Upcoming Xaku Changes: Round 2!

[Steel_Rook]

On 2020-09-29 at 6:04 PM, lukinu_u said:

How does it work when applied with AoE weapons ?
Also, it's still a problem because a teammate with Xata Whisper can prevent you from headshotting if he shoot and proc before you.

Apologies for bringing this up from a week ago, but it got me thinking - can we just make the Void status effect automatically generate onto enemies' "heads?" What, realistically speaking, is the benefit to making it specific to where we target? Sure, that might work on Xaku, but what about our primary source of Void damage - our Operator amps? Plenty of them are AoE, as said above. One's an Amp Arca Plasmor, one's a grenade launcher, one's a Void flamethrower and that's just off the top of my head. Also, what about Unairu's Magnetic Blast? Obviously that's not a Void bubble (since it colours, unlike those) but it's a wider problem I'd argue. Would there be a downside to making all Void Magnetise bubbles always redirect shots to the central target's head?

 

*edit*
And just to head off what I expect will be a reasonable counter-argument: Yes, that does in theory make Warframe more "skill-based," in that we require skill-shot headshots in order to ensure auto-target headshots thereafter. Yes, this is true in isolation, but not when the opportunity cost of hitting anything other than a headshot is so high. Landing a Void Bodyshot all but prevents headshots, it can block team-mates with better aim from landing subsequent Void Headshots and - worst of all - it's a Status Effect. By definition those are random meaning lining up precise headshots doesn't guarantee they'll proc Void over the random follow-up bodyshot because we are not aimbots. This change is an obvious improvement, but it introduces a lot of additional and unrecoverable failure conditions which don't need to be there.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

25 minutes ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Uhm, that's a lot of conjecture. It actually isn't balanced out for eidolons as I've explained with data multiple times, and eidolon fights don't suck....they're actually very fun.

I'd imagine they suck if one had a mote amp and had not progressed in standing with the Quills or Vox solaris, or farmed any focus....but that's more on the player to actually do those things. 

Just like Profit Taker....Eidolons aren't for people that just started the game 2 weeks ago. 

The issue with void damage on regular enemies was the -50% resistance...which was removed.....so since that has been changed you can do way more damage with Xaku now.

You’re defense that the -50% holds some form of significance in the “Xatas Whisper should affect Eidolons” makes absolutely zero sense. Eidolons don’t have cloned or fossilized flesh.

Also, I think I’m done arguing with you. You seem very busy with everyone else here telling you how wrong you are.

[Wyrmius_Prime]

The Lost is still just a worse version of Bastille costing triple the energy. The people trying to balance Xaku are in fact lost.

[Xaegar]

Round 2 changes aside, I would like to point out the fact that Grasp of Lohk when built for high range has guns floating underneath the floor and since these guns have no line of sight of any enemy, they are pretty much …useless.

If I build my Xaku for 250% range, that is about 15 guns and out of these 15 guns, 4 of them are underneath the floor and they don't fire at anything whatsoever. 

I tested this in simulacrum as well and the floor guns don't seem to be firing even though enemies were within firing range. Four guns being inactive is quite a bit of DPS loss and with the proposed max gun count on recast change, this becomes a lot more noticeable. If possible can we have the guns stacked a bit closer together than go all the way up like a Christmas tree. This would prevent the guns from being clipper through the floor and losing line of sight of enemies.

Thanks.

[Card1na1]

Overall I feel like the changes are good improvements, but honestly, all I want is for Deny to be Xaku's 1 and have The Lost only have 2 abilities. Its super awkward to have 3 abilities that are vastly different to all just cycle on one button. Two abilities is good, just one button press to get to the ability you want.

[ITheRavenI]

I still think that:

Xata's Whisper:

Void status should be changed with a new element with new elemental effect:

-Now there are two seperate Void effects. One being the real void element on amps which can deal damage to Tridolons and the fake void element on Xata's Whisper which cant deal damage to Tridolons. Which is annoying on both gameplay side and the lore side since void element is the neutral element which can damage everything and nothing has resistance and weakness against it. Tridolons having immunity to Xaku's void damage means that the statement about void being the neutral element is not entirely true. I also saw people saying "Then everyone would put Xata's Whisper on everything and do Tridolons via. Helminth." and im sure that people will reply to this and state the same. I invite them to think that the game doesn't entirely revolve around Tridolon hunts. Yes, if this gets adressed and Xata's Whisper gains the ability to deal damage to Tridolons it would become really popular. But isn't that the Helminth System's aim? Creating compelling options and forcing you to think and choose? I mean who would put put Xata's Whisper on Chroma and go to Tridolon hunts without thinking "Hmm. I can either put Xata's Whisper on Chroma and do Tridolons really fast or I can put ,for example, Empower for more power strength so I can stay longer on Kuva Survival as Chroma."

-While leveling and putting forma on Xaku I realised that void element effect doesnt work with weapons like Ignis. The Void element creates an effect which is similar to Mag's Magnetize. If, for example, you hit a clumped group of grineers with ignis and the void element effect gets proc'd on the grineer on the very front of that clumped group then the rest of the group wont get damaged. All you will see is bunch of gray zeroes. You have to shoot the grineer from a different angle or entirely move to a new position and shoot from there until you trigger the effect again.

