Uncle Thay’s semi-annual Zephyr feedback.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Well hello, Birdframe_Prime here, formerly Thaylien, long-standing Zephyr player and Rework pusher, and I have some Words for you. Hope you enjoy.

Zephyr is now 5 years old. Older even. She’s an established and well known frame in the game, but aside from the brief attention her Release, then her Rework and then her Prime brought her… I’m fairly sure the yearly statistics from DE show that she’s never broken into the top half of the player usage.

And why is that? Because players are biased against any frame that can’t nuke a room? No. Because players believe everyone else that says she’s a bad frame? I’ll say no, people are intelligent enough to make up their own minds.

It’s because her functions have legitimate flaws and her impact on both the enemy and on her team is lacking the kind of consistency that so many other frames have.

So what can be done about it?

A few simple things, I feel. But here’s the goal; Take what she has, make it better, trim the fat and juice up the meaty bits.

The plan is Zephyr, but Better.

- - -

Step 1. Fix Tailwind. (Oh my gods of RNG, please, fix all parts of Tailwind)

Step 2. Make her existing abilities provide consistent and meaningful effects on enemies including at least one function that has an effect her Team can benefit from that isn’t the CC.

Step 3. Add in that important function of self-buffing to account for Scaling that so many frames have.

Step 4. Remember that simplicity is key to making a consistent frame, simple synergy, simple buffs and debuffs, simple interactions.

Alrighty, let’s get stuck in, addressing Zephyr from her Passive up.

- - -

Passive: Light Weight, Big Impact.

First change is here. Zephyr has always been a floaty frame and one of the biggest complaints is ‘get me down from here’. Well, guess what? I want to make her even more floaty, but give her that important aspect the other players demand, the quick landing.

Light Weight makes Zephyr jump higher, fall slower and allows her to steer in the air (as it does right now). It extends her aim glide duration, her Wall Latch and improves her Bullet Jump velocity, that’s new.

Big Impact is Dive Bomb, cut out of Tailwind for simplification and is a passive augment to the Melee Ground Slam. With a Melee equipped, Zephyr has a custom animation and adds a small amount of damage (after mods to ensure it’s not too powerful), to the ground slam based on her height. If Zephyr does not have a melee equipped, she simply performs the animation with a very small amount of damage.

Simple, direct, to the point. You get your ‘get me down from here’ button anywhere and everywhere, even on Primary Only Sorties, it follows existing rules and gives her a bit of uniqueness back after every frame got access to her mobility and every frame got her Dive Bomb in their Melee.

This frees up Tailwind for some changes.

1. Tailwind.

First, remove the animation completely. In a recent change DE patched this ability so that hitting an object cancelled the animation and allowed Zephyr the freedom to use the Wall Latch or Wall Run function to cancel her Momentum. This is a good change, but not enough. Why? Because unless you practice this Wall Latch cancelling, you still skitter across a wall and end up where you don’t want to be because of Momentum, and if you don’t hit a wall you’re stuck in the animation and then at the mercy of the Momentum afterwards anyway and have no way to stop save for Dive Bomb or the melee slam.

Removing the animation allows her existing passive of in-air steering to take effect from the moment the ability is active, adjusting her direction in a similar fashion to Gauss and allowing her to curve through the air instead of just hurtle forwards. Everyone likes curves, and curves allow her to pass through gaps that would normally have had her impact the edge and expend her momentum up against the wall instead.

The next fix is simple, but can seem complex because of how it changes Zephyr’s base modding… or rather… how it expands it.

Change the stats that affect Tailwind. Currently the ability is based solely on Duration for its travel. This affects how long you jet forwards, and therefore how fast you travel that distance, with 100% conservation of Momentum that, in many cases, actively punishes you for using high Duration. That momentum is a real headache anywhere that isn't the open landscapes.

Since Duration is also what keeps you alive with Turbulence and what keeps your CC/Damage up with Tornado, this is not the ideal situation.

Switch the modding to Range and Strength. A default, unmodded Tailwind will travel a set range at a fast pace and then slow down at the end with approximately 50% of the Momentum conserved. This allows hang-time, but doesn’t punch you into the scenery.

A high Range build makes the base ability push you further and faster, but lowering the Strength makes you slow down more at the end in proportion. Meanwhile a higher Strength will allow you more momentum and a lower range will give you a shorter and proportionally slower distance, thus the mad dash becomes a more graceful bound through the air.

Range and Strength are variable on Zephyr. While you never want to go into negative Range, you can go quite close to it without trouble (something I plan on fixing), or you can go right up to max Range to make the most of Turbulence’s defense. While Strength on Zephyr can go right down to minimum with a high range build, and up to past 200% if you’re building for a super Jet Stream or a Funnel Clouds setup.

So combinations could include a max-range, min-strength Tailwind that acts like the Operator Dash with low-gravity hang-time at the end, while a neutral-range and 200% Strength will arc you over the Plains of Eidolon or Orb Vallis like a pole-vaulter on the moon, with ample time to do whatever you want up there.

It’s a simple change to fix a simple problem. You can now mod Zephyr to where you want to take her. Want to go into the Grineer Asteroid? The open Landscapes? Tiles with a mix of both narrow and wider spaces? You have the builds for that. It’s all possible, and Tailwind becomes usable everywhere, and not just when you have enough room for it.

1 (Again). Hover.

