Vauban & Ember Dev Workshop

[o0Despair0o]

These 4th abilities are nicknamed "ultimates" for a reason.

[K1eranS3npai]

22 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

I'll just concentrate on one paragraph to save time. However,  the entire topic is complete nonsense in the very same kind.

Ohhh. so you playtested it already? Good to know!

Oh? So if you played the rework already, shouldn't you know already if the bahaves this way?

Ofcourse if you havn't and you are purely making assumptions, you maight want to actually think, before posting actually constructive feedback, after you have actually had the chance to play the rework.

I should not have to add 'I think' or 'it looks like that' before every sentences.

It is a work in progress but that does not mean it should not get any criticism until it's done. What I'm doing is pointing out some flaws before the whole thing is finalized and shipped. I could potentially be saving them time on working on a bad product.

[KokoroWish]

Got to say, I'm liking the Ember rework mechanically.

The only "problem" I have is one of aesthetics. I would have much preferred the new "World On Fire" to have been something like enormous columns of fire exploding out of the ground, rather than a meteor strike. While impressive to be sure, the meteors feel out of place and break from the pure fire based thing she has going on.

Feels almost more like an Atlas thing to have the meteors.

[HealingMind]

While I'm excited for Ember's rework, Vauban's rework still seems like it has the problem that the old one has: redundancy.

Why would I use his 1 or 2, when I can use his 4 and his 3 all day? Boost Pad and damage amp are alright, I guess, but that cast time needs to be much faster if he wants to lay a lot of stuff down, and Turret is possibly even WORSE than Shred, because it seems to just to puncture, do really not good damage with no way to scale it, or has any utility anyone cares about. His 1 is also... why would I use this if 4 is a much more high value option? Why cc like 10 enemies max at max charge when I have access to a fairly cheap ult that also synergizes with his 3? His 1 and most of his 2 just don't give anything that anyone wants that just casting his 4 doesn't give, but better.

[(PSN)Silenceform]

Ember :

- Immolation : The UI indicator should be shown upside down starting from the yellow part going up to the red part as the bar fill up.

Also to better know how much the bar is filled, a percentage number should be shown from the right position of the UI Indicator starting from 0%. As the percentage goes up, the number goes upward as well as the color change from yellow to red as the bar approach the 100%

Rather than removing all energy as the meter reach 100%, the ability should enter in a cooldown status as the ability should be unable to be reactivated for a short amount of time.

 

-  Fire Blast : The knock back is counterproductive if you want to follow up with Inferno as the enemy could get out of range/sight of Inferno. A knock down followed by a panic moment when they get up should suffice.

 

As for the passive it could be : All enemies within 20 meters that are on fire will grant 5 Power Strength per enemy up to a maximum of 50 Power Strength.

What is the plan for the current syndicate mods of Ember for all the new ability she gets ? Will they get changed as well ?

 

Vauban :

The Nail Grenade is a worse version of the alt fire of the Azima. I would personally like this Grenade to work similarly as the orb thrown by the Sapping Osprey and enemies that enter the damaging field would also get their action time reduced, like a cold proc.

[TR-EightR]

If the reworks go by warframe usage/popularity can we expect some baruuk tweaks? Even though he’s just under a year old he came out of the gate with no synergy and lacking abilities!

[Mursen]

Vauban

rework seems good in general, but please, let me troll with speed boost and give me an army of lighting bots. 

Instead of natural vauban have it.  you can do different augments for minelayer so vauban can help and natural vauban having one of each. It makes it so vauban can keep it's identity and adapt to the player or mission. For example (ideas that can be improved):

• support/troll minelayer: speed, damage, armor and jump(bouncing but can be stronger putting more than 1 at the same place). I just want to convert a map to a pinball where you can jump and move without wasd. (another option would be balls that creates terrain or  walls to parkour and block ways so enemy can't pass.)
• debuff/Incapacitating minelayer: Concussion (for finishers), freezing,  pull and push ball. (I would also give disarm bomb too but too seen)
• Defense/heal minelayer: Health tower (or over time), bunker(or something like volt shield in one of both versions), shield tower (or over time), Nail tower stop frontal enemies by appling impact and perforation status (I would give invisible ball too but that is ash ability)
• Damage/elemental minelayer: fire rolling tower (like arena one), explosive missiles bots, toxic volcano traps and radiation area orb (like osprays). (or balls that give damage+elemental(fire, cold, toxic or electicity) damage to other tenno)

Orbital strike and Bastille/vortex could benefit from some twicks but seem good.

