Upcoming Xaku Changes: Round 2!

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

WHat exactly sentiment echoes have you heard because of 40+ pages of feedback and multiple topics, youtube reviews, the echo i heard was that everybody considered 75% evasion very poor, and the common sentiment was either that evasion should be bumped up to 90% and or change evasion to damage reduction against all kind of damage types.

Another echo you probably missed is that again the majority of players giving feedback asked for an overall increase in casting speed of xaku's 2 and 3...

That being said, having tested intensively and extensively xaku, i gotta admit i really love that frame after the 1st round of changes, and 2 of my gripes are being addressed which are an increase of base range for gaze and grasp of lohk not targeting anymore greyed bar enemies ( which was very detrimental when your guns would keep shooting a gazed target )

I still think void damage per se should have a +25/30% or something bonus against all kind of armor types, health and shields...we have corrosive with a 75% bonus vs ferrite, void damage could grant a 25/30%, something in between corrosive and puncture to make a quick example

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, HolySeraphin said:

Wukong's clone will turn off if you don't do anything. They did this to prevent AFK. As for Xaku, even with the limited range of his 2 people are already using him as a turret by entering operator void mode in small rooms.

Yeah, and Grasp of Lohk will run out of duration if you don’t maintain it or Vast Untime.

Calling it an “Inactive ability” is just a flat out lie.

[shut]

4 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Xata’s Whisper (Void Status Effect): 

• Void damage’s Status Effect will now redirect projectiles to the body part it proc’d on. 
  • How it will work: If you shoot at an enemy’s head with Xata’s Whisper enabled and proc, the bubble will redirect all projectiles to the head. If you shoot at the feet, it’ll be redirected to the feet, etc.! It is however possible that even if you proc on the head but then shoot at the lower part of the bubble it might hit the body on the way up to being redirected to the head.
  • This is a game wide change to Void Status Effect! Now that we have a Warframe that can harness Void damage at the click of a button, it has brought much focus to and discussion around its Status Effect. For those of you who are unfamiliar, in its current state it creates a bullet attractor bubble that directs all projectiles to the center of the enemy’s torso regardless of where it procs. Since Xata’s Whisper applies Void damage to all of their weapons, it was increasingly noticeable to Xaku players that the bubble’s current redirecting position prevents any attempt at enemy headshots until its duration expires. This is one of the main reasons for this change. Headshot disruption ultimately limits your damage output by removing the opportunity for headshot multipliers while it is active. Now, you will be able to use your headshotting skills to greater benefit, while also having generally more options to focus projectiles where desired. Note that regardless of where the Status Effect occurs, it will continue to prevent enemies from being able to shoot at you without having their projectiles redirected back to the center of the bubble. 

As someone who subsumed Xata's Whisper and uses it unironically in like 90% of my gameplay these days... thank you for this. This is a godsend.

 

Minor nitpick: Any chance that Void Status bubbles can be affected by the weapon's energy colour, similar to other status effects?

[Jhura]

The Accuse change really doesn't do anything. The problem is the rest of your kit disarms, reduceses defense, and weakens enemies. Why would I then also want to control them? Especially if their damage and AI is awful and they can still he melted by myself and allies. 

 

It would be better is Accuse was more: opens a void rift in target location that after a 1 second delay collapses and pulls enemies towards it, base 12 range radius. This would conbo great with both Gaze and Deny, latting you get enemies into the Gaze AoE and grouping them for Deny blasts. Right now, it is counter productive and works against the rest of Xaku's kit.

 

The Grasp of Lok worries are pretty nonsensical as we have abilities on other frames that do similar thibgs are greater range. The steal and fire ranges should be equalized as it really doesn't feel as if i am stealing guns if I have to be in melee to use them. You also mention passive play but there are other frames that do this way worse and yet you are worried here? Wukong, Protea, Vauban, and Hydroid all have aspects if their kit that enable them to place passively if they so choose. So why in Xaku decide that is bad then you still need to get to enemies to grab guns and then be within in range to shoot them. I can kill people on the other room with the other frames! Just increase the range on fire to match the range on the grab, let us play with it, and then make decisions. Right now, unless you are going major melee build it doesn't feel as effective because the range is too short.

