Some input on frames that need some love

[Ceadeus]

NOTE: THIS POST IS A SALVAGE FROM A FEW WEEKS AGO THAT I HAD TYPED UP AND THEN LOST DUE TO A FORUM CRASH, HENCE THE NEZHA CONTENT NOT ACKNOWLEDGING THE RECENT CHANGES.  I DECIDED TO LEAVE IT IN AS IS JUST TO GARNER FEEDBACK AND THOUGHTS ON IT ANYWAY.

So we saw a lot of new content during all the Tennocon reveals, notably one of my favorite pieces of content for the game: deluxe skins.  We saw deluxe skins for Nezha, Nyx, Limbo, Nidus, Vauban, and Titania and really they all looked great, in my opinion.  However, this got me thinking as usually frames will get touch-ups before some big release focused around them like Prime or deluxe, and I started thinking about which frames really needed the attention the most out of our current selection.  This is my ranking as follows from most to least urgent.

1. Nezha - Nezha and Wukong pretty much tie for the first spot, but Nezha only takes it as his deluxe skin is obviously more likely to come out first as we've seen nothing for Wukong yet.  Personally, I think Nezha's damage output among all of his abilities is way too small, especially when you consider how long some of his casting animations are.  Nezha's 4th, in particular, has a massive animation for a tiny amount of damage and a relatively mediocre CC compared to some of the other frames and what they can offer.  I would rework Nezha as follows:

Frictionless: This passive doesn't need to go away, but it does need something else on top of it to really make it worth anything.  I would really like to see a small splinter of his 4th put into his bullet jumps (to keep with the movement theme), so that whenever he performs a bullet jump, any enemies in a small radius around him are then impaled on his spears.

Firewalker: First and foremost, this ability needs a MUCH wider trail.  Leaving behind a thin line of small damage isn't really something worth having a constant energy drain on as it's both unreliable and weak.  I can see two ways this ability could be reworked: 1. a "fear" effect is added to the trail's proximity so that any enemy who comes near it will instead back away from it.  This effect can be used both to block off choke points for map control as well as coral a bunch of enemies together were you to run around them, and this would set them up better for his 2nd.  2.  An effect similar to Arson Eximi is added where rather than a static trail behind Nezha, instead a wave of fire is emitted off to both sides behind him as he runs past.  This improves the coverage and CC of the ability as more enemies will be set on fire and enter that panicked state, making them easier to shoot and less dangerous.

Blazing Chakram: Again, this ability is far too weak to actually be worthwhile.  Even with its augment equipped that is supposed to increase its damage output, it really only does about as much damage as the ability should in its base form.  Frankly it really just needs significantly more damage, possibly even to the point of swapping this ability from his 2nd to his 4th and turning it into an Exalted Weapon so that it can be modded separately.  Other than that, maybe a press and hold mechanic to throw the Chakram in a way similar to when using Ivara's Navigator so that it can be directed specifically and thus make better use of its teleportation aspect.

Warding Halo:  This is probably the best part of his kit at the moment and what he typically gets ran for if anything.  I don't really think there need to be any touch ups here (not that you couldn't add little flavor things to make it cooler.)

Divine Spears: As said at the start, this ability really isn't all that great.  It's not bad but it certainly doesn't feel like an ability worth taking up the so-called "Ultimate" slot.  The damage is just far too low and the CC is only about as good as any other CC frame that usually also offers damage on TOP of that CC.  What would be really interesting to see would be an effect where any impaled enemies give off an aura that acts similarly to Inaros' Devour, where any allies close enough to these enemies will be healed based on the enemy's remaining health pool.  Otherwise the ability could be made to have a bleeding effect and/or allow multiple spears in the same target for better damage output.

1.  Wukong - Wukong is much like Nezha in that really only one of his abilities is all that "good", the rest of his kit is just kind of "ok" with lots of inconveniences.

Tenacity:  Tenacity is just Body Count... but worse.  This absolutely HAS to change.  Wukong is historically equivalent to a DeviantArt OC character who just constantly pulls out some new trick at the sight of any challenge, so why not give him something like damage scaling based on number of enemies present to equate to something like "overcoming insurmountable odds"?  Double damage against 2 enemies, triple against 3, etc.

Iron Jab:  Iron Jab does perfectly fine damage, but it's such a pin-point accurate thing that it makes that damage feel incredibly inadequate.  He's effectively been given a nerf dart sniper rifle.  This ability simply needs a larger AoE on impact or perhaps even just making the pole itself expand as we've seen it can do in his 4th or a raw damage increase.

Defy: Defy is perfectly fine and should not be touched in any way, shape, or form.

Cloud Walker: This ability effectively amounts to "stop playing the game".  Anywhere this ability is useful there is a frame that can do it better, and much faster.  A.  This ability needs to be made like 3x as fast.  B.  It needs an additional effect like maybe based on alerted state enemies caught in the cloud will either be unaffected if unalerted, or forced into a state of firing randomly which can hit other enemies for massively increased damage due to being "confused" and assuming Wukong is IN the cloud and not IS the cloud.

Primal Fury: Same thing as Iron Jab.  Good theory, but needs better allocation.

2.  Hydroid - Yes, wett boi is back again, hopefully for a proper rework this time.  That is not to say that Hydroid's last touch up wasn't a good step in the right direction, but rather just that it didn't really address any of the actual PROBLEMS with Hydroid. (Speaking as someone who played Hydroid constantly after his release, I know.)

