Upcoming Xaku Changes!

[Mephane]

One of the deeper problems with Xaku is that his kit feels clunky to use. Some of that will be alleviated by the already planned changes, but the elephant in the room remains: the ability wheel of The Lost. These things are notoriously clunky to use, they work well for abilities where you tend to either just cast them sometimes and have the time to select the correct one, and switch to a particular ability that you know you will be using exclusively for a while - like Quiver, when you want to make a wire, you generally can take the time to switch to it (you're in stealth anyway), when you need to sleep enemies, you tend to keep sleep arrow selected for multiple groups of enemies and don't need to cast the other arrows  all the time.in between. Or when you have a situation like Reservoir where you typically cast all of them one after another, which just takes time, is still clunky, but at least you don't usually have to switch to that one particular abilities you need right, as it is more of a preparation type ability.

I therefore propose a very radical change for The Lost:

• No more ability wheel. Instead, when the ability is cast, one of the three effects is triggered at random, due to the unpredictable nature of the Void - I really wish Xaku had more chaos in their kit.
• The same effect cannot take place twice in direct succession, the next cast is always guaranteed to be a different one of the set.
• Cast animation shortened to half its current.
• Energy cost reduced to 50, since it may require multiple casts if you want a particular effect.
• Accuse:
  • Spawns a Void Fissure that remains for the duration of the ability.
  • Enemies within range of the fissure are corrupted, when they leave the area or the fissure expires (on its own or due to recast) their corruption ends immediately.
  • Can be recast, replaces an active fissure from a previous cast.
• Gaze:
  • No longer centered on an enemy, but just like Accuse on any spot on the ground.
  • Like Accuse, only one instance, recast replaces the previous effect.
  • Base armor strip increases to 70% like its counterparts in other Warframes (and so that a single power strength mod is sufficient to reach 100%, right now you need 200% and that requires dedicating a whole build for just one part of one ability).
• Deny is completely replaced with a new effect:
  • Also cast on any location and effecting enemies within range.
  • Also leaves a field on the ground affecting enemies within.
  • Affected enemies have their whole body turns into one giant headshot/weakspot zone.
  • This would add some real synergy with Xata's Whisper and alleviate the biggest remaining problem of Void damage, the prevention of headshots, by turning any hits into headshots.
• Additional synergy with Graps of Lohk:
  • Weapons stolen from enemies already affected by Accuse, Gaze or Deny deal the effect of these abilities to any target they hit.
  • For example, if an enemy is corrupted by Accuse, and you steal their gun, then the ghostly gun resulting from that will apply the Accuse effect on any enemy it hits.
  • Since these effects are not bound to a  ground field, but applied directly, they have a duration that is equal to the total lifetime of the ghostly gun that applies the effect.
  • Guns stolen from enemies affected by multiple of the effects randomly deal one of the respective effects on each hit.

[(PSN)jtreyes821]

Would it be ppssible to get more aim assist when using Xaku's Deny ability? Like it locks on to the nearest target or something? By tge time I cast the ability, even by trying to lead the shot, the enemy is already out of the crosshairs and I just waste energy by missing the shot.

[Wandrecanada]

Love all the changes.  They are good steps to making Xaku a contender.

I'd love to see Void damage changed to be strong against sentients tho. It's the one part of the lore that's stuck around. They are harmed by the void.

Maybe just have a 50% vs sentient armor?

[Yonesis]

Gonna do a long post, skip if you wish to.
Seems two big problems being discussed are around the Void status ailment (proc) and the nature of dodge chances.

Well, the reason they aren’t making Void damage affect Bosses, Amalgams and Eidolons is straightforward: Balance. These three are supposed to be the harder, unpredictable types of enemies. So there is an understandable fear on opening the floodgates on void damage being a thing because it could make these three, the hard enemies, on a game people complain about being easy, become yet more fodder for players with ridiculously powerful weapons that seem to only be content when they can one-shot any creature. However, Void damage, as it seems, was instated to begin with of a rare type of damage, one that was so elusive, that it was the only weakness to overtly powerful beings.

