[Frame Concept] Raw: A True Melee Frame

[Brucely]

Table of Contents

I. Why?

II. Backtory/Questline

III. Look

IV. Stats

V. Abilities

 

Disclaimer: this post is loooooooooooooong

 

I. Why?

 

Now, some of you might already be thinking, "Why another melee frame?" Well, because we don't really have any true melee frames. We have frames that support and cater to melee, with characteristics, stats, and abilities that give damage buffs, survivability, stealth, speed, whatever, but we don't have a frame for which melee is an essential and defining aspect of its characteristics, stats, and abilities.

 

II. Backstory/Questline

 

The backstory I've come up with is somewhat reminiscent of Valkyr's backstory, and heavily inspired, of course, by other source material.

 

It starts at the end of Viver.

 

A squad is escaping from an especially long interception mission, leaving behind mountains of dead Corpus. As they're flying away in their Lisets, a Corpus armada shows up and fires a whole volley which blasts one of the Lisets into bits. One of the Corpus ships tractors in an unconscious Tenno floating among the wreckage of his ship.

 

The armada's initial plan was to retake Viver, but planet recon surprisingly reveals that the technocyte virus has already taken over the vast majority of the Eris, and is quickly spreading through the remaining Corpus forces with speed and ease. It's all thanks to the interception work of the Tenno, not only thinning Corpus numbers, but also preventing messages about the technocyte virus from getting out.

 

Before the rest of the Tenno squad can mount a rescue mission in their archwings, the Corpus armada, judging the planet to be a lost cause, leaves the system with their trophy–their captured Tenno in a Volt warframe. (I realize that's not a frame you would farm Viver with.)

 

Rather than report the news of their high value prisoner up the chain of command, the commander of the armada decides to privately make the Tenno answer for all the Corpus he and his squad killed on Eris–not just those they killed on Viver, with their own hands, but also all those on Eris who have fallen to the technocyte virus due to the severe attrition and fog of war created by their interception missions.

 

The commander of the armada decides to drop his captive Tenno in one of the Corpus's many dark, ice cold, top secret prisons (Europa), only known in whispers for their legendary corruption and brutality. To make things poetic, he picks a prison which was only known by a select number of base commanders on Eris. Those base commanders were, all together, in charge of resupplying the prison , but each one individually only knew one step of the resupply chain, and they weren't even aware of each other.

 

If the Tenno want to rescue their squadmate, they're going to have to search every infested base on Eris for the partial nav coordinates (infested wardens?), piece them together to find the location of the prison, and then launch the prison break at night. Stealth will make it less troublesome, but no less difficult. (Somehow the mission on Eris should be made less grindy. Maybe stealth archwing to sneak onto a supply ship, then from supply ship into prison?)

 

Meanwhile, Volt is chained up, by the neck, wrists, ankles, and waist, in a specialized prison cell. The cell is kept at absolute zero temperature because the lack of any electrical resistance at absolute zero means Volt is unable to control electrical energy as he normally would–in spectacular waves and bolts. His first attempt to do so, in spite of what the head warden told him about the cell, causes extreme pain. His frame severely cracks and shatters in several places, the arms and legs especially, letting in the frozen vacuum. The chains have a special function that, when activated, is supposed to ground Volt's uncontrollable energy in case this very event occurs. The guards activate said function, but, unknown to the chains' designers and the prison warden, absolute zero has altered the physical properties of the chains. They drain volt's energy, but instead of harmlessly grounding it, they channel it into the floor. It vaporizes everything touching the floor that isn't built to handle it–so just the three prison guards who are supposed to be in charge of Volt's cell–before dissipating. Volt passes out, unaware that, overtime, the absolute zero temperature will also alter the properties of his frame.

 

Beyond Volt's little incident, top secret prisons are be mind-warpingly dull, for prisoners and guards alike, but no one cares about the prisoners. To keep morale and sanity at an acceptable level, the head warden arranges a regular spectacle of fun. It's your typical underground fight club, with guards betting on which prisoner will survive against another, or a while mob of guards and mechs joining the show for a shot at a hefty bonus.

 

The warden puts volt in a specially insulated ring, expecting a light show against some daring, but dumb, prison guards willing to risk it all for the biggest bonus on offer yet. He doesn't expect them to win. In fact, he looks forward to losing his more useless employees burn up like a giant paper people chain.

