(PC) Ember & Vauban Revisited Feedback

[LSG501]

Opinions on Ember Rework

Honestly I kind of wish DE had done this in two stages rather than all in one go.  The main improvement to ember isn't even anything to do with ember, it's the change to the fire proc and imo this change could have dealt with a majority of the issues that the old ember had when it came to scaing for higher tier content. 

As to the latest ember rework...

Passive.. honestly it feels about as useful as the old one.

FIREBALL - Basically can we have the previous one back... that left a big 'blob' of fire after it hit something so we could maybe catch a few enemies as they go through it.  The combo duration is stupidly short too, especially with the 'relatively' long cast time. 

IMMOLATION (replacing Accelerant) - Absolutely hate micromanagement abilities which is made even worse by us needing to use energy to keep it under control.... it is an incredibly energy hungry ability that is essentially no better than most 90% damage reduction abilities that have a one time cost.  It just seems completely unnecessary to have a design like it does at this moment considering other frames. 

FIRE BLAST - This is literally a nerf....can we get the old one back again where we had a duration based ring of fire which also added fire damage to our weapons.  Essentially this has kept the push back of the old one but took away most of it's damage ability AND the ring which allowed us to add fire damage to our weapons when we fired through it... considering how little it actually does it shouldn't really be 75 energy at stock.

INFERNO (replacing World On Fire) - Honestly I had no issue with the old world on fire apart from the lack of scaling and the way the range nerfed it's augment firequake, the former could have likely have been fixed with the fire proc change.... 

Inferno is rather energy hungry (actually the entire kit is far too hungry on energy), has issues with line of sight (as usual with most abilities and weapons) and imo doesn't actually scale that well because ot it being a fixed damage output instead of a scaling output  (why can't DE make their minds up...)  The 'passive' of the ability to pass fire onto other enemies is basically pretty useless because most enemies just stay away from enemies that are on fire.  Honestly would have preferred this to be a 360 degree ability too but doubt that will happen seeing as you took it away from ash. 

I literally could not see anything other than visual affects when trying it on hildryn and the attacks were all clustered in a small area.... never had this issue with the old ability but sadly this seems to be a trait of the design process these days where DE is focusing on 'shiny things' that appeal to the newbies rather than considering how it will actually affect game play. 

Still seems to take our energy even if we don't hit anything... can we at least get the same treatment as ash's bladestorm on this...

I noticed how similar this ability is to hydroids tentacles in it's approach to attacking enemies but it actually lacks the 'scaling area' aspect that was given to hydroid in his mini rework... 

 

GENERAL BITS - excessively high energy use primarily due to immolation, no one area we can sacrifice in a build meaning compromised build(s), some of the animation times are just too long and break the flow of movement etc too.

Honestly can't see me using her much now, she's worse on low levels due to no world on fire and imo doesn't scale well enough considering the energy cost for high level....

[Hekkatos]

the Vauban rework is just a sidegrade. there is really nothing special or interesting about it.
can we please just get the sentinel turret for Vauban that players actually want instead of tying to push the minelayer ability that is 75% useless. the speed pad is just a gimmick for meme videos. Bastille may as well be removed as vortex is objectively better.
give him a sentinel and give him an augment that networks it to other sentinels in the squad to boost his ability range.

[The-Enlightened-Doge]

Vauban:

1) Tesla Nervos 

Overall a very decent upgrade. The 50% status chance is pretty annoying though. I've noticed multiple times, after throwing all 4 at a group larger of at least 5, some enemies don't get cc'd. Plus the fact electric procs cannot apply before the previous is proc is gone doesn't help.

The augment is very useful and kinda makes Vauban's 3 useless.

 

2) Minelayer

Flechette Orb - hilariously bad damage.

Vector Pad - Useless outside of interception or specific rooms in Kuva Survival and some other tiles. I tried using it for mobility but by the time it finally deployed I was already Infront of it. I feel like you tried to dress up Bounce Pad to protect it from the mob trying to lynch it. DE, please let it die.

Tether coil - The 2 enemies cap is the only thing killing this one. Remove the cap, increase the cap(at least 5 imo) or just make it scale with power strength. I think the first option won't be too overpowered but the others are a good option too.

Overdrive - Damage buff. Feels a bit low but a buff is a buff.

Overall: Minelayer has 1 useful "mine". Remove or buff flechette and tether and delete boost pad. Vauban has 2.5 other abilities that can do it's job in the specific areas where it can be used. Want a suggestion for a replacement? Maybe some sort of survivability thing? Vauban really needs survivability.

3) Photon Strike

That charge up time.... It feels like I can go make a coffee, drink it, go throw up because I'm S#&$ at coffee making, and the bloody strike still won't be done charging up.

The damage is nice.

Though absolutely useless on high levels with armourd enemies. By the time you finally strip their armour, collapse the Bastille into a vortex, throw the strike out and wait for the charge up you could've just... Shot them? Not to mention the Nervos augment can out preforms Photon strike in both speed and damage.

The augment is nice though for some reason it takes a second to realize I hit 5 enemies.

4) Bastille

The combination of Bastille and Vortex is pretty neat. However, in my opinion, the armour stripping takes too much time and the armour buff gained is a bit too short if you aren't planning on camping.

5) Animations

The new animations are cool. Photon Strike's and Bastille's specifically are absolutely awesome. However, they are waaaay too long.

For a frame with only one way to gain some survivability, and quite a slow way that is, leaving Vauban open for so long is just begging for a bombard's rocket up the bum. Plus Natural talent being mandatory doesn't help Vauban's mods real-estate. Especially with the new augments.

6) Survivability

While the 1000 armour buff from Bastille is nice it takes a long time to fully apply and a good location to camp in.

