Feedback On Ember Changes (Including A Good Build And Efficiency Formula)

[LisRestall]

I have to say that the buff/change on Ember made her significantly stronger, +1 for that DE. Some might think that "Huh, it's not that great, she still needs buff/changes.". Here I will explain why the buff made her significantly stronger.

 

The new efficiency formula on toggable abilities is the main reason. The formula is simply, "current energy cost multiplied to duration efficiency". This is really great because we can now abuse the 90% efficiency given by Streamline + Fleeting Expertise.

 

Please read carefully starting from here.

 

So let's say you put Maxed Streamline + Maxed Fleeting ONLY.

Current Efficiency = 90% (I know that it will still show 175% efficiency on the status but please continue reading first)

Current Duration Efficiency = -150% (Due to -60% duration of Fleeting, the formula is 100/current duration)

 

After that, even though efficiency is capped at 175%, the next calculation to get the final efficiency would still base on the 90% efficiency. 90% efficiency translates to 10% energy cost, we will use this as measurement.

 

The formula is energy cost * duration efficiency --> 10% * 2.5 = 25% energy cost which also translates to 175% efficiency.

 

You can go test this on your Embers at this moment. Go check WoF drain and it will show .75 energy per sec which means it's still capped at efficiency. Accelerant also stays capped but with negative duration which is fine.

 

See below if you're so lazy to test.

 

TLDR

Negative duration still works fine with the changes. You just need a maxed Streamline and Fleeting Expertise this time. After that you can adjust which mods you need. Blind Rage is totally out of the options now though as it will have a MASSIVE negative effect on the build due to how the formula works.

 

TLDR for Maximum Overcasuls Who Only Knows How To Eat Burgers and Donuts

Just slap in Maxed Streamline, Maxed Fleeting Expertise, Maxed Intensify, Maxed Transient Fortitude and Maxed Continuity (Doesn't need to be Primed) and your Ember will be really really strong. The other mods can be up to you.

 

See below for my personal build,

 

Enjoy.

 

P.S. I'm not totally sure if this is an intended feature but hopefully it is. It's not broken OP but it really made Ember alot stronger than before.

Edited October 4, 2015 by LisRestall

[NessTV]

Now if you build it for range and slap enough efficiency to have 0.75energy/s drain, you can slap augment and turn it into very nice CC ability. Wof prioritizes enemies based on how much danger at the moment they present, that means it can knock down entire crowds one by one.

 

With 4x CP it even maintains overall good damage. Ember is becoming 2nd Mesa

[Tatersail]

With 4x CP ember was about on par with mesa before... people just never tried, or understood how to play.

However now Embers new toggle 4 WOF CANNOT be fed by Trinity, so a 285% str build WOF ember is sadly not possible as you simply run out of energy spamming accelerant.  For high level play, Removing trinity is a huge step backwards.

 

As far as draco/aoe spam and high level play this patch was a massive nerf for ember.

but for running level 10-20 and other low level speed runs, ember is now the favorite frame along with Equinox.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Tatersail

[LisRestall]

Mesa's range by default before was 50m range so Ember was never on par with how fast Mesa kills before and will never be as good since even if you put maxed Stretch and Overextended, you'll just kill the dps of WoF (-60% power str) and range still won't be near 50m.

 

Like you said, Ember don't synch well with Trinity but with the build I gave, you're still multiplying that 740 damage by 4.63 and can keep it up w/o even needing a Trinity since the .75 per sec energy drain is negligible while Accelerant maintains 25% energy cost only.

 

Not sure about the massive nerf you're trying to say but I am using Ember on the tactical alert against Nightwatch grineers and I'm doing fine even with just using a melee built with fire mods.

[RealPandemonium]

With 4x CP ember was about on par with mesa before... people just never tried, or understood how to play.

However now Embers new toggle 4 WOF CANNOT be fed by Trinity, so a 285% str build WOF ember is sadly not possible as you simply run out of energy spamming accelerant.  For high level play, Removing trinity is a huge step backwards.

 

As far as draco/aoe spam and high level play this patch was a massive nerf for ember.

but for running level 10-20 and other low level speed runs, ember is now the favorite frame along with Equinox.

Personally I think DE should not support that kind of "team" play.  Exploiting synergies that create performance outliers for the purpose of making the game easier by a significant margin [in order to play content that is not supported since DE doesn't balance for 60+ minute runs] is an unhealthy distraction from and impotent substitute to actual interesting gameplay brought about by limiting player options.  We want to get away from mechanized Draco runs and 2 hour camp survival/defense missions, IMO.  Let's focus on making all gameplay challenging and rewarding instead of 5% of it.  

