Conglomerated Wukong rework

[DeMonkey]

Oh look, Monkey has made another Wukong thread in a naive attempt to get him fixed, I shall now accept all of your eye rolls, please be gentle.

So, first things first, I will be linking to previous threads and taking most of my ideas from there. I will be adding plenty of other stuff as well, so this isn't just to advertise my previous threads. I'm trying this again now that we have the Dev Workshop on Nyx and Titania and can only assume that they are close to completion.

Wukong has to be next, because unlike Titania and Nyx he does not have a single useful ability. In fact, his passive is the single most useful part of his kit right now, and it kills me to say that given how unnoticeable it can be. When I can reliably solo 20 minutes of Mot without ever thinking to myself "Hey, if I'd used 'x' that fight would have gone a bit better" then there's a huge problem.

On to the nitty gritty though.

His stats:

Wukong's base stats are.. befuddling, and the complete opposite of what you'd expect from a melee frame.

His current base values (ignoring energy) are,

Shields: 125 (375 at max)
Health: 100 (300 at max)
Armour: 225
Sprint Speed: 0.95

The stats tell us this is a slow shield biased frame, which is the complete opposite of what his gameplay encourages. You want to be moving as much as possible to melee everything in sight, whilst using your armour/health/abilities to tank damage. Shields are not at all useful for Wukong, unlike say for Mag or a frame that has a DR ability.

A more fitting set of stats imo would be,

Shields: 75 (225 at max)
Health: 125 (375 at max)
Armour: 400
Sprint Speed: 1/1.1

This is much more befitting of a frame designed around charging at and clubbing enemies with a stick.

Passive:

Increase the combo increase to 7 seconds giving Wukong a total of 10 seconds. 2 is barely noticeable, especially when 5 seconds is still short enough to drop in combo, meaning I end up using a combo mod anyway.

To elaborate on why, I find that even with 5 seconds and Naramon focus I'm still losing a fair amount of combo over time, 5 seconds without hitting an enemy is fairly common. I end up using Drifting Contact just to ensure that the combo never drops and I have as much damage as possible for when the enemies get spongier. Plus I like the higher numbers.

Iron Jab:

I made this thread some time ago, outlining the differences between Iron Jab and Whipclaw as they were both fairly similar in how they worked. Note that this is before all the Whipclaw buffs that have made it far and away better.

Thankfully the introduction of Garuda has given us the perfect framework to rework Iron Jab, a leap that hardlocks onto enemies. 

I propose that the ability causes you to leap to the enemy, staff outstretched and "jab" them. I'd then like to see something similar to a reverse "Soul Punch". Instead of punching the soul out of an enemy, you Jab the body away and leave an imprint behind that can be destroyed and thus kill the enemy.

As with Soul Punch the flying body should do damage as it flies, and explode when it hits a wall (although a lot more damage than Soul Punch). The imprint left behind would be armourless/shieldless and provide Wukong with 25 energy if he kills it.

If the imprint left behind isn't killed within 5 seconds then it follows the course the body took and the enemy simply gets back up.

Mechanically, I'd suggest having the flying body be made into an object and have the imprint remain as the living enemy, effectively meaning the enemy doesn't actually move at all until the timer is up. That way it would still work with things like the "Mecha" set, as the imprint would remain the target rather than creating a whole new entity and punting away the Mecha target... I think...

Defy:

My Defy 2.0 thread.

I can't really add much more to it, but I don't want to just copy paste it here and create an even larger wall of text so I'll try to concisely lay out what I hope to accomplish and why.

Defy is bad, it's a really bad ability. It isn't necessary for so so much content in this game, and it has literally no other use than making you immortal. My proposition involves still making him tanky, and hell, still allows him to escape death, but on a cooldown. The death defying is now it's secondary factor, the primary focus of the ability is to provide constant health regeneration and aggro. The aggro being the main thing that I want, as that would actually give Wukong a reason to use Defy in lower levels to protect objectives or weaker teammates. I'm not so concerned with the DR and other buffs I mentioned in the thread, I could take them or leave them.

