Wisp Review/Early feedback

[Teridax68]

I can't really comment on the details, as that's likely something that will come with her release, but I have to agree that her 4 especially doesn't seem to relate at all to her theme, or the rest of her abilities. I also don't particularly like her 1, and I feel that pretty much every single frame design since Nidus has relied on abilities that work better when not moving too far, which itself goes against Warframe's core element of movement and parkour.

[LuckyCharm]

Hey ya'll. 

I know she hasn't come out yet so it may be a little early to say this just based on what little gameplay we've seen but I have an issue with the current 1 and 3 abilities for wisp

1) the cycle and place system is slow and rather irritating to use, I frequently screw up with it on both vauban and ivara, and the hold vs press time can lead to easy mistakes. Usually this means I'm firing cloak arrows at the enemy instead of sleeping them, or throwing trip wires instead of bounce pads.The fact you have stationary pillars dropped and there's a cooldown on each just means theres all the higher chance im gonna screw up with them. 

3) Is completely reliant on wisp's 1 ability which means that unless you're running off and dropping these buffs away from your team to stick them in choke points you're just going to do the explosion pretty much right where you're standing at the time assuming your buffs are all placed right next to you. 

 

It may be an unpopular opinion, but If it were me i'd maybe combine a couple of the buffs (maybe heals and speed) into a single bigger buff, and allow the hold function to be the Explosion. This means that there's a whole ability slot spare and we can get rid of the cycle system which will allow for quicker gameplay, Having a spare ability spot would allow for either another utility skill like a black hole to suck enemies in before you go all supernova with your sun, or make the enemy see apparitions and shoot wildly in all directions. Really anything could be put here and it'd benefit more than a couple extra buffs from the lil pots. 

At least that's my opinion anyway. I really do think these 2 abilities need to be combined though for ease of use, and the ability to open her up to add another beneficial skill to her list 

[Niceman.]

Yeah i expected more from her abilities, i agree.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I think it’s time to let go the idea of her being a purely ghost frame. 

[(PSN)Silenceform]

Passive :
Invisible while in the air. Great passive, it fits perfectly with the character.

Reservoir :
Six reservoirs is way too much to handle, having to select each empty reservoir and place a specific buff on it will take too much time to setup, it's good for defense missions though but not so much for the other ones. Three Reservoirs should be good enough if you can place all 3 buffs on them.
The three buffs you can choose from are movement speed, health regen, and electricity proc when moving near a enemy. The health regen buff is great, the movement speed could be better and the CC one can be good depending on the range of the ability. I would just add to the movement speed buff the ability to go through enemies in order to facilitate a quick escape if they are blocking your escape route.

Light :
A good lure ability. It would be great if during that time when the enemies are looking at the lure they can take back-finisher attacks.

Harness :
If Wisp can't recall all her reservoirs at once to her location when she is far away from them then this ability is going to be difficult to play with if you are always on the move.

Sun portal :
This ability doesn't fit at all with the rest of Wisp abilities that are pretty much about buffing and stealth plus it's not original enough; what i mean is Sun Portal is a cheap variant from Revenant Danse Macabre (aoe spell and damage adapting to the enemy type), and because Sun Portal is Heat damage based, it will be just another " fun " ability to use for low level enemies if you leave it like this.

I'm not against a big damage ability as her last ability but please rework this ability to be more in line with the theme of the rest of her abilities; what i mean by this is assuming you choose to play stealthy for a while and then all of the sudden teleporting the sun to kill everything in range doesn't make any sense to me.

What i propose is that Wisp can teleport her foes into her dimension so nightmarish creatures can kill them and then they are teleported back to our world; she create a big circular portal under her foes then they fall inside her dimension a kin to Hydroid Undertow ability but you can see the inside of the dimension and see the horror from above. Enemies teleported into her dimension become suspended in a knockdown state, have reduced armor and take physical damage over time that increase the longer they stay inside it, shooting with weapons and abilities inside the realm damage them but with less effectiveness. The ability cost energy when casted then drains energy over time and increase the more the enemies stay inside. Enemies are throwed outside of her dimension when they die or when Wisp disactivate the ability or if she run out of energy.

 

[SenorClipClop]

Does complete feedback mean you've played the frame? How does her gameplay feel?