(I know some abilities may be bland or not as useful as I think but I believe it captures the image of what I want and the vauban DE give us.)

 

Ember

Ember rework seems also ok, but to really shine it would be awesome to have a meter like gauss and have it so her 3 can push or pull enemies by fast clicking or slow clicking, so you can use the 3 with melee, have better passive or when you don't want to push but need to use it (or any other change that can help with the 3 situations).

Example of what I think of a good meter could be that instead of exploding all energy: it could be ember old 4, world of fire.

When she is overheated(100%), ember starts burning energy without control creating a storm of flame around her like the world of fire. May be double the energy used or something. Also, to promote the use of this meter make it so damage reduction and damage starts at 50% of the meter. and instead of a linear growth make it logarithmic,so it can promote the gamble to stay near 100% but never cross it or having a superoverheat moment to make a lot of damage without worry. To avoid possible exploitation of staying too long in a overheat stay, You could also make it so she have a coldown time where she is cold and can produce flame as high(reduce damage) or make it so she burned her armor (new burn status applied to her).

Converting it to a passive could be nice but I think if it had a second action it could still be a nice second ability. For example, first click activates the meter (override the heat-limit protocol) second click detonates the meter(you need to reactivate the ability) creating the accelerant ability where stun radius and damage is proportional to the meter it had. it could have a cooldown time so it can't be spamed and a punishment if you detonate it when in overheat or 100%, like the coldown time above + damage. 

For the first ability and 4 they can be improve but are ok. I am fine with the first ability being a fireball and having this overlap, it's like any fire mage in any rpg, or so i feel. 

[Chroia]

As posted in the Devstream thread:

Heat procs:
Stacking - this is good, will improve Heat as a DoT.
Spreading - neat.
Melting armor - Under the current Damage 2.0 paradigm, I'm not complaining about more ways to strip armor.
That said, I really feel like this is a band-aid/stopgap to work around enemy armor scaling, which will just leave you with more work to (un)do if-and-when you get around to actually dealing with armor scaling's outsized impact on eHP.

---

Ember:
You're not talking numbers, so I won't talk numbers - just mechanics.

How spammy is Ember intended to be?
Similarly, how many casts are intended to be needed to kill a given (say Sortie level) enemy?
This is an important question, and is pivotal for the proposed heat gauge (as well as Inferno).

Passive - Better than current, but honestly ignoreable. 10m is melee range.
I honestly forgot that Nekros has a similar passive until I came across a comparison on Reddit, which tells you how impactful that is.
That said, with only (maybe) one of her abilities being a duration/snapshot... Not sure how much that matters, as the delta oughtn't be too large between having and not having it for a given cast.

Fireball - Sure.
That said, what role is this intended to play? I have a barebones mouse, and a limited number of fingers. As such, I have a problem with abilities that want to be held-cast while I'm also moving.

Immolation - A lot to go over, here.
First, it's replacing Accelerant. I'm probably in a minority here, but I'm happy to see it go - it was her only effective ability, at this point, and it is very effective.
But its very effectiveness is a crutch - instant, large AoE stun, on top of (assuming you've dealt with armor) a huge damage increase.
(ofc, it's a short duration stun, which means spamming on the one hand, on the other, its augment is a significant damage boost.)
Conversely, without the crutch, her nukes will have to function on their own, and she's losing her only remaining survivability tool.

Now, onto Immolation itself:
* Why would I ever want this not-on? In other words: Why is this an ability? The only reason I'd ever (potentially) have to toggle it off, is as a panic measure to avoid overheat... And then I lose the %DR - which'll likely get me killed anyway.
* Immolation has a passive buildup. So it seems to me that when I'm 'in the sweet spot', I'm incentiized to stop casting and focus on using my weapons, with the occasional Fireblast to vent some heat as needed and lower the fill rate.
Especially with a penalty as big as losing all your energy on top of losing Immolation's %DR.

