We forgot about Nekros

[Zectico]

TL;DR: Nekros doesn't do anything well, and his abilities are too reliant on augments. Ideas at the bottom.

So here's the problem: What is Nekros actually good at?

Nekros has all-round average stats with no significant support, survivability, or damage abilities. His primary ability is Desecrate, which literally does nothing except give an un-modable 54% buff to loot drops.

This buff does sound pretty good, which is why the only use for Nekros was being afk in the corner with Desecrate toggled on. But with the removal of loot buffing abilities being able to stack, this isn't even the case anymore as many other frames are able to give a similar if not double the boost compared to Desecrate, while still being useful for damage, crowd control, etc.

(Hydroid)              [Pilfering Swarm]:  100% extra loot with no extra cost; with CC and AOE damage

(Khora)     [Pilfering Strangledome]:  65% extra loot with no extra cost; with CC and AOE damage

(Nekros)                           Desecrate:  54% extra loot draining 10 energy (or health) per enemy affected; does nothing else

(Chesa Doggo)                 [Retreive]:   45% extra loot every 10 seconds with no extra cost (doesn't even take up Warframe mod slots!)

(Atlas)                              [Ore Gaze]:   25% extra loot with no extra cost; with CC and scanning enemies into codex

If there's a pilfering Hydroid or Khora, Desecrate does nothing since it's bonuses are lower. There is the disadvantage that a lot of these are augments, making them cost valuable mod space, but I have yet to see a well-built Nekros without [Despoil] and [Health Conversion].

 

Of course, he does have 3 other abilities:

[1] Soul Punch: Sends an enemy rag-dolling away at high speed. Has impractical "soul" mechanic that is hard to set up and does 1/5 of the already minimal base damage.

Useless. Even Redeemer Prime can knock down multiple enemies. The ability knocks the enemies so far that the enemy will have gotten back up by them time you find them again. 25 energy to knock a single enemy down is also not worth it.

[2] Terrify: Makes enemies disperse and run away from you, with a 20% temporary armor reduction that does not work on bosses

Good for emergency CC, but in a game where players literally buff enemies to make them run to the point faster, making enemies run away is counter intuitive. Having to hunt down every enemy like a capture target is already bad enough, only made worse by the 25 SECOND base duration, making affected enemies run away, never to be seen again. 20% temporary armor reduction is also pretty useless, since Corrosive damage is a permanent 25% reduction.

[4] Shadows Of The Dead: Summons buffed versions of enemies, who lose a percentage health per second. Fully heals existing shadows on recast

Actually pretty good ability, since enemies who grant buffs will now aid you instead. However, summoned enemies cannot be manually killed, so you'll be stuck with a few useless butchers or crewmen at all times. Has the same target priority as tenno, so they provide a bit of protection too.

Oberons will hate you.

These abilities can be made amazing with augments, but an ability shouldn't need augments to be good.

[1] Soul Survivor: Revive teammates from a distance at the cost of all your energy.

Not practical, but an instant revive from afar has its uses.

[2] Creeping Terrify: Enemies are significantly slowed

Now the ability removes enemy aggression without them sprinting away! Super powerful, and even works on Tusk Thumpers.

[3] Despoil: Ability now drains health instead of energy

This has a synergy with [Health Conversion], granting Nekros an active armor bonus as long as he keeps killing enemies and they keep dropping health. Health is also a much more common resource than energy, due to healing frames and arcanes. Helps a lot with the high energy upkeep of Nekros.

[4] Shield of Shadows: Shadows each take 6% of the damage you take, granting a 42% damage reduction overall.

Amazing ability for survivability, and can also help distinguish shadows apart from enemies. The link range is limited however, so it's not very useful in highly mobile missions.

 

Ideas for change:

[1] Soul Punch -> Soul Reap: Since Nekros has the whole reaper theme, why not have him take souls instead?

Cast on an enemy to take their soul, granting a health buff to Nekros. Cast on an ally to give them a soul, granting them the health buff. Cast on a shadow to kill it and return its soul to Nekros.

Nekros seems to be more of a support frame, and this can bring him more in line of that role along with giving a bit of survivability.

The ability to selectively remove shadows has also been a long requested feature. Keep in mind that replacing a single shadow will cost 125 energy, so even though Nekros can build up a strong team, it's going to take a while: keeping in line with his play style of endurance missions like survival.

Soul Survivor: Upgrading the mod reduces percent energy cost instead. Nekros can't afford to lose all his energy to revive one teammate, especially when his abilities already have high energy costs. I'm pretty sure just walking over and reviving by hand already grants full health anyway, so upgrading the mod to revive with more health doesn't make sense.

[2] Terrify: The downside is that enemies run away, so just remove that 

[Edit]: (Thanks Teridax68!) The slow effect is a lot more important to the gameplay of Nekros than armor stripping, so swap the augment to armor strip instead. Will also help reduce his reliance on augments.

Terrified enemies suffer a radiation-like effect, causing them to turn on their allies. 

Enemies are now slowed.

