Heart of Deimos: The Helminth System Feedback Megathread

[AlphaBankai]

The costs on BILE (and frankly on all Railjack required items) is hilariously INSANE. I "only" have 950 in-game hours into the game (some 2,8k by steam), but you could coin me as one of the few players who does Railjack for fun. Fresnels is the biggest offender, of course, since you only get about TWO PER DROP and it isn't an overpresent material either. It costs 1000 of it for 30% bile. It costs about 70% to change abilities around. ONCE. It costs the amounts you would get doing 2h+ of just railjack content to pay for the most common of RJ resources. Cryotic currently requires the equivalent of 30 EXCAVATIONS, which wouldn't be a sin on its own per se if it wasn't for the fact that this resource already has MULTIPLE blueprints that require similar huge costs of this resource, so a veteran player SHOULDN'T have that many, because they already spent it all on the other list of items in-game that already costs over ONE-HUNDRED THOUSAND Cryotic, and I'm not even including the three items that put together cost 70k Cryotic in this sum. 

Somatic Fibers are another deviancy. Its already a HIGHLY exclusive item coming from only 1 mission in the entire game. Said mission was only introduced in August 29th, 2019 one year from now. So even veteran players didn't get the years to accumulate it yet, the most I've seen is from a 3000h player. He had ~90 fibers IIRC. That's less than 10 feeds, and they are DONE, for a "year-long farm".

Diluted Thermia is another resource that presents a similar issue. This is already a time-gated event that doesn't even get a Bounty, when you click to do this alert you get paired with any open-world group in the game, and there were NO REASON to repeat this event past 100 repeats before. To top it off, saying that these same people have gotten 100 Thermias is being stupidly optimistic about team optimization. Most people do Thermal Fractures and get maybe 1 thermia every 5 or 10 rounds without even knowing why, since this mission, outside of the event ran in March 2019, is terribly explained to the player. You need to repeatedly use the same cannister for 4 fractures or use 4 cannisters in the same fracture, which ramps up the difficulty of the mission significantly.

When the XORIS was nerfed, despite the community's insistent demands that it didn't even do more damage than common weapons, it just decreased maintenance, in multiple threads the justification mentioned was that "it enforced too much a 'use the Xoris or you're doing it wrong'" mentality. This is exactly the type of stuff you guys fight on a update-to-update basis with the riven disposition system, even though that in itself has several flaws in it. But its an attempt and a struggle to not enforce the singular meta.

When the primary kitguns were introduced you guys did a run back to review the new parts and bring up the ones that needed bringing up, increasing the variety of preference in the system GREATLY. Once again, ending the "do your kitgun this way or it WILL underperform". 

With the current material and % cost of BILE especially, since its such a constantly used helminth resource, for a system supposed to bring variability for people who have reached a staleness with the game by playing every piece of content in it accross multiple hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours, THIS ENFORCES A META AND NO TESTING NEVER EVER. You are currently being STUPID if you test and experiment something with the Helminth system for synergy that isn't already PROVEN TO BE GOOD AND USEFUL. Because otherwise, thats some 50h of resource gathering you wasted in a single use. The results? People will be afraid to interact with the system unless they RESEARCHED THE CURRENT META. You either only put in GOOD synergies, or you are being called stupid by the game for wasting your time on this new, potentially fun, deeply untested system. 

The fix: Majorly reduce either the material costs of Bile especially to something like:

• 2 Argon Crystals (a big maybe here, mostly for the radiation factor of the item, this is clearly the "easy" material to feed the helminth for)
• 10k Copernics;
• 1000 Cryotic
• 3 Diluted Thermia
• 50 Fresnels AT LEAST and this would STILL be the most expensive in the list
• 5 or 6 Somatic Fibers 
• The rest is mostly fine

OR

• The easiest route would be to just reduce the overall EGREGIOUS % cost of Bile per use of the Helminth, something to 40% of what it is right now. Costs 80% bile to do half the stuff on Helminth (and I do mean, HALF the abilities cost about 80% bile to either digest on inject). Now it costs ~35%. And you can keep the ones that cost around that amount by default. 

