Wukong rework first impressions

[(PSN)chibitonka]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

That`s how I feel about Ash. They changed his bs for the ppl that don`t play/don`t like him and because of this, they made it to where most ppl don`t want to play him because of how slow bs is so I get what ur saying. I just hope DE will look at Ash`s bs again in the future.

de: let's make every frame please everyone.

Playerbase: *not pleased at all*

[(PSN)sonicizanagi]

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)chibitonka said:

actually they replaced jump on excal with exalted blade. jump was totally useless after bullet jumping became a thing.

Yes... I know that, My point was a Warframe's kit and lore are usually what makes a kit. In Wukong's case his lore is recognized world wide (Immortality, Ryu jingu bang, monkey king, etc) which makes it easier to get a grasp for abilities but if not followed it feels like a poor immitation which betrays not only lore. But also the player base that decided to main him.

[(PSN)chibitonka]

34 minutes ago, (PS4)sonicizanagi said:

 

Yes... I know that, My point was a Warframe's kit and lore are usually what makes a kit. In Wukong's case his lore is recognized world wide (Immortality, Ryu jingu bang, monkey king, etc) which makes it easier to get a grasp for abilities but if not followed it feels like a poor immitation which betrays not only lore. But also the player base that decided to main him.

True. Like it's all fleshed out all they have to do is not eff it up lmao.

Thankfully in game there is no lore holding him down so he doesn't have to be held to just a wannabe loki mold with a stick. So there's no real excuse for why they think it's a good idea to give him such lacking care.

Cloud walking as a passive would've been great if done with clone death = cloud spawns where they die. 

Could've just put in cyclable clone abilities in it's slot that way. Get to use up the trait, get clones and we keep Iron Jab. Launch clones for cloud grenades for stealth and platforming :o

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by (PS4)chibitonka

[DeMonkey]

2 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

It better not lock us out of it. Or I will join even my nemesis on these forums in a riot. 

Appreciated.

[(PSN)chibitonka]

2 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Appreciated.

We need to riot if they do Monkey dirty at all lmao. 

[(PSN)chibitonka]

4 hours ago, Atsia said:

But see, the real marker would be Demonkeys opinion

 

*looks at Demonkey* 

What marker though? He has sharpies?! Maybe even the coveted Sharpie collection shaped like Monkey's staff :o

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by (PS4)chibitonka

[Violet_Xe]

Now that i'm done for the moment with my concepts I can clear my head and talk about this. ok. before I go to read everyone's comments I'm going to post what I feel about the rework so far. I'll be suggesting my own concept of wukong, usually i take more time to craft these but I'll take a simple random shot at it.

new passive idea: Monkey King, This wasn't part of the new rework but I find it would help him out. Upon latching onto a wall or jumping off a wall Wukong gains 50% movement speed velocity and 50% movement speed for 3 seconds. This means you can traverse faster if you act like a monkey and swing off walls.

1. hair of the king, In other games this would be an amazing idea. But your lack of work on AI makes specters terrible. the only reason Duality and other specters are used is to avoid being shot yourself. With how short we saw that specters life is, it ain't going to be doing us any favors. There are definitly different ways to make this ability work, but not the way you're envisioning it. 
Take LoL for example, you go invisible and let the clone take damage for you.Do this. This lets you take less damage, gives you survivability and an escape, and also makes enemies waste time attacking nothing. That's a good way to use clones. I say take this idea.

Make Wukong go invincible for 2 seconds and invisible for 5 seconds to make a quick escape. have the clone rush in to attack any nearby enemies, then have the thing explode in their faces of something. 

2. Defy Really? you're going to take away this? While I agree permenant invincibility is a bit much but what you're doing is TERRIBLE. You attract attention to yourself to take damage and redirect it to enemies? ok ok.
   -Bombard fires a rocket at you once you direct attention to yourself, Defy ends before rocket hits you, you blow up and die.
   -Heavy Gunner knocks you down during defy and you can't recast it when it ends, you die.
   -Hair of the King attracts attention as well... wait what!? you're going to half the damage by having enemies focus on a specter rather than you. that counters the entire idea of the ability right?
   -Ok good we have a sort of scaling damage, thats the only positive I an think about this... but it needs you to be shot, not some outside object. And it's a one hit burst? It sounds like a worse version of harrows critical boost mixed with it being a 1 time ability like Mesa's ballistic battery

