Heart of Deimos: Xaku Feedback Megathread

[MasterBurik]

1 hour ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

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

When it comes to Void damage from Xata's Whisper, those effects are only applied if the Void status procs. So these "traits" appear to be mechanically separate from damage and status procs. Whether this is a bug or not is still up to DE, but I'd wager that it was probably intentional.

And being able to damage Eidolon shields was supposedly a "default effect" of Void damage.

[Aarohnn_Landao]

Xaku's "Void" damage isn't even void damage, It's like that discount alternative you find at a dollar store:

Xaku's Whisper:
Open Hidden veil proxima doors - No
Resets Sentients - Only on proc
Damage Eidolon Shields - No
Damge Kuva clouds - No
Isolation Vault Puzzle - Yes

Operator Amp:
Open Hidden veil doors - Yes
Resets Sentients - On hit edit*
Damage Eidolon shields - Yes
Damage Kuva clouds - Yes
Isolation Vault Puzzle - Yes

As far as void damage goes your operator be like "Step aside Xaku, I'll do this my damn self! Friggin' Novice."
And that honestly doesn't make sense. This should be straight forward. It either is void damage or it isn't.
You can't be saying things like "The eidolon requires void damage to break through it's shields, but it's immune to void damage!". That's literally the ravings of mad men.

[MasterBurik]

45 minutes ago, Aarohnn_Landao said:

Operator Amp:
Resets Sentients - Only on proc

Operator Amps reset Sentients "on hit". No proc necessary.

[Aarohnn_Landao]

13 minutes ago, MasterBurik said:

Operator Amps reset Sentients "on hit". No proc necessary.

Not from my test in the simulacrum today. But feel free to test it again and get back to me.
Edit: If someone finds differently, I'll amend my post!

[MasterBurik]

6 minutes ago, Aarohnn_Landao said:

Not from my test in the simulacrum today. But feel free to test it again and get back to me.

 

You can also Void Blast it away:

Spoiler

And Void Dashing through them works as well, but is a PITA to get on video without a second person.

[Aarohnn_Landao]

17 minutes ago, MasterBurik said:

 

You can also Void Blast it away:

  Reveal hidden contents

And Void Dashing through them works as well, but is a PITA to get on video without a second person.

Noted, thanks. (Amended post) Void dash I know works. but I'm not counting that as "Void damage" because if you did you'd then have to add Kuva guardians to the list of things you test and that's listed:

Xaku: No
Amp: No
Void Dash: Yes

Which I considered to be unneeded data for the point of "Void" damage for weapons.

Though this does make an interesting point for needing to take a look at void as a whole, It's so sketchy as to what works on what when it's supposed to all be one thing. I just want to try to keep on topic with Xaku's thread and the void the frame carries.

[Azrra]

Hi! After some testing with Xaku and putting 4 forma on them, I came up with some ideas for changes that might benefit their gameplay!
So, i'll separate them from abilities.
Xata’s Whisper
I think that one of the main problems with xaku are the low numbers and how disconnected their kit feels, other frames like Gara feel like their kit is a whole combo of multiple abilities that need the others to work, so, the things that I would change for Xata's whisper is mainly making other damaging abilities (Grasp of Lohk, Deny and The Vast Untime) should gain an extra of damage as void damage, I know this might be meant as a weapon buff, so maybe it would be good if at least Grasp of Lohk gains it (It would make sense because they would be buffing also the weapons that they stole).
Other changes that I thing could help this ability in particular is bumping the 26% damage buff to 30% to be on pair with Rhino's Roar (When subsumed) because, otherwise it feels like a better and more fitting ability for their kit.
Also I heard that Void damage it's already getting its damaged become neutral to everything, but I think that void's problem is still its bad status effect, the bullet attractor more times than helping ends either getting some shots that are supposed to be a headshot as body shots, blocking you from hitting other enemies that are near the target of the bullet attractor or wasting your punch through (because projectiles can only hit an enemy once).
So I think that the main way of fixing this might be adding another effect to the status, I thought about maybe either making every hit to the target a headshot or letting your punchthrough hit multiple times the same enemy (it would be a great synergy with a lot of weapons).