Why the second option would be easier (but the material request still needs HEAVY revision, given the ABSURD COST OF RECENTLY INTRODUCED MATERIALS)

•  If you reduce the material cost you have to run a script to return materials to some 3000 something people who actually already got this and are messing with it. Thats a pain and thats workforce that might have problems since there will be more points of error. Multiple materials from multiple different days to multiple people.
• If you reduce the Bile cost, however, all you have to do is UNCAP the % for those people, and feed their Helminths back whatever percentage difference was made. The systems they have used should be catalogued in the server, so you KNOW the FIXED % amount spent per people who already utilized bile for something. Just feed them back the difference, and if its's over 100%, whatever, just let the number be bigger and it will naturally be used as they are now ENFORCED TO EXPERIMENT FURTHER WITH THE SYSTEM

 

Thanks for the attention, hope this is fixed so youtube videos don't reign supreme on what should be done in the game you guys are making, see ya

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

You guys have lost your minds with the resource costs on the Railjack resources and Cryotic.  Absolutely lost your minds.  I have all 10's on intrinsics, a topped out ship and I have always had a booster on when running Railjack missions simply because I always have a resource booster on.  I have enough fresnels for literally one feeding.  One.  They don't need to be cut in half, they need to be cut down to less than 10% of what they are in most cases.

How much Railjack do you think people are playing, considering the fact that you literally only released one mission type for it?  You can't release almost no content and then expect people to farm that endlessly for resources.  

The costs for almost the whole system outside of the common resources needs to be brought down, but you people are insane if you think the Railjack and Cryotic costs are even close to reasonable.  30 extractors for a single feeding, and doing literally anything with the helminth other than feeding it will probably empty out your Bile.

And you had no plans to change this?  You were seriously going to leave this?  Did you even look at the costs?  This is laughably balanced.  I have enough of the common resources to feed it endlessly, but you have so many categories where it's all rare resources at a high cost.  It's like you're trying to make sure you completely empty out the stockpiles of every player, or guarantee that it takes months to slog through this time-gate.  I just got back from not playing for over a week and it looks like I'm going back until you un#*!% this.

[LordRusty]

I'm going to throw in with what's already been said here.
The cost on bile is horrendous. It's massively out of proportion with all the other categories which are trivial for anyone with a reasonable amount of time in the game to keep topped off. I already don't have enough fresnels to finish my railjack, I can't afford to throw them at helminth. Thermia farm seems the most reasonable thing on the list, but that's only on at certain times and there's no matchmaking for it outside of recruiting chat.

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

On 2020-08-25 at 7:41 PM, Redfeather75 said:

Please sell it for plat.

The game sells the pet incubation tools for platinum.

And so far this gating of the helminth chamber is killing all my interest in the game.

I am sick of fishing. I am so #*!%ing sick of fishing.

On 2020-08-25 at 3:48 PM, Helch0rn said:

can I just buy the Helminth Segment for plat?

just let me buy the Helminth segment for plat pls

On 2020-08-25 at 10:47 PM, OniDax said:

DE. I'd buy the Helminth system for 1000 plat. I'd buy the Son's Tokens for plat. I'd buy all the Tokens for plat. I'd directly pay cash to acquire the Tokens.

Tencent has their work cut out for them haha

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

Am I the only one who feels like the helminth system should've been unlocked by a classic cinematic quest? 

[OwlingFrame]

Fun fact: Chroma Prime with 210% power strength gets almost, if not literally, 1500 armor from Empower, same value as original Defy.

What im trying to say - please un-nerf Subsumed Defy. Its already slightly-above-average at best, but there is virtually no reason to use it when things like Pillage, Condemn, or even Null Star are in the pool, its questionable choice without armor cap reduction, and objectively bad choice with it.

EDIT: Or change Wukong subsumed ability to Cloud Walker, that would be amazing too.

EDIT2: I just remembered that Elemental Ward is subsumable ability too, and any frame with 275 or more armor easily gets more than 750 armor from that ability, so Defy very easily outclassed for almost every frame  for which it would be appropriate.

[OniDax]

2 hours ago, (XB1)Architect Prime said:

Tencent has their work cut out for them haha

Hey! That was before DE made it more bearable.

