the Khora dichotomy: Spidercat (updated Valkitty?)

[Desdemona-XI]

So. Ive had khora for a good long while now. and despite her.. less than graceful start. she's a pretty strong frame. very serviceable. lovely. But she has a glaring problem that for me at least makes me less inclined to use her generally:

She doesnt know what she is. 3 of her abilities, and her main model design Screams spider queen. and in this theme she largely excells. her strangledome is both respectable damage and crowdcontrol and synergizes with her whipclaw to be a punishingly effective combo. her ensnare is also fantastic crowd control and opens up enemies for even more punishing hits from her whipclaw. great. some might argue a little powerful but hardly uniquely powerful in the warframe roster. 

 

but then we have Venari, and dont get me wrong. Venari is great and everything. her attack and defense postures are... acceptable.. her heal posture is quite beneficial and better.  but it clashes with everything else in her kit except whipclaw thematically, and only if you choose to deem whipclaw as a catwoman whip which is perfectly viable in my opinion. however venari does not synergize at all with her other abilities as I am aware. and feels very much like it was shunted from another frame into khora at the last second. along with dropping the exhalted whip. (personally I am indifferent on that count, i'd have liked a whip in game to actually look like a whip for once. but strangledome is a pretty good ult and more interesting than a generic "insert exhalted weapon and stomp face" style ult) 

 

Khora has had a bumpy development, and most of the players I've spoken to about this in my clan and friends lists as well as occasional region chat and other areas seem to feel that she is still rather 'incomplete' so.. What i would like to see happen is Khora be split into two frames. instead of trying to cram both cat and spider powers into a single frame and having the awkward result. divide it up. Now I am aware that the process of this as she's already implimented might sour some folk but hear me out.

 

Copied from below post, in turn copied from wiki: 

The inspiration for Khora's name could come from the Greek Goddess Kore, or Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Kore's mythological husband, Hades, being a God of Riches (such as gems and precious metals) could be attributed to Khora's access of metal themed abilities.

Kore is also the modern name for a type of free-standing Ancient Greek sculpture portraying an emotionless maiden symbol of the ideal, transcending above the hardships of the world.

Another inspiration could be centered around Plato's term khôra which means neither being nor nonbeing, but an interval between in which the "forms" were originally held; it "gives space" and has maternal overtones (a womb, matrix). This seems to be the theme of the Ghoul Journal Fragments.

Khora's visual design was inspired from an arachnid, hence the abdomen-like skirt, spiderweb-like design on her chest.

 

Khora's name could thus be appended to either warframe easily. 

Venari and perhaps whipclaw moved to a new frame model along with a perhaps reinstated exhalted whip (perhaps, being operative, fully aware that adding a moddable exhalted whip might call for whipclaw to be re-evaluated, or any better ideas) and a second abilitiy that actually has synergy with venari. perhaps even other kavats/kubrows as well. making her the pet master, beast tamer she should be.

 

And then take her existing model (with maybe a few changes), ensnare, and strangledome. current name works fine and would be easier to keep. add maybe a new 1, with a similar function to current whipclaw. though i'd be okay with it being a bit shorter range, venomous wristblades in a spider bite type move (if the bite had added lifesteal atleast on ensnared targets). or launched as a dart attack.or the like.

and have her three become a movement ability. or her passive changed. allowing her to wall-crawl at sneak speed, perhaps passively toggled by sneaking, (Wisp proves that custom movement animations are not out of the question) by splitting each of her legs in half down the middle and lowering her into a four legged spider crouch (we already have pretty great spider leg animations from Fortuna and this may be a useful development step to refine some of the parkour hiccups for other frames on  surface collisions) which is a concept that has been suggested and requested longer than having a manual flashlight toggle.

