Ash's Blade Storm for the last time.

[Aohira]

AAAAAAALLLRIGHT, the last time I will be talking about this. I've had enough, yet nothing has been changed. Let's solve this problem once and for all. (But, you don't listen DE, do you?..)

Blade Storm

As you may know, I've made a few posts earlier about BS as well. Quite a lot of time passed since I did the last one. I've gained experience, knowledge and grown as a Warframe player and as an Ash main as well. Helminth system appeared as well (which one I don't want to unlock all that much, probably gonna do it once), so we have a lot of new stuff to cover...

First of all, before we get into my rework ideas (which have already been suggested in one form or another and they're really close to what you could see), let's talk about why do I want it to be changed. And I've got a lot of feedback recently to share.

I have 2 friends who had played on old BS and I decided to ask them: If it was back right now, would you play with it? They both said NO. I was kinda shocked, but ok. Also recently I've met another BS Ash main who says that BS does not need a rework, even thought he had also been using old BS in the past. But I still think that some changes still need to be made, because as it is right now, this ability you would probably not wanna use. So let's get into my rework idea.

Actually there are a few of them. Marking system is nice, but doing it yourself doesn't do anything good rather than bringing pain to your hand. The marking process is the thing that needs to be changed. The first way to make it easier is to simply spawn a spreading smoke cloud. After being fully spread or upon earlier activation 2 shadow clones will start hitting enemies (same energy cost, same mechanic). If you pre-hold the ability, you're gonna join BS as soon as you release your finger. That would simply make the process of marking enemies easier. Another idea iss pretty much the same, although it doesn't absolutely belong to me. However I was also thinking about it in the past. Do you remember Garuda's 4? So how about we mark enemies the same way? OP? I'm not sure since we have Mesa (and ofc Khora and Octavia). Plus Ash's animation even with all 3 maxed attack speed mods is quite slow, so that would just make him more useful. Personally I'd like my (first) change to be made. Simple, yet so efficient (I think).

So what about the Helminth? Well, if you use Radiant Finish or Savage Silence on Ash you're gonna get ~3,5 million damage with a single mark with my build. However... This build has 5,4s duration... Yeah I'm very risky. Praise the Arcane Trickery!

Nevertheless there aren't all that many options you can go for in case of BS since it doesn't matter what you do, you can't change the mechanic of the ability itself... Or not?

Marked for Death. Personally I saw the reincarnation of old BS in this ability in a new way. It was good. Very niche but good. And for unlocking the Helminth this ability was absolutely worth grinding for. After all the nerfs you can still use slash to deal some reasonable damage, but you can't oneshot lvl4000+ enemies with it. Unlike Blade Storm. DE have always been denying the fact that their game is all about dealing damage, although it has always been pretty obvious. And it is especially obvious these days. Have you noticed that DE stopped adding new damage dealing warframes and started focusing on more of a utility ones WHO ARE NOT BEING WIDELY USED? Yeah, me too. I guess if you make DD warframe then you should make him at least a viable pick. Ash is not one of those picks right now. So there's only one small change I'm asking about and then it would be totally fine. Also, when you cast Smoke Screen and join the Blade Storm the timer must stop. Teleport is a niche ability, useless and has no synergy with Ash's abilities, but I'm kinda ok with that. Shuriken is also not very important and doesn't have any synergy with Ash's abilities. It's ok but meh. I honestly want 1st and 3rd abilities to be changed, or perhaps even completely replaced with some other ones, but I don't care about them all that much. So I'm finally done with my rework idea, thanks for reading. (Hoping for this being noticed by DE)

[Xarteros]

I'll say what I've said since his OG Bladestorm, and well before the augment came out

His 4th should be a toggle mode, "Hunter's Gaze" or some such. While in this mode, hearts (or power cores for robots) should appear and glow on enemies to create a new weakpoint that acts like a headshot multiplier zone with higher multiplier and/or crit bonuses, based on power strength.

In this mode, his abilities gain additional function:

• Shuriken should spawn shadow clones that throw additional shuriken from different angles. If the original target enemy dies, the clones attack other enemies.
• Smoke Screen should spawn shadow clones that perform finishers on nearby enemies affected by the stun
• Teleport should incorporate the augment and perform a finisher, whilst also spawning clones that do finishers in an area around you

It means you still have to maintain active control (rather than the old bladestorm that was set and forget), it widens up his utility (since players can build him for superior sniping, wider AoE damage, or a balanced mix), it adds some more flavour to his theme, and I think it would make his gameplay really fun.

