Heart of Deimos: Xaku Feedback Megathread

[Sdric]

vor 19 Minuten schrieb Aratir:

So you want to have constatn dodging frames around you who debuff enemies.

And her 1.st power is too strong giving team buff 50% DR and i presume you want to keep the damage buff also, so by this it must cost around 75-100 energy per cast.

Note that the kit has a focus on defense and utility. Direct damage is relatively low compared to any meta frame, which balances out the multiple defensive layers,. When it comes to energy cost you have to consider the whole kit, not just the ability itself. The nerfed version for subsume features a noticeably weaker buff, which we have to see in context of other defensive subsume abilities (e.g. Null Star with up to 95% DR) or offensive abilities like Roar (~86% extra damage on my buff Wisp) which are vastly superior to the provided 33% and 33% ammo efficiency in specialized builds. Also note that application requires players to move to specific point for activation similar to Wisp's Blessings or Titania's tribute, which historically speaking is considered to be a major downside by a lot of players, balancing it out further to keep the none-subsume version in check. On top of that we have to remember that ammo efficiency is weaker than a direct damage increase as it always requires additional time to fire those extra bullet. Being able to fire twice bullets magazine-wise does not equal twice the DPS, but can in fact be a much smaller benefit on the used weapon's rate of fire (RoF).

I wouldn't oppose your suggestion of a 75 cost-per cast, though. Exact numbers are always up for discussion, the main focus on any suggestion should always be the idea behind it - not the fine tuning, which is always better off as a subject to playtesting.

 

[Vahenir]

The range/duration increases along with making whisper and accuse recastable are some of the things that would go a long way towards making xaku better. The deny buff to work through the captured guns looks nice too.

I could see another option for her third ability and that is to combine all of them into one. Activate it and you shoot the rift thingy of accuse out. It still does the same and turns enemies on their allies. On top of that their defenses are nuked and once the ability expires or they die, explode for the gaze damage.

Of course void damage as a whole really needs to be looked at. It should get a 25% damage bonus or something against everything since you cant get much of it anywhere. 75% more damage against sentients, naturally.

With those changes she'd already be in a far better place. Then its the vast untime that needs to be looked at.

I definitely agree with that the energy drain from keeping it up should be removed, optionally massively reduced and turn this ability into a proper toggle with no duration limit. It should give 75% dodge chance /and/ 75% damage resistance. It should also have a larger speed boost. In either case im really not sure what to do with this one.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

None of your suggestions for grasp of Lohk address it’s abysmal damage output.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

5 hours ago, (NSW)Electropuncher said:

 

Why not have the parts swirl around Xaku? 

Because that kind of ruins the meme of the skeleton.

[alseltas]

One thing I have to say is that the energy drain of The Vast Untime is the worst mechanism in the game. How bad it is having limited duration while constantly draining channeling cost is already proofed by Mirage’s Prism. I’ve seen almost no one uses that ability and I’m sure your statistics show same thing.

Please, just remove duration or channeling cost of his 4.

[Mephane]

We either need a rework of Void status effects, or Xata's Whisper must be changed so that it adds Void damage but cannot cause Void status procs.

The effect is absolutely detrimental for all weapons that benefit from aiming for the head - which is the fast majority of gun, and all melee weapons - you land your headshots all nice big numbers, Void procs and poof your headshots become weaker body shots.

[(PSN)Rainbow_Neos1]

10 hours ago, (NSW)Electropuncher said:

 

Why not have the parts swirl around Xaku? 

That would be dope. I like this. Thanks for the idea!!

[OneFloppyDisk]

After hours of testing with Xaku i realised that they may need more than number changes.

First of all: void damage

Most of their abilities use void damage wich is probably the worst kind of damage up to date. It doesnt do plus damage to anything and has 50% reduction against two types of health. Also its status effect is unoriginal(its just a magnetize bubble), useless and annoying. I recommend a full void damage rework: make it so it does 25%+ damage to all kinds of health because it is supposed to be one of the most powerfull thing in the lore. Also i would change it's status effect to a debuff that makes enemies drop more energy on death.

With that done i would like to talk about Xaku's passive: its bad

RNG based survivability is close to useless in this game  and they have such low stats that its enough for them to get hit only a few times and they die (especially because it does nothing to aoe damage)

I would change it to something that helps with their energy consuption. For example energy orbs picked up by Xaku give 50%+ energy (this would synergize with void damage's new proc)

(Also i recommend buffing Xaku's stats since they have close to no survivability)

Now onto their abilities:

1-this, on paper, is a fine ability, but its held back by giving the worst proc in the game(and pretty little of it)

with a void damage rework this could be a great skill, but it lacks synergy with their kit so i would make it boost Xaku's 2 as well

2-this is a skill with great visuals but is held back by its stats:

Its cast range is very little so you have to get close to the enemy (and Xau dies very easily), it has horrible duration, it cant be recasted if you only pick up a single gun, and it has close to no damage scaling

i suggest making it recastable and giving it an all around stat buff, after all this is supposed to be their main damaging ability

3- out of this 3 skill only one is good and it needs 200% strenght and a lot of range to work

accuse: it is a great cc ability but its held back by the fact that it cant be recasted untill all of the corrupted enemies are dead. making it refreshable so Xaku can change their "minions" would give this ability a good use

gaze: a great ability but it needs too much to work, its range is a bit too small and 200% for 100% armor reduction is too much

i suggest raising its range and make it so it needs about 175% strenght fo the full armor debuff

Deny: A literally useless ability

It hits one or two people at most in one cast and it does about no damage

If we want to stay with this lifting concept i recomment an ice wave type of cone attack that lifts enemies.

However i would scrap this ability as a whole and try to give Xaku some kind of skill that would help them survive (for example using void damage to overload their shields)

4-A cool but but bad ability

Its main purpose is to debuff enemies and give Xaku dodge chance. Sadly as already mentioned above, dodge chance is useless so i would change it to simple damage reduction.

Also please remove the drain from the ability it already costs 100 energy and has duration.

