Equinox improvements

[gluih]

So with equinox prime hopefully coming next and a delux skin on the way, here are my thoughts on how equinox could be improved.

Her day form is already quite good, when it comes to killing large numbers of enemies, so I don't think we need huge improvements there. That being said, I don't see a lot of situations where rage is very useful, so maybe that could be improved.

One minor thing I don't like about rest is, that there is no indicator of the AoE. It would be nice to have some visual effect to see the area affected by the ability.

Pacify & provoke is the one ability that has to be improved a lot imo.
Pretty much all the warframes I play have some way to dramatically reduce the damage they take. They either have a damage reduction ability or high armor. Equinox does have pacify, but it is too weak and not reliable. In general it is of course useless against any enemy outside the AoE, which makes it unreliable. It is very weak compared to other damage reduction abilities, that give their warframes 90 or even 95% damage reduction, without even requiring a huge strength investment. On top of that you also have the fall-off, the further enemies are away.
I would simply make it a damage reducing aura. It could still have the falloff, so she could be similar to trinity, where she gets a huge amount of damage reduction herself and then players around her still get some of the effect.

And then finally it would be nice, if we could keep the peaceful provocation stacks when switching forms. Apart from discouraging players from using both forms, it is just really annoying to lose all the stacks to a nullifier or by falling into a hole and in night form it is extremely difficult to stack it back up, because either the enemies deal too much damage and kill you or they don't deal enough damage to actually stack it.

Of course if anyone has a better idea, I would love to know about it or even see it in the game.

[Chewarette]

Honestly I like her toolkit. As you said, the fall-off on Pacify could be changed, but that's actually an insane spell when augmented.

Something I'm waiting is a tweak on her 1 though. That's way too punishing and doesn't bring a lot. Setting the stat bonuses as permanent would already be a great change for her sustainability.

The change I'm the most looking forward to is about Mend. It simply doesn't work with the "Load & Discharge" process, while this is fine for Maim. In my opinion, while Mend is active, each enemy killed should trigger a pulse that provides healing to your party. Would make more sense than "killing 20 enemies, having a 2-billion-charged Mend, unleash it to heal people... for 50 health and 200 shields".

Edit: She should even get Mirage's Eclipse as passive tbh. Being in the light should empower her day form, being hidden in the shadows should enhance her night spells.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Chewarette

[(PSN)OriginalEquinox]

Imo pacify should be a aura around him that reduces damage dealt to Equinox and allies that stand inside the aoe while reducing a amount of energy based on how much damage is being reduced or something

32 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Mend is active, each enemy killed should trigger a pulse that provides healing to your party. 

Basically Trinity's well of life but more mobile, I like it

[GnarlsDarkley]

57 minutes ago, gluih said:

One minor thing I don't like about rest is, that there is no indicator of the AoE. It would be nice to have some visual effect to see the area affected by the ability.

I see lots of strings going from the point I aim at to every single enemy which is being affected

[gluih]

28 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Honestly I like her toolkit. As you said, the fall-off on Pacify could be changed, but that's actually an insane spell when augmented.

 Something I'm waiting is a tweak on her 1 though. That's way too punishing and doesn't bring a lot. Setting the stat bonuses as permanent would already be a great change for her sustainability.

 The change I'm the most looking forward to is about Mend. It simply doesn't work with the "Load & Discharge" process, while this is fine for Maim. In my opinion, while Mend is active, each enemy killed should trigger a pulse that provides healing to your party. Would make more sense than "killing 20 enemies, having a 2-billion-charged Mend, unleash it to heal people... for 50 health and 200 shields".

 Edit: She should even get Mirage's Eclipse as passive tbh. Being in the light should empower her day form, being hidden in the shadows should enhance her night spells.

I guess I should have made clear, that I actually quite like her abilities overall.

The issue is really that she doesn't have reliable damage mitigation. Ofc especially when you have peaceful provocation fully stacked and you can run around with everything slowed, so the enemies can't even attack you, that's really powerful. But then you run into a nullifier, jump too high or fall down somewhere and now you are 1 hour into a survival and you can't really stack it back up again.
I would just like a reliable way of not dying instantly.
 

I wouldn't mind changing mend. It would be more passive regen, but you would lose the active heal. Both have their advantages.