[Unimira]

I agree with the Bile comments, currently can't use the Helminth because I don't have any Bile to give it while all others are at over 90%.

Considering welding that door shut like Ordis wants since it's pretty much worthless to me right now 😒

 

[branson]

The ability selection is interesting.  I like thinking of ways to turn typically-overlooked abilities into super useful tools by applying them to other warframes, but I have one complaint with usability.  When selecting a warframe in my arsenal, it defaults to mod CONFIG A (or whatever I've named the leftmost one).  If I'm experimenting with CONFIG B and decide I like it more than CONFIG A, I just switch it to be the leftmost CONFIG.  However, when I switch the order of mod configs, it doesn't change which slot the helminth ability is in.  I've moved the mods around, but if I put a helminth ability into the second slot, it will stay in the second slot for the rest of time.  Considering my mod configs might have ability-specific augment mods in them, it is weird that shuffling them doesn't shuffle the heminth abilities in synch.

As an example, I put Marked For Death on CONFIG B of Trinity Prime.  I decided I really liked that build, so I put CONFIG B in the leftmost slot so that whenever I pick Trinity Prime, I'll use that mod config automatically.  However, when I pick Trinity Prime and it defaults to my newly made mod config, I find that I don't have access to Marked For Death.  That ability only works on the second-listed config, even though I changed the order of them.  So then I put the new mod config back into the second slot.  Then, every time I want to play Trinity Prime, I need to go in and manually select the second mod config.  Sure, this is just slightly tedious, and yes, I know I can just use the Loadout feature, but this is how I've always prepared myself for missions, and I frequently find myself forgetting to do this extra step.  I could just put Marked For Death into my CONFIG A slot of Trinity, since I found that I liked it, but that's a lot of shuffling things around for experimentation when I feel like I should just be able to change the order of the config slots for free.

[Solarsyphon]

11 hours ago, FelisImpurrator said:

• And now for... the nerfs. I personally think that they weren't strictly necessary. But if they must be present, the values given are often a bit too harsh.
  • Larva really should be at least 10m for parity with Ensnare.

Disagree ensnare should be better than larva  in range as it is just easier to use. You don't have to leave the enemy for a while, you don't even need an enemy, its also instant and groups them in a way more effective for punch through and AOE. There is a reason larva has the Potea synergy not ensnare 

11 hours ago, FelisImpurrator said:

• Perspicacity feels completely pointless. Outside of maybe hacking out a few terminals in a Lua rescue sortie, I don't think this really offers much that wasn't already available in better and more convenient forms. Hacking isn't strenuous enough or frequent enough to justify using an ability slot; I'd rather this did quite literally anything else.

I agree i think it could be interesting if it also made your next attack a finisher potentially even a parazon finisher for synergy with parazon finisher mods. 
 

11 hours ago, FelisImpurrator said:

• Empower is fine, I think. It's really not bad, and scaling would make it kind of broken.

I agree the only thing that could be changed and that I think de should consider is adding the other ability stats. Particularly range, CC abilities,  really work more on range than they do power any way so it could be useful to add. This is just if they decide to buff it because while sure they could  simply give more power it would increase the abilities utility to add range and be more interesting.  I could also maybe see some uses for an empower like ability which buffs range if they made a separate ability. 

 

11 hours ago, FelisImpurrator said:

• • Tempest Barrage really could use some scaling.

 

It needs a buff because its main use was corrosion which was nerfed in the status changes. My suggestion would be to give it an innate magnetic proc at base then with the augment it does both corrosive and magnetic this returns its defence stripping qualities but also by being status effects synergises with condition overload.

4 hours ago, OwlingFrame said:

Fun fact: Chroma Prime with 210% power strength gets almost, if not literally, 1500 armor from Empower, same value as original Defy.

What im trying to say - please un-nerf Subsumed Defy. Its already slightly-above-average at best, but there is virtually no reason to use it when things like Pillage, Condemn, or even Null Star are in the pool, its questionable choice without armor cap reduction, and objectively bad choice with it.

EDIT: Or change Wukong subsumed ability to Cloud Walker, that would be amazing too.

