Mag Rework (Yes, another one)

[xX_MAG_Xx]

So, Mag.

As you may have told by my name, I like Mag. She was my first frame, my first prime, and still holds a dear place in my heart. Yet I just can't seem to make her viable. I can build range, duration and power strength to make big Magnetize bubbles that will kill anyone that enters slowly from a Vectis Prime bullet and some scrap metal taken from enemies by Polarize. I can do that, but it takes setup. Meanwhile you have Saryn, or Garuda, or Gara, nuking entire hordes in seconds. Of course, Mag brings more utility with the bullet absorbing aspect and longer control Magnetize provides, but in the grand scheme of things Mag feels underwhelming to most, myself somewhat included.

I feel that a beginner warframe should teach the basics of a part of warframe. We have excalibur for melee, and Volt for parkour and casting. Mag currently pretty much teaches being energy efficient because she needs a ton of abilities to do anything. Other than that she just teaches bad habits from spamming Pull without really killing anyone. I'd like to see Mag be the entry level supportive and tanky warframe. And this is how I would like that Warframe to look with its concept of magnetic and natural forces.

 

Ability 1 is Pull. Pull creates a high-gravity zone on the ground, slowing any enemies that walk through (this is a true slow, not just movement slow). Additionally, bullets flying over the zone get pulled down.

Ability 2 is Magnetize. Magnetize creates a zone in front of Mag that absorbs bullets. It converts the kinetic energy from the absorbed bullets into extra shields. Then, when the ability is released, the bullets will be launched as a concentrated blast towards the cursor (scaling damage with enemy damage). Bullets that have been pulled out of the air by Pull can also be absorbed.

Ability 3 is Polarize. Polarize polarizes an area (like snow globe). This area will slow down enemy bullets untill they eventually stop and disappear. Additionally, allied bullets get sped up in the zone, meaning any ally bullets fired into or from inside the zone will deal bonus damage. Also, allies that enter the zone gain shield fortifications (damage reduction on shields only) based on Mag's shields (this can cap out at 75%)

Ability 4 is Crush. Mag magnetizes the bones of enemies, making gravity weigh more heavily on them, and crushing them to the ground. They stay crushed for a duration.

 

This is a huge change from her old kit, I get that, but I think it's just impossible to make her viable while keeping her abilities in tact. Especially her 1 and 4 need fundamental changes to make her viable. Crush is a nearly useless ability, unless you're using the augment, because it's just sheer damage and a stun for as long as Mag is casting. Pull is also a worthless ability that has basically no use except for ragdolling enemies, so it's basically an inconsistent form of CC. Magnetize is her only good ability, but it's difficult to use properly, so not ideal for beginners. And Polarize gets outscaled way too hard, and you can't really build around it without having to spam the ability hard and be out of energy almost constantly.

I think these changes will make her easy to pick up for beginners as the effects will be pretty clear, and the standard incentives for beginners (like filling up shields and slowing enemies) will be exactly what you want them to do to be extra effective (by filling up shields they give the team bonus damage reduction, and by slowing enemies they also protect against bullets). I think a beginner kit should do that; reward players for correct behaviour, and make that correct behaviour some baseline of gameplay that they should practice in.

Lemme know what you think :P

[Lazarow]

From what you suggested her 1 and 2 and 4 are good, but her 3 well its kinda the main dps of mag rigth now while doing dmage to shields mainly also it replenishes shields to allies and you are making it a defensive ability which also seems like it would have small range like snowglobe(I guess since not specified), I do like the shield reduction of damage taken but I also like long range magnetize to destroy the shield of enemies so why not do both? I mean it can work like garas 4 you hold till it expands to what you want or reaches the max range ofcourse the bigger it is the weaker the enemy debuff would be , lets say at 5m is minimum and 20m is maximum(radius) at 5m enemiy bullets fly at 70-90% less speed and at max only 5% less speed, it also applies to shield reduction to damage at minimum its 75% and at max range its only 10%, or something like that

[xX_MAG_Xx]

22 minutes ago, Lazarow said:

From what you suggested her 1 and 2 and 4 are good, but her 3 well its kinda the main dps of mag rigth now while doing dmage to shields mainly also it replenishes shields to allies and you are making it a defensive ability which also seems like it would have small range like snowglobe(I guess since not specified), I do like the shield reduction of damage taken but I also like long range magnetize to destroy the shield of enemies so why not do both? I mean it can work like garas 4 you hold till it expands to what you want or reaches the max range ofcourse the bigger it is the weaker the enemy debuff would be , lets say at 5m is minimum and 20m is maximum(radius) at 5m enemiy bullets fly at 70-90% less speed and at max only 5% less speed, it also applies to shield reduction to damage at minimum its 75% and at max range its only 10%, or something like that

That could work, but I do think the internal zone should be big enough so that if you want the full benefit you shouldn't just be standing still in the middle of the zone. And for the shield destroying part, I was trying not to make the ability too overloaded so that's why I scrapped the damage part in favor of team buffs. But the way you described it it could work pretty well. I think the max benefit zone should be about 30% of the size of the full zone, and bullets should be completely stopped by that time I think.

The shield destruction could also maybe be put on Crush instead if you're just looking for that low level enemy wiping. What about Crush becomes like the old Polarize; an expanding zone that crushes enemies to the ground and explodes their shields if they have any.

Edited July 22, 2019 by xX_MAG_Xx