had hit and made sure that it wasn't counting any damage from any other source and did the same with the Pangar UE and the difference is basically double. Once you start adding perks and other factors the difference only seems to get larger. Then you look at both effects in terms of the work required to trigger them. the Pangar bomb take 6-7 empowered shots to explode the Phaelanx took between 13-16 to achieve all 4 missiles loaded (because its random) so double the shots, and don't forget that the Pangar UE can't miss whereas the Phalanx can, so lots of the damage can be wasted even after doing the work. then consider that the Pangar UE can hit other enemies and behemoths in the radius so it has potentially even more potential from that also.
Sadly, however, all these numbers don't matter as they only consider a best-case scenario with the Phaelanx UE because on top of the fact that its already weak in comparison to other blaze UE, and in comparison to Pangar, mechanically the UE of Phaelanx as I said before doesn't work, even ignoring all the bugs around it.
If you want to achieve the full missile barrage you have to continuously deal damage to a behemoth to load the missiles, you have to do this whilst not dodging for any reason because if you dodge before the missiles are ready you've essentially wasted a 90-second cooldown as the damage DRASTICALLY reduces. So you have to constantly do damage whilst not dodging on a weapon with an innate perk that encourages dodging I might add (aetheric evasion) and then hope that all the missiles hit to even stand a chance of it being worth it. In a game that encourages dodge based gameplay, this UE is counter-intuitive at best.
Now onto the suggestions.
From where I stand there are two main directions to go in terms of fixing the Phaelanx UE mechanically whilst still keeping the identity that the weapon has right now. Either to double down on the dodge based mechanic or to step away from the dodge entirely. Considering the Weapon's innate perk and the perks on the armour I would argue encouraging the dodge mechanic would be the right way to go but I will first mention a "dodge-less" fix.
The Dodge-less fix:
The UE could work more similarly to the Kharabak UE. You would damage a behemoth part to target lock and then dealing damage loads missiles and after a set duration the missiles fire at the part. I would also make it so that the missile couldn't miss similar to the eidolons in escalation but that wouldn't be entirely necessary. With this fix, there isn't any restriction on the players choice to dodge and allows the UE to function more consistently. However, this fix does mean that the UE doesn't have any synergy with the armour or weapon's perks, and potentially loses a bit of its identity as a UE, so let's look at a way to encourage the dodge mechanic.
The Dodge-Based Fix:
In short have the missile loading be based on dodges. In this case, I would make it so that dodging through a behemoth attack preps a missile, dodging more attacks increases the number of missiles prepared and then attacking a behemoth fires all prepared missiles. the damage of each missile then increases based on the number of missiles prepared. this way a player can continuously dodge attacks to load up a large burst of damage once they attack back. this then encourages the dodge-based gameplay as well as keeping the identity of loading a barrage of missiles and releasing them at the "right" moment. This would then also cause the UE to have great synergy with the Omni cells Tempest (dodges=damage) Bastion (dodges -> preserve shields = damage) and Discipline (parry=dodge=damage).
I hope the Pheonix Labs devs see this and I want to say that I love the work they are doing and that not everything can be perfect every time, a miss here and there is bound to happen so keep up the great work and I look forward to more awesome creative ideas in the future, but please fix this one soon. I don't expect my suggestions to be the way any changes happen but I really believe that some form of change needs to happen to makes this new behemoth worth fighting and farming and to make these weapons worth using.
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