SabreWalrus

I try to avoid reducing discussion down to "skill issue", but it is what it is. Many players, myself included, can solo Void Cascade into level cap and beyond with non-invis frames that are vulnerable every time we're in Operator. We can obviously allow for it and play around it, so it's not a run-ending issue. If you struggle with it, it is ultimately a you problem

The trick with parking is not to spend time searching around to then leave the Warframe in a literal closet all the way across the room, but to use whatever geometry is in the immediate vicinity instead. If there's a box 3m away that breaks the enemy's immediate LOS, you leave the frame behind it before you clear an Exolizer. Operators can move around so quickly with slings that even if you do leave the Warframe relatively far away you can still get to where you need to be without much issue. It doesn't break the flow, it's simply part of the flow. The word "park" probably conjures too many images of a slow, deliberate action in a specified area lmao, while what we actually do is drop the frame like a hot potato as we transition from bullet jump to void sling The problem with all proposed solutions is that they make it even more complex for the player to understand. Although there isn't consistency with the abilities currently, it's simple enough to understand "if I have an active duration or channeled ability, the Warframe is vulnerable". You assume as much any time you have abilities active, and you play around it accordingly. I think if the timer doesn't force you back to your frame and it just deactivates your abilities instead, then it's not a good solution. And for it to be balanced, it would need to be no more than 5 seconds. And that will feel really bad to the majority of players getting yanked around, and they will complain Void Cascade is unique for its Operator reliance and problems like the 90% DR. The player has to blend Warframe and Operator gameplay, with all the considerations that entails. If you want a playground purely for destroying boss units, you have Disruption. If you want a playground for AOE DPS and an endless stream of enemies, you have Survival. Some things won't work in Cascade and that is okay. It's okay to have these limitations. It's okay to have to tailor loadouts for specific mission types. If you can't make something work, then that is your limitation. This is a niche issue that only affects level 1000+, where your request basically boils down to "this mechanic is making level cap too hard for me, please remove it". We already know DE doesn't endorse level cap or support long endurance runs in their game. If you opt into doing them, you embrace and accept everything the game throws at you

Spatial awareness and positioning is absolutely a form of skill expression, which is what "parking the frame somewhere safe" means. It means seeing cover and using it, keeping track of surrounding enemies, and avoiding crossfire. It's simply an extension of the already existing shield gating playstyle There are already solutions to the vulnerable Warframe: Crowd control - whether hard CC or soft CC, something as simple as a few Radiation procs will take aggro pressure away Rolling Guard to give 3 seconds of immunity, which is plenty for many Operator actions The Warframe's own shield gate, and a Robotic companion with the Guardian mod replenishing the shield to refresh the gate while it's parked Positioning, meaning at a bare minimum not leaving the Warframe right in the middle of a crowd of enemies The Unairu focus school, with Reinforced Return Simply using stealth or damage avoidance abilities Simply turning off a channeled ability if it's in your best interests to do so Being very quick at doing whatever it is that required you to park the Warframe Everything in Warframe is an encounter to build around. This is something you've encountered that you're struggling with, and instead of using any of the options above to solve the problem, you're asking for the outright removal of the mechanic. Void Cascade boils down to three things - being aware of what needs to be done, being in the right place at the right time to do what needs to be done, and doing what needs to be done quickly enough. The Warframe being vulnerable during Operator sections just adds to this sense of speed and urgency. We're already so ridiculously strong, that one of the only things that can possibly slow us down during Void Cascade and therefore threaten mission failure is the hurdle of survivability Warframes being invulnerable every time the player is in Operator presents a ridiculous amount of cheese - it will be literal invulnerability on demand that lasts however long the player wants it to, no matter what frame they're playing, or what Focus School they're using, while current cheese options have to be actively picked over something else (like Revenant or Vazarin). The 90% DR is plenty for the Warframe to be safe for a few seconds in the vast majority of content that people play. If you're going to be doing niche, super high level content like level cap, then you bet your loadout needs more consideration than usual to counter all possible issues you might encounter. If you're doing level cap surely it's because you're seeking a broader challenge from "the rest of the game", so why are you trying to narrow and/or remove it? I agree that it's currently inconsistent in what abilities do or don't trigger the DR, so that should be fixed so it's more obvious and predictable for the player. But it's a balancing and anti-afk feature that should stay as it is

