Please improve Ember's Fireball

[(PSN)sister-hawk]

I'm finally starting to get the hang of Ember's rework and I'm actually really enjoying it, but Fireball really sticks out as a nearly useless ability.

It's capable of some decent damage when applied correctly, but my Tombfinger does the same damage without setup and with no energy cost. But whatever, first abilities usually have meh damage. My bigger concern is the lack of usability. It can be inexplicably difficult to hit enemies with it because at range, it has zero tracking. I throw it at an enemy 30 meters away, they take one step to the side and it misses by two inches. But then an enemy is up in my face, I try to throw Fireball, and for no apparent reason it veers 45° to the right and misses what should have been a pointblank five finger goodbye.

Another thing that I really don't like about the reworked Fireball is that it no longer leaves a...ahem...ball of fire at the point of impact. That was the main usefulness of the pre-rework ability once damage could no longer outpace enemy level, because you could at lease lay down a little crowd control and stop up chokepoints. Now it can't even do that.

One more long standing issue that exist mainly for console and controller users is the charge up mechanic. To use any ability on a controller you must first press and hold the ability menu button, and second simultaneously press the button that corresponds to each ability slot. To charge Fireball you must also hold down this second button. That means to charge Fireball I must take my thumb off the right thumbstick (the one used for aiming) and use it to hold the X button (the one that corresponds to Fireball). Of course this means I can't even adjust my aim while I charge Fireball, so unless my target decides to sit completely still for 2 seconds, it's basically impossible to use the charged version of Fireball on a controller. However, a solution exists, and it lies in Garuda. With Garuda's Seeking Talons, the player merely needs to press and hold the ability menu button, and simultaneously tap the triangle button, which means your right thumb is not tied up and you can adjust your aim freely while continuing to charge the ability. I have no idea why this same mechanic has not been introduced to Ember already, but it is sorely needed.

So Fireball now 1) has worse damage than my secondary, 2) has an unreliable and unintuitive flight path which frequently result in misses, 3) has lost its main functionality from before the rework, and 4) a charge mechanic that is practically unusable on a controller.

So I would ask that DE please take another look at Fireball and see if some of these issues can be resolved.

[ScytodiDaedalus]

Fireball needed a bigger hitbox/collision & explosion update since a long time now, Frost's Freeze also needs it badly but anyway.

There's one benefit of using fireball and it's being able to cast it while shooting with your weapons.

Also, I'm surprised you haven't complained about the fact Ember's current state is simply bad, why would anyone use Fireball when you can just cast Inferno? The fact that Inferno outclasses Fireball by a whole lot is simply terrible.

[(PSN)sister-hawk]

7 hours ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

Also, I'm surprised you haven't complained about the fact Ember's current state is simply bad, why would anyone use Fireball when you can just cast Inferno? The fact that Inferno outclasses Fireball by a whole lot is simply terrible.

I don’t agree that she’s bad overall, I think she’s quite good. And I would expect Inferno to be significantly more powerful than Fireball, as it is a 4th ability.

Edited December 21, 2019 by (PS4)sister-hawk

[Djego27]

Well like most frames of the time Fireball is mostly a utility ability at higher levels. It was useful for small group CC if you used a bow/sniper(sortis, bigger excavation maps) or to kill cameras, Ospray Orbs and moa tar(not really since they introduced scaling hp to it for whatever absurd reason the person at DE was thinking that this would be a good idea) as well a short CC duing reloads.

I actually suggested a few times that Fireball should be a spender, plus a real resource system on the frame, instead of nonsense of a non functuional resource system we got.

