Dev Workshop: Nezha Revisited

[Jalen1104]

Pure gold. Thanks so much for finally doing this. I play this frame 19% of the time (last I checked) but felt he was very lacking. This change is just what he needed with out having to deviate too much from you guy's original design. Brilliant. I already know I'll love it.

[Harper]

I feel as if his three would also benefit from a flat duration like his one change. 90% damage reduction on a timer like most frames but instead of it having a health pool, make it so it acts as a damaging ability too, walking into enemies does an innate fire proc and a quick tick of damage. The duration mechanic would very much benefit higher level play, because no doubt your WH would be one shot, leaving you in a loop of casting an ability over and over and over just to stay alive. Cast once on a duration, and play to that strength.

[Ze4lex]

Mr [De]Pablo sir, how many newborn children must i dedicate to get you to rework Rev : ^)

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

I was hoping for blazing chakram to have 2 modes which can be changed like ivara/vauban ability:

1)the one listed here and

2)AN EXALTED CHANNELING MELEE ABILITY, moddable as well, we already have exalted blade, guns, archweapons, staff, kavat, why not glaive type as well? 

And also, can we refresh fire walker durability by recasting ability? If so that's superb. 

[MokutoBunshi]

LOVELY, GJ PABLO! You've done it again.

Great work. Also, the only critique I could give is that spears USUALLY makes it harder to operate on enemies. Meaning:

A) Its buggy

B) It makes it so that you have a harder time head shoting groups (and thus using more skillful gameplay) since they are just about prone.

C) Finishers mean less with enemies on spears (but come to think of it, finishers that make you stand so still might need a rework them selves... pablo plz?)

You could take from his power budget if you need to, but those are my paint points with spears.

 

Other than that TOP NOTCH work Pablo (and maybe sneak in a TOTALLY FAIR UN BIASED fire walker speed buff in there? I'm just saying... I like mah speed).

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

Hmm could blazing chakram spin in circles when thrown to more of an aoe?

[ShockBurst]

Will the 90% reduction still hold up in the high levels? Because when enemies get around lvl 180 and so forth, a nullifier could possibly do enough damage for 10% of the impact to one shot him. From the clip/gif it seems that it's possible for his hp to drop to 0 before warding's invincibility state. I ask that the rework add things to his abilities that can benefit endurance players since fighting high level enemies keeps the game fun, for some, when there is not much else to do in the game.

Also, may the second chakram be guaranteed (unless stopped by a nullifier or something) to take off a percentage of the enemy health (similar to vampire leech) or have some scaling function? Because in the high levels, flat damage abilities become useless and the regular content is too fast paced or easy to have a desire to use that ability combo/synergy since a teammate can simply blast or meme-whip the whole crowd away in a second. So this ability particular ability combo may only have a use in rare cases.

[RNG.exe]

Those Gifs previews shows that the person who was testing Nezha rework abilities was having support of Arcane Enhancements , so that means Nezha rework is technically weak without Arcane Enhancements?

[SaiSoul7895]

Wish you'd do something to Vauban too instead of just the passive change. 

No the change to his Tesla isn't worth mentioning. That charge effect should be it's normal single cast effect. 

[gehbeh]

Everyone is complaining about the abilities' functions, but seems to be overlooking a major flaw. Frames should not (and hopefully are not) designed in a vacuum. What I'm concerned about is how Nezha will now be modded in a way that will compete with other frames.

Let's look at where he will be used. Firstly, his passive. His increased mobility allows him to get in and out of single-objective missions in the blink of an eye. Firewalker can cover the ground with lasting fire procs, which works as a booby-trap. Blazing Chakram now marks enemies for death, which is good for multiplying damage to a single target. Again, useful for in-and-out missions like his passive. Warding Halo, as always, a damage reduction good for tanking hard-hitting blows from powerful enemies, but less useful against many enemies over long periods of time. Lastly, Divine Spears are a low dps, large radius, duration based crowd control. If you haven't picked up on it yet, his entire kit is built for taking down bosses. Slide in, death mark, CC everyone around, and kill the boss. Slide back out. Boom, mission accomplished in a few minutes.

Here's where the issues arrive. Let's pretend we're building him out for an energy reduction grineer assassination sortie level 100. Most importantly is staying alive. That's his third, but now it doesn't absorb 100% (which, while I remain skeptical of the 90% effectiveness at this time, I'm optimistic) so we need survivability mods on. The Umbral set doesn't fit in the end. I tried. 6 mod slots left. We want his death mark to last long enough to clear a phase, so put on Narrow Minded. Range is now 3 meters... needless to say not usable. Okay, range then. Stretch and Cunning Drift are on. Mind you that's 3 slots left now. Remember when I said this was an energy reduction? We need Flow (or Streamline, Fleeting Expertise will eat your precious duration). Two slots. The most important stat on this build, strength. Blind Rage is out, you won't be able to cast anything. Intensify or Transient Fortitude... Both if you have Cunning Drift in the exilus. Otherwise augments are off the table.