That was probably one of the reasons Xaku was created in the first place, the singular warframe that dealt with this type of enigmatic damage. Broken, but one of the only who could tap into that forbidden element. However, once they arrive, and it affects nothing whatsoever on the high tier enemies, then the conclusion is a shot in the foot, and the feeling in many players is, concurrently, brick-shattering rage. It is clever to design a unique element for the overpowered enemies, it buys you time to design in the future, but now you made the warframe that had that as its theme, and people want their benefit from the uniqueness. Overall, I understand the worry, but there is also the player’s plight. For the moment, you could try this:

-        Make Void damage deal half, or a third more damage instead of full additional weakness damage against the high tier (or just eidolons, amalgams and other bosses are fine) enemies. It won’t make the enemies as easy to deal with, but it will indubitably make people consider using Xaku against them. If you are absolutely terrified of that making eidolons too easy, make the damage non-synergistic with any other abilities, like it not interacting with volt’s shields, but I don’t recommend that.

-        Make Void procs do some specific thing that helps to deal with the enemies, like a slow, or a damage reduction on their attacks. A proc unique to them, to compensate the lack of damage. I still like the above option more to be honest.

As for the new proc, here’s a list of possible effects you could try, beyond making the bullet magnet effect focus on the head. I’m using placeholder names so if people wish, they could say them in the further comments.

-        Awe Rapture: Paralyze enemies, as in “they stop moving entirely” with a noticeable aura coating them to indicate they are still alive and not a bug. While they do that you could optionally make them strike a starfish-like pose to make them easier to scan for details, and shoot in the head. An added eerie effect could be make them slowly approach the player white paralyzed and ignoring unit collision, like cover, doors, walls, like they are non-euclidianly being drawn helplessly to your warframe, until a set distance from the player, from which you could headshot them effortlessly. Eidolons, Bosses and Amalgams (or just Eidolons) would be slowed instead, the only status proc they are susceptible to.

-        Keep the Bullet Magnet effect, and make it focus on the head after it’s proc becomes a certain number, like, once it reaches 5 or 6, it focuses on the head or weak point, so it still hampers dps, but only temporarily, and makes people work for the effect.

-        Void Rot: Make it like a contagious ”disease”, once the proc activates, the enemy is tagged with a noticeable aura. You could make them lose a set percentage of life per second that increases with proc, but not much, highlighting the “true damage” nature of the Void. Once they die, they explode in a small radius, “tagging” enemies with half or X-2 (X being proc value) of the proc value of the dead enemy OR instantly tagging a singular closest enemy within a set radius, and the cycle begins anew. Make sure, if it’s an explosion, that it’s short enough. It’s similar to Nova’s ult, but since it’s much more localized, I don’t think it will run away with the game, and it will also indirectly help the survivability of the operator mode.

-        Transmutation: Make it a “convert harm to help” effect. The nature of the void is fickle and the Tenno bask in it, so you could make enemies attacks transmute mid-flight to help you. It could be a set health regeneration per proc (I don’t know, 5 hp per hit? 10?), shield regeneration, both at the same time, the first then the second, or even – and people would love it – energy regeneration, make it a very small increase per hit that raises with proc, given the values of energy, you could make proc 1 give you 1 energy per hit on you, up to proc 10 giving you 10 energy per hit on you. You could make it all three in appropriately sized amounts if you wish, I think people would enjoy it, and the void suddenly making enemies “heal shoot you” in every regard, even if by little bit, would reward players for playing an element that feels like a gimmick. Of course, it would help some amps more than others, but it’s an effect that can be tweaked, maybe make the heath/shield/energy regen be based on a very small percentage up to a specified minimum value? I dunno.

This post became stupidly long, so I’m going to post the dodge chance suggestion on another post.

[Drachnyn]

vor 8 Stunden schrieb [DE]Danielle:

Here is how we are changing Xata’s Whisper:

Let it work on eidolons, void damage is pointless outside of eidolons.

[Demotros]

This is everything I wanted, and more. 
 

Though I wouldn’t complain if I got a smidge more base range for 2 so I don’t have to jump in the middle of all the enemies to try to max my grab. 

