Zephyr- Your desired reworks/tweaks/changes

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

This thread is designed for all things Zephyr related in Warframe.

Whether you have a desire for a complete rework, a few small tweak/changes to abilities or stats, or visual changes to Zephyr, post them here! Or if you would just like to share with the community why you like Zephyr as is and how you like to play Zephyr. Share that too!

I will attach the links to other threads (as they are made) relating to other Warframes. I will also attach the Wiki links to each Warframe. Remember to keep this civil and constructive,  don’t just post up that a particular Warframe is trash or that they are terrible without giving reasons as to why they are to you and how you would fix them, and please keep on topic about the particular Warframe that the thread is about.

 

Zephyr WIki

Zephyr Wiki

 

To see the glossary of the "-Your desired reworks/tweaks/changes" threads, click down below. You can also post a list on there of the frames you think need to see some changes

CLICK HERE!

[TheMostFrench]

I like pretty much everything about Zephyr, except sometimes the floatiness is a bit annoying for indoor missions. That might be changed so that holding jump lets you float longer while tapping is just a normal jump.

Tail wind would be more exciting IMO if it picked up a few enemies as you fly through, and it throws them backwards with hard force instead of just knocking them on the floor. Maybe casting tail wind through a tornado lets you pick enemies up and also gives tail wind elemental damage from the tornado.
Similarly, casting tailwind straight up through a tornado would carry enemies with you high into the air, then you can dive bomb with them for a long range slam into the ground for extra dive bomb damage.

Tornado might benefit from moving faster towards the point where the player is aiming, maybe that speed is affected by power strength?

Turbulence is a pretty powerful ability, I don't see anyone asking for that to be changed seriously.

[Caelward]

I don't even need to ping @Birdframe_Prime to come here and pay a visit, he's on his way.

Hehe.

Sadly I feel DE's impression and vision for Zephyr don't line up with what the community carries. I have little hope for a comprehensive update to this seemingly unpopular frame.

[DrivaMain]

I am curious how is Zephyr’s usage rate in the player base. My bet she is probably at the bottom, because I never seen one in Months. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

7 hours ago, Caelward said:

I don't even need to ping @Birdframe_Prime to come here and pay a visit, he's on his way.

It's Easter, I've had so many spring-themed cocktails, you now have Drunkframe_Prime!

6 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

My bet she is probably at the bottom, because I never seen one in Months.

You've seen one now!! Here I am!

On 2020-04-03 at 3:01 PM, (XB1)AMONGTHEWEAK said:

Or if you would just like to share with the community why you like Zephyr as is and how you like to play Zephyr.

That's easy. Zephyr is just different from how the other Warframes operate. Her passive, her Turbulence, her randomness... It's a genuine pleasure to play with her kit.

The absolute mobility that I have with her, it's incredible. When I'm in the air, steering around, or when I accidentally go over the edge of a platform and can literally just jump back on. Zephyr has my back, she has the mobility that other frames simply lack.

The option to simply turn off ranged attacks? Makes for an amazing combo of a ranged and melee frame. You can either ignore distant enemies to focus right in on the ones in front of you, or you can just ignore everyone and focus damage on something at range.

The random power of Tornado, where if it's there and working it's a powerhouse of CC and spreading your damage and status to everyone it touches, but of course it's not always where you want it and you have to compensate. While I will pitch a rework to make it more reliable... it's a huge amount of fun when it's working as is.

And, of course, Tailwind. One of the most dichotomous abilities in the game. Heaven or Hell. So much potential speed, so much potential time waste, a risk/reward cast if ever there was one. You either get exactly where you're going, fast, easy, with style, or you end up spiralling into madness of 'I never wanted to be here, why am I in the corner of the room and unable to move?!'

The true 'meh' of this frame is in Airburst, the literal example of 'least possible effort' by DE to create a new Ability for a frame. With all the hundreds of great ideas for a warframe ability that could have been implemented in her 2018 rework, this was the one that pleased nobody.

But... at the same time? I can use it. I do use it. The synergy with Tornado is a visual function, at best, and a joke at worst, but the functionality of a radial ragdoll ability is there, and it works. If an ability works, you can make use of it.

I love this frame not because of what she is, but more because of what she represents in this game; the different route, the alternate to the meta, the success despite the flaws.

And I don't think that would change even if she became the best frame in the game, with the meta hounds out there after her.

On 2020-04-03 at 3:01 PM, (XB1)AMONGTHEWEAK said:

Whether you have a desire for a complete rework, a few small tweak/changes to abilities or stats

Well, don't mind if I do!

