Valkyr and the weird strange odd ability design

[VentiGlondi]

Hysteria is one of the weirdest abilities in the game. While certainly not useless, the design behind this ability does not make sense, and seems to work against itself.

Let's take a look at how it works:

• You become invulnerable
• While invulnerable you can heal yourself by attacking enemies
• The damage you take while invulnerable is stored and a percentage is dealt to you if there are enemies in your vicinity when Hysteria is turned off

This is makes no sense for two reasons:

• Hysteria allows you to heal while you're unable to take damage, and then damages you when you've finished using it.
• Hysteria is a melee ability that punishes you for sticking close to the enemy.

I don't exactly know what the thought process behind this design was, but given the devs' stance on invulnerability it just seems like they were trying to justify it by throwing some random downsides in.

This combined with the fact that the combo set is quite clumsy makes Hysteria less of a blood-fueled rampage and more of a utility tool that most Valkyr players seem to only use to revive people safely, while sticking to their regular melee weapons to do the actual killing.

 

Now, this wouldn't be a feedback thread without some proposed changes, so here's what I came up with: 

1. Take a look at the stance. Some, if not all of the combos don't let you turn while attacking. I don't even remember any other combo stances that do that. Enemies can literally avoid you by sidestepping.
2. Invincibility is reduntant - Valkyr has an armor-boosting buff and life leech. In fact invincibility appears to get in the way of Hysteria doing anything more interesting, as devs see it as some ultimate ability that only warrants nerfing its energy efficiency. Just replace it with damage reduction, roll back the energy efficiency nerf back into a constant drain, and get rid of the weird take-damage-if-anyone-is-looking-at-you mechanic. Keep the CC and status effect immunities though.
3. Reuse the expanding aura for a new mechanic that rewards Valkyr for going melee. Valkyr would start with a small aura that would expand with each kill until it reaches certain cap affected by ability range. Each enemy within the aura's radius gives Valkyr a stacking buff - more damage, more crits, who knows? Or maybe the aura causes enemies to freeze in fear and drop their weapon? Or maybe both!?

I think that would make Hysteria more interesting than something that Limbo can do at no energy cost.

[birdobash]

I actually think this is quite a good idea, as you said, invincibility is kind of redundant on a frame that has so much armor AND can boost that armor even further with warcry. I think giving her 4 the Nezha warding halo treatment where it goes from invincibility to damage reduction could actually be more useful than straight up invincibility, since you'll be able to trigger arcanes and it'll open up the possibility for rage or hunter adrenaline.

[Pro3Display]

actually charged attack instantly proceeds into a finisher that kills lvl 100 heavy gunners sooo

her melee is quite good my only gripe is energy drain

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

sadly i think valkyr is one of those frames that has been nerfed into a position that not only makes no sense from a balance perspective, but a sanity one.

5 minutes ago, Pro3Display said:

actually charged attack instantly proceeds into a finisher that kills lvl 100 heavy gunners sooo

her melee is quite good my only gripe is energy drain

a slide attack kills 150s in one go properly built.

 

the problem is that Valkyr is like a lot of older frames now. a few good abilities that DE seems to think is "good nuff" despite clear unpopularity with the playerbase.. i rarely see Valkitty outside certain assassination missions. worse yet, this unpopularity means little attention is ever given to her.

so yeah a frame that is poor or lesser in the eyes of players is less likely to get buffed to being good.

Edited March 14, 2019 by (PS4)ForNoPurpose

[GPrime96]

25 minutes ago, VentiGlondi said:

Hysteria is one of the weirdest abilities in the game. While certainly not useless, the design behind this ability does not make sense, and seems to work against itself.

Let's take a look at how it works:

• You become invulnerable
• While invulnerable you can heal yourself by attacking enemies
• The damage you take while invulnerable is stored and a percentage is dealt to you if there are enemies in your vicinity when Hysteria is turned off

This is makes no sense for two reasons:

• Hysteria allows you to heal while you're unable to take damage, and then damages you when you've finished using it.
• Hysteria is a melee ability that punishes you for sticking close to the enemy.

I don't exactly know what the thought process behind this design was, but given the devs' stance on invulnerability it just seems like they were trying to justify it by throwing some random downsides in.

You should try Hysteria after Melee 2.9 while you have a Gun equipped because it got even worse Downsides than you think.

[birdobash]

17 minutes ago, GPrime96 said:

You should try Hysteria after Melee 2.9 while you have a Gun equipped because it got even worse Downsides than you think.

