Gemini - The Twin Warframe

[Krion112]

Gemini

The Twin

 

Concept:

 

Role: Malleable Offense

 

Stats:

Health - 80 (240 @R30)

Shields - 100 (300 @R30)

Power - 100 (150 @R30)

Armor - 65

Sprint Speed - 1.1

 

Polarities:

2x Madurai (V)

Aura - Naramon (Bar)

 

 

Abilities

 

Replicate -

Spawn a Specter of a targeted Tenno; if no target, will create a Specter of Gemini. The Replica will also have copies of the target's weapons.

-Gemini Replicas and Specters cannot use Replicate

-Aesthetically, the Replica of Gemini will be female

-Duration mods increase the Replica's lifetime

-Strength mods increase the Replica's rank, relative to the location

-Range mods have no effect

 

Helix -

Sends forth twin bolts of corrosive power that swirl around each other in a helix pattern, melting enemy armor and disintegrating weaker opponents caught in the blast.

-Helix has a 100% chance to proc

-The Helix bolts have innate punch through

-Duration mods increase the lifetime of the projectiles

-Strength mods intensify the corrosive damage and proc

-Range mods increase the projectiles' speed

 

Dissect - 

Temporarily increases the multi-shot on Gemini's guns, and provides all his melee weapons with additional slash damage. Additionally, any Replicas present will also receive these buffs for the duration of the ability.

-Slash damage applied will be a percentage of the weapons current total damage

-Duration mods increase the time of the ability

-Strength mods increase the multi-shot and increase the slash damage provided

-Range mods have no effect

 

Balance - 

Gemini levels the playing field, temporarily reducing the rank of all enemies in the mission, lowering all of their stats for a short time.

-Does not affect Eximii, Assassins, or Bosses

-Enemies resist the ability more the greater their rank (however, they will never be completely immune)

-Duration mods increase the time of the ability

-Strength mods increase the effect on enemies

-Range mods have no effect

 

 

Acquisition

Gemini's parts would be provided after the Assassination mission of the Ganymede planetoid (the Ganymede location on Jupiter would be renamed 'G Gate'). Ideally, the boss battle would be against a Corpus Indoctrination Executive named Xin Kijett, and Gemini would be apart of the battle as opposition.

 

 

Lore / Codex Entry

<Forthcoming>

Edited January 12, 2015 by Krion112

[Krion112]

Ah, thanks, I'll fix that...

[Mothy]

I tried once to create a twin warframe and overdid it once. Im interested in this and hope you do well with it, hopefully better than I did.. ^^;

[Bibliothekar]

This sounds interesting, although Two Minds sounds too much like just another Roar/Warcry/Speed type buff. Maybe something else?

And I have a scene from a cartoon or anime in mind regarding Helix Strike, but all my gorramn memory can come up with is "well, there was this pair of siblings and they twirled around each other to form a DNA-like helix to attack or contain a baddie, and it was a cartoon". Do you have any idea of the amount of crap Google spits out when you try and search for this? That there is a whole gorramn TV series called "Helix" doesn't make this any easier ...

Btw, you're switching from present to past tense halfway down the second paragraph. ;)

Edited February 21, 2014 by Bibliothekar

[Krion112]

Yeah, Two Minds isn't exactly something I wanted to make, but there wasn't really another power that came to mind that involved both of them working together through one body.

As far as Helix Strike, I too have seen that somewhere. I mostly did it though because I associate twins with the helix shape. Don't know why.

 

And yes, I noticed I messed up my tenses. I was too lazy to fix it earlier though, but I didn't expect to get called out on it. You here on the forums must all be like awesome writers and artists to have caught that, hah.

[Bibliothekar]

Nah, I'm a rather bad writer, because I'm lacking imagination. But I'd be a pretty good editor / proofreader. Maybe I should reconsider my choice of profession ... [size=1]I even go so far as to correct typos I find while reading a book. Really bad habit.[/size]

[Siubijeni]

The apparent doctor stands from observing the patient.

So... he's only apparently a doctor? I'm a bit skeptical of the entire set-up, honestly. DE has begun coming out with lore, piece-meal. If the boy was in a void-accident, he'd be quarantined and they certainly wouldn't put someone else in him. If the girl was, well, that goes double. And if it happened later, what the heck was this double-person doing on the ship in the first place?

Also, I wouldn't say the dual-frame has been tossed around "quite a bit..." this is only the fourth iteration, or so. I was the one who did it first, so I've been watching that :P

 

I even go so far as to correct typos I find while reading a book. Really bad habit.