This ability is slow. This ability is grounded. This ability makes you sit vulnerable for up to 3 seconds for an end goal of sitting still in the air for… no real purpose. It doesn’t do anything. You’re hovering, great. Melee enemies can’t hit you, also great. Why are we sitting still in the air on the most mobile frame in the game? No reason. Just because we can. And if the reason is ‘just because we can’, why is it better than just Bullet Jumping into the air and using her passive and Aim Glide? Why is this better than just using the Aero Vantage mod? Or the precept for Moas? It’s… an odd-duck of the birdframe’s abilities.

Hover should be a tool to get the most out of Tailwind.

To all of those who doubt the changes I’ve made to Tailwind itself; this is the balance, the answer. Make it a mobility tool, not one that’s counter to mobility.

Instead of sitting on the ground, charging it up, simply be a half-second hold. Tap is Tailwind, hold is Hover. Hover is given a true Duration that we can mod for, so that we see a timer and so that we can benefit from our normal modding. You hold 1 for a half second, anywhere, in air or on ground, and it casts.

On the ground, you launch in the air, the same mechanic. If you're in a low ceiling space, then the use of Aim Glide to fix yourself a little lower still works. You hover for a given Duration and you can move on at any time.

In the air, you simply stop. All momentum is cancelled. All of it. So what do you have? An Air Brake. Tailwind over a location, hit Hover, Tailwind in another direction, hit Hover. You can re-position yourself in the air for as long as you have Energy. (Note, I’m not asking to have it reset in-air jumps or rolls, or even reset the Operator transfer-in-air, just to have this freedom to move fast and stop when you want.)

Hover also needs to have a function that makes it better to use it than forget it; nothing huge is necessary, just a self buff. When in Hover, Airburst’s flight speed is increased. It’s not a huge buff, but it’s a buff to your ability for using one of your lesser-needed functions. It also means that it’s not faster to actually go down to the ground and hit them with a stick than to stay up there and cast as currently is the case.

Now that doesn’t seem like much, but I’m getting there.

2. Airburst.

Ragdoll is a terrible CC function. It is. Well, if it’s all you have, then it’s good, but Warframe has multiple other types of CC that are so far-and-away better that they should genuinely be used as preference instead of Ragdoll.

Simple fix? Instead of Ragdoll, use the Lift function from the Exodia Epidemic arcane. It bumps the enemy into the air, controlled, in a pose that allows you to get clean shots. This is similar to Rhino Stomp and the Celestial Stomp augment for Wukong with the smaller base range and the shorter CC duration.

While that in itself is a significant improvement to the ability, along with the increased travel speed while Hovering, I believe we should genuinely go further.

This is to replace the function of ‘Airburst makes Tornado funnels bigger’: Enemies hit with Airburst are marked and take increased damage from all sources, in addition if Tornado is active, the nearest funnel will track to the point of Airburst’s impact.

What does this do? It covers a known gap in Zephyr’s 4, the fact that the Tornado funnels auto target the enemies that are in range and can easily ignore places where they should be. It also means that after the CC from Airburst is done, a Tornado funnel can/will move in, capture enemies and use its own unique damage and status spreading function to ensure groups of enemies are still controlled and will spread damage to the marked enemies (that take the bonus damage from all sources).

3. Turbulence.

You would think there’s not much to say here. Turbulence, depending on the faction, can be considered one of the most powerful defense abilities in the game. The balance is that, depending on the faction and specific enemies you’re facing, it can be one of the worst defense abilities in the game. This is actually not a bad place to be in, for now, and provides unique benefits that other frames don’t get.

And it works at every level of play, there is no scaling, it’s just a flat ‘no, your bullets mean nothing for the next 30-50 seconds’.

What’s not fun about it? No signal to show it’s ending, a slow casting time that locks you in place unless you’re in the air already, and the things it doesn’t cover like the ’penetration’ distance which scales with your range.

If you don’t know about that last one, projectiles that enter Turbulence can actually keep going a certain distance before getting redirected. With a high range build that’s almost unnoticeable, it’s negligible. But when the enemy is really close, like a Corpus Tech with a high-damage, high-rate-of-fire projectile weapon… you can still get shot.

What I would do to improve this is make sure that even with negative range, there’s a point where projectiles are completely unable to penetrate. Zephyr could have her head against the barrel of their gun and it doesn’t hurt. Why? Isn’t this over-powered? Does this make sense in physics? Nope. What this does is remove the penalty for building in negative range. It then makes her incredibly vulnerable to explosives, but it means that projectiles in general have the same redirection as hit-scan as long as the ability is active. You still wouldn’t want to build negative range, but the effect of the ability isn’t suddenly negated on a huge swathe of enemy weapons just because you slapped on a Narrow Minded.

Aside from that, Flame Throwers are not covered by Turbulence (like not getting Dental with your Health coverage). Why are Flame Throwers still not being diverted by Turbulence? They’re not even bullets, they’re particles, which is why they scale so much against us, Zephyr should be able to push those away if she can push bullets away.

Quality of Life is the ending cue and the mobile casting, buffs are for protecting against Flame Throwers and Projectiles (non-penalty for using negative range).

4. Tornado.

This one… hoo… this one is considered so divisive. People want to make it just one big Tornado, people want to replace it entirely…

Simple. Simple fixes to buff the ability.

Limit the range that the funnels can travel away from the point of cast. Remove the function that causes it to randomly spawn on an enemy in range. We know where we want to spawn our Tornado, we want to defend specific locations.