Imagine starting a tier 5 fissure Kuva survival mission. You hack the console and start running towards the first life support capsule. On your way there you encounter a few enemies.

Do you:

a. Drop a nervos

b. Charge a nervos and then drop it.

c. Throw Tether coil

d. Throw bastille

e. Die

All of those options have some significant downsides.

a. Has a 50% chace of not cc-ing the enemies.

b. Takes time if you dont have NT on and in the mean time you'll get a crush course on how to become swiss cheese

c. Tether coil cap

d. Most of your energy is gone and you have to stay here to get the most out of the invested energy while your objective is on the other side of the map.

e. I don't think I need to explain the downside here

 

Vauban needs some way to keep himself safe.A And trying to catch a group of enemies in Bastille at the beginning of every mission for the armour buff and then casting Bastille every 20 (if I remember correctly) or so seconds to keep it up is not exactly the best way to do it. The energy drain alone will make it impossible for Vauban to play in a mobile way and cast anything but Bastille.

Give Vauban sometimes else or something more. I saw a suggestion to replace one of minelayer's grenades with a damage reflecting drone which will block damage around Vauban. Or alternatively a shield like a frost bubble but tech-y to fit Vauban's style.

[ShiftSlice]

Could flechette orb possibly get some more range and less constant firing, the noise is rather irritating but overall I love the update good work!

[Tromeo]

wow Ember is amazing!

no longer a fragile frame! AoE armor stripping Team player ability! shes no longer a lazy farm frame! End game ready 💖

Please no tweak/change!

Immolation drain 4 life! Big D R!

[Sohaya-]

I haven't played around with Ember yet but I will say this: based on all the videos I've seen, please tone down the FX. It's so much worse than the occasional Staticor player, bordering on mirage simulor levels of eye torture. Same goes for Orbital Strike; it;s way too flashy as well.

VAUBAN (I leveled dude up farming liches. I think I've got a good idea of what he's lacking.)

Tesla: Good. Maybe a few more charges at base, but still a decent change. Tesla Bank is pretty balanced from what I've seen being somewhat limited by Tesla charges and weapon damage.

Minelayer. Not worth the two handed casting animation.

Tether Mine feels like it does nothing at all. Seriously, it looks wimpy compared to, say, Magus Lockdown, and it is wimpy (2 enemies over a long range.) I'd increase the cap so it feels like it does something, but at the moment it feels like nothing happens when I drop this. I can't even see the point of using this ability with its very limited CC.

Flechette orb does mediocre damage, and is limited by enemy bodies. With Photon Strike and Tesla Bank and Bastille existing I don't see the point of this ability. Make it pop nullifier bubbles? Apply some other form of CC? At any rate it suffers against large mobs of enemies ironically.

Vector pad does jack diddly squat, it's not even good for mobility with the momentum it provides. At least Flechette Orb stacks can take down mobs attempting to take consoles with ease; this doesn't even do that well. This is a literal meme and memes are not abilities.

Overdriver is a basic damage buff and doesn't need any changes.

Bastille and Photon Strike cast animations feel too slow in the air without Natural Talent.  Photon Strike also takes far too long to detonate - it needs to be cut down, because by the time it hits the mobs are most likely dead. I've had large groups decimated by teammates or move away as the ability charges, which isn't really nice. Also somewhat outclassed by Tesla Bank. It also seems to charge while in the air - if the charge time were shortened enough, this can get annoying. I'd say let it start charging when it hits as a balancing mechanic. To counter the mob movement issue without ruining Bastilles right now the strike could latch onto enemies.

Being unable to deploy a vortex without getting rid of my armor buff is extremely irritating; vortex really needs to be a double-tap or something. The armor buff also feels rather insubstantial; having it be affected by positive strength/have a lower limit would be nice, but it also takes a while to generate during which any unit outside the Bastille will murderise you. Maybe have an initial armor buff?

I find that Bastille also eats through significant amounts of energy. YES, the extra cast cost hurts even with 170% efficiency. Lower it to 75 energy like Photon Strike? Give small passive energy regeneration? idk but it feels like it costs too much.

That's all.

Edited November 4, 2019 by RWBY-WhiteRose

[Hypernaut1]

My Ember feedback

Fireball- give us the napalm effect back. Other than that, feels like a standard 1. I dont hate it as others do and do actually use it often. It had far more utility when it provided cc though. 

Immolation - Personally, feels boring to me. I think it should have some added effects, like a damage aura, for the energy drain it has when maxed. Simply toggling the ability off should proved a cooling off without starting completely over. Using fireblast should be an advantage not a necessity when its at 90%. It could  synergize with fireblast to give it added effects when used at max- like an explosion. 

Fireblast - give us the ring of fire that increases weapon damage and a bit of cc back. 

Inferno - i would've preferred flames erupting from ground instead of meteors, but its still fun to use. 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Hypernaut1

[Askorti]

My current thoughts on Ember after playing with her quite a bit since the patch:

Bothersome. Engaging, but bothersome. And horribly repetitive. Right now her gameplay boils down to putting on immolation, spamming 4, and using 3 to cool off, spamming 4, cooling off, spamming 4 some more, and cooling off. And the more you spam 4, which is your ONLY viable offensive ability, the more you're forced to use 3 to cool off. What's more, using 4 will accelerate your heat build up even if there are no enemies to target and you use no energy on it... Which forces you to spend energy on cooling off... (or turning off immolation)

Which leads me to the next point: energy management. My pre-rework build was rendered non-viable because of the changes(which is perfectly fine), so I decided to change things up and focus more on efficiency. And believe me, without high efficiency your ember is likely to struggle a lot. And why? Because of an annoying meter that punishes you for using your abilities. An annoying meter that is counterproductive, because it gives you survivability at high levels, but forces you to relinquish said protection to stop hemorrhaging energy like crazy.

