New warframe concept: The Archon

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

16 hours ago, Thanzilla said:

I've already posted some stats but frames like these can't be balanced properly without actually playing them and seeing how the effects interact with each other. Like the damage reduction  of the fourth ability with  the energy shield recharge oh the second, what if players use Quick thinking or shield recharge rate mods? Will that buy them enough time to activate the 2nd again after the cooldown ends? What if they go into operator mode etc.

Having said that i will post some subjective stats of how i think Archon should be just for fun's sake.

Feedback should  absorb 100% of enemy shields. That would be a lot of shields in high levels and next to nothing in lower ones. It should probably be unaffected by ability power. The duration of the stagger could be 3 seconds base. affected by duration mods.

Power overwhelming could have 3 seconds base duration (affected by duration mods) and 5 seconds cooldown (unaffected). Overshield limit would be increased by 50% of whatever the current overshield limit is (affected by ability strength).

Void zone's reduction to mobs attack fire and projectile speed could be at  50% unaffected by ability strength while the extra elemental damage could be at 40% (affected by ability strength). I would love if this was a toggleable ability that drains energy and just manifests around the archon wherever he goes but a static globe lasting 20 seconds would be ok as well.

The damage reduction on Archon's 4 should be  capped at 90-95% with sufficient ability strength modded on the frame. The duration on the reduction could be 20 seconds base (affected by duration mods) and reduced by 1/10th for each enemy hit. This would mean that if it hits 10 enemies, then he gets no damage reduction at all but he gets, let's say, 10% more dmg for each enemy hit. So if he hits 20 enemies he can increase the damage of the magnetic proc by 200%. The base damage could be at 1500 magnetic with no ability strength mods eqquiped. Magnetic is a really bad damage type.

 

On another note, i feel like his 3 could be slightly complicated because it does a lot of things at once. I also don't know how hard it would be to code an ability that recognizes what type of enemies you are fighting. So i thought that maybe it could spawn a clone of you that does something else instead. Not sure what though. Maybe two scythe holding melee assassins that are always invisible and fuse into a dark version of you when they get enough kills that then slows the enemy and attacks like a specter of you.

so here are some numbers i put together for your concept based on your description.

Feedback

Cost 25 energy**

Str –100% shield absorption**

Dur – 5s (pulse travel), 3s (stagger)

Range – 15m**, 90 degree angle?

 

Power overwhelming

Cost 50 energy**

Str- ??

Dur -3s

Range -0**

 

Void zone

Cost 25 energy** or drain 2e/ps**

Str-40% increase elemental damage

Dur-20s (if activation)

Range- 25m (radius)**

Misc- 50% enemy attack speed reduction

 

Search and destroy

Cost 100 energy***

Str- 1500 mag dmg

Dur- 20s resistance,

Range – 16m**

Misc. resistance reduced by 10% but 10% damage increase for each enemy hit.

 

** is my assumption based on similar abilities from other warfames.

 

so my review:

 

1-I would have this ability stagger all enemies – not just non-shield ones. Second, I would have this do some sort of damage or damage multiplier or apply a minor percentage of damage reduction here instead shield absorption. Currently it sounds like I’m going to be spamming this instead shooting the enemy especially if I cannot cast my other abilities.

 

2- From your description it sounds as if this is an activation ability, but how much shield is Archon recharging for the duration of the ability? All of it? Does Archon continue to receive damage during this recharge state. Personally, I feel this would work better as a channeling ability without the forced cool down so Archon has invulnerability so long as he is channeling this ability, in a similar fashion to Inaros devour.

 

3- This ability has better survivability capabilities as toggle, in the same manner as Oberon’s renewal. Also, I would drop the elemental damage for enemies entering the zone – have Archon sap their energy (shield/armor) to re-enforce his own defenses, so he is weakening them as he just gets stronger. The ability could only drain energy when sapping enemy energies per affected enemy – melee beware.

 

4 – I would reverse this ability. So, you obliterate one enemy but gain resistance when fighting multiple enemies, as you will need more survivability come the later levels especially with 0 or 1 hp.

