A Family of Learned Doctors

shawngonakillyou - Dude, you missed the glory days of Trident and its 20m splash radius. Two of those on a Carnage, after you figured out exactly how to do the little stuttering walk forward, seemed to bend around cover. Way too much fun. 

And you don't need the Magnetar to be super strong. It's a status effect weapon, so I recommend doubling up on status chips and ignoring the raw damage output. Or get more. Either way works.


Adazahi - Yeah, dude, I've got the one Reviver, some Nebulae, a Glider, and an Ironhearth. If I could swing five Persephone, I would. I mean, I could, but I wanna eat something other than ramen and eggs for the rest of the month.

@fester Ooooo I got promoted to tolerable! Thanks. Honored.


My Nightingale experience is old but, good maps are Canyon, Carrier, and maybe Moon and Valley.

Nightingale:
1: Is TANKY
2: Used to work well with Cryo but now maybe sonic or flame/goo.
3: One Nitro would bring it back to its former speed, iirc.
4: Ability pilot > pewpew pilot. IMHO.

You're a Mod, Ollie. That makes you exactly tolerable. Definitely not more, and probably not less.

Boom. #Roasted

But yeah, I recall running one once or twice with Cryo on it. Really enjoyed the good parts, but the bad parts were stunningly bad. And you figure it's still tanky? I mean tanky enough to hold the pocket until Blue gets there, considering the current meta. I hope you're right, as I'd love to drop a JDAM in the middle of Red after the flight ran out. 

And PewPew Lady🔫. That's fantastic. 

Also, shawngonakillyou, regarding both my love of status and desire for brawling setups, I don't believe the tasers would work great. Tasers are killer for dropping status at a distance, or backing Red off, but I've personally found very little use for them as a brawling weapon. Granted the lock-on maker-better pilot skill can make things a lot quicker, I'd still rather have the option of dumb firing in a close, fast knife fight with multiple Reds. But if you're clotheslining Red with tasers at punching range, that's awesome.

Learn the Tyr. Look past the trees. See the forest. Be the ball, dude.

Be the ball.

I,ve seen demeters out and about quite a bit. Still pack a punch and they move quick, so they can heal on the fly, which makes me jealous. 

Of all the forum denizens, 079, you're one of them.

And yes, I'm happy to toss something together regarding general Demeter play at short and medium range. I have a few things to produce and a long weekend coming up, so maybe I'll sit down a talk a bunch.

The Halo Khepri is obscenely fast and agile and vicious around a close corner, but really needs a friend to carry it beyond that initial contact. I'm definitely not disappointed, but moreso in awe of the speed at which it seems best played.

I could send you a pic of the weird thing growing out from under my toenail, but I suspect you'd prescribe a flamethrower.

Still waiting in the Demeter breakdown!  

Sorry for asking about a healer other than Mender…

GENERAL MEMEORANDA REGARDING DEMETER - WITH THE FLAMER, WE WILL PURIFY THE UNHOLY



I am Dr. H. Jekyll and my credentials are the views of this thread versus the rest of the threads in this sub-forum. Demeter is the reason my favorite robot went from 'Mender' to 'Healers.' I personally believe I've reached near-mastery with Fireball Demeter and Corona Demeter. Plasma Sherriff is in my secondary and I'm also actively experimenting with close combat Demeter builds for sustained face-punching after an assault jump. Demeter is is very agile, turns and strafes quickly, and can push almost anything. Three mediums and a purple shield that further bolsters it's healing continues to cant Demeter in the offensive direction. Demeter Droid🤖 can offer Demeter and Blue gray healing on a macro scale. Clumsy Guy🩹 can supercharge Blue in the radius of its ability effect for the duration of it's ability. Demeter can jump 500m to Blue, activating it's purple shield and healing. Demeter is extremely offensive and to deny this is to truly deny the nature of Demeter. But of course, this is just, like, my opinion. I encourage vigorous discussion.

OFFENSIVE MOVEMENT

There's myriad circumstances that Demeter wil deploy into. These will range from lost causes to one-sided wins. Knowing how to approach your 500m effective jump range is paramount to maximizing your contribution to Blue, victory or otherwise. For the most chances to do your trick, you'll likely want to stay between 300m and 500m from the Blue main effort and considering the following before jumping offensively -

Assault Jump - You are jumping into an active fight to attack Red and aid Blue at close range. You can pop Last Stands, break shields, push Red, restore nearby Blues, and possibly get a kill or two. 'Active Fight' constitutes an encounter in which Red and Blue both have a fighting chance at winning that encounter. You're there to swing the encounter in Blue's favor. You're going to do lots of these. Anything that can bang in a knife-fight can be used effectively during an Assault Jump.

Haymaker - You are jumping into an encounter specifically to kill certain Red/s. Red's dumb and clumsy ways have finally caught up with them and Demeter will act as the avenging scythe of the Blue phantasm. Healing Blue, while always a delight, is secondary to ensuring the swift and uncompromising demise of the targeted Red/s. Bring strong bursty weapons and pile the status upon your drones. You aren't going into a knife-fight. You're the knife.

