With Ivara Prime on the horizon, here is the comprehensive overview of shortfalls that should be investigated and addressed.

[TheLexiConArtist]

Ivara has been a favourite of mine since her introduction years ago. When new content drops, my first choice of approach, invariably, goes back to her. Rathuum, Eidolons, on and on. Now, considering usage data for Warframes was displayed on the recent Devstream 133, one thing I noticed was a near-complete absence of Ivara's key colour where it should be on the graph notable drop-off in usage at higher ranks despite a surge of popularity in the mid-to-late region (which itself is likely for spy purposes and not everyday usage).

So Ivara has many problems. Problems that stop most people extensively playing her. However, this doesn't mean that she is fundamentally bad, or in dire need of a rework - no. Her real enthusiasts come to find she's functional, even powerful, but it comes in spite of herself and the many drawbacks Ivara suffers in core gameplay and kit functionality.

Here I seek to highlight as many key points as possible, as I understand them. With those, we can dive into the realities of Ivara's kit - and the coming Ivara Prime Access - to diagnose what does not work and, ideally, to suggest solutions that can be explored to rectify the issues.

Overview

Spoiler

-Theme

Ivara, the huntress. Ivara - named after a legendary archer, and with name etymology that translates to 'Tree Warrior', draws design inspiration as a forest-dwelling, stealthy huntress-come-assassin. Visual design reflects this by evoking both Tree Frog colouration - particularly notable examples being the vibrant and toxic Poison Dart Frogs - and a kit direction involving Stealth, Bows, and creative utilities to engage targets at distance and without alerting them.

This is followed by her core cosmetics. The Salix Syandana evokes the cocoon - such as that used for chrysalis, hanging safely from foliage until the creature within is ready to emerge - and the Loxley Helmet which, obviously, bears the namesake of a certain famed woodland bowman of legend.

-Gameplay Identity

Ivara is ranked amongst the weakest Warframes in the game for actual survivability in combat. Consequently, her core gameplay identity is to circumvent combat with superior utility (such as crowd control) and stealth. However, due to her huntress and bowmaster roots, this doesn't leave Ivara's identity in the same space as Loki, whose trickster themes see him into a purer supportive/misdirection identity with no direct offensive abilities like Ivara's exalted Bow, and supporting damage buffs present in her kit.

Ivara also has two sub-identities to explore: That of a looting frame (in very specific circumstances, explained more in Abilities/Prowl) and the emergent gameplay of niche builds turning her into an offensive powerhouse against Eidolons - in a manner that befits her creative roots, as this uses preparation to ultimately build a sort of lethal trap, detonated when the time is right - when the Eidolons become vulnerable.

Abilities

Spoiler

-Passive

Spoiler

Ivara's Passive gives her innate enemy radar. I don't think there's anything wrong with this passive thematically or for her gameplay. For a squishy, stealthy tracker, knowing where your opposition is, definitely helps in knowing how to approach.

-Quiver

Spoiler

--Cloak

Cloak Arrows are Ivara's utility and cooperative stealth option, allowing her to extend her hiding places to locations at distance and to entities other than herself. However, this is limited by a few factors.

The base radius of the ability is very poor. Unless attached to the target, this heavily limits mobility - for Ivara herself, currently Prowl has the same issue, making it difficult to choose one over the other generally.
Companions can either float (sentinels) or wander/attack (mobile companions) outside of the cloaked area, becoming visible when Ivara is not. 
It is often very difficult to attach a cloak arrow to a desired target unless that target is immobile. It is also impossible to attach the arrow to the user, even when redirected as such with Navigator.
Some 'units' that should be cloak-able are not (e.g. "protect the drone" objectives in the Orb Vallis)
As a bonus mention, Nullification effects now completely remove cloaked areas instead of simply revealing any hidden units within when overlapped (original and much healthier behaviour, allowing players to move around in the limited space to maintain their needed stealth)

Solutions:
Raise base radius by a moderate amount. Ensure companions correctly inherit stealth at all times. Properly allow all smaller/mobile defense objective units to be cloaked.
 

--Dashwire

Dashwire is one of the most limited usage arrows in the Quiver. It's difficult to find reasons to put down a Dashwire that could not be equally solved by other, innate parkour options, or Aim Glide/Wall Latch. Its primary uses currently are firstly in using the ability's augment to provide power to critical-based weapons at the cost of restricting position, and in circumventing the unnecessary slow of Prowl, including that ability's augment, to (re)gain some movement speed along the Dashwire and when dismounting.

Range and targeting limitations make Dashwires often unreliable to use. The calculation of the wire on projectile impact can even fail to connect to a surface the player is standing on, seeking some point following along the vector behind them, causing additional failures in attempted wire placement.

Solutions:
Revise hit detection/vector logic to reduce failed lines. Improve (or remove) range limitations. Refund energy spent on a Dashwire shot which does not create a functional line.
 

--Noise

The Noise Arrow is the least-used arrow in Quiver, primarily due to complete non-functionality the moment a target is Alerted/Hostile. Its current usage is to (slowly) control the location of enemy units in a solo and/or pure-stealth scenario, either separating units to safely stealth-killable locations or grouping them together for easier control with single Sleep Arrows.

Previously it had the usage of causing retrograde amnesia in Interception missions, which is to say that affected enemies would simply stop engaging with Interception points unless they became alerted after investigating the Noise arrow. This was bugfixed and AI will now resume (but remains a solid strategy for initial grouping of enemies then managed by Sleep Arrow cycling)

Solutions:
Give this Arrow some identity or function when used on units that are alerted, making it usable in situations where enemies will not or cannot be kept unalerted and susceptible to current Noise Arrow usage.
 

--Sleep

Ivara's primary non-stealth option for handling opposition. Sleep Arrow is a potent hard-crowd-control at the designated area. This includes opening up affected targets to Finishers (including stealth or 'back' finishers and parry or 'front' finishers).

It should be noted that this arrow has been indirectly reduced in its offensive utility as a result of the mechanical change to the Covert Lethality dagger mod, meaning that the finishers this ability allows cannot be interpreted into an absolute guaranteed kill. Additionally, units with crowd control reduction (innate or diminishing returns) cause the Sleep Arrow to become barely-functional in some cases due to its base duration

Solutions:
If anything, give a minor radius and/or duration improvement to the ability. Potentially investigate some way to compensate the Covert Lethality loss as this was a thematic fit for the stealthier, assassin-like side of the Huntress.
 

--Augment

Two augments actually exist for Quiver; Empowered Quiver and Power Of Three (a conclave restricted augment).

Empowered Quiver imbues Cloak Arrows with status immunity - which provides limited benefits with the static nature of Cloak Arrows. It may be useful in avoiding knockback effects that would expose the concealed player, and certain risks of Damage over Time (e.g. Venomous Eximi, Mutalist Ospreys) from stacking up while the player cannot move.
It also grants Dashwires the ability to enhance Critical Damage for players standing on them. This can be used to great effect (as in the emergent Eidolon Hunter gameplay) but is limited by the picky nature of Dashwires.
It provides no benefits to Sleep or Noise Arrows.

Power of Three increases the cost of Quiver but fires a triple-spread of the selected arrow. This plays into the alternative arrows Quiver uses in Conclave (which I won't be going into) but would also be useful for covering greater areas with Cloak and Sleep arrows in a single cast.

Solutions:
Improving Dashwires would make Empowered Quiver's buff to them more accessible. Adding functions for Sleep and Noise would be desirable.
Possibly add an alternative augment that replaces certain limited-use arrows (likely Dashwire and Noise) with different ones. Conclave arrows may not be a viable option for this as they are equally niche or overlapping in the case of Slow vs. Sleep; all-new functions may be required instead.
Definitely grant Power Of Three the "universal" attribute and allow it as a resource for non-Conclave builds. It doesn't break anything, and would provide some nice enhancements in team-utility that might bring Ivara out of her primarily solo cave.

-Navigator

Spoiler

--Base

Navigator takes remote-control of a projectile and allows transfers the player's input to the attached projectile, allowing free motion and providing a damage buff to the controlled object.

I can cross-post this ability's issues and core solutions from another thread:

Quote

 

The current Navigator is limited primarily by three things:

Control

The speed of projectiles differing per weapon, and only having two speeds available (initial and More Zoomy) makes many use cases inviable. When looking for fine control, you have to limit the initial speed somehow (such as catching a bow's arrow AFTER it punches through something and loses most momentum).

This should be solved by A) Standardising the speed of Navigated projectiles and B) Adding a greater selection of speeds which increments and decrements with Fire and Aim respectively This could be either 3 or 5 speed depending on the fine control or Excess Fast desirable.