This is true, they should add some sort of optional locking mechanism hotkey that is toggleable that makes it switch between how it is now, and locks rmb so you dont pull out your weapon by accident.

[GPrime96]

15 minutes ago, birdobash said:

This is true, they should add some sort of optional locking mechanism hotkey that is toggleable that makes it switch between how it is now, and locks rmb so you dont pull out your weapon by accident.

Yeah, they should do that for Hysteria.

[Andele3025]

1 hour ago, VentiGlondi said:

Hysteria is one of the weirdest abilities in the game. While certainly not useless, the design behind this ability does not make sense, and seems to work against itself.

Let's take a look at how it works:

• You become invulnerable
• While invulnerable you can heal yourself by attacking enemies
• The damage you take while invulnerable is stored and a percentage is dealt to you if there are enemies in your vicinity when Hysteria is turned off

This is makes no sense for two reasons:

• Hysteria allows you to heal while you're unable to take damage, and then damages you when you've finished using it. 
• Hysteria is a melee ability that punishes you for sticking close to the enemy.

Now imagine if someone with a tiny bit of sense added the following effects: Damage taken to be stored is influenced by armor, damage stored can be removed with lifesteal you get, energy cost per second is based on damage you have stored instead of timer. The dummy who thought punishing a berserker frame for being a berserker for as long as she can instead of punishing cowardly play which current hysteria rewards truly somewhere lost the point of what engaging gameplay mechanics and solid gameloop are.

1 hour ago, VentiGlondi said:

Now, this wouldn't be a feedback thread without some proposed changes, so here's what I came up with: 

1. Take a look at the stance. Some, if not all of the combos don't let you turn while attacking. I don't even remember any other combo stances that do that. Enemies can literally avoid you by sidestepping.

Melee pass seems to have made animation locks instead of just attack recovery frames influenced by attack speed making this a very non-issue

1 hour ago, VentiGlondi said:

1. Invincibility is reduntant - Valkyr has an armor-boosting buff and life leech. In fact invincibility appears to get in the way of Hysteria doing anything more interesting, as devs see it as some ultimate ability that only warrants nerfing its energy efficiency. Just replace it with damage reduction, roll back the energy efficiency nerf back into a constant drain, and get rid of the weird take-damage-if-anyone-is-looking-at-you mechanic. Keep the CC and status effect immunities though.

Invul isnt redundant, it would be a nice alt mechanic to not just be more nezha/nidus/trinity/gara, etc

1 hour ago, VentiGlondi said:

1. Reuse the expanding aura for a new mechanic that rewards Valkyr for going melee. Valkyr would start with a small aura that would expand with each kill until it reaches certain cap affected by ability range. Each enemy within the aura's radius gives Valkyr a stacking buff - more damage, more crits, who knows? Or maybe the aura causes enemies to freeze in fear and drop their weapon? Or maybe both!?

I think that would make Hysteria more interesting than something that Limbo can do at no energy cost.

OR remove the LOS check ring. her numbers are solid and it looks ugly.


Additional notes for valkyr: with current way to bug back to old melee swap (tapping swap keybind while spamming attacks) you can glide while doing the jump spin, please that should be kept for later. Also when will 1s pull strengths be reversed. Enemies should be pulled around 1/3rd of the range and then slide on the floor while you should be slung to the point you aim, not you losing all momentum 1/3rd of the range in while enemies get launched 3 rooms behind you/across half of orb vallis behind you.

[Critiamat]

Legend says that someone has ever died from Hysteria's self damage.

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

I think Valkyr's Sprint Speed should ramp up as the energy drain increases.

[peterc3]

4 hours ago, VentiGlondi said:

• Hysteria allows you to heal while you're unable to take damage, and then damages you when you've finished using it.
• Hysteria is a melee ability that punishes you for sticking close to the enemy.

It's almost as if it rewards you for making sure nothing stays in melee long enough to have that be a problem.

[Andele3025]

11 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

It's almost as if it rewards you for making sure nothing stays in melee long enough to have that be a problem.

Almost as if it punishes you for fighting everything in melee as a berserker should by having a 6x drain for doing so instead of making drain scale with damage stored with then rewarding you with removing it by acting on further aggression.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Andele3025

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

5 hours ago, VentiGlondi said:

Hysteria is one of the weirdest abilities in the game. While certainly not useless, the design behind this ability does not make sense, and seems to work against itself.