Three things:
1) I agree defy is not that great at full strength
2) cloud walker would have been my pick too but it probably represents the original wukong in the story better than defy so it may be a cultural thing that we do not see it as too iconic. Im not attached to journey to the west. 
3) I disagree with the 1 ability from each frame rule not all frames have equally interesting abilities for subsuming, some have many which would be more balanced and less iconic than some of the abilities from other frames that were chosen. There really no reason for them to limit themselves they should just put in  what they think works. Its not even lore wise an issue Helminth is a picky bastard and maybe he decides he just doesn't like the taste of limbo or what ever just like he doesn't like primes. 

 

[Drachnyn]

Infusing different abilities on different configs is amazing but there is one case where it doesnt work properly: infusing the same ability on two configs but replacing different abilities.

Lets say I want empower on 2 different saryn setups: a regular spore setup and a contagion cloud setup. For the spore build i'd want empower to replace molt but on the contagion cloud build i'd replace miasma with empower. Currently that's not possible. 

[RivaAurelius]

Please revise the costs for this system. A lot of them are just completely outlandish. And when you do FIX the costs, please make sure you run a script to refund people of resources they've wasted in this system. I am already getting fed up of this. I am MR29 and have been playing for years. I feel sorry for the MR8s who have been playing for a couple of weeks and decide they wanna try this system out, cuz despite the fact that you can UNLOCK it at MR8, the resource costs will be so overwhelming that none of them will be able to do anything with helminth and will just abandon the system. Why open up the MR gate to newer players and then gate it behind INSANE resource requirements? It doesn't foster experimentation or creativity, it ENCOURAGES METAS. I thought the whole reason you nerfed some of the abilities was to avoid that? 

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

12 hours ago, (XB1)Architect Prime said:

Tencent has their work cut out for them haha

More like Tencent has their work done for them.  These people are willing to just hand out cash to skip the horrible grind.  

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum.  If the update comes out and the grind isn't some awful mandatory conservation BS and I enjoy the systems they put in place and they feel fair and good, then I spend money on the game to support it.  When they release stuff like this, it puts a hard stop on any spending until they fix it.  Not until they say they'll fix it.  When it's actually fixed.  

I had plans on getting one of the higher tier supporter packs and that went straight out the window when I saw they had nerfed a bunch of S#&$ and then I saw the mandatory conservation and convoluted grind.

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

Bile resource costs cause bile to rise in my throat.

And please let infuse the same ability on a single warframe in different loadouts.

If I want seeking shurikens on loadout A, I might also like it on loadout B. Furthermore, to distinguish the loadouts I have cases where I want to replace ability 1 with say shurikens on config A, and ability 4 with shurikens on loadout B. 

This should be possible without grinding forma'ing and levelling a whole new frame to achieve this.

Also this should violate any of the limitations intended-  I'm only replacing a single ability on a single loadout.

 

[RoarinTides]

Alright, so I'm about halfway through the system naturally, going on 6th subsumed warframe and here is my piece on from what I have seen and discussed with clan mates.

Helminth system itself

First impressions of the idea: it is a great one for warframe. It added a new level of play and experimentation was amazing to hear about, the combos that are possible with it hyped me as an old player like a breath of fresh air. So far I am not disappointed with the variability and creativity with what I have seen people create on the subreddit and in my personal clan. A great potential of a new system to expand on abilities with more helmith one's in the future as well.

Resource costs

Now this right here I have several complaints about, from both a practical and a gameplay perspective. There are many resources in specific categories that are logically wrong and make me feel a bit worried about the design choices from whoever put them there. I'm going to go through all of them to say which one's are good/bad and also show all my resource values from a few days ago.

 NOTE: I am MR 29 with 4.6k hours in Warframe not including the early open beta, so a lot of my resource counts are abundant.

Oxides

This category is fine so far with it's contents, all of the resources are common enough to be used HOWEVER looking at some costs are demanding for newer players who unlock the system.

Spoiler

So far from my experience with this has been lenient due to my abundance, the railjack resources in this category wasn't a problem until I was doing a test run. A few hours of railjack in the Saturn proxima (mostly to get my Quellor and Pennant finally) WITH a booster got me one load to feed helmith. Mind you this was just rushing and clearing out the objectives to get to the next attempt for the blueprints but with a booster, it still took hours to get just one load. I haven't tested the others appropriately but I do understand helmith isn't to be meant to be done in a day but, very little people play railjack without incentive due to it's separation from the main game as a whole currently.