Grasp of Lohk
This ability might be the most hurt of all because of its problems.
I think that the main problem with this ability is the range of disarm and the guns shooting, I feel like if it is going to cap the quantity of weapons that it takes, it should at least have a lot of disarm range because this ability isn't a CC ability ( or at least i feel like it isn't), its their main DPS so I think that you really need access to your maximum amount of guns all the time, so, for example, giving it 50 meters range at base for disarm might sound crazy on paper, but on gameplay it's really useful, with base stats you would be stealing a maximum of 6 guns which is not a lot. it wouldn't be more of a balance change than a quality of life change, because the main problem is that this is Xaku's MAIN source of DPS in abilities and letting them have access at any time to the maximum amount of guns they can steal (giving the case that there are enemies at least at 50M around you) would really benefit them. for the shooting range, I believe it's the same as the disarm one, but for this 50 its excessive, so maybe doubling it at base might be enough.
I've heard that it's already planned a synergy with Deny where when Xaku shoots their laser it will scale with the quantity of guns they have with them, but I think that there are 2 interactions already in the game with both Accuse and Gaze that are really problematic, i think that their guns should shoot Accuse's targets, because at least for me, Accuse is more of a CC that helps Xaku to no get killed that easily, and the guns from their 2 not shooting enemies affected by it it's a big problem, it basically won't let the DPS ability do it job, the way to fix this I think should be giving priority to targets not affected by accuse, and then when there aren't targets anymore, ti will target the ones affected by it.
And the problem with Gaze is that the guns shouldn't shoot the Gaze target, its lost DPS that its out of your hand, you mainly want to combo Gaze with Grasp of Lohk so you kill the enemies when they have no resistances and that makes the guns shoot the Gaze target a lot more times that is should, it might help giving it also low priority so the guns will only shoot it when there aren't more enemies around you.
Also I think that the damage might need a buff, maybe in the scaling, but if you let Xaku buff their 2 with their 1, it might not be necessary.
this ability has the potential to be really good and I think that with the changes already announced plus this ones, it might be perfect for them.

The Lost
Grasp of Lohk might be the ability that's most hurts by its problems, but The Lost is the one that hurts Xaku overall the most.
When you build Xaku, you are building them around this ability, because is the one (Mainly Gaze) that makes Grasp of Lohk be useful at content higher than lvl 20.
The thing is that you want to build Xaku for all the stats really high, because the duration of their 2 and 3 its really low, the range its really low, and on top of everything, to make Xaku work you need 200% strength, you need the 100% armor strip or otherwise their 2 won't deal damage to higher level enemies, even at level 30 it suffers with heavy armored targets, and at higher levels, it can't even kill a low armored enemy without wasting all its duration on only one target.
So, I think that the main change that Xaku needs its bumping the 50% defenses reduction to a 75%, otherwise their build is really restrictive and you can't invest almost anything on duration and range, you'll need other 2 range mods (without counting Overextend, which would ruin your 200% strength) to get a decent area, which will only left you with 4 slots to cover for duration, efficiency (and other energy management mods like flow) and survivability (the way to achieve that is using Transient fortitude, Umbral Intensify, Power Drift, Stretch and Augur Reach). bumping it to a 75% would only need you to equip a umbral intensify, this would be an almost mandatory mod because Xaku needs that 100% defenses reduction to function at higher levels.
Also bumping the range and duration of The Lost abilities would be much appreciated, but I think that the 200% strength requirement might be the main problem.
but I also think that this ability is the one with most potential for synergies, so, this is more like an extra, these are the changes that I propose:
letting you cast two abilities in the same target will apply additional effects:
Combo one: If you cast Gaze in a target already affected by Accuse, it will make the Gaze target move and follow you.
Combo two: if you cast Deny on a Gaze target, it will lift into the air all targets inside of the range of Gaze
Combo Three: if you cast Deny on a Accuse target, it will make a second Accuse wave where new enemies will be able to be affected up to the cap and the ones already affected will have the duration refreshed (if the actual amount of enemies is lower than the cap).
Also a I think that because of the same reason that Grasp of Lohk should damage Accuse targets, you should be hable to do it too, as far as I tested, the only ways to damage them is with AOE gun damage or melee attacks.

