Deimos: Arcana - Bonewidow Necramech Megathread

[Sojufueled]

Renaming that ability Shield Maiden is an odd choice. Even if their husband dies, a widow is no longer a maiden. It's paradoxical.

 

(I like Scutum as a name.)

[Godmode_Ash]

Disappointed at hotfix 29.5.7 Bonewidow change.

It's been said too many times that the necramech needs a purpose in this game.  Operator was a great integration because it works alongside WF while unlocking unique dash/skill/buff. Archwing too in open-world as it provides aerial travel, blinks and AOE vacuum. So what does the mech bring that excel better than WF? In every category: tank, AOE DPS, weapon damage, utilities, and maneuverability. WF has mech beat.

To be fair, Voidrig is as useless as BW if it's OP gun is taken away. But people choose to be satisficed and ignore the other abilities as long as they have the OP gun. BW on the other hand doesn't has any ability worth using. Even the WF melee is stronger than Ironbride. WF melee at 12x hit just as hard, swing faster, fast recovery, and same range.

Please address BW's core issue first, its identity as a melee mech. Please improve its slow swing speed, slow recovery speed, mediocre range, and animation lock after certain actions. BW is too chunky and awkward to be a melee mech.

 

PS. Please also improve and add more selections of Arch-melee mods.

[Duality52]

Update since Deimos Arcana Hotfix 29.5.7:

Bonewidow:

• Meathook (1)

The scaled health drain fixed the ability properly, but the throw is still questionable. The impact deals no damage to the thrown victim, unlike Grendel's Regurgitate.

Please allow us to hook the Deimos Carnis and Saxums again, as it's heavily limiting the amount of options to use the hook.

• Shield Maiden (2)

It looks like AoE attacks no longer bypasses the shield, so that's a good start. Maiden's Kiss (the shield bash) should not cost any Energy to use. Shield Lancers can shield bash us into a corner with zero penalities.

I again suggest to allow the usage of Meathook while the Shield is out; casting Meathook while the Shield is out would create a more forceful and larger Maiden's Kiss that stuns any targets hit by the shockwave of the bash (put to sleep like Ivara's Sleep Arrow) instead of lifting them. Damage dealt (without getting reduced by Armor) will heal the Shield. This should be the only time that the Maiden's Kiss should cost energy: using the synergy of Meathook with the Shield.

Furthermore, if the Shield gets destroyed, increase Bonewidow's general speed by 20% to make Bonewidow more mobile.

• Exalted Ironbride (4)

Again, I would make the swinging animations upper-body restricted. That means Bonewidow would retain full mobility while swinging the Ironbride. 

While it's great that the melee Necramech Mods can be used to stack the Ironbride, that does not excuse the fact that Archmelee mods needs to be improved. If the Ironbride is the prototype for using Archmelee in Atmospheric mode, then the mods need to be improved such as Cutting Edge and Furor.

Increase the combo counter on the Ironbride to 10 seconds, while allowing the Ironbride to benefit off of it. Each combo tier will increase the Ironbride's crit chance and damage by 20% per tier.

In addition, I would suggest adding the "life-siphon" effect to the Ironbride to give it more character than just a big stick to carry around: killing 5 enemies with the Ironbride will fully charge its Alt-Fire meter, which will fire a wide sword beam similar to the Fluctus. The beam's stats are twice the final stats of the Ironbride, including mods.

Voidrig:

• Necraweb (1)

The ability should automatically throw the canister upon casting the ability rather than us manually throwing it. Otherwise, it's a nice CC to use much like Nova's Molecular Prime

• Gravemines (3)

The problem with the mines are twofold: damage is static and too little range.

To fix the damage, each consecutive mines explosion that hits the enemy will increase the next mine's damage by 50%. For example, a max rank Gravemines will deal 200 Heat damage for 24 mines in total. If a target gets hit once, the next mine will increase its damage by 50% based off the previous mine: 

• 1st mine: 200 Heat Damage
• 2nd Mine: 300 Heat Damage
• 3th Mine: 450 Heat Damage
• 4th Mine: 675 Heat Damage

This increases until the last mine of course.