 

Volt steps into the ring, his frame cracked, broken, missing plates of armor in several places. He's unarmed except for his casting abilities. He's up against four squads of Corpus, complete with several crewman of various ranks, moas, ospreys, 50 all in all. A horn blares, and the match starts. The crewman charge in first–idiots. Volt channels energy into his right arm, focuses in casting it from the hand into his enemies, but nothing happens. It just wouldn't go. Five techs are about to jump him, until he channels energy into his legs for increased speed–dodging out of the way. At least he can still do that, since it doesn't involve actually casting any electricity outside his body. Volt slows down to plan his next move. He's about to take another step, but the foot he stopped down on is stuck. Actually, half his shin is stuck–sunken into the metal floor. He connects the dots.

 

The head warden smiles as he watches the Tenno dismantle the guards with his bare hands in several blinks of an eye. One tech is thrown against a wall with such force that he splatters, as if he had been dropped to the ground from a space elevator. The warden hasn't seen such a raw, unadulterated display of pure physical violence in quite awhile. He should be worried, but he knows the Tenno won't try anything not even knowing what planet he's on, if he's even knows that he's on a planet, or if there are any ships he might use to escape, which there aren't. The warden laughs as the Tenno starts scavenging cloth and parts from his dead guards to cover up his battered warframe. Perhaps he's self concscious, or he's taking trophies. Either way, he'll allow it, because it's going to be a good show until something else stronger comes along and kills him.

 

Except that won't happen. The Tenno could sense the gaps in his armor making his electrical channelling difficult–wild and unpredictable. Plugging them should allow him more precision and control, but less power. After more rounds of practice, though, he might be able to tame the voids.

 

Until then, escape wasn't an option. Not until the right moment presented itself. Not until his Tenno came for him.

 

TL;DR Volt get's captured, broken, reinvents himself as a specialist in melee that incorporates a mechanic that's similar to the Eight Gates in Naruto

 

III. Look

 

I tried to draw, but gave up. Maybe someone can help out based on my description.

 

First off, if you didn't bother to read even the TL;DR of the background section, Raw is a warframe that used to be a volt, was broken and changed by being imprisoned in an absolute zero temperature prison cell, lost his ability to manipulate electricity outwardly, but gained the ability to channel it internally, like how Speed is described to work, but with more skill that enables him to also enhance his strength quite spectacularly.

 

I also mentioned in the background section that Raw has a somewhat similar story to Valkyr. I would say the same about his look, but instead of being carefully dissected and studied, Raw was brutally punished, warped, and damaged over time. And instead of leaving the wounds open, like Valkyr does, he covers them up because his frame functions better when it's insulated. Also, while Valkyr is akin to a cat, Raw will have some aesthetic traits of a dog. Though I am against tails, ears, and long snouts on the default frame.

 

He covers the gaps in his frame, and sort of rebuilds it as well, with the fabric and parts from corpus crewman suits. His forearms and hands in particular would be wrapped in a lot of fabric, like how boxers wrap their wrists, except Raw's wraps would start at the elbows and extend all the way to the fingers. The thumb, index, and middle finger would be wrapped individually, while the fourth and pinkie would be bound together. In addition to the wraps, Raw would maintain the hand cuffs around his wrists, and the chains attached to them would be wrapped around his forearms as well. Over the knuckles, Raw would bind a corner of a corpus crewman helmet. My final idea for arm detail involves those rings over Volt's biceps. Raw, needing extra weight behind his fists, would break those off and loosely but securely close them over his forearms, like so, but over the wrist wrapping of fabric and then chains. It would be cool if they moved freely.

 

Raw's right shoulder should retain the shoulder guard from the volt armor, but with visible wear and tear. His left shoulder, on the other hand, has lost that old armor piece completely, and should be wrapped up in the chain that extends from the metal collar around raw's neck. The chain-wrapping would form an improvised shoulder guard that doesn't protrude too distinctly, but visibly rounds out the shoulder.

 

There's a reason all the chains are still attached, I'll get into it in part 5.

 

I have no ideas about what Raw's head should look like.

 

As for the waist down, well, starting with the waist, there's a cuff and a length of chain wrapped up around there too. The wrapping would extend from about where the ribs would begin down to a little below his groin area. Volt's old skirt and phallus would be gone, broken off while in prison. The chains should wrap over a piece of fabric that's torn at the top and bottom, and the torn edges extend a little bit beyond the uppermost and bottommost chains.

 

Raw should retain volt's sinewy thighs and pointy knees, but with some visible wear and tear. His shins should be covered with only the front half plate of a corpus crewman's shin guards, and then Raw's shin guard should be wrapped in the chains from the ankle cuffs. Feet should be look like bare feet, but wrapped up.

 

And that's what I have in my imagination so far.

