Equinox Improvements

[Ikusi_Prime]

I am not satisfied with the state of Equinox. I was hoping that they'd get a balance pass when Equinox Prime or Equinox Deluxe came, but they didn't. So as Rebecca requested, instead of saying "This is bad", here's me saying "This is what I'd like to see done".

Equinox's whole schick is that they are a dual frame. They are two halves of one whole that you can swap between in the middle of a mission, yet their kit works against that fantasy. You have channeled abilities with long, full body cast times that are canceled whenever you change forms. Four out of seven abilities punish you for changing forms. This is where I feel they could be improved the most.

• Metamorphosis: Changing forms no longer cancels Pacify/Provoke or Mend/Maim (Mend & Maim charge is still lost without the Energy Transfer augment). Changing forms while Mend & Maim is active will expend any lost charge as though you manually deactivated it.
• Pacify & Provoke: Full body animation >>> Upper body animation (interrupts gunplay, but not movement)
• Mend & Maim: Full body animation >>> Upper body animation (interrupts gunplay, but not movement)

This alone would make them feel 100x better to play. Instead of being locked in an animation, you're free to move and reposition while you cast your abilities. Making use of their signature ability would no longer force you to reactivate their auras with long cast times. They would be much more flexible, dynamic, and fluid.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Ikusi_Prime

[A-keras]

While I agree with the original thread's creator, I feel more can be done for Equinox besides some quality of life tweaks. What I personally would like to see is a full rework of Equinox's current gameplay, changing it into one that would allow the player to take advantage of her unique form switch mechanic without the aid of augments, by using the abilities of both her Day Form and Night Form, one after the other in tandem to invoke effective synergies between their abilities. This would make her form changing ability, Metamorphosis, the center focus of her kit and into an invaluable asset in general gameplay, which I think it should be as it is Equinox's main gimmick.  

Here's an example of a proposed Equinox rework with this gameplay concept in mind, created by @Teridax68 from from this thread.

• Passive - Metamorphosis: Upon casting an ability, Equinox switches forms, unlocking new abilities. Perhaps she could also keep Equilibrium.
• 1 - Shield and Strike: Equinox launches her current form in the target direction, which applies an effect around it as it travels.
  • Night Form - Shield: Equinox's Night form absorbs all nearby attacks and staggers enemies it passes through. The absorbed damage becomes additive ability strength for the next ability cast.  
  • Day Form - Strike: Equinox's Day form attacks all nearby enemies with a melee strike, applying melee bonuses.
  • Augment - Split: Core mechanic unchanged, clone spawns from the form Equinox launched.
• 2 - Rest and Rage: Equinox casts a spell upon the target cluster of enemies.
  • Night Form - Rest: Targets are put to sleep.
  • Day Form - Rage: Targets draw the ire of their allies, who attack them for increased damage (this includes other enemies affected by Rage).
  • Augment - Radiance: Mechanics unchanged.
• 3 - Pacify and Provoke: Equinox emits a radial burst of power around herself.
  • Night Form - Pacify: Equinox and allies hit become briefly invisible.
  • Day Form - Provoke: Equinox and allies hit deal bonus damage on their next instance of damage, with the bonus charging up to full power over a brief duration.
  • Augment - Permanence: Equinox leaves behind a reflection of the Sun or Moon, depending on the ability's version, at the location of cast for a duration that grants the ability's benefits to all allies in range, including Equinox. 
• 4 - Mend and Maim: Passively, Equinox accumulates power when nearby enemies are damaged.
  • Night Form - Mend: Equinox expends her accumulated power to place a protective ward upon herself and all nearby allies, which prevents a set amount of damage, and grants immunity to status effects and staggers.
  • Day Form - Maim: Equinox expends her accumulated power to damage all nearby enemies in a single, overwhelming blast.
  • Augment - Meld: Equinox enters her dual form for a duration based on the power expended, causing her abilities to apply the effects of both forms simultaneously.

The general idea here being that each version of the ability would have only a single, specific component, that would be mediocre on its own but significantly more effective when combined with something else (for example, Strike's projected melee attack with Rest's sleep effect). Additionally, I think we need to get rid of the persistent aura-based bonuses, because that just makes Equinox want to stay in the same form to make use of their effects, whereas bursty, or at the least fire-and-forget abilities wouldn't have such a problem.

