I don’t really get the design here and seriously consider this to be the worst of the specials. Trappers and Hounds are OK as disablers, as Trappers are reliably dodged or killed with a fair amount of windup, a sensible amount of health for a disabler and a cooldown that makes them quite manageable even when encountered alone. Hounds are janky, sure, but can be stopped by quite a few weapons even without killing them. Maybe lessened abilities to dive/shoot through hordes would be fair for those, but okay.
Mutants on the other hand, are plain BS. Way to resistant to stagger, starting on the run with no windup, charging around corners and obstacles, grabbing despite dodging with a FAR too big reach on the hitbox, huge amounts of health, and no sensible cooldowns to the grabbing or charging IF someone dodged them, which is, as wimpy as that sounds, not easy enough, they seemingly readjust their vector far too quickly for something on the run. Also, it’s unreasonable that they can’t be staggered with the psyker special, as if the class wasn’t neutred enough already, give them a break.
Straight-lined charges, a windup after arriving on the scene, bowling over their allies and a “normal” attack pattern between grabs/charges that can be dealt with like maulers wouldn’t make them useless as enemies, especially looking at the amounts of stuff that spawns in higher difficulties. Maybe even better ways to stop them, like shooting the legs to make them trip, something every class has access too.
They actually do knock over enemies they run through, but I’ve only ever seen it happen to poxwalkers and other smaller enemies. Overall they’re definitely one of my less liked specials. The sharp 180 turns are definitely way silly for some kind of charging bruiser archetype, and I really don’t know why there’s rng between them slamming you or throwing you.
They seem to be grabbing you with their big left arm, so I dodge them to the left (facing the Mutant) and unless I’m late it works. Might be just delusions, might be how the grab hitbox works, dunno.
If they had a cooldown period where they just became a big melee unit that’d be nice. Like you know the Charger from L4D, the thing the Mutant is trying to be but worse.
Idk if it’s just certain people or muscle memory but many of us at heresy and up are able to dodge easily to the left against mutants. U have to dodge left as soon as he raises left arm. Once you pay attention to it you’ll remember the distance that activates it. You could also force a charge into a wall so he throws instead of damaging you.
Please Fatshark, listen to this guy. Either remove the ability for mutants to do 180s and 90-degree turns or make their grab hitbox smaller together with some stagger nerf. Having a mutant run two circles around a pillar with perfect accuracy and instant turns like he’s got a precision-guiding system is just unfair.
i like them in general but wouldn’t mind if they will be tweaked.
i think it would be cool if they will be stunned for a long duration and take some damage if they miss you and hit a wall.
that way you’ll be rewarded for you reaction with dodges and positioning. and can potentially make them kill themselves of a wall, that would be hilarious.
I feel a reasonable nerf to mutants is to make them stagger all other enemies they come in contact with during their charge, ogryn enemies included (though with a lesser stagger effect).
They have the highest health out of any non-monster enemy and are incredibly annoying to deal with in tight quarters where they can also just walk through enemies without consequence. So this idea could be interesting.
Add on the fact that it takes 2-3 headpops as a psyker which deal 1k damage a piece to kill a mutant, and that its an enemy that has stupidly good mobility being able to do 90 and 180 degree turns if not further round corners and whatnot makes it a cheap way to disable you that can sometimes deal almost no damage and a very short disable 1-2 seconds or 60+ damage decently long 5-7 seconds disable and its easy to see why people are unhappy with this enemy.
I’ve found the Hound can also knock others near their target down when they pounce. Also the Burster has more than once just walked out of a door and exploded instantly on me or a team member. They really need to address the enemies being able to just go back into the doors when they spawn and be safe from attack so this doesn’t happen, or being able to spawn basically right next to someone.
I’ve killed the trapper and still ended up trapped. I’ve had several specials seemingly ignore damage or have shots pass through them to capture or damage me (Ragers and Crushers do this a lot; just not taking the hit to hit me instead).
There still seem to be some kinks to work out with how the specials all work.
Mutant is kinda the safest disabler bc you can dodge them if you wait until they are in melee range, and if they do grab you, you don’t get hit by the horde during their pummeling.
Mutant just punishes loners, they’re such a big target that you can’t miss them, they won’t do much if any damage if you are with your team.
If a trapper catches you, the horde will kill you in 2 seconds or less.
And hitting a dog can be difficult when it decides to go crazy with its movement.
At least mutants don’t do damage before you know they are there…(I’m looking at you, SNIPER!)
Been yeeted into oblivion more than once, both over ledges (which is sorta kinda fair, but thoroughly unfun) and through walls going out of bounds - which plain sucks.
Not gonna lie, I’ll take the Mutant over the Charger. Charger was probably the worst thing about L4D2: highest health of all specials, high damage on melee attacks, disabler with high damage, took reduced damage on the big arm, tiny head. Things didn’t get better in Versus, either, where people would legit suicide if they got Jockey just so they could potentially get Charger or another special instead.
Mutant needs to be looked at and the horrendous bomber.
Mutant had a bug that put people out of bounds when he grabbed you near walls and doors and did the slam. So now he throws you instead. The throw do no damage though, so you can cheese it by just near walls to make him infinitely throw you for no damage.
Dodging around objects actually HURTS you as a player because even if you dodge at correct timing, the pathfinding adjustment due to environment puts you inront of him again even if he doesn’t aim at you.
I think they should just go back and do it like Charger from L4D. Make him start charging in a straight line, maybe slightly adjust left and right by a few degrees only so he doesn’t have to pin point accuracy at longer distances. When he grabs you he turns around and slam you instead of turn around and throw if you are against a wall, that way you still get hurt if you are hit.
Do something against the cycle charging. He sometimes charge you before you even recovered from the throw making it annoying since you are chained stunlocked.
I feel like the insane mobility of the mutant needs to be addressed, along with the ability to constantly charge. I’ve had several runs terminate to a single mutant who charges through a densely packed crowd of enemies without really, actually throwing them aside. And because you’re dealing with a horde, you can’t attack the mutant reliably, and it just keeps charging everyone through that dense cluster of enemies without any problems.
That being said, the slams and just plain throw aren’t actually RNG. It all depends on whether the mutant takes you to a wall. My theory is, that if the player model clips into a wall, then the mutant just throws you harmlessly aside. This is why I tend to fight them with my back to a wall. That being said, getting thrown on the other side of the horde that you were just fighting and then having to deal with all the poxwalkers turning on you and the mutant charging you through the crowd again doesn’t feel great.
In conclusion, I feel like a cooldown on the charge and somewhat dialed down charging mobility would make the mutant a much more satisfying enemy to fight. Or at least make them actually plow enemies aside like an ogryn charge. Now that would be fun to watch!
Mutants are a joke. I’ll give you the charge around corners and objects feels dumb but you literally just dodge to the left because they have a short arm.
I can consistently dodge a mutant over and over again. They’re also fairly easy to kill even on higher difficulties. They also make a ton of sound to alert you they’re coming.
Basically dodge left, heavy attack, heavy attack, it’s dead