After each new patch it has become customary of me to write a somewhat lengthy post on any changes that Griselma has received. As my favorite Hero in Gigantic, she's still incredibly unpopular and yet she continues to go from strength to strength. In this patch, she has received a significant quantity and after testing a multitude of builds during last weeks European Guardian Arena as well as the weekend play test. I have to say that she continues to go from strength to strength and Motiga deserve a great deal of praise for the recent changes to her.

Firstly and for anyone unfamiliar with the changes she has undergone, please see her below changes:

Portal Beast (RMB/LT)

• Increased cooldown penalty for a dead pet from 12s to 15s.

Portal Call (Q/LB)

• NEW: Portal Trap: Create a trap that pushes foes and summons your farthest pet. Hit (Q/LB) again to immediately trigger the trap.

1. Now has trap functionality by default.
2. By default you can only have one trap at a time.
3. Reduced default damage dealt by the trap.

• NEW: Portal Call upgrade: Reduces cooldown for (RMB/LT) if you have no pet to relocate. (Replaces the "heal pets when you relocate them" upgrade.)
• NEW: Trapper Keeper upgrade: You can have up to 3 traps at once. (Replaces the "you can now make traps" upgrade.)
• NEW: Trap Easiest upgrade: Your trap deals 5x damage and hits a much larger area. (Replaces the launch upgrade.)

Displacement (E/RB)

• Increased the maximum time that Griselma can remain in her Displacement portal from 3 to 4 seconds.
• Griselma no longer collides with other characters while in her Displacement portal.
• NEW: Conservation of Mass upgrade: When you enter your portal, you summon a Portal Beast. (Replaces the buff-your-pets upgrade.)

1. This upgrade will summon a beast even if your summon skill is on cooldown. It does not, however, allow you to summon more than the 3 beast cap.

• Gift of Preservation upgrade: While in your portal, your Portal Beasts regain health.
• Gift of Annihilation upgrade: While in your portal, your Portal Beasts attack rapidly.
• NEW: Exit Strategy upgrade: Tap (E/RB) again to teleport forward. +5s cooldown if you teleport.
• NEW: Escape Hatch upgrade: If you teleport, you emerge at your nearest trap within 15m of your entry point.
• Portal Collapse upgrade: If you teleport, enemies near your destination are stunned for 1.5s.

Talents

• Level 3 Skill Specializations

1. Heel! (Q/LB) talent: When your Portal Beasts relocate, they are fully healed. (Replaces cooldown reduction talent.)

Analysis

Portal Beast

At first it might appear that Griselma is yet again being punished for a longer cooldown when a Portal Beast dies but it’s actually balanced out fairly well. Firstly, Portal Beasts now summon much faster. In fact, they’re instantaneous meaning there’s no longer a protracted casting time before they activate. In addition to this, Griselma has also gained access to “free” Portal Beast if she utilises the Conservation of Mass upgrade (when she dives down a Portal Beast is spawned at her location). Heel! also provides a full heal to relocated pets, adding some much needed survivability to their lifespan should you be willing to sacrifice her extended reach from Hand Out. Finally, Portal Call (left upgrade path) now reduces the cooldown time on Portal Beasts if you don’t have any available - a strong line that offsets the extended death timer.

Portal Call 

One of the biggest problems with the previous Portal Call upgrade line was the fact that Griselma had to utilise an upgrade point in order to gain access to her Portal. This restricted her heavily because her lack of mobility, combined with the strength of Displacement and Exit Strategy. By making Portal Call summon a portal by default (by pressing Q) or summoning your further beast to you by pressing Q twice, there’s now a great deal of flexibility in which paths you can choose. The right path is now clearly defined as one that’s very offensive but also providing some utility. Having the ability to summon 3 traps with Trapper Keeper gives you a great deal of control on the lead up to a Capture Point (especially if you litter the entrance) whilst Trap Easiest unquestionably makes traps incredibly potent. Several times during the Guardian Arena I chose to line the entrance to Intake with three traps and on multiple occasions, when the enemy attempted to steamroll in, they took huge damage because they failed to avoid all three. I also like the fact that Stumbling Block now has a purpose as a utility alternative, rather than always relying on damage output to survive: the slow still proves particularly useful.