Next thing is, both 3 and 4 are unreliable due to their LoS nature. In Warframe there's generally a lot of obstacles all around the maps, so there's a very high chance that some enemies, even when they're close by, will remain unaffected by your abilities. Saryn doesn't have such restrictions, despite being a much, much more deadly frame.

So at the end of the day playing ember turned from a leisurely activity with WoF and accelerant, with the occasional fire blast for fun, into a lot of spamming of a single ability(Is that really better than just toggling a single ability on?) and babysitting an annoying meter that actively tries to kill you in more ways than one with another...

It's somewhat fun, but it could be so much better.

 

Edit: I'd also like to repeat the ideas that have been posted before, and that I believe would be great: Make immolation into a passive, make it have a 100% max heat (so that there's a buffer between a max usability at 90% and it starting to dram energy) and give us a WoF when it reaches 100%. And do NOT have it ramp up its drain over time nearly as much as it does now, because if you don't cool off within a few seconds it starts becoming ridiculous.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Askorti

[Panser_Nes]

Vauban rework feedback:

 

Like:

Tesla Nervos: overall a good ability with a good augment. Would feel amazing if their AI was improved to prefer non-cc'd enemies and keep following you as you moved around in the mission.

Overdriver: more damage. Straight up and to the point.

Bastille: Strips armor and gives armor. Overall this could just be number tuned and it would be a good ability.

Passive: Stayed the same.

 

Dislike:

Flechette: Pointless, redundant. Takes a second of my time everytime i cycle to Overdriver.

Horizontal bounce: See above.

Tether: See above, but could be useful with a much higher target cap.

Orbital Strike: The damage is ok. When you have enemies grouped up I can think of at least 200 other ways in which i can dispatch them faster and safer. I don't see the point of this ability.

Bastille and Vortex together: Sounds good at first, when the vortex triggers you are reminded to refresh your Bastille. Then for some reason now a bunch of enemies are right on top of you even though you never wanted to cast vortex. Enemies below the defense point are grabbed to the roof, even though you never casted Vortex. I wanted to quickly grab up a bunch of enemies to dispatch them. I throw bastille, wait for animation. Hold to make a vortex, aand shoot, and my teammates killed them all. These 2 abilities do not work as one.

Building Vauban: Is more painful now, more than ever. Vauban needs a lot of Duration. A lot of Range, and maintain a healthy amount of strength and efficiency. The rework reinforced the need to always cast abilities by not granting him tankiness or buffing base durations, so some efficiency is needed. Range on Bastille is paramount to not get gunned down. Unless camping in a deadend, is this the gameplay you want to reinforce, DE? Strength is needed to have a healthy target cap on bastille and keep the armor strip at a decently fast pace.

 

What was Vauban good at?

Quickly locking down a map. Always being able to use abilities, regardless of situation. Holding down a defensive position.

What was Vauban bad at?

Staying alive. Vauban needs to quickly react to any situation in order to not poof, and with all these new fancy cc immune enemies this task of staying alive gets worse and worse every day.

 

What of the above 2 points did the rework address?

It made Vauban slower at locking down the map with an intensely long cast time. It made it harder for Vauban to precisely choose how to cc enemies. Deleted concuss, made vortex cast and hold. Bastille have a long cast time. It made it way harder for Vauban to react to situations being now unable to cast vortex/bastille while maintaining fire.

 

A lot of the things I like about the rework is 'remedied' by the long cast times, the absurd requirements for mod spaces, tesla AI, and more cc immune enemies.

A lot of the things i dislike about the rework can be adressed with simple number tuning.

 

In summary, 2 things:

Give Vauban Survivability.

Shorten the cast times and Vauban should always be able to shoot/reload and cast at the same time regardless of what situation he is in (flying, jumping, shooting, running).

In the meantime I have shelved my main for many years. Picking up Rhino so I can braindeadly stomp cc immune enemies to death with fisticuffs. Which is actually kind of fun, not gonna lie.

[Camberwell]

can we get little blue dots on the minimap to indicate were the tesla nervos are please?

thanks

[Teridax68]

TL;DR: I'm disappointed by both reworks. While both improve upon the original frame, they only do so because the originals were in such a dismal state, and I think fail to actually make either frame truly enjoyable and desirable to use by their own merits. I also question the longevity of their design, as some of their mechanics are band-aids against dysfunctional enemy scaling.

Ember:

• The passive sounds like a good idea on paper, but in practice requires enemies to be alive for any amount of time, which doesn't happen that much given that Ember's kit is now also mostly line-of-sight-based, and thus will have her or an ally kill those enemies in moments. Even when it does take effect, the increase in power does not appear to be significant enough to meaningfully speed up her killing time.
• Fireball is even more redundant than before, given that Ember's new 4 is quicker, more damaging, and cheaper per enemy. I do not understand why the charge mechanic was kept either, seeing how unpopular it is.
• Immolation is a whole lot of busywork with little apparent payoff, given that descending to 70% damage reduction still leaves Ember significantly vulnerable. The entire system feels like it distracts more from gameplay than it adds to it, and its only real consequence upon gameplay in the end is that it makes the player cast 3 just to dump Heat.
• The new Fire Blast does not at all feel like an ability that stands on its own merits. In most cases, it's just a Heat dump button for 75 Energy, as its damage is poor, its knockback is often undesirable, and its armor shred is inconsistent due to its line-of-sight restrictions, as well as situational.
• Inferno manages to be more restrictive than World on Fire, yet not that much more interactive, as the ability is just a button press for near-instant auto-targeted damage. Its ring of fire feels useless, given that the player is encouraged to spam the ability for its instant damage, and the ability itself prevents enemies from moving and spreading the flame.

