Top 6 frames that need attention in 2019

[Pizzarugi]

On 2019-01-02 at 4:21 PM, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

In a world where we have frames like mesa or chroma literally slaughtering the games hardest content for what seems like ages it really shouldn't be fear that's holding the devs back from making her strong.

I'd rather not bring her back into the realm of absurdity with the other broken frames. I'd rather keep Ember where she is, but nerf frames like Mesa, Chroma, and Saryn. We should be trying to reverse press-4-to-win and cheese tactics, not reintroduce them.

[Heidelgard]

Vauban could use something different than just throwing balls.

Chroma needs an actual passive and maybe an improvement for the first and fourth ability.

Nyx needs her rework to be reworked.

Revenant is embarrassing, after all he's the frame that wasn't supposed to be.

 

As for Valkyr, Ember and Wukong, I have never played them, so I have no idea and I'll just agree if you guys say they need a rework.

[Arcira]

2 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

I'd rather not bring her back into the realm of absurdity with the other broken frames. I'd rather keep Ember where she is, but nerf frames like Mesa, Chroma, and Saryn. We should be trying to reverse press-4-to-win and cheese tactics, not reintroduce them. 

"bring her back" implies she was good before. Ember was and still is a low level farm bot since the removal of Overheat. I´d prefer massive buffs to Embers dps or survivability (I don´t care which one) in order to bring her in line with other top tier Warframe. Removing all the cheese, damage powercreep and immortality will take an eternity (assuming they want to do it in the first place), so you want her to be useless until then?

Also there are more ways to make Ember strong other than buffing WoF. "Keep her where she is" isn´t a reasonable solution.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Arcira

[Arbitex]

On 2019-01-03 at 2:16 PM, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Spellbinds floating Ragdoll sucks because bullets and melee knock the enemy around.

Half of Tributes buffs are useless

Latern, even with the buffs to it has bugs that are preventing it from functioning correctly, and the floating ragdoll issue persists here despite the change to have it return very very slowly to its original position.

Razor wing is fine. Dex Pixia is good DPS.

 

Exactly. Not to mention you spend 99% of your time in razorwing mode so her passive is useless. Also cast times are a little long, I'd like reduced cast times when in razorwing mode which wouldn't be an issue since you're not going to spam abilities whilst your energy is drained due to razorwing.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

6 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

I'd rather not bring her back into the realm of absurdity with the other broken frames. I'd rather keep Ember where she is, but nerf frames like Mesa, Chroma, and Saryn. We should be trying to reverse press-4-to-win and cheese tactics, not reintroduce them.

She was never a top dps frame.  She's always been a lazy "burn the weaker enemies world" or a lazy cc build with fire quake.  I'm not attempting to nor asking for press 4 to win again and to insinuate such just because I wish to see a frame be better is silly.  Mesa is out done by several other frames in terms of burst damage and has clear weaknesses.  She also has to use her entire kit sans her 1.  To relegate her to "P42W" is just wrong.  Chroma doesn't need nerfing as two of his abilities are still dead.  Him being able to make a joke out of profit taker and tridelons is not unique.  There are several other frames that can fill the dps slot besides him.

Finally Saryn is also not P42W.  As she makes use of her entire kit.  Sans her 4 which is primarily used as a stun if she's in trouble.  If saryn is forced to use her 4 she snuffs out her infestation since the spores are killing things and spores are the only thing that can kill something infected with a spore and NOT spread more spores.  Sure, in the star chart she can just repeatedly nuke with her 1 and 4.  But so can many other frames.  And star chart is a joke when it comes to difficulty to begin with.

DE has already done an amazing job ridding the game of poor playstyles of the past with a majority of their reworks.  The point of their reworks was also NOT to nerf us as players.  DE has actually been increasing player power for quite sometime.  The point of the reworks are to keep the frames interesting/fun/powerful but also require more interaction out of the player.  Of which frames like Saryn certainly do.  If you want to slam mesa and chroma for being boring playstyles to you that's fine.  But to label any of these frames as P42W is just you being needlessly generalistic to try to make a very weak point.

[GPrime96]

3 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

 Chroma doesn't need nerfing as two of his abilities are still dead.  Him being able to make a joke out of profit taker and tridelons is not unique.  There are several other frames that can fill the dps slot besides him.

His Vex Armor got nerfed already so he dosen’t need another one at all.

About Mesa, when i was in the Simulacrum with someone in my Friend list and when my Friend spawned every Corrupted Enemy there at lvl 145, the enemies got shreded by her 4th after i killed the Nullifiers. That was with two open mod slots in her Regulators so with the build i have in her currently, she would go further than that. What she’s lcking more is Synergy than DPS, i know her 1 works with her 4 but her 1 is trash.

