Okay so i just tried to play this godforsaken warframe after quite some time to see if i can make it work if i change the build. Nope, Equinox is just in a really bad place right now. And i came to a conclusion Equinox although is cool conceptually, it really sucks when it comes to its abilities, synergies and modding itself to achieve a decent build. So here are some changes to Equinox i would implement if i was the divine creature known as "Pablo". lol
Passive - passive should be just straight up buffed to 20% energy/health conversion on picking up a health/energy orb instead of current 10%
Metamorphosis - Coolest and most important sthick of this warframe is not so bad especially with the augment, but we can make it better.
So i have in mind this ability is still for switching between night and day forms, but the buffs you gain are somewhat wrongly distributed imo. Let me explain, so the day form should be offensive, and night defensive form. With that in mind, day form should apply its current damage multiplier and give bonus armor instead of speed. It allows a layer of protection while you want to be dealing damage and taking fire. So speed would just go into night form coupled with bonus shields. It makes much more sense to do that, because armor does not translate to shields, only to health. And coupling speed with bonus shields is to evade and gain distance from enemy fire.
Rest/Rage - Rest, the nightform put to sleep ability that is oh so very boring in the current state of the game and has few good uses. In addition to what already does i would add that it has chance to drop health orbs when enemy units die under the sleep effect. Rage, daylight counterpart of this ability is somewhat too straight forward and simple imo. I know straightforward and simple is usually good but hear me out. Rage should be AoE enemy debuff that does all that good damage vulnerability AND also applies stacks of ammo efficiency for each enemy killed (under the effect of the ability ofc).
So point is in nightform you get more sustain from those juicy health orbs that can come into play with many different builds or playstyles (arcane blessing, Equilibrium, Health conversion etc), and in dayform you can mow down groups of enemies that would be more vulnerable to damage and give some stacking ammo efficiency buff to keep up the maximum "dakka". Rage ammo efficiency buff would be something like 3 seconds of duration per enemy and 20% efficiency per enemy capping out at max 60%, duration of the buff could be refreshed by killing more enemies affected by Rage.
Pacify/Provoke - This ability is fine BUT only change i would make is that buffs once they build up to max are transmited between forms when casting metamorphosis.
So you have fully built up the dayform strenth buff, and you want to switch to nightform. Yes, that would mean your bonus strength buff would be replaced by nightforms damage resistance without needing to build up the maximum effect by killing the enemies again form scratch.
Mend and maim - Equinox ultimate should just merge into one ability, you would press it to activate and to trigger the mend heal you wold hold the button and to trigger the maim explodion you would simply tap the button again. It has pretty long casting animation already so it needs casting speed build investments to be a truly OP ability.
Why i think it wouldnt be OP?-it still requires build up to do big damage and you need that build up do the healing. Due to long casting animation you would need to time your heals in right time to avoid death. It wouldn't be possible to spam heals because you need to build it up first and release it when you are not in the face of danger.
So those are my suggestions on how to improve Equinox the duality warframe, again one of the coolest concepts and designs in the game but sadly very impractical in the current state of the game. I strived not to change anything drastically and keep within the warframes established theme, add some new much needed buffs and quality of life changes.
