(PC) Ember & Vauban Revisited Feedback

[HolySeraphin]

The problem with Fireblast is that it doesn't fully reset the Fire meter growth, at least from what I noticed. Let's say that it has 1% increase per second at base, but after 3 fireballs and 1 Inferno it is boosted to 15% per second. However, casting Fireblast seems to only reduce it by a certain amount, so after casting it once the meter growth is reduced to something along the lines of 12%, but that's not enough. It should go down to the original 1%, or it will constantly fill each 5 seconds. Also, even if you do make this change, please reduce the base energy cost to 50. Some players might want a double cast to fully reset immolation, and spending 150 energy for this type of ability is not worth it.

By the way, power strenght seems to only give minimal returns for this ability, there's no difference in the damage reduction if you have 130% strenght or 200%, the minimum DR is capped at 50%, could at least increase it to 75%

Yes, you can togle off the ability, but I don't want to recast this ability just to reset the fire growth.

As for the actual energy drain of Immolation, holy God that thing is horrible. Even a Valkyr with 100% hysteria WITH a leech eximus doesn't consume that much energy. My Ember with 160% efficiency consumes like 30 energy per second after just a few moments. Please, give it a reasonable cap which is affected by energy efficiency. Maybe 10 energy per second at base, affected by mods. Because while the ability screen shows 10 energy drain, that feels like the initial 6 seconds of the drain, but then it increases by like 3x.

Edited November 1, 2019 by HolySeraphin

[Trumbles]

Ember's energy economy feels a bit off. Fireblast is used as an upkeep ability to keep immolate from burning your energy away, but it costs 75. Pretty pricy to use just to keep immolate in check. The other option is to recast immolate, but it costs 50 energy base. 75% efficiency feels really mandatory on ember, it would feel much better if either immolate was reduced to 25 or 35 base, or fireblast was reduced to 50. Fireball also doesn't ever feel worth using over Inferno, even with the combo mechanic. Fireball would feel more usable if it had reduced energy costs as your combo count goes up, like with landslide and other combo abilities.

[emptyP]

Vauban's skills activate WAY too slowly for him to be viable. They were already slow enough!

Ability 3 is a joke as it is right now. Few things stay still long enough for this middling damage ability to be useful! The cast time is ridiculous, even with mods to increase cast speed. 50% faster casts MIGHT put him on par with the rest of the frames. Somehow, he is worse than before. At least Bastille used to have a shorter cast time!

Please shorten the casting time, or take out the LONG lobbing animation altogether. Make him a viable frame instead of the joke frame that keeps getting reworked and STILL sucks.

[nnexenn]

ember rework opinion.

in general is great but his 2+3 combo is not working to me, his 2 should increase more slowly, his 3 should cost 0 or less energy when his 2 is in overheated. and she should have more base energy.

[DeadMansChest]

Immolation draining as much energy as it is shouldn't be a thing.

Imagine if Rhino's Iron Skin, Nezha's Halo or Gara's "DR abilty whose name escapes me" instead had a constant energy drain for it to stay active AND it also just cost more and more energy over time for no reason other than to be unfun.

The growth rate and energy drain should both be static, with Fireball and Inferno giving immediate heat meter build up, similar to how Fireblast's heat meter drain is instant

Fireblast also still costs too much energy for what it does. It was crap before and its still pretty dumpy now considering how the armor strip scales.

Edited November 1, 2019 by DeadMansChest

[Dolerhyde]

Tesla Nervos
These move way too slow for most missions, and don't have the greatest seeking range, requiring you to get within 20-30m before they will go after a target.  They tend to get stuck on enemies well behind you as you are moving through a mission.  I've also seen them cause problems with Bastille where they will attach to a suspended enemy and overwrite the CC which stops the armor strip, but I assume this is a bug.  His 1 augment is fantastic though.

Suggestion(s): Massively speed these up and increase their aggressiveness.  Disallow them from attaching more than one to a target, and make them prefer non-CC's targets.  Have them auto-detach and return to Vauban if you leave affinity range of an enemy akin to how Octavia's roller does.

Minelayer
Flechette does too little damage to be worth it in most cases.  Ripline being capped at 2 makes it awkward to find a solid use.  Vector pad isn't useful since bullet jumping is better and faster at normal (i.e.,. non-meme) power strength levels.  Overdriver is fine, but the damage increase is too low to really be noticeable.  

Suggestion(s): Give flechette a secondary utility effect like disarm Increase ripline enemy count, and allow it to be affected by power strength.  Get rid of the vector pad.  Make Overdriver give the same amount of damage buff to sprint speed if you really want Vauban to have buffing elements.  