Overall, the new Ember feels overly spammy and ultimately fairly shallow, all for a set of contributions that has had its crowd control pared down to the point of becoming essentially an inferior Saryn. I don't quite see how Ember is meant to stand out here, or how she's supposed to be durably fun to play once the novelty of Immolate's resource management and Inferno's meteor GFX fade.

Vauban:

• Vauban's new and prolonged casting animations feel clunky, with the upper-body cast animation on his 3 being the worst offender (it feels particularly awkward when casting from the air).
• Tesla Nervos feel almost worse than the original Tesla, as they latch onto the first enemy they find, don't let go, and move far too slowly relative to the player. Put together, this means that casting the ability will have the player lose their Teslas to random mooks as they move around, at best wasting the ability in more mobile missions, and at worst accidentally stalling by leaving some immobile stragglers in Defense missions.
• As many players had predicted, Minelayer only offers a single useful ability, which also happens to be its most boring one, namely the damage amp. The tether grenade is redundant relative to Bastille/Vortex, the boost pad is even less useful than Bounce (and Bounce was an awful and trollish ability), and the nail turret's damage is too weak to use in higher-level missions. Additionally, throwing a damage amp grenade while affected by its buff consumes the grenade without refreshing the buff, which feels wrong.
• Photon Strike is unusably slow. The delay is so large even high-level enemies are likely to have died by then, and even if they hadn't, the abysmal damage on it would likely have no meaningful effect.
• Vortex has ceased to be especially desirable for quite some time, and the armor shred over time is very slow, requiring high Strength to exceed the power of a Corrosive proc. As a result, it feels like the only impact of the shift here has been to make Bastille more expensive by 25 Energy.

Honestly, I'm very surprised Vauban's rework made it in its current shape, because the entire kit just feels so disconnected from Warframe. Only two of his seven or so abilities feel worth using, and even then, they're not exceptional when compared to what many other frames can do. It does not feel like Vauban has been improved by all that much, and he needed some serious improvement.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Teridax68

[Tatann]

Haven't tried Ember but spent the whole 3 days playing Vauban so...

1) Tesla Nervos :

- speed should be affected by ability range

- each Tesla should seek out different "un-CCed" enemies

- augment explosion range should be affected by ability range 

- augment sometimes failed to work when not hosting (but servers were not in great shape last weekend)

2.1) Tether : number of enemies caught should be at least affected by ability strength

2.2) Flechette : I'm one the few that actually like it a bit, but :

- should be aiming enemies, not randomly shooting

- range should be apparent on the ground (like Wisp's 1)

- sound and visuals is annoying, due to the fact it's always randomly shooting (even when bo enemies)

2.3) Vauban needs survivability, Bastille's armor is something but anything else is better than this horizontal bounce (temporary DR, overshield, heal, ...)

2.4) Overdriver : it needs to refresh timer when recasted, and it should apply to every allies in range 

3) Too freakin slow, and too much energy for something that can be done by a shotgun blast

Overall Vauban ability costs should be 25/25/50/75. His stats (health, shield, ...) are very basic, he should have at least one positive 

4) Overall nice, but :

- armor buff should grow faster cause allies shoot enemies so fast 

- armor buff duration outside of Bastille should be increased, at least doubled (like Wisp's 1 once again)

- debuff should apply to shields too (same %/sec as armor)

- even if the ability is better than before, the cost shouldn't have increased. 

 

Overall I spent a nice time playing this new Vauban, but it still needs some tweaks, and the replacement of the vector pad by some survivability

[SloppySlopster]

While we're here can we make Ember's Immolated Radiance to affect companions also and make Ember's Fireball combo affect Fireball Frenzy to?

Edited November 4, 2019 by lRipperonis
More suggestions my dudes.

[Citan666]

Soooo apparently I completely posted my feedback in the wrong thread. XD

I don't want to copy / paste the (big) blobs of text I put there and possibly force people to reread everything, so I'll instead put links to full version and a summary here.

Vauban's feedback

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1132197-vauban-ember-dev-workshop/?do=findComment&comment=11128851

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1132197-vauban-ember-dev-workshop/?do=findComment&comment=11129088

In short

Many changes miss the mark. Vauban's problem was not that his abilities were useless in concept, simply that they were usually too costly or situational to feel interesting to use.

1. Nevros vs Tesla: huge nerf: Nevros are useless: only 4 max, all tend to aggro same enemy, their speed is ridiculously slow, the syndicate mod feels useless. Put back Tesla, make the "100% proc chance if charged" clearer, slightly buff discharge frequency, make strength affect base proc chance, done.

2. Minelayer:
- Trip Laser: ok, can be forgot about (was nice but insufficient by itself).
- Bounce just needed to be duration based... FYI, Vector one can be easily as trollesque so you don't resolve the "problem" (if it really existed). Vector is more usable for chokepoint/interception protection (= against enemies), but is overall useless for frames: horizontal speed is rarely a problem. Plus the time to cast makes it a net loss in some occasions. Vertical buff was insanely useful at times (quick evade, facilitating some puzzles, protecting interception points).
---> Bring back Bounce plz make it duration-based too, not necessarily removing Vector: after all why choose, both have different uses.
- Flechette: I like this idea of "moderate cost independant AOE", but damage is largely insufficient for the cost. Buff damage or add some effect.
- Tether: USELESS. 2 enemies max is absolutely ridiculous. Make it 4 at least, count buffed by STR.
- Concuss: was very useful, just impractical because different ranges: you just needed to harmonize range, buff damage a bit, highlight the radiation proc, make it affected by duration.
- Shred: same, just needed the armor strip to be either lower but permanent, or higher and longer duration, both cases affected by STR.
- "Damage buff": well, it's useful, it's nice, but it only affects weapon damage, and it feels like a borrow of other frames, out of sync from Vauban's essence.

