Ash: The best of both playstyles

[(PSN)Vexx757]

Looking at Vauban rework with his 3rd and 4th ability combined and Ember still having some of the mechanics of world of fire in her new 4th ability got me thinking, why don` Ash get the same thing with his bs excepted;

·       When activating the ability, it will start instantly.

·       Pressing the ability will bring you into the animation while holding the ability will send clones out to kill instead of you.

·       If you want to jump out of bs, press the ability again and the clones will continue to kill enemies.

·       Enemies that are red can be killed by players.

·       There is no limit to how many enemies he can kill within the radius of the enemy he`s aiming at.

·       An indicator is shown of the number of enemies that are going to be killed by bs.

 

For ppl that want to do two things at once can still do so but with a benefit of a faster activation time plus holding the ability and for ppl that like the animation can press the ability and be in the animation instantly however being in the animation will require you to be interactive.

 

Interactive blade storm animation

When you are in the animation, you have a chance to gain bonus duration of slash ticks and 1% animation speed increase in the next use however, you have to be interactive within the animation.

 

While in the animation;

·       You have to press the melee button in sink when his stabs enemies in the animation.

·       When doing so, there is an indicator showing the buffs and successful hits which will be converted into duration of slash ticks and animation speed increase.

·       The more successful hits you get the more animation speed you can get in the next use e.g. 10 successful hits = 10% animation speed.

·       The maximus slash duration bonus you can receive is 7 seconds.

·       If you jump out of bs you will lose the bonuses.

·       The bonuses slash tick duration will also include all weapon types. (even weapons that don’t have slash)

·       If you don`t interact with at least five animation cutscenes and get three successful hits, you will only deal half of bs damage (2000 damage + no interaction = 1000 damage) and will do no slash ticks when animation os done.

 

This will keep player from being afk. I would like to see future reworks do the same thing when it comes to combining abilities. (obviously if the ability is good)

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

33 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

This will keep player from being afk.

I like the concept of the interactive ability, but that won't improve it. You'll still be limited based on how many enemies you're personally able to do the melee interaction with at a time. The only issue with blade storm is that your allies can still wipe the map while you're busy playing a private game of whack-a-mole. And this would actually force a lot more effort for Ash to do what others do blindfolded.

A simple, easy solution would be to remove the point-point reticle for marking enemies. Keep the per enemy marking cost, but make it a circle like other similar abilities in the game (Peacemaker and Seeking Talons). Tapping will just quick mark enemies within the default circle area. Holding it will allow you to expand the marking area, siccing the clones on marked targets immediately upon release.

You want a bonus damage option? All enemies within the default circle area (in either the tap or hold option) are always triple-marked automatically. So you can prioritize which targets need to be dealt more damage quickly and easily, and it still keeps you free to continue attacking other groups manually. 

[(PSN)Vexx757]

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

-snip-

The interactive idea is not meant to improve it, it`s meant to stop ppl from going afk, if they don`t interact with it, they will receive a penalty. One idea that could work is instead of aiming at an enemy to activate it, you could just aim in the direction of where most of the enemies are at. Tbh I don`t mind if it costs energy per enemy affected. My idea makes Ash more fun (imo) and much easier to use WITHOUT THE DUMB MARKING MACANIC. What do you mean what you say limited based on enemies?

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

The interactive idea is not meant to improve it, it`s meant to stop ppl from going afk, if they don`t interact with it, they will receive a penalty.

People wouldn't have the chance to go afk to begin with if it wasn't reverting back to the old spam-storm. Adding the extra interaction means players need to work far more for the output than other dps focused frames who just point and click currently.

8 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

One idea that could work is instead of aiming at an enemy to activate it, you could just aim in the direction of where most of the enemies are at.

That's kind of how my suggestion of the Peacemaker/Seeking Talon style reticule works.

10 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

What do you mean what you say limited based on enemies?

Here's an example: Your ability affects 10 enemies. You press a button on strike for each enemy, let's assume 1 per second. That's 10 seconds in order to achieve full damage on that group. In the mean time, just about every frame in the game cast their 4th ability and killed 20 enemies in 1 second for full damage with 1 button press.