Let's take a look at how it works:

• You become invulnerable
• While invulnerable you can heal yourself by attacking enemies
• The damage you take while invulnerable is stored and a percentage is dealt to you if there are enemies in your vicinity when Hysteria is turned off

This is makes no sense for two reasons:

• Hysteria allows you to heal while you're unable to take damage, and then damages you when you've finished using it.
• Hysteria is a melee ability that punishes you for sticking close to the enemy.

I don't exactly know what the thought process behind this design was, but given the devs' stance on invulnerability it just seems like they were trying to justify it by throwing some random downsides in.

This combined with the fact that the combo set is quite clumsy makes Hysteria less of a blood-fueled rampage and more of a utility tool that most Valkyr players seem to only use to revive people safely, while sticking to their regular melee weapons to do the actual killing.

The idea behind hysteria is to use it in bursts.  You eventually take enough damage to where your life is in danger and then you pop hysteria as a last ditch effort to live.  You kill to refill your health and then you leave hysteria.  The AoE exists/fits for two reasons.  Mechanically it's there so you can't just spam invincibility with little worry.  The second is that thematically it's sort of inline with the berzerker mentality.

The problem is the execution of said mechanics are dated.  We have so many ways to heal these days.  And melee weapons themselves are insanely strong.  The only thing hysteria currently offers is invulnerability.  And even that isn't much of a boon these days.

5 hours ago, VentiGlondi said:

 

Now, this wouldn't be a feedback thread without some proposed changes, so here's what I came up with: 

1. Take a look at the stance. Some, if not all of the combos don't let you turn while attacking. I don't even remember any other combo stances that do that. Enemies can literally avoid you by sidestepping.
2. Invincibility is reduntant - Valkyr has an armor-boosting buff and life leech. In fact invincibility appears to get in the way of Hysteria doing anything more interesting, as devs see it as some ultimate ability that only warrants nerfing its energy efficiency. Just replace it with damage reduction, roll back the energy efficiency nerf back into a constant drain, and get rid of the weird take-damage-if-anyone-is-looking-at-you mechanic. Keep the CC and status effect immunities though.
3. Reuse the expanding aura for a new mechanic that rewards Valkyr for going melee. Valkyr would start with a small aura that would expand with each kill until it reaches certain cap affected by ability range. Each enemy within the aura's radius gives Valkyr a stacking buff - more damage, more crits, who knows? Or maybe the aura causes enemies to freeze in fear and drop their weapon? Or maybe both!?

I think that would make Hysteria more interesting than something that Limbo can do at no energy cost.

Your first point is basically fixed by turning off melee lock on (or whatever it's called) and allowing yourself to direct your own melee swings.  It's more noticeable on Valkyr because her claws have little AoE where as most melee weapons have some.  The real issue with her combos (outside of no reason to use them over her slide attack) is that some will lock you into the air if you have enough attack speed going.

Armor has deminishing returns so yeah you'd need to give damage reduction instead.  If they're to roll back the energy ramp up change (which for the record i'm against) the circle would need to stay.  But instead of it being based on damage you do and the size of the aoe based on range it should be based on time spent in her 4.  The longer you're in it the more damage you'd suffer and the bigger the ring would get.  This gives her inherent risk for using it for prolonged periods.  Then we would need to add a way to let someone play risk/reward with it.  The healing is all fine and good but it wouldn't be enough.  I'd suggest some how incorperating either finishers or her combos (or even both) as incentives to reduce the ring/damage she'd potentially take.

[Traumtulpe]

5 hours ago, VentiGlondi said:

This is makes no sense for two reasons:

• Hysteria allows you to heal while you're unable to take damage, and then damages you when you've finished using it.
• Hysteria is a melee ability that punishes you for sticking close to the enemy.

You can use it to heal, then deactivate when close enemies are dead. The damage on deactivation is completely irrelevant unless you build her weird.

Otherwise I agree with your post, however I believe Valkyr needs a complete rework.

23 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Your first point is basically fixed by turning off melee lock on (or whatever it's called) and allowing yourself to direct your own melee swings.

Pretty sure you are wrong, I don't have anything like that active and don't get locked into a direction with other melee weapons the way Hysteria sometimes accidentally does. Accidentally because the attack speed is so ridiculous that combos just happen.