[Suggestion] If the new upgrades need anything, it’s for Griselma’s traps to show on the mini-map for you and your team, in addition, Trap Easiest needs a larger visual indicator if it is supposed to trigger in a larger area (it remains the same size). It’s rather easy to forget where you’ve placed traps so having small purple markers on the map would be a real help.

Displacement

Similarly to Portal Call, part of the problem with Displacement is the fact that to pursue anything other than Portal Collapse and Exit Strategy was suicide, especially against coordinated teams. Displacement alone is rather poor because even though it heals you, now over 4 seconds, you’re still a sitting duck. Skilled players simply wait for you to pop back up and then proceed to murder you. Switching up the upgrade line is more than welcome and I think Motiga have gone about it rather well.

Firstly, Conservation of Mass replacing Conservation of Energy is a very positive change. It allows Griselma to summon a Portal Beast when she has none available. Several times testing this line it turned out rather effective for quickly moving three hands: Displacement > Portal Call > Portal Beast. I also found Gift of Annihilation much more worthwhile now Displacement lasts 4 seconds. With Gift of Preservation and Annihilation unchanged, the left upgrade line remains one intended to buff your hands whilst you aren’t under direct melee pressure.

Where the right upgrade path is concerned, its seen subtle but clever changes. Providing early access to the short teleport (Exit Strategy) as a first upgrade provides a healthy dose of survivability. Considering the teleport forward is now incredibly fast (lightning speed!) it’s also fantastic at confusing enemies as you dart away so quickly. Although you no longer stun those around you from the first upgrade, this is a much better trade off. The reason why I like it so much is that by giving Displacement a +5 second cooldown if you do decide to teleport, means that players may - potentially - think twice about always pursuing the Portal Trap teleport (now known as Escape Hatch instead of Exit Strategy). Previously Griselma could find herself in trouble, teleport away, replant a Portal Trap, return to combat and repeat the process. It left her with absolutely no risk. Extending the cooldown but also reducing the distance on the teleport to a trap even further (now 15 meters instead of 25) makes the other upgrade paths much more attractive. Several times this week I took Portal Collapse because the 1.5 second stun remains significant, especially if you have stamina available and when combined with the new speed of the teleport. I will add that using Portal Traps to teleport to is still incredibly strong - even with the reduced distance - because when combined with having the ability to plant three at a time, it’s more than possible to gain plenty of escape routes.

[Suggestion] Exit Strategy still remains superior to Conservation of Mass because it provides Griselma with some form of escape if she over extends or if an assassin gets too close. Without Exit Strategy, submerging simply prolongs your life for 4 seconds. Upon appearing, you’ll still die so what then, is the point of not taking Exit Strategy?. Despite me wanting to pursue Gift of Annihilation, it’s just not worth your inevitable deaths. If Griselma is to have any flexibility here, she either needs a talent that allows her to change Displacement in some way (moving underground would be neat as I’ve had that bug a few times) or make a slight change to Conservation of Mass so that Griselma also receives a small shield on appearing but it causes her spawned Portal Beast to have half health.

[Urgent Bug] Using Displacement does not currently make Griselma immune to damage. Players are free to shoot her underground and she’ll still take full damage.

Final Thoughts and Suggestions

Griselma is, without question, in a very good position right now. Being able to see the damage your Portal Beasts deal, having them spawn quicker and teleport quicker to you is amazing. Combined with the stamina changes all Hero’s have received, I also no longer feel starved of movement or the inability to dodge when needed. If I could recommend any further tweaks to Griselma, it would be the following:

1. [Suggestion]  Beastial Attunement still feels somehwat weak considering it’s a second Tier upgrade. Gaining only 5% extra damage and armor that lasts just 3 seconds longer doesn’t feel worthwhile, especially when Beastial Feast is so useful. Cleansing you and allies of debuffs, whilst being healed, is incredible, especially when you still gain the 10% armor and damage bonus. I appreciate that the bonus is to any and all team mates who pass through, but I’d still argue that having the ability to keep allies free of debuffs and healed (a significant amount) is, on the balance of both upgrades strengths, a much better option for any team. Bumping Beastial Attunement to 20% armor and damage, but lowering the additional duration to 1.5 seconds would make it a more tempting choice.

