Dread Mirror to Dread Cloak

[(XBOX)IonizedThrone]

The most universal complaint about Garuda usually revolves around her first ability and how disappointing it is. It only blocks in one direction when she was released with an open world environment, and the instant kill mechanic feels pointless. I'd say we should incentivise the instant kill more; if Dread Mirror kills an enemy it becomes Dread Cloak, Garuda wears the skin of her enemy and gains full protection for the duration instead of the usual mirror.

[birdobash]

I've seen similar ideas and things like this such as dread armor etc, and I feel like it would make more sense.

Like ya sure, other frames already have full body coverage and armors, but that's just the type of defense that fits into warframe the best since enemies often shoot you from multiple directions at once.

My idea is make it a damage reduction ability whenever you hit an enemy with it, and it has the same properties as it does now except now instead of a shield its armor basically. Making the ability a DR ability means she can take full advantage of her 2 which grants healing. Having a shield in front of you that makes you invulnerable to damage but only from 1 side, but giving her a healing ability didn't make too much sense to me, its equivalent to giving rhino self heal when he has iron skin, or giving volt health regen when the only defensive ability he has is his volt shield.

[Shelusine]

On 2018-12-28 at 12:35 PM, (XB1)IonizedThrone said:

The most universal complaint about Garuda usually revolves around her first ability and how disappointing it is.

And then you play her more than 10hrs and your complains changes. Her 1 is very efficient at protecting you if you play her right, it actually does so many things for a first ability that calling it "disappointing" is a tad hypocritical. The only "problem" with her 1 is that it's meant to combine with her 4 but it's tedious and unpractical compared to every other frames with similar AoE potential.

[Eklectus]

I've played her for much more than 10 hours and her shield is still incredibly lackluster. Mainly because it does an absolutely S#&$ job of protecting your legs, meaning that anything with an AoE that lands at your feet doesn't only damage you, but also has a good chance of knocking you down as well. Considering her whole thing is jumping around the field, comboing her skills, a more reliable method of knockdown/stagger protection than a slow-turning oval would be appreciated. 

[Sennera]

On 2019-01-27 at 4:20 PM, Eklectus said:

I've played her for much more than 10 hours and her shield is still incredibly lackluster. Mainly because it does an absolutely S#&$ job of protecting your legs, meaning that anything with an AoE that lands at your feet doesn't only damage you, but also has a good chance of knocking you down as well. Considering her whole thing is jumping around the field, comboing her skills, a more reliable method of knockdown/stagger protection than a slow-turning oval would be appreciated. 

I'd argue that her "whole thing" is to jump into a group of enemies, set up a few blood altars, then stay in that spot while converting the blood of her enemies into ultimate casts and throwing blood orb nukes into clumped up enemies (gee, have these guys ever heard of grenades? Look at these squads all hugging each other, just begging to be exploded.)

The slow turning oval was likely intentional to persuade people to stick closer to their blood altars. In fact, despite what others seem to think, after playing her for a week or so (maybe two? I've forgotten already) I've found that blood altars really seem like the core ability that her entire playstyle revolves around.

That said, it feels like her flaw is actually her passive ability. Blood altars fuel her other abilities but they also rapidly heal her, too fast to benefit from the passive for more than a 25%-ish increase in damage.

Edit: I suppose I should address the original post before I forget, too. This could be a good suggestion however invincibility with no drawbacks is a no-no. Every defensive ability NEEDS a flaw for balance (ie, Valkyr can only use claws, Rhino+Nezha can't (normally) recast until theirs breaks), so unless "Dread Cloak" were to get a drawback it would not be viable.

Personally I would be upset if my Dread Mirror changed if it kills an enemy. Blocking ALL projectiles in a certain direction is really, really powerful. I can stare down high level Corpus Techs and their stupidly overpowerful Supras that chew through anything that isn't invincible. Most warframes would die from just a couple bullets! Getting all-around in exchange for losing a perfectly invincible shield would be bad in my opinion.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Sennera

[Eklectus]

I do agree that blood altars seem to be her core ability and generally help her tank whatever damage isn't absorbed by the mirror. Unfortunately,  they suffer from two major problems: the first one is that sometimes, the altars seem to bug out and provide absolutely no healing, the other is that if you have teammates with you, there's a good chance your target will die before you reach it (especially if you have a Mesa tagging along) leaving you stranded in the open. Not to mention a great deal of abilities outright preventing BA from casting.

Personally,  I'd rather we keep the shield, but as mentioned by many before me, change its shape and make it move faster, that way, she can properly get into crowds of enemies and keep herself covered from the most dangerous ones without the shield taking an entire second to turn where it's needed.