I personaly hate the new Ember, she can no longer challange any frame bare Banshee or Oktavia and come out on top in a damage contest, with non matching damage types on top of that, she can no longer best litterally any frame in solo defensive type missions for speed running(because she had the AOE soft CC to rival real CC frames and the damage to punch through any faction at L100+ solo without any effort), she is no longer one of the best team buffing damage frames in the game(that had 3 abilities to buff team damage, as only frame in the hole game), she is no longer the number one when it comes to corrosive\fire status weapons(enemy armor protection on a target was just as meaningless as if you would play ash) and she lost the abilty to blitz low level stuff quickly. All that for the worst damage reduction ability of any frame in the game and a new 4 that is barely better then WoF was, what was allready mostly a CC ability at higher levels and absolutly irrelevant for damage compared to what accelerant could produce with weapons. If you look at the CC you got out of WoF at high levels, Inferno is actually considerable less useful overall.

The rework is also universal praised by people that did not understand how accelerant worked and only used WoF on the frame(litterally 99.9% of the Ember players from my personal experience during the last 5 years ingame), same as the Saryn rework was praised by the 99.9% of the player base that did not understand how the pre rework spore worked. To be fair Saryn came out of her rework fairly boring to play but overpowered against armor, while Ember basically got a Extinguished dragon key slapped on, got stripped of any interesting mechanics, her great CC, went from being energy ineffective at high levels to just rediculus levels of energy use and is now exactly the poor no damage frame at high levels people did believe she was before the rework...

For refference spore worked like that in combination with a Arca Plasmor round(that was specifficly status modded around that ability):

I do however agree that DE should look into the issues with the controller button mapping.

[(PSN)sister-hawk]

10 hours ago, Djego27 said:

The rework is also universal praised by people that did not understand how accelerant worked and only used WoF on the frame

Ok well I can say the only reason you hate the new Ember is because you don’t understand how to play her, so there you go.

You don’t have to be condescending toward people to disagree with them.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I think it could be far more useful if they just switch her meter usage around. 

Instead of her 3 consuming meter, make it and 4 add to the meter and her 1 consumes 10% from the meter instead (and does not use energy when there is meter to use).

It will become an ability that can be cheaply used which would make its damage multiplier combo effect actually functional. It won't be an abused spam ability because you actually want the meter to be high. And now you'll be able to weave between abilities to try to maintain the sweet spot on heat buildup. 

[GPrime96]

16 hours ago, Djego27 said:

The rework is also universal praised by people that did not understand how accelerant worked and only used WoF on the frame(litterally 99.9% of the Ember players from my personal experience during the last 5 years ingame), same as the Saryn rework was praised by the 99.9% of the player base that did not understand how the pre rework spore worked. To be fair Saryn came out of her rework fairly boring to play but overpowered against armor, while Ember basically got a Extinguished dragon key slapped on, got stripped of any interesting mechanics, her great CC, went from being energy ineffective at high levels to just rediculus levels of energy use and is now exactly the poor no damage frame at high levels people did believe she was before the rework...

^^

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

On 2019-12-22 at 12:42 AM, Djego27 said:

 

The rework is also universal praised by people that did not understand how accelerant worked and only used WoF on the frame(litterally 99.9% of the Ember players from my personal experience during the last 5 years ingame), same as the Saryn rework was praised by the 99.9% of the player base that did not understand how the pre rework spore worked. 

I may not understand Ember to the same extent you do but it's insulting as hell to lump everyone together like that.  I don't particularly care what her max capabilities were pre rework.  Her being a buffer frame was not only something I didn't care for gameplay wise but a buffer frame is not what Ember in my opinion was ever advertised as thematically.  Even if her current version of her kit is wildly different and basically not what Ember "was" anymore it in my opinion is far more in line with what the fantasy of the design intent.  Which is why I see it as superior compared to her old version.

In regards to Saryn I'm actually completely aware of how her old rework played.  And there was fun to be had with it.  But I also enjoy her new setup.  purely because it feels more organic in regards to the whole "spreading disease" sort of thing. I don't think one version is superior to another.  It's fine for you to prefer styles of play that are no longer present.  It's not okay for you to be a jerk to others simply because they don't like what you liked.  Who cares if people are ignorant.  They like what they like.  let them have that.

[Pie_mastyr]

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

I think it could be far more useful if they just switch her meter usage around. 

Instead of her 3 consuming meter, make it and 4 add to the meter and her 1 consumes 10% from the meter instead (and does not use energy when there is meter to use).

