Banelingline
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Posts posted by Banelingline
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There is a line of logic for these being Exilus mods. Namely, the fact that they can be said to have weapon-derived base stats, rather than increasing what the weapon already does in any capacity. However, the spirit of the slot means that they need focused on extremely niche types of attack. Very low fire rate one-shots, Status-spreading without damage to capitalize on it, "chaff" clearing, as well as sidegrading the weapon into other types (e.g., turning the Soma into something like the Grinlock). And, of course, shenanigans like grapples, healing functions, mobility, and other stuff to bleed out some reasons for various Warframe choices.
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I do like the notion of the disk scaling off of Heavy Attacks, but the base duration being cratered so hard makes it very, very painful to use outside of situations where you can easily generate a sizable amount of combo independently of your melee weapon (Amalgam mod for this when?). Some possible mechanics to use:
- Gaining combo extends duration, follow-up heavies reduce based on combo efficiency.
- Remove any combo scaling from disk, recall releases blast based on remaining duration and current combo.
- Have the disk scale in punch through with the combo counter, for both the projectile and AoE.
Generally, I want it to go well with alternate combo generation, but still have use without it at the cost of being best off with seriously unusual build and playstyle considerations. Whatever the case, it should be fine with throwing the disk out without having a high combo-counter, even if it's somewhat poor like a 20 second baseline duration. The thing's mostly for applying Status procs, so taking half a second to re-apply the disk isn't going to be a serious problem.
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The submunitions don't have self-damage, and IIRC the reason it can't use Cautious Shot is because Warframe's spaghetti code nature involves a lot of really bad choices for design accretion like the game has turned into. In this case, the relevant technical stuff is that weapon classification is branch-based, not tag-based, so Cautious Shot requires Weapon -> Rifle -> Launcher, and the Kuva Bramma is Weapon -> Rifle -> Bow. A weapon can't be both a bow and a launcher for mods, because of the way they built the mod system.
Fixing it would need a full pass-over and quite a deal of likely bugfixing to swap from the branch-based weapon classification to tag-based classification, and that's a very low priority with DE's design process of constantly throwing more stuff out. Backend like the mod categories is a very low priority compared to bugfixing new systems as much as in-house development allows for (internal connection stability tests are very different from real-world ping) when you have no actual QA personnel who's life's mission is to make the programmers scream in inadequacy by trying the completely nonsensical things that really honestly should never have a chance to be a problem, and turn out to be game-ruining exploits (Power Donation with Archwing Launcher) and/or bugfests that make the content creators horrified (Railjack. That is all that should need said.).
Personally, I'd solve the problem by turning Cautious Shot into a 9-capacity Vazarin Aura, nerfing it to 85% on its own, which is full removal for the user if they have Coaction Drift, with the rest of the squad getting 97.75% reduction, for 225% of the current self-damage of a maxed Cautious Shot for the whole squad on just one person carrying it and Coaction Drift. It'd see use purely on the basis of being an 18-capacity-with-polarity-match Aura with the 85% reduction, which is still perfectly serviceable for the mild cases of self-damage like running into an Acceltra detonation or two or accidentally catching yourself in a Phantasma or Zarr detonation, and for enabling survival on some of the mega-tanks. Still a bandaid of a mod, but one that is pure opportunity cost of not taking a different Aura, and most auras are complete trash.
Actually fixing self-damage as a whole would be the work of a vast amount of table editing to refactor all the relevant fields in the game, whether that be reducing the health of every enemy and damage of every weapon (probably via nerfing base damage mods) or boosting everything to do with Warframe health and shields while increasing enemy damage by the same percentage. The key is having self-damage weapons be a lower proportion of player health. Very tedious work, and consequently makes enemy control and damage reflection considerably stronger unless those were to be deliberately nerfed to preserve their proportions. Given how they tend to suck balls for actually getting things killed, that can afford to be a collateral buff.
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My own ideas for augmenting Revenant center on getting his kit's "gaps" closed up, one way or another. In the case of Enthrall's augment, it's making things last so you can properly exploit them. My most immediate ideas:
Haunting Thrall
Thralls persist as ghosts instead of disintegrating into pillars, losing 10/8/6/4% of their maximum health each second and dealing 0.8/1.25/2/3.75 times this as Tau damage to enemies in a 2m radius. (the ghosts don't take damage from allies, of course, so they'll stick around for Reave to wring their health out and restock your Mesmer Skin. And since the damage is a multiplier of the decay rate, high Strength and low Duration is optimal, just as it is for Mesmer Skin and somewhat for Reave, being poor only for Dance Macabre. Bring to Infested and watch as the masses in melee simply dissolve)
Enthralling Blows
Enthrall adds 50/65/80/100% Tau damage to Revenant's attacks while active. Enemies struck become Thralls for the remaining duration and become immune to damage from Revenant and his allies for 5 seconds (the momentary invulnerability assures Revenant can exploit them as desired, but he must both actually hit them and not one-shot them. Which works as a wonderful heavy unit filter, since you can just have your AoE one-shot all the trash and leave you the nice Thralls)
Mesmerizing Pyre
Pillars now enthrall enemies and will grant 1/1.5/2/2.5 stacks of Mesmer Skin to Thralls struck. (far simpler, and I'm imagining that these Mesmer Skin stacks would protect Thralls from allies the same way that they protect Revenant himself from self-damage: Can't die from it while the stack's still there, and will never consume a stack from it)
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My first thought for Mesmer Skin and making Blinding Reave worthwhile:
Preserving Skin
Mesmer Skin applies to self-damage and prevents status effect damage while active, and grants 10/15/20/30% increased Status Duration while active. (this is normally a downgrade, as the functionality is that it no longer prevents status effects and consumes stacks to stop self-damage. But it actually stops the self-damage outright so you have your health intact for when you need it, and this ties into the usually-irrelevant Reave functionality of stopping your Status Effects and spreading them to enemies. Also useful status duration, since it benefits from Power Duration)
Blinding Reave (edited, duh)
Enemies hit by Reave are blinded by fog for 6/7/8/10 seconds and finishers against them restore 6/12/18/24% of maximum health and shields and restore 1/1/1/2 charges of Mesmer Skin (basically, make the Finisher give much of the benefit of Reave on a Thrall, so that the Augment is efficient CC and a good method of replenishing durability. And allies can heal up considerably off of it)
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18 hours ago, Fenrir121 said:
This would be an absolutely massive debuff unless his other skills were seriously amped up as that damage boost (As it is now) applies to element and physical damage unless you mean the resulting damage was applied as an element.
