Zephyr: More Synergy And Suggestions

[ZizWing]

Since we're sort of on the topic of reworks/buffs with Saryn and Mag right now, I thought it would be a nice time to discuss my favorite frame: Zephyr. DE has stated multiple times that they would like to create more synergy between frames and make all of them endgame viable.

 

So here we are...

Talking about Zephyr who is already decent in the current endgame due to her turbulence. But that's exactly the problem... it's pretty much all she's got going for her in terms of endgame. It keeps her alive (in most cases).

 

Now before you say her tail wind has a use and tornado has good crowd control, please consider that she is overshadowed by a lot of other abilities when it comes to movement or crowd control.

 

So... about the synergy... I am hoping to indirectly improve her viability by suggesting changes in a similar way as done to the current saryn rework. Not overhauling her abilities but either buffing or adding things onto the current state of them.

 

Let's get into it:

Any numbers specified below are suggestions and should be tested before implementing them. Without actual testing it is very difficult to give accurate numbers.

 

Tail wind:

Tail wind, which is mainly used for mobility, could do with some more synergy if you ask me. The only synergy it has right now is the fact it allows divebomb afterwards if used correctly. Though parkour 2.0 can do the same thing. Now we do want to keep her ability as it is since a lot of people like the mobility it gives, including me.

 

A nice idea I came up with will have it affect tornado. When using tail wind on/through/near a tornado, it will speed it up. This will visually increase it's width while also increasing it's effective range for pulling enemies. On top of that this combination will trigger a tornado movement speed increase if it has no enemies in range. This will somewhat solve the issue of tornadoes flying off to nowhere. Of course it will have to be a little smarter in finding enemies when this triggers.

 

The movement speed increase will only last a couple seconds while the size increase will last longer than that. Probably not for the remaining duration but at least a set amount. Maybe 10 seconds or so.

 

Dive bomb:

Personally I like the idea of the ability and the fact you can use it to quickly descend. However, from what I experienced, divebomb should cancel all horizontal movement in order to make it accurate enough for actual combat.the moment you press the button you want to go straight down instead of in an arch. This is more a quality of life fix rather than anything else. Whether this is done or not will not change much overall but would be preferred (by me at least).

 

For synergy I came up with something similar to what's been suggested on the forums before. (sorry I have no idea who came up with it). When hitting the ground with divebomb it has been suggested that you leave a "turbulence aura" behind, reducing enemy accuracy and redirecting projectiles just like normal turbulence. Though what I suggest is having divebomb add time to your turbulence (maybe 20% of your max duration per use?). If your turbulence was not active, this will activate it for this set amount of time. (preferably allowing recast of turbulence over this to refresh completely)

 

Now there is one more thing about divebomb: it has no use on the ground. I know it doesn't make sense to work on the ground but with all the indoor tilesets you kind of need it. So what I suggest is Zephyr calling down a flow of wind (could use tornado animation around Zephyr really short) which will stagger instead of knockdown the enemies in range and as written above, add a certain % of turbulence to the current duration of it (or starting with that amount).

 

The turbulence timer would not be able to go above it's maximum duration to balance out high efficiency-spamming.

 

Turbulence

To be honest I don't really have any suggestions for turbulence aside from this:

Recently tail wind has got a cast-delay "fix" for it's short "power in use" problem after the ability ends. The same applies to turbulence, for about a second (or slightly more) after the ability ends, the visuals remain but the effect does not. During this short time a recast is not possible due to "power in use". You can clearly see the timer has ended when this happens so I would like a "fix" for this too. I am not sure if it's a bug or not, which is why I use the quotes. Zephyr depends on this ability to survive late-game and can't afford a second without it once everything almost 1-hit kills you. The casting animation is enough to deal with and we don't need an extra delay.

 

The last thing I would like to point out is that redirecting a homing projectile has little to no effect. There are 2 outcomes: 1: in which the rocket (assuming corrupted bombards here) redirects into the ground and the blast kills you anyway and 2: in which the rocket gets sent flying off in a random direction only to make a 180-degree turn half a second later. What I would like to see is turbulence turning off tracking projectiles and turning them into "dumb-fire" projectiles once redirected OR not being able to redirect rockets downward.

 

Tornado

Tornado is a tricky one... It is very unreliable for crowd control and unusable as a damage ability. My reasoning for this is the tornado spawn range. Too much will spawn them across the solar system where you don't need it and too little spawns them in your face with enemies unharmed. I somewhat tried to address this with the tailwind synergy speeding up it's movement. The way I see it, it may be best off with a fixed range like mesa's peacemaker. Another would be giving it a maximum range or even better: just speed up the movement speed a LOT.

