The problem with Bonewidow

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

Sorry this is late but I'm on console.

So, a couple of forma into Bonewidow and it's not good. It's not bad, as such, but Voidrig is sooooo much better.

Necramechs are slow, but powerful. They lack all of the energy/health regen of frames so they're just a bonus that attritions away. 

This sort-of works for Voidrig, especially its 4/ult turret mode. It feels like extra damage mode for a bit.

For Bonewidow it really really doesn't. You have some health regen, but pitiful amounts so not really much help. You have a tiny fraction of the Voidrig's damage, but much harder to apply and at much shorter range. You're not locked in place, but you're still in a slow stompy mech. You can pull out your strong but not amazing ult Exalted Ironbride and do decent damage to the small number of enemies you can reach with it.

Firstly Voidrig and Bonewidow's defence abilities are kind of the wrong way round. Voidrig gets 360 shield that's strong agains melee, but needs to be at range. Bonewidow gets 70 degree forward only defence, but needs to be brawling in the fray. I'm not sure how to fix this, but making Bonewidow much more tanky would be a start - Voidrig is about right, Bonewidow needs to be the Inaros of Necramechs.

Secondly Bonewidow needs to be much more mobile. I would give her space-target snapping: if she targets an enemy out of range and melees then she jumps to right on that enemy with the attack (same as archwing melee).

Finally Ironbride needs to so the same or more damage than the Arquebex. Voidrig can put down massive AoE damage in a large area. Bonewidow needs to lumber over there and hit the thing burning wasted energy the entire time. This would be okish if Ironbride lasted much longer, and you could keep it up for ages, but it doesn't and you can't. You fire your ult, jump and slam and splatter some enemies (which does feel great) and then you're out of energy and have killed maybe ⅕ of the enemies you would have done with Voidrig's Arquebex.

So:

- Ironbride does much more damage (like 10x more) and costs less energy.

- Ironbride snaps to target if out of range.

- Bonewidow generally much tougher.

 

 

 

 

 

[Zeclem]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Sorry this is late but I'm on console.

So, a couple of forma into Bonewidow and it's not good. It's not bad, as such, but Voidrig is sooooo much better.

Necramechs are slow, but powerful. They lack all of the energy/health regen of frames so they're just a bonus that attritions away. 

bonewidow actually has a relatively decent self heal on her 1.

3 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

This sort-of works for Voidrig, especially its 4/ult turret mode. It feels like extra damage mode for a bit.

For Bonewidow it really really doesn't. You have some health regen, but pitiful amounts so not really much help. You have a tiny fraction of the Voidrig's damage, but much harder to apply and at much shorter range. You're not locked in place, but you're still in a slow stompy mech. You can pull out your strong but not amazing ult Exalted Ironbride and do decent damage to the small number of enemies you can reach with it.

its not really a tiny fraction, ironbride shreds anywhere that you can actually use your mech. not being locked in a specific positions is a massive boon that is clearly visible with the event being a thing.

and its not just a small amount either. ironbrides heavy attack is a massive room cleaner.

3 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Firstly Voidrig and Bonewidow's defence abilities are kind of the wrong way round. Voidrig gets 360 shield that's strong agains melee, but needs to be at range. Bonewidow gets 70 degree forward only defence, but needs to be brawling in the fray. I'm not sure how to fix this, but making Bonewidow much more tanky would be a start - Voidrig is about right, Bonewidow needs to be the Inaros of Necramechs.

bonewidow is already way more survivable than voidrig.

3 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Secondly Bonewidow needs to be much more mobile. I would give her space-target snapping: if she targets an enemy out of range and melees then she jumps to right on that enemy with the attack (same as archwing melee).

not being mobile is the prime method of keeping mechs balanced compared to warframes, and even without that the sliding exists. bonewidow does not need this.

3 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Finally Ironbride needs to so the same or more damage than the Arquebex. Voidrig can put down massive AoE damage in a large area. Bonewidow needs to lumber over there and hit the thing burning wasted energy the entire time. This would be okish if Ironbride lasted much longer, and you could keep it up for ages, but it doesn't and you can't. You fire your ult, jump and slam and splatter some enemies (which does feel great) and then you're out of energy and have killed maybe ⅕ of the enemies you would have done with Voidrig's Arquebex.

you absolutely can keep it up for ages, and you dont need to lumber anywhere as long as you have a clear line of sight. her heavy attack exists, and her slide attack is much better than voidrigs already with her 3 giving you a free, buffed up setup for it.

[SweetAnubis]

ur not playing bonewidow right if ur having those issues.... above post already covered it all....