Cost

Previously to Grendel and the Ember rework, Navigator was the only ability with an exponentially scaling cost over time. Unlike Grendel and Ember, Ivara cannot move to pick up energy while Navigating, making this restriction completely unnecessary and begs the question why it was added in the first place. A stationary warframe can already only sustain a channel for so long.

This scaling cost needs to be removed and replaced with a flat per-second drain.

Antisynergy

The Duration Antisynergy problem is thus: You cannot reach high power output Navigation without sub-par duration - adding duration makes the ability worse, you have to wait around and beg for the scaling cost to increase before you're up to speed. In the opposite, going low-duration makes Ivara's primary defensive option of stealth difficult to sustain, and both options still suffer from the Cost Problem by either forcing more Navigation time for costs to scale, or a higher base drain which is scaled up.

This needs to be rectified by either removing the 'damage multiplier scaling' mechanic entirely, standardising it (either to percentage of the max or by tying its value to Strength as well as Duration) or just make it scale with duration, not against duration.

In addition to the above, Navigator is artificially limited by limited-lifespan projectiles - those which simply disappear or return to user after a time. Originally, Navigator overrode this as part of the ability's effects, as some Zenistar enthusiasts discovered to great entertainment. It would be nice if projectile lifespans were once again paused while the projectile is under Ivara's control.

--Augment

Piercing Navigator adds critical chance to the controlled projectile, scaling up with consequent targets. To facilitate the scaling, it adds some punch-through. However, this static punch-through can still reach its limit and prematurely end the ability. Core Navigator issues also greatly limit the functionality of Piercing Navigator.

Solutions:
In addition to the core Navigator changes, Piercing Navigator needs to give more for its cost, and to be reliable in its given function. As such, it should be given unlimited enemy punch-through in the same way the Ignis currently functions, allowing the player to remote-control projectiles through any number of foes (while energy drain permits) but without the developer issue of allowing the player to go exploring outside of the map (as still-limited terrain punch-through prevents this outcome).

-Prowl

Spoiler

--Base

I have a lot of problems with Prowl. It is a mess of an ability with so many hidden caveats (and used to have even more) that it's outright painful to use.. but you have to, if you don't want to keep exposing yourself between Cloak bubbles.

Prowl grants stealth, for an indefinite channelled duration. It also, as ancillary benefits, offers improved headshot damage and pulling an extra loot roll from enemies (stacking with other sources of looting bonus such as on-kill e.g. Hydroid:Pilfering Swarm and 'grave robbing' e.g. Nekros:Desecrate.

However, these are all brought down by an excess of crippling drawbacks, most of which are absolutely unnecessary, often redundant:

Energy Costs: After casting, Prowl drains energy in four different ways. Only one of these is listed in the ability pane. Not all are affected by the same ability statistics equally. These are:

- Base Drain: The listed per-second energy cost. This applies only when the user is immobile, including from outside influences like Knockbacks and Drags but not counting moving level geometry (e.g. standing on Hijack mission objectives). This is affected by the 'channelling cost' paradigm, using both Duration and Efficiency.

- Movement Drain: When moving in any way not attributed to the level itself, Base Drain is multiplied. I thought it was simply doubled. Wiki says it's tripled. Either way it's an arbitrary extra.

- On Melee Strike: Every strike of a melee weapon on a target costs a base 2 energy. This counts multiple enemies in a swing, hitting containers, even Finishers that deal multiple damage instances. This is only affected by Efficiency. This is antisynergetic as Ivara will want to make use of stealth-melee bonuses and finishers. No other stealth Warframe suffers when utilising the stealth-melee bonus.

- On Damaged: Every single tick of damage Ivara receives costs a base 10 energy. This includes everything from gunfire, to environment hazards, to that gradual drain from atmosphere loss when you break Corpus windows, to Arc Traps (which tick very fast), to every tick of a DoT effect, including each of the many stacks of 1-damage toxin just from being near a Venomous Eximus. This is also only affected by efficiency. This is also completely redundant as Ivara is already frail and taking damage is its own punishment. No other stealth Warframe suffers additional negative impact from damage.

Functional limitations: Prowl removes a lot of the player's options or directly penalises them for violating this.

- Concrete shoes: Prowl innately slows the player's movement speed (unless on a zipline) not unlike Nyx's Assimilate augment, except that's not going from immobile to slowly-mobile. No other stealth Warframe limits in this way. It is comparable to Operators going into Void Mode, except they're also invulnerable, again like Assimilate Nyx, along with the invisibility.

- Mobility Tools Stolen: While Prowling you are forbidden from Bullet Jumping and Sprinting in addition to the slower base movement speed. No other stealth Warframe purely limits mobility in this way. Break this rule and Prowl is irrevocably removed, you must cast the ability again including its casting-cost. Additional note: There was a long-standing bug/feature that allowed Ivaras to bullet jump from stationary without breaking Prowl. This made life much more pleasant and was a sick joke to remove years after the fact.

- LOUD NOISES: Prowl forces the player to use naturally silent weaponry, or to consume capacity on a silencing mod. No other stealth Warframe does this. Loki's augment even adds the silencing for you. If you violate this rule, you are temporarily removed from Prowl's stealth. You don't have to expend casting cost, but those enemies already suspicious of the gunfire noise are now presented with a direct, visible target to shoot at. Ivara being as paperlike as she is, this is Not Good. Note that even 'suspicion' is enough to direct many of the game's attacks to the exact position of the noise, which would be risky enough without visible exposure.

- The Worst Looting Ability Ever: Prowl's looting is just the worst. It functions - can only function - on very specific and limited target enemies. Because of the single-targeted nature, the inherent delay, the need to sit close to the target to maintain the process during that delay, it's not a general-purpose looting ability. Making decent use of it requires inaction. But wait, it's Ivara, so we need more arbitrary limitations - sub-100% Ability Strength causes the steal to sometimes fail (where over 100% strength does literally nothing beneficial!) and, despite its awkwardness making it specialised to specific and limited enemies, many of the targets you might want to actually use Prowl on, are considered 'minibosses' and immune to thievery. Great(!)

 

As a stealth ability, Prowl's shining achievement is being the best AFK stealth ability and that's all it has going for it. You can stand, AFK, in stealth, longer than anyone else. The moment you try to do more, you could have been better served if Prowl was Invisibility, Metronome:Nocturne, even Smoke Screen.
Its headshot bonus is the only unimpeded part of the ability (if you don't count poor mobility to aim your headshots and spending mod potential on silencers).
The latter subsection up there sums up the 'pickpocket' aspect.

Why does Ivara uniquely suffer for engaging her core gameplay identity? Should Gauss tear a tendon if he ran for too long, leaving him crippled for the rest of the mission? Should Loki be unable to interact with NPCs because he went invisible once too often and it stuck?

 

SOLUTIONS!
Okay, this is going to sound like an insane buff, but just look at the laundry list of things up there.

Literally remove those extra caveats. Wholesale. No slowed movement. No parkour limitation. No arbitrary energy costs for everything. No breaking stealth. Just let the reliable stealth be the reliable stealth.
Compensate that by doubled base drain if you have to (still equal or less than the moving-cost now depending on what that undisplayed difference is), so it also reduces the AFK-ability. Just let me play the game instead of feeling like I'm as trapped as the Solaris debt-slaves every time I need to not get shot in the face while going somewhere.

I'd also suggest the looting be made more usable. I'm not sure how, but it's really godawful the way it is. Maybe just make it not single-target at once any more?
 

--Augment

Infiltrate has two, equally-redundant effects:

- It increases Ivara's movement speed while prowling. This is something that only matters because of the naturally crippling downside Prowl currently has. Address that, which you should, and it's no longer necessary as a primary benefit.

- It allows Ivara to ignore (most) 'laser barriers' while Prowling. This might be more useful if Prowl didn't already stop most mobility. Being able to bullet jump quickly through lasers? Sure, maybe. But if you're going to be crippled anyway, you might as well just be out of Prowl and going around the barriers. Additionally, though Ivara Prime might counteract this argument: Anyone who earned Ivara through Spy missions is familiar enough with laser barriers they no longer need to ignore them. Experience brings the routine to an easily replicated process.

Solutions:
It's probably safe to replace Infiltrate entirely once Prowl is made not-a-crippled-mess. Anything else on the suggestion list at the time Infiltrate was decided upon - and if memory serves, Infiltrate wasn't even the majority vote then - would be a more attractive augment than this redundant band-aid to a badly undertuned ability.

-Artemis Bow

Spoiler

--Base

Artemis Bow allows Ivara to use her Exalted Bow to fire a spread-shot of multiple arrows. Charging shots rotates the firing spread from vertical to horizontal. Alt-fire also fires the current Quiver arrow quickly.

