Deimos: Arcana - Bonewidow Necramech Megathread

[Priwe]

So, I have had some time with Bonewidow, and she's... very lackluster in her execution after all the build-up. In her current state, I see her as a placeholder rather than a viable Necramech.

Meathook (1):

So, skewering enemies with this ability feels more like a detriment rather than a benefit. It takes a while to finish the casting animation, which leaves you open to be relentlessly attacked, and can be quite difficult to land to begin with. After you skewer an enemy, there's not a reason to want to keep the enemy around, while it gives hard CC by removing an enemy from the battlefield, you now have this enemy waving around in front of you, blocking part of your vision, and doing nothing much else. Then, throwing an enemy has negligible damage, and that's if you hit another enemy. There's also no synergy with any of her other abilities, and in fact, if your Shield Maiden is active, you cannot use Meathook at all. It's silly to see an enemy being swung around on a pike, but there's nothing much else that this ability brings to the table.

Iron Maiden (2):

Oh boy, where to start with this one... Well, as many people have already mentioned, the damage blocking only works part of the time. On top of this, there's no benefit aside from having some damage blocking with this ability, and if you don't manage your shield's health, you're actually punished for using it. If you allow your shield to be destroyed, you have no potential damage blocking for ~5 seconds as you wait for your shield to re-materialize, and this causes an issue with her Exalted Ironbride that I will get into later. Overall, this is highly unacceptable considering all the shields that we have had in the game up to this point, and it needs to see a rework or some increased functionality.

Firing Line (3):

This ability is an odd one. We are given a sword and board Necramech, yet we have an ability that's to line up enemies for something of a punch-through sniper shot. (Yes, we have a gun with our Necramech, but this really goes against the theme of the Necramech.) The range of the ability feels to be quite short, while also being limited vertically to only being as tall as Bonewidow (flying and ranged enemies rejoice), and it deals no damage for the use (which, we just recently got a stagger added, so it's now some amount of CC, but that does little to improve this ability). Overall, I'd honestly prefer seeing something else take this ability slot, at least something more thematic.

Exalted Ironbride (4):

And finally, we come to her Exalted weapon. This ability and weapon can pack a punch, but there's a lot of drawback to using it. Firstly, we have the wind-ups and the recoveries; I will absolutely say that this ability and weapon feel good to use, you really see and feel a powerful weapon swing with a fairly big arch. However, after a while, these swings begin to feel more like a time-sink and something you should think about before swinging, because it will absolutely leave you open to attacks. This is also not mentioning the fact that after a 3-swing combo, Bonewidow has to take time to recover before you can start meleeing more; and do not use a ground slam, you are open for such a long time, you might as well have painted a target on your back. Now, we move onto what many have already said before, it has nothing to assist with distant and/or flying enemies, and there's no synergy with other abilities to try and get enemies closer to you, or to empower your weapon to allow for ranged attacks (Firing Line tries to do some of this, but still falls short). And, finally, what I have found to be absolutely breaking about the ability and weapon is that (1) your Exalted weapon can just not appear and you cannot do anything until you toggle the ability off (and on, if you still want to use the weapon), and (2) if you have your Iron Maiden active and it breaks, you will not be able to continue using your Exalted weapon until you either toggle off Exalted Ironbride or wait until you can recast Iron Maiden and get your shield back. These are very much unacceptable bugs and need to be patched as soon as possible to give some amount of redemption to this Necramech.

Overall, I am unhappy with Bonewidow's current state, and she needs a lot of love to come even close to holding a candle to her superior brother, the Voidrig. If you compare the two Necramechs, Voidrig has far better synergy with his abilities, and can cover his weaknesses; Bonewidow, on the other hand, has very little synergy, many weaknesses, and her strengths can be turned into more weaknesses. Bonewidow truly could use a rework from the ground up, she has the spark there to be a very good front-line oriented fighter, but her abilities fall short to allow her to fuel that spark.

[(PSN)camwyn-xenos]

Reading various comments here i come to the conclusion that bonewidow may be very good in a small space eg. Indoor tilesets as opposed to the voidrig which is excellent outside but his exaulted won't be useful in faster moving mission like exterminate. Could this be DE's idea bonewidow is a tunnel merchant not a open world frame so much? I'm think more for when they do add mech use to game at large. 

[(XBOX)HollowCube987]

15 hours ago, Mayhemdax said:

They'll probably buff this by nerfing the other mech. After all they need to bring 1st mech in line with the 2nd so it doesn't become a must-play and limit player choice. Because where's the fun in having one decent Necramech if you can have two equally viable pieces of S#&$. If everything is good, nothing is good. If something is fun, useful or popular, it's clearly a toxic influence on the game that must be purged immediately.

The amount of truth in this is painful.

Honestly, the only reason I play with the Necramech is to use my Archgun on the ground for free, or to kill the Eidolons within seconds with the Voidrig's artillery cannon.

[Circle_of_Psi]

So here is my feedback after playing with it and seeing a few videos of it.