It also slows enemies wich would be good but it needs line of sight so it is not really noticeable. I recommend making the explosion ignore line of sight because it deals little damage and most of the cc ultimates ignore walls(nova ulty or garuda ulti)

--------

Overall Xaku's problem is that they cant really do anything, so making it that their 2 could be a great damage ability, their 4 a great slowing ability and their 3 should be a debuff, cc, and survivability(by replacing deny), and of course their 1 a good buffing ability.

In my opinion these changes would make them the jack of all trades that they were meant to be.

 

 

[(PSN)Rainbow_Neos1]

8 hours ago, Aeon94 said:

My feedback on Xaku and Void Damage

She has quite low base stats ( I hate their odd numbered stats but they kind of make sense ) for a frame whose kit makes them jump into crowd with RNG survival.

They could use a better passive, evading projectiles is fitting yet a weak one.

Xata's Whisper is one of most useless buffs in entire game which frustrates players with a headshot preventing status effect and a damage type with only has negatives against 2 common health types.

Grasp of Lohk fills the half of screen with replica weapons that require another ability to actually deal damage ( Gaze, 100% strip enemy defenses with 200%+ str ). Also while stealing and using enemy weapons against them looks fun ( despite them shooting same laser ) but it doesn't feel like this should be an ability for a Void themed frame. It's more fitting for a frame such as Mag. Shooting sound of replicas is quite annoying too.

The Lost has 2 mostly ineffective sub-abilities ( Accuse and Deny ) and a sub-ability ( Gaze ) to use 24/7 just to make void damage somewhat useful. Not to mention how distruptive they are with their eternal cast times and movement restrictions.

And the worst offender, the ultimate ability, The Vast Untime ( cool name tho ) ;
⦁    Creates a blast to deal weak void damage, slow enemies and make them vulnerable to void damage IF they are in line of sight.
⦁    Increases passive bullet evasion to 75% and grants unknown amount of movement speed increase.
None of effects above justifies its's excessively high initial cost ( 100 energy ) and duration limit on top of being toggle drain. Ultimate offers almost nothing else if it misses enemies due line of sight, no weakness, no slow, just increased evasion which doesn't save Xaku from inevitable death.

Final Thoughts

Xaku is so weak because of Void damage & status, low base stats with RNG reliant survival and an expensive kit that requires all of ability stats to work. There are also no useful synergies to keep their gameplay interesting. No, forced usage of Gaze and boring void vulnerability from The Vast Untime don't count. All abilities and Void Damage are in dire need of reworks and buffs.

Xaku Rework, Void Damage and Status Changes

I know I will ask too many changes but they surely will make Xaku and Void Damage good against everything that game offers ( most of the changes are ability mechanic swaps with some touch ups, additional effects, synergies and visual effect changes ).

Firstly I want to start with my proposed Void Damage and Status effect changes.

Void Damage ;
⦁    Has no negative modifiers and no positives either.
⦁    Ignores armor and shield yet it can be reduced by damage reduction of some enemies ( such as Ancient Healers, Distruptors, Treasurers, Noxes and Juggernauts ).
⦁    Deals 50% bonus damage against sentient type enemies ( regardless of their health / armor types ) and resets their resistances.

Armor and shield ignore may sound broken but we already have Slash ( Bleed DoT which deals True damage, based on initial damage ) and Toxin to do the same things.
Void damage should have equivalent effectiveness if not being stronger than them for both lore and gameplay reasons, instead of being a niche story damage type, Eidolon shield breaker and sentient resistance remover.

Void Anomaly ;
⦁    Creates a 3 meter radius anomaly which slowly pulls nearby enemies and deals 25% base Void damage over 10 seconds to targets inside. Stacks for a maximum of 10 stacks and a 6 meter radius. Each stack has its own duration.

And now onto the Xaku changes ;

Base Stats
97   --> 123 Health
89   --> 117 Shields
137 --> 141 Armor
153 --> 189 Energy
1.02 --> 1.03 Sprint Speed

PASSIVE -

Void Barrier : Void spirits protect Xaku from harm. Xaku negates a damage instance every 5 sec.

While on Deimos, Xaku gains an additional passive based on Worm Cycle.

• Serenity of Vome(Order) : Xaku gains 0.5 energy and 2 health regen per sec for every 25% of missing energy and health while out of the combat.
• Ferocity of Fass(Chaos) : Xaku gains 1% attack speed for each enemy within affinity radius, up to maximum of 15% attack speed.

1- XATA'S WHISPER [Duration][25 Energy]

Xaku taps into power of the Xata(Truth), enchant themselves with void energy and reveal enemies with void sight.

Xaku's weapons and void related abilities deal +10/15/20/30% bonus void damage. Void enchanted shots have 20% status chance, unaffected by and seperated from weapon status. All enemies are highlighted and can be seen through terrain and walls in 10/12/14/15 meters radius. Xata's Whisper lasts for 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 sec.

• Enchanted shot status chance is affected by Ability Strength.
• Enemy reveal radius is affected by Ability Range.
• Buff duration is affected by Ability Duration.
• Void Sight uses highlight effect of old Naramon's Void Hunter ability.

( Please remove infested turd from this ability and give it more eldritch visual fx. Hearing whispers from void while ability is active would be cool too. )

Synergy ; 

• Xata's Whisper damage buff affects Jahu's Reflection and Ris's Judgement sub-abilities.
• Xata's Whisper affects The Vast Untime's void blast damage.

2- GRASP OF LOHK [Duration][50 Energy]

Xaku creates a breach with tendrils and entangles enemies with mass of rapidly increasing tendrils from the Lohk(Void).

Entangles enemies with void tendrils within 90° angle and 9 / 10 / 12 / 15 meters for 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 sec and makes them take 25% increased damage from any Void damage source ( including Operator Amps ). Entangled enemies have 35% chance to drop an Energy Orb, upon death.

• Radius and angle are affected by Ability Range.
• Entangle duration is affected by Ability Duration.
• Void vulnerability and energy orb drop chance are not affected by mods.

3- THE HOLLOW ONES [Cycle][75 Energy]
( The Hollow Ones' sub-abilities are inspired from Albrecht Entrati's voice records, translations of Requiem words and Wisp's motes. I didn't like the idea of throwing fallen frames away as shrapnels with ultimate, so these sub-abilities will give them role in the gameplay. Let Hollow Ones assist Xaku in fight, please DE. )

Xaku sheds fragments of Hollow Ones and awakens them as sentries with power of the Lohk(Void).

