[suggestion] null star-focused Nova ability rework.

[Austell]

so Nova has always been one of my favourite frames—i particularly enjoy the breadth and versatility of her abilities, granting everything from crowd control to mobility to damage mitigation. recent changes have only made her more and more enjoyable for me, but i feel like a little more synergy between her abilities and their effects would benefit her a lot.

this rework idea isn't exactly a few minor tweaks, though! it's an assortment of considerable changes which i feel would make Nova's abilities work a lot better together, while preserving most or all of the qualities of her power set that i enjoy: (1) the combination of offensive, defensive, and mobility tools, (2) the ability to leverage single-target, high-damage weapons for aoe damage and crowd control, and (3) the balance between slower, safer work at long range and more immediate combat effectiveness at short range.

all values given represent unmodded maximum level abilities.

i'll try and keep this concise, but here it is! i'd love some feedback.

✦ passive • null star.

Nova generates one null star every 0.5 seconds. null stars orbit Nova, each providing 5% damage reduction on her health, to a maximum of 90% damage reduction. Nova can have a maximum of 20 null stars orbiting her at once.

when Nova damages an enemy with a weapon (but not an ability), a null star will leap from her to that enemy and begin to orbit them instead. this leap staggers the enemy and does 400 slash damage. an enemy can only have up to 3 null stars orbiting it at once.

• power duration affects the maximum number of null stars orbiting Nova, and inversely affects the rate at which they're generated.
• power strength affects the damage done when a null star leaps to an enemy.
• damage reduction per null star and damage reduction cap cannot be altered by power mods.

enemies within 20 metres of a null star, whether that null star is orbiting Nova or an enemy, will receive a stacking debuff, slowing them by 8% per second and increasing damage they take by 10% per second, up to a maximum of 80% slow and 100% more damage. the more null stars an enemy is in range of, the faster this debuff stacks. if an enemy is not affected by any null star, the debuff decays at a rate of 4% slow and 5% damage vulnerability per second.

• power strength affects the rate at which the debuff stacks, but the maximum debuff cannot be affected by power mods.
• power duration inversely affects the decay rate of the debuff.
• the range of the debuff is not affected by power mods.
• enemies affected by the debuff will glow faintly with Nova's energy colour, while enemies slowed by at least 40% will have the familiar "molecular prime" sparkles.
• as with the molecular prime debuff, this ability affects enemies protected by ancient healers and disruptors. ancient disruptors and nullifiers will greatly increase the decay rate, and nullifier bubbles will destroy any null stars they touch.

in addition, enemies orbited by at least one null star will explode on death, dealing blast damage in a 10 metre radius equal to 30% of their max health, or a minimum of 1000 damage if they have less than 5000 health.

• power range affects explosion radius.
• power strength affects minimum damage, but not the hp multiplier.
• if multiple null stars are orbiting an enemy, the minimum damage is multiplied by the number of null stars, but the hp multiplier is not affected.
• the explosion has a status chance of 50%, affected by power strength.
• if Nova is within the explosion radius and is below her orbit maximum, the null stars from the killed enemy will leap back to her.

notes: i wanted to make null star Nova's centralising ability, and moved nearly all of molecular prime's effects to it. i feel this gives Nova a more constant signature presence on the battlefield, based on a combination of weapon and ability usage, rather than one based primarily on her fourth ability; while reducing the problem of enemies being slowed or trapped far away due to molecular prime, which made her much less viable for survival, salvage, and sanctuary onslaught missions, and made a lot of other missions much slower than they should have been.

✦ first ability • starburst. (25 energy)

Nova commands all null stars currently orbiting her to leap to enemies within 25 metres. starburst will prioritise enemies that don't yet have null stars, and then enemies that are closer to Nova. just as when weapon damage causes a null star to leap to an enemy, this does 400 slash damage and staggers enemies hit.