EDIT: I decided to simplify and improve this suggested mechanic: any enemies hit by the explosion of the mines will trigger the effect. It doesn't need to be the same enemy. The increase applied depends on the total of enemies hit. For example, if 3 enemies got hit by a single explosion, then increase the next mine's damage by 150% (2.5X) of the previous mine's total damage. 

Call me crazy, but I could also suggest the mechanic being affected by Ability Strength: 50% more damage to 65% more damage (+30% Ability Strength from a maxed Necramech Intensify).

Add in a synergy with Necraweb and Gravemines, where enemies slowed by Necraweb will increase Gravemines damage by another 50%. Combining the consecutive stacking damage mechanic as aforementioned, that will give the mines an initial 50% damage increase, with each consecutive mines gaining 50% more damage times the total enemies hit by a single mine explosion based off of the previous mine's total damage.

Finally, Ability Range should affect the 3 meter explosion. A max Necramech Stretch (+45% Ability Range) will increase the explosion radius to 4.35 meters.

[TorchFlame6]

I agreed with Duality52. Awesome Ideas!

After last patch Bonewidow come close to be perfect, but still need some work to do and yeah - Voidrig, awesome mech, but his 1 and 3 ablity need to have good changes.

[(PSN)CallmeBraindead_]

Can you please give a visiblity when equipped switch to the shield, it's getting in the way of my cosplay

[Alpha_Tango]

I posted this already on Hotfix thread, I just don't want the devs to miss it. 

 

Costs of Deploying Iron Bride / Shield Maiden involving Operator transfer/Summon

Fighting on Bone Widow involves a lot of transferring out as Operator and going back again (e.g. carrying canisters during excavation missions, healing BW, set up a lockdown on enemies etc.). Can we have conditions that if we ever transfer out as Operator and 

• did not use Archwing
• a 5-10 second timer did not elapsed yet

Let Bone Widow remember/maintain the last status it was in like e.g Iron Bride /Shield Maiden being deployed when we transfer back again? 

I find being penalized to keep on deploying both abilities again and again unnecessary every single time we had to do things with the Operator. It just makes doing skirmishes with BW and the Operator more fluid and more energy efficient.

P.S. If it is not asking too much, make those conditions apply too when summoning BW back again

[TheLordOmega2]

So, after all the changes...

The basic shield bash shouldn't cost energy, especially as Bonewidow can be energy hungry.

Having 1/4th of Bonewidow's kit be disabled when you use her defensive ability is grating.

To fix the first two, i'd say make the basic "quick melee" shield bash essentially a cosmetic thing when you have your shield up, and make her 1 be some kind of "super shield bash" that'd justify its cost by doing something more (healing the shield?).

Her 3 is still useless.

I'd say replace it by some kind of buff.

Iron Bride still doesn't have a full moveset, and the few moves already in stop you in your tracks.

Having the necramech mods apply to the blade makes it feel much better, but it still lacks a lot of fluidity, IB should really have a full stance... Hell, it should have two (sword alone and sword+shield)! and don't forget the Entrati super move you get from killing enemies.

This might have been fine 2 or so years ago, but now that you gave us the warframe melee rework, we expect more.

And now, bonus stage:

The "controller friendly" changes to Necramech hover shouldn't affect KB+M users.

You gave an inch back after biting off the whole finger by making it count as aiming for mods that need it, but it still doesn't change the fact that it doesn't feel right, holding the jump button to hover just feels natural, and isn't hard to do on a spacebar.

Bonewidow losing her shield on transference makes no sense.

It's not a channeled ability, it's just an extra, annoying energy tax (like the shield bash) when you use bonewidow.

Engine efficiency nerf is an anti-QoL feature.

This is nearly as bad as the reduced boost speed on Railjacks (but not as dumb as the destruction of their modding system).