 

Regarding implimentation of this change, for players who already have khora: I figure keep it simple, i mean there could be some cunning in lore quest that involves khora diverging into her two subframes and that'd be cool, but honestly i think the simpler and more acceptable solution would be inbox mail to every player with a khora, allowing them to pick which of the two "new frames" they want to pick, MR for khora and venari retained, perhaps frame MR passed into arachne as she would arguably be closer to khora as she is now. and the Venari build and forma state saved for later. or immediately carried over if they  pick to re-settle into new khora.. regarding forma investments.. as venari doesnt actually change. that can probably remain left alone, and while venari might still be considered "in your inventory" as it isnt accessable without khora and doesnt occupy slots it would remain convenient. for khora id say either a forma refund with an affinity booster. or even dev  forma allowing instant forma without re-levelling. (but only useable on khora/arachne) or maybe one dev forma right off the bat. and if arachne carries over khora's mr or its left on new-khora. ranks and affinity are set in as well. (also lens/exilus refunding or carrying over)

 

and last but not least a personal request to DE: I know its getting very difficult to find places for frames to drop, and the more escoteric we are forced to get the more troublesome the farming becomes. but please for this frame pairing at least put it somewhere sane. i know warframe quests slow the creative process down greatly but the real warframe quests: such as for mirage and limbo, and titania where the whole frame was put in your hands by the end of the quest would not be unwelcome. we have 42 announced frames so far, and the game is already clogged with highly specialized, poor rng farming for frames (Looking at you harrow, Nidus) that most players vocally bemoan the unpleasant experience of farming for. so dont do that, at least give it good rng. or even shunting this to the dojo labs, it has been a bit since we had a dojo frame.

 

So there's my suggestion, for your evaluation DE and fellow tenno. I also would like to hear your opinions on the concept of having  khora redone studs-up as it were. or being divided into two frames. and how you as a player would be willing to accept such a sharp change to your frame's mechanics and perhaps appearance, if you'd like to have a khora where venari isnt just tacked on fluff you barely pay any mind to.

 

UPDATE 05/11/2019

 

a recent post of someone expressing dissatisfaction with valkyr actually reminded me of the irony that valkyr's designs are very feline, (except prime which was apparently inspired by a Bull, which is a topic for another day) but the warframe that gets the god-cat? the bdsm spiderwoman. they mentioned feeling that ripline was a waste of space and shouldnt exist (again my feelings on that arent the same, but it is an ability that was most useful in a time before parkour 2.0) 

 

So I wondered, What would happen if we swapped rip line and venari, adding ripline's abilities as a hold-cast for whipclaw, putting venari in Valkyr, and Giving her a little extra synergy, maybe having the mode venari is in add an effect to Warcry, a damage buff in attack, a damage reduction buff in defense, and a heal-over-time to heal mode perhaps? maybe allowing venari to share in Valkyr's invulnerability during her ult. or have paralysis eminate from venari as well? or some such.

 

Not really sure how I feel the result would play compared to Valkyr's natural role as a berserker tank but might be an appropriate update. though for DE that might mean having to retouch valkyr's model to add the mode-attachments (which i would be okay with as a more subtle attachment style display, like on shoulders and shoulderblades, but I also think those attachments should be redesigned as they are just vestigial indicators of damage type modes that khora and venari were never released with, which is why "im covered in blades so my cat can heal people" is a thing. so for that maybe switching venari's design slightly and encompassing more of an energy sort of display on valkyr with perhaps being less in-your-face. the least work, with perhaps the best result would be to use energy, something on her shoulderblades, her thighs, or waist perhaps,  her tail in her deluxe skin, shifting between something spikey (like the energy barbs her claws project from her bracers in non prime version) for attack, an armor like barrier for defense and perhaps something.. wing-like, or graceful curves, for healing, to sort of reference her name's origin, Valkyrie

 

Much love to DE and our colourful community!

Edited November 5, 2019 by Desdemona-XI
Update with valkyr possibility idea.

[iLightning13]

Dominatrix cat lady.

 

My work here is done.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

Well because at this time DE had bad warframe designs with inaccurate themes

Take revenant for example

Is he vampire? Is he eidolon? It's just so bad

I blame rebecca though because she put her hand in stuff that's not her speciality 

 

You don't have to take khora is the cat warframe just because she has a kavat

Khora can be whatever...her venari is just a companion not her whole theme

[taiiat]

er, Khora is... Dominatrix themed. (with some 'crazy cat lady')

'Spider' isn't really present anywhere in the Warframe.

Edited September 16, 2019 by taiiat

[Desdemona-XI]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Hopper_Orouk said:

Well because at this time DE had bad warframe designs with inaccurate themes

Take revenant for example

Is he vampire? Is he eidolon? It's just so bad

I blame rebecca though because she put her hand in stuff that's not her speciality 

 

You don't have to take khora is the cat warframe just because she has a kavat

Khora can be whatever...her venari is just a companion not her whole theme

khora can be whatever, yes. but regardless the fact that her passive and third ability feel so tacked on and synergize so outrageously poorly with her other abilities when those do emphasise synergy is something that should be addressed.

