Upcoming Xaku Changes: Round 2!

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

26 minutes ago, JackHargreav said:

You do know that operators don't need an amp to shoot their beam right? So amps aren't all that significant.

You do know that operators operate those empty shells you call warframes, right. So frames aren't all that significant.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

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

You do know that operators operate those empty shells you call warframes, right. So frames aren't all that significant.

Your argument makes no sense.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

The operator dealt void damage before amps were introduced.

IDK how what is essentially a fancy magnifying glass justifies void damage not behaving like void damage.

It's almost like amplifying something can have tremendous effects. You could actually start a fire on earth with a magnifying glass by harnessing the power of that massive nuclear reactor that's 93 million miles away.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Your argument makes no sense.

I shouldn't be spoiling the story....you're more than welcome to look it up.

[JackHargreav]

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

You do know that operators operate those empty shells you call warframes, right. So frames aren't all that significant.

You made zero points.

Considering that frames work with the operators power. In a sense the frame focus their power. So a frame using actual void damage wouldn't be or shouldn't be surprising and impossible. And ultimately if Xaku's "void" damage doesn't work on specifically that one enemy that's a blatant band-aid fix.

And in universe it makes no sense and it's a lie also.

If a new player buys Xaku because "oh my gosh I can use this frame for Eidolon hunting" that player is essentially getting scammed. Because there isn't any warning about the frame's void damage not being actual void damage.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

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

It's almost like amplifying something can have tremendous effects. You could actually start a fire on earth with a magnifying glass by harnessing the power of that massive nuclear reactor that's 93 million miles away.

Doesn’t change the properties tho. The sun burns thing. And using a magnifying glass to focus its light also burns things. The magnifying glass does not replace properties of the sun for different ones.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

40 minutes ago, JackHargreav said:

You made zero points.

Considering that frames work with the operators power. In a sense the frame focus their power. So a frame using actual void damage wouldn't be or shouldn't be surprising and impossible. And ultimately if Xaku's "void" damage doesn't work on specifically that one enemy that's a blatant band-aid fix.

And in universe it makes no sense and it's a lie also.

If a new player buys Xaku because "oh my gosh I can use this frame for Eidolon hunting" that player is essentially getting scammed. Because there isn't any warning about the frame's void damage not being actual void damage.

Actually I think it’s mentioned in the tips section of her ability screen that Xatas whisper does not work on Eidolons. And even then I don’t think you can see the tips until you own Xaku. So yeah your argument still stands.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

38 minutes ago, JackHargreav said:

You made zero points.

Considering that frames work with the operators power. In a sense the frame focus their power. So a frame using actual void damage wouldn't be or shouldn't be surprising and impossible. And ultimately if Xaku's "void" damage doesn't work on specifically that one enemy that's a blatant band-aid fix.

And in universe it makes no sense and it's a lie also.

If a new player buys Xaku because "oh my gosh I can use this frame for Eidolon hunting" that player is essentially getting scammed. Because there isn't any warning about the frame's void damage not being actual void damage.

The operator controls the frame. Without the operator, the frame is an empty shell with nothing powering it. That's why it just sits there and doesn't do anything. Like you said....the frames power comes from the operator. Does the warframe enter the Necromech and power it with its warframe abilities? No....that's the operator, again. 

The operator has to come out of the shell and use it's own concentrated natural void essence to take the eidolons shield down. 

The void itself is the origin of the Tennos powers, not the warframes. It was the Tenno that were sent out on the Zariman and infected with void powers, not the frames.....Xaku wasn't in the Zariman 10-0, was it?

 

"The Void is a mysterious realm of extradimensional space, where the laws of physics hold little sway. It is the source of many mysterious phenomena, such as Void storms, and the origin of the Tenno's powers."

 

[Krankbert]

vor 18 Stunden schrieb Jorak_Falconstar:

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.  

You know your frame can move, right?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, Krankbert said:

You know your frame can move, right?

Oh yes let’s approach the enemies with this frame that has a bad defense skill and is super squishy. What could possibly go wrong?

Grasp of Lohk forces Xaku into the ranges more suitable for tanky melee frames. Of which Xaku is not.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

45 minutes ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Oh yes let’s approach the enemies with this frame that has a bad defense skill and is super squishy. What could possibly go wrong?

Grasp of Lohk forces Xaku into the ranges more suitable for tanky melee frames. Of which Xaku is not.

There are new and existing mods that add evasion on top of Xakus built in evasion....As well as mods and arcanes to add tankiness. The developers have also said that they "reward mobility". The movement system this game has is for a reason. 

[Kadesfy]

Xaku "rework" show potential, but they still feel a bit clunky to use, this is my idea on how to streamline them a bit.