Alright how about we do this to Defy rather than what you want to do. It gets us a buff, and makes him less than invincible. Defy is a channeled ability that has charges. Upon casting defy, you have 2 stacks of Defy, you can go up to 20 stacks max.
Every time Wu Kong take lethal damage, Defy is activated.
Every time Defy is forcefully activated Wu Kong loses 10% of your max health until finally you die after 10 times.
Every time Defy activates Wu Kong becomes invincible for 3 seconds, goes invisible, and summons another hair of the king.
Every time Defy activates Wu Kong releases a wave of energy that knocks down enemies letting him finisher them to gain a stack back to Defy.
Wu Kong can Activate Defy to consume a stack releasing a wave of energy that knocks down enemies letting him finisher them to gain a stack to Defy.
If Wu Kong runs out of Defy charges, the ability ends.

You gain 10% max health back every 25 seconds and you defy can be used again.
Defy cannot be recast unless the ability is off, Holding defy down disabled defy and you lose all stacks gained.

manage defy correctly, you can't die. it's not permanent invincibility but he can avoid damage. it's not brain dead easy, and it still keeps defy as is. I really dislike the idea of having to direct attention to yourself. After all I believe in the profile lotus said "Wu kong's abilities reflect his stealthy and extremely deadly nature" Nothing screams "stealth" like purposefully getting the attention of all nearby enemies and focusing it onto yourself right? The best way to be stealthy and deadly is finishers, which you yourself didn't seem to have much of an issue doing in that exact profile. 4 finishers. It seemed like you were seaming at us, use abilities to finisher enemies so why not bake that into his kit?

3. Cloud Walker Alright so it's a critical buff the longer you're in it and the speed was increased cool. I like the way the ability is going. How about instead though we make it so X enemies hit increase cloud walker speed, duration, and crit chance/damage. You can disable cloud walker whenever to end it. That seems good right? also make us able to see more in cloud walker, it's a bit obscure.
-Extra thing, make Cloud Walker leave a "hair of the king" at the start of the cast to distract enemies.

4. Primal Fury I admit i'm kinda scared as to the obscurity you're putting behind combos. I don't know if by combos you mean melee combo counter attacking then charge releases a massive hit to consume the counter, or if you mean an actual change to Wu Kong's weapon and how combo animations will work. Either way, not the point atm. Primal Fury will be.... using a Bruuk styled meter why? exactly? we don't need that and we don't like the baruuk meter. Why put a limiter on the exalted weapon that already suffers from impact damage, poor damage, and nothing unique to it. What we should get I think is an exalted weapon that blends abilities for once.

No Baruuk style meter, that's just dumb *atleas to me i'll reread to see if other people agree with me if not then i'm just wrong*
Charge attacks while in Primal Fury force you and all "hair of the king" to leap onto an enemy to hit them all at once.
Rework impact damage, maybe make shattering impact a default property of impact damage or make staggered enemies open to finishers?
Maybe also give us ariel attack, wall attack, and slam attack buffs to make us want to use our trait more?
make some combos to Primal Fury summon in some extra wu kongs to attack the same enemy two to three more times before they vanish.
After Primal Fury ends auto cast a free Defy which spawns a free hair of the king and lets you escape.
Attacks from primal Fury grow after every hit. of course.
Funny thing but maybe make a unique animation for Wukong while he has primal fury on, like he gets on all fours and leaps around? just cosmetic. Also add tail animations.

These are just my ideas, I'll read the rest of the convo now so i can catch up. Wanted to put down my opinion and suggestions first.
 

Edited May 26, 2019 by Violet_Xe

[Xzorn]

...but a cloud would absorb and refract light tripping the laser anyways.

Joke aside, subtle is not something that comes to mind when I think of the monkey king.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Xzorn

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

Why anyone never thought of wukong cloudwalker to be like this image 

Wukong should've surfed the cloud like a K-DRIVE made of cloud, maybe make it moddable with unique mechanics. 

We already have a frame that can go into archwing mode as an ability, why not K-DRIVE? 

[Teridax68]

7 hours ago, (PS4)sonicizanagi said:

You contradict your self by trying to defend the Ai and the clone's thematic tie to the kit, But you are pushing for defy to be nerfed even though it's his core ability and also a strong part of his theme and lore.