The ability was good in that it removed ALL enemy aggression, but caused them to run away. To keep its CC usefulness while being balanced, enemies can still attack but are still unlikely to target the player.

Creeping Terrify -> Exposing Terrify: Good mod. Let's not mess with it.  

So good it should just be the default ability. Would make more sense if it reduces armor instead.

[3] Desecrate: It doesn't have to be the best to be good. It just can't be the entire focus of Nekros anymore.

The main advantage of Desecrate is that it covers a large area, but with a weaker boost. The base range could use a bit of a buff to help make it more competitive, and to help reduce the need for range mods which really only benefit this ability. I suggest 30m (+20% from 25m) to bring it in line with Chesa Kubrows.

Despoil: Good mod. Would be nice if it gave a range boost to this ability alone, since players in pub squads lack the coordination to stay in the same room.

[4] Shadows Of The Dead: Oberons hate this. Lets fix that.  [Edit]: Turns out Oberon is the problem.

Shadows no longer benefit from allied buffs

Seems like a nerf, but its pretty fair if Nekros is able to selectively replace his shadows.

Shield of Shadows: What if the link was symbiotic? Shadows share any buffs on Nekros. I don't think they benefit from buffs like Octavia's Amp or Choma's Vex Armor at the moment, and giving them these buffs won't be too unreasonable as they do puny damage anyway and will still lose a certain % hp per second.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Zectico

[Chewarette]

No survivability ? Waw, Army of the Dead combined with Desecrate and the correct modding makes him invulnerable. And the poor range on the Army is actually not a problem as you simply have to re-use your 4 to teleport them to your position with a shorter cast.

And that's the same for "crewmen and butchers". Once you have a great lineup, just prevent them from dying by recasting and you'll keep them forever.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Chewarette

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I like the idea of soul punch taking away part of the soul, but feel it could give more than a health buff.

And shadows of the Dead needs to do far more than what it does now to justify its cost and cast animation length.

[selig_fay]

39 минут назад, Zectico сказал:

Oberons hate this. Lets fix that.

This will not fix the Oberon problem. I can still create a bunch of specters to torment him. The problem should be fixed on Oberon's side.

[peterc3]

3 hours ago, Zectico said:

Nekros has lost his place as the go-to loot frame

When?

[(PSN)deathwolfclaw666]

3 hours ago, Zectico said:

TL;DR: Nekros has lost his place as the go-to loot frame, and his abilities are too reliant on augments. Ideas at the bottom.

That's news to me. He's still the only loot frame I use with the others having too lower range and creating a slow TTK for my liking. I don't use augments either. 

[Zectico]

2 hours ago, Chewarette said:

No survivability ? Waw, Army of the Dead combined with Desecrate and the correct modding makes him invulnerable. And the poor range on the Army is actually not a problem as you simply have to re-use your 4 to teleport them to your position with a shorter cast.

And that's the same for "crewmen and butchers". Once you have a great lineup, just prevent them from dying by recasting and you'll keep them forever.

I guessing that you're referring to Shadows of the Dead + Shield of Shadows, which gives a 42% max damage reduction (nowhere close to enough for a frame with only 65 armor).

In low level content, Shield of Shadows is definitely enough. I think you can even run without augments actually. In modes like Arbitration however, Nekros goes out quick.

Simply "re-using your 4" is a MASSIVE problem on Nekros, due to Shadows taking 100 energy out of his 188 max energy pool. This is made even worse by how his only CC ability costs 75 energy. Even with +30% efficiency, the shadows can be difficult to keep up. [Fleeting Expertise] is difficult to fit in since you need [Continuity] to keep the shadows from dieing too fast, but also need the mods to keep yourself alive along with augments.

If the only abilities you're using is your 3 and 4, then it works but you'll die.

[Teridax68]

While I question the claim that Nekros has lost his place as the game's loot frame, I can fully agree that he is far too dependent on augments to be any good. I would very much support improvements to his kit, as he is perhaps the clearest example of a frame with a garbage base kit that's only made useful through band-aid augments, though I'd also probably go a little further and question the very existence of loot frames: on one hand, it makes no sense for frames to specialize in looting in a game that has lots of loot to collect, but on the other, Nekros really deserves to be more than just the game's loot frame, and instead become a proper necromancer. With this in mind, my thoughts on the proposed changes:

• Soul Reap looks good, and utility befits Nekros. This would likely be enough to make the ability usable.
• I'm not sure what the difference would be between the new Terrify and Nyx's Chaos. I think the better option in this respect would be to simply swap out Creeping Terrify's slow and the ability's innate armor reduction, so that Terrify always slows enemies, and could then be augmented like a bunch of other abilities to apply an armor shred.
• Desecrate I think needs a complete redo, as it ultimately has no real gameplay of its own, and is just a passive loot aura. Personally, I think the ideal replacement would be a corpse explosion active, where Nekros could target enemy corpses, body parts, and Shadows to detonate them (and consume them in the process) to deal powerful damage and maybe a Viral proc. It'd solidify his niche as a defensive and death-focused frame while also fulfilling the need to remove Shadows when appropriate.
• I think if the objective is to make Nekros play nice with Oberon, it may be better to fix Oberon, rather than disable buffing on allies entirely. Nekros isn't the only problem frame, as Titania also creates trouble with her Razorflies, so it might be better to either disable Oberon's Renewal on non-Tenno allies, or simply remove the added cost per unit.