Tapping the ability key to freely cycle the selection wheel between the Jahu, Netra, and Ris Hollows.
Hold down the ability key to summon the selected Hollow and placing it directly in front of Xaku.

• Hollows are invulnerable static sentries that are permanently placed until removed by Xaku or by colliding with Nullifier Crewman bubbles.
  • Recasting a Hollow will move it to new location.
  • If Xaku moves too far from Hollows ( out of Affinity Range ), they will simply return to Xaku. 
• When placed, a Hollow's fragments disappear from Xaku's body. 
• When placed, Hollows face towards the aiming reticle.
• While active, respective parts of all 3 Hollow Ones are highlighted with energy outlines and missing parts are shown with dark silhouettes or particle effects. 

Xaku gains +25% evasion and +5% movement speed as his true self gets exposed, up to maximum of 75% evasion and 15% movement speed. 

• Evasion and movement speed bonuses are not affected by Ability Strength.

// Evaded projectiles and bullets are shown with visual effects similar to Baruuk's Elude. //

[White Hollow] - Jahu(Form)'s Reflection

Has 8 meters void circle around itself that creates invulnerable Void Replicas of any enemy who crosses it. Replicas will taunt and attack to their original counterparts with 20 / 25 / 35 / 50 void damage ( scales with enemy level ) with each strike or shot. Up to 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 Void Replicas can be created and they last until their original counterpart dies.

• Damage of Void Replica attacks is affected by Ability Strength.
• Circle range and number of Void Replicas are not affected by mods.

Total Void Damage = Void Damage × (1 + Ability Strength) × Enemy Level Multiplier

Enemy Level Multiplier = ceil(Enemy Level ÷ 10). The multiplier only increases after 1 level past the per-10-levels mark (e.g. levels 11, 21, 31, 41, etc).

At ability rank 3 with a maxed Intensify equipped, against an enemy at level 101, Replicas will deal 50 × (1 + 0.3) × (11) = 715 Void damage per attack.

// Replicas have stolen weapons' visual effects. //

( This sub-ability is basically amalgamation of Grasp of Lohk's stolen weapons and Accuse but with a twist. Instead of weapon steal and mass-mind control, it just creates reflections of enemies against them. )

[Grey Hollow] - Netra(Decay)'s Sorrow

Has 8 meters area of eldritch aura around itself, which silences enemy auras and abilities for 1.5 sec and makes enemies deal 50% less damage ( capped at 90% ) within its radius. Debuff lingers on enemies for 5 sec after leaving the aura.

• Weaken debuff is affected by Ability Strength.
• Debuff duration is affected by Ability Duration but silence duration is not.
• Aura radius is not affected by mods.

[Red Hollow] - Ris(Light)'s Judgement

" This Hollow Gazes over enemies, Accuses them and Denies their existence. "

Charges up and unleashes a ray of light towards enemies, traveling up to 15 meters, dealing 800 / 1,000 / 1,200 / 1,500 void damage. Survivors are blinded for 5 sec. Enemies must be within direct line of sight and a 150° cone in front of the Hollow.

• Beam damage is affected by Ability Strength.
• Beam range is not affected by mods.
• Blind duration and beam frequency are not affected by mods.
  • Frequency cooldown is 3 seconds long. 

( Automated Deny beam with thematic CC effect. )

Synergy ;

• Xata's Whisper damage buff affects Jahu's Reflection and Ris's Judgement sub-abilities.
• Range of Hollow sub-abilities are doubled while inside The Vast Untime's distruption field.

4- THE VAST UNTIME [Duration][50 Energy + 10 Energy/sec]

 Xaku unleashes a void blast and creates a distruption at their location with the power of Khra(Time).

Void blast deals  600 / 800 / 1,000 / 1,200 Void damage, stuns enemies momentarily enemies and creates a distruption zone with 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 meters radius at Xaku's location.

• Xaku becomes invulnerable and cleanses all status effects while casting this ability.
• The Vast Untime can be deactivated by recasting the ability.
• All enemies and projectiles that pass through the distruption are slowed by 15 / 20 / 25 / 30% ( capped at 90% ).
  • Slow amount is affected by Ability Strength.
• Blast and distruption radius are affected by Ability Range.

When The Vast Untime cast, Xaku crouches in place then reels back, surges into the air and unleashes an expanding Void energy blast.

• If  Xaku has any fragments on them, existing fragments visually detach from body and suspended in the air with Void energy tethers for the cast time. Suspended body fragments return to Xaku after cast. 
• If all Hollows are active and Xaku's true form is exposed, Xaku just releases Void Blast without any fragment detach animation.

Synergy ; 

• Range of Hollow sub-abilities are doubled while inside distruption field.
• Speed bonus of Xaku's true form is doubled while inside distruption field.
• Xata's Whisper affects The Vast Untime's void blast damage.
   

@SilverBones @[DE]Rebecca @[DE]Megan

 

I love the inclusion of all the requiem words. I think a requiem frame would be cool, but Xaku is meant to be a bunch of different frames, nor any one theme beyond being made up of different frames. I want a requiem frame!!

[DarthBane1]

So couple things. 

 

1st ability not so great. Doesn't really help with damage at all. Should ADD to damage your doing. It's been noticed it actually is detremental. (I've take a STRONG weapon, shot an enemy and got a TON less damage). 

 

2nd Ability, this is alright, the pull from guns needs a little extra range and duration but it works. Would be great if the first ability buffed this. 

 

3rd Ability, I've only used one of the abilities from this. And that's just armor stripping. 

 

4th Ability, Fun visual effects. I don't see it doing a ton of damage though. Even with maxed strength/range.

[Mephane]

Another random thought: how come Xaku requires so much more power strength for full armor strip when Nyx and Ash get it with a regular Intensify already - all the while Xaku basically requires you to use range and duration mods so their abilities are barely acceptable in those two regards.

Edit: Rebecca just said on stream that this week they will post a dev workshop about Xaku changes, one thing she could confirm already is that The Vast Untime won't have duration and drain, but only one or the other (but wouldn't say which).

