Heart of Deimos: Xaku Feedback Megathread

[(XBOX)DarknessZeref]

I'm gonna throw this in here...

What's the point of a Void Warframe that doesn't do Void Damage? This watered down void damage isn't lore friendly, combat friendly or fun. The rework direction is solid on the warframe's personal synergy, but not at all on addressing the shift in void. I tried using Xata's Whisper to activate the pylons in Cambion Drift to no avail. It doesn't help you strip Eidolon shields and has anyone tested if it strips Sentient immunity? 

Look we're about to walk into a WAR. It's a scary meta to think I could add Xata's whisper to Wukong and shoot off an Eidolon's shield with Kuva Drakgoon, but for me and many other players it's either that or it's not void damage. I'm hoping to see that bandaid get ripped off sooner rather than later, because it's impossible to explain to a new player that "Xaku's void" and "All other references to the void" are somehow completely different with a straight face.

[DaeCatt]

So after mastering Xaku and playing with them a bit more as I'm especially fond of their aesthetic, I've had the following thoughts about their abilities:
Xata's Whisper. I can't comment on whether this is balanced or not, but it feels fine to me. I'm however not a fan of the infested effect that covers Xaku when this effect is active. I assume there's a lore reason why infested growths provide void damage, but it feels kinda counteractive to the aesthetic that makes Xaku look so interesting. I think it would look better if a visual effect was applied to all weapons (ie. both equipped and holstered weapons). Perhaps it could apply the same visual effect that Grasp of Lohk uses?
Grasp of Lohk. For an ability that's fairly difficult to cast effectively the base duration feels kinda low, but this situation should be much better with the buffs coming to The Vast Untime. It's easily my favorite Xaku ability even despite that. Ideally I would love to be able to recast this ability while it's still active, stealing new weapons and throwing away the oldest weapons if there's too many new ones.
The Lost (Accuse / Gaze / Deny). This ability deserves a much better description, as the effects aren't even that obvious on your first couple casts. I'm also not a fan on tap to switch, hold to cast. I'd much prefer to tap to cast and hold to switch.
The Vast Untime. The ability itself is fine, especially with the upcoming buffs. My biggest issue is that it (literally) throws away Xaku's aesthetic. While the skeletal form is cool, I kinda wish it was just part of the casting animation for this ability. The novelty of running around as a skeleton quickly wears off, especially as Xaku looks so much cooler in their whole form.

[Mu_Gera]

so grasp of lohk is gonna boost deny's damage in the rebalance, but wouldn't it be easier to give deny level scaling? grasp of lohk already has it and it's working out fine.

also the firing range on grasp of lohk could really use an increase, the disarm range is fine but the base firing range is sorta self defeating for a ranged attack.

[3mptylord]

Potentially far-out idea, but could he have the unique ability to accept multiple Helminth abilities using his E? I did't follow his development and had no idea he was community-made - I only saw the teaser that he was an amalgam of multiple frames and got my hopes up that he would be modular, and in the same patch you also released a module-like system for Warframes. While I hope we do get a module frame in the future - Xaku is still a prime candidate for being infused with more than one other Warframe. 

[(PSN)crashtester17]

14 hours ago, (XB1)DarknessZeref said:

I'm gonna throw this in here...

What's the point of a Void Warframe that doesn't do Void Damage? This watered down void damage isn't lore friendly, combat friendly or fun. The rework direction is solid on the warframe's personal synergy, but not at all on addressing the shift in void. I tried using Xata's Whisper to activate the pylons in Cambion Drift to no avail. It doesn't help you strip Eidolon shields and has anyone tested if it strips Sentient immunity? 

Look we're about to walk into a WAR. It's a scary meta to think I could add Xata's whisper to Wukong and shoot off an Eidolon's shield with Kuva Drakgoon, but for me and many other players it's either that or it's not void damage. I'm hoping to see that bandaid get ripped off sooner rather than later, because it's impossible to explain to a new player that "Xaku's void" and "All other references to the void" are somehow completely different with a straight face.