• power range affects starburst's acquisition range.
• power duration indirectly affects starburst, by controlling the number of null stars available for use.
• power strength affects the damage done by null star on leap.
• multiple null stars will only leap to the same enemy if there are no other enemies that don't have null stars.

notes: because the functionality of null stars is mostly covered in the passive, this ability seems much simpler. it's essentially a remodelling of null star's original purpose—mild, close-range crowd control on enemies close to Nova—to be more generally effective and applicable. starburst serves as a way to put null stars on a large number of enemies, especially when you aren't using weapons that can hit lots of enemies lots of times. it trades the defensive damage reduction of null stars for a soft area cc, and the stagger it causes is multiplied in effectiveness by Nova's slowing debuff.

• starburst augment: wandering star.

replacing neutron star, this augment causes null stars orbiting an enemy to leap to other nearby enemies within 12 metres when they die, instead of disappearing or returning to Nova.

• power range affects maximum jump distance.

notes: this is a fairly minor alteration, but i feel it serves a purpose in enabling more fluid play, in which you mostly want to keep null stars jumping between clustered enemies. in keeping with the style of augments, it's intended to be a bit of a sidegrade, rather than being something you always want.

✦ second ability • antimatter drop. (50 energy)

as a one-handed action, Nova summons a sphere of antimatter in front of her, which drifts slowly in the camera direction. the antimatter drop absorbs all damage done to it, including by enemy projectiles. enemy ranged attacks that pass within 3 m of the antimatter drop are attracted towards it. upon reaching 50,000 stored damage, the drop increases its speed and changes in appearance. when the antimatter drop collides with an enemy, or when the ability key is pressed again, it detonates, dealing 400 damage + 400% of stored damage as radiation damage in a 15-metre radius.

when Nova damages the antimatter drop with a weapon, null stars can leap to it, just as they would with an enemy. when the antimatter drop explodes, each null star adds 10% of stored damage as slash damage to the explosion, up to a maximum of 30% added damage. each one also adds 10% to the base proc chance of 20%.

• much like nullifier drones, the antimatter drop takes object damage, but can be critically hit.
• power range affects neither the explosion radius nor the absorption radius.
• power strength affects the base damage, but not the stored damage multiplier.

notes: antimatter drop has essentially only quality of life changes and a bit of added synergy—it's always been one of my favourite abilities. i'd propose removing the damage cap but keeping the visual change and speedup, mostly because it's based on weapon damage anyway.

• antimatter drop augment: antimatter absorb.

replacing the old augment of the same name, this augment changes the interaction between antimatter drop and wormhole (read the wormhole section to get an idea of how the ability works!). when an antimatter drop is swallowed by a wormhole, its absorption field will remain, expanding to a size of 12.5 metres, and it will add 10% of stored damage to the wormhole's damage ticks. this can only happen once per wormhole.

• power range affects absorption field size.
• power strength affects the percent of stored damage added to each tick.

notes: since the absorption field is now a default part of antimatter drop, this augment focuses on making it functional as a defensive tool—something that's possible, but awkward, to do currently by maximising power range on antimatter absorb.

✦ third ability • wormhole. (75 energy)

as a one-handed action, Nova summons two wormholes: one directly in front of her, and the other at a target location up to 50 metres away, both lasting 25 seconds. touching the centre of either wormhole instantly transports Nova to the other wormhole. enemies and allies can both use the wormhole. after passing through a wormhole, a given entity can't be transported by the same pair of wormholes for 3 seconds. only one pair of wormholes can be active at a time, and using the ability again will replace the old pair.

• power duration affects wormhole lifetime.
• power range affects maximum wormhole distance.

each wormhole also ticks 30 radiation damage twice per second in a 20-metre radius, with a status chance of 50%, and boosts the movement and manoeuvre speed of allies within its radius by 40%, a buff lasting 4 seconds after they exit the radius. when Nova passes through a wormhole, its duration is refreshed, and 3 null stars leap from her to the wormhole and begin to orbit it, applying their debuff to enemies around it. clones of these three null stars also form around the other wormhole.

