Personal observations on playing Wukong.

[Ozamchist]

I’m of the belief Wukong will be addressed and reworked at some point in time either in tandem with a deluxe skin or his prime release, whichever comes first. I don’t have many suggestions on how to, or what should be changed as I don’t really play Wukong. However for the sake of having an outsiders observations I’m dedicating this post to the things I take issue with in his kit.

Before we get into his abilities We should look at his stats (I honestly have no complaints or deeper observations about his passive). The main thing I take issue in terms of his stats is his obnoxiously low sprint speed of 0.95 especially for a melee frame. He is quite a bit slower than most warframes, he ties with frost/prime rhino and sayrn for that category, with only atlas at 0.9 being slower than that group. Additionally Saryn Rhino and Atlas can also cover distances and gap close using their abilities: Rhino can charge, Atlas turns into a maglev train with his punch, Saryn can drop a molt for a pretty hefty Speed Boost. And in Frosts case, if played right Frost can outright slow and freeze enemies to hekk and back and generally has a kit tailored to finding good points to turtle up and punish enemies from range from safe spots he himself generates. Wukong on the other hand is entirely cqc skills and the only ability that alters his mobility in a significant way is the one that dramatically slows him down.  Let’s move on to his abilities.

Let’s start with iron jab: It’s pretty trash, like its actual garbage. And I know that gets thrown around a lot by people here about Warframe’s and their 1’s, but often it isn’t actually true. In this case it the blandest most worthless 1 I have seen and I can’t think of a warframe with something that’s anywhere nearly this bad. Maybe It could maybe get mileage if you could extend the alleged 10m range with power range mods, and not just the radius, but Honestly I think it needs some other things going for it. Not to mention It also locks you into a considerably hefty animation, like not even joking you get stuck in an animation that is in many ways worse than nezha's old animation locks and nezha's old animation locks were tied to rewarding and useful abilities. I don’t typically like to do direct comparisons with frames since they don’t usually hold up (or make sense). Let’s look at other 1’s on frames for comparison: We’ll start with nova, her skill is usually maligned as a bad 1 skill, but it actually has some surprising and useful functions in that it provides her damage resistance, and if you build towards it you can get somewhere around 90% damage reduction, pair this with the fact that nova is incredibly fast, you can actually take some big advantages out of this. Or lets compare it to nekros’ soul punch, aside from its absolutely metal name, the thing is potent not damage wise maybe but I’ve punched an arctic eximus clear out of its globe with this thing, its like a sonicor with more range. I literally can’t think of a 1 that isn’t has lackluster, or lacking in meaningful purpose as this one: even chroma’s one is cooler than this. The damage here is fine for what it costs in energy, but I feel like have to do a too much work to apply it in a meaningful way. This is a skill that absolutely needs work.
 

Moving on to defy. At its core it is a defensive skill and it can be a very good one, but only when it procs which is kind of where the problem lies. It's an activated defense skill that drains your energy (for a hefty price tag) and you won't see the benefits of this ability until your hp literally hits zero. What's worse is that you spend all this energy to get only 75% of your max hp back (not effected by mods) and temporary invincibility (affected by mods) furthermore you get diminishing returns with each subsequent restoration if you are still on the same defy toggle. Then the cost of this ability is just... something else. So just on the unmodded front activating the ability takes away 50 energy upfront (this is actually starting to sound like the modern gaming market in regards to monetization) the proceeds to drain energy at a rate of 5s, and after the thing actually triggers, after you actually get what you are paying for, it additionally drains 25% of your current energy (not effected by mods), and unlike your health restored this doesn't drain at diminishing returns it will be at 25% every time. Maybe it has value as a panic button but there seems to be a fairly noticeable delay between the input and its actual activation, so you would probably have to be pretty preemptive in using it as a panic button. This... doesn't strike me as coherent defensive skill, since it's effects are something that would make sense as a passive skill and not an active skill since it requires something else outside of the players control for the most part (there are some things I could use and get creative with this), it drains too much to be an upkeep defensive skill, so it falls in this costly active skill that requires an additional trigger to activate. I don't know if it's going to be healthy for me to compare this to other defensive skills but what the heck. Let me compare to let's say, Saryn's molt: it's instant and so are its effects, it removes any negative status procs on Saryn, and stuff like the grineer sticky grenades, and on top of that it actually draws a rather healthy amount of aggro, better yet when enemies pop the darn thing it explodes dealing toxic damage and a toxic status, and with the latest rework it gives you a big speed boost, and then if you get the augment it regenerates hp at a rate that is effected by ability power, for just the price of 50. So yeah that just uhh yeah, defy should probably do something else... or cost way less, or have a bunch of additional benefits.

