Warframe Concept: Dune - Now With Visual Concept(S)!

[Vargras]

Browsed over the index, and from what I could see, no one has made a sand-themed warframe just yet. Here's my own shot at it.

 

Dune Overview

 

 

 

Named after the monolithic mountains of sand found on Mars, Phobos, and the ruined remnants of Earth, Dune is a support warframe who uses his control of the sands to buff his allies and debuff enemies. True to the sands themselves, his abilities focus upon blinding enemies and jamming technology.

 

Stats

Level 1/Level 30

Health: 75/225

Shield: 150/450

Armor: 30

Power: 150/225

 

Abilities

 

Abrasion - 25 Energy

Launches a blast of sand at the enemy, dealing periodic damage and steadily slowing them. Affected enemies are left unable to fully defend themselves, causing them to take additional damage.

 

Reasoning: Gives Dune a basic damaging ability outside of his ultimate. The slow would function in such a way that it would progressively slow the enemy -- that is to say, the enemy would initially be slowed by 30%, then 31%, then 32%, and so on, for as long as the ability continued to tick and do damage. Each "tick" of damage would increase the slow effect. For those of you that play League of Legends, think of Nasus' Wither. The damage taken would simply be a flat %, scaling up as the ability was ranked up.

 

Mirage - 50 Energy

Dune conjures a mirage around himself, creating duplicates of himself and his allies. While active, Mirage causes all enemies to have an increased chance to miss against Dune and allies within the Mirage. If Dune or his allies are struck, the attacker is temporarily blinded.

 

Reasoning: Playing upon the potential illusions a desert is capable of creating, Mirage can give Dune and his allies some breathing room in a pinch. Increased miss chance can give Dune and his allies the edge against ranged enemies.

 

Sand Shroud - 75 Energy

Dune summons swirling sands to encompass himself and his allies. While shrouded by the sands, allies gain bonus damage reduction to shields based upon their armor, and bonus status resistance.

 

Reasoning: A buff to help out Dune and his allies when fighting against hordes of Grineer and Corpus troops (and also to give some added protection from Ancients). Status resistance is something that hasn't really been touched on in the game, which would allow the ability to feel unique, and I'm fairly certain the damage reduction calculation present is something else that hasn't been done.

 

Sandstorm - 100 Energy

Dune creates a massive sandstorm around himself. Enemies are heavily buffeted by the raging winds, slowing their movement speed, increasing their chance to miss, and dealing gradual damage. In addition, the sands cause their weapons and shields to undergo catastrophic failure, dealing additional damage to them. Sandstorm is toggleable and follows Dune.

 

Reasoning: Few abilities, aside from Loki's Radial Disarm and Mag's Shield Polarize, really do anything to enemies that involve their weapons or shields. In keeping with the theme (and being true to life), the sands from sandstorm cause catastrophic damage to any kinds of technology. Surviving enemies with weaponry will have to frequently reload, due to weapon jams, and enemies with shields will suffer from slowed shield regeneration.

 

Enemies with neither, such as the Infested, will still be slowed and take damage from the ability (though not as much in comparison to the Grineer or Corpus).

 

Please leave all thoughts and comments below. If I've more or less taken an ability from an existing warframe concept, I apologize -- there's simply too many for me to look through all of them. I've tried to be as unique as possible with some of the buffs and debuffs, however.

 

UPDATE - Now with art! Special thanks to all those who have decided to contribute -- all of them will be quoted (and hidden with spoiler tags) so it doesn't get too big.

 

I gave it a shot too, because I love the idea and I need to practice my drawing skillz anyway. Hope ya'll like it.

Also, sketches 

 

 

I DRAWED MISTUR SANDMAN

 

Don't feel like you have to use this picture, it took me something like 5~10 minutes so if you don't like it it's okay ^^

Edited May 21, 2014 by Vargras

[Vargras]

To be honest, I was actually really worried about having Mirage infringe on Loki's territory. By adding the blind effect, having it be targetable (instead of just dropping it at the player's present location), and having enemies become immune to the taunt effect after triggering the blind, it hopefully still remains unique while allowing Loki's Decoy (and Saryn's Molt, for that matter) to still have a spot within gameplay.

 

[Krjal]

I like the concept as a whole and the spread of abilities. I can see there being a problem though, with no direct damage abilities or buffs to his own weapon damage he'd be hard to justify using unless you're in an organised group with friends or clannies.

