Wisp and why I don't like the current way of designing new Warframes.

[VentiGlondi]

Wisps #4 right now is essentially a gun that uses energy, and needs a reason to be used instead of one. That reason doesn't necessarily have to be damage.

Damage abilities come with traits and mechanics that make them worth using over a gun, such as infinite punchthrough, covering a much larger area, spreading mechanics, auto aiming, making you a tiny bug, and more.

 

Oh, also the corrosion could proc a bit more frequently.

[(XBOX)Tanta Cinta]

I’m still bummed out that Khora never got her exalted whip. She’s still really great although. I think these new age warframes have a special type of commonality in them, that being that there’s an entry level of complexity in their designs. 

Back then you could just pick up a WF and learn how it works by the end of the mission. However these days it takes research in learning how to use recent frames, which I kind of like. 

I have had the feeling that DE has been dabbling in trying to assemble some type of “science” in their frame design, and I think once they’ve figured it out then we’ll see more DPS or exalted frames. 

[breakdafunk]

5 hours ago, Mez999 said:

Ah the new endgame. Trash anything new and call anyone that disagrees a white knight. 

Some of us don’t enjoy pressing 4 and leaving it at that. I love a frame with synergies that you need to think about. Not all frames are, nor should be, designed to be top level endgame. 

The whole point is that you look at the mission and have a number of frames that’ll work for that mission and enemy type. If all frames turn into press 4 to win, it defeats the point of having multiple frames. 

Any frame is good enough when I slide in with my Guandao :].

[Bloody_Canvas]

Wisp seems like a pretty balanced frame that follows a theme, till you get to her 4. I was expecting a frame with a spectral spirit theme would have something more to do with that. Like i was expecting her to take the spirits of enemies she killed to be followed around by them and then unleash them in some kind of magic missile or a spooky high speed parade where she gets all phantasmal and goes through enemies dragging the spirits through them while taking less damage, and doing spooky wailings.

Edit: her 4 makes her feel more like Freeza

Edited May 27, 2019 by xSightlessx

[GrimSinner]

1 hour ago, Datam4ss said:

Don't lie to yourself, Wisp is actually a press X to win frame.

Press 1 for tankiness, speed and some CC.

Press 2 to cheese Spy and get invincibility.

Press 3 to blind.

Press 4 for damage.

You can try to make her sound complex but Wisp natively just isn't. It's just players who are lazy, really. She is nice to use, but she is not hard to pick up and her synergies are quite straightforward/unecessary.

I agree with this except for 4.

Press 4 for flashlight.

[-QUILL_PETER-]

6 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

Trinity is a better healer, but offers no CC or DPS increase to the team.
Oberon is a (minimally) worse healer / better defensive buff, but offers no CC or DPS increase to the team.
Wisp heals slightly better than Oberon without pinning the team to an area, increases DPS and offers CC the team can carry around.

How is she objectively worse when she matches Oberon in healing and eclipses both in DPS and transportable CC of which neither pins the team to a specific location, other than for refreshing (at no additional energy cost) at the leisure of each squadmate?

If you're Oberon cant out heal wisp then you are bad at builds. Facts.

[Ced23Ric]

5 minutes ago, -QUILL_PETER- said:

If you're Oberon cant out heal wisp then you are bad at builds. Facts.

Oberon needs 250% STR to heal as much as a 340% STR Wisp, i.e. 100 health/second. Wisp is highly energy-efficient and has no qualms about using Blind Rage without Streamline or Fleeting Expertise. I may not have an ideal Oberon build, though. Care to share yours? (Honest request.)

[Ephemiel]

7 hours ago, Highresist said:

I'm really confused why DE are afraid to make a strong dps frame on the level of Saryn, Equinox, Mesa or Excal. 

Because Saryn, Equinox, Mesa, Excalibur and Octavia exist.

Also if you thought she was going to be a nuker, you have some severe problems and should see a doctor because even back then, they mentioned she was more of a support with her Resevoirs and her original 3 which sent a shockwave from them. This is why many people had a problem with her 4, because it was a strangely hyper-offensive ability on a Warframe designed to be a support.