[SenorClipClop]

Maybe let's play the frame before we call stuff good and bad. Typically a review comes after experiencing the thing you're reviewing.

[(PSN)Silenceform]

il y a 32 minutes, SenorClipClop a dit :

Does complete feedback mean you've played the frame?

No it means i've seen all of them in use in the devstream #126 and i've seen topics in the forums giving feedback but not for every abilities at once.

I have changed the title for better clarity.

Edited April 7, 2019 by (PS4)Silenceform

[EchoesOfRain]

I'm a bit upset to see all the hate and disappointment towards Wisp, I love her design and think she has some really cool potential. She just needs some tweaks and adjustments here and there to fix some issues.

 

Reservoir: Allow Reservoirs to be placed at a distance, and make the skill a 1-hand cast. Allow the buffs to be picked up with Vacuum. A big concern with this skill is that it's slow, stationary, small, and just won't be useful in missions that require a lot of movement. The idea is to add less mission-halting just to pick up a small buff. It can be cast on the move, and players would pick it up as they pass by it with no extra thought required.

Another change I would like to see, but don't expect to come to fruition, is to change either the electricity or the movement speed buff and turn it into an energy regen buff. Wisp looks like she'll be pretty heavy on the power usage, placing reservoirs everywhere, trying to stay invisible with Light, and killing things with Sol. I really don't want to feel pressured into use Fleeting Expertise and ruining the duration on her Reservoir buffs and Light, some light energy regeneration would allow for some more diverse builds.

 

Light: I think this ability is perfectly fine as it is, as it seems most other people do as well. It aggros enemies, blinds, and gives some quick invincibility. A solid ability.

 

Harness: Turn this into a duration based skill. On cast, Wisp emanates a wave of energy around her and any placed Reservoirs. While the duration is active, placing a new Reservoir will create a wave of energy around only that Reservoir as it spawns. Wisp can recast Harness at any time to create multiple shockwaves and refresh the duration of Harness. This would keep Harness as it is, a wave of energy around every Reservoir (and even Wisp now), but it would also allow Reservoirs to be used offensively just by placing them (which, with my suggestion, would be much easier and less restricted). It would actually be useful in missions that require a lot of moving around.

I really don't know if there are any other planned effects for Harness, such as CC, how much damage it deals, if there's any special effects based on the Reservoir type, etcetera, so I'm just going to leave my suggestion as is until we know more.

 

Sol: I think the biggest issue people have with Sol is an aesthetic one. I have to slightly agree on this one, but it's for her other abilities as well. She's a portal mage, but there are zero signs of any actual portals. Reservoirs appear from nowhere, like any other Warframe ability. Light causes her to just blink to its location. Sol is just a big fire laser beam. I'm not asking for anything major, I just want her skills to actually have some sort of visual portal appearing to indicate that she's a portal mage.If any player had no idea what her theme was intended to be when playing her, nobody would guess portals. 

 

I think Wisp has some really cool potential with her kit, but I do think some things need to be changed up a bit for better ease of use. I hope DE doesn't do anything too major to her and run the risk of something worse and rushed. Just moving and changing a few things around can make her kit much more solid.

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

On 2019-04-05 at 3:39 PM, Gabbynaru said:

Oh great, another frame that will get ruined before it launches because people who've not played it complained, just like Garuda. Sigh...

How was Garuda ruined? Garuda is an incredibly well designed Warframe.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Actually, people’s biggest issue with Sol is the fact that it’s just another movement restricting, big damage attack like Danse Macabre and Garudas 4 when she was first shown off.

Everyone agrees that the visuals of it are great but the gameplay of it leaves a lot to be desired.

[Borg1611]

I absolutely hate cycling abilities and avoid playing the existing frames that have them, so I definitely support getting rid of cycling. Her 3 also sounds kind of lackluster, so combining it with her 1 would be fine. Currently Wisp's buff systems sounds worse than Titania's tribute, which even after the changes is still one of the worst buff designs they've ever come up with. Are the three different buffs really worth the effort of managing both by the Wisp and her allies? 