Potential drop in the energy cost as well, 5eps is a bit high for what I'm proposing.

Cloudwalker replacement:

I made, surprise, a thread sometime ago detailing changes to the the ability, but I've altered my thoughts enough to not be too bothered about linking it.

What I'd like to see is something that replaces it completely, but retains all the functionality it provided. To that end I suggest 3 separate transformations that Wukong can use like Ivara's or Vaubans's Quiver/Mines.

Transformation #1 (25 energy):

This would remain a cloud in free flight, but sped up to at least bullet jumping speed. Enemies that you pass through are temporarily blinded, but not open to finishers.

Transformation #2 (50 energy):

Wukong becomes beastial and charges on all fours, growing a giant maw in the process and performing a finisher attack on his target (think Sahasa Kubrow finisher). Similar hard lock mechanic to the new Iron Jab, but different purpose, same way Garuda has 2 hard lock dashes with different purposes.

Wukong gains DR if the enemy is killed by the attack, and nearby enemies are terrified for a short duration.

Could be a strong ability, but is intended to be best used after already weakening the enemy to ensure the finisher kills it. Obviously at lower levels this will just kill everything except a Nox without much trouble.

Transformation #3 (50 energy):

Wukong somersaults into a controllable Grineer roller that speeds forward. Fully steerable, and drags enemies along with it similarly to Tidal Surge allowing Wukong to group enemies up for himself or allies.

Allows for potential synergy, perhaps by driving enemies into ally AoE's or even depositing them somewhere for Gara to use as a health buffer for her Mass Vitrify.

Primal fury:

This is probably the most important change to me, because this is the sole reason I use Wukong. His staff, I love it to death.

Unfortunately however it's not a good weapon, at all. Heavy Blades, Whips, Polearms etc will all deal comparable amounts of damage whilst having at least double the range (face it, you're not going to not use Primed Reach if you have it). Going from Primal Fury to my Heavy Blade Zaw is... eye opening, the difference between the two weapons is night and day.

To that end, I made this thread with the goal to remove the downsides to the combos, whilst giving them a ton of positives. It goes without saying that the range of the staff should also be increased. 4m max length is simply ridiculous.

TL;DR

I realise there's probably a fair bit of writing, so feel free to only comment on bits that really speak out to you. I understand the Defy change will likely be a focus to many and that's absolutely fine, everything should be laid out properly so that you can find whatever bit you want quickly.

The long and the short of it is that none of Wukong's abilities have a use in the game. I will perform better using an abilityless Umbral build and wielding a Zaw than I will using a Defy/Primal Fury build.

Every single proposed change is made with both source material and fun in mind. I don't really care whether Wukong will still be sub-par after the above changes (and I highly doubt he'd be OP), but he'd be a hell of a lot more fun to play and that's my only focus.

Goes without saying that this is largely all my opinion.

Again, apologies for the length.

[Neo3602]

Pretty nice ideas. I like your ideas for Iron Jab and Cloudwalker the most. Although these are some pretty big changes to his abilities, considering how long he's gone with out any changes I don't think they would be to much to ask for.

[DeMonkey]

4 minutes ago, Neo3602 said:

Pretty nice ideas. I like your ideas for Iron Jab and Cloudwalker the most. Although these are some pretty big changes to his abilities, considering how long he's gone with out any changes I don't think they would be to much to ask for.

Thank you, I appreciate that you've actually read the whole thing. I typed it up without really paying attention to how long it was getting.

But yeah, I really hope he can get big changes. It's been... 3 years since his last ability change, minor stuff just won't cut given how far the game has progressed.

[ThePredicament]

Wukong needs that Chinese build range, which would be "balanced" now that melee hits are affected by walls. And when I say "balanced" I mean still not as good as Saryn nuking the whole map.

