Heart of Deimos: Xaku Feedback Megathread

[Ylleedan]

The Vast Untime:

Skeletal form is funny and all, but it's ugly as hell and ignores your Fashion Frame, which everyone knows is the most important thing in the game.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

11 minutes ago, Ylleedan said:

The Vast Untime:

Skeletal form is funny and all, but it's ugly as hell and ignores your Fashion Frame, which everyone knows is the most important thing in the game.

It used to show armor, but it ruined the skeleton look.

[Vahenir]

19 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

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

With the proposed changes it would be easy to keep up and it is constant additional damage. The scaling should be made a bit better but that's more due to void damage being bad than the damage of the guns. Making deny also shoot through the guns would give that ability nuking potential. Especially if void damage is fixed to be less terrible.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 minute ago, Vahenir said:

With the proposed changes it would be easy to keep up and it is constant additional damage. The scaling should be made a bit better but that's more due to void damage being bad than the damage of the guns. Making deny also shoot through the guns would give that ability nuking potential. Especially if void damage is fixed to be less terrible.

No, it’s the damage of the guns. It uses enemy damage. So while it technically does scale it’s always going to be miles behind where it needs to be for damage.

[Vahenir]

35 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

No, it’s the damage of the guns. It uses enemy damage. So while it technically does scale it’s always going to be miles behind where it needs to be for damage.

It scales by enemy level. Their weapon/attack damage doesn't play into the equation at all.

From the wiki: 

Quote

Grasp of Lohk's Void damage benefits from Ability Strength and enemy level using the following expression:
Total Void Damage = Void Damage × (1 + Ability Strength) × Enemy Level Multiplier
Enemy Level Multiplier = Enemy Level. The multiplier stacks by 100% for each enemy level.
At ability rank 3 with a maxed Intensify equipped, against an enemy at level 100, Xaku will deal 50 × (1 + 0.3) × (100) = 6,500 Void damage per Void replica attack.

So the problem isn't really low damage, its more that void damage is just bad against armored enemies in general.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

3 hours ago, Vahenir said:

It scales by enemy level. Their weapon/attack damage doesn't play into the equation at all.

From the wiki: 

So the problem isn't really low damage, its more that void damage is just bad against armored enemies in general.

So low damage continues to be low.

because it’s terrible damage that’s being scaled to enemy level then each level it’s still dealing low damage.

[RidyCeleste]

Introduction:

I had been excited for Xaku's inclusion in my arsenal since I first saw their concept art; The way they was presented was just magnificent to me, and I really wanted to see what a Warframe like them could do. The anticipation for their arrival rose to the roof after seeing their abilities shown off at Tennocon 2020, and I simply couldn't wait any longer for them. Then, on August 25th, Xaku was released with the Heart of Deimos Update, and I worked date and night to acquire their parts, which put me through hell and back to get the resources to build them. With all the farming and building done, I finally got a chance to play as Xaku, but sadly, I was vastly disappointed with his state as of release, and now I'm here to explain how I feel about each ability and how I wish for it to change.

 

Passive:

Xaku's passive is 25% as a base dodge chance, which seems really nice on paper, but the issue comes in with the other 75% of the time when you do get hit because their health and armor is fairly low to start out with. To me, this just didn't feel right at all, so I thought of a couple of solutions to this:

- Raise the base dodge change

- Raise their health and/or armor

- Change their passive to something like a chance to reflect bullets back, immunity to a damage type, etc.