All that to say: will a 175% strength and 175% duration build be enough with the amount of death mark buff at base to make anyone switch from Banshee or Rhino, two frames that already perform all of these functions?

[(PSN)DBR87]

All these changes look good. The only thing I would say is Warding Halo should be duration based, not health based. Iron Skin is health based and provide 100% damage reduction for health. Since Warding Halo will only give 90% damage reduction, it makes more sense that it goes duration base like Mesa's Shattered Shield or Gara's Splinter Storm. 

If enemies are locked in Divine Spears then Blazing Chakram should be guaranteed to hit all of them on the non charged throw but still have the effect of hitting a Speared enemy with Chakram causes a second chakram to be produced. Would be cool if that debuff stacked when an enemy is hit with two chakrams.

But these changes mostly look great. Thankyou based Pablo.

[greenti44]

looks nice so far. 

particulary like that you make WH have an invincibility at the end instead of making it recastable, otherwise you'd probably end up accidentally recasting it a few times when trying to give it to moving allies with the augment.

also, consider making the number of targets you can hit with the 2 moddable. if he should be of any value as a debuffer, he needs to be able to debuff whole parts of the map (remember that he needs to compete with nova and banshee there)

[(XBOX)Slimm qp ReapeR]

Looking good, looking forward to playing nezha now. Also DE Pablo it you’re reading this, could you please be in charge of my bae Nyx’s rework whenever it comes? Every frame you touch just makes sense. We appreciate it greatly 

[Borduglas]

I like the changes overall, but here are my concerns:

Blazing chakram feels like its power is being hindered by the gimmicky teleportation mechanic. I hope you just remove teleportation and make the chakram a very fast area of effect skill.

I think the chakram should have an innate lifesteal effect. In the thick of combat a measly 25 health that you pick up is insufficient.

The chakram could use more speed if you do decide to remove the teleport.

 

Warding halo’s main problem was the low health total that you gain from the skill. At level 85, the enemies cut through the halo like a hot knife through butter.

Why not just make the halo a duration based party skill that has damage resistance? The resistance scales from your hp, armor and ability strength like before. The maximum value could perhaps be 65 or 60% because it is very powerful. The augment for this skill could be a 50% evasion or some kind of healing instead of a single target shield that barely lasts against strong enemies.

 

 

[OmegaVitae]

Fellow Nezha main, I have 5 forma in him and play him so much I accidentally try to skate with other frames. A lot about this post is almost perfect, hits exactly the marks it needed to… right up until Halo, which breaks it all and makes me doubt their claims of maining him. It’s certainly the exact mix of “amazingly awesome changes” and “mistakes that undo/ruin all related amazingness” that I've come to expect from DE, so at least the inconsistency that is simultaneously DE’s greatest strength and greatest weakness is in itself consistent. 😛

 

The Halo change is pure bad, for a multitude of reasons:

 

• Build space: Nezha does not have build space for "warframe Serration" mods like Vitality or Redirection, meaning damage reduction is next to worthless as it's not going to have enough shield/health points to work with.
• Taking any damage, at all, is bad; it instantly breaks some of Halo's best synergies, from Health Conversion to Taxon’s precept. HC was already amazing on Nezha, EASILY eclipsing most Rhino builds if used right; it *should* be synergizing harder with him now that new Chakram does orbs(love that part, btw), but new Halo letting any damage through at all undoes even the previous Broken Scepter method of attaining and keeping health conversion charges, making the mod no longer usable on him when it already had limited usable frames as it is.
• It doesn’t even achieve the actual goal, literally doing the exact opposite: the only possible non-PR-bull reason for this otherwise needless change is to appease professional scrubs afflicted with preconceptions of Iron Skin false equivalency. the worst part is, Current Halo is already different enough, because of the damage aura, whereas New Halo has legitimately worse equivalency to Splinter Storm than current Halo ever did to Iron Skin! this change succeeds only in changing the relevant copyframe from Rhino to Gara… get ready to hear a lot of “Warding Halo is just a Worse Splinter Storm” and have it actually not be wrong, unlike the “Worse Iron Skin” spam. given that Halo would be health based, it's also going to be numerically worse than Splinter Storm by a much larger margin than it ever was to Iron Skin. just a bad change through and through.