Cast and all four funnels spawn around the point of cast and then move outwards, but cannot go further than a fixed range away. This means they don’t wander off, this means they’re not in the next room when you want them to be where the most enemies are. Fixed range also means that they can’t be too close, can’t be limited to just around a single point like a Defense target, and completely deny access to it.

Allow Range to increase the funnel draw range (which is a subtle way to increase the actual range, because they can draw enemies from outside of their roving range when they’re at the edge of it).

With funnels moving in a guaranteed area of control, able to be sent to a specific location by Airburst and having them deal bonus damage for capturing enemies marked by Airburst means there’s no need for the aim-to-steer function. We can cast Airburst and get a great synergy with that instead, but if people want to keep that aimed function then leave it in.

What these changes achieve is then a full area-of-effect ability that persists, providing more reliable and applicable CC. Shooting funnels becomes a far more legitimate function to spread damage because they’re actively seeking enemies that you’ve targeted and marked for them, and they get there more directly to do that job. Also the spawning means that changing the damage type of the funnels is a simple matter of shooting them, not having to hunt them down when they spawn on an enemy 50m away from where you were aiming.

This would be a massive buff to the ability overall without changing what it is or what it really does, just how it does it.

Augments:

Jet Stream: Perfect, don’t change a thing, one of the only Flight Speed enhancing functions in the game, which allows for more reliable play with bows, thrown weapons and shotguns (it extends damage fall-off distance).

Funnel Clouds: incorporate the new changes to Tornado into it, make nearest 3 funnels target the point of impact from Airburst (as 12 funnels spawn, so 3 per regular funnel).

Target Fixation: I’ve seen niche fun out of this with the update that allows for 2 seconds on the ground… but it still needs more. I would gladly accept this function applying to Tailwind if it was a charge and discharge function with the new 'Dive Bomb is Ground Slam' where you build up your bonus with Tailwinds through enemies, and then apply that bonus to the next Dive Bomb slam meaning you can get better results thanks to melee modding.

New Augment:

Air Inversion. Airburst no longer Lifts enemies, but temporarily tethers them to the point of impact. The damage bonus to marked enemies is doubled.

Much like Tornado’s Augment, sacrificing her most of the CC function for a damage function gives her more of a choice to the augment itself, so players that actually want to play a damage-based Zephyr do actually have the option on two counts, while players that prefer to have weapon damage and more control have that choice as well.

- - -

So… how does this stack up with the original aims?

Step 1. Fix Tailwind.

We have a Tailwind that is customisable, functional and flexible enough to use everywhere. We have no more aim-differentiated Dive Bomb to get in the way. We have a Hover that is now complimentary to Mobility instead of detrimental to it, and has a legitimate reason to use it beyond the in-air mobility because of its Synergy.

Step 2. Make her existing abilities provide consistent and meaningful effects on enemies including at least one function that has an effect her Team can benefit from that isn’t the CC.

We have a consistent Airburst and Tornado that function both independently and together. The Team benefits from the damage buffing on Airburst as well.

Step 3. Add in that important function of self-buffing to account for Scaling that so many frames have.

Airburst’s damage increase synergises with Tornado’s capture and damage spreading function to ensure that the most Status and Damage is spread to the most enemies consistently. It may not be as strong as something like Saryn or Nidus, but that increase and consistency means far more on Zephyr who previously had the most inconsistent and often decreasing returns from those same abilities.

Step 4. Remember that simplicity is key to making a consistent frame, simple synergy, simple buffs and debuffs, simple interactions.

The most complex change is the modding for Tailwind, everything else is basic function tweaks or changes using existing functions of the game. Simple synergy from ‘use ability A, also improves ability B’ and similar.

- - -

In short… what Zephyr does is not really changed all that much. She still floats around and dive-bombs the ground, she still throws Airburst at enemies for CC and light damage, she still has four roving Tornado funnels for CC and damage, she still deflects bullets with a shield of air, and she still has the best air-dash in the game (screw you Gauss, I'm glad your in-air dash function got nerfed!)

It all just works better together. It works better in terms of affecting enemies. It even, in the case of Airburst, works better in a team because of the damage boost.

Let’s get this bird some better air time. What do you say guys, girls and everyone in between?

Thanks for reading!

[Caelward]

Just a quick drive by comment,

Alternatively for Target Fixation, and the alteration to her Air burst. If the ability to make Tornadoes track with air burst is too much power creep, that could be made the function of the augment Target Fixation.

Otherwise, I liked this read, you've got at least one like.

[EchoesOfRain]

Welp, this pretty much solves her issues. It's still Zephyr and the kit we currently know, this rework just fixes all the holes, frustrations, and inconsistencies. Like, literally, just hand this to the programmers and let them put it into the game. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

5 hours ago, Caelward said:

Just a quick drive by comment,

Thank you ^^

4 hours ago, EchoesOfRain said:

Welp, this pretty much solves her issues.

And thank you, too ^^

Good to see you both in here!

[Azamagon]

As usual, great post!

I like everything you've suggested here, in particular the Target Fixation "charge and discharge" idea! That'd be a fantastic augment, which could ACTUALLY work.

Question; The tethering effect for the suggested Airburst's augment, would it also pull in enemies a little more to the middle (i.e. a "tight leash"), or would it just hold them inside their affected area (i.e. a "loose leash")?

