kstarler wrote...
I generally don't like to argue opinion, as it is opinion and therefore variable from person to person. In that regard, I'm only going to address the facts of your post. In regards to Warp and Incinerate, you are wrong. They both overlap in that they work against armor and damage enemy health. However, Warp also works against Barriers (something that Incinerate doesn't do nearly as well). It also can chain into a Warp Bomb in combination with a Pull or Singularity.
Incinerate doesn't chain with anything. It is a flat damage ability. However, it can be evolved to affect groups of enemies, where a single Warp, without a combination with another power, will always only hit a single target, no matter how you evolve it.
While you can argue that the essence of these abilities is the same (they damage the enemy), the ways that they can be applied are very different and unique. You can't use Warp to strip defenses from a group of husks. You can use Incinerate to do exactly that.
Hitting barriers heavier is irrelevant. It just makes the nuke hit harder, it doesn't really change how you use it.
In regards to combos, I would argue that that's also a how you use the ability, and not actually what the ability does. Does it make a difference if I hit another button first if my goal is still to nuke the enemy? I'm not arguing efficiency, I'm arguing intent.
Warp does detonate AoE. Drop a Singularity and then throw an Unstable Warp. The detonation radius is much larger than that of incinerate. Against, having to cast Singularity first doesn't change what you're actually doing with warp, it's just a function of how you use it.
The point I'm trying to make is that from a design standpoint, both abilities fulfill the same end, nuking enemy targets. None of them offer any utility that would cause you to use them for a different reason other than doing damage. Overload, while being a nuke (again, what it nukes doesn't actually matter), has an extra option (overheating weapons). I could feasibly cast overload in order to prevent damage, which adds another function to the ability. This is what creates a fundamental difference.
Adding more abilities isn't the only way to differentiate classes. If power evolutions were done correctly (in a way that added additional functions to moves), the same thing could be accomplished. I could see this route being acceptable, but it is much more difficult to balance.
For example, let's say Overload just nuked shields. At rank 4, one route added the gun overheat option, and the other worked like Energy Drain. This would create 2 fundamentally different abilities. One nukes and disables and enemy, the other nukes and protects the user. However, you could see how this would be difficult to balance without making one strictly better than the other.
kstarler wrote...
Singularity and Charge are also very different abilities. Again, you can
argue that they can be applied for the same purpose, but they can also
be applied for completely different purposes which the other could never
match. For instance, Charge can be used as a shield recharging ability,
but could never be used on Harbinger to keep him from attacking while
you deal with other enemies. Singularity can do the latter, but can't do
the former. They are unique in that regard.
I went a little to far in that deparment. My intent with that was to show how two classes with two very different abilities could use them both the for same ends to create the same essential gameplay. The classes each direct you to a more obvious playstyle, but many of them can replicate that of the others, even if one has more options or whatever.
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