 

Now what I suggest is locking enemies into the tornado while it's active. It doesn't pick up all affect all enemies in the area anyway (most of the time) and throwing them around only makes our lives harder. Not to mention the almost impossible target practice going on when they're inside the tornadoes. To improve damage capabilities the enemies would take damage based on the shots fired at the tornado (this is another idea mentioned before and no I have no clue who came up with this either, sorry). It would deal the damage from the bullets over a short time with a bonus in the tornado's elemental type. The damage can be dealt in ticks like it currently does but spread out over something like 10 ticks from the moment a bullet hits the tornado. This way teammates can help too and tornado could function as an indirect damage buff to certain elemental types.

 

One last possibility is giving tornado the "divebomb synergy" effect: walking through a tornado would add duration to your turbulence. Obviously only once per tornado but I feel like this would be better off on divebomb anyway. Maybe this could be an augment, allowing teammates to gain a limited duration turbulence when walking through a tornado. This would synergise really well with the jet stream augment... though we really need augment slots if we start using 2 at a time.

 

Right... apologies for the amount of text but I wanted to be as detailed as possible to get the message across. Zephyr could do with some synergy and improvements here and there. Please let me know what you think and what other suggestions you have.

 

EDIT: another quality of life adjustment I forgot about: Currently tail wind keeps your momentum. If you bulletjump forward but tailwind backwards you will still go forwards after the tailwind ends. What I would like to see is the momentum being reset upon activating tailwind.

Edited October 21, 2015 by zY_Spartan_Yz

[(PSN)abb12355]

Since we're sort of on the topic of reworks/buffs with Saryn and Mag right now, I thought it would be a nice time to discuss my favorite frame: Zephyr. DE has stated multiple times that they would like to create more synergy between frames and make all of them endgame viable.

So here we are...

Talking about Zephyr who is already decent in the current endgame due to her turbulence. But that's exactly the problem... it's pretty much all she's got going for her in terms of endgame. It keeps her alive (in most cases).

Now before you say her tail wind has a use and tornado has good crowd control, please consider that she is overshadowed by a lot of other abilities when it comes to movement or crowd control.

So... about the synergy... I am hoping to indirectly improve her viability by suggesting changes in a similar way as done to the current saryn rework. Not overhauling her abilities but either buffing or adding things onto the current state of them.

Let's get into it:

Any numbers specified below are suggestions and should be tested before implementing them. Without actual testing it is very difficult to give accurate numbers.

Tail wind:

Tail wind, which is mainly used for mobility, could do with some more synergy if you ask me. The only synergy it has right now is the fact it allows divebomb afterwards if used correctly. Though parkour 2.0 can do the same thing. Now we do want to keep her ability as it is since a lot of people like the mobility it gives, including me.

A nice idea I came up with will have it affect tornado. When using tail wind on/through/near a tornado, it will speed it up. This will visually increase it's width while also increasing it's effective range for pulling enemies. On top of that this combination will trigger a tornado movement speed increase if it has no enemies in range. This will somewhat solve the issue of tornadoes flying off to nowhere. Of course it will have to be a little smarter in finding enemies when this triggers.

The movement speed increase will only last a couple seconds while the size increase will last longer than that. Probably not for the remaining duration but at least a set amount. Maybe 10 seconds or so.

Dive bomb:

Personally I like the idea of the ability and the fact you can use it to quickly descend. However, from what I experienced, divebomb should cancel all horizontal movement in order to make it accurate enough for actual combat.the moment you press the button you want to go straight down instead of in an arch. This is more a quality of life fix rather than anything else. Whether this is done or not will not change much overall but would be preferred (by me at least).

For synergy I came up with something similar to what's been suggested on the forums before. (sorry I have no idea who came up with it). When hitting the ground with divebomb it has been suggested that you leave a "turbulence aura" behind, reducing enemy accuracy and redirecting projectiles just like normal turbulence. Though what I suggest is having divebomb add time to your turbulence (maybe 20% of your max duration per use?). If your turbulence was not active, this will activate it for this set amount of time. (preferably allowing recast of turbulence over this to refresh completely)

Now there is one more thing about divebomb: it has no use on the ground. I know it doesn't make sense to work on the ground but with all the indoor tilesets you kind of need it. So what I suggest is Zephyr calling down a flow of wind (could use tornado animation around Zephyr really short) which will stagger instead of knockdown the enemies in range and as written above, add a certain % of turbulence to the current duration of it (or starting with that amount).

The turbulence timer would not be able to go above it's maximum duration to balance out high efficiency-spamming.

