Dev Workshop: Nezha Revisited

[KaeseSchnitte]

There is only one thing I'd change for this workshop. Instead of making his 1 duration based, change it to being continuous, while only draining energy when Nezha is moving (or on the first damage tick to an enemy), similar to how Volt's Electric Shield works.

The idea is that it does not stop energy regeneration and that it only drains energy while Nezha is moving (or alternatively when an enemy first gets damaged by the trail), balanced so that it drains roughly the same amount of energy as the current proposal, but with the benefit of being able to be turned off at will and without having to be recast at all.

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

Not to get off topic, I'm glad Nezha is getting a buff but...Vauban.

"Charged Balls" and a passive change ISN'T enough to make him endgame material, just a little FYI...

[Sasuda]

On 2018-09-07 at 10:07 AM, [DE]Connor said:

skeptical of the 90% damage resistance change... If you doubt just how potent 90% damage resistance can be, try out Gara’s Splinter Storm at 130% or more power strength!

Speaking of Gara's Splinter Storm since we're bring up the comparison:

• It costs 25 less energy vs Warding Halo
• Damage reduction applies to her shields which is 300 vs Nezha's new 150
• based on a timer and thus is non-destructible vs Warding Halo's limited health pool
• synergy with 4 allows for refresh so she has no vulnerable moment vs non-recastable with a stun which still leaves various vulnerablilites
• has a larger offensive radius
• Has scaling damage through synergy with her other abilities vs no offensive scaling
• Deals more damage to begin with
• Can be cast on allies without augment vs needing Safeguard
• Can be cast on enemies to do more damage vs N/A
• Augment adds healing over time vs augment that adds a function Splinter storm has at base
• Can also be cast on objectives vs. nothing
• pushes enemies away vs short stun

Nezha gets minor benefit in

• 375 vs 300 health
• 175 armor vs 125
• Has an effect when it fails
• Status immunity (Ok honestly this one's a pretty good benefit but that benefit nowhere close to the advantages of an ability that costs 25 less overall)

Situationally stun can be better, and on the weakest low level content you won't have to refresh...

Is this really a comparison you want show why it's good that Warding Halo is getting nerfed to 90% damage? Even Nova can refresh her damage resistance through her augment on her 1st and gets a refresh chance & stuns, also not limited by a separate health that runs out. This is not the way to make Blazing Chakram matter in his kit. His CC always mattered because Warding Halo is surprisingly not actually that tanky. EDIT: Also Nezha's CC is helpful to protect allies and mission objectives easily without Warding Halo overshadowing them, and they do actually dole out damage in ways your guns don't which is always great as well. Warding Halo has never overshadowed Nezha's CC. Falls apart in mid-high levels without serious focus into Warding Halo sacrificing other abilities usefulness.

This is also without going into Gara's other major defensive, offensive, and CC advantages of Mass Vitrify.

 

We can make Blazing chakram still heal effectively and just as useful (and actually probably more useful) if it were to simply restore extra health over Nezha's max to Warding Halo, or restoring on number of enemies hit like Reinforcing Stomp. It's effectively the same gameplay loop as the one proposed but less demanding and more freeing. Blazing Chakram's healing wasn't all that helpful for healing Nezha to begin with, even if you're not using Warding Halo and you put on big health and armor mods like health conversion Nezha didn't gain much survivability from Blazing Chakram with that low level of awkwardly short range healing. Although it's always been helpful for sentinels and recovering between Halo's. There's a reason why Trinity and Oberon heals come with damage reduction or other frames do heals over time or have way more armor and health like Molt Saryn or Inaros. Nezha's tiny base health, the range on the heal, the fact people have no indication where it heals, and what it can heal have are far more explanatory. Blazing Chakram hasn't been overshadowed, it's just always been a bad ability that had too many limits to let any of it's features be of use. Teleport was slow and doesn't retain momentum, the chakram has difficult to predict flight patterns and Spy missions are pretty much the only place most short range teleports still come in handy in the first place.

Warding Halo hasn't been overshadowing, it's been falling apart rather easily which is why there are so many threads calling to buff through a method of restoring it's health or asking to increase it's potential health. I only think it needs to scale a bit better and there are many threads I have suggested such changes and have added to like in the thread here. Discount Rhino tanking is far better than Discount Gara tanking.

