(PC) Ember & Vauban Revisited Feedback

[Acquire_Manatees]

58 minutes ago, Phaeronimus said:

Yes! Thank you! Finally,someone has layed it all out,black on white. It was said in the beginning of her release,that she is a Vauban 2.0,that actually gets the job done.Mostly the fact that her Motes is the Minelayer he deserves..but never got.You can say she c*ckblocked him,or rather,DE has done it to him,this way.
Ofc,this proceeds with the recent "rework".Hope he gets the justice he deserves,and no more memes..

 

Memes would be more than welcome if they could benefit Vauban and his squadmates in a meaningful way. Buffs that grant ammo efficiency, for example, could be a unique and powerful addition to Vauban's arsenal. Arcane Pistoleer and the "corrupted" buff already implement this mechanic. This could become a "meme" alarmingly fast, and still retain usability in any mission type.

Has anyone thought of ammo? It's a readily available resource, and isn't used for much except the obvious. Ammo to Shields? Ammo to Armor? Ammo to Power Duration? Ammo to throw your weapon on the ground, have it gain sentience and fire a clip or two? Too far-fetched? Wukong has nearly the exact ability but with effectively unlimited duration and mobility. It's not nearly as wild as it sounds.

"Space Ningineer" has an immense creative potential. Creativity, I can say with confidence, is something that DE's development team has plenty of. It would take some work and time, but us faithful few have waited years for a Space Engineer that ticks the boxes. I think I can speak for us, here. We're happy to wait a little longer.

Imagine seeing Vauban on a public squad in 2019 and being glad that he's there.

Thank you for your consideration.

-Manatees

[Acquire_Manatees]

On 2019-11-12 at 2:13 AM, Tatann said:

Considering how broken CC is (more and more enemies ignoring it), he clearly deserves a shift (while maintaining a strong CC aspect). Orbital Strike was a step in damage, new Bastille is a step in both debuff (armor stripping) and buff (bonus armor), but the armor buff is so badly implemented (10 sec out of Bastille, enemies killed before the armor cap can be reached, armor cap not affected by strength) that Vauban still sits behind 95% of the Warframes in terms of survivability

 

 

Crowd Control as a concept is still relevant. For example (from my ongoing testing, no source available), A Kuva Lich, (and several other notable enemies) can be neutralized using Harrow's "Condemn", Khora's "Ensnare", and Revenant's "Mesmer Skin". Vauban's primary form of Crowd Control, "Bastille", is severely dated. It is still effective for what it was designed for, especially now with the added armor strip. However, Vauban is no longer dominant in terms of general/effective Crowd Control. If Vauban were to move more towards a defensive/support role, I believe that he could excel in this niche, and it would compliment his aesthetic. The issue of whether or not Frost would be out-classed in favor of Vauban would depend on implementation. 

First thing's first, the Bastille armor buff, as you pointed out, needs to be addressed.

Thank you for your consideration.

-Manatees

[Phaeronimus]

1 hour ago, Acquire_Manatees said:

Memes would be more than welcome if they could benefit Vauban and his squadmates in a meaningful way. Buffs that grant ammo efficiency, for example, could be a unique and powerful addition to Vauban's arsenal. Arcane Pistoleer and the "corrupted" buff already implement this mechanic. This could become a "meme" alarmingly fast, and still retain usability in any mission type.

Has anyone thought of ammo? It's a readily available resource, and isn't used for much except the obvious. Ammo to Shields? Ammo to Armor? Ammo to Power Duration? Ammo to throw your weapon on the ground, have it gain sentience and fire a clip or two? Too far-fetched? Wukong has nearly the exact ability but with effectively unlimited duration and mobility. It's not nearly as wild as it sounds.

"Space Ningineer" has an immense creative potential. Creativity, I can say with confidence, is something that DE's development team has plenty of. It would take some work and time, but us faithful few have waited years for a Space Engineer that ticks the boxes. I think I can speak for us, here. We're happy to wait a little longer.

Imagine seeing Vauban on a public squad in 2019 and being glad that he's there.

Thank you for your consideration.

-Manatees

You don't have to tell me about it. xD
I made a Vauban feedback topic during the stream in which they've shown his entire "reworked kit" for the first time.It got mushed together with rest of the feedbacks in their Dev workshop topic for Vauban and Ember.
So much potential,but they keep with the aforementioned memes.Btw,if it's memes and it works/benefits him and the squad,it's no longer memes.

[_Connor]

Vauban's vortex desperately needs to be changed to require line of sight with some kind of object-based falloff.
Easiest example is Hydron.
If i throw a vortex on one of the pillars by the pod, and have long range on my build, it will ragdoll/pull enemies that are behind the walls of the map and just drag them into the corners of the floor/wall and under staircases / pipes etc. This is almost completely useless and incredibly annoying. 
Pulling an enemy into the low handrail surrounding the pod? fine. Pulling them into a crate on Europa? fine. Pulling them into the wall of the map in the next room over of the tile? garbage. 

[CTanGod]

1 hour ago, _Connor said:

Vauban's vortex desperately needs to be changed to require line of sight with some kind of object-based falloff.
Easiest example is Hydron.
If i throw a vortex on one of the pillars by the pod, and have long range on my build, it will ragdoll/pull enemies that are behind the walls of the map and just drag them into the corners of the floor/wall and under staircases / pipes etc. This is almost completely useless and incredibly annoying. 
Pulling an enemy into the low handrail surrounding the pod? fine. Pulling them into a crate on Europa? fine. Pulling them into the wall of the map in the next room over of the tile? garbage. 

Careful what you ask for. Line of Sight mechanics on AOE abilities are notoriously glitchy and can easily turn a good ability into pure trash depending on the map.

[Divinehero]

9 hours ago, Aeon94 said:

I'd love if Ember's Fireball turned into a fiery bird companion ( similar to Warlock's Arc Soul in Destiny ) and assisted Ember. Ember already has enough spam with Fire Blast and Inferno , giving her a duration ability will be beneficial.

Fire Hawk - [Duration Ability]

• Ember creates a fiery bird companion by her shoulder which shoots 3 fiery projectiles with 1 second cooldown for duration of 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 seconds. Projectiles seek enemies in 7 / 8 / 10 / 12 meters radius
  • Each projectile deals 75 / 100 / 125 / 150  Heat damage with 100% status chance. The projectile also inflicts 50 / 75 / 100 / 125  Heat damage in 2 meter area of effect around the target with a 50% status chance.
  • Both initial damage and the DoT get multiplied ( with a maximum of 8x ) by numbers of projectiles hit the same targets.
  • Fire Hawk can not have less than 5 seconds duration ( with negative duration mods ).
• Fire Hawk can be charged to double the number of projectiles.
  • A full charge takes 2.5 seconds.
  • Charge rate is affected by casting speed mods. The charge rate can be reduced to a minimum cap of 1.5 seconds.
• Synergy :
  • Each projectile hit increases Immolation's heat generation by 0.2% per sec.
  • When Immolation heat meter is maxed , projectile cooldown time is reduced to 0.5 sec.
  • Projectiles prioritize enemies who survived from Fire Blast and Inferno.
• Augment :
  • Fire Within ( Name changed ) - Hold to cast grant all allies within 15 meters an additional 100%  Heat damage to their attacks for 40 seconds.

that sounds neat

[PsiWarp]

Ember feedback:

Fireball - damage is decent, but doesn't proc Heat consistently enough. It's a slow projectile that guarantees proc on direct hit and 50% chance in the area of effect. Bump the chance to 100% in AoE.

Immolation - nice to forget about energy drain until it builds up to full, but then the drain ramps up over time hampers her ability casting potential. The drain is high enough on its own flat rate, please remove ramp-up over time.

Fire Blast - costly Heat procs with knockback and armor reduction. Too expensive when Immolation already drains her dry. Reduce cost to 50 when Immolation is on.

Inferno - straight up killing enemies by slamming a meteorite on their heads leaves no fire to spread. Perhaps leave a shorter-lived ring of fire where the meteorite lands, if the targets are killed by it.