It would be applying the percentile, likely much smaller, like an Elemental damage mod. After base damage and crit, not including other Elemental damage. Seriously, it could be cut to a third the current value and it wouldn't actually reduce overall damage by much, bar the enemy multipliers and stuff like going in Toxin against Infested. And by having a secondary damage stat, which stacks multiplicatively with raw and elemental damage, on Scorn, the base maximum of Fury could be taken down to 100% like the Elemental adding Augments.
While I don't feel like running the numbers to get it on point for similar output to the current Chroma, I'd say that 90% Scorn, 100% Fury baseline maximum would get pretty good on the ballpark. That's 90% pre-mod Status Chance, Critical Chance (or Damage), Fire Rate or Multishot. Easy, with Ability Strength mods, to bring it to much larger figures to beat out any single mod's value. The highest of these figures on a mod is Primed Pistol Gambit, at 187% Critical Chance increase. This would need 204.5% Ability Strength to match (bit of an investment, and the Efficiency scaling on the building of the buff causes a wrinkle with Blind Rage), and you're getting over 200% extra Elemental damage alongside, and it applies to all three weapons, not just the secondary you stick it on.
The goal I have is to make there be legitimate points to each Chroma Element. Little care to keep the power the same. He'd still be quite good whenever you have one hard target to wail on. Likely be even better for Eidolon hunting, with the much-inflated crit chance making for reliable orange crits on the usual suspects. Conversely, extra multishot, status chance or firerate can make for various other conditions being higher-value, as opposed to only being fully applicable to just boss-stomping, and the mobility boost, though intended to be minor, can make for a few others getting a bump or two. Access to easy health regen makes long-term missions a lot easier, as well. Overall, make Chroma's raw power go down a peg in most cases (Elemental damage goes higher than base damage mods, but crit does do a ton), but conversely give a sizable amount of additional versatility.
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I'd do the following:
1. Replace with Spectral Wings. Toxin gives ground speed and damage trail, Cold gives a Gauss-like Charge with damage on impact, Electric gives jump velocity and bursts of damage with each jump and Heat gives outright flight with proximity damage. Augment changes it to Channeled, or gives a recast setting off damage based on remaining duration.
2. Normalize status chance to current place of Electric and Cold, that being 25%. Toxin becomes rapid health regeneration instead of reload speed, Electric builds shields considerably more rapidly in addition to its lump sum, Cold gains bonus status chance over others. Heat only number tweaked, Augment additionally extends Status Duration of all Chroma abilities.
3. Scorn's armor bonus is replaced with a per-Element secondary offensive bonus, that being status for Toxin, crit for Cold, fire rate and attack speed for Electric, and multishot for Heat. Fury becomes Element-typed damage using post-base-damage-mod math. Ability Efficiency, instead of Strength, affects rate of damage to buff, Strength only applies to maximum buff.
4. Effigy becomes a virtually-Claw-armed Specter using the Spectral Wings movement style. Lowers maximum health alongside armor, setting its own values based on those and Ability Strength. Bonus loot element-specific, Toxin for Energy, mods and endo, Cold for health and resources, Electric for ammo and credits and Heat for general extra drops. Reason for others being they force a roll from the relevant tables on proc, while Heat rerolls from the whole drop set. Augment additionally causes Chroma's own element, but not the Effigy's, to switch to the other energy color, enabling a pre-set pair of Elements to be active at the same time and scaling Vex Armors separately, with the Effigy keeping the "primary" Element's charge intact and being the only one with the loot bonus.
This gives each Element a significant level of distinction, as each moves differently, has a differently-behaving Effigy, gathers different loot and has a different weapon buff, alongside the now-normalized different defenses and addition of Fury being Element-specific damage types, and thus additions of Status effects.
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My own core idea is to take advantage of just how heavily loaded the Corpus and Grineer are on a very small number of models to streamline conversions. Not necessarily introducing transformation animations, though this could be done for the Crewman and Lancer models due to their ubiquity, but rather making it so that there's direct texture mapping of the map's non-Infested models to base Infested on. Cut up/stretch out the models, then fill with Infested junk as needed to cover warped mess and as desired to give aesthetics.