Turbulence

To be honest I don't really have any suggestions for turbulence aside from this:

Recently tail wind has got a cast-delay "fix" for it's short "power in use" problem after the ability ends. The same applies to turbulence, for about a second (or slightly more) after the ability ends, the visuals remain but the effect does not. During this short time a recast is not possible due to "power in use". You can clearly see the timer has ended when this happens so I would like a "fix" for this too. I am not sure if it's a bug or not, which is why I use the quotes. Zephyr depends on this ability to survive late-game and can't afford a second without it once everything almost 1-hit kills you. The casting animation is enough to deal with and we don't need an extra delay.

The last thing I would like to point out is that redirecting a homing projectile has little to no effect. There are 2 outcomes: 1: in which the rocket (assuming corrupted bombards here) redirects into the ground and the blast kills you anyway and 2: in which the rocket gets sent flying off in a random direction only to make a 180-degree turn half a second later. What I would like to see is turbulence turning off tracking projectiles and turning them into "dumb-fire" projectiles once redirected OR not being able to redirect rockets downward.

Tornado

Tornado is a tricky one... It is very unreliable for crowd control and unusable as a damage ability. My reasoning for this is the tornado spawn range. Too much will spawn them across the solar system where you don't need it and too little spawns them in your face with enemies unharmed. I somewhat tried to address this with the tailwind synergy speeding up it's movement. The way I see it, it may be best off with a fixed range like mesa's peacemaker. Another would be giving it a maximum range or even better: just speed up the movement speed a LOT.

Now what I suggest is locking enemies into the tornado while it's active. It doesn't pick up all affect all enemies in the area anyway (most of the time) and throwing them around only makes our lives harder. Not to mention the almost impossible target practice going on when they're inside the tornadoes. To improve damage capabilities the enemies would take damage based on the shots fired at the tornado (this is another idea mentioned before and no I have no clue who came up with this either, sorry). It would deal the damage from the bullets over a short time with a bonus in the tornado's elemental type. The damage can be dealt in ticks like it currently does but spread out over something like 10 ticks from the moment a bullet hits the tornado. This way teammates can help too and tornado could function as an indirect damage buff to certain elemental types.

One last possibility is giving tornado the "divebomb synergy" effect: walking through a tornado would add duration to your turbulence. Obviously only once per tornado but I feel like this would be better off on divebomb anyway. Maybe this could be an augment, allowing teammates to gain a limited duration turbulence when walking through a tornado. This would synergise really well with the jet stream augment... though we really need augment slots if we start using 2 at a time.

Right... apologies for the amount of text but I wanted to be as detailed as possible to get the message across. Zephyr could do with some synergy and improvements here and there. Please let me know what you think and what other suggestions you have.

I like the majority of your ideas. But the only problem is turbulence not getting any changes. I think turbulence is a great ability, but it's so unrelyable with all the bugs.

1- Zephyr should deflect ALL ranged weapons, Bombards, Hitscans, fire, etc. I can't play a high lvl grinner/Corrupted when almost all shots pierce the shield when up against grinner, and every rocket get deflected, but then comes right back at you as a direct hit. Mesa is more conistent at making herself near invincible against all ranged weapons. And keep in mind mesa has a reflection and not a deflection unlike Zephyr as well. Mesa can also reflect all rockets back at the enemy, while ,Zephyr, again, deflects the rocket, but then comes back as a direct hit. (Turbulence is a better damage reduction overall, but shattershield is WAY more consistent. Zephyr should get a 100% guaranteed deflection. If Mesa gets 95% With a reflection, why can't Zephyr without a reflection. Also, let Zephyr redirect bombard rockets so they actually go back to the bombards without doing any damage. Again with the consistency turbulence problem, I tested something in the simulacrum, when I stood on a incline against level 70 heavy gunners, I got shot every time. Also, when I jumped, I got shot every time.

See what I mean, turbulence needs tons of fixes as the mechanics are broken atm.

Edited October 21, 2015 by (PS4)abb12355

[ZizWing]

I like the majority of your ideas. But the only problem is turbulence not getting any changes. I think turbulence is a great ability, but it's so unrelyable with all the bugs.

