Ember Fire Blast and Immolation

[rosconeko]

Apologies if this has already been discussed.

So, I'm quite liking the Ember rework and still figuring out the synergy between abilities. 

It had me wondering how great it could be if Fire Blast didn't consume energy, but instead consumed from the pool of the Immolation meter and release the stored damage. I know there are tips and tricks to negate the filling of the meter, but this isn't my main concern. Considering her average energy pool, being able to cast Fire Blast at no energy cost and instead just lowering the Immolation meter, it would be a great way to synergise the abilities even further.

Maybe I'm missing something and feedback would be interesting to read!

Edited December 29, 2019 by rosconeko
Clarification, Grammar

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

Then the ability would be unusable without Immolation. That's dependance, not synergy. Fireblast's cost should be reduced according to the Immolation meter; being free when Ember is overheating. 

[ScytodiDaedalus]

Feedback to your suggestion? or Ember?

If it's Feedback to your suggestion I believe they should just change Fire Blast's cost to 35, 50 or anythign in-between, not tie it even more to using X ability.

My Feedback to Ember in general is the synergies forced towards Immolation, the fact they gave Ember DR because people really wanted it (who knows why) and that Inferno outshines Fireball in all possible ways and scenarios but maybe that's because they didn't put effort in improving Fireball.

[Blexander]

1 hour ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

the fact they gave Ember DR because people really wanted it (who knows why)

You obviously haven't played Ember much before the rework. It was impossible to play her on higher levels because:

1. She dealt no significant damage
2. She popped like a balloon because she literally had no sustain, let alone defensive capabilities

[Djego27]

Well the intention was that you spam Inferno and counter that by spamming Fireblast to not get energy inefficent(so much that DE allready broke the rules for energy regeneration during a channeling ability with Immolation), no matter if you currently have any use for the knockback or armor strip, while this is allready energy inefficent to begin with. It is just a poorly thought through resource system, that mostly is in place to prevent people just hammering the 4 button, without any thought put into how to this will actually play out ingame.

If DE would make Fireblast free outside of the heat meter drain(a resource that you throw away currently anyway non stop) it would basically remove the only design goal they had for that design and they would have to come up with something else.

The trick is actually to not prevent filling the meter but just remove it by double tap Immolation everytime you get the sound that the game gives you at the 80% heat meter mark. Fireblast currently is mostly the same as it was for the last 5 years I played Ember, a waste of energy comparted to other things you can do with that energy. Even if you do not run around with a status shotgun what makes the armor strip of fireblast irrelevant, a single fireball with halve the armor on the target what is sufficent to punch through sorties and all other normal content in the game without FOTM weapons.

I do not believe DE has any clear vision or idea where to go with Ember, given that Ember before the rework was one of the most ballanced and thought through frames in the game(a game that unfortunally has incredible poor ballance).

48 minutes ago, Blexander said:

You obviously haven't played Ember much before the rework. It was impossible to play her on higher levels because:

1. She dealt no significant damage
2. She popped like a balloon because she literally had no sustain, let alone defensive capabilities

 

WoF did no significant damage(12k per second on my build + another 36k rng dot damage), same as Inferno does no significant damage now. I personaly would highly prefere WoF even if the damage value was 0, over the current Inferno, given that it did at least some CC. Nothing changed outside of removing Ember real source of damage, what used to be accelerant and weapons build around it.

Ember hardly can take more hits today, given that you have to eat all the damage the game throws at you without the CC Ember had before the rework. Btw Ember was one of the most easy to heal frames before litterally getting one shotted by everything because she not only could stop leathal damage by just pressing 2 but heal from 1% to 100% in a single life strike(cold no combo counter needed) with throwing weapons, years before they became relevant for the throw or as melee weapon(becasuse killing blow, allways throwing channeled and massive fire damage on your melee).

This is Ember today, incapable to keep your pet alive with CC at the 60 minute mark and running out of the mission 90 minutes in by the lack of damage(what would have been laughable pre rework):

Futuremore it is litterally a insult to what the frame was in any kind of defensive missions. You might as well just play chroma, because it tanks better(like it did for years) and does a lot more damage(thx to the rework and Embers massive damage nerfs) then the current Ember, while both are utterly bad when it comes to CC now.