Deep Tendril:  Just let this be 100%.  The tentacles already struggle to actually grab anything meaningful, why force Hydroid players to sit there hopping around over and over hoping to proc this passive?

Tempest Barrage:  This ability was marketed to us as a simulation of Hydroid "calling his ship and firing the cannons on his enemies", so simply teach whatever crewmen are firing those cannons to aim.  Rather than having the ability just randomly cover the shown area the whole time, make it so that it fires randomly until an enemy enters that zone and then all shots are focused on them.  This will greatly improve its damage, CC, and the utility of his augment without the need for the puddle meta first.

Tidal Surge:  First and foremost I'd like to see a function for this ability where it changes size based on elevation.  A surge on the ground will just be the normal bump of a wave that knocks people over, a surge from high up in the air will make a tsunami that sweeps up the room.  Secondly, I'd like to see some more synergy with the following puddle changes, which I'll outline under that ability to avoid making people read back and forth.

Undertow:  Undertow saw some really great improvements to its viability in the last batch of changes, but it still remains one of the most polarizing abilities in the game.  Personally I would like to see it get the "stack" treatment that we've been seeing a lot of successful frames/reworks use lately.  For every enemy damaged/killed in Undertow, Hydroid gains a stack.  With every stack Hydroid gains, Undertow grows larger (also increasing the grab radius).  This allows Hydroid to truly become a terror of the deep oceans, rather than a kinda dangerous puddle.  As for the synergy with Tidal Surge I mentioned, the movement in Undertow would stay, but would now consume half of your stacks when you do it so that you can't simply maintain this massive puddle and move it all across the map without any drawback.  Stacks would also decay when not in the puddle.

Hentai Monster Tentacle Swarm:  Tentacle Swarm used to be a perfectly viable damage dealer back when Hydroid first came out, but over the years it's fallen off into being pretty weak as far as DPS goes.  A nice addition that would also make use of that Kraken head we got would be to make it so that the tentacles periodically would bring an enemy over to the head and pull it under the map to simulate them being eaten, doing massive damage to that enemy.  Beyond that all I think this ability really needs is a simple rework of the tentacle animations so that rather than swinging the enemies around, they simply coil around them and "crush" them for their damage, making them easier to hit for players as well.

3.  Chroma:  Now don't get me wrong, Chroma's a perfectly "good" frame in that he can function in missions without being utterly worthless but about half his kit right now is pretty much just completely neglected unless you're deliberately attempting to use them just for the "gimmick" of it.  This is just how I would like to see Chroma made to be so that he's a bit more well rounded and less one-tricked.

Elemental Alignment:  This passive was really cool when it first came out, but that was a while ago and now we've seen plenty of frames with the ability to swap between different damage types/functions without the need to mess up Fashionframe (The one true endgame).  To keep up with the times this passive either needs to be moved to an ability or just moved to its own button press.  Personally, I think it would be cooler to see this replace Elemental Ward so that instead of activating the ability for the benefits, you just always have them, and then Elemental Alignment is just made an ability to switch between those benefits and your damage type.

Spectral Scream:  Let's be honest.  This ability is awful.  It does terrible damage, terrible range, has terrible efficiency and doesn't even have a 100% status chance for those terrible stats.  This ability needs several buffs.  1.  A lot more range, and a lot more damage.  This is dragon's breath, not a drunk guy blowing on a lighter.  2.  100% status chance.  How are you going to tell me that sitting there breathing a stream of fire on this Grineer didn't light him on fire?

Elemental Ward:  As said, this could probably just be made into Chroma's passive.  Elemental Alignment will then be made into a hold to change elements and press to trigger the AoE burst and other DoT affects.

Vex Armor:  Can be left alone.

Effigy:  Effigy is not bad, but it has the potential to be so much cooler and make Chroma all around a more interesting frame.  Taking notes from Titania, Chroma's Effigy should be reworked so that the Effigy only comes out on hold, and returns on a press (and thus can still be used with his augment) but then if the player does a normal press, they instead continue wearing the armor with its wings and all and can use it for free-form flight.  Chroma will keep his normal primary like PoE Archwing, but his melee will be replaced with "Dragon Claws" which are similar to Valkyr's claws in appearance and are treated as an Exalted weapon that can be modded separately.  Holding while in this form will detatch the armor as the Effigy wherever Chroma is at the time, and pressing again will simply revert to a normal state.  All his other abilities would still be useable while in his "Titania-esque" form.

And that's all I've got for now
From there I feel most other frames are either perfectly fine as they are or really don't need much more than a few QoL tweaks that I won't really be bothering to put in this post atm as I've been typing for a while now.  Would love to hear what people think and get some feedback on it.  Remember, if you support the topic, drop some likes and be sure to comment to keep it alive so maybe it can get in front of some important eyes! ❤️

[(XBOX)Arxcervus]

Hydroid does need a rework. Only thing worth using is tentacle swarm for CC and the augments for him are the only thing that makes undertow and barrage worth using. I hardly ever use the wave, unless there are a crowd of enemies but why waste energy when you can just bullet jump to them and use undertow? Not sure what they could do but he definitely needs the rework, also, he seems squishy imo. He runs high armor but still weak, you basically have to spend the higher levels in puddle form and hope no parasitic shows up and drains you or hope you have the energy to cast tentacle swarm or you are screwed.