Edited January 7, 2019 by GPrime96

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

13 hours ago, GPrime96 said:

His Vex Armor got nerfed already so he dosen’t need another one at all.

About Mesa, when i was in the Simulacrum with someone in my Friend list and when my Friend spawned every Corrupted Enemy there at lvl 145, the enemies got shreded by her 4th after i killed the Nullifiers. That was with two open mod slots in her Regulators so with the build i have in her currently, she would go further than that. What she’s lcking more is Synergy than DPS, i know her 1 works with her 4 but her 1 is trash.

Yes she can do scary things.  But someone like chroma can easily out burst her with the proper build.  She doesn't really kill trash any faster than any other dps frame.  The shining thing is should a target be able to live long enough she gets insane sustained damage.  That's never really a thing though.  So she's good.  But she's hardly the best when it comes to killing.  As for her 1 I'd like to see it become a build up buff that lasts for x seconds and increases her weapon crit and status chance.  That way she can actually be a proper gun frame that has the ability to pull her regulators out when stuff gets serious.

[Elyi]

On 2019-01-02 at 10:31 PM, Xzorn said:

 

Ember actually rivals Banshee as a team damage buff frame. If it wasn't for the Resonance overlap bug they'd be pretty even.

Armor is what prevents her from showcasing that.

Between Fireball Frenzy, Flash Accelerant and Shooting through multiple Fireblasts she can amp up a teams damage pretty hardcore. Now on her own? Meh, esp since they screwed with her WoF radius. Too much to do and too squishy to get it done. With the amount of spam casting she has to do to push levels added into resetting her WoF and increased energy drain. Don't think I could get her to the level range I could before. Dumbest part is WoF Damage was never a factor in that to begin with.

Disregarding what you said about ember being equally viable as buff frame. 

What makes you think banshee's soner stacking is a bug?

[Elyi]

ignore this, posted twice

Edited January 8, 2019 by Ely.I

[Xzorn]

20 minutes ago, Ely.I said:

Disregarding what you said about ember being equally viable as buff frame. 

What makes you think banshee's soner stacking is a bug?

 

Why would you disregard Ember being one of the highest team damage buffs in the game? It's like the one thing she's good for.

Abilities of the same name will not stack numerical values in Warframe. It's probably one of the few consistent things in the game.

The cooldown period between Resonance procs also doesn't work properly. If more played Banshee it probably would have been changed by now.

It's not the only long term bug Banshee's augments have had either. Her Savage Silence was bugged for years allowing melee stealth multipliers on enemies at all times. Even after being fully alerted; it forced unaware status. Now it only works during a stun animation. That augment was older than Resonance and was fixed like last year.

[Quasarium]

On 2019-01-03 at 12:39 AM, (PS4)LoisGordils said:

I don't see Chroma on this list -_-

No passive

Ties fashion to performance

Spectral Scream is horrible

Elemental Ward and Vex Armor are strikingly similar. Both are passive, one-press skills that have zero interactions or synergy

Effigy is a useless energy hog that deals pitiful damage and doesn't really do much else.

Totally agree

[Quasarium]

On 2019-01-03 at 5:42 AM, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Zephyr is just as garbage as she was before her rework changed nothing.

"But she's good plains frame" 

Smh

Sorry but I disagree; what is messed with her is just the 4, but about the rest she's kinda solid and fun

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

50 minutes ago, Paorox said:

Sorry but I disagree; what is messed with her is just the 4, but about the rest she's kinda solid and fun

Would anyone be brave enough to post yourself running a non open world mission with Zephyr?

I need to see where this solid and fun kit comes in at.

[Ichsuisme]

I agree Nyx still needs a change, but it's her absorb/assimilate skill that needs work. The other abilities work well enough now. It's her 4 that still screws her up. Sure it's invulnerability but this game is about mobility. You sacrifice so much to use that one skill. The math might have been updated, but that math goes to waste, I rarely get more than 3 enemies within range of the explosion. Also, the augment is necessary and it still doesn't fix the skill, it just makes it less infuriating to use. It's similar to mesa's 4 - but mesa gets an exalted weapon and benefits from range - If I want to use chaos, I need to get into the center of the battlefield. 

 

The augment should remove the movement speed penalty and you should be able to jump - but maybe not bullet jump or rolling. She just need to be able to walk, run, and jump normally. And while absorb is active, her bolts should do more damage, based on how much damage is stored. Also, if you don't use the augment, Nyx should still be able to use her other skills instead of just passively floating there, her bolts should also still get the extra damage based on absorbs damage.