[seventhwalker]

 

Thanks for leaving the rework open and up for changes. 
After a few more days of playing Vauban's rework: additional suggestions / thoughts and summarized version of  previous post.
As always this is just my personal two cents as a longtime Vauban player (used to be most used, now 2nd):



Vauban's Areas of Improvement:
 

• Vauban just keeps getting left behind in point to point missions like exterminate. his 'ideally planned' combo makes you wait for a ridiculously long throw animation (bastille anim time wasn't lessened) > wait for ball to drop and turn into bastille > have tea while bastille strips armor away per tick > collapse to vortex while calling laser > wait for said laser (thankfully reduced) > wait for blast to get the loot. It becomes much more apparent the more you play with veteran high 20's.
   
• Damage wise, that's not as effective as just letting enemies stay in the bastille (to keep stripping defenses) and fire at them with a weapon instead, while bringing tesla bank to spread it. A lot in his kit feels designed to slow him down. At 100 str, it takes 10 whole seconds to strip away defenses, and that is an eternity in warframe combat. In fact, I only found his animation time for throwing bastille acceptable WITH natural talent, which shouldn't be a requirement; his mod slots are strained as it is needing range, strength to strip, and efficiency.  Even WITH natural talent, you can't do a forward bullet jump and finish charging his tesla before coming down, making him stutter stop while your team ever gets further away. If the only way for Vauban to keep up with teammates is just to rely on throwing 1 ball every now and then and just shoot, then its such a waste of skills.
   
• His base stats are bad. Why? A lvl 80ish grineer (the type you regularly face in murmur grinds) can one-shot a Vauban Prime from full shield + full health. Try it, don't put any defensive mod/arcane that will add life/armor/shields/reduction and let the grineer sneeze on you. Why not add some defensive mods then? Vauban is already quite taxed in mods needing range, strength to strip, and efficiency to keep up with costs. Since Vauban was just relegated to CC before, he really didn't need str since his old skills weren't worth it to use as damage anyway. And now, with the very, very slow bastille; coupled with the long charge to tesla, you're making Natural Talent an almost mandatory mod for him to carry. And if you want to be at least decent at damage, you'll have to carry Tesla Bank as well ... that's two mod slots already. Even a frame like Khora can at least survive a shot. 

 

• Vauban is extremely flawed in static missions like defense. Main reason? Auto collapsing of bastille to vortex, instead of just separating the two with a tap and a hold. Vortex's mechanics are quite situational, and there are times where you would want to keep enemies just far away instead with bastille. When you place a bastille and vortex on the same spot, the vortex would win over and suck up the ones in bastille. What if you just want to wail on enemies stuck in the vortex, while the ones in stuck in bastille are being stripped of defenses ... well sure, you have to place the bastille a little bit further out then, which leads to an ever-furthering line of vortexes and bastilles, which leads to visual diarrhea/ terrorism.   
   
• Vortex makes long defense/ survival resource farming runs longer and inefficient since enemies often get caught up in railings, walls, elevation differences, boxes and just be stuck there instead getting to the farming group quickly, hence the preference for a speedva. Nidus' larva grab also works a lot better since it can be cast a little off the floor to get some elevation, along with it being non-continuous. 
   
• Bastille is overshadowed by newer frames which can CC much more enemies like Khora's strangledome, (not even counting how well it synergizes with dmg from her 1, and how it has a wonderful pilfer augment). Bastille raising a paltry 10 enemies just seems left behind along with coptering. A lot of frames that can remove enemy defenses can do so either instantly with a high str or in two taps. waiting for bastille to 'tick' them down, 10 whole seconds at 100 str feels just like an insult in comparison. So even If you're in a situation where you would want a vortex instead, you're forced to wait on bastille for the strip.
   
• Insistence on grenade 'balls' leads to poor skill performance & bugs. Tesla balls when fully charged spread out in a line, and when used in stages with lots of railings/ tight corridors/ narrow ledges oftentimes spawns less than 4. Other times they get caught up in elevation differences, railings, leading to quite a delay before they teleport beside you again and be actually useful. Overdriver balls tend to not activate when thrown at a flat angle (at your feet, to make sure you're the one getting the buff). The throw animation itself with these grenades just adds clunkiness and only makes Vauban slower than the rest. 
   
• Lackluster minelayer tools. Flechette is too weak, not worth stopping your firing to throw it out. Overdriver is too much of a hassle to apply to teammates which are constantly moving, and again, having bugs with the grenade design. Boost pad is bad. Tether coil has a redundant function to vortex.

Suggestions:
 

• This will be VERY controversial and polarizing, but its time to let go of the "grenade and balls" design. Yes, I understand that was Vauban's thing, but it only hinders his rework to be up to par with other frames. Throw animations only serve to slow down his skill activation, and the ground-based balls following Vauban have lots of faults and bugs. Perhaps something like the laser-pointer mechanic someone suggested beforehand. 
   
• Have teslas surround Vauban as flying drones like sentinels.  This will solve several issues: less than four of them spawning in tight railings/ ledges/ complicated map structures. (i.e. kuva fortress); frequently getting stuck in map elements - taking time before they can teleport near you; and them zapping enemies far away from vauban, which doesn't help his survivability. Speed up the full charge time, you should be able to do a full charge while doing a forward bullet jump in the air before landing. 
   

• Replace Flechette / Vector pad with a deployable Holographic Manned Turret. We all know DE said they don't like automatic sentry turrets, so as a compromise let Vauban create a manned turret, like the one you see in maps where any player can get in and fire. Damage and duration based on Vauban's mods. It will also give whoever is manning the turret some frontal protection. No need to create new assets, just take the regular map turrets and cover them in holographic effects. Make it pass through for teammates, else it can be used for griefing/ blocking.
   
• Replace Tether coil / Vector pad with a 'Slow / Speed beacon' (Oil Slick Beacon / Tar Beacon). Removes the duplicate function of tether / gimmick of boost pad. Makes Vauban a viable party member for a long defense/ survival resource farming run by either speeding up or slowing down enemies, which can be cycled to (slow) or (speed). Movement speed of enemies affected by Vauban's strength and range mods.
   

• EVEN MORE IDEAS. Replace Flechette / Tether Coil / Vector pad with a deployable Med Tower / Ammo refill Station / Radar Station. Gives Vauban a true support engineer / field medic action like in the military. Bastille will be the 'wire fencing' / trenching, while the deployable turrets will be the manned 'fortifications'.
  
  Deployable Med / Energy Tower: will just like be the ones used for defection/ air support: healing or energizing the team in relation to Vauban's range/ strength mods.
  
  Deployable Ammo Refill Station: could just recycle the ones found in PoE. Have use limits / cooldowns to stay balanced.
  
  Deployable Radar Station: would give every ally in its range the ability to see enemies through walls and obstacles similar to zenith. Affected by vauban's range and duration mods. Range has to be quite wide and much, much larger than bastille to be of practical use. For the station's graphics, could just recycle a hacking terminal with a Cephalon Simaris floating on top of it. ( HUNTER! ) 
  
  Like the deployable manned turrets, DE could just recycle the assets and cover them in a holographic effect to make it clear its a player creation. And as before, make it pass-through so it can't be used for griefing.  
  
  Make Overdriver a stickable beacon to a spot or any warframe. Removes the slow and clunky way of buffing your constantly moving team. Stick it to a spot during defense/ mobile def, everyone in range would get the buff. Stick it to yourself or teammates during point-to-point missions, allies near them get the buff. Radius affected by Vauban's range mods. 
   
• If you truly want to make Vauban a swiss-knife team utility engineer, a tap of skill two (Renamed to something like Engineer's Toolbox) would reveal something similar to the gear wheel to accommodate 1. Holographic Manned Turret, 2. Slow Beacon, 3. Speed Beacon, 4. Med Tower, 5. Energy Tower, 6. Ammo Refill Station, 7. Radar Station and 8. Overdriver to select. Then hold button to use the currently selected skill from the toolbox. Have a limit of only two max deployables at a time, and the creation of another will destroy the oldest one. Include of course the usual times used limitations and duration based on his mods. His healing and energy regen for the team could be a little weaker than Trinity, and his enemy movement speed effects could be a little less than a Slowva/ Speedva, to compensate for his Jack of all trades engineer versatility.
   
• Photon Strike is in a good spot, especially with the sped up animations. Thanks DE[Scott] (?). If you really want to make Vauban the master adaptable engineer, would also have switchable damage types you can cycle through ala minelayer or quiver: since blast isn't exactly great against all factions and enemy types. Call in a heat satellite laser against infested, call in an electric satellite laser instead for corpus.
   