[Teridax68]

Thoughts from a Zephyr non-main:

• Why not just let Zephyr float in place while aim-gliding, descend slowly while aim-gliding with a directional input, and otherwise fall normally? You'd get a floaty passive that'd also have Hover built in, but that wouldn't have the always-on, uncontrollable floating that annoys so many players.
• What about Zephyr just creating a blast in addition to stopping fully whenever she collides in the middle of a Tail Wind, a la Mach Rush? That way, you wouldn't need separate Tail Wind/Dive Bomb abilities or a passive component.
• Instead of Air Burst lifting enemies or blasting them away, why not just have the blast suck enemies towards the point of impact? That way, you get natural synergy with Tornado, and also get to bunch up enemies together as a setup for further AoE, which could include explosive weapons (which Jet Stream naturally favors), or the altered Dive Bomb component either of us is proposing.

No major issues with the rest of what's being proposed, aside from perhaps a dislike of anti-synergy with stats. Zephyr definitely could use some QoL improvements at the very least, as even if her kit doesn't complement the current meta, she deserves above all to feel smooth to play. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Question

Think of the tethers on the Ferrox, they can walk, shoot and do actions, but they can't go further away than the range of the tether. 'Loose leash' is the best descriptor, actually...

Also thanks for stopping in, great to see you again!

[Birdframe_Prime]

23 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

Thoughts from a Zephyr non-main:

Hey, thanks for stopping in, so, in order;

As a Zephyr main, I want the passive to be always on. Aim Gliding to activate it is, a) just extended Aim Gliding, which I also want, and b) beholden entirely to the weapon and its zoom level. You can't adequately use Aim Glide as a function as a Sniper, something that Zephyr is particularly good at, or if you have one of the scoped pistols, it's very inhibiting whether you're Zephyr or not.

Also to that point, the Hover was not something I initially wanted for Zephyr, but the advantage of it (after trying desperately to find a use for it for a year now) is that it's completely stationary. There's no sway, no movement from Aim Gliding, and DE only put it in because of the player base asked for it so much in the first place. I bow to the larger portion of Zephyr players on that, at least, so I'd rather make it a good function than throw it out entirely.

Zephyr only stopping when she collides is kind of our problem with the ability. If you don't collide with anything you're at the complete mercy of her Momentum, and even if you're not a main Zephyr player, I would like you to try putting on a Duration build that gives you more than 40 seconds of Turbulence, and then try using Tailwind in a tile that has respawn zones, like the Corpus Ice Planet tile set. If you throw yourself into one of those areas by accident, you can't stop before you get there, you respawn, you have no Turbulence and have to recast it, but if you respawn that still doesn't cancel your momentum either, it still exists and you actually respawn in motion being thrown out the same way you just went. This can actually cause players to reset multiple times in short succession on smaller tile sets. Even in the open landscapes it's not ideal, because you might, for example, Tailwind over to a camp, want to melee slam an enemy, but because you still have momentum you don't actually land, instead you're bounced upwards again. You might want to Aim to shoot an enemy, and because that then has lowered gravity in itself, you maintain your momentum forwards and overshoot the camp by hundreds of meters. In one unfortunate case, while I was checking builds, my Duration was high enough to give over 50 seconds of Turbulence, and not only did I overshoot the camp by aim-gliding, the game actually penalised me for leaving the mission area and failed me before I realised.

The point is that one of the key parts of Mobility is how well you can stop. If you can only stop by hitting into objects, then that's not mobility, that's just Speed, something that Gauss is very good for and even built for.

And as for the pull as something like 'Air Implosion', that's actually not an uncommon suggestion. My issue with that is that the pull is just an inverse ragdoll, in a sense, it tangles up enemies and while it does make for a concentrated bundle for AoE attacks, it doesn't do what the best CC does; present them as targets for hitting with other weapons. Look at Bastille, one of the best CC's in the game, it lifts enemies and hangs them in the t-pose-for-dominance method, and you can use his passive of better damage to CC'd enemies for even further gains by getting headshots and targeted damage.

Whereas if I'm aiming at an enemy, I really don't want that enemy suddenly being yanked away into a bundle of others unless I'm using a specific weapon for targeting AoE bundles. It's a terrible thing to do to a projectile user too, because they can actually fire their weapon, with perfect aim, and it won't hit. A lift, with bonus damage, will give them that hit even if it's not a headshot, and still deal great damage.

On the point about Tornado synergy; that's precisely why I included the 'let Range affect the draw radius' function ^^ Because that means even if the range of your Lift is wider, so is the funnel coming to gobble them up.

As a side note, my Umbral Jet Stream Zephyr most certainly doesn't like Explosive weapons... it has the same problem as the Acceltra does for Gauss; you literally run into your own explosions. It's not fun anymore since the Tonkor nerf ^^ Jet Stream really, really favours shotguns and the Staticor, which is a wonderful non-self-damaging AoE ^^

But good points overall. Glad to have somebody new in to these.

[JazzberryJam]

I've been fixing her random tornado spawns in a very weird way myself. With negative power range. Which affects the spawning range too. An almost fully leveled narrow minded is enough to give the needed duration to turbulence while also ensuring all tornadoes spawn around you or right in front of you and still have enough range to pick up enemies close by.

That aside, nice post, i like all the suggestions.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 minute ago, JazzberryJam said:

I've been fixing her random tornado spawns in a very weird way myself. With negative power range. Which affects the spawning range too.

Correct, as far as that goes. But here's a very salient point:

Why do we have to dump a stat that's incredibly useful to her other abilities (specifically survivability) in order to counter a flaw in her current design?