[gluih]

7 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

I see lots of strings going from the point I aim at to every single enemy which is being affected

I guess the problem is that you can't see those going through walls. And the problem here wouldn't be as big, if it was actually obvious which area is affected. In my experience however sometimes enemies, that are quite far away from the point I'm aiming at, fall asleep and sometimes enemies that I would expect to fall asleep, because they are very close, don't.

[GnarlsDarkley]

4 minutes ago, gluih said:

snip

Sorry to read that but I really can't relate. I didn't count my Adaro runs but these issues were so minor that I can negate them. Sure there is sometimes one enemy which isn't affected but I'm sure it's just a bug. In case you really use rest you spam it either way and therefore even those should be put to sleep

 

[gluih]

2 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

Sorry to read that but I really can't relate. I didn't count my Adaro runs but these issues were so minor that I can negate them. Sure there is sometimes one enemy which isn't affected but I'm sure it's just a bug. In case you really use rest you spam it either way and therefore even those should be put to sleep

  

Maybe my mistake is just not spamming rest enough. Sounds like a great fix.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

Something I'm waiting is a tweak on her 1 though. That's way too punishing and doesn't bring a lot. Setting the stat bonuses as permanent would already be a great change for her sustainability.

The change I'm the most looking forward to is about Mend. It simply doesn't work with the "Load & Discharge" process, while this is fine for Maim. In my opinion, while Mend is active, each enemy killed should trigger a pulse that provides healing to your party. Would make more sense than "killing 20 enemies, having a 2-billion-charged Mend, unleash it to heal people... for 50 health and 200 shields".

I like this.

I've thought about having the bonuses be permanent before and it would make the ability more useful than just a method of switching. One thing I would really like though is adjustments to encourage switching back and forth rather than being in day form 95% of the time and switching to night for a few Oh Sh!7 moments. A sort of weaving that could encourage shifting back and forth to stack bonuses temporarily. Maybe something like Auras persist for a certain amount of time after switching form and will remain on if switching back before the time is up.

And you're right. Mend doesn't feel natural using the same method as Maim as it is.

[Chewarette]

13 minutes ago, (PS4)Riko_113 said:

I've thought about having the bonuses be permanent before and it would make the ability more useful than just a method of switching. One thing I would really like though is adjustments to encourage switching back and forth rather than being in day form 95% of the time and switching to night for a few Oh Sh!7 moments. A sort of weaving that could encourage shifting back and forth to stack bonuses temporarily. Maybe something like Auras persist for a certain amount of time after switching form and will remain on if switching back before the time is up.

Yes, I get that the current "temporary bonus stats" on switching forms is here to give an incentive to use it, but that's not enough. So either they apply those bonus stats permanently, with a slight increase when switching (but the problem would remain here), or they find another solution but that's probably a bit more complex.

What I was thinking is some kind of interaction between her 1 and any other spell.

For example :

- Switching to DayForm while Mend is active would grant an "Iron Skin"-like shield depending on the charge - if it stays like that - (not a 1:1 ratio of course, would be broken). That could give some temporary tankiness to Dayquinox.

- Switching to DayForm while Mend is active would put to sleep all enemies within Mend's range for XX seconds (if we get rid of Mend's charge)

- Switching to NightForm while Maim is active would blind all enemies within Maim's range for XX seconds and increase their damage taken by XX% based on the accumulated charge. Of course, anyway, the 1 should not cancel Mend/Maim but just switch the spell without the need to re-apply it I guess.

Edit: After thinking about it, maybe those should be reversed :p suddenly going "day" after a night phase should blind enemies and not put them to sleep but whatever, the idea is here 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Chewarette

[gluih]

I don't think giving her 1 bonus effects for switching is a good way to do things. It would probably just lead to players playing in 1 form and then switching twice to get the bonus effect.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

3 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Yes, I get that the current "temporary bonus stats" on switching forms is here to give an incentive to use it, but that's not enough. So either they apply those bonus stats permanently, with a slight increase when switching (but the problem would remain here), or they find another solution but that's probably a bit more complex.

What I was thinking is some kind of interaction between her 1 and any other spell.

For example :

- Switching to DayForm while Mend is active would grant an "Iron Skin"-like shield depending on the charge - if it stays like that - (not a 1:1 ratio of course, would be broken). That could give some temporary tankiness to Dayquinox.