Then, with this key workflow bit handled, have a Corpus, Grineer and Pure version of each basic Infested unit, as well as a Grineer and Pure alternative to the Mutalists as new units, likely starting with Pure Infested to be spawned by Boilers and encountered on Derelicts (and Mercury/Eris?). Then local variations for Invasions are "templated" onto the local forces, so during Plague Star you clearly see that the Infested present were Tusk units and an Outbreak on Jupiter gives you visually-distinct Vapos-based Infested.
Four new models for the first "phase" of adding Pure Infested as a fully-staffed faction, one for the Leaper, one for the Charger, one to replace the Mutalist Moa and one to replace the Mutalist Osprey, with the Crawler being a maimed version of one of these new models. Charger can be adjusted from Helminth Charger model to distinguish and better fit aesthetics of existing pure Infested, model to replace Mutalist Moa could be based directly on Infested parts of the Mutalist Moa instead of being made from scratch. Mutalist Osprey could be replaced by a variant of Crawler or Leaper that's more "bursty" and easier to avoid, retaining the Mutalists as a more serious threat than the "raw" Infested.
Corpus would only need to replace the Charger with a model based on their existing units, but could also replace Ancients, Boilers and Broodmothers with Corpus-based models. Perhaps a Mutalist Bursa model in replacement of the Broodmother? Still, four models to make to fill out the Infestation roster as entirely local, able to draw from all existing "typical" Corpus models for stuff to edit for some future-proofing automation. Grineer, meanwhile, need replacements for the Mutalists (two models), "pure" Infested (three more, though technically optional), Crawler and Leaper (another new model and variation thereof), having fewer useful models to work with as a starting point (the Corpus Proxies are all over the place, and Grineer have, like, three line infantry models. Lancer, Butcher and Heavy Gunner).
Ideally, they'd borrow the statistics of the base unit universally, using generics where needed. Armor for Grineer-based Infested, shields for Corpus infested, bloated and/or rapidly-regenerating raw health for "pure" Infested, with more-elite base units resulting in more powerful Infested. Perhaps add a corpse-converting Infested that acts similarly to the Amalgam Alkonost, only by drawing in the corpses of enemies to make reskinned Infested with the statistics of more elite units than normal. Such as a Charger with the bulk of a Heavy Bombard Arctic Eximus as its starting point.
Yes, it is much more work than your suggestion, but it's the bootstrapping to the treatment the other two factions have gotten. By having variant model skeletons as the basis, having Infested draw from the assets of the local faction becomes much more doable, and the idea of just cutting up, stretching and layering onto existing models to make Infested versions, instead of the heavier asset alteration of the current design process, means that it could be systematized to automatically do it to the local version of the base model, while allowing for the conversion of most any unit with the same skeleton in-mission. More exotic accessories are likely to lead to manual fixing, but this is still better than manually doing all of it every time.
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Combine this with a Riven overhaul that overlaps with it, or have most of this be attached to a Riven extension, basically make it so that it eats Rivens to spit out the better weapons. Because MR doesn't map well to how useful weapons turn out to be, so getting Riven Disposition involved seems kinda necessary, or some sort of normalizing that has it work better the lower the value is to some arbitrary number, so that it hardly notably improves the Rubico's crit chance, but can bring lots of weapons up to 30% before mods.
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The setup could start with taking the Augment Mods and repurposing them into fully alternate abilities, similar to the situation with Excalibur Umbra's Radial Howl. Possibly re-introducing the casting time issue Radial Howl had, because people can just equip Radial Blind off the standard Excalibur and only bring Howl for Sentient fighting, while Exalted Blade allows for the Umbral version to be put on Excalibur Prime for the people who have it and Chromatic Blade stops hogging a normal mod slot.
It'd be a bit of an issue to re-develop augments as tradeoffs, but then there's a lot more room because the augments are rendered ability variants, or alternative abilities altogether, so Nidus could have his Mutation stack reliance entirely removed with the Augments separating out those needs.
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I've thought of having a Corrupted set that mangles the bonuses and detriments so that every part of the set is at odds with the other properties on the mod, like a +Ability Efficiency/-Critical Damage set that has a Maiming Strike effect and an Equilibrium effect. The bonus is for Warframes. The detriment is a bane to using weapons. Every mod's effect is either redundant or actively disadvantaged.
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The glitch appears to be a bug from incorrectly cancelling animations with the new melee system. I list the specific weapons because those are what I've noticed it with in normal gameplay, and it may be something specific to Duplex-Auto, Gunblades, or the interaction of the two. All that it is is pressing E during the reload animation, which freezes the Tigris Prime shells in the air, centered on the Warframe as they are mid-animation..
There doesn't seem to be anything mechanical, just ejected shells freezing mid-animation instead of completing their animation or despawning when the reload animation is interrupted by a melee attack. Might be a couple lines of animation-cancelling or finishing code that weren't ported over properly to the new melee switch code.