 

I really like the idea of support 'frames so I'm not necessarily saying it needs changing but I'll offer an idea you might be able to use for inspiration.

 

If you combine some of the effects of Mirage and Sand Shroud into the 'tier 3' ability position you free up a 'tier 2' ability for something like Abrasion.

 

Abrasion is a short blast of sand projected from Dune (his hand/s maybe?) which deals damage per second and increases damage the effected enemies take for a short period as well. Increasing the level of Abrasion increases the time it's active and the damage multiplier. For example: 1/2/3/4 seconds blast of sand and a 5/10/15/20% damage vulnerability to enemies effected.

 

I imagine it would look something like a couple of seconds firing with an Ignis except particles looking like a stream of sand and dust rather than a fire ball. Probably a smaller cone area too.

 

Good job all up :)

[Vargras]

I like the concept as a whole and the spread of abilities. I can see there being a problem though, with no direct damage abilities or buffs to his own weapon damage he'd be hard to justify using unless you're in an organised group with friends or clannies.

 

I really like the idea of support 'frames so I'm not necessarily saying it needs changing but I'll offer an idea you might be able to use for inspiration.

 

If you combine some of the effects of Mirage and Sand Shroud into the 'tier 3' ability position you free up a 'tier 2' ability for something like Abrasion.

 

Abrasion is a short blast of sand projected from Dune (his hand/s maybe?) which deals damage per second and increases damage the effected enemies take for a short period as well. Increasing the level of Abrasion increases the time it's active and the damage multiplier. For example: 1/2/3/4 seconds blast of sand and a 5/10/15/20% damage vulnerability to enemies effected.

 

I imagine it would look something like a couple of seconds firing with an Ignis except particles looking like a stream of sand and dust rather than a fire ball. Probably a smaller cone area too.

 

Good job all up :)

I myself really enjoy the support role in just about any game -- however, I know Warframe can be much more offensively oriented, and it never even occured to me to give him a damage ability outside of his ultimate. If you don't mind, I'd like to take your idea and mesh it with Sandblast. Obviously toned down a bit, as it'd be the 1 slot, but I can't see any way to cleanly combine Mirage and Sand Shroud.

 

EDIT: Replaced Sandblast. It's different than what you had in mind, but I liked the name far more than what I came up with. Hope you don't mind!

Edited January 4, 2014 by Vargras

[Novocrane]

I like it, but I'm not really interested in seeing another static decoy ability, targeted or dropped.

[Vargras]

I like it, but I'm not really interested in seeing another static decoy ability, targeted or dropped.

Understandable. I decided to go with a decoy ability as it fit with his theme (mirages in the desert are something that cartoons, shows, and movies have done for ages). It's something that's almost instantly recognizable, and easily associated.

 

It's possible it could be replaced with something else, but I have no idea what that "something" could be.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Vargras

[Krjal]

Don't mind at all :)

 

I think what I would do with Mirage and Sand Shroud is make the whole thing a moving aura-like ability. You could have the Mirage follow you around as well like refracted images in the heated swirls of sand. The more of your allies there are in the Shroud the more mirages there are. Enemies have a chance of just shooting at the mirages or if they manage to see though it and shoot at you they have reduced accuracy and the decreased status proc chance.

 

It'd be a little chaotic but kinda fun trying to position yourself so the enemies are shooting at the images and not you and your buddies while not letting them get too close and see though the mirages.

 

Edit. As much as I love the books, thank you for not making the ultimate summon a sandworm :p

Edited January 4, 2014 by Krjal

[Vargras]

Don't mind at all :)

 

I think what I would do with Mirage and Sand Shroud is make the whole thing a moving aura-like ability. You could have the Mirage follow you around as well like refracted images in the heated swirls of sand. The more of your allies there are in the Shroud the more mirages there are. Enemies have a chance of just shooting at the mirages or if they manage to see though it and shoot at you they have reduced accuracy and the decreased status proc chance.

 

It'd be a little chaotic but kinda fun trying to position yourself so the enemies are shooting at the images and not you and your buddies while not letting them get too close and see though the mirages.

 

Edit. As much as I love the books, thank you for not making the ultimate summon a sandworm :p

As much sense as it would make for Sand Shroud to function as an aura, I think it might be better suited if it were a simple AOE buff, similar to Roar, Speed, Warcry, etc.

 

However, having Mirage travel with the player might be interesting. Let me tweak both Sand Shroud and Mirage a bit.

