Dev Workshop: Revisiting Wukong

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

Well, now Hildryn will be the only functionally invincible frame.

GG, DE, GG.

[MirageKnight]

This rework looks good enough for me to want to actually give Wukong a try...but I find it rather curious that DE hasn't considered giving him the ability to summon circles of protection to make him more team friendly.

Yes, summoning circles of protection was apparently something Wukong did.

29 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Internal bleeding no doubt, bone fragments/pipes sticking out of your skin, marrow sipping into the blood stream, kidney's rupturing, lungs collapsing and so on.

Yeah, but Slash damage implies inflicting gashes and cuts to produce external bleeding, so I can see where @DeMonkey is coming from.

I think that Impact and Puncture damage should have the ability to inflict internal injuries that result in health degradation, but in less visibly obvious ways than say Slash.

That said, Wukong's big magic stick o' doom should NOT do Slash damage (it's a blunt weapon with no sharp edges or pokey bits, FFS). Instead, keep Impact damage and let it be able to inflict bleed procs to represent organs being ruptured / crushed.

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

1 minute ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

Well, now Hildryn will be the only functionally invincible frame.

GG, DE, GG.

Revenant nidus 

[(XBOX)Aquarii Ptosi]

18 minutes ago, burem0n0 said:

Who would use Wukong for Spy/stealth missions anyway when you can just pick Ivara, Loki or Ash for it?

I do. Ironically cloud walkers mobility is really good. Maybe try it before you knock it? Its easier to use than all 3 of those frames too and that's in its pre rework. 

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

4 hours ago, [DE]SpaceySarah said:

Celestial Twin Augment: Replacing Iron Vault, Wukong will command his clone to perform a wide radius slam, suspending enemies.

Quite an underwhelming augment. Why should I take space up in my building with this when I could use Primal Rage for additional Iron Staff damage and have Cloud Walker, which is already a stun ability? This should be much more unique, adding something to Wukong's kit that he doesn't already have or increase it's effectiveness.

4 hours ago, [DE]SpaceySarah said:

Enveloping Cloud: No planned changes.

The augment is horrible in general. Please change.

[SneakyErvin]

1 minute ago, MirageKnight said:

This rework looks good enough for me to want to actually give Wukong a try...but I find it rather curious that DE hasn't considered giving him the ability to summon circles of protection to make him more team friendly.

Yes, summoning circles of protection was apparently something Wukong did.

Yeah, but Slash damage implies inflicting gashes and cuts to produce external bleeding, so I can see where @DeMonkey is coming from.

I think that Impact and Puncture damage should have the ability to inflict internal injuries that result in health degradation, but in less obvious ways than say Slash.

That said, Wukong's big magic stick o' doom should NOT do Slash damage (it's a blunt weapon with no sharp edges or pokey bits, FFS). Instead, keep Impact damage and let it be able to inflict bleed procs to represent organs being ruptured / crushed.

But even so, it is a massive light stick, so shouldnt it really have the same potential to inflict slash damage as War, which also has no actual cutting edges and relies on pure energy? Also it wouldnt be the first staff without actual blades to have the possibility to inflict slash damage, we already have amphis and broken scepter.

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

3 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

No it didn't, it never has. This is misinformation plain and simple.

Boohoo I can't fight enemies that the game isn't actually designed around with Wukong anymore? I like an endurance run as much as the next guy, but under no circumstances should anything in this game be balanced around them.

Making the ability more useful in relevant content, and less useful in irrelevant content is, curiously, a good thing.

Ok how about we get rid of nidus stack revive as well.._ he doesn't need it... Useless at casual lvl anyway... Get rid of valkyr hysteria invincibility, what else?? Lets add more to the list...

[DeMonkey]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Dyin-Kyo said:

Ok how about we get rid of nidus stack revive as well.._ he doesn't need it... Useless at casual lvl anyway... Get rid of valkyr hysteria invincibility, what else?? Lets add more to the list...

You propose whatever you want, Sunshine. I'm simply commenting on this particular change.

[Darkvramp]

4 hours ago, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

Dont like it... Dont use it

thats not how this works..... things have to be worth a mod slot. it gets the mod used , it lets the augment have a place. it also leaves less room for snide remarks like this. be nice ( or try too)

[ExoXander]

Looks interesting, honestly not sure how i feel about the Defy changes, perhaps add a multiplier to the returned damage affected by power strength? and have him absorb damage to allies as well? even through that would be stepping on harrow's toes i think it would make wukong more team friendly and of course deal more damage.