[VentiGlondi]

51 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Your first point is basically fixed by turning off melee lock on (or whatever it's called) and allowing yourself to direct your own melee swings.  It's more noticeable on Valkyr because her claws have little AoE where as most melee weapons have some.  The real issue with her combos (outside of no reason to use them over her slide attack) is that some will lock you into the air if you have enough attack speed going.

I never used melee lock on. Hysteria's combos would always lock me into the direction I started the combo with and wouldn't let me turn until I interrupted the combo.

I don't recall any of the other stances doing that, aside from dual swords charge attack.

2 hours ago, peterc3 said:

It's almost as if it rewards you for making sure nothing stays in melee long enough to have that be a problem.

Lack of punishment is not a reward.

Edited March 14, 2019 by VentiGlondi

[Andele3025]

47 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

The idea behind hysteria is to use it in bursts.  You eventually take enough damage to where your life is in danger and then you pop hysteria as a last ditch effort to live.  You kill to refill your health and then you leave hysteria.  The AoE exists/fits for two reasons.  Mechanically it's there so you can't just spam invincibility with little worry.  The second is that thematically it's sort of inline with the berzerker mentality.

Except thats not true/propter hoc ergo post hoc. Simple because players took a badly designed downside attachment mechanic to its only functional usage doesnt mean it was its design origin. Valkyr is a berserker, the drug of sweet anger and vengence driving her to ignore pain. Only instead of it being balanced on the wounds being too much sapphing her strength (damage stored being the source of increased energy drain) thus encouraging kills, it currently just encourages cowardice.

And it especially isnt useful once you are low because its invul doesnt activate on press but after the scream animation finishes.

47 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

The real issue with her combos (outside of no reason to use them over her slide attack)

Her charge attack combo would be amazing if it wasnt a bloody charge attack combo (charge and pause combos having no place in warframe unless DE get a timing offset and proper key priority que system in place).

47 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

But instead of it being based on damage you do and the size of the aoe based on range it should be based on time spent in her 4.

Ring and energy drain already are only based on time spent in 4, sure you can decrease it with kills, but that doesnt matter since its 6x drain and growth.
.

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

6 hours ago, VentiGlondi said:

Take a look at the stance.

DE are taking a look at the Stance. Melee 3.0 has already previewed a new combo system with a movement, stationary and gap-closing variants for all stances and have confirmed that it's going to be similarly adjusted for the Ability Melee weapons.

There's some disruption to Valkyr now, but with the changes coming... Ability Melee is shaping up to be even better than it ever was.

 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

2 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

 

Pretty sure you are wrong, I don't have anything like that active and don't get locked into a direction with other melee weapons the way Hysteria sometimes accidentally does. Accidentally because the attack speed is so ridiculous that combos just happen.

Odd.  I stopped having the issue OP is describing once I changed some settings with melee.  Though admittingly I haven't played much valkyr in several months.  So I could be misremembering.

1 hour ago, VentiGlondi said:

I never used melee lock on. Hysteria's combos would always lock me into the direction I started the combo with and wouldn't let me turn until I interrupted the combo.

I don't recall any of the other stances doing that, aside from dual swords charge attack.

 

See the reply I gave someone above in this string of quotes.

1 hour ago, Andele3025 said:

Except thats not true/propter hoc ergo post hoc. Simple because players took a badly designed downside attachment mechanic to its only functional usage doesnt mean it was its design origin. Valkyr is a berserker, the drug of sweet anger and vengence driving her to ignore pain. Only instead of it being balanced on the wounds being too much sapphing her strength (damage stored being the source of increased energy drain) thus encouraging kills, it currently just encourages cowardice.

And it especially isnt useful once you are low because its invul doesnt activate on press but after the scream animation finishes.

Her charge attack combo would be amazing if it wasnt a bloody charge attack combo (charge and pause combos having no place in warframe unless DE get a timing offset and proper key priority que system in place).

Ring and energy drain already are only based on time spent in 4, sure you can decrease it with kills, but that doesnt matter since its 6x drain and growth.
.

 

Your first segment confuses me.  Can you try to reword it?  IIRC the ring's size is based on your modded range.

[Thulcandra]

 

[Andele3025]

5 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Your first segment confuses me.  Can you try to reword it?  IIRC the ring's size is based on your modded range.

Nope, LOS check ring is flat/static range of 5m increasing over time to 20m and gets reduced by kills. Not that it matters because you cant get enough spawns to kill unless hall camping to make it go down after it gets to full ramp up.

