Banshee rework for 2020's warframe

[NovusKnight]

I love playing Banshee. Her high risk-high rewards style has made me a much better player than before. I've been using her for some 3 years now.

I have enough experience to claim Banshee needs a minor rework, mostly QOL, because in general terms she works perfectly. Where her kit filters, however, it falters hard.

let's go by ability numbers.

1 - sonic blast. This is quick, hard CC for low cost, with a stellar augment that deletes armor. The only thing I would change is making it a 1H cast. Allow us to shoot, move, reload, while casting this. It shares many similarities with Harrow's 1, but is also much weaker, yet Harrow's is 1H.

2 - Sonar. It is absurdly strong, offers map-wide radar, has a busted, bonkers good augment... I wouldn't dare change a thing.

3 - Silence. Here's her biggest weakness. Silence is actualy one of the most misunderstood abilities in the game. It can essentialy make Banshee immortal, not out of stats, but out of making her untargettable. Sweetspotting Silence can lock down entire groups. This is precisely THE PROBLEM WITH HER KIT. Banshee only has this one ability to serve as direct defense.

in WF there's three types of defense. There's damage reduction (DR) - from abilities (mesa's shield, Nezha's halo), armor stats (Inaros, Rhino, Chroma), and mods (aviator, adaptation). There's also I-FRAMES  (immunity) such as Wisp teleport, i-frames during Inaros finisher or devour, or Covenant. And lastly, there's REGENERATION, as with Wisp's Mote, Goatframe's renewal, Garuda's fountain, etc.

all of these are hard countered by nullifiers. However, only if touched.

Banshee's problem is instead that her defense is a DEBUFF to enemies, not a self buff. This means often there's a group of enemies that are completely able to ignore her only defense. Banshee happens to require a lot of effort to use at high levels. She is a high-effort, high-reward frame. It is very common to get one-shoted by an enemy sneezing at you. 

I would rework Silence in the following manner: 

3 - silence bypasses and ignores nullifiers and arbitration drones. Enemies still will not receive damage until the drone is destroyed, but at least Banshee doesn't get lead stormed by a gang of enemies that just ignore her abilities. Nullifier fields, still active, continue to block bullets and clear Sonar.

lastly, her 4 - quake. damage per tick starts at double, but decays to 50% after 10 seconds. Range and CC not affected, this "Nerf" is due to her new passive.

*PASSIVE* - no point in making all guns silent, if an ability can make enemies deaf. Instead:

NEW PASSIVE - HARMONICS

casting an ability emmits a sonic pulse that pulverizes enemy projectiles. 

this is flavor text.

the real effect, mechanics wise: Banshee is IMMUNE TO DAMAGE while in ability casting animation. This is very, very short, under one second, but provides a reason to not use Natural Talent, and makes Resonance an immunity channel, which also discourages using the augment.

 

banshee is as good as ever for regular missions, but swifter to use and with tweaked survivability and even higher skill ceiling, as your abilities become direct counterplay to enemy action and attack.these improvements should make her a far more viable frame to use in sorties and arbitrations, where more than any other frame she is at a ridiculous disadvantage.

 

I'd like your thoughts. 🙂

[Miyabi-sama]

I'd just make her 1/2/3 one handed action.

Silence is not good as a stealth ability, neither good as CC. It's great only due to savage silence augment. Could tie some invisibility mechanic to Silence without ruining its current way how it works and raising her survivability to a decent level.

That's gonna be minor and not drastical change.

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

21 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Could tie some invisibility mechanic to Silence without ruining its current way how it works and raising her survivability to a decent level

No.

[Miyabi-sama]

5 минут назад, (PS4)LoisGordils сказал:

No.

Some. Not complete. This game doesnt need another Ivara.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I agree with your take on her needing a rework, but not necessarily your suggestions for how to rework her.

I do actually like your passive replacement though.

Banshee is a pretty effective frame, but she has the same issue a lot of older frames do. For the same cost and same effort, they get far less out of their abilities than newer/reworked frames who each have numerous things their abilities can accomplish per cast. That step away from "simple but effective" is exactly what makes so many modernized frames better. 

And Soundquake, like Absorb, just need to go. There is no place for their base function in this game as it is.

Edited October 24, 2019 by (PS4)Ozymandias-13-
typo

[Miyabi-sama]

29 минут назад, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- сказал:

That step away from "simple but effective" is exactly what makes so many modernized frames better. 

Not nesessary. Reworking just for sake of change stuff and adding redundant synergies is pointless. Banshee is fine, playable and enjoyable as she is right now. Minor quality adjustments are merely things she ever need.

People complaining about she being fragile and they're right but the same time proposing dumb things like boost her EHP or like me here suggesting to make her invisible.

[GreyEnneract]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

And Soundquake, like Absorb, just need to go. There is no place for their base function in this game as it is.

Objectively true.
Even DE agrees.

[Miyabi-sama]

10 минут назад, GreyEnneract сказал:

Objectively true.
Even DE agrees.

Any proof?

[(PSN)thegarada]

5 hours ago, NovusKnight said:

Banshee's problem is instead that her defense is a DEBUFF to enemies, not a self buff. This means often there's a group of enemies that are completely able to ignore her only defense. Banshee happens to require a lot of effort to use at high levels. She is a high-effort, high-reward frame. It is very common to get one-shoted by an enemy sneezing at you. 