Grasp of Lohk:

Target Range should be increased:

-It really hurts when the grineer can fire their weapons from across the room but when you grab their weapon and use their weapons against them they fire at such a short distance that the weapons only get to shoot twice before i walk into melee range and start slicing the grineer with my melee weapon.

On 2020-09-29 at 6:00 PM, [DE]Danielle said:

As we’ve continued testing, this has held true. In any instance where we’ve increased it, even slightly, we neared a state that we had already established was undesirable due to its encouragement of an ‘inactive’ way of playing (Ember’s “World on Fire” comes to mind before it was changed to “Inferno”). As a result, ‘Target Range’ will continue to remain untouched for this round.

- The reason you guys at DE give that I quoted above is the most stupid thing I've heard from you guys so far because:

1 -  Grasp of Lohk especially with the duration stop addition to The Vast Untime during Round 1 already encourages "inactive" way of playing. I have %236 duration. My Grasp of Lohk duration is 28.26s and my The Vast Untime duration is 58.88s. If you roll the numbers to 28 for Grasp of Lohk and 59 for The Vast Untime and add the fact that The Vast Untime has 1s~ windup you will get one of the most "inactive" way of playing Warframe.

2 - There are Warframes like Octavia, who can "on theory" deal infinite damage without practically doing anything, Equinox, whose gameplay only revolves around activating and deactivating her 4, Saryn, who can (with high range and efficiency and low duration and damage) literally press 1 once and then just wait around and press 4 occasionally to spread her spores. These Warframes are already encouraging "inactive" ways of playing Warframe already.

3 - Hindering Warframe(s) from achieving full potential with their concepts does nothing on preventing "inactive" players. Even if you rework all of the Warframes I stated above they will still find a way to stay "inactive" like ,for example, taking frames like Rhino and Nezha, build for pure strength and armor and use their respective protective abilities and stand around while leaving others to do the work. You should aim for implementing systems like vote kicking players instead. It will be much more effective than nerfing and hindering Warframes and ruin or hold back the experience from the active players who prefer to play as those Warframes for reasons like Aesthetics, Lore, Looks etc.

4 - "As we've continued testing..." Excuse me but with who did you test exactly? I never heard your test servers (which you implemented and then used only twice) or any influencers being called for playtesting. You just experimented with it. To test something properly you need someone to test on who knows how the game works for both low level content and high level content. In NASA they test the materials over and over for different scenarios for different results and repeating patterns, then they do test launches to see if it performs the same as it did during the tests and then they put humans in it. But you guys just test the materials, see the results and patterns and say "yup, test says that this thing can endure the journey" then launch it without actually testing it.

- Why stolen weapons don't act like themselves? I didn't steal Ogris, Ignis, Hind and Gorgon so they all would act the same and shoot beams. Also this would encourage players to think like "I can use this on 3 bombards so I can get 3 Ogris or I can use it on those 9 grineers over there so I can get 9 Hinds." instead of just jumping in the middle of the crowd and use the ability like "LoL! All your weapons are belong to us!"

The Lost: Deny:

-I still think that this ability should hit enemies in a cone just like the Helminth ability, Expedite Suffering. I mean what do you see the most: 4 enemies standing in a row or 4 enemies standing next to each other? To be honest the only time I saw 4 enemies standing in a straight line is in those tight corridors in Kuva Fortress.

The Vast Untime and The Passive:

- I heard that this game treats Evasion differently than normal. Normally when you get hit and trigger an Evasion in a game you negate the attack and dont take any damage from it at all. How Warframe treats Evasion however, is it rolls for an Evasion before an attack instead. If it triggers an Evasion the enemy doesn't aim at you and fire on the general direction of you. So if you happen to dodge, move or jump towards the same direction with the bullet and it somehow connects to you, you still get the full damage. What should happen is either you guys change how the evasion works and we get %75 chance to not take damage or you guys remove the whole Evasion mechanic from Xaku and change it with something like %15 damage reduction, %45 damage reduction with The Vast Untime. (25 x 3 = %75, 15 x 3 = %45 As you see the scaling is the same and its totally reasonable since Baruuk's passive gives him up to %50 damage reduction.

[ITheRavenI]

14 minutes ago, ABlindGuyPlays said:

After whacking a few forma onto Xaku?

 

I found myself activky avoiding athe lost because 'This is clunky to use in a fight and I am constantly mis clicking'

 

The timer numbers kept blending into the power icons at the lower right of the screen. This is partially an eipyesight issue, but with the usi bumped up to 130% ithere were still many instances of me thinking the power had run out except no n umber blended into icon.

 

Could vast untime get an end animation that has more distinctiveness than the body bits melting back onto the frame? Found myself in a position where I didn't realize the power ended. Again could be my poor vision,but there ya go.

-I don't know if you play on steam but I do. Since steam removed the option to move the message notifications except with the usage of third party skins every time someone types to me it makes it impossible for me to track the ability durations. Not just with Xaku but with every duration Warframe like Octavia, Limbo, Loki etc. Its especially annoying when your friend likes to seperating their sentences into seperate messages and spams you like that ending up obscuring your ability hud for extended periods of time. I don't wanna close notifications or make myself "dont disturb" whenever I play warframe. Compared to this I have no issue with that problem youre talking about. (also you might wanna see an eye doctor just to be sure mate.)

-I agree on that last one. Atleast a slight increase to the sound cue would be cool.

 

[ITheRavenI]

I hate to quote things from the beginning of arguements but I really want an answer to this:

"How can Xaku have will if it's a shell operated by the operator??

