Let’s talk warframe passives.

[Shadedraxe]

With the recent additions of hildryn and wisp, I’ve been really impressed with their passives, and how they really interact with the warframes and act almost like an additional ability.

But looking back I can’t help but feel there are a lot of warframes with passives that feel tacked on just for the sake of the frame having a passive at all. Some of these passives either don’t really benefit the warframe much at all or feel pretty insignificant (rhino, mag, and hydroid for example), feel a little restricted (Oberon), rarely come into play or are really hard to trigger (frost, ember), are usually forgotten about (a lot of them), or are pretty much non existent (chroma)

Now I’m not saying that I think all good passives should function like a fifth ability such as hildryn’s shield gating or wisp’s invisibility while being airborne. There are also passives currently in the game that complement or improve the pre-existing 4 abilities such as saryn (longer status procs on a frame that spreads a lot of procs), ash (stronger and longer lasting slash procs for a frame that inflicts a lot of slash), and even vauban (increase the damage done to cc’d enemies). And some frames just have good passives that make sense with their theme rather than complementing their abilities (atlas is immune to knockdown while touching the earth, gara occasionally blinds enemies when light reflects off her glass, etc.)

and with that in mind I’d like to hear some of your ideas. Are there any passives you feel should be scrapped and completely replaced? Some that almost hit the mark but could use some tweaks? Or any you think could be improved upon?

I’m sure we’ve all had some neat ideas for some of our favorite frames that have some not so desirable passives. None of us play each and every warframe equally, so some of us will know more of the “ins” and “outs” of a frame than others and might know what could complement them best.

And feel free to bring up frames I’ve already mentioned above. Maybe some of the passives I’ve considered as “bad” might not be so bad after all, maybe some of you have made some use out of them, please enlighten the rest of us if you did. And maybe some of the “good” passives I’ve mentioned could be better in your eyes. Please don’t hold back with your thoughts!

Edited May 29, 2019 by Shadedraxe

[Shadedraxe]

I guess I might as well start with something.

I really do like Ember’s passive. But triggering it is either really risky (self damage doesn’t bode well with a squishy frame) or doesn’t have enough resources to do so (outside of the Grineer faction, there aren’t too many enemies that spread heat procs).

now what if Ember had a chance of setting herself on fire when casting abilities (in a similar fashion to krieg from borderlands 2)? Maybe roughly somewhere between a 10-20% chance of setting herself fire per cast. And maybe give her 90-95% damage resistance to heat damage and heat procs so she doesn’t wind up killing herself (and maybe in the same vain as krieg, she gains some additional minor health regen while on fire or something).

I think it could be an interesting mechanic so Ember could more reliably trigger her power strength buff and energy regen and even take the heat amidst the surrounding heat procs and her own self inflicted heat procs. Let me know what you guys think!

Edited May 29, 2019 by Shadedraxe

[Zandermanith222]

As a large majority of Warframe passives were added in a big batch to officially make Passives something every Warframe has, a lot of them were quite literally tacked on. DE playing it safe so that they don't have to put too much thought into it without worrying about breaking the meta somehow.

I don't think I've ever once seen Nova's passive knockdown shockwave be practical in all the time I've used her. Equinox receives a whopping 2.5-5 energy/health from health/energy orbs respectively. I feel like that built in Equilibrium could be buffed up just a little bit.

Excalibur's passive should just extend to melees in general instead of just sword-like weapons, I know he's the Swordsman frame but like... Still. Mesa's a gunslinger but that doesn't stop her from giving passive bonuses to the Gammacor and (I think?) throwing weapons.

Chroma needs an actual passive of course. It could be like 10% elemental damage or natural status procs imbued into his weapons based on his chosen element.

Limbo's passive is pretty much just access to his entire mechanic as a Warframe, I don't feel like that should count as a passive. Limbo 1.0 received stat boosts in the Rift though, but Limbo 1.0 was extremely niche.

Mirage's passive hampers her distance coverage, the faster dodges were neat back in Parkour 1.0, but they're not so great in 2.0. But hey, people might like how she is.

On a related note, Inaros could use some changes on his death passive. He's like, one of the tankiest Warframes in the game, by the time you actually get to content where you die, that 75 DPS isn't going to help you out. (Allies can though, but it's still useless in Solo.)

Edited May 29, 2019 by Zandermanith222

[Veridian]

Ember again:

Combustion - the fires within Ember constantly grow, the less she casts the more range and damage her spells have, at full meter her spells will fully strip enemy armor for the next 10 sec. enemy attacks fill the meter as well, blast and fire are 3x effective.
The more she casts the less damage and range her abilities have, but cost less and their cast is sped up, when fully depleted, she gains 50% movement speed for 10 sec and will fizzle out of existence, letting objects pass through her (imagine Baruuk).

imagine a bar blue -yellow - red, with blue when she casts often, yellow the neutral round and red when she's stacked.

[peterc3]

6 hours ago, Shadedraxe said:

But looking back I can’t help but feel there are a lot of warframes with passives that feel tacked on just for the sake of the frame having a passive at all.

