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What is wrong with Unairu, TLDR Added


Ventura_Highway
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Isn't that title just a ray of sunshine? Anyways I have developed my Unairu tree enough that I have access to every node, at least at the base level, with the ones I deemed useful being at higher ranks.

Current state of my Unairu Tree:

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Summary Thoughts on Tree

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The larger half of the abilities in this tree are not useful enough to be constantly warranted, and I feel like the other half is useful in the same perverse-ish way Maiming Strike is. As in, there's a  practical end enabled by these things like Unairu Wisp and Void Shadow, but I am not sure that end is desirable in the eyes of the developers. As far as I can tell, Zenurik is still the most generally useful tree because of Energizing Dash among other abilities, but Unairu is really good for when you want to spend an extended amount of time as the Operator. Void Strike in Madurai and Unairu Wisp both increase Amp damage, but Unairu doesn't need to be charged up and it doesn't run out of ammo. It's probably better in scenarios for Operator damage outside of the Eidolon Fights, which has a different set of conditions for Operators to work in. About this specialty of being good for extended Operator use, personally, someone (me) who doesn't like using Operators would not have bothered with this, but the game is called Warframe, not Operator.

Also, apparently, the theme of this tree is supposed to be endurance? Cutting aside the waybounds, there is one passive, Stone Skin that increases endurance, and there is one, maybe two if Void Shadow counts, abilities that promote defense/endurance. This state of affairs, I do not think is tenable. To make this tree useful and coherent, large portions of it I think must be burned off, and new abilities which more strongly adhere to the theme must be added.

Void Mode Nodes

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Void Chrysalis and Void Shadow sort of share the same purpose of damage mitigation. It's hard to use Void Shadow aggressively despite it granting invisibility because it necessitates staying in Operator form to maintain the cloak, and allies who don't have to worry about this have to at least make sure they stay within the ability's range. This is fair, I suppose, but I don't think invisibility is something that should fall within this tree.

I have not found Void Chrysalis useful in its undeveloped state and I do not think it will become appreciable with levels, but I will try leveling it. This ability and Void Shadow are redundant. Void Shadow'd allies are already largely guaranteed not to be targeted by enemies who cannot see invisible units, practically everyone barring enemy Kavats. The only other time this would be relevant would be during high AoE situations.

Now then, both of these abilities I think are too extreme. On-demand party invisibility and 80% DR sounds good on paper but you relinquish the ability to do anything else while it is up. Considering the highly aggressive player metagame of Warframe, this is not an appropriate tradeoff. I propose watering down the effect of Void Chrysalis so that the player is more free to do other things while still having higher defense.

Final Suggestions: Convert Void Chrysalis into an ability that buffs defense in an area. The options are to have a sticky buff that is applied as soon as , I guess Void Mode ends, this buff to be centered around the Operator or their Warframe, or to have it associated with a location. I strongly prefer the third option.

Void Dash Nodes

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Sundering Dash does not shred armor fast enough at its current level. Very possible it will be much more effective at max level, 75% armor reduction. While the level of reduction is promising, this cannot be said about the area of effect for the ability. The next logical move after getting rid of an enemy's armor is to attack them with your sword or gun. Void Dash scatters enemies, and especially at the last level, it can massively displace affected enemies, and having the weakened enemy be sent far, far away is not conducive towards the end of smashing them and taking their stuff. It's not necessarily bad, I think? I have a previously developed maneuver that works well with this ability.

If you can't see past the terrible video quality, what I do here is position the enemy close to myself, Slide (not Void Dash) behind them, then Void Dash and pull them along with me. I can pull enemies away from their pack, and in their weakened state, subdue them. Sundering Dash works well here, and even if I have Zenurik's Void Singularity on in here, it's not necessary to pull this off. That said, when I have tried to do this in actual game scenarios, I do not get to Sunder a lot of enemies in one dash, maybe four or so, and I think with a lot of frames at 100 and below levels, there are faster ways to put an enemy in a vulnerable state or eliminate them entirely, like what is available in most Warframe kits. I will use Overload as an example here with its respectable damage and CC.

Crippling Dash is redundant because hitting an enemy with the dash ragdolls them and while they are down they can't attack. The duration of this is maybe a couple seconds, but in this game, a couple seconds is all I need.