- Switching to DayForm while Mend is active would put to sleep all enemies within Mend's range for XX seconds (if we get rid of Mend's charge)

- Switching to NightForm while Maim is active would blind all enemies within Maim's range for XX seconds and increase their damage taken by XX% based on the accumulated charge

Now that's awesome. I like those types of interactions since they won't feel very forced.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

2 minutes ago, gluih said:

I don't think giving her 1 bonus effects for switching is a good way to do things. It would probably just lead to players playing in 1 form and then switching twice to get the bonus effect.

I agree that this would be an issue, I thought about that. With that in mind, there could be some kind of cooldown upon switching forms that prevents transition bonuses for a limited amount of time. Then players would need to play in both forms regularly to get the full effect (which is the type of gameplay DE tends to like) or do the lazy way and stay in one form for lesser benefit.

[gluih]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Riko_113 said:

I agree that this would be an issue, I thought about that. With that in mind, there could be some kind of cooldown upon switching forms that prevents transition bonuses for a limited amount of time. Then players would need to play in both forms regularly to get the full effect (which is the type of gameplay DE tends to like) or do the lazy way and stay in one form for lesser benefit.

Being able to build up some effect in one form and then use it in the other sounds nice. Also sounds like something that wouldn't just feel forced and you wouldn't need a cooldown on the effect.

[ScytodiDaedalus]

On 2019-01-29 at 6:49 AM, gluih said:

One minor thing I don't like about rest is, that there is no indicator of the AoE. It would be nice to have some visual effect to see the area affected by the ability.

I do not believe she really needs much if not any improvements. However, I must agree some gfx feel uninformative and empty to identify radii of most abilities.

On 2019-01-29 at 6:49 AM, gluih said:

Pacify & provoke is the one ability that has to be improved a lot imo.

Provoke is fine I guess, very uninteractive, but it does it's job. Pacify actually has a fantastic use and one I wouldn't change it whatsoever, one fantastic QoL upgrade I'd like though, is remove energy drain on slept enemies, if you are at the higher levels and enemies are not dying, but you want enemies around and behind you that are still awake to have their dmg reduction, Slept enemies will clog the energy drain count and will end Equinox's energy pool real fast.

As for the Peaceful Provocation, I'm not gonna complain about the Nullifiers destroying your charge, that's ok I guess, they are meant to be annoying after all. But it could use a slow drain based on duration or Metamorphosis' duration(1's duration itself or around twice the time), that way you can switch real fast, throw in the other forms abilities in quick succesion and then switch back before losing everything.

[Xzorn]

I feel Equinox is nearly perfect.

Her one flaw has already been band-aid modded with an augment so I'm not sure it'll ever happen but being unable to retain charge when swapping forms has always caused problems building her and therefor using her entire kit in tandem. Players generally pick day / night or even one specific ability and that feels very contrary to her theme.

This mostly involved Mend & Maim which has been band-aid augmented and Peaceful Provocation which still does not maintain charge.

[Autongnosis]

I tbh would love for her form based buffs to stick around instead of depleting. 

[Xzorn]

5 hours ago, Autongnosis said:

I tbh would love for her form based buffs to stick around instead of depleting. 

 

I mean, they would be fine as is if she had reason to switch more often.

Thought one thing I actually forgot is her cast time animations. They're pretty clunky for a frame that relies on quick casting.

[gluih]

3 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

I mean, they would be fine as is if she had reason to switch more often.

 Thought one thing I actually forgot is her cast time animations. They're pretty clunky for a frame that relies on quick casting.

Not having them permanent either means that they are useless/ just not needed or that they are a bad incentive to switching.

I'm not sure where the problems with her animations would be. The 2 is basically instant and the rest isn't actually used that often. Maybe if you switch between forms more often, but I pretty much never do that.

[Xzorn]

4 minutes ago, gluih said:

Not having them permanent either means that they are useless/ just not needed or that they are a bad incentive to switching.

I'm not sure where the problems with her animations would be. The 2 is basically instant and the rest isn't actually used that often. Maybe if you switch between forms more often, but I pretty much never do that.

 

That's really my main complaint with Equinox. She's designed in such a way that players have no incentive to switch often. Her 3rd augment and her 4th don't carry change when you switch so it's generally counter productive. She's a frame with 7 abilities that most just focus on 2-3. It just seems like a waste because all of her abilities are good.