[Traumtulpe]

If Blade Storm had more forgiving targeting, and you could start marking again despite still having old marks (hello Xaku), it would be perfectly fine.

[TTraw]

Imo Bladestorm should work like Garuda's 4, with range increasing initial circle, and casting speed affecting how fast it enlarges.

Then I would just make it so pressing 4 again while clones are fighting lets ash join the fight instead of his 3 because I'd like to be able to use both abilities. Then I think ash would be fine.

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That said, I do have a rework idea that makes him more synergistic without turning him into completely new warframe. Probably OP, but I'd love some other people's thoughts on it:

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Passive:

• Dealing finisher damage guarantees slash procs. Increase damage and duration of slash status effect by 10% for each level of your Frenzy Gauge (about that in a minute)

Frenzy Gauge:

• As Ash deals damage and scores kills, his Frenzy Gauge increases;
• Bonus gauge gained for performing these activites in stealth and for performing finishers;
• Has 3 levels;
• Maxes out the gauge completely if Ash performs finisher attack on unalerted enemy;
• Gauge decays very quickly if no frenzy was added to the gauge within certain short period of time
• Being in stealth however halves the decay speed

Shuriken [1]:

• Increased Shuriken target count from 2 to 3
• Now deals Finisher damage (procs bleed due to new passive)
• Bonus damage on already bleeding enemies, depending on bleed stacks
• When held down, at cost of 1 Frenzy Gauge:
  • Adds 1 additional Shuriken Target
  • Throws 2 shurikens per enemy
  • Strips % of armor, affected by ability strength
• Seeking Shuriken - new effect: "Increase Shuriken target count by 1. Shuriken bounces to additional enemy within 10m at 35% damage"
  • Damage affected by Ability strength
  • Bounce range affected by Ability range

Smoke Screen [2]:

• When held down, at cost of 1 Frenzy Gauge:
  • Doubles stun duration and range
  • Can be activated even while Smoke Screen is already active

Teleport [3]:

• Requires lesser pinpoint accuracy in order to teleport;
• No longer used to make Ash join the Bladestorm;
• When held down, at cost of 1 Frenzy Gauge:
  • Automatically performs Finisher onto teleported enemy if possible with increased damage or increases damage on that enemy for your next attack otherwise
• Fatal Teleport - new effect: "Automatic Finisher no longer consumes Frenzy Gauge and deals 100% more damage."

Bladestorm [4]:

• Now costs 100 energy;
• Completely reworked aiming mechanics;
• Now works similarly to Garuda's 4, using circle that enlarges as button is held, marking enemies;
  • Initial circle size is affected by Ability Range
  • Circle size increase speed is affected by Casting Speed
• Gradually consumes Frenzy Gauge as button is held
  • Consumption speed depends on Casting Speed
• The number of marks (attacks) per enemy depends on number of levels consumed:
  • 1 attack at lvl 0 and lvl 1
  • 2 attacks at lvl 2
  • 3 attacks at lvl 3
• Each level of Frenzy consumed also adds 1 additional clone to join the massacree (max: 5 when consuming full Gauge)
• Activating this ability again before it finishes causes Ash to join the fray
• The chromatic desaturated overlay that is currently visible when activating target mode would now appear for as long as Bladestorm continues attacking in order to inform Ash player if it's still active or not

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That's my idea. Totally unnecessary but I like when warframes are more internally synergistic

[(PSN)Vexx757]

I have talked about Ash issues since 2016 and gave solutions and I got reduced for it coz in ppls eyes DE are the best, but if DE decided to use my ideas to revisit Ash they would say that Ash is great.

 

Here are the issues bs currently has;

Spoiler

·       The two stages of the killing process make bs slow, because of this, other players can take his kills before you get a chance to kill them which makes him not helpful in the team, not fun to play and in a fast-pasted game this is bad.

 

·       Marking enemies for some players is sickening because of the motion of moving the cursor onto enemies, even though it`s easier (but still a problem) to do this using a mouse, doing this on a controller is not as easy, an ability should be able to be easy to use no matter what you use.

 

·       Because enemies are highlighted by your chosen energy colour, it will make enemies more visible to other players to go and kill them which in their minds is a top priority.

 

·       If you want the full damage of bs, you have to mark the enemies three times which will slow you down or  makes you stationary (if you want to do it quickly) to mark enemies with three marks. In low-level missions, your energy will be refunded back to you if you over mark and in high levels you obviously going to want the full damage of it so there is absolutely no point in having to choose the amount of damage you want to dish out. With the old bs, you had the full damage regardless.