 

To be honest I don't have a huge thematic problem with revenant, i think his ult's animation is goofy as heck but emphasizing the undead domination aspect (which hey, fits with his name) using an eidolon as a base is not unreasonable as they kind of are depicted as undead sentients, (no longer connected to the main sentient faction, behaving notably different to other sentients with both combat and resistances, and continuing to rise every night then fade away come morning, even the smokey ghost dash.) revenant using that feels appropriate as a whole, even if he isnt my cup of tea. That isn't to say I don't think he needs improvement, but i feel far less of a disparity between abilities, name and theme. but frankly using one design most people are unhappy with to justify another design most people are unhappy with is a pretty weak excuse. probably the only reason both frames havent been overhauled yet is because despite flaws they are really quite strong.

 

Wukong had the same issue, he was arguably one of the most unkillable frames, but he got a severe rework because people werent satisfied by his abilities vs his theme. and/or found them to synergize poorly or heavily favor one while the rest were pretty uninspired. but he got fixxed. Khora has had a way rockier start than any of these, and I think it deserves to be looked at and considered. And yes ive considered leaving it as "kinky spidercatwoman so marvel wont salivate in our general direction" but most of the players ive spoken to feel that she's still very unfinished-feeling. rough around the edges, I dont have to like a frame to think it works as a concept, I mean heck i didnt like either version of wukong. but I cant deny the new kong is better. 

 

From your reply however i take it your vote is "khora (and presumably revenant) are both terrible and fine at the same time (which was literally the first thing i said in my original post) and I dont care enough to want to contribute a complete opinion on the subject, I just wanted to get a top reply."

[Oreades]

she had a rough start but I like Khora just how she is.

[Desdemona-XI]

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

er, Khora is... Dominatrix themed. (with some 'crazy cat lady')

'Spider' isn't really present anywhere in the Warframe.

lets see. her two wraps enemies up in a cocoon. and her four makes a large web-like dome of chains. oh and then theres her model, which in accordance to the wiki is itself based around spiders, and with that narrow waist and spider-abdomen-esque bootyskirt i totally see. 

 

and before you quote to point it out, yes i know warframes design inspiration isnt always indicative of their powers or intended theme in the strictest sense, circa ivara whos base skin is based on a tree frog.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Desdemona-XI
addendum

[Desdemona-XI]

5 minutes ago, Oreades said:

she had a rough start but I like Khora just how she is.

Good to know, and thank you for a succinct answer :3 to me she still feels very unfinished and rough, but I am glad you're pleased with her as is 🙂

[NightmareT12]

37 minutes ago, (PS4)Hopper_Orouk said:

I blame rebecca though because she put her hand in stuff that's not her speciality 

I'm fairly certain, AFAIR, Rebecca had no hand in it, she was just excited because she loves vampires.

[schilds]

Khora is a hunter/trapper.

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

• The inspiration for Khora's name could come from the Greek Goddess Kore, or Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Kore's mythological husband, Hades, being a God of Riches (such as gems and precious metals) could be attributed to Khora's access of metal themed abilities.
  • Kore is also the modern name for a type of free-standing Ancient Greek sculpture portraying an emotionless maiden symbol of the ideal, transcending above the hardships of the world.
  • Another inspiration could be centered around Plato's term khôra which means neither being nor nonbeing, but an interval between in which the "forms" were originally held; it "gives space" and has maternal overtones (a womb, matrix). This seems to be the theme of the Ghoul Journal Fragments.
• Khora's visual design was inspired from an arachnid, hence the abdomen-like skirt, spiderweb-like design on her chest.

[AreeSoothsayer]

I could get behind this. Simply because I am a pet freak and my build is centered on Venari. Having Khora skills that are focused on supporting the Kavat gets a thumbs up from me. 

A wallcrawling spiderwoman frame.... hate spiders but... I think it would be really, really neat.

[Oreades]

29 minutes ago, Desdemona-XI said:

Good to know, and thank you for a succinct answer :3 to me she still feels very unfinished and rough, but I am glad you're pleased with her as is 🙂

I'd go a bit farther than pleased she's my 2nd favorite Warframe behind Titania. 

