Ember: Complete Assembly of Fundamental Designflaws

[ShortCat]

Dear DE, dear Community. I want to talk about an old and frequently reoccurring hot topic – Ember. In my humble opinion, she is in a bad spot right now and deserves attention. I will try to explain her shortcomings with following 500 words.

Fire damage itself is the first problem. Reapplying a heat proc will only refresh duration, but not change the damage component (source: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage/Heat_Damage ). This means – Fireblast is a bad fight opener, as it deals lowest numerical damage with a guaranteed heat proc. Furthermore, WoF’s overheat mechanic suffers under those circumstances and punishes frequent recasts. Finally, all her skills compete with better scaling weapons.

Ember’s overall skill design is rather confined and one-dimensional. Her abilities and corresponding Augments do the following:

• - Fireball: fire damage & soft CC via fire proc. Augment - fire damage buff
• - Accelerant: fire damage buff, soft CC via panic animation & castspeed buff. Augment - fire damage buff
• - Fireblast: fire damage, fire damage buff & soft CC via fire proc. Augment - fire proc CC.
• - WoF: fire damage & soft CC via fire proc. Augment – knock down, different soft CC.

All in all, Ember’s skills overlap in functionality and compete with each other or weapons over superior fire damage and/or procs, rather than work together.

Next topic, I call “return of investment”. Other frames have abilities, which support them beyond their initial cast: Rhino’s Iron Skin can last a whole mission, Mirage’s Eclipse has generous duration, Mag’s Crush will grant time independent overshields etc. Ember is lacking in this department: CC from all of her skills is unreliable and unaffected by duration; WoF works as long as you have energy; fire ring is arguably bad. If Ember spent her last energy on any ability, her contribution ends in seconds after this action. This is the reason Flash Accelerant is superb tool in her kit, as it is a duration-based buff. By design, Ember does mostly short-termed contributions on the battlefield with bad energy-benefit ratio, which strain her sustain as a result.

What is Ember’s role? Her only innate damage ability is WoF, which has terrible range, target limit and poor scaling even with Accelerant. Flash Accelerant is a better damage source, as it scales with weapons and is not as energy hungry. However, even as a buffer Ember is extraordinary clunky, because she can only buff Fire – a damage type everyone has to mod for in the first place, or in case of Flash Accelerant may combine into complex elements and disappear or even turn into a disadvantage, especially noticeable in Corpus missions. Intrusive nature of her buffs make Ember less competitive. Finally, most benefits come from Accelerant’s debuff, which is only freely available to Ember herself. Ember embodies a Glass Cannon concept, performs better as a buffer/debuffer, however cannot compete or convince in both cases.

TL;DR: Fire damage itself is a problem. Ember’s skillset is lacking in diversity or utility; Ember has poor sustain and impact due to her design; Ember wobbles between DD and buffer, but cannot convince in both roles or as a hybrid. Additionally, she even lost her pole position as a fire themed frame after recent Nezha rework.

[Spectre-8]

Another mad Ember main .

[(PSN)OriginalEquinox]

Idk why they had to nerf WOF so hard tbh, just reduce the range a little, no need to add that energy drain ramp up mechanic, her kit is focused on AOE but even in low level nodes like IO Jupiter her ability damage starts to drop pretty fast. She needs a full rework if she wants to be relevant again because whenever I see a Ember now the only ability they use is her 2 for some quick CC, her 4 is just like Chromas 4 now, a glorified energy leech

[ShinTechG]

Meanwhile, i'm just here destroying everything and outkilling and DPSing every other frame in a lot of cases/missions. I admit, Ember does need some minor changes (eg: passive), but she really isn't as bad as some people make her out to be. 45% efficiency and I have no problems with energy. Way too many mechanics, mods and options in the game. 

I play on PC, let's schedule an invite and I will show you how capable Ember is. Our clan discord welcomes guest so if you ever want my build & playstyle or proof that i am not just talking sh*t, feel free to ask and i will be glad to invite.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by ShinTechG

[ShortCat]

32 minutes ago, ShinTechG said:

Meanwhile, i'm just here destroying everything and outkilling and DPSing every other frame in a lot of cases/missions.

Comparing your stats to other players is a questionable metric, as you do not know how engaged they are in a particular mission. I can only compare my own performance on different frames in similar situations.

Here is my performance on an Ember set-up, build around her theme: https://imgur.com/Ngo2hHv

Here is a random Spin2win result: https://imgur.com/eNRh77p

Nevertheless, we can meet in-game.

