Prime Ability Mods - Making Useless Abilities Useful

[Pizzarugi]

DISCLAIMER:

Sorry guys, I took this concept from Path of Exile's Sacrifice of the Vaal expansion. It had a great concept which I think would be very useful here in Warframe.

 

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As we all know, in almost every warframe (barring a couple like Trinity), there is at least one ability that most people consider to be worthless. Worthless, as in their effectiveness or damage trails off miserably past the midgame to the point that they're no longer effective at all. Take Nyx's psychic bolts for example, their damage hardly poses a threat in the lategame and beyond so users tend to stick to her other 3 abilities. The same applies to Vauban's teslas (granted, those trail off a little later) or Nekros' soul punch. Nobody really use these ability past a certain point in the game, thus they sit in your mod inventory gathering dust since they're not worth wasting mod capacity on.

 

So why don't we give these weak mods a lore-friendly upgrade? How about we give them a prime version to make them better?

 

To prime an ability, you first need to obtain the blueprint for it. Since the Orokin void reward tables are pretty loaded as it is, we can put these blueprints on corrupted enemies or limit them to barrels and lockers. To craft these new abilities, you will also need the ability the prime version is based on (allowing the ability loot drops to remain relevant) as well as a lot of resources. To make the crafting more worthwhile, it could also require a (rare?) fusion core on top of that.

 

Prime abilities will be unique. Besides having its base stats be much higher than their original counterpart, they will also possess a new feature to make them stand out. Whenever you use the prime ability, you will additionally prime that ability, giving it a charge! When the ability has been primed, using it again will cause it to unleash a far more potent version that may have additional effects. Depending on how powerful this new effect is, DE can have each ability require varying charges. And to top it off, casting a primed ability will cost a lot more energy than normal.

 

Examples of some prime abilities and their effects listed below as well as charge requirements. If you have some ideas of your own, please share and I will list them with your name credited to it.

 

Vauban - Tesla Prime: Requires 15 charges

Vauban throws a cluster of 4-8 tesla mines. Stats and duration of prime teslas remain the same as original. These mines, however, will not cling to whatever surface they land on and will instead bounce around the room like rubber balls, zapping whatever they get close to. Perfect for using inside of small rooms and hallways. Should a bouncing mine fall off a cliff, they will return to the last spot they bounced at and the trajectory will be reversed.

 

Nyx - Psychic Bolts Prime: Requires 20 charges

Nyx launches a single psychic bolt at a random target (cannot be designated), dealing extra damage. Should the enemy survive the bolt, two bolts emerge from the target and randomly seek another enemy to strike. These bolts will continue to multiply and spread to every single enemy within a limited range, and cannot target enemies that have already been affected. (If the ability is still considered too weak for lategame/endgame purposes, DE can tack on a stun, blast, or radiation effect.)

 

Ember - Fireball Prime: Requires 15 charges
Ember fires multiple fireballs all around herself, dealing normal damage to targets hit with 100% status effect. If the enemies are killed by the fireball or while the status effect is active, their bodies will explode, dealing a percent of their total life as heat damage to targets within a small radius with 100% status effect. Exploding corpses effect will not spread past the original enemies hit by the fireballs.

 

Excalibur - Slash Dash Prime: Requires 10 charges

Excalibur launches himself forward, dealing normal damage at normal distance. Should Excalibur kill at least 1 enemy, his dash will be lengthened and damage increased by 2%. If Excalibur kills another enemy, the dash will continue to be lengthened until his new dash length is reached and hasn't killed any enemies in the process. While dashing, if Excalibur collides into a wall or solid object, he will ricochet. If Excalibur dashes off a cliff, the ability will end.

 

Nekros - Soul Punch Prime: Requires 15 charges

Nekros charges up to unleash a soul-ripping punch, dealing increased damage. Any enemies that are killed become special shadow minions. They do not count towards the shadows you can raise from Shadows of the Dead ability. The special shadows are stronger, but have a shorter duration. If the shadows kill an enemy, the enemy are converted into additional shadows. Shadows created in this way are weaker than normal shadows, but are still able to create more shadows.