[operational]

Good, still MR fodder thou

[Yonesis]

Yet another long post, skip if you wish to.
As for dodge chance, it unfortunately gambles with the warframe’s life, so a thing you could do is plainly reward players in some shape or form for they to choose chancy evasion over solid damage reduction. Using yet more names as placeholders. You could try those:

-        Evader’s High: For each evaded attack, add a not-very-high overall boost to movement speed (standard running, sprinting, parkour, bullet jumping, sliding weapon switching, reload speed, more time at hacking) to the warframe (and maybe operator form, maybe even faster energy recharge speed) set on a buff with a timer. Each additional evaded attack raises the timer by one, two or a few seconds. To prevent the timer from going infinitely up, cap the number of seconds an enemy can contribute to the players buff in a set amount of time (like, a single enemy can give up to 5 (maybe more, maybe less) seconds to a warframe’s “Evader’s High”)).  After that, the player has to wait 9, 10 seconds (or less, trust me, it will feel like an eternity if you make evasion a fast based mechanic, but you can make it higher) so that the enemy can add more seconds to the player’s buff again.

However, how to solve cheap deaths? Well, cheat it. If a player takes a lethal attack while it still has an “Evader’s High” buff. Make a hud notice at the buff icon saying something like “Death Evaded!” and consume an amount of seconds from their buff. Give them a couple or a few seconds of invincibility (call it “Evasion Gate”, eh?) and then the player is vulnerable again. When that happens, you could force the player into a stagger, (akin to shooting a bazooka point blank at a wall) roll, or backflip animation, and while they are in that animation, they are still evading attacks by their percentage, but can’t gain more seconds to their buff.

-        Evader’s High II: Keep the timer buff, but instead of consuming seconds on the buff (or in addition, but boy this would make my suggestion complicated), slap hud marks of a number of set “Evade Death” slots below their health bar or wherever have you, representing the number of times that, by sheet badassery, they can fool death while affected by “Evader’s High” (say, 3 or 5). If the player is with the buff and is hit with a lethal attack, make the hud notice to the player that they “evaded death”, force them to do a stagger animation and consume one of the slots, give the player a couple seconds of invincibility (“Evasion Gate”, like I said), and then back to normal. The slots very slowly refill, like, it takes 25, maybe 30 seconds for one of the slots to refill, so they have to carefully manage the number of “chances” they get to escape their demise. Since the number of seconds an enemy contributes to dodged attacks is small, it’s a buff that doesn’t really work unless a solid, but not necessarily high, percentage of attacks are avoided. Rewarding speed over tenacity.
 

-        Evade Death: Instead of keeping a timer, make all evaded attacks fill up the “evade death” slots to consume them when the time comes instead of already starting with 5 ready slots. It’s overall simpler and does away with the buff, but it may feel not as snazzy or rewarding as the bunch of buffs and stats and lingo I said above where the player has to manage and pay attention to. Regardless, the mechanic is pretty active and beneficial regardless of the player’s level of care towards it, so it can go both ways.
 

-        Matrix Strike: This has the potential to be a very silly, maybe even infuriating mechanic to the enfranchised, or it can make people love it. Whenever you evade a set number of attacks, an option in the hud flickers shiningly, like an option has been open, and it remains so until you use it. If you do the command to use the option, the warframe does his fast but stylish, maybe sprawlish spin where they heighten their senses (the camera stays where it is, the effect is purely cosmetic, a SFX and hud border of time “slowing and muffling down” plays, making the warframe untargetable and invincible (consider that they are dodging everything coming their way, you can even make after images effects of the warframe dodging any attack (hopefully not compromising the vision of players) while maintaining the normal warframe in place) for 5 seconds.

While in that heightened state, weakpoints of all enemies shine with a corona of glowing light, or their internal organs, like their skull, or brain, highlighting their weaknesses, and the crosshairs of the weapon softly (careful with motion sickness) aimbots to the head of the closest enemy in aim within field of view. Whenever the player kills the enemy in aim, the aim goes to the next head within field of view and the cycle continues until there are no more enemies within field of sight. Melee weapons can displace the warframe closer to enemies to hit them (like Excalibur’s dash) or go beyond the absurd and hit enemies over any distance within field of view while the warframe remains in place (Like a synchronization 300% moment in Neon Genesis Evangelion).

