[Can we get an Ember rework? She's started a flame in our hearts.]

1 minute ago, LSG501 said:

There isn't really any compromise between having what you want which is a 'run the tileset and kill everything' type build and the 'nerf it because it kills everything' type viewpoint because they're at opposing ends of the spectrum. 

 

I specifically state that this isn't what I want.

1 hour ago, (PS4)RookTheKnight said:

I agree she doesn’t need to be able to sweep an entire tileset but this ability is no longer fun to use or build for.

 

I think she can be functional without ruining the game for lower level players.

[Can we get an Ember rework? She's started a flame in our hearts.]

4 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

You do know part, if not all, of the reason why WoF got changed is because of this playstyle right..... it's because it was literally taking away anything for other players to do on lower levels (ignore the fact the rework didn't actually fix that issue)

Right. I addressed that partially by recommending that her damage scale with distance. However, I'm definitely not a game dev. I don't have a perfect solution in mind. But I do think that some level of compromise can be reached between her "sweeping a whole tileset" and her current state needing max range for overheated WoF to function. Thanks for the feedback.

[Can we get an Ember rework? She's started a flame in our hearts.]

Welcome aboard. This'll be a long one.

What this writeup is

This is a “review” of Ember’s abilities to highlight her current strengths and weaknesses. In this analysis I will address my personal concerns with her kit, highlight what could be improved, and provide my personal suggestions for what I would like to see added. Ultimately, the goal of this post is to start a deeper conversation about Ember in terms of changes that could be made to her in the future.

What this writeup is NOT

This is not a list of demands. It is not going to demand that her abilities be reverted to previous versions, or to bring back Overheat, or to slam the Devs for “nerfing” her. Again, these are ideas I’ve kicked around for a while that I wanted to put on paper, and not changes I expect to be made to Ember. 

Why I’m writing this

When I first began playing, Ember was by far and away one of my favorite frames. The reason is, she provided more freedom than any other frame. You could throw on her World on Fire and dance through the map, leaving nothing in your wake but cleansing flame. She didn’t lock you down into a specific playstyle, her abilities allowed you to focus on traversal, and you could be confident that anything nearby was dead or dying. Unfortunately, this doesn’t translate well with Sortie-level enemies.

Ember Overview

Pros:

• Very “freeing” playstyle
• Very powerful against low level enemies
• Great at exterminate missions

Cons:

• Damage abilities don’t scale up enough to deal with high health
• Does very poorly against armored targets
• Very, very easy to kill
• Can “fun kill” when squadded up with new players
• Less viable in Defense missions and anything that forces her to stand still

Abilities

Passive: Ignition
Ember is empowered by flames. Any time Ember suffers a Heat proc, she gains 35% Ability Strength for the duration and regenerates 10 points of Energy for every second she is ablaze.

Discussion: while Ignition brings some interesting ideas to the table, it ultimately falls short due to one very important problem: unless Ember sets herself on fire with a weapon (e.g. Javlok) she is almost never on fire. 

Proposal: either change the activation requirements of her passive to something more achievable (such as whenever there’s 5 or more nearby enemies suffering a Heat proc), or replace it entirely. Example:

Melt
Whenever Ember damages an enemy with an ability, their Armor Reduction against Heat damage is permanently reduced by 30%.

Goals with this proposal:

• Helps Ember compete with enemy level scaling
• Provides synergy with her kit
• Opens up weapon build options (Heat based weaponry, Primed Heated Charge)

Fireball
Deals 400 Heat damage, and 150 Heat damage in a 5m radius. Can be charged for double damage. Costs 25 energy.

Discussion: unfortunately this ability is just not viable in any way. Whipping a fireball across the map should feel awesome, and this just falls short. The damage just isn’t enough for this ability to be viable. Furthermore, the charge mechanic isn’t conducive to how we play Warframe. Even with the bonus casting speed from Accelerant, charging for 1.25 seconds for 800 damage just isn’t enough. I could get a lot more done in that time just using a weapon.

Proposal: roll Fireblast into this ability by replacing the “Napalm” effect with a burning ring of fire that pushes out enemies. This additionally patches up some shortcomings of Fireblast (more on that later).

• Goals with this proposal:
• Allow more “tactical” use of her Fireball
• Convert from strictly a damage ability to a damage + area CC ability
• Open up her 3rd ability slot for another ability

Accelerant
Increases Ember’s casting speed by 50% and stuns enemies briefly in a 20m radius while making them take 250% damage from Heat for 30s. Costs 50 energy.

This is currently Ember’s best ability. I see no reason to change it. It works brilliantly and does a good job of tying her kit together.