[AzulMage]

Hydroid has the caveat of enemies having to die while still attached to a tentacle (whether that be through the tentacle damage itself or shooting at them to get the kill while they are on it) which is tougher to do at higher levelled areas or higher level kuva survival as the damage from them becomes to low to kill and the constant flailing of enemies makes it harder to shoot and kill. I think khora has the same caveat but get dome plus her 1 synergize to make those kills easier. I'd give it to khora being the better choice with nekros being a close second

[(PSN)yandelyandel2000]

2 hours ago, Zectico said:

I guessing that you're referring to Shadows of the Dead + Shield of Shadows, which gives a 42% max damage reduction (nowhere close to enough for a frame with only 65 armor).

Its 90% DR with 214 Strength and can get like consistent 1000+ armor from Health Conversion and Despoil without much efficiency 

 

[(PSN)yandelyandel2000]

28 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

I'm not sure what the difference would be between the new Terrify and Nyx's Chaos. I think the better option in this respect would be to simply swap out Creeping Terrify's slow and the ability's innate armor reduction, so that Terrify always slows enemies, and could then be augmented like a bunch of other abilities to apply an armor shred.

This would be a lot better than having a radiation effect like the rework suggested 

[Chewarette]

10 hours ago, Zectico said:

Simply "re-using your 4" is a MASSIVE problem on Nekros, due to Shadows taking 100 energy out of his 188 max energy pool. This is made even worse by how his only CC ability costs 75 energy. Even with +30% efficiency, the shadows can be difficult to keep up. [Fleeting Expertise] is difficult to fit in since you need [Continuity] to keep the shadows from dieing too fast, but also need the mods to keep yourself alive along with augments.

? What about Augmented Desecrate + Equilibrium which both keep your energy at 100% at nearly all times ?

[abdullatif404]

my boy nekros he need rework the 1 & 2 ability

[Zectico]

20 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I'm not sure what the difference would be between the new Terrify and Nyx's Chaos. I think the better option in this respect would be to simply swap out Creeping Terrify's slow and the ability's innate armor reduction, so that Terrify always slows enemies, and could then be augmented like a bunch of other abilities to apply an armor shred.

20 hours ago, (PS4)yandelyandel2000 said:

This would be a lot better than having a radiation effect like the rework suggested 

Yeah. I agree, that would be a lot better.

 

21 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Desecrate I think needs a complete redo, as it ultimately has no real gameplay of its own, and is just a passive loot aura. Personally, I think the ideal replacement would be a corpse explosion active, where Nekros could target enemy corpses, body parts, and Shadows to detonate them (and consume them in the process) to deal powerful damage and maybe a Viral proc. It'd solidify his niche as a defensive and death-focused frame while also fulfilling the need to remove Shadows when appropriate.

I kinda like Desecrate in it's current state, although the need for [Despoil] is kinda annoying. The [Health Conversion] + [Despoil] combo has the great benefit of costing no energy, but health drop RNG (or killing things too slowly) will get you killed. Maybe it's just me, but a Nekros without body looting seems like blasphemy. 

Maybe make Desecrate his passive? His current "10 hp per nearby kill" passive is just a worse version of getting health drops via Desecrate anyway. Should replace it with something else that drains health though, to keep the [Health Conversion] synergy.

 

21 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

I think if the objective is to make Nekros play nice with Oberon, it may be better to fix Oberon, rather than disable buffing on allies entirely. Nekros isn't the only problem frame, as Titania also creates trouble with her Razorflies, so it might be better to either disable Oberon's Renewal on non-Tenno allies, or simply remove the added cost per unit.

Never knew Razorflies could be healed. Guess his 4 is good then?

[Teridax68]

3 hours ago, Zectico said:

I kinda like Desecrate in it's current state, although the need for [Despoil] is kinda annoying. The [Health Conversion] + [Despoil] combo has the great benefit of costing no energy, but health drop RNG (or killing things too slowly) will get you killed. Maybe it's just me, but a Nekros without body looting seems like blasphemy. 

Maybe make Desecrate his passive? His current "10 hp per nearby kill" passive is just a worse version of getting health drops via Desecrate anyway. Should replace it with something else that drains health though, to keep the [Health Conversion] synergy.

This could certainly be another way of doing it, yes. Personally, I'm fundamentally opposed to loot-boosting abilities in Warframe, because I don't think they actually contribute positively to gameplay, and in fact cause drop rates on some items to be lowered so that they're balanced against loot frames, but shifting the effect to a passive would in any case be far more functional than the current aura, while achieving the same effect.

3 hours ago, Zectico said:

Never knew Razorflies could be healed. Guess his 4 is good then?

I'd say so, yes. I really do think the problem lies with Oberon here, as I think it makes no sense in a cooperative multiplayer game to add an active detriment to healing additional allies.