Let's say that you don't plan on getting hand cramps from constant button input at that rate and say the attack timing lets you do the button sync every 1/2 second instead. That's still 5 seconds and 11 button presses (1 to activate and 1 for each enemy trigger) to do what everyone else just did with 1 button press.

In solo, this may not be an issue (although still inefficient) but this game is designed to be cooperative primarily. That's why Limbo's Stasis was reworked so no longer impede ally projectiles, but also why they didn't bring back the functionality exclusively affecting Limbo. Since that would actually cripple him compared to his allies in co-op.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

Remember what I said If you don`t interact with at least five animation cutscenes and get three successful hits, you will only deal half of bs damage (2000 damage + no interaction = 1000 damage) and will do no slash ticks when animation is done." so it means you don`t how to interact with every since cutscene just get successful hits in 5 cutscenes I understand that other frames do it better but how I see it it`s better than what we have now but tbh I would not have an issue if the idea was just scraped entirely. 

The difference with my suggestion is you don't have to hold to increase the size of the radical you just press the ability in that area.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

Remember what I said If you don`t interact with at least five animation cutscenes and get three successful hits, you will only deal half of bs damage (2000 damage + no interaction = 1000 damage) and will do no slash ticks when animation is done." so it means you don`t how to interact with every since cutscene just get successful hits in 5 cutscenes I understand that other frames do it better but how I see it it`s better than what we have now but tbh I would not have an issue if the idea was just scraped entirely. 

The difference with my suggestion is you don't have to hold to increase the size of the radical you just press the ability in that area.

Holding it for 2 seconds it still less effort than having to do 5 timed sequences each cast. And your method still doesn't address the fact that the speed alone would be inferior to other frames wiping the room with the snap of their finger. Animation speed has already been a common complaint by players since the Bladestorm rework and that's without further required participation. 

[ebrl]

You're just suggesting replacing one old existing minor issue with a bunch of new, different, worse issues.

The only thing Blade Storm really needs is more generous targeting - something closer to what Garuda or Mesa have on their 4s.

[Raikh]

The primary issue of Bladestorm is just that anything you can target you might as well shoot instead and given the animation time you can also just sweep thorugh the room with a melee. The ability is just slow and unwieldy which usually makes it faster to just personally go and kill stuff, even moreso if you have teammates also dashing all over the place.

Embers Inferno is actually a decent implementation. Inferno hits everything in field of View which seems like ~120 degress in front of her, even partially behind walls which doesn't seem to be 100% consistent from my experience so far. It is a much more practical and still interactive targetting mechanism as you get rewarded for proper positioning so you get all the enemies in sight at once without the issue of taking as much time to target the enemies as it needs to kill them manually.

Mesa and Garuda are certainly also examples of similar targetting, Embers Inferno just is the most seemless and fluid one I would say as Ash is all about speedy assasinations.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Raikh
Fixed Typos

[(PSN)Vexx757]

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

Holding it for 2 seconds it still less effort than having to do 5 timed sequences each cast. And your method still doesn't address the fact that the speed alone would be inferior to other frames wiping the room with the snap of their finger. Animation speed has already been a common complaint by players since the Bladestorm rework and that's without further required participation. 

So what would you suggest for his killing speed?

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

So what would you suggest for his killing speed?

Simply add an additional clone for every (whatever number) of enemies marked, and increase the animation speed.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

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

Simply add an additional clone for every (whatever number) of enemies marked, and increase the animation speed.

I see what you mean but tbh my idea dose not include the marking system for the fact that it`s bad and I don`t like it. just imaging if saryn and mesa got that ppl would complain about it adding that to Ash is the worst thing they did to him. All they had to do to improve the old bs is enemies that are red can be killed by allies and if you want to jump out of bs just press the ability again it addresses the problems with the old bs if they just did that, most ppl would be satisfied with bs. However I think all of his abilities need to be improved compered to oberon and nazha`s revisit Ash`s is not a big deal.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

20 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

see what you mean but tbh my idea dose not include the marking system for the fact that it`s bad and I don`t like it

The marking is only an issue because it's pinpoint.