I thought I was the only one who did that :P And in that light, nice name.

 

In-Game:

 

Gemini's base health and shields are equal to Loki's; starting out at 75/75 and eventually turning to 225/225. He would also have weaker armor than most Warframes. The reason behind this weakness is due to the simplicity of his warframe in order to allow its duplicating ability.

The powers are as follows:

 

Replicate

     Gemini inititates the duplication process, creating an ally armed with his current arsenal. The duplicate will only have a percent of his health and shields, and will phase back to him once its health is depleted. The duplicate could be directed with the waypoint.

 

Divide

     With a single, quick slash, Gemini propels a vertical plane of energy forward, immediately dissecting or heavily damaging any enemies that get caught in its wake.

 

Two Minds

     Gemini and his sister temporarily share mental processes, allowing him to have momentary increases in rate of fire, swing speed for melee weapons, and sprinting speed, and decreasing weapon reload time, boosting his own combat abilities.

 

Helix Strike

     Gemini summons his twin, and the two connect back to back, followed by spinning in a double helix formation, immediately spinning towards the nearest enemy and striking them down, and then bouncing off to strike additional targets for the duration of the power.

 

Replicate is far and away too powerful for a first ability. I know you tried to moderate that by making the frame rather sub-par stat-wise, but there's not much to be done about how overpowered many weapons are. The usual "solution" people come up with is to introduce a damage penalty on the clones equipment, but that doesn't worth either--then the ability is only useful with said overpowered weaponry. It really can't be done effectively, not without creating an entire secondary damage table that nerfs every weapon in different ways--something that is far too much work for one ability.

 

So Divide has basically the same targeting as a slash dash or rhino charge, but lacks the mobility aspect? In theory, there's nothing wrong with that. In practice, it wouldn't be hard to balance, either. The problem lies in that most players will probably dismiss it as an inferior copy of those other abilities unless it has way too much damage or range for it's power tier and cost. It's not very exciting :/ Since it's supposed to bisect units, might I reference the mechanic used by my own Twinframe's ability, "Solar Flare" (Found here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/114048-sotr-concepts-warframes-3-twinframe-chimera-and-hybrid/)? I think something similar could work here. To summarize, the ability would have a moderately large damage pool to draw from. When the field encounters an enemy, it expends as much damage from the pool as they have life to kill and bisect them. When it strikes and enemy that has more hitpoints remaining than damage left in the pool (IE, when it hits something it can't kill), the beam ends--either without damaging that enemy, or doing whatever damage remains in the pool. The former is probably more balanced.

 

Two Minds is... well, it's iffy. Thematically, an ability of that name doesn't really make sense for those bonuses. The gun itself is the major limiting factor of fire rate, and the agility and training of a body the swing speed of melee weapons. At first look, sprint speed kind of makes sense due to the presumably increased coordination, but the physical limitations of your eyes and that sort of coordination plays too big a role in keeping your balance and not tripping up for it it be viable. Only the reload time really makes some semblance of sense. But mechanically, the ability is too much like a combination of speed, roar, warcry, and those other buffs--with the addition of a fire-rate bonus. It's too powerful.

When I see the name of this ability, it makes me think of energy. It's difficult to say what the actual effect would be--an energy regeneration ability makes sense but is too difficult to balance in a way that players will actually use. Duplication of the next ability used (two for the price of one) could be interesting, but really only works with Divide... so that would limit the power way too much (I guess you could get a third Replication clone, but that ability is already a bit broken). The only thing that comes to mind right now is based on that increased coordination, with two minds to pay attention to the battlefield: perhaps an ability based on automatic reactions, like an auto-parrying and damage return ability, to give the frame a defense?

 

Helix Strike is a little unclear. Is it an automatic ability like Blade Storm? I don't think that would be received well. If it's more of a directed "whirlwind" attack, that would be more interesting... but potentially a little iffy since you'd have to balance that compared to the radial destruction ultimates. What would be an appropriate DPS, and how long would it last? Hard to say.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Siubijeni

[Krion112]

So... he's only apparently a doctor? I'm a bit skeptical of the entire set-up, honestly. DE has begun coming out with lore, piece-meal. If the boy was in a void-accident, he'd be quarantined and they certainly wouldn't put someone else in him. If the girl was, well, that goes double. And if it happened later, what the heck was this double-person doing on the ship in the first place?

