Ember Rework Feedback: From the Ashes

[Midnight_Crest]

I just want to preface this post by saying that the team has done a phenomenal job with the visuals of her rework. However, I do have a few grievances with some of her abilities.

Ability 2:

• Problem: The idea of the meter ramp up is great but if its going to have such a harsh penalty it should offer something more than just damage reduction.

• My solution is an overheated mode called Phoenix Mode. In this mode ember will emit Accelerant (Her old 2) waves that will stun enemies (Only on the first wave). With this mode she will be able to retain her old niche of buffing heat damage for both her and her squad. Now what about her penalty? While I believe losing your entire energy pool is too harsh, I still want some sort of penalty if you neglect meter management. A solution to this is giving Phoenix Mode a cooldown when you fail to manage the meter. There should be an overflow bar (Just like Gauss' mach meter) attached to the meter which will force ember to cool down when you reach maximum capacity. With this overflow bar you will have a bit of leeway when you manage her meter instead of instantly getting the penalty when you reach full capacity without the overflow bar.

Ability 3:

• Problem: This ability as it stands right now is very counter-intuitive with her passive. The knockback will only force you to chase after your enemies if you want to get your extra power strength.

• My Solution is something called Pyroclastic Flow. The ability still retains its damage and armor stripping capabilities but this time the enemies will be encased in solidified lava and thick ash preventing them from moving while also damaging them over time.

Phoenix Down: This would be included in her passive and it will basically give ember a free self revive by spending her whole meter and putting phoenix mode into cooldown. Note: This is just a fun thing DE can do for ember's phoenix theme and is definitely not required to make ember good.

All in all I think this rework is a step in the right direction for ember but I really believe they can take it a step further and make her shine.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Midnight_Crest
Grammar Correction

[GentlePuppet]

48 minutes ago, GentlePuppet said:

Ember's rework looks interesting. I've taken a look and thought over the rework. And while I don't have any numbers to go on this is what I personally think.

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• New Passive - Spicy: Gains ability strength based on the number of enemies on fire within a range around her. Numbers aren’t final and are pending testing.

This sounds very promising. While I sometimes use her current passive to quickly charge up energy, either with some self procing fire weapons or those lil patches of flaming soot, this sounds much nicer to have.

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• First Ability - Fireball: This hasn’t changed too much. We fixed a lot of animation latency, should be able to spam it more easily.

This just sounds like a straight up buff if anything.

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• Second Ability - Immolation (Replacing Accelerant): When cast, Ember Immolates herself with protective fire armor. Her current level of self-Immolation is indicated by a unique UI indicator; the higher the heat, the more damage resistance, and the more effective Ember’s other abilities become.
• Your first and fourth abilities contribute to this meter, your third lessens it. Make sure to manage it carefully, because if you fill it completely, you will overheat and unleash a wave of fire, expending all your energy.

Before Update 11.5 we had Overheat which was replaced by Accelerant. Overheat was basically exactly the same thing as Immolation but without the overheating ui part of the ability and instead of boosting abilities it would boost damage. So Immolation is just Overheat 2.0.
While I like this one I also hate it. I love the idea of once again having damage resistance on Ember so she's not as squishy in high level areas, but I also do like to use Accelerant. Using it to stun dangerous targets to unload into their faces or to coat a large area and then spam fire blast to quickly evaporate enemies will be missed. It's replacing a stun/damage boost ability with damage reduction. IDK if it'll be duration based or channeled. It sounds like it'll be channeled, But we'll have to see.

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• Third Ability - Fire Blast: This no longer uses duration, and instead is an AOE ability focused on armor stripping and CC. Knock back enemies upon cast, and melt their armor off! 