Quote

Bonewidow Changes
The Bonewidow was flagged as the item needing the most review, and we took a look at each Ability and made changes to its power, energy economy, and scalability. 
 

Assuming that that these Changes are NOT live I'll go ahead and add some more feedback to this: First of all names need changing for the powers, most of them are really tame and are too focused on an "certain" viewpoint, makes me sick 🤢😷

Sheath: The Witherhoard turns it's left claw into a sharp blade Skewering and holding a target within it's grasp

• Sheath will int-kill anyone that it comes into contact with that are low HP. if the mob has high HP, it will deal slash over time.
• Made the Sheath ability more responsive for targeting based on camera direction. 
• Added a damage buff to melee attacks while holding an enemy on Sheath.
• Sheath now only costs energy on successful hit. It no longer costs energy to throw an enemy that is already held. 

Titan Shield: The Witherhoard brings out an Titan Shield to block all incoming frontal damage or can be used as an powerful blunt attack.

• Added ‘Ironskin’ style scaling to the Shield, meaning all incoming damage right after the cast period scales the health of the Shield Maiden. 
• Made the angle of Shield’s blocking angle more sensible for the front area of the Necramech.  
• Blocking with both Ironblade and the Shield will increase damage and grants full protection, rather then just the Front.
• Attacks from the Back and Sides are reduced by 50%

Imbue: The Witherhoard siphons life essence to heal itself and it's allies, while dealing high damage to who are near.

• Energy cost reduced from 50 to 35
• Pulls in all near by enemies and stuns them
• If enemies die by Imbue they grant higher HP

Ironblade: 

• Increased the damage overall for Exalted Ironblade by 15000% since its attack speed is slower by design. 
• 50% Less energy is now required to sustain Exalted Ironblade
• Slam attacks are better performing and more intuitive.
• Damage scales with level.
• If Titan Shield is active, Attacking does not cost energy
• Move faster with Iornblade active, more so if the Shield is active 

Overall stats need to be Improved

• HP & Armor needs to be way higher 
• Remove Shielding but still grants the Gating Effect to prevent OHK.
• Sprint Speed needs to be way higher  

 

And there's the feedback

[ASWAT000]

4th skill does not work when you are client. On cast sound plays, animation happens but sword doesn't appear. Mech just holds empty hand.

[Ms.Witch]

22 hours ago, Mayhemdax said:

Found a bug where Bonewidow turns in to a corn cob, can't use any ability or transfer out of the mech or use melee (says every ability is in use)
Also another one that occours when shieldmaiden is up and you activate Bonewidow's 4th ability, basically it equips the sword but it's non existant and you cannot swing it

 

same bug here for both^^

[d0n41dth3gr34t]

So, as many have mentioned, the full kit is a bit lack luster on the impact this mech can do. I will input my own ideas on a rework with a couple things in mind.

This mech is supposed to be melee and offensive centric vs the range and defensive (area lockdown) centric voidrig. (think Mesa vs. Valkyr)

Meat Hook:

As far as this ability is right now, it seems more of a gimmick than useful. Others have suggested applying a life steal on the speared enemy which would be good, but I would also suggest turning this into a buffing ability as well. Spearing enemies would result in obtaining a buff depending on the type of enemy. either damage, speed, armor boost, or whatever else (similar to grendel's nourish ability).

An additional buff could be granted on spearing eximus units, this buff would be stealing the eximus ability of the ice globe, heat wave, toxin aura, energy steal, etc. However, to synergize with the rest of the kit, meathooked enemies must remain with the shield when activated (second ability).

Functionally, this buffing could be easily switched by stabbing a new enemy to benefit the mech in the given situation without needing to increase the base values drastically (ie, speed buff)

Shield Maiden:

As this is an offensive mech, I would suggest turning this purely defensive ability into a more offensive one. When activated, the shield will activate 70% damage reduction at base (90% with 130% power strength) and will start to build up charge based on the damage dealt to it. Then, the stored damage can be used to substantially increase the damage dealt to enemies caught in a charging attack, this could also boost the damage by shockwave attacks on the fourth.

This ability would therefore be similar to defy or baruuk's restraint where the more damage that the shield defends from, the more damage it can deal out.

Firing Line:

This ability is not currently useful. It does not seem to be able to funnel all the enemies in front of you so instead of trying to force it to do so, make it similar to valkyr's paralysis and make it stun any enemy in its path. you could even add in the effect of valkyr's paralyzing paralysis augment where enemies are pulled in when you have your fourth ability active.

Exalted Ironbride:

With the synergy from the first ability (speed boost), the damage increase on shockwaves from the second ability, and the pull of enemies towards you on the third. This ability would connect the kit and would not need too much of a change. However, I would suggest the addition of a ground forward moving shockwave on the three attack combo where the sword hits the area in front of the mech that would be eligible for the second ability damage boost.

[Deminisis]

Aside from a more aesthetically pleasing look over the stick limb voidrig, none of the abilities seem to be worth using in general gameplay. 