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Oberon's theme is more about being a Fae hunter than Radiation, with the damage type seeming to be a shorthand for the Confusion proc, while Banshee's 1 deals Impact damage, not Blast. Another thing is that the primary element 'Frames all have passives that directly involve their element. Ember regenerates energy while on fire, Saryn's status procs are extended, Volt gains crit-affected damage from moving and Frost has a small chance to Freeze melee attackers. Oberon has a pet buff passive and Banshee silences her weapons.
A perfect way to explain my issue with Oberon as an Elemental 'Frame is to use the example of the two Slash-focused 'Frames: Garuda and Excalibur. In Excalibur's case, his theme is Sword, with Slash being a natural result of the sharp implement, while his passive is a weapon bonus for Swords. In Garuda's case, her kit is built around gratuitous bloodshed, the point and theme of her kit is Slash damage's Status proc, just like Saryn with Toxin's damage over time, and her passive gives her benefits for indulging in being a victim of her theme, much like Ember's energy-for-fire passive.
Given this, I'd say Mag is the only 'Frame that's themed on a combination Element. Her passive and 1 call to mind the general idea of Magnetism as an attractive force, while her 3 is essentially the status proc writ large. A proper Radiation-themed 'Frame would be about CC through the Confusion proc, rather than Oberon's support focus. Possibly using deep-space Lovecraftian horrors as a visual motif, tying the stellar associations of Radiation to the Confusion proc. Meanwhile, a Blast-themed 'Frame needs to be about AoEs and knockback, sort of an inverted Mag, with Rhino being disqualified because Iron Skin and Roar firmly ground his theme as being "big unstoppable beast", much like Excalibur's Sword theme having him be mechanically almost right for a Slash-'Frame.
To be brief on Toxin combination elements, my thought for a Corrosive-themed 'Frame is to have them make armor and shields permanently deplete with damage prevented, causing AoE damage based on the lost defenses, being crowd clearing by having a dynamic similar to Oberon's Smite that actually scales properly. For Gas, the "showcase" ability would be about leaving a lot of persisting AoEs, possibly passively turning Gas procs into such AoEs. Generally a new low-level map clearer that crowd-clears high level enemies by stacking DoTs. Meanwhile, the Viral 'Frame could be based around a "wasting sickness" implementation, where they can make basically the entire map utterly non-threatening and easily cause nearby enemies to be trivial to kill, but lacking AoE damage of their own, leaving them reliant on allies or weapons to actually get things to die.
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First, I'll comment on the Bayframe:
19 hours ago, HookahLover said:His passive ability is that enemies that melee him has a 90% chance of being knocked down by blast proc. He also carries a signature grenade launcher (think M32 MGL but with a touch of Warframe charm on it) called ‘Banger’
A 90% chance to knockdown melee enemies passively is crazy, and has little to do with enabling the rest of the 'Frame. The ability set overall has an issue of leaving no real room for signature normal weapons, due to the abilities already covering it. I'd suggest the passive being either Blast resistance in particular, or resistance to self-damage as a whole, so that it's less of a burden on healing mechanics.
19 hours ago, HookahLover said:1st ability is ‘Grenade’. By choosing one of four damage types by tapping the key (napalm, high explosive, stun or gas canister) Fuse can toss a grenade that detonates on impact that lead to AoE. The throwing distance will not be affected by range but rather by how high or low you aim, but it travels long enough to not harm you. Proc is based on duration and radius based on range. Damage from Grenade is based on strength. Costs 25 energy
Having the first ability be a cycle wheel seems like bad form, but I'll let that slide since it's a selection wheel for riders on the rest of the kit. I'd replace Stun with Thermoberic, a large area Heat damage option, having the High Explosive take up the CC role via Blast procs. Gas Canister and Napalm are fairly redundant as area-denial, and with Thermoberic offering Heat damage already, a Cold grenade could be included, perhaps having the effect of pulling enemies towards the center as an implosion grenade, so as to capitalize on AoE damage from other abilities and thematic weapon choices.
An alternative to the 1 in particular being a selection wheel is to have the different types be tied to each ability, such that you choose it by holding the key of the associated ability. In this case, the 1's related ability would be the gas canister, offering a nice general-purpose ability right from the start, while the 2 would be Thermoberic, 3 would be the Implosion and 4 would be High Explosive. Or each ability could have its own separate selection. Or both, with holding down an ability loading that ability's canister for the next ability you use, then tapping while "unloaded" uses the last one used with that ability, while preloading gives some benefit to the wait, perhaps the ability to charge up the abilities in some way to make them better. Or just cheaper. The biggest advantage of tying one selection to each ability is that you then get to have every augment be about the munition options.
19 hours ago, HookahLover said:2nd ability is ‘Rocket jump’ (placeholder for name) and basically Fuse uses his grenade launcher to fly higher by shooting at the ground (sort of like Zephyrs ‘Tail wind’) but based on the damage type you choose from 1st ability, Fuse will leave one of those procs after shooting the ground. Cannot be used in air for further reach. It will cause self damage on Fuse but it will pay off with higher damage based on how close they are to the blast radius. Jump range and damage is based on strength and blast radius is based on range. Proc is based on duration. Costs 40 energy
A thought for this is that, rather than just a proc, it takes the 1's effect and makes a wider-area, lower-damage version that's able to have affordable self-damage with high Ability Strength while giving some useful effect. Also, 50 energy, you're going to be taking self damage using this thing, so everyone and their mother's going to abuse Hunter Adrenaline and Rage to get infinite energy at all times. The biggest issue is that it's primarily a mobility effect, rather than a crowd control ability. Having it be something like "Flare Boost", making an AoE at the launch point and a thinner one along the trail traveled that hits lots of enemies while having fairly low self-damage, could make it work out better.
