Dev Workshop: Nezha Revisited

[(PSN)Crixus044]

5 hours 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.

No i didn't, but thank you for reminding me so i can give you the numbers.

Nezha with changes would have 1935 EHp with 2 stack umbral vitality and umbral fiber. Since it works alongside his warding halo, taking into account roughly a 200% pS build against level 150s, effectively what you got HIGHBALL is under 10k EHp total, including 3k health from the 2 second absorb period for level 150s. Oberon has more than this. Rhino with no ironclad charge has more than this. This will go down faster than you can count the accumulated health. The whole 90% thing is a useless function made exclusively to make blazing chakram more used, whereas they could've just given it a direct effect.

About divine spears range, the base range is ok, but it's a temporary suspension that is not stackable like stomp or bastille, thus it needs heavily increased range to be useful for the full variety of situations we encounter.

[-CG-Aurigio]

@[DE]Pablo Please also work on Ash please.

[BlackFox666]

can you add that custom counter for iron skin too

[The_God_of_Speed]

I cannot wait to play with the new Nezha! Great job DE, this is an actual rework, not a "you can charge this power, enjoy this frame now!" 

[castem]

Despite my affinity for tanking frames, Nezha never really kept my attention once I got mastery for leveling him.

However, these changes look freaking amazing.  I can't wait to try them out for myself

[Zanchak]

This looks decent. Im looking forward to using him again.

[Urlan]

1 hour ago, golfdinger said:

I should add that overall with the rework so far this is a nerf to Nezha. Speaking from a teamplay perspective, Warding Halo with the augment is the only reason to ever run Nezha. While all these small buffs look cute in a vacuum, when compared to the capabilities of other much better support frames and abilities, all of Nezha's various healing and energy and damage zone gimmicks are still just those, gimmicks, and aren't remotely practical for anything more than messing around.

Yes, from an 'experienced player perspective' I would have to agree. Considering we have no example of this against enemies of any reasonable level, or modded abilities, it shows as far as I can tell being aimed at very low level content - with the use of health orb and energy orb chances being key to this. I don't see the purpose for Warding Halo to get a custom ui for instance if it is not actually blocking damage but instead acting as 90% damage resistance buff instead, with is shame, but perhaps it can benefit Rhino who still uses this functionality for now. This rework doesn't address Nezha's low scaling potential which is partially endemic of all-rounders as they are not straight powerhouses. Perhaps something akin to Oberon and Frost receiving armor stripping on their ult under conditions would work, or increasing Nezha's base durability to cover a more damage soak design. Its not like Firewalker actually can crowd control enemies, as fire has a set duration that can be reduced similar to Oberon's Radiation but can not be increased. This makes sorties or any miniboss type enemies reduce it and resist subsequent procs. At that point, one might as well use their gun. Its too bad instead of improving the heal or giving it the ability to restore energy, the move is instead embracing the energy orbs and life orbs which are both weaker than the Nezha heal currently, and not function for restoring energy without a particular Arcane Energize set or two. This seems sorta narrow or gimmicky instead of an improvement.

[xblackvalorx]

Nah, the 100% damage resistance is why people play nezha. It's nice having an alternate to iron skin. I think the fact that you can only get about half the armor out of it that you can iron skin brought for great balance with his cc abilities that are better then rhinos in that regard. Please don't kill this frames main use right as I was starting to like him :(

[XaoGarrent]

This actually looks pretty good so far, though I still feel he needs something more. Nothing really pops out, even if everything is better overall.

Realistically, I think his lack of scaling is still going to be the major problem, Fire Walker will be more efficient, but the damage still falls off hard.

At least he should be able to be considered as something other than "worse Rhino," one way or the other.

Perhaps it'll pan out better than I expect, I think it's going to hedge on exactly how much of a difference the new Blazing Chakram makes.

[Falzarr]

As one of few Nezha mains out there, I'm not too happy about a lot of this. Not really unhappy, but not happy either. Nezha needed a full rework or some all around buffs, not a coat of "utility and power shuffle". The changes sound like they will have little or no effect on making Nezha any less of a niche frame. Firewalker is relatively unique, but the effects of chakram can be outdone or matched by multiple other frames, rhino now completely outclasses Nezha when it comes to their shield ability, and there a large number of AoE CC abilities that match or outclass divine spears. Nezha has more individual effects in his kit than any other warframe, but none of those effects stand out except for the invincibility of warding halo, which is now gone.