Edited October 8, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[--Sensei--]

Ash prime for the 2nd coming of Mesa.

[AethonWalker]

This is the build I made: http://warframe-builder.com/Warframes/Builder/Ember_prime/t_30_0200040020_2-5-10-3-8-5-4-7-5-5-6-5-12-0-5-49-3-6-55-2-4-411-1-7-479-4-6_12-11-411-7-55-10-49-12-479-10-2-6-5-9-4-9-3-18-f-f_0/en/1-0-4

 

It gives more health, although that's a personal preference.

The stats of her abilities are as follows:

Fireball: 

291 Area Damage

776 Damage

Accelerant:

4.85 Dam Mult

38.4 Dur

20.6 Range

Fire Blast:

291 Dam

25.6 Dur

15 Range

World On Fire:

776 Dam

1.17 E/S

15.45 Range

67 Stun Chance

 

You could replace Vitality for her WoF augment easily. Putting on BR at R5 decreases efficiency only a bit, which is covered by Streamline, making it still useful for other warframe builds. Putting on NM and Stretch to compensate it, along with PC, gives much better duration. 

 

Overall, the stats are better. Who can't compensate a bit for just the slightest more energy drain, while getting more damage? The only real difference here is 9% strength and about .3 energy drain. Thank you for explaining the channeling mechanic though, I was confused about what they did since it doesn't appear to be a big difference except on my Chroma.

[LisRestall]

-snip-

I don't know. You said thanks for explaining the mechanic yet your build still has mistakes. You should re-read or just go for the TLDR part.

[AethonWalker]

I don't know. You said thanks for explaining the mechanic yet your build still has mistakes. You should re-read or just go for the TLDR part.

Could you point out the mistakes? I went with a build designed to make use of all her abilities, and so far it's been very efficient and useful for me. I haven't taken her into t3/4, but I don't see people do that often anyway, unless they have a really good strategy planned. I understand your build and what you're saying, but I was just pointing out what I found to be better. Maybe I didn't understand, and you only made the build to show an example, in which case I'm sorry. I read the title and took your build as what was deemed good, and found a way, imo, to make it better.

[Tatersail]

For this sort of constantly on, aoe its a good idea to Swap out QT for Overextended, the extra "dps time" having targets in range outweighs the -60% str reduction. 

also with prime energy base unless your static, Flow is not needed. at 0.75 energy and 12 energy accelerant your not going to need the full 600+ energy.

This build can handle t4 defense / ODD to wave 20 without guns pretty casually Cp is not even required.

 

 

 

My preference would be to use a full blind rage instead of intensify, along with fireball frenzy instead of QT for group play, ember makes an amazing buffer / debuffer with soft cc and damage to clear trash.

 

World on fire causes "Ignited enemies will also panic and flail around for a brief period" Accelerant stuns, Fireblast has a knockdown and a buggy area denial

[RealPandemonium]

For this sort of constantly on, aoe its a good idea to Swap out QT for Overextended, the extra "dps time" having targets in range outweighs the -60% str reduction.

Not really, since it makes Accelerant's multiplier weaker, and also weakens your 1 and 3.  Overextended is for safety and longer range on your CC.  

Edited October 9, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[LisRestall]

Could you point out the mistakes? I went with a build designed to make use of all her abilities, and so far it's been very efficient and useful for me. I haven't taken her into t3/4, but I don't see people do that often anyway, unless they have a really good strategy planned. I understand your build and what you're saying, but I was just pointing out what I found to be better. Maybe I didn't understand, and you only made the build to show an example, in which case I'm sorry. I read the title and took your build as what was deemed good, and found a way, imo, to make it better.

1. I already mentioned not to use Blind Rage but you still went ahead and used it. Due to how the formula works, Blind Rage is removing that 90% efficiency I mentioned.

2. You're not using Maxed Fleeting Expertise. I already said that to have the most effective efficiency overall is to use both Maxed Streamline and Maxed Fleeting Expertise. This would cap efficiency on both Accelerant and WoF while Accelerant still keeps a nice duration.

3. There is no point adding Narrow Minded unless you want longer Accelerant which doesn't make sense because even with -60% duration, it already lasts for 10s which is more than enough. Your range also became horrible because of Narrow Minded even with Stretch.