 

Calx

A few problems in this category, mostly in the railjack category aside from Gallos Rods (as very little crafting needs them).

Spoiler

The railjack costs are very high for Asterite and Cubic Diodes and I have barely spent either since the railjack rework part 1 (btw do we have an ETA on part 2?) and I STILL cannot feed asterite OR cubic diodes with almost all the resources I have for this category even after all the farming.

Biotics

This one's not really need of a touch up. Though players who don't have Helios (first time scans) / Oxylus (with augment) will be stopping every so often to scan tediously but the amount needed is not detrimental.

Spoiler

This one's fine personally, but that's because I scan a lot, otherwise the list becomes limited to open worlds.
However Oxylus is barred behind rank 5 with Solaris United so it's a long term investment to get it.
Still trying to get the oxylus mod from simarus but my priority currently is warframe bps and part bps for subsuming so manual scanning it is for me.

Synthetics

Fine with this section. Nothing needs a big change here.

Spoiler

Nothing too raunchy here, all of these make sense to be here.
Maybe Aucrux Capacitors, in the few runs of railjack I only have got 7 since the screenshot was taken a day ago.

Pheromones

I have several problems with this and Bile category.

Spoiler

First off, the Bracoids and Trachons, I have used minimal amounts to make T3 guns and Internals since starting railjack and farmed the hell outta veil and I STILL cannot afford one feeding toss for Helminth for either.
Second, the bile sac...in pheromones...when there's a BILE category.
Third, on top of the bile, all juggernaut pieces being a pheromone feels strange. The category itself suggests the chemical ability to incite reactions (hunger, alertness, sexual, ect.) but the juggernaut's husk and bile sac don't feel like they should fit here. The husk, I feel, should be a biotics since it was apart of a living organism that is not related to pheromones (I see it as just armor plating made of biotic material). Bile should be in bile, full stop.

Bile

Oh boy, where do I start with THIS?

Spoiler

This is where a majority of complaints are coming from for good reasons so I'll give every resource that I think has a problem a quick rundown. (Also linking their wiki pages.)

• Copernics - the amount you need is 15k a pop, That feels like a bit much, maybe 10k?
  More reasonable in my eyes since with all the copernic I have, from my surplus, I can only feed it TWICE.
   
• Cryotic - I have no issue with this because I did A LOT of cryotic front back in the day, and also relic farming via excavations.
  But the cost for one feeding is 3k, which means that is tied to 30 excavators without booster, which each one takes 120 seconds (not including time to scavenge a battery OR the time it takes to reach the next one if you're doing them one at a time) so that would equate to about 3600 seconds or 60 min for one feeding of cryotic.
  An hour to reach the goal once. Not even including the need of surplus which is used in a large quantity among other blueprints (I'm looking at you Sibear , I have many friends who still don't have you yet) so for the majority of a new player's time to get that AND surplus cryotic, they will be mind-numbed by the sheer amount of excavator missions they have to do.
   
• Diluted Thermia - A limited time item you get very little of that you use for fighting Exploiter Orb. Not a fan of this one considering I'm not the biggest fan of doing anymore thermia fractures since I finished it.
  With it needing 5 means you need to fill up 5 canisters on fractures, and solo play would be a slog fest, requiring people to team up.
  However, the lack of a proper matchmaking (similar to how eidolons do and even exploiter herself) makes it hard to get a random team who actually want to do fractures without relying on recruitment chat (which in my experience is strict when it comes to their definition of "team composition" and some individuals will complain about people if they don't have a 1-for-1 build of what the recruiter expect).
  Going out of my way for thermia hurts even for me, maybe drop it to 3 instead of 5.
   
• Fresnels - This one right here needs to drop. Full stop. The amount of fresnels you need for T3 gear for your railjack is at most is 20 for a single item.
  1k for a feeding is beyond unreasonable, there is no way in hell I can get that much especially since the reward is 1-2 bonus from veil proxima (This also is the same as bracoids but to a larger degree with Helminth's demand).
   