Personally, I'd probably make this her passive, change the overheat penalty to a self-DoT, and give her a different ability here.

Fire Blast - The ring was pretty ineffectual, so I don't mind seeing it gone.
That said, as her only CC, the propogation time hurts it. Immolation's %DR should cover the gap, but if it's effective enough, you won't actually need FB for survivability - and if it isn't, casting FB for the CC actively dumps heat from your gauge, reducing your %DR - lowering your survivability.

Inferno - It's very pretty. This is a complement.
It's very cinematic. This is not a complement.
How spammy is Ember intended to be? Because - even without getting into LoS restriction funkiness - unless a single (Accelerant-less) cast of Inferno will clear the board in up-to Sortie level content, you're gonna have to cast it repeatedly, and I can see that becoming visually wearying - as well as undercutting the fantasy.

---

Vauban:

Tesla - I'm conflicted.
On the one hand, turning it into latchers is pretty cool.
On the other, I dislike the thought of having to depend on AI for my CC. 'Unreliable' is not a word you want to describe your method of survivability.

Sticky Ripline - I really like the aesthetic.
That said, does it not directly compete with Vortex? Why would I use this over Vortex?
(Energy cost isn't a viable answer under the current energy economy, when +75% eff is basically mandatory for any spammy frame.)

Nail Turret - Suffers from the same issues as the Azima's altfire, without its benefit of being moddable - No active targetting means it's unreliable, doesn't actually lock down its area.
I mean, look at ~40:50 - it's cast into the middle of 8 stationary Butchers, and actually lands around 3 hits a second by the looks of it.

Speed Pad - Sure, why not. :P
Not sure how effective it'll be, but *shrug*.
Open world aren't flat, and it's out-competed by (upgraded) chained Void Dashes.
Indoors it'd work, but only in certain (primarily Corpus) tiles.

Damage Amp - Effective, boring. Eh, sure, I guess.

Orbital Strike - See Inferno.
Pro: It's very cool. Some kind of target-level based scaling?
Con: Slow (hopefully not stationary) cast animation, charge-up time, delayed stationary AoE. Cinematic.

Rule of thumb: The harder a thing to use, the more rewarding it should be.
Landing a blast on a non-CCed enemy wouldn't be easy. otoh, we're talking about Vauban - where, unless the targets are CC-immune (and that's a whole other can of worms), landing a blast becomes trivial.

So, will it clear the affected area? Too strong.
Won't? Needs recasts or spamming, which conflicts with the delivery method (read: delayed effect) and undermines the fantasy.

Bastille / Vortex - Oh hey, it got armor stripping. 😐   See Fire Procs Meling Armor.
On a max range build, Vortex currently ~40% the radius of Bastille, since it doesn't scale 1:1 with Range.
I'd have to play with the new implementation, but I see that causing issues if it's unchanged (which I expect it is).

That aside, I like it.

[Askorti]

I'm not exactly thrilled with that Ember rework.

Fireball doesn't get any changes, even though it was the most bland and not very useful ability before. Unlikely to change now. Unless you use it to charge up the heat meter and for no other reason. /Edit: One way you could improve the fireball would be by getting rid of the charge up, and instead turning it into a flamethrower when you keep it pressed. So on a tap it would be a fireball, on hold it would be a flamethrower. Then maybe I'd use it.... Maybe.

Second ability should've basically been a passive.

That leaves us with just two actually usable abilities.

The 4th, which to me seems like a straight up downgrade from WoF. Before, anything in a certain range from you would get affected, while now you basically have to hope that the enemies bunch up in front of you to get as many of them as possible with one shot. Not to mention that you also need LoS to affect them too. The idea of the fire spreading is nice, but sounds pretty situational depending on the range of the spreading. Again, you might need the enemies to basically bunch up for it to work. And other than the fireball, which isn't likely to be used much, this might be your main way of charging up the immolation meter.