3. Big ray: useless: high damage is irrelevant if you're killed before it lands because cast time, or because enemies went through already. In other words, when you can empower an ability with another, it's good design. When you NEED an ability to make another work (like in this case, Vortex before Ray), it's bad design.

4. Bastille+Vortex: was a bit puzzled at first, but that's a very good change overall.

General bits

Vauban abilities are even more difficult to use with that cast time. Furthermore, the annoyance of having an unreliable way to select a mine and having to hold to throw one, or not, depending on which ability to use, is still here.

Guys, plz, learn from your UX past experiences!

a) "Simple tap" should be to cast mines, not choose it!
b) You should give an actual indication as to which mine is selected: paying attention to a small pool of pixels in a screen bottom is VERY impractical when in heated action (note: same problem for Ivara by the way): either visual more "center screen", or audio (like a tone, higher/lower depending on "number" selected), or both.
c) Choice could possibly (probably?) be more fluid through a double-tap instead of holding.

OR make the 1 dedicated to mine choice, and group every mine except Vortex/Bastille in the 2. AND if you don't change anything about current behaviour of those mines, make everything 25 cost.

Further ideas on the fly

Bring back old mines in addition to the new ones, either allow players to "short-select" 4 ones in loadout or fuse them all as "double behaviour" one (tap = effect 1, hold = effect 2, possible if you dedicate one button to mine choice).

"Armor mine": instead of applying armor buff when inside Bastille directly, make it charge an jauge, and have a mine that will apply stored extra armor on closest ally when thrown (including yourself): could be a syndicate mod on the minelayer.

" Confusing mine": sort of mini globe that reduces enemy speed and accuracy.

"Flechette": when inside Bastille, have the damage buffed by a portion of total amount of armor stripped.

"Tether": when active Vortex into the "grabbing" perimeter, whenever an enemy is grabbed, have the ability "push" it to the Vortex. If grappled creature goes over a Vector/Bounce, have it affected (so the "vine" loses the grasp as enemy is projected away).

Edited November 4, 2019 by Citan666

[Aiden85]

Vauban's nail bomb needs to be a bit stronger preferable dealing slash dmg and needs better aiming. 

Overdrive needs to ALWAYS EFFECT THE CASTER. Also the aura seems to not work. Even on solo mode it's attaching to my MOA and I'm getting nothing from it at all. Duration could use a small bump

Bastiell doesn't seems to be stripping armour from any enemy that's being targeted by another part of his kit. 

Armour granted to Vauban needs a longer duration after bastiell expires so you can keep on the move with out fear of being shredded in seconds.

Tesla really needs to move faster and be more aggressive in getting to their targets. 

[Citan666]

Le 01/11/2019 à 06:50, Mardomus a dit :

• Vector Pad: I don't see anything cool or fun about it. All I see if an upgraded version of another troll ability that's taking a spot for a cool creative "Engineering" ability. This could have been a survival ability as well. Look at Wisps turrets. How can an Engineer think of such a lacking ability, while wisps/Octavia does... much better? I've seen many on the forums complain about this ability, and I'm shocked its even there.

I saw many people have somewhat the same complaint. So I feel compelled to react. 🙂

1. Trolls are trolls. Abusing this kind of feature (or Valkyr's hook) is easier to annoy people, but there are still other ways to troll (including simply doing nothing useful). IMO, removing an ability because "it can be used to troll" is simply a bad move.

2. Like Bounce was before, except "better" because duration-based and on horizontal plane, it synergizes very well with any AOE effect in corridors, ensuring people stay inside as long as possible. Main problem is that the ONLY mine from current Vauban that would really benefit from it is Flechette, since it's the only "duration AOE" mine (Bastille is irrelevant since having a hard limit on number of targets affected, Vortex has built-in "pulling force" so doesn't need help from Vector if put inside corridor). Bringing back for example Concuss and make it a repeatable ability like Tesla would make a potent pair, potentially worth the cast (although imo all mines should see their base cost reduced. We are talking of a combo requiring at least 2 mines thrown for a "good but not impressive" effect: 100 base cost is too much for that).

Also, I found a fellow Tenno that summarized the one true problem of Vauban in an elegant way (total time to use mines):

The casting animation is particulary annoying with this ability because, first, you have to select the correct mine, it can take 1-2sec, and then add the casting animation who last 1sec, you end up with an ability who is too slow to use. Most of the time, when you finnaly cast the ability, you don't need it anymore.

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Citan666

[Amazerath]

Vauban:

Vauban is in pretty bad shape, to be honest. I almost gave up ranking him to 30 because at a certain point it stopped being fun. The main reasons for that were:

1) The game demands almost constant movement, yet Vauban's only mobile defensive tool can't protect him when he is moving. Tesla Nervos (#1) is severely lacking in every way. This is a huge weakness that often gets him killed. When I compare what this power does with what Wisp's Reservoir (same energy cost) has to offer, the difference is astonishing.

2) I understand Vauban's theme is engineer/inventor/gadgeteer, but Minelayer (#2) feels like a bag of toys instead of a warframe power. The mines are weak, limited, slow and cumbersome to use because of the 'tap or hold' mechanic. I lost track of which mine I had selected several times. And each time that happened I thought to myself "I don't think I'll lose much if I just stop using this power". Both Tesla Nervos and Minelayer do very little and feel unsatisfying to use.

