Would you want to upgrade and equip the Fortify Module for Blue Star matches? Why/why not? Please include star ID from a match you tried to make Fortify work.
#Blue Stars - Fortify
torn sorrel
rare hound
being immobilized is great near the end, a liability at any other time
glacial token
yes & no. if i only get one mod, NO, i do equip emp because its more 'all purpose'. if i get 3 or 4 mods, YES, being able to immobilize at end of bls is a strat i like.
narrow otter
Yes, but not high priority. As mentioned the immobility is useful in the middle. I also find it effective as a means of focusing fire onto my ship so drones survive longer to do their job, or a rocket can land. RQA-7223. I lost the id, but I also used it to reduce incoming damage when I was main target already and survived long enough to win. Not as useful when facing multi-target weapons or bomber rockets.
dim galleon
Fortify is a poweful defense in high end BLS. Well worth it.
torpid latch
Basically the new emp with added defense.
waxen oracle
Yes, Its all about that stop!
flat cloak
This will probably be one of the few go to modules for survivability early on in an aggressive position, or in the final circle dance. Seems to be in a good spot, although stopping you can work against you just as well as to your advantage
grim widget
I would use this module only in the lower levels. As soon as Binding is available, you can play without Fortify, precisely BECAUSE you become immobile with it. There are then better modules.
balmy bronze
Yes. Being able to stop is great. Damage reduction is great. Being able to combo it with "while moving" modules like motion or impulse shield is great.
sage wyvern
i would use it if i had it available for free at a high level
fortify's main use is to stop your ship in place. the damage reduction is merely a nice bonus most of the time. it's only useful if you combine it with other modules which can take advantage of the immobility (such as impulse shield) or wait until the core sector to stop yourself from moving.
NSH-0488, VTM-9147, PKP-6733, LKC-9554
eager otter
Hello, just some general comments about fortify... I think currently suspend is much better than fortify. Suspend's ability to reduce damage, and slow enemies, and stay mobile make suspend much better than fortify. There are not many situations I can think of where I would prefer fortify over suspend in the current build... Other than in the last ring of blue star... But in RS and WS, I am almost never going to want to use fortify (I'd rather use suspend).
If I can make a recommendation to make fortify more unique/desirable/interesting, it would be to make fortify act more like a "siege" mode. I don't know if you've ever played StarCraft Broodwar or StarCraft 2, but I am thinking about the terran siege tank here... If you are familiar with that game, you will know what I am talking about immediately...
Basically, I think fortify should make your ship immobile, give your ship a long range artillery attack, and give your ship a defensive buff... Your ship is vulnerable while it is transforming in/out of "siege mode".
TLDR: Fortify needs something more impressive to make it attractive and it's out-shined by suspend at the moment.
haughty river
I still can't work out why suspend in DN has just become vanilla fortify and fortify has been made mostly useless outside of BLS
nova vale
He just made Fortify an offensive module instead of a defensive one with the DN early access update. The name is "Fortify". Not Amplify 2.0. It does the same thing as Amplify just not an AOE.
haughty river
🙄
opaque ginkgo
He just made Fortify an offensive module instead of a defensive one with the DN ...
New Fortify (misnomer) still taunts enemies to change targets. When combined with the other changes already present and on the way to RS such as reduced Clump, and thus the need for the pause button that is Barrier in HS, the change to Fortify is part of a range of other changes. We needed Fortify because offensive and defensive gear in HS wasn't balanced and the number of enemies was unreasonable. I'm paraphrasing the blog entry, I hope I'm being accurate.
eager otter
He just made Fortify an offensive module instead of a defensive one with the DN ...
I think it's good that AP is experimenting with Fortify... It definitely needs more "pizzazz" to make it attractive, and a radical redesign is needed...
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The ship immobility aspect is a great design choice and really helps to set Fortify apart from other modules. There are lot's of tactical tricks you can do with this in WS/RS/BLS. KEEP IT.