I think it will particularly be flawed when in a map where you constantly move. If you're on a capture or exterminate mission etc it may be worth your time to occasionally drop a buff and pick it up on the go if you can cast them fast, but you'll never use her 3 in that kind of mission unless it has an exceptionally fast base cast speed for both her 1 and 3 (which infrequently ever happens as their tendency is towards obnoxiously slow base casts to try to give natural talent some semblance of a purpose). Cycling abilities also are clumsy and slower to use regardless of the actual cast time of the ability. 

If they won't remove the cycling, I think they need to add better control options for all frames with cycling abilities. Let players just bind each ability to a separate key. They can be unbound by default and console players can continue to just use cycling if they don't have enough keys, but give the rest of us a less clunky option. Another option would be to allow us to bind two separate keys, one to cycle and one to activate so you don't have to deal with tap vs. hold. Two keys is still somewhat clunky since you have to press cycle multiple times to get to the ability you want, but it'd be an improvement.  

Another alternative to cycling would be to change her 1 to a paging function. You press 1 and it changes your 2, 3 and 4 abilities into the 3 reservoirs. You press 1 while 2/3/4 are reservoirs and they transform back into her other abilities. This wouldn't work for other frames that have 4 cycled abilities, but it would work on Wisp since she only has 3. The paging would be instant and cost nothing. It would just be another way of accessing her 6 abilities. Using that control scheme would also potentially let you do a hold 1 to do her AoE and let you change her 3 to something else if they wanted. Having a hold function could lead to accidental paging, but it's less annoying to deal with than accidental cycling since there'd be only 2 sets of abilities. 

TLDR: I like the idea and also hate cycled abilities. If they don't like, that I offered some additional suggestions to get rid of, or provide an alternative to cycling. 

[ES3M]

Sol should be moved to Ember. I want it regardless of who it's on but Ember could use some love, maybe keep Room on Fire and combine into her 3. Sol needs to be in the game.

Harness should replace Vauban's Bounce grenades as part of an idea for his rework. Instead of the shock wave, Harness should spawn little fire sprites (wisps) that dash into nearby enemies, igniting them for the fire stun and knocking them down if they're already en fuego. More of them spawn for every reservoir either at Wisp herself or on the reservoirs to defend them

Love light. That's all there is to it. I do want an augment down the line that turns it into a Dishonored style blink that works instantly and has a preview, sounds fun.

Your Reservoir I wholeheartedly agree with adding maybe letting her cast it on teammates to instantly give the buff with maybe a reservoir left behind OR scaling the pick up distance with range and having an energy ring to show that. A visual change I would make is to have them float behind your sentinel/pet/warframe in a smooth floating line.

 

DE if you think Wisp is good as she is go ahead, just don't half ass the feel in exchange for theme, I beg you.

[AndouRaiton]

7 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

I think it’s time to let go the idea of her being a purely ghost frame. 

True. They did mention on stream that she was suppose to use portals to her own "wispy" dimension. However, none of her other abilities, except maybe reservoir hint at her using portals. That's why i went with trying to make her more ghost/wisp like instead of a portal manipulator.

7 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Maybe let's play the frame before we call stuff good and bad. Typically a review comes after experiencing the thing you're reviewing.

I agree that first hand experience with a frame is important. However, early feedback on what is shown is more important, especially when in the middle of development as it gives them more time to work and change things for the better, instead of waiting for after release and everyone calling the frame out for all the bad things about it.

Take for example Garuda. Her initial 4th, which was shown on stream, had her floating with blades spinning around her dealing damage; the community said they didn't like it as it wasn't interactive and lo and behold, they changed it to what it is now; an overkill slash proccing monster that is interactive and rewarding to use.

But i will reflect by changing the title to include early feedback.

On a side note, in regards to playing the frame; we saw on stream the Reb NEVER used her 3rd ability in actual combat; which is a dead give away that it needs to change as it is useless as is.

[Flandre_Scarlet_]

On 2019-04-06 at 7:04 PM, Maka.Bones said:

Well I'm out. Someone removed my thread and added my comments onto here. 

 That's really annoying. 

Seriously dude, stop double- and triple posting. Quit the spam.

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, AndouRaiton said:

True. They did mention on stream that she was suppose to use portals to her own "wispy" dimension. However, none of her other abilities, except maybe reservoir hint at her using portals. That's why i went with trying to make her more ghost/wisp like instead of a portal manipulator.

