Heart of Deimos: Xaku Feedback Megathread

[SilverBones]

Xaku is here with all their Void-Channeling glory! The newest Warframe is a creation of the community and has a lot of unique powers:

• Passive - Xaku has a 25% chance that shots will pass right through them!
• Xata’s Whisper - Add Void damage to all your attacks!
• Grasp of Lohk - Take the enemy’s weapons and use them to fight back!
• The Lost - Cycle through one of three abilities:
  • Accuse - create an area that turns enemies within its radius on their former allies!
  • Gaze - Trap enemies in a Void Cage, reducing Armor and Shields of other enemies in range
  • Deny - fire a Void beam that strips Sentient resistances, and hold aloft any survivors!
• The Vast Untime - Shed your outer layers to increase your passive evasion chance to 75%, and gain a speed boost! Cast it again to reform!

If you have feedback to leave on the subject of Xaku, then please do so in this thread. Please remember that you should keep your feedback constructive and civil. If you like an aspect of the new content, tell us what you like. If you do not like an aspect, then tell us why, and what you would change to make it better!

Please bear in mind this is not a place to leave bugs you discover while playing. If you do need to report a bug, please use the dedicated Heart of Deimos Bug-Hunting thread!

Thank you!
 

[Erl-King]

About Xaku skeletal form - it looks really awkward with default animations, like a something from a tech demo.
I think DE should have went with a spectral-ghost theme instead of a terminator-like skeleton. Remove skeleton feet and give skeleton form Wisp floating movement animation. Suddenly we get much more impactful transformation - from a walking living armor to a levitating void spirit that holds the parts together. We already have Valkyr, whose 4th ability slightly changes her animations (sonic roll on jumps), so I suspect changing animations on transformation wouldn't be unprecedented.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Isn’t Xakus passive basically just Nyx’s passive but the mechanics behind it is slightly different?

Not to mention it comes off as a complete waste to have a passive just be a less effect of what one of the abilities does.

[Moriscu]

Overall at this very moment I have no particular complaints about Xaku, but please, I beg you make it so that their attachments & syandana disappear once you enter the Broken mode. It just looks beyond awful when they remain randomly floating in the air.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

First Post Update:

So, I played them for a while and here's the main issue: damage. Where's the damage? It just isn't there. I can't feel it all, neither do the enemies. I've tested it both against the Steel Path enemies and average lvl 30 lancers, and came to a few conclusions. Let's break it down:

Second Post Update (28/08/2020):

Since the day I wrote this review I've been thinking on how to improve Xaku, and added a lot of points down here. This Warframe has a lot of potential, and I, as an Equinox main, am more than looking forward playing a somewhat similar themed 'frame. Hope ya guys will consider implementing some of these ideas.

Passive: a flat 25% evasion feels like a joke to be fair, especially after such fun passives we've had with the most recent warframes. An entirely new mechanic must be introduced that'd affect their entire kit.

Solution: give us a new passive.

 

Xata's Whisper: this one feels not only boring, but also rather ineffective. The damage could be higher. Like, way higher. Not to mention that the current state of Void damage is kinda meh at best as it just doesn't do a thing to 99% of enemies, but I do agree that it may be useful against some of them. Such as Stalker.

Here's an explanation of why this ability actually makes many weapons perform much worse: imagine if you had a pure Viral + Slash 50/50 status focused weapon, Xaku's 1st would just plain downgrade your 50/50 chance on proccing either Viral or Slash to, say, 20% Viral, 20% Slash, and 60% Void which, essentially, does nothing to the enemies. It is a boring half-baked status effect that only has a bunch of debuffs in terms of dealing with resistances, and its bullet attractor is bugged and often sends bullets to the crotch of an enemy instead of, as initially advertised, their head.

Adding Void damage inside the formula interferes with your current status combo in the worst way possible, and it could be solved by making it a flat value after the formula, such as it was made in Arcane Avenger (+45% critical chance).

The ability could be vastly improved by letting Xaku to share this buff across all squad members, that'd make it a great teamplay focused ability (Void damage sharing might be disabled for the infused version).

Solution: make it so that the buff is shared among the squad (squad members that are within the range) for the entire duration. Increase the extra damage to 100% or higher. The Void damage must be dealt after the formula, as in Arcane Avenger. The damage dealt after the formula must be based on the damage that was dealt by the weapon (scaling).

 

Grasp of Lohk: this one is beyond terrible and in severe need of treatment. The damage is way too low and the entire mechanic is unnecessarily clunky and inconvenient from a gameplay perspective.