1- Zephyr should deflect ALL ranged weapons, Bombards, Hitscans, fire, etc. I can't play a high lvl grinner/Corrupted when almost all shots pierce the shield when up against grinner, and every rocket get deflected, but then comes right back at you as a direct hit. Mesa is more conistent at making herself near invincible against all ranged weapons. And keep in mind mesa has a reflection and not a deflection unlike Zephyr as well. Mesa can also reflect all rockets back at the enemy, while ,Zephyr, again, deflects the rocket, but then comes back as a direct hit. (Turbulence is a better damage reduction overall, but shattershield is WAY more consistent. Zephyr should get a 100% guaranteed deflection. If Mesa gets 95% With a reflection, why can't Zephyr without a reflection. Also, let Zephyr redirect bombard rockets so they actually go back to the bombards without doing any damage. Again with the consistency turbulence problem, I tested something in the simulacrum, when I stood on a incline against level 70 heavy gunners, I got shot every time. Also, when I jumped, I got shot every time.

See what I mean, turbulence needs tons of fixes as the mechanics are broken atm.

I know the feeling, though I don't really think it's possible to deflect everything with the current way it operates. It would require a large amount of work to re-make the ability. The problem here is the hitscan weapons, the accuracy decrease just doesn't come close to the 100% deflection of projectiles. Then the other problem lies in the range of the outer shield (if you're not familiar with the inner/outer shields I suggest you check the wiki page about turbulence). Because the enemy only gets an accuracy reduction when within range of the outer shield, it will not have much of an effect on larger maps. Though personally I have no trouble going 40 minutes into a void survival... aside from the occasional bombard shots that I don't notice. I rarely go far beyond the 40 minute mark so it could be that the accuracy starts falling off rapidly as the enemy scales into higher levels. This would need some testing to be sure it's not just the same amount of shots getting through but with more damage.

 

If there would be any kind of quick fix... I would say this: Have enemies outside the outer shield get 100% deflect chance for each shot. The moment they enter the radius they get the current deflect chance per shot. This would allow you to fight all factions but with a different playstyle. lower range abilities but longer range fighting for hitscan and larger range abilities but closer range fighting for projectiles. For void you'd want to stay away from the heavy gunners but get up close for the rest. I do see the problem that this might be too strong but who knows... it might actually work.

Edited October 21, 2015 by zY_Spartan_Yz

[(PSN)abb12355]

I know the feeling, though I don't really think it's possible to deflect everything with the current way it operates. It would require a large amount of work to re-make the ability. The problem here is the hitscan weapons, the accuracy decrease just doesn't come close to the 100% deflection of projectiles. Then the other problem lies in the range of the outer shield (if you're not familiar with the inner/outer shields I suggest you check the wiki page about turbulence). Because the enemy only gets an accuracy reduction when within range of the outer shield, it will not have much of an effect on larger maps. Though personally I have no trouble going 40 minutes into a void survival... aside from the occasional bombard shots that I don't notice. I rarely go far beyond the 40 minute mark so it could be that the accuracy starts falling off rapidly as the enemy scales into higher levels. This would need some testing to be sure it's not just the same amount of shots getting through but with more damage.

If there would be any kind of quick fix... I would say this: Have enemies outside the outer shield get 100% deflect chance for each shot. The moment they enter the radius they get the current deflect chance per shot. This would allow you to fight all factions but with a different playstyle. lower range abilities for hitscan but longer range fighting and larger range abilities but closer range fighting for combat. For void you'd want to stay away from the heavy gunners but get up close for the rest. I do see the problem that this might be too strong but who knows... it might actually work.

I'm aware of the inner and outer radius. The fix you suggested is amazing. That alone would make Turbulence a consistent ablitiy. But one thing, do you think the bombards rocket deflection glitch should be fixed? Thats my biggest problem when I go into the void. It's so annoying.

[ZizWing]

I'm aware of the inner and outer radius. The fix you suggested is amazing. That alone would make Turbulence a consistent ablitiy. But one thing, do you think the bombards rocket deflection glitch should be fixed? Thats my biggest problem when I go into the void. It's so annoying.

It's the exact same story here, I hate them too. Though I think that would make Zephyr too strong if the suggested change is implemented. As much as I would love it, we can't have everything because then it would simply be a game of "press 3 and run away from butchers". I think the bombard tracking issue should be fixed though, but it should compensate a little bit somewhere to not make it completely overpowered. I'd need some time to come up with a better solution but maybe someone else has some ideas... We'll see. If I come up with something I will post it here but don't depend on it too much.

 

EDIT: with implemented change I mean the change in my previous post, just to clarify. In Zephyr's current state it's a no-brainer, just fix it.

Edited October 21, 2015 by zY_Spartan_Yz

[Hallucinated]

Your ideas actually reminded me of a bug that might make an interesting feature.

 

If you somehow manage to die when Turbulence is up (yeah I know I know, but Ballistas and Butchers can pull it off) and then revive, the spot where you die will still be affected by an invisible Turbulence effect until you recast it (and it also affects your shots but that's another matter).

