Revenant's abilities are dumb

[DrBorris]

On 2019-10-15 at 7:20 AM, taiiat said:

that's the point of your Thralls, you're supposed to create them so that you can Kill them. they aren't a goon Squad to defend you, they're a resource. that they are a goon Squad is just a byproduct.

I agree wholeheartedly with this as a concept, but in my opinion the concept kind of fails. In a weird way Thralls are a CC version of an enemy affected by Saryn's Spore, they both (in theory) fill very similar roles within each of the Warframe's kit. However one Warframe has their "resource" unchained and the other has a bunch of restrictions.

My bad opinion of today: Revenant should be balanced like Saryn. No Thrall cap, better spreading, and a bit more synergy with maintaining your "resource" throughout his kit. I'm not saying that Revenant should fill the same role as Saryn, just that his abilities should interact like Saryn's.

[nslay]

9 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

But it does have everything to do with Mesmer Skin uptime consistency, because you very obviously need to recast Mesmer Skin or use Reave on Thralls to keep stacks up. Problem is, because stacks deplete at a rate the player has no real means of predicting, players have to refresh at an inefficient rate while constantly keeping an eye on their stacks. Again, the video, and the player within, demonstrate this.

OK well, I had 100% uptime 3 times in a row (and this is very typical all the way up to arbitrations... unless I hit an explosive barrel! EDIT: The explosive barrel counts as damage in the score screen! It doesn't even deplete a Mesmer Skin charge though.). The video has a 100% uptime. It just doesn't really happen the way you might imagine in most settings in the game (but I understand why people think it would). And it boils down to several factors like low enemy spawns (solo), low enemy accuracy, low enemy fire rate, enemies being susceptible to team mate presence and/or Revenant's own CC (essentially removing enemies along with others as threats), and low probability scenarios of synchronized fire and simultaneous hits. If it weren't for these conditions, it probably wouldn't work very well at all... if enemies all had 100% accuracy, I am absolutely certain it would flop as a viable defensive ability.

But make no mistake, what you're pointing out is a very real problem with Profit Taker, Exploiter phase 1, Tusk Bolkor and Eidolons (god forbid you try to use him here... he is not true to his lore). It's really really bad... we're talking like mere seconds of uptime (I didn't measure it). You need fast reflexes to pull this off! I don't think this is reasonable for average players at all. It takes some practice and telegraphing to use him against these enemies. Sure, I could pull off solo Exploiter with no Mesmer Skin downtime... but more often than not, I will either lose my Mesmer Skin a few times or I will maybe even die in phase 1 (like fiddling with throwing Thermia while that cannon hits Mesmer Skin for 6-7 consecutive shots with a short reload time). That's just my personal experience... these enemies particularly stand out from the rest of the game. They are bad news for Revenant.

But, in a typical setting, even in the very worst case scenario where I am a Revenant without Thralls or team mates, I have something like around ~30 seconds on average to react (OK, I didn't measure variance... I will try to figure out a way to do that. Maybe I can use OCR on the video?). IMO, that's in the realm of "occasionally glancing." A player should reasonably be able to keep that up. And you're right that for low level enemies, this can be silly and overkill... Mesmer Skin absorbs 1 damage the same as it does 1000 damage. You could use a Rhino, do something like a charge and then cast Iron Skin once and you are probably good to go for the entire 5-10 minute mission. Cast and forget.

Why did I initially do this Mesmer Skin-only experiment? Two reasons: 1) I wanted some quantification of just how bad Mesmer Skin could be by itself (and also to see if I wasn't somehow forgetting that I cast it more than I think), 2) I wanted to see how Enthrall affects it. This experiment is not perfect. This was a very small experiment and I am already an experienced Revenant player. But I swear to you... back in my days of unlocking the Star Chart, I really had a hard time unlocking the last branch of Void to unlock Eris. The enemies there do +200% damage and my Rhino just couldn't tank that (I didn't have access to his augments or any fancy corrupted mods! I do know Rhino is better than this!). I pulled out Revenant, used basic mods like Intensify and with 7 Mesmer Skin stacks and he made T4 Void a cake walk... and it wasn't hard to keep Mesmer Skin up and complete these missions. And ever since then, I've essentially mained him!