 

Xata's Whisper:

Xaku's first ability is meant to add Void damage to whatever weapons you are using, but in my experience with this, it doesn't seem to be adding anything. The amount of Void damage added is simply not enough to feel like Xaku is doing anything to, well, anything. So this is what I'd want to change about Xata's Whisper:

- Raise their base Void damage

- Allow certain enemies to be more susceptible to Void damage

- Allow Eidolons to take Xaku's Void damage, even if only a little bit (optional)

 

Grasp of Lohk:

Xaku's second ability is to take the weapons of the enemies in range and have them fire back at them with Void damage. This is yet another ability that sounds awesome on paper, but I rarely use it because the base Void damage is so low, it barely does anything, and since it doesn't synergize with Xata's Whisper, it just feels useless. So here's what I'd want changed about Grasp of Lohk:

- Raise the base Void damage, or

- Have the ability synergize with Xata's Whisper, making it just that much more powerful

- Increase the target amount, if possible

 

The Lost:

Xaku's third ability consists of three abilities that can be used by them, so I'm gonna talk about them individually:

Accuse:

Accuse is an ability that allows you to take control of enemy target and have them fight alongside you. For the most part, this ability is fine, but I think this could be improved upon, if anything with these pointers:

- Raise the range just a bit

- Give the allied targets a boost of some kind, whether it be damage, armor, speed, or all of the above

Gaze:

Gaze is an ability that allows you to trap an enemy and create an AOE that strips a certain amount of shield and armor, depending on your ability strength. This is probably the ability I have the least problems with, but if there were anything I'd want to change about it, it would be this:

- Raise the base range

Deny:

Deny is an ability that fires a beam of Void energy that deals damage to a target, and if it doesn't kill them, it sends them in the air where they remain for a certain amount of time, unable to do anything. This is probably the most useless ability because the base damage is so low, nothing actually dies, and they all end up suspended in the air, anyway. So I definitely have a few points about this:

- Raise the base damage

- Raise the base range

- Maybe make it affect more than one enemy if it fails to kill an enemy

 

The Vast Untime:

Xaku's fourth ability strips Xaku of their armor, turning them into just a skeleton, raising their base dodge chance to 75%, and the shrapnel of their armor can hit nearby enemies, making them more susceptible to Void damage. This ability has many issues, the main one being that it has both a timer and energy drain, which just feels ridiculous to me, personally. This ability has a few other problems, with one of them being that it's ability to make enemies more susceptible to Void damage, which does nothing because the base Void damage of Xata's Whisper is so low. So here's what I'd want changed:

- Take away the timer or the energy drain; Just have one or the other, not both

- Raise the dodge chance, if possible

 

Energy Consumption:

I've decided to make Xaku's energy consumption a separate category because this could be applied to all of Xaku's abilities. I believe that Xaku is way, way too energy hungry, and they definitely needs it lowered by a significant amount. I've thought of some numbers that could be applied that, to me, seem a bit more balanced:

Xata's Whisper: From 25 to 15

Grasp of Lohk: From 50 to 30

The Lost: From 75 to 45

The Vast Untime: From 100 to 60

 

Conclusion:

While I love the way Xaku looks with their aesthetics (though that can be awkward at times with certain animations), Xaku definitely feels different in terms of strength compared to their Tennocon 2020 showcase. I understand that DE may be afraid of making this Warframe too powerful, but in doing so, they make Xaku one of the weakest Warframe, and the only way to make them at least somewhat powerful is to either sacrifice efficiency or range, which is very important to Xaku. I think they still have the potential to be an amazing Warframe, but they definitely need a huge rework on his abilities, big time.

[MrFrog9]

today on WAFARM FEDBACCK FOURM: "ability that can deal 15k-30k raw d/s entirely autonomously for 12 seconds, just as a baseline with no mods, is literally unusable"

anyways

I was pretty intensely incorrect on how Xata's Whisper functions.
- The damage is in fact dealt in a separate instance, and thus does not in fact interfere with the base weapon's status balance.
- The buff is in fact multiplicative, not additive as with most elemental buffs.

