Trinity Rework/Changes Concept

[-Blanq-]

TRINITY REWORK CONCEPT

Trinity is a frame that has been through many nerfs, buffs, and iterations throughout her years. Trinity has been and still remains to be one of the most powerful frames in the game, a support with access to near infinite energy and survivability. While this is fantastic and very useful, it often leaves Trinity in a difficult position where she could be an unstoppable goddess of infinite power, “I guess we could bring Trin”, or an old faithful that you can rely on for new, unexplored content; all of which stem from the over-simplicity of her kit, all of which have their valid upsides and downsides.

When a majority of a frame's power is front-loaded into one or two parts of their kit, it leaves the frame in a very awkward position where they are either too useful and then get nerfed, or not really necessary, causing them to have their roles filled by those who can do that job and more. Trinity is never useless, but why use her when Oberon can also heal allies (and Lures), provide armor, cleanse status, cc enemies, prevent allies from dying with an augment, etc; and he isn't even that powerful himself.

The most successful frames are ones where each ability has significant enough power on their own which can work in tandem with their other abilities to achieve another level of power. Trinity has two very powerful support abilities whose power is immediate and unearned, and most of her abilities have huge redundancies that are just confusing, my changes aim to try and keep what people enjoy about Trinity, while shifting power throughout her entire kit and giving her more options to work with.

Completely aside from her kit and also from my own viewpoint: I personally believe that Trinity is one of those old Warframes that could benefit from some fun new animations to give her more personality. As of currently, she has only three different animations for her abilities, two of which share the same one (EV and Link), one that you rarely see because the ability is never used (WoL), and one you see the most because it’s the best support ability in the game (Blessing). Trinity has a lot of potential to inject some personality and it’s a shame that she has basically none.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND, I am by no means saying that Trinity is a bad Warframe, I just believe she could benefit from more options, nuance, and personality in her kit. As always, if you agree or disagree with my ideas please feel free to tell me what you like or don't like, as discussion is important.

---

PASSIVE - TRIAGE

General Comments/Feedback

Trinity's passive allows her to revive downed teammates 1 second faster and from further away. One would think "That isn't so bad", and you'd be right, it isn't terrible, it's just not very exciting. While one second faster is obviously better, it's just not as powerful as it could be. In addition to that, it's useless in a solo setting unless she has a pet with her. My changes to her passive will give her something to work with on her own in addition to a buffed version of this passive.

Proposed Changes/Rework

The ever-vigilant battle medic, Trinity assesses what treatment her and her allies need at any given moment

• Trinity’s healing and energy restoring abilities gain increased effectiveness based on a scaling percentage of the target's missing health and energy 
  • (The lower these values are, the higher output she provides)
  • This applies to the Trinity as well
• Trinity can revive each ally instantly once per mission if they are downed and can do so from further away
  • After the first down, Trinity’s revive time is 50% of the normal, allowing her to revive allies in 2.5 seconds

Trinity’s current passive is by no means bad, there is just nothing interesting about it. Plus, as the dedicated support frame, why does she only get a whole second shaved off of the revival? I don’t think it’s entirely too powerful for her to have the Vazarin insta-revive once per ally, and if one is doing their job correctly, it won’t need to be used. Also, just cut the revive time in half for her, an extra second doesn’t feel special.

---

1st ABILITY - WELL OF LIFE

General Comments/Feedback

Well of Life is easily Trinity’s most underused ability, and that is because it is outdated and not particularly useful. Granted it can take one enemy out of commission for a decent amount of time, but in the grand scheme of things it is just not helpful despite the fact that it also provides a heal. However, why use Well of Life as a heal when you could just cast Blessing, gaining a much larger heal instantly in addition to a 75% damage reduction buff (the first of a few redundancies). Trinity needs power shifted throughout her kit, and I think splitting up some of her supportive effects throughout her kit is important to making sure she is taking a more active role. My new first ability will essentially be a version of Blessing; it will make sense later.