[peterc3]

2 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

Transformation #2 (50 energy):

Wukong becomes beastial and charges on all fours, growing a giant maw in the process and performing a finisher attack on his target (think Sahasa Kubrow finisher). Similar hard lock mechanic to the new Iron Jab, but different purpose, same way Garuda has 2 hard lock dashes with different purposes.

Wukong gains DR if the enemy is killed by the attack, and nearby enemies are terrified for a short duration.

Could be a strong ability, but is intended to be best used after already weakening the enemy to ensure the finisher kills it. Obviously at lower levels this will just kill everything except a Nox without much trouble.

Transformation #3 (50 energy):

Wukong somersaults into a controllable Grineer roller that speeds forward. Fully steerable, and drags enemies along with it similarly to Tidal Surge allowing Wukong to group enemies up for himself or allies.

Allows for potential synergy, perhaps by driving enemies into ally AoE's or even depositing them somewhere for Gara to use as a health buffer for her Mass Vitrify.

These are problematic.

They aren't going to do #2 to enable a single frame to run on all fours. It breaks probably everything animation wise. Clipping would be unspeakable.

#3: The enemies are not designed to be used by or seen from the perspective of the players. Minimal as they are, Rollers are no exception. Why Rollers anyways? Where is the connection to mythical Wukong or any in-game connection to the Grineer?

[DeMonkey]

8 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

They aren't going to do #2 to enable a single frame to run on all fours. It breaks probably everything animation wise. Clipping would be unspeakable.

Probably, however there's nothing stopping the model being temporarily replaced with something else for the short duration. Like I said, he becomes "beastial" so I'm hoping there'd be more to it than just running on all fours. 

New model + Kubrow or Hyena animations would hopefully work pretty well.

9 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

#3: The enemies are not designed to be used by or seen from the perspective of the players. Minimal as they are, Rollers are no exception. Why Rollers anyways? Where is the connection to mythical Wukong or any in-game connection to the Grineer?

Octavia already utilises a Roller, so I consider it a non-issue.

As for connection, mythical Wukong turned into things that existed within that world. Fish, birds, temples, clouds. My line of thinking is that a Sci-Fi Wukong would then turn into things within that Sci-Fi world.

[Edzhang]

59 minutes ago, TheLocalHentai said:

Wukong needs that Chinese build range, which would be "balanced" now that melee hits are affected by walls. And when I say "balanced" I mean still not as good as Saryn nuking the whole map.

This is what i’ve been asking for years every time i jumped into a wukong rework thread.. and while before it looked OP because it can kinda nuke a whole map, right now melee just cant.. 

Primal fury should be given a range buff, maybe make it slight more wider than a whip, but affected by range mod.. with this new suggested cloud walker (i like that transformation #1) wukong will have some build around range and it will benefit primal fury as well..

[DeMonkey]

Just now, Edzhang said:

This is what i’ve been asking for years every time i jumped into a wukong rework thread.. and while before it looked OP because it can kinda nuke a whole map, right now melee just cant.. 

Primal fury should be given a range buff, maybe make it slight more wider than a whip, but affected by range mod.. with this new suggested cloud walker (i like that transformation #1) wukong will have some build around range and it will benefit primal fury as well..

Can't say I'd be against it personally hehe.

But I'm biased, ofc. At the very least I'd love to give it a try and see how powerful it could be. The only experience I've had was when the game bugged out and range stacked infinitely through casts, which allowed you to reach similar lengths.

Wasn't that game breaking... with the staff (due to clunky animations). With the Zenistar's disc though it was mad.

[xXDeadsinxX]

6 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Wasn't that game breaking... with the staff (due to clunky animations). With the Zenistar's disc though it was mad.

What are you talking about, it was working as intended. 

[DeMonkey]

Just now, xXDeadsinxX said:

What are you talking about, it was working as intended. 