When you transfer out of your Xaku....does it start running around attacking everything of it's own volition?"

So you say that Umbra can kill Eidolons?

On 2020-10-05 at 4:17 AM, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

One shotting with amps requires teamwork and prior investment. Unairu wisps...Void Strike....Proccing Virtuous Shadow...Volt shield...grinding Fortuna and Vox Solaris for the Certus brace....for example....

What kind of teamwork are you talking about? I literally ran into a random volt who literally took down tridolons alone while we got the lures, filled them up and sat and watched him.

Also you do know that they could just change Xaku's fake Void Damage with an entirely new element right? They dont have to add a Void Damage to a warframe and not give him the ability to damage Eidolons with the said Void Damage and trivialize both the lore and the gameplay elements of Void Damage.

I read the arguement fully starting from the page 7 of this thread and I still think that GearsMatrix301 is right on this one.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

48 minutes ago, ITheRavenI said:

I hate to quote things from the beginning of arguements but I really want an answer to this:

"How can Xaku have will if it's a shell operated by the operator??

When you transfer out of your Xaku....does it start running around attacking everything of it's own volition?"

So you say that Umbra can kill Eidolons?

What kind of teamwork are you talking about? I literally ran into a random volt who literally took down tridolons alone while we got the lures, filled them up and sat and watched him.

Also you do know that they could just change Xaku's fake Void Damage with an entirely new element right? They dont have to add a Void Damage to a warframe and not give him the ability to damage Eidolons with the said Void Damage and trivialize both the lore and the gameplay elements of Void Damage.

I read the arguement fully starting from the page 7 of this thread and I still think that GearsMatrix301 is right on this one.

I don't know if excal umbra was exposed to the void....and if he was, DE clearly still didn't want frames damaging the eidolons or they would have let him already....So that's a no....I didn't say Umbra can kill eidolons.

As I said before.....that Volt did not just pick up a mote amp and start doing that....he actually grinded quite a bit to reach that point. He probably had the Certus Brace (which has the highest crit chance of all amp Braces) which is locked behind Vox Solaris Rank 4. If you're not aware....the only way to rank up Vox Solaris is toroids....so he also had to farm those.

That volt probably had either a maxed Unairu Wisp or Void Strike which also takes a lot of time to grind. He also probably had multiple Focus Ways unlocked to give him enough amp energy regeneration and amp energy pool as well as operator energy regeneration and energy pool. 

Each Focus Way takes 1 million focus to unlock....so that's more than 4 million focus for just those 4....Including the focus to unlock the nodes prior that starts at 80,000 up to 320,000 I believe. So probably more than 5 to 6 million focus for just amp/operator energy regeneration and energy pool.

And I agree they should not have even given Xaku Void powers. I speculate they did it for a couple reasons, but I don't know how accurate this speculation is:

1. I think all the other elements had a themed frame already (heat, radiation, cold etc) and maybe they didn't want to disappoint people by making it one element that people didn't like or had already seen. Void was the only element not taken by an existing frame. 

2. All the casuals that complained about not being able to handle sentients during Scarlet Spear. This is one more way to deal with them and clearing their resistances. 

3. We obviously have content coming up that deals with the Sentient War. Maybe they decided to release Xaku ahead of time so people had enough time to get it and build it up for the upcoming war.

[Velitria]

7 hours ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

they should not have even given Xaku Void powers. I speculate they did it for a couple reasons, but I don't know how accurate this speculation is:

Regardless of your speculation of why, I will tell you why. A little bit of background.... When working on Deimos and the Broken frame that would release at the same time. They were taking ideas for the theme of Xaku. The design, art, and style of Xaku was sentient/void themed, visually, and DE had been working on the story and set of Deimos at the same time. I concluded at the time that it was an infested world next, and also somehow there would be relation in the story to the void as well (though in explaining the frame I mentioned Lua's void tendrils). The infested related to the Orokin and storyline and I had a suspicion it would be both themes. Those were the things I proposed in my Broken Frame ability concepts. Xata's Whisper was the one that got accepted (I called it "meld ~ imaginative name right...") as it was my idea to implement Void damage into the kit. The other abilities were selected from other people, but mine being the first ability set the theme of Void. I had a feeling one would be accepted if I "somewhat" accurately predicted the future content.

However, it could have been my ideas, it could have been a set theme for Xaku, or it could have been Deimos, we won't know unless they tell us. Also for balance sake and not making amps irrelevant, I did suggest it not work on Eidolons. That was simply not a balanced developer minded option. You are welcome to blame me instead of them. Though I did suggest the ability work similar to saryn's toxic lash so that it doesn't take status potential away. I also wanted (without exactly comparing them) to be a stronger % than toxic lash because it isn't a DoT. I also set it to be the second slot 50 energy cost to dissuade any energy cost arguments to the % value. I set it to 30% in concept because it was also supposed to give status immunity, or it would have been 60-75%. However, they made it a first ability, nerfed it to 26%, and didn't add the status immunity. Also it being void damage added, it isn't increasing raw damage to make DoT status better. All those things combined to create the worst buff in the game outside of "hey it's void status". It's a bit sad for me to see, I will admit. Being a helminth "damage increasing" ability even though it states "added damage" just like elemental augments (that are not "damage increasing" because it isn't raw damage" was another sad note. They essentially made it as bad as it could be. I can't imagine how many nerfs it got in development because they were unsure of things. Look, DE, all this is doing is making Xaku's 2 be the only option. I don't like no effort or turret styles, it's why mesa, protea, and octavia are of my lowest used frames. I like Xaku because Xata's whisper was my idea, but with it being so bad and the 2 not my style, I can't see any reason people would use the frame outside of the 2. If they want Void damage, they would subsume it onto a frame that can actually use it on weapons effectively. It being inaccurately considered a "damage increasing" ability for raw damage also confirms my theory that they heavily nerfed it during development and were unsure what to do. Can it be the person who came up with the idea actually knows how to balance it? I'm mr 29 as a player, and also know fully well the developer perspective of how these things work.