[ShinTechG]

@ShortCat  https://discord.gg/6SaM3yT

 

[Haeen]

I sincerely doubt you are putperforming the likes of saryn, equinox, or volt inmplaces such as ESO.

ember is not designed in such a state where she can.compete with them.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

2 hours ago, ShinTechG said:

Meanwhile, i'm just here destroying everything and outkilling and DPSing every other frame in a lot of cases/missions. I admit, Ember does need some minor changes (eg: passive), but she really isn't as bad as some people make her out to be. 45% efficiency and I have no problems with energy. Way too many mechanics, mods and options in the game. 

I play on PC, let's schedule an invite and I will show you how capable Ember is. Our clan discord welcomes guest so if you ever want my build & playstyle or proof that i am not just talking sh*t, feel free to ask and i will be glad to invite.

 

 

Once people come up with the idea that a frame needs changes, nothing will change their opinion. 

Any setup you offer they will claim it's restrictive to a single playstyle or that you are using band aid mods.

Nobody will ever be satisfied.

[ShortCat]

31 minutes ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Once people come up with the idea that a frame needs changes, nothing will change their opinion. 

Any setup you offer they will claim it's restrictive to a single playstyle or that you are using band aid mods. 

I would very much like to see your setup to create a discussion. Because right now, you are the one making claims.

I will go first. Here is my blanced build: https://imgur.com/cmfqqEi

And another build, slightly focused on Flash Accelerant, without totally disturbing other abilities: https://imgur.com/guv3rXY

Edited October 22, 2018 by ShortCat

[Femuru]

ppl keep saying its fire dmg is the problem with her kit but its not, its her ACTUAL kit. look at all the other elemental frames and tell me how many of them relies ONLY on that element alone for dmg. frost has a GOOD cc with his 2 using ice procs, his snowglobe can be a good defense which atleast even endurance gives 4 sec invincibility, and his 4 has the capability to strip armor. volt has basically the best defense ability in game that gives SOLID dmg of multiplying crit not just the element type alone, his 4 cc is more reliable to actually keep enemies stunned to a set amount, and while even being able to actual raise team surivability that way. saryn yea we kno she broken but her kit is not toxin alone which has added viral to already half everyone health, corrosive to deteriorate armor to help toxin bypass it, and her clone can be useful in distracting enemies. ember dmg boost is fire alone compared to volt he increases crit as well, her cc of her 2 with 4 is mediocre as frost can freeze them in place instead of a blast proc only focusing 3 ppl at a time as they only need to stand up to insta kill u if yur in a endurance, and trying to stack dmg with her 2 and 3 with a fire weapon compares to nothing wen u bring out all the real dps frames. its not the fire dmg its ember herself that is bad.

Edited October 22, 2018 by ShenRyujin

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb ShortCat:

I would very much like to see your setup to create a discussion. Because right now, you are the one making claims.

I will go first. Here is my blanced build: https://imgur.com/cmfqqEi

And another build, slightly focused on Flash Accelerant, without totally disturbing other abilities: https://imgur.com/guv3rXY

I run her with

*maxed fleeting

*Hunter Adrenaline instead of streamline

*QT instead of flash accelerant 

*p flow instead of transient imo

 

What lets you have similar numbers in content reaching endless levels... did an 1,5 hour drako run the other day, reaching an overall level base of 150+ (had to stop bc my life strike started bugging really hard) so the argument that she's lacking survivability (in, i quote several people: "anything above level 40) is invalid too.

Am also leading the damage chart most of the time, no matter if i'm running with randoms or ranks WAY above mine, though i have to admit that i've never really bothered with them. But point stands. If a casual gamer can outdamage others 90% of the time and is equall the other 10%, with a frame, on a build that can challenge endless content.. then wtf is it a frame is lacking?

I mean fire damage mechanics are an issue but how is that an issue with her and not Damage 2.0? Why isn't this in another forum section?

[000l000]

il y a 22 minutes, (PS4)CoolD2108 a dit :

I run her with

*maxed fleeting

*Hunter Adrenaline instead of streamline

*QT instead of flash accelerant 

*p flow instead of transient imo

 

What lets you have similar numbers in content reaching endless levels... did an 1,5 hour drako run the other day, reaching an overall level base of 150+ (had to stop bc my life strike started bugging really hard) so the argument that she's lacking survivability (in, i quote several people: "anything above level 40) is invalid too.

Am also leading the damage chart most of the time, no matter if i'm running with randoms or ranks WAY above mine, though i have to admit that i've never really bothered with them. But point stands. If a casual gamer can outdamage others 90% of the time and is equall the other 10%, with a frame, on a build that can challenge endless content.. then wtf is it a frame is lacking?

I mean fire damage mechanics are an issue but how is that an issue with her and not Damage 2.0? Why isn't this in another forum section?