Edit: This is Ember anno 2015 controlling the map and laying down the hurt 60 waves into ODD solo, no defensive mods on the frame whatsoever, a time where no damage frame could match Embers CCs and no CC frame could match Embers dps and guess what the frame did a lot more damage 4 years ago with the weapons back then compared to now

Edited December 29, 2019 by Djego27

[ScytodiDaedalus]

1 hour ago, Blexander said:

You obviously haven't played Ember much before the rework. It was impossible to play her on higher levels because:

You obviously like to say people "obviously" didn't play much of this or that,

I am aware she got oneshotted like many of the squishy Warframes in really high lvl content, does that mean she needed DR? No, An alternative to keep herself alive? Yes.

The worst part of this is having the DR makes even less sense now WoF got removed, which is what encouraged ember to stay dangerously close to enemies, the moment they were no longer dying, Ember started to do so. Now, no enemies die in a reasonably fast manner so the fact there's usually more enemies allive around her mean a lot more shots coming in from all sides, so how it balances out is mostly odd, I'd say unfavorable but I'd easily not be right or wrong.

[ScytodiDaedalus]

54 minutes ago, Djego27 said:

Ember hardly can take more hits today, given that you have to eat all the damage the game throws at you without the CC Ember had before the rework. Btw Ember was one of the most easy to heal frames before litterally getting one shotted by everything because she not only could stop leathal damage by just pressing 2 but heal from 1% to 100% in a single life strike(cold no combo counter needed) with throwing weapons, years before they became relevant for the throw or as melee weapon(becasuse killing blow, allways throwing channeled and massive fire damage on your melee).

Ah. I see you're a man of culture aswell.

[Blexander]

42 minutes ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

does that mean she needed DR? No, An alternative to keep herself alive? Yes.

DR is a fine method of keeping squishy frames alive.

44 minutes ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

The worst part of this is having the DR makes even less sense now WoF got removed, which is what encouraged ember to stay dangerously close to enemies

WoF was NEVER about encouraging the player to be within spitting distance of the enemy to deal damage. It only got to that because she was a lazy AFK-farm frame, being able to rush low-level mission because of her range and low enemy armor values. So they nerfed her. Twice.

1 hour ago, Djego27 said:

WoF did no significant damage(12k per second on my build + another 36k rng dot damage), same as Inferno does no significant damage now.

But unlike WoF, Inferno can affect multiple targets at once, with the soft target cap being 10 per cast. WoF was hard locked to 1 target per instance of damage, and was rng if it would bounce on the same target twice or damage another one.

1 hour ago, Djego27 said:

Nothing changed outside of removing Ember real source of damage, what used to be accelerant and weapons build around it

I swear, I have lost count of how many times you bring guns into an ability-specific argument. You CANNOT equate gun damage to ability damage.

Ember was never supposed to have "gun-buffer" as a primary(only viable at the time) role. I'm glad both Accelerant and it's augment are gone, because now I can actually engage enemies using most of her kit in conjunction with shooting instead using half of it and then only shoot.

[Djego27]

8 hours ago, Blexander said:

But unlike WoF, Inferno can affect multiple targets at once, with the soft target cap being 10 per cast. WoF was hard locked to 1 target per instance of damage, and was rng if it would bounce on the same target twice or damage another one.

WoF hit 3 targets per second, priorizing closer targets(a change done 2015 what was amazing on the frame) what means it actually did hit stuff with CC that will most likely shoot or melee you and given that you killed that targets first with guns they could not be hit again. Given that at high levels you will always be stuck with a few eximus targets, because there EHP is vastly higher then one trash units, hitting them multiple times was desireable for CC. 

8 hours ago, Blexander said:

I swear, I have lost count of how many times you bring guns into an ability-specific argument. You CANNOT equate gun damage to ability damage.

Ember was never supposed to have "gun-buffer" as a primary(only viable at the time) role. I'm glad both Accelerant and it's augment are gone, because now I can actually engage enemies using most of her kit in conjunction with shooting instead using half of it and then only shoot.

There is no ability specific damage argument here, given that both WoF and Inferno did and do not provide anything substantial for damage. Ember is(or at least was) a damage frame from a time where you actually had to play a damage frame to do well to do high damage, instead of the novice approach to just hammer a button. I absolutly can compare doing 8.7k damage with Inferno to doing 90k damage with a single mara detron shot and the second option was a mile better, given that eximus targets have a crap ton more EHP then trash units.