Proposed Changes/Rework

• Renamed to BLESSING
• Trinity blesses herself and a target ally with vitality, providing a substantial heal
  • This ability will heal for an initial value, affected by power strength
  • Excess healing is converted into shields
  • This ability cleanses status effects on the target
  • Target must be within the range of this ability and within line of sight to Trinity
  • Trinity is always affected by this ability regardless of if a target is present
• Casting this ability on an enemy will:
  • Damage them based on their level
  • Incapacitate them
  • Empower the next cast of this ability to heal herself and allies, increasing its effects
• This ability also has a hold cast function that is similar to the current Blessing
  • Hold casting will cause Trinity to slam her palm on the ground, healing all allies within affinity range
  • The heal is based off of proximity to Trinity, healing for more the closer an ally is to her

I wanted to keep Trinity as a powerful healer but provide her with interactive options to make it even stronger. The single target heal is more powerful than the new hold cast AoE heal (especially with the empowered cast via an enemy) and the new passive allows her to heal more when allies are lower, making the AoE heal not entirely useless in clutch moments. The need for more casting to get the most out of her healing means that the Trinity will need to pay a little more attention to the energy investment for maximum healing, even with her 2 to restore energy and an efficiency build. Plus, with her new 4th ability, all of her other abilities will gain bonus effects.

---

2nd Ability -  ENERGY VAMPIRE

General Comments/Feedback

The infamous Energy Vampire, a powerful ability that allows Trinity to make the balancing act of energy costs practically nonexistent. This ability is definitely a little silly powerful in terms of what it provides, however I think the main problem lies in its ease of access as opposed to what it actually does. Each frame has something that they excel in (in their own unique way) and Trinity's specialty is making her allies stronger, so she should still be able to do that, just with a little bit more give-and-take.

Proposed Changes/Rework

• Trinity releases a pulse of energy around her that stuns enemies within range and marks them to take increased damage from her and her allies
  • 60% of damage dealt to these enemies is converted to energy for Trinity
  • Casting Blessing on an enemy marked by this ability will refund the energy cost
• Hold casting this ability will make Trinity begin a channel, draining her own energy pool over time to rapidly replenish the energy of allies within range
  • Release to stop

My change to this ability is to add a reliable energy sustain/damage boost to Trinity (and allies) that can synergize with her 3rd ability for some nice energy return on her end, and then making it so that she still has the ability to provide energy to her allies but at the cost of her own energy pool. I think that is a reasonable sacrifice to have to make in order to maintain Trinity’s energy replenish on allies.

---

3rd Ability - LINK

General Comments/Feedback

Link is a pretty decent ability overall, an interesting way of reducing damage by redirection. This ability being duration based was the main thing that hurt it in terms of build diversity. My changes will look at how it can remain similar to its current iteration with added supportive effects.

Proposed Changes/Rework

Upon activation, Trinity links herself to nearby enemies and all allies within range:

• While active, Trinity reduces incoming damage by 75% (at Max Rank, just as currently), and affected enemies take 100% of the damage and status effects Trinity receives (also as current)
  • Enemies marked by Energy Vampire are prioritized for Link
  • If a linked enemy is damaged by Blessing, all other linked enemies receive the same damage
• Link to allies extends to affinity range
  • Trinity can see ally auras through walls while they are linked, their aura colors change from green to red depending on health levels
  • Blessing can be cast on allies through walls if they are within Link range
    • If other allies are within Link range when Blessing is cast on a target ally, they will also receive a percentage of that heal
• This ability is a toggle, draining energy per enemy linked, linked allies do not drain energy
  • There is a cap on the amount of enemies that Trinity will link to
    • Drain is based on enemies linked, so if there are no enemies within range then this ability will not drain energy until an enemy comes within Link range

This new Link maintains what it does currently, but it is now no longer duration based, allowing it to be more reliable survivability that the player can maintain with EV. However, in addition to that it now has synergy with her new supportive capabilities which allows her to still heal on a wider scale.