[(PSN)reddragonhrcro]

Have visual related feedback to give. Some of his shoulder armor is placed rather high which doesn't look good.

[(PSN)Rainbow_Neos1]

Make Invert tap/hold a per frame basis so we can play Xaku effectively without messing up other frames. It gets tedious when swapping between Titania to Xaku to Protea to Vauban, etc 

[MK-BMo]

So I feel like Xaku's main problem is that they specialize in usage of the void, but the void as a damage type is actively detrimental and as a player base nobody really knows what that means exactly. We know the sentients are damaged by the void, we know the orokin fear the void, we know the grineer want the power of the void, and we know that the infested at least partially come from the power of the void. What we don't know is how or why. Because of this, all of Xaku's powers feel like vague void like versions of other frames' abilities that we already have. But before we go into fixing what Xaku's abilities mean and how they can help us and give us a Xaku specific feel, I think we need to address the issue of void as a damage type.

 

What does the void do for us damage wise? Currently, void damage has no strengths and is weakened by Grineer Flesh and Infested armor. This means at best we break even, at worse we have our damage reduced by half. This is the first part that needs to change, and I would recommend making the damage weak against armor and shields. From a story perspective, this would mean that the different factions have attempted to take measures in their gear to mitigate the void. However, void damage could deal more damage to Grineer flesh, Corpus flesh, and Robotics (since all known sentient enemies have the robotic health type). Again, from a story perspective, this would showcase how devastating the void can be to the unprotected form and would prove devastating towards the sentients as it not only removes their resistances, but also hurts them more significantly than other damage types. How about what the void does for us status wise? As a status, the void effect doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and can be on the buggy side. Currently, the void status causes a small magnetize bubble to circle around the initial point of contact and will redirect non aoe damage towards that point, however what usually ends up happening is that the void status will encapsulate the entire enemy's body and will redirect the damage towards their center mass instead of the point of contact. There's also a bug in game where the void status can cause the player to proc other status on themselves if they get to close. Another complete change is necessary here as this status is not only rarely helpful, but is in many cases actively detrimental even without the bug. My suggestion for a slightly unique status proc would be to make the initial proc cause all void specific damage to deal 15-25% of its damage as true damage and with each successive proc will cause it to reach up to 25-50% true damage. Since this is only affected by void specific damage, having more void damage than other damage types would not only increase the status chance, but the possible damage you could get out of the status, and unlike bleed procs, this damage isn't based off the whole damage of the weapon and would be constantly on hit instead of over time.

 

Now that we've discussed how void damage is currently detrimental to combat and how we might fix it, we can discuss what has gone wrong with Xaku. Going forward I will be discussing Xaku's abilities as if the void damage type was changed to be beneficial instead of a detriment.

 

Xaku overall: All of Xaku's abilities feel slow to activate and certain aspects feel to low in the wrong areas

 

Xaku's passive: this is a fine passive as far as passives go. relatively boring and not much interaction or feedback for the player. maybe instead of having damage pass through Xaku like Baruuk's 1 does, Xaku could absorb the projectile and have its damage nullified. This way we have a bit more of a feedback to see it work and it could activate certain on hit/on damage effects like the adaptation mod and the like.

 

Xaku's 1: the ability is simple. and can potentially be effective. it's current issue is that unlike other ways that other frames grant specifical elemental damage buffs, this one is a two handed action. what this means is that Xaku often interrupts actions such as shooting and reloading for a long cast animation to slightly increase their damage amount. Also, unlike other such buffs, this one is a purely selfish buff and doesn't do anything for his teammates. My suggested change would be to make this a one handed action as I don't believe making this an insta cast is absolutely necessary given the state of other similar such buffs. This ability also either needs to have it's damage amount drastically increased if it wants to remain a selfish damage buff, or have it applied to the whole team within a range. Not both are necessary at one time. Another way to keep the damage buff selfish without drastically increasing its damage amount is to have the buff affect the damage of all his other damaging abilities and have its buff double effective on weapons.

 

Xaku's 2: The main problems here are its range, duration, and, again, it's casting speed. For this one, I believe it needs to be both a one handed action as well as have its cast speed increased by 25-40%. The duration on the ability makes casting it over and over again a slog for limited crowd control and damage on the low side. This ability needs at least a 25s duration baseline to make casting it at its current energy cost feel impactful. The range on this ability usually means that without a separate ability that can group enemies together, you will rarely get the full effect of this ability. The radius needs to be increased for the initial cast. The actual damaging portion of the guns firing isn't bad on range, however, the lock on and firing speed of the weapons are dreadfully slow and need to be sped up. As it is now, there's a good chance that a gun will lock on but the enemy will get out of range before firing or the enemy will die before firing, then the retargetting to the next enemy will occur just as if not more slowly resulting in the same thing over and over again. A couple other changes I'd like to see made would be to increase the cc capability. If more targets are caught in the range of the ability than the maximum amount of weapons Xaku can take control of, they should all be disarmed regardless of gun maximum. I'd also like to see the ability have recastability. If Xaku does not have the maximum amount of weapons taken, then recasting the ability will allow him to steal more weapons up to the max, but will not refresh the duration of any weapons already stolen. Recasting the ability with maximum weapons will still disarm enemies without refreshing the duration or replacing any current weapons stolen.