4. I didn't know people are still using Vitality mod. Vitality mod only gives 740 HP while P.Flow + QT gives 1500 HP considering P.Flow is maxed. If you will say because you don't like spending your energy as HP then I would hate to say this but you need to get good. Ember consists of moving alot while CC'ing enemies making them unable to fight back. Just because you have more HP from Vitality mod, it doesn't mean you're gonna facetank with your HP right? Same case for QT, it's just that QT is tons more effective. P. Flow is there so you could gather every energy you could get especially from void traps or excessive energy orb loots or even from EV Trins. While QT is there to save you from surprise fatal attacks. Another advantage about using P. Flow is being able to take all the energy from your Large Energy Restores (400 Energy) and if compared to Large Health Restores which heals for 250 per tick, you could also say that Large Energy Restores heals you for 240 HP per tick due to Quick Thinking mod. There was this Mirage who kept using Vitality mod on raid and kept dying, I told him to use QT and P. Flow, now he doesn't die 99.9% of the time.

 

-snip-

Read #4 from my reply above.

Edited October 10, 2015 by LisRestall

[RealPandemonium]

1. I already mentioned not to use Blind Rage but you still went ahead and used it. Due to how the formula works, Blind Rage is removing that 90% efficiency I mentioned.

2. You're not using Maxed Fleeting Expertise. I already said that to have the most effective efficiency overall is to use both Maxed Streamline and Maxed Fleeting Expertise. This would cap efficiency on both Accelerant and WoF while Accelerant still keeps a nice duration.

3. There is no point adding Narrow Minded unless you want longer Accelerant which doesn't make sense because even with -60% duration, it already lasts for 10s which is more than enough. Your range also became horrible because of Narrow Minded even with Stretch.

4. I didn't know people are still using Vitality mod. Vitality mod only gives 740 HP while P.Flow + QT gives 1500 HP considering P.Flow is maxed. If you will say because you don't like spending your energy as HP then I would hate to say this but you need to get good. Ember consists of moving alot while CC'ing enemies making them unable to fight back. Just because you have more HP from Vitality mod, it doesn't mean you're gonna facetank with your HP right? Same case for QT, it's just that QT is tons more effective. P. Flow is there so you could gather every energy you could get especially from void traps or excessive energy orb loots or even from EV Trins. While QT is there to save you from surprise fatal attacks. Another advantage about using P. Flow is being able to take all the energy from your Large Energy Restores (400 Energy) and if compared to Large Health Restores which heals for 250 per tick, you could also say that Large Energy Restores heals you for 240 HP per tick due to Quick Thinking mod. There was this Mirage who kept using Vitality mod on raid and kept dying, I told him to use QT and P. Flow, now he doesn't die 99.9% of the time.

 

Read #4 from my reply above.

WoF doesn't have a duration cap anymore; not sure why you mention that.  NM is always a bad idea on Ember because it kills the range on Accelerant and WoF, making each cast less safe and less efficient.

 

The Mirage in the raid likely was using Vitality to keep herself alive during health droughts during the first mission where you constantly take Toxin damage.  QT may have been a better alternative but losing all your energy at a critical moment could jeapordize your entire team, and you'll usually get one-shotted anyway without Flow (which takes up another slot; IDK what build she was running, likely a duration mod took it) so Vitality made more sense.  

 

Your contributions are becoming more biased and opinionated as you go on.  Try to keep things objective and informative, and consider valid alternatives to your choices, within reason.

Edited October 10, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[Vallerian]

Ember's been my main frame since I started playing many years ago, but honestly I think her Ult is too strong now

 

It doesn't do as much damage as peacemaker, but with Firequake and range+duration+efficiency she's basically a huge perma-stun DPS bot that can move while she's doin it. I haven't really had any energy problems with this toggle, granted I'm not doing wave 160 T4D but IMO it shares a lot of the same problems as pre-nerf Peacemaker

Edited October 10, 2015 by Vallerian

[LisRestall]

 

WoF doesn't have a duration cap anymore; not sure why you mention that.  NM is always a bad idea on Ember because it kills the range on Accelerant and WoF, making each cast less safe and less efficient.

 

The Mirage in the raid likely was using Vitality to keep herself alive during health droughts during the first mission where you constantly take Toxin damage.  QT may have been a better alternative but losing all your energy at a critical moment could jeapordize your entire team, and you'll usually get one-shotted anyway without Flow (which takes up another slot; IDK what build she was running, likely a duration mod took it) so Vitality made more sense.  