It will become an ability that can be cheaply used which would make its damage multiplier combo effect actually functional. It won't be an abused spam ability because you actually want the meter to be high. And now you'll be able to weave between abilities to try to maintain the sweet spot on heat buildup. 

This right here. Though I was thinking 5%. 

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

57 minutes ago, Pie_mastyr said:

This right here. Though I was thinking 5%. 

I'm fine with that. Lol

[ScytodiDaedalus]

On 2019-12-22 at 12:17 PM, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

Ok well I can say the only reason you hate the new Ember is because you don’t understand how to play her, so there you go.

Trust, me this person understood how to play her then, and understands her current state, rn, it's not hard to press 4 at all times to maximize enemies dead. Sure a 4th ability is meant to be really powerful and be important for the frame, specially in a scenario where there's a LOT of enemies in the room, but if there is 1 or 5 enemies spread out, what do you do? Shoot fireballs to each of them? that's 125 energy, why not just press 4 to immediately set the 5 of them on fire for the cheap cost of 50 energy and 0% miss rate?

Oh yeah, and pressing 2 from time to time to enjoy... DR, because Ember needs it now...

[Djego27]

15 hours ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

Ok well I can say the only reason you hate the new Ember is because you don’t understand how to play her, so there you go.

You don’t have to be condescending toward people to disagree with them.

WelI am very annoyed with nearly any Ember player ingame or on the forums for the last couple of years, given that all threads about changing the frame(like 3 every single week), outside a hand full, where all about the lack of damage and that Ember does not scale, what indicates that people did not understand what accelerant did. The same thing continued in neraly every public game, what you seen where Embers just pressing 4 and going afk or utilizing the current fotm weapons(that often where not really good on Ember, because raw damage and crit numbers where not the most improtant stats on a weapon for Ember) without any fire damage.

While this might probably make me look like a massive A****** on the internet, I am actually not. I am just unhappy that the game lost another interesting frame to play and that the vast majority of the playerbase applaudes and considers the changes as a improvement because they did never did understand the mechanic that actually did make Ember a very well scaling and flexible damage frame.

 

10 hours ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

I may not understand Ember to the same extent you do but it's insulting as hell to lump everyone together like that.  I don't particularly care what her max capabilities were pre rework.  Her being a buffer frame was not only something I didn't care for gameplay wise but a buffer frame is not what Ember in my opinion was ever advertised as thematically.  Even if her current version of her kit is wildly different and basically not what Ember "was" anymore it in my opinion is far more in line with what the fantasy of the design intent.  Which is why I see it as superior compared to her old version.

In regards to Saryn I'm actually completely aware of how her old rework played.  And there was fun to be had with it.  But I also enjoy her new setup.  purely because it feels more organic in regards to the whole "spreading disease" sort of thing. I don't think one version is superior to another.  It's fine for you to prefer styles of play that are no longer present.  It's not okay for you to be a jerk to others simply because they don't like what you liked.  Who cares if people are ignorant.  They like what they like.  let them have that.

Technically Ember was not a "buff" frame but a debuff frame(given that accelerant did give enemy units negative fire resistance) that also happend to have multiple way to buff the fire damage component on weapons. It was also the only frame of that kind where it only affected one single element and the benifits for the team where compleetly tied to weapon modding, instead of the general increase to all damage what most frames offer.

As for theme, I found it very fitting that not only your abilities but also your weapons did light up everything and did leave nothing but burned corpses behind, plus everything on the frame was designed around directly improving fire damage output or did reward status effects(corrosive, viral, radiation) that directly improve fire damage or reward to overcome enemy defences such as armor or aura protection where fire damage has issues with incredible damage gains. Then again theme on a warframe is heavly subjective. This just looked nice for a frame focused around on fire damage in my personal opinion:

I actually started playing around seriusly with Saryn during the hey days of the WoF Ember, because I did not want to be just the second or third Ember in every mission and given that everybody on the forums just pointed out Saryn has scaling problems beyond L50 with Spore + Molt and was "bugged" it did trigger my excitement to try out something new and look if there is not more to it then the common forum opinion. What I found after testing and clarifying that all the youtube suggestions for damage did non, was just broken before the Plasmor head shot nerf(every hit was a headshot, same as with explosive weapons before her changes) and even afterwards incredible powerful while also being interesting to play. I only started to see other well played Saryns when ESO was added to the game, before that you just had the general molt + spore Saryn and the ones that just hammered 4 for damage in all the public games I played.