Ember damage output is quite impressive but some players are just frustrated cause other frames have way better range than her. They still think that end mission leaderboards can tell if you're dealing a lot of damage or not. It only tells who's killing first, period.

Ember can't compete with Equinox, Mag, Mesa, Volt or Saryn in such department since she's a shorter range caster but still she can kill faster than most of them. There's nothing wrong with her if played and built the right way.

Survivability issues are also a joke, enemies are basically stunlocked by Ember's powers.

[XenMaster]

We need to make that fire dmg buff can be increased on combined secondary elemental based from heat + any other element. which means it increase dmg on viral, radiation and blast.

[Blacque]

I posted something for Ember in a while and I'll be going over it again and trying to represent it.  The idea is that Ember is actually very solid but fire damage is underwhelming in its operations in her hands specifically.  Allowing for synergies within a singular element is difficulty so I was offering up the suggestion that elemental frames have elemental mastery that sets them apart from the other sources of fire.  Please tell me what you think.  Always looking for feedback.

[Cataclystri]

3 hours ago, ShenRyujin said:

ppl keep saying its fire dmg is the problem with her kit but its not, its her ACTUAL kit. look at all the other elemental frames and tell me how many of them relies ONLY on that element alone for dmg.

...

its not the fire dmg its ember herself that is bad.

Fire damage is pretty bad, compared to most others. Electric, Cold, Radiation and Blast all have solid arguments for being superior CC types with their procs. Fire also only deals bonus damage to 3 health types, one of which is usually covered by armour and therefore doesn't factor in much. The other two belong to the Infested, which admittedly gives Fire a small niche, but it's outclassed by Gas.

But you're still mostly right in my opinion. Ember's kit just doesn't do anything worthwhile. Pretty much any ability that buffs weapon damage outclasses Accelerant even with its augment, because they usually aren't limited to one damage type. Toxic Lash is arguably worse as a single ability, but it enables Saryn's Spores, so it's a more useful ability overall. Her 3rd ability deals low damage, and her 1 is pretty pathetic. WoF lets you stroll through Starchart, as it always has, but it's insignificant at best in higher-level content.

[Amhiel]

I like Ember and I've used her quite a bit even on ESO with moderate success. However, to make viable in later game you have to go into really weird builds that don't really fit her theme like the sniper ember or going full melee spin to win using her powers only for CC and as a Condition Overload primer and even so only her 2 (her best ability by far) and her 4 are ever worth casting. Many frames have 1 useless ability (like Excalibur's 3) and it's OK because the rest of their kit make up for that. Frames with 2 or more useless abilities and lack of synergy fall way behind the rest and sadly, as much as I like her, Ember belongs in that cathegory. 

I find the mechanic of her 4 after nerf unnecessarily clunky but I can live with that. However her passive, 1 and 3 need a replacement for something that can either buff, hard CC, protect her, give her mobility or utility. Watching the world burn is fun but it gets old pretty fast. 

[ShortCat]

10 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Ember damage output is quite impressive but some players are just frustrated cause other frames have way better range than her. They still think that end mission leaderboards can tell if you're dealing a lot of damage or not. It only tells who's killing first, period.

Ember can't compete with Equinox, Mag, Mesa, Volt or Saryn in such department since she's a shorter range caster but still she can kill faster than most of them. There's nothing wrong with her if played and built the right way.

Survivability issues are also a joke, enemies are basically stunlocked by Ember's powers.

I have no idea, how you could reduce my post to "other players have better mission stats"? Also on the stunlock part, your powers cannot stunlock enemies, if you do not chain them every 3 seconds, which is very energy intensive, Ignis on the other hand, can and will. You would know the difference, if you had more than 20 hours on Ember.

[000l000]

Il y a 4 heures, ShortCat a dit :

I have no idea, how you could reduce my post to "other players have better mission stats"? Also on the stunlock part, your powers cannot stunlock enemies, if you do not chain them every 3 seconds, which is very energy intensive, Ignis on the other hand, can and will.

Everything you're complaining about doesn't make any sense. There's no issue with heat damage, Ember powers rely upon fire damage, not heat (even if heat is a plus, all of her powers have fire power so who cares about this dot). Just stack every single power she has, cast accelerant and enemies die in a sec. You call that design flaws, i call that synergies.

Second if you have return of investment issues, efficiency is here for one reason. Ember passive is a plus if you're fighting Grineers. You can't complain once you're using such mods as transient fortitude, negative duration is terrible on such frames. The less you cast its abilities, the more energy you're saving. Plus you can't handle World on fire with negative duration, you call that a balanced build, but it's all but balanced. Power drift along with a simple augur seeker would do a better job than that. You also use corrosive projection but why not use energy siphon if you have energy issues ?