Photon Strike
Way too slow to be useful. Similar challenge to Nidus where your team can take the kills before your damage on clumped enemies can go off. Encourages you to be away from your team so you can set up the Rube Goldberg damage chain of setting up a bastille, waiting for enough enemies to be captured, waiting for the armor strip, collapsing the bastille into vortex, tossing your photon strike, and waiting the three seconds for it to go off.  

Suggestion(s): Speeding it up a lot will help, but I still struggle to find a use, especially when the Tesla augment exists if you want AOE damage, or carrying an AOE weapon of your own.  

Bastille
The armor stripping is great.  Much needed utility.  The deployment time and base energy increases aren't great however.  The armor buff is a nice idea, but I don't think it was implemented well since you need to wait within a bastille with enemies suspended for it to accrue over time.  If you aren't running a duration heavy build it is quite hard to build unless you go out of your way to not kill captured enemies.  

Suggestion(s):  Speed up animation / deployment, Vauban is squishy and it feels bad to get murdered while you are gyrating around in the air.  Give the maximum armor buff just by stepping into a bastille (just imagine if Oberon's armor buff built over time, and only ticked up while you and enemies were on Hallowed Ground).  Extend the base time for the armor buff so it is a bit more flexible on mobile missions.  Nice flavor enhancement: add shield stripping as well at the same rate that armor is stripped.

[MickeyVII]

I second almost all of the Vauban criticism I've read so far, especially the long animation locks and no defensive abilities. I'd like to ask for one more tweak if possible. I play with a controller and hate that you have to HOLD cast to throw a mine. It slows things down again for him. My instinct says that cast should be TAP and cycle mines should be HOLD. Anyone else feel this way? Just a minor thing. I think everything else that's wrong has been said already.

[blitzsharp]

Ember 1 still feels.. Meh. If the effect of charged 1 is becoming permanent, this would be much better.

Ember 2 is solid. I have no clue how the gauge work but it charges fairly quick. But the energy drain after fully charged is bit too harsh.

3 and 4 are solid. No complaints for now.

Vauban 1 need to have a bigger roller. I have difficulty keeping track of the thing. I have no clue if it is effectively deployed.

Vauban 2's tether is functional but overlap with a much powerful 4. The speed ramp need reconsidering. If it becomes a Wisp style speed buff instead of taking control away and kick you in the butt, it would be much better. Flechette is too not very useful. Its damage is weak and coverage is random and unreliable.

Vauban 3 pre attack time is way too long. I run natural talent and it is still slow. The charged time need to be at least halved, or range doubled.

Vauban 4 is solid. No complaints for now. 

Vauban is not very mobile but it is understandable. Not all warframes need to be good at hit and run. But for now it is a bit cluncky. If everything respond faster, and charge shorter, Vauban will be great.

Edited November 1, 2019 by blitzsharp
typos

[Truearcaneist]

So, first impressions wit vauban show some issues.

Problems with the Telos Nervos on day one: the balls do not stay with you if you are trying to stay mobile. Have cast a full set of 4 and watch them wonder off toward an enemy at jogging speed (around 1.0 warframe run speed) instead of staying near to me.  When it does find a target there is a small delay before the first shock. With 50% chance that is not affected by strength this can be deadly to you if it is an enemy that is not in front of you.  If you are bullet jumping through a tile set, you will leave these behind as they crawl their way toward you.

proposed solutions to current Tesla nervous: have the balls have a max distance from vauban in wander mode (wukong’s clone distance) before they are forced to spawn near you (like Wukongs clone...), but have them stay anchored on enemies if you move away from them. Make the balls' speed increase by at least 2-3 times. Make the initial contact timing match the first tick of damage, and max numbers of balls per enemy 2. These should in theory help enable vauban to stay mobile while being able to reliably count on these to hold up individuals or small groups that get too close.

Issues with minelayer:  tether coil is bugged. When you tether two enemies you sometimes get them to ragdoll properly toward the trap, sometimes they stay put. When one is killed, no new tether is made to grab a live enemy, and the dead enemy stays occupying the tether.  I’ve seen the damage proc from it either show one tic or a constant tick with occasional slash procs. If a tethered enemy is knocked back or ragdoll'd (dead or alive) it seems to generate more tethers and grab other enemies. 
solution: if your going to keep this, debug the thing and make sure that it’s worth pulling something in. It can grab new enemies but the bugs make this unusable and unreliable. also, a form of way to replenish health or energy from killed tethered enemies may help his ability to survive.

fletchets: low damage with even lower proc chance for puncture.. I would rather they be impact so stagger but that is opinion.  The built in inaccuracy and random direction attacks makes you have to spam 2-4 out to cover a small area effectively. No value in use above level 25 content aside from wasting energy.

solution: add substance to this please. If you are unwilling to change its function, at least let it have some utility. Make it jam weapons, or cause a status chance that will give an enemy a 15% chance to drop a health or energy orb. Change the type to impact and increase the chance to proc above 60%.

speed pad: I admit it seems ok, but the amount of power you need to invest in making this better than just spamming bullet jump is not balanced. Also could be too specialized for interception missions (bouncing enemies away from consoles).