 

Perhaps instead of Divebomb giving you a more limited version of Turbulence, how about it creates a stationary, say, 5 second Turbulence at the point of impact? It also adds an interesting tactical dimension to it. Of course, if you do that you might have to increase the cost of Divebomb.

 

A related idea might be to give Tornadoes their own Turbulence field, so that enemies who aren't sucked into them are still neutered because they can't shoot through them. Really, considering that the casting player can't shoot through them this might be an interesting idea.

 

With respect to Tail Wind interacting with Tornado, how about Tail Winding through a Tornado pulls the Tornado in your wake, allowing you to have some control over where your Tornado goes at the expense of some energy? So while Tornado is up and you see a new clump of enemies, you can Tail Wind through the nearest Tornado at them and it comes along and sucks them up. That adds some more interesting interactions.

[ZizWing]

Your ideas actually reminded me of a bug that might make an interesting feature.

 

If you somehow manage to die when Turbulence is up (yeah I know I know, but Ballistas and Butchers can pull it off) and then revive, the spot where you die will still be affected by an invisible Turbulence effect until you recast it (and it also affects your shots but that's another matter).

 

Perhaps instead of Divebomb giving you a more limited version of Turbulence, how about it creates a stationary, say, 5 second Turbulence at the point of impact? It also adds an interesting tactical dimension to it. Of course, if you do that you might have to increase the cost of Divebomb.

 

A related idea might be to give Tornadoes their own Turbulence field, so that enemies who aren't sucked into them are still neutered because they can't shoot through them. Really, considering that the casting player can't shoot through them this might be an interesting idea.

 

With respect to Tail Wind interacting with Tornado, how about Tail Winding through a Tornado pulls the Tornado in your wake, allowing you to have some control over where your Tornado goes at the expense of some energy? So while Tornado is up and you see a new clump of enemies, you can Tail Wind through the nearest Tornado at them and it comes along and sucks them up. That adds some more interesting interactions.

These are some great ideas, for divebomb I wouldn't mind either of out suggestions. We can do some fun things with both.

 

Your tornado idea actually sounds even better after considering mine :)

 

That bug though.... I don't think I've encountered it myself, is it still around or already fixed? I don't want to abuse it but I would like to see how it works.

[(PSN)abb12355]

Another idea for divebomb is divebomb using melee mods. Also, tailwind getting the ripline treatment

[Drone_Dankovsky]

Ох

Всех тех, кто любит Зефир, люблю и я.

Дай пять! о-о/

И пофиг, что ты этого не поймешь. Но жаль, что мои знания английского мешают мне поучаствовать в этой дискуссии.

[(PSN)PluggedInBabies]

I love Zephyr. I've never worked so hard for a frame when it first came out and fell in love with it as quickly as Zephyr. And I'm glad to see more people suggesting ideas for her and supporting changes to help her performance more.

My favorite of your ideas was holding enemies with Tornado. My brain immediately had a second thought relating to it too: Shrinking the Tornadoes to a size closer to what they are with Funnel Cloud equipped. I say this because the Tornadoes now are so big that you'd have to aim in a very different direction from the rest of the enemies to hit them. It would be nice for controller users like myself. But that could result in crazy series of mini Bastilles that runs all over the place and spreads status conditions like wildfire. My inner Vauban play got too happy just think about that, pardon me. But I really love that thought! :)

But on the Divebomb front, I think honestly think DE should get rid of the ability outright. Its 50 Energy to descend quickly, do a small amount of damage, and maybe stun nearby enemies. We have Slam Melee attacks though, which can do a lot more damage and cost us nothing. And now that they flow much more smoothly than they did when Zephyr first dropped, I'm even more in favor of this now. And another change came since Zephyr's addition that gives me a simple idea for a replacement:

"Air Strike" or "Super Sonicor". A projectile that launches enemies nearby on contact with a surface, with an animation that causes Zephyr to slow down and drift a bit (Similar to Nova Bomb from Destiny). A death from above kind of attack to fit in with a frame that excels in staying airborne, and bonus crowd control support that can benefit her team. Honestly, besides Bastille, we don't really have much for displaced crowd knockdown/stun abilities.

Thanks for bringing more attention to Zephyr though and opening up the discussion more. I definitely like the idea of Tornadoes holding enemies, but I'm more in favor of replacing Divebomb with something that adds more to her potential kit than trying to make it a more potent slam attack. There's not much room for change with Turbulence because its in a good state, and I do agree that Tailwind needs more but its hard to think on what more can really be done. Maybe something like a built in Swing Line type effect? Its something to think about and discuss for sure. She's a great and fun frame but she still feels really incomplete due to her 2nd Ability slot being borderline blank at the moment. Thanks for sharing and have an awesome day, Tenno! :D

Edited October 23, 2015 by (PS4)PluggedInBabies

[Hallucinated]

That bug though.... I don't think I've encountered it myself, is it still around or already fixed? I don't want to abuse it but I would like to see how it works.