• power range affects wormhole damage and buff area.
• power strength affects tick damage and the effectiveness of the speed buff.
• power duration affects the duration of the speed buff.

finally, if an antimatter drop comes within 3 metres of a wormhole, it will be pulled into the wormhole, exploding at both ends simultaneously. the range of this pull is not affected by power mods.

notes: in the pursuit of combination potential, i ended up adding a lot of features to wormhole, hopefully encouraging its use in standard play, as well as for mobility. since i've somewhat removed the wide-area, long-duration crowd control Nova has in the existing molecular prime, i felt that giving wormhole its own crowd control effect would help with the adjustment.

• augment: escape velocity.

replacing the old augment of the same name, this augment causes enemies within 10 m of a wormhole to be ragdolled, pulled in, and fired out of the other end of the wormhole at high speed, and guarantees that enemies passing through the wormhole are irradiated.

• power range affects the range of this pull.

notes: i mostly thought this would be fun, given the slightly altered theming of the new wormhole—although i don't doubt it has some applications.

• augment: wormhole accretion.

a second option for a wormhole augment. when Nova passes through a wormhole, she picks it up and carries it along with her for 30 seconds. the wormhole can no longer be used to teleport, but it otherwise continues to function as normal, irradiating nearby enemies and speeding up Nova and nearby allies.

• power duration affects the time for which Nova can carry the wormhole before it dissipates.
• the wormhole's properties are affected by power strength and power range as usual.

notes: this augment would make a more mobile or self-reliant style of play more enjoyable, and less frustrating. it could potentially be less useful for static objectives. both this and the other version of wormhole would interact in interesting ways with the new antimatter absorb.

✦ fourth ability • molecular prime. (100 energy)

Nova exhales, detonating all null stars within a 30-metre radius, whether they are orbiting enemies, an antimatter drop, a wormhole, or herself. each null star detonated by this ability deals 1500 damage in a 20-metre radius, split evenly between blast and radiation, with a 100% status chance. all enemies struck by such an explosion are afflicted with the maximum effect of the null star debuff (80% slow and 100% damage vulnerability), which does not begin to decay for 12 seconds. after the detonation, Nova's null star regeneration rate is tripled for 8 seconds.

if an antimatter drop is caught in the molecular prime radius, it will immediately detonate in a 30-metre radius. if a wormhole is caught in the molecular prime radius, both ends will double in size and duration.

• power duration affects how long the debuff decay is prevented on affected enemies. since it affects the base null star regeneration rate, it also affects the boosted null star regeneration rate. it does not affect the duration of the boost to null star regeneration rate.
• power strength affects explosion damage.
• power range affects the ability's initial radius, as well as the radius of each null star explosion, but not the radius of the boosted antimatter drop explosion.

notes: Nova's initial introduction described her as having a 'complex presence', and i thought the new molecular prime should live up to that, serving a support role by greatly boosting the effectiveness of her other three abilities.

• augment: cloud collapse.

this augment causes enemies affected by a molecular prime explosion to be ragdolled and pulled with great force towards Nova's location at the time of casting, much like Nidus' larva ability. the pull ends after 4 seconds.

• power duration affects the time for which enemies are ragdolled.

notes: since speed Nova is no longer a thing, i thought a grouping ability that's more in keeping with her theme might help to round out the arsenal.

---

and that's it! i hope it all seems interesting enough.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Austell

[WorstPlayer]

22 minutes ago, Austell said:

Nova can have a maximum of 20 null stars orbiting her at once.

That's a 100% damage reduction..

[AXCrusnik]

2 minutes ago, --Q--Lux said:

That's a 100% damage reduction..

Except that the sentence directly before that, that you cut out of your quote says, "to a maximum of 90%"..

[bluepheonix13]

I feel like there are some really good ideas in this, well thought and with great synergy. I do have to say though that the passive seems a bit to overpowered (at least with the numbers you have given). Especially the rate at which the orbs generate. Since M Prime and power duration effect this rate, I'd propose to tone it down to 1 orb per 2 sec. Otherwise, I think it would also be very visually irritating. Imagine having 200% duration and casting M Prime. You are now creating 12 orbs per second. If you are shooting or meleeing in the same time, it could maybe look very straining on the eye.

