Upcoming Xaku Changes: Round 2!

[Mephane]

On a related note, DE please reconsider the visual effect of Xata's Whisper on Xaku's body (or the body of any Warframe the ability is infused into).

• The infested growth doesn't fit the overall visual theme of Void energy, it looks like something more befitting a Warframe like Nidus.
• Xaku already suffers a bit from not having their fashionframe visible when in skeleton mode from The Vast Untime, Xata's Whisper further confounds this issue by making sure that even when not a skeleting, your look is mostly overridden by the infested growth.
• The infested growth ignores color customization. If nothing else, the red glowing zits should use your emissive color.

How about removing the infested growth effect, keeping only the energy aura?

[DrivaMain]

Not the change I wanted, but good enough. Also can you make void damage status stacks like other status effects? Simplest change is subsequent procs increases the bubble damage multiplier.

[themoidart]

Leaving the 2's range unbuffed leaves the frame continually useless. Give it a view cone - they're so slow to react that it wouldn't make much difference. 

As it is, the uselessly short range forces us to either overbuild range or not use the ability, and Xaku remains one of the 'no role' useless frames, like Grendel.

[(PSN)Machote777]

IM STILL WAITING FOR ROUND 1!!!

[(PSN)ThanatosSloth]

32 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Not the change I wanted, but good enough. Also can you make void damage status stacks like other status effects? Simplest change is subsequent procs increases the bubble damage multiplier.

I like this cause the damage multiplier would make headshot based weapons not as nerfed from void proc

[(PSN)ThanatosSloth]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Machote777 said:

IM STILL WAITING FOR ROUND 1!!!

I know right....round 1 made him playable for the pc community, unfair we still have yet to get at least that...

[DSAUSAGE]

I dont understand why not buff Whisper to 50%, just like other elemental damage abilities.

It cant hurt Eidolon's shield
It cant kill Vomvalysts
It cant change big spider's element type

does the "void" damage has anyhing better then other elemental damage??

[ysegrim]

Xaku's fourth ability should be a constant aura effect that slows and increases the void damage on enemies in its radius.

 

i was never a fan of the bullet attractor from void status effects... the changes to the position of the attractor doesnt really make it better ... now it means that any other player can mess up my aim and will do so by accident.

why even have a bullet attractor for an element like void? thematically always did not ring well with my impressions about void lore we got so far.

cant we have a headshot attractor instead so at least for players like me who aim for the heads nothing detrimental changes ?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, MasterControl said:

 

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. 

 

Ok, I have to ask. How is Grasp of Lohk a powerful ability? Like yeah sure if give Xaku 200% Range and strength you’ve got a bunch of guns and zero enemy armor to worry about. But have you actually used Grasp without the armor strip? It fails to kill level 50 heavies at an even remotely decent rate.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

49 minutes ago, (PS4)ThanatosSloth said:

I know right....round 1 made him playable for the pc community, unfair we still have yet to get at least that...

Xaku is plenty playable.. just make a better build.

[SeikanEkasin]

2 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

 

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. 

You really over value how important void damage is.

[HealingMind]

I'm glad for pretty much all of the changes going on with Xaku (though I think many of them should have been absolute no-brainers). however, Grasp of Lohk is an ability that's going to be more and more problematic as the game goes on. While I understand not wanting the playerbase to set a macro, go to IO and watch netflix until wwave 20, the frustrating part is that the ability was DESIGNED to be an automatic one that has no meaningful interactivity requirement on Xaku's part. And so far, there's been seemingly no plans to give it more interactivity, meaning that instead of giving it options that truly let it be a good ability that's a better fit for the game, the decision has been to just keep the ability a janky mess in fear of it becoming the thing it was unfortunately BUILT to be, a turret. It's rather fitting that World on Fire was mentioned when you stated your decision to keep the firing range the same, because if it stays in its current path, it will share the fate WoF had; an ability that wasn't allowed to be good, because if it was good, it would break the game.

