Oh boy I will get my head on a pike but I will say it anyway: Mesa Rework

[FumezSunca]

First of all, my english is not great but I ll try to be as clear as possible so you can understand my ideas.

Now...why does Mesa need a rework? Well, besides that she is boring to play(being a "braindead" warframe), she is so powerful with no (real) downsides.She has 1 lackluster ability(1) and 3 good abilities that become useless thanks to Peacemaker . Let me explain.

Her 1 is...well, we all know what it is and why it needs to be changed.

Her 2 is good. Being able to disarm enemies in an area that surrounds you is useful, However, no enemy will be 20-30m near you because with Peacemaker you will delete everything, making this ability just an energy-waste

Her 3 is good. Taking just 5% damage from projectiles gives Mesa some tankiness, but only from projectiles.The downside of this ability is that melee units will deal full damage against you. But again, no enemy will be 20-30m near you thanks to Peacemaker, especially melee units since they are the most fragile enemies in this game.

Her 4 is...the biggest problem in her kit and the reason I put that title.She is a DPS frame with no real downsides. Saryn has to keep up the damage on her spores and keeping the number of spores high while having to rely on pure damage to not be killed. Equinox needs time to stack those slash procs on her 4. All DPS frames have a downsides, an exception being Mesa.And I don t think energy is a downside because of  how many ways to get energy we have.

Now I ll put my  ideas about a rework for her:

 

1. Ballistic Battery ability is completely changed:

- Mesa takes out one peacemaker 

- she can "mark" enemies(just like Bladestorm does), up to 4 or 5 enemies

- she will fan fire her peacemaker, shooting a bullet for each enemy she marked

- the bullets either have a 30% chance of a headshot affected by STR, or a fixed 75% chance for a headshot(the headshot chance limit is 75% in any case)

- the shooting will take only 1 second for all enemies she marked(giving that she will fan fire her Peacemaker).

- unlike Bladestorm, she will mark the enemies in front of her instantly, giving you the posibility to just look at the enemies you want, press 1 and shoot them without having to wait for the enemies to be marked.

- the range at she can mark the enemies is either 50m affected by Range or a fixed 100/125m.

- the damage she does per shot is triple the damage her Peacemakers can do, but not every kill will be a guaranteed kill

- however, if the target s HP is lower than 40/45%(not affected by anything), Mesa will kill the target instantly(like how Garuda s 1 works if the target is below 40% HP)

- her augment should either increase the number of enemies you can mark to 7/9 enemies  or gives a 100% headshot chance(if the chance is fixed, not affected by STR)

2. Shooting Gallery should remain mostly the same, but:

- the range is slightly increased to 20m

3. Shatter Shield should remain mostly the same, but:

- the damage reduction limit from projectiles should be reduced from 95% to 90% so she is in line with the other frames that have similar abilities

- I don t know if this has been fixed/changed or not, but as far as I remember, if an AOE projectile hits the ground or the wall near Mesa, the AOE effect will deal 100% damage, ignoring her defenses. This should be changed so the damage reduction from Shatter Shield should affect the AOE effects as well(not necessarily the same 90% damage reduction, 60-75% should be fine)

Now on to her 4...

4. Peacemaker is greatly changed:

- she will take out her peacemakers

- she has 200 rounds to shoot. If she will run out of bullets, she can just cast the ability again.

- she will consume energy only when shooting ( like Ivara s Artemis Bow)

- she can move freely, using all parkour techniques(I ll talk about her augment at the end)

- instead of hovering the mouse randomly, now she has to aim(but she has some sort of aim assist, like the Velocitus in Archwing)

-Peacemakers will have punch through or will deal AOE damage when she does a headshot

- she has either 30% headshot chance affected by STR or a fixed 75% headshot chance(the limit is 75% headshot chance in any case)

- she will have the firerate she has now

- the Status Chance of her Peacemakers is increased from 10% to 15/17%

- when she fires at an enemy, every bullet will deal 10% bonus damage than the last bullet (the damage bonus is just for that target). The energy it will slighty increased for every bullet fired on the same target to compensate for the bonus damage. The damage bonus limit 150%/200%.