It is just your opinion what Ember was suposed to do, it is not a argument. You never used her kit, this is where your complains for low damage and low surviability before the rework are comming from, given that the Ember complains about that are years old, always the same and always have the same reason from my personal experience on the forums in threads about the frame. It had nothing to do with the old Ember, it is just you not playing the design of DE to it's strenghts and being disapointed with the results.

When I did start to play Mag or Saryn as damage frame seriously I did terrible(mostly because I started off a youtube or forum suggestion, what are unfortunally most of the time not really all that good):

However I did practice, experiment with different weapons, changed the builds and became the person that generally is on top of the damage chart with that frames and can give good suggestions on the forums how they are played effectively. I could even give good advice about very niche things like a bullet attractor build on mag for 1h melee solo runs in the void or one that I used to solo L100 sorti bosses, because I actually tried that out and confirmed that it works:

All this frames got a rework, that dumped down her interesting concepts, made them very one dimensional and much more boring to play in my honest opinion. Embers rework in comparison to Mag and Saryn is the worst, because on top of being boring to play by removing all the interesting aspects of abilities and how they could be used at high levels, it removes the scalability from the frame.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Djego27

[Blexander]

50 minutes ago, Djego27 said:

WoF hit 3 targets per second, priorizing closer targets

All instances of damage have a 10% / 20% / 25% / 35% status chance, while explosions occur at a rate of roughly 2 to 4.5 per second.

• Enemies are prioritized upon World on Fire's activation. Higher priority will be given to enemies that pose the most immediate threat to Ember, such as enemies within close range.

• With the exception of the initial explosions on activation, multiple explosions do not occur simultaneously.

Also the enemy cap was 5. Look it up.

52 minutes ago, Djego27 said:

It is just your opinion what Ember was suposed to do, it is not a argument

Are you well? What part of her previous 2 kits didn't scream "DPS frame". It is no less a fact than it is an opinion.

56 minutes ago, Djego27 said:

it is just you not playing the design of DE to it's strenghts and being disapointed with the results.

Heh, I laughed. Imagine assuming thag I have been playing a frame, for approximately 4-5 years, wrong. I knew damage Ember could deal to each enemy type, I just refused to play a gun-buffer when I didn't want to. And don't try to excuse the nerf as "DE's design". THAT'S not an argument.

[rosconeko]

Thanks for feedback, all of you. I didn't intend for this to become a "heated" discussion. See what I did there? 😉

You all definitely provide very in depth analysis on Ember, especially her 4th ability, which is kinda going off track, but appreciated nonetheless.

Getting back to my main topic, regarding her 2 and 3. I do not consider myself a pro, as both of you clearly seem to be. And I really do mean that. Being MR27 (I know that doesn't mean much), I do at least have a good understanding of the mechanics and if I don't, I try learn. Hence my topic in the first place 😊

I have tried a few different builds with Ember (new rework), but I just can't seem to find one that actually works. There is definitely potential here (let's just ignore her 1 altogether) and I'm not giving up on her, but it all seems a bit disjointed.

I would assume her 2 is meant to be DR in the way that Nova, another squishy frame, utilises 1 for the same purpose (depending on your build, of course). But from my experience, I don't feel it actually working. And I do go for a strength build. I'm completely open to the possibility that I might be doing something wrong. Anyway, so to me it would make sense if her 3 could release all that built-up damage (kinda like Nyx's 4 with extra steps). Because even her 3 doesn't seem to strip armor consistently, from my personal experience. Lastly, coming back again to my original point, she has no way of effectively gaining energy or sustaining it (unless you change aura to Naramon and slap on Energy Siphon). She uses more energy than she is able to replenish. That makes the fact that her 2, which arbitrarily starts draining energy, even more of an issue.

So, in closing, I really think that making her 3's damage scale off of her 2's total absorbed damage and drawing from its pool, instead of energy, will greatly improve Ember.