This rework idea for Equinox they've come up with, would allow the player to string together abilities to deal damage, protect allies, sleep and detract enemies, based on their skill and understanding of Equinox and both of her forms' kits. Below there are a couple of examples of possible combinations I thought of after reading their ability ideas in the thread.

If Shield is used first:

• In Night Form, use Shield to detract enemies and collect damage to be converted into additional Power Strength for the next ability.
• In Day Form, Use Rage, with the additional Power Strength collected from Shield, further distract and increase the damage your enemies do to themselves.
• In Night Form, use Pacify to make you and/or your team invisible and quietly take out the remaining enemies.

If Shield used in a middle of a combo:

• In Day Form, use Rage to increase your enemies' damage.
• In Night Form, use Shield to collect that increased enemy damage and then return it back to you as additional Power Strength for your next ability.
• In Day Form, use the extra Power Strength on Strike to mow down the weakened enemies in front of you.
• Or..
• In Day Form, use the extra Power Strength on Maim, if it's charged, to slash apart your enemies with greater damage.
• Or....
• In Day Form, use the extra Power Strength on Provoke.
• In Night Form, use Pacify to become invisible, or Rest to put your enemies asleep.
• In Day Form use Strike on your enemies, applying the damage with Stealth and Provoke bonuses.

 

While an Equinox Rework doesn't have to be designed exactly like this, the general idea of their proposed rework is something I would like to see implemented. One, the player can't just stick with only one form of Equinox during a mission, they have to rotate between her forms for the maximum effectiveness of her kits, remaining in one form defeats the point of Equinox being a dual form entity. Secondly. she has the most abilities of every other frame in the game, currently speaking. It just seems like a waste for the player to not be able to take advantage of that fact. Finally, instead of her forms and their kits acting separately from each other, allow them to have interplay with each other to encourage more form swapping.        

I wholly believe that this kind of technical style of gameplay, would make Equinox far more engaging and rewarding for the player. With fair benefits and downsides. For one, it would make Equinox's entire kits, across both forms, all useful. No longer simply relying on one form and one or two abilities. However, they demand the player to take note of her abilities what can be combined for certain effects, and what is needed based on their current situation in a mission. And the fact that the player basically has to learn and understand two different, yet interlocked characters. With this implemented, Equinox would be like one of those characters in games that would seem hard to use at first, but is awesome and rewarding to play when you fully understand their unique mechanics and quirks.

A good example of a very technical, duel form character that requires skill and practice is Aegislash from Pokken Tournament. They are a fighter with duel forms; An aggressive close-ranged combatant in Sword Form, and a defensive long-ranged combatant in Shield Form. In each form they have wildly different moves, and certain moves can automatically trigger an immediate form transition. A skilled player makes use of their moves and form transitions for devastating combos, as shown down below.    

 

Not to mention, this kind of gameplay where her two different sets of abilities complement each other would also fit well with her theme of Yin and Yang. Although Yin and Yang are opposites, they also are complementary and interdependent in the natural world. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by A-keras

[Xzorn]

They only really have to do two things to improve Equinox considerably and one isn't going to happen sadly.

• Improve casting animations and redundancy of re-cast when switching forms.
• Retain charge levels when switching forms including Peaceful Provocation.

Her 4th ability augment shouldn't exist. It's a band-aid for using both aspects at the same time. Change it.

Otherwise she's great.

[Miyabi-sama]

I was expecting some drastic rework thread but I like what I see here.

Thumbs up!

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I agree.

My favorite build for her that I've come up with needs 2 augments just to make her feel natural. Even then, Having to keep recasting Pacify & Provoke is still clunky though. I'm using Duality and Energy Transfer to avoid half of my abilities from feeling like a waste. 

I still feel like Rage needs some work though. Increasing enemy attack rate is never good, regardless of what benefits we get from the ability. Half the time I cast in high level missions (the only time I would need to deal additional damage to enemies...) and my allies instantly drop dead because the enemies rush them with enhanced speed and attack speed. Like...seriously...