---

4th Ability - BLESSING

General Comments/Feedback

One of the most powerful support abilities in the game. A full health and shield restore at affinity range that can provide a 75% damage reduction buff to all affected allies for upwards of 30+ seconds. By removing the redundancy of this ability and Well of Life in my rework, I am leaving the healing properties to her first ability and making her new 4th ability a way to buff the rest of her kit if the Trinity so chooses.

Proposed Changes/Rework

• Renamed to LIFEGIVER
  • (An idea for the animation could be of Trinity creating a triangle ((Get it? Because Trinity??)) with her hands outstretched in front of her, then whipping her hands back and looking upwards while angelic wings spread from her back and then disappear)
  • (Trinity is unkillable during this animation?? Why not, right?)
• Upon activation, Trinity becomes a beacon of life, giving herself some personal buffs and giving her abilities bonus effects, this ability is duration based
  • Trinity gains a large boost in movement speed
  • Trinity's casting speeds are increased
  • Trinity's abilities gain bonus range
  • Trinity gives off a radiant light while this ability is active that damages nearby enemies over time
  • Blessing will now provide affected allies with a damage reduction buff of 50% that gains additional reduction based on the amount of health healed
    • Trinity's personal damage reduction will cap out at 95% when used in conjunction with Link
  • Energy Vampire makes marked enemies yield more energy for Trinity and provide her bonus efficiency for the drain on her energy bar when restoring allies' energy
    • Increases this efficiency to 200%, unaffected by mods
  • This ability is unaffected by efficiency, and will always cost 100 energy
    • (I feel as though it can maintain its power by being a static and relatively expensive cost)

Other fun idea:

• If an ally is downed, this ability may be hold casted on their downed body (for a cost of 50 energy) within a certain range to allow Trinity to teleport to their side and pause their down timer for 5 additional seconds
  • This teleport will envelop Trinity in a bright light affected by the player's energy color, and she will quickly descend on the target's body like a Valkyrie
  • Reviving an ally while this ability is active will extend their post-revive invulnerability by 5 additional seconds (unaffected by mods) and give them a burst of movement speed

Moving Trinity's heal to her new first ability removed the two healing abilities redundancy in Trinity's kit, but left an opening for her 4th ability. I thought about what I could replace it with that would make sense, and then I figured that giving her a personal buff ability that enhances the effects of her other abilities makes sense, and it provides a moment of power and drama where the Trinity can push her other abilities to their maximum potential. And so Lifegiver was born, turning Trinity into an angel of war.

---

Again this is a rough concept, merely ideas to make Trinity a more engaging frame that still remains as a powerful support. I will say I’ve been unsure on how to balance the 4th ability, making it a static cost felt like it could be an option but she can still give herself and allies a S#&$-ton of energy so that may not even matter in the long-run. If you have ideas of your own, if you love it, or if you don’t; let me know either way! Feedback is always welcome! Have a nice day 🙂

[Benour]

All she need is reworking her 1 (i like your idea) and longer duration on 3 and 4 IMO. Being forced (or you insta dead) to cast 3/4 every 26 seconds is pretty bad. Atleast they allowed her to cast stuff midair (wohooo took just like 4 years to realise that, great job DE!  Kappa). And her 3 could be faster casting speed.

Also you have so much focus about ppl getting downed, dude this is warframe, being downed doesnt mean anything in this game... (and only bads gets downed LUL).

I really like how structured your post is and how its written 👍

 

[GPrime96]

34 minutes ago, Benour said:

All she need is reworking her 1 (i like your idea) and longer duration on 3 and 4 IMO. Being forced (or you insta dead) to cast 3/4 every 26 seconds is pretty bad. Atleast they allowed her to cast stuff midair (wohooo took just like 4 years to realise that, great job DE!  Kappa). And her 3 could be faster casting speed.

^^

[Teridax68]

So to start, congratulations on the format and structure of this post: it breaks the concept down to easily readable sections, while also still giving clear and concise reasoning behind every decision taken. This I think is a model to follow for any sort of concept or rework post, and should hopefully help spark deeper discussion around the subject.

