Icy Avalanche- edit: ehp!

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

So icy avalanche is one of the most interesting warframe skill augments in game.  It allows you to modify a primarily offensive skill to be used as a defensive skillset and with frosts other augments allows for many different build types.  However, as time has gone icy avalanche has lost its defensive use as it does not scale in the ways in which enemies past level 60-70 require.  Not a big deal at this time, but makes an entire augment not worthwhile in high level content (unless you are running a max range/efficiency build and use it for status proc protection, but even then just run a snowglobe augment build instead),

Ideally since it operates as rhinos skin one of three changes are needed to make it worthwhile, Either A) increase the health amount per enemy (which doesn't rectify the problem but allows for a higher scaling if the number is high enough) B) allow armor to affect health given by icy avalanche (not the greatest  addition,  but does allow for scaling and damage reduction for party).  Or better yet, change the rhino skin functionality to a skill like nezhas protective ring.  turn it into 90% damage reduction to health amount (this will not be as strong as either nezha or rhino, as with 200% str the amount even with 10+ enemies is akin to a 1200 health nezha ring.)  This would allow for players running adaptation to have increased health protection as well as allowing builds with adaptation usage (shield builds) some extra protection from other warframes in party (adaptation has its own weaknesses, IE: enemies with multiple damage types one shotting you at high level as most builds running this forgo armor).  This allows some added party synergy from running frost other than the current meta of A) augmented snowglobe and range or B) icy impedance for defensive missions.

EDIT: for everyone entering in at a later date-> consensus so far seems to be an EHP buff of increasing base from 60 to around 200-300.  Allowing for a coverage of anywhere from 3k ice sheath health to 5k-> corrupted bombard damage being around 1+k at level 100 seems to be the best buff without requiring a total retooling of buff- credit Xzorn later on in the thread

Edited November 30, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance
consensus!

[Xzorn]

I personally don't think that augment had much use on release. It's Frost. Why is your team outside the Globe?

Either Frost's placement is bad or the team members are bad. Either way better things for that slot.
Adaptation is the same thing. It's Frost. You shouldn't be getting hit. Use your Operator to move to the next location.

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

 

11 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

I personally don't think that augment had much use on release. It's Frost. Why is your team outside the Globe?

Either Frost's placement is bad or the team members are bad. Either way better things for that slot.
Adaptation is the same thing. It's Frost. You shouldn't be getting hit. Use your Operator to move to the next location.

that's part of the fun of his kit.  the standard straight globe build is already enough for most content you'd bring him on.  but his 4 is a great way to cc an entire room and armor strip for easy kills.   using the augment on top allows you to build a hybrid caster frame that has moderately good defensive globes (67% slow in globe plus damage absorption at range) and protection for the party for procs and health at close range.   

creating different builds with mods and augments outside the standard use of  warframe is about all the endgame content we have right now hah.

 

edit: hell of you wanted to you could make an efficiency build and just throw enemies into walls with globes for the flat 50% damage proc as it scales better than most caster damage ingame

Edited November 29, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance

[taiiat]

Icy Avalanche had a use at some point? i don't think it was ever worthwhile because that barrier doesn't mix with most of the other mechanics in the game.
making Icy Avalanche into a DR layer would clearly make it better, but then it's way too similar to many other Abilities if you ask me.

the way i see it, to make Icy Avalanche more interesting (or RE: any level of interesting at all except as just a convenience tool for completing Riven tasks), just make a new Augment to replace it.

 

1 hour ago, (XB1)Dissodance said:

IE: enemies with multiple damage types one shotting you at high level as most builds running this forgo armor).

as if just having an Armor Mod was going to save you anyways. extra Armor is only useful if you're layering it on top of a large amount of Health. (or the Armor Stat is being used for something Ability wise, then sometimes)
in more situations than not, Armor sucks.

Edited November 29, 2019 by taiiat

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Icy Avalanche had a use at some point? i don't think it was ever worthwhile because that barrier doesn't mix with most of the other mechanics in the game.
making Icy Avalanche into a DR layer would clearly make it better, but then it's way too similar to many other Abilities if you ask me.

the way i see it, to make Icy Avalanche more interesting (or RE: any level of interesting at all except as just a convenience tool for completing Riven tasks), just make a new Augment to replace it.

