My take on a Chroma rework

[BlachWolf]

As we all know chroma got nerfed when POE released. This was done because of a bug with his fury buff, which would lead to its multiplier dipping multiple times in the damage formula based on how many elements were present on the weapon. This allowed fury to reach multiplier numbers upwards of 200x instead of the implied number, basically banshee levels of damage but with consistency. This nerf was more than justified, since having consistent banshee level of damage was just broken and made most bosses irrelevant. His ehp nerf on the other hand was not, they changed it from being a total armor multiplier to a base armor multiplier. With this chroma lost around 65% of his ehp(100k ehp to 35k), and that’s if we compare the builds we have access today with the prime version (without adaptation though) to those we had before the nerf with the normal one. This is also made worse by the fact that his ehp mostly comes from armor, which can be bypassed by slash procs and has several vulnerabilities against certain damage types, further decreasing his actual ehp. Any frame that has 90% damage reduction can easily outtank him, especially because they can make good use of arcane guardian.

This combined with the fact that 3/4 of his kit is basically forgettable, means that he isn’t in a good spot right now, the only thing keeping him alive right now is vex armor, which is a testament to how good it is even after its nerf. Though this is not to say that chroma is in dire need of a rework, frames such as ember, the soon to be reworked wukong and vauban deserve more attention then chroma, since they’re barely functional int the game. This is just me sharing my Ideas.

Right now, the problems with chroma are:

Spoiler

 

• Spectral scream is basically useless, it deals pitiful damage and lock chroma away from using his weapons, which is terrible for a frame centered around weapons.
• Only one element is worth using on elemental ward, which is fire because it offers the highest ehp (20% higher than cold 35k for fire and 29k for ice). In addition, the utility offered by the other two elements aren’t worth almost 50% of chromas already low ehp.
• Effigy is nothing more than an energy hog.
• His passive is nonexistent. It only serves to set the elements used by his abilities with the cost of limiting fashion frame (though its not as bad as it used to be thanks to the new energy channels).

 

My goals with this rework suggestion:

Spoiler

 

• Scaling and unique tankiness: While I don’t think chroma needs to regain his lost ehp (thanks to the existence of adaptation), I do think his tankiness should be able to scale like for example nidus (though not as good, cause that would be to op) or hildryn.
• Team Buffing: I want chroma to be able to buff allies with meaningful and unique buffs.
• Viable CC: and at last I want to give him a meaningful source of CC by fixing his 4, which isn’t a bad ability. The only things wrong with it is, that it debuffs chroma and consumes extremely high amounts of energy.

 

Now that this has been said, here are my suggestions.

His base stats:

Spoiler

 

Base HP (prime and normal version): increase to 200 hp.

Note: Now before you think this is outrageous, let me tell you beforehand that I will be replacing the buffs from fire and ice, in order to make all four elements more balanced between each other. Because of this I decided to double his base hp, in order to ensure that he reaches the same amount of ehp as before (29k ice to 35k fire). This will also help him out with his biggest weakness which are slash procs. Also, to note is that he will lose some raw ehp with this, since he won’t be able to scale his hp with power strength anymore. This though is planned, in order to balance out other changes I have in mind.

 

His Passive (reworked): Elemental Alignment

Spoiler

 

Ability description: Depending on chromas elemental alignment, he’ll gain different buffs.

• Technical description:
• Fire: 30% of damage done to health is converted to energy.
• Ice: Cleanses status effect on ability cast.
• Electric: 50% faster weapon swap and 20% additional bullet jump distance.
• Toxin: 30% faster reload speed and innate ammo mutation with similar conversion ratio to vigilante supplies.

Note: I realized in order to incentives players to use more elements, I had to make them situational. In addition, making them a continuously active passive won’t penalize the player for choosing the wrong element and thus further incentives elemental cycling. Though one thing must be said, the one thing that counts here is the Idea not the buffs. If you think they’re to OP, you’re more then welcome to suggest something else. One other thing to note also, is that because their passive they wont scale with power strength.

 

His one (new ability):

Spectral Shift (on ability press):

Spoiler

 

Ability description: Allows chroma to change his elemental alignment on the fly, free of energy cost.