You just happen to feel the way they were explicitly done? New frames had passives, the people clamored for every frame to have a passive. That's what happens when design is forced and not allowed to happen more gracefully.

New frames were designed with the passive as part of the kit. That cannot happen in reverse and probably requires a rework to a frame to make a passive feel like it is actually part of the kit.

CHroma was built around the color/element switching. It isn't not a passive because you dislike it.

[Shadedraxe]

11 hours ago, peterc3 said:

You just happen to feel the way they were explicitly done? New frames had passives, the people clamored for every frame to have a passive. That's what happens when design is forced and not allowed to happen more gracefully.

New frames were designed with the passive as part of the kit. That cannot happen in reverse and probably requires a rework to a frame to make a passive feel like it is actually part of the kit.

Unfortunately, yeah. Warframes initially didn’t have passives and the game does change over time. I can understand that. And DE don’t really have the time to steadily go back and change or improve minor nitpicks or older content. But I do have faith in DE to do what they think is best.

And maybe initially, with the plethora of frames we had at the time without passives, DE couldn’t realistically just take their time creating passives with a game that needs steady updates like warframe. But maybe someday, we might see some kind of change to older passives as more interesting frame passives come out. DE sure have been pretty creative with some of the recently released frames and reworked ones.

but anyway, I didn’t mean to come across with ill intent towards DE. In no way should they feel pressured to make any changes. I just thought this post would be a fun way to see some of the community’s ideas for some of their favorite frames.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Shadedraxe

[0_The_F00l]

Yes, 

I believe the passives should just be like arcanes or mods that are slightly watered down or have a condition to trigger.

Sufficient to make a difference in actual gameplay, but not enough to make you build your frame around it. 

Easier said than done I suppose, 

I do like many of the passives, like Nezha (maglev)  , Atlas (sure footed) , banshee (Hush), volt (electric elemental mod), Nekros (lifestrike?) 

Some are fun or nice but provide no significant advantage mag (vaccum?), Oberon (survival mod for pets), loki (patagium?), Frost (coolant leak?) 

And others that may be suitable to the frame but are not very useful or practical. (nova and revenant are practically the same and it's rather weak) 

 

So there are good examples, there are just as many bad ones. 

[Shadedraxe]

11 hours ago, peterc3 said:

CHroma was built around the color/element switching. It isn't not a passive because you dislike it.

Its not that I dislike it. It’s certainly an interesting mechanic. But i do think it is a little different than other passives. If we removed the passive from any other warframe, we’d have a pretty good idea of what they’d be like. Some frames or frame abilities wouldn’t really be affected. And some frames would struggle without their passive (like hildryn for example). But what would chroma be without his passive? And that’s what makes it interesting. That’s what makes me question it.

I would say chroma is the only warframe that can’t really function without his passive. It’s a passive that’s practically a core mechanic to his kit. What would his elemental abilities do without elements? Would he only use fire. Hard to say. He was created with it in mind. And it functioning that way is probably tied to what warframe was like at the time.

Its like imagining nidus, but instead of having his current passives (self revival, health regen, and to some extent his damage scaling with more stacks), what if his ability to make stacks in the first place was his passive.

New Warframes and some notable reworks have become pretty unique in the past 2 years. And it’s obvious chroma is just an older warframe designed with the older state of the game and dev ideas of the time. And with chroma being one of my old favorites, I do have a personal attachment to him. I can’t deny that I’ve thought about it for quite some time and that I do have some bias towards him. So I apologize for coming across a little pompous. And sorry for the long response (I’m a little passionate about chroma if you can’t tell, lol).

I personally do hope for more for chroma in the future. But for now, he really isn’t desperate for any changes. He does have a place, and he holds it pretty well.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Shadedraxe

[Ikyr0]

6 hours ago, Zandermanith222 said:

I don't think I've ever once seen Nova's passive knockdown shockwave be practical in all the time I've used her.

I'm convinced Nova has an innate Handspring. She seems to recover from knockdowns very quickly.

the one passive I'm dying for is Mag's. she needs something to help her not get one-shot by stray bullets from lvl 150+ enemies. passive shield gating would be the way to go. it would make her an A+ frame. Atm i don't like taking her into Arbies or long runs. Yes u can play around bubbles and Counterpulse, but one mistake or one stray shot and she's dead.

yes, new passives look really good. some old passives are ok. but at least half of the old frames have dreadful, useless passives, and any thread advocating for passives gets a bump from me.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Ikyr0

[Chaemyerelis]

Couldn't a simple and good passive for ember be something like reduced damage from fire and/or explosions?

[(PSN)CodyXSavageX]

Passives can definitely be looked into I say the game has changed enough for passives that are not up to co. to be updated to better represent the frames kit and actual playstyle 

[Shadedraxe]

8 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Frost (coolant leak?)

Frost has a 10% chance of freezing enemies that strike him with a melee attack. I’m a big fan of frost. But his kit is designed around strong cc, slowing enemies down, and blocking, repelling, and controlling a domain. The only way a frost would even get melee struck is if the player allowed for it to happen. So it’s kind of a bummer that the passive doesn’t see much use.

