(PC) Ember & Vauban Revisited Feedback

[Tatann]

9 minutes ago, MadFable said:

Wow, they really are just dropping this and letting Vauban sink back into the obscure aren't they?

I hope they're just concentrating all their efforts on the railjack, since it affects more players (and bring new ones)

I gave up on the idea of a quick Vauban 2.5 rework. I just hope these pages of feedback and ideas won't be lost if they ever have the time to come back on it in a few months. I'm still a bit disappointed though that we didn't get simple "hotfixes" (number tweaks). We sure got a (very) nice buff to Flechette, but nothing concerning survivability (armor buff duration/cap, base HP/armor readjustment)

[Tatann]

24 minutes ago, Ocerkin said:

of course not! they are working on vauban 2.0 as shown on devstream, an entirely new frame so they can make a new prime to sell us instead of putting the effort to make OG vauban worthwhile in the current game style that doesnt appreciate his style of CC

As long as we get a free Vauban skin for her... ^^

Also, being an engineer/gadgeteer doesn't make her Vauban 2.0. Just like elemental frames (Frost, Ember, Volt, Mag, ...) play differently, and the same could be said for melee frames, etc... 

 

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

Vauban is better imo, some abilities still feel underwhelming but overall i like him. People were reccomending that he be given some kind of barrier but they wanted it on the level of garas 4th which isnt my style, i crave difference/variety as much as possible, as long as it doesnt kill the fun

Soo for vauban i was thinking he could have his boost replaced with a wide, waist-height barrier. Crouch for cover, stand up to attack. Blocks enemy sight so you can use it to help you be stealthy. All in all im pleased with him

Now Ember!! 

She no longer dies quickly which is cool, and her Fourth looks epic, but her dying quickly and ability visuals was never my problem with ember.

My problem was how she fit into the damage output and energy drain compared to other warframes as whole, along with her low survivability. She had no upsides

What i like about the new ember:

- augments help with energy drain and health

- she has decent (temporary) survivability

- Visually appealing

What i dislike:

Simply put, shes too stressful to use in comparison to your average warframe.

- High energy drain

- Dangerous damage reduction ability requires you to watch it far too much

- Fourth looks cool but locks you in place

So, what would i do to her: 

- Bring her old fourth ability back. I may like the look of her new fourth, but her old 4th offered a style of gameplay to the game that made ember more unique. (Her old fourth felt like you were a fire, her new 1 feels like your a bomb or meteor)

- Lessin the energy drainage focus

Edited December 23, 2019 by (PS4)IIFrost_GhostII

[HankHuley]

Hello,

First thanks you for the new build of ember it's a long time asking work. And second i hate you for removing Word of Fire. 😭

 

If i choose to play ember it's for her damaging aura, i just love making damage all around me every second in battle, i don't even ask for being powerfull as long i can survive i justify my présence (and damage) by running and slashing thing everywhere with silva and aegis. (Style point very important)

 

So i have tried her new spell but... i must admit i don't understand this warframe anymore and I have the bad feeling that she pass to easy to play hard to master at hard to play impossible to master.

 

0) Rework her new passiv is what we needed but we lost one way to regen energy in battle and she drain even more than before.

Moreover 5% on enemie burned to a cap... what cap how many ? 10 % ? 20 % ? 50 % ? i don't even know how many ennemie i should try to burn for opti my frame.

 

1) Fireball is still useless as before even with combo or instant charge, i have a primary weapon for this and more faster and 0 energy cost !

2) Immolation : Why not ? But i fell it like is damn annoying to play, i look only the metter and not what i do in battle otherwise my energy will be hardly punished, but can be interesting for a full tank build (with ember ?! lol !)

3) Yes ? For control the ennemi... but that all. It's could be a perfect 1) spell by the way 😉

4) What is this ? Spreading fire could be funny yes (i love the idea !) But the duration is way to small even maxed and for maximise the damage you be forced to use spell 2). And the augment mod is... useless to my taste. 15%... save a slot and use survival mod instead.