Spoiler

Passive: Light Weight, Big Impact.

First change is here. Zephyr has always been a floaty frame and one of the biggest complaints is ‘get me down from here’. Well, guess what? I want to make her even more floaty, but give her that important aspect the other players demand, the quick landing.

Light Weight makes Zephyr jump higher, fall slower and allows her to steer in the air (as it does right now). It extends her aim glide duration, her Wall Latch and improves her Bullet Jump velocity, that’s new.

Big Impact is Dive Bomb, cut out of Tailwind for simplification and is a passive augment to the Melee Ground Slam. With a Melee equipped, Zephyr has a custom animation and adds a small amount of damage (after mods to ensure it’s not too powerful), to the ground slam based on her height. If Zephyr does not have a melee equipped, she simply performs the animation with a very small amount of damage.

Simple, direct, to the point. You get your ‘get me down from here’ button anywhere and everywhere, even on Primary Only Sorties, it follows existing rules and gives her a bit of uniqueness back after every frame got access to her mobility and every frame got her Dive Bomb in their Melee.

This frees up Tailwind for some changes.

1. Tailwind.

First, remove the animation completely. In a recent change DE patched this ability so that hitting an object cancelled the animation and allowed Zephyr the freedom to use the Wall Latch or Wall Run function to cancel her Momentum. This is a good change, but not enough. Why? Because unless you practice this Wall Latch cancelling, you still skitter across a wall and end up where you don’t want to be because of Momentum, and if you don’t hit a wall you’re stuck in the animation and then at the mercy of the Momentum afterwards anyway and have no way to stop save for Dive Bomb or the melee slam.

Removing the animation allows her existing passive of in-air steering to take effect from the moment the ability is active, adjusting her direction in a similar fashion to Gauss and allowing her to curve through the air instead of just hurtle forwards. Everyone likes curves, and curves allow her to pass through gaps that would normally have had her impact the edge and expend her momentum up against the wall instead.

The next fix is simple, but can seem complex because of how it changes Zephyr’s base modding… or rather… how it expands it.

Change the stats that affect Tailwind. Currently the ability is based solely on Duration for its travel. This affects how long you jet forwards, and therefore how fast you travel that distance, with 100% conservation of Momentum that, in many cases, actively punishes you for using high Duration. That momentum is a real headache anywhere that isn't the open landscapes.

Since Duration is also what keeps you alive with Turbulence and what keeps your CC/Damage up with Tornado, this is not the ideal situation.

Switch the modding to Range and Strength. A default, unmodded Tailwind will travel a set range at a fast pace and then slow down at the end with approximately 50% of the Momentum conserved. This allows hang-time, but doesn’t punch you into the scenery. This is specifically useful because of how it will interact with the world, the slow at the end will give you reaction time, but the removal of the animation makes this more like a Gauss Mach Rush instead of just a pure dash, meaning that you can curve around corners with it, you can specify where you want to point at the end of it, and you can still use her in-air steering at the end of it too, when you're travelling slower and want to pick a new direction.

A high Range build makes the base ability push you further and faster, but lowering the Strength makes you slow down more at the end in proportion. Meanwhile a higher Strength will allow you more momentum and a lower range will give you a shorter and proportionally slower distance, thus the mad dash becomes a more graceful bound through the air.

Range and Strength are variable on Zephyr. While you never want to go into negative Range, you can go quite close to it without trouble (something I plan on fixing), or you can go right up to max Range to make the most of Turbulence’s defense. While Strength on Zephyr can go right down to minimum with a high range build, and up to past 200% if you’re building for a super Jet Stream or a Funnel Clouds setup.

So combinations could include a max-range, min-strength Tailwind that acts like the Operator Dash with low-gravity hang-time at the end, while a neutral-range and 200% Strength will arc you over the Plains of Eidolon or Orb Vallis like a pole-vaulter on the moon, with ample time to do whatever you want up there.

The important thing to think of in this is that you can't go over-momentum. You can preserve up to 100% of the momentum, meaning that going for over 200% Strength won't make things worse, you'll just keep the momentum you have. No fuss there, you simply sail on through at whatever speed you've achieved. For people that like the current version of Tailwind, this is your way to keep it.

It’s a simple change to fix a simple problem. You can now mod Zephyr to where you want to take her. Want to go into the Grineer Asteroid? The open Landscapes? Tiles with a mix of both narrow and wider spaces? You have the builds for that. It’s all possible, and Tailwind becomes usable everywhere, and not just when you have enough room for it.

1 (Again). Hover.

