Chroma's first skill: Exhalted flamethrower (with breath animation)

[Jitsuryoku]

Since we know chroma's 1 is among the worst skills in game, so I figured I'd drop a suggestion that could "fix" it.

• Turn it into an exalted flamethrower-like weapon.
• Obviously consider balance alongside Chroma's 3.
  • (one option to consider) Tone down or cap its damage scaling from 3rd skill (it's already scaling from power strenght, we probably don't want to have exponential damage growth based on ability strenght)
  • Avoid making it bad unless used with Chroma's 3. 
• Simulate "Breath" behavior by giving it a small magazine and quick reload.
• Everything else (including breath animation) stays as it is

What I would expect it to change:

• Newbs get an awesome starter weapon and frame (even without min-maxed chroma builds).
• Veterans get an AoE weapon that doesn't prevent them from taking the boss killer weapon. 
• Chroma's chosen element plays more into build, giving more value to elements.

[Ryme]

Considering that Hildryn also has an exalted weapon has her 1, I don't think it's too unprecedented to ask that Chroma get his 1 turned into something useful, like an exalted Ignis.

[Prexades]

I added Embers Fire Blast as a replaced for Chromas first ability. So far I am quite happy with the result. I think Chromas ultimate needs some buffs or rework more then the first ability.

[Jitsuryoku]

Just now, Prexades said:

I think Chromas ultimate needs some buffs or rework more then the first ability.

I mean, I sort of agree that it needs a rework of some sort, but I've got a potential solution for 1, that seems exciting to me and I have nothing for skill 4. 
Feel free to post your ideas.

By the way, unlike the first skill, 4th one has a use (buff credits on profit taker).

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

Chroma one needs more damage added then it would be fine.

I heard on another forum chroma said DE needs to nerf marshmallows bcuz he couldn't toast them!?! Says their op

[Jitsuryoku]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)EPOSSTYLE said:

Chroma one needs more damage added then it would be fine.

I heard on another forum chroma said DE needs to nerf marshmallows bcuz he couldn't toast them!?! Says their op

I doubt adding damage to that skill wouldn't help. It's overall unusable.

Toggle nature of that skill (along with skill blocking weapons) makes it a hassle to use. Damage and damage scaling is bad. Range is kind of small.
Ignis (a comparable weapon that uses ammo, which is a "cheaper" resource than energy), will consistently outperform Chroma's 1. Even if damage on the skill is improved ignis remains the better option for usability reasons.

[Blank_on_Blank]

I think it just needs a little tweak on their numbers and how they work while taking advantage of how each element works.

First issue is the range. Chroma has no problem in taking hits, his problem is that he has a hard time crowd controlling enemies and taking out multiple enemies without resorting to Vex Armour and an AoE weapon/melee. Making it so that it hits in a wider and longer cone or comes out as a projectile might help this.

Second issue is how each element works. We also need to take into account that Chroma's passive and element affects his Elemental Ward. From my understanding each element has their own roles and builds.

• FIRE : Used as a pseudo-heal, 10% chance of proccing heat which reduces enemy armor by 50%, makes them panic, and inflicts a DoT that doesn't disappear as long as you keep proccing it. Useful in low-mid level content, gets beaten by Cold Elemental Ward on higher levels in terms of tanking hits.
• COLD : Mostly used for the armor bonus and bullet reflection, 25% chance of proccing cold which slows enemies up to 70% at 10 stacks. Used in Tank builds
• ELECTRIC : Increases your shields based off of Chroma's base shield value, discharges electric arcs when shields are struck. Not much use outside of stunning enemies.
• TOXIN : Increases holster and base reload speed by 35%, 5 meter toxin AoE with 50% chance of dealing 5% of an enemy's health as toxin damage with 100% status chance. Can be useful on weapons that has a long reload. Can be used in a DPS build.

My suggestion is to make it so that each Spectral Scream helps each roles fulfilled by an Elemental Ward. Its damage would also scale with enemy level (like Vauban's Flechette Orb and Xaku's Grasp of Lohk).

• FIRE : Ticks from each Heat DoT deals twice the damage of the previous tick, similiar to Gauss' Thermal Sunder. The aim is to make Fire-Chroma an all-rounder that can cover both offense and defense.
• COLD : Fires an ice projectile that explodes in a 10 meter radius when hitting a surface and freezes enemies hit by the initial blast, while leaving a lingering area that slows down enemies.
• ELECTRIC : Electric AoE with Tesla Chain effect. Works like a mini-Volt Discharge that fires in a cone. Support-oriented.
• TOXIN : Fires a lingering poison cloud that extends up to 15 meters that lasts for 20 seconds. Procs Toxin to enemies that come into contact with it.

