...and I'm impressed.
I did a quick reference of what she needs in terms of making her powers shine and threw something together then gave her a simple trial-by-fire: Zariman Exterminate
At first my guns were carrying her. Got a little cocky and activated a Void Angel... couldn't handle it with just the guns (didn't bring my best to avoid wholly carrying her).
So I avoid it and go about killing the enemies I need and in the process unlock Merulina. I hop on and decide to give the Angel another try since it's been following me. Now I've got the advantage against it.
In the battle against the Angel I unlock Aqueblades and found they were... honestly OK against the Angel but pretty good against the Grineer.
Anyone else surprised by her beating the negative hype?
She's been buffed a few times which helped a lot, plus augments!
Passive:
Her passive used to deactivate as soon as you stopped moving (now has a 1 second grace period before losing the buff)
Secondary crit chance was doubled from 100% to 200%
1, Sea Snares:
Increased number of Sea Snares per cast to 5
Increased damage increase per tick
60% increase in seeking speed
Didn't have the 200% damage vulnerability to enemies caught inside originally (or eximus hit by it since they can't be cc'd)
Increased seek range from 4m to 10m (150% increase!)
2, Merulina:
Buffed to have a 4 second window of damage absorption that adds to the health pool (previously had 0 seconds)
They added the handy little dash to quickly regain speed after hitting something
Could eventually enter spoiler mode without being kicked off Merulina when you exit spoiler mode (this was added for all k-drives)
Merulina healing augment that relies on sea snare kills that gives 200% reload speed and fire rate to secondaries
3, Aquablades:
increased range by about 25%
damage and duration buffed by 50%
Stacking damage buff augment to build beeeg slash damage
4, Riptide:
25% increase in radius
added the press/hold functionality
She got a lot of negativity because she was a pretty poor frame on release unfortunately. The buffs helped a lot though and I'm glad you're enjoying her!
Also idk if this has been fixed or not, but having a single secondary and a glaive on Merulina lets you utilize melee auto blocking. This really helps to make Yareli tankier on her 2 (just keep in mind the blocking angle)
She doing quite well in terms of survivability and damage output, but the handling of Merulina remains a huge issue, especially with the invisible corners everywhere. I lost count of how many times I’ve tried her, had little fun, then got irritated 2 minutes later and switched to another frame.
She has been buffed since the negativity but people either didn’t go back to try her or keep parroting the same stuff. She’s been wildly decent for a long time now.