 

as if just having an Armor Mod was going to save you anyways. extra Armor is only useful if you're layering it on top of a large amount of Health.
in more situations than not, Armor sucks.

icy avalanche is different from other standard Dr mechanisms in that it's given in a party basis and tied to an offensive cc armor strip (makes those in party proc immune and status immune as well) 

But yes your right.  the armor idea wasn't and isn't my favored version of a modifier for the augment.   a flat damage reduction added to the health is.  but that is far too large of a buff to be doled out to an augment for an already extremely good skill.  hence, forcing a mod slot for adaptation is sacrifice. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance

[taiiat]

7 minutes ago, (XB1)Dissodance said:

icy avalanche is different from other standard Dr mechanisms in that it's given in a party basis and tied to an offensive cc armor strip

and that.... it isn't DR. it's a weird temporary Health Pool that doesn't interact with a bunch of the other mechanics.
and as actual DR it would be better renamed as "this Ability but as an Augment over here". Warframes are overall converging all to the same point where their Abilities do mostly the same thing as it is, i really don't want to accelerate the game towards that black hole. rather the other direction.

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

and that.... it isn't DR. it's a weird temporary Health Pool that doesn't interact with a bunch of the other mechanics.
and as actual DR it would be better renamed as "this Ability but as an Augment over here". Warframes are overall converging all to the same point where their Abilities do mostly the same thing as it is, i really don't want to accelerate the game towards that black hole. rather the other direction.

That makes sense. but the fix to that isn't lowering damage reduction in warframes its modifying enemy scaling.  Adding party abilities to reduce enemy damage allows for support other than globe hopping.. which while being effective is entirely boring.   If one wanted to do that they'd be better off playing volt and just throwing shields.  

edit:  originally. I think it was supposed to be ferrite health or armored health that had some form of Ingame Dr.  on release this may have worked but in current scaling and content at lvls 100+ it's worthless.  it's working in its current form as a weaker mesmer skin for the party.  it soaks. up hit if that.   when scaling is fixed a pass over on damage reduction can be done to limit frames that aren't party. friendly.  ie nerf % amount to frames that aren't trinity.. equinox..  etc. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance

[Xzorn]

Yea the biggest issue with the HP pool the augment gives is that it doesn't interact with anything at all in the game. There's no group synergy at all. Doesn't work with dodge mitigation, not Adaptation, melee blocking, DR buffs. Nothing. It's like Rhino's Iron Skin Copy + Pasted but with pitiful values.

Keep in mind Rhino remains viable because he can reach values upwards 200k.

In order to really start being viable we're talking like 5k for an avg cast with reasonable investment and/or allow the value to stack with additional casts.

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

1 minute ago, Xzorn said:

Yea the biggest issue with the HP pool the augment gives is that it doesn't interact with anything at all in the game. There's no group synergy at all. Doesn't work with dodge mitigation, not Adaptation, melee blocking, DR buffs. Nothing. It's like Rhino's Iron Skin Copy + Pasted but with pitiful values.

Keep in mind Rhino remains viable because he can reach values upwards 200k.

In order to really start being viable we're talking like 5k for an avg cast with reasonable investment and/or allow the value to stack with additional casts.

The ability to stack with additional casts would be an interesting addition.  make it so each frozen enemy hit with further casts doubles the amount you get or triples it.  and increase the amount given.  I wouldn't want it to be at a level of rhino health tho as it's party wide.  but ideally if it stopped 1-2 hits at high levels the augment would have much more useful party synergy

[Xzorn]

15 minutes ago, (XB1)Dissodance said:

edit:  originally. I think it was supposed to be ferrite health or armored health that had some form of Ingame Dr.  on release this may have worked but in current scaling and content at lvls 100+ it's worthless. 

 

It does. The Ferrite HP pool gained by Rhino and this augment aren't subject the Armor modifier double dips which allows them to take FAR more abuse from Puncture / Toxic damage sources than typical HP + Armor. The downside is of course no Adaptation but it works out comparatively as the stuff that kills players is usually Puncture.

The augment just doesn't give enough to justify a frame slot IMO.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Xzorn

[taiiat]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)Dissodance said:

That makes sense. but the fix to that isn't lowering damage reduction in warframes its modifying enemy scaling.  Adding party abilities to reduce enemy damage allows for support other than globe hopping..

i'm quite the fan of using Ice Wave Impedence as my support type protection thing strategy. Slowing Enemies makes most Enemies do a lot less Damage, in addition to the other useful attributes of it.
IIRC it also is deployed as a 'World Effect', meaning that it doesn't get affected by Nullifiers. Enemies inside of the bubble or immune to Abilities in some other form won't be slowed by it, but they won't delete it either.