This is a solid ability that outputs good damage. However, there are some indirect caveats when it comes to certain damage enhancements, which cause the effect to be reduced by a factor of however-much multishot the bow has after mods. Critical damage is also oddly averaged across the full spread of projectiles despite whether each individual arrow actually registers a critical on impact.

It can be awkward at times to control the spread of arrows to the desired orientation. Only one half of diagonal-spreads is traveled through during charge, the other is never attainable.

Solid ability in general.

Solutions:
Investigate oddities of multishot projectiles inheriting damage buffs (personal tests indicate Madurai-Focus Void Strike divides its buff multiplier across the multishot spread, making it at least cut by a factor of 1/7 in effectiveness, more if modded for extra projectiles).
Investigate alternatives for controlling shot orientation?

--Augment

Concentrated Arrow is the name of the mod. Concentrated Arrow is not what the mod does, at all, in the slightest. "Wet Noodle Bomb Arrow" may be more appropriate, because this mod actively nerfs Artemis Bow if you fail to meet its trigger requirements (headshots) with every shot you fire.

Instead of concentrating the multishot spread of Artemis Bow into a single, high-damaging arrow, the augment simply ignores the other arrows, firing off only one (1/7th normal damage output) which, if landing a headshot, then explodes with additional effective critical chance into radial damage. It requires specifically building for, and essentially sacrificing so much of the kit for that one sweet-spot, that it cannot be considered for any realistic build. Gimmicky alternative augment at its finest.

Solutions:

Make the name actually applicable. Concentrate the full Artemis Bow damage into that single arrow. Then, at least it doesn't matter if the player missed the 'bomb' benefit - they still do what Artemis Bow would have done without it. This additionally provides a synergetic build with Navigator; where ordinarily only one Artemis arrow out of 7(+) would be able to be controlled and its damage multiplied, a Concentrated Arrow would be able to apply the Navigator bonus to the full output of the player's Artemis Bow build.

You can keep the bomb for the players who like to build for that, but personally speaking I'd be content if you made it only concentrate the arrows into one and allow it to be one of those few Exilus-slot augments since it wouldn't be granting any inherent buffs of its own.

 

Ivara Prime Access assessment

Spoiler

-Design

Why a jellyfish? What does this match with Ivara's nature, besides (as mentioned in the Devstream) simply being a poisonous creature? Even the 'aquatic' qualifier barely counts; frogs may be amphibious, but we're specifically talking tree frogs for her original thematic, to marry the 'silently deadly' huntress and 'tree warrior' etymology. Jellyfish are.. sea life, purely. They don't even bring in any of the other facets of the theme to counterbalance that. They're just big dumb floating nerve systems that aren't pleasant to touch. Nothing huntery, nothing calculated and planning about them. Frogs might not be hunters either, but at least the type chosen have tied the deadliness into the theme another way.

What you've made is pretty and beautiful, but it's not a pretty Ivara. Sadly, her Deluxe skin from previous teasers looked even worse-representative. It's a real shame her thematic identity will be lost, but evidently we're too far along to hope to change her Prime design now.

-Gear

The Baza Prime is a decent choice as she will naturally carry a primed Artemis Bow; its natural silence does hold relevance in the context of the current atrocity that Prowl is, providing a naturally-silent weapon to not fall victim to unfortunate exposure. This can stay, even though Prowl should no longer necessitate the silent nature of the weapon by release.

The Aksomati Prime should not be released with Ivara Prime. In fact, they shouldn't even be considered for several Accesses down the line. We have a lot of akimbo pistol Primes filling the same role already. The Soma family of crit-based gear is already covered - especially by the AkStiletto as an automatic, but also through the other akimbos filling the crit-role while semi-automatic.

I would heavily suggest evoking Ivara's themes more by introducing something more like a Karyst Prime. This innate-toxin dagger fits the poisonous creature themes Ivara's designs have encouraged, while also remaining a silent option (thus not breaking Prowl, though melee strikes are still problematic as explained above). A dagger is also befitting the hunter/assassin theme, and although Covert Lethality is no longer a one-shot, it still provides a core Finisher-based benefit to daggers, which Ivara freely capitalises on through Sleep Arrows.

 

In conclusion: Ivara needs a breath of fresh air, and taking her many, many shackles off so that people can fully enjoy playing her when Primed, as currently, in so many ways, the experience is more that you're fighting the dev-written caveats in her kit than you are fighting your enemy faction in the mission.

(Also Pinging @BlindStalker my fellow Ivaraphile.)

Edited December 1, 2019 by TheLexiConArtist
Added Navigator lifespan issue. Altered graph analysis due to user error.

[Leon-Darkheart]

16 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

snip

if i wouldnt be a guy i would kiss you (no homo) and blindly agree with this. Im srs here, you pretty much said everything, no words to add here, 100% agree.

[Test-995]

Mostly agreed with those.

But do not forgot cloak arrow has pitiful duration too, 12 seconds base is little too low, especially when efficiency and strength is the must for her (so you can't really build for duration).

 

 

[TheLexiConArtist]

24 minutes ago, Test-995 said:

Mostly agreed with those.

But do not forgot cloak arrow has pitiful duration too, 12 seconds base is little too low, especially when efficiency and strength is the must for her (so you can't really build for duration).

Two of my builds for Ivara use high or maximum duration. The other is absolutely tanking it due to the Navigator antisynergy issue. My go-to is actually a utility build that doesn't even maintain 100% strength (although I try to fill spare capacity to close the gap, so I can steal on occasion without it failing cycles for an hour.)

I wouldn't say Cloak has a terrible base duration either, 12 seconds is already 150% of Ash's Smoke Screen, and even that can be built heavily enough to become paid indefinitely by a simple Energy Siphon.

Bumping up her Quiver radius bases a little would be nicer with the rest of her kit having minimal range stat influences (Prowl stealing, Concentrated Arrow bombs). Potentially not needing to Overextend your cloaks and sleeps would more than make up that Strength desire.

[(PSN)Bryanneo237]

I logged in merely to say this is perfect. It's not entirely a rework either, so it should be more manageable to develop.

[Test-995]

  

1 hour ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Two of my builds for Ivara use high or maximum duration. The other is absolutely tanking it due to the Navigator antisynergy issue. My go-to is actually a utility build that doesn't even maintain 100% strength (although I try to fill spare capacity to close the gap, so I can steal on occasion without it failing cycles for an hour.)

I wouldn't say Cloak has a terrible base duration either, 12 seconds is already 150% of Ash's Smoke Screen, and even that can be built heavily enough to become paid indefinitely by a simple Energy Siphon.

Bumping up her Quiver radius bases a little would be nicer with the rest of her kit having minimal range stat influences (Prowl stealing, Concentrated Arrow bombs). Potentially not needing to Overextend your cloaks and sleeps would more than make up that Strength desire.

I'm not really utilizing her quiver beside dashwire and cloak for cetus bounty drone, so more range wouldn't really help me, but my reason for going str  is just to negate prowl speed penalty, removing those arbitrary penalties would fix it.

And only time i want to use the cloak arrow is when i want to invis allies (since using prowl for myself), and in that situation either i have to aim at them or they have to stop moving to get the buff, i think it's a lot of effort when compared to ash or octavia, and that's the reason why i think duration is terrible.

If it gets some ridiculous range buff like 100% increase or more, it wouldn't be a problem because you don't have to put that much of effort.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Test-995

[peterc3]

10 hours ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

-Prowl

 

Sounds like you want to use other stealthy frames more.

[Andele3025]

The only issues ivara has is the nerf to be unable to bullet jump in prowl and the bug since PoE era where navigator no longer pauses projectiles.

[TheLexiConArtist]

6 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Sounds like you want to use other stealthy frames more.

Not at all. It's a comparison study of sorts. The key here is that, from a stealth ability standpoint, Prowl only excels if AFK. Any other stealth can maintain invisibility indefinitely with Energy Siphon, so the 'long channel' is not a strong superiority - and in some ways a drawback in itself due to the overriding of energy regenerating effects.

Prowl feels like it's an ability built into a competitive game. It's stuffed full of random catch-outs and limitations to hinder it like you might see for some reworked, long-overpowered ability in a MOBA. Even the argument of its additional effects doesn't give a strong reason for all of those drawbacks together, especially since the pickpocketing has its own arbitrary drawback and is the worst option ingame besides.

And then you look at Octavia, who in addition to her zero window of visibility, permanent stealth also uses that same ability to grant a whole array of other buffs. What does she pay for it? Needing a bit of timing, or to sacrifice the melody of the song for consistent beats. Completely minor.

There is no reason in Warframe that Prowl alone should have so many limiting factors where similar abilities have one or none. I can guarantee if Loki was suddenly given even half of those caveats, the playerbase would explode at DE.

