[A Proposed Ember Change @DE]

I posted this on reddit a couple of days ago, and got some great advice to post it here as well, as it would be more likely to be seen and read by DE and the people in charge of balancing. First and foremost, I am an Ember main with a background in game design, as well as modding and developing fan content for a few games, most notably Starbound. I have been an Ember main for the better part of my 1000 hours in Warframe, and I probably always will be in some capacity. However, the recent changes to Ember have definitely made her more one-dimensional in my opinion from a gameplay perspective, which I strongly dislike. It's not to say that the nerf was unjustified though, because it most definitely 100% needed to happen. The nerf however, killed every playstyle that wasn't "press 4 and obliterate level <30 missions", so with that, I've got ideas for a proposed buff / rework to Ember that keeps her in a more objectively (at least in my eyes) balanced place while making her more viable at higher levels of game play. 

Spoiler

 

Passive - Melting Point

• Ember gains a flat 5% damage reduction for every enemy within 12m that is suffering from a "unique" heat proc called Melting Point (applied through Ember's abilities), capped at 85%(?) maximum damage reduction, % DR scales with power strength, starts at 50% 
• Range will always match WoF's current range (synergizes with reworked 4th augment)
• Deals the same damage as a normal heat proc, however the duration is spread over 10s and does not cause the cc that a normal heat proc inflicts

PASSIVE AUGMENT - Corrosion

• Melting Point also additionally applies a Corrosive proc every second that it does damage

1st - Fireball

• Basically same as live Fireball with one exception (no heat proc on charged blast)
• A fully charged Fireball thrown into Ember's new 3rd ability causes a MASSIVE explosion within 24m, inflicting heatprocs on all enemies within range and doing double Fireball's normal damage (doesn't remove 3rd ability's AoE circle either, so is spammable)
• Refunds 50% energy if used on her 3rd ability

2nd - Ignite

• Throws out a wave of accelerant in a 20m radius, applying Ignition to enemies hit
• Enemies suffering from Ignition become inflicted with Melting Point if they are hit with a Heat proc or WoF (synergy with her 1 and 3)

3rd - Endothermia

• Gathers in thermal energy from every enemy within 24m, removing Heat procs from all enemies and freezing them for 2s (duration based), and giving Ember a buff to all Fire damage (25% per enemy, capping at x3.75 increased heat damage max)
• Worth noting that it only works on enemies that HAVE heat procs (you're supposed to set EVERYTHING on fire with World on Fire and then use this in an ideal scenario)
• after gathering, current Flame Blast behavior where it leaves a flaming circle on the ground that allies can shoot through to gain half of Ember's heat damage multi as additional fire damage (average of 165% heat damage)
• the shockwave that it sends out currently is still here, however it does MASSIVELY increased damage based on each enemy that you succ'd a heat proc off of

4th - World on Fire

• Very similar yet different to current WoF, with no target / max enemy cap
• Melting Point damage reduction is set to 85% so long as WoF is active
• Radius of 12m to synergize with her passive, they will always have the same range
• Firequake functions as normal, knocking all enemies down every pulse
• 2.5 energy per second, after 15 seconds, energy cost and damage slowly rise to x4 their base values like the current Ember 4 change, to encourage rise and fall as well as energy management

AUGMENT FIREQUAKE

• Increases the range on this and her passive to 24m base, but halves the damage and energy cost of WoF as I believe damage and cc should be mutually exclusive

 

When I began thinking about this, I had a few simple points that I wanted to accomplish without it being super hard for DE to implement. As this idea stands, it should require no new art assets or animation changes from DE, and would solely be mechanics / code base changes as far as I can see (I'm no DE employee though, so forgive me). I feel like this would help make Ember actually viable and usable in content that's higher than say, level 60, because as it stands currently Ember is pretty much a suicide area-of-effect caster and nothing else. This would allow her to get some tankiness in her kit without it being overbearing, as well as choose to be a squad "support" frame with the new Firequake if she so chooses. You could even go dual augment and become a heat-buffing monster with the reworked 3rd ability + Firequake, giving an entire 4 man squad some pretty good CC as well as massive heat damage increases. I do realize a passive augment is unheard of territory, but we *do* have passives that scale with ability stats already, and I feel like the augment being there is game-changing enough that it would make sense to potentially open up a new line of augment mods that change a Warframe's playstyle as a whole slightly, instead of just a singular ability much differently.

[@DE - Waybound Passives]

1 hour ago, JSharpie said:

Because this a free2play game and time/experience gates promote player retention. It really isn't that bad compared to other f2p games.

Also you don't need the passives to tackle any of the content in this game.

Someone else did the math, but it would take 140 days of straight farming hitting focus cap every day to actually be able to use your waybound passives with any tree....that's insane.

[@DE - Waybound Passives]

DE, can we please talk about WHY you have to rank a Waybound Focus passive after UNLOCKING it with a Brilliant Eidolon shard just to use it in another tree?

There is no reason that I should have to spend 1 Million focus just to have the pure exhilarating experience to rank that passive up in my other four trees all over again. No reason at all.

[Plains of Eidolon: Hotfix 22.0.3]

1 minute ago, Ketec said:

Great... the Eidelons were already a pain in the &amp;#&#33; timehog to kill for tiny rewards - you just ensured that pugs are 90% of the time bound to fail now.

You sure do know how to nerf and take away any fun.

A guy soloed an Eidolon with starter amp in less than a full night's time, so I'm pretty sure pugs will be fine. The thing has 15,000 shields and your starter amp does roughly 1000-2000 damage per full use, it's not that bad. The longest part is breaking his Synovia things honestly

[Plains of Eidolon: Hotfix 22.0.3]

6 hours ago, Schadewolf said:

Before this patch the T2 spear one hit Lungfish, after patch it now takes 2 hits. I would greatly appreciate this getting fixed. 

Pretty sure Lungfish are meant for T1 spear, so anything other than that will take two hits. Before this hotfix, spears were broken and one spear could catch any fish in one hit, this has been fixed. It's what we call "working as intended" even if intended isn't more user friendly.

If you don't like it, just play Volt anyway, his passive works on the fishing spears

[Plains of Eidolon: Hotfix 22.0.3]

1 hour ago, Diy0s said:

Brilliant shards and flawless cores still fall through the world making them unattainable, your fish spear can sometimes get stuck in the fish or worse the door witch can break the door from opening, lung fish require 2 hits to catch with second tr fishing spear.

That's intended, each spear is good against a specific type of fish, think Impact Puncture Slash.

If it's not that type of fish, it takes two hits to catch.

[Plains of Eidolon: Hotfix 22.0.3]

So no back compensation for intact cores already turned in? I know I'm not the only one who has farmed literally a couple hundred intact cores only to kind of be kicked in the face now :L Don't get me wrong, them being worth 100 now is great, but I wish we'd have known this was going to happen before we turned them in

[Kavat Damage Completely Broken?]

I've noticed, having compared my Kubrow alongside my Kavat, both having a Bite and Maul mod equipped, that Kubrows deal SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than Kavats at 100% positive loyalty, and it's my belief that Kavat loyalty is currently useless. I'm pretty sure this isn't intended, as they have a loyalty mechanic and you can interact with them just like Kubrows, however, the loyalty never decreases and it doesn't increase damage either.