Regarding both of these abilities, neither of them have to deal with endurance. The stronger of the two is purely offensive in nature. I do not think they belong here.

Final Suggestions: If they stay, these need a larger area of effect. Along with the length of the dash, I would allow these abilities to work in a sphere at the arrival point. However, I would prefer they are replaced with more appropriate abilities.

Void Blast nodes

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I have not been able to appropriate use Magnetic Blast at all. I do not think this ability has any potential for tactical value if it remains as a means of bullet attracting multiple enemies with bubbles that disappear shortly after death.

Unairu Wisp is useful, even if I am not sure what it has to do with the tree's theme. That's for regular play. I would like to note that for Eidolon use, the spawning of the wisp is confusing and seemingly inconsistent. I have a hard time telling if it has spawned and where it has spawned, and sometimes it goes into the water. I have since moved onto use of Madurai Void Strike for Eidolon Fights, as it is much less frustrating to work with in this context.

Final Suggestions: Get rid of the hopelessness of Magnetic Blast. Unairu Wisp is more or less fine for practical purposes but I would make the wisp larger, or at least more apparent.

Passives

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When I was using Unairu in Mot, when I was shot by the Heavy Gunners, they were returned 3-6 damage per shot. This translates to about 60 to 120 damage at full capacity, and I am capable of inflicting thousands of damage in a second. Not effective as is.

I am not so sure about the math of Stone Skin, whether or not the armor increase applies after mods on the Warframe, though I know it is certainly survivability boost on the Operator. No real problems here.

Final Suggestions: A counter ability like Void Spines will need to do something besides damage to have any impact. The offensive and defensive capabilities of enemies and players differ far too much for the numbers game to be effective here. Some status may do. The possibility of simply replacing it is there but it is not absolutely necessary, I believe. Again, Stone Skin is relatively fine. Perhaps it may not do a lot for frames with larger armor already. It could be useful as a Base and Percent increase, but it is fine as it is.

I will add some ability ideas for this tree at a later time below.

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That largely ends my thoughts on this particular tree. Below are things I have noted that apply to Operators in general.

Ability Use

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Ability use with Operators I have judged to be an acquired taste because you can't manually cast them. I think this is fine with some of the minor abilities but in the future, I would like Focus Tree abilities to be less coupled with innate Operator actions. I think I understand why it's like this? It may be more natural. The Operator is supposed to be you, and you can't just press a button to punch or grab in real life. Nevertheless, Operating is very awkward at first because of this restriction, and I wouldn't doubt a lot of people hate it because of this.

Movement

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Needing to dash everywhere to actually move quickly is jaunty and disoriented with Mind Sprint maxed. It is not good that I have to choose between relatively coordinated movement in smaller areas or one of the best reasons to invest in Operators, the supreme positioning capabilities of Mind Sprint augmented Void Dash. I suggest allowing for a smaller sized Void Dash when pressing Slide instead of Jump during Void Mode.

I would like strong vertical control in Operator form. There is no middle ground in upward movement between the small single Operator Jump, and looking up and Void Dashing. The former, you can do by simply pressing Jump, the latter requires crouching, aiming up with the mouse, making sure your dash won't be prematurely ended by a wall or other obstacle, dashing, then setting your mouse back so you are looking horizontally. This is too complex. I think double jumping would be nice.

Waybounds

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Outside of your school, Waybounds are all or nothing when it comes to their effects. Your operator either dies to a sneeze or is potentially more tanky than the Warframe you are using now, like Banshee. What separates these two extremes are 2,400,000 + 2 Eidolon Shards and associated capacity cost. Waybound progression should be done more so that the player can see the benefits of leveling their waybounds in between the rather long period between the beginning and ending of a Waybound unlock.

The Waybound system could be redone so that the Waybounds are always available in a reduced form outside what their associated school has access to, and are only fully unlocked when the final one million cost is paid.

Operator Arcanes

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I think the stat boost related ones like Magus Husk and Vigor are similar in nature to mandatory mods like Serration, Steel Fiber and Vitality. This should be avoided, I'm not sure how to provide necessary statistical boosts while avoiding the Mandatory Mod pitfall though.