I mean, it wasn't a flaw when Tornado was a Chaos CC, but now that it isn't... the spawning is just a remnant of a function she doesn't need anymore.

Thanks for reading!

[JazzberryJam]

Just now, Birdframe_Prime said:

Correct, as far as that goes. But here's a very salient point:

Why do we have to dump a stat that's incredibly useful to her other abilities (specifically survivability) in order to counter a flaw in her current design?

I mean, it wasn't a flaw when Tornado was a Chaos CC, but now that it isn't... the spawning is just a remnant of a function she doesn't need anymore.

Thanks for reading!

Yup. I just wanted to share that because when i discovered this "workaround", i thought it was really neat/clever.

[Teridax68]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

As a Zephyr main, I want the passive to be always on. Aim Gliding to activate it is, a) just extended Aim Gliding, which I also want, and b) beholden entirely to the weapon and its zoom level. You can't adequately use Aim Glide as a function as a Sniper, something that Zephyr is particularly good at, or if you have one of the scoped pistols, it's very inhibiting whether you're Zephyr or not.

This is fair. As a side note, I feel like the problem with sniper rifles is mainly that they automatically go into scope, instead of there being a standard aim-gliding zoom level and then alt-fire to scope in, though that's a separate matter entirely.

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Also to that point, the Hover was not something I initially wanted for Zephyr, but the advantage of it (after trying desperately to find a use for it for a year now) is that it's completely stationary. There's no sway, no movement from Aim Gliding, and DE only put it in because of the player base asked for it so much in the first place. I bow to the larger portion of Zephyr players on that, at least, so I'd rather make it a good function than throw it out entirely.

That's kind of what I was trying to get to with my own suggestion: the idea was that with Zephyr, aim-gliding would stop you in your tracks, both vertically and laterally, so that you could simply hold to wherever you were, and then either release to fall normally or use movement inputs to slowly descend in any direction you'd want. This would also neatly resolve the problem of Tail Wind only stopping on terrain, because you'd be able to pause your movement mid-dash and either drop or throw yourself more accurately in a completely other direction.

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Whereas if I'm aiming at an enemy, I really don't want that enemy suddenly being yanked away into a bundle of others unless I'm using a specific weapon for targeting AoE bundles. It's a terrible thing to do to a projectile user too, because they can actually fire their weapon, with perfect aim, and it won't hit. A lift, with bonus damage, will give them that hit even if it's not a headshot, and still deal great damage.

This too is a systemic problem, in that ragdolls as you pointed out do not make for precise aim, in an environment where headshots do matter (if only because Kitguns and the like need only vaguely aim in the direction of the head to trigger headshot damage). As with aim-gliding, this I would very much rather solve at the level of ragdolling, because I think it's really awkward and restrictive for every frame with a displacement ability to effect it as this rigid posing, instead of letting frames punt enemies around. Zephyr is particularly affected by this, because all of her crowd control relies on carrying enemies away on gusts of powerful wind, but if it's Zephyr going to be reworked specifically, levitation would certainly be much better in the short-term, at least as a compromise until DE figures out how to make ragdoll effects not annoying.

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

True for the systemic problems, but I genuinely don't think that those are going to be sorted out any time soon, while adding in one mechanic to Zephyr instead of another wouldn't be considered all that hard of a change by comparison.

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

That's kind of what I was trying to get to with my own suggestion

Yeah, I did see potential there, however... Hover is a function that costs energy, and currently DE have it costing full price for the function because you have to use it on the ground rather than in-air. For the improvements I'm suggesting and with the ability to cast it at half price because of them? It might be as far as I can push.

I would love to have a non-energy cost way of stopping all momentum on Zephyr in the air, what you run the risk of with a non-ability version is doing it when you don't want to. So an aim-glide function that kills your momentum is good, but look at it from the other perspective; what if you want to keep your momentum? What if you're on the open landscapes and actually want to use aim-glide to actually travel further like you can now? That's where you might be removing an option she has now, and I'd rather avoid that if I can.

It would have to be looked into, mechanically, far more than the simple fix of 'just let us cast Hover anywhere we want', and as I mentioned a couple of times; simple is best.

Still, thoughts are there for anyone else reading.

[Teridax68]

14 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I would love to have a non-energy cost way of stopping all momentum on Zephyr in the air, what you run the risk of with a non-ability version is doing it when you don't want to. So an aim-glide function that kills your momentum is good, but look at it from the other perspective; what if you want to keep your momentum? What if you're on the open landscapes and actually want to use aim-glide to actually travel further like you can now? That's where you might be removing an option she has now, and I'd rather avoid that if I can.

I'd say that's kind of what Tail Wind is there for, and I did suggest the option to use movement inputs to descend more slowly while aim-gliding specifically so that Zephyr could still do what she wanted. As far as Energy costs go, while I can agree that DE may attach importance to them, they really aren't meaningful for abilities like these, and in some cases I think they detract from the picture: even in some idyllic scenario where Tail Wind has zero cost, a Zephyr flying infinitely and dive-bombing enemies to her heart's content isn't going to come even close to breaking the game, much less if she could hover in the air on demand without an Archwing.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 minute ago, Teridax68 said:

even in some idyllic scenario where Tail Wind has zero cost

Heh, that was an earlier rework where I pointed out that Tailwind is Mobility and so should be part of her mobility instead. Tailwind would just be a hold-jump-to-launch function and her 1 would be Dive Bomb because of the improvements and damage possibilities from that, plus a dozen other changes that would have been to do with giving her improvements to her abilities that meant they did different, but complimentary, things when she was in the air or on the ground.