Btw, PLEASE learn what the space bar is for Lotus's sake.

[Kai_Shiba]

4 hours ago, Highresist said:

Specialized Tank - Rhino. 
Specialized objective Defender - Frost
Specialized Support - Trinity
Specialized DPS - Excalibur.
Idk, what more you need to know about what I mean by a specialized Warframe.

 

Yeah, the problem is that DE intentionally are gimping the abilities of these Warframes, because "it would be too broken to let them do everything very well", like Gara doesn't exist or something.

This doesn't exist

 Rhino isn't a specialized tank, he can CC and support with a damage buff. Frost can be built to be a Defender with his globe or provide hard CC. Trinity can also be made into a tank or support and Excalibur has good damage (still think they need to yeet javalin after they got rid of super jump) with a fair CC ability.

Oberon is the original jack of all trades, Saryn used to be a DoT frame with elements of melee and tank before most of the changes made people opt for nuke since the game is broken, Nezha has CC all around with the potential of being a tank in terms of being fast.

Warframes were never about specialized roles, it was about finding the playstyle you liked within that Warframe and finding ways of playing with them. Maybe you picked them for Aesthetics or loved the way they played.

X being better than Y is a joke, they all do something in their own way that is efficient, you just have to play around with them and find what you like. If you can't then maybe it's not for you.

Different strokes for different folks

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by Kai_Shiba

[CaptainMinty]

tbh, Wisp is one of my absolute favorite new Warframes. Good supportive buffs, dishes out some decent damage and has Radiation AND Corrosive, stealth in air while not firing? I like all these things. She's more than suited to handle Sortie content, and stays alive without help from others. She's more than strong enough for whatever we have.

 

8 hours ago, Highresist said:

-snip-

You toss Oberon into a support role when he's a damage dealer too? It's like he's a jack of all trades too. Reckoning hits hard, strips armor, and CCs. It does it all. Hildryn is a jack of all trades too. Deals massive damage, buffs the team, controls the enemy and tanks. Wisp is also a supportive jack of all trades, able to damage and cc, support, and tank a little. Garuda is utterly unkillable built right, and rips enemies to shreds. Baruuk is the only recent Warframe that I can adequately say that just, kind of falls flat. He needs a little help, but that's for another thread.

And creating king of one Warframes would create this stagnant gameplay. Imagine a world where only two or three warframes were good for a mission type, and weren't good in any others. Mesa only worked well in ESO, and was pretty weak in most of the other content. Variety is part of what makes Warframe so great. Being able to use a plethora of weapons and frames most of the game's content is what is a massive draw. Different ways to play are healthy for Warframe. 

[lnfine]

Wisp is the only frame I'm aware of that can haz RoF buffs. Massive RoF buffs.

Your opinion is invalid.

Also team wide Shatter Shield.

[OneEyedMedic]

Why should her Sun Ray of Poke Damage have super high killing power when she's a support? She'd be another "Press 4 to Win frame", and if I'm being honest, I don't like that. 

It's a nice zone tool, which would be really nice against human opponents, as it'd make them think twice about engaging. 

Her other abilities match well with her "Support from the Shadows" tagline.

A nice team composition - my opinion - would be: Rhino, Hildr, Saryn (or Excal, Volt), and Wisp. 

Hildr's Haven grants allies increased shields as well as energy, and Wisp gives increased fire rate and health while adding an area denial that would be nice when paired with Saryn and would give Saryn more opportunities to kill.

Though this is about Wisp. 

She's an all around good frame, and while she has a support kit, she can be - as well as other frames, to a degree - built to whatever you want/need. 

A strictly damage dealer frame doesn't have much flexibility. 