Solution: A decent timed buff to bullet jump, slide,-friction could go a long way in making this your go to for staring a parcore jump through. This or scrap it for an actual support ability and not a rehashed meme. 
overdriver: the 25% base is somewhat lackluster when put up against something like shooting gallery. In order to get the full team buffed I need to spam this 4 times while trying to Aim at them as they move around. Even with 150% efficiency I found the drain to not be worth the boost on a full team, especially when I have to Constantly refresh the buff.

solution: make it a one toss dispenser, with a short range (4-7m). Anyone that runs close will have the buff for the duration of the mine no matter the distance (think renewal).

photon strike:  good on everything design-wise except for the time from landing to explosion. I’ve tried with +50% cast speed and it doesn’t affect anything but the toss animation frames.

solution: try to reduce windup time to 1 second. I know it was mentioned that the scaling was it calculating the levels of enemies in the radius, but if this is what is causing the delay then try to find a work around.

Bastille: very good overall, but the short duration on the armor buff you get is not friendly to survival due to how long it takes to build it with less than 200% power strength. Due to the increased cost of 100 tossing a Bastille out constantly to maintain the buff on non defense missions makes the buff seem pointless.

solution: cause armor buff to degrade slowly so accumulated armor is not all lost in 8-12 second. And by slowly I mean 5-10 armor per second.

 

overall sugestion: if you are going to keep this kit, the throwing animations need sped up on all abilities aside from Tesla.

i may post more when I get more time to look at this tomorrow or Saturday. Sorry no recordings to show the bugs/functions.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Truearcaneist

[Sannleikur]

9 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Ember Feedback:

  Hide contents

 

New Passive: Receive 5% Ability Strength for every enemy within a 50m engulfed in flame (up to a cap). 

FIREBALL
Works fundamentally the same as it does now - tap for quick fire, hold to charge for greater impact. Enemies already inflicted by any Heat Status effect will now take additional damage. 

Fireball has a casting combo, if you use it multiple times rapidly it gets stronger.

The damage output and charge speed also scale off of one of Ember’s newest abilities...
 
IMMOLATION (replacing Accelerant)
Time for a history lesson! Prior to Update 11.5, Ember’s second ability used to be “Overheat”, offering an aura of heat damage which also protected her from enemy fire. Almost SIX years later, it’s time for this ring of fire to come full circle.

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.

The Immolation meter will build slowly at first - using Ember’s Fireball or Inferno causes the meter to build faster. But be warned! If the meter reaches maximum, Ember will “overheat” and Immolation will cost progressively more energy per second the longer you stay in an overheated state. To prevent this from happening, use Fire Blast to expel a portion of your heat meter, or toggle Immolation off to reset meter build.
 
FIRE BLAST
Casting time has been greatly reduced, and the ability now strips armor from nearby enemies. The amount of armor removed scales in effectiveness based on current Immolation levels. On cast, this immediately reduces your Immolation level by up to half.

INFERNO (replacing World On Fire)
Upon casting Inferno, all enemies currently within sight are struck by a fiery comet, lighting each target ablaze in a personal ring of fire. Inferno costs Energy per each target in sight, with the cost capped at 10 targets.

If an enemy ignited by Inferno comes in contact with another unit, the fire will spread, igniting them as well with a fresh ability duration. Damage of the heat AoE scales with current Immolation level.

With these changes, players will take a more active role in “bringing the heat” to all that stand in their way, with added protection that encapsulates Ember’s volatile nature.

Ember Augment Changes:

• Fireball: Fireball Frenzy: This augment is unchanged.
• Immolation: Flash Accelerant is now Immolated Radiance: Allies within Affinity range will receive 50% of Immolation’s Damage Reduction.
• Fire Blast: Fire Fright is now Healing Flame: Each enemy hit heals Ember by 25 to 50 based on the level of the Immolation meter.
• Inferno: Firequake is now Exothermic: Enemies killed while under the effect of Inferno have a 15% chance to drop an Energy Orb.

 

 

Passive: Overall I approve of the passive, tho even post lvl 100 in ESO it seems hard to get more than 65%, which I hope isn't close to the cap.

FIREBALL: Is it me or is there no longer a napalm affect? I like all the other changes but I do wish for the sticky napalm affect to come back.

IMMOLATION: I feel this ability is far worse than Accelerant. I actually have less survivability than I did before as ember with this skill replacement. Sounds weird, I know, but hear me out. Accelerant was a cheap large scale CC, and we all know that no damage taken>less damage taken. I wouldn't mind trading it straight up for high DR, but that's not what's happening here. The DR starts out low enough that an ember with Vitality and Adaptation still gets downed quickly when the immolation meter is not at full capacity.