 (note that the preceding has already been noted by others within the thread; I just feel that I should acknowledge that I had my facts wrong in my initial feedback)

(As an aside: the assumption to the contrary above was so consistent throughout the community that I wonder if it was indeed originally how it functioned and DE simply forgot to note the change, but I have zero actual proof of this and it doesn't really matter anyways)

I'd update my original post but it's over a week old and the Xaku feedback pass is supposedly just on the horizon so forget that lol

I'll just add, in case anyone at DE is still listening and in a position to take it into account, that in light of this I now believe Xata's Whisper is mostly fine, although Void damage is still very bad and Xaku desperately needs Vast Untime to function better as a resistance debuff to counteract this (that or Void damage needs to be made better although I question if it's smart buffing an entire damage type for the sake of one thing that uses it)
Also, I'd still like XW to affect Xaku's ability damage although I'm less and less sure if that'd actually be necessary or even helpful in the first place.

[(PSN)ChaosDark1]

where do i start xaku nice looking frame cool design but his abilites are really not good his passive is a a copy of nyx his 1st skill adds void damage which not the best damage type also u cant use it agaist the eidolons but you can use the nercamechs vs them and they do stupied high damage. his 2nd skill really should be recastable and have the cast speed improve. 3rd skill should be hold to select and tap to use also improve cast speed. 4th skill the vast untime why does it have a energy drain and a duration. all of xaku skills are all very high on energy cost.

[(PSN)CommanderC2121]

ah, I see you're playing warframe on Internet explorer, happy you finally got to the party.

 

Also, obligatory "they"

[Gaikki]

Putting aside the minor ability stat changes other players seem to be asking for a lot, I ask for the material textures on the new syandana and warfans that came along with Xaku to match the texture Xaku has.  See, while Xaku has two shiny parts (the skeleton and the arm), the syandana only has one. Even the branches and the big round shoulder mounted part does not follow the rest of Xaku's overall body texture. And the warfans. Gahd the warfans. This one is missing the second shiny parts as well, along with the quite obvious one-too-smooth textures.

[(PSN)SlyFox5679]

I just got xaku to 30 after days of grinding mats,building parts,building the frame and....meh :-/ 

this frame i have a feeling whoever did the stats for abilities left out a lot of numbers that this thing could've had better performance as a whole.

it just seems like DE wants to make weaker frames and weapons for "balance" lol yeah right

some of the new weapons in this update kinda suck too.

 

[Donfs]

I like how xaku looks, compliments to all who put all that together, but xata's whisper covers the fashion too much imho. I don't even use it fot that reason alone. Even in skeleton form I feel like that effect is too strong. Please tone it down if you can.

 

Also void damage could use some work, maybe make it neutral to everything and if you could change Xakus evasion to damage reduction that would be great.

[Schwarzsturm]

I got Xaku the other days, i buy them for platinum. My computer is a little lack on hardware so i can't run the plains or the vallis for the materials. And i buy them because i love the concept, but they got some problems. The first isn't even their's. Void damage, it needs a rework. Xaku is a elemental warframe, if cold is bad, Frost is bad, if fire is bad, Ember is bad. Void is bad so Xaku got problems. The casting time of the abilities is problematic too. I used Accuse on a bunch of Grineer, or at least tried. By the time the ability was cast they have leave the are of effect. And then we got inconsistency. Not only Xaku can't affect eidolons, the reset Sentient's resistances is inconsistent between Xaku abilities. Whispers add Void damage and reset Sentients, Grasp does Void damage but doesn't reset Sentients. And the infested matter of Whispers. Please be it just placeholder. More than a rework they need some fixes and tweaks. Other than that, i love them :)

But hope than DE leave them as genderless and don't make as with Equinox saying they are female :(

[Sergent-Qc]

I just got my first Xaku Warframe ... My initial thoughts :  Useless

I love the aesthetics of the frame, even when you use his 4th ability, it's pretty dope ! But where is the fun, the usefulness, the synergy, the team play, the support .... You will not find it here. Looking forward to that promised rework. 

[caustik]

Skimmed through and seeing a lot of hate.  Xaku's not bad I can easily own steel path with my 1 forma build.  Here's my build and thoughts.