[Azamagon]

Related to Xaku, but is more encompassing:

Could we get a new and more modern way to cast "cycle"-abilities (such as The Lost on Xaku, Quiver on Ivara, Minelayer on Vauban etc)?

Right now, they are FAR too clunky to meddle with, often making - at least myself - just stick to the best ability among the "cycle" options (which is generally Gaze, in Xaku's case). What I propose is this:

TLDR; Activating the "cycle"-ability now opens a small menu close to the crosshair for about five seconds. For Xaku, that means press 3. Now press 1, 2 or 3 to cast Accuse, Gaze or Deny respectively. Press 5 or Escape to close the menu quickly.

[MasterControl]

Initial impressions, obviously without having my hands on the changes:

The change in the Void status proc doesn't address the issue of punchthrough being entirely stopped by the Void status effect, and while *better* for hitting vulnerable locations, still can be disruptive if you land a bad shot or are using a weapon like a shotgun that isn't exactly precise. I honestly think it still needs a full revisit, even if this is an improvement.

The Grasp of Lohk changes are much appreciated - being able to recast for more guns instead of just replacing them will help with consistency. I also agree that a target range increase is not necessary - they're already quite powerful. Also, thank you for assuring that they do not target invulnerable enemies, this was obnoxious in combination with Gaze. Speaking of Gaze..

The base range increase on Gaze is always helpful for the role Xaku is meant to fill. Thank you!

I am somewhat indifferent about the Accuse changes - being able to recast is nice, though.

I still think that Vast Untime should change slightly, to encourage keeping the ability up - It's on-hit effects encourage you to turn the power off and on over and over again for maximum effect, which runs counter to the other effect of this ability - the ability upkeep. I would appreciate if at least a portion of the void weakness and slow effect was baked into the Vast Untime's skeleton form as a radial debuff from Xaku. This would help both their damage and survivability.

 

Last notes - I still am unsure if Deny is worth the energy cost - I will have to wait and see exactly how much the beam width has increased, but further testing of the power on my part also points to Deny's poor casting speed to be a big issue. You have to wait out both the hold-to-cast time and the actual cast time, which adds up. This is only by default, admittedly you can toggle this in the settings, but doing so should not be required to make a power viable. This is the best case, and assumes you already had Deny selected to begin with. This is mostly a problem because in the situations in which you would like to use Deny, I.E. enemies being perfectly lined up or otherwise grouped somehow, time is of the essence before they split off and the power has less of an impact per-cast. An energy cost reduction on Deny would make missed shots less punishing. This problem also partially extends to Gaze - I would also like to see Gaze make it's victim invulnerable immediately, as frequently targets of Gaze have been killed by either the guns of Grasp of Lohk or teammates before it can take effect. This is what limits the power the most severely.

 

[Mu_Gera]

5 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Note that regardless of where the Status Effect occurs, it will continue to prevent enemies from being able to shoot at you without having their projectiles redirected back to the center of the bubble. 

well aslong as the bubbles continue to block and redirect any projectile it'll be fine

[(PSN)digitalgabeg]

3 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

In Round 1, we made the distinction between Grasp of Lohk’s ‘Grab Range’ and ‘Target Range’. We then increased its ‘Grab Range’ and left ‘Target Range’ untouched due to “firing range experiments being a bit too wild for Round 1”. 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.

Dear DE: Grasp of Lohk does not encourage an inactive playstyle because of its range; it does so because of its design. This ability steals weapons from enemies and fires them automatically. That is what it is designed to do, and that design was always going to produce an inactive playstyle.

Trying to mitigate this tendency towards an inactive playstyle by limiting the ability's targeting range to 8 meters is not judicious or balanced; you're not tuning it, you're just breaking it. As it is, the limited targeting range on this ability makes it look silly and feel weak. It does not make sense at all, in terms of either in-universe logic or game design. And it feels like a broken promise. The ability reads like it's supposed to shoot things, but it does so only when I'm already close enough to use melee weapons? That's worthless, why would I ever use that?

The stubborn resistance that the community is getting from DE about increasing the targeting range on Grasp of Lohk is also very frustrating, because it feels like you all are sticking your heads into the sand about how bad the ability really is. This ability is obviously bad; anyone who has used it for five minutes can tell you that. And it is obvious that the tiny targeting range is the reason why it is bad. Pretending that it doesn't need more range is silly.