Note: What better way to incentives players to use different elements, then actually letting them change it mid mission. This will give chroma a more tactical approach on the utilization of his elemental buffs. In addition, it would decuple his elemental buffs being tied to his fashion frame, which we’ve been asking for a while now.

 

Spectral Roar (on ability hold):

Spoiler

 

Ability description: Chroma lets out a roar that inflicts damage on near by enemies, based on his elemental alignment. In addition, afflicted enemies will suffer from a debuff, which allows any source of damage to have a chance of procing the element it was casted with.

Ability description: Range 20m, casting cost 25 energy, debuff duration 15s, damage dealt 200, proc chance 25% scales with power strength. Damage done by the ability will still scale with vex armor, like spectral scream does.

Note: Spectral scream has mostly remained useless, thanks to its miserable damage and bad usability as a CO primer. With this change chroma will be able to proc his chosen element on demand, which could be use for dps in the case of toxin or CC for cold. In addition, it will serve as a good CO primer if the player decides to go full melee.

 

His two (reworked): Elemental Ward

Spoiler

 

Ability description: Chroma imbues himself and allies in the vicinity with a set amount of health gates and a defensive elemental aura based on chromas elemental alignment. In addition, allies will gain access to the elemental passive it was casted with for the duration of the cast.

Technical description:

• Health gate mechanic: Chroma and allies will gain 6 health gates, which will stop a damage instance from overflowing over 250 damage. When such an even is triggered, one health gate is consumed. You can sort of think of it like a dynamic shield gating. The number of gates scale based on power strength, while damage cap remains static. Gates though are only triggered by upfront damage and not DoT damage such as slash or toxin.
• Elemental auras: Basically the same thing as the previous implementation, just without the buffs. For example, with electric or cold you’ll still be able to reflect damage, but you won’t gain the shield or armor buffs.
• Elemental alignment: Elemental alignment will be defined by the one used during the cast of the ability. Chroma will still be able to swap between his elements while elemental ward is active, but it won’t affect the current active instance of elemental ward, unless its recasted.
• Ally buffs: In addition of gaining the health gating and the elemental aura, allies will gain access to the buff of the element it was casted with, chrome is unaffected by this.
• General changes: Elemental ward can now be recasted at any time, range is increased from 12 to 20m. Recasting will overwrite the previous active instance.

Note: In comparison to the previous implementation chromas buffs will now be a lot more meaningful to allies, making them basically immune to oneshots. In addition, when enemies can start to eat through 30k ehp, this will allow chroma to survive the encounter and charge up adaptation. Also, while low damage per shot high dps enemies will be able to bypass this, thanks to how adaptation charges up this wont be a big issue.

 

His three (small tweaks): Vex armor

Spoiler

 

Tweaks:

• Range: Increase from 18 to 20m

Note: Chromas vex armor even after the nerf is one of the best buffing abilities in the game, the only thing it lack is a bit of range in order to buff allies consistently, since DE want chroma to be a support buffer tank.

 

His four (small tweaks): Effigy

Spoiler

 

Tweaks:

• Change it to a duration-based ability with a base duration of 25s and 100 energy cost.
• Make it behave like a specter, which you can set stationary or make it follow you around (though this could be an augment).
• Remove the armor debuff.

Note: Effigy in it of itself is actually a pretty decent CC ability, the only problem it has is its energy consumption and the fact its immobile. With this change chroma will have a decent source of CC in his arsenal. In my opinion it doesn’t need to do damage, especially since chroma already has one of the highest weapon damage multipliers in the game.

 

 TLDR:

Spoiler

 

His base stats: Increase base hp from 100 to 200 (Ill be replacing the Ice and fire buffs to balance the elements).

His passive: Depending on elemental Alignement, he'll gain a buff.

• Fire: Damage done to health is converted to energy.
• Ice: On ability cast remove status effects.
• electric: Faster swapping speed and more bullet jump distance.
• Toxin: Faster reload speed, innate ammo mutation.