Just reduce their mod cost as they are now disproportionately high for their effects and improve the effects of the Necramech Refuel mod for more interesting boost bursts.

[(PSN)mahoshonenfox]

Please make the Bone Widow worth it. Right now there's no reason to get it. Technically there's no reason to get the Void Rig either but that's besides the point.

- Please make Meat Hook stronger by having the health drain continuous. If her health falls below a certain amount, the health drain activates and takes health from whatever enemy she's holding until her health is topped up again.

- Please make Shield Maiden absorb damage and turn it into energy for the Bone Widow to use. This means not only will it negate all in coming front damage to the Bone Widow but it will also recharge her energy so she can keep casting abilities.

- Please make Firing Line as aggressive in grouping as Magus Anomaly.

- Please make Iron Bride deal more damage. Have its damage be comparable to Arquebex but since its not ranged, make it so that whenever Bone Widow swings the sword, she becomes invincible during the active attack frames of the swinging animation.

She's supposed to be a grunt/tank close range things so her abilities should be focused on endurance and survivability.

[(PSN)Fulminati]

i thought, bonewidow would come along with a nice new aw mellee weapon... nobody needs a 2nd mausolon, so that`s a bit disappointing.

 

[PublikDomain]

I don't have a whole lot to say about specifics, but I got Bonewidow last night and mostly I'm just confused about what role she has. Voidrig has better defenses, able to make itself completely invincible. Bonewidow can only block damage from the front, and unlike Voidrig when Bonewidow's shield is destroyed there's a cooldown. Voidrig has better offense, too. Its 4 deals far more damage and can do so at a range. Most of this is probably just due to Voidrig's 4 being overpowered and skewing expectations, but there are definitely mechanical issues as well.

I'm sure this has been said already somewhere:

• I don't like that equipping Bonewidow's 2 makes you unable to use her 1. You should still be able to cast it, but maybe it sticks enemies to her shield instead of her claw. In fact, there's little reason to have the shield equippable and it should probably be always on.
• Raising your shield should do more. It'd be cool if it put up an energy shield for your teammates, eg Reinhardt. Along those lines you could maybe place her shield in the ground as a barrier.
• Firing line just feels out of place. It'd make sense more for a big stompy gun mech, but lining up enemies for a mech that's based on melee is odd.
• Her melee is chunky and overshadowed by Arquebex.

So to sum that up in mechanics:

• Bonewidow's shield is always equipped. Aiming creates an energy shield that spreads out a little, enough to block a doorway. In exchange for not being summoned anymore, either the shield fully blocks only non-AoE damage or it provides a significant damage reduction to all damage.
• Using her 1 causes her to shield bash, which sticks enemies to her shield. Stuck enemies get their health siphoned, and holding 1 shotguns the enemies off the shield to deal damage and a pushback like Banshee's Sonic Boom. You can grab up to maybe 5 enemies at once, and the health drain per second is lower to make up for this. That way you can grab a few enemies and keep using them as a health battery for a longer time. Blocking while holding enemies causes the enemies to take friendly fire.
• Using her 2 places her shield on the ground and creates a shield wall that enemies can't pass, but they can attack the physical shield part to blow it up. Casting with enemies stuck to her shield creates the same knockback as her 1, but bigger. Recasting 2 pulls the shield back to Bonewidow and maybe stuns enemies near it. If the shield is broken you get the cooldown as it repairs, and when it's placed she can't recast her 1 to grab more enemies.
• Using her 3 is what applies the lifted status effect, and instead of drawing enemies into a line it pulls them to her.
• Remove the movement locks on her 4 to make it more fluid and have a full combo set. Nerf Arquebex so it doesn't overshadow everything as much. Buff Archmelee mods.