Played with evasion build (agility/ carnis set bonus) but deaths too spikey so went with quick thinking, primed flow, energize, guardian.  Survival and energy now taken care of and works well with innate evasion.

Abilities:

1, 2, and 4 synergize.  3 I find useless , I will try and replace with roar when subsume done.

2 seems most useful so I built around it, but to make it work I need stretch + overextend, any less misses grabbing most weapons. Range also effects what the turrets target and shoot so without range they don't even fire.  With max range this move now grabs a ton of weapons and shoots everything or burns down single targets quickly in an acceptable radius.  I add primed continuity for duration and then strength to counter overextend.

cast 1 for added void damage,  2 close to a group to grab as many weaps as possible,  cycle 4 as needed to damage/weaken against void while staying as skeleton for evasion. repeat.  The turrets alone work but need to keep up void weakness.  I found running around with weakness up + void dmg on melee and turrets always on to be the best. They key is lots of turrets.

That being said I think it needs these buffs:

1. Xata's Whisper:  dmg buff and/or buff other players in range (then they can make use of void weakness too)

2. Grasp of Lohk:  needs big range buff

The Lost:  not sure

4. The Vast Untime: could use +dmg and +weak to void buff

 

[Mu_Gera]

yeah the base ranges so far feel short, especially for grasp of lohk. void damage proc'ing could also be more consistent across all abilities except maybe deny.

[(PSN)Rainbow_Neos1]

2 hours ago, cococciolo said:

yeah the base ranges so far feel short, especially for grasp of lohk. void damage proc'ing could also be more consistent across all abilities except maybe deny.

If you mean the status proc, that would not be good. The void status effect makes it very hard to hit headshots.

[Atomfire1]

Buff idea for Grasp of Lohk, make what kind of guns are stolen worth something, like if you snag a gorgon it fires at the gorgon's fire rate.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Rainbow_Neos1 said:

If you mean the status proc, that would not be good. The void status effect makes it very hard to hit headshots.

I get that people don't like "no headshot status" so how about 1st gives high status but low crit. 2nd should give high crit but low/no status? And 3rd ability we have armor stripping (no need for void stuff), mind control (again, why void) and the last shouldn't proc status as well because it might be helpful for headshot (e.g. Athodai) like I mentioned.

[iFlu]

 Considering everything already planned for Xaku, my wish would be to see them get augment mods from all syndicates giving Grasp of Lohk the syndicate buff from the syndicate you bought the mod (and only one of these mods equipped at a time). Would gives a very insteresting way to augment the frame

[Fireshock]

Some changes have already been posted in the Dev Workshop, but I want to provide my feedback here as well.

• Passive
  • Having a 25% chance to avoid damage isn't nearly on par with damage reduction. They can still be one-shot or two-shot the other 75% of the time a shot hits them. Making it so that Xaku has a 25% reduction in damage from AoE's a good start, but why not make it so that Xaku has a 25% damage reduction to all sources on top of 25% evasion chance? This would be bumped up to 50% (or more) damage reduction and 75% evasion while The Vast Untime is active. Keep in mind, Ember, Gara, Mesa, Mirage, Nezha, Nekros, and Nova ALL have easily achievable and perpetual sources of 90-95% damage reduction at all times, 50% would not be overpowered in the slightest and would put The Vast Untime on par with Titania's Thorns buff. Xaku needs all the help they can get because they have very fragile health values. 

• Xata’s Whisper
  • This ability's duration is great, I can easily keep it active for a minute. However it doesn't seem to do much for you damage wise. The proposed changes to Void as a damage type should help a bit, but I think you should buff the extra damage percent up a bit. With an Umbral Intensify equipped (144%) the increased damage only goes up to 37%, which is less than I'd get with a subsumed Roar (43%) which would also apply to Warframe abilities as well. An innate damage ability should be better than subsumed Roar considering you nerfed Roar to prevent people from putting it on every frame but right now it's still the best option for Xaku. The base damage percent should be increased to around 35% to put it over Roar, which would make 144% strength equal 50% damage bonus, same as unmodded Roar on Rhino (once again keep in mind Roar also affects allies and abilities so its still better overall, this wouldn't be broken).
  • Also, when you eventually do augments I feel like a Shock Trooper-like augment that lets this ability affect allies would be nice.
     