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The target priority switching feature is also another interesting utility - but it really only useful against lone Colossus... It is not very useful against large clumps of cerbs, or other capital ships (which AP touches on in the latest blog post). I don't think I've ever seen the target priority switching become a major deciding factor in WS either. BUFF IT
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Point #1 and #2 are "utility abilities", and give no incentive for players to level Fortify beyond level 1. In the previous iteration of DN, the damage reduction bonus was too small and overlapped with Suspend... Now in the latest iteration of DN, the weapon damage buff is also too small and overlaps too much with Weapon Amplifier. The "level scaling benefit" still needs a major overhaul, and it needs to be unique from other modules. BUFF IT.
My thoughts on how Fortify could be improved:
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Make the target switching MUCH more powerful and easier to use... I suggest trying something like Fortify makes your ship the ONLY valid target for all enemies in range - this means multi-target weapons ONLY shoot at the ship with Fortify active. This gives Fortify some of the benefits that we lost with suppress...
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Try a more radical damage reduction feature like: "Only Y enemies can fire at a ship with Level X Fortify". This gives a really solid reason for players to level up fortify, because a higher level Fortify means fewer ships can shoot at the target with Fortify active... So for example, a ship with level 12 fortify would be the only valid target and if only 2-3 ships can fire at your ship at once, that could provide a significant benefit...
I'll leave these as some more radical suggestions to consider...
☝️ but I think if Fortify doesn't get a radical design change like this, fiddling with "damage bonus modifiers" and "damage reduction modifiers" is just going to be a waste of time, and it would be better to simply delete fortify...
Brutally honest opinion...
haughty river
I think it's good that AP is experimenting with Fortify... It definitely needs m...
Lol giving fortify immobility is the one change that actually killed its utility... I'll take it that you've never actually used high level fortify in RS, WS or BLS
There is no value to an offensive or defensive boost if your enemy can just run away from you to negate it. Equally against cerbs it just turns into a ship suicide button if you can't kill them all before it's effect wears off
glacial token
Lol giving fortify immobility is the one change that actually killed its utility...
bear in mind the Q posed at the top of this page is 'blah blah fortify in BLS'... since he removed emps stopping power, he gave it to fortify. but yes it definitely sucks that DNfort doesn't behave like HSfort. 🤷♂️
haughty river
Yes but compared to EMP in vanilla HS, fortify in DN is even worse than EMP because EMP effectively has 100% damage reduction while fortify has a fraction of that
glacial token
im in no way arguing DNfort is better than HSfort. DNfort has been modified again so it does zero damage reduction but instead boosts the damage output of the activating ship. compared to HS, pretty much all the mods are a pale shadow of their HS conterpart. they've all been reduced so much that as shitty as FNfort sounds, in comparison to what u can choose from, there is some useability.. 🤷♂️
opaque ginkgo
Yes but compared to EMP in vanilla HS, fortify in DN is even worse than EMP beca...
I do and don't agree.
HS:EMP is a localized universal pause button not damage reduction since that refers to what HS:Fortify does which is reduces incoming damage leaving outgoing unaffected (I'm confident you know this already). When HS:Fortify meets HS:Fortify combat drags. In DN it's clear, both in what we see and has been explicitly stated in blog posts, that the changes intended in DN, of making decisions matter which can show up in faster combat resolutions; I see DN:Fortify fitting that well.
I've watched players avoid the final ring collapse using DN:Fortify (similar to HS:EMP) and use that damage increase to end opponents, thus the match, sooner.
DN:Suspend is more similar in affect to damage reduction of HS:Fortify but when DN:Suspend meets DN:Suspend combat drags (just like HS:Fortify) but only sort-of because it doesn't affect modules so modules such as rockets etc still have a role to play in BLS. Overall I'd say DN is an improvement but more testing would be nice, I'm only one person.
How much have you tried out DN:Fortify in BLS?
haughty river
I do and don't agree.
HS:EMP is a localized universal pause button not damage ...