The Vast Untime
So, the main problem was the drain but I heard from rebecca that it's getting removed, but the other problem is that the 75% dodge chance it's a really bad survivability tool. 
I think that it should be damage resistance like it was in the Tennocon, but its not fitting with the "losing the armor" thing and I understand that well and have a fix for it. For context, the problem is that having dodge chance makes surviving a game of rusian roulete, at higher levels (from level 40) it becomes a 25% chance to die instead, I think that letting this ability scale with strength up to something that 90% chance would still be a "small chance to die" ability, even at 99%, that 1% probability will really be bad, and you can't use other survivability mods to fix it, because more HP or Shields won't help, it might help you take additional hits, so that 25% chance of dying might take 2 or 3 hits to kill you, but the higher the level goes, it wouldn't matter (like Arbitrations or Steel Path) and Adaptation is useless with them because 25% chance of getting hit won't let you charge the damage reductions.
So the way to fix this, at least the only way that I can think of, is giving Xaku a shields delay buffs while their 4 is being used and letting it scale up to 90%, so, you'll have a 10% chance of getting hit, which won't kill you because of shield gating, and will help you reload the shields for the next hit, so you can constantly use that shield gating to save you from these hits, I think of that something like playing The Lost in The Binding of Isaac with Holy Mantle, in that game, the character of The Lost has only one hit to survive, but you can unlock for him a item that will stop a hit, and it recharges each room, so, if you play safe you can still tank a hit without dying, in this case, that hit would be a 10% chance of getting hit (thanks to the 90% dodge chance).
Also I have a Augment Idea for this ability, but its something overpowered so I just leave it as a small suggestion.
The Squad Untime:
When Xaku loses their armor, 3 specters are created from both energy and their respective armor pieces around them resembling the original warframes that were used to make Xaku.
Each one will use one weapon from Xaku (Primary, Secondary and Melee) but Xaku will be unarmed for the duration and only able to cast abilities.
In the case that Xaku doesn't have a weapon of some type equipped, the specter won't spawn at all.
 

This has been my Xaku feedback after testing them, I know it's a long read but is what I felt that they needed while i was playing with them and trying different builds.
Thanks for the read!

[PsiWarp]

Now we're expecting round 1 to drop as soon as tomorrow or Friday, which are all welcome changes that will buff Xaku to have a good foundation for round 2. With those changes in mind from the workshop, what else does Xaku really need in their kit?

Modding for Xaku as I've come to determine the order of priority is: Durability, Range, Strength, Efficiency, and Duration. This won't change much after round 1, since Dodge Chance with AOE Damage Reduction isn't a reliable source of damage mitigation largely due to its chance-based nature, which prompts players to mod for durability (Vitality, Redirection, Quick Thinking, Rolling Guard, Adaptation, etc) to keep Xaku aloft in high level missions.

Range is still a big stat to go for due to the small range values on several key abilities (Grasp of Lohk, Gaze, Accuse), now even more so due to the synergy for Deny.

Strength is the middle man affecting the overall damage performance of Xata's Whisper and Grasp of Lohk, as well as the vital Gaze defense reduction, with an optional boost to Accuse's max target cap. The Vast Untime's damage and slow are there but they don't create as much of a difference even when focusing on Ability Strength; this is largely due to line of sight requirement and prematurely ending the slow when Xaku reforms, a weaker ultimate ability in comparison to Nova's Molecular Prime.