When Immolation is at full capacity her survivability in high level missions drops to far worse than it has ever been due to the extreme energy drain that's forced upon her even if you have decent duration and max efficiency, where you're forced to choose from letting your energy quickly reach 0 and thus lose the ability to CC or cast at all AND lose that DR, or lose SOME energy and SOME DR every FEW SECONDS in order to maintain this ability. 

I run ember with Arcane energize and her new exothermic augment along with high efficiency builds, I should not be running out of energy and/or dying because of this ability and the choices it forces me to make. 

I suggest making it more like Gauss's meter, and removing the energy penalty altogether. 

FIRE BLAST: Better than what it was, still kind of bad. Namely, the knockback effect is very counter productive. The CC doesn't compare to what old Accelerant used to do, and forces you to chase down enemies who might quickly get up to begin shooting at you, from a distance. I advise replacing the knockback with a 3-5 second stun or panic.

The armor strip is nice but hard to notice a lot of times. not sure if bugged.

I feel this ability's energy cost needs significant reduction, at least when immolation is active, if you choose to keep the forced and painful synergy they have.

INFERNO: the damage is comparable to that of old WOF combined with Accelerant, but with the ability to stack damage and hits all targets all at once. 

I am OK with this ability's range and damage, but I feel like it lacks the CC WoF had even without its augment. I'd be OK with it not having as much CC as WoF if the damage was noticeably higher and/or the tankiness and energy efficiency issues with immolation get fixed. 



Also, I"m oK with all the augments.

Looking forward to tweaks and new builds. Currently having fun with a glass map nuke.

Cheers

[Sannleikur]

Double post, sorry.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Sannleikur

[Pariax]

Ember:

Small quality of life improvement: Making her 3 cost no energy when you are in danger of overheating/already losing energy would enhance the synergy, give her some love on energy efficiency and also get rid of the cases where you run totally dry because you couldnt cleanse heat with your 3 in time (i know you can avoid that by paying attention but when its getting close to empty, pressing the button to cleanse just to notice you were half a second too late and now its all gone without an effect feels horrible)

Burning effect of World on fire doesnt actually trigger fire procs (as far as i can tell), which is kinda misleading. It also doesnt seem to refresh when enemies are clumped up, does it only spread back and forth on delayed ignitions or does it spread with remaining duration so as not to refresh? Clarification on the mechanic would be appreciated

fireballs are still not powerful enough to bother with the casttime, combo window, and huge energy cost. (contesting weapon usage might also not be the best idea for the ability in general)

 

 

Vauban:

the damage amplification of his 2 does apply to the needle mine (2) but not to any other ability. This might be a bug or intended, but a reward for using his full kit to set up huge orbital strikes would be appreciated. 
Draining higher percentages of armor due to ability power (with Bastille) doesnt seem to increase the speed it builds armor for yourself. Thats a weird interaction and quite disappointing. (might also not have shown effect in my testing tho)

Overall, 1 and 2 damage seems to be quite underwhelming. 3 has some scaling component that isnt really obvious for the player but seems to provide some scaling atleast. Still doesnt kill in One shot even after full armor stripping on 125 Heavy gunner. 

The amount of set up is cool and fitting for the character, but quite a hoop to jump through. The results are barely worth the effort in comparison, which makes it feel really clunky and gimmicky. Needle mine isnt providing any real benefit (except a puncture proc), should probably be replaced. 1 is nice in concept but not strong enough (the augment mod for it is really nice, but not affordable, because vauban is very mod hungry on almost all stats).

[T_erry]

tesla nervos drone needs it's original design.

[Ryuhei_Aiyenshi]

I love you, Pablo. I love you, Based God, blessed be your magnificent holy hands

[Dempsey_]

Ember takes far too much energy to run to be fun.

ill start with saying this but I'm not sure what is a bug and what is not currently but it seems to me that if you overheat at all fireblast is only resetting the energy drain and not how long it takes for the heat meter to fill up. I was under the impression the heat meter would fill slower as well.

 

Speaking of immolation, managing the energy drain and how full the meter is is incredibly daunting. Even just testing stuff in the simula was a real pain and I get free energy. I have not taken her to a mission yet but I can tell right now the she eats more energy than grendel will eat in a life time. with the initial start. casting abilities 1 and 4, and having to use fireblast starting a mission with less than 300 energy would be a slog of an event. Keep in mind I currently have 75% pow efficiency and 106% duration so I get the most I can out of limited energy drops in the wild.