Once Matrix Strike time is up, it goes on cooldown for a set amount of time OR a big time that is reduced by each evaded attack, but careful not to break the mechanic with this. Player gets a couple of seconds to reaclimate, sound effect of time bouncing back happens, hud effects disappear and it’s back to normal battle. That would give a very stylish gimmick to those who care about evasion, albeit it does automate play to a degree (maybe keep an option to stop the aimbot in those moments at the settings?) This heightened state can be canceled at any moment by a slide, jump or bullet jump (or maybe just slide and bullet jump, maybe people would want to jump while in that slow-mo, and if so, the cooldown is short in accordance to it. A thing that can happen is that the Matrix Strike time doesn’t need to actually be slower, but just feel slower and smoother. Another funny thing to try is make any opponent in crosshairs (or maybe close to it?) slow down, not bogging the other players with your moment.
 

-        Parazon Counter: A simpler mechanic, but maybe very effective, is automatically make non-boss enemies that you have evaded a set number of attacks automatically trigger the mercy finisher icon on them, so that you can run to them and “shelter” yourself in the invincibility time.
 

-        Parazon Mortem-Frenzy: A more silly, do-or-die mechanic is that, after a set amount of evaded attacks, a hud icon with a parazon in red or some other warning color shines with a grim effect. The icon stays active and inaltered until you die. If you do, the Warframe faulters forward, almost falling, but steadies itself, a heart-beat, tense tune starts playing, and the enters a focused, brink-of-death state, where the player is reduced to using only the parazon in a signature style (maybe customizable with other style mods?) of combat that is immensely swift with true, percentage damage to non-boss, non-thrall characters with each hit (like Brutality mode from Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks). They now have 30 seconds to kill a set amount of enemies to try to best death before they die. The player now has improved speed and overall mobility, but can’t interact with objects or change into operator mode. It can hack, but instead of the puzzle, the frame just jams the parazon into the machine, a set animation of 3 to 4 seconds (wasted time) and forces it open. Where is only one last enemy needed to kill, a soaring riff (like the ayatan star riff) plays and a grander, more elaborate mercy marker appears on an enemy, if the warframe mercy finishes that enemy, they return to full life and shields, maybe even half energy, and the cycle begins anew, but with more evaded attacks needed to charge the hud marker and more enemies needed to be killed each time you “die”. The amount resets to normal if you die.

[(XBOX)AP TragOul]

Hi I have some ideas on how to rework xaku but first I'm wondering if some of my void frame suggestion did or did not make it into xakus kit or if its pure coincidence that I had some similar ideas :

but about the rework.

I am liking most of the changes you guys are making but I think it could be improved.

So xakus 4th and passive are extremely underwhelming and while looking good on paper it in practice gives me the feeling of "is it on?" Evasion does not seem to have a noticeable effect with xaku. So heres my suggestion.

Xaku is a void frame and I feel that should be a bigger part of his kit apart from just void damage. So I'm looking at the tenno/operators. Their abilities come from the void so I think xaku should share some traits from them.

Xakus passive should be they use void energy instead of normal energy. This energy should regenerate rapidly but the more abilities xaku has active the faster it drains this energy. Most of the abilities should maybe cause a drain on this. To turn off abilities just hold down the button for the ability.

To fix the 4th ability instead of it being an evasion ability make it like the operators void mode. So either it's a full invincibility at the cost of either the use of some abilities or an increased energy drain/stop energy regeneration when active amd any active abilities will cause the energy to drain. Or make it damage reduction. 

So theres some ideas there.

But if I were to do it I would go for a 2 meter approach like operators. 1st meter is the normal energy bar but with rapid regen. Xakus first 3 abilities use this bar. Xakus 4th ability will use the void energy meter and will make xaku invincible at the cost of the ability to cast the first 3 abilities it wont toggle them off but they will only be active till their duration/energy runs out. The void meter is effected by duration. Upon deactivation of void mode xaku explodes into his skeletal form with a short 3 seconds of invulnerability and the usual void explosion and with your reworked idea.

I know this isnt worked out or balanced or anything but its just a few ideas that popped into my head and really felt the need to share. Some may not be rework worthy but maybe augment worthy with some balancing?

Btw sorry if I called xaku a he at any point. I'm fully onboard for xaku not having a gender. Old habits die hard though.

Edit: maybe depending on how much of the void energy meter used during the 4th ability will determine the range/duration/strength of the explosion and also the energy cost reduction/unlimited use time of the vast untime.

