Ivara Alterations

[Navarc]

I'm not an Ivara main having only played up to 50 hours with her in missions but I really do enjoy her & find her very different from other kinds of generalists in Warframe. But like most people I get tired of her quickly after having played her due to tedious & annoying mechanics involving her you have to keep track of - plus not using most of her abilities in most missions.
Most people either only end up being invisible & hanging around the entire mission or crowd-control+dmg with her which speaks for the build variety she can have but she still doesn't feel like she has that many options due to many options being flat out bad in how the game is now or not working properly.

I wrote this after having talked to a few Ivara mains on what they'd like to see get more use & see get added. I really want to enjoy her & find more use in her plus enhance her build diversity. Please post feedback & suggestions you have you would like to add to these alterations! The most important parts are underlined the rest I would like but wouldn't expect.

Abilities

Spoiler

 

Sentry (passive)

• Innate enemy radar of 20 meters & enemies Ivara hits are visible on all squadmates maps or
• Innate enemy radar of 20 meters & +1% evasion chance for every revealed on map

This is a very plain & boring passive that doesn't significantly alter or improve game play as is & even redundant since most people wear Animal Instinct nowadays as it's not that rare - but it doesn't need to be completely removed, we can add an additional thing to it making it more interesting or improving on Ivaras flaws.

Quiver (1)

• Maximum 3 arrows out
• Cloak arrow: Places a permanent cloaked area, allies that pass it gain the cloaked buff for a duration & gain Ivaras prowl pickpocketing - enemies that walk through it are marked on the map
• Dashwire arrow: Enemies that pass through these collapse on the ground, tripped. Failed dashwires refund energy. Dashwire arrows shot directly on an enemy pulls you to behind the enemy
• Sleep arrow: Allies & Ivara performing finishers on sleeping enemies put to sleep by sleep arrow get their weapons laced with +30% toxic dmg scaling with powerstrength & duration
• Noise arrow: Replace with berserk arrow: Creates a small field of smoke where the arrow is shot that stays until replaced.
  • Allies that walk through the smoke gain: Reload speed, attack speed
  • Enemies that walk through the smoke gain all speed modifiers increased

Cloak arrows issue is how many times you want to be casting it for maximum effectiveness & even then its not that impressive. If you put it on the ground with maximum range everyone can benefit for it mostly - but sentinels will pop out, pets will run out & be exposed. If you want to place it on every player, defense target & companion that'll take a long time casting for a medium duration invisibility & cost a lot of energy. Most squads are not that coordinated either. It's one of her best & most powerful arrows but it always feels like you can never use it optimally & a bit tedious.
Dashwire arrows in my experience fail most of the time & have very limited use to people used to maneuvering maps with our current mobility. It's less than okay when it succeeds but I do think it fits her theme. I think it could have more use to it than what it already does. 
Sleep arrow is just like Cloak arrow one of her best & most popular arrows granting small but hard crowd-control & exposing enemies to more dmg. But it's really no better than any other sleep or blind other warframes have. It doesn't feel like it's unique to Ivara & could definitely be improved. This is Ivaras closest ability to a poison & venom which is a reoccurring theme in her designs & doesn't actually do anything involving poisons so I think it would fit her well if some kind of poison was put in her abilities even if it's nothing very powerful.
Noise arrow had extremely niche & limited use in the past in staggering enemies but it didn't fit in the game back then & still doesn't. I really don't see a way of altering it to be worthwhile or be worth picking over any other arrow - so I will be reworking that one rather than just revisiting.

Navigator (2)

• Remove scaling energy drain
• Dmg multiplier scales with duration
• Click to fire the controlled projectile
• Hold to fire an automatic projectile ricocheting between enemies until it hits a wall - only goes straight from enemy to enemy so it cannot turn corners
• Pause projectile life-span, explosive projectiles should not instantly detonate causing self-dmg or death on cast @Andele3025

I never mastered this ability mainly because of different weapons having different projectile speeds on this ability, I found it unreliable & draining so much of Ivaras very important energy I can't justify using it. Some people absolutely love it so I wouldn't want to take it away from players who have fallen in love with this unique ability even if I myself can't stand it as it is - so I suggest an alternate version you get by Holding 3 rather than tapping

Prowl (3)

• No longer multiplied drain when moving, instead multiply drain when STATIONARY
• No longer drain energy for every time melee deals dmg (even to containers)
• No longer drain energy for taking dmg, Ivara is unique in this & it's bad
• No longer cancelled when sprinting & sliding, only when bulletjumping
• Prowls slow is no longer so drastic, only a 20% movement speed reduction
• Loots multiple enemies at the same time, making it viable for farming squads
• Enemies that are knocked down, sleeping or ragdolling are instantly looted

No other warframe with invisibility (Octavia, Loki, Ash at the top of my head) gets punished for attacking, breaking containers, getting hit, mobility & so on. Ivara is already slowed down significantly but does get punished for playing the game  at her much slower pace - it doesn't seem right at all. A lot of players use Ivara to use her Prowl & go AFK same as Hydroids 3 (Undertow) which I think is an issue, I thought it was neat at first how little energy drained when I first played her when standing still but immediately saw people abuse this neat gimmick. Warframe is a very active & mobile game & it shouldn't punish you for moving, especially when your punishment is already being massively slowed.