• Grasp of Lohk
  • Casting speed increase is good. Being able to recast the ability is good. However, there are still two main flaws with this ability: the range and the fact that you want recasting the ability to replace your existing void weapons.
    First, the range is too short to make use of without putting yourself up in an enemy's face or modding heavily for range. Currently I have modded for both Range and Duration to compensate for Xaku's lack of both, and they still don't do enough for this ability. I have 179% Duration and 175% Range (I would have more, but I don't want to invest forma until after they're buffed) and this ability still only has a 14 meter range and a 21 second duration. For comparison, other Disarm abilities like Radial Disarm have a base 20 meter range (and can go up to 50+ meters with max range). I'm not suggesting anything drastic since this is also an offensive ability, but the base range should be buffed to at least 12-15 meters so I should have 21-26 meter range with the same build, making it so I don't have to be up in an enemy's face and risk getting killed to use this ability. Second, I can understand why you don't want the duration to last very long because it can auto target enemies for you but I feel like the duration should at least be bumped up from 12 seconds at base to 15 seconds. Nothing major but it would help with energy management, especially since you want us to recast this ability now, which brings me to my seconds point:
  • Recasting this ability should add to your total number of void weapons, not replace them. I thought this was a no-brainer buff, if you only have one or two enemies in an area, you should be able to grab their weapons and then go find some more enemies, take their weapons, etc, until you have the max number of weapons active. Otherwise, the only way to get the max is to get lucky and find a large group of enemies that are within range. Recasting this ability should be encouraged to reach the max number of void weapons easier.
     
• The Lost
  • Accuse
    • Basically a discount Enthrall/Chaos right now with less range, less duration, and no AoE on death in Revenant's case. Xaku has the edge on maximum targets over Revenant, but 16 second base duration vs 25 or 30 second base duration is an incredible disparity. The base duration should be buffed to at least 20 seconds (making it last 35 seconds with 179% duration) making it last a little longer to help with crowd control. Keep in mind Revenant and Nyx would still have the edge with range and duration overall.
    • Also, I think the mind control effect should be more prominent since I feel like my allies don't even know when I've cast Accuse on the affected enemies.
    • Side note, there's still a bug with mind control effects that makes it so enemies that can spawn other entities (such as Boilers or Crewmen Beacons on the Orb Vallis) end up making permanent allies which can be a detriment to the mission.
  • Gaze
    • This ability is pretty good as is, but it needs more range. People who have invested 6 forma shouldn't be the baseline for balancing abilities, any frame can be good with proper investment. Once again, I have 175% Range and this ability only reaches 14 meters which feels pretty small. Granted I can cast it twice but I would think bumping the base range even slightly, like 11 meters (up from 8 meters) would go a long way to help defend areas and objectives.
  • Deny
    • This ability is incredibly underwhelming since it just does what I can do better and with more damage with my Amp. Adding a damage multiplier is a good start but I think this should be a multi-target ability since to make it more versatile and justify the energy cost. I was thinking it should either shoot 3 beams at multiple targets or since you're making it synergize with Grasp of Lohk, you could make each currently stolen void gun fire an additional beam at your target at the time of cast.
       
• The Vast Untime
  • I don't have any complaints with this ability after the proposed change of getting rid of the energy drain and making it halt other ability's duration. However, some others earlier in the thread have suggested changing Xaku's animations while this ability is active and I'd just like to beg you NOT to do that. Running around as a spooky skeleton is incredibly hilarious and fun, making the animation some floating animation would take away from that.

