Deimos: Arcana - Bonewidow Necramech Megathread

[TheLordOmega2]

I know this isn't explicitly related to Bonewidow, but the recent change for gamepad controls of necramechs also affects keyboard+mouse users, and it feels horrible, on top of making us lose the ability to aim in midair.

It's good to make changes that help console/gamepad users but IT SHOULD NEVER BE DONE TO THE DETRIMENT OF OTHER USERS.

 

And the argument that it should be that way (hold RMB to glide) to be similar to warframe controls totally miss the point that necramechs are supposed to feel different from warframes.

[Leqesai]

1 hour ago, TheLordOmega2 said:

I know this isn't explicitly related to Bonewidow, but the recent change for gamepad controls of necramechs also affects keyboard+mouse users, and it feels horrible, on top of making us lose the ability to aim in midair.

It's good to make changes that help console/gamepad users but IT SHOULD NEVER BE DONE TO THE DETRIMENT OF OTHER USERS.

 

And the argument that it should be that way (hold RMB to glide) to be similar to warframe controls totally miss the point that necramechs are supposed to feel different from warframes.

Especially since hovering is not gliding, it is more contextually related to double-jump than aim-glide, so it makes no sense to bind it to a separate key from the jump button...

[vasRayya]

On 2020-11-20 at 12:11 PM, [DE]Bear said:

We have been reading the feedback on the Bonewidow and wanted to give you a heads up that we are looking to make the following changes in a coming hotfix:

Bonewidow Changes:

• Firing Line now has a forced stagger to de-mobilize enemies hit by its rays.
• Shield Maiden now has a larger Health pool and increased angle of blocking (160 by default, 220 when holding Shield and Sword) 
• Exalted Ironbride now has a base damage value of 1500 at Max Rank (increased from original 1000)
• Exalted Ironbride now has a base Critical Chance of 45% with a 3x multiplier (increased from original 5% and 1.5x).

Please note that these example numbers are expected to ship, but as with all things involving development, there may be some tweaks before the final hotfix is deployed. This gives you a general idea of our intention and plans for changes to Bonewidow, however.

Thank you everyone for your feedback, and keep it coming!

last hotfix broke bonewidows sword, it no longer takes your colors or mods

[Feuershark]

Dammit didn't see the thread. 

1. Instead of having the shield in her "hand" as an ability, do the opposite. BoneWidow passively reduces damage coming from the left, 120° protection (from the front to the side) 3rd Ability becomes War Maiden, the shield moves to the torso, its energy is now used to provide 360° protection.
2. The way War Maiden protects is either : Iron Skin style (but that would be very repetitive) or it gives damage reduction depending on how much damage it receives during its 3 second. You could even add a damage buff, to fit the War Maiden name better.
3. Number one becomes Rebuttal/MeatHook. Rebuttal spends 5 energy for each enemy struck, ragdolling them. Switches to MeatHook when War Maiden is active. MeatHook doesn't change but has vastly increased damage on "pick" up and throw.
4. For Iron Bride :More combos, more CC moves, and much more range because 3 range is ridiculous on an archwing melee, the Pennant has as much range. If War Maiden is active, higher attack speed or damage or both.

[Ishredpapers]

I'm sure this has been mentioned about 100 times, but i'll just add that Ironmaiden needs to be on par with the damage a modded Arquebex deals, which is a A LOT OF DAMAGE, currently Ironmaiden can be outdone by any melee weapon that's not even potato'd and you have at least 4-5x combo accumulated.

[Mayhemdax]

3 hours ago, Feuershark said:

Dammit didn't see the thread. 