If it were a circle reticle like i suggested like Garuda or Mesa it wouldn't be an issue since it would generally work in the direction you are looking like you wanted. 

22 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

All they had to do to improve the old bs is enemies that are red can be killed by allies and if you want to jump out of bs just press the ability

The invulnerable enemies were an issue for the team, but Ash defaulting into the ability instead of opting in was an issue for DE. Specifically said they are moving away from lazy abilities, and your suggestion to counter it just added way too much effort for the output. 

The only ability he has that badly needs the a visit is Shuriken. Everything else is functional but needs QoL.

[Awazx]

I propose something else: to return Ash to his pre-rework state. Ash was perfect.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

10 hours ago, Awazx said:

I propose something else: to return Ash to his pre-rework state. Ash was perfect.

He really wasn't lol.

I've been an Ash main since back when Bladestorm did slashing damage. Before this rework I would cast Bladestorm maybe once a week since it was such a lazy, spammable, brain dead ability that removed you from combat for long periods. I built around Teleport and only used Bladestorm in emergencies.

Now, you can have far higher damage output by marking a group of enemies for your clones to handle and you continue killing unmarked enemies yourself. The only clear downgrade (or lack of upgrade really) was Shuriken since now you can mark enemies with Bladestorm for far lower cost and far higher damage than using Shuriken so now it's only really useful for quickly taking out cameras...unless you are using the augment. (I have more than enough complaints with being forced to use an augment to fix an ability, but that's a different thread)

[seventhwalker]

I don't prefer that Ash will automatically join in the Bladestorm sequence. Its disorienting and still has a lot of bugs even now: like getting stuck in enemies that aren't immediately killed by BS and ending up somewhere completely different from where you're supposed to be. 

Holding down the 4th skill button to just send out the clones is claw RSI-inducing for controllers if its mapped to the top triggers/ buttons, and unworkable if its mapped to the face buttons (you can't aim/view with the right stick). The current system of tag and activate is working just fine and great for me and don't want it changed at all. Perhaps if they add a 3rd clone to speed it up and made the targeting a wider cone-like area instead of a pinpoint.

Edited November 14, 2019 by seventhwalker

[Tatann]

On 2019-11-14 at 2:25 AM, Awazx said:

I propose something else: to return Ash to his pre-rework state. Ash was perfect.

No, because allies were unable to attack marked enemies. Any ability (Limbo) / weapon (Tonkor on launch) that negatively affect other players are bad 

[(PSN)Vexx757]

On 2019-11-13 at 8:50 PM, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

If it were a circle reticle like i suggested like Garuda or Mesa it wouldn't be an issue since it would generally work in the direction you are looking like you wanted. 

The only issue with that is that it would be los also would you have to charge to increase the size of will it start instantly?

 

On 2019-11-13 at 8:50 PM, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

your suggestion to counter it just added way too much effort for the output. 

Your right but how I see it, it`s a price for wanting to jumping in the animation for the ppl that don`t care about it don`t have to use it`s they can just hold the ability.

 

On 2019-11-14 at 1:25 AM, Awazx said:

I propose something else: to return Ash to his pre-rework state. Ash was perfect.

Yes and no. Yes I like the quick activations and it having a radios but no coz I don`t want the old problems back plus which means it was not perfect but I know what you mean

51 minutes ago, Tatann said:

No, because allies were unable to attack marked enemies.

That`s why I said enemies that are red can be killed by alies.

 

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

The only issue with that is that it would be los also would you have to charge to increase the size of will it start instantly?

Well, yes it would be LoS like most damage abilities. It's not a crazy concept. There's no rationale for giving Ash an ability that can deal True damage with bonus bleed damage that he can fire through walls at everything in the direction of the screen without even having to see it. With that he would literally wipe out entire rooms that he's not even in. Unless you just mean that it can hit enemies behind obstacles but not through walls, in which case that is probably fine.

