Equinox - Pacify

[Arkeresh]

This ability is an issue. As it is right now, pacify requires you to build all 4 stats to be usable. Without all 4 stats, using pacify will actually hinder your game play. 

Equinox night form has bad scaling when you build negative power strength. Her third ability, when built with negative power strength, causes enemies to deal far too much damage. At max rank with my full build, night form caused enemies to deal 5x damage, going down to half that around the edges in at least a 40m radius. That's not okay. There is NO way that is okay to make allies take any extra damage, especially given the way you build and use equinox. (I should mention that I was testing, and the 5x damage is coming from a 10% power strength build with power donation.) Currently, the only real (HEAVY EMPHASIS ON REAL) uses for equinox, that I know of, are the day form maim build and the spreading rest build for night form using the augment mod. Both of which use range, and are likely to cannibalize power strength using overextended. (Meaning that you build range at the expense of strength, leading to a massive damage increase for enemies across the map.) Maybe I'm still missing something which would justify this, but I'd really like it if this could be changed so that the scaling doesn't cause enemies to deal extra damage. I'm hoping that the scaling has just been an overlooked detail and not something that was intentional put in and left there. If nothing else, I'd at least like this to be acknowledged so I can either hope for a change or move on because I think this is an actual problem. 

There is a fringe case build that I heard of and have tried. Using the pacify/provoke build you can essentially make an adaptation build, but much worse. You take damage to build it up, you have to build strength for it to work which doesn't have synergy with any of her other abilities, it doesn't work on enemies that are out of range, the range is abysmal, you lose the charge if you swap forms, and the energy costs make it so that you can't cast anything else. Even if the cost is .55 per enemy, which is generally the best I can get it, it still drains 4 energy per second with 8 enemies around.

For anyone who would just say "well don't use that ability then" or "mod differently", don't say that. For one, I believe all warframes should be able to use every ability. However, that isn't always the case. And at the moment, the real use of equinox is to build for range and use maim or rest, power strength is not needed ever. Period. That being said, I'd like to at least be able to turn on my third ability without being punished.

I always like to propose a change, rather than just complaining. These are changes that I believe would be ideal:

Changing the energy cost of pacify, either making it less or just making it a normal draining ability with a flat energy cost. Because as it is now it still costs more than normal abilities even though you can gain energy while using it. (Even a .55 energy cost per enemy drains too much)

Fixing the negative scaling of pacify so that allies don't take 5x damage when I want to use this ability. I saw another thread that mentioned this and referenced Nova's speedva build, but this is NOT the same case. Nova's speedva build has an actual use that can benefit allies. Causing allies to take 8x damage has no benefit for anyone, except for maybe an iron skin rhino. Even a 10% damage reduction for a second while I'm in night form is better than nothing. That aside, even a 1% damage reduction is better than taking 500% damage.

Changing the distance reduction of pacify so that all enemies in the area are effected equally. This is the least of my concerns, but if this was changed then the pacify/provoke augment build might actually be viable.

 

Also please fix the clipping hoops on equinox prime day form when you're using the base skin and make it so that we can color customize each form separately, thank you.

As an added side note, Now I'm wondering even more how the math of pacify works. If I am giving the enemies a damage multiplier of 5, how does that work as it scales outwards? Generally I know it to get weaker, but does that mean they do MORE damage as it gets farther out or less?

Edited July 18, 2019 by Arkeresh
Changed 8 to 5, due to either a typo or a mistake in my initial thinking

[taiiat]

yes, night side Equinox actually requires you to be smart about your Mod choices, unlike day.
night side Equinox is more cohesive than day, to be frank. with day you want maximum Range but doing so obliterates the effectiveness of every other Ability the day side has. while night does not.

the Energy Cost of Pacify can be made pretty convenient, only getting to an alarming rate when you have basically all Enemies in the Mission within Range all at once. and even then you're looking at a drain of something around 5E/sec.

you aren't going to be able to have one Stat maxed and also have another Stat maxed. that is simply not possible in Warframe. so, you'll have to figure out the Ability(ies) to get the most that you can out of them.
the fact that you think that Equinox only exists to have +180% Range and that the other Abilities should come along free while Modding for only one Ability Stat..... well that shows that the game certainly doesn't hold all of any fault that there may be here.

Peaceful Provocation(or even just Pacify natively) also isn't a 'worse Adaptation' - because you would use Adaptation in conjunction with it so that Equinox can be one of the better Tanks in the game.

 

 

do you have any information to give yourself a reason to think that Pacify is exponential with negative Strength? whether Multiplicative or Additive, the worst possible you could possibly get if Pacify was Additive (it is not) would be less than 2x Damage.