TL;DR

I used my moderately developed Unairu tree. Here's what I think about it.

- A lot of abilities confuse me because the school is about weathering attacks and these abilities have nothing to do with that.

- The armor remove dash would be better if it had a larger aoe, and the damage reduction dash is by design questionably useful. Neither is related to defending.

- The Unairu Wisp blast node is fine from a practical standpoint but hard to use in Eidolons. Magnetic Blast provides no meaningful utility.

- The Void Mode nodes sound strong on paper but lock you out of doing anything else to maintain them. This ends up crippling their usefulness.

- The first passive needs to do something beyond reflecting pitiful amounts of damage.

Here's what I thought could be improved about Operators while I experimented with this tree

- Relying primarily on the dash for all movement with Operators makes them very jaunty and mildly nauseating. Smoother movement and a double jump would be nice.

- The way waybounds work right now has a messed up sense of progression. Let people access lesser forms of their waybounds earlier on, and unlock their full potential outside their school only when they are unbound.

Thank you for reading, I look forward to hopefully seeing more elegantly designed Focus Schools.

Edited by Ventura_Highway
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That's one deep analysis of unairu.

I honestly can't bother to read it all, but general idea is proper: Unairu abilities are weak, way too situational and in the end you just dont feel like you are using a school tree. They have their uses for sure... Once in milenia.

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26 minutes ago, Artek94 said:

I honestly can't bother to read it all, but general idea is proper: Unairu abilities are weak, way too situational and in the end you just dont feel like you are using a school tree. They have their uses for sure... Once in milenia.

Yeah. If I had to shorten this down it would be that the abilities are irrelevant to the stated purpose of the school and suck. Also, controlling and grinding out Operator stuff is awkward.

Not mentioned within is that I'd replace a lot of the abilities I don't like with ones related to territorial control and scavenging in the way that say, Nekros does.

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I feel like you could do a similar analysis for every focus tree. I have maxed Vazarin and Madurai entirely, and it's the same idea.

Vazarin has protective dash. It's extremely powerful and I love it. The rest of the nodes are gimmicks that I never will use in actual gameplay. The shield on Void blast offer a decent amount of protection on the star chart, but why would I need that when I could simply become invulnerable in Void mode ? (Which comes with a 25 health/s with Vazarin). The Void mode shield is even worse, I still don't understand what it's supposed to do. I'm invulnerable in Void mode, why do I need a shield ?

Madurai is great for Eidolons, but outside of that I would never bother with Void strike. Throwing Kamehameha is fun once or twice, but I have no reason to include it in my usual gameplay. In most situation using Madurai is about getting +25% passive damage buff.

I mostly have waybounds and the most significant nodes in other trees and it's exactly the same. At best 1 or 2 useful nodes, filled with operator-only stuff that have no impact because there is no reason to use your Operator for actual fighting.

The problem is deeper than the Unairu tree. The problem is it feels bad to use your operator during actual gameplay outside of the few Protective dash and Energizing dash here and there. All the nodes improving the Operator itself will never be of any use in that scenario. If the Operator mobility was on par with the frames, and switching between Operator and frames was faster, we maybe could think about using it more. Even then we would still face the issue that Operator is simply worse than frames at pretty much everything.

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I didn't know there are other schools than Zenurik. Jokes (kinda) aside untill we'd get some energy regen on other schools or make Zenuriks passive a way-bound (albeit weaker), I'll never bother checking what other school have in offer.

 

yeah, kinda not exactly about Unairu.

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5 minutes ago, deothor said:

I didn't know there are other schools than Zenurik. Jokes (kinda) aside untill we'd get some energy regen on other schools or make Zenuriks passive a way-bound (albeit weaker), I'll never bother checking what other school have in offer.

 

yeah, kinda not exactly about Unairu.

Plenty of frames don't really need the Energizing dash. In this case Vazarin's Protective dash is OP, and Naramon's melee combo counter node is also great if you focus on melee. Any frame in the game is a god at defense mission when Protective dash give 6s invulnerability and 65% of the total health as healing.

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4 hours ago, O2D3nTe said:

I feel like you could do a similar analysis for every focus tree. I have maxed Vazarin and Madurai entirely, and it's the same idea.