[Xzorn]

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

I agree.

My favorite build for her that I've come up with needs 2 augments just to make her feel natural. Even then, Having to keep recasting Pacify & Provoke is still clunky though. I'm using Duality and Energy Transfer to avoid half of my abilities from feeling like a waste. 

I still feel like Rage needs some work though. Increasing enemy attack rate is never good, regardless of what benefits we get from the ability. Half the time I cast in high level missions (the only time I would need to deal additional damage to enemies...) and my allies instantly drop dead because the enemies rush them with enhanced speed and attack speed. Like...seriously...

 

Rage would work much better if she could transition forms better. I have a Ragewebs build using 2 augments. I have to make sure to Sleep when I Rage while also casting on the same primary target so they spread evenly.  Being able to smoothy transition back to Peaceful Provocation maintaining it's buff would certainly help because that Slow is very potent and players having to take damage again every time I switch is just kinda dumb.

Either way there's no reason we should have to keep re-casting her 3rd ability when we swap.

[EinheriarJudith]

43 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

Rage would work much better if she could transition forms better. I have a Ragewebs build using 2 augments. I have to make sure to Sleep when I Rage while also casting on the same primary target so they spread evenly.  Being able to smoothy transition back to Peaceful Provocation maintaining it's buff would certainly help because that Slow is very potent and players having to take damage again every time I switch is just kinda dumb.

Either way there's no reason we should have to keep re-casting her 3rd ability when we swap.

yeah its pretty annoying having to reactivate powers every swap. when i want to recover some health, gotta swap, wait till it settles, then reactivate pacify so i dont get obliterated while i get stuck in animation for mend.

why is there all this slowness in her kit?

Edited November 25, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[Xzorn]

28 minutes ago, EinheriarJudith said:

yeah its pretty annoying having to reactivate powers every swap. when i want to recover some health, gotta swap, wait till it settles, then reactivate pacify so i dont get obliterated while i get stuck in animation for mend.

why is there all this slowness in her kit?

 

I mentioned similar before her Prime came out. Sadly nothing really changed.

She's still a great frame but so clunky and if you really want potency on both aspects two Energize sets is kinda required. Least for my Ragewebs which is (Calm / Frenzy + Peaceful Provocation). Getting around 200% Power Strength while keeping good Range and decent Duration with two augments means something has to go which is usually Efficiency in my case. Only way it works well. My other build uses 3 augments (Calm / Frenzy + Duality + Energy Transition).

I mean it works but it's also a what, 8k plat Equinox build?

[A-keras]

On 2019-11-25 at 6:01 PM, Xzorn said:

 

I mentioned similar before her Prime came out. Sadly nothing really changed.

She's still a great frame but so clunky and if you really want potency on both aspects two Energize sets is kinda required. Least for my Ragewebs which is (Calm / Frenzy + Peaceful Provocation). Getting around 200% Power Strength while keeping good Range and decent Duration with two augments means something has to go which is usually Efficiency in my case. Only way it works well. My other build uses 3 augments (Calm / Frenzy + Duality + Energy Transition).

I mean it works but it's also a what, 8k plat Equinox build?

Yeah, her Prime and her recent Deluxe Skin release were missed opportunities to make changes to her kit.

And the fact that you pointed out that a player needs to invest 8k platinum just so both aspects can have potency is a big problem. This is why a total rework of her kit, as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, is needed. She not only needs quality of life changes, but a full on rework of her abilities to make transitioning between her forms fluid and seamless and allow synergies between the kits of both her forms to encourage the player to switch her forms, as well as not work against each other. All done without the aid of augments or other additional equipment, because it doesn't seem right to blow platinum just for Equinox to function as the adaptable form switching frame she was advertised as being.   

Edited November 27, 2019 by A-keras

[Ikusi_Prime]

On 2019-11-25 at 4:24 AM, Miyabi-sama said:

I was expecting some drastic rework thread but I like what I see here.

Thumbs up!

Honestly, I was going to sit down and try to think of a rework for them. But I don't think that's really productive. If the devs wanted to, they could implement the changes I listed this week. They're incredibly simple, bordering on QoL changes, but they would improve Equinox so much.