• Somatic Fibers - Only way to get this at the moment is doing Lua Disruptions and that is unhealthy. One single node to have this drop off of a demolists and it's a 15% drop chance.
  Players and my level can easily do this, but they don't, people don't go to Lua for fun generally. The reason to go would mostly be for a few things: warframe parts (Octavia), sentient kills for rivens (when Plains is daytime), or the ascension halls (Challenges or the drift mods).
  Even fewer go for the Lua lens (speaking of which PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LOWER THE CRAFT TIME OF LENS) which are needing the fibers as well.
  I genuinely don't know how to go about the cost, but I am not inclined to even spend my fibers at all for the little time I even spent on that node.

Now specifically for the Railjack resources, here was the drops as additional rewards on end of mission.

In summary it's a great concept with potholes the size of manholes that need filling, mostly from the pheromones and bile categories.
I observed that at each section, there is a level of rarity/rate of demand among each category with what it observes to be Oxides, Calx, and Biotics being more common and accessible, Synths being a bit more uncommon or high cost on the commons, leaving Pheromones and Bile to be rarer and less accessible or a higher cost for the more common resources in the category. But as stated above, many of these costs are abysmally high for the demand it needs considering subsuming takes 80% each time for bile.
My suggestion to assist in this is also adding in fish parts or the new infested minerals as well, albeit some individuals are not inclined to fish/mine/hunt/gathering but that is what the Tuck Thumper's, Exploiter Orb, and the new Requiem Obelisks are for. With more resource additions mentioned it would ease the strain on the bile resources and give more incentive for other activities.

Functionality

So far from what I have tested among the frames I've subsumed (Oberon, Inaros, Frost, Wisp, and Banshee so far) I enjoy the ability to mix it up and take abilities on my min/max builds replacing one that would be inefficient with the min/maxing. For example, my Range+/Power- build I put on Wisp's ability, replacing Whip (since I don't have a stat-stick weapon nor do I care for one) and allowed it to do considerable cc and damage in one go.

It's an enjoyable system trying to see who would benefit from what and even a few of the Helminth's own abilities are cool but some feel the need for work (still not at marked for death but a friend got to it and uses it on Ash and he's having a blast but it is in no way a mood killer for the team).
I still have yet to use Master's Summon however due to how little it seems useful outside farming long-term missions. I use pets a lot but I think if it's just healing and recalling the pet isn't all too viable for 50 energy (though if it also revives the pet I may reconsider and must test now may edit this if I ever get to it). Edit: Master Summon DOES pick up downed pets but not dead ones, so I resend my previous statements above.

Side note: Perspicacity (Try saying that 3 times fast I dare ya) may be bugged I noticed with the parazon hacking mod since sometimes it will not proc/work when using it and going to a hacking console.

I haven't gotten too much time to play with everything just yet only because I'm still stuck trying to figure out what I want to use out of everything and costs are making me hesitant at points since I could be just shoveling in frames and eventually hit below feeding cost without paying attention to resources and hit that nasty spot everyone is talking about with Bile.

Ease of use

Biggest issue with EoU for me would be the ability to filter warframe vs helminth abilities and a see which warframes I subsumed without needing to if what ability is there,

for right now I can use recent but the helminth abilities that I gained from levels throws me off count for a second, and then I recount/reevaluate the list to recount which one's are frames.
Another thought with foresight is having a sort/filter functionality for energy costs, this would help greatly for those looking to switch an ability that has the same cost (like with the aforementioned Khora build) looking for a 25 energy cost ability to keep energy economy the same instead of taking a 50 cost or 75 cost ability.

Overall Summary

Hope this helps a bit, I'm still experimenting and tracking my resource gains (and now that all my boosters ran out I can see how long a free player would experience farming some of these more harder to obtain ones) and may edit this post.
The first few abilities feel the need for a bit of a touch up, and some better clarification is needed for things like the ammo efficiency ability and for Hildryn's subsuming adoption because it only shows the base cost UNTIL you head back to the arsenal and it shows the cost is actually now 10x it's value in shield and should be clarified AT helminth instead of finding out after the fact (which could lead to lost resources and with Bile as it is, would be detrimental to some folks).
Aside from that and bug fixing interactions I love this new system, keep up the good work please listen to some of the great ideas people post and player: remember to be kind and constructive, nothing gets done with vague feedback (doesn't have to be THIS long but a paragraph or two with facts and screenshots can go a long way to making the system better).