[(PSN)Vexx757]

For the sake that he is a dragon I think his 1st ability should stay, It just needs a revisit to make it lot more useful then it currently is.

I think Chroma needs a revisit instead of a rework and if I was to revisit him, here`s what I would do;

Chroma

2nd Passive:

Whenever Chroma is affected by a status proc it will increase he`s elemental ability damage by 25%.

• The more status procs he`s affected with, the more damage he receives.
• It will count no matter when element you have equipped currently.
• It doesn’t matter if the base or combined element, it will still count. Example fire proc = 25%, fire & radiation proc = 50% damage.
• This will apply to hit 1st, 2nd and 4th ability.

 

1st ability:

·       Increase the range from 10m to 15m.

·       It does continuous damage (like beam weapons) instead of damage a second.

·       By holding the fire button, you will increase its range, damage and cone spread.

·       Increase range when adding range mod to be more noticeable.

·       It`s has 100% chance to proc whatever elemental damage it`s currently using.

·       Chroma has a new glide animation.

·       Chroma dashes forward instead of rolling.

·       When gliding, he will temporarily sprout wings, if you stop moving you will stay in the air for 3 seconds.

·       Aiming at an enemy`s head will increase the damage.

·       Chroma is immune to knockdowns and staggers.

 

2nd ability:

·       When using toxin, it will increase block angle to 90 degrees on melee weapons and Increases status chance on weapons by 30%. (remove current buff)

 

3rd ability:

·       It effects 2nd ability.

·       Instead of gaining damage by getting attacked, killing enemies will increase his damage over time. Ten kills give him his max damage output.

 

4th ability:

·       Pressing the ability will make it stay in one spot while holding the ability will make it move around on its own. While moving around the damage is increased but it won`t do any cc attacks.

[Jitsuryoku]

20 minutes ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

I think Chroma needs a revisit instead of a rework....

None of what you suggested is a simple is a simple change of numbers. Literally every skill changes behavior. It's a rework, that you're suggesting.

Also, You might be making enemies on that 3rd skill suggestion. Try to find and kill 10 enemies in an eidolon hunt... You'd be killing Chroma off in most places where he's best at while only improving usability in other places, where he currently cannot compete anyways due to lack of AoE reach.

I like a few parts of your ideas, but I think they will not be implemented, because it would imply massive changes to the frame and I don't think DE is going to do that, because Chroma is not in a bad place due to skills 2 and 3.

[Blank_on_Blank]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Vexx757 said:

For the sake that he is a dragon I think his 1st ability should stay, It just needs a revisit to make it lot more useful then it currently is.

I think Chroma needs a revisit instead of a rework and if I was to revisit him, here`s what I would do;

Chroma

2nd Passive:

Whenever Chroma is affected by a status proc it will increase he`s elemental ability damage by 25%.

• The more status procs he`s affected with, the more damage he receives.
• It will count no matter when element you have equipped currently.
• It doesn’t matter if the base or combined element, it will still count. Example fire proc = 25%, fire & radiation proc = 50% damage.
• This will apply to hit 1st, 2nd and 4th ability.

 

1st ability:

·       Increase the range from 10m to 15m.

·       It does continuous damage (like beam weapons) instead of damage a second.

·       By holding the fire button, you will increase its range, damage and cone spread.

·       Increase range when adding range mod to be more noticeable.

·       It`s has 100% chance to proc whatever elemental damage it`s currently using.

·       Chroma has a new glide animation.

·       Chroma dashes forward instead of rolling.

·       When gliding, he will temporarily sprout wings, if you stop moving you will stay in the air for 3 seconds.

·       Aiming at an enemy`s head will increase the damage.

·       Chroma is immune to knockdowns and staggers.

 

2nd ability:

·       When using toxin, it will increase block angle to 90 degrees on melee weapons and Increases status chance on weapons by 30%. (remove current buff)

 

3rd ability:

·       It effects 2nd ability.

·       Instead of gaining damage by getting attacked, killing enemies will increase his damage over time. Ten kills give him his max damage output.

 

4th ability:

·       Pressing the ability will make it stay in one spot while holding the ability will make it move around on its own. While moving around the damage is increased but it won`t do any cc attacks.

While I like some of your ideas, there are a lot of things to address about your overall rework.

Passive: The problem about the idea you proposed is that (currently) enemies have very little chance to proc status even when you're surrounded in game modes that have increased enemy spawns. There are only a few enemies that can guarantee a status proc, even then it's only limited to specific attacks that can't be spammed. Chances of an enemy proccing a status on you is too low to consistently activate the passive.