 

Now for Cloud Walker. This skill is sort of like hydroid's puddle but with no damage attached to it. It’s a stealth skill kind of, but you move at a snails pace while in it and while Ivara and hydroid have a similar movement penalty when using their stealth skills they have ways to bypass that drawback. It also has both a drain energy cost at 2.5 energy based on distance traveled, a 25 cost to activate, and a duration on top of that which seems like too high a cost and to many limitations on something that slowly lets you float through a room, and stun enemies when you come out of it. Mind you that stun that triggers finishers on deactivation, which can actually be advantageous, but as finisher triggers go this seems like a pretty clunky way to activate them. Honestly it doesn’t feel like it meshes with the rest of his kit I really think many would get behind outright changing this one. Why not have him surf on a cloud Dragon Ball style? Give him extra mobility while moving around the air on it? I feel like that could mesh with his kit better and give him an gap closer which he really lacks.
 

Primal fury seems like a solid melee weapon, and the fact that there isn't movement speed reduction on it and it can have increased range based on his combo counter, reach mods, and power range mods really helps it, however DeMonkey informed me that there is a cap to the amount of range you can get and pilling on power range mods and/or melee range mods doesn’t actually increase this cap but instead just gets you there sooner. Its damage is great but when compared to something like Excalibur's exalted blade which has monster range, decent mobility, and absurd damage, on top of Excalibur's  capability to gap close faster than Wukong can in spades, or Valkyr's hysteria which literally turns you into an invincible monster blender (albeit it has a relatively short range) on top of Valkyr's absurd ability to gap close, Wukong's exalted mode feels like it ironically falls short and does't really do anything that special. I honestly think outright removing the range cap could really help this skill and let him capitalize on the synergy between his mods primal fury’s mods and his passive.

[AbstractLemons]

Yep give me an ability to use other than defy plz DE. I mainly use him when i just want to run n gun and shoot things without worrying aboit health....which i dont think is how you are supposed to play a melee frame?

The slowness of him is a very spot issue i think he should be loke throwing himself at groups if enemies he doesnt have anything that enables that outside of modding his movement movement speed.

Edited September 16, 2018 by AbstractLemons
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[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Simple fix: Back to his original concept (that was nerfed dead without any reason whatsoever)

[JrPruett123]

I got bored and theory crafted a rework for him, tho I believe I really need to iron out its flaws but you are correct he does need a rework, but D.E needs time to deal with all their other projects. 

[DeMonkey]

32 minutes ago, JrPruett123 said:

but D.E needs time to deal with all their other projects. 

I disagree, if DE have time to give us Saryn 55.0, Nezha 2.0 and tease a million and one Deluxe skins, then they have time to rework Wukong. 

Letting them have time to deal with other projects is why so much doesn't get done, as soon as that project is finished there's something else they're working on, and then another thing.

[JrPruett123]

3 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

I disagree, if DE have time to give us Saryn 55.0, Nezha 2.0 and tease a million and one Deluxe skins, then they have time to rework Wukong. 

Letting them have time to deal with other projects is why so much doesn't get done, as soon as that project is finished there's something else they're working on, and then another thing.

I Agree, but they are a smaller gaming company. They don't have the same man power of E.A or other big Gaming companies. I understand that we, the players, want something to be done,but we need to work with D.E instead of forcing so many project requests down their throats. Let me be clear, Yes, We, the players, want so many things to make the game better, but we need to allow some projects to finsh then make some requests. D.E is only one company with staff probs streatched thin with Venus Open world and other works in progress that we don't know of. There is a multiple ways to approach them, respectful, Forceful, ETC. we need to be more respectful about our approaches not forceful. If u disagree, that's ok, this is just my philosophy about dealing with companies. Being Nice gets further than Force in my opinion

[DeMonkey]

18 minutes ago, JrPruett123 said:

but we need to allow some projects to finsh then make some requests

Okay, so, given that DE are always working on something new, when do you consider it a good time to make requests? Kinda defeats the point of feedback if we can only give it at certain times.

I've been nice for almost 3 years, it's not working.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

vor 29 Minuten schrieb JrPruett123:

Doublepost

Edited September 16, 2018 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

vor 32 Minuten schrieb JrPruett123:

I Agree, but they are a smaller gaming company. 

You gotta be kidding.

They have been squeezing a top ranked game for literall years now... they've had income on 3 platforms, across the globe, every 3 months for the price other developers sell years worth work for.

I've seen people single handedly putting 4 digits into the game and let's not talk about the off schedule platinum sales.

If they're still considered a smaller company then it's only on them. There's just nothing keeping them from expanding.

Edited September 16, 2018 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[JrPruett123]

Ok.

You all are right.

I am just following my principles. So here on in, I agree to disagree on the method cause im tired and don't want to debate this anymore.

[Ozamchist]

Make a post about a frame. Come back a few hours later. Thread is now derailed to talking about weather or not DE is a small company.

[DeMonkey]

4 hours ago, TermiteFrame said:

Make a post about a frame. Come back a few hours later. Thread is now derailed to talking about weather or not DE is a small company.

That's what happens when someone posts ''but D.E needs time to deal with all their other projects'' for seemingly no reason.

What can you do though, ay? I was really hoping that we'd get something from DE for the Devstream on Friday, especially after I fought to keep my thread in feedback... But, again, nothing....