Meathook is no more than a gimmick for holding an enemy.

Shield is unreliable in a lot of situations.

Firing line is a waste of time and energy. A radial pull would benefit melee better,

Ironbride feels way too slow and restrictive. It features 1 combo and has the slowest, most cumbersome slam attack I have ever seen. It really needs a fleshed out combo set with lunges and maybe some spin attacks to make it more fluid like other melee options.

[Zeliphar]

Can't use arch-melee (like veritux prisma and other), necramech pressure point and fury only work on little hand , no in the exalted weapons

Lot of unused potential , why used Necramech if Warframe is 1000x more strong ?

at the moment she is forgettable, only masteries point look interesting 

[(PSN)InbredJimbo]

Since I'm a PS4 player I obviously don't have access to Bonewidow to test it on my own, but based on all the feedback I've read and listened to it really seems laughably weak. Like seriously, you guys. What was your thought process while designing it? The Exalted Melee is the most mind-boggling aspect of its kit, seeing how its this mech's main drawing point. Did you guys decide to base it off the standard Veritux on the basis of it being (most likely) the most used Arch-Melee? At this point it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. 

Anyway.  Here are my proposed changes that definitely won't be taken into consideration, but f**k it. Imma just use this thread as an exercise in creativity. 

Meathook: I know you guys at DE sure do love le epic meme abilities that make you and your bootlickers go "ROFLMFAO XDDDD" (e.g Vector Pad, Pulverize, etc.), but contrary to popular belief the concepts of power, fun and usefulness aren't mutually exclusive. That said, Widow's 1 has potential but currently, aside from "le funny 100" meme factor, it's totally useless. I think some of the changes that would make it worthwhile would be to make it function like Excal's Slash Dash or Atlas' Landslide i.e the ability would lock onto the nearest target and impale it automatically, while granting the mech invulnerability (or at least increased damage reduction) for the duratian of the animation. This snappiness would fit very well with the spider theme. To add to that theme, it'd also be nice if Meathook allowed the mech to siphon health over time from the grabbed enemy (with true or void damage). It could also automatically finish off enemies below a certain health threshold while immediately granting the mech a small amont of health. After being thrown and hitting a surface or another enemy, the Meathook's target could, again, immediately die, after having been drained to a certain health threshold, and disorient nearby enemies with an AOE blast, while also dealing toxin DOT damage ('cause spider venom n sh**t). Also, the mech could get a melee damage buff after draining the grabbed enemy. The longer the enemy would be held, the greater the buff and the toxin DOT from the throw would be.

 Firing Line: Hoo boy...First off all, the name. Kinda clashes with the whole melee thing Widow's got going on. "Widow's Embrace" or something along those lines would fit much better. Going back to the spider theme. Instead of...whatever this ability does now, it could work similar to Valkyr's 1, but on steroids. Buncha energy strings would shoot out from the mech's chest, auto-targeting a number of nearby enemies and ragdolling them closer to its location, like Larva or Vortex. Targeted enemies would have their defences stripped by a percentage. 

Shieldmaiden: Make its size and blocking angle scale with range and strength. This could also come with a new effect of an energy shield around the metal one. The shield could also reflect enemies' bullets like Shatter Shield. Upon breaking only the energy shield would disappear, still allowing the mech to use the metal one until the stronger shield recharges, but at the cost of reduced size. Shieldmaiden could also allow Widow to use Meathook while active, but at the cost of leaving it without a weapon. 

Exalted Ironbride: Finally, this abomination of an Exalted Weapon. As many people have pointed out, this sword is literal excrement in comparison to the Arquebex and its god-tier damage potential. It's even worse than most regular melees, for crying out loud. It needs a MASSIVE damage buff. The crit chance and crit damage buffs were nice, but the status chance also needs a bump. Other changes could include scaling off Necramech melee mods, addition of a heavy attack, base elemental damage, and some extra gimmick, like causing killed enemies to explode or something. Arch-Melee mods themselves also need buffs across the board. We could also use some new ones, like equivalents of Blood Rush or Condition Overload, combo duration mods, heavy attack mods, etc.  

 

 

 

[MobyTheDuck]

A slow moving bathtub, with an useless metal pole for a weapon that uses Archmelee (remember these?) mods, low attack, low attack speed and no combo meter, along skills that drain energy like crazy, no innate radar to see where the enemies are and skills that either dont work or literally do nothing.

Better put it in the trash and start again. Give me a siege tank mode or something, a real sword, ANYTHING

[rawr1254]

I really love the theme of the mech but  I think it needs more that can work with the other mech and a few other things too.

 

Meathook:

1. Doesnt seem to do anything other than pop loot containers in a huge AoE. And when I throw enemies sometimes they land right in front of me instead of where I aimed(seemed to mainly happen with saxums)
2. Not sure why we made an ability thats gonna be used primarily against infested right now deal toxin damage. I suggest let us toggle between the elements to work better with what we're up against. Toxin would be great vs corpus but against infested its pretty useless.