Edited October 21, 2019 by nslay

[Teridax68]

12 hours ago, nslay said:

OK well, I had 100% uptime 3 times in a row (and this is very typical all the way up to arbitrations... unless I hit an explosive barrel! EDIT: The explosive barrel counts as damage in the score screen! It doesn't even deplete a Mesmer Skin charge though.). The video has a 100% uptime. It just doesn't really happen the way you might imagine in most settings in the game (but I understand why people think it would). And it boils down to several factors like low enemy spawns (solo), low enemy accuracy, low enemy fire rate, enemies being susceptible to team mate presence and/or Revenant's own CC (essentially removing enemies along with others as threats), and low probability scenarios of synchronized fire and simultaneous hits. If it weren't for these conditions, it probably wouldn't work very well at all... if enemies all had 100% accuracy, I am absolutely certain it would flop as a viable defensive ability.

The unreliability of enemy accuracy simply means the steroid is even more inconsistent, not less. Again, inconsistency here isn't about power, because it means Mesmer Skin can last for unpredictably short amounts of time... but also unpredictably long durations as well. The fact that you can spam abilities to maintain 100% uptime does not contradict this, and I don't understand why you insist upon producing this kind of anecdotal argumentation when it really has no relevance to the subject matter.

12 hours ago, nslay said:

But make no mistake, what you're pointing out is a very real problem with Profit Taker, Exploiter phase 1, Tusk Bolkor and Eidolons (god forbid you try to use him here... he is not true to his lore). It's really really bad... we're talking like mere seconds of uptime (I didn't measure it). You need fast reflexes to pull this off! I don't think this is reasonable for average players at all. It takes some practice and telegraphing to use him against these enemies. Sure, I could pull off solo Exploiter with no Mesmer Skin downtime... but more often than not, I will either lose my Mesmer Skin a few times or I will maybe even die in phase 1 (like fiddling with throwing Thermia while that cannon hits Mesmer Skin for 6-7 consecutive shots with a short reload time). That's just my personal experience... these enemies particularly stand out from the rest of the game. They are bad news for Revenant.

Or you could just git gud and spam-recast Mesmer Skin for 100% uptime. I'm sure you can manage it!

But less facetiously though, you seem to be confusing consistency with uptime here, when it's already been pointed out that the two aren't the same either. Sure, Mesmer Skin shouldn't deplete so quickly against these enemies, but in general, its charge system is precisely what leads to these problems over a buffer or timer system. Thus, switching Mesmer Skin to a different system while keeping its power level the same would likely benefit Revenant and his players.

12 hours ago, nslay said:

But, in a typical setting, even in the very worst case scenario where I am a Revenant without Thralls or team mates, I have something like around ~30 seconds on average to react (OK, I didn't measure variance... I will try to figure out a way to do that. Maybe I can use OCR on the video?). IMO, that's in the realm of "occasionally glancing." A player should reasonably be able to keep that up. And you're right that for low level enemies, this can be silly and overkill... Mesmer Skin absorbs 1 damage the same as it does 1000 damage. You could use a Rhino, do something like a charge and then cast Iron Skin once and you are probably good to go for the entire 5-10 minute mission. Cast and forget.

You are making the mistake of arguing off of average durations on an ability defined by its unpredictable variance in duration. Iron Skin in this respect is much more consistent, simply because its variance in duration is predictable, and duration-based steroids are obviously even more predictable due to how their duration has no variance, outside of nullification or falling into a pit.

12 hours ago, nslay said:

Why did I initially do this Mesmer Skin-only experiment? Two reasons: 1) I wanted some quantification of just how bad Mesmer Skin could be by itself (and also to see if I wasn't somehow forgetting that I cast it more than I think), 2) I wanted to see how Enthrall affects it. This experiment is not perfect. This was a very small experiment and I am already an experienced Revenant player.

So, by your own admission, your "experiment" has no relevance to the subject matter being discussed, as we are discussing neither the overall power of Mesmer Skin nor its relation to Enthrall.

12 hours ago, nslay said:

But I swear to you... back in my days of unlocking the Star Chart, I really had a hard time unlocking the last branch of Void to unlock Eris. The enemies there do +200% damage and my Rhino just couldn't tank that (I didn't have access to his augments or any fancy corrupted mods! I do know Rhino is better than this!). I pulled out Revenant, used basic mods like Intensify and with 7 Mesmer Skin stacks and he made T4 Void a cake walk... and it wasn't hard to keep Mesmer Skin up and complete these missions. And ever since then, I've essentially mained him!