Before these changes, Nezha was always known for being a bit of a frankenframe with several pieces of other frames kits all jumbled together and almost zero synergy. After the changes however, Nezha is shaping up to be a bigger frankenframe that has EVEN MORE different effects in his kit with a moderate amount of synergy. Nezha still falls into the situation of "I could bring X frame who is really good at doing 2-3 things .... or I could bring Nezha who can do 10 things, but is not as good at each thing".

The biggest problem I see here is "will using my abilities be worth the energy?". Adding the internal synergies makes it more appealing to use abilities more often, but having to spend the energy for 2 abilities in order to get the most benefit out of either of them is always a risky choice for balancing. If you are stuck slotting mods to help with energy usage management, that severely limits the options for building your frame.  The energy orbs on chakram will definitely help, but it comes down the drop rate.

At the end of the day, the actual numbers on things like energy orb drop chance and number of targets on chakram, and scaling on warding halo damage absorption are what will make or break this new Nezha. 

I personally would have preferred if Nezha had been redesigned to have a more coherent theme and LESS effects in his kit, but have the effects be more substantial and reliable.

 

 

[XaoGarrent]

1 hour ago, Aurigio said:

@[DE]Pablo Please also work on Ash please.

What does Ash need?

I mean, other than to maybe roll the augment for his 1 into the base power and increase the duration of his 2, I really don't see what he could possibly need. If you run some augments he doesn't have a single bad ability, two or three of his abilities just completely take a dump on armor and he's basically a can opener for sorties.

[MechaKnight]

I'm excited for this rework!

[Ayjis]

This rework sounds great! Definitely look forward to really putting some time in with the new Nezha.

My one comment/suggestion would be regarding Warding Halo. There's an icon to show that Nezha is in the invulnerability phase of the skill, but I think it would be better and more informative to graphically represent it with the fiery halo on the special UI element. The halo could start out grey and gradually fill with the fiery graphic during the invulnerability phase to let the player know how long they have until the invul phase ends. Could even have the halo be a percentile representation of the halo's health that depletes as it absorbs damage. Basically a circular gauge that fills over time during invul and depletes as damage is absorbed. I really think this would push the visual information given to the player to the next level and make it even more receptive. 

[Windy_Wind]

I still think that his 2nd ability still needs to be affected by melee mods

[(PSN)Onder6099]

Isn’t Blazing Chakram candidate for Glaivesque Exalted Ability with separate modding?

[CarrotSalad]

5 hours ago, OmegaVitae said:

 

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

Agree with all your points. I am also a main but have not sunk so many formas into him.

The whole Warding halo change is a terrible decision.

Its effectively a 200% increase cost of Novas Null star now.

[lihimsidhe]

The rework is pretty decent.  If it came out exactly as it is, Nezha would be more viable by an order of magnitude.

The thing that always confused me was Nezha's Chakram on his back.  Why would a warframe have such a large part of its body dedicated to 'not its most powerful ability'?  It's like Nyx having huge arm attachments just for Psychic Bolts.  Meanwhile Chaos/Absorb are her bread and butter and have no external representations.

I think the above issue can be solved by Blazing Chakram having synergies with every ability.  For example:

• Blazing Chakram + Firewalker = When thrown a a fire trail, imparts fire trail with some of Chakram's 'enemies take increased damage from all sources' effect.
• Blazing Chakram + Blazing Chakram = When used to teleport, Nezha emits a burst of fire when he arrives at his location.
• Blazing Chakram + Warding Halo = Some of Halo's health will regenerate if Chakram is used.
• Blazing Chakram + Divine Spears = Make the amount of spears that emit an additional Chakram scale with some stat.

If you do something like the above, then it becomes clear why Nezha wears his Chakram on his back.  It's REALLY freaking useful and ties into everything he does!  ;)

[SnowmanDan]

10 hours ago, Sasuda said:

Don't change this!

Yeah also not a fan of this suggestion, please keep Firewalker a channeled ability. If the drain is that big of a deal then just reduce it. 