The usage would be like this:

• Use her shield/gun combo to be super tanky to frontal damage and fight other Necramechs.
• Keep casting her 1 to keep grabbing new enemies and stay healthy.
• Use her 2 with enemies stuck to her shield to create a "you shall not pass" zone and blow away enemies.
• Keep an eye on her shield and pull it back when it's almost destroyed to avoid the cooldown.
• Use her 3 to pull in enemies, then user her 1 to smash a bunch of them to take with her and heal.
• Use her 3 to pull in enemies when she has enemies on her shield already, then user her hold-1 or 2 to create a blast and throw all of the lifted enemies away.
• Use your 3 to pull in enemies to be hit by her 4.

[(XBOX)Zxyur]

Why don't you make it so the Arquette and Ironbride use normal rifle and melee mods? They can't be used in regular archwing circumstances so make them unique by using regular mods. ie seeing a bonewidow going crazy fast fast ironbride because of berserker and primed fury 

[Godmode_Ash]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Zxyur said:

Why don't you make it so the Arquette and Ironbride use normal rifle and melee mods? They can't be used in regular archwing circumstances so make them unique by using regular mods. ie seeing a bonewidow going crazy fast fast ironbride because of berserker and primed fury 

They are different category of weapons so using normal weapon mods only ignoring the core issue of arch weapons.

Sooner or later DE has to deal with balancing more arch weapons. It's better to add more variety of arch weapon mods so they have a good foundation and vision on how future arch weapon can be balance.

[TheLordOmega2]

Having the necramech's defensive abilities (both on Bonewidow and Voidrig) just vanish on transference out feels really unfair and hurts their survivability A LOT on high level content. It feels like a bug and really shouldn't be happening.

[Bakaguya-sama]

DE dont want Ironbride to be doing more damage than Arquebex. But I say... why the heck not? Arquebex has range and massive AoE. Ironbride should be the one doing more DPS in melee. I'm fine with it being slow and clunky if its actually impactful. But even after putting in Archmelee and Mechmelee mods, it still suck.  (Although necramech Fury has provided a substantial improvement to using Ironbride, making it much less clunky).  

It needs more damage. A lot more damage. Several times more damage.  There's no other way around it. 

 

[Monolake]

I've levelled up the Bonecan just spamming Lakspur for aoe masskill (it has aoe alt fire)  - it's much quicker than trying to use the crappy redundant abilities and unwieldy sword - melee doesn't work well on a clunky mech.

It should be pseudo 'melee' like Khora is or like Exalted blade, or like God of War3 chain axes attacking at decent range  -  that would feel awesome and be way more functional to compensate for mech lack of agility that frames have. Dont even need to make it too complex, just send waves of fire on every other attack for example, so it wont be as broken as Khora "some enemies respawned in vicinity, click to delete them"

Meethook is good for sustain/heal, too bad it doesnt work on half the new units.

 

Loadout slots still dont save an appropriate mech and mech weapon.

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

I just remembered one small suggestion for both Bonewidow and the Voidrig, if it's not too much to ask.

I remember hearing from somewhere (I think a recent Warframe stream, either a Devstream or Community stream), that the Railjack's boost guage will basically reset when it runs out, so that it automatically starts filling back up from empty.

 

Is there a way that Necramechs can have that functionality too? I just think it would be a very nice (Small or not :) ) QoL addition for them, so that their Engines can recover automatically from empty when you're focusing on other tasks, etc.

 

I'm honestly surprised I haven't thought about it until more recently. With the upcoming Operation, I think it could be a decent time to implement something like this!

[sorcer3r]

Can we* please pay platinum for necramechs before the next event?

 

 

*players which are not fans of bounties and therefore necramech grind is tooo boring ;)

[TheBranns]

I have both Voidrig and Bonewidow with 6 formas each, and in my opinion Bonewidow doesn't need any more changes, i have seen a lot of players complaining abour his abilitys without having build him. He has great movility and fast melee speed (im talking with mods, why you would use a necramechs without mods) but i will try to say the good and bad things of his set anyway.

Meathhook: his forst ability is an good instahealing for the necramech, one of the problem that the other necramech has. But as an AoE ability is not that great, but is common that all the first ability of most warframe use to be not at useful.