I played around with the idea of: what if frost could have 25-50% damage resistance to cold, be immune to cold (slowing down) procs. And maybe a small cold aura (similar to coolant leak) of around 1-2 meters around him that would be able stack with cold procs or other slow down affects on enemies such as frost’s ice wave augment or bubble. That way if enemies that breach his defenses and start to surround him up to his face, they would be a just a little bit slower than usual and give frost just a little more time to deal with them appropriately (and I do mean slightly, it shouldn’t bring enemies to a screeching halt. Frost has avalanche and freeze for that).

it might be a little much, but I like how it would complement his slow cc’s a little and help a defensive stationary frame help hold his ground just a little more.

 

or heck, even vauban’s old passive would work pretty well on frost. He’s a frame designed to make a defense bubble for others to shelter near him and it spawns around frost (meanwhile vauban has instantaneous cc that can be yeeted across the room towards allies in need. so it didn’t quite make sense to force players to stick close to vauban or vise versa for the armor buff). And the extra armor would improve the strength of his bubble as well when he casts/recasts it.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Shadedraxe

[Librus_107]

Frost main here as well, and yep. Risking being torn to shreds by tons of melee damage for the slight chance that one of them might become a popsicle just doesn't feel worth it. 

I really like the idea of an icy aura about him instead, offering him natural resistance to cold (I mean, Frost getting frozen by Exploiter just... doesn't feel right. I'm the icier one between the two of us, you bloated tick!) and offering minor ice procs to those close enough to him instead. Like the post above by OP: this means if his bubble is breached, there's a little window to jump away, regroup, and then dash back in and Avalanche the lot of em'. Nothing SERIOUSLY cold, just barely enough to make it not noticeable on its own, but combined with CC and defensive abilities, it'd come out and shine well. 

(And while we're at it, could we add a HUD element to show the Snow Globe's HP? That counter under it bugs out more often than not, and I don't know what it's telling me.

I don't play many other frames, so I don't have much else to offer on those departments. Though there is one thing: I played Limbo for a huge while, and his Passive is really just his entire mechanic/gimmick. Same with the whole Chroma thing. Feels like this special mechanic that makes the frame special in these regards should have their own special ability slot and instead have a true-and-honest passive. Like... even just changing the description to highlight Limbo recovers energy inside the rift instead of "Rift Jumping Exists". Or having Chroma add a mote bonus damage of his selected element to his weapon attacks. 

There's TONS that could be given a nice polish nowadays, especially with the increasing size of tilesets and open world segments. It's nice Vauban and Wukong are in line for a kit change, but smaller, (easier...?) reworks are needed for a lot of the other frames, too!

[ExcaliburUmbra]

I’ve been toying with a few passive suggestions myself, mainly in regards to Frost for obvious reasons. Note these are intentionally vague since I’m sure numbers would need adjusting regardless.

• Damage or crit boost against frozen enemies.
• Ability buffs when casting inside Snow Globe.
• Ember-like passive that gives Frost buffs when cold-proc’d.
• Shield, hp, or energy regen depending on amount of currently frozen enemies. 

Hydroid and Rhino’s passives honestly make me sad though. 

[Shadedraxe]

2 hours ago, Librus_MT said:

(And while we're at it, could we add a HUD element to show the Snow Globe's HP? That counter under it bugs out more often than not, and I don't know what it's telling me.

This right here! We need this! Some grade A quality of life! I love knowing how much armor rhino has without having to check by pausing and looking at his abilities (before the nezha rework). It helps me plan ahead and get ready for when my iron skin is about to go down.

considering frost’s bubble can reach 1 million hp through recasting, it’d be nice to know how much health each bubble has. And it would also make me aware if The bubble is about to go down when I run out of the bubble for a minute.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Shadedraxe

[Umquaptovis]

I have a few ideas.

Zephyr- same as now but removes aim glide time limit. She is suppose to be lighter than air mostly.

Frost- could could be given a buffed version of coolant leak to 6 ish meters and it just passes on a cold proc. it could just be there and be an okay passive giving you time to react but it would also open a diffrent way to play. It passes on a cold proc just straight cold so it slows things, it extends status effects, it is a free 11 hp for healing return, its a free 60% damage on CO.

Reinvent- his passive is so bad. It could be that when he losses his shields that he turns into that intangible state for 3 sec or so so you could take some kind of action cast a power,reload, take a good shot .  option 2 is that he has a low grade version of adaptation and no shield recharge delay.

Nova- lets make it easy and volatile. Did she miss her shot or was it planed? ammunition she fires explodes in a 1 or 2 m aoe.

Might have more later and Ember is problematic.

[Umquaptovis]

 Couple more.

Rhino- simple but effective. Keep what it has now and add that while running he can just bowl over people and gains an amount of DR  that would also apply to iron skin.

Oberon had a decent passive but It could have been much more. Say all animals see him as an ally.  On earth Kubros would start fighting grinear with you. In POE the birds and rabbits would would do the same while on the valas the tax men get rolled over buy bolarola. And it could be added that during trapping he dose not scare them away.