6 hours ago, Andele3025 said:

The only issues ivara has is the nerf to be unable to bullet jump in prowl and the bug since PoE era where navigator no longer pauses projectiles.

Mentioned the bullet jump thing, but lazy crossposted Navigator assessment forgot to mention that projectile pause. Limited lifespan objects, like the Zenistar-disk, right? Added that into the section.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

You make some decent points But I pretty heavily disagree with your issues with prowl and how you feel about her prime/deluxe.  I can agree to a point that prowl itself might have too many checks in place for balancing.  but I disagree with your approach to it and your solutions.  You're basically asking for her to have the best cloak in the game when there isn't even thematically a reason for that.  Not to mention asking for it's drain to be increased as compensation is just lazy.

If she retained full mobility dashwire becomes less valuable.  Positioning would be less important. If she didn't break cloak for using non silenced weaponry then sleep arrows become less valuable.  etc.  She's meant to play slowly and methodically and you seemingly have an issue with that despite her theme being a favorite of yours.

As far as her prime goes it actually fits Ivara quite well.  Frogs and jelly are both water based creatures.  Both can be poisonous.  Ivara is referred to as a frog princess which implies gracefulness and beauty.  Jelly are considered to have both traits.  The only "clash" here is the hunter thing.  Her deluxe leans more into that combat centric aspect of her design.  As that one is more of a forest guardian.  And forest guardian's in many mythos do feature hunter like beings as protectors.

It's perfectly fine for you to not be into either things visually but both the deluxe and her prime do hit key notes in her overall thematics.

[Xzorn]

Invisibility = Weak survival... Oh Warframe.

Ivara is near perfection in her role, her kit, her versatility and her potency.

Her Noise Arrow is the only ability I could see making a reasonable argument and 1 out of 7 is exceptionally good for this game. Maybe some bugs but stuff like "No other stealth Warframe limits in this way" - No other stealth Warframe gets head-shot multipliers in addition to melee stealth multipliers either. Some of this isn't a bug to fix really. She's not supposed to cloak mobile defense objectives and Artemis bow uses shotgun mechanics so buffs get divided.

Concentrated Arrow required head-shots is pretty easy when you have no stealth timer and can AoE sleep enemies.
100k Bleed ticks with 15k AoE ticks is pretty solid, it's far more energy efficient and does more than the base version. It's probably Ivara's best option since the Bow buff otherwise might as well not even use Artemis bow really. Why she didn't come with Daikyu Prime I've no idea but that thing..... why even use energy.

[TheLexiConArtist]

6 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

You make some decent points But I pretty heavily disagree with your issues with prowl and how you feel about her prime/deluxe.  I can agree to a point that prowl itself might have too many checks in place for balancing.  but I disagree with your approach to it and your solutions.  You're basically asking for her to have the best cloak in the game when there isn't even thematically a reason for that.  Not to mention asking for it's drain to be increased as compensation is just lazy.

If she retained full mobility dashwire becomes less valuable.  Positioning would be less important. If she didn't break cloak for using non silenced weaponry then sleep arrows become less valuable.  etc.  She's meant to play slowly and methodically and you seemingly have an issue with that despite her theme being a favorite of yours.

As far as her prime goes it actually fits Ivara quite well.  Frogs and jelly are both water based creatures.  Both can be poisonous.  Ivara is referred to as a frog princess which implies gracefulness and beauty.  Jelly are considered to have both traits.  The only "clash" here is the hunter thing.  Her deluxe leans more into that combat centric aspect of her design.  As that one is more of a forest guardian.  And forest guardian's in many mythos do feature hunter like beings as protectors.

It's perfectly fine for you to not be into either things visually but both the deluxe and her prime do hit key notes in her overall thematics.

I can't agree with any of your points on why Prowl deserves to stay for the sake of arbitrary Quiver arrows. Vauban's recent rework includes a grenade that shares functionality with Bastille/Vortex. Kits can have overlaps without being an issue, but calling Prowls concrete overshoes justified in order to keep Dashwire relevant is simply short-sighted. That's not a synergy, that's a bit of padding to soften something strictly there to inconvenience the player.

I disagree that Sleep arrow has any relevance to the exposure problem either. In practice, Ivara's just obliged to put Hush, Silent Battery and Suppress on her gear if she wants to remain prowling. That's no gameplay decision, that's an out-of-mission tax.

 

Saying 'Ivara is designed to be slower-paced' falls under this same question of execution. Is she designed to be slower-paced, because it grants benefits above and beyond similar Warframe abilities and kits? Or is she obliged to be slower paced simply because the mechanics penalise or prevent anything else with little to no compensation? Either Prowl would need a laundry list of reliable benefits to compensate the crippling drawbacks, making it arguably 'the best stealth ever', or it needs to have those needless drawbacks removed outright, wherein it simply becomes... comparable, and still not 'the best stealth' - that's going to still be Octavia's.

The impetus to be slow and methodical is not a positive influence. Ivara relies on stealth for survival, but everything acts to sabotage that. Want to keep up in non-solo missions? Endanger yourself. Caught a DoT status or broke a window? Endanger yourself or lose stacks of energy. In a Grineer mission? Better check yourself before you accidentally yourself onto an Arc Trap. All that, to 'balance' against the benefits of 'minor personal headshot bonus' and 'barely functional looting bonus'.

Also, if you'll allow me to flip the equation and use your own argument for Dashwire, doesn't a crippling Prowl make Cloak Arrows less desirable, or vice-versa? That bubble already fills the stationary stealth niche, and is arguably a better option because you can generate energy (and not lose extra for crossfire/status/melee-strikes). Prowl should be the mobile tool, but it inhibits so much mobility it can't fulfil that.

 

Design-wise of the Prime and Deluxe, that's more of a personal thing (though I see most sharing the opinion, I know better than to take that as objective majority vote). I don't even see a theme on the Deluxe, it's just a mess of elements stabbed onto a frame to my eyes.

With regards to the Prime, though, you're playing the degrees of separation to justify the Jellyfish. Where the original is <Dart Frog> = <Deadly> + <Woodland> you're now taking the added leap of <Jellyfish> = <Deadly> + (<Frog> = <Aquatic>) which means you're building from the wrong part of the foundation. This makes the Jellyfish direction more of a 'flying buttress' extension than one with its own directly-grounded base. It's not relevant to Ivara's theme, it's relevant to Ivara's Theme's theme.
Think of it like this: If Ivara's base frame design had chosen any other deadly/poisonous woodland creature or hunter than an amphibious frog to fit her theme, would Ivara Prime make any sense?

 

26 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

Invisibility = Weak survival... Oh Warframe.

Ivara is near perfection in her role, her kit, her versatility and her potency.

Her Noise Arrow is the only ability I could see making a reasonable argument and 1 out of 7 is exceptionally good for this game. Maybe some bugs but stuff like "No other stealth Warframe limits in this way" - No other stealth Warframe gets head-shot multipliers in addition to melee stealth multipliers either. Some of this isn't a bug to fix really. She's not supposed to cloak mobile defense objectives and Artemis bow uses shotgun mechanics so buffs get divided.

Concentrated Arrow required head-shots is pretty easy when you have no stealth timer and can AoE sleep enemies.
100k Bleed ticks with 15k AoE ticks is pretty solid, it's far more energy efficient and does more than the base version. It's probably Ivara's best option since the Bow buff otherwise might as well not even use Artemis bow really. Why she didn't come with Daikyu Prime I've no idea but that thing..... why even use energy.

Maybe you're intentionally misreading, but Invisibility is a method of survival. So is direct numerical damage mitigation. Because Ivara is one of the weakest at mitigating or enduring damage, she relies on stealth to survive. That's all. But, in that context, the stealth should be reliable, not something from which you're routinely forced to expose yourself.

No other Warframe specifically gets headshot multipliers, but last I checked, Ash stunned enemies, Wukong's cloud grants mobility and stuns enemies, Octavia has all those other buffs attached and can give it to her entire squad. Loki then is the only one you have a baseline argument for. His is an old kit that does few things, but well. Then you look into the attached augments where appropriate - now Ash too can extend stealth to friendlies and Loki gets free silencing to avoid the several mechanics and attacks that will happily pinpoint anyone who makes an alarming sound, visible or not. Ivara gets some of the concrete chipped off her feet and a largely redundant laser bypass (which, because Prowl is so glacial, is probably slower to use than just going around them the normal way).

 

I think you misunderstood the issue of cloaking mobile defendable targets. Not Mobile Defense consoles, but any allied units you need to defend which move. That's just a personal bugbear because those drones in that one Orb Vallis objective should absolutely be cloak-friendly.

The buff issue is inarguably a bug. That 'shotgun mechanic' is and always has been nonsensical. If you have a weapon that shoots 1000 damage over 10 projectiles of 100 each, your 500% damage buff should result in 10 projectiles of 500 damage each (total 500% damage), not 10 projectiles of 15 damage each (total 150% damage).