 

Remember: These are just a couple examples on what could be done with prime abilities. What do you guys think?

Edited May 9, 2014 by Pizzarugi

[AttackNitro]

tesla and slash dash sound like amazing fun to use.

[OniDax]

Yeah, that's cool, but it needs to be something that stands out as a clear evolution of the original ability (I honestly think these should just be reserved for Prime warframes). Like, a Radial Javelin Prime could be a Radial Blast, where it just shoots out a blast of energy in all directions, and radius and strength increase with mod rank. That's a clear improvement/evolution of Radial Javelin, which is limited in it's number of javelins.

[Drunken_Child]

Sounds very cool esp slash dash but I just don't see it happening.

[XRAY0128]

...

 

I'd rather they just balance the abilities in such away that they are useful all through out. Probably giving them some kind of utility would be the easy way out..

[Pizzarugi]

Yeah, that's cool, but it needs to be something that stands out as a clear evolution of the original ability (I honestly think these should just be reserved for Prime warframes). Like, a Radial Javelin Prime could be a Radial Blast, where it just shoots out a blast of energy in all directions, and radius and strength increase with mod rank. That's a clear improvement/evolution of Radial Javelin, which is limited in it's number of javelins.

Well the reason I made this thread was not to make an evolution of all abilities, but rather improve upon abilities that are seldom used by giving them new and unique functions on top of what they already do to encourage people to use it. That 1 lame ability in every warframe aside, the others are well often used so there's no need to really tweak them.

[OniDax]

Well the reason I made this thread was not to make an evolution of all abilities, but rather improve upon abilities that are seldom used by giving them new and unique functions on top of what they already do to encourage people to use it. That 1 lame ability in every warframe aside, the others are well often used so there's no need to really tweak them.

 

Oh, ok.

[Liverslices]

I have to say that this is one of the best ideas ive seen in a while. I really like the idea of abilities getting  new twist to them.

[Pizzarugi]

Bump with a new prime ability idea.

[OnimaruX]

I was considering this idea, but the idea was to have prime abilities exclusive to prime warframes this would make them more powerful as they should be and differentiate them from their normal counterparts.

[Sindrall]

I thoroughly love this idea, but with the exception of it being confined to prime warframes. As it stands now prime frames aren't quite as special as they should be, granted they have amazing designs and GOLD.. oh and the GOLD.. with some extra polarity, but that isn't.. really.. special.. i mean the polarity can be achieved with just a few extra forma on the regular frame... looking awesome is a big thing to me because i like to look cool in the games i play, seeing as ill be staring at that character the whole time i play. Not to mention the effort you have to go to farm for the prime frames. It would also make more sense lore wise seeing as all the "normal" frames are like knock-offs of the primes. People would complain that it would make primes to OP or whatever but.. every game has its endgame gear that is far better than gear along the way.. its the best, the hardest to get, therefore making it the strongest is to be expected.

[Sindrall]

Take WoW for example with the level of tiers. once you hit max level there is various tiers you can acquire. Say like, Tier 1,2 and 3. a new maxed character will get tier 1 first. that gear is good of course, but it will not and should not compare to a player in tier 3. it is harder to acquire and took that players extra time to acquire as well. It would ultimately be unfair to that player if the gear they worked harder and longer to get is no better than the gear this brand new maxed player posses with a fraction of the effort.

[Pizzarugi]

I thoroughly love this idea, but with the exception of it being confined to prime warframes. As it stands now prime frames aren't quite as special as they should be, granted they have amazing designs and GOLD.. oh and the GOLD.. with some extra polarity, but that isn't.. really.. special.. i mean the polarity can be achieved with just a few extra forma on the regular frame... looking awesome is a big thing to me because i like to look cool in the games i play, seeing as ill be staring at that character the whole time i play. Not to mention the effort you have to go to farm for the prime frames. It would also make more sense lore wise seeing as all the "normal" frames are like knock-offs of the primes. People would complain that it would make primes to OP or whatever but.. every game has its endgame gear that is far better than gear along the way.. its the best, the hardest to get, therefore making it the strongest is to be expected.