 

Current Halo is (despite popular misconception) a unique ability, a niche in itself, an Iron Skin-Splinter Storm hybrid with jack-of-all-trades balancing and the benefits/drawbacks of both; Splinter Storm is our Damage Reduction+Damage Aura, Iron Skin is our Damage Absorption Without Aura… let Halo stay our combination Damage Absorption+Damage Aura. The only mechanical change Halo needs is to draw attention to the damage aura’s existence by making it scale with a percentage of Halo health, and maybe a base range increase. Apart from the damage reduction nerf, the rest of the Halo changes are good; though I’d remove the radial proc on depletion, just to keep it balanced when reverting that stupid damage reduction mechanic. as for the rest of the rework, bloody masterful and touched everything that needed it, well done. just need that one halo reversion to be utter perfection.

 

P.S.: No, no no no, no! Arcane usage should never be factored in to base mechanical balance at all; balancing any mechanic of any frame around endgame items rare enough to cost *literal thousands of platinum* is Bad Design, full stop, don’t @ me on that one (feel free on the rest tho, i do enjoy feedback). Act almost as if Arcanes don’t exist when making a base stat or mechanical change, because for the vast majority of players, they don’t and won’t exist. Expecting Arcanes to fix what you guys break will just make said thing unusable by most instead until said dependency is reverted.

 

[(XBOX)Spartan117qz]

Just out of curiosity, why hasn't there been an augment to convert Blazing Chakram into an Exalted Weapon? I'd enjoy flinging around an exalted glaive, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. The detonate function could be what teleports Nezha to the point, and it'd give a direct damage function to it, rather than it being a "Cast over and over again" spammable ability. Maybe have innate heat, along with a slash or impact focused IPS spread. Some kind of flavor to incentivise the use of the augment, over a non-augmented build. 

[kvazarsky]

Warding Halo - that disk going thru Nezha's head and legs is awful. This lovely warframe has enough clipping problems (namely his arms, disk, pigtails, most syandanas), please don't add more. What about just adding fire to current, non-moving, ability animation?

[Arniox]

9 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

• Changed from a channeling ability to duration-based.
  • Why? As a channeled ability, keeping Firewalker active would block all energy regeneration. Making the ability a single cast with a long moddable duration solves that problem, encouraging more frequent use.
• Cast animation changed to a small hop that doesn’t restrict movement.

Was actually thinking, you could re-use the natural cast like you did with limbo and make firewalker a physical part of nezha. You just maybe dash to activate fire walker and replace his first ability with something else?

[NoLazyShadow]

Still wating for Valkyr rework. She is much older that Nezha or Wukong,

[Jicematoro]

1 hour ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

Did you miss the part where they buffed Nezha's base HP to 350?

Also, Divine Spears has a base range of 19m. Its range is hardly bad at all, unless you equipped Narrow Minded which, well, there's your problem.

Important Distinction:

9 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

Increased max rank health from 225 to 375

Max Health at 30 =/= Base HP. Base HP is the ammount of HP your Warframe gets as soon as it's out of the foundry (Or Forma'd) and it's what affects Health Mods.

This is an Unmoded Nidus at Rank 30, 450 HP

By adding a Vitality (440% Health, so a 4.4x multiplier) a 450 should raise to 1980, but when we add it we can see:

Just 1110! Why is this? 'cause Vitality only affects Base health, the Health of a Warframe at Rank 30 is affected by a Multiplier located here: (Red Square)

So the unmodded Max Health at Rank 30 that we see in the Yellow Square is actually Nidus' Base health (150) + Double Nidus' Base health (300). Adding Vitality only adds 660 health (150 * 4,4), since only value that matters is the Base Health Value.

Nezha's new 375 is (assuming he didn't just get a bigger Multiplier) 3 times his new base HP (125) Meaning his max Health with Vitality, and just Vitality, is 925 HP. Is that enough to give him an edge? We'll just have to see.

Also, are we just gonna forget his Warding Halo's Augment is probably gonna be much worse now? A Damage Reduction that runs on Health put on a Squishyframe doesn't quite sound like it's gonna last.

[Fazel412]

I can't really say the same for everyone else, but you are certainly correct to assume the 90% damage reduction is a skeptical change.