Spectral Scream: Increased damage isn't enough to be used to kill enemies. Wisp's Sol Gate can strip armor, deal Radiation and Heat damage while also proccing their statuses, and also makes enemies more vulnerable to it over time up to 1000%, yet it struggles to kill a group of normal enemies on high levels. The only reliable way for a pure-damage ability to consistently kill enemies in higher levels is to strip/bypass their defenses, exploit damage vulnerabilities, or make them scale with enemy level or certain conditions.

Vex Armor: Warframe already have enough arcanes, mods, and buffs that require kills to trigger. Making Vex Armor into a trigger-on-kill ability will significantly reduce his effectiveness on a lot of missions, not to mention as enemies get tougher, you'll have even more trouble activating it. This was a problem for pre-Rubble Heap Atlas. In order to make himself harder to kill, he has to kill enemies first. This resulted in Atlas actually becoming less tanky the tougher the enemy gets.

Effigy: Same issue with Spectral Scream. Simply adding more damage without some kind of debuff or scaling mechanic won't solve anything, just take a look at pre-rework Ember.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

17 hours ago, Ryme said:

Considering that Hildryn also has an exalted weapon has her 1, I don't think it's too unprecedented to ask that Chroma get his 1 turned into something useful, like an exalted Ignis.

or just turn it into a exaulted beam weapon, allowing us to mod his breath would be more than enough imo.

[Blank_on_Blank]

1 minute ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

or just turn it into a exaulted beam weapon, allowing us to mod his breath would be more than enough imo.

Making it into an Exalted ability could be another case of Balefire Charger or Diwata. If we're looking for damage, a simple defense debuff + scaling damage should be enough.

[Jitsuryoku]

3 hours ago, Blank_on_Blank said:

Making it into an Exalted ability could be another case of Balefire Charger or Diwata. If we're looking for damage, a simple defense debuff + scaling damage should be enough.

For every good exalted there's a crappy one (or to be more pricese, good at very specific things, and therefore useless compared to general use weapons). Examples: Exalted blade, Ivara's Bow, Wukongs staff, Garudas Talons (does that count?). They are not outright bad, but all of them have some fatal flaw that contribute to them being rarely-never used in high level missions.

Like Exalted blade has crappy coverage and is only good for short bursts of damage (generic hybdrid melee build clears stuff faster), Ivara has insane damage on paper but often performs worse than a normal primary; wukong is amazing at low-mid level stuff, but damage falloff is insane against high level armored targets, garudas talons,..... just a gimped melee weapon gimmick.

With that said, lading in a similar spot as wukong's staff (as an exhalted flamethrower for mid level stuff) wouldn't be too bad. It's useful to a certain level, rather than being a waste of keypress or being OP. 

[Blank_on_Blank]

8 hours ago, Jitsuryoku said:

For every good exalted there's a crappy one (or to be more pricese, good at very specific things, and therefore useless compared to general use weapons). Examples: Exalted blade, Ivara's Bow, Wukongs staff, Garudas Talons (does that count?). They are not outright bad, but all of them have some fatal flaw that contribute to them being rarely-never used in high level missions.

Like Exalted blade has crappy coverage and is only good for short bursts of damage (generic hybdrid melee build clears stuff faster), Ivara has insane damage on paper but often performs worse than a normal primary; wukong is amazing at low-mid level stuff, but damage falloff is insane against high level armored targets, garudas talons,..... just a gimped melee weapon gimmick.

With that said, lading in a similar spot as wukong's staff (as an exhalted flamethrower for mid level stuff) wouldn't be too bad. It's useful to a certain level, rather than being a waste of keypress or being OP. 

But isn't Wukong's Iron Staff even worse than Exalted Blade in terms of usefulness?

At least Exalted Blade can consistently take down enemies. Instead of making Spectral Scream only useful up to a certain level like Banshee's Quake, why not turn it into something that covers his weaknesses or helps Chroma in doing what he already does best?

Artemis Bow synergizes well with Prowl's headshot bonus and can fire Ivara's Quiver much faster, it can even kill multiple Deimos Juguli as fast as a Kronen Prime. It only seems to perform worse compared to normal weapons because most preferred ones are AoE weapons and DE's current design philosophy is "kill as much enemies as possible to win or progress the game". Artemis Bow does its job pretty well, which is taking out extremely tough and high-priority enemies in a short amount of time.

Exalted Blade is a good Exalted weapon for a beginner frame that scales well enough to be used in high-level content, and can be improved even further if you know what you're doing.