Good times, very balanced.

[(PSN)purpleskullgamin]

#NerfWukong

[DeMonkey]

Just now, (PS4)purpleskullgamin said:

#NerfWukong

What is there left to even nerf? 

[(PSN)purpleskullgamin]

2 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

What is there left to even nerf? 

Values, nerf shields/health and armor all to base values of 69.

And make his sprint speed 0.69

Anything above 69 needs to be brought down to it and anything already below it needs to be quartered.

Edited November 30, 2018 by (PS4)purpleskullgamin

[DeMonkey]

Just now, (PS4)purpleskullgamin said:

Values, nerf shields/health and armor all to base values of 69.

And make his sprint speed 0.69

[(PSN)purpleskullgamin]

1 minute ago, DeMonkey said:

Hmmmmm!?! 🤔🤔🤔

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, peterc3 said:

These are problematic.

They aren't going to do #2 to enable a single frame to run on all fours. It breaks probably everything animation wise. Clipping would be unspeakable.

#3: The enemies are not designed to be used by or seen from the perspective of the players. Minimal as they are, Rollers are no exception. Why Rollers anyways? Where is the connection to mythical Wukong or any in-game connection to the Grineer?

Then they change Wukongs character model and base the animations around Hyena and Zanuka.

And why not be a roller? And why does there have to be a connection to the Grineer? Octavia has her own themed roller. Maybe me and my friends want to play Wukong Roller Soccer.

Youre slipping Petey boi.

Edited November 30, 2018 by (XB1)GearsMatrix301

[DeMonkey]

1 minute ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Then they change Wukongs character model and base the animations around Hyena and Zanuka.

And why not be a roller? And why does there have to be a connection to the Grineer? Octavia has her own themed roller. Maybe me and my friends want to play Wukong Roller Soccer.

This post. I like it. It's almost like I wrote the exact same thing. 

Wukong Roller Football (correct word, please) does sound like a hoot though. Has DeMonkey just saved Warframes PvP?

[peterc3]

13 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Then they change Wukongs character model and base the animations around Hyena and Zanuka.

What about cosmetics?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

4 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

What about cosmetics?

There’s no room for cosmetics on Wukong Panther.

[DeMonkey]

2 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

There’s no room for cosmetics on Wukong Panther.

Humour aside, I agree with this. The amount of time spent viewing the model is going to be minimal. Cosmetics aren't a concern and don't need to carry over.

[Birdframe_Prime]

DEMonkey, as synonymous with Wukong threads as Thaylien was with Zephyr threads in 2017...

Fingers crossed that you get a better deal out of DE than we did!

[DeMonkey]

Just now, Thaylien said:

Fingers crossed that you get a better deal out of DE than we did!

Zephyr isn't terrible.

But here's hoping :3

Just need to figure how to get Pablo to do it. Do you think he'll accept bribes?

[Birdframe_Prime]

22 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

Do you think he'll accept bribes?

Send him all your rare Pokemon cards.

[DeMonkey]

Just now, Thaylien said:

Send him all your rare Pokemon cards.

I do have an entire draw full of cards from my childhood, Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh etc...

What say you, @[DE]Pablo. Want some maybe rare Pokemon cards in exchange for a Wukong Rework that you don't want to do? I'd offer money but Thaylien thinks this will work.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Just now, DeMonkey said:

I do have an entire draw full of cards from my childhood, Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh etc...

If that doesn't work, I've got a full carry-box of Magic: The Gathering from the Mirari cycle and earlier, a few of them are worth a fair bit as I recall.

What say you, @[DE]Pablo?

Also could you take a look at Zephyr? I know she got a once-over earlier in the year, but it made her average out at 'not terrible'... At least a Tailwind fix that makes it less painful to use anywhere that's not the Plains or Vallis, maybe make that Hover into an active thing where you don't have to squat on the ground, not moving, until you fart out some lifting gas?