Shield Maiden: if you tought that the sword was his main way of do damage you are wrong, this thing is a beast while you are carring the blade, it get sometimes boring the insane amount of damage it does making me use only the sword to just have fun. Is also great to defend points, teamates and obviusly yourself just remember to aim at where the damage is coming from.

Firing Line: this is the ability that i think i haven't used without forcing it.. i mean, it increase the damage you deal, it helps you with getting all the enemies stuned and bring them in you line of fire but his range at max level is not that great, and being his only ability that get enhanced by range mods it will be rare to get builds that make this ability something to rely to. I think this will the only ability that i would change, increasing his base range. Because when you are with your sword use it is like: "i could simply just turn around and kill what is behind me".

Exalted Ironbride: here is the exalted weapon that everyone is comparing with the arquebex for no reason, is like comparing Mesa's Regulators with Garuda's Talons. This doesn't mean this weapon does no damage, his stats are great, you are going to get a lot of crits and kill enemies as fast as a excalibur with his exalted blade just a little bit slower. The fact that the is not a big diversity in mods for arch-melee could be his main problem with his "lack of damage" that everyone says, obviusly they say that while comparing him with Voidrig's Arquebex. The range is ok, his speed is fast for a heavy sword without warframe or arcane buffs.

His base stats make her more to rely on movement and health/armor and leaving his shield as they are, is like using Redirection on Grendel. But at the of the mission she have what really cares about, is fun to using her, and for me that is all that mathers.

[KitMeHarder]

This isn't directly related to Bonewidow, but when you all implemented the change that deactivated Shield Maiden on transference, I believe it's also now causing Voidrig's Storm Shroud to deactivate as well. Because this definitely wasn't how it's been for the past 3 months.

I hated this mechanic on Umbra, and even more-so on Voidrig since he didn't have it in the past. It's a massive waste of energy and time, and disrupts the flow of combat when I just need to pop out real quick to do something like feed the polyp-hog.

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

6 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

This isn't directly related to Bonewidow, but when you all implemented the change that deactivated Shield Maiden on transference, I believe it's also now causing Voidrig's Storm Shroud to deactivate as well. Because this definitely wasn't how it's been for the past 3 months.

I noticed it last night as well with Voidrig. Although it might be happening inconsistently; I'm not sure of the limits you can travel before it deactivates (Or if transferring to your Warframe in-between and back to Operator affects it), but from what I experienced as long as you eventually go back into the Voidrig without re-summoning it to your location, Storm Shroud stays on.

I'm working on getting Bonewidow though, so I'm not sure if that's the same for Shield Maiden. Might be a bug at the moment if their defensive abilities are meant to stay on even when re-summoned, since they don't.

[KitMeHarder]

1 hour ago, (NSW)Gamer-Steve said:

but from what I experienced as long as you eventually go back into the Voidrig without re-summoning it to your location, Storm Shroud stays on.

This is normal, and I'm fine with this. But on PC now if I press 5 (operator) it instantly deactivates Storm Shroud.

Quote

• Fixed Bonewidow’s Shield Maiden not deactivating upon Transferring out/back in. This resulted in your shield being on your chest (not active). However, when you pressed Melee you would do Maiden’s Kiss, and it would cost Energy, instead of the normal Necramech unarmed attack.

This is the change I'm talking about, I'm guessing Switch doesn't have it.

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

22 minutes ago, KitMeHarder said:

This is the change I'm talking about, I guessing Switch doesn't have it.

Ah, I see. I checked on the most recent update notes for the Switch version, and I didn't see that there.

 

I'm wondering if they'll need to kinda redo how Maiden's Kiss works in order to make sure it doesn't unnecessarily deactivate itself by exiting via transference. At least so that it stays on the arm at all times, perhaps like a default defense option.