I understand that you all want to discourage an inactive playstyle, and that's OK. But you are going about it the wrong way. Change this ability's design instead, so that it doesn't work fully automatically. Here are some ideas:

• Idea 1: Leave the ability's normal targeting range as-is, but allow the stolen weapons to target enemies up to 30 meters away if those enemies are suffering from a Void status effect.
  • This would give the ability a fun interaction with Xata's Whisper, allowing us to "tag" enemies with Void status to get the stolen weapons to shoot them.
  • This would synergize well with the Void element's Bullet Attractor effect
  • To support this change, the stolen weapons should also prioritize targeting enemies with Void status, and only shoot other enemies when no nearby enemies have Void status.
     
• Idea 2: Increase the ability's normal targeting range to 30 meters, and change it so that the weapons don't fire automatically; instead, they only fire when the player shoots their gun, and they only target enemies in the direction that the player is aiming.
  • This gives the stolen weapons a feeling like the Options from Gradius - like extra guns which are fire-linked to your main gun.
  • This would incentivize players to use high fire-rate or continuous-fire weapons with Xaku, as those weapons would keep the stolen guns firing more frequently.

Or alternatively, just replace Grasp of Lohk with an entirely different ability. If you are not willing to fix this ability, that's OK too; but if that's the case, then get rid of it and put something else into that slot, something worth using. But don't just leave this as it is and pretend it's OK.

[papucar]

5 hours ago, Genoscythe said:

Very happy with the Grasp of Lohk change, however I think it could at least target exposed boss bodyparts with reduced accuracy and effectiveness.  Right now all bosses with weakspot-exclusive vulnerabilities are immune to 95% of our damage abilities and weapon buffs are still the meta. Also, how about giving grasp of Lohk the ability to target all enemies that are affected by Xaku's abilities at an indefinite range to add further synergy and make Xaku work better in the open worlds?

I also think Gaze is awkward to use as it requires an enemy to be cast on. Could we please be able to cast it on the ground with 50% effectiveness when there's no enemy around? It's really hard to find an enemy that is not getting immediately vaporized when playing in a group, and nullifiers and especially arbitration drones make this ability completely useless as they immediately deactivate it.

The Deny change seems good, but I found the buffed casting time still way too slow to even remotely compete with weapons. I have found no situation where it would have been more valuable to cast deny than simply firing my gun. To clarify, you need CC when you are overwhelmed by enemies, not when you have them standing in a line before you.

Last but not least, the Vast Untime has an incredible ability synergy but evasion is far inferior to damage resistance. Xaku can still not hold their ground under heavy fire, in the range of level 80-100 even a tankier build will get easily annihilated. Evasion is completely anti-synergetic with some mods and arcanes. Chances are that you will simply get your shields stripped by one shot and die with the next. It does not reduce status damage, a burn or electric proc will obliterate Xaku. Any arcane or adaptation that triggers with being hit does. not. work. Xaku is locked out of a whole lot of build variations due to this and their tankiness is purely based on RNG in the case of direct fire. Two lucky shots will still kill you.

Last but not least, the Vast Untime has an incredible ability synergy but evasion is far inferior to damage resistance. I agree with this 100% we need some kind of damage reduction since evasion is just a gamble on wether you die or not , so maybe remove evasion and fit on some damage resistance or armor thanks

[ZERI0N]

I have to say, I have played this game for more than 2.000 hours now and Xaku is quickly becoming my favorite Frame by A LOT, love it's visual design, the way their abilities work together and how felible he is. Thanks for giving Xaku the love it deserves. Only bad thing I have to say about Xaku is that sometimes it feels so unfair when you die, not knowing what mistake you made. Anyways, can't wait for the changes to come to the game. Thx guys!!!

[Mu_Gera]

5 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

But what makes far more sense is to follow the precedent set by Nekros’ Shadows of the Dead. So now you can maintain your current floating auto-cannon sidekicks and re-cast to refill or top up to the max on command.

isn't this actually not a good thing, since older, weaker shadows of the dead can't be replaced by newer, stronger shadows unless you wait out their duration. meanwhile grasp of lohks duration is paused by the vast untime, meaning you can't keep the vast untime up with grasp of lohk if you want to replace older, weaker turrets with newer, stronger ones.