No, I disagree that this should be removed. The consistency should be improved so that ALL abilities engage the 90% DR and no abilities "get away with it", but it should absolutely stay as it is otherwise It's not a massive and unjustified impact on high level content, it's one of the few things actually keeping Void Cascade somewhat challenging and engaging

I think that needing to land headshots on a target in order to kill it at level cap, is a completely acceptable requirement for the tiniest bit of skill expression in an otherwise very easy game, yes. Void Angels are not at all hard to headshot, and Spectral Thrax are not very hard to headshot either as you get the entire Spectral animation to position yourself and prepare (and you know they will be facing the same way the Physical form was facing when it "died"). If a Spectral Thrax moves away from you, it's because it's seeking out an enemy to absorb, and we get another massive damage buff against them while they're in the middle of absorbing a Grineer/Corpus unit, which makes a kill basically guaranteed even with body shots. You just get to kill them faster and in a more satisfying and clean way if you land a headshot or two as they finish the Spectral animation I agree that a balancing pass over Amp parts would be nice, but there is also an argument to be made for niche content requiring specialised and niche builds. Nobody needs Eradicate and Onslaught for Void Angels or Spectral Thrax in base SP, and any crafted Amp works just fine (even Sirocco is fine). But if someone wants to go to level cap in Void Cascade, then yes, I would expect someone to have to spend more time acquiring, preparing, and taking the appropriate gear

