Operation: Orphix Venom - Lavos Feedback Megathread (Read First Post)

[(PSN)JarecPS]

Fist post, and not much of a lurker. Had to come in to give my few cents on Lavos since I've been playing him almost non-stop since console release.

I really love his theme, that's why I'm playing him. Most other things, however, I find lacking bit or a lot.

 

What is his "thing"? All other Warframes have mostly unique thing they excel at. Lavos has his procs - a thing that every Warframe can do with a pull of a trigger, and his pickup transforming - a unique thing, but considering how players tend to build their stuff and how much you need your 3 for other things it ends up being unneeded ability. This leaves his shtick feel really watered down, at least for me.

 

Cooldowns are the thing that makes him feel new and somewhat fresh to use. The Imbuing however, the way it now is, feels like a busywork and not at all like something you feel like empowering your abilities.

You can get in a groove with your cooldowns so that you are just flinging abilities left and right all the time, knowing pretty much the exact time when the next one is up. This has no "you have to choose your imbue and ability carefully"-feel, it ends up feeling more like Nidus, but instead of spamming 1, you do your slower rotations that are predetermined by the cooldowns. It ends up feeling like you are breaking your fingers to do the same thing Saryn next to you going brrrrr with Nukor. It feels quite frustrating.

It's been suggested many times before that Imbuing should be permanent until changed. That would alleviate much of his problems (and I would really appreciate it), especially since I don't find much use for other Imbuings than Tox and Heat depending on the enemy. But what if instead making it permanent, it could be a choice? Something that has a lot more power behind it than just doubling damage and proc, but making it really limited. I think that would make him have more of that "thing", a bit more character.

He is also penalized heavily missing his abilities. His 1, 4 and maybe 3 should refund their cooldowns if they haven't hit anything at the end of their duration. Like many abilities do refunds if the target dies before they go off. 2 Don't need this since it has other functions than just hitting the enemy.

 

The Abilities:

P - Valence Block is really unreliable passive, but so are many other passives just bad or just nonexistent. I guess there's not much else to say about it.

1 - The lash has multiple purposes, like all abilities should have. Ok damage and good heal. But like I said above, hitting it is quite detrimental. What I would suggest in addition to it refunding cooldown if missing, is that it should hit enemies that are within a meter or two of Lavos himself, it would reduce the times you run up to an enemy to whip it point-blank but and up missing because its cast time and your momentum. And the animation is already looking like he could hit all around him when he is winding up the snakes.

2 - I think his slide is his best ability. Low cooldown, big if a bit random AOE, multiple procs for those things needing them, and besides of slide abilities just being cool, this is extra cool when you time it just right to have a bunch of the vials smash into some poor sods face. It just feels good to use. But like it has been mentioned many times, a steering option would make it even more usable (on Hydroid too!)

3 - Lackluster is the perfect word for this ability, so much so I've started calling it as such. It transmutes, a mostly unneeded thing like I mentioned before; it does damage and procs, for three whole seconds; it reduces cooldowns, but many times you want to start with this ability; it has a really cool looking model, which you want to fly away from you for all those three seconds! This ability could have had so much potential, but ends up being the same thing that his other abilities, but with more range.

Imagine it being like an extra Sentinel, like Khora has her cat. Going its way zapping enemies and pickups without you actively needing to do so. And with such a cool model I could watch it to do so all day long!

4 - It has damage for the places you need damage. A lot of its failing points have been pointed out, like its hitbox and so on, but should it also do even more damage when there are bigger procs. Like activating Lavos' made procs again on hit enemies? It kinda feels cheating haphazardly flinging a Cedo disk there and clearing the whole room with it. Or not clearing it, which then tells the exact limit of his potential...

 

I guess that's it. I really want to play him, but am pretty much only having fun with him sliding all over the place trying to time his flask flingin', and being the guy that rushes in the middle of everything, standing still and watching the enemies be either zapped or slowed while holding down a button to prime my next ability.

[LegoPrime126]

On 2021-02-15 at 10:13 AM, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

lazy percentage damage shouldn't exist in the game

these abilities aren't your main source of damage, catalyze is...and you're utilizing it in a wrong way (i think) .

these two abilities are there only for status spreading 

 

also 

i kill steel path enemies easily with him i don't know how you use Lavos, but maybe try a different tactic.

 

these aren't the changes Lavos needs, he doesn't need more damage. 