Where exactly in Journey to the West is Sun Wukong ever said to heal himself for a portion of his maximum health when he takes lethal damage? Defy isn't "a strong part of his theme and lore", it's just the absolute most boring implementation of durability, which is what is actually thematic to him. It's not even defiant, unlike an actual taunt. Meanwhile, Hair of the King takes direct inspiration from Sun Wukong, and its range alternation and synergy with his 4 means there are in fact interesting elements to it, again as proven by Equinox's Duality. I can agree that Defy is currently Wukong's core ability, but that is precisely why it needs to change, as Wukong's core ability is all power with zero gameplay, and defines him as a boring, largely useless frame who can't die. If you don't believe me, believe all the threads and comments that say the same.

Quote

We'll see where he ends up after the rework, And the reason it was such a knee jerk reaction is because we waited for so long but this is what we're seeing. A bland and uninspired kit that for some reason keeps the most useless ability, No matter how much you tweak or buff cloud walker it breaks the gameplay more than defy does.

... how? Cloud Walker is by far the most unique ability in Wukong's kit, and it's getting buffs too. How exactly are a self-clone or an active taunt "bland and uninspiring", either? Most of what I'm seeing are complaints that Wukong is getting "nerfed" by whichever imagined durability metric, hence the comparison to Nezha's rework and the complaints he got before it launched.

Quote

But yet again people complain about this ability for no reason, yes it could be a passive or just have something else added to it. But trying to out right remove it is like taking exalted blade away from Excalibur, Or taking blessing away from Trinity yes these abilities can be boring but for the people actively playing these frames it's not a big deal.

... how are Exalted Blade or Blessing in any way boring? Exalted Blade is an actual weapon you can swing around, and Blessing makes for amazing clutch-heals. Unlike Defy, both actually do something, they're not just a personal stat bonus. It feels like this complaint is way out of proportion and perspective, and so purely out of attachment for Defy's power more than its actual gameplay: tell me, what exactly is the gameplay behind Defy? What gameplay would remain if you made it a passive?

Edited May 26, 2019 by Teridax68

[(PSN)chibitonka]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)ATreidezz said:

Why anyone never thought of wukong cloudwalker to be like this image 

Wukong should've surfed the cloud like a K-DRIVE made of cloud, maybe make it moddable with unique mechanics. 

We already have a frame that can go into archwing mode as an ability, why not K-DRIVE? 

why limit him to just one cloud and to just surfing though? Sliding on clouds, jumping into them to hide, using them to platform. Using clouds as smokescreen, using the clouds to attack via spiking them with something then kicking them wherever. 

Think like a monkey with godly powers would 😄

[Violet_Xe]

Alright so i've got a new setup after reading everything. First i want to set a few things straight that seems to be common.

People think Wu Kong sucks. However some people say he doesnt. I'm impartial and say he's middle of the road, he deserves to keep his classic defy, but with more restrictions. He can be invincible if he tries a little bit more but of course, mythologiclly, Wukong is a beast who can never die. if possibvle Wu Kong should be among the top tanky warframes, more tha nezha and on par with someone called the "God Killer" who we all know as Inaros. Wu Kong was able to fight over 100,000 heavenly soldiers, is pretty much imortal, defeated several gods plus nezha, so yes he needs to have tank in his name. However I still believe my compromise Defy works.

Next many say that the AI sucks. I agree with you however DE isn't dumb. They do have a decent amount of experience creating unique and complex AI. They're still somewhat dumb but that doesn't mean we can't point to examples that DE has done. Nightwatch, as i'm very familiar with them, have great AI and are challenging to fight. DE can and will create better AI if they've got the time and resources. Another thing I want to point out is something I did, in my post I gave you some semblance of control over your copies and gave you more copies to play with. My basis for this is, the 1 ability should become essential for the kit and I believe if done right "hair of the king" can preform exceptionally well. But ONLY if used right. to start I want to say this, I forgot who posted this but let Wukong create more copies. Hold down 1 and Wukong instead becomes 3 or 4 clones. This grants you more time to avoid taking damage yourself as they focus on your specters more than you. Now... why do i say this is amazing and has potential, well because it's Wu Kong. I have a plan for Defy.

Alright next up we havbe my personal gripe, Wukong should be stealthy. As I said and pointed out in the profile video, Wukongs "abilities reflect his stealthy and deadly nature", a Quote from Lotus Herself. Now i've no idea why DE said that he was stealthy... but ok... I'm starting to see why exactly he gets enemies to focus on him but I'm going to say lets keep him stealthy, but in a very unique way. Stealth doesn't just mean sneak, lets say you stealth around by tricking enemies openly, backstab them, blind them, and can do things other warframes just simply cannot do. Again i'll be mixing this into Defy which will satisfy both parties.

