Let's Help Equinox Synergize with a Better Peaceful Provocation

[(XBOX)RAG is NAROK]

So first off let me make a few things clear. One, I am an Equinox Main who prefers the Night Form over the Day Form (sorry Maim lovers). Two, because of that I won't be offering too much feedback on the Day Form (I think that is fair). Three, my objective here isn't to try to nerf/buff abilities but instead try to come up with ways to make them synergize better.

Peaceful Provocation

Quote

Peaceful Provocation is a Warframe Augment Mod for Equinox that increases the effectiveness of Pacify & Provoke. Pacify converts damage done to Equinox and her allies into an aura that slows enemies by up to 40%. Provoke converts damage done to enemies within the aura into up to 15% bonus Ability Strength.

~Quote from Warframe Wiki

First off let's start off with Peaceful Provocation, a cool ability for the night form... that is a pain to increase for night form but super easy for the day form. Why? Because the benefits for the Day Form increase based around the damage the Day Form deals, while the benefits for the Night Form increase based around the amount of damage she takes, which in turns often results in her dying from such damage. So how do we fix this, while also making it that Peaceful Provocation synergizes with the other abilities Equinox has.

Personally I think it is rather obvious. Make it so that both forms don't increase the meter based off the the damage they take/deal but instead make it based off of ability usage. Every time you use another ability (aside from her one, because apparently swapping forms cancels out Peaceful Provocation) it increases the percentage of the Peaceful Provocation meter. The percentage could be determined either by Power Strength (which will work no matter what form your in) or Power Cost.

In the case of the latter, this would mean that if you invest in Power Efficiency the meter will not fill as much per ability, but you will be able to cast abilities more often.

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At this point in time, this was the only one I could think of discussing that felt balanced but perhaps we will discuss the other abilities later.

[trndr]

Self damage is the solution to your problem.

Having it metered by damage is IMO the most viable metering option, to stop it being too OP compared to the investment.

[(XBOX)RAG is NAROK]

3 minutes ago, trndr said:

Self damage is the solution to your problem.

Having it metered by damage is IMO the most viable metering option, to stop it being too OP compared to the investment.

Yeah, so you basically end up wasting one of your weapon slots just so you can damage yourself. I have done this before and let me tell you it really isn't fun. It's kind of annoying for the following reasons.

1) While the other players are running in killing enemies and stuff, you are stuck hiding someplace, dealing damage to yourself, hoping that a stray bullet doesn't hit you in the process.

2) As I stated before you have to invest in a weapon slot (usually your secondary) to set this all up. And if for some reason you run out of ammo for your Primary and the game auto swaps you to your secondary there is a chance you can accidentally down yourself (especially in the case when you use a shotgun), which not only means someone has to revive you, but you have to start all over again.

At least my solution offers synergy to encourage players to also built toward either their second ability (Rest and Rage) or their fourth ability (Mend and Maim) if not both, something of which is kind of lacking with most Equinox builds. Most Peaceful Provocation builds do only one thing, Peaceful Provocation. Same goes for many of the other builds that focus around the other abilities. The only build that has "synergy" is a Mend/Maim build that uses Energy Transfer, an augment mod that many players will say should have came default with Equinox to begin with.

Not trying to sound mad. Just trying to make a point.

[axellex]

The word synergy getting thrown out there just because it involves other abilities being used in order for one specific ability to function, unfortunately that's not how synergy works.

Just take a pause and think about your suggestion, you want night equinox to use her sleep ability (a 100% render enemy immobile) in order to build her pacify ability which at base reduces enemy damage plus with the augment it reduces their overall speed up to 80%. 🤔

I've played around with night pacify augment because it's a more easily controlled area effect slow compared to nova, but making it so you have to use sleep or mend to build it up makes no sense why bother having the slow if you can just sleep everything instead?

I also didn't have any issues with dying as night form with 1000HP + 2 arcane guardian I never went down and easily kept pacify up which also retains it's damage reduction to all incoming dmg in your radius (it's something around 80% so it's very hard to die if you have more than 300hp).

This is the build I use if you are interested. http://warframe-builder.com/Warframes/Builder/Equinox/t_30_4200320330_4-7-5-34-8-5-411-1-10-479-5-10-552-9-3-652-3-3-852-0-4-859-4-5-873-6-10-875-2-10_852-4-411-8-875-16-652-9-859-4-479-7-873-16-4-5-34-14-552-5_0/en/1-0-38

[NinjaZeku]

6 hours ago, trndr said:

Self damage is the solution

IMO, it should never be, though.

(DE also seems to somewhat agree on that, as self-damage "exploits" keep getting removed.)

7 hours ago, (XB1)RAG is NAROK said:

swapping forms cancels out

This is the main thing that has needed changing fixing ever since Equinox was introduced.

Let Provoke (and Maim) stacks carry over and become Pacify (and Mend) stacks, and vice versa.
Simple, not OP, playing Equinox becomes a lot more fun / dynamic, everybody wins.

_{(Inb4 the Mend & Maim Augment, just ... no, don't even mention that dirty bandaid Mod to me. Urgh.)}

[Leuca]

19 hours ago, (XB1)RAG is NAROK said:

(aside from her one, because apparently swapping forms cancels out Peaceful Provocation)

You've already identified the main problem with Equinox and literally glazed right over it.

When swapping forms no longer cancels maintained abilities (and we know for a fact they can do this now because of #4's augment), she'll be ready for a proper balancing session/proper passive.

[Handstamp]

Your teammates build peaceful provocation charge as well. As long as you have someone on the team taking damage, you'll steadily build charge, and at 60% you can easily control the damage you take for the last 20~% of charge. Plus, you do have the ability to heal as often as you'd like.

Also DE, please please bake an Energy Transfer mechanic into peaceful provocation. I don't even care if it has to decay by a percentage each switch, the utility alone would be worth it.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Handstamp

[Gurpgork]

On 2018-10-02 at 5:08 AM, trndr said:

Self damage is the solution to your problem.

Glossing over the fact that the devs have repeatedly removed various ways for us to directly benefit from self damage for years, the presence of a workaround via exploiting game mechanics does not warrant a bad design decision. 

On 2018-10-02 at 5:08 AM, trndr said:

Having it metered by damage is IMO the most viable metering option, to stop it being too OP compared to the investment.

I think it's already sufficiently metered. Its energy cost scales up quick when you're standing around lots of enemies, it takes a long time to build up, and if you get nullified, fall off a ledge, or switch forms (something you're supposed to be able to do with this Warframe whenever you feel like), you have to start over. And that's on top of it requiring an augment slot.

Compare all of this to, say, Nova, who can slow the whole map from the start of the mission and simultaneously double your team's damage, all while being significantly easier to mod than Equinox, and I don't feel like Peaceful Provocation's long list of drawbacks are really justifiable.