1. Move Xata's whisper to their 4th ability, so once you activate it, enemies are weak to void and you do void damage.
2. Grasp of Lohk moved from 2nd ability to 1st ability, hold it to cast Denys Beam, new cost: 25 energy. weapons can target accused enemies, but not Gazed enemies.
3. Move accuse to be the 2nd ability. New cost 50 energy.
4. Gaze will be their only 3rd ability. Keep the 75 energy cost.
5. Turn The vast untime on a toggle ability, so while that is active, no countdown on their other abilities, but reduce the base cast cost to balance energy economy.
6. Their passive need to be changed a bit because evasion alone does not work,  something like a high armor value that decreases the lower your hp get, (and the Xaku armor pieces fall off as that happen) but that increases Xaku evasion, so you need to manage armor<>evasion by their hp.

[VentiGlondi]

I wish Hildryn got this many updates back during her release

[(PSN)Shaun-T-Wilson]

7 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

The operator dealt void damage before amps were introduced.

IDK how what is essentially a fancy magnifying glass justifies void damage not behaving like void damage.

And if you put water in a freezer you make ice(Solid water). But it does not behave like water, even though its still water (H20). In that analagy the freezer is the warframe.

[Yonesis]

Sorry, seems I posted in the previous thread about Xaku, I'm forwarding my post to here.

Quote

I hate this ability.  I hate that it's 3 abilities in one, I hate the names of the three sub-abilities, I hate the icons they use, I hate that it's the key to Xaku's high level viability.  Now, I get all the requiem references Xaku's carrying and when I say I hate the names, I do like the little nod to the ris mod text, but the names don't mean anything to me when I see them on screen.  I don't get how they relate to the specific effects they correlate to, and the symbols do very little to help explain.

 

That’s a lot of hate, but you have a point. Xaku’s third ability suffers a bit in the realm of clarity, and while practice has helped me to remember the abilities, I still end up mixing up the titles. Fortunately, that’s easily solvable with naming (this is a bit silly, but bear through it):

      -- Accuse, the ability that opens a void rift that maddens enemies to attack for your side, could have titles like: Accusation of Insanity, Maddening Accusation, Accusing Chaos, Accuse Disloyalty, Goading Accusation, Accusatory Command, The Delirious Accuse. Any of those titles make it click for the player that the ability is meant for enemy disruption.

      --  Gaze, the ability in which Xaku choses and paralyzes up to two opponents, stripping them of resistances and making them beacons of enfeeblement to enemies around them could have titles like: Gazing Horror, Horrifying Gaze, Eldritch Gaze, Baleful Gaze, Gaze into the Abyss, Paralyzing Gaze, Gaze of Doom, Oscitancy Gaze, Gaze of Anguish, The Tormented Gaze. All of those are more or less sufficient for people to understand that it’s a “gaze of the gorgon” type of ability, one that naturally focuses upon single opponents.

      --  Deny, the ability in which the warframe shoots a beam of piercing void that damage enemies and “deny” them existence, could be named: Denial Beam, Ray/Shot/Beam of Denial, Deny Existance/Life, Laser Deny, The Void Denies. Those more or less give the idea to the player that it’s an ability that “shoots” things, and they will use it accordingly.

All three of the abilities except accuse, that does have a good enough icon that shows a circular area, could have some tweaks done to them to heavily signify the meaning. Gaze could be a pair of really scary eyes or even a single wide stylized scared eye, Deny could be a “from left to right” stylized beam icon. I get the icon for Gaze is showing more or less Xaku’s face, and they don’t really have eyes to speak of, but I think that, for the sake of clarity, you can make that artistic adjustment.

Also, other players have suggested, but I think the frame would enjoy a lot if you make the animations for each ability occupy a different tier of body parts used for it. Accuse, the Opening of a rift to the beyond, could be a full body animation, Gaze, the Look into my eyes, ye mortals, and despair be a half up body animation, and Deny, the IMA FIRIN MAH LAZER ability a single arm animation. That would separate the identities of each power further, making them easier to understand and notice.

Accuse is not being strongly liked due to the underwhelming feelings in regard to general AI manipulation. I’m not sure just ditching it is the coolest idea, since it does have uses, like intercept missions at higher levels. What you could do is, at the end of the ability (or as soon as it begins, who knows), make all enemies affected by it heavily proc’ed by the new void status, so players feel an additional strategic reward for using it.