• Either keep the armor strip along with vortex/ have it actually do meaningful damage like strong slashes or make those bastille strip MUCH faster / instant based on str. That way you're not forced to wait for a long time for bastille to do its thing, or can go straight to vortex if the situation calls for it.  Seperate the two with a tap (bastille) and hold (vortex) and not auto-collapse.
   
• Speed up Bastilles' activation time and increase the enemies captured cap. Bring it up to par with newer warframe abilities. 
   
• Fix Vortex's characteristic of getting enemies stuck in walls/ railings/ elevation differences/ boxes/ ect. Which as outlined before hinders your party in static missions like resource farming defense / camped survival. This may be done in several ways, will leave up to DE which is the simplest and less buggy to code for.
  - Line of sight pull
  - Let enemies keep moving along their intended path every time they get a 'not moving' check while under the effects of vortex
  - Convert vortex pull to short 'pulses' rather then continuous for those still not inside the vortex point. That way, enemies will have time to move forward their intended path a bit before being pulled again. Keep the ones already inside the vortex in a continuous pull state, so they can't fire/ attack.  
  - OP option: turn it into an inter-dimensional vortex that will make enemies being pulled pass through walls and objects. 

That's what I got for now. Thanks for reading, hopefully it can help or bring about discussion on how to improve Vauban. This rework could be truly something special yet 🙂

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by seventhwalker
Added more skill ideas

[alseltas]

11 hours ago, CTanGod said:

Careful what you ask for. Line of Sight mechanics on AOE abilities are notoriously glitchy and can easily turn a good ability into pure trash depending on the map.

There seem to be only two solution for this problem.

A. Making Vortex LoS based.

B. Making enemies pulled by Vortex ignore terrain completely.

A makes Vauban more vulnerable.

B sounds bit overpowered (edit: but adoptable considering the current poor range)

Edited November 14, 2019 by alseltas

[Tatann]

4 hours ago, alseltas said:

There seem to be only two solution for this problem.

A. Making Vortex LoS based.

B. Making enemies pulled by Vortex ignore terrain completely.

A makes Vauban more vulnerable.

B sounds bit overpowered.

B "overpowered" would just put Vauban on the same level as other frames :-P

While in Vortex, enemies rotate around the grenade, it's just too slow when they're far away. But in theory this rotation should put them out of the way of terrain (wall, container, ...). Making them go through it is just speeding up the process to try to get Vauban on par with other frames.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Tatann

[FeJoToRe]

About vauban and bastille, good addition that bastille gives more armor buuuut, thats not the only thing we need. Would be cool if vauban had either the capability to heal a bit inside bastille ('cause he is not a tank lets be honest

Also id rather have a wall grenade (like the vector walls on amalgam corpus) on minelayer instead of the meme pad (more utility) but also getting back the radiation grenade, that one was ok so it hadn't to leave the kit. Tether coil muat be power strenght based cause just attaching 2 enemies is useless...

P.D: an increase on vauban's health will be good too 😉

[Costanzafaust]

Tried playing Vauban in Sortie defense. Pluto I think? Corpus enemies. Something he should be well-suited for. It was miserable and took forever.

None of his defensive skills could prevent the target dude from taking damage, none of his skills could heal it. Fortunately you can revive the target.

Vauban frequently got downed and had to be revived. I'm sorry teammates, I needed to test Vauban in a Sortie Defense.

Skills like Vortex or Tether just got enemies stuck in geometry without killing them, making it a hunt to find them and every round took longer.

Teslas didn't perform well in the vertical level with all its catwalks and stairs.

Bastille was great, but difficult to combo with Vortex because of the collapse mechanic.

It was funny to stick a tether mine to the target dude, but it made him teleport all around once an enemy got stuck in it.

Got 3rd ayatan statue in a row. 🤣

[Awazx]

Il y a 7 heures, seventhwalker a dit :

 

Thanks for leaving the rework open and up for changes. 
After a few more days of playing Vauban's rework: additional suggestions / thoughts and summarized version of  previous post.
As always this is just my personal two cents as a longtime Vauban player (used to be most used, now 2nd):



Vauban's Areas of Improvement:
 

• Vauban just keeps getting left behind in point to point missions like exterminate. his 'ideally planned' combo makes you wait for a ridiculously long throw animation (bastille anim time wasn't lessened) > wait for ball to drop and turn into bastille > have tea while bastille strips armor away per tick > collapse to vortex while calling laser > wait for said laser (thankfully reduced) > wait for blast to get the loot. It becomes much more apparent the more you play with veteran high 20's.
   
• Damage wise, that's not as effective as just letting enemies stay in the bastille (to keep stripping defenses) and fire at them with a weapon instead, while bringing tesla bank to spread it. A lot in his kit feels designed to slow him down. At 100 str, it takes 10 whole seconds to strip away defenses, and that is an eternity in warframe combat. In fact, I only found his animation time for throwing bastille acceptable WITH natural talent, which shouldn't be a requirement; his mod slots are strained as it is needing range, strength to strip, and efficiency.  Even WITH natural talent, you can't do a forward bullet jump and finish charging his tesla before coming down, making him stutter stop while your team ever gets further away. If the only way for Vauban to keep up with teammates is just to rely on throwing 1 ball every now and then and just shoot, then its such a waste of skills.
   
• His base stats are bad. Why? A lvl 80ish grineer (the type you regularly face in murmur grinds) can one-shot a Vauban Prime from full shield + full health. Try it, don't put any defensive mod/arcane that will add life/armor/shields/reduction and let the grineer sneeze on you. Why not add some defensive mods then? Vauban is already quite taxed in mods needing range, strength to strip, and efficiency to keep up with costs. Since Vauban was just relegated to CC before, he really didn't need str since his old skills weren't worth it to use as damage anyway. And now, with the very, very slow bastille; coupled with the long charge to tesla, you're making Natural Talent an almost mandatory mod for him to carry. And if you want to be at least decent at damage, you'll have to carry Tesla Bank as well ... that's two mod slots already. Even a frame like Khora can at least survive a shot. 

 

• Vauban is extremely flawed in static missions like defense. Main reason? Auto collapsing of bastille to vortex, instead of just separating the two with a tap and a hold. Vortex's mechanics are quite situational, and there are times where you would want to keep enemies just far away instead with bastille. When you place a bastille and vortex on the same spot, the vortex would win over and suck up the ones in bastille. What if you just want to wail on enemies stuck in the vortex, while the ones in stuck in bastille are being stripped of defenses ... well sure, you have to place the bastille a little bit further out then, which leads to an ever-furthering line of vortexes and bastilles, which leads to visual diarrhea/ terrorism.   
   
• Vortex makes long defense/ survival resource farming runs longer and inefficient since enemies often get caught up in railings, walls, elevation differences, boxes and just be stuck there instead getting to the farming group quickly, hence the preference for a speedva. Nidus' larva grab also works a lot better since it can be cast a little off the floor to get some elevation, along with it being non-continuous. 
   
• Bastille is overshadowed by newer frames which can CC much more enemies like Khora's strangledome, (not even counting how well it synergizes with dmg from her 1, and how it has a wonderful pilfer augment). Bastille raising a paltry 10 enemies just seems left behind along with coptering. A lot of frames that can remove enemy defenses can do so either instantly with a high str or in two taps. waiting for bastille to 'tick' them down, 10 whole seconds at 100 str feels just like an insult in comparison. So even If you're in a situation where you would want a vortex instead, you're forced to wait on bastille for the strip.
   
• Insistence on grenade 'balls' leads to poor skill performance & bugs. Tesla balls when fully charged spread out in a line, and when used in stages with lots of railings/ tight corridors/ narrow ledges oftentimes spawns less than 4. Other times they get caught up in elevation differences, railings, leading to quite a delay before they teleport beside you again and be actually useful. Overdriver balls tend to not activate when thrown at a flat angle (at your feet, to make sure you're the one getting the buff). The throw animation itself with these grenades just adds clunkiness and only makes Vauban slower than the rest. 
   
• Lackluster minelayer tools. Flechette is too weak, not worth stopping your firing to throw it out. Tesla while good, have spawning/ follow problems stated above. Overdriver is too much of a hassle to apply to teammates which are constantly moving, and again, having bugs with the grenade design. Vector pad is bad. Tether coil has a redundant function to vortex.