It could be be tap for instant cast or hold if you want to expand beyond whatever default reticle size DE decides is appropriate. I know you want it more like Ember's new 4th casting by just looking in a direction but even with the fire proc changes there is a massive difference between Fire damage and True damage. Ash deals the best scaling damage type along with a supercharged version of the most powerful damage proc in the game across his full kit. They aren't as comparable as Bladestorm is to Mesa's and Garuda's. Ember's ability is meant to spread her fire damage and procs from the affected enemies to new ones. Bladestorm, like Peacemaker and Seeking Talons, is meant to completely wreck whatever it targets (or provide the means for your weapons/abilities to in the case of Garuda).

26 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

Your right but how I see it, it`s a price for wanting to jumping in the animation for the ppl that don`t care about it don`t have to use it`s they can just hold the ability.

 

And I'm all for giving ultimate power as long as you pay the right price. "Phenomenal cosmic powers...itty-bitty living space" as Aladdin's Genie would say. But the "right price" needs to be something that doesn't overly reduce the effectiveness of the ability itself when you actually use it. DE is explicitly against the AFK nature of the pre-rework ability so that probably won't come back as the default option so it's best to head in a different direction. Not to mention (again), that when it comes to DPS you are FAR more useful sending your clones out by themselves and continuing to manually attack non-marked enemies with your weapons. Adding all of action sequences would just be a downgrade since it would be slower and require too much effort per cast to be equal to the reward, and is a clear downgrade to DPS potential. The option to "join" in was only kept as a defensive option, not offensive.

[Tatann]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

The only issue with that is that it would be los also would you have to charge to increase the size of will it start instantly?

 

Your right but how I see it, it`s a price for wanting to jumping in the animation for the ppl that don`t care about it don`t have to use it`s they can just hold the ability.

 

Yes and no. Yes I like the quick activations and it having a radios but no coz I don`t want the old problems back plus which means it was not perfect but I know what you mean

That`s why I said enemies that are red can be killed by alies.

 

Excuse me, are you Awazx ? Cause I was replying to him

[(PSN)Vexx757]

On 2019-11-15 at 2:37 PM, (PS4)Ozymandias-13- said:

-snip-

What you said about the clones animation being slow even though I agree however to me, I see that a price for it dealing true damage but I don`t think Ash should have his ability activation speed sacrificed that's why I don't like the marking mechanic the ability is slow as it is and activating it is even slower because of the two stages.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

Problems with bladestorm

·       The two stages of the killing process make bs slow, because of this, other players can take his kills before you get a chance to kill them which makes him not helpful in the team, not fun to play and in a fast-pasted game this is bad.

 

·       Marking enemies for some players is sickening because of the motion of moving the cursor onto enemies, even though it`s easier (but still a problem) to do this using a mouse, doing this on a controller is not as easy, an ability should be able to be easy to use no matter what you use.

 

·       Because enemies are highlighted by your chosen energy colour, it will make enemies more visible to other players to go and kill them which in their minds is a top priority.

 

·       If you want the full damage of bs, you have to mark the enemies three times which slows you down or make you stationary (if you want to do it quickly) to mark enemies with three marks. In low-level missions, your energy will be refunded back to you if you over mark and in high levels you obviously going to want the full damage of it so there is absolutely no point in having to choose the amount of damage you want to dish out. With the old bs, you had the full damage regardless.

 

·       Bodies disappearing makes it to where you can`t bring him in a desecrating team with a nekros. While bodies disappearing makes sense on paper for him being a ninja and I like the idea, unfortunately, this just makes him a problem in that team.

 

·       The indicator shows how many marks instead of how many enemies affected by bs. Because of this, you have no idea how many enemies are going to be killed. If it showed how many enemies affected by bs, it will let the play know when to use bs again.

 

·       Using your 2nd ability to use less energy is not synergy. Synergy is meant to be a choice that makes a difference in missions however, this so-called synergy is a must to use it consistently which makes it a bad gimmick.

 

·       Using the 3rd ability to join the animation costs no energy but you need energy to be able to use it which makes no sense plus, in low-level missions, sometimes you`re not even going to get a chance use your 3rd ability because the apparitions have killed the enemies already. (depending on how many enemies you mark)

 

·       Apparitions (clones) appearance is not consistent. The visuals go from looking like you custom coloured Ash to a hologram version, to the original ash look with default colours. Also, this is a bug that the old bs had which means it has not been fixed.