 

Fireball, even with its changes and head shoting for like 60k didn't make this ability feel good to use in anyway what so ever. The animation still gets locked up from spamming it, doing multiple charged attacks is slow, and damn near impossible to do because sometimes the ability just will not cast. It is literally one of two abilities that should have been on the chopping block first.

 

Immolation, as i said above and many other have said as well, the exponential growth on the energy is annoying, not fun to play or engage with.

 

Fireblast is an odd one because i want it to be good and i know for the public

 

inferno, you should really be clear on what its blast radius does, also I dont seem to be getting the initial impact damage.

 

Over all shes a decent rework but she needs another massive change to her 1, (an exalted-esk fireball would work for me anyways) and she needs more energy than the USA

[Zebiko]

Ember is great and so fun to play. She does need a little micro managing, but not too bad. Kinda wished that immolation meter was intergrated into her frame so I don't have to keep checking the corner of the screen. (Probably goes for all the other mirco managing frames too) I mainly use her 2nd, 3rd and 4th abilities. I toggle 2nd, then 4th increases the meter and 3rd decreases it. I actually use her 3rds augment for the heals. Embers 4th is pretty much a one time use world on fire, instead of a toggle, which is what many many people asked for. Only thing I need to do test is how viable her new tankiness is at endgame. 

[Epicagemo]

I've advocated for overheat about four years ago, and I've gone AWOL since, it's nice to see DE (thank you) add this back in some aspect. (missing the fire effect >.<)

The Good:
-LOS needed to be removed on her
-4 is fun
-"Overheat" is back! (Touching someone for a free fire proc would be awesome)
-I'm not mashing 2 for stunlock on high level missions

The Critique:

-Abilities: 1,3,4 should affect 2. Not sure why this isn't the case to begin with.
-Efficiency of 2 should be toned down to somewhere between the (old) world on fire drain and this new one, this new "over time" drain is too high.
-I think adding (old)accelerant+augment properties to her (new) fireblast would be great compromise to those who used her to massively increase dps, esp on how many ppl are complaining about energy drain.
-Unfortunately, like Frost and Volt, the 1 still sucks. Charging needs more benefits, maybe extra fireballs (Fireball Frenzy?) instead of 1.

[Fiery25123]

I must preface this by saying that this is going to be more about feeling than numbers. I am not a professional game designer (though i have dabbled), nor do I claim to know anything about balance. These are just my raw thoughts on Ember, from the perspective of a 50-ish-day player who just loves Fire and will play Fire characters every game I can. (Really not sure why my icon hasn't updated from the old Trinity glyph though...) Anyways, without further ado:

Ember's kit now feels INCREDIBLY responsive and interactive. It feels so satisfying to destroy your enemies with FLAMING METEORS FROM SPACE!!

That being said, I definitely echo the sentiments that her Fire Blast takes too much energy to cast- and generally it feels kinda bad to cost energy to get rid of a bar that we want filled...? (Perhaps let our heat bar act as more of a secondary "energy" bar to enhance our other abilities instead of what it is now? idk)

I LIKE the damage resistance Immolation gives, so honestly losing that is a bigger penalty than the energy drain. (Because then I just die when something looks at me funny)

 

It's just the cycle of:
Immolate -> Inferno -> Ignis burn a few leftovers -> Inferno Try to cast Fire Blast to avoid Immolate's Energy Drain -> Barely not enough Energy -> Turn off Immolate or drain your energy to 0 and have it turn off anyways -> Get rekt

It's.. Eh... It's not great.

 

I run a "balanced" build with Exothermic and efficiency, (none of my casting stats under 100%) but I find myself relying on the RNG of energy orbs way, WAY more than I was before, and the augment feels like it isn't doing too much to help in that regard, to be honest.

What have I yet to touch on.... Ah, her passive? Love it! Fahbulous dahlink. Work it. At the risk of throwing in more visual clutter,maybe add a visual indicator, but hey, I won't say no to MORE Fire! ❤️

Fireball? It's Fireball. Good for a nice burst of damage, but sadly I never seem to use it that much since I have to use my Energy elsewhere... Luckily, my trusty Ignis is there to make up for it. I love my Ignis. ❤️

Anyways, that's all I can think of for now. Ta-ta, lovelies~! 🔥

 

I'll be back in a bit, after I've tested her out a bunch more! More builds, more missions, more ARSON! 🔥🔥🔥

[ScytodiDaedalus]

After a good bunch of hours playing Ember here's what I noticed so far.

The Passive: The change is really good, helps in all ways possible.

Fireball: This right now is Ember's biggest lacking ability, the max Combo damage is great, but it has three big problems, two of which have been present long before:

A. The Combo Window timer and it's steps: Requiring to cast 3 Fireballs worth 75 Energy, each dealing 1/8; 1/4 & 1/2 the damage of a final combo one, is absurd.
The timer is also very small and at 100% Duration you can't even cast any ability in-between without losing it.

