The way I see it, fixing it to work as current is by far the worst option. It’s frustrating for the players to use in its current state and will only continue to cause problems that the devs need to spend development time for as the game progresses.
The next option of creating a toggle is definitely the best for development as well as player control. It’s definitely boring and takes away from the character design, but it’s simple and easy to understand, thus removing any barrier for entry especially for newer players. If they go this route and have to nerf the Helminth to compensate, I think it would be appropriate to reduce the base numbers for the Helminth ability, but make sure that the caps remain the same as they are for Mirage (this really only applies for the damage reduction portion). I think a fair number for the base value would be 35% damage reduction and 75-100% weapon damage bonus so to reach the same numbers that Mirage could, you would need substantial ability strength in your build which requires a lot of investment from the player at the cost of other stats that the frame they would put it on would most likely want. This change might even bring squishier warframes back into greater relevancy such as Banshee and Vauban as the potential for 95% damage reduction at max investment would help to offset their low survivability to allow use of their kits where you would want to apply them.
The last option of redesigning Eclipse to function alongside Mirage’s other abilities to maximize her kit on her specifically while giving more player control is my favorite because it’s potentially more interactive and makes sure the ability is still at its strongest while using Mirage. There are a few ways to do this and I couldn’t hope to cover all of them in a response forum post. But I can give a couple suggestions that I think would help keep Mirage her unique self. 1) While Eclipse is active, both values start at zero and can be built up simultaneously based off her actions: Mirage builds weapon damage while dealing direct weapon damage and weapon damage dealt by her clones increases the rate at which she gains this damage. Not dealing weapon damage will begin to decay this value affected by duration and efficiency. Mirage builds damage reduction while dealing ability damage with Sleight of Hand and Prism and by crowd controlling enemies with abilities. This will also decay while not fulfilling the stated requirements. 2) Eclipse has a minimum and maximum value that can be increased by the usage of her other abilities and the context of other actions she takes (like Gauss with his Redline). I have no idea what numbers would be balanced in this case. However, some examples of context actions are like the ones stated in stream where taking damage increases damage reduction while decreasing weapon damage bonus. For Mirage specifically, she can increase the damage bonus or the damage reduction at an increased rate and/or cause it to decay at a reduced rate depending on the lighting she’s in. This allows her to keep the lighting theme without needing to revolve around it and reward you for interacting with it instead of punishing you for not being able to properly utilize it.
tl;dr: keeping it as is and fixing the lighting is a bad option. She needs further adjustments. A few examples were given.