That's nice, good for you. I never had any issue with the Star Chart, bar some brutal missions on Mars (which at the time was Phobos) when my starter Excalibur was still level 20 and poorly modded, but then I don't think I can spin that into a universal statement either.

[nslay]

4 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

The unreliability of enemy accuracy simply means the steroid is even more inconsistent, not less. Again, inconsistency here isn't about power, because it means Mesmer Skin can last for unpredictably short amounts of time... but also unpredictably long durations as well. The fact that you can spam abilities to maintain 100% uptime does not contradict this, and I don't understand why you insist upon producing this kind of anecdotal argumentation when it really has no relevance to the subject matter.

I did not spam any abilities. You are wrong.

[Teridax68]

12 minutes ago, nslay said:

I did not spam any abilities. You are wrong.

Not in the easy Exterminate run you claimed to have run three times (though you did cast your steroid far more frequently than I had to do mine), but your entire argument thus far has been that Revenant can always cast more abilities to maintain 100% uptime on Mesmer Skin regardless of situation, with the video you linked as evidence. Not only am I not wrong, I did not even make the accusation you are attributing to me here, and it is obvious you have run out of arguments.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Teridax68

[nslay]

20 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

Not in the easy Exterminate run you claimed to have run three times (though you did cast your steroid far more frequently than I had to do mine), but your entire argument thus far has been that Revenant can always cast more abilities to maintain 100% uptime on Mesmer Skin regardless of situation, with the video you linked as evidence. Not only am I not wrong, I did not even make the accusation you are attributing to me here, and it is obvious you have run out of arguments.

Ten casts in nearly 5 minutes is not spam casting Mesmer Skin. Using Revenant's other abilities in a realistic way in a realistic setting only improves Mesmer Skin's uptime further from the already not-spam-casting Mesmer Skin scenario.

The issue you have is a problem with Mesmer Skin's inconsistency, be it with some kind of loss of stacks or uptime. The problem is in your imagination in an unrealistic scenario with Revenant in a vacuum. It doesn't happen save for 4 very specific enemies.

The 3 runs and the video are there for everyone to see to make up their own minds.

[Teridax68]

17 hours ago, nslay said:

Ten casts in nearly 5 minutes is not spam casting Mesmer Skin. Using Revenant's other abilities in a realistic way in a realistic setting only improves Mesmer Skin's uptime further from the already not-spam-casting Mesmer Skin scenario.

It isn't, but we're not just talking about your runs, we're talking about how Revenant plays more broadly, as you had just before argued that Revenant can maintain 100% uptime simply by dint of spamming Enthrall and Reave to restore charges, a fact evidenced by the video and its creator. The latter even said they had to keep a close eye on their stacks simply to make sure they were full.

17 hours ago, nslay said:

The issue you have is a problem with Mesmer Skin's inconsistency, be it with some kind of loss of stacks or uptime. The problem is in your imagination in an unrealistic scenario with Revenant in a vacuum. It doesn't happen save for 4 very specific enemies.

But it clearly isn't in my own mind, as even the video creator has told you otherwise. You are the one inventing a false narrative here that is contradicted by every single piece of evidenced so far produced.

17 hours ago, nslay said:

The 3 runs and the video are there for everyone to see to make up their own minds.

Indeed, and unfortunately for you, they don't prove your point. I have demonstrated with ease that Mesmer Skin is in fact inconsistent in the rate at which its charges deplete relative to other steroids, a fact corroborated not only by multiple other posters, but by the creator of the video, who validated my interpretation of how they were keeping charges at maximum the entire time. I don't see how you're expecting to convince anyone here when there is literally no reason for anyone to take your side here, as even the other dedicated Revenant main here, with whom you're apparently on friendly terms, contradicted you.

[Pizzarugi]

Spoiler

 

This video alone has changed my entire perspective on Revenant's kit. As much as I'd love to have him be another petmaster frame to accompany Nekros, he has so much more power than just having minions who can spread enthrallment to others. Revenant has infinitely-scaling damage and invulnerability that very few if any frames can compete with.

The only thing I think could be improved in his kit is his 4, but that's from an endurance run bias which DE doesn't officially recognize. In any standard gameplay where you'll be facing up to level 100 enemies (kuva floods, T3 sorties), Revenant doesn't need any improvements. His immortality puts Rhino and Inaros to shame.