I can stunlock every single enemy at range so if you can't, you're just playing wrong. Now you can complain she's a shorter range frame than others but that's not your thread main objective. Ember haas been designed as a medium range damage dealer, deal with it.

PS. Perma-burn ---> http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Fright

 

Il y a 4 heures, ShortCat a dit :

if you had more than 20 hours on Ember.

Learn respect before you try to argue on social medias, this kind of insult is really pathetic, unless you're 12 of course. Don't answer to that, you'll be saving me time.

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by 000l000

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I have no issue with damage or survivability with Ember, even in Sorties and Elite Onslaught. She has more than enough damage multipliers between Accelerant and Fire Blast to bring her well into high level content as well as most frames. It's important to understand that her abilities support her weapon damage like Vex Armor and Rift Torrent do. She's not a fire 'mage' character meant to kill exclusively by casting spells.

I agree with her lack of diversity and overlap being her problem. My issue with Ember is that her kit is basically all damage, with some ancillary cc. I've never cared for WoF, and it's only slightly less boring now than it was before the rework. WoF should serve some specific function that isn't already easily accessible through her other abilities without depending on an augment.

[ShortCat]

1 hour ago, 000l000 said:

Learn respect before you try to argue on social medias, this kind of insult is really pathetic,

Excuse me, it's 21 hours on Ember: https://imgur.com/yTnXHOa

You are talking about respect, while you could just go into simulacrum, spawn some enemies and see how that Fire Fright augment perma stuns enemies and check your facts, instead of me telling you that there is a brief pause between 2 consecutive heat procs and its CC is worthless.

[Birdframe_Prime]

The way I see it, we could take some examples from the concepted Fire-based frames that came into the Forums years ago (some archived posts I remember vaguely), and rework Ember's purpose a little.

For example, an old, old thread was for a Fire/Volcano Goddess themed frame (and yes, it was mine, I can use some of these) that focussed on the ramp-up of Fire damage, although some of the Volcano themes wouldn’t come through to Ember.

Her 1 was basically Fireball, with the way it’s a direct projectile that then places an AoE fire damage/proc spreader.

The idea with this, however, was that it had a wide area of effect and long duration (a cozy camp fire for us, a warding flame for the enemy) that dished out low damage that increases the closer you get to the middle of its radius. A mechanic being that the ‘middle’ expands with range mods too, so that going for Range potentially makes this ability stronger, not weaker. The Status chance would go up the closer the enemy got to the middle too, making the placement of the ball one of the best ways to proc Fire on enemies.

The second ability then becomes the more damaging function, it deals decent base damage, but in a cone-of-effect, that has two main purposes; a high chance to proc Fire if the enemy is not already burning, or to multiply the damage and extend (not refresh) the Duration on existing Fire procs.

What this function then becomes is exactly what you were talking about, OP, a way to work off Fire Procs and make them scale. Each time you re-cast on an enemy that’s on Fire, you extend the Duration of the proc and you also multiply the damage they’re taking by your Power Strength plus a basic number.

Move Accelerant then to her 3, where we can buff its effects. Improving that base Casting Speed buff (so that it’s actually 50% faster, not 30% faster when you do that maths), using that Damage multiplication where it can do good; increasing the already existing increases from her 2 and making her 1 better too.

Then, a proposal for World on Fire would be to make it actually… entirely not what it is now, but based on it entirely. My thought is how about a burst ability similar, in fact, to Harrow’s?

So World on Fire is a damage aura in the exact way that it is now, except that it has an initial charge phase, buffing its damage based on something else.

In this case, we have it charge off Fire Damage Dealt in the time, and that comes from everything in range, from every source you have. Got an Atomos? Use that. Got Fireball and the new 2 going? Take that too. Got all the enemies in the area taking DoT from the Fire procs? That counts!

Charge up for a period, and then let World on Fire act for a Duration after that, giving massively boosted damage out for that period (with further buffs from Accelerant).

Potential damage is always something that DE actually likes, so why not use that concept of ‘potential damage’ to actually create a Fire-based ability that works off the number of enemies you have on fire, the amount of fire damage you’re dealing and everything else to actually burst down high-level enemies for the time you have?

Now, that’s something, as far as I can consider, that might actually go to counter the original post’s complaint; the one where Ember never actually leaves a lasting impression, where the design never seems to have any effect beyond six or so seconds.