Now then lastly I will address the fact that Wu Kong's ultimate absolutely sucks. yes... yes it does. Not in damage, but the damage type and range. I forget hwo said it, sorry, but the only reason you would use it is for fun. DE, buff the range of this to extend outwards to max 16 meters, range WILL NOT EFFECT THIS. next we talk damage. No not the stats, the damage type itself suffers. I still suggest shattering impact be baked into the impact damage type. it's not as effective as currosive, it goes great vs shields by stats, it strips armor, and is now viable vs all factions. Kinda. this means all three physical damage types can be used.

NOW, lets begin the rework.

Passive: Monkey King, Monkey King, This wasn't part of the new rework but I find it would help him out. Upon latching onto a wall or jumping off a wall Wukong gains 50% movement speed velocity and 50% movement speed for 3 seconds. This means you can traverse faster if you act like a monkey and swing off walls.

-Side note, When Wu Kong presses e to finisher enemies, Wu Kong himself does not actually Finisher them. Instead a holographic copy of Wu Kong appears to do the animation in Wu Kong's place. This means he can walk through a line of enemies frozen by defiance and finisher all of them without needed to swing his melee once. This is NOT his passive, after all Inaros can go into a coffin upon death and also heal off finishers. so.

ABILITIES

Hair of the King
Wu Kong summons a single copy of himself making the original invisible and invincible for 4 seconds. If ability is held down, Your copy creates 2 additional clones. All Wu Kong's are invincible to damage and do not die, but will pass away after 15 seconds.

Defiance
Wu Kong casts Defiance to gain a single charge of Defy. More charges of Defy can be gained by finishing enemies. Wu Kong can consume a charge to emit a pulse of energy that freeze enemies around him within 6 meters for 5 seconds. These enemies are open to finishers, Every time Wu Kong finishers someone, the enemies in Defiance are frozen for 4 more seconds.
IF WU KONG DIES DURING DEFIANCE, the original dies and instead switches positions with one of his Hair of the King copies in exchange for 5 stacks of Defy and becomes invincible for 5 seconds.

Cloud Walker
Wu Kong leaps into the air, invincible, and has a copy take his place. Wu Kong passes through enemies, slowing them, blinding them, and granting himself 30% critical damage. These buffs get larger the more enemies he passes through, however he has a harder time seeing the longer he is in Cloud Walker. For every enemy he passes through he also gets faster. After the effect ends he transforms into one of the enemies affected by Cloud Walker until he bullet jumps again.
-Wu Kong's tail is still visable on the enemy while he is transformed.
AUGMENT- All enemies that are hit with cloud walker trip and fall to the ground, blinded.

Primal Fury
Wu Kong becomes animistic and walks on all fours while he whips out the Rúyì Jīn Gū Bàng, a staff with immense raw power that grows in length with every strike. If Wu Kong slams down onto the ground, he creates an immobile circle shaped barrier that protects him for 5 seconds. Charge attacks with Primal Fury cause all hair of the King's to teleport onto the enemy at once to kill them. Primal Fury gains extra benefits from leap attacks, slam attacks, and wall attacks. Defy is auto cast after primal Fury ends, giving Wu Kong an escape.

There, he's tanky, lore accurate, and can do some semblance of unique damage. I'm not too big a fan of the Cloud Walker I created but that's the best I could come up with. If Wu Kong doesn't manage his hair of the King's then he dies. You can still take health damage and after you die, you become someone else, then keep fighting. Opinions? I would normally make a much larger thread explaining the S D E R of all this but that would be pointless at this stage of the rework.

His stealth comes from Arcane Trickery, Hair of the King, and the ability to "stealth" his way around death. He doesn't actually die because he's never the one who's actually being fired at. "stealth"

Wu Kong "Wu kong's abilities reflect his stealthy and extremely deadly nature"
Devstream 128 "Defy will allow players to make use of small windows of invulnerability while they “taunt” at enemies, followed by a reflection of the damage taken."

ok DE, sure. 🤣

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

1 hour ago, (PS4)chibitonka said:

why limit him to just one cloud and to just surfing though? Sliding on clouds, jumping into them to hide, using them to platform. Using clouds as smokescreen, using the clouds to attack via spiking them with something then kicking them wherever. 

Think like a monkey with godly powers would 😄

Ok, so its basically a booben minelayers/ivara quivers? Not bad

But i certainly hate the switching mechanism between them, its really killing the momentum. 

