sunderthefirmament

He’s a speedy generalist DPS. Use him for capture, exterminate, survival, rescue, sabotage, and any other mission type that doesn’t require a wall or invisibility. Be careful when using him against very high level infested. And be careful when bringing him against nullifiers and disruption demolysts, as he depends on buffs for survivability. His signature weapons are the Akarius and Acceltra. The Akarius got gutted by the melee nerf and the Acceltra has never been all that amazing past the standard star chart, so I wouldn’t really bother with either of them. You’d be better off with a weapon that performs well with speed boosts. The trumna comes to mind. Recent incarnons are also probably a fantastic option, though Gauss is often moving so much that headshots won’t be the easiest thing in the world to perform.

I know I love still getting 4 relic reward choices in a speedrun random capture/exterminate even when crossplay has decided to match me with someone on an ancient console, gasping and wheezing to keep up. It would be better than the current system where they turn my 1.5-2 minute capture into a 4 minute ordeal and still don’t find enough reactant. Not everyone can afford to upgrade. Not everyone wants to sit in recruit chat when they could just be running random fast fissures.

I can only speak for myself, but I absolutely request (politely) in chat that a Slowva stop using their 4 if we're on a defense map. They almost always comply, often with a comment about how they brought the wrong build by accident. The community seems well aware, at least by the time they reach the Steel Path, that a Slowva on defense is generally a faux pas. As for Inaros, what Inaros contributes is not dying and mild CC. I love when I don't have to revive my teammates. Inaros also doesn't get in the way, which is more than I can say for Limbo. Merely by using your abilities or even dodging as Limbo, you are likely getting in a teammate's way. I took the time to invest and fully build a Limbo. I used him a lot during Scarlet Spear back in the day. He's my go-to if I ever feel like torturing myself on that Nightwave Index challenge. I used to use him for infested and grineer mobile defense sorties because he made it very easy to press two buttons and then scroll through your phone. As time has gone on, I've come to the realization that Limbo is obsolete, and not worth the hassle. He seems to have a high skill ceiling on paper, but nothing he brings to the table is actually worth the trouble. CC doesn't mean as much as it used to. Weapons nuke more readily than powers most of the time, and Limbo makes weapons unpredictable. The light energy regeneration and pseudo invulnerability that he affords are not worth the clunk and grief of his kit, and can be more readily achieved through other means. I don't see people hating on either of them anymore. Any hate Yareli got was for how terrible she was at launch. Merulina is still beyond buggy and poorly suited for the game in general, but Yareli's light rework helped her find something resembling a niche. The only complaints I see about Grendel are related to how to obtain him, and those will likely go away once his prime is available. In any event, neither Yareli or Grendel disrupt their teammates just by using their powers. Sure, you could feasibly kind of irritate your team with them, but it's not to the same degree that Limbo can, even when the Limbo player is trying to be considerate.

The flavor, theme, lore, or “shtick” of a frame should still make sense in a multiplayer game. Limbo’s doesn’t. It leads to griefing, whether intentional or not. DE shouldn’t be precious about preserving their sad attempt at emulating split dimensions in this game. Gameplay matters more, not only for Limbo but for his (currently unfortunate) allies as well. Throw the rift away. Replace it with less disruptive effects so that people don’t feel the need to abort whenever a Limbo loads in.

Love it. I'd add something about increasing base ability damage for the pseudo-exalteds due to them getting a lot of their current power from rivens.

But you’ll still be able to point out his flaws. He’s an unparalleled grief frame. Honestly, people who play with Limbo on their team are more qualified to talk about him than his misguided mains. Everything about his kit performs like it was tailor made just to grief the rest of the team. Take Cataclysm, for instance. With stasis, yeah, it provides significant CC. But the way it divides the map is massively problematic, and its ever shrinking boundaries mean that every attack made against an enemy at its boundaries is a gamble. And enemies will basically always be at the boundary if your Limbo is maintaining stasis. As Cataclysm shrinks, enemies are momentarily freed from it, then move forward to get locked down and rifted again. It’s a headache. Limbo needs a rework. He’s no longer worth taking because CC is largely meaningless and pseudo invulnerability can be acquired more easily and with less baggage through other means. Now that Revenant has Mesmer Shield, he does everything that Limbo does but better. Pseudo invulnerability? Done. Just by pressing a button without any rift nonsense. CC? Even better than Limbo, because Rev’s thralls will distract overguarded enemies. And if you’re missing Limbo’s energy regen, just take Zenurik. Abolish the rift as it currently exists. Replace it with a status effect that doesn’t grief the rest of the team. Throw in some teleports, debuffs, and even a scaling nuke of some sort. Limbo can keep his theme of interdimensional wizard without the clunk of the rift as we know it.

Even so, it remains to be seen whether this will be a one-and-done high budget gimmick for a quest, like with The New War, or something with the expectation of repeat engagement, like Break Narmer.

Consider archwings and k drives. Why would you use a k drive instead of an archwing? Most players wouldn’t, and don’t, unless they haven’t unlocked archwings or DE forces them to (quest, NW challenge, MR). I wouldn’t ever choose to use or engage with Kahl except when DE sweetens the pot with exclusive rewards. If WF1999 is similarly pared down, I don’t see it being appealing to me. I’m going to withhold judgement until we know more, but I’m approaching WF1999 with the same skepticism I gave Kahl.

Agreed. I think I wouldn’t hate Kahl if he were just in The New War and if Veilbreaker were just a one off quest (or three off, I guess). As a weekly chore, he’s torturous.