So at the end if you want maximise you'r gameplay all around inferno you will do :

Press 2) wait an eternity for being full heat or spamming 4) for being full heat and start lost energi.

Take blue ball for +50 % press 4) near the enemie for having 0) maxed (if ennemi are not dead by the impact),

All of this for Take another blue ball for +50 % and making 4) this time maxed.

And remove 2) because you will have no more enegy...

 

All of this just for having a fire spread full power for 15 sec... only if the ennemie are not already dead, and only foward you.

 

Graphic is really nice and powerfull, but ... hey it's ember not cosmic warframe.

 

I think old 4) was way more better and way more suitable with Immolation and new 3)

 

If i can sugest something :

 

Move spell 3) to spell 1) and remove fireball.

For spell 2) start directly to 100% without energie drain and réduce every hit taken ans up again on time with energie drain until again 100% she will give her and her allies extra HP.

For spell 3) Spreading fire. I like it ! ❤️

4) World On Fire

 

Could be interesting to have 2 spell energy drain active in same time 2) + 4) + 1) for controle when needed and 3) for spreading even more fire usefull for maximise 0)

 

Like you can see i'm not english at all, so i apologies for you'r eyes.

Thank you for reading.

Edited December 23, 2019 by HankHuley

[SanityCzech]

Here's what I'd propose to improve Ember without significant changes to the abilities.

Heat Meter Changes:

1. Make the Heat Meter a passive

2. Starts at 50% each mission

3. Heat Meter increases when Ember takes damage (scaling based on damage received)

4. Heat Meter consumed a fixed percentage when Fireball, Fire Blast, and Inferno are used and boosts their damage

5. Heat Meter slowly decreases while Immolation is on

6. There's no penalty for having a full Heat Meter

Immolation:

1. Reduces damage based on Heat Meter (this also makes it harder to gain Heat because you're reducing higher damage)

2. Costs 50 energy, no additional energy drain

3. Slowly drains Heat Meter while active

4. Continues to reduce damage even if Heat Meter hits 0

Fireball, Fire Blast, and Inferno:

1. Consume X% (20%,for example) of Heat Meter on cast

2. Deal bonus damage % based on how high the Heat Meter is (higher heat = more damage)

3. Keep respective energy costs

Why: Most importantly, this removes the punishment mechanic of the Heat Meter. This turns Ember's ability balancing act into Frequency/Strength and Offense/Defense. Cast more weak abilities or cast fewer strong abilities. Turn on Immolation to tank or keep it off to deal more damage with the other abilities. The Heat Meter fuels Ember's retaliation either offensively or defensively.

Ways you can play Ember with this:

1. Tank - Immolation is always on but avoid using other abilities to keep Heat Meter as high as possible. High damage reduction.

2. DPS - Immolation is always off so the Heat Meter can be used to damage boost Fireball, Fire Blast, and Inferno. High damage.

3. Hybrid - Immolation is always on and Heat Meter is always low from casting. Low damage reduction and low damage.

Edited December 23, 2019 by SanityCzech

[Azrael_V]

On 2019-12-23 at 1:36 PM, Ocerkin said:

of course not! they are working on vauban 2.0 as shown on devstream, an entirely new frame so they can make a new prime to sell us instead of putting the effort to make OG vauban worthwhile in the current game style that doesnt appreciate his style of CC

Lol. Sad but true. 

[PotatoJias]

So are Vauban and Ember to be forgotten? 😞

[Tatann]

2 hours ago, PotatoJias said:

So are Vauban and Ember to be forgotten? 😞

Not forgotten, postponed...

There is a lot more urgent concerning railjack (bugfixes, tweaks, ...)

I still enjoy Vauban rework, especially due to the Flechette scaling damage, but I hope for more (survivability)

[Sace]

I was always intrigued by Vauban. Unfortunately, even after rework he is not usable without extremely hectic gameplay in the level range of 90+. No real defense and many enemies are immune to his CCs anyway.