My suggestions: I strongly suggest increasing the Window timer to a minimum of 4 unmoddable seconds. Doubling the base damage of Fireball and reducing the amount of steps required to Max the Combo so it only reaches up to 4x. Also, reduce the base cost of Fireball and make it increase to 25 upon hitting the Max Combo, maybe 6.25; 12.50; 25?
 

B. Radius & Area Damage: The biggest damage number Fireball deals is on a target that is directly hit by the Fireball, makes sense that whoever took a flaming ball to the face is melting more than everyone else but the enemies caught in the radius only take roughly 1/3rd of the damage of Fireball even if you target the ground the damage it deals is very minimal and the radius makes matters worse.

My suggestions: Invert the Damage from Area & Direct hit(So that the Area damage values is the Direct one and vice-versa) OR just make it so it's just the Area damage.
Double the Explosion Area radius. Also Charging Fireball should increase the Radius of explosion by up to 50%.
 

C. Hitbox: Lobbing a ball of flames usually has it slip past enemies or land just at their feet if thrown from above, whereas Inferno lands 100% of the time. I just think it'd be nice to increase the size of the Fireball's hitbox so that it more reliably explodes at enemies, that is without making it collide of every bit of terrain.
 

Immolation: It's mostly fine, Energy drain hurts but that's to be expected, turning it off or using Fireblast to take off some heat works fine.

Fire Blast: I wouldn't mind seeing Fireblast dealing additional Damage per Heat cleared off the bar. Also the fact that Fireblast is the new Accelerant in terms of CC, effectively increasing the cost of the most valuable CC for Ember by 50%, kinda hurts, It'd be cool if the cost could be reduced by about 10 or 5 energy.

Inferno: It's too good, but that just may be due to Fireball not being in the sweet spot yet, it however bothers me slightly that the energy cost is per enemy so that it's useful in ALL situations, whether there's one or a lot of enemies.

P.S: What happened to Fireball's Napalm?

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by ScytodiDaedalus
Fixing spacing

[Mardomus]

I have a lot of problems with Vauban and couple of likes. 

Like: 

1). The combination of his Vortex and Bastille.

2). The Photon strike. (Augment should increase the ability damage.)

Dislikes:

1). His Bastille buff is weak due to the ramp up time for the buff to be effective, and by the time that happens, Vauban is dead, unless you mod Quick Thinking. I Suggest Bastille reflect 20% of the damage enemies inflict back at the attacker, while keeping its current armor stripping/buff (Below in minelayer, I will discuss a support setup that will help with Bastille buff). I also suggest having the Augment for Bastille change to what "Tether Coil" currently is. This would give similarities to Khora's Strangledome, but we already have that in his current kit, except Vauban has to spend more energy and utilize time for placement and refreshments for both. 

2). Minelayer drains too much time and energy, therefore, making it a useless kit.

• Tether Coil: has a max of grabbing "two" mobs, so basically you'll have to spam (waste time and energy) for the ability to become effect. Khoras' ability Strangledome does what Vaubans' Coil/Bastille abilities can do, but better. It can pull in a lot of mobs tossing them around and deal a lot of damage, while Vauban has to work harder for less. This was the same problem with the previous Minelayer and Vauban design. Setting up, and wasting energy for an ability that is lacking compared to other frames whose abilities do better, with less effort more reward. I already suggest above having Tether Coil be an augment for Bastille, and remove it from Minelayer. 
• Flethette Orb: doesn't do much damage unless there are low levels, CC'ed or unless you Mod for Power Strength and that alone will put Vauban in horrible state, because he has nothing to keep him alive. This, at least, could have been an ability that would keep Vauban alive. To me, it is useless, and it doesn't serve purpose except afk kill, and that is boring. My unmodded pistol does more damage, so that tells me not to use this ability, at all. It holds down a room, to an extent, yes, but now you have to switch to other abilities, while refreshing others, etc. Instead of completely getting rid of this ability, why not take Flechette Orb out of Minelayer and add that damage design to Nervos. I will write more about this below under Tesla Nervos.
• Vector Pad: I don't see anything cool or fun about it. All I see if an upgraded version of another troll ability that's taking a spot for a cool creative "Engineering" ability. This ability could be designed similar to Wisp's "Haste Mote". I will write more about this below.
• Overdrive: Its a Meh ability. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the tank Grendel have a much stronger version of the Engineers' ability? Its decent, but it doesn't refresh the time on it, which it should, and it's junky when using it on yourself and others. I suggest taking this ability out and moving it to Tesla Nervos. I'll write more about it there.