It looks like when they replaced Accelerant with Overheat 2.0 they combined Accelerant with Fireblast except they removed the fire damage boost it gave, and made it strip armor. Also instead of the enemies panicking (temp stunned) from being set on fire they just get knocked down which is basically the same thing. Sounds like it's a 2 in 1 spam move if it still deals damage. You can blast off armor and then it should deal more damage when you cast it again. But it probably won't deal as much damage as the old 1 2 of Accelerant then Fireblast currently does. So this could be a good buff or a nerf. (Stripping armor is always a plus tho so...)

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• Fourth Ability - Inferno (replacing World on Fire): Upon casting Inferno, all enemies currently within sight are struck by a fiery comet, lighting each target ablaze. As they run around with their pants literally on fire (those liars), they can also catch other enemies alight, spreading the blaze.

Instead of a channeled ability that burns and temporarily stuns enemies near you, it's a single use cast that lights enemies around you on fire and from the wording it sounds like they will panic and run around bumping into each other (or not maybe they'll just still walk/run around normally) and they spread the fire to others (Like Saryns Spores but they spread based on contact instead of shooting them.) It does sound a bit like a downgrade to me cause it's no longer a controlled forced proc and is reliant on rng of enemies running into each other.
We'll have to wait until we can test it our selves but I'm not sure I like that her 4th is getting replaced. Even with the range nerf it previously got I think I'll still prefer World on Fire over Inferno.

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It seems like they're changing her from being a mostly passive/slightly active dps with the ability to stun to a more supportive and mostly active dps frame designed to strip armor.

Overall I have to say I'm not entirely sure I like it. With the theoretical merging of Accelerant and Fireblast that should mean that her 2 isn't necessarily replacing anything but is added to her set while Fireblast just got some stuff added to it. This on paper sounds pretty ok, but we'll have to see when she gets released if it's any good.

Now, I think the only 2 reasons people are saying to "rework" ember was mainly because of Update 11.5 when you replaced Overheat and then Update 22.12 where you changed World of Fire, so once you fully heated up the range was reduced by double while the damage increased by 100%, instead of just being the set damage being at the set range that it was. These are what really set off the whole "ember was nerfed into the ground" and "ember sucks now" debates.
I Imagine if you kept the current rework you have set up but instead of changing World on Fire to inferno you reversed the range penalty, so it starts at half the range and reaches full range one fully heated up, as well as probably increasing the heat up time and either removing or lowering the damage bonus, then people would be very happy with this rework. I'm sure there are people who are already happy with the current rework you have set but I'm not 100% on it.

 

[(PSN)Dishinshoryuken]

Only thing I am wondering is what reason she loses Accelerant while Vaub gets to have his moves combined into a Hold for 1 power, Quick Press for the other. Her 2 could have the same thing- Hold for Accelerant, Quick Press for whatever it is called.

In this day and age, Frames should gain power while also incorporating their kit from before. Not gonna lie....imma miss her old passive, which she should still contain. Oh well... Adapt with the change.

[khazlol]

The armor reduction with fireblast is going to scale a million times better than accelerant ever did

[Khalomar]

I think it's way too early to be biting your nails over changes. We don't even have any numbers yet, her 3 and 4 could do bonkers damage for all we know, especially with this new meter they're incorporating. With modern frame design, I'm not worried about damage in the slightest.  Energy consumption on the other hand...

[CodeUltimate]

On 2019-10-05 at 4:43 AM, khazlol said:

The armor reduction with fireblast is going to scale a million times better than accelerant ever did

Not for eidolons 8}

[khazlol]

2 hours ago, CodeUltimate said:

Not for eidolons 8}

Can't think of any reason to bring Emberr to begin with

[(XBOX)COA Altair]

Bring 3 CP's with 2 coaction drifts to eidolons and blow them up with lanka using radiation, who honestly cares.  

Ember is in a very good spot now with armor melting heat.  People just don't realize that armor was the only real thing holding ember back a lot, since a level 4 bombard has 62.5% damage reduction.  A level 40 has 85.87% damage reduction.  People still rolling with energy siphon like it provides some real benefit in the face of zenurik or energize.