I've tried using it against both normal and Steel Path enemies, and you know what? I couldn't properly kill anyone beyond lvl 10 Infested. It isn't worth being used at all. The weapon cap and firerate also felt way too low, and I hoped that the stolen weapons would actually shoot as they should. This isn't the case however, they all shoot in the same way—pooping out slow and boring white lasers. I think this should be reworked entirely. The stolen weapons must be working exactly the way you expect them to work, except with extra damage.

Oh, speaking of damage. As I mentioned before, it just isn't there. I think that stolen weapons should deal their innate statuses (with a chance to proc them as well based on the weapon's stats) multiplied by the ability strength. The damage of the weapons must be increased in accordance with the level of the enemies you've robbed (the aspect of scaling).

I'm not entirely sure what was happening when I was testing it, but sometimes weapons just don't shoot. Not sure if it's a bug or there's a really inconvenient subtle requirement for them to see an enemy, but it also needs to be addressed.

The entire weapon stealing system must be reworked. Its current state is horrible. Here I see a couple solutions:

• Instead of stealing in a certain range around the player, make it so the player can choose any area they want. Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm is an awesome example of what I'm talking about. Hold the button — point the area (that increases in range the longer you hold it) — release the button — get the guns.
• Make the range as twice as wider and remain its cast mechanic as is, but let us actively update our weapon collection so that we can jump all around the room and keep it always capped.

Solution: needs damage scaling, increased fire rate, and raised weapon cap. The stolen weapons must work as they are supposed to, dealing and proccing their innate status effects. The chance of dealing crit damage and proccing a status effect must be based on the player's Ability Strength. Make it so the stolen weapons have the possibility to be buffed by certain warframe mods, arcanes, and other frames' abilities. The entire weapon stealing mechanic must be reworked as well.

 

The Lost: these abilities are not as bad as the rest of the kit (except Deny, this one is ridicuously bad), but they all could use a buff.

Accuse is... kinda alright, given that you're playing alone. Your thralls are as useful as dead otherwise (not like it's brought something new to the table, Revvy says hello). It could be improved by increasing its range and duration, and thralls could be buffed as well (and turned allies so that squad mates won't entirely ruin their day a second after you did the majik).

Gaze is mostly fine, but the range felt a bit too small. It needs to be increased accordingly.

Deny is... oh, I have no words to describe how bad it is. The damage is so low it never kills anyone, turning the ability into a ridiculously ineffective, slow, expensive CC. The entire attack beam mechanic needs to be reworked, it is way too clunky and unnecessarily hard to aim. It is a pain in the butt to hit an enemy, and in the end... it doesn't even matter. The damage is non-existent.

I also think that the energy cost is way too high. It must be lowered to 25 energy for each of these abilities.

The cast speed is too slow, given that it is an ability wheel. Not only you need to switch your abilities (which takes quite some time), but also press all the buttons and lie in wait for all the delays and animations to finish.

Solution: Accused thralls must be converted to an allied faction so that team mates won't kill them in an instant. Accused thralls must be buffed; their aim, damage, speed, and survivability need to be improved. Gaze needs increased range. Deny needs damage scaling, its beam mechanic must be reworked and made more convenient to use. Cast times must be improved vastly. Energy cost must be lowered to 25 per each ability.

 

The Vast Untime: on top of dealing abysmally low damage that shouldn't even be considered for anything other than bursting crates, this ability is not clarified enough, and the buffs are far too unnoticeable.

As I mentioned, the damage is way too low. It just doesn't really do anything outside of fighting level 1 enemies. The blast needs damage scaling in a certain synergy with the rest of the kit. It'd be pretty cool if it could benefit from Xaku's 1st or a new passive that suggests active gameplay.

The buffs are not clarified enough. You won't ever know how much exactly faster are you running and if it could be improved, it doesn't tell you under which circumstances does the slowness effect occur and how long it lasts, there's no way to find out how much Void damage vulnerability do enemies receive around you (and under which circumstances).

The buffs you receive are way too unnoticeable. Increased evasion doesn't save you from a good half of environmental damage sources, and 75% feels like a bit too low as you do still keep getting hit quite often. The speed buff that you get is also very low and rather unnoticeable, and there's no way to find out if your mods are somehow affecting it in the modding screen.