[seprent]

1 hour ago, Ced23Ric said:

Oberon needs 250% STR to heal as much as a 340% STR Wisp, i.e. 100 health/second. Wisp is highly energy-efficient and has no qualms about using Blind Rage without Streamline or Fleeting Expertise. I may not have an ideal Oberon build, though. Care to share yours? (Honest request.)

personally my Oberon build is not all that strong but using mostly efficiency and abit of duration tanking it ticks energy rather slowly and with the use of hunter adrenaline and phoenix renewal you just gain energy from fighting/getting hurt and its a more prevention of death then op healing 40hps and 200 armor. Aura can be what ever you want ill pop it in a spoiler so i don't take up a lot of room it also isn't the most ideal but i like it since i can turn it on at any energy amount and then get into a scrap getting me charged for a good 5-10 minutes and keeps people topped off and not dead. you are also forgetting wisp on top of the 100hps is giving you i think 500 or so bonus health my gf has a build set up that makes my 250-300 hp hyildrn have around 900 hp 

Spoiler

 

[Ikyr0]

9 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

Wisp more or less permanently doubles the burst potential of everyone, while keeping them healed and in most cases doubling their EHP. She provides consistent CC, and she has mobility. As a clear support frame, she's not much of a damage dealer. And if you want to build her as a tank, 1900hp, 450 armor, 100 hp/s heals, Adaptation, and Bob's your uncle. Her force multiplier factor is huge. 

That's cute, but in case you're not aware, none of those support abilities are useful for clearing content. Everything we have is already complete overkill. I was facerolling lvl 100 Amalgams with my 6 forma Amprex wilded by a 99% DR Nova. I don't need heals or damage. I don't take damage, and everything I look at melts in under a second.

Secondly, with that tanky setup, you would get one-shot in between your invulns by a 60 minute Mot enemy, or a lvl 150 in an Arby.

I'm not saying you or others have to play WF in a min-maxed way. Just understand there are a lot of players who do, and they're just expressing their opinions. Just because you don't care about min-maxing, doesn't make Wisp an A-tier frame.

[seprent]

18 minutes ago, lnfine said:

Wisp is the only frame I'm aware of that can haz RoF buffs. Massive RoF buffs.

Your opinion is invalid.

Also team wide Shatter Shield.

just be careful with any beam/explosive weapon with those rof buffs less you make a black hole that blinds your in the dark for a good minute or two thats was during leveling with 23% its gotten to around 100+% percent i think and i couldn't think i could turn the grattler into the viper just pft and the mag is gone i cant see if i was too close but the enemy is no doubt dead or very very scared 

Spoiler

 

[Ikyr0]

1 hour ago, Ced23Ric said:

Oberon needs 250% STR to heal as much as a 340% STR Wisp, i.e. 100 health/second. Wisp is highly energy-efficient and has no qualms about using Blind Rage without Streamline or Fleeting Expertise. I may not have an ideal Oberon build, though. Care to share yours? (Honest request.)

Good Oberon builds don't have excessive power strength. ~180-200% lets say. At 205%, I heal at 82hps which is plenty. Rest goes into positive range, efficiency, and duration.

[Ced23Ric]

13 minutes ago, seprent said:

 you are also forgetting wisp on top of the 100hps is giving you i think 500 or so bonus health my gf has a build set up that makes my 250-300 hp hyildrn have around 900 hp 

Oh, I am not forgetting that at all; Wisp gives 10% of her bonus HP as healing, so at 101hp/s, you gain 1011hp on top of what you got.

At that point +1000 HP & 100hp/s stands against 40hp/s and 200 armor.

12 minutes ago, Ikyr0 said:

Just because you don't care about min-maxing, doesn't make Wisp an A-tier frame.

Don't think I ever said that, or that that was - or is - the topic of the conversation. I'm saying Wisp is a solid support frame, and she can double a squad's DPS. Anyone who says Wisp is A tier is delusional.

14 minutes ago, Ikyr0 said:

99% DR Nova.

Care to explain that when the DR cap is 90%, some special cases like Gara with her 95% not withstanding? The DR from Adaptation doesn't stack with other DR sources, for example.

[Bloody_Canvas]

This is slowly diverging into a complaining about different warframes discussion. I will try to nip that in the bud with this. The usefulness of a frame all depends on what you play with, how you play, and your personal preferences. Yea they have problems, yes they are imperfect, yes their design may suck to you. BUT now you also have a better understanding of your own standards and that they wont always be met.