- when she s firing, she will "summon" 2 other hands to fan fire her peacemakers(I don t think this would suit Mesa well, but this is just to come nicely with her 1, where she does the fan fire method  on a single Peacemaker.)

- now about her augment, I have 2 ideas: 

    - when she s firing her Peacemakers, she will stay in one spot, but the augment will let her move freely while shooting

    - she can move when shooting and her augment will give the same headshot chance increase to 100%(if the case of her 1 augment where she can mark more enemies is choosen), otherwise....I ran out of Ideas, I m sorry

I think I should mention that my ideas about her 4 is inspired by Destiny 2 s "Way of the Outlaw" Hunter Subclass, but heavily modified.

 

This rework should reward players with good reflexes and positioning, while  giving Mesa mobility, changing her from "the warframe turret" form into a real gunslinger.

These are my ideas. Tell me what I should keep, change or just delete

Have a good day!

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by FumezSunca

[kyori]

36 minutes ago, FumezSunca said:

with no real downsides.

Requires line of sight....

 

[crimsonspartan1]

Only one of Mesa’s abilities that should be changed or reworked is ballistic battery since it’s somewhat pointless. Could just make the bonus last for a couple of seconds when you activate it so you can fire off multiple, high powered shots rather than only a single shot.

Everything else is fine really

[Xaero]

1 hour ago, FumezSunca said:

Her 4 is...the biggest problem in her kit and the reason I put that title.She is a DPS frame with no real downsides. Saryn has to keep up the damage on her spores and keeping the number of spores high while having to rely on pure damage to not be killed. Equinox needs time to stack those slash procs on her 4. All DPS frames have a downsides, an exception being Mesa.And I don t think energy is a downside because of  how many ways to get energy we have.

You're forgetting about the most important thing, something that makes Mesa a lot less effective than Saryn or Equinox or Volt in missions like ESO.

It's line of sight requirement.

I'm fine with nerfing Mesa (though IMO shrinking down her aiming circle to maybe 5% of its current size is enough), but are you really going to ignore the fact that nuker frames obliterate anything in their range through walls and everything?

Edited May 5, 2020 by Xaero

[FumezSunca]

 

18 hours ago, kyori said:

Requires line of sight....

 

 

17 hours ago, Xaero said:

You're forgetting about the most important thing, something that makes Mesa a lot less effective than Saryn or Equinox or Volt in missions like ESO.

It's line of sight requirement.

I'm fine with nerfing Mesa (though IMO shrinking down her aiming circle to maybe 5% of its current size is enough), but are you really going to ignore the fact that nuker frames obliterate anything and everything in their range through walls and everything?

I don t think line of sight is really a downside(it wouldn t even make sense for her being able to shoot through walls, that would make her "broken"). That comes down to level design and some tilesets are so open that line of sight as a "downside" shouldn t really count. 

All of these frames you mentioned can die pretty quickly if you re not careful. Saryn is energy hungry and "glassy", Equinox requires time and Volt is almost the same as saryn. 

While your idea about nerfing her aiming circle to 5% of it s current size sounds good, I still think she should be mobile, escaping from "the warframe turret" form(because really,she s just a turret in this game, and I don t think Mesa s Waltz help her much).

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by LascarCapable
Removed quotes from hidden posts.

[Xaero]

12 minutes ago, FumezSunca said:

That comes down to level design and some tilesets are so open that line of sight as a "downside" shouldn t really count. 

So if line of sight requirement doesn't count as downside, would you be fine with all nuker frames getting it too?

13 minutes ago, FumezSunca said:

Saryn is energy hungry and "glassy"

Excalibur Umbra/Prime, a melee-focused frame that's supposed to be out in the open:

Saryn Prime, a "glassy" caster:

19 minutes ago, FumezSunca said:

Equinox requires time

Yeah, you kill stuff like you normally do with any frame for couple seconds and then BAM, everything's nuked. Totally justified.