The ability is CRAZY EXPENSIVE for what it does: 100 energy just for the cast and 4 energy per second for the entire duration afterwards. Like, what? This is the most expensive ability I've ever seen in this game. Guess what you receive for spending this amount of energy? A slightly raised evasion that barely makes any difference, a barely noticeable speed boost, an increased void damage vulnerability for the enemies affected by the blast that is not stated anywhere, and a slowness effect which conditions are rather a mystery to solve. Good luck with that Tenno!

I've come up with two possible solutions for energy consumption (both are calculated for a base duration of 25 seconds):

• Ability cast energy cost needs to be lowered to 25, and energy consumption needs to be lowered to 2 energy per second. No duration.
• Ability cast energy cost needs to be lowered to 75, but energy consumption per second must be eliminated entirely. Standard duration.

Each second spent in the walking skeleton mode must be rewarding for the player. Instead of adding a slight vulnerability to a couple of mobs that somehow happened to be in the way of the blast, the player must radiate Void damage vulnerability and slowness around them for the entire amount of time the ability is active. Void vulnerability, AoE slowness, and speed should gradually increase from 0% to 100% or higher the longer you stay as a skeleton. The player must be able to increase the cap using the Strength mods.

Solution: it should work this way: the more you stay in The Vast Untime, the higher buffs and evasion you get (from 0% to 100% and higher). When the ability is active, the player must constantly radiate Void vulnerability and slowness around them. The energy consumption must be reworked entirely (read suggestions above).

Xaku is in dire need of tweaking. I hope ya guys will treat Xaku accodringly.

[AbstractFive]

Xatu's 1 seems to be making my weapons less effective. Am I missing something here?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

3 minutes ago, AbstractFive said:

Xatu's 1 seems to be making my weapons less effective. Am I missing something here?

Void damage sucks. That’s why.

[AbstractFive]

Cool... Cool... so can I replace it with Roar yet?

[Mardomus]

Not sure if this is me, but Xaku 1 isn't as effective as you think even with 300% strength. His 2 is REALLY weak with 300% strength. I thought this ability scales, but its weaker than Vaubans 1 ability. Is there something missing that I'm doing wrong? Does Xaku 2 scale of weapon mods?

[Fegefeuer]

 

I was really looking forward to xaku he looks really cool too, just isn't he a little too weak? or am I just unable to see its potential?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Let me get this straight.

Void Damage (the damage type with no bonuses and 2 negatives) was expected to boost Xakus damage.

You provided 0 damage multipliers for their 2. Even tho it should be a known fact by now that enemy damage can’t even begin to scratch enemy health.

Their 3s ranges are hilariously small.

And there’s a contradiction in this threads post and the game. This post says 75% DR while the games says 75% dodge chance. Those aren’t the same thing.

[Mu_Gera]

I have not gotten xaku yet but seeing the accuse stats and it's not looking good, and mostly because of the max target limit. if chaos is anything to go by, why have a limit in the first place?

[Bronjun]

Post Round 1 buff feedback:

Xata's whisper: While technically we are dealing twice the damage to grineer and infested, the numbers are too low to begin with. It could be good if void damage has a meaningful status effect.

Grasp of lohk: Now that players are able to steal enough guns constantly, the targeting range issue does become more prominent. Making it the same as disarming range would be such a welcoming change. I can forgive the stupid ai and am even willing to trade some damage in favour of a range buff, since I am already doing it... I get that turret abilities should be tweaked with extra caution, but in xaku's current state, balancing range and strength leaves no build diversity at all.

The lost: Can we please change the order of accuse, gaze and deny to match the one from poem? 

The lost - accuse: Mind controlled targets can be killed by teammates, which I think is good for public match. I do wish they would leave something useful behind after death, like % chance to yield health/energy orb, to compete with abilities like revenant's enthral. 

The lost - gaze: 200% strength to fully strip defence. The effect is remarkable but if the base stat receives a buff then we can have some flexibility in build.

The lost - deny: It's a narrow beam, it's expensive, so it should hurt, a lot. May I suggest instead of the guns from 2 amplifying damage based on a fixed number, the ability itself deals % maximum health damage of the first enemy it hits, and the orbiting guns increase that %? The beam already has punch-through and the damage can be carried through to other enemies in line. Like oberon's smite, this could encourage players to fire at high priority targets. 

The vast untime: I hope the base slow % could be buffed so it's more noticeable and practical. 

 

 

I bought XAKU, and without void damage rework/buff, it's just as weak as I expected.

1's extra damage is barely noticeable.   

2's disarm works but the damage is again, barely noticeable.