1. Instead of having the shield in her "hand" as an ability, do the opposite. BoneWidow passively reduces damage coming from the left, 120° protection (from the front to the side) 3rd Ability becomes War Maiden, the shield moves to the torso, its energy is now used to provide 360° protection.
2. The way War Maiden protects is either : Iron Skin style (but that would be very repetitive) or it gives damage reduction depending on how much damage it receives during its 3 second. You could even add a damage buff, to fit the War Maiden name better.
3. Number one becomes Rebuttal/MeatHook. Rebuttal spends 5 energy for each enemy struck, ragdolling them. Switches to MeatHook when War Maiden is active. MeatHook doesn't change but has vastly increased damage on "pick" up and throw.
4. For Iron Bride :More combos, more CC moves, and much more range because 3 range is ridiculous on an archwing melee, the Pennant has as much range. If War Maiden is active, higher attack speed or damage or both.

I really like this!

[White_Matter]

I mentioned this also in the last hotfix thread.

After the last hotfix Ironbride is bugged for me.

When I use Bonewidow's ultimate, the Ironbride shows the wrong rank(always shows rank 30 no matter what it actually is) and it performs as if it is unmodded.

Before the update I was doing like 30-60k crits and it was swinging relatively fast. Now it does like 2-3k damage max and swings very slow.

 

[Bathynomus]

Meathook needs to be more forgiving about what it actually hits, and firing line needs about 3 times more range from the beginning.

 

Also both mechs need a huge boost on their health/armor/ shields, they are warmachines for crying out loud, not trash cans on legs.  Also consistent way to heal and gain energy.

[Prexades]

What about giving Ironbride instead the ability to jump or teleport between enemies within a certain radius while hitting them with melee. A bit like the old Archmelee worked. Also Firing Line could be replaced with a teleport ability, that helps bypassing small doors in non open world tilesets.

[sunderthefirmament]

Bonewidow serves no purpose.  Voidrig is better than her in every way.  Need nukes?  Voidrig.  Need tankiness?  Voidrig.  Need to uselessly carry an enemy around for a while?  Grendel.

 

Her 1 is a gimmick, and does absolutely nothing worthwhile. 

 

Her 2 is a bad, bad, bad defensive ability that has a cooldown for some reason.  Why?  Voidrig's defensive ability is better in every way and has no cooldown.  Also, it actually protects him.  Bonewidow's 2 maybe covers a small area and blocks some damage, but it doesn't do much in the only content where using mechs makes any sense: fighting hostile mechs. 

 

Her 3 groups enemies up, which does help her kill them.  But Voidrig has so much AOE that he wouldn't even need this ability.  This is probably Bonewidow's best ability, and, sadly, I'd rather that it were given to a Warframe.  It could make traditional bows quite relevant.  As it stands, it's stuck on a useless mech with limited applicability.

 

Her 4... well, who knows?  It doesn't gain the benefit of mods right now, so it's hard to say.  But really, archmelee mods are nothing to be excited about anyway.  And melee, in general, relies on mobility and fluidity of motion.  That's not what mechs are known for.  I'd rather use my Gram Prime, honestly.

 

 

And I have to add this.  It sucks to level mechs.  Voidrig was one thing, because once you get to level 10 you can just shred anything with the Arquebex.  Bonewidow doesn't have that power spike.  To level her up basically means you're leeching off of your teammates.  It feels bad.

[DukeCatfishJr]

Even though I have not made bonewidow myself, looking on it's abilities through the video made me think that:

1) It's 1-st ability is rather pointless. Making it a damage ability (seeing how it lacks any potential for AOE) also seems useless, hence, will not outperform weapons. A CC mechanic would be interesting to see. Like khora's strangledome forces enemies to shoot ones dangling on it, perhaps? AOE damage vulnerability debuff, as in enemies are terrified of brutality? Maybe it would drain life force of an enemy, making it eventually die in our hand while providing offensive buffs? It needs something going.

2) It's 2-nd ability is potent, but could also have a niche to make it interesting. Say, what if that shield instead was energy drain based with unlimited duration and accumulated damage absorbed, which could be then redirected to either gain additional damage resistances (up to a certain limit, of course), or released to hurt enemies?

3) It's 3'rd ability is the most unfortunate one, even as a concept. It needs a reason to group enemies up that way. My idea is that you could make it synergize with it's 2-nd ability. Accumulate damage, group up enemies in 1 line, and then have 2-nd ability release damage in form of a shield charge, running everything in your path over. Or it could release a narrow damage burst on it's own, but I think an ability synergy would be more interesting.