Agreed! Lavos damage scales with you ability to inflict status procs, almost infinitely.  with a little less CD<maybe from 30 to 22 or 25 on his 4 and maybe 10 down to 7 or 8 on his 3, and make his passive hold for multiple cast. He'd be top notch mate!!

[sunderthefirmament]

I've tried him a bit with the tap/hold inverted and... he still feels bad to play.  It might just be a practice thing, but I don't really find him enjoyable enough to want to practice as him.  This frame is a miss for me.

 

Preserving elements between casts would go a long way towards making him more enjoyable to play, but I don't see the devs doing this as it probably "takes away from his alchemist fantasy" or something else they would be likely to say in a devstream.  The mixing is the whole point, it seems.  It's just a shame that mixing isn't really fun at all after the first 1-30 run you go on with this little alchemist.  It's just clunky.

[Colyeses]

17 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Preserving elements between casts would go a long way towards making him more enjoyable to play, but I don't see the devs doing this as it probably "takes away from his alchemist fantasy" or something else they would be likely to say in a devstream. 

They probably would say that, and they'd be wasting their time. The passive and the transmutation probe are basically the only things that are actually part of the 'alchemist fantasy', so Lavos' link with his theme is already virtually non-existent.

[(XBOX)InverseOrb81]

On 2020-12-18 at 3:54 PM, EchoesOfRain said:

Passive

EDIT: With the elemental mixing, I find myself trying to mix elements so often that it becomes annoying and cumbersome. Perhaps allow the element to either stay for a few ability casts? Or to stay for a short duration? Then the player can override the element as well by choosing a new one if they have to. It got REALLY annoying during an infestation mission to go Heat, 2, Heat, 4, Heat, 3, Heat, 2.......you get the point. Mixing a single element was annoying, it gets worse when you need viral, corrosive, radiation, etc. A small grace period where I don't have to worry about mixing would be very nice in the long run

This isn't that big an issue, since you can get rid of how annoying combined elements are by holding both ability buttons at the same time, but the few times I tried this it didn't work. I do like the idea of maybe the element staying for a certain number of abilities, and you can override it.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

So are we going to ignore the fact that the vials located on his shoulders have no liquid in them?

Or that the potions on his waist lack the glass and the liquid?

Or the fact the one of the snakes in his noble animation look like it's about to throw up?

Fix it DE

[(XBOX)SirMilkfiend]

Trying out Lavos more I take back what I said he's a very strong and fun frame, being able to tack on any of 10 debuffs and combine them with your skills is something we haven't seen and I'm enjoying Lavos' style and looks. I still think he should boost damage in some way, maybe as an augment to Vial Rush making it so projectiles fired through the clouds of glass picks up the elemental effect of the puddle, would be handy for profit-taker, or another augment that features his snakes in more ways :) if anything could be looked at it's Transmutation Probe changing drops to their universal version. As it is this doesn't benefit Lavos as he doesn't use energy and he doesn't get a cooldown reduction off the drops, I think a good fix would be applying a cooldown reduction smaller than normal for hitting drops and giving the universal orbs some more value to Lavos. 

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

On 2021-02-26 at 2:21 AM, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

So are we going to ignore the fact that the vials located on his shoulders have no liquid in them?

Or that the potions on his waist lack the glass and the liquid?

Or the fact the one of the snakes in his noble animation look like it's about to throw up?

Fix it DE

I will post a screenshot soon for proof, this seems to be a ps4 issue as i saw on Triburous' video he had liquids.

 

[quxier]

Do we have some kind of list of accepted and rejected changes?

[Vortex]

On 2021-02-15 at 12:13 PM, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

lazy percentage damage shouldn't exist in the game

these abilities aren't your main source of damage, catalyze is...and you're utilizing it in a wrong way (i think) .

these two abilities are there only for status spreading 

So was Lavos made to be useless? there is 0 reasons to bring a warframe that wastes 2 skill slots just to proc status when nothing stands for that long, we got better options for all elements already (with better uses and some damage boost).

 

Catalyze got plenty things to do already, those another skills should do the work.

On 2021-02-15 at 12:13 PM, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

also 

i kill steel path enemies easily with him i don't know how you use Lavos, but maybe try a different tactic.

 

these aren't the changes Lavos needs, he doesn't need more damage. 