If I were to have full control to balance it... without any extra changes that would skew said balance (I don't even need to test to know the balance of the game at this point in relation to other frames and content).

1. Currently the calculation of damage is 26% added to base damage before status which shifts the other damage values in relation to status and essentially being a 26% increase to total damage. Void damage mods do not exist and would not be a way to double stack. How I would change this is to mirror Toxic Lash to create an after effect, basing on the Value, though this is not a DoT in this case, it would guarantee a Void Status for compatibility with non-status weapons. Copying the code of Toxic lash would also be simple to convert as well since the concept already exists (also toxic lash doesn't apply to abilities or it would work on spores). Now that there would be no conflict with status, the tooltip is changed (and help tab in abilities) to indicate that it applies the status instead of split. 

2. Next, the more important balance consideration, Value.... The Value of the % of the oldest consistent ability since the game creation is 50% for Roar. This ability is 75 energy cost and it lasts around the same as Xata's Whisper. All of Xaku's abilities are duration based and channeling energy drain isn't an option for a duration dependent frame. This ties into how I feel about Arcane Energize existing, I conclude that the balance of the kit shouldn't be in cost, it should be in potential. What do I mean by potential? I mean the viability of one strategy comparative to another. Grasp of Lohk is the strongest strategy, Xata's Whisper having a higher Value and 0 energy cost wouldn't be enough to merit changing strategy instead of using Grasp of Lohk. So regardless of the energy cost, the real concern is variability and options for more than one style viability with Xaku. Considering the trend of 25, 50, 75, 100 energy costs, if anything, incentivise the prospect of never using anything except the 100, as it should be the best right? This is basis of balance for why energy costs should not determine strength completely. They are limiters, not value markers.

3. However, level is an important consideration for these, considering Xaku's 2 will always be better than weapons since they scale with enemies. Then no amount of Value increase to Xata's Whisper would be enough to merit a switch. So I then conclude that the ability should compare with other frame's that provide a similar buff. Toxic Lash is DoT at 30% base. DoT automatically makes the value of 30% at (toxin calculation) 0.5 x 6 seconds be essentially a 90% of total damage value. Unless a DoT can only apply a limited number of times, the time value can be directly input into the effective value since it can continue to stack and keep applying the damage of previous shots. The only situation this wouldn't apply is Status Immune enemies or oneshot kills. Roar is 50% and will apply another 50% to DoT for 100%, Chroma's isn't total damage scaling, Mirage is 200%.

4. Ignoring status Potential for the value of single hit damage, the order of Value is 26%, 30%(60% melee), 50%, 200%, Xaku, Saryn, Rhino, Mirage. Yes, Saryn's after toxin effect does apply a single time to Status immune enemies to make it not irrelevant. So this leaves Xata's Whisper in an interesting spot, it is not Raw damage, it is not DoT, and it has no faction benefits. Because it is not Raw damage or a DoT, it needs to be at least 50% more than Roar in Value. Mirage does not apply an extra time to DoT unlike Rhino. However, even if this was 200% like Mirage, her's would still be superior because Raw damage can increase DoT. Thus by that Logic, Xata's Whisper would fit in at 150%, but... Xata's Whisper is the only one of all damage buffing abilities that is not 75 energy cost and sits at 25 (Edit, actually I was wrong, Eclipse is 25, proving my point even more?). My explanation for this is quite simple actually... Xaku is a low energy pool frame, and based around duration and range. Efficiency will always be dumped for the other values on an energy hungry frame. The very nature of the builds of Xaku are the reason, and not the potential of the ability. However, in the theme of balance and considering the energy cost as a factor, instead of 150%, it would make more sense to be 100% (excluding mirage consideration). ~ Edit: I would consider it a decent feeling damage ability at 125%, but only if I don't want to use DoT. Honestly, it always comes back to DoT and depends on situation. Whether it ends up being 100, 125, or 150 is up to speculation, but 100 is the absolute minimum. 200% would still be worse than mirage for the same cost since void damage isn't Raw damage to gain faction bonuses. With Melee and Toxin DoT, Saryn's comes out at 180% effectivity. With Rhino, Toxin, Electric, Heat, or Slash come out at 300% effectivity over duration. For taking my Gas status change post literally, before the status rework, with the split calculation (I meant combined since it just made it worse than a single element DoT) it is only 150% vs 300% effectivity over the duration with Gas. also I didn't mean to literally cap Gas at 10 procs as well, I meant the radius. Though my suggestions for Xata's whisper can be taken literally, I have edited it to be as precise as possible.