Where I wouldn't change much if anything about Khora, Titania's got a laundry list of QoL and rework candidate concepts. So I can definitely sympathize with the feeling that Khora is incomplete. Cause I'm the same way with my favorite frame. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Oreades

[Desdemona-XI]

Also, a quick google found a few other archived forum posts on this very subject, and numerous posters who seem to have the same general consensus that either the theme being slid around caused a disconnect or general disatisfaction with her abilities, not all of which I agree with but am interested in discussing. for curious parties i will provide some links.

 

After already in-lining this i noticed how long it was getting. Apologies

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/8gi2xu/khora_example_of_confused_design/

 

[Desdemona-XI]

3 minutes ago, AreeSoothsayer said:

I could get behind this. Simply because I am a pet freak and my build is centered on Venari. Having Khora skills that are focused on supporting the Kavat gets a thumbs up from me. 

A wallcrawling spiderwoman frame.... hate spiders but... I think it would be really, really neat.

I totally get where you're coming there. a proper pet frame would be fantastic. not goofy  temporary and spotty mind control but really buffing real pets.

[Desdemona-XI]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)ShadowBlood89 said:

• The inspiration for Khora's name could come from the Greek Goddess Kore, or Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Kore's mythological husband, Hades, being a God of Riches (such as gems and precious metals) could be attributed to Khora's access of metal themed abilities.
  • Kore is also the modern name for a type of free-standing Ancient Greek sculpture portraying an emotionless maiden symbol of the ideal, transcending above the hardships of the world.
  • Another inspiration could be centered around Plato's term khôra which means neither being nor nonbeing, but an interval between in which the "forms" were originally held; it "gives space" and has maternal overtones (a womb, matrix). This seems to be the theme of the Ghoul Journal Fragments.
• Khora's visual design was inspired from an arachnid, hence the abdomen-like skirt, spiderweb-like design on her chest.

Thank you for posting this, for some reason the wiki wasnt opening in my browser so i couldnt find this exact information. I do stand corrected on her name however.

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

1 minute ago, Desdemona-XI said:

Thank you for posting this, for some reason the wiki wasnt opening in my browser so i couldnt find this exact information. I do stand corrected on her name however.

np as wiki is answers alot of questions but hardly anyone uses it xD so copy an paste.
i just typed into google warframe knora an got sent to her wiki page

[Desdemona-XI]

3 minutes ago, Oreades said:

I'd go a bit farther than pleased she's my 2nd favorite Warframe behind Titania. 

Where I wouldn't change much if anything about Khora, Titania's got a laundry list of QoL and rework candidate concepts. So I can definitely sympathize with the feeling that Khora is incomplete. Cause I'm the same way with my favorite frame. 

Oh yeah totally, Titania does need some QoL stuff. majorly. if i had any really good ideas i'd be posting em, Khora isnt what i'd consider a favorite frame as much as a frame i wish i could like more. right now she's a bit higher than ember for me. my favorite would be ivara.

 

2 minutes ago, (XB1)ShadowBlood89 said:

np as wiki is answers alot of questions but hardly anyone uses it xD so copy an paste.
i just typed into google warframe knora an got sent to her wiki page

Yeah I went to the wiki too but for some reason the browser just stuck on infinitely loading the page. so after i finished typing my original post and it still wasnt loading i gave up 😛

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, Desdemona-XI said:

lets see. her two wraps enemies up in a cocoon. and her four makes a large web-like dome of chains.

 

oh and then theres her model, which in accordance to the wiki is itself based around spiders, and with that narrow waist and spider-abdomen-esque bootyskirt i totally see. 

Ensnare wraps Enemies up in barbed wire.
Strangledome dangling dudes with chains should also give you a hint. also the name of it. 

and then the Warframe themed around being covered in metal blades/spikes and metal studs.
the Warframe has quite strong BDSM type themes, to say the least.

 

what you describe with the Mesh sounds far more like a part of the Dominatrix stereotype, where the person in question fills many types of regarded sexual attractiveness.

Edited September 16, 2019 by taiiat

[Naneel]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb taiiat:

Ensnare wraps Enemies up in barbed wire.
Strangledome dangling dudes with chains should also give you a hint. also the name of it. 

and then the Warframe themed around being covered in metal blades/spikes and metal studs.
the Warframe has quite strong BDSM type themes, to say the least.