Artemis Bow (4)

• Unsure, send suggestions

I just don't use exalted weapons, if I equip 3 weapons I want to use all 3 weapons & the game is designed in a way that in most missions you're better off using a single weapon.
I just don't know what could be altered or improved upon this ability because I have so little time with it. I'll try to get more experience & understanding of this ability before making an opinion on it!

 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by Navarchus

[peterc3]

15 minutes ago, Navarchus said:

• No longer multiplied drain when moving, instead multiply drain when STATIONARY
• No longer drain energy for every time melee deals dmg(even to containers)
• No longer drain energy for taking dmg, Ivara is unique in this & it's bad
• No longer cancelled when sprinting & sliding, only when bulletjumping
• Prowls slow is no longer so drastic, only a 20% movement speed reduction
• Loots multiple enemies at the same time, making it viable for farming squads
• Enemies that are knocked down, sleeping or ragdolling are instantly looted

This is totally disengaged from her theme. Patient hunter that is somehow penalized for being patient.

This is not Ivara. This is just permanent invisibility with not a single downside, no penalties for doing unstealthy things.

 

18 minutes ago, Navarchus said:

• Sleep arrow: Allies & Ivara performing finishers on sleeping enemies put to sleep by sleep arrow get their weapons laced with +30% toxic dmg scaling with powerstrength & duration

This is bizarre. Not just the finisher damage boost or the fact they can't do anything to hurt you, but a further damage boost after the fact. Why?

Your ideas are broken.

[Hello]

The only thing Ivara needs back the bullet jumping while in prowl they removed. Everything else is fine with her. If you want to go faster in prowl just put more strength if you use the infiltrate augment and choose if it's worth the sacrifice of other stats, or just put out dash wires and run fast on them.

[Andele3025]

11 minutes ago, --Brandt-- said:

The only thing Ivara needs back the bullet jumping while in prowl they removed.

AND for navigator to again pause projectile lifespan again so that she doesnt suicide on using explosive weapons, thrown weapons, etc (and lets one be mr fahrenheit traveling at the speed of light).

[SmolRobin]

As an Ivara main, I'd really like to see most of these thing implemented. As of right now most of her abilities are lacking- a 'stealth frame' in a game that doesn't care about stealth, it'd be nice if they were updated to match the pace of the game a little better. (Not all my thoughts, just elaborating on some ideas I think would be cool to have insteada what she has now)

Quote

Dashwire arrow: Enemies that pass through these collapse on the ground, tripped. Failed dashwires refund energy. Dashwire arrows shot directly on an enemy pulls you to behind the enemy

I like the idea of the dashwire doubling as a trip-line &in a way a zip-line to enemies as well as not losing the energy from failed uses, would make the ability more worth casting as right now how it stands in-game.. it's pretty pointless ability when I can just bullet jump around and get to places faster without needing to stop, select it, then cast it and then x to get on and run across.
 

Quote

Hold to fire an automatic projectile ricocheting between enemies until it hits a wall - only goes straight from enemy to enemy so it cannot turn corners

Having her Navigator be automatic would be really cool too, in a game where everyone goes as fast as they can, standing still to use this ability is risky for damage and I almost never use it. If it had the ability to go blank distance and ricochet off enemies within that area without me having to pause my movement to.. well.. navigate would be really useful! 

 

 

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  • Prowl (3)

  • No longer multiplied drain when moving, instead multiply drain when STATIONARY
  • No longer drain energy for every time melee deals dmg(even to containers)
  • No longer drain energy for taking dmg, Ivara is unique in this & it's bad
  • No longer cancelled when sprinting & sliding, only when bulletjumping
  • Prowls slow is no longer so drastic, only a 20% movement speed reduction
  • Loots multiple enemies at the same time, making it viable for farming squads
  • Enemies that are knocked down, sleeping or ragdolling are instantly looted

   

   

I agree with a lot of this. As she is right now.. her prowl drains so much energy I need both energy siphon & the kubrow that drops energy to be able to use this in *spy missions even.* And even that isn't enough energy to match how fast it drains from movement. I like to think my Ivara is modded perfect for this ability but I still struggle using it, in most cases only using it to quickly avoid damage. Plus I'd really like to move a tad bit faster- this is a fast pace game after all, I don't mind the slow down 'stealth' of prowl just would like to walk a bit faster since I can stealth across my house faster than that. >>

I also think Artemis Bow is perfect as is and is my most used ability, pls no one change that.