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lets be real about Railjack and Archwing; a harsh truth and a suggestions


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everyone had the idea that archwing was finally going to be revived with the introduction of railjack only to be disappointed. the archwing role is generally weak unless you have amnesha and wisp combo. other than that, archwing is mainly used to board and eliminate crewships and transition between your railjack and certain objectives.

people expected for it to be an alternative role to the gunner and are expecting it to be so in the future. they were wrong to expect such things. this brings me to my main point, though it may be harsh.

imagine for a moment if using the archwing to destroy fighters were as effective as any gunner role. not more powerful, just as efficient. now, obviously everyone in the squad would have the potential to go out and slay fighters. what do you think the best course of action would be? i'd say it would make more sense to leave your railjack on the side of the map while each individual player eliminate fighters and complete objectives without worrying about repairing the railjack, piloting the railjack, managing resources on the railjack, or any cooperation for that matter. this is why archwing is weak in raljack now because i believe it was intended to be weak. the developers know that everyone wants to play the independent away-team role so they placed these restrictions to prevent everyone from doing so. the prof is that players are so desperate that some find loopholes (wisp + amnesha) in order to consistently play this independent role.

i get it though. archwing is fun. cooperation is restrictive and boring. HOWEVER, this is one of the few gammodes that demand cooperation and is in fact ALL ABOUT RAILJACK.

my suggestion.

archwing stats SHOULD BE buffed to the point where they ARE as useful as the gunner role, but for a limited time only.

players are given ability to charge their archwing while they stay within the railjack. once the archwing is fully charged, the player is given the option to use a new archwing ability that will increase its stats for a short period of time (roughly 3 minutes, 5 at the most.). if a player returns to the railjack during this state, the archwing will have a reduced charge period, but the ability cannot be activated again until the archwing is fully charged.

this will motivate players to cooperate with their teammates within their railjack while their archwing is charging, then use it for a short period of time and be effective while doing so. this also potentially gives players more opportunity to use their own archwings instead of the same player outside 100% of the time while another is forced to stay on the railjack.

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I'll address my opinions on this:

  • In the latest Prime Time stream, they address the survivability side and are apparently looking to fix that by making the other frames much less squishy. They know it's not ideal to have most enemies be able to one-shot you, and in my experience leading up to this, Amesha can shrug off even the most powerful enemies in Neptune by just using her 1 while Itzal gets shredded by literally everyone and Odonata's 1 is basically useless unless you can keep every enemy in front of you (a very difficult thing to do in space).
  • For Itzal:
    • Itzal's 1 is new enough I haven't really gotten acquainted with it yet, so I can't really speak much about it.
    • Itzal's 2 would be much more useful if it would work more like Ivara's Prowl. Let people lunge for melee, but don't let them shoot, slow down their normal movement, shorten the melee lunge distance significantly, and break it if they boost.
    • Itzal's 3 is useful even if it doesn't immediately kill the enemies, because you can just unload your weapon on them. This ability is fine, just could use its radius buffed a little (like maybe 10-20%).
    • Itzal's 4 is a bit weak, but the fighters just need their beam damage buffed a bit. (They also need to note the beam damage.)
  • For Odonata:
    • Odonata's 1 just needs reworked. Not sure how precisely it should be reworked, but as it is right now, it's almost more of a hindrance.
    • Odonata's 2 needs to have each missile's base damage increased significantly, as it takes 3-4 hits to kill even the weaker enemies on Neptune. Also, the volley count should be tied to duration, not strength, and strength should increase damage, to align with all the other frames and archwings.
    • Odonata's 3 is niche, but it has its uses. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually shows its utility more in Railjack than it did in normal archwing missions.
    • Odonata's 4 I've never used, but it looks fine numerically, at least. I just never really used this much.
  • For Amesha:
    • Amesha's 1 almost needs nerfed. It makes that archwing near unkillable at max rank, and I can shrug off even a large cluster of eximus units on Neptune using only that and occasionally dropping Amesha's 2.
    • Amesha's 2 is fine as it is. It works for CC and keeps enemies occupied, which is invaluable for certain types of missions.
    • Amesha's 3 is niche, but useful. It synergizes well with its 4.
    • Amesha's 4 is something that looks promising, but I haven't really used it much yet.
  • I've not (yet) used Elytron, so I can't speak on that.
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A suggestion for your suggestion on buffing Archwings:
-Make the AW and it's weapons' stats scale with their Intrinsic level(s) and use that to scale 'effectiveness' on enemies in Railjack, even when dropping the Archgun in on foot in a station. This stat scaling can then be adapted to be just a bit lower than the least damaging weapon on the Railjack.
-Archwing speed should have a loose 'cap', allowing you to 'break' the speed limit (speed scales over time while moving in a given direction, because space - only happens when boost/AW-sprint is on) and properly pursue enemy fighters.
-Archmelees should have at least the same range as a Galatine, if not more. Attacks should stall enemy ships.

A suggestion for enemies:
-How about adding normal AW enemies in when a capital ship, command/missile silo/hangar base (or equivalent) is present, and have their deaths count to fighter kills?
-Enemies not killed when departing an exploding Crew or capital ship would attempt to evacuate the Crewship and become normal AW enemies, if they reach the exit.

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