With this in mind, while I may perhaps differ on some of the specific proposed changes, I can fully agree with the problem statement: Trinity is by no means a weak frame (quite the opposite, even now), and I'd say she can be quite fun (though I might be biased), but that power also masks the fact that her design is archaic in a great many ways, and could benefit from an update. Putting aside how her strongest abilities have some serious balance issues and break the game's Energy economy (or used to, back when it wasn't broken on its own), she definitely has a degree of clunk characteristic of older frames, what with her stiff animations and reliance on constantly refreshing short timers. Well of Life is redundant, as are her two separate sources of DR for herself, but even her useful abilities could stand to be made more fun, and generally I think the Warframe playerbase has a lot of trouble making the distinction between a mechanic that is useful, and one that is fun: it is certainly useful to be able to spam an ability on-demand for massive amounts of near-instant Energy, for example, but that spam quickly ceases to become fun, which is why many Trinities will often just forget about EV once they have enough Energy, to the chagrin of their teammates. I would thus very much like to see a Trinity that is smoother and more generally fun to play, and as a Trinity main am more than ready to sacrifice a lot of raw power to reach that goal (I in fact believe she needs a nerf).

And on that note, my thoughts on the suggested changes:

• Part 1 of Triage I think could be easily rolled into the new kit's respective abilities by making them restore a percentage of missing health or energy natively. That aside, though, I very much like the idea of making Trinity most effective in situations of genuine risk, rather than just a constant health/Energy battery.
• Part 2 of Triage looks both functional and fun, and I generally like the idea of compressing weaker, always-on power into more limited and higher-profile bursts. I would've perhaps preferred something with more interaction with Vazarin, rather than an overlap, but then again the two together just generate more free revives, so they don't really tread on each others' toes.
• I have mixed feelings about the new Blessing:
  • On one hand, cleansing an ally of debuffs and giving them some protective effect (which is currently tied to the new kit's 4) I think is an absolutely perfect first ability for Trinity. That alone makes for an effect distinct from her healing and Energy restoration and would make for a worthy replacement to Well of Life. Damaging/incapacitating them doesn't sound bad either.
  • On the other hand, I'm conflicted on the healing, because simply being able to tap live Trinity's Blessing to heal allies from far away I think is one of her current genuine high moments, and the speed is essential in doing so because it's actually more difficult than it sounds to keep an eye on teammates and their health, especially in environments filled with burst damage. Hold-to-cast-Affinity-Range Blessing on Trinity's 1 I feel therefore runs the risk of being too clunky to work to its full potential.
  • I'd argue that the mass healing is probably also too strong on its own for a 1 ability (plus any kind of healing I'd say is also one mechanic too many on an ability that does multiple different things based on ally vs. enemy targeting), but then there's the controlling factor of the proximity-based strength, which I think has its own problems in that it's yet another scaling on healing that itself also has a missing health scaling through Triage, but also I think misses the appeal of being able to heal allies effectively from far away, without having to constantly stick around them. There's perhaps a problem with how that power is gated, but I'm not sure this is the optimal solution.
• I similarly have mixed feelings about the new Energy Vampire:
  • On one hand, I very much agree with making Trinity work for her Energy supply. Giving some more utility and AoE to the effect looks pretty fine as well.
  • On the other, I feel the current implementation is fairly roundabout and also a bit clunky with the hold-for-persistent-aura button. I think it could be okay for the baseline effect to restore Energy to allies as well as Trinity, provided it were balanced appropriately and had sufficient gameplay baked in. Beyond that, I also think this rework doesn't address the problem of EV's spamminess, particularly as the damage increase gives Trinity even more reasons to just spam the effect all the time, even at full Energy.
• Yes, absolutely yes to making Link a Drain-based toggle. Trinity is the best-equipped frame to have a persistent Energy drain on her kit, thanks to EV, and this would remove a lot of the pointless busywork currently attached to the ability. Beyond that, just to clarify, any warframe can see allies through walls (though the color auras don't exist, so that'd be a neat bonus, though one I think should be passive and probably universal), and I think 100% damage reflection is kinda crap (enemies have far more EHP than the players), but then again, Trinity isn't a damage frame, and using Link to transfer both beneficial and harmful effects across units is exactly what I've always wanted out of the ability. Kudos on this one.
• By contrast, I'm not at all a fan of Lifegiver: I generally dislike ability empowerment as a mechanic, but on top of this, many of the steroids I don't really see the point on Trinity (why does she need movement speed? Does the range increase affect Affinity range, on which many of her ability ranges rely?). Additionally, because of how she generates Energy, even a 100 cost in practice is likely to mean that she'll just keep casting this ability for 100% uptime. I would probably look to taking some of the stuff you put on her 1 and make that her 4 instead.