Exalted weapons like Iron Staff and Diwata are considered as some of the worst exalted weapons because they don't add anything to their respective frame's playstyle and roles. Iron Staff has bad combos, clunky movements, bad damage type, and an augment that isn't suited for it and scales inversely with enemy level (adding more crit chance for every kill on a weapon that scales better with status and the fact that enemies get tougher over time, thus making it harder to activate the augment). This is the reason why I'm a bit iffy on making Spectral Scream into an exalted flamethrower instead of an ability that scales with enemies or ignores overall like a CC or a buff that synergizes with what Chroma already has. Instead of reworking it with the purpose of just making it only usable up to mid-game, why not make it so that it's useful on every level without making it OP?

[Jitsuryoku]

1 hour ago, Blank_on_Blank said:

But isn't Wukong's Iron Staff even worse than Exalted Blade in terms of usefulness?

At least Exalted Blade can consistently take down enemies. Instead of making Spectral Scream only useful up to a certain level like Banshee's Quake, why not turn it into something that covers his weaknesses or helps Chroma in doing what he already does best?

Artemis Bow synergizes well with Prowl's headshot bonus and can fire Ivara's Quiver much faster, it can even kill multiple Deimos Juguli as fast as a Kronen Prime. It only seems to perform worse compared to normal weapons because most preferred ones are AoE weapons and DE's current design philosophy is "kill as much enemies as possible to win or progress the game". Artemis Bow does its job pretty well, which is taking out extremely tough and high-priority enemies in a short amount of time.

Exalted Blade is a good Exalted weapon for a beginner frame that scales well enough to be used in high-level content, and can be improved even further if you know what you're doing.

Exalted weapons like Iron Staff and Diwata are considered as some of the worst exalted weapons because they don't add anything to their respective frame's playstyle and roles. Iron Staff has bad combos, clunky movements, bad damage type, and an augment that isn't suited for it and scales inversely with enemy level (adding more crit chance for every kill on a weapon that scales better with status and the fact that enemies get tougher over time, thus making it harder to activate the augment). This is the reason why I'm a bit iffy on making Spectral Scream into an exalted flamethrower instead of an ability that scales with enemies or ignores overall like a CC or a buff that synergizes with what Chroma already has. Instead of reworking it with the purpose of just making it only usable up to mid-game, why not make it so that it's useful on every level without making it OP?

Exalted blade is strong in terms of damage and damage scaling (like it can take down high level enemies). It's bad because it is somewhat awkward to use and is bad in terms of AoE. By the time you kill 1 group of enemies with it, a normal melee player will have killed a few and gotten into next room, effectively putting you behind.

Iron Staff pair with wukongs 1 makes him one of the fastest low price and low effort room clearing frames early on in the game (not to mention mobility). The staff has great range and it one shots most stuff up to level 70 or so (at least that's how I remember it). Unlike with Exalted blade you don't need to reduce your movement speed to use it, because slide attacks just work. Better yet, even if there's a normal melee weapon that can do similar things as Iron Staff, wukong 1 increases the area coverage.

Artemis is a bow. That's really all I need to say to make a case against it. Yes, it's capable of good damage against mid tier stuff or unarmored stuff and even a few bosses, but the moment you have to fight high level grineer Ivara in general slows you down and then Artemis doesn't really give you the damage or AoE to clear things fast. Again at mid tier, you can just take Wukong and nuke the place faster than ivara.

By the way, I realized you mentioned Balefire Charger along side Diwata, implying it is one of the bad ones. This is actually a weapon synergizes with the frame. 2 Rips armor, Balefire Charger does insane raw damage. If you don't need armor ripping it does pretty well on it's own. By the way, it does pretty well against status resistent enemies too :P

Diwata/Garda's Talons yeah.... these are special... Both have viable builds last I checked, but I's really you're better off not using them at all... 

The reason I am leaning towards "Usable somewhere" rather than "Useful at all levels" is because the latter is an impossible task without making chroma OP. I mean look at every frame that works against high levels. Look at WHY it works. It's usually some form of armor ripping, armor bypass, raw damage (either by stacking damage or applying multiple hits), true damage. Giving chroma any of that stuff along side his great offense and defense buffs would make it OP.... unless ofc the range of skill 1 is reduced to nothing, making it another useless single target skill.

[selig_fay]

45 minutes ago, Jitsuryoku said:

Exalted blade is strong in terms of damage and damage scaling (like it can take down high level enemies). It's bad because it is somewhat awkward to use and is bad in terms of AoE. By the time you kill 1 group of enemies with it, a normal melee player will have killed a few and gotten into next room, effectively putting you behind.