19 hours ago, HookahLover said:3rd ability is ‘Booby trap’ (if it would be allowed to be called in the game). This ability allows Fuse to target one enemy as a scapegoat and after the enemy dies, a 3 second countdown will begin and the enemy will explode, inflicting damage to those nearby. And just like 2nd ability, the damage type is based on which you choose on 1st ability before casting it. Failing to kill the enemy within the time limit of casting the ability will reset the casting since you can only use ‘Booby trap’ on one target at a time. Blast radius is based on range and damage is based on strength. Proc is based on duration. Costs 60 energy but will regain 20 if the enemy is still alive during the duration
This ability is entirely theme-breaking. At best, it removes the need to aim, but that shouldn't be a thing for an explosion 'frame. The point is widespread indiscriminate destruction, and marking a specific target to kill isn't going to work out all that well. Could instead be a trap of some kind, set on any surface, that can be manually detonated, or automatically go off if directly stepped on. The latter being a nice little automatic Interception denial.
19 hours ago, HookahLover said:4th ability is called ‘Weapon of mass destruction’ and it’s similar to many exalted weapons (Exalted blade, Artemis bow etc). Fuse brings out Banger and wielding it will drain energy and for every shell you shoot, it will be a 3 second delay due to the weapons chamber rotating and preparing a new shell to be shot. It can also be combined with ‘Grenade’ and allows you to throw a grenade with one of the four damage types (sort of like Ivaras combination of Artemis bow and quiver) and the casting cost of ‘Grenade’ will be reduced that way, also it won’t affect the reload delay. Also it will cause self harm if detonated too close. The explosive shells travels straight and can also be directed depending on where you’re aiming. Drain is based on efficiency and damage and flight speed is based on strength. Costs 75 energy to deploy and will drain 5 energy/second, and casting ‘Grenade’ will cost 20 when ‘Weapon of mass destruction’ is active
The setup, here, is remarkably clunky. An alternative that's vastly less so is having it work off an ammo system, where you load in shots with the abilities, and the weapon then fires them as high Impact damage projectiles, deploying an empowered/altered version of the ability's charge. Concentrated, but delayed, damage from 1, large areas from 2, a trap from 3 and pressing the reload key to load heavy, but expensive, damage with better projectile properties, with the associated alterations from picking out the type.
19 hours ago, HookahLover said:So basically this is a tank frame, has high armor, decent shield and high health due to risk of self harm and since he requires energy to maintain his ultimate, he’ll have a medium to high energy pool
If it's intended to be a tank, it should have far more explicitly self sustaining abilities, perhaps having the Gas option be friendly-healing (though this is pushing into too much value on one effect, since it's already going to be a lingering AoE that makes enemies emit more AoEs...) so that you could go for a melee setup easily, using the Cold implosion to drag enemies together and the Gas cloud to set up areas of healing, making for a natural Condition Overload setup.
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The big though I've had is toying with the Exalted weapon mechanic by having it be chassis altering for a separate mod set. The example I used over in another subforum was if Equinox's Aspects were moddable separately, and each Aspect was a functional Warframe you could equip before making the final one.
To kinda spitball a touch more detail in these thoughts, I'll list off the chassis types and the mechanics I had in mind:
Archwing: The thematic thought was something of an angelic heavy gunner, with the Archwing being the angel and the Warframe being the gunner. Not sure how the visual design would work, maybe having a musclewoman figure (think Zarya from Overwatch) for the Warframe that doesn't go far enough to break the angelic imagery set by the design of the Archwing.
Ability-wise, the Archwing would be set up to compete with Itzal for Open World areas by offering a direct movement rate improvement, while using healing and droprate increases instead of stealth and loot collecting. Able to work wonders alongside Itzal, but can also work as an alternative due to actually being useful alongside the standard 'Frames. The Warframe, meanwhile, would be a dispenser for ammo and have abilities focused on capitalizing on area-killing weapons through abilities that act as modified attacks. The swap would be holding down a mobility effect on the Warframe (not sure whether I want it an ammo-extracting dash or not), while exiting the Archwing could be the standard form, or be tied to charging up for a massive lootsplosion with plentiful extra health and energy drops.
Warframe: While it's hard to come up with what is essentially an alternate Equinox that goes even further with the different forms, my main thought is to have the two forms house massively different needs to justify having different mod setups. The main thought is the two states being "mage and knight", with the "mage" abilities concerned mostly with Range and Strength, while the "Knight" abiltiies are concerned mostly with Duration and Efficiency. Visually, maybe the "Knight" would be plated and have the armor fold out into more of a robe look that exposes more "skin"?
More detail on the abilities would be something of an emphasis on the difference between a melee-centric 'Frame and an ability-centric one, with the Mage's abilities being a Heat/Cold/Electric attacks set, with the Heat being a typical "press 1 to hit decently", the Cold being an AoE CC effect (improved Cold proc) and the Electric having a strong personal energy recovery mechanic (and being an alternative to Cold for CC, with high enough Ability Strength to cap out the Status Chance), while the 4 would be the swap button, being a target-locking dash that gives percentage extra armor on the other end. Meanwhile, the Knight would have a heal over time, an ability to improve Block and Status on melee weapons and a base armor reduction with minor damage over time to chaff clear, with the swapping 4 being an area-denial effect that functions to force enemies out of it.
