Throwing some rework ideas for less powerful frames.

[Bristoling]

So here's a couple of ideas I had in mind to improve the usability or power of some frames, while also trying to introduce some synergies between different skills on a few occasions. I understand people hate the threads containing a litany of changes to different frames but I assume they'd prefer it to having the sub be spammed with 10-15 threads a day from a single person or 3-4 threads from different people about the same frame. 

Numbers marked by underline are stats that I believe should be affected by range/strength/duration mods. All numbers are considering max level abilities and maxed augment mods.

 

Ash

- Increase the reticle targeting area of his 4th ability, so that its easier to tag enemies, similar to Mesa's 4th ability although obviously not as big.

Ash has a pretty good kit but the clunkiness of his ability prevents him from being good and more useful.

 

Atlas

- Rubble pick up amount increased from 50->75 on Petrify, 75->100 from Landslide. Increase maximum Rubble cap by 25%.

- Increase Landslide critical chance and status chance from 5% to 20%.

- Add additional scaling for Bulwark damage - for example, Bulwark deals additional damage equal to 30% of Bulwarks hit points on top of its normal damage.

- Rumbler melee hits add to Atlas's melee combo counter, or gain additional damage based on current amount of extra Rubble that Atlas has, or both.

Atlas has pretty bad scaling since both crit and status chance is so low, its not worth building around. His 2nd and 4th ability also could use additional utility/scaling for end-game content.

 

Banshee

- Increase the chance of Sonic Boom knocking down enemies and increase damage from 50 to 250, also change damage type from Impact to Blast.

- Silence now also prevents aura/skill usage, like Ancient Healers damage reduction, Energy Leech Eximus energy drain, Toxic Ancients toxin immunity, Shield Drones shield boost, etc., or if it's too much, reduces their area of effect by 60%. Banshee could also receive 50% Evasion from enemies affected by Silence.

- Possibly reverse the direction of the knockback on Quake abilities to force enemies closer to Banshee instead of away.

Banshee has some pretty powerful ability in her Sonar as well as good AoE/CC for lower tier missions, however she lacks defensive mechanics and that's preventing her from being more useful in a squad.

 

Chroma

- Change passive to add 15% damage reduction from the chosen element combinations and 15% chance to avoid their status procs. For example, if Cold is chosen, Chroma gains 15% damage reduction to Cold, Magnetic, Blast and Viral damage. Energy colour is still used to select the default element when starting the mission.

- Holding his 1 cycles the elemental bonuses between Fire, Cold, Toxin and Electricity. Increase Afterburn augment damage cap to 1000 and allow it to force a status proc of all combinations of that element to enemies hit (so if Fire is chosen, apply Heat, Radiation, Gas and Blast proc while dealing Heat damage). Spectral Scream now deals combined damage of up to 300 damage per second split up between 4 possible variations of that element damage (so if it's Toxin, then it spreads Toxin, Gas, Viral and Corrosive).

- When Effigy is active, all allies in radius (lets say 15m) gain 40% bonus elemental damage to their weapons, type of which is depending on Chroma's current elemental pick.

This makes him a tiny bit tankier, gives some CC/status potential to his first ability while also allowing to swap elemental bonuses on the fly, as well as give some reason for Chroma to cast his Effigy.

 

Ember

- Passive should be changed to increase Ember's damage by 1% per each enemy set on fire, or increase Burning damage/duration in similar fashion to Ash's increase to Bleed damage.

- Increase Fireball duration from 10 to 15 seconds and allow it to be affected by duration mods. Put a cap of 3-5 on maximum number of Fireballs.

- Rename Fire Blast to Fire Shield. Hitting enemies affected by Accelerant with "Fire Blast" creates a protective ring around Ember (200 health + 25 per enemy hit with Fire Blast, for example), but removes Accelerant status from enemies and makes them immune to Accelerant for 3 seconds. Remove the ring that is being produced after casting the Fire Blast, which will also remove bonus Heat damage while shooting through it - instead, add this effect to the augment under condition of the new protective ring/sphere being active. Also scale down the size of the ring to become a visual indicator of the protective barrier active.

- When World On Fire achieves 100% overheat, each active Fireball in radius starts projecting is own World On Fire aura at 30% effectiveness.

This would give Ember some defensive skill that comes at a tradeoff of temporary dps decrease, and gives her a reason to cast her first ability and possibly scale a little bit better in the end game.

 

Hydroid

- Tidal Surge removes status effects and grants temporary immunity to them by default. Augment causes Tidal Surge to leave a trail of water, dealing 250 Cold damage per second with 10% status chance for 10 seconds.