[GarbageGamer290]

Ok, I haven’t been able to get Xaku yet due to time constraints; however, their “The Lost” abilities I feel need synergy to be more interesting and to fit better with the frame’s theme. As Grandmother said, Xaku is kind of a family themself; therefore it makes sense that they would play off each other to some extent.

Currently what I have workshopped in my head for the past little bit is basic buffs if you use lost abilities on each other. Here’s what I have come up with.

Deny with Gaze: Firing deny at a target rooted with Gaze will cause Deny to explode in an X meter radius, levitating and dealing damage to more enemies at the cost of requiring more thought and setup. Additionally, it might be a good idea to buff damage a tad in this case as well.

Deny and Accuse: Hitting Accused enemies with Deny or it’s synergy explosion will drop guaranteed health and energy orbs upon death if they are killed within its duration. If not, they will be frozen temporarily to give Xaku a chance to escape the now hostile enemies. My intent with this one is to give it team synergy as well as some survivability to Xaku at the cost of extra effort/energy rather than just press 4 to survive better.

Accuse with Gaze: Gaze will slow down duration drain by 200% for Accused enemies within Gaze’s range. What I mean by that is if an enemy has 15 seconds left of being accused but stands in Gaze’s range, their duration will be bumped up to 30 seconds. If they use 10 seconds of the Gaze+Accuse timer and leave, they will be bumped back down to 10 seconds. (Sorry if that one is a bit confusingly worded, but I can’t really think of any better way to describe it)

With some tweaking and fine tuning (mainly with energy cost), I really believe this should massively increase how much fun one can have with Xaku. I’ll leave other people to brainstorm how Xata’s Whisper, Grasp of Lohk, and The Vast Untime can be tweaked.

Also, please tell me how I can improve with my suggestions, as I am very interested in the field of critique and creative design as a whole.

[daktfi]

First of all, I must say that I don't like the "selector" abilities on principle - it's too annoying (and contrary to the game's high speed) to select right ability and cast it, both with same button (I do understand console's input restrictions and don't like them exactly by this reason). So, not much for The Lost.

1. Xata's Whisper. Very good. Well, adding some void damage to regular weapons is jsut great. Now we can kill those annoying vomvalists in the Plains without switching to the Operator.

2. Grasp of Lohk. Mostly good. I'd love it much better if it was longer in either duration or shooting range. Rate of fire isn't that great, too. On the other hand it DOES scale with enemy level, so, maybe I'm building it wrong. The feeling is that it's too weak for emergency button and too short for a lasting buff.

3. The Lost. Difficult for me to rate properly. Abilities themselves are useful, the main minus being they're all useful, so, in mission you often need to select between them and that takes time...

4. The Vast Untime. Vey good, especially look & feel. A bit of defense, a bit of speed, a nice "entry" blast. Having both limited duration AND channeling cost feels wrong (I do know about Mirage's Prism, it's wrong, too). Really want more synergy with Grasp of Lohk here.

QoL.

It feels very strange, but Xaku tends to "suddenly die" without visible reason. Keeping half an eye on his shield/health I don't see no sign of upcoming death, but here it comes, time and again.

The other VERY strange thing is jumping. I don't use in frames any speed/jumping mods, and beyond their passives (or melee's) they run and jump pretty much equally (in terms of jump-coverable distance at least). However, Xaku tends to regularly "underjump" some chasms other frames have no problems with. It feels like some extra gravity suddenly catches it in the middle of the second half of the jump and viciously pulls it down.

Overall impression is pretty much neutral at the moment. Running as a skeleton with ghostly weapons is fun, but too short. Void damage is "just another buff". Maybe after a couple of Formas it will be better, but that's an risky investment with uncofirmed benefits...

[quxier]

35 minutes ago, daktfi said:

Now we can kill those annoying vomvalists in the Plains without switching to the Operator.

No, you cannot. Read this comment.