I don't get her; shes low initiative, low HP, 0 damage output, can't do anything useful from the bench and her best tactic can't be played in lots of modes. Is anyone getting her to work? How? In what teams? In what missions/modes?
I've used Gaia quite a lot now, have you read this? I think Gaia is situational but strong. She's an excellent counter-pick answer to an opponents ranged Aristos, I've had a couple of matches where she's locked down Wild Bill, Parvati, Lunah... anyone with a 2+ range, for entire matches. But she can also be used aggressively, dropping a Tank or strong Melee Aristo right into the middle of your opponents team, or to pull Max (for example) out of position and force him to spend turns repositioning. It's 100% true that her Initiative is a real weakness, but it can be played around too. Often there's more than one thing you want her doing, and opponents can't keep everything away from her. However in any Scenario where there are multiple Scoring Zones she's instantly much weaker. She needs multiple "open" deployment zones to jump into or she basically shuts down entirely. And if your opponent brought hEXx3r then Gaia becomes basically pointless unless you can keep hEXx3r where she belongs (which is the Infirmary, the only good hEXx3r is a hEXx3r in the Infirmary), as hEXx3r trivially fixes everything she can do if not kept down. So she's strong against ranged Aristos. Strong in scenarios with lots of open zones. But, can sometimes be easily countered and weak when she can't play to her strengths.
Locking down ranged fighters also seems to be situational as they can still shoot even though they can t move due to the tentacles.
My experience has been that you can shift them to a position where they can do nothing without breaking free. It's fairly reliable, in fact.
if I understand @AdmiralJCJF correctly he's saying that you pull a shooter/key character away from where they are over to an empty and non happening spot on the board. Then simply slap the bots on to them so they are irrelevant for a while Sounds like a solid plan to me!
Well I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I find her super anoying and incredibly strong on scenario like assault or scorched earth. Teleport her, Grab a character and put it away from the action, teleport her again into safety. Almost 100% sure to get a character out of the game, very hard to hunt her down since she is so mobile. Unless I'm missing something ...
She can also be used well to ferry your own Aristos around, which can make for some great plays. But I think there's also something to be had in leaning into her obstacle manipulation, we'll see with a little more play.