3) Vauban's last powers, Photon Strike (#3) and Bastille/Vortex (#4) feel completely disconnected from the other two. They are powerful, incredibly flashy and overall satisfying to use. But they're doing their own thing, playing their own game and don't want to get along with anyone else. And even then Photon Strike has problems of its own. It's so slow and has so little range that it can never be used by itself. Even if you combine it with Vortex, your guns end up being more effective. And making the target method a thrown sphere instead of something quick and more reliable was also a bad call.

 

The new Vauban still feels like he was designed for the old 2013 Warframe. Back when things were slower, more predictable and dialed down a whole lot. His powers are stuck in an era long gone and so is most of his gameplay. His kit desperately needs increased speed, responsiveness and flexibility so that he can better adapt to situations on the fly. It also needs more organic interactions between the powers as opposed to required and obvious ones like Photon Strike + Vortex.

Lastly, sometimes I feel like DE forgets warframes are weapons and that they are supposed to be brutal, efficient and terrifying. I can imagine myself as Grineer being afraid of a warframe that throws fireballs at me, or of a warframe that conjures a glass blade and chops me in half. But I can't imagine my Grineer self would be equally intimidated by a warframe that throws little objects I can crush with my boots or kick away.

[Costanzafaust]

I spent some time playing Vauban Prime over the weekend, so here is some feedback on his changes:

 

Overall, I think the frame is better than before, but still needs some work. Mainly around survivability and casting speed/animation.  He's still REALLY good on a defense map with predictable chokepoints.  He's better, but still pretty bad on maps that require a lot of moving around from place to place, and he still struggles against high level enemies even when built to be tanky.

Base Stats: I feel like he could use a little more base armor and maybe even health.  Still getting one-shotted way too often.

Passive: It's great when it works.  Not sure it's applying consistently but more testing is needed on that.

Telsa Nervos: I think these are actually pretty good for a 1st skill.   They do a decent job of crowd control, but it would be nice if they could guarantee the shock proc, since I am pretty sure that used to be possible via charging.  I also feel like this ability should do something else, like DR, or healing pulses when attached to an enemy, but that would probably overpower it.  The augment is actually pretty decent for pumping damage with guns, but I wouldn't complain if it also let you summon more rollers.  Only other complaint I have about these things is that they are LOUD when they are doing their thing.

Minelayer: Ugh, this has always been the difficulty with reworking Vauban.  Maybe lower the number of choices down to 3 mines instead of 4?  Still lots of redundant kit here.  This is not a good location for emergency 'oh $#!*' skills because of the quiver mechanic.

    Tether:  This can be useful to hold a choke point at low levels, but it doesn't scale at all, and is redundant once you unlock the rest of his kit.  Either increase the number of tethers with power strength, or just scrap this effect and move it to Titania's Lantern.  Or maybe add some kind of life steal to tethered targets.

  Flechette:  I don't hate this skill, and it seems to actually have a SYNERGY (something else that's badly missing in his kit) with the damage buff.  I can't tell if it has enemy-seeking targeting or not.   However, it doesn't scale all that well damage-wise.   I would like to see the Concuss stun or Radiation proc put back on this.   Else combine it with tether somehow.

  Vector:  I guess it's fine, if we're going to keep the meme abilities in his kit.   It needs to deploy faster and it probably should leave some after-buff, either attack speed increase or defensive buff (and possibly leave a similar debuff on enemies).

  Overdriver:  Here's something new and useful, although aiming it to hit a particular ally is wonky.  I understand why it's not team-wide, but maybe it could always buff Vauban and one other nearby ally?  Seems like there may be some other synergies with his kit here.

Photon Strike: This looks really good until you actually try to use it.  Too slow to be a 'get out of trouble' card, it has great damage potential but unless you are playing solo your team will probably kill whatever was standing there by the time the strike happens.  The augment does make it more enticing, but I was having trouble getting it to work consistently.  I think it would be nice if casting this gave Vauban a few seconds of invulnerability or something, because of how often he dies while waiting for the photon blast.

Bastille:  Adding Vortex to Bastille was brilliant, and I am still learning new ways to use them in combination with the other skills.  It's still more power efficient to just throw these down and use guns though.  I love the armor stripping effect.  The armor buff, on the other hand, is cumbersome to attain and maintain.   It takes a while to charge up, only lasts about 15 seconds after the bastille goes down, and if you have teammates they will certainly kill everything in the bastille before you can absorb much armor.  Meanwhile, you're still getting shot the whole time.  Also, the augment seems horrible now. It actually has anti-synergy with the armor buff since it pushes enemies away, and perpetual vortex should either stack damage or just become a base feature of the ability.  Change the augment to make it so enemies can't see Vauban when he's got the bastille armor buff but not attacking, and maybe make it charge the buff faster... or something along those lines.

Summary: Vauban's in a better place than he's been since they took away raids, but I still feel like there are better defensive frames because unlike Vauban, they can protect themselves as well as the objective.

[PsiWarp]

Time for some Vauban feedback.

Passive

Vauban's kit thrives on displacing enemies. From stuns to ragdoll to status procs. Currently his passive damage bonus only works on enemies that are completely disabled.

• Suggestion to allow this passive to also work against enemies suffering from temporary stuns like Electricity procs from Tesla Nervos, staggers from Flechette Orb, knockdowns and knockbacks from Vector Pad and the blast from Photon Strike.

Tesla Nervos

These little guys mainly help CC enemies and with Tesla Bank add a nice damage burst. However, it is difficult to track where they are exactly, aside from their very annoying clicking noises when moving around, and the damage numbers when they zap things. They also need to take their sweet time attaching to new targets.