Suicide Run - You're down a weapon, almost gonna die, and can see an attack path you can take after jumping to Blue? Plunge what's left of your Demeter into Red's jaws. Your purple shield will generally carry you through the firestorm for a chance for you to ideally tie up Red brawlers, flush out Red support, and/or give Blue a chance to gain ground elsewhere. The object is not to survive this action, but rather to make Red check your profile after the round.

DEFENSIVE MOVEMENT

A defensive jump is somewhat different than an offensive jump as you're doing less face-punching and more Blue-saving. Use your maneuverability to soak up Red fire with your shield. Push locked Blues to cover. Utilize your weapons in an effort to aid in Blue's defense and survival.

Rescue Jump - You are jumping to rescue Blue from a likely death. It takes a little practice, but you'll figure out what to and what not to jump to. If possible, keep your shield over Blue for the entire duration to maximize healing potential. Something that I've noticed many other users of Demeter do is keep their purple shield fully behind cover. That's all well and good, but consider playing with the angles of cover so the shield to collect damage for your burst. Get good at these, they're important.

Check Hook - You are jumping to Blue to ensure Blue positioning on the field. Blue may die, in spite of your best efforts. It's more important to keep the area denied to Red. Hold the beacon, block the bridge, screen the Blue support machine from Red interlopers. Think aggressive reinforcement. You're there to keep the fight going so Blue can hopefully recover momentum.

PANIC! - You are going to die and that's not very chill at all. Ditch the beacon, leave Blue to their inevitable death, pop your ninja smoke, and vanish. This may be seen as cowardly or dishonorable, and it kinda is, but why allow Red the satisfaction of another dead Blue when you can jump away and come back later? With more friends. And a bat.

TACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

You have the ability to take an immediate offensive posture, following Revenant in teleportation or a flying Blue making an airborne assault jump possible. Airborne Assault jumps, in addition to looking sick, can sling you over obstacles and onto a soft target like an uncontested beacon or an intersection to hold for Blue movement, while potentially avoiding Red resistance. If you jump to Revenant, you have the ability to aid in smashing its resistance very quickly while ensuring Revenant's integrity. This is most likely occuring at the very beginning of a round.

As the round progresses, Demeter can change postures several times. Every jump will be different and you'll have to figure out as much as you can, as fast as you can. To assist in this, ensure your settings allow you to see Blue health. Mine is on all the time, but yours should be active whenever you're in a healing machine. This can fill in several blanks before you jump in and waste your Demeter.

As far as drones go, Glider, Nebula, and Ironhearth are all decent drone options in various levels of chips. I'd tell you more, but my drones are rather limited. I'd like a Persephone at some point. Maybe grab that Whiteout thing. That'd probably be pretty cool.

I'm developing flamers as the next weapon set for Demeter. I've stripped the mediums from my other machines to try it out and it was definitely useful. Strips Aegis shields, breaks physical shields while ignoring them, encourages Red movement, has a radius, and can splash status. Also, flamers are sick and plentiful.

I've been reading a lot of Warhammer 40k lore lately, so that's oddly appropriate. The red paint looks amazing with Chaos Havocs, but they aren't ready yet.

I am middle of the road with my Demeter play. Not terrible like I am with Tyr and Nodens, not upper level like I am with Mender. I have a 2 sonic / 1 venom blend Demeter with droid pilot and full flamethrower Demeter with Jerry. I’ve never been great with sonics, partly due to constant lag and lots of missed shots, and partly because once they run out, I’m not great at the patience required to allow it to reload for more sustained burst damage.

Good descriptions of the situational use of Demeter. I think I play most of those styles reasonably well, but I just never survive as long in Demeter as I’d expect, or as long as I’ve seen some of the top Demeter pilots last (it can be like a Revenant in the right hands - very hard to kill). I’ve looked at the builds on those players and they are not meaningfully different from my builds, so it is clearly pilot capability (and I don’t mean Jerry or confused droid ).

Pretty sure you’ve answered this before, but you should consider video instruction guides. I think you’d be great at voice over through the play styles to demo your approach for those of us who could be classified as possessing anatomically stout brain coverings .

I teleport in when in rescue situations. I tend to kite brawlers and provide cover by being very "anti-air" support.
The feel of the thing made me change some of my other healers, so I can still get the "gritty" combat medic feel from some place.
It's a totally different feel than my Havok setup that's for sure. I feel it offers more "support" coverage for more teammates than my closer builds did.
I liked the Mid/Close uses of the Scorcher build but it wasn't viable for back-to-back teleporting without charging weapons first. With the Pulsar build, you are ready to fire on the next target after 5 seconds of cover. Or teleporting to heal with still fairly enough range to still engage your last zone or the next zone.

That being said, I like this build best for my lightest HP Support bot without having to teleport into the mix just to reduce enemy numbers.
My problems with the close-range setups wasn't damage, it was sustainability of fire and lacking support for blues not in close proximity.

Yeah, I know. I'm still breaking balls. Chill, dude. Stop yelling. Don't ban me.

Pilot skills are very user friendly with Demeter. It's got Spy and Tough Guy and all those choices, so you can throw a little emphasis on it if you want. Wonderworker is kinda redundant, I think. True Ace is definitely the one that's totally necessary. I personally like the standard version of Road Hog, Master Gunsmith, and Armor Expert. The little boost is nice at all times, so there's less thought about capability as conditions change. 

Doc’s going green!