[White-Chocolate]

These changes look awesome! When can we expect to get the rework?

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

10 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

You propose whatever you want, Sunshine. I'm simply commenting on this particular change.

Even if, gaining armor? Unless he gaining chroma's amount of armor i dont want to hear it. Look warcry valkyr gets shredded real easily, atlas squishy squishy. Dont disrespect him with an armor buff and give him a straight up damage reduction then atleast. 

[(PSN)nerdlegend]

Only thing endless missions with that passive sounds rubbish

[DeMonkey]

Just now, (PS4)Dyin-Kyo said:

Even if, gaining armor? Unless he gaining chroma's amount of armor i dont want to hear it. Look warcry valkyr gets shredded real easily, atlas squishy squishy. Dont disrespect him with an armor buff and give him a straight up damage reduction then atleast. 

We don't know how much armour it's going to be, but given it's already possible to survive most content with an Umbral build and defensive Arcanes, I can't see there being too much of a problem.

[(PSN)Dyin-Kyo]

8 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

We don't know how much armour it's going to be, but given it's already possible to survive most content with an Umbral build and defensive Arcanes, I can't see there being too much of a problem.

Words of a casual. Im done. Lol. You want wukong to drop from being 1 of the best survivability frames in the game to being "casual" low tier survivability with a niche impact stick a niche clone that might also get shredded and a cloud. Makes perfect sense

[Chroia]

I love these Dev Workshops.
I love having the rationale/context for changes.

 

Concerns of AI issues aside, 1 looks good, effect-wise.
That said, esp if you're the one at range, I'm unsure of its usability: Consider Loki's Decoy.
Different frame stats, granted, but barring the extreme exceptions of Inaros (and, with some player input, Nidus) frames are very bad at tanking with just their stats.

I'm assuming you're supposed to keep it sustained with the 2's healing (since recast requires repositioning)? That could work (as Magus Repair does), but presupposes the clone can survive getting gibbed - which I don't take for granted.
Assuming it doesn't insta-die in e.g. sortie 1 (or any elemental ench sortie), it looks cool.
I assume you're intended to keep it active with Defy? This could be fine, but will be energy intensive - and combined with Primal Fury being a toggle - is yet another frame incentivised to get 75% eff. (Though Flow + Rage can be done, ofc. It's just less reliable, esp with the clone taking agro.)

My primary concern with Defy is that it'll suffer from Nyx's Absorb-syndrome: A useful effect on paper, made useless by limits on application - miniscule range, as woth Absorb exacerbated by - in WuKong's case - application method being a melee attack - i.e. blocked by terrain touching the swing-box.
And all this overshadowed by the fundamental fact that, due to [url=https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HealthDamageAsymmetry]Damage<->Health Asymetry[/url] ^{Warning: TVTropes}, reflected damage scales very poorly before Damage 2.0 modifiers are applied.

That said, the armor buff will do a bit towards making Defy survivable, so no complaints there beyond the eternal (since the reported abandoning of Damage 3.0/Mods 2.5) and above-raised problem of Damage 2.0 and damage/eHP scaling issues.

That said, for - I think - self-explantory reasons, my secondary concern is the duration of both the effects (agro/absorb and armor buff).

Changes to Cloudwalker look good.

Am I seeing correctly that while Primal Fury's out, both you and the clone use it?

And I'm overall very happy about the trend of reducing anim-lock. It feels terrible, and raises the cost/risk of using those abilities.

To clarify:
Wukong's passive is 3 extra revives that each grant a buff out of a pool of 5 possible? Or do these buffs also apply to the 'normal' revives? I assume not, and that they're used first.
They're rather inconsistent in their immediate usefulness, but the flavor's good; and given that they have a useful duration, that's more a nit than a problem.

Augs look good, though I'd have to check my builds to see if they're actually worth a slot.

Cautiously optimistic. My stat-related concerns aside, this seems to be another well-put-together, innately synergistic kit. You're on a roll.
Well done, keep it up.

And welcome to the forums, Mrs. Spacey.

 

Edit: Question - Is the Forma bundle a binary 'has Wukong/does not have Wukong'?
It'd be hilarious (and kinda karmatic-justice, I think) to see the 7 Wukong fanatics wake up to 300 Forma because they're sitting on 100 Wukongs.