[Violet_Xe]

1 minute ago, (PS4)ATreidezz said:

Ok, so its basically a booben minelayers/ivara quivers? Not bad

But i certainly hate the switching mechanism between them, its really killing the momentum. 

Actually I found a fix for that. i recently made a vauban rework and mine layer got filled with 7 different mines right? It's extremly difficult to switch and tons of YTs say it feels clunky. so, I want DE to switch that to the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel itself isn't attached to channeling, pressing the scroll wheel is. I've got no clue how you PS4 and other console users would get this, but I do know on PC it is possible.

[(PSN)ATreidezz]

10 minutes ago, Violet_Xe said:

Actually I found a fix for that. i recently made a vauban rework and mine layer got filled with 7 different mines right? It's extremly difficult to switch and tons of YTs say it feels clunky. so, I want DE to switch that to the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel itself isn't attached to channeling, pressing the scroll wheel is. I've got no clue how you PS4 and other console users would get this, but I do know on PC it is possible.

Or maybe DE can make it a passive? Like venari to khora? Cloud to wukong.Imagine the cloud can shapeshift into whatever wukong needs, 

a platform to jump? Imagine a makeup wall where he can wall cling, then jump to the next cloud for another 1.

Using it as a K-DRIVE? awesome

Use it as crowd control or to proc status? A mode where cloud become the extension of wukong's melee, mimicking the movement of the melee? Each hit blind the enemies? Even better 

The key mechanism would be like khora's venari, it's automatic, just tap to switch between cloud modes, but you dont have to hold button to use them again like ivara quiver or booben minelayers. 

Edited May 26, 2019 by (PS4)ATreidezz

[Birdframe_Prime]

20 hours ago, ZoneDymo said:

I like Wukong's current 1st ability but 'Hair of the King" I would like even more.
However, one tiny request for that ability specifically, pls make it a (rather cheap) channeling ability for once.

This rework is getting rid of drain abilities in his kit because, as noted on Nezha's most awesome rework, drain abilities are objectively worse than Duration abilities. People don't like it on Baruuk and use his 2 and 3 instead to keep up his damage reduction.

Do not attempt to give him an ability on his 1 that interrupts energy gain for his later abilities. The whole point of putting it on a duration is that you can cast it and ensure you've got a guaranteed duration of the clone and even if you get a Magnetic proc or an Energy Leech Eximus taking your energy away, you still have the benefits of casting that ability. As a drain, you lose that function as soon as something makes you lose energy, whereas a Duration lets you keep it while you recover.

20 hours ago, ZoneDymo said:

or based purely on health left

This is even worse, because to make this work you would have to scale the clone, instead of making him a copy. Otherwise, due to the lack of comprehensive AI on the clone, he'll get one-shot the second he's summoned at higher level. Well, unless the new Defy genuinely will keep Wukong alive as well as the current Defy does...

Wanting a variety of methods is fine, but the reason they aren't having the variety is because the other choices are bad choices.

[DeMonkey]

3 hours ago, (PS4)chibitonka said:

*looks at Demonkey* 

What marker though? He has sharpies?! Maybe even the coveted Sharpie collection shaped like Monkey's staff 😮

 

Not a real Wukong thread till I comment on it 😛

[Xepthrichros]

3 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

Appreciated.

Hello there.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Alright, I've taken a read through your thread @(PS4)RenovaKunumaru and I've seen all your responses @DeMonkey

But what I haven't seen is somebody try to spin this rework in a positive light. It does seem a lot of doom and gloom, and I'll point at the two most recent frames (Hildryn and Wisp) as examples of why this doesn't have to be the case.

Am I completely happy with those two frames? No, not really. But by far and away they both function better than they have any right to. I was surprised by both, and I think we have room to be surprised by this new Wukong rework.

So, 1, clones are bad in Warframe. They are. We know.

What is the bright side of this, though? And that's the way DE have experimented with remote activation of abilities with Wisp. Her 3, which is actually pretty good as a radial blind and as a boost in damage when in groups with high DoT status weapons, can be triggered off from her 2 as well as by teleporting to her 1. So if Wukong has the ability to trigger off one of his specific abilities from his clone too? There could be a very good reason for that.

2. Defy is, and I agree, one of the most mindless abilities out there and free invulnerability isn't a great function on any frame. But here's a thought that I came up with; what if they're just making Defy into temporary invulnerability in the way that Loki has temporary invisibility, or Zephyr has temporary ignore-ranged? So you have a vulnerability window at the end of the duration that you need to pay attention to, which is easily managed as players of both those other frames can attest. Or at worst you have a Harrow style of invulnerability period and then a period of effect from the cast, which players of Harrow will attest is genuinely good enough in almost all situations that they need it.