Suggestions:
 

• This will be VERY controversial and polarizing, but its time to let go of the "grenade and balls" design. Yes, I understand that was Vauban's thing, but it only hinders his rework to be up to par with other frames. Throw animations only serve to slow down his skill activation, and the ground-based balls following Vauban have lots of faults and bugs. Perhaps something like the laser-pointer mechanic someone suggested beforehand. 
   
• Have teslas surround Vauban as flying drones like sentinels.  This will solve several issues: less than four of them spawning in tight railings/ ledges/ complicated map structures. (i.e. kuva fortress); frequently getting stuck in map elements - taking time before they can teleport near you; and them zapping enemies far away from vauban, which doesn't help his survivability. Speed up the full charge time, you should be able to do a full charge while doing a forward bullet jump in the air before landing. 
   

• Replace Flechette / Vector pad with a deployable holographic manned turret. We all know DE said they don't like automatic sentry turrets, so as a compromise let Vauban create a manned turret, like the one you see in maps where any player can get in and fire. Damage and duration based on Vauban's mods. It will also give whoever is manning the turret some frontal protection. No need to create new assets, just take the regular map turrets and cover them in holographic effects. Make it pass through for teammates, else it can be used for griefing/ blocking.
   
• Replace Tether coil / Vector pad with a 'Slow / Speed beacon' (Oil Slick Beacon / Tar Beacon). Removes the duplicate function of tether / gimmick of vector pad. Makes Vauban a viable party member for a long defense/ survival resource farming run by either speeding up or slowing down enemies, which can be cycled to (slow) or (speed). Movement speed of enemies affected by Vauban's strength and range mods.
   
• Make Overdriver a stickable beacon to a spot or any warframe. Removes the slow and clunky way of buffing your constantly moving team. Stick it to a spot during defense/ mobile def, everyone in range would get the buff. Stick it to yourself or teammates during point-to-point missions, allies near them get the buff. Radius affected by Vauban's range mods.
   

• Photon Strike is in a good spot, especially with the sped up animations. Thanks DE[Scott] (?). If you really want to make Vauban the master adaptable engineer, would also have switchable damage types you can cycle through ala minelayer: since blast isn't exactly great against all factions and enemy types. Call in a heat satellite laser against infested, call in an electric satellite laser instead for corpus.
   
• Either keep the armor strip along with vortex/ have it actually do meaningful damage like strong slashes or make those bastille strip MUCH faster / instant based on str. That way you're not forced to wait for a long time for bastille to do its thing, or can go straight to vortex if the situation calls for it. 
   
• Speed up Bastilles' activation time and increase the enemies captured cap. Bring it up to par with newer warframe abilities. 
   
• Fix Vortex's characteristic of getting enemies stuck in walls/ railings/ elevation differences/ boxes/ ect. Which as outlined before hinders your party in static missions like resource farming defense / camped survival. This may be done in several ways, will leave up to DE which is the simplest and less buggy to code for.
  - Line of sight pull
  - Let enemies keep moving along their intended path every time they get a 'not moving' check while under the effects of vortex
  - Convert vortex pull to short 'pulses' rather then continuous for those still not inside the vortex point. That way, enemies will have time to move forward their intended path a bit before being pulled again. Keep the ones already inside the vortex in a continuous pull state, so they can't fire/ attack.  
  - OP option: turn it into an inter-dimensional vortex that will make enemies being pulled pass through walls and objects. 

That's what I got for now. Thanks for reading, hopefully it can help or bring about discussion on how to improve Vauban. This rework could be truly something special yet 🙂

 

Love it. Congrats. +1

[Crewman82]

this vauban rework is good and meh at the same time,i suggest the removal of minelayer and adding a robotic pet,sentinel,moa,zanuka,spider,shield osprey...etc...just like khora,photon strike is cool but is also usseless ,low range,and why do i want to use it if my weapons can do more damage,aply status etc...it cost to much energy for unefective results,just fireworks,so for my playstyle i just use bastille/vortex and tesla nervos,make the armor buff from bastille last longer by default and lower casting cost to 50 just like saryn 4 so will be more easy to manage the armor buff from bastille

[Maka.Bones]

Ember Feedback: The new rework is really fun, but I find myself just mainly spamming 3 & 4--and toggling her 2 every 20-30s, since her fireblast isn't very effective at heat mitigation.

I never use her fireball atm--even though the combo effect is cool, it's still not an improvement for energy/damage than just using 3 and 4 or her weapon. Using fireblast(3) when immolation is active, is seriously dangerous for my energy unless i'm using a max efficiency build, with flow, and with her augment for energy. Her 3 costs too much energy, to be used as an effective method to control her heat gauge. 

Suggestions: 

Give fireball it's napalm effect back, when it's fully charged--and give napalm a longer duration with higher immolation. Also lower the energy cost of fireball, based on her immolation gauge. This would make it more useful and versatile, than just a spam ability. It also allows us more breathing room to use it, since ember is so energy hungry. It's fine if it consumes some heat for these bonuses, since inferno is more than enough to build heat for immolation. 

Lower Fireblast's base energy cost  (50-60 would be a bit more comfortable, without being too cheap) 

 

Thank you for reading this 🙂

Edited November 14, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[SolidSnake8774]

Vauban:
Tesla Nervos
Problems: The tap cast ability seems sort of pointless, where you have no reason to do it, when you're better off with 4 in a full cast. Theres no single reason to cast 1 tesla. In addition, the teslas seem to get lost or stuck in the terrain very easily. Can go through a mission still having 4 tesla nervos out, but be no where in sight. Which kind of defeats the purpose of them following you.

Potential Solution: Have the single tap, be like the old tesla grenades. Where they stick in place and just shock things in a group that come by. Weaker in power to the charged version of 4, but able to affect more than one at a time. To give some variance and a reason to cast a single tesla. Have the teslas teleport to Vauban when he goes too far away from them, sort of how companions do but a bit more consistently.

Minelayer
Problems 1: Tesla Coil is at the moment, a weaker and less interesting power than the old trip wire. The limit of 2 enemies no matter what kine of neuters the usability of the power. As you're fighitng hordes of enemies usually. And tieing two up will honestly not make a difference. and its a power thats just a one and done. You throw it, it catches 2 enemies. And thats it for it. The enemies stay entangled until either kill them or it expires. but only 2. If they are killed, then thats just it for it. Old Trip wire was superior in my opinion. As it cut off an entire doorway, by tripping up enemies (save for nullifiers) and pretty much keeps them there, outside the odd one or two that managed to slip past and you know when enemies triggered it, cause you see 0 damage numbers at the sight.

Potential Solution 1: I would say just bring back Trip Wire and upgrade that. Make it do slashing damage on enemies or something that get caught in it or add a sticky component to like Tesla coil, where if any enemies somehow get passed, they're like latched to it, so they're tugged back from going too far from it. This would make it sort of a fusion between the old Trip Wire and the current Tesla Coil.

Problems 2: Speed Pad is just a side ways bounce pad, but without.. pretty much anything else going for it. Its very impractical, because it has a cooldown/delay between able to be activated again. And it doesnt even boost you far.

Potential Solution 2:  I think something simple like adding a speed buff duration after stepping on the speed pad will help. Even make it apply to enemies. And remove the delay in activation. Since it has limited uses anyway and the base duration slightly longer, since its ment to be a multi purpose trap. 


Ember
General 
Problems 1: Ember seems pretty fine and fun for the most part. However she does seem to gain heat pretty fast. Even without using fire ball, or her meteor ability with just her immolate on. She seems to gain heat rather fast. 

Potential Solutions 1:  Just lower down her passive heat generation while immolation is up just a tad. 

Problems 2: Its the fact that Ember is not passively/natively resistant to heat damage. It should really be part of her passive, even more since she literally sets herself on fire all the time and now that her passive is different. This is actually my biggest complain I've had with Ember (and the other main elemental warframes by extension)

Potential Solutions 2:  Ember should have some sort of heat damage resistance as part of her passive by now. (I can see why it would work with her old passive, as her old passive she gained energy when hit with heat damage, so reducing that damage reduces the effectiveness of that passive). But now even more it seems like that should just be part of her natively. It theres anything in all of the cosmos that makes sense, its that Ember should be natively resistant to heat damage. Not even immune, just resistant to it. By extension I would say this for all the main elemental frames Like Frost and Mag and Volt. But Ember is the most especially keen one. As it makes the most sense functionally and in lore. Not many enemies currently use elemental damage, but that shouldnt deter from the flavor. 