 

Concentrated Arrow is still a misnomer. But I'm not saying they have to remove the bomb - just give the base arrow the concentrated damage and it's already viable for more than the awkward gimmickry that it takes to make full use of that. In my experience it requires far too much sacrifice elsewhere in the kit (plus absolute reliance on Hunter Munitions) to be worth using, especially since failing to headshot - which is incredibly common if you're not blowing all your energy on short-term Sleep Arrows for every single shot too - makes the augment a sevenfold nerf to the ability's output.

I'd personally be happy if it was a bombless exilus augment, but I never said that was what should absolutely be done.

Edited November 24, 2019 by TheLexiConArtist

[BlindStalker]

@TheLexiConArtist A rough template of most of the ideas that I had in my head. Many of these are similar or same ideas proposed by your op as well. Sorry, I think there were a couple of others, but I might have forgotten them (hopefully I'll remember them later). Most of these changes are just numbers tweaking, but some other slight changes.

Note, all "base values" presented are assumed for an Ivara at max level (rank 30).

Abilities

1. Passive: update it to also include loot on the radar (basically give Ivara 'animal instinct' instead of just pure 'enemy radar')
2. Quiver:
   • Sleep Arrow
     • Change base radius from 6m to 8m
     • Change base duration from 10s to 12s
   • Cloak Arrow
     • Change base radius from 2.5m to 4m
     • Change base duration from 12s to 14s
   • Dashwire Arrow
     • If the dashwire cannot materialize, the energy is not spent (no one likes firing an ability and having it do nothing. Dashwires do not materialize sometimes due to level geometry issues, but still cost energy when used).
     • Possibly increase the range from 100m to 150m (purely only for open-world tilesets)
   • Noise Arrow
     • Update noise arrow by adding a duration mechanic to it as well, base time 6s (affected by mods). When enemies are attracted to the noise arrow, upon arriving at the designated spot they will stay attracted to it for the given duration before returning to their normal behaviour. (The other side of this is that 'ai coding behaviour' with stealth mechanics must be improved too, to further emphasis the usefulness and uniqueness of noise arrow). Noise arrow though, does still need something else to make it more useful, but I can't come up with anything else at the moment.
3. Navigator
   • Fix current existing client/host bug (see this bug report: Ivara Navigator bug with glaives as host vs client)
   • Fix navigator so that it has the ability to pause projectile self-detonation time/projectile range limit again. This is complicated to explain, but navigator used to override the limit of how long a projectile could be flown before it exploded/detonated. Example, formerly you could fire a sonicor shot and navigate it indefinitely until Ivara ran out of energy. Now you'll get kicked out navigator once the projectile reaches its max range limit (not sure if it's a range thing or projectile self-detonation thing).
   • Possibly reduce the energy drain by a little bit (key emphasis, by a "little bit"). I don't have an exact value on hand.
   • (Keep the damage multiplier and scaling multiplier growth. Navigator is Ivara's cannon ability. it is buggy and the choices are limited for weapons that pair well with it, but its one of the most unique defining features about Ivara and I don't want this ability to be removed from her.)
4. Prowl
   • Change duration steal time from 2.5s to 2s
   • Change headshot bonus from 40% to 50% (No reason to actually put this, I just like 50% more)
   • Change base steal range from 4m to 5m.
   • Possibly remove the energy drain multiplier on melee entirely
   • Possibly remove the energy drain on hit entirely
   • (Only for 'Infiltrate' - increase the base movement speed of mod from 25% to 50%).
5. Artemis Bow
   • Change the charge rate of Artemis Bow from 1.00 to 0.9
   • Make the vertical spread of Artemis Bow significantly tighter to encourage vertical shots as "long range accurate shots for headshots" while keeping horizontal shots as its normal wide spread. Basically Artemis Bow starts out with tight vertical spread and widens out to wide horizontal spread when charging it. See screenshots for significant comparison between Cernos Prime's vertical spread vs Artemis Bow's huge vertical spread. The Cernos Prime can be used effectively at longer ranges, Artemis Bow is sadly too wide-spread for long range engagements:

     This is how wide the vertical spread of Artemis Bow is at 10m. I have split chamber and VA mulit-shot mods on. You can't realistically get all 18 arrows to hit an enemy's head in vertical angle, even at point blank range. Read screenshot for further details.

     

     This is the Cernos Prime's vertical shot, and by the way that's all 8 arrows being shot in a very tight grouping (due to mulit-shot mods). Cernos Prime can accurately hit headshots at range with its vertical shot, all 8 arrows! Read screenshot for further details.
     

   • (Investigate the mulit-shot bugs with Artemis Bow, if they exist. Refer to OP's post in the original spoiler above.)

Augments: baking them into Ivara's kit

Now comes for a more unique change that is designed to encourage players to understand that Ivara can be used outside of 'spy missions'. I am disappointed when players only view Ivara as a frame that is only 'good for spy missions and nothing else'. Sure Ivara can do spy missions, but she can do SO MUCH more if the player just puts in some effort to understand her better. I keep calling Ivara a 'technical utility glass cannon, jack of all trades, master of none' type of frame.
Most people don't even understand that Ivara is a glass cannon and just focus in on 'prowl' and nothing else. This narrow-mindness causes people to only regulate Ivara to spy missions. My other proposal is this, Bake some of Ivara's augments into her kit so that the glass cannon and technical utility aspects of Ivara's kit are better emphasized to players.

•  Empowered quiver - baking EQ into Ivara's kit, should send a message to the player that she can give unique team buffs with crit-wire, that her cloak is also useful for status effect cleansing. They would at least better encourage players to use dashwires in combat more frequently. It would be basic QoL if EQ got added in as standard for her kit. It would send a message to the player that Ivara can provide obvious meaningful buffs to the team if EQ was baked in without having to balance modding around it (this issue is probably what stops people from using it as often, besides not taking Ivara out at all). This would then free up the augment slot for 'Quiver' so that something new can be created for Ivara.
• Infiltrate - over time, I've been disappointed with this mod. Not because its bad, but because this mod accidentally caused Ivara to be 'pigeon-holed' into the spy niche. So many people just stick this mod on her, not really caring about the other stats and call it a day, building Ivara. At this point, you might as well just make it a permanent part of her kit. I don't want people to constantly just slap this augment on Ivara and to not do anything else with her. It would hopefully encourage people to realize that 'power strength' on Ivara isn't a "dump stat" since power strength affects 3/4th of Ivara's kit including this augment! Power strength is really juicy on Ivara, it should be emphasized to the player to not dump it, unless you truly are building only for quiver. This would then free up the augment slot for 'Prowl' so that something new can be created for Ivara.
• Piercing navigator - just bake this mod into her kit already! We know that PN is the least used augment out of all of Ivara's augment. DE's own internal statistics even showed this during Update 25.6. DE only touched/updated augments of which they noticed were severely under-used by the community. Guess which of Ivara's augments got updated? Now navigator is supposed to be Ivara's "cannon" shot. But realistically speaking, PN is such an underused augment that if DE deleted it, nobody would bat an eyelash about its disappearance. However, to emphasize to the player that Ivara can be built as a 'glass cannon', PN should just become a standard part of navigator overall. This would then free up the augment slot for 'Navigator' so that something new can be created for Ivara.
• Concentrated Arrow - .. okay don't bake this augment into her kit. It should remain as an augment. Update it like others have suggested (combine all the default 7 arrows into 1 arrow, instead of being misleading and only taking the damage of one arrow). Make it actually concentrated in damage.

Now, you might have noticed that I kept saying 'free up augment slot' for 'x' ability. The point of baking augments is a few reasons.

1. Again, to change perception in the wf player community that Ivara has unique abilities and that she can be useful outside of her spy niche, and to encourage people to view Ivara as a 'technical utility glass cannon, jack of all trades, master of none' type of frame instead of 'goes invisible and is only useful for spy...'. Ivara's augments are useful and I know some might say OP. But the fact that the average player isn't bringing Ivara out to more end-game activities like Eidolons, or Arbitrations or whatever end-game, and is instead regulating Ivara to just 'spy missions' only, strikes me as disappointing. Baking some of her augments into her kit should hopefully change the perception of the average player into trying more things with her. Encourage players to build for other aspects of her kit, instead of just infiltrate.
2. Freeing up augments would allow new ideas to be proposed for Ivara. For those of you who don't know, Piercing navigator, is an augment that was unfortunately born from extremely poor feedback mis-communication on DE's part. Basically DE polled the design council on what Ivara's navigator augment could have been. The design council voted on 6 different options, and there was a clear favourite that the design council leaned on: "Ivara travels with the projectile, appearing at the location where the ability ends." Basically, give Ivara something similiar to Nezha's Warding Halo teleport ability. This was the top voted choice by a fair margin. However, DE didn't go with that option (I think the reasons were for technical reasons, but I don't if that was the case). In any case, DE didn't go with the top voted option, DE didn't even go with the 2nd most voted option (which was: "reduce energy cost per target hit"). DE gave us Piercing navigator instead, which by the way, was not even option that could be voted on in that poll. In other words, DE what was the point of polling the design council if you were going to just ignore their poll and ultimately give something completely different in the end for Ivara's navigator augment? Baking PN could free up the navigator augment slot and would give DE another chance to try again at maybe creating that voted on idea (or give us a new navigator augment that we would likely use).