I would heavly disagree with the point that Saryn plays more organic now, given that all you do is carefully micromanage the spores for damage now where even directly killing stuff lowers damage most of the time compared to keeping spawns alive as long as you have more spawns to spread to keep the counter up. Differnet to that Saryns damage before was mostly bound to how many enemy units you have at your disposal, given that every group fueled your AOE damage, while single heavy tanked units or toxic ancients where always leftovers, that you had to get rid of with other weapons, given that you did run out of the resource that did give you massive damage. That was in my opinion very organic and you where never at any point discurraged to utilize your weapons against targets for artifical reasons. It was also more interesting in my personal opinion that Ember and Saryn used to be polarising opposites of the elemental weapon damage fueled frame design, one with massive AOE but not a lot CC/utility and single target damage, while the other one had massive CC(both from abilities and how you mod your weapons) and single target damage. yet weak AOE at high levels. Keep in mind on both frames it does no longer matter what weapon you use or elements you put on them.

I am sorry if I offendend someone, this is not really my intention. It is just my personal opinion, that grown on to me over the years, plus gets reinforces in litterally every forum thread, youtube video or if you see the frame played ingame.

 

 

[ScytodiDaedalus]

1 hour ago, Djego27 said:

While this might probably make me look like a massive A****** on the internet, I am actually not. I am just unhappy that the game lost another interesting frame to play and that the vast majority of the playerbase applaudes and considers the changes as a improvement because they did never did understand the mechanic that actually did make Ember a very well scaling and flexible damage frame.

Yeah, have hardly even played Ember ever since the rework.

I don't understand how "well scaling" Ember was tho, I understand Accelerant really helped Ember dish out tremendous damage with Heat damage, but I always got stuck around the 100+lvl Armor values where there's virtually no way through.

As for flexible, Well I never tried Fireball Frenzy or Flash Accelerant builds, but atleast she got the job done, pressing 2 every time you faced enemies was really getting tiresome, but atleast it only costed 50 energy base, regardless of enemy count, and now Iferno costs... considerably more, interrupts everything, no more meleeing or shooting, just jumping and casting.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

On 2019-12-21 at 9:00 AM, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

And I would expect Inferno to be significantly more powerful than Fireball, as it is a 4th ability.

I think what he means is, fireball isnt doing anything to make you want to use it over Waiting for your 4th ability in any type of situation. 100 energy is too easy to come by to feel the need to even consider using her first ability

Edited December 24, 2019 by (PS4)IIFrost_GhostII

[ScytodiDaedalus]

38 minutes ago, (PS4)IIFrost_GhostII said:

100 energy is too easy to come by to feel the need to even consider using her first ability

Just in case you don't know: Inferno costs 10 energy per enemy up to a maximum cost of 100, so casting inferno if there is 10 or 9999999 enemies costs 100.

This is why it makes it even easier, why throw 25 energy into an enemy for a chance to miss & low damage, When you can throw 10 energy for 0% miss rate & high damage that can spread from enemy to enemy?

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

4 hours ago, Djego27 said:

 

 

Technically Ember was not a "buff" frame but a debuff frame(given that accelerant did give enemy units negative fire resistance) that also happend to have multiple way to buff the fire damage component on weapons. It was also the only frame of that kind where it only affected one single element and the benifits for the team where compleetly tied to weapon modding, instead of the general increase to all damage what most frames offer.