 

4 minutes ago, (XB1)Dissodance said:

edit:  originally. I think it was supposed to be ferrite health or armored health that had some form of Ingame Dr.

Health Types only have intrinsic Damage Resistance and Weakness properties, and no other features.

something having Ferrite Armor as its Health Type does not mean that it is Armor, because it is a Health Type.
why does Warframe love breaking its rules and apply Armor/Health Types as the other one sometimes? beats me, and if you say that's really confusing and stupid to do, i agree.

in short, Armor is always Armor, Health is always Health, Shields is always Shields. 

 

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

The downside is of course no Adaptation but it works out comparatively as the stuff that kills players is usually Puncture.

or accidentally walking into a Tar MOA's pool :^D
_{or just walking into a Sapping Ospreys' Hockey Puck regardless of its Damage Type}

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

5 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

It does. The Ferrite HP pool gained by Rhino and this augment aren't subject the Armor modifier double dips which allows them to take FAR more abuse from Puncture / Toxic damage sources than typical HP + Armor. The downside is of course no Adaptation but it works out comparatively as the stuff that kills players is usually Puncture.

The augment just doesn't give enough to justify a frame slot IMO.

It has the same problems with adaptation and shield gating.  ie multiple damage sources or buffs to damage types based off armor or shielding (impact damage and  enemies with 2 damage types for adaptation and puncture damage for ferrite armor) 

hopefully additional health scaling and status immunity are good enough to have people actually use the augment.   

 

edit: for a defensive frame an ability that can exponentially increase ehp for a party is a good support build.  allowing you to build for ice wave impede ce.. freezing orb or a new caster hybrid for damage that protects with his 4.   

Edited November 29, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance

[Xzorn]

A lvl 100 Bombard does 1,275 damage per rocket. Just did the math so ~5k should be perfectly reasonable.
I prolly still wouldn't use it but that's just me. It would certainly be functional within typical levels. I think right now it gives like 1,500 for 10 enemies?

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

3 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

A lvl 100 Bombard does 1,275 damage per rocket. Just did the math so ~5k should be perfectly reasonable.
I prolly still wouldn't use it but that's just me. It would certainly be functional within typical levels. I think right now it gives like 1,500 for 10 enemies?

if your running a power str build in the range of 1200 to 1500 per cast.  but currently it does. not stack on itself and only replaces if the cast provides a higher amount.  

It currently allows for decent damage mitigation but requires a full room and you not killing any enemies to maintain that damage absorption.   it's self limiting. 

edut: a modification that allowed it to stack health up to a maximum based on power level. and double base amount would allow for a better Dr amount.  have the max health amount be based on % power strength with a starting cap of 5k max  multiplier of 1.5x at 200% and 2x at 300% would allow a max of 10k health ( with the ability being based off enemies hit having a max health cap that will most often not be hit will prevent to high of ehp buffs) 

Edited November 29, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance

[Xzorn]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)Dissodance said:

if your running a power str build in the range of 1200 to 1500 per cast.  but currently it does. not stack on itself and only replaces if the cast provides a higher amount.  

It currently allows for decent damage mitigation but requires a full room and you not killing any enemies to maintain that damage absorption.   it's self limiting. 

 

So yea, if they just wanted to take 5 min they could change the base value from 60 to 200-300 and it would be hitting that 5k mark most the time with a little Power Strength. DE wouldn't even have to mess with much code. Just change the base value of the formula on the mod. Of course I'd prefer the augment do something a little more interactive that scales better but that's just me and how I play. If Frost is in the group I already know we're singing camp songs through the mission.

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

12 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

So yea, if they just wanted to take 5 min they could change the base value from 60 to 200-300 and it would be hitting that 5k mark most the time with a little Power Strength. DE wouldn't even have to mess with much code. Just change the base value of the formula on the mod. Of course I'd prefer the augment do something a little more interactive that scales better but that's just me and how I play. If Frost is in the group I already know we're singing camp songs through the mission.