Fire Blast
Sends out a wave of fire dealing 200 Heat damage in a 15 meter radius, leaves behind a ring with a 4m radius that deals 225 Heat damage and pushes enemies back. Adds 50% heat damage to shots fired through it. Lasts 20s. Costs 75 energy.

Discussion: so there’s a number of problems with this ability as-is. Firstly, it deals very low damage. Secondly, it has a very, very small area of effect that is NOT affected by ability range. Thirdly, Ember does NOT do well standing still, and this ability wants you to stand in or around it for the 50% Heat damage bonus. Lastly, given these factors it is far too expensive for what you’re getting from it.

Proposal: add more damage to the ability, add range to the ring produced by Fire Blast and make both the wave and ring scale with Ability Range. Allow the ability to be cast at range so that Ember doesn’t need to put herself at so much risk in order to cast it on enemies. Alternatively, replace this ability entirely and add its effects to Fireball. Example

Firewall
Creates a horizontal 10 meter wall of fire lasting 20 seconds that incinerates incoming enemy fire and adds 50% heat damage to allied shots fired through it. Deals 500 Heat damage to enemies that make contact with it, and pushes them back. Costs 75 energy

Goals with this proposal:

• Make Ember more of a “team player”
• Give Ember utility in Defense type missions
• Give Ember some survivability
• Allow more “tactical” use of ember’s abilities

World On Fire
Up to 5 enemies within 15 meters of Ember are engulfed in flames and take 400 Heat damage with 35% status chance, at a rate of roughly 2.5-4 blasts per second. After 6 seconds, World on Fire Overheats and damage begins to increase up to double, range begins to decrease down to half, cost begins to increase up to double. Costs 50 energy, then 3 per second.

Discussion: this is, or rather was, my favorite ability of Ember’s. It feels really freeing to use, there’s nothing like almost literally flying through a level while simultaneously watching your enemies burn. However, after buildup the range on this ability is just too short. I find Ember’s sweet spot to be around 20-25m, and it’s impossible to hit that while keeping any kind of Ability Strength. Furthermore, I feel the ability is now a bit too costly and it’s lead to most players simply recasting it to sweep low level maps just as they used to, thereby bypassing what these changes were introduced to fix.

I feel some level of compromise is needed here. I agree she doesn’t need to be able to sweep an entire tileset but this ability is no longer fun to use or build for.

Proposal: World On Fire begins with its “Overheated” stats and no longer ramps up. Increase range from 7.5 meters to 12. Decrease energy drain from 6 to 4.5. Damage now decreases with distance down to 33% at max range, however Status Chance does not decrease.

Goals with this proposal:

• Allow Ember to Crowd Control a respectable area while not robbing all other players of kills
• Keep the “freedom” that this ability provides
• Incentivize Ember to close in on opponents she wants to eliminate
• Allow other builds besides Max Range

Final Words
Let me be clear here: I’m no game developer. I have zero experience in that field, I just really love this game. None of this is a “perfect solution”, and I may have still failed to address the concerns that I myself have highlighted. What I do have is 1200 hours behind the wheel and some ideas, none of which I expect to be implemented. I just really love this Warframe in aesthetic and playstyle, and would like to be able to enjoy her in a wider variety of content. My hope is that this will jumpstart some ideas for her in the future.

If you’ve read this far, I’d like to give you my sincerest thanks. Have a great day!
 

[PS4 - Antimatter Drop doesn't absorb bullets in the Rift]

Antimatter drop doesn't absorb bullets from Nova's weapons in both the rift and cataclysm, making the ability impossible to use effectively.

Thanks for reading!

[A Suggestion for Limbo Prime's Color Channels]

I just picked up my Limbo Prime out of the oven today, and he is beautiful... for the most part. His jacket and helmet look incredible, which is why I was a bit disappointed to find that almost his entire lower half uses the same color channel (pants, feet, coat lining). For reference:

Spoiler

(I also don't like how the tips of his coattails match his legs here)

 

The actual mesh seems to hint that his legs should have more than one color channel assigned to them. The real problem I'm having is since his coat lining matches his legs there's no real contrast to his lower half. I think his primary color (in this case, black) should make an appearance somewhere down there. I threw this together as a (very) rough example:

Spoiler

 

Now, I'm well aware that Limbo's already here and we're most likely past the point where something like this would change. But as a Limbo main (I play solo I swear), it'd make me really happy. I really love how he looks and would like some more color options on him.

 

Thanks for reading!

[PS4 - Invisible Eximus Auras]

Since the UI/GPU Particle update I can no longer clearly see Eximus units. The orange aura is completely absent in most cases, and just barely visible up close in others. This makes finding and fighting dangerous Eximus units (such as Energy Leeches) nearly impossible.