[Arkeresh]

I suppose I should have tested a little more before writing the post, but I checked during the mission I was in, and (I thought) it told me that damage was being multiplied by 8x. Now that I'm looking again, trying to confirm this with my friend, I see that it only says 5x. I guess I was in the middle of a fight or something and glanced over it. I should have mentioned that my power strength was 10% because I was using power donation to test it out. While I had read it wrong, 5x damage is still a good deal of damage. I will change my post accordingly.

Without power donation, on my standard build (40% power strength), the damage multiplier is still 1.25x. While this is not as much as a problem as I had initially thought while writing the post, I still do not like it. I agree, you need to be smart about modding, and maybe my power donation choice isn't the best. But I have done research into various builds I can use with equinox and try to also test things on my own, like I was with power donation. That aside, I cannot agree with the scaling of night form's 3. Even if it's a negligible buff, as it is with my day form's 1-8% power strength buff, that is still better than increasing enemy damage by ANY amount. I'm not asking for the ability to be the best, or even good. I just don't want it to hinder me when I mod for other abilities. I still turn on my 1% power strength provoke in day form, just because I can. I want to be able to do the same with night form's 3 when I switch to it for healing. Of course, stats are good to have on all warframes, but a lot of warframes do well with one stat more than the others. I strongly believe that equinox does best with range, as it is good on her 2, 3, and 4.  Even if I were to reduce my preferred max power range to add other mods (i.e. adaptation which I still have yet to get), I would still leave on overextended, as it is the best range mod in terms of the range stat and saves space for other mods. This would lead me to increase the enemy damage when I use the 3rd ability, and I don't ever see myself building for power strength on equinox. But this isn't about my build. This isn't about modding for two stats. This is about how there's no way to mod to make pacify good. In my post I DID talk about modding for other abilities, and went over the down sides of the 3rd ability in general. 

As for the cost, there are always enemies surrounding you in warframe. They spawn endlessly. That's why I would prefer the 3 to be a flat power drain. There is nothing convenient about the pacify energy drain. The only way to keep the energy drain down is to kill off enemies, which is generally easier done in day form.

Peaceful provocation IS a worse adaptation. That's not saying that you can't use them together, so don't mix up my words. But objectively, adaptation is better, even if you exclusively mod for pacify, which I would never do because that isn't worth it. And as it is, with my preferred build, using pacify alongside adaptation would still cause enemies to deal more damage. I had never said anything about pacify being multiplicative or additive, just that it was increasing enemy damage. The ability itself is a damage multiplier, but I don't think that's what you mean.

[NinjaZeku]

3 hours ago, Arkeresh said:

This is about how there's no way to mod to make pacify good.

I'm not gonna argue that Pacify is perfect as-is or anything
(having Pacify give the full effect within the entire AoE would certainly be an improvement,
and it giving damage resistance to the Squad rather than making enemies weaker would probably also be better,
plus of course the stacks of Augment'd Pacify need to carry over / be stored when you switch forms, innately, F that 4 Augment),
but ... honestly now, a big part of your problems are because of the build you chose to use.

E.g. my "general use" Equinox still manages to have a bit of positive Strength (+40%)
despite Overextended and while maintaining minimum drain costs on her 4, so that's not impossible.

Spoiler

Corrosive Projection, Vigilante Pursuit
Umbral Vitality & Intensify (R9)
Stretch, Overextended
Streamline, Fleeting Expertise
Energy Conversion, Peaceful Provocation

It's a fun build to use 😄

[Xzorn]

Only thing I wish they'd change on Pacify / Provoke is her need to re-cast the ability every damn time she swaps Day / Night.

There's no reason they can't just flip effects and keep the ability continuous outside lazy coding.

You can build Pacify to be quite effective. You can go even further to make some pretty mean Equinox Hybrids.

Not saying it's easy or cheap but it is possible....

My Ragewebs + Pacify build. It plays about 75% Night 25% Day and when Pacify is charged she can face tank shots from lvl 165 enemies. Not for long mind you but still effective and produces a tremendous decrease in the team's damage intake while adding x8 stealth multipliers in addition to x2 Rage multipliers. Great Support build.

EDIT: I should mention I don't think there are not flaws with Equinox. I'd hoped they'd make her hybrid nature function better without patchwork needed by the player. Her Mend / Maim augment for instance shouldn't be a thing. She should naturally retain charge for both that and her Pacify / Provoke augment when switching. She's incredibly augment dependent. Might even be the most as I have another build using 3 of her augments.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Xzorn

[Arkeresh]

@NinjaZeku I'm not saying Equinox is unusable either, I absolutely love the frame. I did mention the pacify build. I did mention it. You can do it. I have done it. But it's very hard to build for and ineffective with the way pacify works currently. I will try out that build you've posted. 