 

Eh.. it's been a long time since I've actually used a revive for Zephyr so it may have been fixed. And you can't abuse it, because it deflects your shots too. That's how I found out about it: I was trying to shoot my Secura Cestras after I revived and they kept getting deflected while the damn Ballista on the other side nearly shot me dead again.

 

But on the Divebomb front, I think honestly think DE should get rid of the ability outright. Its 50 Energy to descend quickly, do a small amount of damage, and maybe stun nearby enemies. 

 

Actually, Divebomb only takes 25 energy. That's the only thing keeping it from being completely useless; a cheap radial knockdown that you can use by just jumping and hitting. I still don't really use it though.

 

And Zephyr threads pop up at least once a week around here, and usually every other day, albeit with the same (blue) faces every time. Maybe red too now that Agent Orange changed his avatar.

[ZizWing]

-snip-

I'm afraid we'd have to let DE decide on the tornado front here. Divebomb however... I wouldn't mind it being replaced completely and having played Destiny myself I love your idea but I tried to make something out of it :P So far everything I've seen is "remove divebomb". What I tried to accomplish is to keep divebomb but make it useful enough to... well... use. However I do think that the majority of the Zephyr players would like it replaced. If that's the case then that's fine with me too.

 

Another idea for divebomb is divebomb using melee mods. Also, tailwind getting the ripline treatment

This idea could work too but it wouldn't give me the incentive to use it much anyway. A lot of missions are too low to trigger a full divebomb and if they are I usually stick to the ground until I cleared the room. The occasional time I use divebomb like it's supposed to, it doesn't do enough to justify the cost like (PS4)PluggedInBabies mentioned. With my suggestion it would be possible to use it in any situation and have at least 1 benefit. Using it from the air would do damage and knockdown like usual.

 

 

And Zephyr threads pop up at least once a week around here, and usually every other day, albeit with the same (blue) faces every time. Maybe red too now that Agent Orange changed his avatar.

At this point I'm just hoping DE picks up one of these threads and tells us they are going to take a look at her. One of the problems here is that Zephyr is not played that much (I rarely see one other than me in public lobbies). Due to the lack of people using her, the amount of complaints are low. Because the amount of complaints are low, the topics don't do very well and get overrun by others (like Saryn and Mag right now).

 

I will try and get a question in for the coming devstreams, asking about a potential Zephyr buff / rework but I'm afraid those won't stand out enough to make it in.

[(PSN)abb12355]

I will try and get a question in for the coming devstreams, asking about a potential Zephyr buff / rework but I'm afraid those won't stand out enough to make it in.

I have to say good luck to you. The biggest problem with Zephyr is that she is the forgotten warframe. Nobody plays her. Imagine a frame like Loki or Nova starting to have many many glitches/ or flaws for whatever reason. The DE would rework/Fix that in a heartbeat because so many people would be complaining. With Zephyr, only a few people are complaining about the flaws in her ablities. That's really unfortunate. Many people are even pm'ing the DE to rework Zephyr, and they seem to act like Zephyr doesn't exist at all. Hell, she doesn't have a skin yet. I feel the DE puts priority over the more popular frames.

I sent many pm's on the Devstream threads, and it seems they just ignore it.

Hopefully they will listen to you because it's honestly tiresome to keep reporting problems that the DE know about, but don't care about.

Edited October 23, 2015 by (PS4)abb12355

[Hallucinated]

Actually, in my opinion the reason DE can't rework Zephyr is because nobody can agree on what they actually want from her.

 

There's just about one (1), thing that everybody can agree on: Divebomb surely isn't worth a power slot. Even then, some players want it so they can stop dead in the middle of Tailwind.

 

People who don't play her usually want some fancy flying ability that would be useless in about 70% of the tilesets because they want to 'fly', because she's the 'bird' frame. Some other people who don't play her whine about how Tornado makes things hard to kill, but frankly the only scenario where this is ever an issue is in Defence, and as a flying tank that's hardly her forte. Then there's the people who somehow think bullet jump invalidates Tailwind, likely because they've never actually used Tailwind.