 

[Acquire_Manatees]

21 hours ago, seventhwalker said:

 

Thanks for leaving the rework open and up for changes. 
After a few more days of playing Vauban's rework: additional suggestions / thoughts and summarized version of  previous post.
As always this is just my personal two cents as a longtime Vauban player (used to be most used, now 2nd):



Vauban's Areas of Improvement:
 

• Vauban just keeps getting left behind in point to point missions like exterminate. his 'ideally planned' combo makes you wait for a ridiculously long throw animation (bastille anim time wasn't lessened) > wait for ball to drop and turn into bastille > have tea while bastille strips armor away per tick > collapse to vortex while calling laser > wait for said laser (thankfully reduced) > wait for blast to get the loot. It becomes much more apparent the more you play with veteran high 20's.
   
• Damage wise, that's not as effective as just letting enemies stay in the bastille (to keep stripping defenses) and fire at them with a weapon instead, while bringing tesla bank to spread it. A lot in his kit feels designed to slow him down. At 100 str, it takes 10 whole seconds to strip away defenses, and that is an eternity in warframe combat. In fact, I only found his animation time for throwing bastille acceptable WITH natural talent, which shouldn't be a requirement; his mod slots are strained as it is needing range, strength to strip, and efficiency.  Even WITH natural talent, you can't do a forward bullet jump and finish charging his tesla before coming down, making him stutter stop while your team ever gets further away. If the only way for Vauban to keep up with teammates is just to rely on throwing 1 ball every now and then and just shoot, then its such a waste of skills.
   
• His base stats are bad. Why? A lvl 80ish grineer (the type you regularly face in murmur grinds) can one-shot a Vauban Prime from full shield + full health. Try it, don't put any defensive mod/arcane that will add life/armor/shields/reduction and let the grineer sneeze on you. Why not add some defensive mods then? Vauban is already quite taxed in mods needing range, strength to strip, and efficiency to keep up with costs. Since Vauban was just relegated to CC before, he really didn't need str since his old skills weren't worth it to use as damage anyway. And now, with the very, very slow bastille; coupled with the long charge to tesla, you're making Natural Talent an almost mandatory mod for him to carry. And if you want to be at least decent at damage, you'll have to carry Tesla Bank as well ... that's two mod slots already. Even a frame like Khora can at least survive a shot. 

 

• Vauban is extremely flawed in static missions like defense. Main reason? Auto collapsing of bastille to vortex, instead of just separating the two with a tap and a hold. Vortex's mechanics are quite situational, and there are times where you would want to keep enemies just far away instead with bastille. When you place a bastille and vortex on the same spot, the vortex would win over and suck up the ones in bastille. What if you just want to wail on enemies stuck in the vortex, while the ones in stuck in bastille are being stripped of defenses ... well sure, you have to place the bastille a little bit further out then, which leads to an ever-furthering line of vortexes and bastilles, which leads to visual diarrhea/ terrorism.   
   
• Vortex makes long defense/ survival resource farming runs longer and inefficient since enemies often get caught up in railings, walls, elevation differences, boxes and just be stuck there instead getting to the farming group quickly, hence the preference for a speedva. Nidus' larva grab also works a lot better since it can be cast a little off the floor to get some elevation, along with it being non-continuous. 
   
• Bastille is overshadowed by newer frames which can CC much more enemies like Khora's strangledome, (not even counting how well it synergizes with dmg from her 1, and how it has a wonderful pilfer augment). Bastille raising a paltry 10 enemies just seems left behind along with coptering. A lot of frames that can remove enemy defenses can do so either instantly with a high str or in two taps. waiting for bastille to 'tick' them down, 10 whole seconds at 100 str feels just like an insult in comparison. So even If you're in a situation where you would want a vortex instead, you're forced to wait on bastille for the strip.
   
• Insistence on grenade 'balls' leads to poor skill performance & bugs. Tesla balls when fully charged spread out in a line, and when used in stages with lots of railings/ tight corridors/ narrow ledges oftentimes spawns less than 4. Other times they get caught up in elevation differences, railings, leading to quite a delay before they teleport beside you again and be actually useful. Overdriver balls tend to not activate when thrown at a flat angle (at your feet, to make sure you're the one getting the buff). The throw animation itself with these grenades just adds clunkiness and only makes Vauban slower than the rest. 
   
• Lackluster minelayer tools. Flechette is too weak, not worth stopping your firing to throw it out. Overdriver is too much of a hassle to apply to teammates which are constantly moving, and again, having bugs with the grenade design. Boost pad is bad. Tether coil has a redundant function to vortex.

Suggestions:
 

• This will be VERY controversial and polarizing, but its time to let go of the "grenade and balls" design. Yes, I understand that was Vauban's thing, but it only hinders his rework to be up to par with other frames. Throw animations only serve to slow down his skill activation, and the ground-based balls following Vauban have lots of faults and bugs. Perhaps something like the laser-pointer mechanic someone suggested beforehand. 
   
• Have teslas surround Vauban as flying drones like sentinels.  This will solve several issues: less than four of them spawning in tight railings/ ledges/ complicated map structures. (i.e. kuva fortress); frequently getting stuck in map elements - taking time before they can teleport near you; and them zapping enemies far away from vauban, which doesn't help his survivability. Speed up the full charge time, you should be able to do a full charge while doing a forward bullet jump in the air before landing. 
   

• Replace Flechette / Vector pad with a deployable Holographic Manned Turret. We all know DE said they don't like automatic sentry turrets, so as a compromise let Vauban create a manned turret, like the one you see in maps where any player can get in and fire. Damage and duration based on Vauban's mods. It will also give whoever is manning the turret some frontal protection. No need to create new assets, just take the regular map turrets and cover them in holographic effects. Make it pass through for teammates, else it can be used for griefing/ blocking.
   
• Replace Tether coil / Vector pad with a 'Slow / Speed beacon' (Oil Slick Beacon / Tar Beacon). Removes the duplicate function of tether / gimmick of boost pad. Makes Vauban a viable party member for a long defense/ survival resource farming run by either speeding up or slowing down enemies, which can be cycled to (slow) or (speed). Movement speed of enemies affected by Vauban's strength and range mods.
   

• EVEN MORE IDEAS. Replace Flechette / Tether Coil / Vector pad with a deployable Med Tower / Ammo refill Station / Radar Station. Gives Vauban a true support engineer / field medic action like in the military. Bastille will be the 'wire fencing' / trenching, while the deployable turrets will be the manned 'fortifications'.
  
  Deployable Med / Energy Tower: will just like be the ones used for defection/ air support: healing or energizing the team in relation to Vauban's range/ strength mods.
  
  Deployable Ammo Refill Station: could just recycle the ones found in PoE. Have use limits / cooldowns to stay balanced.
  
  Deployable Radar Station: would give every ally in its range the ability to see enemies through walls and obstacles similar to zenith. Affected by vauban's range and duration mods. Range has to be quite wide and much, much larger than bastille to be of practical use. For the station's graphics, could just recycle a hacking terminal with a Cephalon Simaris floating on top of it. ( HUNTER! ) 
  
  Like the deployable manned turrets, DE could just recycle the assets and cover them in a holographic effect to make it clear its a player creation. And as before, make it pass-through so it can't be used for griefing.  
  
  Make Overdriver a stickable beacon to a spot or any warframe. Removes the slow and clunky way of buffing your constantly moving team. Stick it to a spot during defense/ mobile def, everyone in range would get the buff. Stick it to yourself or teammates during point-to-point missions, allies near them get the buff. Radius affected by Vauban's range mods. 
   
• If you truly want to make Vauban a swiss-knife team utility engineer, a tap of skill two (Renamed to something like Engineer's Toolbox) would reveal something similar to the gear wheel to accommodate 1. Holographic Manned Turret, 2. Slow Beacon, 3. Speed Beacon, 4. Med Tower, 5. Energy Tower, 6. Ammo Refill Station, 7. Radar Station and 8. Overdriver to select. Then hold button to use the currently selected skill from the toolbox. Have a limit of only two max deployables at a time, and the creation of another will destroy the oldest one. Include of course the usual times used limitations and duration based on his mods. His healing and energy regen for the team could be a little weaker than Trinity, and his enemy movement speed effects could be a little less than a Slowva/ Speedva, to compensate for his Jack of all trades engineer versatility.
   