[seprent]

9 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

Oh, I am not forgetting that at all; Wisp gives 10% of her bonus HP as healing, so at 101hp/s, you gain 1011hp on top of what you got.

At that point +1000 HP & 100hp/s stands against 40hp/s and 200 armor.

yeah 1k hp with 100hp/s does far outdo me but they also stack together well i see wisp kinda like hildryn a off support that can do the job well but when you slot it with a more dedicated or another off support fun times all around personally a favorite of mine is wisp + hildryn absurd sheilds and health for everyone

[SenorClipClop]

9 hours ago, Highresist said:

Excatly, she is a buffer, who is worse than Trinity and Oberon

But neither Trinity nor Oberon provide proximity stunlock CC, or the straight DPS buff that is Haste (fire rate, attack speed). I'll take a small hit to raw healing potential to get all of that in my mission. Most players are usually pretty good about handling their own sustain and DR anyway.

9 hours ago, Highresist said:

jars on the ground

Why are static sources of buff an issue? We can camp in Survivals, we must camp Defenses and Interceptions, and the fonts only cost 25 Energy anyway. If you're any good at navigating Wisp's synergies and getting the most out of them, you're going to be putting them in both defensible spots and high-traffic areas too, so it's not like allies will need to go out of their way to get them unless your Wisp is trolling. (And nobody's criticizing Energizing Dash for doing this...)

9 hours ago, Highresist said:

why would you give her a nuke 4, that doesn't do damage

Well, for clearing trash mobs. In a giant line. And the damage is pretty okay in modes up to Axi at least. 175%Strength gets Sol Gate to 1750 points of Radiation damage, plus 50% if I have on Vita and Shock motes (that's 2625 DPS, plus whatever damage bonus the Rad gets to Alloy Armor)....

10 hours ago, Highresist said:

and doesn't debuff ther targets? Oberon's is a armor stripping ability

.... and if you have the Haste mote equipped, Sol Gate procs Corrosive. It tears Armor, in a giant 40+ meter line (58m with just Stretch). It also confuses enemies with Rad procs and stuns them with Heat procs. There's 3 debuffs for you.

10 hours ago, Highresist said:

my opinion is that designing Warframes in the future should be towards specializing in one role

Your opinion is... weird. Warframes that "specialize" in one thing and one thing only (it seems your OP is saying this means Warframes which are geared solely to one thing and do anything else poorly to balance) are a thing of the past.

• Trinity is super strong, but she isn't any fun to play and is in desperate need of a rework. Trin used be an obligation to high-level teams, a player who sacrificed their fun to spam 2 and 4. Even now her 1st skill is completely ignored and the only way I enjoy her is by saying "to Hek with the meta" and building her as a quick-moving DR-heavy melee channeling brawler. 
• Rhino is "Tenno's first tank", but Roar has nothing to do with defense and he's often built as a buffer.
• Vauban is super CC-specialized, and he's... well...

My point here is that while specialized Warframes can be good, specialization doesn't make a Warframe good, nor does a lack thereof make a Warframe bad. Personally, I like that my Warframe can do more than one thing per mission. This isn't WoW. I don't show up to the fight with one job (Heal) to do and then do only that job (Heal). That's boring and exactly why I don't play WoW. The wonderful thing about Warframes is that specialization is in your hands, that Warframe come capable of many different roles and it's up to the player to determine which role (or roles) the player will equip them to fill. Having a mash of different roles, in addition to WF's core concept of customization, means that one Warframe can fill a number of different roles, depending on the player. And more recent frames have been facilitating that really well:

• Range/Efficiency Baruuk is a backline support, dodging, Sleeping and prividing DR handouts to allies. Strength/Duration Baruuk is a ham-fisted room-shaker with layers of DR and waves of crit-heavy hits.
• Volt (not new but a good example), can be any of the following: // Area lockdown CC support // High-damage Sniper/support, good for Eidolons // Mobility burst speedrunning frame // ESO delete button. Volt has no specific specialty, but all kinds of different awesome.
• Range/Duration Garuda is a support/debuff frame with pools of Health and extra Slash procs. Garuda at 200% Strength and a bit range refuses to die, always has Energy and  throws nukes that delete absurdly strong enemies no matter how much Armor they have.
• Efficiency Ivara makes Stealth a breeze. Strength Ivara with an Augment or two clears rooms.