Essentially hysteria has no downsides if you play it like a coward to stop fighting, run off or bullet jump into some corner where no enemies are nearby/they cant see you to toggle it on and off, but thats not fun gameplay/disruptive to her gameloop while punishing people that stick to the berserker playstyle.

[ScytodiDaedalus]

11 minutes ago, Andele3025 said:

Essentially hysteria has no downsides if you play it like a coward to stop fighting

Or you kill everyone around and deactivate Hysteria when the job is finished, arguably a more satisfying solution.

Generally speaking about this thread, the lifesteal is there to just get you back at max if you ever lost any hp granted her EHP pool and shred anything you wish with it.
Possibly the most limiting feature on the ability is the energy drain... the damage can be dealt with and even taking it might not hurt her too much unless you are on much higher levels.

Also I don't understand how Ripline is just so simply overlooked, her worst ability with the most useless offensive capabilities that screams "Really old design" all over the place

[birdobash]

37 minutes ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

Or you kill everyone around and deactivate Hysteria when the job is finished, arguably a more satisfying solution.

Except you can't, because valkyrs claws have shıt range and she has no mobility and the wrong type of CC for melee type gameplay. Enemies will almost always trickle into that 20m radius (unless you're playing with your squad), and due to how valkyr works inside hysteria its physically impossible to be able to clear the circle all at once to guarantee a safe deactivation.

The only SAFE way you can deactivate this ability is if you're in something like defense and the wave just ended, or you go into a secluded corner with minimum LOS to minimize the risk of an enemy being in your LOS.

Edited March 15, 2019 by birdobash

[BlachWolf]

18 hours ago, birdobash said:

I actually think this is quite a good idea, as you said, invincibility is kind of redundant on a frame that has so much armor AND can boost that armor even further with warcry. I think giving her 4 the Nezha warding halo treatment where it goes from invincibility to damage reduction could actually be more useful than straight up invincibility, since you'll be able to trigger arcanes and it'll open up the possibility for rage or hunter adrenaline.

Same, something like 90% dmg reduction while in hysteria would be a much better implementation,it would allow her to proc some arcanes like guardian and avenger.

[VentiGlondi]

16 hours ago, Critiamat said:

Legend says that someone has ever died from Hysteria's self damage. 

Get your funny memes out of here. It doesn't matter if it's enough to kill you, it still put you at a disadvantage compared to having full HP.

The real point here is: Why does a healing ability deal damage to me after I'm done healing?

It's not the case of "Attack to keep yourself alive" because you're unable to take damage while you're healing, and it's not the case of "Here's invulnerability so that you can safely heal yourself to full HP" because it takes a chunk away at the end. And if it's not supposed to be any of those, then why have even put heal on an ability that makes you invulnerable?

It's bizarre.

[Andele3025]

8 hours ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

Or you kill everyone around and deactivate Hysteria when the job is finished, arguably a more satisfying solution.

That is on a room by room basis. I however am talking about total game loop for essentially every mission type other than capture/assassination (as in mission types that arent literally just one room to kill and get out as fast as possible). A berserker that must re-rage every other room just because the drain mechanic is retarded and punishes the correct gameloop is not a berserker at all. Its as dumb as if a D&D barbarians rage didnt keep going if they get hit, but instead caused the barbarian to take a point of exhaustion unless they drop the rage, as in making its real mechanic entirely pointless.

8 hours ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

Also I don't understand how Ripline is just so simply overlooked, her worst ability with the most useless offensive capabilities that screams "Really old design" all over the place

Ripline only has issues with its pull strengths being opposite of what they should be. If it gave her full pull momentum instead of pulling for 1/3rd the distance and then dropping all momentum like it does on enemies and only pulled enemies a bit then let them slide down on the floor like it does if you pull from up really close and the way she pulls herself, there would be no issue with it (its augment tho is dogS#&$).

4 hours ago, BlachWolf said:

Same, something like 90% dmg reduction while in hysteria would be a much better implementation,it would allow her to proc some arcanes like guardian and avenger.

Arcanes and even adaptation proc on her while in hysteria because technically/the way her invul works, she did "take the damage"/the hit was recognized as being a hit on the frame but at 0 damage since she is invul same way how our regular weapons deal 0 damage to eidolons but still proc their own on hit effects/can get buffs. Only effects that require actual hp decrease instead of hit confirmation (so pretty much just rage and HA) dont work.