[SeikanEkasin]

4 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

Any suggestions to make that work without utterly invalidating the existence of amps?

You can't invalidate something no one uses.

[santa222]

really feel like xaku's first ability should work on eidolon's, but at the same time it not working on them is a good balance because if it did then it would just be used instead of operators. ill imagine they might add it as a augment later but i'm not sure.

[Jarriaga]

4 minutes ago, SeikanEkasin said:

You can invalidate something no one uses.

That doesn't address my question. I didn't ask if it can be invalidated or the reasons to do so.

[RoarinTides]

Thank you greatly for the changes.

[SeikanEkasin]

2 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

That doesn't address my question. I didn't ask if it can be invalidated or the reasons to do so.

My bad- fixed my spelling. But yeah minus two fights there not used so how can we invalidate what is already not used.

[Jarriaga]

1 minute ago, SeikanEkasin said:

My bad- fixed my spelling. But yeah minus two fights there not used so how can we invalidate what is already not used.

So have amps be used more? It's not like there's an Operator-centric expansion coming next year...

[SeikanEkasin]

2 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

So have amps be used more? It's not like there's an Operator-centric expansion coming next year...

If they don't buff operators across the board i literally don't care- there is a reason why no one likes shield phase of Edlion and we have been complaining about it for years with no fix. So yeah.

[Jarriaga]

3 minutes ago, SeikanEkasin said:

If they don't buff operators across the board i literally don't care- there is a reason why no one likes shield phase of Edlion and we have been complaining about it for years with no fix. So yeah.

 

That's fine. You don't have to care or like it. But don't expect for DE to flat-out nuke an entire faction and associated mechanics from existence on top of utterly bypassing entire quest lines in order to be able to defeat an Eidolon. 

[Mephane]

5 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Void damage’s Status Effect will now redirect projectiles to the body part it proc’d on.

Much better than now but still problematic in particular in group situations. For example, right now my primary weapon with Xaku is Scource. It is an AoE status weapon that procs three effects (corrosive, viral, heat) on a significant area - I never aim for the head with this, sometimes I don't even aim for a particular enemy, but a spot on the ground in between enemies to make sure as many enemies as possible get these debuffs. So what will happen is that the status procs will still apply on the body most of the time, and now another player in the squad who relies on headshots with their primary or secondary weapon will still be screwed due to my particular choice of loadout.

[Mephane]

6 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

The Lost: Gaze

• Increased base radius from 8m to 12m.

Good. Now also increase the base defense reduction to 70% like it is with similar abilities. Reaching 100% extra power strength in order to achieve full armor strip requires a disproportionately heavy mod investment compared to what Ash, Nyx etc have to do with their respective skills.

[Mephane]

6 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Fixed certain Grasp of Lohk Primary weapons (bows for example) appearing as the Void entity orbs that you’d see when cast on Melee enemies, instead of a copy of the weapon. 

While we are at it, I like those "Void entity orbs" as you call them much more than floating guns. I would love to have an option in the Arsenal to choose these orbs as the appearance for any type of stolen weapon. :)

[Mephane]

5 hours ago, Duality52 said:

Few things to add on:

• Grasp of Lohk (2)

Make it so the ghosts do not target Conservation targets. Had several poor Veciopods got zapped due to this.

• The Lost: Gaze & Accuse

Targets affected should not block a wave in Defense from progressing, similar to Nyx's Mind Control/Revenant's Enthrall/Titania's Lanter.

I agree with all of this, plus weapons from Grasp of Lohk should also ignore Synthesis Targets.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

6 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

For our Console Tenno, you will be receiving Round 1 in the upcoming Cert build and Round 2 changes will come in the next

At this point i would personally rather see all changes come at once, even at the cost of further delay.

However i am one of the few that was able to find ways to truely enjoy Xakus even in its release state.

I am excited for these changes and hope they come soon, all of them.

 

Btw, i 100% agree on grasps targeting range. It would really become too mucj autonation if the attack range increased.

[(PSN)NOVALINK]

All of those changes are perfect. 

Now all that's left its a change in Xaku's appearance when he uses The Vast Untime. Skeletal form its not a good look.