This is a rough template of idea proposals. At the end of the day, I'm hoping for Ivara to be improved in a way so that more players, take Ivara seriously as a frame and realize that she has great potential and can offer so much more than just 'spy and invisibility'. I don't want Ivara to just be a "pretty face and nothing more" type of frame to the average player. I would like to see them bring Ivara out more, especially out of her comfort zone (But honestly, she is very pretty and beautiful. Of course I'm bias in that regard)

Edited November 30, 2019 by BlindStalker
What I have on my mind at the moment. Will add more to this later if I think of anything else.

[DatDarkOne]

Ok.  I'm going to approach only the suggestions or statements that I have a direct opinion on.  

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

Ivara is ranked amongst the weakest Warframes in the game for actual survivability in combat.

Where did you find this absolutely false rank from.  EVERYONE knows Ivara is the Survival Queen and pretty much undisputed in that title.  

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

Range and targeting limitations make Dashwires often unreliable to use. The calculation of the wire on projectile impact can even fail to connect to a surface the player is standing on, seeking some point following along the vector behind them, causing additional failures in attempted wire placement.

I actually don't have any of those problems with Dashwire.  

 

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

Potentially investigate some way to compensate the Covert Lethality loss as this was a thematic fit for the stealthier, assassin-like side of the Huntress.

Covert Lethality was a crutch.  After doing numerous Stealth Kills with EVERY MELEE in the game using Sleep Arrow, I can honestly say that I don't miss Covert Lethality at all because it was never needed.  

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

It would be nice if projectile lifespans were once again paused while the projectile is under Ivara's control.

This was done intentionally by DE after certain Tenno used Navigator on Arca Plasmor to wipe out most enemies in PoE and other places with just one bullet.  Before this was added, Navigator DID pause lifespans on all projectiles.  (info given for those who might not have known this)

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

It is a mess of an ability with so many hidden caveats (and used to have even more) that it's outright painful to use

This is just an opinion and not fact.  

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

No parkour limitation.

Only bulletjump and Sprinting is effected.  Ivara can still parkour.  Meaning Jump, Doublejump, AimGlide, Wallrun, roll, Air roll, Backflip, Air Backflip.  (info given for those who might not have known this and clarity)

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

No arbitrary energy costs for everything.

This one is extremely simple.  Just mod for Efficiency.  

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

 these are all brought down by an excess of crippling drawbacks, most of which are absolutely unnecessary

While we can differ on whether to call them "crippling" or not, they are necessary for a few reasons.  Without those drawbacks, Ivara would be an OverPowered Beast.  I'm using the old school meaning of over powered and not the watered down version from this decade.  😄  The drawbacks IMO are necessary because they keep people from coming on the forums and screaming "NERF IVARA!".  Which hasn't stopped a few from trying just that over the last 4 years.  

5 hours ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

The impetus to be slow and methodical is not a positive influence. Ivara relies on stealth for survival, but everything acts to sabotage that. Want to keep up in non-solo missions?

Here's the problem with this statement.  Non-solo (meaning your teammates) sabotage everything about Ivara's intended playstyle.  So much so that I learned a long time ago that when playing with groups it was overall better for me as Ivara to move away from them.  Using Dashwire to get above them, move off slightly to the side, or anything that could get me away from the "Anti-Stealth, Gotta-go-fast, Leeroy Jenkins" teammates who were almost guaranteed to get you killed.  Over 90% of all the deaths I've gotten in the 4 years that I've been playing Ivara all came while I was in a group mission.  Let that sink in.  😄  

 

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

Concentrated Arrow is the name of the mod. Concentrated Arrow is not what the mod does, at all, in the slightest. "Wet Noodle Bomb Arrow" may be more appropriate, because this mod actively nerfs Artemis Bow if you fail to meet its trigger requirements (headshots) with every shot you fire.

Instead of concentrating the multishot spread of Artemis Bow into a single, high-damaging arrow, the augment simply ignores the other arrows, firing off only one (1/7th normal damage output) which, if landing a headshot, then explodes with additional effective critical chance into radial damage. It requires specifically building for, and essentially sacrificing so much of the kit for that one sweet-spot, that it cannot be considered for any realistic build. Gimmicky alternative augment at its finest.

You Hit the NAIL on the Head with this one.  It's been the main issue I have with Concentrated Arrow augment to the point that I consider it to really be a nerf.  

On 2019-11-23 at 3:47 AM, TheLexiConArtist said:

 in so many ways, the experience is more that you're fighting the dev-written caveats in her kit than you are fighting your enemy faction in the mission.

That is only when you try to play her outside of her Designed intent.  Ivara was designed as a Solo Infiltrator/Hunter/Assassin.  Notice I said solo.  Almost everything you listed as either bad or a drawback cease to be so while she's solo.  So much so that you can easily say that Ivara actually is more Powerful solo than with a group.  There aren't many frames or a very elite few that can solo pretty much all of the game, has the tools to do so, and change tactics in the middle of a mission.  This is all with the Drawbacks you mentioned.  

So be careful my fellow Tenno or you might cause more people to take notice and start screaming, "NERF IVARA!" with DE listening.  And we all know how things turn out when DE brings the nerf hammer out.  

Edited November 24, 2019 by DatDarkOne

[DatDarkOne]

ON an extra note.  

Has anyone else noticed that DE has slowly nerfed stealth mechanics almost into the ground?  Mechanics that currently only one frame can still do on a reliable and consistent manner.  The most recent nerf being not able to get stealth kills with any primary or secondary regardless of silence without using Sleep on the enemies.  

Think about this for a few minutes.  Let it simmer.  Then think how this effects Ivara, her upcoming prime, and her place in the game.  

[TheLexiConArtist]

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

Where did you find this absolutely false rank from.  EVERYONE knows Ivara is the Survival Queen and pretty much undisputed in that title.

Assessing the core EHP statistics of the Warframe plus any abilities that directly enhance this. It's a measure of direct survivability (enduring damage) versus indirect (circumventing damage).

Compare Ivara with Ash, for example. Ash's superior health and armour make him less reliant on stealth, and as such has the least generous duration, although still within the Energy Siphon Threshold for indefinite sustain.

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

I actually don't have any of those problems with Dashwire.  

It's most noticeable the more open the area is that you're trying to use it. Large open arenas or defense tiles, Open World zones, and any time you're trying to chain together less prominent scenery objects. It's worth a revision pass to see if it could be improved, and I'm sure you'll agree that the energy refund I suggested is still fair.

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

Covert Lethality was a crutch.  After doing numerous Stealth Kills with EVERY MELEE in the game using Sleep Arrow, I can honestly say that I don't miss Covert Lethality at all because it was never needed.  

Well, I did say possibly. It was certainly nice to have the hard-kill option, making it as strong a tool for Ivara's kit as those who argue Concentrated Arrow is 'usable' because it interacts well with Hunter Munitions.

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

This was done intentionally by DE after certain Tenno used Navigator on Arca Plasmor to wipe out most enemies in PoE and other places with just one bullet.  Before this was added, Navigator DID pause lifespans on all projectiles.  (info given for those who might not have known this)

It's possible I only caught this after the fact, I remember doing my usual navigator projectile tests while levelling the Arca Plasmor and being confused by its abrupt disappearance. Still, the energy cost issue should have prevented abuse as egregious as you suggest, and I'd argue the bulk of the problem is in the Plasmor itself, being a 'shotgun' without any of the pellet-spread caveats that usually mitigate their superior damage output.

_{Besides, I miss my UFO Zenistar now more than ever.}

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

This is just an opinion and not fact.  

Only bulletjump and Sprinting is effected.  Ivara can still parkour.  Meaning Jump, Doublejump, AimGlide, Wallrun, roll, Air roll, Backflip, Air Backflip.  (info given for those who might not have known this and clarity)

This one is extremely simple.  Just mod for Efficiency.  