One possible way of looking at that (As far as that goes), could be like how people might hold a flashlight in reverse while aiming with their gun. But in this case, Bonewidow could hold it's shield forward when aiming with the Archgun, perhaps. Not sure if that'll fix the reason for that change though.

[Duality52]

Update since Operation Ophrix Venom:

54 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Vazarin Dash, Trinity’s Blessing, Equinox's Mend, Rejuvenate Aura, and Arcane Pulse no longer heal Necramechs. Out of 21 sources of healing, these five slipped through. 

That undoubtedly is an awful change, since Voidrig does not have any healing under any circumstances. That makes them increasingly dependant on their defensive abilities, and Necramech Rage won't provide that much long term benefits due to this "bug fix".

Not only should this be reverted, but more healing options should be available to Necramechs. Warframes have no limitations, so neither should Necramechs have these restrictions. Not to be rude, but are you going to consider Vome Residue fields healing Necramechs a "bug" too?

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

2 hours ago, Duality52 said:

 

"Vazarin Dash, Trinity’s Blessing, Equinox's Mend, Rejuvenate Aura, and Arcane Pulse no longer heal Necramechs. Out of 21 sources of healing, these five slipped through."

That undoubtedly is an awful change, since Voidrig does not have any healing under any circumstances. That makes them increasingly dependant on their defensive abilities, and Necramech Rage won't provide that much long term benefits due to this "bug fix".

Not only should this be reverted, but more healing options should be available to Necramechs. Warframes have no limitations, so neither should Necramechs have these restrictions. Not to be rude, but are you going to consider Vome Residue fields healing Necramechs a "bug" too?

I couldn't agree more, those forms of healing need to be brought back for the Necramechs.

I've been using the Rejuvenation aura for nearly all my time playing Warframe due to it's usefulness throughout my time in the star chart, and it's one of the best Team-oriented auras out there since it heals everyone, and every type of defense objective (As far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong).

As a matter of fact, I've also been very happy to know that it heals my own Voidrig (I love that mech) while leveling it up to prepare for when Orphix Venom arrives on consoles! So that's one of the reasons why I was shocked when I saw that in the update notes.

 

Why is it that they were changed only now, rather than perhaps around Deimos Arcana? More significantly, I don't understand why Necramechs aren't eligible to be healed / affected by auras considering that they are on your side, when even mobile defense operatives can be healed that way (Not to mention other methods). You can even think of them as playable defense objectives in terms of healing, perhaps.

 

There is Necramech Repair as of the new Operation, however that mod will only get you so far. If your mech is in the center of a crowded room without any healing beyond that mod (Which only lasts about 2 seconds, so roughly heals 960hp at best), it may very well get turned into swiss cheese depending on the level of enemies you're facing (Assuming you don't have enough energy for abilities). If you do survive that, then you might be stuck with it for an entire run (If you're lucky), besides letting it be killed and re-summoned (Doesn't feel like a polite thing to do to your Mech!).

It reminds me quite a bit of why people were collectively suggesting for Bonewidow's Meat hook to heal her (Which is very good), because Necramechs don't have much to rely on for survival as it was.

 

Considering where Mechs are being deployed right now (Against hordes of adaptive Sentient enemies), I think they'll need all the help they can get. It will benefit team synergy if Necramechs can be healed beyond their own station, especially in the new Operation. For that matter, do Master's Font blessings affect them? If they do, that's great! More HP for a Necramech is a good thing in any firefight.

What is there to lose by undoing their ability to be healed by these things?

 

More importantly, what is there to gain by keeping these options?

 

If it's not to much to ask, please restore their ability to be healed by at least some of these methods. If a nerf is called for, that's better than completely removing them. As an example, the Rejuvenation aura may not heal fast, but I think a little goes a long way.

[Dragazer]

6 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Necramech Changes & Fixes:

• Bonewidow’s Ironbride can now do a neutral and forward Heavy Attack that throws a damaging projectile! 

Anyone know the difference between neutral and forward heavy attack? They all seem the same to me.