[PS4 - Dislocating elbows with certain weapons]

Certain weapons like the Arca Plasmor and especially the Tenora cause certain warframes to dislocate their elbows when trying to hold them. I notice this especially on Mesa, Inaros, and Limbo's Noble Animations.

[Dev Workshop: Virtual Cursor Action Plan]

First off, I just wanna say thank you for the quick response and I hope everything stays constructive. Here are some issues I'm still encountering:

• The chat menu is slow to navigate still, and picking between options and players can be frustrating. We've had difficulty inviting people to clan on account of this.
• I can't rotate my frame while previewing a color, I have to choose one.
• To unequip weapons/armor I have to click "none" and then click somewhere outside the menu. Pressing "none" on its own does nothing, and pressing circle leaves my previous item equipped. Fixed.
• Edit: Can't sell partial stacks of items from inventory, it now sells the whole stack or nothing at all.
• More edit: Can't scroll chat in load screens.
• Revenge of the Edit: Editing sigils/anything with slider bars is kinda wonky. D-Pad will click to the "middle" of the bar, but it's slightly left of center. Clicking the bar's left arrow seems to move the bar a fixed amount, clicking the right arrow moves it more slowly in a more arbitrary fashion.
• Goblet of Edit: Pressing square to preview isn't my favorite thing.
• Edit5: Simulacrum enemy level setting would benefit from keyboard usage vs. tabbing left/right.
• The Edits of Winter: Can't rotate operator unless you highlight the sigil section first.
• Edi7: Clicking chat links with cursor is inconsistent, sometimes it refuses to bring up a linked item.
• EDIT-8 The Ocho: Hitting triangle to try and remove one mod sometimes removes all mods. Might be bad aim on my part but it's not often I want to remove my whole build, and it's a pain when it happens.
• Nine Inch Edit: On PoE, setting waypoint with plains map puts waypoint where center of screen is instead of using reticle.
• Edit Day Forecast: Still need to double click to equip arcanes.
• Edit up to 11 - that's one higher: Can't tag resources/mods I've already picked up for allies to see.
• An Edit a dozen: Switching weapon/frame configs with L1/R1 feels wonky sometimes. Have to highlight equipped mods first.
• Edit the 13th: Might not be relevant here, but putting up displays in orbiter is a nightmare because they're always parallel to the ground, not the walls, despite changing settings. Don't even get me started on how weird surface snapping gets with them.
• I don't have anything clever for Edit 14: Can't scroll chat and fly. Dunno why this wasn't higher on my list.
• Beware the Edits of March: Can't leave squad sometimes after switching to public.

If I think of anything else, I'll add it here.

 

[(XB1/PS4) Virtual Cursor Feedback Megathread]

First off, I just wanna say thank you for the quick response and I hope everything stays constructive. Here are some issues I'm still encountering:

• The chat menu is slow to navigate still, and picking between options and players can be frustrating. We've had difficulty inviting people to clan on account of this.
• I can't rotate my frame while previewing a color, I have to choose one.
• To unequip weapons/armor I have to click "none" and then click somewhere outside the menu. Pressing "none" on its own does nothing, and pressing circle leaves my previous item equipped. Fixed
• Edit: Can't sell partial stacks of items from inventory, it now sells the whole stack or nothing at all.
• More edit: Can't scroll chat in load screens.
• Revenge of the Edit: Editing sigils/anything with slider bars is kinda wonky. D-Pad will click to the "middle" of the bar, but it's slightly left of center. Clicking the bar's left arrow seems to move the bar a fixed amount, clicking the right arrow moves it more slowly in a more arbitrary fashion.
• Goblet of Edit: Pressing square to preview isn't my favorite thing.
• Edit5: Simulacrum enemy level setting would benefit from keyboard usage vs. tabbing left/right.
• The Edits of Winter: Can't rotate operator unless you highlight the sigil section first.
• Edi7: Clicking chat links with cursor is inconsistent, sometimes it refuses to bring up a linked item.
• EDIT-8 The Ocho: Hitting triangle to try and remove one mod sometimes removes all mods. Might be bad aim on my part but it's not often I want to remove my whole build, and it's a pain when it happens.
• Nine Inch Edit: On PoE, setting waypoint with plains map puts waypoint where center of screen is instead of using reticle.
• Edit Day Forecast: Still need to double click to equip arcanes.
• Edit up to 11 - that's one higher: Can't tag resources/mods I've already picked up for allies to see.
• An Edit a dozen: Switching weapon/frame configs with L1/R1 feels wonky sometimes. Have to highlight equipped mods first.
• Edit the 13th: Might not be relevant here, but putting up displays in orbiter is a nightmare because they're always parallel to the ground, not the walls, despite changing settings. Don't even get me started on how weird surface snapping gets with them.
• I don't have anything clever for Edit 14: Can't scroll chat and fly. Dunno why this wasn't higher on my list.
• Beware the Edits of March: Can't leave squad sometimes after switching to public.