His one: 

• On ability press: elemental cycling.
• On ability hold: AOE elemental debuff that damages enemies with chosen element. Debuff gives any source of damage a chance to proc the chosen element on afflicted enemies.

His Two:

• Introduce a health gate mechanic that only triggers if more then 250 damage is done to health. 6 health gates are present which are then consumed when they're triggered.
• Allow chroma to share his passive to allies with elemental ward.
• Make the ability recastable and increase the range from 12m to 20m.
• Elemental auras will still remain, just without the buffs like shields for example for electric

His Three:

• Increase range to 20m

His four:

• Change it to a duration-based ability with a base duration of 25s and 100 energy cost.
• Make it behave like a specter, which you can set stationary or make it follow you around (though this could be an augment).
• Remove the armor debuff.

 

 

Hope you guys liked my suggestion, any feedback is welcomed.

Edited May 26, 2019 by BlachWolf
typo

[Zero-Chill]

Of course the passive can still change, I think it'd be great if elemental choice had no effect on EHP, damage or mobility whatsoever and focused entirely on utility stats like holster speed, reload speed, etc... The reason for that is because he gets a lot of armor and damage in his three and having something that affects EHP or damage would just make it outright better than the others and mobility will be offered by his four.

So you're basically turning his one into Garuda's four but not as OP cause it's not slash. I love this idea and totally support it.

I find the health gate mechanic you suggested to put on his two very interesting and helpful, it's not that OP because you still take a good amount of damage but it prevents you from getting instantly deleted at higher levels.

I agree that his three is good as it is.

I think his four should still take a bit from your armor to balance it with the amount of mobility and CC you get. When you get a health gate mechanic, you won't need as much armor anymore, which makes them have some synergy with each other. But he should have increased mobility as well including a bit of parkour velocity. I mean he takes his whole armor off, it gotta be so heavy that it limits his overall movement quite a bit not only his sprint speed.

I'd like to suggest something else, Chroma shouldn't be able to change elements when his two and four are active. This, however, shouldn't apply to his one, this is because I'd find it very fun if I could fill enemies with statuses and light them up like a christmas tree, it's not like that enemies take that much time to die in this game anyway. Elements shouldn't combine, just separate elements like having an enemy inflicted with fire and electricity at the same time for example.

I've always loved Chroma's dragon theme as well as his Drac helmet but I was kinda disappointed with him, I don't play him a lot since he doesn't have any reliable CC, damage negation or health regeneration to support his damage and tankiness as well as having pitiful range on his two and three which are supposed to be support abilities. Modding for range means less strength and duration which are the two most important stats for Chroma and he should have a lot of both, so what I suggest is that if DE REALLY wants to make Chroma a support frame, they should make the range on his two and three 20m and not affected by power range. I don't see any reason this would be bad especially when Nova has her two not affected by power range nor strength allowing for focusing on her other abilities when modding, giving her a lot more freedom.

[BlachWolf]

1 minute ago, Zero-Chill said:

Of course the passive can still change, I think it'd be great if elemental choice had no effect on EHP, damage or mobility whatsoever and focused entirely on utility stats like holster speed, reload speed, etc... The reason for that is because he gets a lot of armor and damage in his three and having something that affects EHP or damage would just make it outright better than the others and mobility will be offered by his four.

Basically my train of thought.

1 minute ago, Zero-Chill said:

So you're basically turning his one into Garuda's four but not as OP cause it's not slash. I love this idea and totally support it.

Basically yeah haha.

2 minutes ago, Zero-Chill said:

I find the health gate mechanic you suggested to put on his two very interesting and helpful, it's not that OP because you still take a good amount of damage but it prevents you from getting instantly deleted at higher levels.

Basically. While I would love to see his 100k ehp back, in my opinion its not necessary.

3 minutes ago, Zero-Chill said:

I agree that his three is good as it is.

Agreed.

4 minutes ago, Zero-Chill said:

I think his four should still take a bit from your armor to balance it with the amount of mobility and CC you get. When you get a health gate mechanic, you won't need as much armor anymore, which makes them have some synergy with each other. But he should have increased mobility as well including a bit of parkour velocity. I mean he takes his whole armor off, it gotta be so heavy that it limits his overall movement quite a bit not only his sprint speed.

