To show how bad Grendel's passive is, here's some existing warframe passives "reworked" to the tune of it

[RS219]

Grendel's 'passive' - "Gain 50 armor for each enemy swallowed" - is terrible because it's inactive until actively casted for, it actively PENALIZES the player while in use (energy drain), and by the standards of other Warframe abilities it should already be integrated as part of the skill that it's tied to!

If you don't cast Feast even once in a mission, then Grendel might as well have NO passive whatsoever.

To see how bad it is, take the Warframes below, strip out their existing passives then replace them with the following:

Ash : Briefly turn invisible on casting Smokescreen
Banshee : Stun enemies on casting Silence
Chroma : Temporarily gain bonus armor and health while Vex Armor is active*
Ember : Enemies are set on fire when hit by skills
Frost : Enemies are chilled when hit by skills
Gauss : Gain increased speed during Mach Rush
Harrow : Gain shields on hitting enemies with Thurible
Inaros : In addition to blinding enemies, Desiccate also saps health
Loki : Decoy generates high threat
Mag : Magnetize immobilizes an enemy
Mirage : Two doppelgangers summoned in Hall of Mirrors can deal damage
Nezha : Fire Walker removes status effects
Revenant : Not just damage, but also steal health from enemies hit by Reave
Rhino : Gain invincibility on 3 seconds after casting Iron Skin
Saryn : Spores spread to adjacent enemies
Valkyr : Warcry gives temporary bonus armor
Volt : Enemies are shocked when hit by skills
Wukong : Defy gives temporary bonus armor

Please give Grendel a better passive. Make "+50 armor per Devour" a part of Devour's innate mechanics. Make his new passive more like rolls briefly turning him into a Meatball (with no radius beyond his body) that knocks down whatever non-boss enemies he rolls into.

^{*To be fair, Chroma's default passive is trash as-is anyway so this really is just a sidegrade}

[NinjaZeku]

Indeed, "Passives" that are in fact just part of an ability really aren't Passives at all.

[PsiWarp]

Agreed. Grendel suffers from inter-ability dependency much like Limbo does. At least Limbo has several passives to begin with.

[chaotea]

While I get what your saying, your example reworks dont reflect the same thing. Getting armor from swallowed enemies isnt part of his first ability. So getting a new passive is fine, but grendal will no longer get that bonus armor. (It already strips armor and damages)

With your example for ash, his invisability is already part of his ability. Cutting it out of his ability doesnt make sense as his 'reworked passive for example'. More accurate to what you are saying is if you made it 'ash deals more slash damage on slash procs from shuriken.

Its still bad, but its more accurate to your point.

[NinjaZeku]

41 minutes ago, chaotea said:

Getting armor from swallowed enemies isnt part of his first ability. So getting a new passive is fine, but grendal will no longer get that bonus armor.

The point is, make the Armor gain part of the ability on its own, as it basically already is,
and to then add an actual Passive to Grendel, because right now he really doesn't have one.

42 minutes ago, chaotea said:

With your example for ash, his invisability is already part of his ability.

... yes, that's the entire point of this topic.

You use Smoke Screen, you turn invisible. It's not a passive effect, it's part of the ability.

You use Feast, you gain Armor. It's not a passive effect, it's part of the ability.

 

[krc473]

41 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

yes, that's the entire point of this topic.

You use Smoke Screen, you turn invisible. It's not a passive effect, it's part of the ability.

You use Feast, you gain Armor. It's not a passive effect, it's part of the ability.

It’s a pretty poor example. What OP seems to mean is more “subsequent hits with shuriken increases something (say, count)”. Because you use feast, it does something and grants armour. You don’t use smokescreen to turn invisible and gain an additional affect. Say, gaining armour when casting smokescreen.

 

Some of your examples are bad, but your point is perfectly valid. If your passive requires a specific ability cast then it’s more of an “active”.

[NinjaZeku]

54 minutes ago, krc473 said:

You don’t use smokescreen to turn invisible and gain an additional affect.

Yes you do, you stun enemies around you.

[krc473]

8 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

Yes you do, you stun enemies around you.

Well, you missed my point entirely. I was not referring to what the ability itself does (I figured it was clear we were talking about passives). That would count if that was the frame’s passive. But OP’s suggestion was the passive and the ability have the same effect. Not the passive adding something.

[selig_fay]

8 hours ago, RS219 said:

Please give Grendel a better passive. Make his rolls briefly turn him into a Meatball (with no radius beyond his body) that knocks down whatever non-boss enemies he rolls into?