First, it does strip sentient immunity. Next, a thought that would be a neat idea for void damage. Why not have a separate stat on Xaku's ability that shows damage to eidolon shields. The added void damage would be less than what the ability does against everything else. Additionally it would also be neat if there was a lore explanation as to why the eidolon shields were resistant to void damage. Maybe they were gearing up to go on an expedition to the void, maybe they were some of the first sentient designs intended to terraform and explore the void.

I understand that if we just put void damage on every weapon with the ability to crit then tenno amps would be completely irrelevant and eidolon hunting would be a breeze. The hard part for that problem would be to figure out where the sweet spot would be for Xaku's power to be better than some of the early amps but not stronger than the later amps. As long as the current "meta amps" are a better option than a xaku with a lanka there really should be no problem with letting the ability do damage to eidolon shields. It would make eidolon hunting a bit easier for new players that have a Xaku, and the veteran players would have another method of using min/max builds with Xaku's power on other warframes to take down shields. 

Another thing to consider, if Xaku's ability can be on frames like rhino with roar then this wouldn't be that bad since having a Xaku to subsume would be end game stuff. If the concern is that eidolon hunts are intended to be more challenging then for this part at least it would make sense to make the ability follow the same rules as roar, eclipse, etc (If it doesn't already). 

[TurboWonka]

1st frame after Nezha(before changes) i felt playing as a walking weapon holder, rather than  THE FRAME.
 - 1 ability: is only good versus Sentient, in other content, aka 99% it will only harm you.
 - 2 ability: is GARBAGE, No range, No Duration, No damage.
 - 3 ability: Whole set is lacking a lot. Again, too low(base) duration and poor range.
 - 4 ablity: Why bother with immunity to one type? It doesn't help considering other types will slap you anyway.
The biggest complain are casting times, with low long it's takes to cast you should be clearing rooms, instead, by the time you cast something your enemy would be dead 2 times.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

21 hours ago, cococciolo said:

 but wouldn't it be easier to give deny level scaling? grasp of lohk already has it and it's working out fine.

 

 XD

[(XBOX)DarknessZeref]

11 hours ago, (PS4)crashtester17 said:

First, it does strip sentient immunity. Next, a thought that would be a neat idea for void damage. Why not have a separate stat on Xaku's ability that shows damage to eidolon shields. The added void damage would be less than what the ability does against everything else. Additionally it would also be neat if there was a lore explanation as to why the eidolon shields were resistant to void damage. Maybe they were gearing up to go on an expedition to the void, maybe they were some of the first sentient designs intended to terraform and explore the void.

I understand that if we just put void damage on every weapon with the ability to crit then tenno amps would be completely irrelevant and eidolon hunting would be a breeze. The hard part for that problem would be to figure out where the sweet spot would be for Xaku's power to be better than some of the early amps but not stronger than the later amps. As long as the current "meta amps" are a better option than a xaku with a lanka there really should be no problem with letting the ability do damage to eidolon shields. It would make eidolon hunting a bit easier for new players that have a Xaku, and the veteran players would have another method of using min/max builds with Xaku's power on other warframes to take down shields. 

Another thing to consider, if Xaku's ability can be on frames like rhino with roar then this wouldn't be that bad since having a Xaku to subsume would be end game stuff. If the concern is that eidolon hunts are intended to be more challenging then for this part at least it would make sense to make the ability follow the same rules as roar, eclipse, etc (If it doesn't already). 

I would expect harnessing void power on my warframes to bypass the traditional amp system as a bit of a "growing up" process. ESPECIALLY walking into the Duviri Paradox. I mean even conceptually my amp doesn't have the stats of any gun, nor the ability to get buffed in the same ways. You could use an amp and still strip it like you used to, if you have Xata's Whisper your DPS could just shoot twice. It's not as if we don't need Tridolon caps to be easier, more accessible with more completion paths besides the META. I stopped capping the old way 2 years ago and am sitting at 197 Hydrocaps. I wasn't even close to maxing all my arcanes with that many until Scarlet Spear released. New players would be LUCKY to have 1 and we see that trend in the stats. This is a late game- hard to get, harder to grasp route to making that fight more doable for the entire community. Focus farming is a MAJOR roadblock to Eidolon capping that most don't have time for. I'd definitely advocate on behalf of a fuller void mastery through Xaku.  