[ZodiacShinryu]

On ‎2019‎-‎01‎-‎02 at 8:23 PM, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

I'll admit chroma was up there for both of my lists.  But chroma at least is meta even if its with a pretty messy kit.  Which is why hes ultimately not up there.

I am certainly biased but he is only functionally meta because he has a high weapon damage amp that *can* last a long time (low maintenance); only made simpler through recasting and a situational share range (lol@MirageEclipseAugment). Weapon buffs tend to get high picks because weapons are ultimately the most efficient and consistent killing force. But that is literally the extent of his being. His other powers could be nonfunctional lightshows that do weird things (in reality it isn't that far off now) like peculiar mods and no one would find it unusual. That isn't good design at all and it is only accepted because we can abuse self-damage to make it a reliable buff. If DE took off self damage Chroma would've been thrown by the wayside for Eidolons right away. If you gave any frame a decent damage amp ability and you got a meta level frame.

Simply the only frame that was listed that isn't as one-dimensional as Chroma is probably Wukong (though I find Wukong more interesting still; and Nukong was funny while that was live), as all the others at least have different builds, playstyles, and niches. For example, I reject a lot of assertions that Ember is as bad as she is made out to be. There is the simplicity of WoF that should be addressed but its that way because it is a passive ability that allows you full access to your arsenal. But Accelerant, Fire Blast and proper planning/preparation allows Ember to perform well even in longer forays of endless. Her biggest problem is she is an energy hog to perform in higher capacities. I mean there are certainly changes worth noting, like combining Fire Blast and WoF and adding a new ability (I personally would love a phoenix theme to match her visual designs) or streamlining Accelerant's mechanics to ease the gameplay pacing, but she isn't for lack of smolding everything around her.

Edited January 10, 2019 by ZodiacShinryu
weird text formating error

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

34 minutes ago, ZodiacShinryu said:

I am certainly biased but he is only functionally meta because he has a high weapon damage amp that *can* last a long time (low maintenance); only made simpler through recasting and a situational share range (lol@MirageEclipseAugment). Weapon buffs tend to get high picks because weapons are ultimately the most efficient and consistent killing force. But that is literally the extent of his being. His other powers could be nonfunctional lightshows that do weird things (in reality it isn't that far off now) like peculiar mods and no one would find it unusual. That isn't good design at all and it is only accepted because we can abuse self-damage to make it a reliable buff. If DE took off self damage Chroma would've been thrown by the wayside for Eidolons right away. If you gave any frame a decent damage amp ability and you got a meta level frame.

I'm aware of why he's meta.  Doesn't change that because he's meta at all he's not on my list.  Not saying i'd scoff at DE choosing to address him over the listed ones first.  Just saying that in my opinion because he has a place in current meta setups I don't think he needs to be addressed over the listed frames.

34 minutes ago, ZodiacShinryu said:

Simply the only frame that was listed that isn't as one-dimensional as Chroma is probably Wukong (though I find Wukong more interesting still; and Nukong was funny while that was live), as all the others at least have different builds, playstyles, and niches. For example, I reject a lot of assertions that Ember is as bad as she is made out to be. There is the simplicity of WoF that should be addressed but its that way because it is a passive ability that allows you full access to your arsenal. But Accelerant, Fire Blast and proper planning/preparation allows Ember to perform well even in longer forays of endless. Her biggest problem is she is an energy hog to perform in higher capacities. I mean there are certainly changes worth noting, like combining Fire Blast and WoF and adding a new ability (I personally would love a phoenix theme to match her visual designs) or streamlining Accelerant's mechanics to ease the gameplay pacing, but she isn't for lack of smolding everything around her.

As has been explained before Ember is not bad in terms of performance.  She is an amazing buffer frame with some spammable (albeit wonky) cc.  The issue is she doesn't fit the player fantasy.  To me ember is someone who burns the world away.  Current ember just feels like a weapon frame that can harass unimportant content.  She feels boring and clunky and passive.  The only build i've ever enjoyed with her was Distant observer's twin basolk build with her.  And that was literally only because it was peak engaging gameplay.  Which she lacks.

[Leuca]

Only 6 frames to make it great for the whole roster though?

[ZodiacShinryu]

2 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

As has been explained before Ember is not bad in terms of performance.  She is an amazing buffer frame with some spammable (albeit wonky) cc.  The issue is she doesn't fit the player fantasy.  To me ember is someone who burns the world away.  Current ember just feels like a weapon frame that can harass unimportant content.  She feels boring and clunky and passive.  The only build i've ever enjoyed with her was Distant observer's twin basolk build with her.  And that was literally only because it was peak engaging gameplay.  Which she lacks.