 

The numbers are all un-modded assumptions. Overall nearly all your abilities are dedicated to keeping Archon alive which is good, but I feel I would have a difficult time doing that as you do not seem to have enough damage reduction abilities to make relying on shields viable, as such I would waste almost all my energy just trying to keep my shields up.

[Thanzilla]

5 hours ago, (XB1)Nightseid said:

so my review:

 

 

1-I would have this ability stagger all enemies – not just non-shield ones. Second, I would have this do some sort of damage or damage multiplier or apply a minor percentage of damage reduction here instead shield absorption. Currently it sounds like I’m going to be spamming this instead shooting the enemy especially if I cannot cast my other abilities.

 

 

 

2- From your description it sounds as if this is an activation ability, but how much shield is Archon recharging for the duration of the ability? All of it? Does Archon continue to receive damage during this recharge state. Personally, I feel this would work better as a channeling ability without the forced cool down so Archon has invulnerability so long as he is channeling this ability, in a similar fashion to Inaros devour.

 

 

 

3- This ability has better survivability capabilities as toggle, in the same manner as Oberon’s renewal. Also, I would drop the elemental damage for enemies entering the zone – have Archon sap their energy (shield/armor) to re-enforce his own defenses, so he is weakening them as he just gets stronger. The ability could only drain energy when sapping enemy energies per affected enemy – melee beware.

 

 

 

4 – I would reverse this ability. So, you obliterate one enemy but gain resistance when fighting multiple enemies, as you will need more survivability come the later levels especially with 0 or 1 hp.

 

 

 

The numbers are all un-modded assumptions. Overall nearly all your abilities are dedicated to keeping Archon alive which is good, but I feel I would have a difficult time doing that as you do not seem to have enough damage reduction abilities to make relying on shields viable, as such I would waste almost all my energy just trying to keep my shields up.

 

1. The ability does stagger all enemies (except for status immune ones), you just have to use it twice if the enemies have shields. 1st cast absorbs and 2nd stuns/knocks them prone. The frame has enough survivability as it is imo. As i said before you should try building a mesa for shields and take some bullets to see how she fares.

2. This ability is an activation ability. It starts your shield recharge on activating it and let's the recharge be uninterrupted by hits or magnetic effects or whatever might stop it. The amount it recharges depends on your recharge rate and shield total. It also increases the overshield limit and keeps recharging towards it.  It is a pretty strong ability. That's why i gave it a cooldown. Players could play around with Rolling guard, the new immunity on roll mod, go on operator mode or stun things with 1 while the ability is on cooldown.

I vehemently despise channeling abilities and i think they don't fit in warframe unless the channel is really short. Inaros' 2 is unusable in missions because it introduces the dilemma of actually standing there and channeling (aka doing nothing) or actually dealing with the mission objective. That's why i always use Inaros' 1 if i want to regen or CC. I will probably not even bother using this ability if it is channeled and will just rely on arcanes like i do with inaros.

3.I have doubts about this ability as well.If the devs feel like it is too hard to implement or something else would fit better then by all means, change it to whatever is best. Creating clones of you might be another idea, or projecting yourself where you aim and teleporting to that location while damaging everything in your path might be another. If you guys have any other ideas for the devs then please feel free to share.

4.Reversing it makes no sense to me. It is really hard to obliterate one tough enemy with a warframe ability (because the tough enemies have a lot of armor+health or take reduced damage from warframe abilities) unless it is damage over time and even then we have warframes that do that on a big aoe (saryn/volt etc). Even if you do tweak the numbers to fit that then it still becomes an ability that you don't have to think much about using. If it's a tough enemy then you press 4 and it dies and if it isn't then you get the dmg reduction. There is no choice in building for it. You just go for aoe and strength.

I like my way better because you can have different builds for different missions (full aoe and dmg for ESO or reduced aoe and more duration for fighting a sortie lephantis or maybe use a hybrid build and when you need resistance for fighting multiple enemies then stun them with 1 and kill or jump away and then use the ability etc.) Not always press 4 to win.

I think it will be a very survivable frame with the mods we have availabe atm. Only time and the dev's willingness to implement the idea will tell who is right. 🙂

Thanks for putting these numbers based on my description together btw. Now the devs or someone else reading this might have a better idea of the concept in case i haven't expressed myself well enough.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Thanzilla