Bonewidow's exalted melee should have a ranged gimmick, considering necramechs are made for open worlds and the stats for the weapon aren't... amusing. I have an idea for a gimmick:

Let's call it "The Divorce" (widow divorcing and death of a husband connection wordplay, I guess?)

What it would do: whenever you use heavy attack and hit hard surfaces (metals, stone, etc.) the blade starts resonating, releasing sound waves that inflict constant damage and stun enemies, effectively providing bonewidow defence and offence at range that this necramech lacks. Resonance could say, last 5 seconds and have a range of 20 meters. Swinging the blade would allow you to send more concentrated waves akin to exalibur's that can deal damage even further away. Of course, this ability needs further stats buffs, at least. Voidrig's arquebex far outperforms iron bride in any aspect.

 

[Valdr_Hrafn]

I have waited for the recent hotfixes before judging the Bonewidow Necramech, hence why this might be so late.

I want to start of by saying the team does amazing work and please understand I love the work you've done on the Bonewidow. I don't expect all my feedback to go through as is but I hope to see it inspire design choices for an awesome viable Necramech in the future as both its visual design and potential theme are things I love.
There are some inherent design flaws I would like to tackle first, and in the second section I'll list some bugs while I'm at it :P.

Ability Design Flaws:
- Meathook: This is ability is thematically cool in its first part, however throwing an enemy for very little area damage is not what I would imagine such a visceral ability name to do, especially on a Melee Necramech that is visually similar to an iron maiden.
 I would personally make it so you can grab and crush an enemy to act like an instant Protea dispensary. This is not in any way game breaking since dispensary is available to all warframes, and so are health, ammo, and energy pads. This would give our close range melee Necramech a good way to survive by engaging the enemy, and incentivizing a more aggressive and close quarters playstyle.
 It is also important to make the ability more reliable by making it a targeted ability rather than a dash. (Also can the hand please be an actual meathook? :P)

- Shield Maiden: From my perspective, the shield in its current form makes very little sense for a couple of reasons. In its old form the shield is visually already protecting the Necramech's front when inactive, but when held it does the same thing. From a visual indicatory point of view this makes no sense to the player. You cant use your shield to melee when holding a gun (the Necramech stows it away and then re-equips it), you can't use your meathook despite the hand being free since its a strapped-on shield and not a center gripped shield, then there's the playstyle design flaw. This shield protects the Necramech from damage that comes from the front, This is very useful for Necramechs that position themselves at a distance (Like Voidrig), not useful at all for a Necramech who positions itself in the middle of a fight and that kills what is in front of it, as is the case with Bonewidow.
 My suggestion is to change the ability to do the exact opposite: Raise Bonewidow's frontal shield to increase its defenses drastically but exposing the Necramech's front. Kills close to the exposed belly of the Necramech will add health to Shield Maiden's protective armor.

- Firing Line: Firing Line is a cool ability and I would keep it as is! However I wish this synergized more with the Necramech, more on that in the next ability.

- Exalted Ironbride: Ironbride is an amazing name and I'm sure that if buffed hard enough will eventually be viable against the long range mass destruction of the Voidrig's 4th ability. However it lacks a bit compared to other melee options in its stance variety and synergy.
 Currently there are 1.5 different stances. Though they have the same animations there's a difference in mobility whether the combo is performed stationary or whilst moving forward. I would love to see some variety in the usage of the melee more comparable to warframe melee, though I definitely don't expect you to add as many animations, but do give us some options. Shield-bashing is completely redundant and not viable in any situation, and there is no reason to use Meathook whilst in Ironbride. The Synergy will improve if you consider my suggestions for the 1st and 2nd ability.
 My biggest suggestion would be to add a heavy attack to Ironbride, where Bonewidow slams it in front of her in an over-head swing dealing big damage and lifting enemies in a long line in front of the Necramech. This would be lovely synergy between 2, 3 and 4!