 

·       Bodies disappearing makes it to where you can`t bring him in a desecrating team with a nekros. While bodies disappearing makes sense on paper for him being a ninja and I like the idea, unfortunately, this just makes him a problem in that team.

 

·       The indicator shows how many marks instead of how many enemies affected by bs. Because of this, you have no idea how many enemies are going to be killed. If it showed how many enemies affected by bs, it will let the play know when to use bs again.

 

·       Using your 2nd ability to use less energy is not synergy. Synergy is meant to be a choice that makes a difference in missions however, this so-called synergy is a must to use it consistently which makes it a bad gimmick.

 

·       Because of the synergy between his 2nd & 4th ability, you are forced to mod for duration to benefit from using less energy for bs since most people are not going to use bs while it`s taking more energy.

 

·       Using the 3rd ability to join the animation costs no energy but you need energy to be able to use it which makes no sense plus, in low-level missions, sometimes you`re not even going to get a chance use your 3rd ability because the apparitions have killed the enemies already. (depending on how many enemies you mark)

 

·       Apparitions (clones) appearance is not consistent. The visuals go from looking like you custom coloured Ash to a hologram version, to the original ash look with default colours. Also, this is a bug that the old bs had which means it has not been fixed.

 

·       When marking, you can`t mark enemies that are behind walls or objects which make you have to run around searching for enemies to kill and if you in a team, your marked enemies will be killed off by your teammates.

 

·       Even if Ash`s damage has increased to 2,000, (his damage now is still great) the damage is not as good compared to the old bs. The apparitions of the old bs was like Saryn`s 1st ability damage but slightly better, (and the terminator) the apparitions would not stop killing until the enemies were dead and even though attack speed mods can increase their killing speed, with the current bs, the apparitions only attack three times however the bleeding damage speed cannot.

 

·       Because of the way it works, it makes shuriken not favoured in use due to the amount of energy bs costs when modding and how much damage it does and how quick enemies will be killed when activated. This make some people use bs over shuriken.

 

·       The marking mechanic makes the ability ineffective in close-quarter, tight spaces which is what  the majority of the tilesets are, this makes the ability less effective and mostly useless even more so it a team.

 

·       You can`t pick and choose what enemies you want to kill; (which people claim you can do) on paper it makes sense however in practise the idea is not useful. For example, if you wanted to mark an energy eximus in-between two other enemies and you only have enough energy to mark one enemy, you are not able to.

 

Reasons;

· Enemies are running around to where you will either run out of energy or you simply can`t mark the eximus.

· You will have to stand there trying to mark that one enemy.

· You have a chance to get hit by a stray bullet or by an explosion whether you use your 2nd ability or not.

· If you’re playing in a team, someone WILL take the kill from you.

· Teleport can do it better and is faster at it. (this alone destroys the purpose of using it that way)

 

I even have a stalker (SweatShawp) following my pose despite me telling him to leave me alone, I had to block him in the end and he`s upset over it, just to warn you also he will show up on your post. The point is their are a lot of stupid ppl that don`t understand that it`s someone's opinion. I think Nezha is great, if someone says he needs a rework I would see why the person says this but ultimately it`s that person`s opinion and as of now I'm enjoying playing Nezha.

Ash has issues, if you say "I acknowledge his issues but I still like him" that`s one thing, but if you`re denying facts that are in front of you and saying he`s "perfect" or "he`s fine" then you`re an idiot at this point.

[Crabopoulos-Michael]

So much this 👇

hace 20 horas, Traumtulpe dijo:

If Blade Storm had more forgiving targeting, and you could start marking again despite still having old marks (hello Xaku), it would be perfectly fine.

and a faster animation, I can't stand bladestorm without arcane strike and/or primed fury.

[Rosaria]

They nerfed one of the weakest skills in the damage meta (m4d) into the ground (it was factually one of the weakest skills for many reasons). They won't rework Ash, as they're terrified of adding more damage options. Really sucks, but DE isn't known for smart, consistent development. They're very sporadic, so I doubt they'll even consider it unless they get a sudden want to rework him out of nowhere. But with how they've been doing things, I'd expect them to, if they did rework him, see him doing anything even remotely able to compare with other damage dealers, and nerf him so hard into the ground that Gara's shield nerf will look like a buff. They can't balance for bugger all.