Deny in particular takes too long to fire and the thickness? of the beam is too narrow, combine with wind up it's quite hard to hit targets. The damage is as high as a SINGLE shot of klamora prism, bravo. 

As someone has pointed out, running with skeleton is quite hilarious. 

Without change to void damage, XAKU's ability damage should be at least 10 times of current value. 

Update: Survivability is also a great issue. Evasion is RNG, and doesn't seem to work against explosions and melee enemies. Since it's RNG based, it's difficult to generate and maintain stacks from adaptation. Also it cannot reliably proc arcane guardian and grace. 

[BloodKitten]

xaku 3 accuse, if used on an enemy that spawn things (hyakka master, corpus flamthrowe mine dron spawner on gas tile, and so on) if that character will span something while on xaku side, then die, the spawn will remain friendly, it dident seem to cause a progression block in fissiur defense with hyakka kavats, but its might cause issues in other instances, depanding on the unit spawn i would guess.

[MixtheBlender]

Xaku is currently dead on arrival. This warframe has no offensive ability to prevent the enemies from killing him. He also have no defensive ability to sustain survivability.

1: Is damage buff I don't feel anything.

2: Is a turret that you need a target to pull from and it does 1/10 of the damage a single Protea's turret can do. I went to Kuva Flood with a 30 rank Xaku with all none corrupted full mods. I pulled 5 guns from the enemies, it couldn't even kill 1 high level grineer. The range to actually steal a gun is still pretty short even with Stretch mod. Since I need to be in close range to use it, mobs have a very high chance to use their melee weapons to destroy me. The turret fires once per second.... Barely any use at all.

3: Targeted ability that use hold is pretty annoying. Very clunky to use.

4: Mediocre aoe damage. It also feels like the dodge chance buff have barely any effect on aim bot enemies.

[Bronjun]

22 minutes ago, MixtheBlender said:

Xaku is currently dead on arrival. This warframe has no offensive ability to prevent the enemies from killing him. He also have no defensive ability to sustain survivability.

1: Is damage buff I don't feel anything.

2: Is a turret that you need a target to pull from and it does 1/10 of the damage a single Protea's turret can do. I went to Kuva Flood with a 30 rank Xaku with all none corrupted full mods. I pulled 5 guns from the enemies, it couldn't even kill 1 high level grineer. The range to actually steal a gun is still pretty short even with Stretch mod. Since I need to be in close range to use it, mobs have a very high chance to use their melee weapons to destroy me. The turret fires once per second.... Barely any use at all.

3: Targeted ability that use hold is pretty annoying. Very clunky to use.

4: Mediocre aoe damage. It also feels like the dodge chance buff have barely any effect on aim bot enemies.

That profile video must've been filmed with lvl 1 enemies XD

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

5 minutes ago, Bronjun said:

That profile video must've been filmed with lvl 1 enemies XD

It’s like the Oberon Prime trailer. It’s all cool until you realize he’s on earth so he’s just fighting level 1-3 enemies.

[Jsyrin]

So speaking along the lines of this thread, I've got my own feedback to deliver:

Firstly, Xaku's passive: It's... not a great passive but a 1 in 4 chance to not take damage from an incoming bullet isn't the worst thing ever so I guess it's alright.

Xata's Whisper is... not great. Yes, it sort of attempts to double weapon damage but it also reduces even 100% status chance for the actually useful status procs down to 50% or so, given that all that extra damage is pure Void. To make this ability good, I'd suggest either some kind of complete Void damage overhaul (which, let's be honest, it needs that anyway), or to change how it works in the background so that it doesn't accidentally cripple weapons at higher levels. As it is right now, it's just another useless first ability among a pile of others. For an actual Void rework, I'd suggest simply changing its proc so that it's more in line with how the Void has worked within the lore: Burning people alive and driving them mad. Ergo, instead of a bullet magnet bubble, I would suggest instead that Void damage reduces enemy health, shield, and armor by ~25% for the duration of the proc, as well as driving them temporarily insane so they attack each other as well. The sentient resistance stripping can stay, though. 

Grasp of Lohk is... passable. Up to level 30. Barely. Its grab range is ridiculously small and its shots are both far too weak and far too slow to actually matter with how short the duration is. I suggest upping the grab radius to somewhere around a base of ~20-30 meters and either upping its damage considerably, or making the weapons fire much, much faster. As it is right now, it's like Blaze Artillery, Larva, and Peacemaker all had a baby together and it was born a crippled mess. It's far more likely right now to only grab a single weapon even out of a close group of enemies, and there's literally no reason to use it when I have to get within what's essentially a moving melee range in order to steal weapons from enemies that I'm just going to thwack with my sword in the next second or two anyway. Its shot range is absolutely awful as well, given that it doesn't even target more than 20 meters even at 190% range. To be honest, this only needs a massive increase in numbers, not a full rework. 