Not sure if this was intentional but with this rework he is one of the worst Frames to farm Kuva Liches with. It is possible to beat lvl 110 Enemies but don't you dare forgetting to refresh Bastille Buff. Instant oneshot.

[PsiWarp]

Still waiting on the fix for Tether Coil and being able to throw Photon Strike further than a few meters away.

Techette Frame using balls also don't feel particularly encouraging.

[Acquire_Manatees]

Hello, I have not posted in a while, but I am back to add my closing remarks on Vauban's rework and the tweaks thus far.

Before the change to Flechette Orb, I maintained that there was functionally nothing that Vauban could do that any other Warframe could do significantly better. Now, this is absolutely not the case. I have done extensive testing in hour-long survival Arbitrations, Requiem Relic missions, and even Kuva Lich hunts. Vauban is now capable of dealing and maintaining obscene amounts of damage over a large area.

From the Wiki, the damage per nail is illustrated by the following example calculation: "With a maxed Intensify, an active Overdriver on Vauban himself, and an incapacitated enemy at level 101, Flechette Orb will deal 300<base damage> × (1 + 0.3)<intensify> × (1.0 + 0.25)<passive ability> × (1.0 + 0.325)<Overdriver + intensify> × (11)<Enemy Level Multiplier> = 7,105.313 Puncture damage per nail." This is already a significant amount of damage, but the nails can also deal critical hits and headshots. Further, increasing power strength increases not only the base damage of the nails, but the damage increase from Overdriver as well, resulting in an even more damage. Finally, concerning damage, The Orb's damage is counted as "weapon damage", so all other Warframe powers that buff allies' weapon damage (notably the recently updated augments for various elemental frames) and buffs to Critical chance/damage from Kavats, Harrow's Covenant, and Ivara's Dashwire with the "Empowered Quiver" augment all wildly increase the Orb's DPS.

The nails, as I have observed, fire in random directions. These nails can hit targets from an unmeasured but significant range. However, there is a 10 meter radius of "lock on" range which I did not notice before the change, as the damage from the Orbs was negligible to the point of irrelevancy. Once inside this 10 meter radius, the Orb will track targets (including Nullifier Crewmen with an active shield), pelting them with a barrage of nails at a consistent rate, but seemingly chooses a target at random from within the range of the orb. Every single nail deals a potentially lethal amount of damage, on top of staggering tougher enemies that are not instantly liquefied. This creates, effectively, an incredibly powerful area-denial/farming tool. The surface area in question is (10m^2*3.142)*4 or ~1257 square meters when all four orbs are active. This 10 meter radius is NOT affected by power range, so using Narrow Minded in an updated build is a much more favorable option than was prior, noting that the extreme increase in ability duration increases the base 25 second duration of Flechette Orb (and Overdriver) to nearly a full minute, which means more potential DPS/Energy cost and far less ability micromanagement.

Tether grenade now has a practical use, as its 2-tether limit can be bypassed by repeatedly killing whatever is attached to the tether. Flechette Orb kills enemies that are attached to the Tether, allowing more enemies to be tethered, disabled, and killed. Tether's pull strength, however, needs a buff. I find that when tethered, some enemies will simply fall over without being pulled anywhere close to the Tether grenade, or get stuck on small terrain. I'd like it to be a firm yank rather than a gentle pull, at least until within the boundary of 10 meters.

The change to Flechette allowed Vauban so much more flexibility and utility than he had previously, as more diverse build options were suddenly made available and useful by this change. Vauban can now do things that other Warframes can't do, and he can do them very well. (Max-range vortex is still viable and hilarious, but extremely effective at dealing with railjack enemies, disabling entire crews and allowing a safe, calm environment to detonate a reactor/ delete a boarding party.)

To say that I am happy with this change is an understatement. Is Vauban now a viable Warframe in the current meta? Absolutely. Are further improvements required to make Vauban a fantastic S-tier that can sit at the same table as Wukong/Saryn/Chroma/Trinity? yes. Can it wait? yes. Fix Railjack and Hydroid first.