[Vargras]

The following changes have been made:

 

-Mirage now creates an illusionary aura around Dune, creating duplicates of himself and his allies. While active, enemies have an increased chance to miss when attacking Dune and any allies within the Mirage. If an enemy manages to hit Dune or an ally, they are temporarily blinded.

 

-Miss chance added to Sandstorm.

 

-Removed the miss chance from Sand Shroud (relocated to Mirage).

Edited January 4, 2014 by Vargras

[Vargras]

Thanks guys. Though the initial concept was sound, feedback has helped shift it into a seemingly better direction.

 

[Vargras]

The following change has been made:

 

-Sand Shroud now applies a damage reduction to shields, based on the base armor of those affected, with the calculation formula being (base armor + 100) and following the effectiveness curve for armor that is present on the wiki.

Some examples: Loki has 65 base armor, and Ember has 15. At 165 and 115, Loki would enjoy a roughly ~30% damage reduction to shields, and Ember would receive ~25%. On beefier frames, such as Rhino and Valkyr, they would receive 290 (190 + 100) and 400 (300 + 100), resulting in a ~50% damage reduction ot shields for Rhino, and almost ~60% for Valkyr.

[Vargras]

Energy costs added to skills. Mirage and Sand Shroud both have a cost of 50, as they're utility skills more than anything else. In addition, neither one seems quite powerful enough to warrant the 75 energy cost, but if people feel otherwise, please say so.

 

Still need to figure out base values for level 30. Will do that later.

[Cobalt313]

Technically I did post an idea for an earth-based Frame as an offensive tank-type specializing in physical damage and procs, but it was more solid chunks of rock than sand like this one was.

[Vargras]

Technically I did post an idea for an earth-based Frame as an offensive tank-type specializing in physical damage and procs, but it was more solid chunks of rock than sand like this one was.

When I did browse the concept index, it was specifically to see if anyone else had done anything with sand, not necessarily earth.

 

[Vargras]

Level 30 base stats have been added. Also bumping this for the night before going to bed.

[Venarge]

I really like the idea of a sand frame. With the particle effects warframe has, we could get a pretty badass frame!

 

Imagine a skill that transforms your body into sand. You now easily walk between enemy lines while they are firing at you and you just watch the bullets tear holes into the sand body and sand particles fly around as you close your wounds with even more sand!

[Vargras]

Still looking for additional feedback on this.

[-Himari-]

Still looking for additional feedback on this.

 

And you shall receive. Sandstorm, I like what it can do. Basing off of some other moves on what they do, Radial Disarm and Shield Polarize, making the enemies weapons and shield malfunction through a raging, well, sandstorm, is pretty neat. Never been done, definitely unique.

[Vargras]

Appreciate all the kind words!

 

[DeadScream]

 

I DRAWED MISTUR SANDMAN

 

Don't feel like you have to use this picture, it took me something like 5~10 minutes so if you don't like it it's okay ^^

[[DE]Artarrwen]

I gave it a shot too, because I love the idea and I need to practice my drawing skillz anyway. Hope ya'll like it.

Also, sketches 

Edited January 8, 2014 by Artarrwen

[DeadScream]

I see we will all agree with the "covered head" thing ^^

[BizarreFetalChimpanzee]

I really like this idea. We haven't seen any warframes yet with a desert theme, and all of his abilities look like they'd scale well into higher level content because they focus on debuffs/buffs rather than direct damage.

 

Also, I'll get a quick sketch either tonight or tomorrow with an idea of what he could maybe look like.

[Vargras]

You guys are killing me with all this art. Seriously, thank you so much. I had always kinda envisioned him with a hood or scarf around his neck, and it seems so did everyone else! It's a common image when one thinks of a desert, so at least his theme is straightforward and easy to identify (as opposed to even some of the existing frames). I'll be sure to add all of the art to my first post.

 

I really like this idea. We haven't seen any warframes yet with a desert theme, and all of his abilities look like they'd scale well into higher level content because they focus on debuffs/buffs rather than direct damage.

 

Also, I'll get a quick sketch either tonight or tomorrow with an idea of what he could maybe look like.

Scaling is a huge issue with the game (for the time being). Damaging abilities typically have static values, which means they do very well at low levels and poorly at high levels. Buffs and debuffs, on the other hand, are often percentage-based, meaning they continue to be valuable at all levels of play.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Vargras

[DeadScream]

I'm sometimes wondering if this game is meant to be played at high level.