 

Xaku's 3: Firstly, the casting of these abilities feel slow, not just because of their long casting time, but because in order to activate them, you need to hold the ability to do so. Xaku doesn't usually switch between these abilities rapidly or use them in rapid succession like Vauban or Ivara might. So this ability should be reversed where tap is to use and hold is to switch between them. Second, all of their durations are far too low for what the abilities want to do. These abilities needs a duration of no less than 20s baseline to feel impactful.

part 1: Accuse feels like a cheap version of both Nyx's Mind Control and Revenant's Enthrall. I like the theme of the ability for the frame, but it suffers from the same problem that those two abilities do. It doesn't work as a cc tool or as a damaging tool. Most people in the community would like to see this ability replaced, however I think it can work with some tweaking. Two things can be done to make it synergize with the rest of Xaku's kit and I would suggest both of them be added together. Any void damage bonus applied to Xaku with his 1st ability when Accuse is cast can also be applied to the Accused targets, so they are now dealing a portion of your damage instead of just their own. If Xaku has any stolen weapons active from his 2nd ability, he can reactivate his second ability in the area of his accused targets to grant each of them a weapon from his stolen arsenal for the remaining duration of the Accuse. Due to this synergy, it would also be within Xaku's interest to have their 2nd ability and Accuse affect the same number of targets baseline and scale the number of targets using the same stat, as right now, his 2nd ability scales total amount of weapons based off range while Accuse scales the number of targets based off of strength. I would personally scale both based off of range.

part 2: Gaze this could arguably be one of the best parts of his kit currently, and it only feels moderate. part of this is due to the aforementioned duration issues, however, the other issue is the range of the ability. As it stands it takes a lot of Xaku's mod build to make this ability reach its true potential and even then it's mediocre compared to the low energy cost and quick nature of other abilities in the game with similar effects. Increasing the radius up to 15m would allow for moderate area coverage so as to not actively hurt other parts of his build trying to make this one ability work.

part 3: Deny feels like it's denying you more than it is your enemy. As it is now, the damage is ok at best, but it's so slow that it's not worth casting for the damage, and the cc is difficult to follow up on. Lifting CC effects make it hard to aim when using primary and secondary weapons and hard to reach and follow up on with any melee weapons as any hit will cause the target to ragdoll away from both your cursor and your melee range. In order to make this ability match more of its name sake, I'd like to see it reworked into an area denial ability. Either make casting it repel projectiles in the targeted direction, knock back and stop enemies being able to advance from the target direction, or both.

Xaku's 4: This ability has a very high overall energy cost for doing simultaneously many things but also nothing at all. The damage is mediocre and unnecessary but I understand why it's there aesthetically and mechanically. The speed control effects are so low they're barely noticeable even with a lot of power strength. The survivability this ability grants does not noticeable and as a result doesn't feel very impactful. The void damage amplifier needs to be a continuous part of the ability over its duration instead of proccing off of only enemies hit by the initial damage. My suggested changes for this ability is addressing the energy economy and focusing on what the ability wants to be. As many have already suggested, it either needs to have an initial energy cost with no drain for the remainder of its duration, or a very low initial energy cost with no duration and keep the energy cost largely the same. As it stands now, this is essentially a 200 energy cost ability over the course of its duration that you cannot gain any energy back during its duration. If you wanted it to have a 200 energy cost, then it should be so upfront so that the frame can gain the energy to feasibly make use of its other abilities that would otherwise synergize well with the void resistance reduction this ability offers. If you wanted to make it drain energy, make its initial energy cost so low that you can use still activate the ability after activating the other abilities that it would synergize with. Now let's talk more about what the ability does and how we can make it work. It reduces enemy resistance to the void. This sounds like a great ability on paper especially in conjunction with Xaku's kit, but in the context of the rest of the balance of the ability, it falls flat due to the previously mention issue of only applying this effect on those damaged by the initial cast. This should be a constant effect that actively works on all enemies within range for the duration. If this feels too powerful an effect, it could have a ramp up so that the enemies have to stay within the effect for a period of time before taking full damage from the void. For the next part of the ability let's talk about its speed control. The slow part is too low to notice and takes at least 250% strength to feel like an impactful part of the ability. This not only takes a lot of mod space and capacity to achieve, but also comes at a cost to another stat as to achieve anywhere close requires corrupted mods that take away parts of other stats, all of which Xaku wants for his kit. The slow would be rather nice to keep enemies in range for the rest of his abilities to work, but needs to be doubled baseline before it would be a considerable part of the ability. The speed boost also feels insubstantial and even with maximum power strength is hardly noticed. I understand the want to make him faster due to shedding off his skin like Chroma, but this is both unnecessary and in such low amounts already that it can be forgone. If it needs to stay, it needs to be noticed. Either increase the speed multiplier, allow the speed multiplier to affect all of Xaku's actions, not just the movement based ones, or get rid of this part of the ability entirely. Finally, the last part of this ability that needs to be addressed, the passive dodge chance. Since this part of the ability stems off of his passive, I think making the prior mentioned changes to his passive would fix this issue in one as it would then feel like a meaningful damage mitigation tool that can be easily noticed by players. However, if the passive doesn't change, then this needs to be changed to damage mitigation as 75% dodge chance sounds good on paper, until you don't get lucky and 2 stray bullets or an explosion one shots you. And since there isn't any sense of how much this ability or the passive doesn't show how much damage you dodged, it can feel as though it didn't do anything at all. 

[Aeon94]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Rainbow_Neos1 said:

I love the inclusion of all the requiem words. I think a requiem frame would be cool, but Xaku is meant to be a bunch of different frames, nor any one theme beyond being made up of different frames. I want a requiem frame!!

" Requiem Frame " is quite fitting for Xaku because, they weren't just assembled from a bunch of different frames, they all had strong connections to Void, just like Harrow. Otherwise how could they channel " Spirits of the Void " ? That'd make a fine example of how Void bestows powers to whoever believes / worships itself.

 

" Forged from the remnants of lost Warframes, they channel the spirits of the Void. This is Xaku, the fragmented, the restored. " - Lotus, Xaku's description.

" This is Harrow, the monastic, the ritualist. Harrow is suffragan to the Void. Will you believe, Tenno? " - Lotus, Harrow's description.

[Borg1611]

Another frame with a cycled ability demonstrating why it's a really awful control scheme to have in a fast paced game. 

All these abilities would be so much better with another control scheme. 

At the very least, give us frame specific key binding as an option and let us bind each ability separately. Spend some of your UI re-vamp time on expanding the key binding system. 

[askaninja]

DE, I hope you read this since this is advice for a change that would encourage people to spend more platinum/money!