22 minutes ago, FumezSunca said:

Volt is almost the same as saryn

Yeah and with an impenetrable shield.

[LuckyCharm]

Only skills id touch of mesas are 1 and 2. Ballistic battery doent make much sense on a gunslinger. Shes not a sniper frame. Mesas energy drain and line of sight, shrinking circle are more than enough to make it fair compared to other frames for peacemakers

[FumezSunca]

41 minutes ago, Xaero said:

So if line of sight requirement doesn't count as downside, would you be fine with all nuker frames getting it too?

Some of them already have, including Excalibur s Exalted Blade(and guess what, he still has to aim the projectiles and their flight speed is not that high).

Give Titania punch through on her Dex Pixias, she still has to aim.

Give Ash the posibility to mark enemies beyond a wall, it will still take time to mark the enemies and for the clones to kill them.

 

41 minutes ago, Xaero said:

Excalibur Umbra/Prime, a melee-focused frame that's supposed to be out in the open:

Saryn Prime, a "glassy" caster:

 

300 armor doesn t mean...anything, really Currently, 300 armor gives you about 50% damage reduction(my mistake).But my point still stand, Armor values are important only if they re above 1500.This is why you see a lot of 90% damage reduction(or even 100% in the case of Gauss,  but only against certain status types) abilities and some abilities that will increase your armor by a lot(1500 in case for Wukong s 3 and Atlas`s rock passive).

375HP for Saryn, again, is not much when you see that she can still be killed pretty easily, even with vitality(and I don t see a lot of people running Vitality on her).

41 minutes ago, Xaero said:

Yeah and with an impenetrable shield.

Facing only one direction. Building a "dome" out of Volt s shields will cost you energy and you ll have to put them again after they expire and will also limit your mobility.

 

41 minutes ago, Xaero said:

Yeah, you kill stuff like you normally do with any frame for couple seconds and then BAM, everything's nuked. Totally justified.

Still, she doesn t have that ability available for the entire mission.And I don t think it takes only "couple seconds" to stack the slash procs in high level missions.

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by FumezSunca

[selig_fay]

7 minutes ago, FumezSunca said:

300 armor doesn t mean ...anything ,really. Armor values are important only if they re above 2000.This is why you see a lot of 90% damage reduction(or even 100% in the case of Gauss, but only against certain status types) abilities and some abilities that will increase your armor by a lot(1500 in case for Wukong s 3 and Atlas`s rock passive).

375HP for Saryn, again, is not much when you see that she can still be killed pretty easily, even with vitality(and I don t see a lot of people running Vitality on her).

300 armor is a lot. Valkyrie, as the most armored frame has 700. Inaros has 200. Now think about the fact that with quick thinking you will have more EHP than inaros.

Edited May 5, 2020 by zhellon

[FumezSunca]

26 minutes ago, zhellon said:

300 armor is a lot. Valkyrie, as the most armored frame has 700. Inaros has 200. Now think about the fact that with quick thinking you will have more EHP than inaros.

You ll also consume a lot of energy with Quick Thinking and it will also stagger you.

And you re right, 300 armor is currently 50% damage reduction(should have read the wiki first)I m sorry for this. But still, that won t save you much against high level enemies(especially corrupted).

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by FumezSunca

[Xaero]

1 hour ago, FumezSunca said:

Some of them already have, including Excalibur s Exalted Blade(and guess what, he still has to aim the projectiles and their flight speed is not that high).

Give Titania punch through on her Dex Pixias, she still has to aim.

Give Ash the posibility to mark enemies beyond a wall, it will still take time to mark the enemies and for the clones to kill them.

Sorry, how are these abilities related to nuking?

1 hour ago, FumezSunca said:

300 armor doesn t mean ...anything ,really. Armor values are important only  if they re above 2000.This is why you see a lot of 90% damage reduction(or even 100% in the case of Gauss,  but only against certain status types) abilities and some abilities that will increase your armor by a lot(1500 in case for Wukong s 3 and Atlas`s rock passive).