 

Your contributions are becoming more biased and opinionated as you go on.  Try to keep things objective and informative, and consider valid alternatives to your choices, within reason.

 

I never said anything about WoF having a duration did I? I just mentioned that even with negative duration, Accelerant is working fine with that 10s duration.

 

That toxin damage doesn't matter once the EV Trin does her job. Each EV would most like fill up 200+ each cast and would be really frequent with negative duration build. 200 energy is already 480 HP added for Mirage. Cap her energy to 625 and you'll now get a whopping 1500 HP from QT. Adding everything into consideration P. Flow + QT makes alot more sense than Vitality.

 

That certain raid teammate said the same thing where if he ran out of energy, he could jeapordize the whole run. I said "you won't". He went ahead and swapped to P. Flow and QT, now he's happy with the discovery.

[RealPandemonium]

It doesn't do as much damage as peacemaker

Each tick of an Accelerant-boosted WoF does more damage than peacemaker used to do on average, and it still beats current Peacemaker's average damage even at max spool.  If an Accelerant-boosted WoF tick procs, it will also deal .5x extra damage immediately (the first tick of the Heat proc,) which makes it out-damage even critical hits from the max spool Peacemaker.  

 

 

I never said anything about WoF having a duration did I? I just mentioned that even with negative duration, Accelerant is working fine with that 10s duration.

 

That toxin damage doesn't matter once the EV Trin does her job. Each EV would most like fill up 200+ each cast and would be really frequent with negative duration build. 200 energy is already 480 HP added for Mirage. Cap her energy to 625 and you'll now get a whopping 1500 HP from QT. Adding everything into consideration P. Flow + QT makes alot more sense than Vitality.

 

That certain raid teammate said the same thing where if he ran out of energy, he could jeapordize the whole run. I said "you won't". He went ahead and swapped to P. Flow and QT, now he's happy with the discovery.

My bad about that, read it as WoF by accident.

 

It's pretty clear that QT will give you the best protection in a spikey, but energy-rich environment like the raid.  You can't always rely on randoms for EV/Blessing, though.  When I load out for a mission I do so assuming that I'll have no help; maybe a teammate might take the same approach (though this one just seems to have been misinformed in his choice.)

Edited October 10, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[LisRestall]

 

-snip-

To be fair, I do have a seperate fire melee build for my Ember for solo-ing, having Vitality mod on and Rage (but still includes P. Flow and QT) but this build only have Intensify so I didn't bother posting here since I knew that a vast majority of the players want to faceroll with having high damage output ember while barely relying on their guns and melees. I also didn't want to make the post alot longer and look like I just want to just ask for attention by showing off my builds.

Edited October 10, 2015 by LisRestall

[RealPandemonium]

To be fair, I do have a seperate fire melee build for my Ember having Vitality mod on and Rage (but still includes P. Flow and QT) but this build only have Intensify so I didn't bother posting here since I knew that a vast majority of the players want to faceroll with having high damage output ember while barely relying on their guns and melees.

Yeah, I forgot to mention the Life Strike melee Ember builds.  Although, Large Health Restores are super cheesy, to the point where you might as well either way.  Powercreep kinds sucks. :/

[Didi20PT]

Hello i really enjoyed your guide and i've been looking for something like this since i love ember, but i have a few questions i would like to do (don't mind me if i say something stupid, i'm still kinda new to this game =P).

 

Why use continuity? I love to mess around in WFBuilder (not sure if it's a reliable data site, but i still like to use it to get a "grip of things") and i noticed that if i remove it it doesn't affect the upkeep of WoF, it's just there to give accelerant a few more seconds, but that isn't really useful if i just use accel and WoF, unless i'm supposed to spam accel (does the multiplier stack?). Also it doesn't increase the stun duration, so i don't see any reason to add duration.

 

Wouldn't it be better to swap it for some more durability like Steel Fiber/Redirection/Vigor or more Utility like Firequake?

[Racter]

WFBuilder hasn't updated yet for the duration toggle change. I would also like to say that you can in fact run a full max power strength build and maintain WoF with it fairly easily, the energy usage only becomes problematic when you need to use Accelerant often (which is not until relatively late with 4x CP) and even then it is still fairly manageable with the odd plate or two making up the difference as needed.