5. To inspire a player to have a reason to use this ability when using a different style such as Grasp of Lohk, there needs to be synergy between the 1 and 4, as the 4 is used in every style. This synergy would be to inflict void status on anything that either misses or does not miss Xaku as it relates to the evasion of the 4 and also with the passive while the 1 active.

6. Possibly too late to change but I would switch the 1 and 3 for 75 cost Xata's Whisper and 25 cost The Lost. This would free up the balance quite nicely actually, as The lost abilities are extremely expensive for what they do. It's a mutual agreement that Deny should cost 25 energy and the only reason it isn't is because it's tied to Gaze and Accuse which don't matter how much they cost. General balance for Xata's Whisper at this point is 75 cost, 100% or 150% (since the only reason it wouldn't have been 150 in comparison to mirage in concept was the cost of the ability since they were so similar). Against bosses with a weakness, Rhino, Chroma, or Mirage would still be the top choices, unless Void damage just somehow wasn't neutral to a boss, or it was a sentient. I get that sentients are a big theme to come, but honestly, most of the game doesn't contain sentients and balance needs to consider the largest portion of the game as priority. Xaku's place could be a good sentient boss killer, that wouldn't be a bad place for a frame. Perhaps have void damage also ignore sentient damage reduction on eidolons and other sentient bosses (not talking about shields).

This is how I would fix Xata's Whisper to be in a state that could be considered to be a "damage increasing" ability, despite not accurately being one, I know for a fact there was un-sureness with this ability as I have explained. However the mega nerfed state it resides in is extremely unwarranted.

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

3 hours ago, Velitria said:

Regardless of your speculation of why, I will tell you why. A little bit of background.... When working on Deimos and the Broken frame that would release at the same time. They were taking ideas for the theme of Xaku. The design, art, and style of Xaku was sentient/void themed, visually, and DE had been working on the story and set of Deimos at the same time. I concluded at the time that it was an infested world next, and also somehow there would be relation in the story to the void as well (though in explaining the frame I mentioned Lua's void tendrils). The infested related to the Orokin and storyline and I had a suspicion it would be both themes. Those were the things I proposed in my Broken Frame ability concepts. Xata's Whisper was the one that got accepted (I called it "meld ~ imaginative name right...") as it was my idea to implement Void damage into the kit. The other abilities were selected from other people, but mine being the first ability set the theme of Void. I had a feeling one would be accepted if I "somewhat" accurately predicted the future content.

However, it could have been my ideas, it could have been a set theme for Xaku, or it could have been Deimos, we won't know unless they tell us. Also for balance sake and not making amps irrelevant, I did suggest it not work on Eidolons. That was simply not a balanced developer minded option. You are welcome to blame me instead of them. Though I did suggest the ability work similar to saryn's toxic lash so that it doesn't take status potential away. I also wanted (without exactly comparing them) to be a stronger % than toxic lash because it isn't a DoT. I also set it to be the second slot 50 energy cost to dissuade any energy cost arguments to the % value. I set it to 30% in concept because it was also supposed to give status immunity, or it would have been 60-75%. However, they made it a first ability, nerfed it to 26%, and didn't add the status immunity. Also it being void damage added, it isn't increasing raw damage to make DoT status better. All those things combined to create the worst buff in the game outside of "hey it's void status". It's a bit sad for me to see, I will admit. Being a helminth "damage increasing" ability even though it states "added damage" just like elemental augments (that are not "damage increasing" because it isn't raw damage" was another sad note. They essentially made it as bad as it could be. I can't imagine how many nerfs it got in development because they were unsure of things. Look, DE, all this is doing is making Xaku's 2 be the only option. I don't like no effort or turret styles, it's why mesa, protea, and octavia are of my lowest used frames. I like Xaku because Xata's whisper was my idea, but with it being so bad and the 2 not my style, I can't see any reason people would use the frame outside of the 2. If they want Void damage, they would subsume it onto a frame that can actually use it on weapons effectively. It being inaccurately considered a "damage increasing" ability for raw damage also confirms my theory that they heavily nerfed it during development and were unsure what to do. Can it be the person who came up with the idea actually knows how to balance it? I'm mr 29 as a player, and also know fully well the developer perspective of how these things work.

If I were to have full control to balance it... without any extra changes that would skew said balance (I don't even need to test to know the balance of the game at this point in relation to other frames and content).

1. Currently the calculation of damage is 26% added to base damage before status which shifts the other damage values in relation to status and essentially being a 26% increase to total damage. Void damage mods do not exist and would not be a way to double stack. How I would change this is to mirror Toxic Lash to create an after effect, basing on the Value, though this is not a DoT in this case, it would guarantee a Void Status for compatibility with non-status weapons. Copying the code of Toxic lash would also be simple to convert as well since the concept already exists (also toxic lash doesn't apply to abilities or it would work on spores). Now that there would be no conflict with status, the tooltip is changed (and help tab in abilities) to indicate that it applies the status instead of split. 

2. Next, the more important balance consideration, Value.... The Value of the % of the oldest consistent ability since the game creation is 50% for Roar. This ability is 75 energy cost and it lasts around the same as Xata's Whisper. All of Xaku's abilities are duration based and channeling energy drain isn't an option for a duration dependent frame. This ties into how I feel about Arcane Energize existing, I conclude that the balance of the kit shouldn't be in cost, it should be in potential. What do I mean by potential? I mean the viability of one strategy comparative to another. Grasp of Lohk is the strongest strategy, Xata's Whisper having a higher Value and 0 energy cost wouldn't be enough to merit changing strategy instead of using Grasp of Lohk. So regardless of the energy cost, the real concern is variability and options for more than one style viability with Xaku. Considering the trend of 25, 50, 75, 100 energy costs, if anything, incentivise the prospect of never using anything except the 100, as it should be the best right? This is basis of balance for why energy costs should not determine strength completely. They are limiters, not value markers.