At best, his thralls could use a QoL buff to make them immune to friendly fire except for the Revenant who enthralled them. Thralls already appear to prevent frames like Saryn spreading spores onto them, but it doesn't stop anyone from split-second shooting them in the face. At the very least, make the oldest thrall immune to friendly fire in order for them to propagate the effect to other enemies.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Pizzarugi

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

19 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

This video alone has changed my entire perspective on Revenant's kit. As much as I'd love to have him be another petmaster frame to accompany Nekros, he has so much more power than just having minions who can spread enthrallment to others. Revenant has infinitely-scaling damage and invulnerability that very few if any frames can compete with.

The only thing I think could be improved in his kit is his 4, but that's from an endurance run bias which DE doesn't officially recognize. In any standard gameplay where you'll be facing up to level 100 enemies (kuva floods, T3 sorties), Revenant doesn't need any improvements. His immortality puts Rhino and Inaros to shame.

Thing is all that scaling is completely useless. Void Towers have been out of the game for over 3 years now. There is no benefit to going hours and hours in a survival anymore. Because you get no practical rewards out of it that you can’t get for significantly lower time investments.

Mesmer Skin is EXTREMELY over hyped. Because 100% DR is not necessary because again there’s no benefit in facing off against level 3000s. 90% + all the different ways we have boost DR is more than enough for the content we have now and still very effective against levels past 100. And a charges based defense ability in a game like Warframe is useless garbage. Every time I’ve used it the charges just get torn through like a wet napkin.

Also, Revenant putting Rhino and Inaros to shame? PFFFT! Please. Inaros whole kit revolves around maintaining his tankiness making him practically unkillable and Rhino has a brand new tank method far better than any before it granting his iron skin on average over 100k health. And as I stated above Mesmer Skin is over rated af so Rhino and Inaros put Revenant to shame.

As for his 1 shot combo. It’s incredibly slow and is easily outpaced by numerous basic damage abilities. So it’s useless.

Revenant exists in a game that has no use or need for him. And given the fact that DE wants to steer away from getting players to play mission for hours on end. They don’t want Revanant either. 

Edited October 23, 2019 by (XB1)GearsMatrix301

[Pizzarugi]

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Thing is all that scaling is completely useless. Void Towers have been out of the game for over 3 years now. There is no benefit to going hours and hours in a survival anymore. Because you get no practical rewards out of it that you can’t get for significantly lower time investments.

While I agree (and even miss the good old days of void keys), keep in mind the video I used shows the person is in a fissure mission. Skip to 1 minute and 18 seconds in. If there's anything that still justifies staying in endurance missions for long periods of time, it's probably farming for void traces and you're too stubborn to quit the mission after 20 minutes to start it up again, or you really wanna take advantage of the stacking resource/affinity buffs. 😛

Goodness knows I don't always buy resource boosters, so farming traces from 0 to my current MR cap is a total chore.

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Mesmer Skin is EXTREMELY over hyped. Because 100% DR is not necessary because again there’s no benefit in facing off against level 3000s. 90% + all the different ways we have boost DR is more than enough for the content we have now and still very effective against levels past 100.

Don't get me wrong, sheer invulnerability is OP relative to the average content you'll be facing in the game, but it sure is nice sometimes to see how long you can last in an endurance run. On the plus side, having invulnerability only takes away the challenge for one player, rather than an entire team by using a couple other frames. It should be addressed, but not before the ones who trivialize the game for entire teams.

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

And a charges based defense ability in a game like Warframe is useless garbage. Every time I’ve used it the charges just get torn through like a wet napkin.

What are you doing that you're getting your charges shredded? I can see him having issues in missions like Arbitration since shielded enemies can't be stunned by Mesmer Skin and can whittle away at his charges. I normally run my Revenant with 250% strength, so I have 16 charges and besides maybe backpedaling into nullifier fields, I've never had issues maintaining Mesmer Skin.

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

As for his 1 shot combo. It’s incredibly slow and is easily outpaced by numerous basic damage abilities. So it’s useless.

Faster cast speed mod solves that problem. If you're comparing his Reave to Mesa's 4 or Saryn's Spores/Miasma, of course it's going to be incredibly slow and easily outpaced, but the last thing we need is to buff more frames to be that broken. I'll go so far as to say having damage that can scale infinitely and 1shot most enemies (if they're enthralled anyway) justifies it being a slow skill. This is a fair balance compromise.