 

·       When marking, you can`t mark enemies that are behind walls or objects which make you have to run around searching for enemies to kill and if you in a team, your marked enemies will be killed off by your teammates.

 

·       Even if Ash`s damage has increased to 2,000, (his damage now is still great) the damage is not as good compared to the old bs. The apparitions of the old bs was like Saryn`s 1st ability damage but slightly better, (and the terminator) the apparitions would not stop killing until the enemies were dead and even though attack speed mods can increase their killing speed, with the current bs, the apparitions only attack three times however the bleeding damage speed cannot.

 

·       You can`t pick an choose what enemies you want to kill; (which people claim you can do) on paper it makes sense however in practise the idea is not useful. For example, if you wanted to mark an energy eximus in-between two other enemies and you only have enough energy to mark one enemy, you are not able to.

 

Reasons;

· Enemies are running around to where you will either run out of energy or you simply can`t mark the eximus.

· You will have to stand there trying to mark that one enemy.

· You have a chance to get hit by a stray bullet or by an explosion whether you use your 2nd ability or not.

· If you’re playing in a team, someone WILL take the kill from you.

· Teleport can do it better and is faster at it. (this alone destroys the purpose of using it that way)

 

And as for his other abilities, the 1st ability is only good with its augment. Augments should be used as an option and not coz the ability on its own is bad, the 2nd ability could benefit by having better cc and even through ppl say that his invisible is too short I have no issue with it, the 3rd ability has potential to be so much better just of the concept of teleportation alone. The revisit he received, it`s crap compared to what oberon and nejha got, overall Ash is a contradiction to what DE wants ppl to do in this game.... PLAY AS A TEAM, that's why his whole kit needs to be looked at again. 

 

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

16 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

What you said about the clones animation being slow even though I agree however to me, I see that a price for it dealing true damage but I don`t think Ash should have his ability activation speed sacrificed that's why I don't like the marking mechanic the ability is slow as it is and activating it is even slower because of the two stages.

Whereas I see the per mark energy cost to be the price. 

1-1.5 seconds of holding to mark a large group (or instant on the group within the circular reticle for tapping) and another 3 (or so) for all of the enemies to die seems fairly reasonable compared to other area high damage abilities. As long as the animation time scales with the number of enemies marked to never exceed those 3 (or so) seconds. The marking time will be drastically reduced using a Seeking Talons style activation, and with a cap on total animation time the process will be much faster and the only price of the True damage will be the per target cost.

The issues with changing everything else but keeping slow animation as the cost are that the marked enemies are still attacking you when not stuck in the clone animations, your allies are also killing enemies making wasted time and effort (cost is refunded, so no loss there), and prevents you from using the ability again until it's over (if needed- the per target cost will prohibit spamming too much at least since it's less efficient per target when not invisible than just about any other aoe damage ability, but I'm fine with that).

[(PSN)Vexx757]

So let me ask you this, what do you think of the activation speed of the old bs? just to remind you the amount of enemies killed is affected by radius by target one enemy and killing other enemies within it`s radius.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

31 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

So let me ask you this, what do you think of the activation speed of the old bs? just to remind you the amount of enemies killed is affected by radius by target one enemy and killing other enemies within it`s radius.

The old Bladestorm activation was instant, but only affected exactly 18 targets regardless of radius (and had a flat cost of 100 energy even if it only hits 1 target), made all enemies invulnerable to all damage outside the ability, and it forced you into the animation. There were many factors that made instant cast the best option, but literally everything else about the ability had to be reworked because it wasn't working (originally we didn't even have clones and the ability was just slash damage lol). 

The activation speed was completely meaningless in the scope of the previous ability due to those factors. With all of the other factors changed, the decision should only be in regards to the other ability factors in what it will become.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

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

-snip-

Ok now how would you feel if the activation was instant, there is no limit on how many enemies were targeted, enemies were not invulnerable from outside damage and press put you in the animation and hold would send clones out plus you can jump out of the animation if your in it? just on these points.