Minelayer is still as useless ability that holds a similar kit to the old. Wisps' Reservoirs provides HP and healing, Speed, and cc enemies close the person who has the buff. Even Octavias' Metronome provides cool support buffs. What happened to the Engineered Minelayer? I suggest it gets scrapped and give Vauban a support/survival setup, like Octavia's Metronome or Wisp's Reservoirs. But, turn that into different types of Nervo's rolling and latching onto nearby allies, including yourself, similar to Clem. It should provide all buffs, not cycled, such as Heals Per Second/Energy Per Second/Speed (Speed boost Pad)/damage reduction. Adding some of the current Minelayer abilities into others will give his 2nd ability room to build around his survivability, while supporting his teammates. It also reduces the amount of time refreshing abilities, or not using 3/4 of them because they are useless 90% of spending time cycling threw them. 

3. Tesla Nervos goes all over the place. It went across the map CCing mobs, while other mobs were running loose close by tearing my hp up. I wont use this ability If i'm "stationary" because it holds mobs far away or behind obstacles, and, once again, Vauban is too weak when dealing with 50+ mobs to be running around killing the CC'ed ones. The proc should have been 100% considering the lack of survivability Vauban has when he's on the move. They should also stick close to him while he's on the move. The augment is useless, too. Did they reduce the damage? I suggest taking away the static shock effect and give Nervos the ability to scan enemies weakness, by allowing Nervos to deal status damage based on that targets defense. The damage design of Flechette Orb (Puncture & added Slash) should take the Electric shock place by having it shooting rounds or nails, not in 360 angel, at enemies (Secondary weapon mods should work with this ability, like how melee mods work with Atlas 1st ability). Nervos should stay next to Vauban, or roll few distance away popping open shooting at enemies or turn into a turret when an enemy is near dealing "x" damage, and closes if enemy dies or follow Vauban if he's moving further away to "x" location. I suggest Nervos to be permanent, so that it doesn't die quickly from higher levels. Not sure how other would like this, so you could hold it down to dismiss the ability if others are against it. 4 can be placed maxed with a 1 tap rather then holding it down. Also, you can take Overdrive and apply that 25% base damage (Should be more) as a group buff as long as Nervos is out, and that buff will increase by "x" of Ability Strength. 

In conclusion, Vauban is still the stationary Frame he was instead of the mobile look he was suppose to be. He did get new abilities that are useful such as his Phroton Strike, Bastille/Vortex combo and Overdrive, but he still lacks mobility. He lacks survivability on the move. He still wasting time and energy setting up a defense that other frames do better with far less work and energy put into it. Its hard to build him the way you want, because most of the mods go to surviving rather then building up other abilities. Octavia and Wisp provide more in terms of buffing and Khora in CCing without the use of 4-6 abilities. He still needs a lot of work. Not surprised, instead sad. 

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Mardomus

[Phyrak]

I like the new take on Vauban's 1,3 and 4 

But his stats are still paper and his 2 feels misplaced

Either:

Please buff his base stats or just add a chunk more armour so he can take a hit when out of position

Or

Give him a defensive 2 

Damage reduction, overshield, ammo replenishment from a personal sentinel to effect himself and allies 

One, the other or both would be great

[Ikusi_Prime]

Vauban feedback.

I really enjoyed Vauban before his rework, and I'm glad that the feel of playing a tactician with a big bag of tricks was maintained. My biggest complaint of his previous incarnation wasn't that his kit was redundant (although that was a complaint); I couldn't stand how squishy he was. He's a caster frame, all about his abilities, but everything is on a delay and he dies extremely fast if he can't get all the enemies CC'd in time, and his rework has worsened this issue. The new cast animations are flashy and cool, but they add unnecessary delays to the CC he needs to survive. I'd really like to see either those animations tightened up, or for Vauban to get a bump in defenses.

The Nervos are great, fantastic change.

My only gripe about Minelayer is the boost pad, which I'm sure lots of people are complaining about. We're ninjas. We're already fast. Finding situations outside an open world where the boost pad is even somewhat useful is very difficult, and even in the open world, it's just fun, not useful or optimal. Exchanging it for some kind of defensive mine, like the deployable cover the Corpus drop down or a device that generates overshields for allies in the area, would be awesome.

Photon Strike is amazing, exactly what he needed.

No real complaints about Bastille/Vortex, though a reduction in energy cost would be appreciated. Bastille used to be 75, now it's 100 with a longer cast time.

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Ikusi_Prime

[PotatoJias]

Vauban is lacking survival abilities in his minelayer tool kit, add in the long casting animations and it's a bad time all around. His Bastille defense buff takes to long to ramp up, and does not last very long after leaving the bastille. Tesla nervos feels lacking with only 4 rollers, and the attachment feels like it defeats the purpose of mobile cc, if they are just going to stick in place until that enemy has been killed. His snare ability gets hung up easily, and would be better with a slash proc effecting the baddies for the duration they are snared.