-shrug- I know you're being specific just to be specific/inform here but I don't think differentiation between buffs/debuffs is really an important thing to note in WF's current version.  My complaint here in regards to the "buffer" comment is really more down to how she played.  Old ember to me mostly felt like "cast x to make you and your allies weaponry better."  Even if her "buffs" technically made her powers stronger too it never particularly felt like it had enough oomph.  And the path you had to take to get there for Embers amazing power was rather unorthodox.  Which isn't strictly a negative mind you, I too enjoy looking for hidden benefits/interesting tidbits about things that flesh out something more.  But it probably could have been done in a better way.  imo anyway.

4 hours ago, Djego27 said:

As for theme, I found it very fitting that not only your abilities but also your weapons did light up everything and did leave nothing but burned corpses behind, plus everything on the frame was designed around directly improving fire damage output or did reward status effects(corrosive, viral, radiation) that directly improve fire damage or reward to overcome enemy defences such as armor or aura protection where fire damage has issues with incredible damage gains. Then again theme on a warframe is heavly subjective. This just looked nice for a frame focused around on fire damage in my personal opinion:

When I red about ember's lore and saw her profile video I envisioned a frame similar to Sienna from Vermentide 2.  Someone that walks along using spells as their main way of damage to absolutely nuke enemies.  Someone who got stronger through casting often.  Someone who could make it rain ramping DoT damage.  etc.  The most fun i've ever had with Ember pre rework was when I ran Distant Observer's Ember build where they used twin basolk with fire quake and healing return to basically be a healing tanky ish ember that was focused on melee.

4 hours ago, Djego27 said:

 

I actually started playing around seriusly with Saryn during the hey days of the WoF Ember, because I did not want to be just the second or third Ember in every mission and given that everybody on the forums just pointed out Saryn has scaling problems beyond L50 with Spore + Molt and was "bugged" it did trigger my excitement to try out something new and look if there is not more to it then the common forum opinion. What I found after testing and clarifying that all the youtube suggestions for damage did non, was just broken before the Plasmor head shot nerf(every hit was a headshot, same as with explosive weapons before her changes) and even afterwards incredible powerful while also being interesting to play. I only started to see other well played Saryns when ESO was added to the game, before that you just had the general molt + spore Saryn and the ones that just hammered 4 for damage in all the public games I played.

The two primary builds I used for old reworked Saryn was a spore popper build where consealed explosives and viral ticks were everywhere.  This was my main build for more or less static based areas like xini.  Then my other build was from AGGP that was a melee focused lash based build where I used the only whip sword at the time.  4 was only ever used as a quick stun if I felt over whelmed and didn't think molt would save me.  I did use spore turret saryn when farming on that one infested defense on the later world (can't even remember the name as it died as a farming spot awhile ago.)  It grew very boring for me really fast.

4 hours ago, Djego27 said:

I would heavly disagree with the point that Saryn plays more organic now, given that all you do is carefully micromanage the spores for damage now where even directly killing stuff lowers damage most of the time compared to keeping spawns alive as long as you have more spawns to spread to keep the counter up. Differnet to that Saryns damage before was mostly bound to how many enemy units you have at your disposal, given that every group fueled your AOE damage, while single heavy tanked units or toxic ancients where always leftovers, that you had to get rid of with other weapons, given that you did run out of the resource that did give you massive damage. That was in my opinion very organic and you where never at any point discurraged to utilize your weapons against targets for artifical reasons. It was also more interesting in my personal opinion that Ember and Saryn used to be polarising opposites of the elemental weapon damage fueled frame design, one with massive AOE but not a lot CC/utility and single target damage, while the other one had massive CC(both from abilities and how you mod your weapons) and single target damage. yet weak AOE at high levels. Keep in mind on both frames it does no longer matter what weapon you use or elements you put on them.