 

General Ember build I use for most things 20M/20W or less http://goo.gl/GZd7PJ

Build 2, Draco, longer Void missions, T3/T4 Exterminates etc http://goo.gl/ik0seD

 

If I need more range for build 2 for some reason I have a third build that drops Vit for OE. The odds of going long enough to run low or out of energy without getting any energy orbs is pretty low. I top up at the start of the mission and generally don't need outside energy (plates/EV) for the rest of most runs with either build, provided I remember to turn WoF off for Wave Reward screens, elevators etc.

 

Not having to stop and recast WoF every couple seconds is awesome. Really loving the change, have been using her a lot more often as a result.

[LisRestall]

Hello i really enjoyed your guide and i've been looking for something like this since i love ember, but i have a few questions i would like to do (don't mind me if i say something stupid, i'm still kinda new to this game =P).

 

Why use continuity? I love to mess around in WFBuilder (not sure if it's a reliable data site, but i still like to use it to get a "grip of things") and i noticed that if i remove it it doesn't affect the upkeep of WoF, it's just there to give accelerant a few more seconds, but that isn't really useful if i just use accel and WoF, unless i'm supposed to spam accel (does the multiplier stack?). Also it doesn't increase the stun duration, so i don't see any reason to add duration.

 

Wouldn't it be better to swap it for some more durability like Steel Fiber/Redirection/Vigor or more Utility like Firequake?

It's due to how the duration efficiency works. I'll try to make it simple.

 

Maxed Streamline + Maxed Fleeting Expertise will result to max efficiency on all your abilities. The 90% efficiency and -60% duration cannot be altered in any way unless you do something about the alteration.

 

For example, I wanted to add Maxed Transient Fortitude now it gives me further -27.5% duration. That -27.5% duration is not welcome to the build because it will make WoF eat alot more energy. You need to counter it using a duration mod like Continuity or Constitution.

 

 

-snip-

 

I'm sorry but your builds are bad and it's not actually taking advantage of how the new duration efficiency works. I had to say this so others are not misled.

 

You can go here for a better explanation on duration efficiency https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/542340-not-a-major-nerf-new-duration-efficiency-mechanics-explained-with-tldr/

 

It also has a TLDR which would help if you don't understand the explanation on the formula.

Edited October 21, 2015 by LisRestall

[Racter]

 

I'm sorry but your builds are bad and it's not actually taking advantage of how the new duration efficiency works. I had to say this so others are not misled.

 

You can go here for a better explanation on duration efficiency https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/542340-not-a-major-nerf-new-duration-efficiency-mechanics-explained-with-tldr/

 

It also has a TLDR which would help if you don't understand the explanation on the formula.

 

I understand how it works perfectly, thanks. My whole point was that you can run with substantially less than max efficiency with the new WoF because the cost is so low, unlike Maim/Peacemaker/Effigy/etc.

 

On build 1, P Cont + Cons drop the cost from 2.8 to 1.33 (and gives you the knockdown recovery, which I find to be helpful). Swapping Constitution for FE does drop the cost more, but at the cost of Fire Blast duration. Seeing as 1.33e/s is basically free with an energy pool this size, I see no reason to gimp FB, as rarely used as it is. For a particular example, you can do 20 and out ODD/ODS with this build and barely have to lift a finger. Wave 18-20 you need to use Accelerant occasionally. (4x CP) 20-25m in the Void without using Accelerant pretty comfortably. Around that time frame heavy gunners/bombards necessitate occasional Accelerants, but energy management is still a breeze.

 

P Cont alone on build 2 drops the cost of WoF from 5.25 (pretty much unmanageable, an energy orb every 5s or so to keep running) to a paltry 2.57, slightly better than 50% cheaper. 1.18e/s cheaper than Peacemaker with mobility, more damage (with Accelerant), less hassle and no need for a battery (EV). For most of the game (sub 40W/40M runs) this build decimates efficiently and provides reasonably good CC (89% status chance) against anything not immediately killed.

 

The difference between your build and my weaker one is you can spam Accelerant for cheaper and/or be literally afk with WoF ticking for an extra 5m. If you are actually playing the game at all while doing this, there is no difference in practice. Neither build will run out of energy in a realistic scenario. My second build is still easily maintainable (if actually playing) and does substantially more damage. I use the second one for longer/harder content rather than spam Accelerant more with the first, as the extra strength keeps me from needing to use Accelerant for longer, and allows Ember's damage to maintain relevance longer when I do need to use it often. Both are taking advantage of duration now affecting toggles, and all three are pretty solid options for the new and improved Ember =)

Edited October 21, 2015 by Racter0325