Badly designed weapons - A short file regarding those "balance outlaws"

[-Livjatan]

Alright, so uhh... There's a few weapons and warframes out there that have too terrible of a design to be suitable for PvP, be it mechanics, or just straight up balance issues unrelated to EHP, damage or firerate.

I'll list a few for you, then we'll take the time to analyze them :

Weapons :

• Plasmor - Falloff doesnt seems to apply correctly
• Beams - Ramp-up, although being an interesting feature(I'd even dare call it a great way to reward good tracking), has its flaws : Glaxion with its cold proc just makes going up the ramp-up as easy as taking a candy from a baby
• Castanas - No Falloff whatsoever, seems to be a recurrent aspect of the kind of weapons abused by cheesers

Warframes :

• Limbo - I honestly shouldnt have to explain that one, take out a limbo's shields, and he'll be gone into rift in a single key press, losing nothing in the process, alwhile forcing you to either waste energy trying to get him from out of the rift(mind you can't kill a limbo that has all his health that way, unless you spend more than 50 energy), or go into the rift as well and losing all your shields.
• Khora - Venari's IA simply doesnt work in a way that's viable for her/make the cut, when people start using movement just at half its maximal potential, she's already out of the game

Now, to take on their issues, in the same order as listed above, I'll give my view on potential solutions :

• Plasmor - Either fix falloff(if the workload is small enough to be like a 5min-fix) or temporary removal of the weapon from the pool of weapons usable in PvP
• Beams - Most only need damage adjustment, Glaxion is the main offender here, for it I'd suggest either a damage adjustment or a temporary removal from the pool of weapons usable in PvP
• Castanas - I'm guessing it's intended for it not to have falloff, otherwise it'd fall behind in PvE, so I'd suggest a temporary removal from the pool of weapons usable in PvP here as well
• Limbo - Can't see how to balance it without having to put some hard work there, hence why I'd suggest a (temporary?) removal from the pool of weapons usable in PvP
• Khora - Being hardly balance-able, I'd say either having it stay the way it is , as Venari is only part of Khora's kit and doesnt really break anything, or a temporary removal from the pool of weapons usable in PvP although I don't think anyone would feel the need for that, unlike for the warframes and weapons aformentioned

That's it. Hopefully you can correct any eventual mistake I may or may not have made, you may also leave your opinions and thoughts below as long as you go by the forums' rules.

Edited January 29, 2019 by -Livjatan
Making it clear for them PvE addicts that removal implies a PvP removal rather than a global one, as many weapons have yet to be introduced in PvP and thus it should be alright not to have those that have been before.

[SevenLetterKWord]

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Plasmor - Falloff doesnt seems to apply correctly

If so, that's a bug, not a design issue.
Irreconcilable design incompatibility justifies exclusion from Conclave; everything else can be resolved without removal.

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• Beams - Ramp-up, although being an interesting feature(I'd even dare call it a great way to reward good tracking), has its flaws : Glaxion with its cold proc just makes going up the ramp-up as easy as taking a candy from a baby

Whie the Glaxion has a lot of drawbacks, as do all beams, 324 DPS on shields (216 on health) is arguably excessive.
In this case, the fix is just a damage nerf to change the counterplay to "kill him first".
The Ignis Wraith's DPS is 176. Perhaps the Glaxion could be adjusted to between 176 and the Flux Rifle's 240, seeing as how ease of use also lies in the middle.

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• Castanas - No Falloff whatsoever, seems to be a recurrent aspect of the kind of weapons abused by cheesers

The Castanas are terrible, man. Have you tried them?
Ammo max was reduced to 2+2, from 2+6. Fire rate is 3.33, down from the previous 5.00. (Who's maintaining Neah's sheets?)
Additionally, they now suffer severe gravity independent of horizontal flight speed, thus reducing the effective range from "feather-throwing distance" to "stop hitting yourself".
There's no way these are even remotely competitive. I will piss myself if you beat me with these.

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Limbo

Limbo is terribly designed for Conclave, as we've all known from the start.
I'd think he'd fit much better as anti-ability instead of anti-everything-else.

Rift Walk (passive on roll): Remove all debuffs on Limbo: disarms, slows/tethers, damage vulnerabilities, status effects, etc. Possible energy cost or cooldown if necessary.
Banish (25e): Silence an enemy, deactivating sustained abilities and preventing ability activation for the next 10s. Possibly deals 50 damage per ability deactivated or cast attempted.
Stasis (50e): Drain up to 50 energy from each opponent within 16m of Limbo. Possibly converts drained energy at 100% efficiency to overshields. (max 100 overshield, 5/s decay)
Rift Surge (50e): Limbo or a targeted ally gains 30s immunity to damage/effects from enemy abilities. Possibly converts incoming damage to healing/shielding.
Cataclysm (100e): Create a targeted 18m sphere for 30s. Enemies in the sphere suffer Banish-type silence and 50e/s energy drain, while Limbo and allies gain Rift Surge buff.
^{(In the case of two overlapping Cataclysms, a Limbo standing in his own Cataclysm will be immune to the effects of the other Cataclysm.)}

 

[-Livjatan]

As much as I'd like everything you wrote to happen(except for Castanas, they can be as terrible as possible in terms of firerate, ammo, and whatever, the damage is still too great imo, and having no falloff over its range makes it even worse, in any case I'd wish for them to be buffed in other aspects but current damage/falloff stats have to go), let's be real : DE support when it comes to maintaining balance among weapons in PvP vanished overnight.

That's precisely why I'm suggesting solutions that require as few workload as possible : albeit not being the best outcome, they still somewhat solve the matter alwhile being appealing to DE employees that'd wish to help but don't really have much time to invest in doing so.

PS : I listed that Plasmor issue elsewhere as a bug, but felt like it should be listed here because of how it only seems to be the case in PvP(which they supposedly had got fixed, but then came back), and thus I'm getting a feeling like it may be linked to it being a flak-projectile

[Kontrollo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't all of these AoE weapons have radial fall-off and LoS? Or did that change again? IIRC they had it back in the day, but it's been a while.

[-Livjatan]

Castanas don't, even though Talons does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: Also, I believe Simulor doesn't neither, but it seems to be intended. Dunno if Castanas not having any is intended as well, but as much as I can understand that in a PvE context, I stand by the fact that it simply cannot work that way in a PvP context. Also, albeit unrelated to that, it seems Castanas' PvP dmg was set without accounting the 100% prob electric proc that adds 50% base electric damage to the hit.

Edited January 29, 2019 by -Livjatan

[Kontrollo]

Well, I still have these screenshots from back when we tested object damage -- there's more fun stuff to be found there. 😄

Album link in case hotlinking fails: https://imgur.com/a/IDk1tM8