[DeMonkey]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Dyin-Kyo said:

Words of a casual. Im done. Lol

The entire game is casual, genius.

[Orokin]

44 minutes ago, Olphalarepth said:

I agree but if it will work like this there will be another frame with a severely underpowered ability. Loki's decoy is supposed to attract attention but it gets one shotted by a condroc yawning in its general direction and it happens so quickly that as soon as you cast it won't be able to attract more than the first enemy that gets its aggro for more than a split second.

I agree with you, just pointing out that new monkey king god first skill makes loki's almost completely useless (as it can be deployed further away, big deal as it won't last more than a second anyway)

Well there already exists saryn's molt which has an invulnerability period that absorbs damage and adds that to its health. So it is technically already outclassed as you say. You should argue that loki's decoy should be buffed not argue that wukong's 1 should be as useless as loki's.

[Volaren]

One of the 7 Wukong players here! 1.1k hours in Warframe, 20% Wukong playtime.

Overall I think the changes are really good. It's great to see that there's specific influence behind the changes (specifically Wukong lore) and the attempt to retain some of the identity that makes the small amount of Wukong players play him. It reminds me of Nezha and his successful rework (who I also play a ton of).

Passive: I like the idea, but this is the weakest part of his new kit and I hope it gets looked at a little bit. It's the weakest because while the buffs individually are incredible, the RNG makes them impossible to play around. This is fine by itself, imo, as it's a worthwhile tradeoff for powerful buffs that will almost always be useful in every situation regardless of which buff you receive. The big issue here is that it focuses entirely on one side of the influence (Wukong lore) and ignores the other: Wukong players and why they play Wukong. I know that I personally enjoy Wukong because he allows me to jump into endless missions knowing that he can go the distance. I love endless missions, and Wukong currently fits into that style of play very, very well. His new passive would be incredibly useless in endless missions, though. You pop your 3 procs in the first rotation or two, and now you don't have a passive for the rest of mission.
Proposed change: Simply give him a way to recharge that passive. Either with affinity (sort of like Syndicate weapons charge up with affinity, here you would have passive "charges", you have a max of 3 stored at a time, and gaining affinity gives you charges), based on a timer (after X amount of time, gain X charges, max 3 charges), or based on rotations (each time a rotation ends, you gain X charges, max 3 charges). I think the idea of the passive is great, having some RNG is a fun tradeoff for powerful buffs, but it definitely needs a way to stick around for long missions, because that's why players play Wukong: to go the distance.

 

Celestial Twin: I love the idea, I hope that the AI behaves well, because that will dictate its usefulness. Great upgrade from Iron Jab. Thanks!

Cloud Walker: Love the changes. The core idea behind the ability was always interesting, and this is a great way to try to make it relevant. Makes Wukong a great choice for Spy missions and the lowered energy cost makes it much more attractive in more situations. I think that people who complain about Defy being changed and Wukong's survivability are sleeping on Cloud Walker - it will help round out the cracks in his survivability if you learn to use it in a pickle instead of solely relying on Defy.

Proposed change: Please allow us to mod its travel speed! Either with sprint or parkour mods or with k-drive mods. This would turn Cloud Walker from a decent ability to an incredible ability. Could be busted depending on max speed if we can semi-permanently be in stealth/bypass lasers for Spy, but... it would be so cool.

Defy: I like the idea. It obviously feels bad to have Wukong's signature "can never die" ability gone, but I think this is a worthwhile replacement considering the buffs to the rest of his kit IF it's... well, useful. I feel like the damage spin aspect will be pretty useless (why sit there, absorb damage, release it to kill things when you can just kill them faster with your weapons/4?), but that feels more like a little cherry on top than a focal point of the ability. The taunt range, the invulnerability duration, and the armor gain are all stats that will be very important to determine how useful the ability is.

Proposed change: Please do not impose a movement speed debuff. I don't think there's a point. Either it's not very severe, and so it doesn't really matter, and so why even have it, or it's severe, and so it just feels really bad to be invulnerable but super sluggish. Warframe's movement feels incredible to use. Let us use it.

Primal Fury: I love the OG Primal Fury, so I'm happy to see it relatively unchanged with some nice buffs.