• Photon Strike is in a good spot, especially with the sped up animations. Thanks DE[Scott] (?). If you really want to make Vauban the master adaptable engineer, would also have switchable damage types you can cycle through ala minelayer or quiver: since blast isn't exactly great against all factions and enemy types. Call in a heat satellite laser against infested, call in an electric satellite laser instead for corpus.
   
• Either keep the armor strip along with vortex/ have it actually do meaningful damage like strong slashes or make those bastille strip MUCH faster / instant based on str. That way you're not forced to wait for a long time for bastille to do its thing, or can go straight to vortex if the situation calls for it.  Seperate the two with a tap (bastille) and hold (vortex) and not auto-collapse.
   
• Speed up Bastilles' activation time and increase the enemies captured cap. Bring it up to par with newer warframe abilities. 
   
• Fix Vortex's characteristic of getting enemies stuck in walls/ railings/ elevation differences/ boxes/ ect. Which as outlined before hinders your party in static missions like resource farming defense / camped survival. This may be done in several ways, will leave up to DE which is the simplest and less buggy to code for.
  - Line of sight pull
  - Let enemies keep moving along their intended path every time they get a 'not moving' check while under the effects of vortex
  - Convert vortex pull to short 'pulses' rather then continuous for those still not inside the vortex point. That way, enemies will have time to move forward their intended path a bit before being pulled again. Keep the ones already inside the vortex in a continuous pull state, so they can't fire/ attack.  
  - OP option: turn it into an inter-dimensional vortex that will make enemies being pulled pass through walls and objects. 

That's what I got for now. Thanks for reading, hopefully it can help or bring about discussion on how to improve Vauban. This rework could be truly something special yet 🙂

 

I agree with your assessment of Vauban's current state. Especially floccinaucinihilipilificating the "balls" theme and pointing out Vauban's obsolete CC abilities.

Your suggestions for new abilities are very imaginative, and far from unreasonable considering the capability and versatility of the other Warframes available to us.

VERSITILITY isn't something I considered when bringing balance to Vauban's kit, but this does put a smile on my face.

 

• That is a brilliant idea. "Orbital Tesla Drones" are the way to go, maybe providing some Damage Resistance and applying an electric stun on-hit with %100 proc chance similar to Revenant's "Mesmer Skin". Consider that Baruuk's "Desolate Hands" can transfer to nearby allies within range. Could Vauban tap on an ally to transfer drones? Tap on an enemy to attach a drone similar to Saryn's "Spores"? This could recycle with the existing stun-lock albeit with much much more interactivity and purpose. Vauban's "Tesla Bank", if it remains as it is, could be absolutely devastating if the drones were not so out-of-control.

 

• Your suggestion for a "swiss-knife team utility engineer" sounds like an absolute second-dream-come-true, however it is one that has been bleated into the Void so often that the Man in the Wall is becoming the Man who beats his head against the Wall. Jokes aside, If there is ANYTHING we can all learn from the rework and the extensive feedback it's that Vauban's kit needs (if not better, less buggy/overlapping CC) more DIVERSITY.
  •  A Gear-Wheel sounds like a good way to organize an immense set of abilities, but consider: Equinox has one of the most DIVERSE and USEFUL ability sets in the game, owing to her ability to change form with "Metamorphosis" and as a result, the effects of her abilities. Vauban could have a similar mechanic where he cycles through Offense/Defense/Support ability sets. Then, for example only, the suggested Speed/Slow/Radar and Health/Energy/Ammo beacons could be relegated to another cycle-style ability, streamlining the UI. In this fashion, preventing speed/slow overlap, for example, could be prevented via developer implementation.
  • I agree that Bastille and Vortex should be re-separated. Auto-Collapse of Bastille is convenient sometimes, but not when the Vortex does mysterious things with the enemies once their defenses are stripped. As I have discovered with extensive, humorous testing, multiple Vortices greatly increase pull strength. Sometimes, given the right circumstances and amount of stacked Vortices, the pull is so strong that enemies can be pulled through terrain. I use this method to unreliably bypass the "Hydron dilemma" that current Vauban enthusiasts endure where, as you described, enemies love to get stuck in very inconvenient places. The added inconvenience entirely defeats the fundamental purpose of Vortex. Addressing this issue would be a significant buff to Vauban's current kit, and would be very welcome in (hopefully) the new iteration.

 

Thank you very much for your post, I was both inspired and impressed. If only one of your ideas makes it into a "re-revisited" Vauban kit, he will have gained exactly one useful ability.

Thank you for your consideration,

-Manatees

 

 

[King-Baconbeard]

Tesla Nervos, just needs 100% proc, better AI and the balls should return to Vauban when not in use (think diviaion 2 seeker mine)

Remove Speed Pad

Add a Disruption Grenade(EMP or Force Push grenade) to replace Tether, which is a crap Vortex

Buff Overdrivers base Dmg increase to 50%

FLECHETTE orb is cool but needs major buffing. i.e Damage, all three procs added(Slash,Impact,puncture) bleed and maybe a little more info on duration

OS is fine,  if not needs more info on tooltip and clearer scaling, 50% DMG Reduction in Air while casting would be nice.

Bastille and Vortex are Generally ok, if anything its the augment that needs replacing, maybe buff duration scaling 

 

 

 

 

[Chicken-Biryani]

Just here to yell at boost pad. 

[seventhwalker]

 

3 hours ago, Acquire_Manatees said:

I agree with your assessment of Vauban's current state. Especially floccinaucinihilipilificating the "balls" theme and pointing out Vauban's obsolete CC abilities.

Your suggestions for new abilities are very imaginative, and far from unreasonable considering the capability and versatility of the other Warframes available to us.

VERSITILITY isn't something I considered when bringing balance to Vauban's kit, but this does put a smile on my face.

 

• That is a brilliant idea. "Orbital Tesla Drones" are the way to go, maybe providing some Damage Resistance and applying an electric stun on-hit with %100 proc chance similar to Revenant's "Mesmer Skin". Consider that Baruuk's "Desolate Hands" can transfer to nearby allies within range. Could Vauban tap on an ally to transfer drones? Tap on an enemy to attach a drone similar to Saryn's "Spores"? This could recycle with the existing stun-lock albeit with much much more interactivity and purpose. Vauban's "Tesla Bank", if it remains as it is, could be absolutely devastating if the drones were not so out-of-control.

 

• Your suggestion for a "swiss-knife team utility engineer" sounds like an absolute second-dream-come-true, however it is one that has been bleated into the Void so often that the Man in the Wall is becoming the Man who beats his head against the Wall. Jokes aside, If there is ANYTHING we can all learn from the rework and the extensive feedback it's that Vauban's kit needs (if not better, less buggy/overlapping CC) more DIVERSITY.
  •  A Gear-Wheel sounds like a good way to organize an immense set of abilities, but consider: Equinox has one of the most DIVERSE and USEFUL ability sets in the game, owing to her ability to change form with "Metamorphosis" and as a result, the effects of her abilities. Vauban could have a similar mechanic where he cycles through Offense/Defense/Support ability sets. Then, for example only, the suggested Speed/Slow/Radar and Health/Energy/Ammo beacons could be relegated to another cycle-style ability, streamlining the UI. In this fashion, preventing speed/slow overlap, for example, could be prevented via developer implementation.
  • I agree that Bastille and Vortex should be re-separated. Auto-Collapse of Bastille is convenient sometimes, but not when the Vortex does mysterious things with the enemies once their defenses are stripped. As I have discovered with extensive, humorous testing, multiple Vortices greatly increase pull strength. Sometimes, given the right circumstances and amount of stacked Vortices, the pull is so strong that enemies can be pulled through terrain. I use this method to unreliably bypass the "Hydron dilemma" that current Vauban enthusiasts endure where, as you described, enemies love to get stuck in very inconvenient places. The added inconvenience entirely defeats the fundamental purpose of Vortex. Addressing this issue would be a significant buff to Vauban's current kit, and would be very welcome in (hopefully) the new iteration.