Efficiency should see better times with The Vast Untime's duration freezing. The 75 energy cost for The Lost however, should see buffs to elevate the individual sub-abilities' effects to make it worth the cost, or be reduced to 50 energy cost to enable more frequent casts due to Xaku's need to be mobile and reliance on subduing their enemies before Xaku is overwhelmed by enemy attacks (similar to Vauban).

Duration is a much more optional stat now that The Vast Untime effectively extends all other abilities by 25-75 seconds, more with proper ability juggling.

So what Xaku needs, IMO:

1. Base stat increase + Passive reliability.
   • 89 shields -> 109 shields. Shields have natural damage reduction, so the more points the better, and Xaku's reliance on shield gating is apparent given their low base stats.
   • 25%/75% chance to negate an instance of weapon damage + 25%/75% damage reduction against area of effect damage. Raise this to 50%/75% dodge chance, 50%/75% AOE DR, 90% dodge chance + damage reduction on rolls. Reward active evasion with a high dodge probability.
2. Range increase to Grasp of Lohk's firing range, The Lost: Accuse's corruption radius, and Gaze's reduction aura radius to free up Range mods from a necessity to optional.
3. Damage increase or Xata's Whisper damage bonus to affect Grasp of Lohk's weapons. Optionally, a chance to proc Void status effect on these stolen weapons so that it isn't just pure damage and aligns with other elemental Warframes' powers that do proc their respective elements.
4. The Lost: Accuse is the only ability in Xaku's kit that cannot be recast while it is the one that arguably can benefit the most from it. Round 2 hopefully sees recastable Accuse as one of the core changes to come. Also, since The Vast Untime now freezes duration on even Accuse, I think it is prudent to exempt the corrupted enemies from mission progression similar to Gaze's targets and Revenant's Thralls, lest we unintentionally continue to stall defense waves and other missions from proceeding.
5. The Vast Untime, if kept as line of sight, should:
   • Allow the Void damage vulnerability and slow to stay on affected enemies for the entire duration, even if Xaku prematurely reforms.
     • The visual effect on affected enemies made to be more apparent. You can't tell really from a glance without bright energy colors and looking at how fast those enemies move, unlike Molecular Prime that makes it super clear which enemies are primed.
   • Optionally, give the damage a chance to proc Void status effect.
   • On cast, either grant a few seconds of invulnerability, or recharge Xaku's shields to full. Either of these would improve reactive survivability for Xaku at the push of a button, rather than just relying on the passive to proc.
6. Void status effect colors affected by Xaku's energy colors. The yellow color and translucency of the Void bubble makes it difficult to see when it is active on an enemy, which wastes the few seconds I have to actually take advantage of the bubble.

Thanks for your hard work. Looking forward to seeing Xaku blossom.

[PsiWarp]

double-posted.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, PsiWarp said:

• •  
• Void status effect colors affected by Xaku's energy colors. The yellow color and translucency of the Void bubble makes it difficult to see when it is active on an enemy, which wastes the few seconds I have to actually take advantage of the bubble.

This! Yes.

1 hour ago, PsiWarp said:

25%/75% chance to negate an instance of weapon damage + 25%/75% damage reduction against area of effect damage. Raise this to 50%/75% dodge chance, 50%/75% AOE DR, 90% dodge chance + damage reduction on rolls. Reward active evasion with a high dodge probability.

90%, imho, is still not good. Afair 95% was were it were "nice".

What if they had 50-100% damage reduction. 50%, by default, when you just stand or run. 100% when you roll. Like the Wisp's passive, you get some small time being at 100% after you finish your roll. So let's say you roll, after 1s your damage reduction starts to decay from 100% to 50% by, let's say, 10%.
It the values (50% & 100%) can be changed to fit for usage of Vast untime (their 4th). For example without 4th you have 25% while not rolling and 75% while rolling. Vast untime makes those 2 values into 50% & 100%. 
This way you have full control over it.