I humbly recommend DE make the following changes to improve Xaku's play-ability, theme enhancement, and people spending platinum/money when abilities reach tier 3 abilities:

 

1st Ability - Xata's Wisper

• Increase base extra damage from 26% to 50% + 10% for each Forma'ed up to a maximum of 100%
• Increase Duration from 35 seconds to 45 seconds + 3 seconds for each time Forma'ed up to a maximum of 60 seconds
• Wisper damage increase should affect Grasp of Lohk Void replicas, Gaze, Deny, and the enemies affected by Accuse,
• Reduce Casting time by half if a catalyst is installed

 

2nd Ability - Grasp of Lohk

• Change damage per weapon from 50 void to:
• Increase base duration from 12 seconds to 20 seconds + 5 seconds for each Arcane attached
• Reduce Casting time by half if a catalyst is installed
• A strike from these phantom guns destroys nullifies bubbles

 

3rd Ability - A. Accuse

• Change Max Targets from base 8 to 10 plus 1 more per each Arcane attached
• Change duration from base 16 seconds to 15 + plus 5 more seconds if a catalyst is installed
• Reduce Casting time by half if a catalyst is installed

3rd Ability - B. Gaze

• Change duration from base 14 seconds to  15 + plus 5 more seconds if a catalyst is installed
• Change Range from base 8 meters to 10 meters plus 3 more per each Arcane attached
• Reduce Casting time by half if a catalyst is installed
• Any enemy coming within 50% of the range of Gaze (after bonuses) become affected by Gaze
• instead of a max of 2 enemies being able to be affected by gaze, increase it to 2 enemies plus 2 additional enemy can be Gazed per forma installed up to a maximum of 12.

3rd Ability - C. Deny

• Change duration from base 14 seconds to 15 + plus 5 seconds if a lens is installed
• Reduce Casting time by half if a catalyst is installed
• For each arcane installed, multiply status effects when applied,
  • i.e. for 1 arcane the affected enemies receive 2 status procs
  • for 2 arcane the affected enemies receive 3 status procs

 

4th Ability - The Vast Untime

• Increase Slow base rate from 25% to 50% + if a lens is installed add an additional amount of slowness (Greater +5%, Eidolon +10%, Lua +15%)
• Change 75% dodge to 50% damage reduction + 5% for each Forma'ed up to a maximum of 75% - This should not be affected by power strength
• Reduce Casting time by half if a catalyst is installed

 

 

 

 

 

[aerelm]

I wasn't planing on playing Xaku, since Zephyr (now with fire blast on it, thanks to the wallmouth) and Nyx are usually my go-to frames and they both more or less fulfill the same roles already (especially Nyx with its debuff/CC having quite similar functionality to Xaku's). So I was initially planing on maxing Xaku for mastery and feeding the wallmouth for now, and gettin another one to forma later on, but something clicked as I was leveling it and for whatever reason I've ended up spending 5 formas and some 20 hours on it so far and its been quite fun.
 

In general, Xaku isn't a weak warframe per se. The main problem in my opinion is the abilities are so clunky and cumbersome to use that it almost makes them not worth using, which means in its current state Xaku will be one of those frames that a handful of people will play just because they really like its looks or feel, while the rest won't even remember it exists.

• Abilities not being recastable greatly hinders flexibility, especially when none have persistent effects and are greatly reliant on enemy positioning
• Having the three high impact abilities of the frame crammed under the same button doesn't lead to that pleasant of an experience
• All abilities have extremely restrictive range and/or duration, without providing any extra benefits (compared to similar ability on another frame) to compensate
• Abilites use considerably more energy compared to similar abilities of other frames, while being far less flexible in the function they provide
• All abilities having relatively long cast animation makes the whole frame feel extremely clunky to use. Some of the more impactful abilities having long cast times is fine, but those with shorter duration or those requiring constant uptime need their cast animation drastically shortened

In its current state, this is Xaku experience in a nutshell:

And of course, going melee-only but still ending up mashing 3 more than E

 

Xata's Whisper

Main issue with this ability isn't the ability itself, but rather the Void element. Outside of its very specific function of resetting sentient resistance, Void is probably the weakest element in the game and one that gets in the way the most with random procs of unneeded magnet bubbles. The ability's visual effect on Xaku is quite nice, but honestly, the visual effect is pretty much the only incentive to keep that ability up at all times.

Ironically, this is also the only ability that's recastable, while being the only ability that doesn't really need to be.

I don't feel the ability itself needs any tweaks, but it would sure benefit from a complete rework of Void element. For an element that's supposed to be some otherworldly energy, Void certainly feels extremely lackluster at the moment.

 

Grasp of Lohk

This ability is rather interesting on paper, but in practice it's almost not worth using.

• This is probably the one ability that gets hit the hardest from not being recastable
• Its range is far too small - to the point where most normal starchart missions don't even have a high enough enemy density to allow for stealing even half of the max number of weapons possible
• Its duration is almost negligible - Even if you do manage to get a decent cast with enough enemies around, by the time you actually start feeling the impact of it, it's over and needs to be recast. I'd say this is by far the most "No fun allowed"-feeling ability in the entire game
• Its cast animation is unreasonably long for an ability that's expected to be recast constantly while also being heavily reliant on enemy positioning
• It seems the actual "stealing" of the guns happens at the end of the animation not the start, so when playing in groups the usual scenario is a teammate will just stroll past with their ignis while the cast animation is happening and if you're really lucky you might end up with maybe a gun or three

My suggestion for making the ability feel like less of a hassle:

Easy way: Double its range and duration and either make it recastable or trim/speed up the cast animation

Hard way: Rework the ability - Instead of stealing guns on cast, make it so if you kill an enemy with any of your weapons while the ability is active, their gun will be added to the hover pile for a short duration.

Also on the visual side of things, while the effect looked cool in the trailer, in actual game once the novelty of it wears off it starts just feeling like a nuisance as the weapons obscure too much of the screen. My suggestion is to make the darker part of the effect transparent:

 

The Lost

The reason this ability wheel style of cast works on some other frames without being too much of a headache is because they either have persistent effects (Wisp, Ivara's zipline, etc), extremely generous duration (Titania), or specific situational usage and unlikely for multiple to be needed at the same, etc. In case of Xaku's triple ability, they're the most useful and impactful part of Xaku's kit and the ones players would need to be going back and forth between with every new wave of enemy spawns, requiring constant uptime to maximize its usefulness, but with relatively short duration, inability to recast, rather hefty energy cost, and each relying on a different casting style and two of the three needing precise aiming, it's well past the point of "too much for one button".