While we can differ on whether to call them "crippling" or not, they are necessary for a few reasons.  Without those drawbacks, Ivara would be an OverPowered Beast.  I'm using the old school meaning of over powered and not the watered down version from this decade.  😄  The drawbacks IMO are necessary because they keep people from coming on the forums and screaming "NERF IVARA!".  Which hasn't stopped a few from trying just that over the last 4 years.  

- It is objectively a vastly limiting ability, and offers little benefit to justify the numerous (mostly hidden) drawbacks, compared to similar abilities.

- Bullet Jump is the biggest offender, doubly so due to the fact we had a bullet jump for a very long time before that so-called 'bug fix'. Bunnyhopping and rolling cannot hope to measure up with the proper execution of mobility tools which include those disallowed by Prowl, as these fail to conserve and build on momentum. Also you missed sliding as a restricted act.

- Treating the symptom does not cure the disease. Whether you lose 10 energy or 2.5 energy per tick of 1 damage is irrelevant when it can still build up to hundreds of meaningless energy drain. Building to mitigate those as much as possible also hamstrings your duration stat, making Quiver's best tools markedly less useful. Even the extra on-moving cost is disingenuous because it means the ability UI is flatly lying to the player by only displaying the stationary cost. And none of it is justified. Not in Warframe.

- Octavia exists. That alone defeats any hope of Ivara being 'beastly overpowered' just because she can actually move around reasonably well while in her survival obliging stealth state. I'm sure you mean no disrespect as I do not, but this is literal fear-mongering used as an argument. One minor and situational damage enhancement and one tedious looting ability that requires you to sit by enemies without letting them die does not overpowered make.

2 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

Here's the problem with this statement.  Non-solo (meaning your teammates) sabotage everything about Ivara's intended playstyle.  So much so that I learned a long time ago that when playing with groups it was overall better for me as Ivara to move away from them.  Using Dashwire to get above them, move off slightly to the side, or anything that could get me away from the "Anti-Stealth, Gotta-go-fast, Leeroy Jenkins" teammates who were almost guaranteed to get you killed.  Over 90% of all the deaths I've gotten in the 4 years that I've been playing Ivara all came while I was in a group mission.  Let that sink in.  😄  

That is only when you try to play her outside of her Designed intent.  Ivara was designed as a Solo Infiltrator/Hunter/Assassin.  Notice I said solo.  Almost everything you listed as either bad or a drawback cease to be so while she's solo.  So much so that you can easily say that Ivara actually is more Powerful solo than with a group.  There aren't many frames or a very elite few that can solo pretty much all of the game, has the tools to do so, and change tactics in the middle of a mission.  This is all with the Drawbacks you mentioned. 

As a primarily solo player myself, I can attest that DE has routinely either ignored or actively sabotaged the solo player's lifestyle anyway, so there is no excuse for them to retain these issues on Ivara that so strongly disincentivise taking her out of her private little hunting grounds.

No stealth-based frame really enjoys getting caught up in allied crossfire - and even Ivara in solo has that issue sometimes when using Cloak Arrow because of rogue kavats going out to attack and alert the enemy, or putting the bubble in just the wrong place that a sentinel peeks out above it. The existence of unnecessary extra energy penalties to that in Prowl simply breeds contempt for the ally who caused it.

But, as that selfsame solo player? All those issues I mentioned are still issues I have observed, frequently, while making Ivara useful in spite of them. 'Keeping up in non-solo' was just an example case. Wanting to keep mobility without committing suicide is perfectly applicable to lone players too. Just because she's an 'infiltrator', a hunter, a tracker, doesn't mean that she has to be glacial; infiltrating against intelligent opposition is as much about moving quickly when you find opportunity as it is being cautious until those opportunities present themselves.

[DatDarkOne]

Thank you for this thought provoking discussion.  I'm serious.  It's rare now a days.  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Assessing the core EHP statistics of the Warframe plus any abilities that directly enhance this. It's a measure of direct survivability (enduring damage) versus indirect (circumventing damage).

Compare Ivara with Ash, for example. Ash's superior health and armour make him less reliant on stealth, and as such has the least generous duration, although still within the Energy Siphon Threshold for indefinite sustain.

This very thing is why I value in-game testing and experience over the on paper stats.  Ivara herself being a prime example that breaks survivability stats unless you have working knowledge when reading those stats.  Something newer or less experienced player will not have.  But that's an issue that is corrected with experience.  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

It's worth a revision pass to see if it could be improved, and I'm sure you'll agree that the energy refund I suggested is still fair.

Agreed.  😄  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Still, the energy cost issue should have prevented abuse as egregious as you suggest,

You'd be surprised at just how long you can keep Navigator going with decent Efficiency and Primed Flow.  Check out the vid that QuitteShy did with Ivara and the Wolf Sledge in Orb Vallus.  It really is eye-opening when you try it.  i know it did me when I tested how long I could keep Navigator going even before seeing either of those videos.  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

doubly so due to the fact we had a bullet jump for a very long time before that so-called 'bug fix'.

OH I agreed with this when they so called "corrected" the bug.  Almost pissed me off with the reason they gave, but I adapted back to my SOP of before the "Bug" came into effect.  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Octavia exists. That alone defeats any hope of Ivara being 'beastly overpowered' just because she can actually move around reasonably well while in her survival obliging stealth state. I'm sure you mean no disrespect as I do not, but this is literal fear-mongering used as an argument.

While it is very logical to think this, the forum has shown me and others time and time again just how petty, vindictive, and whinny they can be.  So with that knowledge I can't help but consider it a very valid argument.  Heck we had a person actually make a topic complaining about about doing bulletjumps for a Nightwave challenge.  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

I can attest that DE has routinely either ignored or actively sabotaged the solo player's lifestyle anyway

This one and the Reasoning DE gave for the "Prowl/bulletjump fix" lead me to believe that the following will not ever be addressed:

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

there is no excuse for them to retain these issues on Ivara that so strongly disincentivise taking her out of her private little hunting grounds.

 

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

All those issues I mentioned are still issues I have observed, frequently, while making Ivara useful in spite of them.

 

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

 infiltrating against intelligent opposition

Which are also symptoms of DE nerfing the hell out of stealth mechanics in the game.   Something in which I've been hoping the Ivara Prime release will hopefully address.  

43 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

No stealth-based frame really enjoys getting caught up in allied crossfire - and even Ivara in solo has that issue sometimes when using Cloak Arrow because of rogue kavats going out to attack and alert the enemy, or putting the bubble in just the wrong place that a sentinel peeks out above it. The existence of unnecessary extra energy penalties to that in Prowl simply breeds contempt for the ally who caused it.

'Keeping up in non-solo' was just an example case. Wanting to keep mobility without committing suicide is perfectly applicable to lone players too. Just because she's an 'infiltrator', a hunter, a tracker, doesn't mean that she has to be glacial;

All of the above things mentioned here are the EXACT reasons I have my general purpose Tenchu Assassin Ivara built the way I do.  Including why that same general purpose build only has 95% duration and Always has Infiltrate and 200% Power Strength even though Artemis Bow isn't the focus of the build.  

This is not to say that your suggestions don't have merit.  This is also not me saying that everyone should do as I have.  This is more of me acknowledging those issues/drawbacks and working them to fit how I like and want to play.  I'm cautious of any suggestions in regards to Ivara because of how the forum behaves and DE's proven kneejerk reactions to the forum. 

In simple terms,

Spoiler

I don't want the Forum Hivemind to cause DE to FUQ UP my Ivara!

Happy Hunting Tenno.  😄  

Edited November 24, 2019 by DatDarkOne

[Tyanya]

45 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

Which are also symptoms of DE nerfing the hell out of stealth mechanics in the game.   Something in which I've been hoping the Ivara Prime release will hopefully address. 

Hi there DatDarkOne and other fellow stealth peeps

Apparently DE haven't made any intentional nerfs to stealth recently, only the ones mentioned in the patch notes of the past, the bulk of the wonky stealth play are the result of unintentional bugs.

We've been having a good ole chat about it over here

DE are aware of the bugs related to stealth, so it hopefully it will be sorted sooner rather than later.

Cheers then ☺️

 

[Hexsing]

So I was cooking Ivara up before the announcement of her Prime counterpart coming in.  So far I am loving her.  She really is great.  However I agree with your points.

Personally I love all of your suggestions.  Although I have been using Zip Line arrows a fair bit.  I actually like this mechanic.  But agreed. With your point.

I wish Noise Arrow had an option to detonate the thing for blast damage. Or a stun.  Even a rag doll effect would be cool.  I figure blast because sonic.  But I'd like to see that happen. 

[BlindStalker]

6 minutes ago, Tyanya said:

Hi there DatDarkOne and other fellow stealth peeps

Apparently DE haven't made any intentional nerfs to stealth recently, only the ones mentioned in the patch notes of the past, the bulk of the wonky stealth play are the result of unintentional bugs.

