Expedited Suffering

[Galix]

So, I've been playing around with Expedited Suffering for awhile now...  For a rank 9 ability from Helminth I cant see all that much value in the ability itself, and its definitely not worth the 9th rank spot in Helminth...

Now don't get me wrong I like the concept of the ability, kinda wish heat and electric were also rolled into the dish but I feel as though that would be kinda broken kinda like Xaku...  *sigh*

ANYWAYS.  I have tried it with a bunch of other abilities and weapons.  Garuda and Protea have some synergy with it but the procs were too small (damage-wise) or took too long to stack to really be a viable option.  Then there are weapons the original Pangolian Sword with the slam attack causing slash procs was cute.  Sadly there was no modifying for more damage but using good ol' Lasting Sting to increase the Status durations is a nice touch basically increasing the damage you would deal...  Sadly still not good enough, cute, but not good enough.  

Now onto something more effective take any high status chance weapon that can deal slash or Toxin procs.  For the most part if you can get enough procs on the target to make any actual "USE" out of Expedited Suffering they tend to die shortly after to those same procs.  You could just leave them alone and they would die, not even 3 seconds later.  OR you could slap that ability button burn energy you could have saved.  I don't know about you, but I hardly feel that, that would be worth the effort.

 

Long story short, we all know slash is OP and if we are constantly slapping enemies across the face with melee weapons, or shooting them with guns, they are going to die anyways, be it one more melee swing, or one more bullet.  

Now I have a few changes / revisions that would make this quite the interesting ability.  

 

My first suggestion would be to ditch the cone and make it an AOE.  In every revision of the ability I mention an AOE would be ideal though some can still use a cone if need be.

Now we can change the ability to be a toggle, but DE tend to frown on toggle-able abilities so lets go with a duration.  Now with said duration lets say at max rank the base duration of the ability is 20 or 30 seconds.  

Now here's where the main changes will be.

It'll have the AOE, and the duration.  But it would function similar towards Equinox's Maim.  You activate the ability and take w/e weapons your using and kill your enemies.  But here's the catch.  Any toxin or Slash proc/damage you deal are instantly absorbed by the skill and removed from your usual damage that you deal with your weapons.  So yes, if you only deal slash and toxin damage you wouldn't do any damage to the enemy.  Thankfully most weapons have impact, puncture and other elements so you would still deal damage just not Slash or Toxin.  Now, while that ability is active and still counting away on its duration timer the accumulated Slash and toxin procs are being applied to any enemies that are within your AOE around you.  The procs will just keep stacking until either your pool inside the ability is used up OR the enemy dies.  The procs are 1 : 1 or at leat that's what I was figuring they would be.  I would assume if DE wanted they could make the proc ratio accumulated from weapons vs what is stored to be affected by power strength but I think its fine with a 1 : 1 ratio.

Long ability short.  This version of the ability removes your slash and toxin damage initially from your weapons "or frames" and then spreads them out over an area based on the range and duration of the ability.

 

Second Rework, is a neutered version of the first.  Still AOE, and duration based, but instead of removing the damage and accumulated it.  After ability activation every 2 or 3 seconds you would send a pulse out.  Said pulse would be the extent of your aoe range on the ability.   Every pulse would basically look for Status procs.  Be it slash, toxin, gas, electric, heat, and however many stacks that have been accumulated would be detonated in time with the pulse.  AKA if they survive long enough to get any number of stacks in the first place within the 2 or 3 seconds between each pulse they would then take all of the accumulated damage over time that the procs would deal instantly after each pulse.

 

My third rework for this ability involves tacking on all the damage over time status effects instead of just slash and toxin and in the honor of the abilities name "Expedited Suffering"  As soon as you proc 5 or 10 or however many stacks of the same proc it would detonate and take all the stacks of said proc and deal the damage of the accumulative instantly to the target.  Now this could be single target or an AOE burst dealing all the damage to everything in the aoe, yourself included maybe.  Another little addition to this one in particular could be, once you get the stack count of a single proc whichever it is, it would also detonate all the other status procs for their remaining duration as well.  Just a thought.

 

Fourth Rework. Super short and sweet.  Also in the honor of the name.  And this is a really excessively simple rework.  The ability would be change once again to the AOE, and duration format.  And the status procs applied are either INSTANTLY removed to deal the full damage they normally would do over the tick duration.  OR the tick rate would be drastically increased from the current 1 case of damage every second.  So instead of taking 10 seconds to apply all the damage a single status proc would do, it would take 3.  Basically taking Rapid Resilience making it lethal by reversing the damage resistance into damage taken and slapping it on the enemies.

 

So just some food for thought on making an ability a tiny bit more functional.