The Lost is... certainly an ability set. Gaze provides almost nothing in its short radius and would work better as a radial stun trap rather than a radial weakness trap. Deny is literally only useful against Sentients given that it's a unidirectional, non-AOE, very short duration version of Bastille. I'd say make it have an AOE explosion at the end of the beam that lifts survivors up while the initial beam gains a massive damage buff. Accuse is.... well, it's a minion ability. It's barely as good as Revenant's kit, but could use some damage buffs for its targets. All of the abilities under The Lost need a massive range boost to make them worthwhile.

The Vast Untime is horribly named, does barely anything, and actually I think it just makes me easier to kill overall. Its base duration is far too short and its effects are extremely limited in scope for what it's supposed to be- the speed boost is barely worth noting, the AOE damage has almost no range or damage thus making it completely useless, and the evasion chance doesn't help the fact that what damage does go through is likely to kill Xaku in a single hit. I suggest the following: Adding in health regen for the duration of the Vast Untime. Changing its name to better fit what it's supposed to do and be (Maybe like, Cast Off or something), Increasing its speed boost to something actually noticeable and usable (or, if we want to pretend like the name makes sense, also cause a radial enemy slowdown within ~10-30 meters of Xaku while it's active), swap out damage evasion for a proper 75% damage reduction. And finally, maybe make it so that attachments and such properly disappear when Xaku's parts fly off. Optionally, maybe instead make a floating effect for the skeleton, so that you get more of the sense of the Void energy leaking through.

[r2in]

after spending 325p on xaku then BOOOMMMM !!!!

its 75% dodge chance, not 75% DAMAGE REDUCTION. U CLEARLY LYING TO US !!!!. im really upset and disapointed now. after helminth nerf, no revenant skin and now THIS !

i swear if u dont have plan to change it to damage reduction later, i will uninstall your game.

[Ocerkin]

14 minutes ago, r2in said:

after spending 325p on xaku then BOOOMMMM !!!!

its 75% dodge chance, not 75% DAMAGE REDUCTION. U CLEARLY LYING TO US !!!!. im really upset and disapointed now. after helminth nerf, no revenant skin and now THIS !

i swear if u dont have plan to change it to damage reduction later, i will uninstall your game.

yeah they clearly lied on stream about that

[(PSN)Dainotu]

I don't have Xaku, however I feel like their ultimate could have so much more potential from what I'm seeing. Alongside a damage buff on The Vast Untime I feel like there should also be a second part to it, so this is what I'm thinking: Instead of simply phasing Xaku's armor on them when recasting thier ult, how about turning it into a "reverse" explosion? Basically when Xaku's 4 is recasted, his armor pieces are sent back to him, damaging enemies within a radius as well as stunning enemies within a smaller radius (maybe even giving the same debuffs as the initial cast). This way, it gives recasting Xaku's 4 an actual purpose.

I actually took this from my initial concept for Xaku, and I feel like it would fit in perfectly.

 

[Decinomic0n]

Why is Xaku's 4 both a energy drain ability and a duration ability?

[Decinomic0n]

IMO after leveling Xaku, they are really underwhelming, void damage is just bad, the 2 does not have enough range to be remotely useful, the 3 is way to clunky to use should be tap to use, hold to change, also the range is too small. And Xaku's 4 is just not as useful as you want it to seem, 1 bullet for a high level enemy is enough to almost remove all their health. Sad to see the design and balancing team dropped the ball of the first community designed warframe, should have let the community decide values too.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

Did DE test server this frame at all? It feels like they have some glaring issues in terms of scaling.

[Moriscu]

On 2020-08-26 at 7:35 AM, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

Did DE test server this frame at all? It feels like she has some glaring issues in terms of scaling.

Yeah the issues are real, and Xaku is in a terrible state right now. Ain't losing hope though.

[Ocerkin]

50 minutes ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

Did DE test server this frame at all? It feels like she has some glaring issues in terms of scaling.

its because the devs test frames with dev cheats that make them unkillable, so they dont notice the bad stuff until we get it

 

look at their test dev streams, always the frames are god moded or they die hillariously

 

DE needs actual playtesting prior to release, its why warframe will never come out of beta, we are their beta testers and we pay them to do it