This part of the ability is slow. This part is grounded. This part makes you sit vulnerable for up to 3 seconds for an end goal of sitting still in the air for… no real purpose. It doesn’t do anything. You’re hovering, great. Melee enemies can’t hit you, also great. Why are we sitting still in the air on the most mobile frame in the game? No reason. Just because we can. And if the reason is ‘just because we can’, why is it better than just Bullet Jumping into the air and using her passive and Aim Glide? Why is this better than just using the Aero Vantage mod? Or the precept for Moas? It’s… an odd-duck of the birdframe’s abilities.

Hover should be a tool to get the most out of Tailwind.

To all of those who doubt the changes I’ve made to Tailwind itself; this is the balance, the answer. Make it a mobility tool, not one that’s counter to mobility.

Instead of sitting on the ground, charging it up, simply be a half-second hold. Tap is Tailwind, long press is Hover. Hover is given a true Duration that we can mod for, so that we see a timer and so that we can benefit from our normal modding. You hold 1 for a half second, anywhere, in air or on ground, and it casts.

On the ground, you launch in the air, the same mechanic. If you're in a low ceiling space, then the use of Aim Glide to fix yourself a little lower still works. You hover for a given Duration and you can move on at any time.

In the air, you simply stop. All momentum is cancelled. All of it. So what do you have? An Air Brake. Tailwind over a location, hit Hover, Tailwind in another direction, hit Hover. You can re-position yourself in the air for as long as you have Energy. (Note, I’m not asking to have it reset in-air jumps or rolls, or even reset the Operator transfer-in-air, just to have this freedom to move fast and stop when you want.)

Hover also needs to have a function that makes it better to use it than forget it; nothing huge is necessary, just a self buff. When in Hover, Airburst’s flight speed is increased. It’s not a huge buff, but it’s a buff to your ability for using one of your lesser-needed functions. It also means that it’s not faster to actually go down to the ground and hit them with a stick than to stay up there and cast as currently is the case.

Now that doesn’t seem like much, but I’m getting there.

2. Airburst.

Ragdoll is a terrible CC function. It is. Well, if it’s all you have, then it’s good, but Warframe has multiple other types of CC that are so far-and-away better that they should genuinely be used as preference instead of Ragdoll.

Simple fix? Instead of Ragdoll, use the Lift function from the Exodia Epidemic arcane. It bumps the enemy into the air, controlled, in a pose that allows you to get clean shots. This is similar to Rhino Stomp and the Celestial Stomp augment for Wukong with the smaller base range and the shorter CC duration.

While that in itself is a significant improvement to the ability, along with the increased travel speed while Hovering, I believe we should genuinely go further.

This is to replace the function of ‘Airburst makes Tornado funnels bigger’: Enemies hit with Airburst are marked and take increased damage from all sources, in addition if Tornado is active, the nearest funnel will track to the point of Airburst’s impact.

What does this do? It covers a known gap in Zephyr’s 4, the fact that the Tornado funnels auto target the enemies that are in range and can easily ignore places where they should be. It also means that after the CC from Airburst is done, a Tornado funnel can/will move in, capture enemies and use its own unique damage and status spreading function to ensure groups of enemies are still controlled and will spread damage to the marked enemies (that take the bonus damage from all sources).

One huge thing to take into account is a little synergy that should be made; If a Tornado funnel picks up an enemy that is marked by Airburst, the debuff on the enemy to take bonus damage is extended until the enemy is dropped.

This way you get rewarded for using this ability in tandem, but it works regardless. You have an AoE CC that marks for bonus damage, but an un-forced synergy with your 4 that allows the resulting use to be far more effective.

3. Turbulence.

You would think there’s not much to say here. Turbulence, depending on the faction, can be considered one of the most powerful defense abilities in the game. The balance is that, depending on the faction and specific enemies you’re facing, it can be one of the worst defense abilities in the game. This is actually not a bad place to be in, for now, and provides unique benefits that other frames don’t get.

And it works at every level of play, there is no scaling, it’s just a flat ‘no, your bullets mean nothing for the next 30-50 seconds’.

What’s not fun about it? No signal to show it’s ending, a slow casting time that locks you in place unless you’re in the air already, and the things it doesn’t cover like the ’penetration’ distance which scales with your range.

If you don’t know about that last one, projectiles that enter Turbulence can actually keep going a certain distance before getting redirected. With a high range build that’s almost unnoticeable, it’s negligible. But when the enemy is really close, like a Corpus Tech with a high-damage, high-rate-of-fire projectile weapon… you can still get shot.

