Heart of Deimos: Xaku Feedback Megathread

(PSN)CommanderC2121 · August 28, 2020

Well, the community created warframe has landed with Heart of Deimos, and for those on Console like myself who got a 75% off coupon, and anyone else who bought them with plat (lets be honest, no one has gotten everything to build them legit yet), it seems there is a consensus that they need help, and a lot of it. Ill try to detail what Xaku does well, what they need help with, and a few possible solutions, but first for the major elephant in the room.

Void damage needs help. As far as a damage type goes, it is the weakest among the bunch. Boasting literally zero bonuses against any health type, and actually having a -50% negative against all cloned flesh (so all grineer and most corrupted), there needs to be reason to want to use this damage type. Using Xata's Whisper has actually lowered my damage in many cases, and the status proc of a miniature magnetize bubble isn't the worst proc out there, but it's nothing to write home about. Give void damage a proper positive/negative damage spread like all the other damage types, and either make the mag bubble have a small damage multiplier (like 1.5x or 2x), or give it something else. The status proc change is not as important as giving the damage type a proper spread however.

Xaku's passive is fine. No complaints here. Their first ability however, Xata's Whisper, is straight up rubbish. It gives a void damage buff, but as far as damage buffs go, it is the second weakest in the game. While buffs like Roar and Nourished strike buff damage by 50%, and the augments for elemental frame first abilities (shock, freeze, etc) give 100% bonus damage in that element type, Xata's Whisper gives a 26% damage buff. It beats out Vauban's over-charger buff by 1%. This value alone needs to be at least doubled, perhaps more. It's duration however is strong at a base of 35 seconds, and it is recastable, but until the damage type and buff percentage are improved, the ability is just not worth the small amount of energy to cast. Give it something else maybe too, because currently it's just a weak and boring ability to use.

This may be controversial, so bear with me. Grasp of Lohk is not a complete garbage fire, and instead needs a few stat increases to be a good ability. A few hours ago, I did some testing with the abilities damage scaling, its overall faction effectiveness, and a few other things Ill address later. Here is the link to an image of the excel sheet. [Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/Z3RGgXy.png?1) As you can see, when against corpus (and infested) the damage is not low. In fact, with my current build of 224% strength, I have each shot dealing about 16k damage per shot to level 145 corpus techs, which usually 2 to 4 shots them depending on osprey spawns. Furthermore, because you can have multiple guns, the dps can be decent depending on the amount of weapons grabbed. Thematically it is a cool ability and my favorite to use, as it also scales with enemy level, but it has a huge weakness as you can see with the Grineer chart. Armor destroys this ability. Fighting an enemy with 0% armor versus fighting an enemy with 3% of their armor will reduce the damage by nearly 75% or more depending on the enemy level, and after level 70 or so enemy armor starts outpacing the damage gained from the weapons scaling with enemy level, especially since Xata's whisper doesnt even buff the ability, although you use guns for the whole thing. With a low base range of 8 meters, an ok duration of 12 seconds, and a cap on enemy taken that scales with range, this ability forces you to highly level range or else. Furthermore, the range at which the guns will shoot enemies also depends on the range at which you grab the weapons, so even with a 280% range build, the max distance I can stand and hit an enemy is 22 meters. Protea's turrets, blaze artillery, have a base range of 30 meters!! Grasp of Lohk needs either its gun shooting range to have its own values, or just up the base range of the grab and weapon shoot entirely. Its grab amount is already capped, so you arent suddenly letting people disarm every enemy in a 40 meters radius, and anyway, loki already can do that. It's not a new thing for warframe to AoE disarm like this, so why does Xaku get such power rating for this? Allowing the damage to scale with damage and firerate mods as well, or have a chance to crit (impossible for these guns to crit currently) would be a good improvement. Also, if you could increase the cast time by a bit, and give the AoE a visible radius like Nekros has with desecrate, that would be two amazingly appreciated QoL buffs.

The Lost, Accuse. So, I see revenent was brought back again. Accuse is a subpar Chaos/enthrall in its current state, and I'm not sure that will change. It has one effect, which is turning enemies into allies, and while this does beat a radiation proc since they wont turn on you at all until the duration ends, it doesnt do much else. It has an ok range of 11 meters, a good duration of 16 seconds, but it has a cap on enemies affected. Why does Xaku have so many caps! The issue with this ability above all else is that it does nothing else besides turn enemies into allies. While enthrall has synergies with reave and causes enemies affected to leave behind a damaging pillar on death, accuse just....turns them good for a quarter minute. It feels lackluster to use and either needs synergies with other abilities or a bonus mechanic along with the enemy mind control.