The 3rd Actually sounds like a pretty useful ability, with the stripping of armor and CC.... But it reduces the immolation meter...

So you basically get one useless ability that increases it, one expensive ability that increases it, and one very useful ability that decreases it... With this it seems to me like keeping a decent level of the meter might get a bit gimmicky, where you'd have to use your abilities in a sub-optimal way just to manage the meter. That doesn't feel right at all. I should be able to use an ability when it's most useful and *not* get penalized for doing so.

Also I'd like to repeat a point that someone made earlier, about how immolation adds DR, which scales up as you fill the meter. If you then use 3rd ability to slightly lower it, you lose some survivability which could kill you in some situations, especially at high levels. So your abilities actually work against you, not with or for you. I really do not think this was very well thought out. I won't even touch upon the idea that reaching 100% will blow off all your energy, because it is, I'm sorry, an absolutely stupid idea.

[(NSW)FlameDivinity]

22 hours ago, Maka.Bones said:

@(PS4)AbBaNdOn_IGN

Many people thought Wisp would be sh!t at first, and she's a new favorite warframe. Many people thought wukong's rework would also be sh!t, and yet he's another new popular Warframe ... Seriously, he's a ridiculous powerhouse. 

I'd suggest that you wait until the rework deploys before you start bashing the rework, or thinking it's the end of the world, or before you assume that you'll hate her lol 

THANK. YOU.

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

Better change and adapt Ember augments since nobody mentioned them during devstream

[Lord_Qrainex]

Embers 1 seems to be nearly unchanged, which i think is a bit of a shame since it's rather weak, what if instead of charging the fire ball a little bit more, we could hold the cast down and power it kinda like garuda's 1, it would make the ability stronger and i just love the visual of holding a big fireball in my hand charging it to a nuclear proportion (doesn't have to change size)

[Drachnyn]

vor einer Stunde schrieb z3us32610:

You want entire damage reduction/casting speed boost/ability damage boost mechanic to be her new passive? That seems like asking for a bit much.

I disagree about the passive, and here's why:

It makes me think of Garuda, one of my favorite frames. Its risky to run around with 2 health but it gives her a 100% damage buff. Risk/reward ratio is perfect, and forces me to play differently to maximize her potential. For example, with Ember, a player could Fireblast a group of enemies (perhaps even bunching them together with an arcane or telos boltace) and immediately cast any ability with a notable ability strength buff. 

It's definitely a different style of play. I, for one, welcome these kinds mechanics. For me, it makes the frames more fun to play.

It's all about finding the perfect balance between risk and reward.

The way they presented it made it look to me that you'll always have this ability on and it has no energy drain. So they might aswell make it a passive ability and put something else in that ability slot.

[AnOldAlias]

3 hours ago, Colyeses said:

Solution: Keep the old passive with the 'bonus power and energy while on fire' and have overheat set her on fire after draining all her energy.

Exactly! I think that's a fantastic solution. Though I'd still hope that they do look at the "Draining all energy" thing, given that Ember is based on Fire. Overheating can be bad, mind you, but she is literally based around fire, it shouldn't be much of an issue for her, all things considered, especially when it's her own toolkit.

It is an interesting mechanic, but it definitely needs to have positives AND negatives, not just negatives. A 'Frame that uses fire should be able to use her own overheat in some way as a benefit. Maybe give you a 5 second window to use an ability before all the energy is taken away / halved, idk.

[Leo_Chaos]

Sounds good apart from the gauge on Ember, these random bits of UI we seem to keep getting recently just give you something else to keep and eye on and sit awkwardly on the side like they're from a different game.

We at least need customization options on them for their positioning and their scale if we're to be stuck with them

[Gene_Freak]

Regarding the Immolation overheat mechanic: I agree that the instant total drain is too severe - why not have the overheat for her 2 be something comparable to the current WoF? If your heat reaches maximum you start draining energy like a sieve while fires break out around you, increasing in intensity and drain the longer you're overheating. It would fulfill the want of something that jeopardizes your energy while providing area damage on overheat, but in a way that's more manageable in a busy fight and with more exploitable synergies for the player to consider.