2. [Suggestion] I’ve really tried to use Ambush Hands more and more because against skilled teams, your hands can often be targeted too easily: having them stealth is very useful. Unfortunately, the inability to control when they attack makes their stealth somewhat problematic. If you wanted to have them lay in wait for an enemy and to only attack when you’re ready, it’s not possible - they’ll attack at the first sight of an opponent and instantly reveal their location. Perhaps too difficult to implement, but I’d actually like to have it so that Portal Beasts with the Ambush Hands upgrade only attack when Griselma does. I’m not entirely sure if this is even feasible but having the ability to entice players into a location, with them thinking that you have no Portal Beasts, only to have three appear, would be wonderful. In addition, I’ve yet to ever see a player revealed on the mini-map as a result of Ambush Hands. Having a larger radius or clearer distance for their detection would be most welcome.

3. [Suggestion] Similarly to my concerns with Beastial Attunement, part of the reason why people don’t pursue Ambush hands and its Tier 2 upgrades is because they’re sub-par by comparison. Smashing Hands, on paper, sounds amazing but I’m it's also not displaying, visually, when armor is broken. The animation occurs (your hands fire red beams) but there’s no UI prompt of the struck enemy having their armor broken or a noticeable damage increase. In addition, the fact the attack is only once every 5 seconds after appearing tends to make it only useful at the start of a fight and of little value during. I think some slight tweaks to both Grasping Hands and Smashing Hands would make them much more desirable. Firstly, I think having the hands perform a special attack after appearing is great but as mentioned, they do nothing afterwards. Having them repeat the special attack every 5 seconds, even when they’ve appeared, would at least give some utility. In addition, I’d like to see Grasping Hands actually provide healing to Griselma not just to themselves. To build on this upgrade line, I’d also like to see them “explode” upon death, causing an effect (but no damage). In the case of Grasping Hands, have them heal in a radius around them whilst Smashing Hands could launch. Although that might sound strong, I don’t believe it’d be any stronger than Beastial Attunement and Beastial Feast combined and would, instead, provide Griselma with a much more offensive set of hands.

4. [Possible Bug] With Beastial Aura, you only ever seem to gain the armor and damage bonus when you Portal Call a Portal Beast to you. Perhaps this is simply a visual bug, but at present Portal Beasts that are freshly summoned don’t provide you with the armor or damage graphics.

5. [Suggestion] Outside of the upgrade lines and similarly to my Portal Call request, please can we see our Portal Beasts on the mini-map?

6. [Suggestion] Please can we gain tooltip clarity on the bonuses Griselma is obtaining by upgrading?

   1. On Spanked, how much is my damage increasing against slowed enemies?

   2. On Mark of Survival, how much health and armor am I gaining against slowed enemies?

   3. On Beastial Feast, how much are my allies healed for?

   4. On Gift of Preservation, how much are my Portal Beasts healed for?

   5. On Gift of Annihilation, how much quicker are my Portal Beasts attacking for? Double or triple speed?

7. [Suggestion] Please can we gain a revised animation for Reach Out? It was previously a blue beam and now it’s a white dotted line leading to your hands appearing over your enemies head. The glow around the end of the hand on your staff also needs some minor graphical improvements (it’s a solid block of blue rather than a lovely sparkle).

I appreciate my final thoughts here are lengthy but that’s only because Griselma is in such a fantastic place, that there’s only a few things left remaining until I consider her “perfect”. Nit-picking on her Reach Out animation or showing Portal Beasts and Traps on the map might seem small, but they’re quality of life improvements/polish that would help Griselma a great deal. Despite that, I'm very pleased with her design progress and Motiga's balancing of her. Great job.