A number of players feel that Deny feels not particularly strong for an ability that costs 75 energy to use. To that, I argue that you dev’s could just make the ability worth that, while still keeping its general structure. Since it costs that much, you could give it a good punch through against materials, so it feels like a gigantic blast of  void, ignoring the petty logic of the material world, something like 3 to 5 meters as a start would be nice to try. Remember, it costs a lot, so there isn’t a problem in giving it a buff like that. In addition, giving it a powerful VFX, while thickening the beam considerably, say, make it 2 meters wide, would make players instantly reach for it whenever they see a corridor full of enemies, the altered icon would make the ability click faster in understanding for the player as well. Even better, make holding the key for the ability a way to aim the beam, and make releasing the key the releasing of the beam, to reiterate the notion that it is a very strong beam. Other players have made suggestions as well, so look around.

 

In passing, I would like to agree with the voices on the concerns that Grasp of Lokh weapons range for aggro’ing the void guns should be buffed. Not spectacularly, but 50% as a start would be nice, since Xaku is not a frame built of resilience, but for abilities, trickiness. Second: The developers should really think about the possibility of making the guns not shoot wild animals (that may make our work a bit easier, but come now, Xaku should get some privilege of being the frame launched with Heart of Deimos no?). They definitely should make the guns not focus on targets rooted with Gaze, or at least start focusing on other targets once they “know” the target is dead, because that disrupts the synergy of Xaku’s abilities.

 

Xaku’s passive… is understandably disapproved by a number of players. I had the same problem as them. You do feel less hit while under the effect of the Vast Untime, but once you are at the higher levels, with higher damage, you are barely able to last, and that is if you dedicate all your efforts into running and dodging around, in skelly form.  I don’t think raising evasion chance to 100% sounds reasonable, so I reiterate what I said before: You should give the whole aspect of evasion a differential from Damage Reduction, a buff that Damage Reduction doesn’t give, something that feels different. I said my suggestions of making evasive frames build up a “evade from death” slot for each evaded attack, up to a fixed number of slots that have a cooldown to be refilled, all the while giving the frame the slightest of boosts in speed in general, so they feel more wily, agile, powerful from looking death in the eye and escaping it by the skin of their biomechanical shell.

That would make players excited every time you mention things with evasion, because people can look up to a different form of power fantasy every time. Of course, I am suggesting something to give all frames in general, but if you feel like giving something only to Xaku, or to keep that buff from certain warframes, like Baruuk, due to its already existing synergy with Elude and his Restraint meter, then that’s okay too.

Evading should also have some sort of imagery to show for each evaded attack, like Baruuk’ Elude, so they can notice that the power is working. One cannot overlook the psychological factor of showing a player the positive factors of a power they are not using, lest they think the power is not doing anything at all.

 

 

In addition, in regards to Xata’s Whisper, I am still holding on buffing the damage of the ability. Remember folks, they may consider the possibility of making the void boost damage affect Eidolons and Amalgams, and, if they do that, the paltry 26% in damage addition will be wildly sought out, because it will outrank damage of a Rhino’s Roar due to an Eidolon’s resistances. If Xata’s Whisper can be given as an infusion, that may open the door to making a lot of Warframes more viable to deal with Eidolons. However, the status ailment of Void damage should really be modified. Either by making the bullet magnet home into the head after a number of procs, or by revamping the ailment altogether, other players has made suggestions, as I did mine. I’m partial towards a “convert harm to good”, as it is unique, an “passing infection” would be interesting too, but, in the end, the choice lies with you developers.

 

Lastly, I also concur with giving Xaku the slightest bit of an edge in Cambion’s Drift (cue runnin in the 90’s riff), by, at the very least, making Xaku immune to Fass slowing effects in areas where his pieces lie); At your choice, you could give the frame a little boosting in shooting and reloading, like another poster has said, when they are at Vome areas, and a little boost in damage if they are in Fass areas. It would go on the same line as Revenant’s immunity to the magnetism ailment in the water bodies of Plains of Eidolon.

[IIDMOII]

Unfortunately, none of these changes are encouraging me to farm/buy him. That's before even considering the time and resource cost involved in forma'ing to get him to acceptable levels.

His entire kit is blah. Not a single thing about this frame is remotely interesting other than the art. 

Steal enemy weapons? Why would this be of any value when other frames can simply just kill enemies instead? Terrible idea.

Really the only other thing of interest is access to void damage. Which sounds like it is so cucked it isnt worth it. 

If this frame is the result of community ideas, then the community should be ignored from now on. Jesus.

[GammaRamma]

On 2020-09-29 at 4:36 PM, (PS4)NOVALINK said:

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.

Don't give them ideas. Skeleton Xaku is the best.

[GammaRamma]

13 minutes ago, IIDMOII said:

Unfortunately, none of these changes are encouraging me to farm/buy him. That's before even considering the time and resource cost involved in forma'ing to get him to acceptable levels.