[doommoose22]

could have void damage proc a random element after hitting a stack of 5-10. would at least make xaku's 1 less detrimental

[(PSN)crashtester17]

So what if void status enabled the ability to proc status effects on sentients? This would fit the lore saying that sentients can't be in the void. It could also be made to where the void proc doubles the duration of all status effects. Each void proc after the first adds another stack of every status effect currently active on the enemy. For example If you proc corrosive then void, the corrosive proc will have it's normal duration. Then you proc void again, you'll be at 2 stacks of void and 2 stacks of corrosive. The corrosive proc after the void would have double duration. Once you hit 10 stacks of void procs all current status effect stacks automatically jump to 10. Any additional proc while void is at 10 will add 10 fresh status effects of all types that are currently active. So if you're at 10 void, 8 corrosive, and you proc fire you would have 10 void, 10 corrosive, and 10 fire. Void status effects would not affect the duration or rate of other void procs. 

[Tamurlane_Aloia]

These changes are in response to and considered an addition/alteration to the changes in the workshop as of this date: September 12, 2020.

Xaku could use some flat, non-moddable, damage reduction on all damage sources(not just explosive) when Untime is active, like 50-60% ish. This will cause that 25% of unmitigated enemy damage to be less frustrating and reduce the needless complexity of having damage reduction only for explosive damage. Even with the misleading view that the evasion equates to 75% DR by itself, an extra 50% DR only results in 87.5% DR which is already less than what other frames can get on a single non-ultimate ability(gara, ember, etc.). This DR would be more of a safety net that players would still need to build some base bulk around to properly tank(I'm thinking a Primed Vigor and/or a full Umbral build personally).

I would also like to point out that the defensive/utility benefits of Untime, specifically the dodge chance and movement speed, have an easy parallel with Zephyr's Turbulence which gives both of these capabilities(with her augment in regards to the movement speed) except in full dodge chance for Zephyr and team-wide movement speed buff and the ability isn't even her ultimate. Keep in mind that Zephyr is a seriously underwhelming frame currently, outside of her one niche of being the frame that can navigate sorta quickly on open worlds for players who do not have archwings or fleshed out operator trees or k-drives(which implies she would be a super early-player oriented frame but she's not even that easy to access being locked behind clans and void materials, but that is a conversation for a different thread.).

TLDR: Playing with chance is not fun in a game where enemy damage scales to one-shot levels at an alarming pace, and the survivability provided by Untime compares quite unfavorably with that of other warframe abilities. Otherwise, I think I would just continue to pay attention to community feedback regarding their damage and other ability numbers, usability, and fun-factor; we are here to have fun after all :)

[(PSN)adriangc007]

weapons stolen with the second ability should have effects depending on the type of weapon you steal. for example, a gorgon will have a higher rate of fire. Now it does not matter which weapons you steal, it is only aesthetic

[(PSN)SlyFox5679]

5 hours ago, (PS4)adriangc007 said:

weapons stolen with the second ability should have effects depending on the type of weapon you steal. for example, a gorgon will have a higher rate of fire. Now it does not matter which weapons you steal, it is only aesthetic

the fire rate of all guns stolen is too slow and damage is non existent.

[ROSING]

Feedback after playtesting. I feel like Xaku is a few steps away from being awesome but that does not mean that they are good now. I have read the upcoming changes for next week, but I have a few other things I'd like to pitch in, mainly around the void status effect and the cost effectiveness of their 3.

Passive: it is hard to appreciate this passive or tell if it's really working. Not to say that it isn't effective, I just don't have a great way of telling if it is or not. I dunno if there's a way to make us at least see that the passive is working, even like a sound queue similar to baruuk's 1.