I understand correctly that you want something like a necramech charge mechanic, only the grendel turns into a ball during this charge? Sounds fun.

[chaotea]

4 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

You use Feast, you gain Armor. It's not a passive effect, it's part of the ability.

Well, its not really. Feast sucks in enemies, weakens them, then spits them out. Thats the full bredth of the ability. The passive allows you to have an additional function to the warframes overall ability.

I think you're missunderstanding how it works.

2 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

Yes you do, you stun enemies around you.

I think your miss understanding him abit.

 

To make clear, we arnt really argueing against you. Only that the examples you've used to reinforce your point dont work. Or at least dont describe a situation similar to what happens with grendal.

To be clear, grendals passive does something seperate from the ability. Its just that in comparison to most warframes, its more focused on the interaction of one ability.

If we were to apply your own 'passive aplication' to grendal, it would be something like 'Enemies swallowed by grendal have thier armor stripped over time'. Does that make it clearer?

[chaotea]

4 minutes ago, selig_fay said:

I understand correctly that you want something like a necramech charge mechanic, only the grendel turns into a ball during this charge? Sounds fun.

No, he just wants to have the meatball mechanic while rolling. (so a half second meatball). Its not even really a passive, more a movement set.

[selig_fay]

2 minutes ago, chaotea said:

No, he just wants to have the meatball mechanic while rolling. (so a half second meatball). Its not even really a passive, more a movement set.

Hmm. Maby dev can do both? 

[NinjaZeku]

9 minutes ago, chaotea said:

To be clear, grendals passive does something seperate from the ability. Its just that in comparison to most warframes, its more focused on the interaction of one ability.

If we were to apply your own 'passive aplication' to grendal, it would be something like 'Enemies swallowed by grendal have thier armor stripped over time'. Does that make it clearer?

It's still the same in the end, it's something that ONLY happens from using the ability.

That makes the effect that happens, logically speaking, part of that ability.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Grendels Passive is perfectly fine. His 1 could do with a reduction of energy cost tho.

If any frame deserves criticism over a bad passive it’s Xaku.

[selig_fay]

9 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Grendels Passive is perfectly fine. His 1 could do with a reduction of energy cost tho.

If any frame deserves criticism over a bad passive it’s Xaku.

Are you seriously comparing +50 armor per enemy with a high energy drain versus a free 25% chance to ignore damage? Let's talk about Nyx then.

[RS219]

On 2020-10-15 at 4:30 PM, chaotea said:

While I get what your saying, your example reworks dont reflect the same thing. Getting armor from swallowed enemies isnt part of his first ability. So getting a new passive is fine, but grendal will no longer get that bonus armor. (It already strips armor and damages)

With your example for ash, his invisability is already part of his ability. Cutting it out of his ability doesnt make sense as his 'reworked passive for example'. More accurate to what you are saying is if you made it 'ash deals more slash damage on slash procs from shuriken.

Its still bad, but its more accurate to your point.

In context of this passive rework, the "+50 armor per enemy swallowed" gimmick should just be integrated entirely into his Devour. Much like how other warframe abilities buff their own health/shields/armor (fire elemental ward/pillage/warcry). I accidentally left that tidbit out. I've edited the original post to better reflect this.

On 2020-10-15 at 9:48 PM, chaotea said:

No, he just wants to have the meatball mechanic while rolling. (so a half second meatball). Its not even really a passive, more a movement set.

The actual passive is knocking enemies down in the process of rolling. Turning into a depowered meatball acts as a visual indicator of said passive, and also showcases a hint of his ultimate more often than only seeing it when it's actively cast.

On 2020-10-16 at 3:49 AM, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Grendels Passive is perfectly fine. His 1 could do with a reduction of energy cost tho.

If any frame deserves criticism over a bad passive it’s Xaku.

Xaku's passive got a major buff, though, even if I'm not quite sure how useful it is (mostly because I haven't actively tested it out). Grendel's is tied with Chroma's passive for worst ever - because as nonfunctional as Chroma's passive is, it at least doesn't actively penalize your ongoing stats within a mission. Xaku's passive is still better on account of not actively penalizing the user while in play.

On 2020-10-15 at 9:54 PM, selig_fay said:

Hmm. Maby dev can do both? 

Do both, yes. Integrate the +armor entirely into Devour's mechanics, and give Grendel a ragdolling roll passive.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

On 2020-10-16 at 6:07 AM, selig_fay said:

Are you seriously comparing +50 armor per enemy with a high energy drain versus a free 25% chance to ignore damage? Let's talk about Nyx then.

Nyx’s passive is also garbage. It’s worse than the one she had before.
 