Edited November 1, 2019 by PotatoJias

[Lakyus]

Okay. I've played with both of them today and I'm happy with 95% of the rework. Thanks a lot, DE.

But... There are some issues that I find concerning, so I'll list them here.

Vauban

• Cast animations are too slow. It feels like it takes forever for him to throw a ball. It goes against Warframe fast-paced style.
• He is too squish, with no direct means of survival besides CC. Yes, he can put some nasty area CC, but once mobs starting hitting him, he is pretty much done for. It feels weird that Ember can last much more with her 2 than he can.
• Circling abilities should go away. Tap/hold is much better and quick to use. Two of the mines can be removed without changing Vauban's characteristics, making it tap/hold skill instead. The buff one seems out of place. The line one feels pointless with the Bastille/Vortex existing. Less is more, in this case.
• Keeping track of his 1 is weird. You can't see it on the map or there is no other visual indicator that they are attached to someone. It feels like they should be tracked somehow at the bottom right corner of the UI, like some other Warframe abilities. For example, it could show 4 balls with states such as: grayed out (not deployed), electrifying (attached), rolling (moving, unattached). This would make it obvious to see if your CC is working or if you need to throw new ones.

Ember

• Overheat indication feels not much intuitive. It took me some missions to notice the circling flames around Ember's waist when overheating happens. What if we got an overlay like the screen was burning.
• It's probably intended to avoid "toggle and forget", but Ember's 2 feels weird when it starts filling up quickly, and you have to toggle off and on again. I don't know what to suggest about this, it just feels a bit annoying most of the time. Maybe having a more explicit indicator like I suggested on the item above would solve it by making it obvious that the overheat bar was going too fast.
• Not about Ember exactly, but Ash. Yes, wrong topic, but I just wanted to point out that Ash's Bladestorm could use the same targeting mechanic as Ember's new 4. It's wonderful.

Once again, thank you all for the changes. I'm in love once again with both of them.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Lakyus

[Askorti]

Ember rework:

1. Fireball feels as useless as ever. I only ever use it with the augment to give myself and allies additional fire damage, because otherwise it's a waste of time. I think its main problem is that it doesn't feel fun to use. It's boring and not very effective. I know it's a 1st slot ability, so it can't be strong, but if it's weak and not satisfying to use, what's the point of having it?

2. & 3. Their "synergy" or the way they work together is nothing but an annoyance, and it honestly doesn't make logical sense. High immolation drains your energy, so you have to spend energy to stop it temporarily, until it ramps up again a few seconds later and you have to do it again. It's completely counter-intuitive. You avoid a penalty by penalizing yourself with the exact same penalty you're trying to avoid. If you want to run immolation more or less all the time. (And doing otherwise feels like a chore) you will have to repeatedly use fire blast to lower the gauge, whether you need or want to or not. That is not good gameplay.

4. Inferno, due to working only on enemies in front of you, that you can see, sometimes feels very unsatisfying to use. When you have only one or two enemies in your FoW, you feel like it might be a bit of a waste of energy to use it. That makes you always try to figure out a way to have as many enemies in your FoW as possible, even when it might otherwise not be the smartest thing to do. I think it negatively affects the way you play and position yourself.

General ability usage. Before the rework Ember had 3 abilities would eagerly use, accelerant, because it exposed enemies to more of your damage and stun them you would use it frequently to get more enemies affected and to protect yourself with the stun, fire blast to deal damage in a wide area, and if you stack the rings in a corridor it makes for great area denial, and WoF for general trash wipeout at close range. Fire ball was as useless as ever, but with the augment, it actually made for a useful boost. So either all, or 3/4 of the abilities saw constant and repeated use by Ember.

How is it now?

Ability 1 is only useful with augment, just like before, so you either don't use it at all, or sometimes to refresh the boost. Basically no improvement at all here.

Ability 2 is a toggle, so you only ever turn it off/on if you mess up your energy management.

Ability 3 lowers your immolation meter(which you don't really want!), so you only use it to manage your immolation when it hits 90%.

Ability 4 is good, but you feel compelled to keep it for when you have a lot of enemies in your sights, so that you don't "waste" the ability

The conclusion is that after the rework you use fewer abilities, and less frequently, and for often counterproductive reasons.

 

The changes that I would make are:

Option 1: Turn immolation into a passive, and give us some other ability on slot 2. Perhaps one that would be dedicated to cooling off, so that the 3rd one doesn't have to have that role. A cool off ability needs to be cheap so that it's actually worth using and doesn't feel like a waste of energy.

Option 2: make keeping immolation at 90% give you WoF. If you're going to hemorrhage energy, make it a tactical choice and something that could be beneficial.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Askorti