The "tech frame" that had its idle animations advertised on the last devstream has nothing to do with Vauban, and unless it has a bigger, better Flechette Orb, I doubt it will "replace" him.

To end on a note of constructive criticism, I don't think Vauban needs his first ability, a tiny fuse on photon strike, or such a short duration on the armor buff from Bastille. Two of these issues can be fixed in less than three minutes.

This will likely be my final post on this subject, I hope I covered all of the bases. Happy New Year, everyone. I wish good fortune to you and your families.

Thank you for your consideration,

-Manatees

 

[Sace]

I do love his abilities but his survivability, jesus. They could rather tone down his abilities and instead make him sturdier. It just can't be that he is literally oneshot down with Vitality and Umbral Armor Mods.

I just got insta-downed upon entering crewship a fraction of a second after the landing animation ended because a random trashmob from across the cargo room fired 1 bullet from his machine gun. Same goes for my lvl5 toxic lich. 1 hit with his overload ability usually results in death. Maybe up his Armor to 150/200 to at least give us the chance to make him two-hit.

Other than this, is abilities are absolutely topnotch. Not really using his photon strike because the casting animation paired with the short range makes it more viable to just kill everything in Bastille with sword. Same goes for the Nervos. They are a little distraction to enemies which helps survive a bit longer. Sadly, they do no damage and while their CC is okay, they tend to gang up on one enemy instead of spreading out CCing more enemies.

Flechette Orb is absolutely nuts and having one of those inside of a Vortex which is inside of a Bastille gives you the bestest meatgrinder in existence.

[Tatann]

9 minutes ago, Sace said:

I do love his abilities but his survivability, jesus. They could rather tone down his abilities and instead make him sturdier. It just can't be that he is literally oneshot down with Vitality and Umbral Armor Mods.

I just got insta-downed upon entering crewship a fraction of a second after the landing animation ended because a random trashmob from across the cargo room fired 1 bullet from his machine gun. Same goes for my lvl5 toxic lich. 1 hit with his overload ability usually results in death. Maybe up his Armor to 150/200 to at least give us the chance to make him two-hit.

Other than this, is abilities are absolutely topnotch. Not really using his photon strike because the casting animation paired with the short range makes it more viable to just kill everything in Bastille with sword. Same goes for the Nervos. They are a little distraction to enemies which helps survive a bit longer. Sadly, they do no damage and while their CC is okay, they tend to gang up on one enemy instead of spreading out CCing more enemies.

Flechette Orb is absolutely nuts and having one of those inside of a Vortex which is inside of a Bastille gives you the bestest meatgrinder in existence.

I agree about his survivability issue, but putting Umbral Fiber on him currently is useless, it doesn't even affect the armor buff from Bastille (nor does ability strength :'( ). You'd be better with Primed Vigor and Adaptation (but in your case, nothing would have worked against a OHK at start of mission)

Like you said they need to buff his armor to at least 200, giving him 375 HP wouldn't hurt either, and/or tweaking the armor buff (make it scale with strength, and give it a real duration, not 10 seconds)

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

Still waiting for DE to address the existing feedback, God forbid it goes into oblivion because of all the eyes on RJ

[(PSN)ToXiC_Phantomzzz]

Ok fun but fix the damn bug of an infinite circle DE it's been going on for over a year now!

[(PSN)Korgahn_]

I tried Ember after the rework and I feel she's less suitable for rushing enemies.

I enjoyed Flash Accelerant a lot for the boost  of fire damage it gaves you ON you and ON the enemies. It really felt like you were spreading fire.

WOF was fine to me.

At least, bring back Flash Accelerant mechanic and its augment. It was very useful (with an Ignis, Dual Basolk, Aegis...)

 

[Fluff_Dumpster]

I'll add my opinion to the ocean of responses too i guess.

