Blocking Circuit's issues and suggestions

[Endev]

That one circuit bothers me. It was clearly made for coop games, so it being useless in solo games won't be counted as a flaw, but its usefulness is mediocre at best for a few reasons I noticed.

1. Half of the bosses in this game either always use AoE attacks or have one that is used sometimes, and from that one you cannot protect anyone.

2. I only tested it with friendly pigs, but that circuit doesn't seem to draw aggro. That means that after enemies change aggro to other players who attack them, your blocking won't be useful until you somehow get all the aggro on yourself again.

3. 80% damage reduction applies AFTER armor. So after blocking for a few seconds, your more or less expensive armor will be at 50% of durability at least.

And here are changes that I think could turn WX into a tank role, like in some MMORPG games.

1. In AoE attack, if there is blocking WX in a range, he is the only one taking damage. To balance it, they could get higher damage for every player protected like that. Maybe 20-30% higher damage.

2. While blocking, WX could be saying provocative insults about 'inferior lifeforms' every few seconds, making all enemies around attack them. That wouldn't make other players fully immune to stealing aggro but also wouldn't make blocking WX useless because of all enemies leaving to fight someone else.

3. Move 80% damage reduction to be the first reduction applied in damage calculation. That would allow WX to keep his armor for 5 times longer, making his blocking role useful for longer.

I'm finding that circuit interesting because after getting all those skill trees allowing high DPS, healing, ranged damage, etc., we finally got something that can be used for tanking damage and drawing aggro. And WX, being a durable provocative robot, would be perfect for that role, especially with that perk that allows them to revive themselves on the spot if they die with a full charge. Yeah, I know that dodging exists and is a recommended thing to do, but not everyone can or wants to do it.

[DegenerateFurry]

There's another issue with the blocking circuit that you haven't mentioned: how it interacts with the Sonic-Invoker circuit. The invoker will always be prioritized, which means that if you have it installed, you have to use it before you can block anything. 

That makes the blocking circuit way less good since you can no longer block reactively unless you preemptively put your Sonic-Invoker on cooldown.

I think Klei really needs to change that, preferably by letting us use an alternate activation (like shift-right click instead of right click) to activate block with the invoker installed. 

[Endev]

24 minutes ago, DegenerateFurry said:

There's another issue with the blocking circuit that you haven't mentioned: how it interacts with the Sonic-Invoker circuit. The invoker will always be prioritized, which means that if you have it installed, you have to use it before you can block anything. 

That makes the blocking circuit way less good since you can no longer block reactively unless you preemptively put your Sonic-Invoker on cooldown.

I think Klei really needs to change that, preferably by letting us use an alternate activation (like shift-right click instead of right click) to activate block with the invoker installed. 

Ah, yes, I forgot about that. Thanks for adding this last issue. And I agree about your suggestion; it could allow players to pick what circuit they want to use instead of being forced to use Sonic-Invoker first. Though at least it is not a big issue as long as the Blocking circuit is so inefficient, so most players are walking around only with Sonic-Invoker, which is actually pretty nice for non-boss fights.