And yes please, give us some interaction between AMD and Wormhole, I have wanted that for so long xD

Edited October 26, 2018 by bluepheonix13

[Endrian]

54 minutes ago, Austell said:

✦ passive • null star.

Nova generates one null star every 0.5 seconds. null stars orbit Nova, each providing 5% damage reduction on her health, to a maximum of 90% damage reduction. Nova can have a maximum of 20 null stars orbiting her at once.

when Nova damages an enemy with a weapon (but not an ability), a null star will leap from her to that enemy and begin to orbit them instead. this leap staggers the enemy and does 400 slash damage. an enemy can only have up to 3 null stars orbiting it at once.

• power duration affects the maximum number of null stars orbiting Nova, and inversely affects the rate at which they're generated.
• power strength affects the damage done when a null star leaps to an enemy.
• damage reduction per null star and damage reduction cap cannot be altered by power mods.

enemies within 20 metres of a null star, whether that null star is orbiting Nova or an enemy, will receive a stacking debuff, slowing them by 8% per second and increasing damage they take by 10% per second, up to a maximum of 80% slow and 100% more damage. the more null stars an enemy is in range of, the faster this debuff stacks. if an enemy is not affected by any null star, the debuff decays at a rate of 4% slow and 5% damage vulnerability per second.

• power strength affects the rate at which the debuff stacks, but the maximum debuff cannot be affected by power mods.
• power duration inversely affects the decay rate of the debuff.
• the range of the debuff is not affected by power mods.
• enemies affected by the debuff will glow faintly with Nova's energy colour, while enemies slowed by at least 40% will have the familiar "molecular prime" sparkles.
• as with the molecular prime debuff, this ability affects enemies protected by ancient healers and disruptors. ancient disruptors and nullifiers will greatly increase the decay rate, and nullifier bubbles will destroy any null stars they touch.

in addition, enemies orbited by at least one null star will explode on death, dealing blast damage in a 10 metre radius equal to 30% of their max health, or a minimum of 1000 damage if they have less than 5000 health.

• power range affects explosion radius.
• power strength affects minimum damage, but not the hp multiplier.
• if multiple null stars are orbiting an enemy, the minimum damage is multiplied by the number of null stars, but the hp multiplier is not affected.
• the explosion has a status chance of 50%, affected by power strength.
• if Nova is within the explosion radius and is below her orbit maximum, the null stars from the killed enemy will leap back to her.

notes: i wanted to make null star Nova's centralising ability, and moved nearly all of molecular prime's effects to it. i feel this gives Nova a more constant signature presence on the battlefield, based on a combination of weapon and ability usage, rather than one based primarily on her fourth ability; while reducing the problem of enemies being slowed or trapped far away due to molecular prime, which made her much less viable for survival, salvage, and sanctuary onslaught missions, and made a lot of other missions much slower than they should have been.

So, you propose a passive that, without needing to actually use any abilities:

• Grants 90% damage reduction to all damage sources
• Slows enemies by up to 80% and makes them twice as vulnerable to damage, just by being within 20m range of a null star, not personally affected by one
• Causes enemies personally affected by such a null star to explode upon death for damage equal to 1,000 per null star (max of 3,000) or 30% of their Health (which, for a level 155 Bombard, would be 102,904.5 * 0.30 = 30,871.35)
• This explosive damage hits all enemies within 10m of the enemy, and can be widened further by power range, and has a status chance starting at 50%
• All this meaning basically: All enemies within 20m of Nova or her weapons targets are slowed by 80%, take twice as much damage, and if they're shot/stabbed by Nova (and thus affected by a null star), they explode when they die for thousands of damage or possibly tens of thousands of damage that also has a high chance of crowd-controlling everyone within 10m radius or higher by knocking them on their butts

I mean, just one of these traits would be exceptionally powerful for a passive on a caster 'frame.

All of them combined?