 

[Monolake]

Post patch feedback:

To release Gaze target (the armor strip part of 3)  still costs same energy as casting it  correction: it requires to have energy, it doesn't take energy from you - its likely a bug,  this could put mission progress on hold, releasing should cost no energy/not require you to have energy.

Deny should just get removed - it only makes the skill selection awkward. Who needs pitiful damage slow-cast single target/line stun for 75 energy? 

Make Gaze on tap, Accuse on hold.  Casting anim/time is too slow and having to cycle 3 skills is just frustrating. Putting snappy quick AoE CC like Radial Blind or Sunder suddenly makes Xaku feel like a good frame that you can comfortably run vs high-level enemies where quick reaction matters.

Armor/shield strip is good (if only relevant at high level). 2nd skill is fine for disarm and does actually decent damage (vs non-armor) but you'd still kill quicker with your own weapons.

 

4 is good for crate-breaking. Why does it have line of sight-only limitation on mobs?  You dont want it to be spammed nuke? then make it just a debuff with only so much damage to still break crates

And finally: its a bad inconsistency to name it 'void' damage when it doesn't function like void damage on any Eidolons - this causes confusion, broken expectations and disappointment. You need to rename it to something else, or players feel cheated 😕

Since its now a merit of feedback:  Ive put 3 formas and actively played Xaku for several days in actual mission gameplay, not just leeching in ESO to rank up.

 

[Sotales]

Not sure if it's been stated yet, but the sound fx  for the Grasp of Lohk is headache inducing for me. Sounds like way too much static or something.

[ThatRoomba]

I must say I love the change on his number 4.

 

Now just adjust 2 and Deny (or whatever the laser beam on 3 is) to have meaningful damage and/or interactions and we got ourselves a very cool kit.

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

well i dunno about those void Changes but im trying with a lex prime vs infested ancient healers 165 with no elements just ips and hornet strike, barrel diff, lethal torrent, primed pistol g and primed target cracker  :

Yellow Crits = 2178 without Xatas Whisper

with Xatas Whisper active at 53% buff ( 205 strenght ) Yellow Crits still deal = 2178

No offense but to me you didn't buff jack S#&$ because i ran the same tests with Shock Troper, Nourish, Mesa's 2nd and with the buffs active the shots always dealt higher dmg with or without crits.

In details : with mesa at 204 strenght and 51% shooting gallery damage buff Yellow Crits dealt : 2525 - ( 2178 without buff )

Fun Stuff

[MasterBurik]

5 minutes ago, arm4geddon-117 said:

well i dunno about those void Changes but im trying with a lex prime vs infested ancient healers 165 with no elements just ips :

Crits = 2178 without Xatas Whisper

with Xatas Whisper active at 53% buff ( 205 strenght ) Crits still deal = 2178

No offense but to me you didn't buff jack S#&$ because i ran the same tests with Shock Troper, Nourish, Mesa's 2nd and with the buffs active the shots always dealt higher dmg with or without crits.

Fun Stuff

Xata's Whisper is like Toxic Lash, in that it is a separate damage instance. You'll see extra numbers pop up, rather than have the value of normal hits increase.

[Monolake]

24 minutes ago, arm4geddon-117 said:

well i dunno about those void Changes but im trying with a lex prime vs infested ancient healers 165 with no elements just ips and hornet strike, barrel diff, lethal torrent, primed pistol g and primed target cracker  :

Yellow Crits = 2178 without Xatas Whisper

with Xatas Whisper active at 53% buff ( 205 strenght ) Yellow Crits still deal = 2178

No offense but to me you didn't buff jack S#&$ because i ran the same tests with Shock Troper, Nourish, Mesa's 2nd and with the buffs active the shots always dealt higher dmg with or without crits.