We can agree to disagree on that one, though as you said the health gating would alleviate this problem. Effigy does offer some strong CC so I would understand if it had some draw backs. I'll think about it further.

7 minutes ago, Zero-Chill said:

I'd like to suggest something else, Chroma shouldn't be able to change elements when his two and four are active. This, however, shouldn't apply to his one, this is because I'd find it very fun if I could fill enemies with statuses and light them up like a christmas tree, it's not like that enemies take that much time to die in this game anyway. Elements shouldn't combine, just separate elements like having an enemy inflicted with fire and electricity at the same time for example.

Well I did state that his 2 wouldnt be affected if you cycle through your elements while its active, so Im ok with that. His four could also receive the same treatment, then he would have 3 source of status effects which could be interesting for CO.

10 minutes ago, Zero-Chill said:

I've always loved Chroma's dragon theme as well as his Drac helmet but I was kinda disappointed with him, I don't play him a lot since he doesn't have any reliable CC, damage negation or health regeneration to support his damage and tankiness as well as having pitiful range on his two and three which are supposed to be support abilities. Modding for range means less strength and duration which are the two most important stats for Chroma and he should have a lot of both, so what I suggest is that if DE REALLY wants to make Chroma a support frame, they should make the range on his two and three 20m and not affected by power range. I don't see any reason this would be bad especially when Nova has her two not affected by power range nor strength allowing for focusing on her other abilities when modding, giving her a lot more freedom.

Well it depends, The first thing I had in mind was to make his 2 affinity range based basically like trins bless but I decided not to cause of balancing, though making it affinity range based isnt really that broken. For his 3 on the other hand I disagree with you, it should remain affected by range, especially since it offers really strong buffs. I myself run 2 builds, one with 160% range 279% power and 180% duration and another with 349% strength 200% duration both with adaptation. With 160% range and my changes vex armor would have a range of 32m, which is more then good enough in my opinion and the only thing you'd have to add is stretch and cunning drift. 

[Zero-Chill]

27 minutes ago, BlachWolf said:

Well it depends, The first thing I had in mind was to make his 2 affinity range based basically like trins bless but I decided not to cause of balancing, though making it affinity range based isnt really that broken. For his 3 on the other hand I disagree with you, it should remain affected by range, especially since it offers really strong buffs. I myself run 2 builds, one with 160% range 279% power and 180% duration and another with 349% strength 200% duration both with adaptation. With 160% range and my changes vex armor would have a range of 32m, which is more then good enough in my opinion and the only thing you'd have to add is stretch and cunning drift. 

I wrote that part before editing my review about his passive being only utility buffs. So after thinking a little bit, I think your idea is better.

[BlachWolf]

2 minutes ago, Zero-Chill said:

I wrote that part before editing my review about his passive being only utility buffs. So after thinking a little bit, I think your idea is better.

Well its just that I dont want another octavia incident, which is why I think limitations are needed. This will also spice up build variety instead of having just one build that does it all.

[Xzorn]

They actually nerfed him because he was too good at boss killing. They literally said this.

• "At its simplest, we do not want our Eidolons one-shotted."

They also said... lets call it, inaccurately that it was to put him in-line with other damage buffs.

• "Fixed a longstanding issue with number calculation being multiplicative.-making the ability consistent with all other damage boosting abilities."

The bug Chroma suffered from with combination elemental base damage types was added by DE from a previous attempt to fix his Vex armor from producing negative results with too much Power Strength. The actual double dip bug is still in the game comically. It wasn't fully fixed and you can find it in most of the multiplicative damage boosting abilities or mods that DE claims don't exist.

Their additive Armor change was also inaccurate as this is not a standard in the game either. Rhino's IronClad Charge for example is Multiplicative. Make no mistake. Chroma was nerfed for Eidolon hunting and that's it. He wasn't buffed or improved in any way because that wasn't the intent. I wish it was because they still failed at their goal and only make him worse IMO at what he does which is a brawler / weapon master. 