1st ability: I'm sure others have already said this but yeah just change Void's status effect to be the same as scourge's status effect to redirect damage to the head. Shorten the radius of the status sphere around the head if you must, but the technology is out there and otherwise I feel like the potential DPS of your warframe is lessened if your bullets are all going to the center of the mass; it also has really poor synergy with weapons like the knell and the dual toxocyst and pretty much any crit weapon. Changing it to the scourge effect will massively increase Xaku's damage capability while also rewarding skilled play, albeit slightly easier skilled play than usual, and also would make operator amps much more useful too. I can see the argument that with all the other abilities synergizing with this ability that may be too much damage, but with all of the costs and ability management you need to get that running and with frames liek mesa and saryn out there, I don't really think that's an issue, more of a great incentive to really maximize their kit.

2nd ability: Please increase range, it feels super inconsistent with how many weapons I can pull in a given group of enemies, or at least have more of a visual indicator like a cone so I can see who I'm really targeting. Will see how the reduction in cast time will play out, because yeah, that is super needed. Thanks for adding that to the list, as well as adding the deny synergy. Overall the weapon damage is definitely not nothing and added in with the fact that it disarms enemies, should be a solid ability with the cast time buff, awesome.

3rd ability (here we go): In general, please, please, please, please reduce the energy cost to 50. It feels really bad when you respawn after dying and not having enough energy to get Xaku's bread and butter abilities working, and it feels even worse when you need multiple casts to lock down different areas and are way too energy poor. Onto the individual abilities:

Accuse: Actually in a pretty good spot, it's a pretty underrated ability. No huge complaints about it, though I wouldn't mind at all if the max number of enemies corrupted within the radius is increased, especially if you insist on keeping energy cost at 75. Great job on this one.

Gaze: I would actually suggest making gazed enemies status immune. It's not great when you rad proc the gazed target and enemies stop to shoot at them just a foot outside the ability radius. Also, not sure if this is a bug but enemies with both shields and armor like oxium ospreys seem to only have their shields stripped but not their armor: health pools remain yellow and they still seem fairly tanky. Apart from this, similar to accuse, if you are not reducing the cost per cast to 50 then please increase the radius. I know I could make the radius acceptably bigger if I put 6 forma in but I know I can be more combat effective with half the Warframe roster with half that number of forma put in. In the absence of that, reducing the cost to 50 would make it much easier to lock down multiple areas. I don't mind the radius as is if the ability is cheap enough to spread around 2 or 3 areas.

Deny: I like the synergy being added in with grasp of lohk and the cast time buff is fantastic, but I would like the radius of the laser increased as well. The thickness of the laser overall feels befitting of an ability that costs 25 energy, but if I am spending 75 or even 50 energy to shoot this beam instead of corrupting or armor stripping half of a room then I'd like to at least hit enough targets to make up for that. Otherwise I am spending that much energy to only dish out damage on one or two, maaaybe three targets, and at current energy cost that is very cost inefficient.

The Vast Untime: No extra feedback at present, excited to see how the changes slated for the ultimate will affect them.

Just for a TL:DR; Biggest change I'd beg for out of all of this is to change the void passive to be scourge's status effect on easier headshots, and also to lower the cost of the Lost to 50 energy. Of tertiary importance is to increase the width of deny's laser, and then everything else is a lower priority but would really help them shine. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thank you DE for continuing to improve this warframe and the game.

 

edit: I keep forgetting to use the gender neutral pronouns, my bad

[(PSN)ThanatosSloth]

I think alot of people have mentioned their other abilities...but i think that void damage should be like revenants lasers...so make it to where its adaptive damage, then the all the abilities can at least do decent damage to most of the high end stuff and then the duration and range  if boosted minorly would make this frame wreck....also...passive and ultimate needs to be damage reduction, not evasion...unless you make the evasion moddable, to 100% using ultimate, but as it stands, xaku is wet paper past level 60 enemies

[Garland777]

I think the Vast Untime can change a little, keep the initial void damage explosion but instead have a void damage vulnerability field stay around Xaku for the duration of the ability.