That was a fun one to explain to Zephyr players...

[Miyabi-sama]

Uh. I dunno what to say.

Since U13 when she was introduced (the time I first came in WF) Zephyr was a black sheep of the family. With time however, and with addition of augments, she started to shine in different colors. I gave her a shot and loved her ever since.

I don't mind any rework, because can't come up with good enough idea myself and will love her despite anything.

I just hope she will stay as mobile as ever after all she went through.

On topic, her kit is usable and somewhat viable, but i'd share some points to be improved:

1) her low-gravity mode diminishes with time, making her quickly lose horizontal momentum. On a wide open area continuous use of tail wind leads to wonky movement, when you're being forcibly dragged down after each cast, and in order to continue move further you have to be compensating loss of altitude with aiming tailwind upwards. This zigzag movement is less represents actual flight, and more of the Flappy Zephyr in combat, ruins an impression. As we now have plenty of means to land (directional slams, tailwind or straight bullet jump downwards), this could be nice to have.

2) tornadoes are impairing gunfire both to her and allies, its benefit is underwhelming compared to its problem. Other than that it is fun ability. Let'em fly!

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

I just hope she will stay as mobile as ever after all she went through.

Thanks for stopping in ^^ And yeah, that's the goal.

After the Parkour changes, all of the warframes got Bullet Jump and double Jump, which gave them all a comparable movement to the original Zephyr. Now all frames have a Melee Ground Slam they can direct, which is a similar function to Zephyr's Dive Bomb, and so... I want to make sure that she gets up to that same difference, that same upgrade in mobility, compared to regular frames. Everyone has aim glide? Zephyr gets a stable, reliable Hover. Everyone has more effective CC, or CC that doesn't interfere with their team members? Make hers reliable and actually buff her team's damage.

Sure, Tornado is an ability that can get in the way, but I want to make it so that it isn't in the way, it's the way. (Not 'da wae', though...) Seeing a Tornado Funnel, to me, should be a cue for all players 'source of damage, all the enemies are here, shoot it, kill them all' instead of 'oh no, I'm trying to line up a shot here, what's this funnel doing picking up my targets?'

A Zephyr on a squad should not be treated as a potential impairment to the squad, is all I'm saying ^^ And a rework like this might just do that.

[Miyabi-sama]

36 минут назад, Birdframe_Prime сказал:

Seeing a Tornado Funnel, to me, should be a cue for all players 'source of damage, all the enemies are here, shoot it, kill them all' instead of 'oh no, I'm trying to line up a shot here, what's this funnel doing picking up my targets?'

How about making Tornado some sort of Azima secondary mode? You drop the stationary funnel, but instead of fixed damage everyone can pour their own guns damage in. And funnel just spreads bullets damage to every enemy in LoS AoE.

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

These changes sound really good! They do definitely fix the standing issues with Zephyr's abilities in their current state.

However...

I'm not entirely confident that these changes are strong enough to match her up with other "higher tier" Frames. What I think she's still missing? Damage. Damage, of course.

With the increased need for damage in pretty much every aspect of the game, I feel like Zephyr should also have some sort of source of damage, because as they all say...

"tHE BESt StAtUS iS DeaD" _{(not to imply that the people who say this are wrong, but god i'm tired of this phrase already)}

Of course, mega-overhaul-level changes aren't necessarily needed, though. Mostly just number changes, though I do want to add some mechanics to Air Burst and Tornadoes.

_______

Using your already suggested Air Burst propositions, Air Burst on enemy pick-up will:

• blades of wind cycle the enemies captured, dealing (600) slash damage per second to the enemy 
• when the ability ends, enemies lifted take (1000) blast damage w/ guaranteed blast status effect

I added these on to what you proposed to give Zephyr the ability to have more scaling damage sources as well as giving her another slight CC buff in this ability.

Using your suggested Tornado propositions:

• the ability will have 8 Tornadoes by default, meaning Funnel Clouds will have between 12-16 Tornadoes

A simple change. I feel as though 4 skinny Tornadoes just doesn't provide enough area coverage to deal with the amount of enemies that can appear. Other Frames have excellent area coverage and Zephyr can too. Increasing the base amount of Tornadoes along with your suggested changes could make the area Zephyr's 4 ability covers like a deadzone.

Interested in your thoughts on these suggestions. 🙂

last-second edit:

Zephyr should be able to change her Tornadoes to any status she wants, even if it was changed to a status with higher "priority" before, and Tornado's status effect cannot be changed after the user changes it.

Edited October 2, 2019 by (PS4)thefallenloser
Added Last-Second Edit - (10.2.2019 @ 7:38 PM EDT)

[Birdframe_Prime]

15 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

How about making Tornado some sort of Azima secondary mode? You drop the stationary funnel, but instead of fixed damage everyone can pour their own guns damage in. And funnel just spreads bullets damage to every enemy in LoS AoE.

Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to avoid in one aspect, and already trying to incorporate in another.

Rather than having funnels be stationary, I still want them to rove, just in a more direct and manageable fashion. But, with the capture range being based on your modded Range, you could cause funnels to be more of an AoE than they are, or less as you want them to be. So a Neutral range would have them at the usual 5m Radius, which isn't all that bad and has served them well over the years, but with positive range this would make their draw area larger. You pour damage in and everything that's touched by funnels (as it is currently) takes damage and status from your weapons on top of the damage being dealt by Tornado originally. This means that the second an enemy is off its feet... which is something you can make quite a broad area when modding, is instantly able to take that damage.