If I think of anything else, I'll add it here.

[Profanity filters on personal loadout slots are oversensitive, and unnecessary in the first place]

I'm confused as to why a profanity filter was added to something nobody but I am going to see, in an M rated game. Beyond that, it doesn't seem to be particularly picky about what words it censors.

 

[PS4 - Mesa's arm dislocates with Tenora]

Mesa's arm overextends at the elbow when holding the Tenora with her Noble animation. It's pretty unpleasant to watch.

[PS4 - Itzal's Blink not working in Penumbra]

When invisible, Blink will randomly give the message "Ability Use Prevented". I've noticed this happens more often after using Cosmic Crush. I also run Experimental Flight controls. Also mostly notice this on Corpus tilesets. But essentially ruins this Archwing's gameplay because now I can't move around in stealth.

[Been locked out for 2 days, with 2 support tickets unresolved]

My support ticket was finally resolved but it definitely took a few days. From what I've read there seems to be an automatic IP ban that can block your IP if multiple logins happen in a short span of time (such as when using the app). I hope somebody re-evaluates the utility of an auto-IP ban that lasts several days.

[Been locked out for 2 days, with 2 support tickets unresolved]

Please help. Getting "Unable to connect. Please try again."

 

Have tried all recommended steps.

 

Ticket IDs:

#1156986

#1158089

 

Thank you in advance.

[PS4 - Audio cuts out when hitting large numbers of enemies]

Thanks!

[PS4 - Audio cuts out when hitting large numbers of enemies]

I've noticed when hitting large groups of enemies at the same time in rapid succession (like with the Atterax or Soma Prime with punch through) my audio sometimes cuts out. It even cuts audio to my PSN party. I've had a teammate using a different headset (usb wireless vs. wired through controller) and has noticed this as well.

[PS4 - Eidolon Capture Target un-capturable]

Was running Bounty #2, on third and final stage. Got to area objective and my (only) squadmate downed the capture target before he was marked as the capture target, meaning the mission objective still said "Find the Target". Mission couldn't be abandoned by leaving the area (mission seemed to not progress). I had a Suniska Kubrow with me, but she never tackled the VIP.

[PS4 - Plains Bounty Rescue Target only following Operator]

I was in Operator mode on the Plains when the Prisoner's collar was defused. The only way they'd follow me is if I was in operator mode, wouldn't follow my squadmate, and wouldn't follow me in my Warframe (it was just the two of us).

[What's going to happen to Rapiers?]

10 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

The main info for this was in a devstream. That list would be for January/February but instead its completely back to the drawing board.

I suggest trying to get into the habit of either watching the streams on twitch or watch the videos on Youtube after the streams. They generally happen every 2 weeks and can contain pretty important information.

(there will be one on Friday)

Thanks, I do try to watch them when they happen, but I must've missed that one.

[What's going to happen to Rapiers?]

Whew. I'm glad to hear that. Do you know where it was said? I'd like to have a look/listen.

 

Edit: 

 

 

Still getting used to navigating the forums and missed this. Thanks for the help.

[PS4 - Maniac laughing on every death on defection]

I know I'm really, really late with this reply as I'm not active on the forums, but thanks for doing what you do.

[What's going to happen to Rapiers?]

Full disclosure: I'm MR10 and a console pleb. So I might have a less-than-full understanding of the game's mechanics. Please bear with me.

 

From what I understand, what makes rapiers (well, mostly the Destreza) good is their mod, Vulpine Mask. And what makes Vulpine Mask good is that it forces Slash procs. With the upcoming changes in Damage 2.5, neither weapon will be able to fully utilize the benefit of that stance, as the Destreza and Endura both do very low slash damage compared to their total damage (12% and 25% respectively).

 

I've seen some suggestions that stances should apply Slash procs using the full damage of the weapon, but has anything been said officially about this? It would be really, really sad to see an entire (albeit small) weapon type be categorically nerfed to the point of near-uselessness. And I'd really, really hate to ditch something as high fashion as the Destreza in favor of something that's going to stay effective, like the Atterax.

 

Thanks for reading.

[PS4 - Orvius keeps weapon fx regardless of setting]

I can't turn off weapon FX on Orvius. Weapon Elemental FX setting doesn't apply.

[PS4 - Maniac laughing on every death on defection]

After killing the maniac, I always hear his 'spawn laugh' when I die. Playing on PS4, Yursa on Neptune, with Ember (maniac usually getting killed by World on Fire, haven't tested other frames).