Lower duration could mean less time immortal but more time for abilities to be active while too much duration could mean longer invulnerability but if you have to cancel the ability early to use abilities you wont get as much benefit.

[(PSN)PoKerZ2017]

Remove the bullet attraction effect from void damage or make it possible to hit headshots regardless. Not being able to headshot makes void terrible even as neutral damage. 

[Scarecrowmes]

Based on my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience of Xaku, I feel like these changes are more than sufficient to make them a lot more viable...

but i’d still really like it if y’all could let the void damage from Xata’s Whisper work for Eidolon hunts instead of limiting us to using nothing but our fragile, unwieldy, all-around-not-very-badass kiddos.

[(PSN)Rpglover14]

Instead of xaku using enemy weapons. Why not our list of weapons? Like a Gate of Babylon from the Fate series.

A reason to gather weapons for something other then MR would be very welcome. And you could even have multiple built opticors in your inventory to enable xaku to fire ten at once or something.

[superiouz]

Bruh.... 

U just need void damage from xaku can be use againt eidolon but cap its damage to ( arguably same or worse than amp 🤣 ) 

Give augment so teammates can have the effect too. 

That it. 

U dont even need to touch other abilities 

While i dont want xaku like this. But

People will silent

Because its doesnt matter how bad the frame is as long its have place for certain mission people will forgive all other useless abilities. 

 

[0_The_F00l]

A welcome looking change,

i am glad you went in the direction of looking at void damage as the core issue ,

the void status effect is still rather sub par but making it neutral is good.

i kept a low duration build specifically cause grasp of lohk could not be recast , i will reconsider the build once the changes drop.

Deny i will hold judgement on , seems like she could be set up for high damage (especially after the void damage changes) and will atlest be better than it is now.

Accuse and gaze are their best abilities , its ok if there is no change to them.

Vast untime seems useful but evasion as a mechanism is still spotty and unreliable - shield gating should help but i will likely use it more as a pocket continuity than for its other benefits.

 

An overall welcome change.

[Tenno_VG]

Please buff Grasp of Lohk's range, it needs very close to enemy to ensure grabbed weapon is in maximum amounts

[(XBOX)Cryoguard]

11 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Here is why we are not changing Accuse or Gaze yet.
 
A couple of posts, notably those written by people with verified 6 Forma installations, have realized just how powerful Gaze can be in certain mission types. So we are leaving Gaze untouched for now so we can continue to evaluate it within the realm of those who have invested Forma and time into Xaku to hit this sweet power spot.

Accuse is also untouched for this round, but first thing on our list for next round would be allowing Accuse to be re-cast, but we are awaiting that decision based on how this Round goes.

I'm not sure if 6 Forma builds should be the main consideration regarding changes to Gaze. I agree the ability has great power and potential, but I think some minor quality of life changes (for me personally, a bit of extra range and faster cast speed, maybe one more on the target cap) would go a long way. An additional synergy that would be nice is increased vulnerability to void damage, to combo with Xata's Whisper.

As for Accuse, I don't think you should hold back on the re-cast because of the other changes. Right now, re-casting feels like a must for the same reason you implemented a recast on Grasp of Lohk. I'm not quite certain how to make it combo/synergize with other abilities, but at the very least the re-cast will make it more feasible.

[Lazframe]

11 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Here is how we are changing Grasp of Lohk:

• Increasing the speed at which enemies are disarmed so that it occurs earlier in the casting animation. Also increasing the casting animation speed overall. 
  • Currently, the point of when enemies are disarmed once Grasp of Lohk is cast is far too delayed. 
• Allowing Grasp of Lohk to be recast. 
  • How it will work: Any existing Grasp of Lohk weapons will simply be replaced by the new cast up to the maximum amount of targets.
  • Currently, once Grasp of Lohk is cast you are locked with the weapons that were grabbed until the end of the ability’s duration. This is obviously limiting if the ability was cast with undesired effect. To counteract this limitation, we are adding the option to recast. With the added benefit of resetting the ability’s duration and disarming a new set of enemies where/when desired. 

6 forma Xaku player here. Overall the changes sound really good, however the above one regarding Grasp of Lohk is still not enough. There was no mentioning of added damage nor range which is what the ability desperately needs to be effective but most importantly fun to use because as it stands right now - and even after the said changes it still doesn't feel like an appealing ability to use. Please please please, buff the damage and range.