Plug this existing function into the bonus damage from hitting enemies with Airburst first? And you have a very good AoE effect on captured enemies that helps everyone in the team.

14 hours ago, (PS4)thefallenloser said:

These changes sound really good! They do definitely fix the standing issues with Zephyr's abilities in their current state.

Ty, thanks for stopping in, good to see you here ^^

I'm very interested as to why you think she wouldn't be up to spec with a damage multiplier like this when, and I say this with full acknowledgement of how it sounds, I stole this idea directly from Nezha.

Nezha has a damage multiplier on his 2, a radial CC on his 4, a defense ability on his 3 and a damage/mobility hybrid on his 1. It's all executed very differently, but the functions are there. Even the combo between the 2 and the 4 are something Nezha has. We know the functions work, and we know that Nezha is one of the top frames these days after his rework.

A simple damage multiplier, coupled with an enemy-seeking, directable CC that deals damage over time that you can ramp up with weapon damage on top of its own? That's actually something very easy to scale up. Especially with Status weapons that would normally be single-target, but can now multi-target thanks to the ability spreading that to all in range.

I mean, I don't know if you saw the meme build for Funnel Clouds when the rework was released? In situations where the roving of the funnels was limited, small rooms, corridors, the Simulacrum, and you got multiple funnels to cluster around a single enemy, then just an AoE shot from something simple like the Staticor was enough to turn Funnel Clouds into a swarm of piranhas that tore enemies apart in seconds. Now imagine if you could direct that effect to a location of choice, slightly less funnels, but with an actual damage multiplier on top of that? It would be downright evil.

You ideas are good, don't get me wrong, but they're far more complicated. For example, damage per second is what Tornado is for, not Airburst, and the addition of a damage over time mechanic might mean that the damage multiplier is not very high so the ability doesn't become a nuke in and of itself, which it's not meant to be. Meanwhile the Blast damage with a guaranteed Status is exactly what I'm trying to avoid; ragdoll is not a very good CC, I don't want this ability to ragdoll enemies any more.

And as a final note, Zephyr's Tornado was updated during the rework, it no longer has the Priority list, Tornado now adapts to the most damage that is dealt to it. Everything that hits it is kept track of and Tornado deals the damage type that has dealt the most total damage to it. Usually, though, that's the combined elements because of course it is.

While yeah, I'd prefer that only Zephyr be able to change the damage type, I find that it's actually really flexible to have multiple players able to change it because it allows team members to use Tornado for their preferred damage type for what they're dealing with, even if Zephyr isn't doing it herself.

Don't get me wrong on this, your ideas would fit in perfectly with a rework that's more suited to changing up what Zephyr actually does, adding in more synergies, more damage over time, more functions that lessen the time-to-kill on higher level enemies...

I just don't think they quite fit in here. But thanks again for reading!

[Miyabi-sama]

2 минуты назад, Birdframe_Prime сказал:

Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to avoid in one aspect, and already trying to incorporate in another.

Welp, I just tried to turn thing over. Instead of Tornado being an obstruction give people reason to shoot at them.

Plus controlling Tornado movement gonna be not so easy as fights can be pretty hectic at times, and you'd better be elsewhere doing different stuff.

That's what bugs me in Antimatter Drop, you gotta control its flight path. If you are not it flies in pretty stupid manner.

[Birdframe_Prime]

19 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Welp, I just tried to turn thing over. Instead of Tornado being an obstruction give people reason to shoot at them.

Plus controlling Tornado movement gonna be not so easy as fights can be pretty hectic at times, and you'd better be elsewhere doing different stuff.

Ahh, see, this is where I realise where you and I are talking a little at cross-purposes. Please, allow me to explain myself a little better.

The whole thing with Tornado is that it already does have a reason to shoot it; it spreads damage to all enemies in contact with it. As it already does that, I don't feel that I need to do more than make this a better scaling function (by putting in a function for increasing that damage) to make it have a really good reason for players to shoot a funnel instead of at the enemies around it.

And as for controlling Tornado while it's hectic, this is exactly the point of the change to Airburst and the limitation in range for Tornado. It means you don't have to manually steer Tornado around, it paths to where you need it by virtue of it tracking where you cast Airburst. Since you're already using Airburst for the new CC and damage multiplier, this is then an automatic function, not a manual one, and means that Tornado prioritises picking up enemies that are marked for bonus damage.

So your overall play style is much more fluid, after you cast Tornado you would cast Airburst at groups of enemies for the CC, minor damage, and marking them for bonus damage (like throwing Nezha's Chakram) then the nearest funnel bee-lines to that point or the nearest point to it if it's out of the Tornado's range. Enemies are then CC'd for longer, and anyone shooting in that general direction that hits Tornado gets the boosted damage, the spreading of their damage to all enemies touching that funnel, and enemies tend to explode from that ^^

Completely removes the need to steer the ability around with your Aim function. It almost becomes entirely unnecessary with the combination of changes I've proposed.

See?

[Miyabi-sama]

28 минут назад, Birdframe_Prime сказал:

Ahh, see, this is where I realise where you and I are talking a little at cross-purposes. Please, allow me to explain myself a little better.