Chroma wasn't even that durable when he could break 100k eHP because it's strictly armor. There's frames that put him to shame then and esp now. I commend you for trying to make Chroma more than a 1 trick frame but many have come before you and many will come. Nothing will happen for a long time simply because he's being used.

[Dragazer]

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

They actually nerfed him because he was too good at boss killing. They literally said this.

• "At its simplest, we do not want our Eidolons one-shotted."

They also said... lets call it, inaccurately that it was to put him in-line with other damage buffs.

• "Fixed a longstanding issue with number calculation being multiplicative.-making the ability consistent with all other damage boosting abilities."

The bug Chroma suffered from with combination elemental base damage types was added by DE from a previous attempt to fix his Vex armor from producing negative results with too much Power Strength. The actual double dip bug is still in the game comically. It wasn't fully fixed and you can find it in most of the multiplicative damage boosting abilities or mods that DE claims don't exist.

Their additive Armor change was also inaccurate as this is not a standard in the game either. Rhino's IronClad Charge for example is Multiplicative. Make no mistake. Chroma was nerfed for Eidolon hunting and that's it. He wasn't buffed or improved in any way because that wasn't the intent. I wish it was because they still failed at their goal and only make him worse IMO at what he does which is a brawler / weapon master. 

Chroma wasn't even that durable when he could break 100k eHP because it's strictly armor. There's frames that put him to shame then and esp now. I commend you for trying to make Chroma more than a 1 trick frame but many have come before you and many will come. Nothing will happen for a long time simply because he's being used.

it was a kneejerk bandaid nerf because they couldn't and still haven't been able to fix that double/triple dipping. Had they actually been able to fix this bug, vex armor would be perfectly fine as a multiplicative buff 

In any case, the player that came up with the concept and ideas for Chroma made a really good indepth post on rework ideas. 

 

[BlachWolf]

19 hours ago, Xzorn said:

They actually nerfed him because he was too good at boss killing. They literally said this.

• "At its simplest, we do not want our Eidolons one-shotted."

They also said... lets call it, inaccurately that it was to put him in-line with other damage buffs.

• "Fixed a longstanding issue with number calculation being multiplicative.-making the ability consistent with all other damage boosting abilities."

The bug Chroma suffered from with combination elemental base damage types was added by DE from a previous attempt to fix his Vex armor from producing negative results with too much Power Strength. The actual double dip bug is still in the game comically. It wasn't fully fixed and you can find it in most of the multiplicative damage boosting abilities or mods that DE claims don't exist.

Yeah, all multiplicative buffs act like this as far as i know, same thing with the faction mods. Even then His current buff is more then enough, which basically allows you to remove base damage mods.

The end he still oneshots eidolon with almost no problem, and even better he's not the only frame capable of doing that, mirage with a fire proc is basically old chroma.

20 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Their additive Armor change was also inaccurate as this is not a standard in the game either. Rhino's IronClad Charge for example is Multiplicative. Make no mistake. Chroma was nerfed for Eidolon hunting and that's it. He wasn't buffed or improved in any way because that wasn't the intent. I wish it was because they still failed at their goal and only make him worse IMO at what he does which is a brawler / weapon master. 

Yep.

20 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Chroma wasn't even that durable when he could break 100k eHP because it's strictly armor. There's frames that put him to shame then and esp now. I commend you for trying to make Chroma more than a 1 trick frame but many have come before you and many will come. Nothing will happen for a long time simply because he's being used.

High level slash proc eat through him like he's nothing. With this rework as you said I wanted to make him more then just a one trick pony, right now he's basically only vex armor with a health buff.

[BlachWolf]

18 hours ago, Dragazer said:

it was a kneejerk bandaid nerf because they couldn't and still haven't been able to fix that double/triple dipping. Had they actually been able to fix this bug, vex armor would be perfectly fine as a multiplicative buff 

In any case, the player that came up with the concept and ideas for Chroma made a really good indepth post on rework ideas. 

 

Yep, just goes to show how DE handles their spaghetti code. One other thing to note is the recent farming buff which was in the game for years but they declared it as a bug.