 

IV. Stats

 

Broadly speaking, I think Raw should have a high risk, high reward play style that involves:

-a run and sprint speed on par with Loki, if not faster within reason.

-600 base stamina to 800 max rank? A counterweight to so much stamina is that all the abilities have a stamina cost alongside the energy cost.

-the lowest base shields, I'm not sure how low. Maybe, at most, 50? At, at the lowest, zero?

-300 base armor, up to 400 at rank 30

-200-250 base health

-125 base energy

 

Since innate/unique bonus stats are being thrown around, here are some ideas (not demanding all of them, just throwing them out there) for Raw's bonus stats:

-damage reduction during fast movement.

-impact damage on all weapons or only melee weapons.

-overall damage buff on equipped fist and sparring melee weapons, and that buff would additively stack on the impact damage one.

-reload speed, considering Raw is fast in more than just his feet

-melee attack speed buff

-stamina recharge speed buff

-overall melee damage buff

-loss in weapon accuracy

-loss in health orb value

-loss in life steal mod strength

-increase in slide distance and speed (a frame you might actually consider using maglev on?)

 

So Raw is kind of a melee caster tank, not like Rhino or Valkyr tanky in that those two can regenerate health (iron skin health in the case of Rhino) very quickly without a life steal mod. Raw will rely heavily on speed and health orbs, and two 4 and 3 abilities cater to that, respectively. Raw should be very good at quickly taking out high priority targets in close range melee combat, while also using his abilities and also putting himself in a pretty stick situation. He can get out of it though, and help his team get out of similar, bad, close quarter situations, because he excels at creating breathing room with knockdown or other physical CC, as you will see when you look at the abilities.

 

 

V. Abilities (of course all are affected by efficiency mods.)

 

1. Knuckle Duster

Raw puts a right foot forward, then channels a massive amount of energy into a overhand left punch(see: 1:13) that is so quick, carries so much force, and creates so much friction, the air moved by his fist explodes outward, dealing impact and blast damage. Energy Cost: 35. Stamina Cost: 175

 

This ability inflicts damage by direct contact, and with a cone AoE. The target that's physically hit by the punch gets sent flying backwards, with a heavy dose of impact and blast proc and damage. Enemies that are at least halfway inside the cone get half the impact and blast damage of the direct punch, only an impact proc,  knocked back, and knocked down if they are in the radius of the blast proc. Enemies that are less than halfway in the cone only get impact procced and a quarter of the max possible impact and blast damage. Walls terminate the cone.

 

The length/range of the cone, at max rank, should be around 5 meters, unaffected by range mods. The rate at which the cone widens and the cone's overall area, however, should be affected by range mods. Strength affected by power strength mods, of course. Nothing on duration.

 

The ability can be performed and aimed in mid-air, with reduced damage since Raw can't transfer momentum from his lower body, and with a moderate bump in the opposite direction, since he's unanchored and an explosion is propelling him like a quick burning rocket would. The stronger the punch, the more he is propelled.

 

Oh, and any enemy rockets caught in the cone explode and inflict damage in addition to whatever the ability inflicts.

 

2. Double Jump

Double Jump, as in he uses both feet to jump...and it also enables him to double jump. Using the same physics behind Knuckle Duster, Raw lifts both his feet off the ground, knees to his chest, and then stomps downwards with enough speed, force, and friction to explode the air below his feet, while also propelling him into the sky at high speed. This ability can also be performed in mid-air, but with reduced height reached. There is also damage reduction during the high speed travel. Energy Cost: 35. Stamina Cost: 175

 

When you double jump straight off the ground, you get the most height and speed, but do the least possible damage with a radial (affected by range mods) impact proc and some impact damage. When you double jump mid-air, you create a cone AoE below you which works exactly like the knuckle duster cone AoE, in terms of damage type, amount, procs, range, even down to the direct impact mechanic. That's right, you can 'goomba' enemies with double jump, but then you'll only be damaging one enemy.

 

Double jump, when performed in mid air, is aimed downwards within a 45 degree cone, but you will be propelled in the opposite direction you are aiming.

 

Exactly like knuckle duster, double jump is affected by strength(damage and jump height) and range mods (cone shape, like with knuckle duster).

 

3. Binding

The exposure to absolute zero temperature has altered the physics of the chains and wraps attached to Raw. He can channel energy through them as if they were part of his body. They might as well be. With Binding, Raw quickly unravels his chains and wraps and sends them flying outwards. Like fishing lines, they catch onto enemies, and then pull them into very close range of Raw, then unwrapped for him so he can do what he does best. Enemies are stunned while they are caught by his chains and wraps, but then freed once brought into close range. Energy Cost: 60. Stamina Cost: 150

 

The wraps and chains also seek out any squad mates in their range. Instead of pulling them in, though, they will briefly attach, only so Raw can transfer a temporary max health buff, melee damage buff, and melee speed buff. The number of squad mates buffed, however, will subtract from the max number of enemies that can be caught.