Firing Line:

Cant really see an issue with this yet other that it seems to be 100% more useful when the enemy bonewidow uses it on me and I get pulled from BEHIND the mech to in front of it, whereas I have only a 180 degree pull area

Shield Maiden:

1. This is somewhat useless as unlike with the Voidrig you cant protect your feet so at T3 lvls you can really die super easily from puddles and the like with absolutely no way to heal yourself. In other words despite this mech having more health and armor its WAY easier to die with than the voidrig. I suggest instead of it just being a frontal defense just give Bonewidow and any other mech in a 15m radius around her(mods affected) a 50% dmg reduction(flat no increase).This will pair VERY well with the other mech who struggles even with the god mode ability. But at the same time it should keep the health that it has now as to not turn it into an infinite DR. But dont make it cost energy/s
2. If you do the above let blocking increase the amount of damage reduced to 75% since this makes you unable to do anything anyway

Ironbride:

1. Fix the ability not being able to be activated or deactivated
2. Either increase the base speed of the melee weapon itself or increase the attack speed given from the only melee mod for archwing, 10% is god awful.
3. Its very VERY satisfying swinging a giant sword in a mech around but it lacks mobility being a melee mech compared to voidrig being able to pick stuff off sitting still doing nothing but spinning in a circle. I suggest giving the mech the valkyr treatment where its immune to having the falling stagger. Either that or make it recover twice as fast if not 3 times as fast. And that can be only when it uses its 4 as well.
4. Similar to what 3 mentioned the slam attacks recovery speed is TERRIBLE and leaves you extremely vulnerable. So I think the recovery speed from that should be increased as well. if its tied to melee attack speed then fixing either the attack speed of the melee weapon or the attack speed mod itself may fix the problem.

 

 

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

First huge props to the art team what an amazing looking mech she is. Secondly this mech is utterly useless in every single way. Honestly none of it works together and you have zero reason to use it over our current one.

☆ Issues :

1. Meat Hook it has zero sense of use at all. I can think of a million ways to make it viable among the current game. But honestly it needs synergy and purpose together. So it comes down to how you lads intend to fix the other abilities. 

2. Shield Maiden um lads did anyone even look at what the other mech does?, do you understand why and how useless this is?. It's just a veeeeeery bad version of that and doesn't work often anyway. Heres a hint think about what the 1 and 2 could be together. ;)

3.  Firing Line - full rework ability, worse ability you lads have ever added to the game. This one isn't funny it actually should not have been put in at all. 

4. Exalted , this one hurts alot how did yas think this was ok. It's utterly bad and it should not work at all as it does now at all. 

 

☆ Summary

None of your abilities work together, none of them have great animations, none of them have any use in the game and they all have almost zero damage. This is probably the worse designed thing added to the game so far and is actually a very big concern that it was made like this. As it shows a huge problem in designs.

☆ Rework suggestion from a veteran of mmos for 20 odd years.

Redesign this entire mech, sorry but if yas don't its mastery fodder and won't see use. Have it focus around been an actual tank mech.

1. Meat Hook could focus on draining your targets health for your new 2. While launching the target causes a mass aoe based on the current % missing from your 2. That also draws threat from survivors.

2. Make this a dang shield wall, a large glowing shield that stands out in front of your shield that absorbs damage and reflects a % back.

3.  Should be sword and board based and what is good with tanks?, Taunts yep give it a mass taunt that also sunders i.e removed a % of armor based on the mechs strength. You could use this to taunt mobs and force them into your shield wall while your team wipes them out like a tank would.........

4. Must i even go here?  You do know our current mech deals millions while this thing does less damage than the worse arch melee lol.  What the heck went wrong here?. Also the sword has zeeeeero point to the build lads. Boost it's damage and give it a stun effect with some type of hold button to have you place the sword into the ground. Allowing it to send out shockwaves that causes mini stun effects and deals damage based on the amount of armor mobs are missing. Meaning the more your group strips armor or the more You have mobs taunted the more it will do.

☆ Lastly please make use of the design council to get early feedback before animation work begins on things like this. So you have early player feedback from lads that put alot of time into your game.

[wipitou]

When we try to get fast to the enemy's by sliding to them we get a delay of 1 or 2 seconds before we can do anything.

When we jump over an obstacle to get somewhere or to get to the enemy's we get another delay before we can do anything.

Why would players trade the agility of there warframe   for a robot that keep putting us on pause every time we do a move ?

bonewidow is suppose to be a melee specialist so he need to move fast too !

Many players told me the same thing when i was XP the Mech in deimos..

Same with the  Mausolon arch weapon  the charge attack is great idea but why would I use it if after using the charge attack

there is a delay again before i can start to shoot enemy's ? In the long run I may as well just keep shooting normally. The damage/time is the same.

Those delay's don't need to be reduced they need to be removed completely.

thank you !

[Zilotz]

ABILITIES:
MEATHOOK
Completely useless, not worth energy and casting time.