 

Nobody really agrees on what her 'role' should be: some people want to turn her into an offensive caster with uber damage abilities, some people want her to be even more mobile and ditch her more straightforward abilities, other people want to double down on the tankiness. Then there are the people who are mostly happy with how she plays now who are afraid any change will break her playstyle, especially because a lot of the people who don't play her want a vastly different playstyle because she's the 'air'/'bird' frame.

 

Turbulence is surprisingly contentious: some people think it's fine, others reckon it's OP and needs to be nerfed. How it should help against hitscan is another big issue: a lot of the suggestions for that basically want to encourage negative range against hitscan, which is exactly the opposite of what DE is doing now to make sure the tradeoffs on corrupted mods are actually tradeoffs. Honestly if they want to simulate how it works against projectiles for hitscan they might as well just make it that anything targeting something in the inner radius automatically misses, yet that sounds preposterously OP. It isn't, really, compared to some of the other defensive abilities out there, but it sounds OP.

 

She definitely has some bugs that need fixing, particularly with retained momentum and the like, but on the whole none of them are game breaking or make her unplayable, and they've been problematic since she was launched, so I suspect that because she breaks the normal physics and parkour rules, every time those are changed she needs retuning.

 

I think the reason she isn't played very much is that she's never been part of some super broken combo build, so she's never really entered the consciousness of the 'meta'. Prior to the Oxium change farming the 600 to build her was a giant pain, too, and then there's the research requirements. As a non prime frame, she's actually among the hardest to get, which is also why I think you don't see many Banshees either. Maybe not Mesa level irritating, but quite tedious, especially if you want to do it solo somehow (found clan, build S#&$loads of forma, build dojo, build labs, research prerequisites etc.) She also requires the player to actually play to perform, so she's also never been part of some super farming build either.

 

So, to sum up her 'problems' for players, she's quite hard/tedious to get, so she won't turn up in any noob guide; she requires input from the player to actually perform, so she's not a super farmer; she has nothing that will completely break the game, so those 6 hour survival lunatics aren't interested; and there's a dissonance between what players might expect of her (some fast, agile, flying fragile thing) and what they get (a fast, agile tanky thing). So she doesn't get much player attention.

 

From the developer side, she has no grievously broken mechanics, so it's not that urgent; she doesn't have any idiotic perverse incentives for modding her, so her basic design is pretty solid; she's not one of the Closed Beta frames, so the grognards aren't whining about her; her bugs are numerous but minor, so the effort needed to fix her is disproportionate to her problems; there's no real consensus on what direction to take her or if she even needs overhauling, so even if they wanted to they don't know where to go; and her fan base, if small, is very dedicated, which means they're doing something right. So I don't think she's that high on the list for the developers, because on the whole she works and doesn't break anything.

 

I don't really think she's in a bad place right now. Yeah, Divebomb could be something better, yeah it's irritating to be stuck to the wall for ten seconds straight because of inherited momentum, but on the whole she's quite functional, and she's not like Saryn or Trinity where the meta encourages ridiculous min-max builds, nor does she have huge scaling problems like Rhino. Yeah, some more synergy between her abilities sounds good, but she doesn't need an overhaul. I still consider her relatively new, and in the one and a half years I've been playing this game only a single Immortal skin has come out (Trinity), and the whole premium skins thing is very new.

 

So really, I'm not surprised she doesn't get a lot of attention, and I'm one of the ones who is scared of what will happen if she does. I don't think she really needs it. Polishing? Yes. Rework? No.

[(PSN)abb12355]

Actually, in my opinion the reason DE can't rework Zephyr is because nobody can agree on what they actually want from her.

There's just about one (1), thing that everybody can agree on: Divebomb surely isn't worth a power slot. Even then, some players want it so they can stop dead in the middle of Tailwind.

People who don't play her usually want some fancy flying ability that would be useless in about 70% of the tilesets because they want to 'fly', because she's the 'bird' frame. Some other people who don't play her whine about how Tornado makes things hard to kill, but frankly the only scenario where this is ever an issue is in Defence, and as a flying tank that's hardly her forte. Then there's the people who somehow think bullet jump invalidates Tailwind, likely because they've never actually used Tailwind.

Nobody really agrees on what her 'role' should be: some people want to turn her into an offensive caster with uber damage abilities, some people want her to be even more mobile and ditch her more straightforward abilities, other people want to double down on the tankiness. Then there are the people who are mostly happy with how she plays now who are afraid any change will break her playstyle, especially because a lot of the people who don't play her want a vastly different playstyle because she's the 'air'/'bird' frame.