In details : with mesa at 204 strenght and 51% shooting gallery damage buff Yellow Crits dealt : 2525 - ( 2178 without buff )

Fun Stuff

it adds *separate* instance of damage, look closer and you'll see another number: 26 is gun damage and 11 is Xaku buff (maxed UI scale to make the numbers bigger)

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

Alright if that's the case, imma sleep better tonight , thanks for explaining guys

[ChipZ4562]

Wasn't sure If I needed to post this here or in another thread. But the vast untime duration timer freezing has a slight bug when it comes to Xata's Whisper. The duration will freeze on the abilities bar on the bottom right corner, however the duration still continues in the buffs list on the top right of the screen.

So the real question being, does the buff still exist since the duration is frozen on the ability bar or does it expire while the ability icon is visually glitched?

[Vahenir]

So after some testing with todays changes i can drop a few more thoughts.

 

Xatas Whisper:

This ability still works as before and void damage is still massively reduced by armor, making it somewhat weak. The status proc is still a detriment to damage by making it harder to land headshots for yourself and anyone else in your squad.

 

Grasp of Lohk:

This one is far, far better now. The increased grab range and making it recastable made it far easier to use. Still kind of weak against high level armored enemies. It appears bugged right now however and if you run the vast untime for a long period without refreshing this the guns will remain but stop firing.

 

The lost: 

Accuse: No major changes here, it works and with the 4th making it last longer its better. Though affected enemies seem not to be hit by abilities etc coming from allies and grabbed guns.

Gaze: Still works the same, could use more range or preferably no longer need an enemy to target for it to actually work. There are quite a few scenarios where there arent many enemies around. Like in a necramech fight for instance. So having it drop a rift thingy on the ground when you aren't aiming at an enemy would be nice in those cases.

Deny: Still bad. Nowhere near as horrid as it was at least, but when I tested it on deimos it had trouble killing the armored enemies at lv30-40 with some 10 guns up. So basically from being so bad it couldn't kill anything, it can now kill unarmored enemies in one shot. It still needs way more damage, scaling or AoE. Its range could also be extended a lot to allow it to be used as a proper snipe ability.

 

The vast untime: 

Actually worth using now. Its now extremely good and really helps with energy drain and the low duration of the other abilities. The damage resistance to AoE is a nice plus too. It should probably reduce resistance to void damage to enemies within its radius rather than have it be a one time thing at activation but at this point this ability is getting kind of overloaded. Maybe put the void damage resistance debuff on grasp of lohk instead? Enemies shot by the guns would simply have the debuff applied and renewed from that.

 

So overall the improvements are quite nice so far but void damage is still not all that good since its reduced so heavily by armor and its status proc works against you and your team. Gaze is clunky as all hell to use due to its slow cast and requiring an enemy to work along with its limited range. By the time you manage to set it up the enemies are usually either dead or have simply moved away from the enemy you managed to target, making it ground targetable would help a lot.

[MasterBurik]

15 minutes ago, ChipZ4562 said:

Wasn't sure If I needed to post this here or in another thread. But the vast untime duration timer freezing has a slight bug when it comes to Xata's Whisper. The duration will freeze on the abilities bar on the bottom right corner, however the duration still continues in the buffs list on the top right of the screen.

So the real question being, does the buff still exist since the duration is frozen on the ability bar or does it expire while the ability icon is visually glitched?

Having tested for this, Xata's Whisper remains active after the top right corner "buff" icon disappears. It remains active until the timer on Xata's ability icon (bottom right corner) ends.

[Dreyazed]

Grasp of Lohk does not feel like it lives up to expectations.

Expectation: grab enemies' guns, and shoot all of them at once!

Reality: a generic turret that follows you around and shoots generic energy beams at enemies who are basically in melee range.

Even if it has to be an augment, I dearly would love to be able to fire something approximating the actual guns we steal, by pressing the fire button, towards the crosshair. Currently it just feels like a copy of Protea's turret that follows you and only shoots at point blank range.