[gluih]

28 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

That's really my main complaint with Equinox. She's designed in such a way that players have no incentive to switch often. Her 3rd augment and her 4th don't carry change when you switch so it's generally counter productive. She's a frame with 7 abilities that most just focus on 2-3. It just seems like a waste because all of her abilities are good.

I agree with you, that players should actually have reasons to switch between forms. I just don't think temporary buffs are a good way to go about this. The ideas mentioned earlier, like carrying over an ironskin-like effect based on the mend stacks sound better to me. Otherwise you might as well have her passively switch every 30 seconds or an effect similar to mirage where the form depends on other factors.

[ShardYT]

The problem with increasing her "Damage Redcution" is that this modifier applies to allies in-range too , meaning a very high damage reduction like mesa's 95% will make equinox pretty fairly tanky , not for the allies , something like mesa or gara with 95% or 90% dmg reduction paired with another 95% and arcanes and adaptaion , armor mods etc, would be an unrealistic amount of damage mitigation .

maybe i'd say make the modifier affect equinox herself by 100% of the strength while 50-70% of the strength for allies. that would make it fair and not game-breaking ,

also i personally think the 4th ability in night form isn't that useful at all like why would i ever need 100k hp restoration ? maybe make it heal x% of the charge over time ? that would be way more meaningful to activate her forth for me ,

 

also for day form the 2nd ability needs some change 🙂

[Autongnosis]

Le 29/01/2019 à 14:20, Chewarette a dit :

Yes, I get that the current "temporary bonus stats" on switching forms is here to give an incentive to use it, but that's not enough. So either they apply those bonus stats permanently, with a slight increase when switching (but the problem would remain here), or they find another solution but that's probably a bit more complex.

What I was thinking is some kind of interaction between her 1 and any other spell.

For example :

- Switching to DayForm while Mend is active would grant an "Iron Skin"-like shield depending on the charge - if it stays like that - (not a 1:1 ratio of course, would be broken). That could give some temporary tankiness to Dayquinox.

- Switching to DayForm while Mend is active would put to sleep all enemies within Mend's range for XX seconds (if we get rid of Mend's charge)

- Switching to NightForm while Maim is active would blind all enemies within Maim's range for XX seconds and increase their damage taken by XX% based on the accumulated charge. Of course, anyway, the 1 should not cancel Mend/Maim but just switch the spell without the need to re-apply it I guess.

Edit: After thinking about it, maybe those should be reversed 😛 suddenly going "day" after a night phase should blind enemies and not put them to sleep but whatever, the idea is here 

I think you are onto something. Instead of giving pointless timed buffs, the best way to make switching useful and interesting would be to have some effect based on which powers you have active when you switch. IE, the blind and sleep when switching with the 4th up would be dope. 

It would be interesting even to make this extreme, so that basically your skill do the most when you switch and not when you leave them up and forget about them, but that would change the playstyle so radically it might end up a different frame tbh. 

[Tyreaus]

Her 1 needs an "energy-free" option that doesn't give buffs and an "energy-cost" option (on hold) that gives the buffs (and Duality spectre), which could be boosted like Chewarette suggests (or just buffed numerically). I don't think just "more buffs" would be enough to encourage using 1 for what it should be used: changing forms and accessing the full breadth of her abilities.

Energy Transfer should be built-in and count for Peaceful Provocation too. Duh.

_{Want a replacement augment? Hold to cast the aura, tap to activate it at a target location like Rest & Rage, drains only the amount needed to kill enemies or heal allies in that small area. Maximum efficiency, much less AoE. Tada~}

Rage can inflict a radiation proc. That alone makes the enemy buff useful rather than detrimental. Also fits with the name.

Mend on deactivation can just be a HoT aura while in Night form, where the drain from the ability's pool increases over time (maybe doubling every second). More charge = more duration.

Opinion time:

IMO, her 3 should be consistent in what it affects (her 4 isn't, but that's her ult). Her 2 is enemy-targeting so her 3 should affect allies through and through: increase their ability strength, increase their damage reduction (cost can be per instance, i.e. per ally - it's how Day 3 drains energy).

In line with that, Peaceful Provocation could affect enemies (slow debuff in Pacify, HP reduction in Provoke - just adding to the base ability numbers feels lazy).

I think the range drawback to her abilities is a great tradeoff for her superb versatility. I'd only suggest it be completely consistent across her kit, instead of Night 4 (I think) having no falloff where Day 4 does.