Modding is also going to have a lot more limiting factors and less potential variety. Nezha can easily live without Health mods currently but now they will be necessary for all of his builds to be survivable. Nezha actually has some of the most viable alternate build strategies, which as I've said in my posts could be enhanced further by giving a few slight tweaks to range and duration opening up Nezha's kit. Not to mention we actually can make use of Health Conversion currently and it would do far more for the Halo than it would after the change. Reliable Health orbs is actually a separate issue in Warframe overall. The fact that only grineer enemies drop them and we use other forms of healing in so many circumstances just shows that it should have been added to enemy drops a while a ago, even if it's like only 5% chance or on specific enemies like Corpus Techs or Ancient Healers. It's a concept from a time in Warframe where you didn't face endless enemies very much and would be likely to find some in containers as one progressed but enemy spawns and game modes have changed a lot since then.

[Sasuda]

On 2018-09-07 at 1:19 PM, Ceryk said:

really useless between the fact that Fire Walker will stagger things and the fact that Nezha is a hyper mobile frame who is designed to get away from enemies

Not quite, it's actually useful for the opposite reason. Rush at enemies to stun w/Warding Halo, continues with the Firewalker. It's only obnoxious issue is you have to put on positive range to make much out of the strategy so negative range unfortunately hurts it. But that's why the stun radius should be larger 3m by default and not be able to go lower than 2m minimum.

[Sasuda]

On 2018-09-07 at 12:35 PM, Duality52 said:

differentiation between Rhino and Nezha, who is claimed to be a "worse" Rhino

So you realize now he'll be compared to a worse Gara Here's why

[Neriek]

I use Nezha as a main for Index runs mainly because of Warding Halo. Personally, I'm still a bit skeptical about it but the added buffs do seem rather appealing. I actually stopped using his other abilities outside of resource farming (Divine Spears really kicks ass at it) to save energy especially with how in the Index, the more points you carry, the more your energy drains.

I'm not eager for the change, but at the same time I'm curious how it's going to effect my play style. I main Mag and feel she keeps getting nerfed for the wrong reasons (getting rid of Shield Overload actually made me mad, her most useful/supportive mod considered OP?) so I'm a bit worried one of my other favorite frame's are going to be broken.

I guess I won't really know if I feel Nezha's been turned into a teletubby or made into a more enjoyable frame until I experience the rework for myself.

[Tiltskillet]

10 minutes ago, Sasuda said:

Not quite, it's actually useful for the opposite reason. Rush at enemies to stun w/Warding Halo, continues with the Firewalker. It's only obnoxious issue is you have to put on positive range to make much out of the strategy so negative range unfortunately hurts it. But that's why the stun radius should be larger 3m by default and not be able to go lower than 2m minimum.

Halo range can actually be a problem, even moreso when cast on others.  Going from 2 to 2.9 meters makes it much harder to pull off stealth finishers, and while I haven't experienced it first hand, I've seen people complain about the stagger disrupting other finishers.  

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might need some adjustments.  One place to start might be a Safeguard opt-out for team mates...which probably should exist in any case.

[Alcatraz]

On 2018-09-07 at 11:07 AM, [DE]Connor said:

Warding Halo now only blocks 90% of damage taken. Will still block status effects and other procs.

So if it blocks 90% of damage, does this allow for a 10% more health it'll absorb now? For Example I have a build setup that Warding Halo health is 4k but if it only absorbs 90% of damage, would it be effectively like having 4,400 Warding Health? Maybe this is a dumb question.

 

On 2018-09-07 at 11:07 AM, [DE]Connor said:

Brief aside: as a Nezha main, I was originally skeptical of the 90% damage resistance change and I suspect many readers will be skeptical too. However, playing the rework myself quickly changed my mind.

Ok so I scrolled through 20 pages to find an answer, and haven't seen one reply from anyone tagged as [DE] so I wanna ask you since you say you're a main, and you've played the changes on the dev build. Can you give a simple answer to rather you can still damage melee enemies with this ability like before, or was this feature of Warding Halo completely done away with? I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in the post.

I sure hope it wasn't, and would be really sad to see this be gone from Warding Halo.