The Lost, Gaze. This is Xaku's best ability by far. The capacity for a 100% defense strip in a radius unaffected by line of sight is great. It's a shame the range is a low 8 meters. If the radius was more so like 12-15 meters, this would be a top tier ability, but as it stands, along with a ridiculous cast time (why does Xaku feel forced to use natural talent), the ability just is weak. Maybe buff the base defense strip to 60%, but other then that this one is in the best spot any of Xaku's abilities could be.

The Lost, Deny. Why. Why is this an ability for Xaku. It's just the old Zenurik operator ability but in a line, which was just a repurposed Bastille! It resets sentient resistance but all void damage does, so whats the point there? Even with a base damage of 4000 void damage, this ability feels like a wet noodle, especially compared to a Grasp of Lohk cast when you get like 14 weapons stolen. Deny just needs to be redone entirely. I genuinely have no idea what could be done to make this ability, in it's current state, anything more then a waste of 75 energy.

The Vast Untime. Visually it looks cool. I enjoy running around as a spooky scary skeleton. But there are 3 major issues with this ability. Once again I direct you to see the excel sheet I have linked, [Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/Z3RGgXy.png?1) and look at the bottom section, where you see the total energy costs of this ability. Not only does it cost 100 energy, but it also has a base 4 energy per second drain while having a base duration of 25 seconds. Therefore, this ability doesn't cost 100 energy to use fully, but actually 200 energy, due to the drain. While sure, you can cancel it at any time, you should not be forced to recast the ability because it is draining your energy supply like you're actually Grendel. Straight up, decide if the ability is going to be a drain toggle or a duration cast ability. If it is a drain, reduce the initial cost to at least 50 energy, preferably 25. If you want it to be a duration cast, remove the drain! The second major issue, this ability does not give damage reduction, but damage avoidance. This avoidance is actually just your passive but increased from 25% to 75% (as stated by the ability tips section). Evasion is a very weak defensive option in warframe. Due to the amount of bullets flying at us, the ability to have 3/4 of them miss you is horrible because of enemy damage scaling, where it only takes 1 bullet to knock out your shield, and then another to finish you off. There is a reason Titania, a frame designed as an evasion stacking frame, was given DR with her thorns buff, because in the end DR will always beat evasion by a land slide. Honestly, Id love if Xaku gained bonus stats (armor/shields) based off what they stripped from enemies when using Gaze, alongside the damage evasion buff of Vast Untime, because as it is they aren't playable versus infested due to their AoE, and grineer are quite hard because of their rare but high burst AoE. The third issue, is that the slow and bonus void damage values are way too low. The ability has a base 25% slow, which is the same as a level one cold proc, and buffs void damage by an unmoddable 50%. These stats need love DE, come on. The bonus void damage also doesnt persist if you deactivate the ability, so you are forced to destroy your energy reserves for a measly 50% buff to an already weak damage type.

I want to enjoy playing Xaku, but at the moment they just seem unreasonably weak. Who play tested this and said it was fine? What was the average enemy level? Xaku has potential, I can see a good kit in this frame, but having such low base values and the reliance on the bad damage type that is void damage, makes me wonder if DE was afraid of something in the kit and kneecapped Xaku before they had a chance to get out of the gate.

Thank you for coming to my HEK talk. Feel free to offer any suggestions or disagreements you may have.

p.s. Yes this is technically a repost, but I flubbed earlier and somehow put it under the wrong title, sorry for any confusion

Velaethia · August 28, 2020

So I'm in love with this frame. But my infatuation does not blind me from flaws and giving criticism.

1 key: I would like the ability to cast it on allies. And have it automatically effect my companion as well. Maybe to a lesser degree than it effects me. It also should do 50% damage augmentation not 26% base. And 25% (unmoddable) to allies. The cast on allies effect could also be an augment idea.

2 key: The most annoying thing with this ability is being unable to dismiss or recast it until the duration ends. It's super frustrating and you get screwed over if you accidentally only hit 2. Or it bugs and only picks up 2 or 3 despite 10 enemies in front of you. (Happens A LOT on deimos). currently I am likely to replace this ability using the helmninth unless it gets fixed improved. It's basically a much crappier much more limited version of protea's 2.