Now everyone of you who see this have a glorious day!

[FelisImpurrator]

11 hours ago, Solarsyphon said:

Disagree ensnare should be better than larva  in range as it is just easier to use. You don't have to leave the enemy for a while, you don't even need an enemy, its also instant and groups them in a way more effective for punch through and AOE. There is a reason larva has the Potea synergy not ensnare 

I agree i think it could be interesting if it also made your next attack a finisher potentially even a parazon finisher for synergy with parazon finisher mods. 
 

I agree the only thing that could be changed and that I think de should consider is adding the other ability stats. Particularly range, CC abilities,  really work more on range than they do power any way so it could be useful to add. This is just if they decide to buff it because while sure they could  simply give more power it would increase the abilities utility to add range and be more interesting.  I could also maybe see some uses for an empower like ability which buffs range if they made a separate ability. 

 

 

It needs a buff because its main use was corrosion which was nerfed in the status changes. My suggestion would be to give it an innate magnetic proc at base then with the augment it does both corrosive and magnetic this returns its defence stripping qualities but also by being status effects synergises with condition overload.

Three things:
1) I agree defy is not that great at full strength
2) cloud walker would have been my pick too but it probably represents the original wukong in the story better than defy so it may be a cultural thing that we do not see it as too iconic. Im not attached to journey to the west. 
3) I disagree with the 1 ability from each frame rule not all frames have equally interesting abilities for subsuming, some have many which would be more balanced and less iconic than some of the abilities from other frames that were chosen. There really no reason for them to limit themselves they should just put in  what they think works. Its not even lore wise an issue Helminth is a picky bastard and maybe he decides he just doesn't like the taste of limbo or what ever just like he doesn't like primes. 

 

Ensnare has the massive benefit of preserving headshots, which has powerful synergies Larva doesn't have - Larva is strong, but technically speaking an overrated ability relative to Ensnare; it's non-recastable, can lock you out if enemies get stuck, and its ragdoll is generally bad for crit-focused weapons. They're sidegrades, and really should be treated as sidegrades.

Perspicacity being a Parazon finisher opener would be a lot more interesting, but I really think that tying it to hacks is a mistake and not at all thematic.

Empower is fine. Having energy conversion on demand is fine for frames who have that slot to spare. Any more would make it overpowered, because +50% Strength is a lot to have for basically free (it empowers channels for the entire duration, and all).

Actually, making Tempest Barrage magnetic and impact with guaranteed procs at base would be perfect. Magnetic is already on Hydroid's kit via Tentacle Swarm, and letting it proc three statuses would indeed be a great CO niche.

Defy is great at full strength, but it's also balanced at full strength, therefore it doesnt need the nerf. Someone saying it's not great at 1500 is way underselling it - against unarmored enemies it's a straight up nuke, and it can oneshot necramechs if used right.

Cloud Walker isn't in the pool simply because it's kind of busted: It's Reave, but even more potentially broken, as it's a dirt-cheap full heal and high speed/high maneuverability intangible escape tool, with bonus Smoke Shadow via augment. CW would make all other forms of healing Helminths obsolete for the solo player, give a much easier to use invisibility tool than Quiver, and also add the single best mobility ability in the game to every single warframe - Wukong has been in speedrunner meta for a damn good reason.

[zoffmode]

2 hours ago, RoarinTides said:

Alright, so I'm about halfway through the system naturally, going on 6th subsumed warframe and here is my piece on from what I have seen and discussed with clan mates.

Gotta say - nice formating! 😲

[RoarinTides]

1 hour ago, zoffmode said:

Gotta say - nice formating! 😲

Thank you :3

[Borg1611]

In order to encourage people to experiment with more combinations while not eliminating the constant resource sink aspect that you clearly are after, I suggest adding a mechanic where infusing an ability gives a buff to that specific frame that reduces future infusion costs by 10% for that frame, stacking up to 5 times or something. The idea being they get used to infusions and it requires less resources to continue to infuse abilities into the frame. 