Scratch that, I just went back through for a third read through on Warding Halo, and I realized the GIF actually had that information when the butcher died to it's activation. Wasn't any written information, just information in the form of a GIF.

[mvirgo95]

I'm typically very critical of this game and a lot of the decisions that are made, but I have to say, this may be the best rework you guys have ever done.

[Lewdicolo]

I have never been more excited for a Warframe buff in my life tbh. Im so happy that Nezha is getting some love!

[Sasuda]

2 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Halo range can actually be a problem, even moreso when cast on others.  Going from 2 to 2.9 meters makes it much harder to pull off stealth finishers, and while I haven't experienced it first hand, I've seen people complain about the stagger disrupting other finishers.  

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might need some adjustments.  One place to start might be a Safeguard opt-out for team mates...which probably should exist in any case.

Ah I've never really noticed it interrupt a finisher before, but a good point. I actually prefer to avoid finishers unless I'm Inaros since they stop my movement, personally.
The stagger could be changed to just open up for a finisher, probably though no?

[(PSN)Schobii564]

On 2018-09-08 at 5:55 PM, FinalGrimoire said:

As a melee Nezha main, I'm very unhappy with the idea of changing Warding Halo to 90% damage reduction. I really don't want to have to spam-cast Blazing Chakram to survive, or change my entire mod loadout and playstyle around this. I think Nezha is probably the most fun frame in the game to play... but I'm worried that won't be the case after this rework. It'll mean no more speedframe for sure. 😥

"Melee", use healing return and a rage/quick thinking build or something

[Ranzinzo]

The rework looks great, although I'm not completly satisfied with the passive not chaging. Nezha's passive is too basic.

Also, I had some ideas for cool effects and consistency for Fire Walker and Blazing Chakram.

My suggestions

New Passive: Land Missile

As Nezha levels up, he gets rank bonuses for reduced friction. Whenever Nezha slides, he stacks up a movement speed bonus, capped at 200%. When he finishes sliding, the buff kicks in, immediatly accelerating Nezha and quickly decaying over the next 5 seconds.

• Why? Nezha's passive is overall basic and doesn't offer much. What it does offer, however, is a small speed burst forward. This new passive still keeps the less-friction design, but also builds up on the speed. Now Nezha actually gains a huge speed bonus after sliding, which allow players to zoom past enemies and truly paint that battlefield with fire. Players can slide again and again to keep the speed boost going, but this can prove hard to control for inexperienced players.

1: Fire Walker

If Nezha manages to draw a closed polygon with his fire trail, a burst of flames happens inside, applying Fire Walker effects to all units within.

• Why? In big, open areas it can be hard to use Fire Walker effectively since enemies are less likely to step on the trail. To mitigate this, players usually run randomly around the area to cover as much ground as possible. The new effects give a clear objective to Nezha players, adding a new layer of strategy of moving around large groups of enemies.

No longer gives movement speed.

• Why? The movement speed aspect has been moved to the passive, and now acts as short but intense bursts instead of a single average long bonus.

2: Blazing Chakram

Enemies hit on the way out are guaranteed to drop Health orbs, and enemies hit on the way back are guaranteed to drop Energy orbs (enemies hit both ways drop both).

• Why? To add consistency and skill play to orb drops. Since the chakram homes into enemies on the way out than goes straigth to Nezha on the way back, players will almost always have Health orb drops, but will have to position themselves wisely if they want those Energy orbs. In tight corridors, this makes Blazing Chakram just an amazing ability because of the guaranteed drops.

[Shadedraxe]

7 hours ago, (PS4)EntertaingGaming said:

Not to get off topic, I'm glad Nezha is getting a buff but...Vauban.

"Charged Balls" and a passive change ISN'T enough to make him endgame material, just a little FYI...

Totally on the same boat here. While I’m happy to see Nezha get the changes he needed, it totally feels like Vauban got shafted for a later date. I really hope he gets revisited sooner than later. (And his deluxe skin still has a terrible looking ass. The hell. Literally every frame has a glorious backside but when I use the citadel Vauban skin I gotta look at a voltorb with legs)

[Jhura]

On 2018-09-07 at 12:30 PM, Yukinooh said:

The only thing i'm skeptical about is the 1st ability because i mod my Nezha to use the 1st indefinitely, but it really sounds really cool all the other changes to it.