3 key/s: All of them need a faster casting time. Sitting there waiting for the ability makes this impossible to use/pointless at level lower. Accuse: Mind controlled target should take more damage also you should be able to recast it before the duration ends or all creatures effected are freed. Gaze: Mostly the faster cast time cause half the things die as I cast it and it doesn't succeed. Also maybe allow 3 instances of it instead of 2. Deny: It's such a narrow lazor and I even tried it against the necramechs and it barely hurts them. If it's going to stay that narrow it needs to do A LOT more damage. Otherwise I suggest increasing the width greatly maybe turning it into a cone effect.

4 key: Why does it have a duration AND cost energy per second? One or the other, not both. At least this ability doesn't lock you out of re-use while the duration is up. Evasion also is a virtually worthless defensive ability. So I think instead it should give damage reduction. 50% base with 100 strength and capping at 90% with 190% strength. Further strength would only benefit the initial cast damage.

General: Xaku is one of if not the squishiest frames in the game right now. Their survival is 100% gimmicky and RNG and it's terrible. Especially as certain abilities and effects are impossible to manually dodge. Their health and shields are low and their armor isn't great. Their passive is 25% chance to ignore weapons damage and their 4 key gives them a 75% chance to dodge attack. It's way too random so I can fight level 100s and never get hit for 5 minutes. Or get 1 or 2 shot 3 times in a row. First off increase shields and health. I'd say 20-30% at minimum. (Armor too wouldn't hurt).

Passive: Also i'd propose a rework to their passive. Perhaps as an addition or as a replacement make it so they can't can't die unless they are already at critical health (which I believe is 2 hp). Preventing 1 shotting. Alternatively a simplistic solution is make the passive a flat 25% reduced damage from all sources. Removes the RNG component either way.

Void: Void damage is only particularly useful against sentients and eidolons and the later are now immune to Xaku's void abilities apparently which is nonsensical. Void lore wise is supposed to be a super strong force and can be corrupting and destructive even to non sentient. So a small rework to void damage for it to live up to it's lore is make it always bypass shields, armor, etc. and essentially do true damage to whatever it hits.

Some of these changes or none of them may happen. Regardless I'll keep playing Xaku no matter what because I love them to death. But I would appreciate them being less frustrating to play. Thank you.

(PSN)DoctorWho_90250 · August 28, 2020

~~Xaku is a meme frame, nothing more.~~

Velaethia · August 28, 2020

I agree with virtually all of these points. Well put. Much better than myself. Even pointing out flaws I didn't realize. My only difference on opinion in the passive as you said evasion is a pointless defensive skill.

(XBOX)Onyx Schnee · August 28, 2020

20 hours ago, Mephane said:

This is not correct: https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Damage/Void_Damage

Cloned Flesh and Fossilized receive 50% reduced damage from it, while there is no enemy type that receives bonus damage, all other damage types have a malus against some and a bonus against other enemy types, Void only has maluses.

okay, you're gonna need to tell me what "malus" means.

-AncientWarrior- · August 28, 2020

Damn I got Xatu today after so much farming :( what a dissappointment! I think this is THE most useless frame in the game currently. Damn I was hoping for so much more from a community frame..

Chaemyerelis · August 28, 2020

Not a she. Really hope Xaku doesn't take a female spot.

Velaethia · August 28, 2020

10 minutes ago, Chaemyerelis said:

Not a she. Really hope Xaku doesn't take a female spot.

As stated in their description Xaku is neither he nor she.

(PSN)CommanderC2121 · August 28, 2020

2 minutes ago, Velaethia said:

I agree with virtually all of these points. Well put. Much better than myself. Even pointing out flaws I didn't realize. My only difference on opinion in the passive as you said evasion is a pointless defensive skill.

I think the passive is fine because its a passive, and shouldn't be anything you need to rely on for survivability. The 4 on the other hand....

Lorkmir · August 28, 2020

First I'll start with the subject of Void damage and how it is frankly not good. No, it's terrible. It has only negative modifiers, one of which (cloned flesh) comprises the near totality of Grineer..so about a third of all enemies excluding Sentients. Its current status proc is also just crappy.

I would suggest taking Void further in the direction of it being a counter to the adaptation of Sentients and related entities. How to do that? First, remove Void's current two negatives, but also don't give it any positives. Then, change its status proc to "Deals X% of base Void damage as true damage."

Then for Xaku himself..

Passive. Their passive is...ok? 25% dodge chance for just a passive is fine and well, but it also doesn't feel particularly unique. Given the current implementation of The Vast Untime, I would suggest giving the passive a scaling quality in exchange for slightly reduced base percentage.

New Passive. Xaku has a 20% chance to cause incoming projectiles to phase through harmlessly, but this chance can be increased with movement speed.