If you could press the button to begin the charge, frantically deal out damage to buff up your ability, and then deal out damage for… well, it might have to start low, like 12 seconds, so that the maximum modded duration is only about 25 seconds or so, but that will be something that is not only interactive, but a huge payoff the higher up the levels you go, the more weapon damage you take with you, the more the ability can deal.

Anyway, that’s the thoughts on it so far. I wouldn’t want to make such a huge change to Ember, but playing off Status and Potential Damage is something DE likes, so it may get implemented.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Thaylien

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I think WoF could be much more useful if it were a target area ability with built in fire quake. Area denial and damage. 

Or even a target enemy toggle that would encourage use on heavy targets. It would kill of their weaker allies as they move around and have it hack away at their health in the process. 

[ShortCat]

@Thaylien Thank you for your answer. Whily my intention was to point out Ember's basic flaws and not necessary discuss her rework, your draft adresses both topics. I like it.

[Blacque]

19 hours ago, Thaylien said:

The way I see it, we could take some examples from the concepted Fire-based frames that came into the Forums years ago (some archived posts I remember vaguely), and rework Ember's purpose a little.

For example, an old, old thread was for a Fire/Volcano Goddess themed frame (and yes, it was mine, I can use some of these) that focussed on the ramp-up of Fire damage, although some of the Volcano themes wouldn’t come through to Ember.

Her 1 was basically Fireball, with the way it’s a direct projectile that then places an AoE fire damage/proc spreader.

The idea with this, however, was that it had a wide area of effect and long duration (a cozy camp fire for us, a warding flame for the enemy) that dished out low damage that increases the closer you get to the middle of its radius. A mechanic being that the ‘middle’ expands with range mods too, so that going for Range potentially makes this ability stronger, not weaker. The Status chance would go up the closer the enemy got to the middle too, making the placement of the ball one of the best ways to proc Fire on enemies.

The second ability then becomes the more damaging function, it deals decent base damage, but in a cone-of-effect, that has two main purposes; a high chance to proc Fire if the enemy is not already burning, or to multiply the damage and extend (not refresh) the Duration on existing Fire procs.

What this function then becomes is exactly what you were talking about, OP, a way to work off Fire Procs and make them scale. Each time you re-cast on an enemy that’s on Fire, you extend the Duration of the proc and you also multiply the damage they’re taking by your Power Strength plus a basic number.

Move Accelerant then to her 3, where we can buff its effects. Improving that base Casting Speed buff (so that it’s actually 50% faster, not 30% faster when you do that maths), using that Damage multiplication where it can do good; increasing the already existing increases from her 2 and making her 1 better too.

Then, a proposal for World on Fire would be to make it actually… entirely not what it is now, but based on it entirely. My thought is how about a burst ability similar, in fact, to Harrow’s?

So World on Fire is a damage aura in the exact way that it is now, except that it has an initial charge phase, buffing its damage based on something else.

In this case, we have it charge off Fire Damage Dealt in the time, and that comes from everything in range, from every source you have. Got an Atomos? Use that. Got Fireball and the new 2 going? Take that too. Got all the enemies in the area taking DoT from the Fire procs? That counts!

Charge up for a period, and then let World on Fire act for a Duration after that, giving massively boosted damage out for that period (with further buffs from Accelerant).

Potential damage is always something that DE actually likes, so why not use that concept of ‘potential damage’ to actually create a Fire-based ability that works off the number of enemies you have on fire, the amount of fire damage you’re dealing and everything else to actually burst down high-level enemies for the time you have?

Now, that’s something, as far as I can consider, that might actually go to counter the original post’s complaint; the one where Ember never actually leaves a lasting impression, where the design never seems to have any effect beyond six or so seconds.

If you could press the button to begin the charge, frantically deal out damage to buff up your ability, and then deal out damage for… well, it might have to start low, like 12 seconds, so that the maximum modded duration is only about 25 seconds or so, but that will be something that is not only interactive, but a huge payoff the higher up the levels you go, the more weapon damage you take with you, the more the ability can deal.

Anyway, that’s the thoughts on it so far. I wouldn’t want to make such a huge change to Ember, but playing off Status and Potential Damage is something DE likes, so it may get implemented.

A very well thought out plan.  The only thing that you might want to consider is the rate at which Ember would be able to contribute versus the team having already done the job.  It could turn into a reversal for her, where instead of Ember burning down enemies faster than the team can even spot them, she's left trying to ramp up damage to compete.  Still it seems note worthy.

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

I feel as though fire damage is only 50% of the problem in Ember's case. Her other big issue is the abilities themselves that don't have other functions to help support said damage type (i.e. removing armor). As you already pointed out, Ember's abilities all essentially do the same things, so giving Ember stronger secondary effects to support the primary effect should dramatically improve her abilities.