I can agree with this, and I also think one of the main problems is that, for a portal mage, only one ability really seems to use portals (and even then, it's a pretty loud weapon, rather than something subtler that'd encourage, I don't know, thinking with portals or the like). However, on top of this, I feel the whole idea of a mage frame who opens portals to another dimension is already taken up by Limbo, who opens rifts to his own dimension. There's likely room for an entirely different mage who really bends space with portals, but then again, that's not really what Wisp is right now. As such, no matter which way one slices it, there is already an identity crisis within her kit, just like when Khora went from being the Damage 2.5 frame to some confused BDSM metal circus spider cat lady, or when Revenant took a sharp turn from being a vampire frame to being an Eidolon frame. One can't deny that many players were expecting a ghost frame with Wisp, and while some of that is present in her passive and 2, so much of her kit as we've seen just doesn't seem to fit her.

[LuckyCharm]

Like the ideas ^_^ havimg the option to bind the seperate functions would be a decent option, id probably bind the switching to the bracket keys or something so i could go back and forth then have my main skill button be the cast.  Only issue with this particular skill seems to be the inability to cast multiple of the same buff meaning youd aleays have to swap compared to say... Sleep arrow

[F8ted]

Too bad it's kind of hard to read the context of everyone's suggested changes here. Some had good ideas, and the discussion thereof did get ruined. So instead I guess I will switch to commenting on the general concept of Wisp and how I will plan on using the kit if implemented as stated. 

5 hours ago, (PS4)LoisGordils said:

How was Garuda ruined? Garuda is an incredibly well designed Warframe.

Of the few recently she is my favorite. Relatively straightforward kit. 1 does shield, 2 does heal, 3 restores energy, 4 deals moderate AoE damage and buffs further damage. Each is clear, synergize rather than rely upon each other, and scales further than base mods. If any complaints it's she has sort of a static survivability because she is designed to be at 2hp the whole time, which there is only so much quick thinking+armor can do given shields are as useful as they have ever been. Had something with similar thematic and functional abilities been presented with wisp, I and quite a few people here would not have felt much a need to offer actual (not power based) creative suggestion. Garuda is a perfect example of someone with 0 translation between name and function, but in the end her kit makes her a blood/vampire frame. Exploding blood heart, blood totem, blood energy, and blood draining darts all point to one theme.

With Wisp, there must have been an accident, or something they intended to implement must have been to difficult. More like Khora who is nowhere near what she was proposed to be about a year after her introduction. She hinged entirely upon "Damage 3.0".... Something that never occurred. The only artifact of this intent is the swap between attack/defense/heal stances on Venari changing her spikes. Like the Histarix(which she was released with) she was to be designed to swap between the 3 physical damage types. Problem? Only one of them has mattered at all since damage 2.0. Proposed changes were universally reviled by players. Naturally, because the biggest change would have simply reduced the effectiveness of slash without improving the choice of impact or puncture in any meaningful way. To "fix" this, they removed the concept from Khora entirely, giving us what we see today: a swap between generic healing, defense, and attack whereby at least 2 of the 3 are functional. Math says it was a better choice, however, it made a character with 3 nearly identical abilities, and then 3 abilities in one. From a design perspective it is about as much a jumbled mess as a kit can be. Does she have a place where she vastly excels? Sorta, arbitrations let her sacrifice Venari and stay alive, one of the few frames capable. In general even her best is done better by many already in game. I love her because I get 2 cats. Period. Sometimes I do nothing but send my 5 Forma Venari to kill hordes of people with my 6 forma Smeeta. 