Now onto some bugs and inconsistencies that might have held me back from reviewing the Necramech correctly:
- Necramech melee mods don't affect all aspects of normal Necramech melee. EG: ground slam ignores attack speed and takes seconds for you to stand back up.
- Necramech melee mods don't affect Ironbride. This might be intended but very confusing since a player would love to use the Necramech melee mods on a melee focused Necramech.
- Equipping Ironbride seems to ignore the Ironbride we have in our inventory. So we end up with a level 30 un-modded Ironbride regardless of recent forma or modding on the actual Ironbride.

Once again thank you SO MUCH for all your lovely work and I sincerely hope you will get to see this feedback, as I'm currently studying as a Game-Artist/Game-Designer.
For that same reason I would adore hearing feedback of... my feedback... so that I can better understand your design processes and work towards working in such a wonderful team as yours!

With the kindest regards and wishes of good luck,
Hrafn Cordeiro!

[Doraz_]

- Make Exalted blade always available as a melee attack.

no more energy drain, no more "tiny hand melee" 

that way, 1 new ability is free to be awesome ( you can do it ... or let the community do that if tha doesn't apply <3 )

 

4th ability replacemet: Exalted Waves

ok, it's gonna be the 5th time i wrote about this xD but i really think it fits WF level and mission design ... and it can be a good exercise for the programmers

"Waves of energy travel along the ground in the direction of the swing"

This wave travelling forward woulf follo the ground, meaning , IT CAN go along walls as well

 

Just picture the awesomenes in close spaces, where tennos can abuse this to make the wave travel in circles for a little while

Normally it would allow the necracìmech to reach with melee attacks enemies at a distance and on a different hight ... as the wave would travel forward, then up or down the wall then forward again

 

Firing line just needs a debuff ... i honestly thing it's a great ability, i see what you are trying to do ... it's a really unique kind of crowd control and enemy manipulation ... it should apply also a debuff, along the way of Hildrin or Nheza damage vulerability

 

meathook can impale multiple enemies for amplified damage ... i saw a suggestin of meathook provding health to the nechramech and that's amazing ... you judge wheter it should be continuos or just based on how many enemie you impaled ... the former rewards impaling as many enemies but keeping them, while the latter incentivizes the same but in succession so the throw functionality of meathook is used ... currently only the first part is incentivized

 

shield ... just needs to work ... it's taht simple ... make THAT instead have a drain >.< not the sword!

 

God bless ❤️

[Stellar-Dawn]

Fun Idea for meathook as an added bonus, Meatshield? I mean if you're holding it and the enemies shoot at you and you're holding it the same way as the shield, It makes sense that that would happen and give more use to it.

[Cyberhazard]

Il y a 19 heures, rachjumper a dit :

last hotfix broke bonewidows sword, it no longer takes your colors or mods

THAT ^

[Bailywolf]

Meathook could be dramatically  improved by having it target using the reticle (and not work unless properly targeted) and adding a greater lunge distance that increases with ability rank.  Then press to yeet for bigger damage or hold to execute for some healing.  

[KenzinStormpaw]

the control change on PC for controllers feels wrong, in order to hover its no longer my jump key its right click. and i get no zoom for aiming while hovering now too. how am i supposed to snipe with my Velocitus while airborne? the change doesn't even let us revert it if we want. in a single update Mechs went from my favorite thing in the game to something i regret spending time on.

[FeJoToRe]

1st needs a replacement cuz no one liked that,

2 and 4 must be combined into 1 skill

3 needs to stun enemies

[BoomBook]

Host Migration Necramech XP Bug 

[White_Matter]

Meethook should be ranged and work with similar mechanics to Valkyr's 1. Pull in small or medium sized enemies and pull you towards larger enemies or objects. Even then it would be occupying a slot for the sake of occupying it.

As it is now, it is likely the worst ability in the entire game.

[kyori]

On 2020-11-19 at 1:56 AM, [DE]Bear said:

If you do not like an aspect, then tell us why

Her 1st ability most of the time cannot skewer enemies. I think after so many years of this game existence, her 1st ability should be made with an auto-aim feature that will auto-skewer the nearest enemy, and not made it miss most of the time.