Xakus passives not only sucks, but is now completely redundant because their current play style revolves around being in their 4 which gives a higher % of dodge chance.

If DE fixes Grendels energy drain, that armor increase is actually very useful. Especially if you put the rage mod on Grendel.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

51 minutes ago, RS219 said:

In context of this passive rework, the "+50 armor per enemy swallowed" gimmick should just be integrated entirely into his Devour. Much like how other warframe abilities buff their own health/shields/armor (fire elemental ward/pillage/warcry). I accidentally left that tidbit out. I've edited the original post to better reflect this.

The actual passive is knocking enemies down in the process of rolling. Turning into a depowered meatball acts as a visual indicator of said passive, and also showcases a hint of his ultimate more often than only seeing it when it's actively cast.

Xaku's passive got a major buff, though, even if I'm not quite sure how useful it is (mostly because I haven't actively tested it out). Grendel's is tied with Chroma's passive for worst ever - because as nonfunctional as Chroma's passive is, it at least doesn't actively penalize your ongoing stats within a mission. Xaku's passive is still better on account of not actively penalizing the user while in play.

Do both, yes. Integrate the +armor entirely into Devour's mechanics, and give Grendel a ragdolling roll passive.

“Major buff”. It’s a 25% DR to a very specific attack type. You know what’s better than that? Significantly higher DR against all attack types. You know who provides that? Grendel.

At higher levels Grendels energy drain kind of gets balanced out because he can take the shots from enemies and with Rage equipped he gets energy back, so it’s a continuous cycle. There’s issues with it, but it’s not a complete lost cause. Again, all DE needs to do is rebalance how Grendels energy drain works, because infinite scaling  energy drain per enemy was a horrible idea.

[selig_fay]

6 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

If DE fixes Grendels energy drain, that armor increase is actually very useful. Especially if you put the rage mod on Grendel.

I can't agree. 300 armor on top is not useful and does nothing for the gameplay. I understand that they want to try to uncover the topic of hunger, but it doesn't help because you still need to eat enemies for other abilities anyway. Another question is that meet ball doesn't work very well right now and the person really has a good idea to make it a passive movement, then Grendel could get a better 4 for his hunger theme.

300 armor for 6 enemies is just as boring as 25% evasion, which just adds up to 50% of Ult's evasion. You know, 25% evasion at least it works without energy, which would be valuable if energy really meant something.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

39 minutes ago, selig_fay said:

I can't agree. 300 armor on top is not useful and does nothing for the gameplay. I understand that they want to try to uncover the topic of hunger, but it doesn't help because you still need to eat enemies for other abilities anyway. Another question is that meet ball doesn't work very well right now and the person really has a good idea to make it a passive movement, then Grendel could get a better 4 for his hunger theme.

300 armor for 6 enemies is just as boring as 25% evasion, which just adds up to 50% of Ult's evasion. You know, 25% evasion at least it works without energy, which would be valuable if energy really meant something.

Why are you assuming you’ll only be eating 6 enemies? You’re deliberately lowballing just to make it seem like you have a point.

[chaotea]

9 hours ago, RS219 said:

Xaku's passive got a major buff, though, even if I'm not quite sure how useful it is (mostly because I haven't actively tested it out). 

Im using Xaku for Steel Path at the moment, and im doing fine even with no hp or shield mods. So i think it does. 

[selig_fay]

6 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Why are you assuming you’ll only be eating 6 enemies? You’re deliberately lowballing just to make it seem like you have a point.

Because it has 6 enemies cap.

[NinjaZeku]

7 hours ago, selig_fay said:

Because it has 6 enemies cap.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Grendel/Abilities

Armor bonus per enemy [...] has no upper limit

[selig_fay]

2 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

Armor bonus per enemy [...] has no upper limit

Yes? Well, apparently they buff it, because I clearly remember that this limit was. 

In any case, 1000 armor is 20 enemies. You need to literally keep the half of the map in your belly so that it gives a normal DR or you can put an Umbra set and get good armor by default, which means passive will be garbage, as it will give... Can be 5% DR for 20 enemies... And I remind you that it still costs a lot of energy.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

7 hours ago, selig_fay said:

Yes? Well, apparently they buff it, because I clearly remember that this limit was. 

In any case, 1000 armor is 20 enemies. You need to literally keep the half of the map in your belly so that it gives a normal DR or you can put an Umbra set and get good armor by default, which means passive will be garbage, as it will give... Can be 5% DR for 20 enemies... And I remind you that it still costs a lot of energy.

Hence why they need to adjust the energy drain.