Iron Staff pair with wukongs 1 makes him one of the fastest low price and low effort room clearing frames early on in the game (not to mention mobility). The staff has great range and it one shots most stuff up to level 70 or so (at least that's how I remember it). Unlike with Exalted blade you don't need to reduce your movement speed to use it, because slide attacks just work. Better yet, even if there's a normal melee weapon that can do similar things as Iron Staff, wukong 1 increases the area coverage.

Artemis is a bow. That's really all I need to say to make a case against it. Yes, it's capable of good damage against mid tier stuff or unarmored stuff and even a few bosses, but the moment you have to fight high level grineer Ivara in general slows you down and then Artemis doesn't really give you the damage or AoE to clear things fast. Again at mid tier, you can just take Wukong and nuke the place faster than ivara.

By the way, I realized you mentioned Balefire Charger along side Diwata, implying it is one of the bad ones. This is actually a weapon synergizes with the frame. 2 Rips armor, Balefire Charger does insane raw damage. If you don't need armor ripping it does pretty well on it's own. By the way, it does pretty well against status resistent enemies too :P

Diwata/Garda's Talons yeah.... these are special... Both have viable builds last I checked, but I's really you're better off not using them at all... 

The reason I am leaning towards "Usable somewhere" rather than "Useful at all levels" is because the latter is an impossible task without making chroma OP. I mean look at every frame that works against high levels. Look at WHY it works. It's usually some form of armor ripping, armor bypass, raw damage (either by stacking damage or applying multiple hits), true damage. Giving chroma any of that stuff along side his great offense and defense buffs would make it OP.... unless ofc the range of skill 1 is reduced to nothing, making it another useless single target skill.

I disagree with all of this except the exalted blade. But even an exalted blade might be just a mechanic for a normal weapon rather than a separate weapon with many restrictions.

The only exalted weapons that work by default are peacekeepers. The only weapons that are strong with augment are the baruuk fists. Everything else is just beautiful, but ineffective compared to normal weapons. And something like Wucong, Ivara, Valkyr,  Hildryn and Titania doesn't even differ from normal weapons. I think some normal weapons are more unique than these exalted weapons. The only reason Garuda is okay is that I may or may not use it, since it doesn't affect my abilities anyway. 

[Jitsuryoku]

46 minutes ago, selig_fay said:

I disagree with all of this except the exalted blade....

The only exalted weapons that work by default are peacekeepers....

2 Very conflicting statements, considering I pointed out that each of those weapons is only good in niche scenarios. Either I am not catching your point or you missed mine.

By the way, the 2 weapons you mentioned do not just "work" they are generic meta frames for steel path, implying they are insanely good. They can kill any (almost) enemy fast without stripping armor first. 

In regards to your "doesn't even differ from normal weapons" remark. What exactly do you expect from exalted weapons? Based on your message I got this impression you want them all to act as unique ability spamming devices, that more or less 1-hit kill everything they touch. Here's how they differ from normal weapons

• Titania's Dax Pixia alone is pretty strong (high damage, infinite ammo, quick reload), and you also get flight/mobility + razorflies with it.
• Wukong's Iron staff has unique stance/comboes and some synergy with clone.
• Valkyr has damage immunity along with other effects
• Excal does those flying slashes
• Hildryn doesn't have any special effects, but it's a pretty damn good weapon for her kit

If you're gonna ignore these differences because they are part of power and not part of the weapon, then you should also ignore Mesa's auto aim and increasing fire rate, which leaves her weapon a simple dual pistol type. 

[selig_fay]

1 hour ago, Jitsuryoku said:

2 Very conflicting statements, considering I pointed out that each of those weapons is only good in niche scenarios. Either I am not catching your point or you missed mine.

By the way, the 2 weapons you mentioned do not just "work" they are generic meta frames for steel path, implying they are insanely good. They can kill any (almost) enemy fast without stripping armor first. 

In regards to your "doesn't even differ from normal weapons" remark. What exactly do you expect from exalted weapons? Based on your message I got this impression you want them all to act as unique ability spamming devices, that more or less 1-hit kill everything they touch. Here's how they differ from normal weapons

• Titania's Dax Pixia alone is pretty strong (high damage, infinite ammo, quick reload), and you also get flight/mobility + razorflies with it.
• Wukong's Iron staff has unique stance/comboes and some synergy with clone.
• Valkyr has damage immunity along with other effects
• Excal does those flying slashes
• Hildryn doesn't have any special effects, but it's a pretty damn good weapon for her kit

If you're gonna ignore these differences because they are part of power and not part of the weapon, then you should also ignore Mesa's auto aim and increasing fire rate, which leaves her weapon a simple dual pistol type. 