SHIELD MAIDEN
Does not block enough as almost every enemy has an AoE.

Should be also fully blocking AoE to be useful.

FIRING LINE
Sadly i cannot find any use for this one - lining up enemies for absolutely no reason seems pointless to me.

EXALTED IRONBRIDE
Summon a devastating exalted blade.

This one needs buffs a lot:

1) Animations are painfully slow and have stoppers(like swing...swing...swing to ground....wait... wait... finally pulls sword out of the ground and starts moving again).

2) Range is bad even with range mod, often mobs are just running away and shooting you from distance.

3) We need more damage on this thing.

4) Energy drain on nekramech is really painful as it does not have other ways to restore energy than orbs.

 

General feedback on nekramech vacuum - too low range, make it use active pet/sentinel vacuum.

[Leqesai]

After playing with Bonewidow quite a bit more I am updating my opinions of it.

Ability 1: 

Useless, I have yet to encounter a situation where I would ever consider using this

Ability 2:

Really hard to tell just how useful this is. Attacking with the exalted sword drops block-status so you have to constantly re-up it to keep the block going (using block toggle)

Also just generally not as useful as the other necramech's defensive ability. I mean.... It functions I guess but this ability really makes it seem like bonewidow is heavily offense oriented but her kit does NOT fit this theme

Ability 3:

Also completely useless. It doesn't even seem to work half the time (issues with height are pretty significant) and even when it does the mech moves so slow that it doesn't really do anything productive. 

*If this thing had a wider+taller range and had a significant stun (2-5s) it would be pretty useful

Ability 4:

Just junk all around. The damage sucks (it does actually deal decent damage numbers despite the weapon and the ability page showing pathetic values) but the damage issue is mainly due to how cumbersome it is to use this thing. Like I said, the mech is way too slow for the type of gameplay it is designed for. Melee requires speed. Putting a sword in the hands of a turtle-slow hunk of junk is hardly dangerous. Using this sword against the grineer and corpus enemies is pretty foolish. It works okay against infested due to them rushing you a lot more.

*This thing needs MUCH faster animations. The delay when stopping any of the attack animations is currently ridiculous. Heck, even the ground slam has a ridiculous amount of delay after using it.

*Closing in on targets needs looked at. If we're going to be stuck to melee range then we should be able to close the gap better. Currently the dash mechanic is not very useful considering how awkward it is to control.

 

Bonewidow is simply garbage compared to the voidrig. A lot needs to be done to fix it IMO. Needs to be much more agile, abilities need totally reworked, melee concept needs evaluated and damage adjusted (why are the arsenal stats so horribly low but the thing can hit for 60K against the tier 3 vault enemies?). 

[Zeliphar]

The real solution is finally a complete rework with more mobility/durability and the capacity to use our own arch-melee in basic necramelee

[Mu_Gera]

what if the shield acted like a reactive shield and let outward explosions everytime it got hit, equal to damage taken plus base damage or something?

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

7 hours ago, Zeliphar said:

The real solution is finally a complete rework with more mobility/durability and the capacity to use our own arch-melee in basic necramelee

Wait, Bonewidow can't use regular Archmelee weapons? I was kinda running under the assumption it could wield one while not using Ironbride (Except for the Knux, etc.).

 

I'm pretty surprised, considering that Voidrig can use a standard Archgun while not using the Arquebex. As for it's own melee, that slap it has is good for ragdolling enemies (Especially vs Cephalites :) ) and breaking containers; Though understandably the Voidrig isn't focused on melee. Bonewidow however is, so it certainly needs to be able to get up close & personal to land hits. Perhaps it's own thrusters can be used to accelerate the speed of it's swings? I'm not sure if that's already the case or not.

But one thing I know from using the Voidrig is that having to rely on Rejuvenation as your only source of HP recovery isn't totally ideal in the long run, so hopefully both it and the Bonewidow (& any future Necramechs) can benefit from Warframe abilities (At least survival-related ones, like Wisp's motes or a Heat / Cold elemental ward) and health orbs (Unless the orbs would be too easy).

That being said, I certainly agree that adding some amount of lifesteal will help Bonewidow with survival. As a matter if fact, numerous other Entrati-based weaponry mention about literally siphoning life essence from their targets to fuel an alt-fire, so theoretically could the meathook use the power of the void to siphon energy from a hooked enemy and briefly heal Bonewidow? It would be a pretty good use for that ability! I hope that seems reasonable :)

[Duality52]

9 hours ago, (NSW)Gamer-Steve said:

I'm pretty surprised, considering that Voidrig can use a standard Archgun

Only if the Archguns have a Gravimag equipped. Archmelee has yet to be implemented with a Gravimag, but the Ironbride would be the first prototype.

I'm aware that Meathook and Firing Line are indeed useless, but I'm seeing people leaving feedback by saying it's "worthless" or "useless". That is not feedback. What's feedback is that you tell what's the issue with the subject, then offer ideas/advice on how to fix it.