[Blexander]

1 hour ago, rosconeko said:

I have tried a few different builds with Ember (new rework), but I just can't seem to find one that actually works. There is definitely potential here (let's just ignore her 1 altogether) and I'm not giving up on her, but it all seems a bit disjointed

I reccomend going for max efficiency and a choice between a little bit strength(DR doesn't require a lot of it to get to it's max value) or range, with the augement for Inferno, add a healing melee and you're virtually unkillable up until lvl70-80. Duration is less important if you want a quick gameplay loop of "cast 4, kill within it's duration and get a bunch of energy back". Just make sure not to go too much into the minus with duration. The drain of Immolation scales inversely with efficiency and duration.

You can get away with spamming 4 when no enemies are around because it still charges the meter despite not draining energy, is another tip i can give.

You can try a tanky augmented Fire Blast build, but I haven't tested it enough to make it as optimal as possible.

She's still very clunky with her abilities having VERY weird hit detection. Sometimes enemies just refuse to get hit despite being both in line of sight and visibly within the range of the damaging wave. It has something to do with how room instances are processed, because sometimes you CAN use Inferno to hit enemies through walls, but sometimes you can't hit them through an open door.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Blexander

[ScytodiDaedalus]

3 hours ago, rosconeko said:

I have tried a few different builds with Ember (new rework), but I just can't seem to find one that actually works. There is definitely potential here (let's just ignore her 1 altogether) and I'm not giving up on her, but it all seems a bit disjointed.

You see it disjointed because it is, even with the "synergies" glued in. I've unfortunately mostly given up on her, reason why it's hard for it to work is, exactly that, it costs too much energy, maximizing Efficiency was the best I could find for her to reliable have abilities available, you really might want to try that.

3 hours ago, rosconeko said:

That makes the fact that her 2, which arbitrarily starts draining energy, even more of an issue.

Immolation doesn't arbitrarily start to drain energy, as soon as it reaches the max, it makes your energy bleed, if you Fireblast to get it off the max and it hits the maximum again it will start the Energy Drain Ramp up again. If there's no enemies nearby, you shouldn't bother using Fireblast, just turn off Immolation and turn it on again if you really want it active at all times.

[rosconeko]

2 hours ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

Immolation doesn't arbitrarily start to drain energy, as soon as it reaches the max, it makes your energy bleed, if you Fireblast to get it off the max and it hits the maximum again it will start the Energy Drain Ramp up again. If there's no enemies nearby, you shouldn't bother using Fireblast, just turn off Immolation and turn it on again if you really want it active at all times.

Thanks for the response! Sorry, I should clarify what I meant. The mechanic for it to start draining energy at maximum level seems like an arbitrary decision made during the rework. I'd understand this kind of penalty to negate an ability that might be seen as OP, but I doubt is the case here. It could simply reach a cap of 90% and remain there. And if we go according to the suggestions in my previous post, the damage absorption would then also be capped and stored until "released" via Fire Blast. I just think the scaling potential here is great 😊

Edit: Ok, I was thinking about it now, and I realise that having perma 90% DR can be considered OP!

Edited December 30, 2019 by rosconeko
Correction

[LascarCapable]

21 hours ago, ScytodiDaedalus said:

My Feedback to Ember in general is the synergies forced towards Immolation, the fact they gave Ember DR because people really wanted it (who knows why) 

That's because DR is pretty much mandatory for high level content. Can't kill and loot stuff if you're dead, and anything in the level 80-100 level fork tends to nastily clobber anything without DR, insane regen or a very high armor value.

[ScytodiDaedalus]

3 hours ago, LascarCapable said:

That's because DR is pretty much mandatory for high level content.

Counter Argument, Mag & Limbo.

[Djego27]

1 hour ago, Blexander said:

All instances of damage have a 10% / 20% / 25% / 35% status chance, while explosions occur at a rate of roughly 2 to 4.5 per second.

• Enemies are prioritized upon World on Fire's activation. Higher priority will be given to enemies that pose the most immediate threat to Ember, such as enemies within close range.

• With the exception of the initial explosions on activation, multiple explosions do not occur simultaneously.

Also the enemy cap was 5. Look it up.

 

2 to 4.5 was general summerized to 3 to provide a basis for numbers in discussions on Ember, that you probly missed over the last 5 years.

1 hour ago, Blexander said:

Are you well? What part of her previous 2 kits didn't scream "DPS frame". It is no less a fact than it is an opinion.