I'm talking about unique properties. When we have a normal interesting weapon that has a super hit mechanic when you get 5 kills or encourages headshots with a toxic cloud, this begs the question why my flight mode (I agree that flying is good) should be limited to some trash like Dex pixia ? All claims that the dex pixia is steel only concern the niche dps build. But hey, what's stopping me from making a DPS build for a normal weapon, which has more options and mechanics? (and dex pixia is just ratatatata and nothing else) 

Yes, you are right, Mesa and Baruuk are meta things, but they are only meta because their weapons work (and baruuk needs augment to work, which is not a good thing). 

But I have a question, why does an exalted weapon exist at all? Are they unique? No, there are normal unique weapons. Their strength? Divata kills a level 100 enemy just like a normal melee kills a level 1000 enemy. I don't think that's a thing. The high level player has no problem with weapon strength in any way. How many weapons can you take on a mission? Well, a normal frame has 4 kinds. Exalted 5. Titania - 6. Have you ever used more than 2? Sortie limitation? Well, garuda says it can be solved.

On the other hand, every time people make a request to add an exalted weapon, I ask why? Exalted flamethrower, why don't you take Ignis? Or if you've covered the mechanics, why can't it be a signature weapon?

On the other hand, Chroma is a frame that concentrates on weapon enhancements and personal protection. His first ability is bad for one reason, it replaces normal weapons. The Exalted weapon does this too, and it is also bad, reducing options or leaving the ability useless.

What am I getting at. See how smite works. Yes, this ability is weak, but it is strong only because it does not interrupt any of your actions. You can shoot and spam the ability at the same time. And I think this is what you really need. But, we also have a request that would allow changing elements on a mission, which is also good. So why do you need a flamethrower?

[Blank_on_Blank]

6 hours ago, Jitsuryoku said:

Exalted blade is strong in terms of damage and damage scaling (like it can take down high level enemies). It's bad because it is somewhat awkward to use and is bad in terms of AoE. By the time you kill 1 group of enemies with it, a normal melee player will have killed a few and gotten into next room, effectively putting you behind.

Iron Staff pair with wukongs 1 makes him one of the fastest low price and low effort room clearing frames early on in the game (not to mention mobility). The staff has great range and it one shots most stuff up to level 70 or so (at least that's how I remember it). Unlike with Exalted blade you don't need to reduce your movement speed to use it, because slide attacks just work. Better yet, even if there's a normal melee weapon that can do similar things as Iron Staff, wukong 1 increases the area coverage.

Artemis is a bow. That's really all I need to say to make a case against it. Yes, it's capable of good damage against mid tier stuff or unarmored stuff and even a few bosses, but the moment you have to fight high level grineer Ivara in general slows you down and then Artemis doesn't really give you the damage or AoE to clear things fast. Again at mid tier, you can just take Wukong and nuke the place faster than ivara.

By the way, I realized you mentioned Balefire Charger along side Diwata, implying it is one of the bad ones. This is actually a weapon synergizes with the frame. 2 Rips armor, Balefire Charger does insane raw damage. If you don't need armor ripping it does pretty well on it's own. By the way, it does pretty well against status resistent enemies too :P

Diwata/Garda's Talons yeah.... these are special... Both have viable builds last I checked, but I's really you're better off not using them at all... 

The reason I am leaning towards "Usable somewhere" rather than "Useful at all levels" is because the latter is an impossible task without making chroma OP. I mean look at every frame that works against high levels. Look at WHY it works. It's usually some form of armor ripping, armor bypass, raw damage (either by stacking damage or applying multiple hits), true damage. Giving chroma any of that stuff along side his great offense and defense buffs would make it OP.... unless ofc the range of skill 1 is reduced to nothing, making it another useless single target skill.

Just to make things a bit more clear, what I'm trying to say is why would you use your exalted weapon when your weapons can nuke rooms better? (not trying to be rude, I just have problems in explaining my points).

People use Exalted Blade for its flying slashes, Artemis Bow can one-shot high level grineer and 3-4 shot most bosses on Steel Path just fine so I don't know what you're talking about (unless we're talking about the Zealoid Prelate) and makes casting Quiver a whole lot easier, and Balefire Charge can at least refill Hildryn's shields and take down nullifier bubbles with the augment. All of them can still be used in all levels - even if the damage of some of them may fall off - because they fulfill a specific role (and Artemis Bow isn't supposed to be used to nuke rooms anyways, and saying that's the reason why it's bad is like saying apples are bad because they don't taste like oranges).