Eh... the best tactic for me and other tennos is just to not use lavos i guess, like serious, no one even like a Lavos in the party actually.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

30 minutes ago, Vortex said:

no one even like a Lavos in the party actually.

did a lavos troll you or something? i don't understand that one, i mean he's pretty strong for a 4 frame, yes he needs a buff

but % damage to enemies shouldn't be the answer to everything, it's actually the laziest most uncreative idea someone can come up with, sorry 

 

[Rauvian]

I would love someone at DE to step in here and be like "we're actually reading this; we haven't forgotten; we've come up with some awesome changes."

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

24 minutes ago, Rauvian said:

I would love someone at DE to step in here and be like "we're actually reading this; we haven't forgotten; we've come up with some awesome changes."

"we don't do that here"

[PsiWarp]

At least we know Vial Rush lets you drift and swerve left/right. Lavos' is Pablo's pet snake, he'll be tweaking him.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

On 2021-03-10 at 12:47 PM, PsiWarp said:

he'll be tweaking him.

Aaaaany time now!

[PsiWarp]

8 minutes ago, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

Aaaaany time now!

29.10 maybe...

[GiveInToGrim]

How about making a unique melee weapon for him that leaves a pool for a few sec. after a heavy slam with the element that you have picked? A melee weapon with such feature is lacking currently i think.

Having a serpent with heads on both ends would give it a suitable look with perhaps the snake making a animation that shows that it recharges the weapon from the warframe.

[sunderthefirmament]

Missed opportunity on Vial Rush not being named Vial Acceleration.

 

Maybe an augment.

[chainchompguy3]

1 hour ago, Azz_Hunter said:

How about making a unique melee weapon for him that leaves a pool for a few sec. after a heavy slam with the element that you have picked? A melee weapon with such feature is lacking currently i think.

Having a serpent with heads on both ends would give it a suitable look with perhaps the snake making a animation that shows that it recharges the weapon from the warframe.

Caustacyst | WARFRAME Wiki | Fandom

[Rauvian]

So I've play-tested Lavos post Railjack update and here is were I see things:

Ability 1: I appreciate a little extra range but overall this ability doesn't have killing power. I think the simplest solution rather than simply bumping the numbers is give it a very similar multiplier to ability 4.

Ability 2: Definitely an improvement on the steering. I wish that the damage component of this ability were more relevant. Theres not a lot of purity of purpose here. Its hard to tell what you want this ability to do besides movement. I could just fire off Cedo or do any number of other things if I wanted to spread conditions.

Ability 3: I wish this ability phased through objects or just hovered above me or both (tap vs press)

Ability 4: Never been the issue. I wish it had a 25 sec CD and/or had a faster wind up

 

FIX: Make all the damage components of his abilities scale w/ the number of unique conditions. Make the selected element stick until you reset it manually. Speed up the wind up to ability 4. Allow a hard press to hover ability 3 above your head.

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I really hope there’s more buffs planned for Lavos for update 30.

Cuz man even I can tell the ones from today aren’t not enough to get Lavos up to where he needs to be.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

30 minutes ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

I really hope there’s more buffs planned for Lavos for update 30.

Cuz man even I can tell the ones from today aren’t not enough to get Lavos up to where he needs to be.

yes, i'm gonna have to agree.

i was 100% certain they were going to increase transmutation probe's cooldown reduction that's a good start.

but they need to do something about ophidian bite, i can see it now, there is literally no reason for me to use this ability other than to infuse toxin with other elements.

heal? i don't need heals i have varazin dash and magus elevate.

damage? it doesn't scale like catalyze does.

efficiency? it's relatively long for a first ability 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

5 hours ago, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

yes, i'm gonna have to agree.

i was 100% certain they were going to increase transmutation probe's cooldown reduction that's a good start.

but they need to do something about ophidian bite, i can see it now, there is literally no reason for me to use this ability other than to infuse toxin with other elements.

heal? i don't need heals i have varazin dash and magus elevate.

damage? it doesn't scale like catalyze does.

efficiency? it's relatively long for a first ability 

Maybe if there wasn’t someone who spent the last 3 months defending his pre-buff state.

[MrFrog9]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Maybe if there wasn’t someone who spent the last 3 months defending his pre-buff state.

someone seems to be taking balance decisions in a game somewhat personally

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

11 hours ago, (XBOX)GearsMatrix301 said:

Maybe if there wasn’t someone who spent the last 3 months defending his pre-buff state.

Gears, i would very much appreciate it if you understood me and my point of view at least once for God's sake, you're so hard headed.

What they're doing is a good start..

They're gradually making buffs and changes to him, no one wants an overbuff