That would work.  if the base is around 250 at 200% power strength your hitting 5k per 10 enemies and 10k max.  

having the augment be something different would be nice too. but I think the solution to that is adding more augments as a whole.

 edit: ideally adding multiple augments to a frame is the future way de can modify frame play but as it currently stands there are more pressing concerns like endgame difficulty (there's very little outside of hitscan enemies) and armor scaling/ai

Edited November 29, 2019 by (XB1)Dissodance

[Tatann]

I generally prefer DR to flat EHP bonus but the great thing with Icy Avalanche is the status proc and knockdown protection (like Iron Skin, which makes sense since it's protective layer), I would not loose that for some synergy with Adaptation

Also DR would mean already tough frames would benefit more from it than squishies. At least in the current form, all allies get the same protection (well, those in range, but the other ones running far away from big brother Frost deserve what they get ^^ )

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

20 hours ago, Tatann said:

I generally prefer DR to flat EHP bonus but the great thing with Icy Avalanche is the status proc and knockdown protection (like Iron Skin, which makes sense since it's protective layer), I would not loose that for some synergy with Adaptation

Also DR would mean already tough frames would benefit more from it than squishies. At least in the current form, all allies get the same protection (well, those in range, but the other ones running far away from big brother Frost deserve what they get ^^ )

I don't think theyd do Dr as well.  generally speaking the easiest fix that would provide the same effect would be the best choice and setting up the ehp/base to be 200-300 accomplishes the same as a 4-5x buff compared to current use (buffs it to be usable and to help absorb 1-3 shots bare minimum at higher levels), as opposed to a 10x buff at resent state and 90% Dr.   

a buff that is good. enough to increase play use of a poor augment but not so great that it makes it. mandatory. for higher level content.  we wanna increase build diversity not over tune something so hard it becomes the new catchmoon

[000l000]

Le 29/11/2019 à 08:23, Xzorn a dit :

 

It does. The Ferrite HP pool gained by Rhino and this augment aren't subject the Armor modifier double dips which allows them to take FAR more abuse from Puncture / Toxic damage sources than typical HP + Armor. The downside is of course no Adaptation but it works out comparatively as the stuff that kills players is usually Puncture.

The augment just doesn't give enough to justify a frame slot IMO.

It prevents the whole team (at least the nearest players) from being affected by status, it can help tremendously in many situations - radiation, slash or poison or even energy leeching. As far as i'm concerned i use two builds, a stationary one with globe augment and a more agressive and mobile one with this augment, it also helps with Frost survivability when he has to move a lot, a lot of missions prevent you from using efficiently his globe.

I wouldn't say it's the best augment ever, but it's convenient enough to rely upon avalanche as a separate build (range & power), i used it a lot and it definitely helps. To each their own.

Edited November 30, 2019 by 000l000

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

1 hour ago, 000l000 said:

It prevents the whole team (at least the nearest players) from being affected by status, it can help tremendously in many situations - radiation, slash or poison or even energy leeching. As far as i'm concerned i use two builds, a stationary one with globe augment and a more agressive and mobile one with this augment, it also helps with Frost survivability when he has to move a lot, a lot of missions prevent you from using efficiently his globe.

I wouldn't say it's the best augment ever, but it's convenient enough to rely upon avalanche as a separate build (range & power), i used it a lot and it definitely helps. To each their own.

Ya i enjoy the more "mobile" frost as it allows support in areas you wouldnt expect from him.  Plus the added bonus of always being able to set up shop in any map with a globe

[Ekemeister]

On 2019-11-28 at 10:51 PM, Xzorn said:

I personally don't think that augment had much use on release. It's Frost. Why is your team outside the Globe?

Either Frost's placement is bad or the team members are bad. Either way better things for that slot.
Adaptation is the same thing. It's Frost. You shouldn't be getting hit. Use your Operator to move to the next location.

Freakin' sub-zero over here. 

I'm going to have to experiment w/ this. I feel like this'll trivialize content beyond what made me put down OP, Jack Frost in the first place.

[(XBOX)Dissodance]

2 hours ago, Ekemeister said:

Freakin' sub-zero over here. 

I'm going to have to experiment w/ this. I feel like this'll trivialize content beyond what made me put down OP, Jack Frost in the first place.

it's decent for low end stuff right now but when you get up to 80-100 enemies and don't maintain a constant 1k+ it loses effectiveness.