For example:

• Meathook (1)

Functionally similar to Grendel's Regurgitate, which isn't great of an ability. Meathook lacks enemy level scaling, which makes its offensive capabilities very lacking.

Add in a "life siphon" functionality similar to Garuda's Blood Altar, where Bonewidow would siphon the victim's health. Scales with victim's total health, while ignoring Armor/Shields. The impact of throwing the victim now inflicts Toxin damage and proc instead of no damage. Add enemy level scaling to the ability.

Add in a synergy with the Ironbride, where you can now cast Meathook by using the Ironbride as the hook. Add a damage multiplier and Toxin damage to the Ironbride.

These changes will allow Bonewidow greater close range sustainability, while additional range utility. 

• Shield Maiden (2)

The ability isn't reliable in terms of protection. AoE attacks will ignore the shield, and a destroyed shield takes too long to regenerate.

Add in a damage-to-energy conversion with the Shield. Part of the damage is absorbed by the shield, while the other part of the damage is converted into energy. If the shield gets destroyed, grant Bonewidow additional 25% movement speed until it regenerates.

Add the shield bash to Meathook, where casting Meathook with the Shield active would cause Bonewidow to shield bash enemies, which also sends a shockwave. Damage dealt with the shield bash will restore the shield's health.

• Firing Line (3)

The ability has no real offensive merit at the moment, even with the stagger. The stagger was suggested earlier in response to how larger functionality of the ability couldn't be changed in time. For real, the ability needs to be reworked:

For my rework, I would change the functions of the laser walls to act like Hildryn's Pillage. Enemies hit by the lasers will have their Shields/Armor sapped, while using that sapped energy to synergize with Bonewidow's other abilities:

1. Meathook: Increased impact explosion radius and damage. Explosion will stagger/stun enemies briefly.
2. Shield Maiden: Restore the shield's health, similar to Rhino's Reinforcing Stomp to restore his Iron Skin. Increase shield size and shield bash shockwave.
3. (Exalted) Ironbride: The Ironbride will shoot out smaller sword beams similar to Excalibur's Exalted Blade. Increased damage overall.

• Exalted Ironbride (4)

The stats on the sword is now workable, but it lacks the needed mobility that should contrast the stationary but powerful Arquebex.

I have discovered that when the Ironbride is out, Bonewidow's charge/sliding and the shield bash will inherit the Ironbride's full stats. I strongly suggest this should be kept in as this what I would consider the "mobility" component of the Ironbride needed to contrast the Arquebex.

Make the swinging animations of the Ironbride to be less clunky, and actually upper body restricted. That means that Bonewidow can still freely move around while swinging the Ironbride. As mentioned before, Archmelee mods should be improved too (Furor's 10% melee speed (7) < Fury's 30% (9))

Be sure to fix numerous bugs with the Ironbride, such as the loss of attacking if the Shield gets destroyed.

[Zeliphar]

And at the moment 

and

don't work on exalted sword...

No stat's change , and in practice compared with and without necramech fury , the attack speed look the same

 

conclusion : the necramech fury and pressure point is only for the little useless hand.

 

[BahamutKaiser]

On 2020-11-20 at 11:36 AM, rachjumper said:

increasing combo duration would be great since there's no combo mods for archmelee, 5 seconds is really short, even moreso since you're in a slow mech

Hopefully they will just ditch combo for anything Archwing or Necramech related, they are machines, they should truck at full force from the first swing. The last thing we need is to chase around foes trying to keep a combo going in a mech. 

It would be nice if they built an attractive block (m2) and heavy attack animation for Necramech and Archwing, either the primary or heavy attack could use an automatic hit mechanic where you just hold down the input and the archmelee simply continues to attack until you release it, while starting glued to the target in Archwing.

Anyway, this isn't about Archwing. I hope they can come up with some engaging mobility and combos for these Archmelees, because even if the Ironbride had a guarenteed one shot on all foes, it still won't compete with Arquebex without an effective variety of movement in its "combos".

 

@Zeliphar is ridiculous that those mods even exist. They need to get on the Archmelee weapons for Necramech and let the weapons use their own mods. 

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

3 hours ago, Duality52 said:

Only if the Archguns have a Gravimag equipped. Archmelee has yet to be implemented with a Gravimag, but the Ironbride would be the first prototype.

That's a good point, yeah :)  I believe it'll be interesting to see how ground-based Archmelee can develop in the future.

 

3 hours ago, Duality52 said:

I'm aware that Meathook and Firing Line are indeed useless, but I'm seeing people leaving feedback by saying it's "worthless" or "useless". That is not feedback. What's feedback is that you tell what's the issue with the subject, then offer ideas/advice on how to fix it.

For example:

• Meathook (1)

Functionally similar to Grendel's Regurgitate, which isn't great of an ability. Meathook lacks enemy level scaling, which makes its offensive capabilities very lacking.

Add in a "life siphon" functionality similar to Garuda's Blood Altar, where Bonewidow would siphon the victim's health. Scales with victim's total health, while ignoring Armor/Shields. The impact of throwing the victim now inflicts Toxin damage and proc instead of no damage. Add enemy level scaling to the ability.