 

At base rank, Binding sends out four wraps and six chains (one wrap from each forearm and foot, one chain from each forearm and leg, chain from waist and chain from neck.). At max rank (3), Binding sends out ten wraps and seven chains (two from each foot, three from each forearm, one additional chain coming from the waist).

 

Enemies caught by Binding are marked to have 50% chance of dropping a health orb on death. Marked enemies killed by standard or quick melee have 50% chance of dropping two orbs.

 

Binding can be performed mid air, however enemies will retain their momentum when released from binding and get flung all over the place.

 

Binding is affected by power mods (number of bindings and strength of squad buffs) duration mods (time that the buffs and marks last), range.

 

A visual effect of binding, if you didn't figure, is that Raw's uncovered, badly damaged and worn warframe is revealed, though only for a moment.

 

4. Unbound

Raw unwraps everything and lets his body breathe as it overflows with energy that ionizes air from every nook and cranny of his battered frame. The freedom and unrestrained power he enjoys in this state grants him greater speed than ever before, to the point where he can dodge the majority of bullets. His power is also increased by the exposure of the old gaps in his frame, and further increased by new gaps. Furthermore, Raw is still able to use his other abilities, but with increased strength and range (that is also scaled inversely to how much HP raw has), but he does not recharge stamina. In fact, if he runs out of stamina in this state before the duration is over, he will start to bleed health until the ability is deactivated. Otherwise, at the end of the ability's duration, Raw will automatically rewrap himself. Raw is immune to procs while Unbound is active. Energy Cost: 100. Stamina Cost: 200

 

In this state, Raw also channels energy through his unwrapped chains and fabric. If they make contact with enemy units while flailing around, they will inflict an electrical proc and some damage.

 

Unbound gives Raw a significant reload speed buff, but reloading will briefly slow down his movement, as will shooting.

 

Meleeing will also freeze his movement, but his attack speed will be very high and all his attacks will red crit with boosted status chance, but increased stamina cost per swing. You also can't channel any more energy into your melee.

 

Unbound is affected by strength and duration mods.

 

Otherwise, running will have high damage reduction, sprinting slightly higher, acrobatics the highest. And it's all because he's dodging the majority of damage. I think the best way to visually render this would be to have a flickering shader effect over the warframe model, with some kind of hard static-y motion blur-ish distortion around the edges, so that it looks like Raw is blinking in and out of existence, but really he's just moving so fast you can't even see it. You're not quite invulnerable, but you can nearly be if you zip around fast enough. Good luck hitting anything like that, though.

 

As for the health-to-damage & ability buff scaling, the buffs, without power mods and with the ability at max rank) should be insignificant to mild at full to half health. Once you get below half health though, things start to get interesting, slowly at first, then very very quickly once you get under a quarter of your health. You could run and cast binding to get some health back, or you could try and clear the rest of the room by having your health bar go down as little as possible, until unbound is over and hopefully whatever you have left is enough to recover.

 

Phew! For anyone who read through all of that, in one sitting especially, thanks! What do you think? I'm pretty good about constructive criticism, but don't be surprised if I put up a solid defense.

 

Seriously, though, I'm in grad school for writing, and it's been so long since I could write something that didn't stress me out like crazy.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Brucely

[TheHoodie]

Nice idea!

[MrPigman]

hm, i kinda feel like the 3 is an aoe valkyr 1, which i guess would be pretty nice.

 

1: i think this would be better if it had a lunge to it (like a falcon punch!) due to the fact that enemies move as well and such a close range skill that NEEDS to make conctact to do an aoe is going to miss A LOT!

 

2: so a copy of zephyr 1 and excal 2? i think there could be something more useful to a melee warframe here, possibly a defensive skill. Raw is lacking defensive skills, he has all that armor and no health to back it up. Plus this frame was supposed to be risk/reward, but im not seeing much reward in the skills, they only put you at more risk by limiting your movement with cast times making you a sitting duck to be mowed down.

 

3: said above, aoe rip line. i dont know if this is a good or bad idea. maybe make it steal some hp too for that reward factor.

