Power Viability

[Afebrile]

An issue that has been bothering me for some time is the viability of warframe powers. Many damage focused powers just aren’t strong enough, especially at higher levels, and since energy is shared between powers its best just to save it all for 1-2 powerful ones.

 

Using Frost as an example:

- Freeze is low cost and useful for freezing a single enemy, but does very little damage.

- Ice Wave is only used for damaging enemies, but it does less damage than a single weapon shot.

- Snow Globe is one of the most powerful defensive abilities in the game.

- Avalanche does AoE damage and freezes enemies during the short animation but the damage is pathetic at higher levels and not worth the 100 energy.

 

Out of these the only viable use of powers is saving all your energy for snow globe, and perhaps throwing in a freeze or two to disable a tough enemy when you have the spare energy.

 

I feel warframe powers would be a much better system if players didn’t have to worry about one power eating up the energy cost of all the others, and if the damage focused ones could actually put a good dent in enemies at the end game.

 

For this I have 2 rough suggestions.

- Each power should have its own energy bar.

- You should be able to level up power mods more than 3 times, increasing their damage.

[alchemistjkt]

For this I have 2 rough suggestions.

- Each power should have its own energy bar.

- You should be able to level up power mods more than 3 times, increasing their damage.

1. no.

2. maybe

we really should wait till they come out with armor 2.0 before changing other things too.

[Athros]

If you thought Frost's abilities is not strong enough, try Volt.

[CY13ERPUNK]

ive said this b4, so ill say it again

rebalance/fix Frost like THIS:

#1 - cone or small aoe radius effect on target, destroys shields, freeze not broken on dmg, has slow effect that lasts twice as long as the freeze on targets that survive (either remove the dmg or leave it, its pointlessly low anyways)

#2 - ragdolls/knockdown/knockback all targets hit with wave, leaves lasting slow effects on targets as well, destroys shields, improve dmg slightly? (armor/dmg 2.0 is coming and will prolly address most dmg issues, be they weapon or power)

#3 - globe no longer blocks projectiles, it grants massive dmg reduction to all friendlies inside it, the dmg reduction as well as the size/duration/slow effect are enhanceable thru mods

#4 - basically a higher dmg, longer lasting Freeze power with a massive AOE, longer lasting freeze, lasting slow after freeze ends, destroys shields

so pretty much all of frost's powers slow or freeze the enemy, and they all destroy shields (much akin to the infested disruptor ancient effect)

viola, all of his powers now have a useful purpose, and he is no longer a one-trick-pony

Edited September 5, 2013 by CY13ERPUNK

[Afebrile]

This isn't just about frost; all other warframes share the same issue in varying degrees. The current system doesn't encourage varried power use, instead the shared energy pool encourages players to focus on the most powerful ones. No matter how much you revamp the powers themselves it won't solve anything; there will still always be a few that are better than the others, and players will focus on those and forget about all the others.