 

Thank you very much for your post, I was both inspired and impressed. If only one of your ideas makes it into a "re-revisited" Vauban kit, he will have gained exactly one useful ability.

Thank you for your consideration,

-Manatees

 

 

Thanks a lot for the kind words Manatees. Very happy to hear the you and Awazx liked the suggestions 🙂
This game has given me a lot of wonderful playing hours, and hope these feedback (even though it might sound coarse) are ultimately from a point of wanting DE and WF to succeed. Hopefully they will be able to read it. 

Oh nice, haven't thought about the orbital tesla drones be transferable to teammates. In order to use the full functionality of tap (spawn teslas for you) and hold (teslas for targeted ally), DE will have to agree to lose the 'charge' mechanic to spawn 4 drones though. Personally prefer if the number of tesla drones were just tied to something like his strength stat.

As for the equinox type mechanic with Vauban having a combat / defense / support mode along with changing the skills, have actually thought about it. But it might be limited since I'll always want his vortex + bastille (his 'signature' skill) available, and the 1st 'skill' will become a mode toggle like equi's day/night form; leaving just two other skills per form. Am sure there's an elegant way to make it fluid that I just haven't figured out yet. Of course would love to hear more of your thoughts on how it can be even further refined. 

A secondary reason why I opted for a 'gear wheel' instead was that DE already have the similar code and assets to implement it. Giving forms to Vauban would mean slight model changes for his combat /defense /support form like equinox or khora for player clarity. Just wanted to make their lives a bit easier by suggesting something they already have in place to recycle. (Like the graphics for the said new skills as well) 

 

Edited November 15, 2019 by seventhwalker

[Acquire_Manatees]

10 hours ago, seventhwalker said:

 

Thanks a lot for the kind words Manatees. Very happy to hear the you and Awazx liked the suggestions 🙂
This game has given me a lot of wonderful playing hours, and hope these feedback (even though it might sound coarse) are ultimately from a point of wanting DE and WF to succeed. Hopefully they will be able to read it. 

Oh nice, haven't thought about the orbital tesla drones be transferable to teammates. In order to use the full functionality of tap (spawn teslas for you) and hold (teslas for targeted ally), DE will have to agree to lose the 'charge' mechanic to spawn 4 drones though. Personally prefer if the number of tesla drones were just tied to something like his strength stat.

As for the equinox type mechanic with Vauban having a combat / defense / support mode along with changing the skills, have actually thought about it. But it might be limited since I'll always want his vortex + bastille (his 'signature' skill) available, and the 1st 'skill' will become a mode toggle like equi's day/night form; leaving just two other skills per form. Am sure there's an elegant way to make it fluid that I just haven't figured out yet. Of course would love to hear more of your thoughts on how it can be even further refined. 

A secondary reason why I opted for a 'gear wheel' instead was that DE already have the similar code and assets to implement it. Giving forms to Vauban would mean slight model changes for his combat /defense /support form like equinox or khora for player clarity. Just wanted to make their lives a bit easier by suggesting something they already have in place to recycle. (Like the graphics for the said new skills as well) 

 

I think DE can and will succeed regardless of Vauban's usability or our critique of the rework. However, I think that out of the entire Update 26 content release, Vauban's rework requires the most attention as it did not "fix" his core issues. Instead it introduced new, strange systems with significant issues of their own. Another total kit redesign would be preferable to an improvement on the current systems, and suggestions like yours could be very useful to the development team because they further alleviate the need to brainstorm what changes Vauban would need to undergo in order for the "Vauban is horrible" zeitgeist to finally be put to rest.

Ember issues: Fire procs are weak, she suffers against armored units, she lacks damage resistance, she lacks ability synergy and interactivity

Ember's rework: Fire procs are great, she can instantly/completely strip armor, she has damage resistance, her abilities now have synergy and her fourth ability is now a real ability

 

Vauban issues: His abilities are stationary, he lacks survivability, his abilities overlap, please remove bounce pad

Vauban's rework: His abilities are still stationary (either that or they run away from you), his base defensive stats are unchanged while Bastille armor lasts ten seconds and costs 100 energy to refresh or it completely vanishes, his abilities still overlap (tether/vortex/bastille/tesla, for example), bounce pad

Drawing inspiration from other warframes is an ideal place to start, as there are existing assets/mechanics to recycle that would be relevant on principle, and require minimal testing. In the spirit of putting a complete Vauban rework on the fast track, A "Gear Wheel" type ability would be fine, and a "Mode Switch" ability would not necessarily have to be bound to a "First Ability", nor would it require any changes to Vauban's model upon activation (as much as I would love to see Train Man pull a "Sailor Moon" and gain a beautiful dress like our lovely Equinox).

To clarify my intent behind the "Mode Switch" suggestion, Consider:

• Vauban's first ability could be our "Orbital Drones". This would address 3/4 of Vauban's major issues, grant additional team support options, and suddenly make "Tesla Bank" an incredible augment.
• Vauban's second ability could be a tap ability "Mode Switch", similar to Khora's Venari, possibly granting Vauban additional stats based on the selected mode. Hold Cast in each mode could be an affinity-range self/team buff. Overdriver/Speed booster/Bastille Armor could be moved to this ability, hopefully with significant buffs to duration. Vauban's "Overdriver" especially needs to be moved from a thrown ability. To reliably buff all teammates/companions in a mission, Vauban needs to throw 8 mines for a total of 200 energy. This is not good. A team-buff would much better fit Warframe's pace.
• Vauban's third ability could be similar to Vauban's "Minelayer", but with, as you described, different towers/beacons/emplacements as the abilities, with effects changing based on Vauban's current "Mode". For example only, if there are three modes and three different deployables, that is, effectively, nine different abilities.
• Vauban's fourth ability could remain as Bastille/Vortex. I think this ability in its current form was a great step in the right direction for Vauban. I would like to see minor improvements to all of its stats, and the "bonus armor" mechanic must be scrapped, as its current implementation promotes very stagnant gameplay and spamcasting. Vortex could automatically call an "Orbital Strike" upon expiry. "Vortex" -> "Orbital Strike", I think, makes a little more practical sense than "Bastille" -> "Vortex". Maybe "Orbital Strike" could vary its damage type based on Vauban's current "Mode". What do you think?

This could be one way of granting Vauban an immense variety of abilities with comparatively little effort and depending on implementation, could prevent the significant ability overlap that Vauban currently suffers from.

Ideas like yours (and many others with Creativity to spare on this forum) need to be heard by DE, otherwise Vauban will remain an example of the general gameplay surpassing the capability of a warframe, further reinforcing the dominance and overuse of "meta" warframes. I fully endorse you and would love to hear your further input.

Thank you for your consideration,

-Manatees

[seventhwalker]

@Acquire_Manatees

Agree that his core issues weren't addressed much with the latest rework.

For a large number of skills to be set into one slot, opted to go for simplicity and speed; hence the gear wheel. Tap it to show > point/scroll to select > hold selected skill to use. 
repeat when you want to change into another. Being able to manually re-position the skills in those slots would also make it a lot easier for controllers. Like having a players' most used toolbox skills to the up,down, left, right direction, and the diagonals for their lesser used ones.

For a mode mechanic switch that has nine abilities: mode 1 (ability A, B, C), mode 2 (D, E, F). mode 3 (G, H, I). If you were using skill A, then would like to use skill I after: You'd need to cycle the mode switch button twice to get to mode 3 > cycle the 3rd skill twice to get to skill I > then hold the button use. Would imagine I'd also have a hard time remembering which skill is on which slot in the heat of a battle. With a wheel just appearing when changing the skills, can see at least an icon to help the player identify. It wasn't an issue with equinox since you only had to remember 2 different skills per slot, excluding the switch... graphically as well, its easy for the player to see which mode the frame is in right now. Just wanted Vauban to be straightforward as possible in execution while having versatility in his team utility.

And yes hopefully DE reads all the different suggestions from all of us  and not just with their partners.


 

Edited November 16, 2019 by seventhwalker

[Acquire_Manatees]

3 hours ago, seventhwalker said:

@Acquire_Manatees

Agree that his core issues weren't addressed much with the latest rework.