What I would do to improve this is make sure that even with negative range, there’s a point where projectiles are completely unable to penetrate. Zephyr could have her head against the barrel of their gun and it doesn’t hurt. Why? Isn’t this over-powered? Does this make sense in physics? Nope. What this does is remove the penalty for building in negative range. Negative range makes her incredibly vulnerable to explosives, but this change means that projectiles in general have the same redirection as hit-scan as long as the ability is active. You still wouldn’t want to build negative range, but the effect of the ability isn’t suddenly negated on a huge swathe of enemy weapons just because you slapped on a Narrow Minded.

Aside from that, Flame Throwers are not covered by Turbulence (like not getting Dental with your Health coverage). Why are Flame Throwers still not being diverted by Turbulence? They’re not even bullets, they’re particles, which is why they scale so much against us, Zephyr should be able to push those away if she can push bullets away.

Quality of Life is the ending cue and the mobile casting, buffs are for protecting against Flame Throwers and Projectiles (non-penalty for using negative range).

4. Tornado.

This one… hoo… this one is considered so divisive. People want to make it just one big Tornado, people want to replace it entirely…

(To be clear, one of the most over-powered ideas in this game is to make Tornado, with all that it does, into a single big funnel. Why? Because it then blocks ranged damage, blocks charger units, spreads damage and status to all enemies just by shooting the funnel, completely CC's the units it affects, does damage over time just by itself, and also is able to last from 20-50 seconds. This would not only make it unique among defense abilities, it would also make it the de-facto best Defense ability of all of them. Seriously, no questions asked, this would be the meta, the only meta... Forget Limbo, forget Vauban, neither would matter. An ability like this would even be a low-level nuke.)

Simple. Simple fixes to buff the ability.

First: Limit the range that the funnels can travel away from the point of cast. Second: Remove the function that causes it to randomly spawn on an enemy in range. We know where we want to spawn our Tornado, we want to defend specific locations, we do not want it wandering off to annoy things in the next room.

Cast and all four funnels spawn around the point of cast and then move outwards, but cannot go further than a fixed range away. This means they don’t wander off, this means they’re not in the next room when you want them to be where the most enemies are. Fixed range also means that they can’t be too close, can’t be limited to just around a single point like a Defense target, and completely deny access to it.

Allow Range to increase the funnel draw range (which is a subtle way to increase the actual range, because they can draw enemies from outside of their roving range when they’re at the edge of it).

With funnels moving in a guaranteed area of control, able to be sent to a specific location by Airburst and having them deal bonus damage for capturing enemies marked by Airburst means there’s no need for the aim-to-steer function. We can cast Airburst and get a great synergy with that instead, but if people want to keep that aimed function then leave it in.

What these changes achieve is then a full area-of-effect ability that persists, providing more reliable and applicable CC. Shooting funnels becomes a far more legitimate function to spread damage because they’re actively seeking enemies that you’ve targeted and marked for them, and they get there more directly to do that job. Also the spawning means that changing the damage type of the funnels is a simple matter of shooting them, not having to hunt them down when they spawn on an enemy 50m away from where you were aiming.

This would be a massive buff to the ability overall without changing what it is or what it really does, just how it does it.

Augments:

Jet Stream: Perfect, don’t change a thing, one of the only Flight Speed enhancing functions in the game, which allows for more reliable play with bows, thrown weapons and shotguns (it extends damage fall-off distance).

Funnel Clouds: incorporate the new changes to Tornado into it, make nearest 3 funnels target the point of impact from Airburst (as 12 funnels spawn, so 3 per regular funnel).

Target Fixation: I’ve seen niche fun out of this with the update that allows for 2 seconds on the ground… but it still needs more. I would gladly accept this function applying to Tailwind if it was a charge and discharge function with the new 'Dive Bomb is Ground Slam' where you build up your bonus with Tailwinds through enemies, and then apply that bonus to the next Dive Bomb slam meaning you can get better results thanks to melee modding.

New Augment:

Air Inversion. Airburst no longer Lifts enemies, but temporarily tethers them to the point of impact. The damage bonus to marked enemies is doubled.

Much like Tornado’s Augment, sacrificing her most of the CC function for a damage function gives her more of a choice to the augment itself, so players that actually want to play a damage-based Zephyr do actually have the option on two counts, while players that prefer to have weapon damage and more control have that choice as well.

Annnnd... I'm done.

I'm a little rushed because I'm actively swaying in my seat from the amount of day-drinking I've done on this lovely English holiday Sunday... but I hope I've managed to get the gist of what this frame could be, and why I love her, across to all of you.

Have fun!