Companion: The big gimmick, here, is that you'd have the ability to slap Link mods on as health multipliers (getting over doubled health and armor in a world with the Umbral modset is a huge amount of raw soak), alongside internalizing the other Companion mods. Unlike the other two, it wouldn't be changing anything about abilities, but instead take your Warframe as the baseline for a Companion modset, able to equip Kubrow mods (for the sake of Status Link access). Naturally, this would be a werebeast 'Frame, so fur is to be present. Probably initially as something along the lines of a fur-trimmed greatcoat and a head of actual hair.
Ability-wise, it'd be a melee-'Frame, with a heavy-slaying, gap-closing leap to cover the distance, so that they can maintain melee range easily and take out specific high-priority targets who may be buried behind a mass of bodies. Then something to get rid of that mass of bodies, perhaps a Knockdown-inflicting Roar to pair it with CC that scales indefinitely, while also justifying a lack of increasing damage with melee/Companion mods on something able to get a very large AoE. A recovery tool is vital, and I'm inclined to have it be Health Orb extraction from enemies, possibly dealing percentage-based damage for a good anti-heavy that doesn't have value bogged down in situational mobility, but instead is tied to the different not-really-sutational application of healing. Then the transforming 4 applies a separate Companion modset while giving bonus attack speed.
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The problem with this is that having the lock-on be to the nearest enemy removes most of the value of the Buzlock in eliminating enemies at a distance with extremely high accuracy. If I were in for an upgraded Buzlok, I'd be wanting the alt-fire to be a useful firing mode in its own right, or have the beacon function be more user-firendly. The former could actually be having it so that the beacon explodes when it expires, whether from killing the enemy, running out of the 20 seconds, or firing another beacon. The latter comes down to better reliability on landing the hit, whether projectile speed, accuracy, more fire rate or multi shot applying.
The reason people love to use the Buzlok is being able to pick out an enemy, shoot them once with the alt-fire, then enjoy a flat 50% boost to crit rate while your shots beeline for the previously hit enemy, letting Punch Through then not need you to bother aiming through whatever mob is in between. Remove the beacon's target selection, then you remove the reason people love this thing. They can actually pick specific hit locations, which means Eidolon hunting made trivial.
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If the point is to reward long-term use, perhaps the challenges would be designed to be tackled in several different ways, such as Loki being given a Spy variant mission where you hack the usual sort of console area to unlock the path forward, but you could instead "just" kill some minibosses designed to kinda require either stealth takedowns, screwing with the AI using Decoy or pumping out Radial Disarm. For Oberon, it could be based on Defection, but offer challenges focused on your different abilities to make it possible. With one such "challenge" being just plain energy management for Iron Renewal to bull through it with healing and armor.
Replayability could be gotten by having the rewards improve based on your performance in the relevant task, as well as using it to allow you to get every reward once you've done each well enough for the basic version. To keep it an actual challenge, it could confine you to a fixed set of weapons and the non-Primed Warframe, with preset loadouts for you to pick three different builds for each weapon and the 'Frame, but they're preset builds, turning it into a matter of skill as to how well you do, rather than how powerful your gear is. This means that it can be rendered a stable numeric challenge quite easily, simply by balancing out mod ranks.
Of course, if the reward doesn't feed into the challenge, you need another challenge the reward matters in...
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1 hour ago, Paranoicon said:
In regards to the Kubrow thing, I'm not even sure what you mean since I don't use Kubrows.
Basically, Kubrows don't have armor strip like Kavats and have only recently gotten a Vacuum-analogue (8.5m from each). However, the reason Carrier is still overwhelmingly dominant is Ammo Case, which offloads ammo issues onto the Companion slot. By having ammo generation be in the baseline kit, while also possessing reliable armor reduction, you lose the reasons against using a Kubrow. By increasing the value of mods while directly controling Caro, the lower base stats are made up for with larger mod returns, so you can get high enough stats to get the Link mods working.
1 hour ago, Paranoicon said:In regards to the shields, I wasn't aware that Shields are a thing that only "completed" frames have, but I have very little interest on the lore to begin with.
It's really just a question of why Caro does have them. If Caro is only the initial Technocyte infection stage, then the shield shouldn't be present, but if Caro's mainly missing the "chassis" that gives the 'Frames their looks and bulk, then the shield could be present as part of the Systems. Basically, what stage of Warframe design do you think the shields come in at, and what stage is Caro supposed to be at?
1 hour ago, Paranoicon said:Ability-wise, it's mostly a balancing/thematic thing. In an early draft, her passive was gaining damage resistance based on the enemies she used her abilities on, since she'd use their flesh to "complete" herself. But I turned that into an augment since I felt it was rather OP, so I needed something to balance things out. And since, without that damage reduction, she'd have the survivability of Ember on a Sortie, I figured I should compensate that by giving her the possibility to obtain large amounts of health regen from a whole bunch of different sources.