Overall, I very much like the proposal (and especially the rationale behind it), as well as many of the elements and much of the intent in the new abilities. However, I also think there's a degree of mechanical overload in this new kit, and while there are significant improvements, many of its elements suggest it may retain its spamminess. To some extent, the difficulty here is understandable, because Warframe is a game that has no real cooldowns on most abilities, which makes it harder to implement effects that don't lend themselves to spam. Similarly, because Trinity basically undoes the Energy economy, it's similarly difficult to gate anything on her, really. Thus, while I do think there are other ways to rework Trinity, doing so in general is difficult, and what you proposed could already make for significant progress relative to her current kit. The one addition I'd like to make is to remove her animation locks, when giving her new animations, so that she doesn't stun herself every time she presses an ability button (and given that she presses ability buttons a lot, that just adds to the current frustration).

[-Blanq-]

Thank you for your feedback @Teridax68!

I'm thrilled you respond well to the way I've formatted the post haha, I knew I was going to be basically attacking people with a wall of text so I tried to make it as accessible and concise as possible lol. The formatting for your response is fantastic as well (thank you 👌) and the points you bring up are very valid; some of these are things I hadn't even considered! I'm glad we can agree on the state of Trinity and frames that share her age, most of them are functional and actually quite good when it comes down to it, however they definitely suffer from linear gameplay and awkward mechanics/synergies that limit them in many areas, both in gameplay and theme. However, this doesn't make them bad frames, and I feel that's what a majority of people misunderstand about "reworks", in my opinion it's about pushing the frame to new heights while keeping what people enjoy about them. In my "rework" for Trinity I tried to follow this ideal by attempting to keep her current power, but just making the player work for it a little more.

So, to continue:

• In terms of Triage, my main gripe with this passive at current is how it is purely a co-op passive 90% of the time, and only works when an ally is downed, meaning she can't take any advantage of it on her own. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can still be this and more
  • I'm glad you enjoy the idea of her supportive abilities restoring based on a missing percentage and I felt as though leaving it as the passive meant it could be something she can benefit from herself in addition to her allies all the time, and could allow her healing and energy providing abilities to get some more effects than just the surface level restoration, yet still have some of that power in clutch moments (though I understand that can be harder to pay attention to when enemies can one shot people at some point lol)
  • As far as buffing the revive, I felt it only made sense to make it more powerful considering every frame can do it, and I see no problem in giving Trinity the power to do it a lot faster, regardless of whether or not she needs it
• As for Blessing:
  • I understand the viewpoint on wanting to be able to heal allies from far away, and I also understand how exciting it can be to get that heal off with the current Trinity, so the "hold cast for current Blessing" part of my rework is likely a harder hit than it needs to be
  • In that vein, perhaps the effects could be swapped? So tap-casting the new Blessing would have the same effect as the current Blessing (without the proximity caveat) and hold-casting on a single target could provide a powerful single target heal that gives a new form of overhealing that extends the health pool of the target frame for a duration? (Idk just spitballing lol)
  • And maybe mass healing is too strong for a first ability, but to be fair it doesn't take long to level a frame to their max potential as far as abilities are concerned, if frames leveled up their abilities every time throughout a mission then I think that argument would hold up more. Plus, if i'm ever concerned whether or not a first ability is too strong I just remind myself that Saryn's Spores and Octavia's Mallet exists.
  • The enemy targeting portion of my rework can honestly stay or go, my reason for including it was to give Trinity a direct damage option in her kit that could in turn buff her healing, however it by no means needs to stay because leaving it as a purely support ability is just as fine
• As for Energy Vampire:
  • Your criticisms are valid, I think I had the hardest time thinking of what to do with this ability, I eventually settled on the roundabout solution because though Energy Vampire is spammy as it is, I didn't want to change it too much because I know it is THE MOST hotly discussed aspect of her kit. I felt as though forcing the Trinity to sacrifice her own energy to replenish her allies' gave way for the ability to gain some more effects
• As for Link:
  • THANK YOU!! 😄
  • No but really, the fact that this ability is currently duration based is just so silly and i'm not sure why it is still this way especially considering how easily she can gain energy
• As for Lifegiver:
  • Your points are legit, I'm still struggling with a new 4th for her, I myself am a fan of ability empowerment but hey, that's entirely subjective
    • As far as the movement speed buff is concerned, that is mainly there because I had honestly initially intended for Lifegiver to provide winged flight to really lean into the "Angel of War" theme, but I felt as though that was a bit too much so I settled on movement speed to give additional survivability through movement (but I am literally ALWAYS open to Trinity flying around lmao)
    • The range increase would affect the single target heal range on Blessing, the enemy Link range, as well as the wave of energy released via Energy Vampire that makes enemies take more damage, and the energy restore range for her allies
    • I may have initially misjudged the power of this ability, because on paper it seemed a lot more than it could actually be in-game, hence the static cost, but even then I realized that would be moot considering her ability to restore energy

Again, thank you for your comprehensive response to my post, I'm glad we can agree on a lot of things and that you think my rework is even a step in the right direction even if it isn't the best.

[-Blanq-]

10 hours ago, Benour said:

All she need is reworking her 1 (i like your idea) and longer duration on 3 and 4 IMO. Being forced (or you insta dead) to cast 3/4 every 26 seconds is pretty bad. Atleast they allowed her to cast stuff midair (wohooo took just like 4 years to realise that, great job DE!  Kappa). And her 3 could be faster casting speed.

Also you have so much focus about ppl getting downed, dude this is warframe, being downed doesnt mean anything in this game... (and only bads gets downed LUL).

I really like how structured your post is and how its written 👍

 

Thank you!! @Benour I'm glad you like the formatting haha 🙂

And yes I now see I have a bit in terms of revives, but that mainly comes from her current passive literally ONLY being that, so I decided to at least maintain a little bit of that in my rework. Plus, if the Trinity is able to properly help keep allies alive, the revive power may not even be necessary, but it's always there as something to fall back on.

[Teridax68]

@-Blanq- My pleasure! Onto some of the specific bulletpoints:

• For Blessing, I was actually thinking the ability should retain the single-target cleanse, and have its own DR natively (you could even make it based on missing health), with the heal (and only the heal) getting shifted back to her 4. On one hand, mass healing I really do think is powerful and iconic enough to be on a 4 ability (and even without DR, the current Blessing I think would still be one of the strongest 4 abilities out there), whereas I also don't think there specifically needs to be a distinction between range vs. power on the healing: currently, healing on Trinity is more of a reflexive, instinctive action, so there's not meant to be much time for her to think if she sees an ally in need of healing.
• For EV, I think the simplest solution to avoid spamminess could be to take the current 2, have it only grant Energy on the target's death, but then also chain to some nearby target on death and refresh the effects (and you could probably shorten the base duration, remove the damage, and reduce the base Energy reward if doing so). That way, Trinity wouldn't have to keep spamming the ability, but would instead have this potentially fun minigame of chaining focus from target to target, and inviting her teammates to do the same, in order to keep the Energy flowing.
• For Lifegiver, as per with Blessing, I think the simplest thing to do could be to just make this her AoE heal. It would be a simple effect, but it's already so strong on its own that I think it justifies a slot for just its own function.