- Undertow additionally deals 25 base Cold damage + 2% of targets maximum health as Cold damage to targets if they were pulled in after being affected by Tidal Surge by using his 2+3 combo.

-  Add Undertow augment's heal to the base skill, at a rate of 10% health regen per second at max rank. Change augment to allow Hydroid to leave Undertow without cancelling it. Recasting Undertow again would remove he previous one.

Changes simply to buff Hydroid's support skills as well as giving him additional mobility without sacrificing his core gameplay elements.

 

Mag

- Increase passive pull radius of pick ups to 11m and remove the need to bullet jump. This small change will let Mag players free up a mod slot on an companion.

- Casting Pull on Magnetize bubble should cause enemies in small area around it to be pulled inside.

- Increase Counter Pulse duration from 4 to 5 seconds.

- Increase Crush shield restore from 40+25 per enemy to 300+40 per enemy.

Simple defensive boost that is much needed for a squishy frame that is Mag.

 

Nekros

- Remove the knockback strength of Soul Punch and replace it with 3 second stun, also change it from single target to AoE effect in 4m radius. Enemies killed with the ability are instantly resurrected as Shadows, unless Nekros is already at the cap of 7.

- Cap energy drain of Soul Punch augment to 50 when used on a downed player and fully restore their health/shields. Add a cooldown to casting it on the same player for 5 seconds.

- Rename Terrify->Curse. Curses enemies in 15m radius for 10 seconds and causes them to take 50% more damage from Nekros and 100% more damage from Shadows if their current health drops or is below 40% of their maximum health.

- Creeping Terrify augment is Knowledge Of The Dead and causes Shadows damage to ignore 50% of armour and shields of an enemy and deal bonus damage regardless of the current health value of the target.

- Increase Shadow movement speed by 20%.

This hopefully bring Nekros some much needed identity other then a nerfed rare resource drop chance booster. Extra speed should help with lack of mobility of Nekros, and extra damage/ignoring defenses should allow for better minion scaling.

 

Nyx

- Allow damage conversion and its duration to be affected by power strength and duration mods.

- Add 50% movement, attack speed and fire rate bonus to Mind Freak augment.

- Allow Psychic Bolts projectile number to be affected by power strength.

- Increase Absorb range from 10 to 15 meters.

- Increase Assimilate augment  movement speed from 50 to 70% but keep the effective radius of 5 meters.

While the recent rework was good, I don't think it was enough to help Nyx climb out from the "least used frames" tier. Changes are focused to mainly improve what current Nyx already does.

 

Oberon

- Instead of creating a field and marking an area with his Renewal, Oberon should create a field as well as project an aura so that getting his buff is easier if you missed the initial cast location of his 3rd ability.

- Enemies hit by Reckoning now have a timing window of 3 seconds from the end of the casting animation, where killing them gives a chance to spawn a health orb.

Simple change to give Oberon extra help in spreading his healing buff around. Reckoning buff might not be necessary but would be helpful and possibly make him a better healer in general.

 

Titania

- Increase Tribute range to 50m or leave it as it is but make it unaffected by range mods. Allow Tributes to be collected with Vacuum/Fetch or Titania's own vacuum mechanic.

- Increase Thorn damage redirection from 50% to 250% and provide Titania and her allies with 25% damage reduction.

- Allow Entangle to slow fire rate and attack speed of enemies as well as movement speed.

- Allow respawning of Razorflies at a rate of 1 every 5 seconds while in Razorwing mode.

- Increase Diwata's damage from 200 to 275 and critical chance from 20 to 35%.

Some more QoL features and buffs to some of Titania's core strengths.

 

Valkyr

- Change Rip Line to target up to 5 enemies in an 80 degree cone, pulling them towards the Valkyr.

- Increase Paralysis base stun duration by 150%. Change augment to instead spread Paralysis on kill to all nearby enemies in a 5m radius for the remaining duration of Paralysis.

- Change Talons damage distribution to 10%/40%/40% IPS and increase it from 250 to 300. Increase status chance from 10 to 20%, if not, increase critical chance from 50 to 65% and critical multiplier from 200% to 250%.

- Change Hysterical Assault to instead spread all status effects on killed enemy to all nearby enemies in 7.5m radius.

Currently Valkyr's gameplay is to cast her Warcry, melee enemies with her weapon and only use her 4th ability when Valkyr requires some extra healing. Changes here are directed to allow her claws to stay relevant for longer as well as give some more use to her Paralysis and Rip Line skills.