The buff would be frame specific but count against any infusion cost of any ability into that frame. That way you wouldn't be as worried about wasting resources to try out fun/new combinations as the ongoing cost wouldn't be as high to play around with it.

I also think the subsume cost should be removed entirely. Why would it require resources to eat the frame? The building of the frame already represents a time and resource cost so it's not like it's a free process. You also don't get any use out of it until you infuse, which has a resource cost. 

edit: another alternative suggestion for subsume costs would be to scale them down based on the level of the warframe. If someone didn't want to pay the subsume cost, they could level the frame (if it isn't already) to reduce the cost, scaling with level up to 100% removed cost on a max level warframe. 

[Solarsyphon]

4 hours ago, Borg1611 said:

In order to encourage people to experiment with more combinations while not eliminating the constant resource sink aspect that you clearly are after, I suggest adding a mechanic where infusing an ability gives a buff to that specific frame that reduces future infusion costs by 10% for that frame, stacking up to 5 times or something. The idea being they get used to infusions and it requires less resources to continue to infuse abilities into the frame. 

The buff would be frame specific but count against any infusion cost of any ability into that frame. That way you wouldn't be as worried about wasting resources to try out fun/new combinations as the ongoing cost wouldn't be as high to play around with it.

I also think the subsume cost should be removed entirely. Why would it require resources to eat the frame? The building of the frame already represents a time and resource cost so it's not like it's a free process. You also don't get any use out of it until you infuse, which has a resource cost. 

edit: another alternative suggestion for subsume costs would be to scale them down based on the level of the warframe. If someone didn't want to pay the subsume cost, they could level the frame (if it isn't already) to reduce the cost, scaling with level up to 100% removed cost on a max level warframe. 

I think simulacrum just needs to be updated. I think there needs to be an option in there to fake forma, fake helminth, the option for necromechs  and potentially arrchwing.

[DebrisFlow]

In Equipment > Arsenal > Warframe abilities now you should show the abilities per loadout. It's difficult to remember which loadout has which ability, especially if you infuse multiple ones on the same warframe. To see that now you need to change loadout > go back to abilities and check > go back to loadout and change it > go back to abilities and check > etc

[S074]

Personally I think time and costs are fine for unlocking an ability on a warframe: resource drain + wait for subsuming to happen.

The problem I percieve is with everything else after that: a structure that disencourages experimentation and works against the system itself.

- High costs carry a very high punishment if the skill doesn't perform as the user would like.

- Limits on the unlocked skill's fixed position and configuration on the warframe carry additional punishment as well.

 

I suggest that things should be streamlined more, and get something similar to what GuildWars did. Unlocked abilities on a warframe should be freely swappable in the orbiter, exactly like GuildWars allowed to do with the characters in an outpost. A character had access to all the unlocked skills it unlocked, but only 8 could be selected before leaving town for a mission and positioned in any skill slot.

While in the arsenal, a warframe should be able to pick one of the subsumed abilities it has unlocked and be able to freely position it in any of its 4 slots while overriding its basic ability. This would encourage unlocking and experimenting a lot more. I really think that the subsumed ability should not be bound to loadout and slots.

 

I would be ok with a simpler unlock of the skill on helminth for all warframes to use once a warframe is subsumed. A small fee (an orokin cell?) could be payed to switch the subsumed ability on a warframe in the arsenal with any of the subsumed abilities whenever I'm setting it up before a mission. This last part is wishful thinking, but I'd really love to be as versatile as GW allowed me to do.

[Fexhound]

please, for the love of god, make Ordis stop going off on monologues every single time I enter the helminth room. it was fine when it was only to remove cysts, but now that I'm regularly going back and forth between the helminth and the arsenal, Ordis has become such an annoyance that I'm tempted to actually mute him over this

[vaarnaaarne]

I think just being able to switch around the infused abilities at whim with configs after infusion would be a good enough thing for experimentation on that front. Main issue I feel is still the resource sink aspect, since that's a problem for new players who don't have a stash of resources that can basically absorb the hefty price tags outside of Bile.

[(XBOX)CI shadow2397]

Reduce bile costs