The others abillities are looking great, as a Nezha main i'm really happy to see every change you guys are doing. The new HUD thing is awesome. Keep it up and please, give us the Deluxe ;-; i cant stand the wait anymore 😛

 

See, I am in the same boat. I like all of the changes other than this one. Maybe I am in the minority of liking that it is a controlled toggle and mod for it but I feel like it is one of my favorite things about Nezha. They did say everything is subject to change so maybe it will stay a toggle, plus with that changes to his other abilities it would be easier for him to keep it up as a toggle now as well (energy from Chakram, synergy with rage and warding halo). Plus you have to consider the Fire Walker augment, to which this change would effect.

So, yeah. My vote is to keep it a toggle. It works well like this and with the other abilities getting updated it will work even better.

[Tiltskillet]

Nezha is near and dear to my heart.  So I keep meaning to write a long response, but I've got so much  going on at the moment IRL.

I guess my two main things:

1.  I really like the current channel on Fire Walker, and I don't understand the reasoning behind changing it.   If it has to change, will Pyroclastic Flow users be able to turn it off at will?  If not, it will definitely obsolete one of the things I love best about Nezha.   (And it might be obsolete anyway, depending on the base duration of Fire Walker.)

2.  I'm disappointed that nothing was done about Divine Spear's anti-synergy with Fire Walker, i.e., the spears prop targets up beyond the reach of the fire trails.   Sometimes it seems to clear the burn proc too, although maybe that's just a damage display issue?

There's a lot more I could say, and hopefully will get around to saying, but those two things really leap out since Fire Walker is my favorite part of his ability set.

[Acos]

Kind of off-topic, but regarding Nezha's FireWalker being turned to duration based; Why can't we regenerate energy with channeled abilities? We have all these frames and abilities dedicated towards energy regeneration, but anyone with a channeled ability just inexplicably isn't allowed to use them, and often have to forego using their other abilities because of an arbitrary restriction that not everyone has to deal with. Never struck me as fair. 

So many abilities could be streamlined for quality of life if you allowed energy regeneration with channeled abilities too. It's annoying to constantly have to re-up duration based abilities when such a nice formula for channeled abilities exists. Feels like a relic of an older game. 

[(PSN)Crixus044]

11 hours ago, (PS4)Schobii564 said:

Actually, nezha's base health will be 125 instead of 75 both the unleveled base health, max level being 225 and 375, with a 700% umbral vitality he then will have 1250 hp, which is still more than enough in my opinion

 please re-read the post. I said 2 stack, which is 550%. Im not using maxed umbral builds because of the excessive cost and futility of it. And no, that is not enough. Maybe it is for your missions, but i urge you to try using it beyond the star chart. Bullet jump damage is "more than enough." For popular content, which in itself has problems, and is a specific scenario that doesn't encompass the game so comparing performance to missions is not a good measuring stick. Best to use comparison to similar abilities, and yes, rhino iron skin is still a similar ability, which is kinda my main gripe more than the actual numbers. Essentially this changes absolutely nothing. All it does is limit it's performance to Nezha's EHp. It functions exactly as before.

They said this was done specifically to make blazing chakram used, which is a fair idea, but a faulty implementation. Why not just give blazing chakram a heal to the warding halo health like reinforcing stomp instead of forcing the 2 to somehow affect eachother?

[(PSN)NewcastleDisease]

Am 7.9.2018 um 18:07 schrieb [DE]Connor:

• Warding Halo now only blocks 90% of damage taken. Will still block status effects and other procs.
  • Why? When considering Nezha’s revamped kit, he is excellent at mitigating enemy damage - Firewalker and Divine Spears offer great area/crowd control, Blazing Chakram offers healing and self-sustain, and his outstanding movement can make the player a hard target to hit. In this context, Warding Halo’s 100% damage resistance was completely overshadowing his other options - why heal or CC when I never take any damage?
    With 90% damage resistance, Nezha is still very capable of tanking, but encouraged to rely on his other tools to avoid getting overwhelmed. Taking minimal health damage allows for synergy with Blazing Chakram’s health orbs, not to mention new modding avenues like Equilibrium, Health Conversion and various Arcanes. The change also allows us to improve survivability in other ways, such as the increased health pool, and major Warding Halo quality-of-life buffs listed below.

