Vauban & Ember Dev Workshop

[kyori]

Come to think of it... today’s rework only shows that Scott has been stuck in Gauss abilities execution, thus reusing them. 

1) Having 2-3 function with 1 button (tap + hold) is a good innovation. 

2) Having a micro-managing meter is bad and it should stop with Gauss. Why should we be penalized for using too much ability? Is this meter thing a build-in Sanctuary Onslaught like how Simaris penalized us by disabling our ability if using it too much?

Using a frame’s abilities should be enjoyable and should not be like playing RTS where we’ve to manage this manage that. 

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, kyori said:

Come to think of it... today’s rework only shows that Scott has been stuck in Gauss abilities execution, thus reusing them. 

1) Having 2-3 function with 1 button (tap + hold) is a good innovation. 

2) Having a micro-managing meter is bad and it should stop with Gauss. Why should we be penalized for using too much ability? Is this meter thing a build-in Sanctuary Onslaught like how Simaris penalized us by disabling our ability if using it too much?

Using a frame’s abilities should be enjoyable and should not be like playing RTS where we’ve to manage this manage that. 

Gauss meter is good now, I barely need to use his 1 to keep it over 80% during Redline.Before the update it was every 5 seconds, but now it is rare for me to use it every 15 seconds.

[mikakor]

i do have to play with the others here, even if the candle thing of Ember looks nice, it simply does not bring enough positive, compared to the micro-management that it is.

it should be something like, you can go at 100 per 100, and stay there. forever. it doesn't do anything else than helping with damage reduction. this is an unwanted mechanic on Ember. ( but i like the icon of it tho ). we shouldn't be penalized by using our abilities. 

[Maka.Bones]

2 hours ago, (XB1)ELM0Damian said:

If it was only a knockdown with armor strip it would be great and then my only complaint would be the fireball. Hopefully they get rid of the knockback portion. All in all im hopeful for embers future at least she is being looked at.

by the way, someone else pointed out that fireblast doesn't knock back enemies that are already ignited... so that solves that problem

Seems they had already thought of it, we just didn't notice it. 

[mrrobotto67]

My only issue with Immolation is that the punishment for overheating is really brutal (as Scott pointed out, not literally, on the Devstream), maybe ... if you overheat, the rest of your abilities will suffer, like doing less damage, having lesser range, the casting animation is slower ... stuff like that for 15-30 seconds.

[Maka.Bones]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

Overall I like it but I do have some qualms. 

It seems a bit counter productive to have her cc knock people away when her passive is melee range. Granted if her 4 spreads well enough that's probably fine. Given most maps are cordor simulators. 

I love the visual flair of the meteors but I'm not sure how it fits into ember being a fire frame. Not asking for it to be removed just saying. 

Her 2 seems underwhelming if all it is is DR and faster casting. I'm sure there's more cause it sounded like Scott was saying more damage before Reb cut him off. 

That's about it though. I always used her fireball as a quick panic cc or to cc a doorway with the charged variant. So it being basically the same is fine. Especially since dot will be stronger and fire procs melt armor. 

Fireblast won't knockback enemies that already have fire procs. 

@Arcira ^this.... it seems most of us didn't notice this during the devstream (myself included)

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

9 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

Fireblast won't knockback enemies that already have fire procs. 

@Arcira ^this.... it seems most of us didn't notice this during the devstream (myself included)

Good to know 

[HolySeraphin]

14 minutes ago, mrrobotto67 said:

My only issue with Immolation is that the punishment for overheating is really brutal (as Scott pointed out, not literally, on the Devstream), maybe ... if you overheat, the rest of your abilities will suffer, like doing less damage, having lesser range, the casting animation is slower ... stuff like that for 15-30 seconds.

Or an energy drain of 5 energy/second for 10 seconds and then the meter reduces to 75% for 5-10 seconds, so you won't lose all your Damage Reduction. Or something like the transference static, where if you overheat you lose like 50% of your total meter, and then your max total meter is reduced by 15-20%. If you get overheated again in like 15 seconds your max meter is further reduced, down to 60% and so on.