• Make them glow in Vauban's energy colours. Add minimap icons to track their whereabouts.
• Reduce the frequency of the clicking moving noise for the player's sanity.
• Shorten the time needed for a Tesla Nervos to attach itself to a new target. A good example of snappy immediacy is Overdriver jumping to an ally- it's incredibly quick and fast. With that kind of speed, casting this ability on the fly will feel much more responsive and less hit and miss.

Minelayer

The new selection of mines add a bit more variety to Vauban's utility. Let's review them each in turn, there is a lot of potential in these new mines.

• Tether Coil is bugged to still show the attached coils on the corpses of dead enemies. This is visually confusing, especially since the coils can grab through walls.
• Tether Coil should really function on line-of-sight rules so that enemies are grabbed as they come into view of the coil trap, rather than get stuck onto a wall between the coil and the enemy.
• Flechette Orb does what it does, seemingly randomly fire nails in all directions with a high chance to hit, crit, and proc Puncture on enemies. Nailing dead bodies to walls is quite pleasing. But its damage is not notable for being a damage-based ability. Consider adding enemy level damage multiplier to this mine, similar to Photon Strike and Regurgitate.
• Vector Pad or Bounce 2.0 is improved somewhat. Enemies can now be bounced away with no limit on charges or cool downs in-between, and allies get brief directional propulsion. It's pretty effective at keeping enemies away, and launching ally summons in a direction. I would suggest adding a parkour distance bonus to ally Warframes who use the pad.
• Overdriver is a nice damage bonus. But, its application is very difficult to control. When I want to apply it to myself , sometimes it prioritizes my Sentinel and jumps to it. When I want to apply it on teammates, same deal and also jumps to objectives like Cryopods or Excavators that cannot attack to deal damage. Please make it only jump to Warframes, and also give the damage bonus to our Companions when it is active on us.

Photon Strike

This ability kicks ass. Bravo on the scaling damage, and visually this packs as much punch as the damage it is capable of. Quite satisfying to bring the rain. Of course, it has room for improvement too.

• Can Ability Duration inversely affect the strike delay? E.g. more Duration makes the strike happen sooner.
• 75 energy for the damage it deals is reasonable, but I would suggest the following: reduce energy cost to 50, add new hold-and-release cast that makes Vauban throw the beacon at a faster speed, cut the strike delay by half, and cost 25 more energy (75 energy total after charging). Which helps make the Photon Repeater augment more viable, outside of combining it with abilities that collect enemies near one point.

Bastille

An incredible combination of two potent abilities. Both modes have great utility. Bastille for headshots, enemy armor removal, and variable armor buff in area. Vortex for Punch through, area of effect application from weapons and abilities, as well as pickups collection. Still just scratching the surface with the kinds of combos I can do using this power.

• Bastille containment field is hindered by CC abilities like Tether Coil. The armor removal only happens when an enemy is lifted up by Bastille, not when it is in a different crowd-controlled state. Even if it is an eligible target for Bastille's target count, it won't work if the enemy isn't lifted up. Please fix this interaction.

[T_erry]

Tenno fly, tesla nervos roll, they can't follow tenno

Suggestion : when ability activate tesla drons float nearby vauban and emit to enemy if they close enough

Tangled enemy by tether coil get caught in the terrain

Suggestion : tether coil try to pull enemy frequently

Photon strike is not good enough for the cost I'd rather use a weapon than use this ability

Suggestion : make it strong enough 

Bastille is ambiguous

Suggestion : separate base range of bastille and vortex and increase bastille's range. change armor to damage reduction that apply immediately as certain value and duration that apply when you go out of bastille needs at least 20 sec

 

Using or charging fireball while using weapon is cumbersome

Suggestion : make own animation of chain fireball just like landslide single fireball should be one-hand ability but three-chain fireball should not be one-hand ability change vexatious potential that use fireball and weapon at once to convenience and stylish action

 

[Ynoita]

Vauban, Minelayer : Vector Pad

Basically Bounce replaced by Horizontal bounce...
I don't want to spend 25 energy to jump a few meters away. And it's not effective to CC the enemy since the pad is so small and it's redoundant with Tether Coil and Vortex.

So here is my idea to replace it with something usefull :

Révélation

Vauban, Minelayer : Glacis

Unfortunately, beside the Prime skin, there is nothing that reminds us the creations of the real Sébastien de Vauban, his Citadels and their iconic shape (that I find beautiful imo)

 

So here is my idea : a mine displaying a small directionnal shield.
Enemy's projectiles would be deflected by this V shaped shield, maybe this shield would be low, the player forced to crouch to be fully protected, justifying its only 25 energy cost.
This would provide the defense that Vauban lacks, while remaining situationnal.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Ynoita

[Icebreccer]

Okay, now that I've spent the entire weekend playing with Vauban I'm starting to be more frustrated with the rework. I'm gonna talk about Bastille in depth as that is his heart and soul.

Bastille has always been Vauban's bread and butter. I absolutely love the skill as it holds the enemies neatly in air for easy shooting. But now it feels such a hassle to use because first of all the Bastille ALWAYS converts into a Vortex at the end of its lifetime. This makes enemies start ragdolling all over the place trying to reach the Vortex. It completely ruins the Bastille and its purpose for keeping enemies neatly in place. Secondly, making it so that you can hold to convert your Bastilles into Vortex completely removes the possibility to cast both skills wherever they are needed. There is simply no reason for this conversion to exist in my opinion. If you really must keep the Bastille and Vortex in a single ability then please change it so that tap creates a Bastille and hold creates a Vortex, remove the conversion completely. At the moment it just feels so clunky trying to use the correct ability in a given situation and the forced Vortex conversion at the end of Bastille is just a nail on the coffin. Also Vauban's Bastille should be one of the top priority CCs in the game, meaning that it takes priority over the elemental effect animations and ragdolls. That way it would still keep enemies in stasis and let it strip the armor correctly (for example a Volt using his 4 can completely negate the armor strip and make enemies drop out of Bastille). Bastille's energy cost isn't justified by its stats and the nature of the ability (having to cast multiple and refreshing them), lowering it back to 75 would be a step in right direction.