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Revenant exists in a game that has no use or need for him. And given the fact that DE wants to steer away from getting players to play mission for hours on end. They don’t want Revanant either. 

Got a citation? I know DE doesn't really recognize endurance runs in an official capacity beyond a meme decoration reward for running 1 hour in the highest Index difficulty, but that's not an indicator that they're discouraging that behavior, especially not when there's a stacking resource/affinity booster in endless fissure missions.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Pizzarugi

[EinheriarJudith]

1 hour ago, Pizzarugi said:

~snip~

all DE has to do to rev is, fix all the bugs, speed up animation to not need cast speed mods, make thralls immune to friendly fire, and we are good to go.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

 

Don't get me wrong, sheer invulnerability is OP relative to the average content you'll be facing in the game, but it sure is nice sometimes to see how long you can last in an endurance run. On the plus side, having invulnerability only takes away the challenge for one player, rather than an entire team by using a couple other frames. It should be addressed, but not before the ones who trivialize the game for entire teams.

How poorly are you modding your tank frames that simply being there for 20 minutes becomes too much for them to survive?

I will repeat. The other tank abilities that grant 90%+ DR are more than enough. You can’t excuse the 100% because it makes you feel good when it doesn’t perform better than the other tank abilities.

2 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

What are you doing that you're getting your charges shredded? I can see him having issues in missions like Arbitration since shielded enemies can't be stunned by Mesmer Skin and can whittle away at his charges. I normally run my Revenant with 250% strength, so I have 16 charges and besides maybe backpedaling into nullifier fields, I've never had issues maintaining Mesmer Skin.

I’m just playing the game trying to kill enemies. Even with the 300% power strength boost from arbs giving 28 charges they still just get melted. 
Also speaking of stunning enemies with Mesmer skin. That mechanic actively makes Danse Macabre worse because it’s interfering with its scaling mechanic. So yeah mediocre tank ability that actively makes another ability worse. 
 

 

2 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

Faster cast speed mod solves that problem. If you're comparing his Reave to Mesa's 4 or Saryn's Spores/Miasma, of course it's going to be incredibly slow and easily outpaced, but the last thing we need is to buff more frames to be that broken. I'll go so far as to say having damage that can scale infinitely and 1shot most enemies (if they're enthralled anyway) justifies it being a slow skill. This is a fair balance compromise.

There’s better one shots that Reave+enthrall. Let’s take a look at Garuda who also one shots, but in a vastly superior method. She doesn’t have a limit of only 7 enemies, they don’t have to be individually marked, and the one shot is a large AOE and not some narrow snake path movement ability.

and as stated before. There’s no point in Revenants style of one shot if there are frames who just dish out raw damage that can kill at a better rate than Revenant spamming enthrall and Reave in all practical content.

2 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

, but the last thing we need is to buff more frames to be that broken.

So remove Enthrall and Reave in their entirety? I can get behind that. Replace them with proper Eidolon themed abilities and Revenant might actually become a decent frame.

Edited October 24, 2019 by (XB1)GearsMatrix301

[Madway7]

3 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

I know DE doesn't really recognize endurance runs in an official capacity beyond a meme decoration reward for running 1 hour in the highest Index difficulty, but that's not an indicator that they're discouraging that behavior, especially not when there's a stacking resource/affinity booster in endless fissure missions.

The booster stacking has a limit.

 

1 hour ago, EinheriarJudith said:

all DE has to do to rev is, fix all the bugs, speed up animation to not need cast speed mods, make thralls immune to friendly fire, and we are good to go.

If one of the bugs is that pillar made thralls don't produce pillars then yeah, beyond that all they would need to do is fix his 4 (make it function in a way they won't want to nerf it) to make him an alright frame.

[Pizzarugi]

Just now, Madway7 said:

The booster stacking has a limit.

Hence why I said they don't recognize endurance runs on an official capacity, but at the same time, not discouraging people from doing so. 😛

[Madway7]

1 hour ago, Pizzarugi said:

Hence why I said they don't recognize endurance runs on an official capacity, but at the same time, not discouraging people from doing so. 😛

Since a lot of people seem to argue that endurance really starts at 2 hours+ I don't really see them encouraging it much here.

Based on what I read, it indirectly discourages you since you dont get anything else booster wise, you just get rad relics instead of flawless ones every 5th rot

Edited October 24, 2019 by Madway7