Her 2nd ability like a bit redundant because her shield already in front of her body and she should have a passive of damage reduction from that fact... but she has a 2nd ability that made her take her shield in front of her out into her hand and 'act like a shield'... ain't it redundant?

Her 3rd ability is only to push enemies that are (very near her) surround her, onto her front so that she can melee them? The range is short... so why not add some damage(like electricity or cold) to enemies while she sweep them in front of her, making the enemies freeze or stun for awhile?

Her 4th is a melee weapon which means getting close to enemies.. in her usual slow speed. This ability is the one that mostly caused Bonewidow to be killed by enemies because she needs to get close to enemies and being slow at the same time and with no damage reduction etc. The 2nd ability shield up doesn't seems to help much.

All in all, all 4 abilities just quite lackluster when compared to Voidrig Mech.

[T_erry]

Bonewidow is very disappointed

It is fun but that's all

meathook is just one-target cc and can't cast with shield maiden. damage is useless and hurling did not cause any staggering or knockdown

shield maiden is most useful but it can't recast for a while when it brake 

firing line is just weird. just gathering costs 50 energy and no damage no following debuff and it's casting speed is slow for current performance

exalted ironbride is hard to hit enemies and damage is bad especially compare with arquebex it isn't devastating at all, it can't cleave through opposing ranks

[Boss949]

Took Bonewidow for a spin for a while. It feels like it is cool but it's a bit lacking in its abilities, and survivability for Necramechs in general. Some feedback:

• Necramechs
  • Has no real way of healing themselves to keep up with extend period of combat outside of respawning or frames that could heal them.
  • Suggestion:
    • Add Entrati life siphon mechanic, but kills (and kill assists) heal the Necramech and grant some energy.
• Meathook
  • It's cool, but unless I'm missing something, all it does is pick up someone and let you toss them, dealing damage afterward.
  • Targeting with the ability is a bit of an issue, sometimes the grabbing arm just misses
  • Suggestion: 
    • Add synergy with Shield Maiden: When holding an enemy, activating Shield Maiden will instead activate Meat Shield, using the held enemy as a "meat shield", holding them forward while generating a bubble that transfer damage toward the bubble onto the held enemy. Unlike the standard Shield Maiden, Meat Shield drains energy per second while it is active(just for lore, it's to maintain the bubble). Meat Shield can't be activated while Shield Maiden is active.
    • Meathook should either have a small enemy vacuum effect to pull to the hook arm or have a Slash Dash-like gap closer effect to move the mech toward the enemy so the hook can hit. Or just up the hit box size. That's an option too.
    • While Holding an enemy, moving around deals percentage health damage to the held enemy. damage severity depends on action taken, for example, moving around holding an enemy slowly chips at health, melee attacks with the held enemy deals moderate damage, but ground slam with the held enemy deals severe damage.
    • (Only if Hostile Bonewidow can use Meathook on player) Players can escape from Meathook by mashing movement keys.
• Shield Maiden
  • Just need some support element
  • Suggestion:
    • While Shield Maiden is active, raising the shield redirect 50% of damage taken by allies in a certain range (15m at rank 3?) toward the shield
      • Damage redirection scales with Power Strength.
      • Raising the shield also includes when aiming with Archgun while Shield Maiden is active
• Firing Line
  • Some debuff would be nice.
  • Suggestion:
    • Immobilizes affected enemies for 4 seconds (1 second VS players)
    • Resets duration of any ongoing debuffs.
• Exalted Ironbride
  • IMO this weapon is slow and since it locks you in place while it swings, you cant really "evade" incoming attacks. The weapon itself is also weaker than the Arquebex so that's another downside. Could put some gimmick to it instead if damage isn't going to be upped.
  • Suggestion:
    • add lifesteal to Ironbride. 

[Alpha_Tango]

A maxed Bone Widow takes too much time to level up, but in the long run, with most maxed mods put in... I'll say it is worth it. I can't believe this mech is taking too much flak when it definitely owns its place as a melee mech. 

