Is Ash Starting to Feel a Little Off?

[TheOnlyWarBear]

So, I was an Ash main for a long time, but wanted to switch it up a bit when Gauss came out. With Ash's new skin being released, I figured it was time to dust off the ol' boy and bring terror to all my fellow Corpus and Grineer. HOWEVER, I've noticed a few things that really bring down the QoL on Ash.

 

For starters, and most importantly to be addressed, Ash's teleport onto enemies to open them up for finishers only seems to work about 50% of the time. Since we have to "interact" now to do finishers, sometimes and enemy that is already stuck in an animation (like when Ash uses his second ability and they stumble), teleporting to the enemy will not allow the finisher. Also, when enemies find themselves in their cover animation, finishers from Ash's teleport also do not work 100% of the time. It's becoming really annoying.

The other thing I have always wondered about was Ash's Shuriken. I mean, okay, two projectiles seems really strange to have if I'm being honest. But that will likely never change and I've come to terms with that. However, I don't understand why his Shurikens cannot hit multiple enemies. I might have seen it happen a couple of times, but I've never been able to verify it. But since there are only 2 projectiles, and only 2 enemies can be hit, the ability just always seems like it needs that extra "umph." I can't complain about his invisibility or his fourth, thought I find it amusing that Ash's hidden blades don't really special to him alone anymore with all warframes having their own Parazon.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I'm a sucker for Ash. He got touched up a bit before with the Bladestorm rework, but I really was hoping for more. Maybe the future holds more promise. Thoughts?

[Synpai]

Agreed. I'd love to see more work done on Ash.
Minimally changing blade storm to be less aggravating and making fatal teleport the default would do wonders.



If you're interested in specifics: 
 

Spoiler

 

 

[VentiGlondi]

21 minutes ago, Kunsumption said:

Since we have to "interact" now to do finishers, sometimes and enemy that is already stuck in an animation (like when Ash uses his second ability and they stumble), teleporting to the enemy will not allow the finisher. Also, when enemies find themselves in their cover animation, finishers from Ash's teleport also do not work 100% of the time. It's becoming really annoying.

This is not an Ash problem.

This is a universal problem that has existed in Warframe since... always probably. Well at least for as long as I have been playing this game. Certain states take priority over others and the hierarchy that takes place here doesn't really make much sense. Grineer can get so hell-bent on hacking a console that they will outright ignore certain CC effects.

The only upside of this system is that rolling makes you immune to most control effects, which makes it one of the few skill-based mechanics in Warframe. It seems like it would be  intentional, but given how weird the game is with this sort of thing, I believe it's just a side-effect of the whole state priority situation I mentioned.

[TheOnlyWarBear]

9 minutes ago, VentiGlondi said:

This is not an Ash problem.

This is a universal problem that has existed in Warframe since... always probably. Well at least for as long as I have been playing this game. Certain states take priority over others and the hierarchy that takes place here doesn't really make much sense. Grineer can get so hell-bent on hacking a console that they will outright ignore certain CC effects.

The only upside of this system is that rolling makes you immune to most control effects, which makes it one of the few skill-based mechanics in Warframe. It seems like it would be  intentional, but given how weird the game is with this sort of thing, I believe it's just a side-effect of the whole state priority situation I mentioned.

Actually, before we had to interact to do finishers, Ash's teleport would automatically initiate the finisher regardless of animation or place. Even enemies on consoles trying to lockdown. Though, yes, there has been an ongoing issue like you mention above.

[VentiGlondi]

2 hours ago, Kunsumption said:

Ash's teleport would automatically initiate the finisher

Are you sure about it? Ash literally has an augment that says "Teleport will perform finisher on the target". Are you certain that you didn't just unequip that mod?

[(PSN)Vexx757]

As much as Ash is my main frame, he needs to be looked at again.

The 1st ability is only good with its augment. Augments should be used as an option and not coz the ability on its own is bad, the 2nd ability could benefit by having better cc and even through ppl say that his invisible is too short I have no issue with it, the 3rd ability has potential to be so much better just of the concept of teleportation alone and the 4th ability is terrible when it comes to activation speed, it`s too slow and other ppl can take your kills (even in low levels) and even more things that make it bad.