Also, I don't think my build is really a problem, aside from the power donation choice. I've done research into it and tested out builds on my own. The current build I use is taken directly from Brozime who I trust to know more about the game than I ever could since he plays it much more than the average person. Other builds I've used are based off of Tactical Potatoes builds, another person who knows the ins and outs of this game better than I do.

@Xzorn The fact that it drops the ability is absolutely terrible. Again, you can make it work, but just looking at that build I see a nearly maxed umbral, 2 maxed corrupted mods, a maxed prime, a grove specter mod, a lua mod, and 2 augments. Those aren't the easiest to get for many players. That being said, I do have them and will try out that build as well.

Warframes and abilities should be usable with basic mods that anyone can get. They shouldn't require primes, corrupted, and umbrals to make them work, they should require those to make them great.

Edit: All in all, it seems were in some sort of agreement here that Equinox could use a little bit of a tweak. Not a major change or buff, just a bit of a change to the way the ability works as a whole that would just improve the quality of life for Equinox.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Arkeresh

[ebrl]

Have you tried not having negative strength in a build where negative strength is bad? That would solve most of your problems. Just a thought.

If you had put a tiny fraction of the effort that went into complaining about how deliberately building in the worst possible way imaginable turned out bad (what a surprise! I'm not entirely convinced we aren't being trolled, to be honest) into actually fixing your goddamn stupid "build" (by, say, not having negative strength for an ability that scales off strength! what a novel concept), you'd have long figured out that Pacify (especially with the augment) is one of the strongest team defense abilities in the game.

[(XBOX)Q 2 K O]

1 hour ago, Arkeresh said:

@NinjaZeku I'm not saying Equinox is unusable either, I absolutely love the frame. I did mention the pacify build. I did mention it. You can do it. I have done it. But it's very hard to build for and ineffective with the way pacify works currently. I will try out that build you've posted. 

Also, I don't think my build is really a problem, aside from the power donation choice. I've done research into it and tested out builds on my own. The current build I use is taken directly from Brozime who I trust to know more about the game than I ever could since he plays it much more than the average person. Other builds I've used are based off of Tactical Potatoes builds, another person who knows the ins and outs of this game better than I do.

@Xzorn The fact that it drops the ability is absolutely terrible. Again, you can make it work, but just looking at that build I see a nearly maxed umbral, 2 maxed corrupted mods, a maxed prime, a grove specter mod, a lua mod, and 2 augments. Those aren't the easiest to get for many players. That being said, I do have them and will try out that build as well.

Warframes and abilities should be usable with basic mods that anyone can get. They shouldn't require primes, corrupted, and umbrals to make them work, they should require those to make them great.

Edit: All in all, it seems were in some sort of agreement here that Equinox could use a little bit of a tweak. Not a major change or buff, just a bit of a change to the way the ability works as a whole that would just improve the quality of life for Equinox.

It’s not hard to build for Pacify. And honestly in my opinion it’s probably not a good thing to build too much range into a Pacify build. It will usually lead to you CC’ing enemies you don’t need to, and even with massive range you still have the DR falloff regardless. You can’t have everything in one build as I’m sure you already know so you’re going to have to compensate somewhere. 

Also Xzorn’s build doesn’t really have any mods that are just overly expensive. The highest I see is Growing Power and even it is only around 50-60p at the most. All the others you can acquire on your own or farm relics for plat to buy them. You’d probably only have to farm 4 decent pieces of frames and you’d have enough to remake this build. When it comes to modding you only have yourself to blame if you don’t have them maxed. Arbitration has made a large change in just how difficult it is to max mods, if this was before Arbitrations I would agree with you here. 

[Xzorn]

9 hours ago, Arkeresh said:

Edit: All in all, it seems were in some sort of agreement here that Equinox could use a little bit of a tweak. Not a major change or buff, just a bit of a change to the way the ability works as a whole that would just improve the quality of life for Equinox.

 

Well I feel you're being too hard on the ability. It's pretty useful.

Equinox's problem is you really have to mix additional skills or you're usually better off with another frame. It's why most just build her for Webs or Maim. All my builds for her are Hybrid using multiple aspects at roughly 90% potency but in order to do this I had to dump Efficiency and slot Energize. I don't think that level of patchwork should be required for a frame intended to swap abilities and that build wouldn't work well without at least one Energize set. You'd have to bring up that Efficiency thus losing Slow / -%Damage or the Range of effectiveness.

Even my Maim build isn't just Maim. Though I'm still deciding between two. Think it's mostly conditional to the map size.

Webs + Duality + Maim in one setup. In this case double Energize isn't needed It's just Day form is squishy so couldn't think of much better. I would certainly like to see some quirks for Equinox fixed like I mentioned. They kinda bring down what I feel the whole purpose of the frame is which is to blend Night / Day abilities. If I were stuck to one ability or 50% potency on multiple I'd probably just have a Webs + Duality build, a flat Maim build then call it a day and play something else for the other stuff.