Wukong performs way better without his Iron Staff. The synergy with his Celestial Twin is bad in terms of nuking rooms because you're better off sticking to a normal hybrid melee and giving your clone an AoE weapon. There is no reason to use Wukong's Iron Staff along with Celestial Twin on higher levels, and if using normal weapons on higher levels is better than using Iron Staff, why would you purposefully nerf yourself on lower levels when using normal weapons can get the job done even faster there. Iron Staff's range doesn't even matter on lower levels because most of its combos lock you in place, while most normal weapon can just have a 4-5 meter range, have forced procs, and doesn't require slide attacks to move around while killing enemies much faster. Iron Staff doesn't have any role that it fulfills or unique gimmicks other than damage that a normal weapon can't cover.

Making Chroma's Spectral Scream only usable up to a certain level doesn't stop the issue of players not using it, and will only result in another case of Ember's World on Fire. However, making it into a utility that doesn't interrupt his gameplay instead of another weapon can give players a reason to use it more.

[Jitsuryoku]

5 hours ago, selig_fay said:

But I have a question, why does an exalted weapon exist at all? Are they unique? No, there are normal unique weapons. Their strength? Divata kills a level 100 enemy just like a normal melee kills a level 1000 enemy. I don't think that's a thing. The high level player has no problem with weapon strength in any way. How many weapons can you take on a mission? Well, a normal frame has 4 kinds. Exalted 5. Titania - 6. Have you ever used more than 2? Sortie limitation? Well, garuda says it can be solved.

On the other hand, every time people make a request to add an exalted weapon, I ask why? Exalted flamethrower, why don't you take Ignis? Or if you've covered the mechanics, why can't it be a signature weapon?

On the other hand, Chroma is a frame that concentrates on weapon enhancements and personal protection. His first ability is bad for one reason, it replaces normal weapons. The Exalted weapon does this too, and it is also bad, reducing options or leaving the ability useless.

What am I getting at. See how smite works. Yes, this ability is weak, but it is strong only because it does not interrupt any of your actions. You can shoot and spam the ability at the same time. And I think this is what you really need. But, we also have a request that would allow changing elements on a mission, which is also good. So why do you need a flamethrower?

The answer to first question is very simple. Each exalted weapon is a signature weapon. I.e. it reflects something important about that frame and often comes with a fun gimmick.... idk at least I find them more fun than some passive buff or aura.

• Excalibur (holy sword sword centered frame). Take away that exalted and I would personally not understand what the frame is named that way.
• Mesa is a gunslinger likely inspired by sharpshooters/cowboy stuff and the way animation plays really reflects that.
• Wukong is taken straight out of chinese myth and the frame has 2 references to that. The cloud and the staff. Cloud alone wouldn't REALLY hit the spot.
• Titania is forest themed fairy and thus has forest themed weapons.
• Baruk is a monk, Huge flying symbols aside exalted animations kinda reflect monk movements pretty nice.
• Hildryn is an attack helicopter and hence she has rocket launchers.
• Valkyr...... To be honest I think the mode itself is the signature move and weapon is more of a lore reminder
• Ivara.... I'll be honest, I didn't really get that one. She's stealthy, but in tech style and she has a bow... makes 0 sense to me.

Take those weapons away from those frames and they will turn boring. Anyways, imo, going by this pattern mouth-flamthrower fits perfectly, and that's why I ask for this particular exalted.

I don't think current ability can be fixed with band-aid fixes (especially because DE does that using augments and augments can't save trash-tier abilities) because buffs on chroma leaves him with little range and that means you need to weaken them to use this skill (even if it stops blocking weapons).

You mentioned that Chroma is a frame that concentrates on weapon/armor enhancements, but that's not strictly true. It's just a side effect of other 2 abilities are so useless that there's no other viable way to play Chroma (just like rhino, actually).

 

Anyways, I see it's not a very popular idea, so I'm gonna stop. Something tells me DE stopped looking at feedback beyond bug reports anyways. 😄

 

[Naneel]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Jitsuryoku:

Anyways, I see it's not a very popular idea, so I'm gonna stop. Something tells me DE stopped looking at feedback beyond bug reports anyways. 😄

I like your idea and I think it is a good solution to give him an exalted flamer. And yeah I agree with you on DEs view, sadly...

[PanMatter]

Personally I think that Specter Scream and Effigy should be a one ability. Effigy should work as exalted weapon, basically it would be a drone with flamethrower that will follows Chroma and stay as long as you have energy/duration. Thus we can still use weapons and have a nice "exalted companion" as fire support.