• The brutal strength of this mech up close is superb mostly because of the high crit Iron bride when it is properly modded and with decent forma (got mine at 4) backed up by the defensive shielded stance
• It can suit up any Archgun that Voidrig can and match its ranged damage prowess and still put on real damage, charging with shield maiden on and then deploying Iron Bride for an easy close up kill. Ofc Arquebex still "rains" supreme, but even that is limited apart from the need to be stationary
• I can slice up the toughest Deimos enemies (e.g Deimos Saxum Rex, Jugulus Rex) in a few hacks compared to any Archgun that usually wastes a lot of ammo to do the same job
• Even though the swings are slow, each press can give you graded responses from the Mech doing a wide horizontal slash at first then another if timed right or just go for the combo and go berserk. I like how I can control where the swings lands depending on my PoV to maximize where the lined up enemies are for maximum effect
• performance of this mech is heavily mod based. Judging it with miniscule investment is an affront to what it can do in the field
• I just laugh when I see comments about mechs not lasting long in extended skirmishes when all you need is the right focus school and a dog. This monster mech can go the distance if your whole loadout is properly set up

All this praise do come with a hefty time investment. That is what makes the experience or "fun" involved in leveling it up questionable especially if you are not a mech fan.  

What needs work? actually not much, it is good that not all of its abilities is perfect. With how well it does its job, I can only find a few flaws coming from a fully maxed Bone Widow experience

• Meathook. yes it needs to either autohit or have a crosshair that light up when a target is in proper range. What if we can use what's hooked as a temporary shield while energy is not enough for the Shield Maiden?
• Shield maiden. When maxed, the HP does its job long enough for how quickly you can kill what is in front of you
• Firing Line. oh boy, this can be the mechs stun ability apart from lining up targets
• Iron Bride. it does its job well, damn too well actually that I totally understand its slow pace when it means death to whatever it hits

Thanks DE for this mech. The design, how it sounds, feel and the brutal experience I get from it is superb. I was able to appreciate and understand it more after the last patch, so with a few more tweaks I think it complements the Voidrig quite well.

 

[sunderthefirmament]

2 hours ago, Alpha_Tango said:

A maxed Bone Widow takes too much time to level up, but in the long run, with most maxed mods put in... I'll say it is worth it. I can't believe this mech is taking too much flak when it definitely owns its place as a melee mech. 

• The brutal strength of this mech up close is superb mostly because of the high crit Iron bride when it is properly modded and with decent forma (got mine at 4) backed up by the defensive shielded stance
• It can suit up any Archgun that Voidrig can and match its ranged damage prowess and still put on real damage, charging with shield maiden on and then deploying Iron Bride for an easy close up kill. Ofc Arquebex still "rains" supreme, but even that is limited apart from the need to be stationary

 

Arquebex is still better, and is still just as mobile as Bonewidow and her Ironbride.  Her animations are slow and clunky with her sword.  Meanwhile, you can soft cancel animations with the Arquebex and start firing before the Voidrig has fully entered Guard Mode.  You can also start casting other abilities while the Voidrig is in the process of exiting Guard Mode.

 

Bonewidow is garbage.  She is inferior to Voidrig even as a melee mech, as his Arquebex is perfectly functional in melee combat.  Indeed, that's how I use it to kill hostile mechs.  Bonewidow struggles in this arena, which is basically the only arena mechs have.  Why else would you use them?  What other content is there where they can outperform a properly kitted out Warframe? 

 

There shouldn't even be a melee mech, as melee in this game is heavily dependent upon mobility, and mechs, by their nature, are going to be a lot less mobile than Warframes or operators.

 

And what about Bonewidow's defensive abilities?  Her 2 has a cooldown for some reason, should it break.  And it doesn't provide the same degree of invulnerability that the Voidrig's 2 does. 

 

Her kit is an absolute mess of anti-synergies and ponderous animations.  She has one good ability, her 3, and it would be far better on a frame than it is on her.