Overall Ash is a contradiction to what DE wants ppl to do in this game.... PLAY AS A TEAM, that's why he needs revisit.

Here is my post of my ideas of a revisit of Ash.

 

[Archwizard]

7 hours ago, Kunsumption said:

For starters, and most importantly to be addressed, Ash's teleport onto enemies to open them up for finishers only seems to work about 50% of the time. Since we have to "interact" now to do finishers, sometimes and enemy that is already stuck in an animation (like when Ash uses his second ability and they stumble), teleporting to the enemy will not allow the finisher. Also, when enemies find themselves in their cover animation, finishers from Ash's teleport also do not work 100% of the time. It's becoming really annoying.

It also teleports you behind where the enemy was before it actually opens them to a Finisher, allowing them to step out of the Finisher range and canceling out the entire benefit of the augment against moving targets. The amount of times I've had to recast...

As for a more specific rework idea...

Spoiler

My main concern with Ash's kit is that most of his kit is kind of redundant.

Shuriken and Blade Storm both compete for the role of "flat damage attack with Bleed proc". Blade Storm and Teleport both compete for the role of "instantly inflict Finisher on target", only slightly alleviated by the "synergy" Teleport has during Blade Storm.

While his more recent reworks did cram some synergy into his kit (by means of giving him reduced costs while Smoke Bomb is active), it wasn't really enough to have an Ash main say "I have a use for all of my skills". If you have the augment for Teleport you might use three of them, but for the most part, just Smoke Bomb and Blade Storm.

Begin Rework

Borrowing someone else's suggestion as a starting point: we start by replacing his Ultimate skill with a "hunter mode" -- in keeping with the assassin theme of his kit, I'll call it... "Death Striker".

First thing of course, is that while this mode is toggled active, Ash can see enemies through walls (infrared sight!) and gains enemy radar -- pretty much the big thing a supposed stealthy assassin is missing, actually knowing where the target is.
This also means that Ash can target enemies through walls to reach them with Teleport.
To make this ultimate worthwhile, Shadow Clones mimic his attacks on all enemies within a certain range of his target; however, he's locked out of his Primary and Secondary weapons while it's active, because his clones can't mimic those. Now his ultimate has snap effectiveness in the heat of combat.

Now, the rest of it is going to be base effects to the rest of his kit, even without the mode active.

Shuriken: Charge-cast to fan-throw additional Shuriken. Now you can combine this with his new ultimate to rapidly mow down a crowd with help from his Shadow Clones throwing extra Shuriken at all enemies in range of each target you hit, and bypass the restriction of his ultimate with potential multi-hitting. Shuriken becomes, essentially, your dedicated AoE tool.

Smoke Bomb: Recast at-will. Also, no effect on non-alerted enemies, but alerted enemies in range of the bomb are briefly blinded (instead of just stunned, giving a chance at free finishers), and then suffer an accuracy debuff for the remaining duration of the initial Smoke Bomb.
Now you have a skill that both gives Ash a little more teamplay and personal survivability, and doesn't cost his theme at all. Plus it's just annoying that we can't extend the duration of it until after it ends.

Teleport: Stuns the target before the teleport, and now has a 5-8 sec combo timer to reduce its cost on the next cast, during which your Finisher animations are also accelerated. Just to maintain that last bit of old Blade Storm flavor, because otherwise DE will always hold it against us that Ash wouldn't be able to do something from the trailers.

And finally, for his passive, a longer reach for Stealth/Mercy attacks, and something similar to Garuda: Ash can choose to equip his trademark pair of punching daggers when he has no melee weapon equipped. Could even pull a Dark Split-Sword moment and give them a choice between (Claw/Fist?) or Dual Dagger stances.

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by Archwizard

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

Yeah hi welcome to what i have been complaining about for 2 years.

[sunderthefirmament]

A bit of Ash trivia.  Enemies standing in puddles on Earth missions are immune to his teleport finishers.  Why is it like this?

[TheOnlyWarBear]

When they did rework Ash a little while back, it was less of a rework and more of a QoL change. But I think his kit needs more synergy and just more... well, "umph"