Xata's Whisper. I won't dig into the quagmire of whether Xaku's void damage should affect eidolons; other than that issue, the main problems I see are that this adds a damage type that competes with your existing damage types on your weapons with regard to status procs. By making the previously suggested change to Void damage, this becomes a non-issue and this power would then work just fine without any additional changes, since extra true damage would absolutely compete versus the other statuses.

Grasp of Lohk. The range on this is far, far too short. It also suffers greatly from not being able to re-cast it in the event you got few weapons because an ally killed some of your targets before it finished activating. Currently its scaling is also incredibly weak.

Grasp of Lohk (New). Disarms up to 3/4/5/6 enemies within 5/6/7/8 meters of a target point up to 20/30/40/50 meters away. Using this ability while active will refresh the duration of current stolen weapons and add new stolen weapons up to your cap, based on power strength. Leave the damage the same, but allow it to reliably trigger Void status procs.

The Lost. I think Accuse and Gaze are salvageable, but frankly Deny is terrible and should just be scrapped. Also, the tap to cycle / hold to use is clunky as hell with the long cast times of Xaku's abilities.

The Lost (New). Scrap Deny and roll one of its current effects into the new Accuse, while leaving Gaze as is with perhaps an increased base defense reduction.

Accuse (New). Manifests a void fissure at the targeted location. Up to 5/6/7/8 enemies within 5/7/9/11 meters from the fissure are lifted into the air, becoming invulnerable and stunned for the duration. Enemies within 8/12/15/20 meters of an affected target will choose to attack the suspended foes over other targets. Any damage dealt to an affected enemy is stored and dealt immediately to the target upon the end of the ability.

Gaze. Leave as is, allowing it to affect Accused targets and vice-versa.

This new form of The Lost now also has synergy with itself and with Xaku's Grasp of Lohk. Steal a group of enemy's weapons, forcing them to move into melee to attack enemies that have been Accused, and therefore putting them in the area of Gaze!

The Vast Untime. For what it does now, having this ability cost 100 energy AND have a drain, with a limited duration, is a travesty! Make the ability do what was originally advertised on streams and even in the updates patch notes.

The Vast Untime (New). Has an upfront base energy cost of 50, lasts until you run out of energy or toggle it off, and drains a base 3 energy per second. For the duration, Xaku has a flat 75% damage reduction (Dodge is not damage reduction and will never compare to actual DR!) and gains X% faster movement speed (scaling with power strength). Additionally, enemies within a 10/15/20/25 meter aura around Xaku take a flat X% more damage from Void damage (including its status proc) and are slowed by 20% (scaling with power strength).

This new Vast Untime then has some synergy with that new passive I suggested: Your increased movement speed gives you a higher chance to dodge incoming projectiles, while a flat 75% damage reduction helps mitigate any hits that do get through. And with the suggested change for Void damage, a vulnerability to it from this ability would actually be worth something!

ShogiVanir · August 28, 2020

The drain on Vast Untime really needs to be removed from the ability, It feels really weak for the amount of energy that's required. Additionally his 4 needing to hit targets to make them lose resistance to void damage feels really bad in practice, by the time you are finishing with the long 4 casting animation your squad will have killed the enemies so it feels really pointless to have that as part of the ability. Perhaps make the void resistance reduction an aura around Xaku so it's always applied for the duration? Overall the most disappointing part of the frame for me, but with if even just the drain was removed then the ability would feel so, so much better.

Xata's whisper seems fine for what it does, the issue is that Void damage is a really weak damage type (void damage may need a rework against non sentient factions?) and tying a void resistance shred into striking enemies with your 4, it sounds cool on paper but it feels awful in practice.

Grasp is a really interesting ability but the fact it doesn't get bonus damage from your 1 feels kinda silly and anti synergistic. The ability does scale with enemy level though which makes it feel fine.

The Lost feels ok too, my main complaints are that the cast times are really long on all 3 abilities, and the fact we can't recast accuse while targets are affected feels massively janky and unnecessary. Being able to stun and mind control a large group of enemies feels cool, but then being restricted from an ability cast for the entire mind control duration feels super horrible. Since the enemies are still killable like Revenants thralls I don't see why the ability has a lockout on it and it would feel way better if it was removed. I think gaze and deny are fine for what they do.

Xaku's visual design is really cool, and I really like where the concept went, so hopefully he gets some fun pass tweaks, since despite his visual design being awesome and I want to take him into missions, he doesn't feel fun to play and I feel like I'm sandbagging squads with my frame choice by taking him anywhere over the rest of my roster of frames.