I will, and I'm sure plenty of people are going to play Wisp. I even made my own suggestions to a kit that utilizes in game assets to build more of a theme, remove mechanics universally reviled, and ensure her a place in any group from spy to arbitration survival. Especially at this point in development I could not be sure if it is possible for them to make alterations before her release. Though I fear afterwards it will not be revisited for years. Still I will play wisp for one ability, and one ability only so far: her passive. The only unique aspect of this frame could allow for some sort of stealth strategy of sneaking through the air upon enemies, and utilizing melee finishers to boost on ground stealth. Unless totem buffs last about 1 minute unmodded, I will never drop them. 2 will alert enemies for all of 3ish seconds so even when it could be decoy, its useless doubly so for stealth. Her 3 will require me to do something I already have resolved not to use. Her 4, based on being a high damage channelled nuke will require Strength, Range, Duration, Efficiency, Growing Power, Energy Conversion. Considering that none of her other abilities will be meaningfully boosted the same way, by eschewing the idea of nuking, I will be able to free up her modspace vastly. Again kind of like Garuda, who's abilities basically do what they need without modding. I will be able to mod say Lightning Dash, Aviator, Rolling Guard and be able to stay invisible/invulnerable for a fair amount of time without spending energy, while stunning rooms full of enemies. Can't shoot in ult, but nothing keeps me from raining death ad nauseum upon enemies with simply her passive. I'll enjoy it, for sure, but it could be better. 

 

[(PSN)DARK_WIZARD999]

In my opinion, she's junk. Everything you're doing, all those buffs are useless because everyone will have killed everything in the room long before your little setup is finished. Your big Sunbeam is junk, because the guns you have will out-power it and kill more faster. Which means the same for the rest of the team. If you're lucky, you'll be another "long defense/survival" frame, or just relieved to be fashion candy. 

At least her animation will replace tetania one, because it actually floats while moving. Can't believe that took this long. 

 

[Otaiken]

Wisp's design is really weird. Her abilities actually work against each other in some cases.

1) First of all, this is never going to get used outside of defense objective missions unless the buffs are MAJOR in which case it will become an annoying upkeep ability (yay!). Secondly, you generally place stationary buffs in obvious places close to the objective where your teammates can easily get them. But the secondary damage function encourages you to place those buffs in chokepoints away from the objective. Having teammates run into groups of enemies to get their buff is a pretty unique take on support play.

2) Oh boy... here we go. It's an awful decoy ability. It's too fast. It's a horrible cc ability, it's too slow. You make it faster and it will be worse decoy, you make it slower and it will be worse CC. The design is at odds with itself. And that is only the first part. You need to teleport into enemies to CC them... why? Is Wisp a tank? She has no close range or melee abilities whatsoever. Even Inaros doesn't teleport into enemies for his blind and that guy heals on finishers. But here comes the best part: almost every other frame in the game has radial CC/damage ability. Wisp is very much an exception in that her major nuke is a beam. So if you want to CC enemies before you lazor them you have to walk back to line them up again after you teleported into them. What a bloody mess of a design her 2nd ability is, holy S#&$.

3) As others have said. Does it work without her 1? Her 1st ability is already a waste outside of stationary objective missions. If her 3 requries those static buffs then she has lost two abilities for the price of one outside of any defence objective missions. Many frames have useless abilities but damn this is just depressing.

4) Not much to say. It feels really out of place in her kit and with her theme. Other than that I think it's pretty cool but has no synergy with her kit whatsoever.

 

I like the passive and visual design though. Other than that Wisp is imho one of the worst designed frames in recent memory based on this preview. Things might change of course.

[Foxbat40]

Wisp should not cast totems with her #1 ability. Stationary skills are not very useful in warframe because it is a very mobile game.

Instead she should cast wisps that orbit around either herself or a targeted player. The buff should then radiate from that person as normal. When her #3 is cast it should radiate from that person with the wisp or wisps orbiting them.

This would be both more useful and match with her theme better.

You could even use a modified version of one of Mesa's Shooting gallery as the graphic. Just make it more wispy.

Please discuss.

[Heatnix.]

I liked the design and I was hyped for her, but the toolkit... Is really underwhelming and has no sense or reason. I would add more but there's 27 pages of this, everything has been said. I just wish DE would stop, take a deep breath and get some new people with creative ideas in there. Whoever is working on frames right now is/are completely burnt out.

[F8ted]

18 minutes ago, LocoWithGun said:

Wisp's design is really weird. Her abilities actually work against each other in some cases.

--Snip--

I like the passive and visual design though. Other than that Wisp is imho one of the worst designed frames in recent memory based on this preview. Things might change of course.