Again, your view of how Ember should do damage(by button hammering instead of utilizing weapons) are not important to me, they never where given they are purely subjective. What is, is that Ember did a lot better in the damage departement before the changes and had a lot of utility for high levels, what also got removed.

1 hour ago, Blexander said:

Heh, I laughed. Imagine assuming thag I have been playing a frame, for approximately 4-5 years, wrong. I knew damage Ember could deal to each enemy type, I just refused to play a gun-buffer when I didn't want to. And don't try to excuse the nerf as "DE's design". THAT'S not an argument.

If you would know you would not went into a discussion with me, with fairly weak arguments comming from your lack of understanding how the frame did work, pre rework in rework suggestion threads, you would not claim that Ember did lack surviability and damage in this very thread right here and we would not have that conversation to begin with.

The vast majority of the playerbase played the older damage frames not to her real potential. I seen like 1 single player that used the fire weapon damage scaling on Ember per hole year in random groups consistantly over the years, yet I seen like 3 threads every weak of people that did not utilize it at all and did not know how it works complain about Ember would apearently fall of in damage at L50 for years. 

On 2019-12-30 at 1:53 PM, rosconeko said:

Thanks for feedback, all of you. I didn't intend for this to become a "heated" discussion. See what I did there? 😉

You all definitely provide very in depth analysis on Ember, especially her 4th ability, which is kinda going off track, but appreciated nonetheless.

Getting back to my main topic, regarding her 2 and 3. I do not consider myself a pro, as both of you clearly seem to be. And I really do mean that. Being MR27 (I know that doesn't mean much), I do at least have a good understanding of the mechanics and if I don't, I try learn. Hence my topic in the first place 😊

I have tried a few different builds with Ember (new rework), but I just can't seem to find one that actually works. There is definitely potential here (let's just ignore her 1 altogether) and I'm not giving up on her, but it all seems a bit disjointed.

I would assume her 2 is meant to be DR in the way that Nova, another squishy frame, utilises 1 for the same purpose (depending on your build, of course). But from my experience, I don't feel it actually working. And I do go for a strength build. I'm completely open to the possibility that I might be doing something wrong. Anyway, so to me it would make sense if her 3 could release all that built-up damage (kinda like Nyx's 4 with extra steps). Because even her 3 doesn't seem to strip armor consistently, from my personal experience. Lastly, coming back again to my original point, she has no way of effectively gaining energy or sustaining it (unless you change aura to Naramon and slap on Energy Siphon). She uses more energy than she is able to replenish. That makes the fact that her 2, which arbitrarily starts draining energy, even more of an issue.

So, in closing, I really think that making her 3's damage scale off of her 2's total absorbed damage and drawing from its pool, instead of energy, will greatly improve Ember.

Fireball does a granteed heat proc, if you do not use status weapons it is definitive worth useing against heavy armored units. Furthermore with the augment you can add like 2 90% heat damage mods worth of damage to your weapons, what is better then nothing even if pre rework Ember added like 15 90% fire damage mods to specific, build around accelerant weapons. It is also useful to CC stuff during reloads.

Immolation is DR, however it is the weakest tank ability in the hole game, on a squishy frame that DE striped of all the great CC. Fireblast only strips all armor if your heat meter is at 90%, what is not usefull at levels where it would be useful, because you lack the energy to do so.

Building for strenght on the new Ember is rather pointless, it does no longer affect your CC and damage in multiple ways. All it does is buff base damage of abilities(what does fall off nearly as quick as on the old Ember) and the bonus from fireball frenzy. Most people go more into range, however that is only useful for bigger maps. This is what I run, what was mostly build around the pre rework Ember:

Is it worth it? No, because the frame no longer controlls maps and hits like a truck, it is now exactly the low level, low damage frame people complained about for years.

My I suggest to you the same that I suggested to quite a few people over the years that wanted to rework Ember. Spend at least spend 100h straight past L100 solo with the frame without cheese before you suggest a rework.

What you will find will be certainly not the well designed and fun to play frame that I did, however you will find out that:

A A single level 108 heavy gunner has 8405 armor, while even my build has less then 3k EHP, so taking the required amount of damage to strip armor is not really feasable outside of melee and life striking litterally everything, then again melee is so broken that you will not need armor strip to begin with at levels where you can realisticly survive without getting one shot killed(what was L140 ish with the old Ember).