Warding Halo is going to be a nerf in every scenario where you aren't going to be be standing around waiting for damage as well, and may even still be a nerf then. Warding Halo can be built to take hit's over 40,000 damage. If he only has 90% he won't be able to take hits like that. Maybe if his armor got buffed but even then he probably just doesn't seem like he'll be as good. Would be nice to see some calculations for reference if anyone knows exact numbers.

Blazing Chakram doing more damage is nice, but I'm pretty sure it's easier just to use a gun with the investment you'd need. It's single target damage so it's only going to be worth it when you're reloading. Would be better if the damage were either a specialty damage that weapons don't easily or commonly do as much like slash with proc or finisher, or were put into an AOE when the conditions are right. Like hitting all enemies who are affected by divine spears if one that's speared gets hit or maybe explosion with firewalker on spears or something like that.

[DarthOdla]

Im fully agree with 90% dmg reduction on warding halo if it scales on duration and not like iron skin. This will help modding for CC abilities and not waste space to make it reliable.

Also like the entire singergy rework, enspecially blazing chackram, that is unusable right now 

[XaoGarrent]

Here's an idea: What if Firewalker remains a toggle, but its energy drain is reworked to function like Volt's 3?

For those that don't know, Volt's 3 drains energy faster on movement, and doesn't stop energy regeneration. If your energy regen is high enough, you can actually negate the drain altogether.

The energy drain debuff in the Index works the same way, so we know this mechanic can be applied to different things.

[ssh83]

Most of those look fun!  Though the important utility of warding halo to protect VIP is greatly nerfed. :/    90% won't work for Safeguard augment unless they also buff the VIP's HP or maybe Safeguard can slowly convert halo shield into health to help regen VIP to 100%!?

[Sasuda]

15 hours ago, Glyphicality said:

effectively use Rage/Hunter Adrenaline

I don't think that's going to end in a hidden buff really.

Effectively for what exactly? Nezha's abilities for the most part aren't spam friendly, they don't do enough damage to warrant spamming. Nezha plays a enhanced weapon user more than a caster with abilities that are designed for more occasional use. Just because a frame is being encouraged to use abilities more doesn't make those abilities any better to be used more. It's great for more cast heavy frames like Oberon or Inaros to be able use abilities more often while using Rage/Hunter Adrenaline, but part of why Nezha's kit gets compared to Rhino's is that they have a much less need for constant casting.

Nezha's 2nd and 4th are the potentials but this setup is forcing the second to be a part of Nezha's survivability by needing to heal but he's not achieving anything he couldn't before with it. He's just more needy in the energy and spam cast department, then. He's not spamming his second because it's good he's spamming it because he needs to now where he didn't before.
His 4th just doesn't do enough damage fast enough in a large enough area to justify either. It's a more viable pick among the 2 as being good to spam but it's only going to be for very low levels  and emergencies where it could come in handy, but in those sticky emergency situations, you'll rather be turning to Warding Halo first for the protection and healing up again right after. And you wouldn't need the energy because it's already being dropped.

It's possible having this be damage reduction, but there's not a good reason other than to make the healing have to be needed at this point. It's really just a nerf that makes Health Conversion almost mandatory for Nezha to have any level of similar defense compared to what he already has.

Making Blazing chakram and health conversions mandatory are nerfs to Nezha's defensive capabilities and nerfs to his modding and playstyles.

[(PSN)OmegaSlayer]

Like every single rework, this sounds to me like old Sumerian language.

It doesn't sound bad but I need the feel of it, try it with my own hands.

Many are enthusiast about Firewalker not being channeled anymore, which I'm not, and I'm also wondering how Pyroclastic Flow will work.

[CarrotSalad]

6 hours ago, gehbeh said:

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. 

75 energy per shield. We'll be casting it alot more than previously it was already too weak on team mates so to see it get weaker is sad. You can build efficiency but then you need to offset the duration costs. Which then eats up mod slots just to break even on the other abilities.

I want to see Warding Halo + safeguard remain the same or buff the amount of damage the shield can absorb especially with the augment.

[lucius44]

Il y a 16 heures, [DE]Connor a dit :

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?

 

i'm concerned by this, for the rest of it very good revamp of nezha, can't wait