Proposed change: The drain is already worse on live compared to other melee Exalted Weapons while being less useful than those weapons at 3 energy per second (Excal has 2.5/s and a much stronger 4, Valkyr starts at 2.5/s and goes up, but her 4 is even more useful). I'm not sure the slight buffs necessitate the energy cost increase. Obviously we don't have numbers so we can't see if the drain is worth it, but range being on par with zaws instead of being clearly better is a bit disappointing. I'd be okay with a drain increase if the range was really, really good. Maybe not that gif good (you know which one I'm talking about, the one that all Wukong players dream about), but definitely better than standard melee weapons.

 

Overall I'm very happy with the changes. Hopefully the get a bit streamlined (the big ones I'm hoping for are sustainability changes for his passive and no movement speed debuff on defy) but I'm just happy you guys are giving the monkey some love.

 

 

[BrenBlaze]

Can we see the numbers on the abilities and what stats will be affected by what? And what is the point of this Warframe going to be/intended to be. 

1 seems outclassed by other clones, mirages and Excalibur umbra. Cool, but usefulness would require insane scaling with strength which seems unlikely.

2 seems to be a much higher maintenance version of ivaras 3.

3 seems neat but we need numbers to determine if it was worth losing never die mode, as it was the only reason to play the Warframe in semi tough content. In addition to the other two abilities not being very useful or good. 

4 not as fun or effective as other exalteds or melees in general.

Passive seems like alot of fun and a good way to compensate for loss of perma die, but much like the 1, not enough to carry this warframe.

 

I would love to see cloud buffs. In the form of literal buffs given if you say, jump up through the clouds, or charged by duration in cloud. Definitely get rid of the augment and make that built in, maybe make the augment recasting the ability gives each person in the cloud their own cloud and speed boost. 

[Olphalarepth]

3 minutes ago, Orokin said:

Well there already exists saryn's molt which has an invulnerability period that absorbs damage and adds that to its health. So it is technically already outclassed as you say. You should argue that loki's decoy should be buffed not argue that wukong's 1 should be as useless as loki's.

Exactly what I would like, GMTA.

[MJ12]

2 hours ago, Descent-of-Damocles said:

Time to be blunt. This is a trash move to sneakily increase your sales for the next prime access. Skipping vauban and chroma so that you can work on wukong to me means chroma and vauban won't get their rework if we support wukong sales. If we buy prime access, then you succeeded, and so you'd surely repeat this act. Chroma and vauban prime access has already passed, so to you, there is less business value, and I understand that. That is why I personally won't buy prime access anymore. Not until the fairness train comes back.

 

Also limbo rework still sucks. Don't overthink this and just make rift not affect ally attacks. I doesnt matter if enemy or warframe is in opposite side of rift. If it prevents damage, its bad design. I mean warframe abilities work this way, why not weapons? 

Vauban is still getting a rework, these things just take time.

Chroma's problem and why he's always been relatively low in priority basically boils down to a simple fact-Chroma doesn't underperform. In fact, he's a ridiculously powerful Warframe who can easily triple the damage of the weapons he's using while achieving ludicrous levels of survivability with relatively little need for support, and the fact that his primary powers are self/team buffs rather than enemy debuffs means that his powers basically work all the time, because there are almost no enemies who can strip buffs but aren't invulnerable to damaging powers.

So he's in a good place in terms of effectiveness (unlike Wukong) since Ward and Vex Armor are just that good, but he also happens to have two powers which are complete trash and not worth investing in.

[DrivaMain]

Welp looks like I am gonna start crafting that monkey now. It’s been sitting in my foundry for a year..

[Sickle_Slayer]

Hmm... I don't think I can give any real verdict without being able to test it. But I would LOVE to see some Enveloping Cloud changes. 

It really just overall needs love. The stealth breaks for party members if they do almost anything, so please, please make it a better version of stealth. As it is, its nearly useless (though I must say, the changes to Cloud walker have highly increased its usability already)

But still, please, PLEASE, take a look at the mod? It could SO helpful as a team mod if it let them kill enemies and stay stealthed. You could even reduce the duration to match Ash's augment duration. 

On a small note... maybe increase the range? As it is now it either has to rely on team members going out of their way, stopping gameplay, just to get the buff. Again, the Cloud Walker changes have severly helped this already, but it'd be nice if you could keep it in mind? 

 

Anyways, thanks!

[Sickle_Slayer]

Just a small thing... could you make the clones damage have a multiplier based on the Combo multiplier that Wukong currently has? That would be a neat scaling mechanic, and would incentivize synergy with melee or his 4