[Legion-Shields]

does she scream when she uses her 4?

[Ikyr0]

1 hour ago, Ced23Ric said:

Care to explain that when the DR cap is 90%, some special cases like Gara with her 95% not withstanding? The DR from Adaptation doesn't stack with other DR sources, for example.

Adaptation.

[bibmobello]

I don't know i have just started to use it and i don't like the idea to jumping around for the whole game spamming buff for other people but maybe i am wrong.

[MirageKnight]

13 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

Oberon is a (minimally) worse healer / better defensive buff, but offers no CC or DPS increase to the team.

Not accurate. 

As long as I have energy, I can heal 107 Health per second and provide 538 Armor to the entire squad with Iron Renewal. With a low shield Rage build, energy econ is not too much an issue as long as a Nekros player doesn't decide to cramp my style and spam SoTD a lot. A 300+ buff to Health and a heal of 30 per sec is nice... but an extra 538 Armor arguably trumps an extra 300 Health and 107 > 30.

I can also instantly remove status effects on players AND hurt enemies with Hallowed Ground alone. 

I can temporarily stun and blind - and remove a hefty amount of armor from - enemies that survive a single cast of Reckoning. Oh yeah, Reckoning does a respectable 3k damage for me.

He doesn't increase squad DPS, but he can certainly confuse and decrease the damage of enemy units and inflict some respectable damage with Smite. Oh wait, with Smite Infusion I can add Radiation damage to friendly players.

Also, the sheer amount of Radiation he can inflict on mobs is extremely useful.

13 hours ago, Ced23Ric said:

Doesn't work against most Corpus, several Corrupted or Infested, but that's sure a thing he does.

Enemies don't have armor? Irrelevant. I can still kill them anyway with carpets of death and the occasional slam dunk.

What's with all the Oberon hate anyway?

13 hours ago, Datam4ss said:

Oberon WAS the OG Jack of all Trades.

IMO, he still is. Good healer and decent damage dealer. Oberon Umbra when?

 

On topic though, I think Wisp's a reasonably balanced 'Frame (for the time being), but I think that her abilities are a bit of a mess thematically. According to various legends, Wisps are ghostly, ethereal entities that appear and disappear and lure people astray - sometimes to their death.

There are two problems with the Wisp theme:

1. It's very specific. 

2. If done correctly and accurately, it's very limited.

Wisp's got at least one ability that, while very cool, doesn't fit the description of a wisp from folklore at all. Opening a portal to the Sun's surface is honestly something I'd give to Nova...because she's established as being able to open portals / wormholes. On a side note, I feel that Baruuk's Evade should have gone to Wisp - because intangible ghost and all.

Anyway, the arguably muddled themes of most of the new Frame's, including Wisp, shouldn't be really surprising. DE is frantically looking for ideas for new 'Frames to keep players entertained with new, shiny stuff and they've been starting to scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel for a while now. I think the problem started way back when...when a new 'Frame or weapon was added every 2-3 months. At that rate of release, you're bound to start running out of ideas sooner than later and I think that DE should have spaced out new releases more than they had.

Now we're going to have a Fat Frame that eats things and a Speed Frame that...goes faster and stuff.

Yeah, DE's running out of ideas.

I'd suggest that they start releasing Umbral versions of existing Frames at this point to tide us over while they come up with better and fresher ideas for new Frames.

Edited May 27, 2019 by MirageKnight

[GrimSinner]

If you saw what looked like a devastating 50 caliber nuke rifle, and then you shoot it and it barely shoots through a tin can....that's the deal with Wisp's 4 and why it's so disappointing.  I mean, DE put a lot of design effort and effects into Sol Gate to look like it's a total face melter, yet it's damage output is sub par.  They either need to beef up the damage output, or leave it as-is and rework the animation so it looks more like the pea shooter it is.  Maybe have Wisp flick a lighter as the animation for Sol Gate?