At least the majority of their abilities seem appropriate for the theme, if not useful. This is nit picking on my end.

4 hours ago, O2D3nTe said:

because there is no reason to use your Operator for actual fighting.

This is the understanding which is necessary for us to ever have useful Operator skillsets, that Operators should not be fighting most of the time. Let's look at energizing dash, shall we? Everyone knows how it works. Energizing Dash is unobstructive. Using it doesn't result in long operator mode times like with the Unairu Void Mode Nodes. The effects are persistent and meaningful, unlike Magnetic Blast. I think most Operator skills meant for normal play in the future will need these qualities.

4 hours ago, O2D3nTe said:

The problem is deeper than the Unairu tree. The problem is it feels bad to use your operator during actual gameplay outside of the few Protective dash and Energizing dash here and there. All the nodes improving the Operator itself will never be of any use in that scenario. If the Operator mobility was on par with the frames, and switching between Operator and frames was faster, we maybe could think about using it more.

I agree with Operating being clunky, but mobilitywise, my Mind Sprint-enabled Operator lets me go pretty darn fast in open world and large tilesets. I don't think they will ever match up to the Warframes' amazing tools for traversing levels, and that's fine because I generally don't like spending a lot of time as the Operator.

Also, have you tried binding your Warframe/Operator swap key to something more easily accessible than 5? Mine's on E and it improved my ability to transition pretty nicely. If there's still noticeable latency between you and the host though it won't solve that, yeah.

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44 minutes ago, O2D3nTe said:

Plenty of frames don't really need the Energizing dash. In this case Vazarin's Protective dash is OP, and Naramon's melee combo counter node is also great if you focus on melee. Any frame in the game is a god at defense mission when Protective dash give 6s invulnerability and 65% of the total health as healing.

All of that sound godly... Unless you play frames that are all about ability casting and less about gunplay or tanking or whatnot. Other schools could be usefull for higher level content, but I don't see the point of me sitting 1 hour in survival to get to the higher level content if I'm not even rewarded for doing so...

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6 minutes ago, Ventura_Highway said:

At least the majority of their abilities seem appropriate for the theme, if not useful. This is nit picking on my end.

Vazarin's node are consistent in the scope of the focus tree, but not that consistent with the Operator gameplay as a whole. As I said in the previous post, Void mode makes at least 2 nodes useless. Arguably Void mode is the problem here, it's simply way too strong, and yes Vazarin still feel better than Unari.

15 minutes ago, Ventura_Highway said:

agree with Operating being clunky, but mobilitywise, my Mind Sprint-enabled Operator lets me go pretty darn fast in open world and large tilesets. I don't think they will ever match up to the Warframes' amazing tools for traversing levels, and that's fine because I generally don't like spending a lot of time as the Operator.

Also, have you tried binding your Warframe/Operator swap key to something more easily accessible than 5? Mine's on E and it improved my ability to transition pretty nicely. If there's still noticeable latency between you and the host though it won't solve that, yeah. 

Mind sprint gets you far, way too far for most missions actually. As you said, it's awesome in big open spaces, but you will overshot when trying to use it indoor. Even without Mind step, the problem is your Operator is either  slowly running, or Void dashing too far. There is a certain distance that never feel good for your Operator. I changed the binding of most keys, so yes my operator key is much more accessible. I was thinking about the time it takes to play the animation to get in and out of the frames.

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3 hours ago, O2D3nTe said:

Arguably Void mode is the problem here, it's simply way too strong

I feel bad for not thinking immediately available nigh-invincibility could be excessively powerful.

3 hours ago, O2D3nTe said:

Mind sprint gets you far, way too far for most missions actually. As you said, it's awesome in big open spaces, but you will overshot when trying to use it indoor. Even without Mind step, the problem is your Operator is either  slowly running, or Void dashing too far.

Yes, hence my suggestion to have at least a lesser Void Dash available by pressing Slide during Void Mode.

3 hours ago, O2D3nTe said:

I was thinking about the time it takes to play the animation to get in and out of the frames.

Jumping out is not very noticeable for me, but I'll check it again later. I agree about getting back in though, now that you mention it.

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