I kind of disagree that this should be limited only to prime frames. First off, the number of prime frames compared to the normal versions are small, requiring DE to spend more time making prime varients for all of them before working on this suggestion. The second thing is that prime frames do have a number of advantages over their normal counterparts, such as having different (and additional) polarities, possibly reducing the amount of forma you'll need to maximize their effectiveness, and also being able to tap into the orbs in the void to fully energize your team. I don't think they need more advantages over the basic frames right now.

 

However, I suppose prime frames gaining additional effects from prime abilities wouldn't be too bad.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Pizzarugi

[(PSN)starkweather75]

This idea is a really good one. However, we will need to see how the looming around the corner focus system pans out first.

[Davoodoo]

Its not abilities fault that they dont scale into "lategame", its enemy scaling that is too fast and too potent, enemies double their hp and dmg output every few lvls.

 

If you truly want abilities to scale infinitely you would need to add percantage dmg to flat dmg so volts shock will do 50 + 70% total hp dmg instead of flat 200 which is about 80% of lvl20 enemies hp.

Ofc this would break whole scaling and make game even easier than now, you would just need to ensure that combined power of all your 4ths exceeds 100% and you can roflstomp through all content, hovewer if none of the abilities have even 25% hp as dmg then these abilities will still be too weak and all of this was for nothing.

 

No matter how do you look at it abilities are completely broken.

They are too strong for their cost but still too weak cause they dont scale, if you however make them scale they will still be too good for their cost and cost is nonexistent cause enemies drops energy orbs, you have energy regen auras and items, so increasing cost wont ever fix it, if you raise it too much though these powers wont be used cause no one will be able to afford them and its again broken.

 

You cant do anything about it with current energy.

[YashiroSora]

I thoroughly love this idea, but with the exception of it being confined to prime warframes. As it stands now prime frames aren't quite as special as they should be, granted they have amazing designs and GOLD.. oh and the GOLD.. with some extra polarity, but that isn't.. really.. special.. i mean the polarity can be achieved with just a few extra forma on the regular frame... looking awesome is a big thing to me because i like to look cool in the games i play, seeing as ill be staring at that character the whole time i play. Not to mention the effort you have to go to farm for the prime frames. It would also make more sense lore wise seeing as all the "normal" frames are like knock-offs of the primes. People would complain that it would make primes to OP or whatever but.. every game has its endgame gear that is far better than gear along the way.. its the best, the hardest to get, therefore making it the strongest is to be expected.

I agree, with a Lore Possibility i had written before, the Primes are suppose to be the 'Original' Warframes, while 'our' Tenno warframes are something of a replica, and a few frames being a original concept after the Orokin age. If you wish to read a more in-depth description here:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/228581-the-lore-of-the-gamewarning-long-post/#entry2649090 

 

I kind of disagree that this should be limited only to prime frames. First off, the number of prime frames compared to the normal versions are small, requiring DE to spend more time making prime varients for all of them before working on this suggestion. The second thing is that prime frames do have a number of advantages over their normal counterparts, such as having different (and additional) polarities, possibly reducing the amount of forma you'll need to maximize their effectiveness, and also being able to tap into the orbs in the void to fully energize your team. I don't think they need more advantages over the basic frames right now.

 

However, I suppose prime frames gaining additional effects from prime abilities wouldn't be too bad.

Ill be honest, other than the Prime Warframes look nice(Aside from Excalibur and Rhino Prime), there is no need to use a Prime Warframe, any change in Polarities, while true may allow for less Forma usage, is not unachievable by the Tenno Counterparts anyway, making little point to it, Prime Abilities to Prime Frames add Variation.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Xs-138

[ePilgrim]

This idea is okay in theory but would be impractical in practise.

Buffing and nerfing Warframes is a current issue. Applying a change like this to the game would ensure the devs would be stuck on it for a much longer time. Besides, the game is already easy. If you feel bad about not using all of Nekros kit, pick a Warframe that you enjoy through and through.

[-Scourge]

good ideas there. +1

 

here's an alternative Prime Abilities For Prime Frames