I felt like Bastille's armor stripping was a waste of time. Ragdolling enemies can't hurt you, so armor gain is pointless outside of Arbitrations. I took him in with the 300% buff and still struggled. Maxing out duration still left me struggling to maintain suitability while running vazarin even. I would really like to see the armor put somewhere other than bastille, seeing as we'll all be using vortex mainly anyway.

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Fahux

[Tatann]

8 hours ago, Fahux said:

I'll add my opinion to the ocean of responses too i guess.

I felt like Bastille's armor stripping was a waste of time. Ragdolling enemies can't hurt you, so armor gain is pointless outside of Arbitrations. I took him in with the 300% buff and still struggled. Maxing out duration still left me struggling to maintain suitability while running vazarin even. I would really like to see the armor put somewhere other than bastille, seeing as we'll all be using vortex mainly anyway.

 

I think armor buff on Bastille is fine, but should cap at 1500 like Atlas/Wukong, not 1000. Also the buff duration should greatly be increased (2x or 3x).

I prefer Bastille to Vortex (more control, less chaos), but I feel Vortex should provide a defensive buff like Bastille does.

Since it deals magnetic, I think it should provide shield (and overshield) to allies within range (Harrow and Hildryn would appreciate it). Something like 30-40 shield per enemy per second, considering the basic overshield cap is 1200 (unless you're Harrow), with 5 enemies affected by Vortex (which is very easy to reach), you'd cap your overshield in a matter of seconds and gain a 150-200 shield regen per second, which feels like a 80 HP/s heal on Oberon (with the armor buff of Oberon's 2 providing at least 50% DR).

I know HP/armor is better than shield, but with Adaptation shiels have become okish, and could provide a quick boost to EHP (and a sort of shield healing as long as you stay in range).

Also overshield has no duration, so it could provide a decent layer of protection while you're moving from a defense point to another.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Tatann

[(PSN)Absoluteboxer]

On 2020-01-06 at 5:17 AM, Tatann said:

I think armor buff on Bastille is fine, but should cap at 1500 like Atlas/Wukong, not 1000. Also the buff duration should greatly be increased (2x or 3x).

I prefer Bastille to Vortex (more control, less chaos), but I feel Vortex should provide a defensive buff like Bastille does.

Since it deals magnetic, I think it should provide shield (and overshield) to allies within range (Harrow and Hildryn would appreciate it). Something like 30-40 shield per enemy per second, considering the basic overshield cap is 1200 (unless you're Harrow), with 5 enemies affected by Vortex (which is very easy to reach), you'd cap your overshield in a matter of seconds and gain a 150-200 shield regen per second, which feels like a 80 HP/s heal on Oberon (with the armor buff of Oberon's 2 providing at least 50% DR).

I know HP/armor is better than shield, but with Adaptation shiels have become okish, and could provide a quick boost to EHP (and a sort of shield healing as long as you stay in range).

Also overshield has no duration, so it could provide a decent layer of protection while you're moving from a defense point to another.

That's a great idea

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

Why did the lingering napalm left behind by Ember's fireball get removed? It was really cool.

[Snowpoint-Prime]

Ember Rework --- Never played the OG Ember, but here are my thoughts. 

1. People liked World on Fire. The Max Heat Punishment feels like the same idea... if it actually did damage. With the old WOF, you press 4 and everything passively died. What if the meter, when maxed, would drain Heat AND Energy until heat reaches bottom of meter, deactivating Immolation. During that limited time, World on Fire is active. This would drain all your heat, but not ALL of your energy. Energy Drain would go down with effeciency. The Heat Drain would slow down with Duration, makeing the AOE last Longer, but drain more energy. Mods would scale so you could build into making the AoE last as long as possible.

         That way the new gameplay loop is: Activate Immolation -> Build Meter -> Burnout -> Reactive Immolation.

2. Fireball does nothing. Meteors lock-on, no aim, and cost less than Fireball spam. Make Fireball leave flaming motes on the ground to lock-down objectives. Give her something to do on Defense Nodes, and makes it play differently than the meteors.