Personally, I'd like to suggest a different path. It seems like a desire is to give Xaku more synergy with their kit as a whole, and steps have been made towards that, and I feel like expanding upon that would be a much better option. So, my thoughts are to keep the firing range as it currently is, BUT add a mechanic where enemies affected by any of the selectable abilities of The Lost, or the Vast Untime's debuff are ALWAYS eligible targets for Xaku's guns for the duration of being affected, regardless of range. This would help make the guns more versatile and potent, but also keep their power constrained, and push players towards using the whole of their kit to keep their 2 pumping out damage as much as possible, as opposed to it being in a position where it can be used to farm with 0 interactivity.

[Jarriaga]

3 minutes ago, SeikanEkasin said:

You really over value how important void damage is.

Void damage alone is meaningless.

Preventing people from being able to solo Eidolons at MR0 with Zaku bypassing all quest requirements tied to  amps on the other hand is several orders of magnitude more important.

[SeikanEkasin]

Show me the MR 0 with a Xaku (who hasn't bought it)
I'll wait.
Actually I'll just go this has devolved into levels of logic I'm clearly not smart enough to understand.

[MunsuLight]

Note on Grasp of Lohk’s ‘Target Range’: 

• 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.

THis is the only thing I disagree quite a lot with.. When frame like Equinox, Saryn, Mesa,etc  still exists and destroy all level of content while still being super passive (maybe mesa less). Also it is not as "set it and forget as the other frames" .. You can still melee.. You still cast gaze to control zone.. You still cast vast untime, etc ..  It is far from passive..  You just see it this way when it is not.. You just fear "turret" frames in general.. Octavia always been even worse gameplay wise and even more passive and yet she was never touched

Also , why not give the 4th slow as an Aura around him ?

[Jorak_Falconstar]

9 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Note on Grasp of Lohk’s ‘Target Range’: 

• 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.

 

This really needs to be looked into more..   right now with the target range being about 60% of the grab range it really just turns the ability into a  weaker form of Loki's Radial Disarm..  While I understand you dont want people just using the ability to becme a turret the limit on the attack range just feels like the ability isn't even worth having.  

[(XBOX)Kuhl MC]

Hmm, after reading all the notes regarding round 1 & 2, I guess Xaku will further be staying in my foundry, waiting to be finally designed properly (or maybe, because being the broken frame, this will never happen)... In its current iteration, I don't have any incentive to build and forma the frame, because nobody knows, what tweeks might become mandatory after the next "rework". First time ever with a new frame and then especially with the "community frame", where feedback must have showered in like a hailstorm by now (wasn't there already feedback coming in during its design phase to begin with, just asking). At least, Helminth could already feast upon him, so for Christmas maybe (being on console this could be realistic, would be funny to already play the next new frame before Xaku becomes viable, though...)?

[(PSN)Kaiser_Rebellion]

Can grasp of LoHk and deny trade places? Cause it’s using a holding attack on the sticks is annoying. You made it Cast able while Parkour but we still won’t be able to aim decently. 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

50 minutes ago, Jorak_Falconstar said:

This really needs to be looked into more..   right now with the target range being about 60% of the grab range it really just turns the ability into a  weaker form of Loki's Radial Disarm..  While I understand you dont want people just using the ability to becme a turret the limit on the attack range just feels like the ability isn't even worth having.  

Not to mention it’s damage is completely reliant on Gaze being cast when you get up to level 50 enemies.

The fact that this is being considered an ability that promotes “inactive play style” is insane. Like should all duration based damage abilities just be nerfed at this point? Because apparently having a duration based damage ability that has to be recast (or have Untime be recast) to maintain, and relies on another being active for it to deal damage against mid level enemies is the pure essence of “afk playing”. That’s definitely on the same level as World on Fire which had a low energy drain with an insane range that only needed to be cast once.

[LumilSilvermoon]

I must say most of change in this 2nd wave is really what i ask for, too bad that GoL fire range sitll not here but i guess we need to live with it.