[Askorti]

Gene_Freak, That's actually a very nice idea, I love it. It would then bring in the tactical choice of allowing yourself to overheat, introduce a manageable drawback as well as a payoff. I also like the idea of reintroducing WoF in some capacity. Very nice.

[HolySeraphin]

6 minutes ago, Gene_Freak said:

Regarding the Immolation overheat mechanic: I agree that the instant total drain is too severe - why not have the overheat for her 2 be something comparable to the current WoF? If your heat reaches maximum you start draining energy like a sieve while fires break out around you, increasing in intensity and drain the longer you're overheating. It would fulfill the want of something that jeopardizes your energy while providing area damage on overheat, but in a way that's more manageable in a busy fight and with more exploitable synergies for the player to consider.

It would also be an excellent way to show the player that you have reached 100%.

[JCBeastie]

I don't have much to say about Ember tbh, mostly Vauban but I do have an issue they both share. The new skills Orbital Strike and Inferno, mechanically fine, but diegetically I don't like that these powers come from the sky. What are we using materia now, casting spells? Warframe powers should originate from the Warframe; or do you expect us to believe Vauban takes an Ion Cannon every where he goes, or Ember can yank rocks from any nearby asteroid field? Warframe's style is slowly getting eroded and I don't like that.

As for the rest of Vaubans rework, well I would have put money on the fact that Minelayer would get the chop, but no. Bastille and Vortex being combined is genius, I love that. Tesla as drones? Sure! But Minelayer... why is this still here. I want 4 abilities that work, but you're still presenting us with effectively 8 powers to choose from (Tesla, 4 Minelayer options, Orbital Strike, Bastille/Vortex). Are any of these Minelayer powers anything but filler?  Like all these multiple selection skills you tend to pick one and stick to it because they are so cumbersome to use. Either chop it down to 2 or 3 genuinely useful powers or replace it with a single useful skill. Mini Ripline, why? Mini Radial Javelin? What is this offering me? Boost pads? If I'm racing maybe. Damage Amp? Seriously? Passive, boring, lazy and dangerously threatening to be the default choice. Do you even see how Vauban is looking like a poor version of Wisp?

I'm sure you can make it work but I feel if you're taking the time to rework him, slow down and do it decently, work to a theme, streamline him. My biggest concern playing Vauban these days is just how fragile he is; why is a frame named for a famous castle builder not in any way defensive? Yes the CC is nice, but historically I've been shot to death by the enemies outside of Bastille pretty consistently. Why not an orb that vacuums projectiles in? Or a deployable barrier? Just please think of something with utility instead of ticking boxes, it's clear to me Minelayer does not need 4 options and you've struggled to come up with meaningful choices twice now. Rethink it please.

[Przemo8670]

Vauban could use a bit more survivability. Maybe make one of his "mines" stick to vauban and allies like damage amp but give damage reduction or invisibility (optical camouflage), just like ivara's arrows. His ripline mine sounds redundant since vortex exists.

[Mardomus]

Testa:

The new "Tesla" ability seems to be more of a hinder, and I wish it was played more in survival or other areas to see how it plays out. Imagine playing survival, and the new Tesla attaches to a mob(s) and you have to move from point "A" to "C", and the Tesla remains on that mob(s). That could be a problem. I'm not sure if Tesla stays close to you within a certain range and moves with you if you're out of range. Also, how quick does it react to mobs in front or near you while moving. The rolling/attachment effect is awesome, but the delivery is lacking.

Minelayer:

I like the idea of "Sticky Mine" and it looks like it will work well with Bastille, Vortex, Nail AoE, and Tesla. Does range mods effect this?

The "Nail AoE" should have a slash status as well and what is the status % of the Puncture, or am I mistaken and there is none? 

The "Speed Boost Pad" is a worthless ability that's taking up a slot for a potential survival/support slot. That ability could have similar effects to Tesla by latching onto you or a friendly, like Clem or wisp, and providing buffs like Speed Boost (Rush %), Fire Rate, HP Regen, Energy, and/or Ammunition. This is such a bad ability. I don't know how you did wisp right, but got this wrong for Vauban.....

