there *needs* to be a counter to the matriarch's plasma cannon and tesla blast besides breaking LoS

[LolzMan1325]

this has been in the game for a while and honestly it makes the matriarch the least fun boss in the game. if you're playing on a map without corners to hide behind or with long sightlines, you're done for. she has seemingly infinite range and godlike tracking and if whatever cover you manage to hide behind is 1/2 an inch too short, you're going to die. if the plasma cannon doesn't kill you, something else will because of the ridiculous DPS it has.

this applies to the tesla blast as well, 1 player can doom a whole group if they aren't in cover with everyone else, and again, the tesla blast does ridiculous damage, knocking you down to at least 30-40% of your health in one hit.

the only "counters" to this move is to either break line of sight, or get her health low enough to where the gun automatically breaks, assuming you live that long. shooting at the gun itself is completely useless as most weapons barely do any damage to it, ultimately making it a waste of ammo, at least compared to just getting her actual health down.

so a couple suggestions on making this less obnoxiously overpowered:

• doing enough damage to her during the attack makes her stumble and stop (similar to the counter to the abomination's inhale move)
• doing enough damage to her gun during the attack (less than what it would take shooting her as a whole since it's a smaller target) makes her stumble and stop
• increase the damage multiplier around her gun/decrease the health of her gun so that shooting at it to disable it is actually a viable strategy instead of an ammo sink
• make the beams themselves do less damage
• don't give her perfect tracking so you can't be cooked with it unless you're running parallel to her
• turn her tesla beam into a homing tesla ball that players can shoot to destroy but can still hurt them if they're too close, also explodes if it hits a wall or player, has the same tesla arc effect between players if they're too close (the idea here is that it's more easily avoidable but still punishing)
• turn her purple beam into a laser barrage (similar to edar blasters, the lasers are avoidable but there's a lot of them)
• you can avoid both beams by ducking (similar to the king fleshpound's laser)

something needs to change about this boss as currently, i'd argue she's the least fun thing to fight in the entire game.

 

[o2xVc3UuXp0NyBihrUnu]

I don't subscribe to this opinion. She's challenging enough and fun to play against and unlike other 3 out of 5 bosses has a chance to wipe the team. She has 2 problems though, but she's no exception from other bosses in it, which is 1) shooting/grabbing through certain types of obstacles 2) her melee sometimes instakills. It happens rarely, but still happens.

if you're playing on a map without corners to hide behind or with long sightlines, you're done for.

I'd like to mention here, that there are NO official, or any just decent custom maps exist where there are no objects to kite her around. Therefore, I have to assume that OP talks here about some custom borderline XP farm maps. Well, I say, that if you play these maps -- it's on you to die to Matriarch, haha.

Her attacks are fine, with the exception that applies to all other bosses, which is they can shoot through some objects. Examples are the central console on Steam Fortress, news stands on Burning Paris, glass windows on Desolation, etc. It is believed that in some scenarios it happens because their attacks don't start at the centers of their boss models, they do instead in some distance and when this distance protrudes through objects and therefore issues missiles/plasma beams/whatever as if these objects didn't obstruct the line of sight then they shoot through them.

Some objects on the other hand seem to be just transparent to their attacks, e.g. the central console on Steam Fortress, which, again, isn't completely transparent in all its parts, only some of them are transparent while others aren't.

With other bosses (except Patty) it's less of an issue as their ranged attacks aren't as deadly or have other counterplay techniques. Patty is too weak overall to have a chance to exploit the missile transparency of some objects and gets killed typically before he has a chance to use it more than a few times.

 

[OnionBubs]

I hated her at first, but I've grown to stan for Momma Matty. Mostly here to second what o2xVc3UuXp0NyBihrUnu spoke of above, with a few clarifications:

• IIRC the plasma beam can be kited if you hug her and circle around her model since she turns at a static rate, it's just that when you're at a distance that speed is always enough to track you because mathematics
• The best way to counter the worst part of her arsenal is to in fact shoot her cannon; it just requires some concentrated fire to bring it down
• She can still be baited into melee attacks by a Zerker tank like every other boss; IIRC the Sonic Sphere can also be parried if you have the BoneCrusher so she can't even rely on spamming that if your Medic is doing their job
• The Tesla blast is working basically as designed; it is important to keep around cover lest you screw your team along with yourself (like a worse version of dodging a Husk fireball only for someone else nearby to catch it and snare you with the blast radius)
• Her actual most dangerous move on 6P HoE is the EDAR swarm because those little pricks can swarm you at literally any moment and that summoning phase seems to last forever; I die more to the EDARs boxing me in for other attacks than going toe-to-toe with Matty herself. (Obligatory "EDARs suck" post.)

Some objects on the other hand seem to be just transparent to their attacks, e.g. the central console on Steam Fortress, which, again, isn't completely transparent in all its parts, only some of them are transparent while others aren't.

Unless there were some bugfixes, Elysium might still be the worst about this; object transparency in the main map literally feels like a coin toss some days.

With other bosses (except Patty) it's less of an issue as their ranged attacks aren't as deadly or have other counterplay techniques. Patty is too weak overall to have a chance to exploit the missile transparency of some objects and gets killed typically before he has a chance to use it more than a few times.

Patty's deadliest thing is still the mortar by far. If he actually pulls that one out and you're not a Zerk/Medic/maybe Gunslinger than you'd better hope the dice are in your favor, because I swear those things track harder than Matty's beams, and it only takes one if you're a squishy perk.

That said, I think he only pulls that out if you're doing a "kite around one specific spot" thing, like the big truck outdoors on Farmhouse or the long chunk of wall on Nuked.

 

[CitronVert]

Respectfully disagree. Today's gaming culture has favored players to be lazy and win everything by clicking left mouse and I'm glad KF2 has not completely followed that trend, even though half of the bosses are still jokes.

Imo, boss fights should be near unwinnable in HoE. They are supposed to be the hardest challenge the game can offer, not just another random event for achievement farmers.

I'm not totally fond of the current way of winning against Matriarch, which is mostly exploit-based, but at least winning against her is not 100% mouse click spam. Abomination and King FP deserve a way more important overhaul imo.

 

[Humam2104]

Alot of players suggested that she gets a nerf... even I did a full report on why they should do that.
But They just don't give a **** about their players all they care about is money
Feel free to check out this report I've previously written.

 

[Arcames]

The matriarch is easy to deal with when it comes to that plasma beam (assuming you don't know how to shoot it). 1) Spread out the team and stay near cover 2) Stay fairly close to matriarch. Whoever is targetted by the beam can simply circle the matriarch, plasma beam turn speed is very slow. (Don't worry about the tentacle, parry with knife.)

EDAR spawn rng is far more annoying than matriarch

 

[o2xVc3UuXp0NyBihrUnu]

(Don't worry about the tentacle, parry with knife.)

And when was the last time you parried her tentacle with a knife?

 

[Arcames]

And when was the last time you parried her tentacle with a knife?

Last round she spawned. You don't switch to knife?

 

[o2xVc3UuXp0NyBihrUnu]

Last round she spawned. You don't switch to knife?

Would you mind filming a video showing it? No, I don't.