Also, I wouldn't say the dual-frame has been tossed around "quite a bit..." this is only the fourth iteration, or so. I was the one who did it first, so I've been watching that :P

I said apparent doctor to show that he was the doctor and that the other man was not. The other was referred to as an assistant, but I was trying to take it from the third-person of the boy's perspective, who just assumed the other guy was the doctor's assistant of sorts. He doesn't really know who either are or what organization they're apart of. My perspective on the creation of the Tenno was that the Orokin intended it. Now wouldn't you take advantage of and protect your advantage in war? That's just my outlook on why I wrote it that way though. There are many ways to look at it; for example, you think I meant that the sister's mind was fused with the brother's, but that's not what happened...

 

As far as the powers go:

 

I never deliberated on the stats of Replicate, like how much energy in consumes or effectiveness of the clone. In my idea for the clone, the AI would just be a glorified mix between a Hostage and a Grineer Lancer. Its aim would be randomly off at times and perfectly accurate others. It would also not do the standard player hold down the trigger type of attacking; it would take bursts and have short down times between attacks. And you have to remember, the clone isn't anywhere near as quick, nimble, and/or strong as the original; it's bound to get killed. It also doesn't have infinite time; the clone phases back to you as well after a certain amount of time has passed. I'll think more on it...

 

As I stated, this entire Warframe was created from my entirely Solo play; I want a Warframe that can handle itself in a way that I would tactically want without just being a really beefy, tank. Divide was created from the many times I've accidentally Slash and Dashed into a group of enemies that were ever so slightly too much for me to deal with alone; a slashing attack that, though might not do as much damage and have as much of an area effect, would let me dish out some direct damage with a power instead of trying to gun down too many guys or wasting all that energy on the ultimate power. I do like your recommendation, however; I'll see if I can improve Divide.

 

Like I told the other guy, Two Minds wasn't exactly something I wanted to say either. I just thought that the third power would be the twins working together through one form, and would be some of temporary buff, boost, or similar. If you've got a better suggestion for the third power, I'm definitely all ears.

 

And lastly, Helix Strike; I don't really have a clear vision for it. My first idea for it was literally target a guy, and then activate the power, and you would strike him down, followed by striking down other enemies near him, almost like a mix of Slash and Dash and Ash's final power. (I can't ever remember it...)

 

I do appreciate a critique in the opposite perspective, however. It's got me thinking...

Edited February 22, 2014 by Krion112

[Siubijeni]

It's already been confirmed that although the Orokin built the warframes around the Tenno, the Void-related events that actually gave them their power was not something they did on purpose. It's also confirmed that, especially initially, they were extremely wary of those affected by the Void--quarantines, at the very least, were used as a protective measure, and much more caution is only to be expected. Anyway:

 

Replicate: With the state of minion AI in the game, no one will spend more than 25 energy on it--so you can't counter its power with a cost increase. It could get killed, sure--but if you give it too little health, it will be worthless and no one will use it. If you give a realistic amount, a clone equipped with Soma will be far too powerful for something that only costs 25 energy--alternatively, one equipped with Braton or something like that won't really be worth it. If you try to counter that by reducing a clone's damage output, then only Soma-clones would be useful. That severely limits the ability. At that point, it's no more useful than Decoy... probably less so, actually.

 

Divide: I didn't mean to say Divide was bad, necessarily; just that it certainly isn't exciting, and most players would dismiss it as quickly as Silence.

 

Two Minds: Understandable. An increase in coordination and reaction times would be a realistic benefit of such a condition. I believe I did ramble a bit about other possibilities, but I don't want to put too many ideas in your head--it's your idea. What can you come up with given a little prompting? I think the most promising direction is a defensive ability based upon auto-parrying and damage return, with perhaps a slight bonus to movement and/or stamina.

 

Helix Strike: Slash Dash and Bladestorm? Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Even if that weren't kind of copying a power, though (it's not very exciting...), you'd have the secondary problem of all the hate on Bladestorm. Personally, I love it, but I seem to be in a minority.

[Bibliothekar]

By itself, Divide is no bad ability. I just see it more on a child of Excalibur and Zephyr. In the Shadow Warrior remake, you can unlock a special sword move that let's you create a shockwave with your katana that slices through enemies further away (although it becomes weaker with the distance until it disappears). You even have some minor influence on the angle (more horizontal or vertical). I used it quite a few times to take down those nasty harpies (because sword moves are more powerful than almost all other weapons - so it's the other way round to Warframe).

[Krion112]

I'm bringing this concept back from the dead with some new artwork and new abilities. All comments above this have been rendered irrelevant, but it was some great discussion.