The whole thing with Tornado is that it already does have a reason to shoot it; it spreads damage to all enemies in contact with it. As it already does that, I don't feel that I need to do more than make this a better scaling function (by putting in a function for increasing that damage) to make it have a really good reason for players to shoot a funnel instead of at the enemies around it.

And as for controlling Tornado while it's hectic, this is exactly the point of the change to Airburst and the limitation in range for Tornado. It means you don't have to manually steer Tornado around, it paths to where you need it by virtue of it tracking where you cast Airburst. Since you're already using Airburst for the new CC and damage multiplier, this is then an automatic function, not a manual one, and means that Tornado prioritises picking up enemies that are marked for bonus damage.

So your overall play style is much more fluid, after you cast Tornado you would cast Airburst at groups of enemies for the CC, minor damage, and marking them for bonus damage (like throwing Nezha's Chakram) then the nearest funnel bee-lines to that point or the nearest point to it if it's out of the Tornado's range. Enemies are then CC'd for longer, and anyone shooting in that general direction that hits Tornado gets the boosted damage, the spreading of their damage to all enemies touching that funnel, and enemies tend to explode from that ^^

Completely removes the need to steer the ability around with your Aim function. It almost becomes entirely unnecessary with the combination of changes I've proposed.

See?

This is kinda... OP? Plus I don't think wasting energy casting airburst solely for funnel relocating gonna be good.

And it beats the whole point of mobility, you kinda create a campy spammer-debuffer with CC as I see it. Right now all her kit is "cast&forget". You throw a thing in there and can keep moving. Controlling funnels today is a mere gimmick.

Sure with your interpretation you can still throw and forget, but in some extent you have to be focused and put some brain cells in it. And eventually it devolves in simple powerspam.

[Birdframe_Prime]

29 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Sure with your interpretation you can still throw and forget, but in some extent you have to be focused and put some brain cells in it. And eventually it devolves in simple powerspam.

Well, to be fair, I am actually trying to give her something that's a little OP... just keep that on the hush-hush, because if they don't realise that's what I'm doing, they might do it ^^

But! Here's the thing; to my mind every frame needs to have that balance of something you can play a little brainless, and something that will, if used more consistently and more deliberately (which some may see as spamming, others may see as tactical) actually become more powerful for the thoughtful. Because the whole draw of Warframe, and the whole way that Warframes really scale up, is their powers and how well you can use them. This then becomes even more powerful if you can combine these abilities with your weapons, either by adopting the weapon mods, or by actively working off their damage types for both raw damage and status. It's something that the game has used for a long time, and it's high time that some frames caught up with that ^^

Spoiler

A great example of that is the 'silent but deadly Wisp' build, that uses Wisp's base invisibility, the Aero Vantage mod, a few select mods that help her Breach Surge, the Plague Zaw Arcane Exodia Contagion, a Zaw Dagger, and the specific mod Amalgam Argonak Metal Augur.

By using her Breach Surge, often in combo with Will-o-Wisp to do it at range, and her invisibility in the air, she can throw two projectiles in sequence that spread huge gas clouds, the damage from which strips armour (thanks to the Amalgam mod) and triggers the damage motes from Breach Surge in incredibly quick succession on enemies.

This is a trick that basically creates its own feedback loop on affected enemies, they take the damage from the gas clouds, which reduces their base armour, and the damage from the Ability in incredibly rapid succession, and because the armour strip is not caused by Corrosive procs, but by mechanical reduction, there is almost nothing that can survive it. On enemies that do not have armour, the raw damage on Infested and the Toxin damage (from Gas) on Corpus, is so strong that it's even more effective.

Honestly, this was one of the best discoveries to come out of the Wisp release, I was so pleased when somebody showed it to me... But without knowing this combo? Wisp is still a great support frame with some fantastic functions to let her scale up. She doesn't have to use the OP build to make her good, and that's the kind of balance I'd like for Zephyr, but probably not as strong as that particular niche build.

You would never be casting Airburst just specifically to relocate Tornado, for example, because Airburst would also be a good ability even if Tornado isn't active. You could still retain the steering on Tornado, because some people enjoy it and it does make funnels travel faster, but you'd need it less because of the range limit ensuring that Tornado can't go too far, or too near, where you want to keep it. It will still rove, still seek enemies, but will have a tool for getting it where you want it and won't ever be far from where you actually need it.

In combination, you have two abilities that will allow you to scale your weapon damage up higher as long as you're using them correctly, and yes a bad player might end up spamming this and hoping it works but those people with a few extra brain cells will instead be tactically marking groups to summon a funnel to CC the largest amount of enemies, and then deal the damage they need to by using Tornado's built-in damage spread function. (As a note, the damage spread function currently splits the damage you deal among all enemies, it doesn't deal your total damage to each, what you're mostly using it for currently is the Status spread to strip armour or stack procs on them for quicker kills. I wouldn't change that, just give it that combo with Airburst for the multiplier that will help with ensuring the damage can still apply at higher levels).

But it is good to see that somebody has spotted the way that this could be very powerful, because if somebody can just from the thread, imagine what that would be like for the more experienced Zephyr players.

[Miyabi-sama]

Dunno what to say. I like her how she is now. Using brain to make abilities work doesn't require to bring Zephy another rework. You can do it now. And seems you do. Bringing Zephy more power will shift her in unpredictable direction. Hence minor tweaks to make her more convenient is enough.

I don't care if she gets a rework, but I hope it will not change her too much.