For a large number of skills to be set into one slot, opted to go for simplicity and speed; hence the gear wheel. Tap it to show > point/scroll to select > hold selected skill to use. 
repeat when you want to change into another. Being able to manually re-position the skills in those slots would also make it a lot easier for controllers. Like having a players' most used toolbox skills to the up,down, left, right direction, and the diagonals for their lesser used ones.

For a mode mechanic switch that has nine abilities: mode 1 (ability A, B, C), mode 2 (D, E, F). mode 3 (G, H, I). If you were using skill A, then would like to use skill I after: You'd need to cycle the mode switch button twice to get to mode 3 > cycle the 3rd skill twice to get to skill I > then hold the button use. Would imagine I'd also have a hard time remembering which skill is on which slot in the heat of a battle. With a wheel just appearing when changing the skills, can see at least an icon to help the player identify. It wasn't an issue with equinox since you only had to remember 2 different skills per slot, excluding the switch... graphically as well, its easy for the player to see which mode the frame is in right now. Just wanted Vauban to be straightforward as possible in execution while having versatility in his team utility.

And yes hopefully DE reads all the different suggestions from all of us  and not just with their partners.


 

Those are some very good points, I hadn't considered console users.

Regardless of how they are organized, the important thing is that the suggested abilities would address the core issues of relevancy, durability, and overlap. With any luck, the development team will deem this topic worthy of revisit, and the next devstream will see some communication from them about what their plans are, if any, moving forward.

I wonder if throwing boost pads down in a Railjack ship would make it go faster? Maybe that's been the plan all along? My, wouldn't we all feel silly?

Thank you for your consideration,

-Manatees

 

[PsiWarp]

Was there any reason why Fireball's flame patches were removed? Seems like it could have been a mechanic to build on.

[Thundervision]

After using 12th Forma on Ember after all her reworks I feel like she still needs help. Most of all, it's the same old Fireball with the same old problems that weren't even addressed. And secondly, although the new Ember has synergy it doesn't seem like she really does. I really like ideas behind Fire Blast and Inferno, it feels fresh and engaging, however other 50% of her kit has some issues.

 

FIREBALL

Plain and simple: it was lackluster before and it's even more so now. Your investment into it doesn't worth the output it provides, not even at 8x multiplier, because in order to achieve such amount of damage  you have to spam the same ability and burn through your energy pool. You can practically forget about this ability if you're not running a high-efficiency build.

Details:

• Complete lack of the aesthetic pleasure and satisfaction on the visual part of the ability:

There's strong satisfaction when Atlas build up his Landslide combo with a fiery explosion, and there's complete lack of the one when using Ember's Fireball. Does it even have animations other than pulling her hand and then moving it forward aka 'throwing' a fireball? No matter the damage, even if it kills, just looking at it doesn't make it powerful, it doesn't make you feel powerful. Just no eye candy stuff. Even Vauban received his fancy juggle animation for grenades.

We all played video games with Fireballs, we all watched movies or cartoons or animation with magic. Heck, look at the Avatar's Firebending - it's got it all: fire punches, fireballs, flamethrowers or flame whips from your hands. It really surprises me how bleak visually and animation-wise Fireball is.

• Firepatch doesn't stick to surfaces
• Reliance on Immolation

So you added charge-up mechanics for abilities. It had the same issues that charged melee attacks had: it takes too much time in so fast-paced game with little to no effective output. You changed melee, charged attacks are good now, abilities charge-up, however, wasn't changed, thus it has the same issues it had before.

Next, you also removed Flash Accelerant augment which was really useful for support-oriented builds so now Fireball gets reduced charge-up time when you have Immolation up and running *which* costs you extra energy and then even some more when it reaches its max. *And then* you also have to spend energy on actually casting your Fireballs.

• Weak stats-wise

400 damage on hit and 150 damage on AoE which is also 2m (2.4 if charged), has a 0.5 delay before casting it again and takes 2.5s to charge it up on default condition. On top of that, it's also a projectile-based ability with not really decent projectile speed.

 

Suggestions:

Honestly? I'd say scrap it and do a better one. Exalted fire whips or flamethrowers from one/both of ther hands (if holding the button down).

But these are regarding the current state:

• Make visuals (vfx, animations) feel that they do pack a punch.
• Make Fireball stick to surface on hit and increase its lifespan.
• Decrease charge-up time at least to 1.5s, or:
• Triple AoE stats on the current charge-up.
• Synergy with Inferno: casting Fireball on ignited enemies results in an explosion. If enemy use weapons, their ammunition also starts detonating and firing small fireballs off them and igniting nearby enemies on hit (as in proccing Heat status on them, damage would be low).

 

IMMOLATION

Oh boy, the reliance on just one ability in order to make others work is just... beyond me. It works on Gauss to some degree (that being said, like him), but not really on Ember. And not only that, but you also changed two augments for different abilities that are heavily relying on the Immolation. Which is basically two augments for one ability with different effects. Besides, Immolation doesn't even boost your Heat/Fire damage at all.

MICROMANAGEMENT OVERKILL and OTHER ABILITIES RELIANCE.

I swear, rather than tapping several buttons in order to make one ability *work* in order to kill enemies, I can just take my gun or now-insanely-good-melee and deal with them with no enery cost. And it they don't die, I just shoot a few more bullets that do the job. It seems to be a common issue with the newest warframes - too much work and actions among abilities to reach the same effect you'd have if you just tap & hold 'fire' button. Also, when did we move from 'synergies' that offer extra or altered effects to synergies that make abilities just work?

Next... Let's take a look at some DR abilities we have so far:

• Trinity has her 75% DR Link which will also transfer 100% of damage and status received to linked enemies. All it costs her is tapping one button every 20-30s.
• Mesa has a 90% DR ability which will also be deflecting projectiles. All it costs her is tapping one button every 20-30s.
• Revenant has his Mesmer Skin that completely protects him from damage and status while also converting the attackers. All it costs him is tapping one button every X-charges and you can even re-cast it!
• Equinox has a 50% DR based on distance. All it costs her is tapping one button.
• Mirage has light-adaptive Eclipse: DR for dark and Damage boost for light environment. All it costs her is tapping one button every 20-30s.
• Nova has Null Star which is capable of reaching a 90% DR with just enough duration. Again, just one button until the charges are depleted.
• Gara has her Splinters that not only grant her and allies a 90% DR, but also can be stacked as long as you have enery for a tremendous amount of damage capable of oneshotting enemies just by passing by.

And the list goes on and on.

Ember, on the other hand, has Immolation which really shows you what really stressful micromanagement is. And if there's nothing or no one to use Fire Blast at, you just have to use it - and it's a 75 energy points ability - in order to cool down. And this is the only ability that cools her down. Great. So if you don't have enough energy for Fire Blast, it's just easier to turn Immolation off, transference out and Void Dash away.

 

And let's take a look at the bigger picture.

Previous Ember:

• Reliance on Accelerant in order to let Ember kill enemies and CC.

Current Ember:

• Reliance on Immolation in order to let Ember not die / make Fireball being effective.

So why don't we just implement her Damage Reduction the way others already have it and focus on the fact that Ember's now struggling at CC-ing (all those pesky LoS requirements, duh), being a Damage Dealer she is supposed to be and her having synergy issues?

It's not like Ember wasn't among the first warframes to introduce pure DR abilities to begin with:

 There is literally no reason to reinvent the wheel 🤷‍♂️

 

Suggestions:

• Move Immolation to Ember's 3rd ability slot with 75 energy cost and Fire Blast to Ember's 2nd.
• Synergy with other abilities: Add (Heat-) Damage boost depending on the Immolation's state. At least it will make having insane energy drain fair.

 

FIRE BLAST

I have only 2 critical moments to point out:

1. LoS requirement for a temperature-based ability is really oof.
2. The lack of synergy with anything but Immolation feels odd. Stripping armor doesn't really count, I can strip armor with my weapons as well.

 

Suggestions:

• Honestly, I think using Inferno and then Fire Blast should help to spread Inferno's fire on ignited enemies, while also boosting Heat DoT. With Fireball, if you make it stick to surfaces, it could be resulting in an explosion which would make the firepatches spread out (similar to fire hazard and Hyekka Master's grenades) in a 10m area with a 100% chance to ignite enemies that step on it.
• Perhaps, make Fire Blast applying only to the same tile (no LoS check) you're in and LoS check if targets are in the connected room.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Thundervision
fixed some typos