[TheLordOmega2]

Still a big lack of range, and i feel like Deny should be a proper beam a bit like Transcendence (but probably with a much shorter duration).

[(PSN)CallmeBraindead_]

Ok I know DE is doing their best to take into account what the players want to change, however i don't think they are going about it correctly because many people still have many complaints about Xaku, imo Xaku should be a very powerful frame (being made from the hecking void and all) but they have many problems, being: duration range strength, void damage, and dodge chance.

I believe i have a few simple solutions:

make their passive an energy regen (better than energy siphon maybe)

make their 4 a damage reduction that is about 65% but doesn't scale with mods, but if it can, very minor

increase damage of 1 2 and deny and increase range and duration of his 2 and 3

make the bullet attracter status effect aim for the head or change it to allow special synergies with other damage types 

Dodge chance isn't a good survival tool whatsoever because it relies on luck, i have done testing with this and turned out very unlucky in surviving, it just doesn't work, so i hope you take these suggestions into account, and I hope the alchemist won't be as bad upon release. Have a good day.

[Krueller]

I bought Xaku at launch, loved the frames looks and enjoyed the abilities.  However, upon actual use I found the frame lacking and was quickly put on the back burner.  I'm glad DE listened to the community and am looking forward to giving Xaku another go!

[Gabriel_Urs]

13 hours ago, D1videdByZer0 said:

I do wonder if void damage can be improved even further by giving it a certain proc.

 

Void damage is a very special damage type. Giving it a special effect could increase the utility of Operators as well... idk maybe it can work like slag damage in Borderlands 2. So every stack of void proc would increase damage taken by all other sources by 10% or something (and the status effect lingers for quite a while).

Thinking the same here, I'd been wondering how void damage could be improved in general so operators might also be used in normal missions with a peashooter that did something better than nothing and with Xaku's coming it finally landed on this concept: void damage reduces enemy elemental resistance for each void proc (gradually removing each "-" on the health type of the enemy) and further increasing enemy weaknesses on stacks past 5 with weakness to void damage included. 100% weakness to void damage and void damage dealing true damage against enemies at 10 stacks with the only enemies not receiving true damage at these 10 procs being amalgams.

To balance Xaku's ability to cause a status effect much more easily than a tenno and its 4 already stripping the enemy of resistances, simply reduce % of void damage so status weighting kicks in and you'll be very unlikely to reach 10 stacks of void status in normal gameplay.

Crit chance and damage on amps would still be greatly relevant against eidolons and other possibly upcoming enemy units not affected by status procs (which is already the whole reason why people can oneshot their shields), really the whole point about this is trying to make void status not garbage.

[GREF_TM]

No changes to accuse and gaze. Untime is still an RNG dodge instead of consistent DR against anything that isn't AoE.

 

Welp, rip. Hope there will be more changes.

[Eyn_Sof]

13 hours ago, NoctiferPrime said:

I'm not sure balancing around 6-forma builds is the right call, but we'll see how these changes play out.

Well even without 6-forma I can say that gaze and deny are powerful(though gaze really shines in something like the steel path), the only problem so far is the casting speed and inability to recast deny before it runs out.

[Circle_of_Psi]

Wonder if the feedback here will be ignored.

 

Void damage still needs tuning/Xaku still needs a huge stats boost across the board (HP/Shei/Armor/Range/Duration/Eiffy/Strg).

Still needs his 3rd to be removed.

Still need his 2nd to copy his own weapons if no enemies in sight 

[DLOArceus]

1 hour ago, ABlindGuyPlays said:

Then they shouldn't have amde the VOID DAMAGE GRANTING ABILITY the thing it gives to helmenth. If they aren't going to give the VOID DAMAGE ability the ability to deal with eidolon shields, or amalgams, etc? Why have it be void damage? Pull a revenant and have it be adaptive damage. There you go PROBLEM SOLVED THANK YOU DE PAY ME.

This, nice idea. Though don't pay this person. The Void is adaptive. So it should adapt.

For those asking for eidolons, give up. Frames choices are already limited for them, that way you make the entire existence of operators completely pointless since that's the only content they're used in. DE ain't gonna drop that.