3. Fireblast cost works at max efficiency... so just tweek the cost a bit. 

4. Make the knock-down on Fireblast last just a little longer. It's like they snap back instantly. Do they run Handspring?

[PsiWarp]

5 hours ago, (XB1)Erudite Prime said:

Why did the lingering napalm left behind by Ember's fireball get removed? It was really cool.

Agreed. I suspect it's because they want us to spam Fireball for its combo damage, so leaving dozens of fires around would strain game performance.

[Tatann]

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1160497-empyrean-ivara-prime-2709/

CTRL+F "Vauban"

 

...

 

😭

[(NSW)ohgodzilla]

After having some time to work with the new Ember after being one of the few people trying their hardest to succeed with old Ember, I just wanted to toss in my feedback on her rework. I honestly feel like the team absolutely nailed this rework. Her new kit is challenging, versatile, and incredibly fun to play. I have put 6 forma into her, including an Umbral because I've been enjoying her so much. 

I have a high efficiency, high strength, low duration build, with the energy orb augment for Inferno and Energy Conversion. Essentially a nuke build with some support from her light CC, armor stripping, and energy generation.

This results in a lot of Inferno spam, mixed in with Fireblast to keep the heat gauge under control. She feels decently tough against level 100's but I wouldn't take her into an arbitration because if you forget to watch your energy and lose your 2 she'll drop. Her damage output is fantastic and she can be quite tanky with her 2 up and enemies CC'd from fire procs. At first I was skeptical about losing World on Fire, but Inferno feels much more active and satisfying (walking into a room and dropping a meteor on it feels so good). I even use fireball sometimes when I want to proc more heat for her passive buff before dropping a nuke. It's a very active kit (with this build) and I find I can go through an entire mission only firing my guns once or twice (to take out a Nox or something usually). 

I like that she can be built as a tank now too. I've seen a lot of people running that kind of build. Her augments also let you decide what degree of support abilities you want to bring to the team (if any). 

Anyways, long story short, she's great. I invested into her and she's easily one of my new favorites as her playstyle and kit is extremely satisfying and fun to run missions with. 

Thanks!

[Potatrobot]

Ember's new kit works together incredibly well, with the exception of the general flow of the gameplay loop. The problem stems, I feel, from the way her 1st and 4th abilities speed up her heat gauge. Because after you've used those abilities (which I'll wager you will), you have three options:

• Spam Fire Blast to not only deplete the gauge, but slow its growth, at a massive energy cost.
• Drop her Immolation and recast it for a fresh start, hoping nobody shoots you during this time.
• Get caught with a full gauge, run out of energy so you can't Fire Blast, and get left with neither energy nor armour.

It's not a great situation. Daring to use her best damage-dealing abilities will constantly haunt you until you reset her Immolation ability because your meter is constantly growing at an increasing rate. And you're supposed to use those abilities in quick succession and in conjunction with her Immolation ability; why else would they scale off it?

I believe this can be improved with a new minor changes:

1. Fire Ball and Inferno don't speed up the gauge's growth, but just add a flat percentage to the gauge when they are cast. They still build on the gauge, but only when you use them.
2. Fire Blast does not slow the gauge's growth. Ergo, the gauge's passive growth is constant.
3. Fire Blast's energy cost decreases the more the heat gauge fills. It shouldn't take more energy to release a build-up of heat.
4. Fire Blast gives us a finer degree of control over how much it depletes the heat gauge. Tap for a small discharge, hold for a larger one.

These changes should help Ember's gameplay loop flow better. At the moment, engaging with all of her abilities punishes ability use. You can use her 1st, 3rd and 4th on their own, but if you want to use her 2nd, you're going to fall into a cycle of trying desperately to manage her heat gauge before invariably losing all your energy, the flame armour, or both. With greater control over the heat gauge, we can make decisions based on which powers are needed to fight enemies, not which ones are needed to fight the heat gauge.

I know there are specialised builds that can compensate for the energy costs, but specialised builds should only be for specialised gameplay, not sustaining the default one with all-rounder stats.

Thank you for reading.