His entire kit is blah. Not a single thing about this frame is remotely interesting other than the art. 

Steal enemy weapons? Why would this be of any value when other frames can simply just kill enemies instead? Terrible idea.

Really the only other thing of interest is access to void damage. Which sounds like it is so cucked it isnt worth it. 

If this frame is the result of community ideas, then the community should be ignored from now on. Jesus.

You steal enemy weapons... to kill the enemies... did you graduate first grade? Just wondering

[GammaRamma]

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

There are new and existing mods that add evasion on top of Xakus built in evasion....As well as mods and arcanes to add tankiness. The developers have also said that they "reward mobility". The movement system this game has is for a reason. 

Yeah. If you're dying as Xaku, you've built them wrong or you're an idiot. People pretend like their disarm is exclusively just to disarm enemies... no? It makes you able to keep your distance while shredding them with their own weapons. It's kinda their fault if they decide to run head-first into a crowd of grineer thinking they're playing Rhino or something.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

20 minutes ago, IIDMOII said:

Unfortunately, none of these changes are encouraging me to farm/buy him. That's before even considering the time and resource cost involved in forma'ing to get him to acceptable levels.

His entire kit is blah. Not a single thing about this frame is remotely interesting other than the art. 

Steal enemy weapons? Why would this be of any value when other frames can simply just kill enemies instead? Terrible idea.

Really the only other thing of interest is access to void damage. Which sounds like it is so cucked it isnt worth it. 

If this frame is the result of community ideas, then the community should be ignored from now on. Jesus.

Fortunately, none of the game's decisions are made to appease only you. If you don't even like the entire kit, you're more than welcome to play the other 43 frames.

[Kadesfy]

.

[(PSN)M00n_Slippers]

I like most of the changes, but the void status change isn't great, even compared to how it was before. If you or someone else lands a wild shot that procs void anywhere but the head, it's still directing away from the head and limiting your damage. No other status type has this kind of punishment for having poor aim or accuracy, they proc the same no matter where they are hit and don't effect your other damage. It's kind of like, if your aim is good then this status is going to be pointless and if it's bad then it's probably going to be an overall detriment. I guess it redirects enemy shots back onto themselves which isn't terrible, but unless it's on a Heavy Gunner with a full ramped up Gorgon shooting at itself then you probably won't see much happening, and if we are talking Xaku specifically, we've no doubt already taken the enemy's weapon away before that so fat chance of seeing anything there. Void damage just needs to completely get away from the bubble thing in my opinion. I liked the idea of void stacks increasing damage from other sources, or even allowing punch through of the enemy that some people have suggested.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

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

There are new and existing mods that add evasion on top of Xakus built in evasion....As well as mods and arcanes to add tankiness. The developers have also said that they "reward mobility". The movement system this game has is for a reason. 

So you’re suggesting that people should reduce the effectiveness of their melee builds and only use the heavy attacks to give Xaku better survivability instead of doing the more reasonable thing and use a better frame that doesn’t require compromising our desired use of melee.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

14 hours ago, (PS4)Shaun-T-Wilson said:

And if you put water in a freezer you make ice(Solid water). But it does not behave like water, even though its still water (H20). In that analagy the freezer is the warframe.

The amps don’t make operator void beams into a different state of matter. It just adjusts how the void beam behaves and it’s crit and status. They don’t change the void status effect. They don’t change how void damage interacts with enemies.

On operator amps it shows that they deal void damage. On Xakus ability screen it shows that they deals void damage. Not void minus, not diet void. Void damage. So to make they void damage not have to same properties as void damage makes no sense. Especially when Xatas Whisper is already perfectly balanced for Eidolons hunts.

[MrFrog9]

Oh, these are really nice changes. I already liked Xaku but these will make them even better. The change to Bullet Attractor is brilliant. I'm really impressed with the decisions DE's made around Xaku so far. I'm a bit sad that Grasp can now just be spammed to max your guns because it was really satisfying to nab a full complement before but this will be much more user friendly (and also probably more practical for high-range builds that require a large amount of guns to deal maximum damage). Accuse being recastable is nice but I do wish there was some way to release thralls and start again.

I agree with not increasing the range on Grasp of Lohk for... pretty much exactly the reason listed. A compromise might be to have the base range be higher, but have it scale less with ability range (similar to how Oberon's Hallowed Ground's range scales as though its base range is about 75% less than it is). It'd make the ability more usable on less developed builds (low ranked, no reactor, unforma'd, etc.) while also cutting down the potential for AFK map killing.

Very nice work, DE!