3. Wukong's 4 definitely does seem to be getting its effects buffed, they've said that it's getting its base stats buffed, and those combos they showed off were actually very, very appealing. With instant access to a ranged attack that has the kind of length that Iron Jab has, and a follow up gap closer, or instant access to his AoE ground pounds for clearing an area... plus the fact that the combo they did show off for both his neutral and moving variants seems multi-hit and very fast... yeah, I think that his 4 is actually going to be very much improved.

Not sure about the charge-up counter in the vein of Baruuk, that's a debatable one, but that should make him far more energy happy than he has been in the past.

What am I getting at with these? Well, think about that combination, of remote activation of abilities and the way the Clone functions as a mirror and not as a copy of your current actions for basic attacks. If you're in trouble, sending in your Clone in melee mode while activating your Defy could be as good of a function (maybe even doubling the effects) as Wisp's clone using her 3, remotely gathering you the damage boost, drawing aggro, and you're also able to be temporarily invulnerable for recovery purposes. Then when the damage period kicks in, you can be using your guns for large effect for the period, or able to switch over to melee mode yourself to be the front-liner while your clone shoots things mindlessly too. It's more options, rather than less.

Instead of having a stick that you poke enemies with, you have a spectre that can go poke enemies with a stick for you, I call that a win for now, especially if you can combo other abilities into that stick-poking clone.

As a little conclusion, open to debate...

We've been impressed by things that we thought wouldn't work before. I think that having a measure of optimism by looking at what existing functions these changes could be leveraging is actually going to yield more accurate interpretations of how useful this whole thing is going to be.

[DeMonkey]

2 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

But what I haven't seen is somebody try to spin this rework in a positive light.

I need to know more before I do that. I absolutely like the sound of the Primal Fury changes, and I myself proposed a range attack in it's stance which is great, just acknowledging people's criticism regarding the lacklustre AI and general use of Cloudwalker.

I mean, crit buffs, base stat buffs etc sound nice, but really Wukong doesn't need them. I'm struggling to throw a positive look on something that may not have a noticeable impact. 

My staff already hits for hundreds of thousands of damage per swing and takes me well above level 100.

[(PSN)chibitonka]

1 hour ago, (PS4)ATreidezz said:

Ok, so its basically a booben minelayers/ivara quivers? Not bad

But i certainly hate the switching mechanism between them, its really killing the momentum. 

what no o.o

Make it so the clones upon expiration poof into clouds. If we still had Iron Jab in the tweak for wukong you could launch them anywhere so you got clouds everywhere. Or just murder your clone and turn it into cloud making magic 😄

[Violet_Xe]

13 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Alright, I've taken a read through your thread @(PS4)RenovaKunumaru and I've seen all your responses @DeMonkey

But what I haven't seen is somebody try to spin this rework in a positive light. It does seem a lot of doom and gloom, and I'll point at the two most recent frames (Hildryn and Wisp) as examples of why this doesn't have to be the case.

Am I completely happy with those two frames? No, not really. But by far and away they both function better than they have any right to. I was surprised by both, and I think we have room to be surprised by this new Wukong rework.

So, 1, clones are bad in Warframe. They are. We know.

What is the bright side of this, though? And that's the way DE have experimented with remote activation of abilities with Wisp. Her 3, which is actually pretty good as a radial blind and as a boost in damage when in groups with high DoT status weapons, can be triggered off from her 2 as well as by teleporting to her 1. So if Wukong has the ability to trigger off one of his specific abilities from his clone too? There could be a very good reason for that.

2. Defy is, and I agree, one of the most mindless abilities out there and free invulnerability isn't a great function on any frame. But here's a thought that I came up with; what if they're just making Defy into temporary invulnerability in the way that Loki has temporary invisibility, or Zephyr has temporary ignore-ranged? So you have a vulnerability window at the end of the duration that you need to pay attention to, which is easily managed as players of both those other frames can attest. Or at worst you have a Harrow style of invulnerability period and then a period of effect from the cast, which players of Harrow will attest is genuinely good enough in almost all situations that they need it.

