Fastest land-based frame, master of kinetic energy - Gauss!
Release date: 2019-08-29
Passive: Gauss has access to a special battery meter filled up by running that gives him buffs depending on fill rate and affects some of his abilities.
Mach Rush - Burst into a hyper-sprint bowling over enemies and charging the battery. Crashing into solid objects generates a powerful shockwave. Hold to rush continuously.
Kinetic Plating - Generate armor plating that converts a portion of absorbed Kinetic Damage into Energy. Also protects Gauss from being staggered or knocked down. Damage Resistance is relative to the battery level.
Thermal Sunder - Siphon kinetic energy from the area, charging the battery and inflicting Cold Status on nearby enemies. Hold reverses the process, draining the battery and inflicting Heat Status on nearby enemies.
Redline - Push Gauss’ battery beyond the redline, supercharging his Abilities and setting Fire Rate, Attack Speed, Reload Speed, and Holster Rate into overdrive. When past the redline, bolts of arcing electricity dance periodically from Gauss, exploding en masse when the ability is deactivated.
Acquisition: Main blueprint can be purchased from the Market. Component blueprints drop from Tier C Disruption on Kappa, Sedna.
I don’t play a whole lot of Gauss, but he’s a really well-rounded frame. Unlike a lot of other buff jugglers, you’re incentivised to stack Duration heavily as it scales his Redline (and not Strength, confusingly).
So, what makes Gauss so well-rounded?
With Mach Crash, he has a reasonably large grouping ability. Kinetic Plating guards against the important Blast damage type, although leaves you open to Electric, Toxin and Mag. Thermal Sunder provides fullstrip, as well as an Expedite Suffering effect for Heat (by converting it to Blast). Redline massively increases your DPS and overall QoL, being one of the few reload buffs in the game.
I’m glad Gauss finally has a Prime release. He’s an excellent newbie frame, albeit hidden behind the scary and confusing Disruption game mode. His signature weapons are also really popular, and coming in with shiny Prime buffs is going to put them in the hands of people still transitioning to Adversary weapons or who are pre-Incarnon.