Edited October 26, 2018 by Endrian

[Austell]

53 minutes ago, bluepheonix13 said:

I feel like there are some really good ideas in this, well thought and with great synergy. I do have to say though that the passive seems a bit to overpowered (at least with the numbers you have given). Especially the rate at which the orbs generate. Since M Prime and power duration effect this rate, I'd propose to tone it down to 1 orb per 2 sec. Otherwise, I think it would also be very visually irritating. Imagine having 200% duration and casting M Prime. You are now creating 12 orbs per second. If you are shooting or meleeing in the same time, it could maybe look very straining on the eye.

And yes please, give us some interaction between AMD and Wormhole, I have wanted that for so long xD

that's fair! i do admit some tweaking of numbers is probably warranted—with these initial values, i've erred on the side of caution, intending that all the abilities should: (1) feel good, (2) be viable and functional without having to specifically mod for them, and (3) be possible to make effective in high-tension situations.

that said, i regularly detonate and respawn 18 null stars on myself at present, and i feel like they've been toned down in appearance enough that it doesn't usually bother me!

39 minutes ago, Endrian said:

So, you propose a passive that, without needing to actually use any abilities:

• Grants 90% damage reduction to all damage sources
• Slows enemies by up to 80% and makes them twice as vulnerable to damage, just by being within 20m range of a null star, not personally affected by one
• Causes enemies personally affected by such a null star to explode upon death for damage equal to 1,000 per null star (max of 3,000) or 30% of their Health (which, for a level 155 Bombard, would be 102,904.5 * 0.30 = 30,871.35)
• This explosive damage hits all enemies within 10m of the enemy, and can be widened further by power range, and has a status chance starting at 50%
• All this meaning basically: All enemies within 20m of Nova or her weapons targets are slowed by 80%, take twice as much damage, and if they're shot/stabbed and killed by Nova, they explode for thousands of damage or possibly tens of thousands of damage that also has a high chance of crowd-controlling everyone within 10m radius or higher by knocking them on their butts

I mean, just one of these traits would be exceptionally powerful for a passive on a caster 'frame.

All of them combined?

thanks a lot for this detailed assessment! i do take your point, but please also note that Nova can already do basically all of these things by spending a usually-negligible amount of energy, in a much larger radius, with a couple of quirks that are not consistent enough to be drawbacks, but occur frequently enough to be annoying! (and there are plenty of other cc-focused frames that can do much more). this is why two of Nova's other abilities are essentially based on making null stars more usable, rather than buffing them further.

• i noted the intention of counterbalancing offence and defence—Nova only has 90% damage reduction as long as she isn't shooting or meleeing enemies or the objects she creates, a condition which i think is far more restrictive than many of the other 90% damage reduction abilities warframes have, in exchange for being more controllable. decreasing the base delay between null star generations might make this drawback more pronounced, but essentially the idea is Nova will lose a portion of her damage protection when she attacks, and the more freely she attacks, the more damage protection she will lose. (it's also worth noting that 90% damage reduction, unaided by high health and armour or any other healing or damage reduction effects, is often not enough to just stand there and tank everything! it doesn't even grant status immunity.)
• the slowing and damage vulnerability debuffs are difficult to maintain on a large number of enemies at once—remember, once they exit that 20-metre radius, they'll double in speed in about 5 seconds. i can't imagine a situation with this setup where i wouldn't be under pressure to spread and maintain the debuff with abilities and weapons.
• if you're facing a level 155 bombard in a mission, you're probably also facing at least four other level 155 bombards at the same time, plus a bunch of other heavily-armoured grineer! 30,900 blast damage wo'n't even scratch them. the point of damage that scales with hp is that it roughly matches the enemies you're facing, rather than becoming absolutely irrelevant past a certain point. this is also an on-death effect, so whatever you did to kill that bombard, you've got to keep doing it!
• status chance could maybe stand to be reduced if you're not keen on it, but i feel in practice it'd be a key part of the explosion's utility. the proc only occurs once per death, and blast procs themselves only have a 5-metre radius—a quarter of the explosion's area.

all that said, again, i do feel that at least the null star generation rate has to be tweaked down! i mostly didn't want "too many enemies" to be the kind of problem that kills Nova's momentum.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Austell