Operators/Amps deal with two very constraining issues you've touched upon, being that Madurai's damage buffs massively outclass the other schools, and some Amp parts are objectively better than others. This is because outside of focus school buffs, the only ways Amp damage can be increased is with Viral procs on the target, Magus Melt, Eternal Eradicate, crits (where Eternal Onslaught becomes mandatory), and headshots. So Amp parts that have the highest crit chance and highest crit damage shine very far above others. And accurate prisms that can headshot, like Raplak, Rahn, and Cantic, shine very far above scaffolds like Shraksun or Propa that can't, or are very hard to, headshot with. Magus Melt has never worked on Spectral Thrax, and since February they now fully cleanse status so they no longer inherit Viral procs from the Corporeal form. This Viral inheritance used to go a very long way in buffing Amp damage and making Amp choices more flexible. You also cannot apply Viral to the Spectral form directly by taking Virtuos Trojan on the Amp, as they are vulnerable to Amp Void damage only (same reason Melt doesn't work) and are status immune (you can't even proc void bubbles on them from the Amp's natural Void damage). So equipping any Virtuos Arcanes only reduces your Amp damage output against them as you convert damage away from Void. Without Viral, the focus schools own damage buffs become more important. Madurai is fine, Unairu and Naramon can cope with Unairu Wisp and Amp Spike, but Zenurik losing access to its damage buff with Spectrals now ignoring Temporal Drag since the Dante update is absolutely awful and guts it. Against all enemies other than Spectral Thrax, most things in the Amp arsenal work as expected/intended, but the constraint of Amp parts still remains. Unairu, with its shield strip and armour strip and own damage buff from Unairu Wisp, can let a player self-rez with Last Gasp all the way up to level cap, and it's especially effective with the Phahd scaffold. Phahd being so effective is for two reasons: it bounces, so one shot already leads to multiple instances of damage, and it can get caught in a void bubble, so it can bounce repeatedly on one target and absolutely shred them. It also has good crit chance and good crit damage. The shield & armour strip is far more important than the damage buffs, as Madurai can self-rez against Corpus with Void Strike and Contamination Wave, but it doesn't have much luck against Grineer without strip or the luck of low-armoured targets like Butchers being immediately available. So we're in a weird position where the "correct" Amp setup, which is basically 147, 547, or 747 (Raplak/Cantic/Klamora, Phahd, Certus) with Eternal Eradicate and Eternal Onslaught, can actually do massive amounts of reliable damage. Accurate prism critical headshots on Spectral Thrax do massive damage, and Phahd blenders do massive damage against any Grineer/Corpus/Infested you come across (where you can also use Melt to buff your damage further, and during Last Gasp if your WF has a secondary primer you can make sure to spray enemies with Viral before going into Operator to get the kills). So with these sorts of setups in mind, I would say that Operator/Amp damage output is absolutely fine as it is and doesn't need any sort of buff, though the Temporal Drag/Temporal Shot issue with Zenurik really needs to be reverted, or tweaked in some way, so that it can still access its headshot damage buff even if the Spectral Thrax ignore the slow of the ability (and apply the same workaround to Eximus, as Zenurik's Last Gasp rez method through skillfully killing an Eximus unit through headshots is now pretty much gone too). I talked about it here: This issue, of the "best" setup being so much more potent than a slightly less optimised setup, is a problem across all of Warframe though. I think it's something that would have to involve a larger overhaul of Amp parts and Operator Arcanes. Since Amps can already kill level cap enemies as they currently stand, I would not want crit damage reduced at all, as I think that would end up being an enormous nerf. However, buffing the base damage of the Amp parts that have naturally lower crit chance/crit damage would hopefully help them to feel like viable options against their crit-focused variants. A 643 (Lega, Phahd, Lohrin) Amp right now is absolutely fantastic as a trash clearer and Last Gasp reviver, as it has high status chance with its prism, and high damage with its scaffold, with bonus status chance and crit chance on its brace. But it's not a good choice against things like Eidolons, high level Spectral Thrax, or high level Void Angels, where crits and headshots become pretty much mandatory.

So the recent patch notes have finally mentioned all the Overguard-affecting CCs which were removed last patch but not included in the patch notes, and Zenurik is included in this. So is the immunity of Spectral forms to Temporal Drag an accidental side effect of this? Or was it a conscious choice and an intended nerf to Zenurik? Any clarity would be greatly appreciated, and if it is intended, I reiterate how much a middle ground where the slow does not apply but the headshot damage buff does apply, as outlined above, would also be greatly appreciated

I know all the damage numbers of the most frequently used Amps vs Spectrals (nerd) so I can see that atm Temporal Drag is not slowing down Spectrals, nor are Zenurik headshots getting the damage buff they should be

Post Viral cleanse, all the focus schools other than Vazarin have been fine up to level cap with Eradicate, Onslaught, and headshots. Madurai obviously has the highest damage output, but Zenurik came in second, with Unairu and Naramon tied third. Zenurik losing access to its damage buff absolutely guts it though. While we can always wait for the extra damage buff when the Spectrals try to absorb a nearby unit, this is very random enemy behaviour and not something we always want to rely on We're lucky that green shards came out just before the full Spectral form cleanse, so all frames can access corrosive armour stripping if they want to use their subsume on something else, and this was a huge positive for loadout variety. But Temporal Drag being shadow nerfed to no longer affect Spectrals feels wrong, and by this point I wouldn't be surprised if the debuff effect from Contamination Wave also gets removed. So we get left with Void Strike on a 40s CD. Great.