Having the three original frames' abilities all under one ability sounds intriguing and all on paper, but the way it plays out in the actual game is too cumbersome, to the point where in most cases even in higher tier content it's actually faster, easier and more convenient to just shoot a little bit longer and kill everything without any ability use than go through all the bother of making sure Accuse is selected, casting it to buy some time to make sure Gaze is selected, then finding a grunt near the center of the bunch to cast it on, then sitting through the long cast animation and then killing the things. Meanwhile, any other armor strip ability on any other frame is a single press of a button with a quick animation and either a higher range or lower energy cost, and in most cases you don't even need to be aiming at anything.

Accuse and Gaze either need their range considerably increased, or their energy cost reduced and made recastable (maybe with any new cast cancelling the effect of old ones, for the sake of balance), and ideally, it'd make Xaku considerably more convenient to play if Deny is moved to hold function of another ability (probably 1) so Accuse and Gaze can be cast through tap and hold instead of needing cycling.

 

The Vast Untime

I can't comment on the functionality of this ability as I replaced it through Helminth before the frame was even maxed.

Everyone working on the visual design of Xaku have done such a nice job, and on top of that, the animators have added quite a wonderful extra layer of personality and character to how all the parts are constantly jittering and struggling to fit together, so why would I ever want to use an ability that takes all that away and leaves it with a good ol' skeleton (which frankly, even looks like it's not rigged right during some parkour moves).

The reason this whole "shedding the outer layer to reveal its true form" works for a frame like Chroma is because what's underneath that one is at least something to look at. What's underneath Xaku is just... a skeleton. Seeing how much attention and care has gone into making the outer shell, having just an ordinary skeleton underneath makes it feel more like an after-thought. Maybe I'll put that ability back on for a few days come October, but until then, thanks a lot for the whole helminth system.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

6 hours ago, Mephane said:

Another random thought: how come Xaku requires so much more power strength for full armor strip when Nyx and Ash get it with a regular Intensify already 

Because Xaku isn’t well designed.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

On 2020-09-08 at 7:29 PM, Borg1611 said:

Another frame with a cycled ability demonstrating why it's a really awful control scheme to have in a fast paced game. 

All these abilities would be so much better with another control scheme. 

At the very least, give us frame specific key binding as an option and let us bind each ability separately. Spend some of your UI re-vamp time on expanding the key binding system. 

They would also all be better if they weren’t some of the most generic abilities imaginable. If these were actually all player suggested I swear they were all joke suggestions. Especially since I considered posting ability ideas of the most generic frame possible as a joke. And “firing a laser beam forward” was going to be the first ability. The fact that an ability idea I see as a complete joke managed to make its way onto Xaku is baffling.

[rainy]

What a thread! I'm sure I will be repeating some points, so I will keep things short.

Aesthetics are super (Art and Sound!), but the noble and agile weapon-less animations have a really rough loop that needs to be touched up. I'm a massive fan of a twitchy set, but I can't stand to see a keyframe where motion completely stops.

Gameplay and stats:

• In general, the skills all seem fine mechanically. Literally just turning up the numbers a bit will make this frame a favourite.
• Xata's Whipser is a copy-paste of Saryn's toxic lash. The former deals +26% total damage per hit, the latter deals a base of +30% instant +90% in toxin ticks that receives 3x the effects of faction damage vs Xata's Whisper only 2x. 
  • Raise Xata's Whisper to ~50% Damage.
  • Void's Bullet Attractor needs to be better with headshots, and sometimes even causes bodyshots to miss. It's defensive properties are unmatched by any other effect, however.
  • Against other suggestions: don't make this skill "synergize" with the rest of the kit, just buff the rest of the kit. The skill independence is healthy.
  • Make void a neutral damage across all health types.
• Grasp of Lohk, mostly fine!
  • Let us recast, and even better, let it accumulate weapons like harrow's penance accumulates duration, but let them be on independent timers.
    • A poor cast severely hampers the skill.
  • Maybe a little more range on the disarm, even a couple meters.
• The Lost, needs dedicated hotkeys. All of its skills are crucial to Xaku's kit. They have 6 abilities in total. Cycling between them is way too confusing and clunky on gameplay given they have completely different utilities and multifunctions.
  • Prohibitively energy intensive, I see it as 75 x 3 = 225 energy to fully cast, even if most of them are strong skills, 
  • Accuse - the best possession skill in the game, with exception of mind control, and minus the perpetuation of rev's possession.
    • Let us recast after use, refilling the possessed unit count as far as the cap.
  • Gaze - powerful function that compensates much of xaku's kit, with some other hidden perks that I have yet to calculate.
    • Don't demand energy to release a target, even if it's not used.
  • Deny - kinda goofy. The suspension is quite long, but why when I could Accuse instead and have them literally fight for me? Maybe if accuse is maxed on units?
    • Make into a pseudo-exhalted skill that scales with rifle mods, and give it some crit stats. That would make it a super fun skill.
• Vast Untime - what little energy is left, is it worth it? Almost. It does a lot of stuff
  • Void Debuff and slow area needs to be an aura that travels with Xaku, not the instantaneous blast area
  • Don't you dare touch that slow, it's utterly unique.
  • This is Xaku's last line of defense, but it's dodge is a novelty, not something you can rely on. Scale up the dodge to 100% with its energy costs or add a true damage reduction factor.
    • Baruuk achieves 100% dodge at a much more affordable energy rate, while also possessing disarms and wide-area crowd control, much wider than any of xaku's skills while having 90% + 50% + 40% damage reduction on top of all that and the strongest exhalted skill in the game that doesn't even depend on energy. While all that doesn't fit into his mod triangle all at once, it's the potential that far exceeds xaku.

 

A squishy frame with a pitiful energy pool, long cast times penalized with not being able to recast some skills. Unfortunately high-level warframe gameplay is not merciful on frames that lack total damage reduction, and Xaku's alternative defensive skills are extremely expensive.

Looking forward to the changes. Khora's salvation gives me hope.

[WMan22]

I don't have much of a problem with the actual choices of abilities themselves on Xaku, I think my issues are mostly more with number tuning and poor energy economy.