I would rework Silence in the following manner: 

3 - silence bypasses and ignores nullifiers and arbitration drones. Enemies still will not receive damage until the drone is destroyed, but at least Banshee doesn't get lead stormed by a gang of enemies that just ignore her abilities. Nullifier fields, still active, continue to block bullets and clear Sonar.

 

This is a problem that not only Banshee, but most frames face. There a consideration to how surviviability based CC skills operate, since nullifiers and arbitration drones make enemies immune to these effects, rendering frames dependent on these tools useless.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

@NovusKnight Firstly just to correct you, your suggestions are for a re-visit not a rework. With that cleared up I agree for Banshee to receive an upgrade to her abilities and I have some ideas for them. imo the prob with her is she is good in a team but not on her own, my ideas are about improving her solo play and changing enemy behaviour.

Here is what I would do to banshee;

Banshee:

 

1st ability:

·       Enemies hit will receive a 30% slower knockdown recovery.

·       Enemies that hit a hard surface will take more damage.

·       Can be used on the move.

 

2nd ability:

·       Can be used on the move.

·       (Synergy) Enemies affected take increase damage from her 1st and 4th ability.

 

3rd ability:

·       Enemies will notice you within a 15m of their vision.

·       Enemies will have a slow reaction when noticing you (if you stand in front of them it will take them 3 seconds until they react to your presents)

·       If you hold the ability, you can control how far the ability reaches based on how much range it has.

·       Show the radius of the ability.

·       Put an indicator above enemies’ head to show how quickly they will be alerted by seeing you. (like stealth games)

·       If enemies are alerted, casting this ability will revert them back to being un-alerted however they will still be alerted if the alarms are on or if you are in their sight.

·       Can be used on the move.

·       (Synergy) If you use after casting the 2nd ability, you can see enemies through walls. It will also give you 4.0 punch-through on weapons. (can be increased by strength mods)

 

4th Ability:

·       Enemies will be suspended in the air.

·       Every enemy killed while suspended will increase its damage. (noise from noisy weapons to footsteps will increase its damage)

·       After being cast, you can now move around while active.

·       It drains 6 energy a second.

·       After deactivation, enemies will have their damage reduced by 80%.

·       (EDIT) The more noise you make the more damage it receives. Damage will decay when there is less noise.

·       (EDIT) There is an indicator showing the amount of damage accumulated.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by (PS4)Vexx757

[Miyabi-sama]

41 минуту назад, (PS4)thegarada сказал:

This is a problem that not only Banshee, but most frames face. There a consideration to how surviviability based CC skills operate, since nullifiers and arbitration drones make enemies immune to these effects, rendering frames dependent on these tools useless.

Welp, DE had a strong prejudice on CC matter hence nullies and such stuff appeared. That was utterly rushed stuff and widely appraised as a most unpleasant bull@#$t in the game. Arbitration META proves it even more. The question is should we always take it as granted and move on reworking CC frames into utility/support (uuuuh... Vauban got buffs and damage?), or make CC frames less dependant on their CC for survival?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Maybe DE should focus on frames that need a rework more than Banshee. Like Nyx, or Revenant.

[peterc3]

12 hours ago, NovusKnight said:

3 - silence bypasses and ignores nullifiers and arbitration drones. Enemies still will not receive damage until the drone is destroyed, but at least Banshee doesn't get lead stormed by a gang of enemies that just ignore her abilities. Nullifier fields, still active, continue to block bullets and clear Sonar.

This isn't a serious suggestion. So why make it?

12 hours ago, NovusKnight said:

2 - Sonar. It is absurdly strong, offers map-wide radar, has a busted, bonkers good augment... I wouldn't dare change a thing.

If you want a rework, then she gets reworked. No cherry picking the broken stuff to keep.

[Miyabi-sama]

34 минуты назад, peterc3 сказал:

If you want a rework, then she gets reworked. No cherry picking the broken stuff to keep.

1) It isn't even broken.
2) Somehow Saryn went through two updates and retained all of her abilities from the very start.

[EinheriarJudith]

11 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Welp, DE had a strong prejudice on CC matter hence nullies and such stuff appeared.

nullies appeared because of Mag.

[Miyabi-sama]

1 час назад, EinheriarJudith сказал:

nullies appeared because of Mag.

Mag was nerfed to the ground LONG before Nullifiers been introduced.

[EinheriarJudith]

8 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Mag was nerfed to the ground LONG before Nullifiers been introduced.

no she wasnt. shield polarize (when it was still being called this) was still deleting corpus on press even after their introduction.

[(PSN)WardensLaw]

Just make silence pulse like sonar tbh, shes pretty bad tbh sonar is the only good thing in her kit.

Edited August 1, 2021 by (PSN)WardensLaw

[NinjaZeku]

13 hours ago, (PSN)WardensLaw said:

Just make silence pulse like sonar tbh, shes pretty bad tbh sonar is the only good thing in her kit.

You necro'd a 2019 topic.

Also, don't overlook Sonic Fracture, it's a neat bit of single button mass Armor removal, nifty e.g. on The Steel Path.