[Magneu]

Changes feel really good, but Grasp of Lohk REALLY needs to ignore enemies bound by Gaze. Mine will get stuck on a bound enemy and just waste their entire duration on it unless I manually release it.

 

Also, Deny cast needs to be faster at base, and Accuse is a...mixed bag. Letting Grasp of Lohk guns shoot them would help a lot.

[Kelaris]

I played with Xaku before today's buffs, and for a few hours with the new buffs. 4 forma (DDVV-- polarities). I tried a few setups, but the build I primarily used has 128% duration, 75% efficiency, 265% range, 209% strength, arcane energize (R5) + arcane guardian (R5). Performed acceptably against high level (steel path) targets when doing a stationary objective, but lost a lot of power when attempting to perform mobile objectives or cover a wide area.

 

Significant gameplay issues:

• The primary target of Gaze doesn't seem to be affected by the defense debuff aura that they emit. When targets are extremely heavily armored, this is a nuisance.
• Enemies that leave the radius of Gaze regain their armor/shield, even if it was fully removed. It should probably stay removed for a time. In comparison, enemies that leave Accuse stay charmed for a while.
• The guns from Grasp of Lohk don't fire at enemies that are affected by Accuse. They probably should.
• When using a very large number of guns from Grasp of Lohk, some of the guns are at a lower elevation than the player, and don't seem to fire when they're underground. (Observed using a ramp)
• The void status effect should probably attract bullets to enemy heads rather than center-mass. It can be actively harmful to damage output in its current state.

 

Audio/Visual issues and criticism:

• When using a very large number of stolen guns through Grasp of Lohk, the voidgun firing sound seems to stutter and cut itself off. (very noticeable at 15+ guns)
• When using The Vast Untime, which makes Xaku stronger, it causes the frame to appear much weaker and frail. The rail-thin legs are my primary complaint with this form, though the entire thing could benefit from additional void tendrils to create more of a ghostly body. Possibly give it a floating animation set when in this form to reduce the focus on the legs.

 

Suggested power changes:

• Xata's Whisper - Add a small amount of energy regen on hit/kill. Xaku's mod priorities are very spread out. The new Vast Untime lets Xaku skimp a bit on duration. Changing Xata's Whisper this way would provide a bit of leniency in efficiency. Maybe extend the energy regen benefit to Grasp of Lohk when both powers are active.
• Gaze - Possibly turn this into an aura centered on the player, rather than an enemy. It's too expensive to cast as often as it's needed, when moving around a lot.
• Deny - Reduce cost substantially. It can hit reasonably hard with a huge stack of stolen guns, but for the small area it covers, it's far too costly. Alternatively, have it refund energy based on number of targets hit, like Nidus' Virulence (another line attack!).
• Vast Untime - Possibly add evasion bad luck protection. If the player "dies" while Vast Untime is active, they're powered-down into the "whole" form and made invulnerable for ~2 seconds. Possibly lock the power from reuse for a few seconds afterwards to prevent spamming for immortality.

 

Suggested control changes to reduce fumbling with The Lost:

• Deny (tap) + Xata's Whisper (hold) on the 1st power slot. (void attack and void buff)
• Gaze (tap) + Accuse (hold) on the 3rd power slot. (defense debuff aura and... brain debuff aura?)

[Adder114]

Intro - So the changes came out now and though I was hopeful this would be like Protea's buffs (far better in practice than they seem on paper) they are actually worse than I was expecting. That's not to say that this round of buffs was bad in totality, overall it's a huge improvement, but despite having my expectations low it was actually still worse than I thought. Let's go through this. 

Passive - It's good, people don't like evasion but I'm fine with it, it suits them.
Expectations: It protecc against AOE now at least somewhat?
Result: It do

Xata's Whisper - So like I said before when the buffs were announced, this still sucks. The damage is better now, that much is true, but because of the proc effect it makes it impossible to get head shots, still consistently nerfing your own damage and making you weaker than you were before. People now are at least mentioning the proc effect more which is good so hopefully next round they'll remove that effect entirely. As it stands now, this ability still makes you do less damage. Expectations: Was hopeful that damage increase could make them outdo the damage decrease you get from head shots.
Results: I was wrong, still a net loss.