(Brief aside: as a Nezha main, I was originally skeptical of the 90% damage resistance change, and I suspect many readers will be skeptical too. However, playing the rework myself quickly changed my mind. The various buffs really outweigh the negatives, making Nezha much more capable in a supporting crowd-controller role. If you doubt just how potent 90% damage resistance can be, try out Gara’s Splinter Storm at 130% or more power strength!)

 

 

hm.. like most ideas.

except the 90% reduction.

so, why i don't like it? because the arguments are wrong. 

nezhas advantages are his speed and the warding halo. warding halo is already not so good as rhinos iron skin (which just is a second ability - not a third!). so it already is a weaker power at all. to negate it more only kills nezhas advantages. it will make it more difficult to play, and harder to survive at all. Aside you changed his shields - so players will get health-damage more quickly even if warding halo still is intact and can die easily while power is still active on higher level missions...

it just feels like player are forced to use other powers and change their complete playstyle.

as nezha is my main-frame for normally absolutly every situation, i think this changes will put him in a "maybe i can use him on.... naa... i better use xy" - kind of thing....

i will try the new changes once i can - but i think the changes will kill the old playstyle and his fanbase completly.....

 

 

 

[ZoneDymo]

15 hours ago, AXCrusnik said:

His 1st feels like a waste when your guns can do the same if not more damage without using energy. At least valkyr can use hers for movement and CC on enemies.

His 2nd is his saving grace, and Valk's Warcry isn't immortality. It's an armor buff, melee speed buff, and enemy speed debuff. Not to mention Valk also buffs allies in range. Defy is amazing at keeping wukong alive, but it is a selfish ability.

His 3rd isn't anywhere near as good as Paralysis, since... while it does give invincibility, and stun enemies wukong can't do anything but move and be invincible while it's active... Valk's 3 is much much much quicker deals damage and only requires 5 energy as opposed to 25 activation cost+drain over time.

His 4th's combos suck IMO. One combo in particular is nearly impossible to consistently pull off with a non-primed Fury equipped.

To me his first is an ez 1 tap ticket to death for many enemies, I tend to to use it most on the bigger enemies like Bombards, if it does not straight up kill them it will send them flying/knock them down, this allows you to hit them again and again without and risk or problem.

his 3rd you double tap, you hit it to go info the cloud, then again to come out of the cloud and melee attack a stunned enemy for finisher damage.
its a bit cumbersome yes but ultimately its very similar.
next to that his 3rd can make it ez to cheese spy missions (yes those are ez already but still)

4th combos suck, well ok thats an opinion I guess many share then, I cant say I like the combos of Valkyr either.
I think the entire combo system is a bit meh but then we are getting Melee 3.0 so we will see.
For me I just mash the melee button with either the claws on Valkyr or Staff on Wukong out and kill everything in a few hits (more so with wukong because of the range).

So yeah, I really dont see why Wukong would be in such dire need of a rework and be one of the least used frames while Valkyr enjoys popularity.

[GunMute]

Do we know if his halo will reduce shield damage as well?

[Infi_Reborn]

I approve of this rework. So this means Nezha Prime soon?

[GunMute]

11 minutes ago, InFiNiTe-Sensei said:

I approve of this rework. So this means Nezha Prime soon?

Not really.

[Kialandi]

25 minutes ago, GunMute said:

Not really.

Don't forget that Primes are released in 2 males/2 females order. So the most likely order of primes is Chroma/Mesa/Equinox/Atlas/Wukong/Ivara/Titania/Nezha. I would expect Nezha Prime in 21 months.

[(PSN)NewcastleDisease]

vor 55 Minuten schrieb Kialandi:

Don't forget that Primes are released in 2 males/2 females order. So the most likely order of primes is Chroma/Mesa/Equinox/Atlas/Wukong/Ivara/Titania/Nezha. I would expect Nezha Prime in 21 months.

equinox isn't male or female as i know.. it's both, depending on it's day/night side. so i'm curious how this frame change or may not change the order 😄