 

what you describe with the Mesh sounds far more like a part of the Dominatrix stereotype, where the person in question fills many types of regarded sexual attractiveness.

But even then the cat does not really fit the theme...

[taiiat]

14 minutes ago, Naneel said:

But even then the cat does not really fit the theme...

i didn't say it did! :P

why is Dominatrix theme also cat lady theme (or war cat, i guess)? hell if i know how that makes sense.

Edited September 17, 2019 by taiiat

[Kingsmount]

Simple solution.

Khora needs a Spider Queen deluxe skin, or for her prime,  that also changes Venari into a spider.

[AreeSoothsayer]

3 hours ago, Kingsmount said:

Simple solution.

Khora needs a Spider Queen deluxe skin, or for her prime,  that also changes Venari into a spider.

No No No No!!

No spider Venari!

EW EW EW EW EW EWWWWWWWWWWW!

[Kingsmount]

1 hour ago, AreeSoothsayer said:

No No No No!!

No spider Venari!

EW EW EW EW EW EWWWWWWWWWWW!

 

Your choice to use the skin or not.   As for other players,  I rarely see Khoras so even fewer than those would be using a particular skin.

I love spiders (in fiction).  A spider queen Khora is one of the most fitting skin concept I can think of.

 

Give the chains a bit more of a webby aesthetic and boom,  a top tier skin.  Provided they don't mess up the skin design like with that crab equinox skin or spicy chicken ember.

But hey, maybe you could toggle Venari's skin separately.

 

Oh, another great Khora skin could be a skeleton Khora skin where the chains are tethers of bones and skeletal arms that are grabbing the enemies, with venari being a skeleton cat.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Kingsmount

[Desdemona-XI]

On 2019-09-17 at 1:33 AM, taiiat said:

Ensnare wraps Enemies up in barbed wire.
Strangledome dangling dudes with chains should also give you a hint. also the name of it. 

and then the Warframe themed around being covered in metal blades/spikes and metal studs.
the Warframe has quite strong BDSM type themes, to say the least.

 

what you describe with the Mesh sounds far more like a part of the Dominatrix stereotype, where the person in question fills many types of regarded sexual attractiveness.

So, clearly you literally missed the part where it was stated repeatedly DE clarified the frame has spider inspired themes and visuals. Mentioned that early in design the idea was a "spider with chains instead of webbing" type design (which is hardly the first time that comparison has been made, nor the first time a comparison has been made between spiderish themes and BDSM themes, even Dungeons and Dragons, and some classic cartoons make a note of that. the wiki itself draws the comparison between Khora's physical design, helmet included, and spiders.

 

Secondly regarding the studs, sure, as they were a leftover mechanic from an ability that was scrapped along with the damage update it was meant to function in. but is also literally only of import to venari, having no relevance to the rest of her abilites at all, and the one ability it does impact, makes no sense. sprouting blades out of your body to encourage your pet cat to emit a healing aura? DE has had some weird ideas regarding physical components of abilities but that is quite glaringly disconnected, and a pet cat does not have particularly strong bdsm themes.

so, frankly either way my primary point of Khora being the product of an abandoned concept hastily slapped together with another concept leaving her as a half-formed frame that experiences a sharp disconnect with its own abilities and mechanics, is the core of the problem. I look at her and all i see is a chain spider. If you dont see that, I find myself a little confused but frankly thats quite secondary.

 

whichever way you look at it, all i see is khora stuck between two half-formed frames and suffering for it in terms of cohesive play. two frame concepts that I believe should be explored more totally in seperate frames, I want to see a version of khora that actually really takes advantage of venari in more ways, and explores the concept more thoroughly, and i want to see a khora that dips more into the spidery (or dominatrix) theme. the fact that three of her abilities synergize well, while venari has absolutely No synergy with anything else makes it worse, older frames that have no inherent synergy are at least uniform in that lack. heck venari has a pretty hard time hitting enemies in strangledome. and if that isnt counter-intuitive i dont know what is.

 

And to clarify, I am not saying khora is a bad frame, she's wonderfuly powerful and can be built to focus on venari or not and be viable either way, but either build basically rolls into a situation of "either i build for venari or i barely pay any attention to it and largely ignore its presence."