Turbulence is surprisingly contentious: some people think it's fine, others reckon it's OP and needs to be nerfed. How it should help against hitscan is another big issue: a lot of the suggestions for that basically want to encourage negative range against hitscan, which is exactly the opposite of what DE is doing now to make sure the tradeoffs on corrupted mods are actually tradeoffs. Honestly if they want to simulate how it works against projectiles for hitscan they might as well just make it that anything targeting something in the inner radius automatically misses, yet that sounds preposterously OP. It isn't, really, compared to some of the other defensive abilities out there, but it sounds OP.

She definitely has some bugs that need fixing, particularly with retained momentum and the like, but on the whole none of them are game breaking or make her unplayable, and they've been problematic since she was launched, so I suspect that because she breaks the normal physics and parkour rules, every time those are changed she needs retuning.

I think the reason she isn't played very much is that she's never been part of some super broken combo build, so she's never really entered the consciousness of the 'meta'. Prior to the Oxium change farming the 600 to build her was a giant pain, too, and then there's the research requirements. As a non prime frame, she's actually among the hardest to get, which is also why I think you don't see many Banshees either. Maybe not Mesa level irritating, but quite tedious, especially if you want to do it solo somehow (found clan, build S#&$loads of forma, build dojo, build labs, research prerequisites etc.) She also requires the player to actually play to perform, so she's also never been part of some super farming build either.

So, to sum up her 'problems' for players, she's quite hard/tedious to get, so she won't turn up in any noob guide; she requires input from the player to actually perform, so she's not a super farmer; she has nothing that will completely break the game, so those 6 hour survival lunatics aren't interested; and there's a dissonance between what players might expect of her (some fast, agile, flying fragile thing) and what they get (a fast, agile tanky thing). So she doesn't get much player attention.

From the developer side, she has no grievously broken mechanics, so it's not that urgent; she doesn't have any idiotic perverse incentives for modding her, so her basic design is pretty solid; she's not one of the Closed Beta frames, so the grognards aren't whining about her; her bugs are numerous but minor, so the effort needed to fix her is disproportionate to her problems; there's no real consensus on what direction to take her or if she even needs overhauling, so even if they wanted to they don't know where to go; and her fan base, if small, is very dedicated, which means they're doing something right. So I don't think she's that high on the list for the developers, because on the whole she works and doesn't break anything.

I don't really think she's in a bad place right now. Yeah, Divebomb could be something better, yeah it's irritating to be stuck to the wall for ten seconds straight because of inherited momentum, but on the whole she's quite functional, and she's not like Saryn or Trinity where the meta encourages ridiculous min-max builds, nor does she have huge scaling problems like Rhino. Yeah, some more synergy between her abilities sounds good, but she doesn't need an overhaul. I still consider her relatively new, and in the one and a half years I've been playing this game only a single Immortal skin has come out (Trinity), and the whole premium skins thing is very new.

So really, I'm not surprised she doesn't get a lot of attention, and I'm one of the ones who is scared of what will happen if she does. I don't think she really needs it. Polishing? Yes. Rework? No.

Your right, most Zephyr players can't agree everything.

We have the experienced Zephyr players like 4gent-0range, GaelicFlame, the op, and you and me asking for quality of life changes. Or like you said, polishing.

We have players with no experience with Zephyr saying she is either trash/ Needs to be nerfed because of turbulence and tonkor.

And we have the somewhat experienced Zephyr's that want a change on all her abilities.

Because of this, like you said, the DE may never do anything about her bugs because the community may never agree on anything.

[ZizWing]

-snip-

To be honest I really don't know how to reply to this... you're spot on with pretty much everything you stated. I do believe that one thing all Zephyr players can agree on is that Tornado needs to be more reliable (it's too random/chaotic). But most of all what you mentioned. The momentum issues and all other little annoyances and don't forget the Turbulence re-cast delay.

 

I think I simply took it a bit too far with this thread by suggesting all these ability tweaks and add-ons. I must say I would still love these changes I suggested, but it has become clear that that should be something for the future, if at all. I will stand firm and say that she needs some work though. Divebomb should get looked at anyway, but for the most part I could live with fixing the bugs and annoyances of the current Zephyr. After that it should become clear whether she needs additional tweaking or not.

 

Yet this gets us nowhere... we still need DE to take a look at her, otherwise this whole discussion is wasted like many before have. I'm just going to cross my fingers that Zephyr will be brought up in one of the devstreams.

Edited October 24, 2015 by zY_Spartan_Yz

[(PSN)xKAIOWAx]

Turbulence need some attention too , because against hard enemies simply dont work , the skill s clear , repulse bullets when used , but dont say nothing about enemies lvls , tailwind and tornados are ok , and divebomb need great rework or maybe changed for different skill