[Teridax68]

My thoughts:

• Gaining Power Strength by setting enemies on fire is good, not a fan of the range limit though, particularly as it anti-synergizes with her new 3's knockback.
• Heat procs are long overdue for a rework. Stacking damage is great, though while the armor strip would definitely be useful, it a) runs the risk of making Corrosive status redundant in its purpose, and b) is starting to become incredibly overused, particularly since both Ember and Vauban are receiving armor strips on their kits, with Gauss, Wisp, and Hildryn also having the same mechanic. This suggests that the problem lies with armor, and that DE are complicating things for themselves in the long run by overloading the game with armor strips.
• The updated Fireball certainly looks prettier and more responsive, but unless it receives a boost in damage, and offers some new functionality relative to her 4, it's still going to be just as redundant as it is now.
• The new 2 looks like this horrible mess of resource management that was already arguably the least pleasant part of Gauss. I'd rather play the game than manage resource bars, and I also feel the damage amp portion is also redundant in the face of the new passive. Also, I don't feel great about the removal of Accelerant, if only because coating enemies in fuel has much more thematic flavor, and could've easily served as the basis for the armor strip and spreading fire effect.
• The new 3 looks much more useful, including as a panic button, though as mentioned above anti-synergizes with the new passive's limited range. Between it and Accelerant, too, I feel Fire Blast should've gotten the chop first, as Ember already has plenty of fire explosions.
• The new 4 looks visually impressive, though I'd be curious to know what its damage is and how it'll fare against more durable enemies. It also looks pretty spammy, which may be okay when cast a few times in the Simulacrum, but in actual play runs the risk of getting very old very fast,

So all in all... I don't know. Perhaps there are details to these abilities that I'm missing, and I guess we'll only know for sure once we get our hands on the new Ember, but I don't think this rework really fixes all of her issues, and I'm not sure if the new gameplay it aims to engineer will be especially healthy either. Spam is fun, but if we're going to be spamming our abilities they need to have interaction with the enemy each time, which auto-aim meteors don't provide (though Fireball does as a projectile that needs to be aimed).

[duhadventure]

I hope they keep the name of the Ember passive

[kuryux]

The mines still feel like a lackluster... although it would be nice to see the other 2.

BTW, great work on those animations! Especially both 4s!

[HolySeraphin]

Please, increase Ember's passive to at least 18m. 10m is too close, even if you're using her 2 to have damage reduction.

[Sohaya-]

6 minutes ago, HolySeraphin said:

Please, increase Ember's passive to at least 18m. 10m is too close, even if you're using her 2 to have damage reduction.

It’s passive range now according to Scott’s latest tweet

[Zendadaist]

I'm still digesting the changes for both Ember and Vauban from the devstream, but I do have one immediate concern.

The penalty Ember suffers from if her heat gauge fills up is way too severe. Losing ALL of her energy? That's much too punishing. How about something else instead? Like perhaps she loses half the DR she's supposed gain with 2 running for 10 seconds? Maybe it disables her 2 for 5 seconds instead? Or maybe she takes a damage hit for her 1+4 for the next 10 seconds? Something along these lines that's an incovenience but not a gigantic nerf.

[ArcKnight9202]

My initial impressions:

Vauban
Vauban looks pretty awesome. Granted, I'm not one of his die-hard fans and there are probably issues I don't see but it looks fun. It might not be what people want, though. We'll have to see.

Ember
Ember's new passive is definitely better than her old one. However, most enemies will be dead so having enemies who are on fire for added ability strength won't even be a thing until much higher level. It'll be like not having a passive at all.

Immolation is micromanagement. I don't care for that really.

Fire Blast now strips armor. Why don't you just take armor out of the game if everything must have an ability to strip armor? Not to mention it's only slightly more thematic for removing armor than Psychic Bolts is.

The new 4th ability looks totally rad. World of Boredom was Ember's worst ability, in my opinion. Not from a functionality standpoint but from a gameplay interaction one.

***

That being said, I know you say you are taking feedback, but you had mountains of feedback for Titania and Nyx and you still shipped them after ignoring a huge amount of it. Whatever problems I don't see, but others do, I worry that they will be addressed at all. Please listen to the players who use the frames the most. Don't instead focus on trying to get new people to use the frames when they likely won't stick around after the honeymoon period.

[AlouetteSK]

Ember's passive I do not think fits with her kit, especially since it is counterintuitive with her 3, which would knock enemies outside her passive range.
Suggest that Strength increases with her Heat Meter, comboing into another suggestion I have later.