I agree with your assertions. I feel it's such a shame that most abilities are visually appealing on their own, but have very little consideration to their use. Even on their own, each would have to be best in class to be considered. As a whole there will be very little reason to focus on more than 1 ability in builds at a time, except if for some unusual reason her 3 vastly outpaces her 4 in effectiveness. To me, she seems really easy to build for: there are plenty of mods that go unused because they add very little to a warframe's kit. Without a kit to worry about, these mods may become more appealing, especially due to the imbalance of relatively permanent stealth which she is blessed with. Granted it leaves a lot to be desired when theory-crafting brings the best case scenario abusing a passive that is leagues above most relatively useless passives in the game.

I do similar with Wukong. It takes a warframe mod + powerstrength etc to use primal fury effectively. One could simply bring a melee weapon with blood rush/maiming strike and outpace the energy guzzling ultimate immediately, and from there exponentially. His passive boosts all combo meters, not limiting it to the now defunct exalted weapon. Defy is basically a joke in how it interacts with mods. Sure you can go the duration route, but as long as you have rage/hunter's adrenaline, a staple for most builds, it is basically free. For about 5 "deaths" you will restore more energy than it uses, which can then be cycled. As such, Wukong requires almost no modding to actually be effective, if boring and underused. Granted he's one of the few that can get away with mods like retribution, which would compete with mods to boost the warframes abilities. Since we have so many choices to boost an ability worth it's salt, it is becoming rarer and rarer that one just finds no reason to mod for abilities, and it can be freeing in some way. 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

If you see any abilities here that youd like to take and use on you your own warframe you may! Take all the 75% to all the ideas even if you wish xD, i do not need to be mentioned, nor do i care if i am not mentioned.

 

After doing a quick search for "wisp creature" i found a Wikipedia description of a "will o' the wisp" that made the warframe theyre making make a lot more sense

Especially if you notice the "elemantal spirit" part, explaining the sun's heat shes able to use.

However there are some abilities that i think could be made better and more unique

 

Passive: keep this is lovely 💙

1st ability: health could be useful, stun barely, sprint speed well everyone jumps and slides now so barely useful as well

But with wisp being elemental spirits and all, i think it would be more pleasurable if these buffs where elements instead like the augments (Freeze force for example) allowing players to have this buff multiply their damage into an element but not combine with current elements on their weapons and powers. Just like Hystrix secondary weapon can do. So if your weapon deals 1,000 damage per shot, picking up one of her buffs can cause tou to deal an additional 500 cold damage, or if we want to get more intense corrosive damage. (Lanterns > flowers id say too, just to add to the light description)

2nd ability: i love this! Hopefully it can go through walls, doors, and enemies! Great for reviving players, moving around, and avoiding damage! 

What id really love though, is for us to be able to be the dashing ghost looking creature as it would feel amazing. Really giving off that ghost vibe. Imagine flying around the map as that thing

3rd ability: This ability was rather dull to me, though it probably will deal some decent damage, the satisfaction in using the ability that makes warframes fun to play seems way off.

I think it would be pretty nice if you could go inside an ally and catch a ride! Same with enemies! If you go in an ally you'll be healing them, granting their attacks multishot, and cause their abilities to drain from your energy pool instead. 

But if you go an enemy you will start stealing 2% health per second from the enemy, make it attack his or her allies automatically (so you cant control this unfortunately), and have it follow a small light that you can move around in front of the enemy by holding R2 and moving the camera. Just like how the enemies follow octavias ball thingy

4th ability: this ability is undeniably EPIC! However!!! I would honestly save it for another warframe, an Archangel themed warframe that im sure no 1 would have an issue with DE creating.

For this warframes 4th ability i would try to make it into something simular to this game called skyrim with an enemy known as the wispmother.

Wisp fires small wisp or lights that go out and seek enemies dealing damage. The wisp do not despawn after attacking and will attack their same target until the ability timer ends. Enemies affected by status effects take additional damage. I only would ask of this change because it can look equally as epic, not lock the player in an animation, while fitting a more known description of a wisp/ghost (small light). Its really easy to picture small lights attacking enemies as ghost, souls, or sprits especially with smoke coming off of them

So wisp becomes this light with a lot of support and crowd controlling abilities. This warframe would be amazing i think for players feeling a little lazy too, because you can go into an ally and make them a lot more powerful! And have twice as much fun!

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by (PS4)Ghost--00--

[AndouRaiton]

I already made a forum post with my opinion on her abilities and how to fix them here;