 

4: I/m not sure what you were aiming at with this 4. it seems kind of weak and not too melee oriented, i mean the attack speed and red crit is really nice but you have to slow down (which you already slow down attacking nearby enemies) which means you come to a pretty much halt. this will leave him too open and will not be able to chase anything down because he will have to stop just to hit them. and again this skill yields no personal gain, so the risk/reward is lost on this ability as well and again really only offers risk.

might i reccomend remove all the gun stuff on this skill and the slow movement while using a melee and instead make him lunge to targets with each melee, making his melee attacks unescapable. Also perhaps find a way to add some AOE to his attacks. also for the reward make each kill restore some stamina so that the skill works more like a berserk rage where so long as you're killing you can keep going.

[Brucely]

Thanks for the great input!

 

1. I would prefer that it wouldn't lunge too far, and my thinking behind that first step outwards would be a sort of half a lunge. In fact, too much lunge could make landing a direct hit more difficult! Also, the ability should be steerable/aimable up until the AoE cone fires, which, by the way, would trigger regardless of the punch actually making contact. The risk here is that you have to get in really close to deal the max amount of damage and CC possible.

 

2. Yes, a "copy" of zephyr and excal's jump abilities, but with Raw's own spin on things. I often wish there were more mobility focused abilities that offer an exciting alternative to coptering. One thing I noted in my description of the ability was the high damage reduction while the ability is propelling you so quickly. That idea is based off DE's recent addition of damage reduction during acrobatics, which makes sense to me as a sort of fast moving "bullet dodge". You would be propelled so quickly by the jump, enemies would have a hard time hitting you.

 

I also want to note that Raw would have a moderate amount of armor and a fat amount of HP, like the most out of any frame, but as always it should be balanced.

 

Also, in addition to the mobility, this ability would have a nice CC utility because, triggered off the ground, you can stagger enemies on the ground around you, or, mid air, you can essentially "bomb" a crowd with the cone AoE, or really soften up a heavy unit by making hitting it directly with mid-air activation and physical contact. Again, the risk there is that you're exposing yourself to a lot of damage in close quarters, but if you pull it off, the reward is a lot of damage and CC.

 

I just had the thought that maybe Double Jump should be more aimable while in mid-air, to the point that you could use it to fly in any direction, and then even create a 2->1 combo, where you close the distance with 2, while also dealing some AoE damage, and the hit with 1, and maybe even a damage bonus for combining the abilities! (Hah! so kinda like how Zephyr combos tailwind and dive bomb!)

 

3. For the 3, I tried to think of something that would have more direct teammate support. So, for that, first and foremost, there's the AoE teammate buffs. Second is the aggro. By pulling all the enemies into one tiny area, around Raw, you're contributing some nice CC, but you're also giving your team a fat red target, filled with bodies ready to be easily mowed down or flattened with an explosion. So, in a way, this ability is like Booben's Vortex, but with more risk, since you're aggroing all the enemies onto just you (Maybe Raw could have a bonus stat that reduces enemy melee damage?).

 

I feel like having an AoE instant life steal is a bit too much, and would turn the risk for this ability down too much, as would having marked enemies drop life orbs 100% of the time. Then again, such effects could be balanced just right for that not to be the case. I would also consider having the life orb drop triggered by general death, and not specific to death by melee, just to slightly lower the risk and raise the chance for reward.

 

4. I really like your idea of having melee kills restore stamina while the ability is active, but I also don't want Unbound to become a spammable ability that by always being active, renders everything else obsolete. So maybe there should be a slow, steady stamina drain, which can worsen by stacking abilities, that you have to compete against.

 

Perhaps removing the movement penalty for using/holding melee might not be too OP, but I would like this ability to work so that melee becomes more viable than guns. So I would like to keep the movement penalty for having a gun actively equipped, but then you'd get the reload speed buff because Raw is now focusing his energies on being very deft with his handling the gun!

 

I think having some sort of added AoE for melee attacks is also a good idea that's also 'logical'. I mean, when you swing a weapon, you're moving air. If you move that air fast enough, it's going to 'explode'. That's the logic behind the 1 and 2 abilities. so maybe while unbound is activated, all your melee attacks become scaled down versions of 1 and 2, with less damage and spectacular effect to keep things balanced and to not make the 1 and 2 obsolete. I would prefer this melee attack range buff over a "lunge" from target to target. Ideally, you would slide or copter from mob to mob. Slide would work better because you have more control over stopping, it would just need more speed and damage reduction to be effective.

 

So the idea behind the risk/reward here is that, to use Unbound effectively, you have to be at low hp, and you won't be completely invincible, unless you can move well, which is a challenge that has its own reward.

 

Oh, and I forgot to add to the original post that Unbound would render Raw immune to procs.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Brucely