3. Wukong's 4 definitely does seem to be getting its effects buffed, they've said that it's getting its base stats buffed, and those combos they showed off were actually very, very appealing. With instant access to a ranged attack that has the kind of length that Iron Jab has, and a follow up gap closer, or instant access to his AoE ground pounds for clearing an area... plus the fact that the combo they did show off for both his neutral and moving variants seems multi-hit and very fast... yeah, I think that his 4 is actually going to be very much improved.

Not sure about the charge-up counter in the vein of Baruuk, that's a debatable one, but that should make him far more energy happy than he has been in the past.

What am I getting at with these? Well, think about that combination, of remote activation of abilities and the way the Clone functions as a mirror and not as a copy of your current actions for basic attacks. If you're in trouble, sending in your Clone in melee mode while activating your Defy could be as good of a function (maybe even doubling the effects) as Wisp's clone using her 3, remotely gathering you the damage boost, drawing aggro, and you're also able to be temporarily invulnerable for recovery purposes. Then when the damage period kicks in, you can be using your guns for large effect for the period, or able to switch over to melee mode yourself to be the front-liner while your clone shoots things mindlessly too. It's more options, rather than less.

Instead of having a stick that you poke enemies with, you have a spectre that can go poke enemies with a stick for you, I call that a win for now, especially if you can combo other abilities into that stick-poking clone.

As a little conclusion, open to debate...

We've been impressed by things that we thought wouldn't work before. I think that having a measure of optimism by looking at what existing functions these changes could be leveraging is actually going to yield more accurate interpretations of how useful this whole thing is going to be.

I do get where you're coming from, the most recent frames have been impressive despite us not knowing anything. But wisp? our main cplaint was that the sun beam made no sense and it still doesn't. the beam also sucks against high level enemies. Hildy I can't speak out much about, but without arcanes she suddenly becomes much weaker than you think she is. She can't instantly recover her shields or randomly gain 900 armor from nowhere. But the fact they're not telling us many in depth stats and aren't showing us a lot is really concerning. They revealed to us ALL of wisps abilities and even went in depth as to how you can mix her abilities. This seems like they were slowly dancing around having to explain this stuff. Which is worrying. 

For clones, yes they suck. But if DE does this right, then they could get better and become worth it. During God of War, gaming found a good way to make use of companions. Control. If we have a way to say, ok attack this guy with a powerful hit, like i suggested with my Primal Fury charge attack, then all of a sudden you want tons of clones out in order to hit them multiple times. Control is a way to get an easy good AI.

Invincibility isn't good we all know that. there are ways to go about dodging death rather than "oh well i'm invincible" or "oh well I got healed to max health." I suggested one such way, a form of resource management based on your clones. It's not completely brainless yet grants you a way to avoid death. But we also need to respect that Wu Kong in folklore is the unkillable trickster. He needs some easy way to cheat death. Energy happy also isn't rally an issue because he can be modded for efficiency and equip rage. If you need a tiny bit more energy just recover with focus schools and be a tiny bit cautious in the process. Also remember they said "brief windows of invincibility" it won't be loki invisibility or turbulence. It's going to be 3-4 seconds of invincibility and you won't be able to regen any energy from that. No matter what way you spin it it won't work with Rage anymore which was his core ability.

The biggest gripe I have with the way Defy making you invincible for this "brief period of time" becuase it taunts enemies. why would you taunt enemies when your profile says "stealth". yes I get it, this is warframe nobody is stealthy. But whenever we throw the word stealth around it involves invisibility, parkour, and finishers. Not "SHOOT ME". plus the way Defy will work with a Hair of the King, that seems so counter intuitive. Enemies will shoot you sometimes and your hair other times. You're purposefully splitting the enemies damage for this worse ability. You're going to want to not cast the 1 ability if you build for Defy.

Wu Kong has no way to survive without Defy at the moment of this rework. His skills don't CC unless were going on about his ultimate where it has some larger aoe. yeah CC isn't the most reliable way to stay alive. Vauban proves that and he's got pure CC. Wu kong would get floored by high level enemies. Plus were changing a CORE ability. an ability everyone on the warframe loves. it's like stripping away old rhino's stomp and giving him instead a massive 50% slow. It completly changes the feel and ascetic of the ability. Players who like hard cc no longer would play rhino, because rhino lost his hard cc. Defy made Wu Kong a tank, he's got nothing to make up for it that another frame can't do better. Armor? Rhino // Health? Inaros // Undying? Nidus // Shield, Hildryn // Literal invincibility, Valkyr // Enemy accuracy? Zephyr // Damage reduction? Mesa // Constant regeneration? Oberon. // Redirection? Trinity. His unique way of survival dies and he doesn't even become a cc frame in return. he gets... critical?