 

Vauban

- Increase Vauban's armour rating from 50->250 for normal and 100->300 for Prime version.

- Tesla deals damage to all enemies affected by Bastille if it is cast on a Bastille target, and all enemies affected by Vortex if cast on Vortex target. Remove holding the button mechanic and instead give Tesla a damage buff from 150 to 300 and 50% status chance.

- Allow Shred to  remove 70% of armour and shields of the target in one cast, change duration of the reduction from 4 seconds to 10 seconds.

- Increase Concuss stun duration.

- Remove Bounce and move rest of the mines one tier lower to be available earlier.

Changes mostly to make setting up Tesla grenades faster as well as give them additional damage capability in later phases of the game. Giving more power and utility to his Minelayer should give him additional support role other then that of a weaker Khora's CC and also allow Vauban to still deal some damage against highly armoured units. Speaking of armour, it is increased to match Vaubans art as well as improve his defenses.

 

Zephyr

- Allow players to control Tail Winds direction at reduced effectiveness compared to normal mouse look (so that 180 degree turn is impossible but you can control movement to some degree)

- Change Target Fixiation augment to instead cause enemies hit by Tail Wind to take 100% increased damage from projectiles for 6 seconds at max rank.

- Change Airburst to throw projectiles in a triangle shape instead of a line. Add an effect to ragdolled enemies that delays their getting up by 3 seconds, adding more CC potential.

- Reduce the chance of enemies being thrown out of the Tornado by two Tornadoes colliding and enemies being ejected after set period of time (as in, increase the pull strength). If Tornado was hit by Airburst, increase enemy pull radius from 5 to 7m. 

- Change Funnel Clouds augment to let smaller Tornadoes pick up enemies, but limit it to maximum of 1 enemy per Tornado. Add 200% movement speed to Tornadoes with the augment.

More CC for her 2, more utility for her 1, more reliable Tornados is all that Zephyr truly needs. 

 

 

Thank you to anyone who read the whole thing, of course the numbers could be adjusted, I was trying to propose changes without changing too many things about abilities or changing the general theme of the frame. Some frames like Wukong, Revenant or Baruuk are not on the list but definitely deserve either buffs or reworks. 

Feel free to comment on the suggestions and propose your own in return.

Edited January 3, 2019 by Bristoling

[kgabor]

40 minutes ago, Bristoling said:

Banshee

- Increase the chance of Sonic Boom knocking down enemies and increase damage from 50 to 250, also change damage type from Impact to Blast.

- Silence now also prevents aura/skill usage, like Ancient Healers damage reduction, Energy Leech Eximus energy drain, Toxic Ancients toxin immunity, Shield Drones shield boost, etc., or if it's too much, reduces their area of effect by 60%. Banshee could also receive 50% Evasion from enemies affected by Silence.

- Possibly reverse the direction of the knockback on Quake abilities to force enemies closer to Banshee instead of away.

Banshee has some pretty powerful ability in her Sonar as well as good AoE/CC for lower tier missions, however she lacks defensive mechanics and that's preventing her from being more useful in a squad.

I don't see a reason for Sonic Boom's damage type to be changed, it's not a damage ability, it's cc. (without augment)

As for Silence it could work if it would only tone down these abilities and reduce hit chance (which i think i seen in the description somewhere it should be already doing that-or maybe i misinterpreted the flavor text), otherwise it would be cheesy, just reduce their AoE by 60%.

I don't use Quake much anymore because there are better ways for farming so whatever, imo. it should be changed into a better ability altogether, i would personally prefer an exalted railgun-sniper which would work with Banshee's kit better.

Btw. you need that cc from Sonic Boom for high level missions for corner clearing and to stay alive, not for low levels, you don't need defensive mechanics when your way of defending yourself is by killing everything around you, which with the damage output increase of Sonar a Banshee player is more than capable of, don't casualise this frame, afk set and forget gameplay is not its role, Octavia and Hydroid already have that and they wanted to get rid of that with Banshee's last attempt at a rework.

Edited January 3, 2019 by kgabor

[(PSN)Apoleon_amarr]

About the diwata, it doesnt need a buff, it just need a special mechanic or a passive skill, because it does its job, but is really boring.

About the razorflies regeneration, that might be a bit too good, since her 2 now affects the damage of the razorflies.

Finally about the thorns, i really like the high number, but still, might not be enough considering the not so great survivability of titania and the horrible scaling of reflection damage from armor enemy scaling