375HP for Saryn, again, is not much when you see that she can still be killed pretty easily, even with vitality(and I don t see a lot of people running Vitality on her).

Gotta admit, I'm not a Saryn player at all. Leveled her up in Conclave when she was released and never touched her ever since. You can say I have zero experience with her skillset.

So just out of curiosity I've decided to try her out on solo ESO and give minimal effort (face tanking, no attention to spamming skills) while playing her. Slapped this pathetic build on:

And this is the result:

 

Should I try doing the same with Equinox and Volt?

 

Oh, by the way,

1 hour ago, FumezSunca said:

You ll also consume a lot of energy with Quick Thinking and it will also stagger you.

Quick Thinking doesn't stagger anymore.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Xaero

[Teridax68]

I have to commend the OP for their bravery, as the amount of salt in the comments confirms that talk of Mesa's design is in fact a suspiciously sensitive issue, much like Saryn. All of us seem aware of why: Mesa's overpowered and a surefire way of cheesing through certain missions, even though the way she plays is utterly boring. Yes, some frames are badly-designed and weak, but attention should arguably also be given to frames that are poorly-designed yet also incredibly strong, as those tend to have an even more negative impact on the game than the frames nobody picks. Even with LoS requirements, Mesa's 4 can still clear entire rooms before other players can do the same, and while Saryn dominates in static areas, Mesa has the advantage of being able to deploy instant massive damage on the move, both against crowds and single targets. Not only is her nuke-and-two-steroids kit boring to play, it frequently makes the game more boring for others when it deprives other players of targets to fight. Priority or not, she needs a rework.

With that said, though, I'm also not the biggest fan of the proposed kit: the new 1 is just a mini-Peacemaker, and looks like it could be easily abused for spam, though its execute could potentially have some interesting gameplay if handled differently. I'm not a fan of the current 2 due to how it's just a steroid on a timer, and I don't think increasing its range will really help that (the range is also usually crap because the typical Mesa build dumps range). While I agree with extending the projectile damage reduction to AoE as well, I also generally dislike the ability for the same reasons as the 2, and don't think facetanking is really how a gunslinger should express their mastery over enemy projectiles. The 4 looks like a more standard Exalted weapon, which I'm not the biggest fan of despite wanting the ability to change radically, though more damage on consecutive hits could be an awesome mechanic: if, for example, Mesa gained some stacking damage bonus for each successful hit, which then dropped to 0 on a miss, that could make for some amazing tension and gameplay, with clear rewards for skill through accuracy.

[LascarCapable]

Thread cleaned from unconstructive posts.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

Someone's been playing skyforge 

The gunslinger class is an excellent choice of reference when reworking mesa 

They have about the same abilities

I really admire your first ability idea, it sounds cool as hell and pretty close to one of the abilities on gunslinger skyforge 

 

I don't like the idea of energy per shot

That basically means eat your entire energy pool in 0.5 seconds

[Tiltskillet]

I'd love a radical overhaul to her, since I like the aesthetic and theme, but AFAIC all  of her abilities are filler.   Her 1 is her most interactive ability, but is almost pointless.  Her 2 and 3 are extremely useful but just non-refreshable buffs.  Her 4 is extremely powerful, but  to me, dull after a mission or two.

But I don't expect DE to do any major rework, or even think they should.  A lot of people absolutely love her the way she is, and there are so many other, less popular and less effective frames that could use the attention.

 

[Scar.brother.help.me]

I don't want Mesa or Saryn to be nerfed to the ground but it is really boring to mean nothing in the mission. Why bother aiming, running and shooting around when you can be afk (with some movement not to trigger afk in game) and the outcome will be the same?

Mesa and Saryn are the most comfortable for the content we have: more grind than reward. And when for example you need to grind some rare drop relics from specific rotations and you are forced to do it over and over again Mesa and Saryn are the most effective. And the enemies are too squishy, there should be more beefy enemies so that focus/aim becomes relevant. As it is now - any powerful aoe does the job better. I mean, when did you need to aim for a headshot for the last time? When did you need to focus an enemy?