3. However, level is an important consideration for these, considering Xaku's 2 will always be better than weapons since they scale with enemies. Then no amount of Value increase to Xata's Whisper would be enough to merit a switch. So I then conclude that the ability should compare with other frame's that provide a similar buff. Toxic Lash is DoT at 30% base. DoT automatically makes the value of 30% at (toxin calculation) 0.5 x 6 seconds be essentially a 90% of total damage value. Unless a DoT can only apply a limited number of times, the time value can be directly input into the effective value since it can continue to stack and keep applying the damage of previous shots. The only situation this wouldn't apply is Status Immune enemies or oneshot kills. Roar is 50% and will apply another 50% to DoT for 100%, Chroma's isn't total damage scaling, Mirage is 200%.

4. Ignoring status Potential for the value of single hit damage, the order of Value is 26%, 30%(60% melee), 50%, 200%, Xaku, Saryn, Rhino, Mirage. Yes, Saryn's after toxin effect does apply a single time to Status immune enemies to make it not irrelevant. So this leaves Xata's Whisper in an interesting spot, it is not Raw damage, it is not DoT, and it has no faction benefits. Because it is not Raw damage or a DoT, it needs to be at least 50% more than Roar in Value. Mirage does not apply an extra time to DoT unlike Rhino. However, even if this was 200% like Mirage, her's would still be superior because Raw damage can increase DoT. Thus by that Logic, Xata's Whisper would fit in at 150%, but... Xata's Whisper is the only one of all damage buffing abilities that is not 75 energy cost and sits at 25 (Edit, actually I was wrong, Eclipse is 25, proving my point even more?). My explanation for this is quite simple actually... Xaku is a low energy pool frame, and based around duration and range. Efficiency will always be dumped for the other values on an energy hungry frame. The very nature of the builds of Xaku are the reason, and not the potential of the ability. However, in the theme of balance and considering the energy cost as a factor, instead of 150%, it would make more sense to be 100% (excluding mirage consideration). ~ Edit: I would consider it a decent feeling damage ability at 125%, but only if I don't want to use DoT. Honestly, it always comes back to DoT and depends on situation. Whether it ends up being 100, 125, or 150 is up to speculation, but 100 is the absolute minimum. 200% would still be worse than mirage for the same cost since void damage isn't Raw damage to gain faction bonuses. With Melee and Toxin DoT, Saryn's comes out at 180% effectivity. With Rhino, Toxin, Electric, Heat, or Slash come out at 300% effectivity over duration. For taking my Gas status change post literally, before the status rework, with the split calculation (I meant combined since it just made it worse than a single element DoT) it is only 150% vs 300% effectivity over the duration with Gas. also I didn't mean to literally cap Gas at 10 procs as well, I meant the radius. Though my suggestions for Xata's whisper can be taken literally, I have edited it to be as precise as possible.

5. To inspire a player to have a reason to use this ability when using a different style such as Grasp of Lohk, there needs to be synergy between the 1 and 4, as the 4 is used in every style. This synergy would be to inflict void status on anything that either misses or does not miss Xaku as it relates to the evasion of the 4 and also with the passive while the 1 active.

6. Possibly too late to change but I would switch the 1 and 3 for 75 cost Xata's Whisper and 25 cost The Lost. This would free up the balance quite nicely actually, as The lost abilities are extremely expensive for what they do. It's a mutual agreement that Deny should cost 25 energy and the only reason it isn't is because it's tied to Gaze and Accuse which don't matter how much they cost. General balance for Xata's Whisper at this point is 75 cost, 100% or 150% (since the only reason it wouldn't have been 150 in comparison to mirage in concept was the cost of the ability since they were so similar). Against bosses with a weakness, Rhino, Chroma, or Mirage would still be the top choices, unless Void damage just somehow wasn't neutral to a boss, or it was a sentient. I get that sentients are a big theme to come, but honestly, most of the game doesn't contain sentients and balance needs to consider the largest portion of the game as priority. Xaku's place could be a good sentient boss killer, that wouldn't be a bad place for a frame. Perhaps have void damage also ignore sentient damage reduction on eidolons and other sentient bosses (not talking about shields).

This is how I would fix Xata's Whisper to be in a state that could be considered to be a "damage increasing" ability, despite not accurately being one, I know for a fact there was un-sureness with this ability as I have explained. However the mega nerfed state it resides in is extremely unwarranted.

 

Ok thanks for clearing that up. I do not blame you for anything, though. The void damage is not the issue for me, personally. It's the drama that accompanied it. 

I feel the damage will be much better with the removal of the resistance of it from enemies.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

On 2020-10-06 at 1:28 PM, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

You’re defense that the -50% holds some form of significance in the “Xatas Whisper should affect Eidolons” makes absolutely zero sense. Eidolons don’t have cloned or fossilized flesh.

Also, I think I’m done arguing with you. You seem very busy with everyone else here telling you how wrong you are.