The only way i can see Defy going is oh hey, damage you take turns into damage reduction... that's nezha and chroma. 

For the moment this isn't up to debate. because there's nothing to debate without information. We've gone through the info and have pretty much come to the conclusion that from what they've said so far, it sucks. if you're saying maybe they've got something in the works for him and they don't want to tell us, look at Vauban's rework. He got to charge balls. that's it. Wu Kong looks like a worse rework version of Ember. Tampering and nerfing the one thing that made the warframe decent, and giving nothing useful or fun in return. As for optimism, I've learned that through life, never expect anything from anyone, and you won't be disappointed ever. I've looked at what DE could do with this, but it honest to god seems like they didn't talk much about it because they just don't know what to do. They talked to talk. If they came up with a good reason to use that clone like they did with wisp, they would talk about it. But they didn't. it's just there because other games have it and that's something Wu Kong is known for.

However it's For the Moment. we could all be blowing smoke and could be wrong, you could 100% be right. or maybe not. for now, we can't debate it because there's too many unknown right now. it honestly just looks like they made it so, hey look, combo system. oh by the way we just started on a wu kong rework. 

If a warframe needs to have arcanes or mods like adaptation to make it do it's job right, then the warframe fails. They should be able to do good lvl content as is. the way it's looking, Wu Kong will need not just arcanes, but rage and adaptation.

As DeMonkey said.

42 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

I need to know more before I do that.

 

[(PSN)chibitonka]

1 hour ago, DeMonkey said:

Not a real Wukong thread till I comment on it 😛

:o So you don't have monkey markers x:

from the looks of your monkey staff build too you're familiar with him a lot more than others i hope. Another of my kind, not enough of us lmao.

Helio statstick glad antics ^.^

 

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

As a little conclusion, open to debate...

• I think AI in Warframe is complete trash. There's been too many instances where I've seen the AI just stand there and do nothing, or get stuck, or not engage, or remain stationary. Its a valid concern.
• Also, if I'm meleeing why would I want my specter to shoot? If I'm using my melee weapon, its because melee is the best option for the job. I dont expect this thing to be useful for anything really, besides perhaps a distraction.
• The argument against defy is based on the idea that the alternative isnt better. I just cant wait to see, why 1 person is taunting, before the effect even takes place, someone else just kills the enemies.
• The staff changes are still nothing special. It sounds terrible in fact. The changes they described are just melee 3.0 changes. Every weapon is going to get those changes. Besides this Baruuk (terrible decision imo) style "rage" mechanic there is nothing to excited or hopeful about. And people dont like Baruuks build up meter mechanic either. Another thing to not be excited for.
• Great rework coming. "Oh Boy" You're likea the rework eh?

Edited May 26, 2019 by (PS4)RenovaKunumaru

[toyetic]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

• I think AI in Warframe is complete trash. There's been too many instances where I've seen the AI just stand there and do nothing, or get stuck, or not engage, or remain stationary. Its a valid concern.
• Also, if I'm meleeing why would I want my specter to shoot? If I'm using my melee weapon, its because melee is the best option for the job. I dont expect this thing to be useful for anything really, besides perhaps a distraction.

I agree that AI in warframe is usually pretty bad but there is definitely some upside to having the specter shoot while you melee. The general idea would be you don't have 1 good weapon out of the 3 you can equip but 3 good weapons. So while someone may be spin2winning with an atterax the specter is taking out stragglers with the riven'd sicarus prime you have ( which is likely to happen considering the specter has 100% accuracy). I still am in doubt because of the AI being shotty but if it's not this ability could be useful. 

8 minutes ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

• The staff changes are still nothing special. It sounds terrible in fact. The changes they described are just melee 3.0 changes. Every weapon is going to get those changes. Besides this Baruuk (terrible decision imo) style "rage" mechanic there is nothing to excited or hopeful about. And people dont like Baruuks build up meter mechanic either. Another thing to not be excited for.

They didn't say how they were going to use the rage mechanic. On one hand they could use it to lock his 4 behind a specific amount of kills,damage taken. damage reflected etc. But on the other hand they could tie it to the range of his 4 meaning rather than it going from 5 back down to 2 meters in an instant when the combo counter decays, his range will slowly decay allowing you to find more enemies while still keeping it's range up. This would obviously be a welcome change. Really could go either way