We've been having a good ole chat about it over here

DE are aware of the bugs related to stealth, so it hopefully it will be sorted sooner rather than later.

Cheers then ☺️

 

Thank you. I rummaged around in the other bug thread on this topic (someone timestamped the devstream 133 which Rebecca replied). Hopefully we'll see a fix on this later.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by BlindStalker

[DatDarkOne]

45 minutes ago, Tyanya said:

Apparently DE haven't made any intentional nerfs to stealth recently, only the ones mentioned in the patch notes of the past, the bulk of the wonky stealth play are the result of unintentional bugs.

Oh trust me when I say there have been unannounced changes to stealth going all the way back to PoE's release.  The main one from back then was the extended range at which enemies could now detect us.  It's why I made a special open-world Ivara build with over 100+ m of Enemy Radar.  

Either way.  I do thank you for the link and updates, fellow Stealth Tenno.  😄  

Edited November 24, 2019 by DatDarkOne

[BlindStalker]

Not my original reply, but some things before I actually get to the main meat of my reply (I feel like this thread is going a bit off).

12 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Invisibility = Weak survival... Oh Warframe.

TheLexiconArtist meant eHP calculation wise only, putting abilities to the side in regards to that statement. Although I would say it's fair that it should've been made more clear in that statement.

6 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

Where did you find this absolutely false rank from.  EVERYONE knows Ivara is the Survival Queen and pretty much undisputed in that title.  

That is a personal bias opinion. Ivara is good at self-survival, she always has been. She's not the undisputed survival queen however (if anything, she might have lost that title). A measurable undisputed 'survival queen frame' would be a frame that can go through survival and reach end-cap level 9,999 enemies. And of course, we know which obscenely broken OP frame that is, Octavia. We know this because much better and proficient players have demonstrated how monstrously broken Octavia is (and one of those players is in this thread right now, and he only left that game because he was getting bored).

And these players have demonstrated that Octavia can hit the end-level of the game and break it as well. Octavia will out-scale Ivara in terms of time length/levels. Ultimately, Ivara had to rely on CL to get her to those level 9,999 enemies, it wasn't a pretty type of setup, but it would work. But CL is dead. Ivara is still good at her own self-survival but can only go so far as the weapons that you give her. Those weapons will eventually hit a limit (as far as I know)

Now I'm probably going to get dinged about this anyways, so I'm just going to ping you again @Xzorn you have much deeper knowledge of this game's mechanics. I know that you know there are other frames who can reach those level 9,999 enemies (who are not named Octavia). But I want to flip the question, can Ivara still reach level 9,999 enemies now in the game's current build? Is there a setup that Ivara can genuinely use that will guarantee that she can still face level 9,999 enemies? I'm just wanting to look for an objective answer on this subject. But this subject is merely a side question to determine if Ivara can still scale towards the end, or if ultimately Octavia will out-scale Ivara. Its not the main topic at hand.

6 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

This was done intentionally by DE after certain Tenno used Navigator on Arca Plasmor to wipe out most enemies in PoE and other places with just one bullet.  Before this was added, Navigator DID pause lifespans on all projectiles.  (info given for those who might not have known this)

Putting that survival stuff aside. I have rummaged through those patch notes and we have never seen DE directly say that navigator was purposely nerfed or fixed for that particular reason. It would not be surprising if DE broke their own code (that happens so often in this game is not even funny). Infiltrate is an augment that was broken for a while and wasn't properly applying its effect on sentinel companions (remember, I was the one who had to pull out all the patch notes and show that DE simply took a bit time to fix things). I have my own Ivara bug threads which I'm still hoping will get fixed eventually. But the other reason why I say there are no such things as 'stealth nerfs' is because one of the moderators locked a different thread (ironically still on the topic of Ivara) stating that DE does not do "stealth-nerfs" and that if some sort of changed occurred and it's not listed in the patch notes, then we can conclude that it's likely a bug and should be reported on. That thread is in the spoiler below:

Spoiler

 

And I've tried looking through these old patch notes, nothing was ever mentioned about Navigator's interaction to pause projectile time limits/self detonation range as being an unintended feature. It was never mentioned as being fixed in the patch notes (I read through them at the time of when this bug first occurred), ergo no mention of it, suggests that it was a bug (going off of what the moderators have stated that DE doesn't do 'stealth-nerfs'). It's not surprising for DE to break some feature after introducing more code into this game (it has become the norm at this point).

6 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

I actually don't have any of those problems with Dashwire. 

This is a level geometry issue or something to that nature. Most situations, dashwires will appear, most of the time. Its just that on some level terrain, some thing blocks the way of the dashwire. Again, its a level terrain issue, its a rare occurrence but it can occur. I know because I've had this issue on some spots (and no, it wasn't range issue, I have waypoint my spots to double check that I was within 100m). Its a rare occurrence, but at core, is a minor issue to fire off a dashwire and to simply not have it materialize but still cost energy. Its minor, but can occur.

Note, this isn't my main reply to this thread, but I want to state what I really want this thread to be about. I don't want us (me, TheLexiconArtist, DatDarkOne and other Ivara mains) to be arguiing about Ivara (I'd say we're not arguing right now though from how I've read this thread). Rather, I want this thread to do what it should be doing, which is to suggest Quality of Life changes to help improve Ivara's kit before her Prime officially releases. She's not in the worst spot, but there is room for improvement here and there, and that's what I would like us to try and focus on.

(I'll be making another reply of course to the main topic at hand).

Edited November 24, 2019 by BlindStalker

[DatDarkOne]

8 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

That is a personal bias opinion. Ivara is good at self-survival, she always has been. She's not the undisputed survival queen however (if anything, she might have lost that title). A measurable undisputed 'survival queen frame' would be a frame that can go through survival and reach end-cap level 9,999 enemies. And of course, we know which obscenely broken OP frame that is, Octavia.

Ok, I will concede on the Undisputed part.  😛

 

11 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

I have rummaged through those patch notes and we have never seen DE directly say that navigator was purposely nerfed or fixed for that particular reason. It would not be surprising if DE broke their own code

Navigator previously never had an issue controlling ANY Projectile until not long after a certain Video was released on Youtube that directly called fact to this with the Arca Plasmor.  Not long at all after that video was released, the interaction of Arca Plasmor with Navigator and also Sonicor (similar projectile type) was nerfed into non-existance.  This was not the case when the Plasmor was first released.  I know because it was one of the things I tested on buying the Arca Bundle on it's release.  😄  

17 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

But the other reason why I say there are no such things as 'stealth nerfs' is because one of the moderators locked a different thread (ironically still on the topic of Ivara) stating that DE does not do "stealth-nerfs" and that if some sort of changed occurred and it's not listed in the patch notes, then we can conclude that it's likely a bug and should be reported on.

Let's just say I don't agree on "Stealth Nerfs" not being a thing.  My post directly above yours is just one example of that very thing.  It's also why my comments in the other topic were requesting (borderline demanding) a response from DE.  

The bulletjump with Prowl, I knew was a bug right off as I had previous experience with Prowl before the bug existed to recognize it as such.  Remember when I told you why the bulletjump bug being fixed didn't bother me and who was talking reason then?   

After 4 years of exploring every possible way to use stealth, stealth tactics, and how it interacts with one specific frame and you playstyle, you tend to notice even the slightest changes that effect that playstyle when they appear.  I'm not saying that DE hasn't been upfront in most things.  What I am saying is that I think DE has been silently experimenting and gauging our responses to little changes here and there in order to see what paths they can take with Warframe.  Ivara Prime's release just happens to be at the crux of how to handle Stealth from here on out.  

[Xzorn]

52 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

But I want to flip the question, can Ivara still reach level 9,999 enemies now in the game's current build? Is there a setup that Ivara can genuinely use that will guarantee that she can still face level 9,999 enemies?

 

She still scales quite high simply because she's a stealth frame. Helps she also has numerous multipliers but level cap? Nah.

There are still frames that can hit lvl 2,000 - 5,000 range under perfect storm conditions. ie Zephyr vs Corpus. Limbo Vs Infested, ect.

I know without buffs Lanka on it's own can scale to lvl 2,000 Corpus so ideally Ivara with her modifiers can push more.

EDIT:  I do hope they update Artemis Bow. After the bow rework I find it hard to justify. I've been converted to the Daikyu dark side since DE seems to hate Dread. When you compare Artemis to Daikyu or Lenz; it's pretty hard to reason it's energy costs.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Xzorn

[Andele3025]

12 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Her Noise Arrow is the only ability I could see making a reasonable argument

In addition to making it a harder taunt (aka making ranged enemies actually come inspect the point like gara 3 does) and un-nerfing prowl bullet jump and navigator no longer pausing projectiles.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Andele3025