Xata's Whisper

As many others here have mentioned, turning this on is a direct detriment to every other damage type coming from your weapons. Void damage either needs to be simply reworked entirely to be more powerful against non-sentient infantry units, or Eidolon effectiveness needs to be switched on. If either of these is a big ask, I would say double or even triple the void damage buff, as at least then it'd be an effective Critical Damage buff, though we are still contending with the problem then of void damage overwriting damage types directly made to take down infantry.

Grasp of Lohk

Needs to be recastable in the middle of the timer. Also, the guns need to do WAY more damage and have like 20m base shoot range or more, because right now to say they barely even tickle an enemy is an overstatement. I understand the intent was to use them on enemies with stripped armor, but even then it's not effective, for multiple reasons, one of which being their horrendously low damage, the other of which:

The Lost

Accuse: Mostly fine, like with any mind controlling ability in the entirety of warframe though, this should heavily boost accused enemy damage against other enemies during it's duration. Same applies to Nyx's mind control, even like a 2,000% damage increase against other enemies isn't really enough to do any meaningful damage, it needs to be at least 3,000% or at least enough to watch a health bar go down without having to squint your eyes to see it. 3,000% sounds like a lot until you actually see an enemy do 3,000% damage to another enemy and realize that it's actually not that much at all.

Gaze: This is the best ability in Xaku's kit, and should remain mostly unchanged. The main problem with this is the range. 8m is not nearly enough, it should have a base of 15m.

Deny: Arguably the most useless ability Xaku has. We are playing a horde shooter, single target abilities just don't cut it unless they do mindblowing things to said single targets or can be casted extremely quickly, Raising an enemy in the air for 14 seconds doesn't actually do much for me or my allies when it comes to being a single target ability. My main criticisms of this ability is that it does a flat damage number that and takes extremely long to cast for a single target ability, and it's not a one handed ability so you can't cast it while firing your guns in the way an ember would cast her fireball or something. Deny needs to be a single hand cast ability that is casted much faster, and/or it needs to do something more than just raise an enemy up in the air. 

The Vast Untime

It needs to be more clear what enemies have been hit by the vast untime, they need to light up like they were just hit by ember's ult or titania's spellbind or something, because it's very difficult to tell until I shoot an enemy who is affected. Even with the slowing effect. On top of this, Vast Untime needs to stack with Xaku's passive for 100% damage evasion. It should basically work like Baruuk's first ability, except 360 degrees and still active while you're shooting. And it should not have an energy drain post-cast, it already costs 155 energy with a blind rage build, that is expensive for not much benefit.

[Howtoplayu]

One of Xaku's abilities could have Pull similarly to Mag so it could work with Gaze.

Add-on: Maybe change the drain of their 4, 100 energy cost AND a drain AND a duration is ridiculous and changing it from 25% dodge to 75% is decent but it's not that amazing since it cannot dodge explosions and there's still have 25% chance to get hit which along with Xaku's poor armor, HP and shield are be quite damaging EVEN with shield gating.

[Bhully]

hace 9 horas, Neon8296 dijo:

After hours of testing with Xaku i realised that they may need more than number changes.

First of all: void damage

Most of their abilities use void damage wich is probably the worst kind of damage up to date. It doesnt do plus damage to anything and has 50% reduction against two types of health. Also its status effect is unoriginal(its just a magnetize bubble), useless and annoying. I recommend a full void damage rework: make it so it does 25%+ damage to all kinds of health because it is supposed to be one of the most powerfull thing in the lore. Also i would change it's status effect to a debuff that makes enemies drop more energy on death.

With that done i would like to talk about Xaku's passive: its bad

RNG based survivability is close to useless in this game  and they have such low stats that its enough for them to get hit only a few times and they die (especially because it does nothing to aoe damage)

I would change it to something that helps with their energy consuption. For example energy orbs picked up by Xaku give 50%+ energy (this would synergize with void damage's new proc)

(Also i recommend buffing Xaku's stats since they have close to no survivability)

Now onto their abilities:

1-this, on paper, is a fine ability, but its held back by giving the worst proc in the game(and pretty little of it)

with a void damage rework this could be a great skill, but it lacks synergy with their kit so i would make it boost Xaku's 2 as well

2-this is a skill with great visuals but is held back by its stats:

Its cast range is very little so you have to get close to the enemy (and Xau dies very easily), it has horrible duration, it cant be recasted if you only pick up a single gun, and it has close to no damage scaling

i suggest making it recastable and giving it an all around stat buff, after all this is supposed to be their main damaging ability

3- out of this 3 skill only one is good and it needs 200% strenght and a lot of range to work

accuse: it is a great cc ability but its held back by the fact that it cant be recasted untill all of the corrupted enemies are dead. making it refreshable so Xaku can change their "minions" would give this ability a good use

gaze: a great ability but it needs too much to work, its range is a bit too small and 200% for 100% armor reduction is too much

i suggest raising its range and make it so it needs about 175% strenght fo the full armor debuff

Deny: A literally useless ability

It hits one or two people at most in one cast and it does about no damage

If we want to stay with this lifting concept i recomment an ice wave type of cone attack that lifts enemies.

However i would scrap this ability as a whole and try to give Xaku some kind of skill that would help them survive (for example using void damage to overload their shields)

4-A cool but but bad ability

Its main purpose is to debuff enemies and give Xaku dodge chance. Sadly as already mentioned above, dodge chance is useless so i would change it to simple damage reduction.

Also please remove the drain from the ability it already costs 100 energy and has duration.

It also slows enemies wich would be good but it needs line of sight so it is not really noticeable. I recommend making the explosion ignore line of sight because it deals little damage and most of the cc ultimates ignore walls(nova ulty or garuda ulti)

--------

Overall Xaku's problem is that they cant really do anything, so making it that their 2 could be a great damage ability, their 4 a great slowing ability and their 3 should be a debuff, cc, and survivability(by replacing deny), and of course their 1 a good buffing ability.

In my opinion these changes would make them the jack of all trades that they were meant to be.

 

 

Yep

[Bakaguya-sama]

Here's my attempt at a Xaku Rework, mostly through modifying their current kit into something more streamlined and impactful.