Perhaps it is because my ways of playing Saryn were different than yours.  But game flow with current saryn feels cleaner for me.  I kind of move about the map in a circle making sure to cast spore on a guy before I kill him to keep it up.  Where as past Saryn i'd be flicking my camera every which way to try and find someone to stick a spore on and then assault with my explosive secondaries hoping i'd see numbers pop up all around him.  I do miss my Melee Saryn.  But i'm not really convinced that current saryn or old saryn are superior over the other.  I think i've said this to you before but i'm unsure.  I would have loved if they managed to retain the old styles of play for Saryn (to an extent) and ember whilst moving the frame forward.  I don't believe current ember is flawless by any stretch.  My two biggest pet peeves being meteors are not thematic to her and they ruined my ability to choke point doors and hallways with hold cast fireball.  But I still like how her gameplay is now at least the direction of it.

4 hours ago, Djego27 said:

I am sorry if I offendend someone, this is not really my intention. It is just my personal opinion, that grown on to me over the years, plus gets reinforces in litterally every forum thread, youtube video or if you see the frame played ingame.

 

 

I'm not particularly offended and your feelings/position is completely understandable.  A better word to accurately describe how your tone effected me would be either flabbergasted and/or miffed.  You and Xnorn are the people I consider to be the most knowledgable from my time spent on the forums.  So it catches me off guard when you two or a few others I deeply respect actually get a little rude with people.

[Djego27]

1 hour ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

Yeah, have hardly even played Ember ever since the rework.

I don't understand how "well scaling" Ember was tho, I understand Accelerant really helped Ember dish out tremendous damage with Heat damage, but I always got stuck around the 100+lvl Armor values where there's virtually no way through.

As for flexible, Well I never tried Fireball Frenzy or Flash Accelerant builds, but atleast she got the job done, pressing 2 every time you faced enemies was really getting tiresome, but atleast it only costed 50 energy base, regardless of enemy count, and now Iferno costs... considerably more, interrupts everything, no more meleeing or shooting, just jumping and casting.

Most people only considered Ember as a damage frame on her own. However frames from that era are not without weaknesses. In Embers case, being weak against high level armor protection and aura protection(by the way WoF worked and that heat procs can not stack). However armor can be broken with lots of corrosive procs. However similar to most of this old warframe designs there are weapons in the game that might be not super useful to everybody but are incredible powerful on specific frames at high levels. While status shotguns(what produce the most procs per second of any weapon in the game) where ammo inefficent and do low damage so that they where only reasonable effective against very heavy armored targets for killspeed, Ember could utilize them a lot more freely given that accelerant gave them massive damage when modded for corrosive/heat and to some degree made them halve way ammo efficent. The reason why I still use my 2014 boar prime, is mostly because I do love how the weapon works and because it hardly makes a difference in killspeed if the target is L80 or L160, given that what makes this armored units so tanky is not her HP scaling, it is nearly compleetly the armor protection scaling, what the Boar prime removes after 3-5 hits on the target so it is down to red bar, at what point it did happen to hit harder the a Tigris Prime on Ember.

Aura protection was actually a hard one for me, given that to build radiation you need heat, what means the weapon will not do high damage on Ember. However by accident while leveling my fresh from the trader mara detron I discovered that if the weapon has radiation as base damage you can actually do radiation/corrosive/heat or radiation/viral/heat what made it litterally the best scaling secondary in the game on Ember. I even was the only person in the hole game that called the changes to the mara detron in the secondary shotgun rework thread absurd and guess what, DE even buffed it a 2. time after that:

This was with flash accelerant 80.000 heat damage per single shot, on a weapon with halve the fire rate of a auto rifle, a massive range for a shotgun(actually no damage falloff at all before the secondary shotgun rework), on a status weapon that easily punches through any level of armored target, can punch through all the ancient healer auras and halve the EHP of the target after the first shot, when you slot in viral vs Infested. A radiation/viral/heat weapon would do very poorly on any other frame that buffs weapon damage vs Infested, given that you mostly buff highly resisted elements, however on Ember it was the best thing since sliced bread, given the only thing you buff is heat damage, what is not resisted by the faction at all.