[Leuca]

Another frame that's borderline OP in certain regards but would be much better off receiving a rework to how she benefits from stats, on top of having a near useless passive and abilities that discourage you from utilizing the swapping mechanic she was advertised to benefit greatly from. 🙊

[A-keras]

On 2019-07-19 at 10:46 AM, Leuca said:

Another frame that's borderline OP in certain regards but would be much better off receiving a rework to how she benefits from stats, on top of having a near useless passive and abilities that discourage you from utilizing the swapping mechanic she was advertised to benefit greatly from. 🙊

Yeah, that's also my issue with Equinox, and I love this Warframe. Her abilities in how they react when using Metamorphosis really discourage players from switching forms in the middle of missions. It would be nice if they rework her abilities to better fit with her form swapping concept, without losing what they built up from one form to the other, and instead have a shared resource that carries over between forms, which can be drained slowly over time, or used all at once at the player's choice. And of course keep the toggled abilities on when swapping forms, and change them to that form's version of the ability.

Like someone mentioned in a post full of ideas for changes to Equinox, turn her passive ability into Metamorphosis and have it activated whenever she performs a roll, similar to how Limbo uses Rift Walk after his rework. And make her form related stat changes permanent, until she leaves that form through Metamorphosis. As of right now, the decaying stat buffs given when form switching doesn't make much sense as it doesn't encourage anyone to switch back and forth to keep them, doing that is intrusive for gameplay. It best allow players to decide what is the best form for the situation during a mission, and change accordingly, which is why the change has to be fluid and quick and as non-intrusive as it can be.

Edited July 20, 2019 by A-keras

[NekroArts]

1 hour ago, A-keras said:

Like someone mentioned in a post full of ideas for changes to Equinox, turn her passive ability into Metamorphosis and have it activated whenever she performs a roll, similar to how Limbo uses Rift Walk after his rework

Hell no. Rolling is a common parkour maneuver, the reason why it works for Limbo is because going into the Rift is similar to dodging. Even if you pair this with retaining her built up abilities when switching forms, having to roll again to switch back will be an annoyance. 

[Arkeresh]

On 2019-07-20 at 11:42 AM, A-keras said:

Yeah, that's also my issue with Equinox, and I love this Warframe. Her abilities in how they react when using Metamorphosis really discourage players from switching forms in the middle of missions. It would be nice if they rework her abilities to better fit with her form swapping concept, without losing what they built up from one form to the other, and instead have a shared resource that carries over between forms, which can be drained slowly over time, or used all at once at the player's choice. And of course keep the toggled abilities on when swapping forms, and change them to that form's version of the ability.

Like someone mentioned in a post full of ideas for changes to Equinox, turn her passive ability into Metamorphosis and have it activated whenever she performs a roll, similar to how Limbo uses Rift Walk after his rework. And make her form related stat changes permanent, until she leaves that form through Metamorphosis. As of right now, the decaying stat buffs given when form switching doesn't make much sense as it doesn't encourage anyone to switch back and forth to keep them, doing that is intrusive for gameplay. It best allow players to decide what is the best form for the situation during a mission, and change accordingly, which is why the change has to be fluid and quick and as non-intrusive as it can be.

I do not like the idea of the roll to swap forms, but the idea of keeping the form bonuses indefinitely was something that I thought about. However, I tried to keep this post exclusively towards equinox's 3.

[A-keras]

On 2019-07-20 at 1:08 PM, NekroArts said:

Hell no. Rolling is a common parkour maneuver, the reason why it works for Limbo is because going into the Rift is similar to dodging. Even if you pair this with retaining her built up abilities when switching forms, having to roll again to switch back will be an annoyance. 

 

On 2019-07-22 at 4:40 PM, Arkeresh said:

I do not like the idea of the roll to swap forms, but the idea of keeping the form bonuses indefinitely was something that I thought about. However, I tried to keep this post exclusively towards equinox's 3.

Yeah, I can see where you guys are coming from. I guess it be better to have her form bonuses as her passive ability, but indefinitely like you said, and have her Metamorphosis cost nothing, unless she holds the button to summon her other half?

Now back onto her 3rd ability. It's possible for the Provoke's effects to carry over to her Night Form, for both her 1 and 4 ( If you have energy Transfer ), which gives me an idea. What if when you switch forms while your toggled abilities are active, the other half's effects can be carried over for a limited duration? And during this duration, her composite form is used? Of course some changes would have to be made, like making her Pacify to buff her team defensive instead of debuffing the enemies, so you don't have to choose between staying close to the enemy or your own allies.

Edited July 24, 2019 by A-keras