I've used it almost exclusively in BLS and I don't like it... it's a pale shadow of HS fortify, a kinda wierd hybrid with EMP and it basically kills blast shield builds which needed fortify to be able to survive against other shields in BLS...
opaque ginkgo
I've used it almost exclusively in BLS and I don't like it... it's a pale shadow...
Huh, I've had the experience of using DN:Fortify as DN:Fortify rather than try to use it as HS:Fortify which is more like DN:Suspend in affect but has other perks like catching up with targets for kill shots. DN:Fortify, to me, is more like HS:EMP which favors final ring collapses immobility like I described in my last; different application and use case.
haughty river
Yes it's basically HS EMP which is why it sucks because EMP sucked in BLS and no one except noobs used it once we stopped flying off roids at the end
eager otter
Lol giving fortify immobility is the one change that actually killed its utility...
I was power-levelling fortify for use in WS... So most of my experience has been with Fortify-10 in WS against mid-tier teams (generally non-speed meta). Starting to use it in BLS a bit more too... In RS, I use level 12 Omega shield, so don't really need extra tanky-ness. So I'm not an expert with fortify in HS... But I was certainly excited to upgrade and use it in WS/BLS...
But my excitement to upgrade it further has pretty much evaporated with DN, now that I see its function being superseded by suspend in DN. Suspend, EMP, and W.Amp are all competing heavily with fortify now, and it's not really standing out as an appealing module anymore...
So my perspective/bias is as someone who was excited to use Fortify for more ship-to-ship combat, and investing some decent time and resources into it, and I'm concerned that it's not going to be a widely used module anymore.
When I think about "Fortify", my impressions are 1) it should pair well with laser (longer combat means laser shines), 2) it should promote ship-ship combat, 3) it should provide good defensive capabilities...
Fortify is not achieving these "expectations" and needs something extra, or different...
Can I suggest another way to improve fortify???
SUGGESTION: What if fortify had an active (or even passive?) ability which prevented the ship with Fortify from being a valid target for Bond?
My view is Bond has a huge affect on the meta, and if Dark ebula is supposed to be about removing over-lap between modules and emphasizing more hard and soft counters - why not make a module like fortify a more effective counter to Bond?
Bond (and barrier, and suppress etc etc) is part of the reason why we don't see more ship-to-ship combat. I think this feature would make Fortify a much more attractive module in BLS and WS...
haughty river
Don't forget explosives... as 1 shot instagib mods... fortify allows blast shield builds to become viable and allow ship to ship combat again
brave grove
equip, but not upgrade beyond level 1. works well with impulse shields, that's why
royal dome
At the end, fly to the middle; barrier plus fortify to hold you still = win. I do it often.
delicate hornet
At the end, fly to the middle; barrier plus fortify to hold you still = win. I ...
:v
solemn turtle
I use bond over fortify and I agree that bond should not work against fortified targets.. sounds like I use fortify but I do not 😂
pastel girder
Fortify no longer provide reduce dmg receive and will blow within veng. Provide reduce dmg receive will make it good again.
And make motion shield dont work with fortify in sametime
safe mango
Inasou the Great: YPQ-1638:
DLF-8205 (matchmaking was decent-ish); SWT-2653; UIB-7709; SFF-6964; JFN-5112; GJS-2160 (other players also did bring it); JCX-0595; AFK-2865; BUK-9525:
I tried both Ranked & Unranked matches.
It is really difficult to get fortify to work in unranked matches once there are bombers because it becomes incredibly unlikely that you shall reach the middle sector - the only place where fortify is quite useful - all the lones die before then.
However, I will now try using fortify differently: to try to stay between the collapsing area & bomber sectors when there are no asteroid fields, although the timing must be pretty spot on to avoid the impacts being negligible & hence a waste of module slots.
However, in conclusion, whilst fortify can be the perfect module for specific scenarios, I would not frequently bring it through the anomaly!
Also please can we always have a storm in the star sector no matter the level of BLS 🙂
Reason: It looks sick. (I said this when testing Impulse [Delta] Shield)