I wonder how Deny will going to be, cause the fact is Deny was very useless skill that drain too much energy. also it's cause of "Skill wheel" that make hard to use other 2 useful skill.

Hope we can found out soon =).

I read some comment about GoL fire range suggestion that worth to consider. (Since DE worry about World of Fire's problem) Some advice to make range increase only while you move. But when i think of it, Why not just give Range limitation to GoL place on ppl who stand still for a while. Like if you stay still for 10 sec, Range of GoL will reduce by half (but apply same range form disarm to fire range first), apply this to prevent ppl do cheese mode, and profits ppl who use him as moveable turret.

 

[weirdee]

If you're having such a hard time balancing turret abilities, why do you keep choosing to make them? We've gone through this with sentinel guns already. As it is, Grasp is essentially a worse Gara's Splinter Shards. If you want to make it an ability that actually assists with kills instead of having to nerf them to the extent that it's just better to shoot or melee yourself, just unbind them and make them like the archwing drones or razorwings. That way, they can be useful in the fight without outright being able to kill anything, because by virtue of your rudimentary enemy seeking AI, they would never group up on the same enemy consistently, preventing them from actually scoring any kills, but still doing damage. Also it would have the added bonus of looking like an actual swarm of possessed guns going nuts chaotically.

[(PSN)ThanatosSloth]

3 hours ago, (PS4)ForNoPurpose said:

Xaku is plenty playable.. just make a better build.

My build for surviving level 100 plus is fine, but he becomes a weapon carrier lacking great abilities merely cause the values and dynamics are off...id like the balance that pc players have with phase 1....no need to assume its my build lol almost seemed insulting 

[-Takara-]

Can Xaku's passive and 4 just give straight up evasion and be allowed to stack with evasion mods? As of right now their passive and 4 give dodge chance, a completely different mechanic to evasion. It's giving the wrong idea to people that think they can mod for 100% evasion when in reality its xaku's 75% dodge chance and like 30% actual evasion from mods. Not to bash on you guys, but the game doesn't really explain the mechanics of this really well. I didn't even know dodge chance was a thing and that it and evasion are two completely different mechanics until I looked it up on the wiki. 

For those that don't know, as I mentioned dodge chance and evasion are apparently two different mechanics

Dodge chance is the rolling of the die to see if the next enemy attack will damage you or not and just phase through you. If you "dodged" the attack, the bullet still hits you, but you just don't take the damage.

Evasion is the reduction of enemy accuracy that causes a chance for enemies' bullets to completely miss the target(you). Unlike with dodge chance, the bullet does not actually hit you. 

[MasterControl]

4 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Ok, I have to ask. How is Grasp of Lohk a powerful ability? Like yeah sure if give Xaku 200% Range and strength you’ve got a bunch of guns and zero enemy armor to worry about. But have you actually used Grasp without the armor strip? It fails to kill level 50 heavies at an even remotely decent rate.

Max range, 200%str. 15 guns and 100 damage per shot multiplied by enemy level. At level 100 you are dealing 10,000 damage raw at an effective fire rate of 15.00, since all guns fire at 1 a second as far as I can tell. That's on top of the dps you're dealing with your guns, and can be enhanced further by infusing Roar and applying viral to enemies. It melts things like butter, especially in combination with gaze (which I rarely find to be necessary)

 

EDIT: I don't think you've received the first round of Xaku changes on console - By removing void damage resistance from cloned flesh and fossilized infested, you effectively deal double damage to those targets, which are most grineer and heavier infested.

[DawnoftheWhiteFury]

One change I would recommend is increasing Xaku's base energy by 15-25 points to encourage using The Lost more. I've also encountered a bug where Xata's Whisper seems to deactivate ala its duration finishing despite The Vast Untime being active. The game says the duration is still active, but I cease dealing Void damage to enemies. Also, why does Xaku, or any frames that have XW on them via Helminth for that matter, gain Infested textures upon them? Does something in the lore explain this? I can't think of a reason for it.