Regarding this block, you could have Caro set up with the expectation to be running some durability exaggerating package, like pairing Health Conversion with ability mods that focus on maximizing health pickups. Also, if the point is to borrow the defensive properties, then how about replacing the Bite augment with something like this:
Carapace Assimilation: Bite gives Caro 15%/30%/45%/60% of the defenses it damages and 20%/35%/50%/65% of the damage resistances of those defenses for 5/10/15 seconds.
The wording here follows the Nyx rework's Psychic Bolt, which strips armor and shields. At max rank, it ends up giving Armor equal to 60% of the damage prevented by it and Shields equal to 60% of the damage dealt to it, alongside the damage resistances innate to the armor/shield type. Which are sparse and cap out at 50%. Great for Corpus, admittedly, as you can pretty easily pick up enormous resistance, if not immunity, to Puncture and Radiation, both damage types you can be hit by rather frequently. But it's more a situational bonus than a game-changer.
The lack of health resistance assimilation is because it's already spitting out huge sums of Health Orbs, so it doesn't need help there.
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4 hours ago, RS219 said:
1) Remove damage from daggers outright. Even 1hp of damage will alert an enemy, and Loki's radial disarm doesn't damage enemies (Wikia says it CAN damage certain enemies but I have no idea who the exceptions are).
This is covered by my fourth suggestion, which makes them only go after enemies that are actively attacking. In other words, it only goes for enemies that are already alerted. The clause you seem to be criticizing is literally cutting the damage reduction because of multiple scaling factors permitting the 90% fairly easily anyways.
4 hours ago, RS219 said:2) Seems consistent enough that dagger count scales with power strength. It's the same with Nova's 1 and Revenant's mesmer skin, among others.
Yes, well, as it is, there's too much focus on power strength. Personally, I'd have the switch to Duration for charge-based things be a general truth of the game, just because there's too little reason to grab Duration unless you have a Channel or something that you genuinely want to last a long time per-cast.
4 hours ago, RS219 said:3) And if no enemies are around that's a waste of a cast. I prefer my idea of energy cost being split between number of daggers so that recasting 3 with several active daggers costs less.
Then you just don't cast it without enemies or allies around. "Use", in this case, does include the ally share, and this would be prioritized before enemies. Having the cost stay constant makes it so you aren't just spamming Desolate Hands every time even one dagger is missing until a full set sticks, it makes the 90% reduction less of a problem as a result of making it harder to hold on to.
4 hours ago, RS219 said:4) That is an idea I explored above, that daggers won't disarm unless enemies are alerted and attacking. So if they're still doing alerting damage, they'll at least only do it once the enemy is alerted.
Well, having access to some kind of damage output without needing to compromise your 50% Restraint reduction. Which is the main reason I want the Desolate Hands 90% to be difficult to maintain at all times, because Baruuk is otherwise wildly overscaled for durability thanks to 95% reduction before armor and an utterly insane Energy pool. Especially if you're using a semi-auto weapon or ranged charge weapon, which lets Elude be active mid combat as you shoot because you have gaps to let Elude re-activate (that gap is only a fifth of a second, so just about every charged gun and semi-auto in the game lets you attack with Elude active)
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Meanwhile, with a build for the 3 augment, I'm map-nuking Hydron with Limbo. Seriously, it's actually kinda disgusting. Once Cataclysm gets outscaled, I start using Phantasma with 500% bonus damage to continue to get kills.
And yes, I've been stuck trying to figure out what corner an enemy I hit with Rift Torrent is in, this is why I mapnuke with Cataclysm. Gets 'em out of the Rift. Eventually...
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The changes I'd make to Desolate Hands are the following:
- Default per-dagger damage reduction reduced to 5%
- Number of daggers scales with ability duration
- Recasting causes excess daggers to seek use
- Only enemies that are attacking get disarmed
This means that strength/duration, strength/range and range/duration are all viable builds for different applications of the ability. Importantly, both strength and duration improve the output on Desolate Hands in all respects about evenly, so mixing the two gets you a huge amount of Desolate Hands value. The big catch, however, is that you have all the scores contributing to defensive value now. Range increases how wide "in front" is for Elude, Strength makes each Desolate Hands dagger more valuable and Duration gives you longer Elude time and more daggers.
The reason for cutting the per-dagger reduction in half is that you get two scaling values, so getting the 90% is trivial, and going for it also gives you a reliable damage tool that doesn't break Elude... Which will last for a rather long time, as well.
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One of the big things that causes potential issues with Exalted Weapons going forward is, ultimately, we don't see their nature being made use of. By that, I mean that they're all basically Whip Claw writ large, just an ability that shares some mechanics with weapons, now including independent modability. Nobody uses the Slash Dash augment that could get Exalted Blade to actually be using the combo counter, because that build space could instead be used for a guaranteed status proc with Chromatic Blade.
The next Exalted ability I want to see is one that makes use of chassis mods. Whether it's a change to Equinox to give the two forms separate mod slots (fat chance, thought it would be a wonder to see abused), a beast-themed Warframe packing Companion mods on a hulk-out-and-kill-everything mode or an Exalted Archwing as another take on the Equinox format, except this time the two "Aspects" are actually independently usable and get improvements once merged beyond getting to swap between them. Whatever the case, I want to see much deeper shenanigans actually taking advantage of the setup. Something where the Exalted form is actually a different basic statline in some way.