Also I can't repeat this enough, but his casting times on 3 and 4 are way too long (and windup time on 3). He used to be the frame that could continuously keep firing at enemies and cast all of his abilities at the same time.

Also as so many others have said, Vauban still lacks any survivability. He could really use a "nullifier esq" shield that gives him the protection he needs as some guys have suggested.

I made a quick revision for his skills:

1st Ability: Overdriver

•     Attaches to Vauban
•     25% dmg increase
•     30 sec duration
•     15m range for allies near Vauban
•     25 energy cost

OR (you can only select one active)

1st Ability: Bubble Shield

•     Works like Nullifier Shield
•     Around Vauban with a small radius
•     Incoming hits shrink the bubble, charging 1st Ability restores it
•     Protects from incoming projectiles
•     Grants damage reduction against hitscan weapons base 50%, (max 95%)

2nd Ability: Vortex

•     Stats remain the same
•     Faster cast animation
•     50 energy cost

3rd Ability: Bastille

•     Stats remain the same
•     Faster cast animation
•     Keep added armor buff
•     Strip armor of all enemies inside (stunned/ragdolled)
•     75 energy cost

4th Ability: Photon Strike

•     Damage ignores armor
•     Faster casting and windup time
•     Grants a Photon shield for Vauban (could be augment)
•     Photon shield amount 120 shield per enemy hit with a single Photon Strike (refreshes shield when a new Photon Strike exceeds the amount of current shield)
•     Photon shield acts the same as Frost's Icy Avalanche
•     75 energy cost

That’s a kit that I think would do well without any added gimmicks. Sometimes less is more and a consistent kit is a good kit.

TL;DR: Bastille combined with Vortex feels so clunky and awkward to use, costs too much energy. The forced conversion to Vortex is messy and annoying. Cast times (and charge time of 3) are way too long. Vauban still lacks survivability.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Judqment8

[Malkavian407]

I believe that the new Ember is too powerful! This is Sarina 2.0, with cheaper power. (imho)

[Vorcov]

Just some quick thoughts after playing Ember a little bit after the rework:

 

Fireball: I find myself still only wanting to use the Fireball Frenzy augment for this, as it isn't the most effective ability.

Immolation: So I've played a decent amount of Vermintide 2, and there was this overheat mechanic that I hated using because it would essentially punish the user for using something too much... That's my only complaint for this ability. Perhaps if when at max it also incorporated some AOE damage not unlike how World on Fire was, I would think more about using something that drains energy.

Fire Blast: The addition of armor stripping is nice, however I miss the area of denial ring that this used to have. I find myself pretty much only using this to mitigate the heat buildup from Immolation. Also, not to mention that this drains a significant amount of energy by itself.

Inferno: While I did enjoy World on Fire quite a bit and the feeling it gave of "you shall burn if you approach me", I have to admit that this ability is really nice. Visuals and sound are on-point, and it's pretty fun to use I find. It makes me think of the Wizard from Diablo 3 with the meteors they can drop, an ability I always enjoyed using.

 

Tl;dr

I find myself only using Fireball with the Fireball Frenzy augment and Inferno, while the other two abilities collect dust.

[Citan666]

Le 03/11/2019 à 07:25, GreyEnneract a dit :

Point proven, as reactionary as they come.
Just as Saryn is now stronger, Ember is as well. Objectively. 
History will reflect the usage, just as it did with Saryn.
If anything, DE will nerf her damage once they reduce the energy drain.
At least you will still be able to enjoy your weapons.

Nope. She's far lesser now. "Objectively" (lol as if such thing was possible).

I completely agree with the other Tenno. Ember did only need ONE syndicate mod to be playable at high level, which was either the one on 3 or the one on 4. Besides that, she could be built in several ways and still be very enjoyable even at decently high level (never tried more than hour-long missions because I actually have a life ^^).

The only problem was that damage didn't scale enough overall, so you needed to rely on weapons ultimately if you wanted to deal competitive damage compared to other frames.

And going full melee with Firequake was not viable solo at end level because melee is single-target by essence and any enemy could one-shot you.

But she could be made a very strong ally with 1 and 4, build on STR and Range (and somewhat efficiency), crowd controlling while also opening up melee finishers for friends (or self sometimes), and otherwise using empowered weapons (1 with mod + 2 = crazy goodness) to deal good damage. Problems arised if you wanted to use all syndicate mods to really empower the "control" aspect. ^^

So, yeah, there were so problems with Ember. But resolving those problems could be easily made without basically creating a whole new frame.

Most of the ideas of defense/armor stripping effects could have been seamlessly integrated in regular abilities, exampls...

Accelerant -> strip armor bonus when fire abilities used on impregnated enemies,

Circle of Fire -> increasing armor buff / DR buff as you stay inside the ring for longer time, with lingering effect once you step out of it or circle ends, or maybe "cast as hold" to set self on fire for a duration based on number of enemies set on fire since last cast for example).

Wall of Fire -> while active, hold cast to "draw and absorb fire" from enemies, grabbing a small portion of HP and extra Armor (percentage based but fixed hard cap, buffable with power).

In short, before, Ember could be played in several different ways. Not all were equal in efficiency, sure (honestly is there a frame for which that assertion wouldn't apply?) but you had diversity, and you could fit in any group, change playstyle when you wanted different feeling, and you at least felt some uniqueness in that play. Now? It's like a sad mix between Gara and Saryn.

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Citan666