Yes please. There are many frames on my “needs a rework” list, and Octavia is near the top. She’s powerful, obviously, but terrible to play. Rhythmic teabagging for buffs is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard of, and it should have been laughed out of whatever planning meeting/brainstorm session it spawned in.

The reason I need to look it up all the time is that every year or so I try out a statstick frame again, just to see if I like them. I set up a statstick, either making a new build or seeing what I tried to cobble together last time. I make a bit of progress, test it out, and invariably find it loathsome to play. Khora’s not fun because it’s just 1, 1, 1 and it gets really stale. Atlas has a bit more variety in animations, but the rest of his kit is just sooooo bad. And Gara has a fiddly, unfun kit that manages to somehow channel FOMO into her abilities. Just a terrible experience over all. I’ve never committed the statstick rules (and their variations for these three frames) to memory because I find it abhorrent and don’t interact with the system enough to force it to stick. I almost exclusively play steel path, so I get the importance for bigger numbers. I just think statsticks are a gross way to get there. Trade a third of your available weapons so you can spam 1 ability more effectively, essentially. I would rather just play another frame. I want full reworks for all statstick frames, along with exalted weapon/ability replacements. I don’t think DE needs to keep the “no acolyte mods” rule for exalteds anymore. Maybe for Baruuk?

I think it's more about making the frame fun to play. Gara is many things, but she is not fun, not if you're trying to maximize her damage. There's a ridiculous dance to perform to maintain this endlessly scaling damage. DE did streamline it a bit, but she's still too fiddly. Too much platespinning going on. Yes, obviously fun is subjective. But I don't see a lot of Garas, and her usage stats aren't what I would call high (0.72 and 0.32 for her prime and base frame, respectively, according to the 2022 stats). She's also got the whole statstick thing going against her, which when combined with the obnoxious FOMO of her infinitely scaling damage leads me to believe that she should get a rework. There are a lot of frames in line ahead of her of course, but Gara is still in a miserable, if powerful state. Frames that are miserable to play with abilities as clunky as Gara's should get reworks.

Accessibility isn’t a bad thing. There shouldn’t be a difference in attack speed between holding a button down and just mashing it as fast as you can. Why are you making it seem like mashing a button as fast as you can is a skill worthy of praise? Auto melee has been a long time coming. We have so many ways of increasing attack speed and essentially breaking combos in the process. I have sworn off of polearms because even a single attack speed mod makes them feel awful to use, while not having one is too slow. Auto melee, along with enemy highlights and a Hydroid rework, are the highlights of Tennocon if you ask me. The rest was predatory cash grab whale hunting (Zenith), likely a new game mode that has zero respect for our progression and wears thin quickly like Kahl (1999), or too light on details to justify excitement (Whispers, Dagath). Give me QOL and polish updates any day.

But there’s not just one ability that needs to be removed from his kit. His entire kit is bad. I am really hoping that the “one new ability” statement doesn’t preclude his other abilities getting the same degree of changes as Wukong’s Cloudwalker and Defy received. The names are the same as the old versions (I think?) but they function fundamentally differently. I’m hoping that whatever abilities remain receive massive changes. Hydroid is a clunky, flaccid mess that brings nothing to the table right now. I hope his rework is dramatic.

It also depends on what DE means by "new ability." When Wukong got his rework, was Defy technically a "new ability"? For all intents and purposes, Defy is very much a new ability compared to what it used to be (channel, save from death). I'm hoping all of Hydroid's abilities feel as different as the shift from passive Defy to the more active one we have now, even if names and some aesthetics are preserved. Every aspect of his kit deserves polish. There's nothing about his abilities and passive that DE should just leave as is.

I hope it's a good one like Wukong or Zephyr and not an ehhh one like Ember. Ember is better than she was and quite strong and useful, but the weird variable energy drain on her 2 and the fact that her 1 is still a dead slot mean that her rework isn't all that it could have been. Even if the rework is still suboptimal, I'll finally be purchasing the deluxe skin. It's one way to send the message that reworks for underwhelming frames are welcome and appreciated.

The Good: All new rewards are safely skippable decorations, meaning people who are tired of this game mode can ignore it this year.

Seriously though, you voted with your wallet, and I'll vote with mine. I'll be making this face when I see heirloom whales in game:

They've done the math. There are probably enough whales to make this seem like a good idea. It's disheartening, but it's not surprising.

F2P games and live service games are just getting more and more predatory each year. The trend is heading in a decidedly anti-consumer direction. I think it's naïve to expect anything different from Soulframe, but I won't begrudge anyone their optimism.

Is this where we request a whale emoji for Warframe chat?

I'm just going to refrain from purchasing these bloated bundles and spend that money on a few indie games instead. : \ Disappointing, DE, but not terribly surprising given recent shifts in exploitative monetization/FOMO practices.

Harrow is good support. Bring him to missions where you and your allies need energy, critical chance boosts, and healing. He's a good fit for survival and Eidolons. Yareli is light CC and weird mobility, along with a pistol damage boost. Bring her to survival on open tiles, use her for the "20 kills on k drive" NW challenge, and then wherever else you want if you enjoy her. She doesn't really have any area that she excels in or that makes her unique. She's not as bad as she was, but she's still got a lot of overlap with other frames... and the weird baggage (buggage) of Merulina. Excalibur Umbra is a generalist DPS. He's solid for exterminate, survival, the Circuit, and anywhere else where you don't need something specific like invisibility or a wall.