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Two simple details that would immediately make Desert Wind great:
- 40% status chance (well, technically 38%, that works, too)
- Energy waves count as separate from physical hits for status procs
With these two things, it can be set up as CC of many varieties (anything that exists within Status), and be turned into a good crowd-clearing tool. The vital part is that 40% Status chance means you can get to 100% with three duel-stats, rather than four, permitting you to have any status proc you want. The second point means you can deal immense damage because you're getting twice the proc chances, provided you can land the direct melee hits.
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Hmm... Caro having shields doesn't actually make sense, what with being incomplete. I'd say something more like 75 health base, 275 max, then have the passive be boosted mod effectiveness (possibly just for health/armor/shields/energy and not the pile of shenanigans) while piloted and behaving bestially while not in use by the Operator (which is to say, relentlessly ability spamming with reduced power strength). Something like this:
Passive: Bestial Testbed: Caro gains 50% extra health, shields, armor and energy from Warframe mods. These bonuses are lost while the player is in Operator form, but Caro acts to gain as much health and energy as possible during this time, using only Melee weapons and abilities at 75% Ability Strength.
The thought is that, rather than acting like a standard Specter, Caro would simply look to feed as much as possible, regardless of the player's objectives. The only mercy is shared targets, and even then, allied corpses go just like enemies when you're not taking care. Note the at 75% ability strength, it's a set-to. Acting with 25% less than standard, regardless of mods used... So you could bank on a negative Ability Strength support setup that intentionally relies on the passive to recover.
Corpse consumption makes sure Caro won't wander off to hunt if you exit next to a pile of bodies, while the sub-par stats and reliance on Operator presence for mod improvement makes it so that Caro quite simply can't survive harsh combat for prolonged periods without the Operator offering guidance.. The lack of ranged weapons is to deal with the Umbra Cheese of grabbing a Tigris and letting the aimbot go to town, while still letting you make use of your crazy non-Warframe options.
The abilities seem too focused on durability and not enough on utility. Corpse consumption is present in the baseline, and there's a lot of pickup spam, so why doesn't the kit just have "spawn pickups" that can be health, energy, ammo or even resources? The shield restoration is the big thing that doesn't make sense. If Caro's incomplete, why have Shields at all? Why dedicate ability space to that, when it could involve ammo recovery to make a Warframe that has no particular reason not to use a Kubrow?
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I'd personally prefer Nidus, primarily because I have the thought of the anti-Sentient capability not being a matter of ignoring the adaptation, but counteracting it with their own. Essentially, the most effective Toxin combination element and most effective IPS damage type getting a 50/50 split, including damage modifiers like Ancients... Or Sentient adaptation, meaning that the infantry Sentients cap out at a 50% damage reduction if they've used all five adaptations on the available types. Given this is Nidus, Mr "10,000% effective power strength", we're talking about, they're very unlikely to last that long.
The thought is taking the "flesh blossomed into sword-steel" exceedingly literally, with Nidus Umbra being a pure and simple semi-rampant Frame of War, ending up made of swords. Quest-wise, a thought that comes to mind is watching someone becoming Nidus Umbra by willingly infecting themself with the Helminth of a ruined Orbiter in a suicide-protector sort of thing, emphasis on the "suicide". Then, at the end, you make the choice to either take control of them when they completely lose it (Moon), getting them to stop being suicidal and accept their now-inevitable fate (Neutral) or have them fight on until they completely lose it anyways (Sun), resulting in a different final mission for each choice.
A Defection-based town defense mission where you protect civvies from and use enemies to weaken the rampaging high-stack Umbral Nidus for Moon, a Defense-based mission where you keep them from being downed before they finish turning for Neutral and a Survival setup where you kill as much as possible before they turn for Sun, and a different reward mod/set being pre-leveled to an extent based on how you did during the mission based on which one you did. You get all the mods/sets anyways, but your choice defines the one you skip some grind for and how the mission went decides by how much.
The mods themselves could be either a single extra Sacrificial, Umbral and Strain mod, or one new set to handle the Toxin or Physical adaptive damage (with the other being baseline), one new set to handle a secondary survivability property (probably related to the Hirudo) and one set for the Helminth Charger. The last bit could just be an Umbral alternative/supplement to Strain mods, possibly mimicking Mutation stacks instead of adding more Maggots to get the thing Sortei-capable survivibility and endurance-capable scaling.
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I'd actually consider flipping it, where you have the Forma dump be into the mods themselves to have a select few "Mastered" into not taking a slot on your Warframe or any mod capacity. This would also extend to weapons and companions, and naturally make it so that your preferred equipment is pre-boosted with your desired effects. So if you mainline crit pistols, you might use Primed Target Cracker and Hornet Strike as two of your precious few automatic mods, saving yourself 14 capacity on two polarized slots.
For easy access to the system, I'd have it cost just one Forma and some other semi-rare resources to do initially, but only cover 7 capacity effects and taking another Forma per 3 capacity, so using it directly on Umbral Intensify would only give you +8% ability strength. This would not truly derank the mod, but rather just nerf its effects. However, it'd also discount by that if slotted manually, essentially pre-polarizing the mod at a one Forma and some change investment, rendering almost anything free in capacity if it's slotted into an actual polarized slot, meaning that very low investment in it will still give you a good return.