B All the people that argue about the ultimate gun against high level armor and request massive buffs to weapons and armor removing abilities added to frames are just to stupid to utilize a status weapon for that. I do since 2014 and do not care ever since about the level number above a armored target, given that all armored targets except for bosses are very squishy without armor, a thing that a status weapon will remove in a few shots.

C Ember is a lot of effort to play and you can decide after that 100 hours if that is worth it for the fun you had with her, it certainly was for me with the old Ember(to a point where most other damage frames feel incredible lame and boring to me), not really with the new one.

 

On 2019-12-30 at 7:05 PM, LascarCapable said:

That's because DR is pretty much mandatory for high level content. Can't kill and loot stuff if you're dead, and anything in the level 80-100 level fork tends to nastily clobber anything without DR, insane regen or a very high armor value.

Or CC, what Ember had before the rework. However the core issue is mostly that the enemy damage system is incredible poorly designed with uncapped scaling damage on litterally anything(even acient hooks for whatever reason DE did think this was a good idea), scaling accuracy, assuming you are not host then you are screwed even at low levels, enemy units with no reaction time, build on a system that was designed for the starmap years ago(and actually tested till L40 ish, given that it works for that like it should). The real reason people did CC hole maps years back and DE releasing any new frame with what is basically godmode is just that.

[Blexander]

2 hours ago, Djego27 said:

Again, your view of how Ember should do damage(by button hammering instead of utilizing weapons) are not important to me, they never where given they are purely subjective. What is, is that Ember did a lot better in the damage departement before the changes and had a lot of utility for high levels, what also got removed.

Oh my lord, you are a literal broken record, and you're turning me into one as well. How many times do I have to say that:

1. This is discussion about purely abilities

2. Gun damage and ability damage CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE compared

before you finally comprehend what I'm telling you?

I'm done trying to argue with you when your only arguments were, are, and always will be "Why use abilities that aren't utility/if guns will outdamage them?".

Edited January 2, 2020 by Blexander

[Xepthrichros]

No thank you. I would like to have Fire Blast whenever I need it, and not depend on Immolation being active.

However, I am ok with Immolation meter giving an energy cost discount to Fire Blast when the meter is high, but I do not want the meter to be sole requirement for Fire Blast to be used.

[Djego27]

15 hours ago, Blexander said:

Oh my lord, you are a literal broken record, and you're turning me into one as well. How many times do I have to say that:

1. This is discussion about purely abilities

2. Gun damage and ability damage CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE compared

before you finally comprehend what I'm telling you?

I'm done trying to argue with you when your only arguments were, are, and always will be "Why use abilities that aren't utility/if guns will outdamage them?".

Buffed weapon damage(that actually came from a ability) was the main surce of Ember damage. Just because you did never understand that and never used it, does not mean you can fairly rate the old Ember without that. It just means you play warframe and the frame you try to discuss about just as bad as 99% of the community. You just continue with your nonsense about seperating ability damage from weapon damage, for no other reason then you as a player never utilized it correctly when it was still on Ember. Saryn pre rework used to also scale massively by useing the correct weapons(guess what 99% of the players never did that), same as 2 of the old polarise mags could not be compared in damage output by any means if one also changed the build to have a bit of duration, used bullet attractor and had a mara detron specifically modded around punching through high level robotic guardian eximus, that made other units around it and them immune to the massive AOE damage from the shield explosion if you look at performance L200+. Do you believe a lot of people on excalibur used specific finsiher damage builds on her melee weapon for high level, no the vast majority never did. 

Damage is Damage, it does not matter if it comes from your gun, melee or your abiltiy. Futuremore weapon damage is plain and simple far superior as damage source, given that it can be affected by anti faction mods, by arcanes, by cat buffs, by a lot of warframe buffs that do not much for abilities, can be vastly improved with status effects(like shield removal, armor strip, viral, cc), gives you the choice what kind of weapon would suit the mission best(AOE, range, or very hard hitting single target damage) and on top of that it is more reliable once you are surounded by 1-3 energy leech eximus units at high levels like full time.

Ember currently simply does not deliver as damage frame, besides being incredible boring to play on longer missions.