Don't like the DR drop mechanics, because as soon as you hit the limit, your defense drastically drops as you do an animation that holds you still, making you a prime target for anyone outside your aoe range.  Suggest reworking it so that if you go over a certain heat limit, you instead start taking heat damage until you drop it (or die). 

Will need to see her new ult in action to comment on it further, just concerned that Line of Sight has always been janky in the game (See Hildryn). 

 

Vauban's rework looks nice.  Only concern is how it works with CC-resistant enemies. 

Suggest either making the orbital laser bigger, or having an augment that increases the charge time in exchange for bigger damage, bigger aoe. 

[HolySeraphin]

7 minutes ago, RWBY-WhiteRose said:

It’s passive range now according to Scott’s latest tweet

Jesus Christ Scott AFFINITY RANGE?! That's 50 MOTHER****** FREAKING meters! Not complaining, but...damn that's a lot of range for a passive. If you do this I'm sure you will put a cap, maybe 200%? *prays*

 

[Sohaya-]

Ember’s best ability used to be accelerant. It let enemies take more damage, and it also granted good self buffs.

Instead of moving that to her 3, it was flat out removed in favor of fire blast, and the buff potential is gone from that too.

Hear me out: ember still needs a fire buff inbuilt into her kit. Could you please modify accelerant and make it her 3 again? Ragdolls are a meh form of cc especially when you have the reappliable panic from the fire proc, which is already spread everywhere by her 4. I’d suggest having accelerant strip armor instead of priming enemies directly, increase the range and then leave that in place of the god-awful anti-synergetic ability that might me her new 3. (Knocking mobs out of range of her passive)

Please, @[DE]Steve (Can’t find Scott)

[Sohaya-]

Please leave accelerant in. Fire debuffs are nice and all, but we need stuff in the way of raw weapon damage (like current ember can do)

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, RWBY-WhiteRose said:

Please leave accelerant in. Fire debuffs are nice and all, but we need stuff in the way of raw weapon damage (like current ember can do)

What about changing her "new" 3 for Accelerant? Make it strip armor and apply the stun, it is more reliable than the knockdown.

[(XBOX)ELM0Damian]

55 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

by the way, someone else pointed out that fireblast doesn't knock back enemies that are already ignited... so that solves that problem

Seems they had already thought of it, we just didn't notice it. 

Does it though? Have to cast your 4 just so you don't have to deal with a negative in her kit. Probably just shouldn't be there in the first place if we have to take more steps to make it function right.

[SosseBargeld585]

I don't think adding a cap to the bonus strength from her new passive is necessary unless it's affected by bonus strength/range.

World on fire is a Line of sight ability now? That's worse than before.

Just remove the overheating from World on Fire (at least the aura shrink).

[GinKenshin]

5 minutes ago, RWBY-WhiteRose said:

ember still needs a fire buff inbuilt into her kit.

no she doesn't. her passive grants more strength and the fire proc strips armor resulting in more dmg. let's actually play the rework to see if accelerant is 'needed' 
 

6 minutes ago, RWBY-WhiteRose said:

I’d suggest having accelerant strip armor instead of priming enemies directly

again, fire procs do that now 

when you look at it as a whole, accelerant wouldn't really be needed. fireball is doing decent dmg along with WoF (one of these 2 now scales with enemy level iirc) and the buffs from the heat meter, buffs to the fire proc, all of this should help out more 

just wait for it to come out and play it before coming to conclusions 

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

Accelerant wasn't a good ability. It was just her only decent ability. It's "good panic stun" was inconsistent because the length of the stun entirely depended on what unit was stunned. The damage buff to her abilities is preserved in new ember via how heat procs work, her 2 increasing damage, and her passive.  The only thing being lost in removal is its buff to weapons. Which was her old and only viable style. Sure, would be cool to have. Not needed though. I never pictured her as a buffing frame and never liked that. 

Her new 3 is already better than Accelerant. It stripes armor with hard cc which means utility plus good panic cc. And there is no anti synergy because it doesn't ragdoll enemies that are heat procced. 

If you keep in mind how easy it is to spread her procs now with her various abilities it ragdolling is not going to be a very common thing. 

[FranklinsDemise]

The speed pads are not good,not at all, it's just Bounce but foward. Useless.