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Vauban Revisited


Ikusi_Prime
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Vauban could use some love. He has an outdated kit from before Parkour 2.0 was introduced, and his general squishiness and clunkiness on top of a few redundant abilities makes him very much in need of a touch up. 

The goals of these changes are to increase Vauban's effectiveness against groups of enemies, modernize his abilities and give them a specific purpose, and increase his overall build variety. 

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Recharge (Passive)

  •  For every 2 enemies Vauban kills, each active grenade gains 1 second of additional duration and an additional charge

Comments: This passive replaces Reinforce with something that synergizes better with Vauban's kit. As he continues to get kills, he will keep his active grenades up, allowing him to deal more damage with Teslas, hold enemies with Bastille and Vortex for longer, and get more use out of his Minelayer grenades. The added duration is especially important, since many of the changes below reduce the base duration of his abilities. Note that this duration increase only affects how long the grenade is on the battlefield, not the length of any debuffs they may inflict. 

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Tesla (1)

  • Each grenade can now discharge up to 2/3/4/5 times in a 3-second period, but it still can only target a particular enemy once every 3 seconds. 
  • Status chance increased to 30% (was 10%), and can now be increased by Ability Strength mods. 
  • Duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 40 seconds), but is now affected by Duration mods. 
  • Charge time reduced to 1 second. Instead of gaining additional damage and status chance, a fully-charged grenade consumes twice as much energy, and when it attaches to a surface, it will deal 15 Electric damage to every enemy in range with a 100% status chance, without consuming any of that grenade's charges. 

Comments: Before, Tesla struggled against mobs of enemies, since each grenade could only target a single enemy at a time. At max rank, this improveed Teslas can fire off their charges much faster into a group of enemies. The single-target damage remains the same as before, but the Tesla is able to affect more enemies simultaneously. The clunky and restrictive charge mechanic that was added has been all but removed, replaced with the ability to spend more energy and stun an entire group of enemies at once, so Vauban can finish them off or escape from a tight situation.

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Minelayer (2)

  • Bounce
    • Launch pad size increases with rank, 1/2/3/4 meters.
    • Launch pad has a duration of 2/3/4/5 seconds, and holds 1/2/3/4 charges. 
    •  Enemies who step in the area are bounced, taking 25/50/75/100 Blast damage with a guaranteed Blast and Magnetic proc. This does not consume a charge. Each enemy can only be bounced once per 5 seconds. 
    • Friendly players who jump while on the launch pad are thrown into the air, consuming a charge and receiving the special Launched buff. While the buff is active, the next attack, ability, or bullet jump that player performs consumes the buff to gain an enhanced effect. The buff lasts until consumed or when the user touches the ground or performs a Wall Latch/Wall Jump. 
      • The speed of an ability cast time, ability charge time, bullet jump, projectile, melee attack, or slam drop is increased by 30% (scaling with Ability Strength)
      • The first instance of damage dealt by that action deals an additional 75/100/125/175 Blast damage to all targets. (For example, if Hydroid consumes the Launched buff while casting Tempest Barrage, it will cast faster and he can charge it faster, and the first missile will deal the extra Blast damage to all enemies it hits. Subsequent missiles would not gain the extra damage.)
  • Trip Laser
    • Now deals 100/150/200 Heat damage the first time an enemy touches the laser, refreshing after not touching it for 3 seconds, and 40/60/80 Heat damage each second, spread out over five ticks, to enemies standing in the laser. 0% status chance. 
    • Duration reduced to 10/15/20 seconds (was 20/25/30 seconds)
  • Shred
    • No longer launches or ragdolls enemies (moved to Concuss)
    • Damage reduced to 25/50 (was 200/400), but also inflicts a Slash proc in addition to reducing armor. 
  • Concuss
    • Enemies hit by Concuss are launched and ragdolled (moved from Shred)

Comments: Bounce is a pre-Parkour 2.0 relic. When players couldn't bullet jump, it was a decent ability, but it really serves no purpose after the introduction of better maneuvers that every Warframe can do baseline. This new version doubles as utility and CC, creating the cinematic moments we saw in the Vauban Prime trailer. When you leap off of a launch pad, you get an empowered move that lets you deal a chunk of extra damage as well as let you move around the map faster or reduce the time it takes your damage to reach the enemy. When used as CC, you can throw it into a group of enemies and pop them up in the air, preventing multiple enemies from attacking if they enter the area. 

Trip Laser has a significantly reduced duration, but now deals damage to enemies who cross it and stand in it. This is to make it better at denying areas, especially against Infested enemies or when coupled with other immobilizing effects. 

Changing Shred to deal the majority of its damage as a Slash proc means it will scale nicely into the lategame, solidifying its place as the anti-armor option. In some cases, the removal of the launching effect is a benefit; it allows you to keep enemies together and repeatedly cast Shred to strip all of their armor. 

There has always been an issue with Vauban: Why use Concuss when Vortex has the same radius and duration, but also damages enemies and renders them completely helpless? This change gives you a reason. By moving the ragdoll effect from Shred to Concuss, it scatters the enemies with the radiation proc, controlling a much larger space of the battlefield by giving more enemies a different target to shoot at than you or your allies. 

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Bastille (3)

  • Can now be charged for 1 second to perform the ability as a slam attack, placing the grenade on the ground where you land. Doing so will increase the radius and maximum number of enemies affected by 25%. 
  • Visuals will now continue along the cylinder to the height of the highest and lowest affected enemy, to better indicate the area of effect.

Comments: This again takes inspiration from the Vauban Prime trailer. By stopping his gunfire and giving up the ability to deploy the zone at range, it becomes more effective, giving him a great tool for saving himself from nearby enemies or controlling a zone around him. Bastille actually affects a cylinder of infinite height, not just the area suggested by the crosshatch visuals, so a simple QoL change to extend those visuals makes it more clear which enemies are affected by it without creating too much clutter when there aren't enough airborne enemies for it to matter. 

Overall, Vauban would be a more effective CC-focused Warframe with a variety of useful tools at his disposal instead of redundant tools at his disposal. He has an option for nearly every situation, and is encouraged to build stats other than Duration for different playstyles. He's less restricted by mobs of enemies, and is able to counteract his squishiness with layered, synergistic abilities to keep himself alive. 

 

Edited by Aejan
typo
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His 1 is basically a turret right now. It just shoots really slow. The problem with a turret or anything similar is that Warframe is primarily a mob-based PvE game. Single-target abilities either need to be badass, have a ton of utility, or give you target access you wouldn't normally have, and Tesla is none of those. A version of Tesla that affects multiple enemies would be much better than the current version or a turret. 

 

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