The "Damage" boost is nice and it would be cool if it stacked if you're playing with a team. Also, will this ability be seen on the map by other players so they know what it is and look like?

Orbital Strike:

I was against this ability, because most don't scale. But, it does and that's awesome. I wish it did leave a little 4 Second AoE Radiation or Heat patch after the explosion that deals 10-15% of the damage it dealt, but if not its still a nice ability.

Bastillex:

I really like every single thing about this ability. The armor strip is nice, but how fast does it take to strip it and will Natural Talent work with it? The idea of having Vortex gather with other Vortex into one will work well for higher level mobs, especially when they're grouped. You can drop another Bastille to strip armor and Orbital Strike. This looks like the most interesting ability of them all. Also, I'm not sure if I heard, but does the team buff inside Bastille scale to the armor being stripped (Higher Armor Mobs), and does duration increase the armor you receive once Bastille is gone? 

I don't like the animations for the 3rd and 4th ability. Will there be an option where we can choose what ability animations we want to use for each instead of completely taking out the old one? This could be a nice feature to add, too. Will Vauban get an energy increase? What will happen to his augments and how will they be beneficial to the new abilities, and will we get an augment for Minelayer? 

[GODStarKing]

can verbons 3 work on walls like floors because that would be cool to see a wall blast knock them down and back like a ship breaking through the wall 

[Dan137.W1750n]

I'm not digging the Vauban ideas. He's the Tenno equivalent of a combat engineer, a role that involves using tech and environment to create an advantage.

Making tesla grenades mobile (on the ground, because only corpus and orokin have flying drones) so he can use his 1 and new 0.5 sec speed boost pads for "rush to the end" missions sounds underwhelming when you could use a Volt, Gauss, Nezha, etc. 

 

Orbital Strike requires CC to actually hit a group, since it's delayed, and doesn't appear to have any utility or support besides damage. Vauban's future is a stealthy combat-engineer ninja who brings a battleship with him everywhere he goes.So, I assume you need 150-175 energy for "Bastille/Vortex" or "Vortex Mine" to hold the enemies, then hit them with Orbital strike, taking... 4-5 seconds? This is a worse version of Ensnare/Whipclaw?

The Minelayer abilities sound underwhelming. A nail bomb, a vortex mine, a 0.5 sec speed boost pad, and a small damage increase for one member of the team, hopefully it latches the teammate you want to boost. 

He could be a defensive king with a few small changes.

Replace his 1 with turrets that use his secondary for a weapon. Now their damage can scale with the player's weapons. Augment could make them spider drones.

Replace Bastille with a channelled shield dome to protect his team and objective from damage/status, while slowing his movement and preventing him from using weapons. Now, Vauban IS the fortress (Eidolon utility). Augment could allow him to use weapons.

Increase Vortex AOE and duration and reduce energy to improve his CC for chokepoints, which was his previous role.

Minelayer abilities should be less about static, unmoving bombs that rely on the enemies being dumb and walking over them, and really be more about team support, there should be a lot of unique ideas for this. 

Passive should improve his ability to change the environment to his advantage. A cipher that autohacks doors to crush enemies passing through, spawn a small army of friendly MOAs from spawn cabinets, activate enemy turrets, etc.

Don't worry about making him compete with Lokis, Nezhas, etc. Give him a role to specialize in, like fortifying an area and protecting his team. 

[(PSN)Pandora_Meow_Cat]

With this, so hoped, Vauban's rework he need new augments!!

And pls, don't forget to give him more base energy. Is really low for a frame with so much abilities. 

Also, speaking about reworks and the little fixes you're going to do for Titania, consider energy base too. For Titania and Vauban, they have really poor efficiency. More base energy could mitigate this problem.

Thanks!!!!

[Crewell]

I’m kind of happy to see Ember’s World on Fire being replaced. Sitting there on low level missions with the one power turned on and doing nothing else is kind of boring. Equinox day form ultimate is almost on par but a little more interactive. I’m probably one of the few glad Accelerant is getting replaced. Spamming that on high levels was equally annoying to me. I was always an Overheat and being a hot melee monster vs. a glass cannon. 
 

Can’t wait to try the changes.