Its weird how I can imprint Chroma on just about everything said by concept. But I suppose I did say I was biased.

• Not bad performance
• Amazing buffer
• Doesn't fit player fantasy
• Just a weapon frame
• Boring, clunky, passive.

A heat weaponry Ember can get up there to Chroma level damage (there is some relative factors that will have Chroma deal more) however in the general play of the game it is far more than enough. I just find it interesting that simply because Chroma is an internal buff in comparison to Ember's external debuff (honestly it is the same for Banshee and she is the peak) that he is meta and she is not; though I suppose that is partly encounter design disparity. A little over simplification on Vex though any support frame (which is going to be there for meta content) is going to cover survivability problems especially in the content where Chroma is considered meta.

I mean I suppose it is my own problem with "Top Lists", too much opinion not enough compelling direction. But if we are going to tangle the META into a discussion about reworks I would prefer that we focus on the design choices. No rework that doesn't bring a damage amp or healing/invincibility utility is going make it into the meta so we might as well focus on gameplay variance. All the frames listed bring more to the table than Chroma which is just a higher damage version of every frame with a weapon.

[(PSN)IroncladBomber]

Vauban - Just needs a Full Ground up Rework, his Abilities are either useless, or Eclipsed by other Frames. Tesla is Weak and even with the "Charge" mechanic is is Probably one of the weakest first abilities in the game. Minelayer is 1 Good Ability (Concuss), 2 Ok-ish abilities (Shred and Trip Laser) , and 1 Trash ability (Bounce), Bastille is a Good ability just needs a bit of Love, and Vortex is a weaker version of Nidus Larva.

Titania needs a Huge Rework but that requires fixing Archwing.

Nyx and Revenant, Both need some Love,

Wukong is all but forgotten at this point and with his Deluxe and Prime coming up soon, He needs a Rework.

Ember needs some work but is still good at Clearing Trash Mobs and Mid Tier Exterminates.

[Conflux59]

On 2019-01-09 at 10:43 PM, ZodiacShinryu said:

Its weird how I can imprint Chroma on just about everything said by concept. But I suppose I did say I was biased.

• Not bad performance
• Amazing buffer
• Doesn't fit player fantasy
• Just a weapon frame
• Boring, clunky, passive.

A heat weaponry Ember can get up there to Chroma level damage (there is some relative factors that will have Chroma deal more) however in the general play of the game it is far more than enough. I just find it interesting that simply because Chroma is an internal buff in comparison to Ember's external debuff (honestly it is the same for Banshee and she is the peak) that he is meta and she is not; though I suppose that is partly encounter design disparity. A little over simplification on Vex though any support frame (which is going to be there for meta content) is going to cover survivability problems especially in the content where Chroma is considered meta.

I mean I suppose it is my own problem with "Top Lists", too much opinion not enough compelling direction. But if we are going to tangle the META into a discussion about reworks I would prefer that we focus on the design choices. No rework that doesn't bring a damage amp or healing/invincibility utility is going make it into the meta so we might as well focus on gameplay variance. All the frames listed bring more to the table than Chroma which is just a higher damage version of every frame with a weapon.

I agree.  It's interesting to me when someone brings up meta because meta last I checked doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with a frame be well designed, doesn't mean it has any synergy, and so on.  The fact is, it's more of an argument towards that meta frame actually needing attention.  Being brought up as meta in arguing to why a frame doesn't need attention is a red flag and more so ...that should kinda tell you it needs attention if it's shoehorned into something so limited as a single game mode or etc.  Honestly I'd make an argument that a couple specific frames do need attention around the amount Chroma does, the caveat is that Chroma's the oldest of all of them and has needed attention in a terrible way for much longer.  Also Chroma's "meta" that apparently is enough to keep him from needing rework, other frames happen to be much better at than him.

Chroma's most useful skill requires him to attempt suicide, has an insanely short timer even being modded for, very short range, buffs leave teammates as soon as they leave range, is energy heavy, has zero notification in game of when it's going down requiring the player to constantly watch the tiny countdown timer instead of playing the game so they don't need to attempt suicide again/not allowing the buff to fall for teammates sake/continue to remain useful.  <-- that's the best/most useful skill Chroma has.  Aside from his DE Eidolon mistake, he also hasn't ever been touched.  Not even when he was primed.  There's no reason why Chroma shouldn't be on anyones list unless they're in "I only want MY favorite frame to get attention first" mode.  Using him as an example, having those sorts of frames being ignored hurts the overall game.