[selig_fay]

10 hours ago, PanMatter said:

Personally I think that Specter Scream and Effigy should be a one ability. Effigy should work as exalted weapon, basically it would be a drone with flamethrower that will follows Chroma and stay as long as you have energy/duration. Thus we can still use weapons and have a nice "exalted companion" as fire support.

I have nothing against exalted pets like Khora. This works well with gear.

[selig_fay]

14 hours ago, Jitsuryoku said:

Take those weapons away from those frames and they will turn boring. 

Firstly, I didn't say anything about removing them. Garuda shows well that it can be kept as a substitute if it is stylistically beautiful or useful. But the problem is that when a new weapon comes out, maybe even with a unique effect, you want to try it and it turns out that you give up the exalted blade.

Another point, exalted weapons are not unique in and of themselves. If the exalted blade is about the waves. Flaxtus about the same waves. Yes, there are some differences, but in general, for most live content situations, flactus works the same way as exalted blade. There is a small layer where the level of enemies makes the exalted blade better, but after that people stop using it and start using excalibur as an increase in damage for normal weapons. Again, I find baruuk unique, but equipping normal fists could improve it.

Third, it's about fun. You find the exalted blade hilarious, I don’t. Yes, maybe that's why Excalibur isn't right for me. But. I think Titania will have a lot more fun with normal weapons. This would give more build flexibility than it is now. And razorwing with a shotgun, sniper rifle or grenade launcher is what makes it play different ways. Dex pixia is fun only for those who like to look at damage numbers (although, as I said above, even in this it loses). Also about Hildryn. I don't understand why this weapon is needed and why this limitation is needed for aegis storm. It's not fun, it's just staticor with high damage but trash stats. Also about Valkyr. The claws have good damage, but I would put new claws for Hysteria because the attack range is larger.

Fourth, the style should not interfere with the gameplay. I have ideas for the Dex pixia / divata to transform depending on what normal weapon you are using, but this is such a bad idea that if they want it to look like a plant weapon, it is much easier to cover it with vines. Exalted blade? Force normal weapons to take energy form when you use an ability. I don't think it's hard to do. On the other hand, I think belifire hurts Hildryn's style. Such a large frame, and such a small weapon, it doesn't look good.

But, on the subject of the flamethrower, I really do recommend the ignis and additional weapon polish for chroma. I don't think an exalted weapon will be good (it might be good in the beginning, but I'm sure there will be a better option afterwards). On the other hand, mechanics like Garuda are good and I think DE should pay more attention to that.

[Jitsuryoku]

2 minutes ago, selig_fay said:

Firstly, I didn't say anything about removing them. Garuda shows well that it can be kept as a substitute if it is stylistically beautiful or useful. But the problem is that when a new weapon comes out, maybe even with a unique effect, you want to try it and it turns out that you give up the exalted blade.

Another point, exalted weapons are not unique in and of themselves. If the exalted blade is about the waves. Flaxtus about the same waves. Yes, there are some differences, but in general, for most live content situations, flactus works the same way as exalted blade. There is a small layer where the level of enemies makes the exalted blade better, but after that people stop using it and start using excalibur as an increase in damage for normal weapons. Again, I find baruuk unique, but equipping normal fists could improve it.

Third, it's about fun. You find the exalted blade hilarious, I don’t. Yes, maybe that's why Excalibur isn't right for me. But. I think Titania will have a lot more fun with normal weapons. This would give more build flexibility than it is now. And razorwing with a shotgun, sniper rifle or grenade launcher is what makes it play different ways. Dex pixia is fun only for those who like to look at damage numbers (although, as I said above, even in this it loses). Also about Hildryn. I don't understand why this weapon is needed and why this limitation is needed for aegis storm. It's not fun, it's just staticor with high damage but trash stats. Also about Valkyr. The claws have good damage, but I would put new claws for Hysteria because the attack range is larger.

Fourth, the style should not interfere with the gameplay. I have ideas for the Dex pixia / divata to transform depending on what normal weapon you are using, but this is such a bad idea that if they want it to look like a plant weapon, it is much easier to cover it with vines. Exalted blade? Force normal weapons to take energy form when you use an ability. I don't think it's hard to do. On the other hand, I think belifire hurts Hildryn's style. Such a large frame, and such a small weapon, it doesn't look good.

But, on the subject of the flamethrower, I really do recommend the ignis and additional weapon polish for chroma. I don't think an exalted weapon will be good (it might be good in the beginning, but I'm sure there will be a better option afterwards). On the other hand, mechanics like Garuda are good and I think DE should pay more attention to that.

We clearly have very different views on what is fun, so arguing is pointless, we will not change each other's minds.
We essentially want incompatible things.