Add in a synergy with the Ironbride, where you can now cast Meathook by using the Ironbride as the hook. Add a damage multiplier and Toxin damage to the Ironbride.

These changes will allow Bonewidow greater close range sustainability, while additional range utility. 

• Shield Maiden (2)

The ability isn't reliable in terms of protection. AoE attacks will ignore the shield, and a destroyed shield takes too long to regenerate.

Add in a damage-to-energy conversion with the Shield. Part of the damage is absorbed by the shield, while the other part of the damage is converted into energy. If the shield gets destroyed, grant Bonewidow additional 25% movement speed until it regenerates.

Add the shield bash to Meathook, where casting Meathook with the Shield active would cause Bonewidow to shield bash enemies, which also sends a shockwave. Damage dealt with the shield bash will restore the shield's health.

• Firing Line (3)

The ability has no real offensive merit at the moment, even with the stagger. The stagger was suggested earlier in response to how larger functionality of the ability couldn't be changed in time. For real, the ability needs to be reworked:

For my rework, I would change the functions of the laser walls to act like Hildryn's Pillage. Enemies hit by the lasers will have their Shields/Armor sapped, while using that sapped energy to synergize with Bonewidow's other abilities:

1. Meathook: Increased impact explosion radius and damage. Explosion will stagger/stun enemies briefly.
2. Shield Maiden: Restore the shield's health, similar to Rhino's Reinforcing Stomp to restore his Iron Skin. Increase shield size and shield bash shockwave.
3. (Exalted) Ironbride: The Ironbride will shoot out smaller sword beams similar to Excalibur's Exalted Blade. Increased damage overall.

• Exalted Ironbride (4)

The stats on the sword is now workable, but it lacks the needed mobility that should contrast the stationary but powerful Arquebex.

I have discovered that when the Ironbride is out, Bonewidow's charge/sliding and the shield bash will inherit the Ironbride's full stats. I strongly suggest this should be kept in as this what I would consider the "mobility" component of the Ironbride needed to contrast the Arquebex.

Make the swinging animations of the Ironbride to be less clunky, and actually upper body restricted. That means that Bonewidow can still freely move around while swinging the Ironbride. As mentioned before, Archmelee mods should be improved too (Furor's 10% melee speed (7) < Fury's 30% (9))

Be sure to fix numerous bugs with the Ironbride, such as the loss of attacking if the Shield gets destroyed.

Couldn't agree more, there's a lot of potential for Bonewidow's abilities from here. It would definitely improve mobility during Ironbride if you could move around (Just need to adjust certain attack / mech animations), and if it were possible to have the shield out with Ironbride, it could be thought of as a wide riot shield, to look at it one way.

 

I'm not sure whether it could be updated to function like the Odonata's Energy Field augment, but at the very least I don't think it's unrealistic to have void energy expand beyond the Shield itself to protect allies behind Bonewidow (Perhaps 2-3 times the width and twice the height of the mech, centered around the shield), and when that expanded void energy is broken through by enemy fire, it can power down and recharge (Without costing the mech additional energy) for a certain amount of time.

 

One reason why I suggest that for Shield Maiden is due to the Void energy, etc. channeled by the Operator. It could be thought of as a further extension of their transference, and one way to incorporate a lore-related function into the ability that wasn't there originally. By lore-related, I mainly mean that there are a lot of assets (Including story-based) that can be drawn from to improve Bonewidow's abilities that would make sense canonically (Same goes for future Necramechs that need touching up). Using void energy in new ways is a good example to run with. Siphoning "life essence" with Meat hook to heal the mech (While the non-void, but physical functions occur) and reinforcing / expanding Shield Maiden are some possible applications that can be implemented (Void-powered slashes of energy from Ironbride too, similar to Excalibur, but perhaps dealing Void damage for far-away targets). Unless Bonewidow or a future Necramech was explicitly made canonically to not use / take advantage of void energy (Basically have their abilities as-is) or other things besides the mech itself, then I don't see why it couldn't happen.

[LumilSilvermoon]

Ok here what i feel about Bone Widow. Most of them is it's very disappointment on missing concept.

1. Regard to it's concept to Melee robot. or as a knight. It's need one of this 2 most important stat if not both, 1.Agility and flow movement to advoid enemy attack or 2.Massive defend and hp and shield to stand on the first row of battle line. Bone widow got none of them. It's movement is slow and very hard to dodge a thing. So if we mention to concept of Necramech which need to be like giant robo, it may mean to not very fast movement. but as this result Bone widows need "Lot tons of Defend" to compensate on melee range attack. Now he can't even endure lv 40ish enemy on direct fight (with shield skill on). It's defence is just a bit higher than voidrig and it's not enough to maintain on frontline while voidrig is range attack robo. I must say again, these robot need Adaptation mod or build in adaptation to survive. It's not desiged to dodge but tank and tank without that adaptation is rarely survive nowaday.