[shootaman777]

Please, please, please, and I cannot stress this enough, PLEASE - make a toggle OFF option for Xaku's custom roll animation.

I roll during almost 90% of my maneuvers in Warframe. And, unless I look with a top-down view at Xaku when rolling, I get a faceful of its armour that looks as if it's headed straight for my face, about to pop out of the screen. It's obnoxious and disconcerting, ensuring that I will never use Xaku after bringing it to max rank.

Please give a way to get rid of this obnoxious animation. I would like to use this Warframe; to test its limits, to mess around with various builds for its various abilities. Until this happens, I will never use it after acquiring its 6k mastery.

[Mephane]

On 2020-09-11 at 4:37 PM, DaeCatt said:

Xata's Whisper. I can't comment on whether this is balanced or not, but it feels fine to me. I'm however not a fan of the infested effect that covers Xaku when this effect is active. I assume there's a lore reason why infested growths provide void damage, but it feels kinda counteractive to the aesthetic that makes Xaku look so interesting. I think it would look better if a visual effect was applied to all weapons (ie. both equipped and holstered weapons). Perhaps it could apply the same visual effect that Grasp of Lohk uses?

Not a fan of the effect, either, and would prefer an on/off toggle in the Arsenal for that. Their look and style is all about ethereal void energy, not organic gunk.

[Cobalt313]

Guns stolen by Grasp of Lohk need a range and speed buff; for what is supposed to be ranged support I feel like these guns' offensive range and attack speed fails to compete with or even supplement my melee.

[Mu_Gera]

there needs to be more consistency with void damage in xakus kit, each damage ability should properly proc the void status effect or reset sentient adaptation. the void status effect itself also has a weird cool down between each proc which I'm not sure is present in the other damage types.

[quxier]

 

[EchoesOfRain]

 

[UUDDLRLRBA_START]

I put Xata's Whisper on Mesa's Regulators.

The results of the bloodbath in the Murex were LOL.

Don't change it too much (esp. the Sentient Damage Adaptation Nullification/Reset).

[RS219]

ON BASE STATS

I'm really not sure why Xaku's had the gimmick of being given prime numbers for the base stats, but 97/89/137 health/shields/armor looks really haphazard in comparison to all the other warframes' standardized EHP values.

I get that Xaku's not the squishiest warframe by far (that goes to the Lokis) but can base health and shields be buffed up a little past 100? If to keep up with the prime numbers schtick, there's still seven prime numbers until 137 (101 103 107 109 113 127 and 131).

ON ABILITIES (factoring in recent announced buffs)

1: While the buff to "True neutral" is nice, I think Xata's Whisper is still a bit of an oddity that it's a "yes, but actually no" meme in being picky with what sentient enemy it affects. Does armor still absorb void damage? I think the "true neutral" angle would be fully completed if void damage also bypasses damage reduction from armor (fossilized, ferrite, alloy). Also, the status effect needs something else other than knockoff bullet attractor.

2: Mostly pleased with the buffs to Grasp of Lohk. My only wish is that re-grasping adds to the wall of guns (up to a maximum capacity), not replacing all of the current wall.

3: Naming quibble: I think Gaze should be the laser beam attack, while Deny should be the defense-stripping attack. Thematically, this makes more sense when cycling in the heat of battle. The buffs to Gaze look decent, but other than that I've got nothing much to say here since the other two abilities are still being looked over.

4: The Vast Untime: The time-stopping aspect and other buffs is great. My only wish is that the exploded-off body parts would float about the Warframe, mirroring Gara's Splinter Storm while dealing impact procs towards enemies who get too close to Xaku, and maybe acting as mobile barriers that block any gunfire in their way. It would also be nice if the body parts all fly back into place all over Xaku, instead of just re-forming when the ability expires.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

14 hours ago, UUDDLRLRBA_START said:

 

Don't change it too much (esp. the Sentient Damage Adaptation Nullification/Reset).

Well that’s just the default effect of Void damage.