Regular enemies.... I'll clarify for you:

You said Xaku "has 1 purpose", correct? Actually, let me put your quote in so there's no confusion:

"All I see if a frame who’s desperately needs a reason to exist. Is already balanced out for 1 specific reason. And is being prevented from said reason by some misguided idea that Eidolons fights need to suck as much as possible."

I was responding to you and your claim about Xaku being worthless and only having 1 job.....Enemies had a resistance against void damage, so yes, that was holding his damage back against regular enemies.  Xaku can now do more damage against regular enemies because DE has removed their void resistance....Xaku was doing less damage against regular enemies because they always had a resistance to void.

This means that Xaku now "has a purpose" and a "reason to exist" since for some reason you thought this frame was made exclusively for eidolons....It was not. 

You've answered absolutely zero of my questions regarding the potential of Xatas whisper on weapons to affect the eidolons shields, why we should allow only Xatas whisper to affect eidolon shields but not his other abilities, or the potentially devastating effects of using ability buffs to enhance Xakus void damage on eidolon shields.

I've already told you that the eidolon Hydrolyst has about 50,000 shields and that a group of 3 Xakus with gunblades, or even Paracesis' imbued with Xatas whisper would be overkill, then I mentioned a group with 2 Xakus and an ability buffer like rhino for example, further buffing their now void-imbued weapons and you never actually responded to anyone of it. I even posted Xakus own ability descriptions from the wiki so you wouldn't have to look it up....

[Kefirno]

Please stop wasting your resources on these pointless tweaks if you don't have any intentions to actually fix Xaku. Fake void damage, invulnerable gazed enemies, clunky The Lost cycling are never going to addressed I assume.

[Velitria]

2 hours ago, Kefirno said:

Please stop wasting your resources on these pointless tweaks if you don't have any intentions to actually fix Xaku. Fake void damage, invulnerable gazed enemies, clunky The Lost cycling are never going to addressed I assume.

They already stated fixes that "will" be issued and are not finished yet such as making Grasp of Lohk not target invulnerable enemies, making Void damage complete Neutral, Xata's whisper does need a buff of at least 4x though. Also you probably didn't know this option existed for cycling abilities.

Also you probably misunderstand just how easy it is to change values on frames. I could rebalance every frame in the game in around 2-4 hours from a stat only perspective. Secondly, saying "fix Xaku" and then listing things doesn't do anything except make you look ignorant. One must explain why something is bad and how to improve it logically and make an attempt to care about the balance and big picture. I had to spend effort figuring out what you meant when you said what needed fixing. Devs are not keen on "figuring out" why and what you said and filling in the blanks for you. You need to fill in the blanks for them if you ever want them to care what you have to say.

[quxier]

54 minutes ago, Velitria said:

Also you probably didn't know this option existed for cycling abilities.

Not sure about other abilities but both version of switching abilities is not perfect.
First hold-to-switch is slow for switching abilities.
Secondly, tap-to-switch makes the "Void beam" ability slow to cast. Other abilities doesn't suffer from it because they doesn't require many casts.
 

 

[JackHargreav]

I would say just delete all of Xaku's power and start again from zero. All of her abilities are either useless or other frames dont just do better everything it does but they do it significantly better.

And maybe just get rid of this crap dodge chance and evasion. It's worthless. It does absolutely nothing especially against Deimos enemies. Where every single enemy has heat seeking projectiles and they hit really hard. And that's the expansion Xaku came with.

[JackHargreav]

18 hours ago, Velitria said:

Also you probably didn't know this option existed for cycling abilities.

Which is incredibly uncomfortable to use. I used it with Protea and when I went back to other frames I always had to toggle it back.

[vFlitz]

I took Xaku for the Umbra Forma blueprint alert just now, and the experience proved to be quite enlightening.

As a frame that focuses quite heavily on affecting enemies and area control, they are rendered helpless if enemies are capable of doing harm outside the sphere of influence dictated by ability range. Before, having played Xaku mostly in indoors tilesets, I didn't really see any issue with the current targeting range on Grasp of Lohk. Now I believe that it absolutely should be increased at least in the direction Xaku is looking at. That way the ability isn't fully autonomous but Xaku gets a way to do something to enemies that keep out of range.

Furthermore, what is even the point of Gaze requiring an enemy target to be cast? It doesn't really offer anything thematically, and in practice it's an extreme hindrance. Allies and your own guns from GoL constantly kill enemies you're trying to Gaze before the ability actually takes effect, so usually you  can only actually pull it off on an eximus or something unusually tanky like Nox. Yet eximus units under the effect of Gaze still have their auras active for whatever reason? I just accidentally drained my entire squad's energy by keeping a Gazed Energy Leech around.

One handy trick is that if you Gaze an enemy that's been Accused beforehand, they start drawing enemy fire, sort of like Decoy. That's a rather considerable boon both to Xaku's own survivability and their ability to defend an objective, particularly since enemy target acquisition isn't dictated by ability range.. however, ironically in Defense missions where it would help most, it appears to stop waves from progressing. Also, an already Gazed enemy can't be Accused to achieve that effect, which is another inconvenience.

Finally, Xaku is heavily pushed into using efficiency as a dump stat due to being fully duration-based, as well as having high requirements for range and strength to be effective. Thanks to Vast Untime pausing other abilities, this mostly works out. Mostly. The Lost should have different costs for its sub-abilities. The current one of 75 is fine for Gaze considering how handy removing 100% of enemy defenses in an area can be, but Accuse and Deny are both less potent and require more frequent casting.