As for flexible I mostly mean that Ember was equally good against every faction(with the proper status weapons) plus litterally all kind of mission types. Most frames of that era had factions where they where not good against, like Mag vs Infested or Grenier, Ash vs Infested or Corpus, Saryn vs Grenier etc. while Ember could do it all fairly well given that most of your damage came from weapons, what could be chosen to what works best against the faction. Same for defence type missions and Interceptions, Ember had a lot of CC. It was not hard CC like with a real CC frame like Vauban but combined with the massive damage it could get the job done for basically everything.

This was a sorti excavation, back when it was 2000 cryotic as goal, secondary only, plus swarm moa clouds had bugs at this time giving litterally everything another 90% armor damage reduction without duration, on top of healer 90% damage reduction soloed with Ember and the only secondary in the game that could have made the this possible, the mara detron. I actually had a funny 3 pages thread with other high MR players explaining why a radiation base damage weapon was the only reasonable choice instead of pure stupidity on my part when I reported the bug.

While you could have done this mission solo with strong CC frames like Rino or Vauban, you would have spend a ton of energy restores on it, where other damage frames lacked the CC to keep the excavators alive. Ember however could do that, the reason why I farmed my focus on Ember in infested excavation till 2000 solo for a while, till DE introduced boosters what basically made this pointless, given that if you run away to pick up the booster the excavator dies, the respawns stop and the booster runs out before you can set up the next excavator.

[Djego27]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)Knight Raime said:

stuff

Well it feels like a nit pick kind of thing if a frame if a frame buffs or debuffs, till you actually look a status weapons. If Ember would have provided a heat damage buff most status weapons would actually not be effective at all on the frame, given that the probability what status procs is modified by the amount of that damage type on the weapon compared to the total damage of the weapon. I always found it quite a neat detail that DE gone the extra effort route on Ember, given that it was the only frame in the game that worked that way.

Melee Ember always was fairly solid(with flash accelerant it became actually very good, given it allowed a lot more flexibility with your melee weapon builds), even if basically you just used fireball and accelerant. However Condition Overload made it basically to simple till the nerf, while again the reballanced glaive just shreds everything on it's own. Then again Melee was and still is just to powerful to be really fun as we speak, given that all the more complex things like ground finishers, knockdowns, having AOE and gap closers in your combos and knowing what attacks to channel and what not became more or less irrelevant with the years. 

I gave up on the Haiku prime CE meta fairly quick, given that it did not really deliver in the damage department, same as the spore and molt combo. Akkad was great, because you could get to the C rotation very quickly and easily play till wave 60 solo on Saryn:

 

Saryn was great for endless defence fissure missions solo, given that on most maps it was a lot quicker then with Ember given that nothing really had the EHP to survive the AOE you build up with the trash mobs, so you could skip the infamous clean up job at the end of the waves that where kind of a trademark of the old saryn: I also did some stuff like Hydron solo 40 waves with Saryn to argue about the frame with other people here on the forums about "Does fall off in damage at wave 10!!!", however L100+ toxic eximus nox 40 waves into it where a absolute pain to grind down with Saryn and really not worth the time investment. Overall it was more burst heavy, where you instead of watching a timer climp had a 1/3 chance that on a smaller mob group, that was spored properly, that the toxic transfer will go off what you always followed up with misasma, given that misama damage with 100% bonus from the toxic proc was fairly solid. 

Take this bombard for example it had like 6000 damage per second in toxic dots after his armor reduction ticking on it, what in addition to the misama damage only required a single shot to remove it after you wiped the trash:

I would have prefered if they removed fireblast instead of accelerant and made the fire debuff of accelerant scale inverse with the heat meter(while nerfing Inferno damage by the factor of 3), giving players a real reason to manage the heat meter to ballance out damage mitigation with damage dealing while also favouring negative duration high powerstrenght builds in build up speed and draining of the resource.This way Ember would have been more complex to play and all the interactions beween weapons and abilities would have remained on the frame for players that look for a interesting to play damage frame to find. 

As for fireball, I never really used the flame patch effect on it, outside putting it on the pod in defence, even then it was mostly to small to really prevent melee units to hit it.