Grasp of Lohk - This I am a little conflicted on to be honest. The more I think about it the more I realize how dangerous this ability could be, if you make it strong enough to kill high level enemies without armor strip then Xaku would be OP. I think the best thing you could do is buff the damage, but make the guns target only one enemy at a time, or at least have the option to switch them from random targets to the same target, that way you could have them firing away at anything or focus them on stronger enemies. Hopes for this would be that when focused on one enemy, they could shred it, when unfocused they are more for clearing trash mobs around you. This would make the ability actually useful.
Expectations: More user friendly.
Results: The ability didn't change other than being faster to use, that's good and all and I appreciate that, but the ability is still next to useless.

The Lost - 
                Gaze - Still good but I'd prefer it to not require a target and instead just place an AOE at a position. It has another "problem" but I'll                    cover that at the end of this.
                Expectations: No changes promised, no real expectations other than, again, something I will mention at the end.
                Results: N/A

                Accuse - Had no changes, no real comment. Not amazing but also not terrible no real opinion on this one other than what I always                      say; Scaling. Enemies firing at each other do basically nothing, make them scale more so they can actually kill enemies.
                Expectations: Same as above, no changes, no expectations.
                Results: See above.

                Deny - Ooph, this one hurt. So I was thinking "Ok with the damage multiplier even though the blast radius will still be tiny, it will at                      least one shot things." Sadly not even close. With 328% strength and 6 guns making it a 7x multiplier after 8 shots I'd done maybe a                    5th or a 4th of a high level enemies health. That's just pathetic, with that much strength and a 7x multiplier I should be one shotting                    these corrupted, especially when it has such a narrow AOE. This is just bad, really bad.
               Expectations: As stated above I thought for sure this was going to do monster damage but in a very small line.
               Results: Instead it still does horrible damage in a very small line. I think Ember's fireball does more damage than this. This is bad.

The Vast Untime - Ok now this was a big improvement! This I like, removing the drain and making it pause your abilities? This is really really nice and this alone makes Xaku far more viable, with the specific build and play style that everyone already must use for Xaku this would bump them from a D tier to a C tier all on it's own. 
Expectations: Not a massive energy drain and a way cool new synergy we've yet to really see
Results: I was right :D

That Thing I said I'd Mention At The End - So I'm not the first nor will I be the last to say this, but DE has even publicly acknowledged that their armor strip is really strong and combined with some of their other abilities make them a monster. (Keep in mind, only when combined with their strip do these abilities become powerful, which they should not need in order to swing the big numbers, baby.) That being said you MUST build them for 200% strength, no less. This severely limits builds for them and makes it so there's really only one way to play Xaku. That's bad, really bad. They need the Garuda treatment. She used to need 200% for guaranteed bleed chance, now she needs far less. Give them that too. As it stands now you have to put on 3 strength mods (two if one is a fully leveled Blind Rage, but then you nuke your efficiency into the ground), probably some kind of survival mod like Vitality or Steel Fiber or Adaptation, if not more than one which most people use. You are required to build Xaku a specific way or they're not doing well. Fix this please.

Final Thoughts - Xaku is still cool, still interesting, and much better off now, that doesn't make them good. They need plenty more love.

TLDR - Remove void damage proc effect, buff damage on Grasp, Buff the hell out of Deny because it seems to be the weakest damage dealing ability in the game atm, and lower the threshold for 100% armor strip. These are the essentials. I gave other ideas but these ones are the most important. 
 

[Leo7531]

There is a visual Bug on Xaku where if you spam Grasp Of Lohk as a client you will get a 2nd arsenal of guns that doesn't shoot at anything but is just there as a visual glitch.