Abbreviated list of suggestions: 

• Give Grasp of Lohk increased targeting range in a cone around the aiming reticle
• Make Gaze castable on empty ground as a QoL option, but keep the original option of disabling a targeted enemy
• Make Gaze and Accuse synergize to create decoys no matter which one is cast first, and fix it breaking Defense missions
• Make Accuse and Deny cheaper (probably something like 50 and 25, respectively)

[Demotros]

This is fantastic. I love this. I hope this goes in and live soon.

 

[Dexmaster]

I'm seriously never going to be able to re-cast accuse if its energy cost stays at 75! Reducing The Lost's cost would be an absolute godsend.

[Velitria]

18 hours ago, Dexmaster said:

I'm seriously never going to be able to re-cast accuse if its energy cost stays at 75! Reducing The Lost's cost would be an absolute godsend.

Swap the 1 and 3 and buff the 1 to be a relevant damage buff, problem solved. Xata's Whisper has a decent enough duration that 75 cost wouldn't be an issue, where as The Lost need to be cheap for utility usage.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

Hey 🙂 I might not have a xaku yet, but I still want to get my thoughts in. So I think that the 2&3 should be tap n, hold abilities. For example-Grasp of lohk, tap to cast and Gaze could be hold to cast. I think this makes sense cause grasp buff's gaze's damage and giving accuse n, deny in the same tap n, hold functionality would make Xaku alot fast/easier to setup, so it would be something like tap,2 tap3 hold,3 then 4. no cycling 3 😁👍. Also one more thing, if this is done I think you should rename gaze to gaze of lohk, so then lohk abilities are the pew,pew ones and the lost abilities are the aoe ones. Thx for reading love to know what you all think. ❤

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

On 2020-10-09 at 3:29 PM, vFlitz said:

I took Xaku for the Umbra Forma blueprint alert just now, and the experience proved to be quite enlightening.

As a frame that focuses quite heavily on affecting enemies and area control, they are rendered helpless if enemies are capable of doing harm outside the sphere of influence dictated by ability range. Before, having played Xaku mostly in indoors tilesets, I didn't really see any issue with the current targeting range on Grasp of Lohk. Now I believe that it absolutely should be increased at least in the direction Xaku is looking at. That way the ability isn't fully autonomous but Xaku gets a way to do something to enemies that keep out of range.

Furthermore, what is even the point of Gaze requiring an enemy target to be cast? It doesn't really offer anything thematically, and in practice it's an extreme hindrance. Allies and your own guns from GoL constantly kill enemies you're trying to Gaze before the ability actually takes effect, so usually you  can only actually pull it off on an eximus or something unusually tanky like Nox. Yet eximus units under the effect of Gaze still have their auras active for whatever reason? I just accidentally drained my entire squad's energy by keeping a Gazed Energy Leech around.

One handy trick is that if you Gaze an enemy that's been Accused beforehand, they start drawing enemy fire, sort of like Decoy. That's a rather considerable boon both to Xaku's own survivability and their ability to defend an objective, particularly since enemy target acquisition isn't dictated by ability range.. however, ironically in Defense missions where it would help most, it appears to stop waves from progressing. Also, an already Gazed enemy can't be Accused to achieve that effect, which is another inconvenience.

Finally, Xaku is heavily pushed into using efficiency as a dump stat due to being fully duration-based, as well as having high requirements for range and strength to be effective. Thanks to Vast Untime pausing other abilities, this mostly works out. Mostly. The Lost should have different costs for its sub-abilities. The current one of 75 is fine for Gaze considering how handy removing 100% of enemy defenses in an area can be, but Accuse and Deny are both less potent and require more frequent casting.

Abbreviated list of suggestions: 

• Give Grasp of Lohk increased targeting range in a cone around the aiming reticle
• Make Gaze castable on empty ground as a QoL option, but keep the original option of disabling a targeted enemy
• Make Gaze and Accuse synergize to create decoys no matter which one is cast first, and fix it breaking Defense missions
• Make Accuse and Deny cheaper (probably something like 50 and 25, respectively)

Now I brought Xaku to that alert and ended up struggling the whole time because I never had enough energy to cast my grossly expensive abilities.

[Velitria]

4 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Now I brought Xaku to that alert and ended up struggling the whole time because I never had enough energy to cast my grossly expensive abilities.

Yep, Xaku requires energize to be good. Any frame that requires Energize to not be trash is a bad frame in my opinion. I don't really like Arcane Energize existing either. I would prefer if it did what the tooltip said and gave all allies 25 energy from energy orbs and you got nothing.

[quxier]

4 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Now I brought Xaku to that alert and ended up struggling the whole time because I never had enough energy to cast my grossly expensive abilities.

Have you ever put one of: (primed) flow, efficiency or continuity? It's understandable that rank <30 will be weaker than rank 30 frame.

10 minutes ago, Velitria said:

Yep, Xaku requires energize to be good. Any frame that requires Energize to not be trash is a bad frame in my opinion. I don't really like Arcane Energize existing either. I would prefer if it did what the tooltip said and gave all allies 25 energy from energy orbs and you got nothing.

It doesn't need energize. I got it the Energize on rank 0 or 1 afair (which is nothing!). Continuity/Flow/Efficiency should be fine. Sure it's far from the best but don't make it trash.