This concerns primarily Void Cascade, as it's the main place where it matters: Every Focus School has a way to buff its Amp damage, except for Vazarin. And this is pretty fair since Vazarin is the healing/support school and Guardian Shell and Void Snare are very strong abilities on their own. Madurai: passively through Phoenix Talons and Power Transfer, actively through Contamination Wave and Void Strike Unairu: Caustic Strike and Unairu Wisp Naramon: Amp Spike Zenurik: Temporal Drag and Temporal Shot Temporal Drag is an 80% slow, and I understand in this update it has been removed from affecting enemies with Overguard, which is fair as it's consistent with their general CC immunity. Temporal Drag is one of the few slows that still affects the Corporeal-to-Spectral Thrax animation after the full Spectral status cleanse update. The issue is that since this update Temporal Drag cannot be applied to the Spectral form itself. But, Temporal Drag can still be applied to the Corporeal form once its Overguard is gone, and still slows down the Spectral animation. What this means is that Temporal Drag can still be annoying by slowing down the animation, but it cannot be applied where you actually want it - the Spectral form. Zenurik can only access its headshot damage buff from Temporal Shot if the target is affected by Temporal Drag. So while I understand if Spectral forms have been made immune to this because they are status immune and the slow counts as a status, it's not exactly fair, as Spectral Thrax are the Operator/Drifter's enemy and therefore everything available in the Operator/Drifter's arsenal should be available and usable to them. Contamination Wave, Madurai's debuff ability that makes targets 50% more vulnerable to Operator damage, can still be applied to Spectral forms. Caustic Strike will still consider a Spectral form a target and will spawn an Unairu Wisp from it. Vazarin's Void Snare is an outlier as I'm not sure it's ever worked on Spectral forms, and maybe an argument could be made for it applying (though most players would opt not to use it since it makes Amp headshots difficult). If it is entirely intended from a design perspective for the slow from Temporal Drag to not apply to the Spectral forms, is there any way to find a middle ground? Where the slow will not apply, but the ability will still apply its headshot bonus? Zenurik has lost its only way to buff its Amp damage with this update, in pretty much the only scenario where it matters. Void Cascade is unique for combining Warframe and Operator/Drifter gameplay, and there's lots of us that really love it for that. Additional argument: The reason for making this post to highlight this change and its issue, is because with each passing update, loadout variety in Void Cascade is being pressured and shrunk. I know that many people will have the argument that high level content isn't necessary/doesn't matter, but the fact is that for 2 years Void Cascade has been the fastest scaling mission in the game, where enemies do reach high levels very quickly, and people are regularly and frequently level capping it. In this update it's just been given Omni fissures, which is another incentive for staying in the mission for a while, due to the stacking cracked relic buffs. The full Spectral status cleanse, where we lost Viral inherit from the Corporeal form, was fair enough. We lost a damage buff, but anything that makes the game slightly harder and asks for a little more skill expression (Amp headshots rather than just spraying Klamora in a general direction, etc) is absolutely fine - the Focus Schools have their own damage buffs and it's nice to encourage players to look into those and actively use them. The problem is that the Focus School damage buffs are not equal (Madurai is miles ahead of the others). So once Viral inherit was gone, players were already pressured into taking Madurai for a core and important aspect of the mission. They can choose to take another Focus School and accept a lower Amp damage output if there's something in that school they really want, but the Amp damage difference between Madurai and Vazarin is enormous. If this Temporal Drag change stays as it is, Zenurik has lost its damage buff and joins Vazarin in low desirability. Focus Schools can and should complement wider loadouts, so players should feel free to pick their preferred one and still feel like they can contribute. I guess the tl;dr of this is please don't turn Void Cascade into a mission where "you have to take Madurai or you're doing it wrong". Please let loadout and Focus School variety be encouraged. If this change stays, we've essentially lost Zenurik's viability.

GMT, can generally do 6am-9am or 6pm-11pm Mod boosters are nice but not a necessity for me, I enjoy the mission for what it is Duos and trios are fine No worries on communication, so long as people understand who's attacking and who's defending on going in I see you are PSN so we unfortunately cannot friend each other ingame (as I would otherwise say to just add me and hit me up if/when you catch me online), but I can communicate through Discord