I, for one, am at least glad you aren't trying to force Nezha into an alternate Rhino by trying to make Warding Halo compete with Iron Skin, especially with the existence of Iron Shrapnel (because why use Nezha for invincibility when Rhino's invincibility is better, and can be refreshed at will with the augment?). Of course, now I fear Warding Halo will attempt to complete against Gara's Splinter Storm, since her augment you have just released also has a health regen on top of the damage reduction buff (and if Gara manages to catch their allies, she can refresh Splinter Storm through Mass Vitrify. Unless you also change it I would guess Nezha cannot refresh Warding Halo unless it breaks down completely).

The increase to Nezha's base health is nice too, since you can't recast Warding Halo while it's still up, and when it finally breaks down you have that window moment where Nezha's low base health would probably get him killed before Warding Halo's invincibility frame kicks in (unless you manage to hide in safety behind some obstacles to wait out that window frame while being shot at or clawed at or flamed at or Ice Beam'd at, which is often easier said than done).

I'm... not overly fond of the initial change you made to Firewalker from channeled to duration based, however. True, it is a channeling ability and therefore blocks energy regeneration from almost all sources, but I felt that Nezha's 150 base energy pool is sufficient enough to maintain Firewalker, especially when modded for efficiency and duration and with the inclusion of (Primed) Flow (my Nezha, at max rank and with only a rank 8 Primed Flow, has an energy max of 563. While not high enough to make Saryn jealous, that is plenty of energy to go around). Was this change done as part of your plan to step away from the fire-and-forget gameplay that Saryn pre-Onslaught, Ember, and Banshee were formerly known for? Because unlike Saryn pre-Onslaught, Ember, and Banshee, I really really doubt Firewalker will turn into something akin to the infamous press-4-for-instant-nuke unless some extraordinary bug managed to slip past the radar. And hamster cages. With radars attached. Fire-and-forget isn't always a bad thing, and it is certainly not always a lazy thing.

And with the combination of Warding Halo's 90% damage reduction meaning Rage/Hunter Adrenaline can now function, as well as Blazing Chakram having a chance to drop energy orbs... yeah I really can't see anyone running out of energy while channeling Firewalker unless they don't use either mod and do not use Blazing Chakram. Rather unlikely, both cases.

I do not use Blazing Chakram other than silly instantaneous movement for teh lulz or Divine Spears because of the slow animation that you have already stated is going to be sped up, so I cannot offer any feedback on what you already have, other than of course "I would like to try it out once it goes live and then maybe give feedback based on personal experience".

[gehbeh]

6 minutes ago, Jicematoro said:

Also, are we just gonna forget his Warding Halo's Augment is probably gonna be much worse now? A Damage Reduction that runs on Health put on a Squishyframe doesn't quite sound like it's gonna last.

The way I see it these changes to Warding Halo are a straight nerf (with the exception of the invulnerability period at the end for safe recasting) and it was intended to be that way. On one hand, yes his augment will be less effective now, but which would you rather have; a squishy teammate that takes 100% of incoming damage or 10%? I'd say the answer is fairly straightforward, even if it's weaker than what we're used to.

[Jicematoro]

2 minutes ago, gehbeh said:

The way I see it these changes to Warding Halo are a straight nerf (with the exception of the invulnerability period at the end for safe recasting) and it was intended to be that way. On one hand, yes his augment will be less effective now, but which would you rather have;

If that's how it's gonna be, I'd rather have Gara's SplinterStorm, that simple.

[Showerwalker]

the whole rework sounds great.

it seems the change on his 3 is to allow him scale further and perhaps even into end-game, however his 1,2 and 4 will still end up doing insignificant amount of dmg by then. there's a small level range where he can get damaged just enough to lose the shield for additional armor buff while still doing significant damage.

he'll still be a starchart mini-flash, but just with a Mesa's 3 instead (in which case you can really just use mesa.. whose 2(actually her 4) potentially prevents more damage for her team than Nezha. Mesa's a god, fight me.)

Anyway, Nezha seems to be more interactive, which is much better than the current state, and probably more fun.

 

PS: why not focus on the focus tree for some stats/number buffs for scaling (look at path of exile)? it's an extremely passive element of the game anyway, leaving more room to work on the fun portion of any frame's gameplay. right now it's either a mega energy siphon, or a fast travel for people to use in POE so they can spend less time in POE.

[Cubewano]

10 hours ago, Robert_Cop_2 said:

Seems good overall, maybe you could make firewalker sprint boost scale with strength or add a bullet jump buff?

Also remove the enemy cap based on strength from divine spears, why is it even there? Stomp doesn't have this problem and Rhino can buff himself for more damage, all of this with better range.

god no, max str speed is trouble enough on volt, i don't need whiplash on nezha too

and better yet they can just remove the entire skill, not like it meshes with his playstyle very well to begin with. stomp 2.0 need not be.