2.Not just DE not add some healing method to them. now even Trinity's Blessing also not work on them anymore. They have no healing method by any mean, not health orb, not form any WF's skill, not form any item. They have no any mod or arcane to healing them. once it's hp start to deplete, it's will down the hill form there. And with enemy lv 60 ish. no any shield can hold damage longer than 10 sec (with full moded) no matter shield skill or shield bar. And now no any method to heal them? What DE really want us to do with this Necramech, just leave it after full level for MR like those underwhelm weapons? Cause now it's like a fragle box that we need to hold it with care like it make form glass, not heavy robo that we rush them to slash our enemy.

3.Bone widow's skill is completly useless, here my suggestion.

     3.1 - Hook, This skill must have fuction that after you pick up enemy, enermy will work as Meat shild for you. any damage that hit to us will redirect to enemy on hook until it's death and disappear, also while we hold enemy, our shild and health will regen on some speed. This will help Bone widows on survive while make 1st ability useful than just do nothing than cc 1 enemy each time. and About throwing it's better to make great AoE area impact after thrown enemy land. And last for the sake of useful this move no need to be pircing move, it's better than swipe so it's can hit any enemy near front line than need very accuracy on target.

     3.2 Shield - For god sake remove down time of the shild I dont know why we got this since Voidreg have no any down time between each shield. You talk about Melee range robit that shiled only effect on the front line, but nothing else than higher health pool. No any damage reduction, No any special effect, just a extra health. What a shield for melee! lol Ok here my suggestion. While shield on, at max rank it's must give 75-90 damage reduction form frontal damage. Even i think it's may fair to say it's better than it's null any frontal damage while give damage reduction on rear and back damage. Again we talk about slow robot, it's not very fast movement to dodge enemy attack actully it hit box is gigantic and act like bullet attractor. so if you hope something like this can melee. make it real tank.

    3.3 that swipe laser. really i really wonder why we use this it's just like try to bring enemy to frontal so shield can protect us or can use hook to grab. But really in the real situation if you got enemy surround you like that no any <too weak> shield can hold a thing. Imo this skill need to give some cc ability that can stop enemy to attack us for a while like Blind or Stun after got hit by sweep laser. this will help us to survive on those situation. but even that i still feel this skill very underwhelm and need a great concept rework. I suggest to change it to frontal conal gravity beam, this beam will pull any enemy on conal area to Bonewidows (just like Mag's Pull) But after pull in it's also give blind or stun to them for short peroid this will make this skill work as melee robot concept.

   3.4 - Great Sword - most disappointment Ultimate. No I will not compare it to Voidrig it's way too pity to compare them. Just imagine. You talk about ulitmate skill that you need energy to call out "Just Arch melee weapon" and it's also drain energy to maintain. Just for slash enemy! And it's damage is not that very impressive. Really i really feel this skill will be disaster since see it in Devstream, but i still got high hope that DE may add something to them. But i really not think it's just that lol. I know that to add something like Excaliber's exalted blade may make it miss concept on melee robot. But to make Ultimate to just equip arch melee weapon is very poor for skill than take most energy to keep. Ok here is my suggestion. To not miss on concept, i think this skill will keep on those arch melee weapon. But it's weapon come with some special ability. 1st it's not just plain sword but it's extend it's blade with beam blade, this make extend it's range like 7-10 m depend on range mod. 2nd. while you use skill 4 and use skill 3 this will give synergy. the blade that you swipe will leave a gravity field, this field will force pull enemy around to them like 10-15m around field. enemy will also blind or stun for short period.

So this is what i feel about bone widow to make it useful than just MR item. Hope you take a bit time to reviwe it and make them fun to play around like Xaku.

 

[Mephane]

Pros:

• Looks better than Voidrid, less of a "trashcan with legs", more like it is actually a machine someone designed this way.
• Just like Voidrig, the soundscape of the mech is fantastic.

Cons:

• When not drawn, the shield looks like an apron. Please consider attaching it to the forearm permanently instead.
• Not a single redeeming ability. Meathook is a useless gimmick by design, Shield Maiden too weak and restricted by being directional, Firing Line is a complete joke, Exalted Ironbride is a meh and ugly Archmelee weapon (can I just slot my already forma'd Prisma Veritux instead?) that suffers the fate of all exalted weapons that cost energy continously - they need to be extremely strong, much stronger than regular weapons, to be worth using.

General Necramech feedback:

• I don't think sprinting should cost stamina. It works fine as mechanic for hovering etc, but just ingwalk a bit faster should be free.
• All Necramechs need some means of self-sustain, both for energy and for health. Right now we have to deliberately set up our Warframe loadout as crutches to keep the Necramech somewhat usable, and even many of those crutches have been stealth-nerfed by the update (e.g. Protective Dash and Blessing now treat a Necramech like an objective).
  • For example on Bonewidow, Exalted Ironbride could have a built-in lifesteal effect, and Shield Maiden could convert some of the absorbed damage into energy.