(PSN)CommanderC2121 · August 28, 2020

15 minutes ago, Chaemyerelis said:

Not a she. Really hope Xaku doesn't take a female spot.

I realized I messed up the title (again) after I posted. I did try to at least use proper nouns in the text body

(PSN)CommanderC2121 · August 28, 2020

1 hour ago, (PS4)DoctorWho_90250 said:

~~Xaku is a meme frame, nothing more.~~

😞 true

Velaethia · August 28, 2020

3 minutes ago, (PS4)CommanderC2121 said:

😞 true

Meme or not Imma play them until the day I die. Already 10th most played warframe for me. The only other frame to go up this fast after release was wisp. I've been almost exclusively playing Xaku flaws and all. I love em so much. I don't feel like they're a meme frame because they're close to being good. They don't need a radical rework like some frames did(do).

I'm guessing we're gonna have to wait until at least a week after launch before any updates to them. Maybe two weeks as DE is gonna wait until some people farmed em the *correct* way and more people experience them and give feedback. Until then they'll remain broken (situational pun intended). But I of course fall for broken things. Always have.

Infestor_97 · August 28, 2020

I agree with this post wholeheartedly. "Meme-frame" or not, Xaku should not be this weak, especially with those building requirements.

Lichbane · August 28, 2020

Xaku is a warframe with a great concept, but was poorly executed.

A lot of other users have already pointed out the many flaws with the void damage across the entire kit, as well as inconveniences such as with Xaku's 2 ability punishing players for only managing to steal a single weapon because you aren't allowed to recast the ability until the duration is up. While these problems will (hopefully) be fixed, I wanted to give feedback on the themes behind the abilities themselves. Rather, I wanted to focus on the 3rd and 4th abilities in Xaku's kit that show off the "broken" aspects of the warframe.

The 3rd ability is supposed to cycle between three abilities correlating with the three different warframes used to make up Xaku. However, apart from the criticism a lot of other players have been giving, the abilities also don't stand out as three different warframe powers from other warframes. While I'm not sure what the original powers of the component warframes that make up Xaku lore-wise would have been, that's a good place to start in making them stand out as unique abilities. Even if it was as simple as each ability having its own innate elemental damage bonus combined with void damage. An animation of the parts of the warframe that originally had that ability coming out and casting the ability would be a nice touch. That may be the way it works now, but if it is, it isn't very apparent.

Which actually brings me to the fourth ability. Xaku explodes all the pieces that make up all the component warframes used to make them up and...they disappear? Why? This ability currently stands as an ability for spooky scary skeleton memes. What was the point of being made up of all these broken warframes if they were going to just be cast off anyways? Instead of just going away, they should stick around and actually contribute to the fight. A great way of sticking with the themes of the third ability is having each of the component warframes constitute themselves fully with the same void energy that makes up Xaku. Giving each one some portion of their theme from Xaku's third ability. For instance, the warframe that currently gives Xaku their ability to turn enemies to allies could have that as an innate chance to happen on their attacks. Having each of the three wielding their own signature weapon formed from void energy would also be a neat touch.

Xaku is, again, a truly great concept, but a bit of a kit overhaul is needed to make them really shine.

Xepthrichros · August 28, 2020

On the launch day of Heart of Deimos, I casually said in region chat that Xaku is Dead on Arrival. I recall some "geniuses" getting all pissed, and they ranted against me based on their cute theory crafting that Xaku will be strong.

Now the evidence is out. Players have tested it. And look here, 7 pages of agreement with me. All comments and ideas about how things that are lacking, and improvements being greatly needed, and perhaps the few positives which are fashion frame related, or from call of duty in space advocates - you know, the folks that will be happy just using guns and do not know what 1,2,3,4 does on their keyboard.

On to some of the ability issues, the 3 abilities Xaku's 3rd ability toggle wheel offers is probably the worst of all the frames that have such a toggle wheel. Ivara, Vauban, Titania, Grendel, Wisp, all of them offer better stuff out of their abilities from their toggle wheels.

Also, Xaku's 2nd skill steals enemies' guns and uses it to shoot at them. And then Xaku's 3rd skill offers mind control as one of the options. Why? Great overlap of functionality. Almost counteracting itself.

And overall, I don't see how the skills synergize with each other. More like a bag of random tools just slammed together with the "Broken frame" theme being used to justify why nothing needs to be cohesive.

Velaethia · August 28, 2020