 

my personal experience is she is more mobile and as long as you keep a bloodbag on the hook its very hard for her to die

[PhiThagRaid]

13 minutes ago, Zeclem said:

and her slide attack is much better than voidrigs already with her 3 giving you a free, buffed up setup for it.

I'm pretty sure her 4 also buffs her slide, I run the simaris scan on melee kill and when i have my 4 active while doing a slide it shows the scans going off.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

bonewidow actually has a relatively decent self heal on her 1.

5 forma later I think this is better, but still not good enough. Higher level enemies give decent health, but also add weird immunities where it just doesn't do anything to certain enemies.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

its not really a tiny fraction, ironbride shreds anywhere that you can actually use your mech

It does, but its range sucks with your mobility. In particular you have a stumble coming out of dash where you can't melee that just feels rubbish.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

not being locked in a specific positions is a massive boon that is clearly visible with the event being a thing.

You still kind of are, and that's the problem. Arquebex locks you in place but you have quite a bit of range to deny a wide area. Yeah, with Ironbride you can move, but not far or fast and each swing is slow.

Maybe this would be better if it had a lot more range and Bonewidow was a lot more mobile.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

and its not just a small amount either. ironbrides heavy attack is a massive room cleaner

A small room cleaner, while Arquebex clears everything you can see.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

bonewidow is already way more survivable than voidrig

Yes, but that's just base health plus having access to any kind of healing mechanic. Her shield is useless, a waste of much needed energy, while Voidrig's is his main survival mechanic.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

you absolutely can keep it up for ages, and you dont need to lumber anywhere as long as you have a clear line of sight

I've found this to be erratic, but maybe a bug. I have nearly 500 energy and Ironbride uses 1-2 per second, but sometimes it just all disappears in a couple of hits.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:36 AM, Zeclem said:

her heavy attack exists

It doesn't, heavy attack does nothing.

On 2020-12-21 at 12:51 AM, PhiThagRaid said:

I'm pretty sure her 4 also buffs her slide, I run the simaris scan on melee kill and when i have my 4 active while doing a slide it shows the scans going off

Slide/dash does melee damage. Ramming coildrives is particularly satisfying. It doesn't do loads of damage but it knocks enemies about.

It would be really cool if you could come out of it strait into melee without the stagger.

[motorfirebox]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

It doesn't, heavy attack does nothing.

 

What? Heavy attack hits very hard at range. It doesn't work great on the node thingies, because nothing does, but for those you can just jump up and hover and melee them down in a few regular swings.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

47 minutes ago, motorfirebox said:

51 minutes ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

It doesn't, heavy attack does nothing.

 

What? Heavy attack hits very hard at range. It doesn't work great on the node thingies, because nothing does, but for those you can just jump up and hover and melee them down in a few regular swings

Is this different on PC then? On console heavy attack does nothing.

[motorfirebox]

31 minutes ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Is this different on PC then? On console heavy attack does nothing.

Ohhh, right, you guys don't have Orphix Venom yet.

So, having ranked my Bonewidow up to 40 in the event, I can say that I think most of your concerns will be addressed. There's a Necramech Rage mod that ensures you don't run out of energy, which means you can stay in Ironbride all day. Ironbride dps still isn't in the same league as Arquebex, but her survivability means you'll still be up while Voidrig players are running around in operator form, waiting for their mech cooldown (and it's still pretty high even relative to most archguns). Plus, unlike Voidrigs, you're not dependent on energy drops to keep it up. I vastly, vastly, vastly out-damage nearly all of the Voidrigs I've encountered, though the good ones can beat me in bursts.

She basically is like the Inaros of necramechs—any damage she takes is converted to energy she can use to meathook her health back up to full.

Her shield is still basically useless, though. On the rare occasion where I feel like I need it, the directionality means it does me no good—you can't retreat behind your shield, because your shield is always in front of you and you can't back away. And while your shield is up, you can't do anything else. It needs a very heavy rework. She's still very clunky for movement (like the Voidrig), but putting Extend on your Ironbride really makes that problem mostly go away.

Overall, once you get the update and some of the new mods, I think you'll find Bonewidow 100% improved.

 

[B4HEK]

В 21.12.2020 в 03:36, Zeclem сказал:

ironbrides heavy attack is a massive room cleaner.

Lol, say that to any regular warframe melee with right build)

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

10 hours ago, motorfirebox said:

She's still very clunky for movement (like the Voidrig), but putting Extend on your Ironbride really makes that problem mostly go away

Thanks for the advice, missing Orphix Venom updates makes sense, though it making enought of a difference? Voidrig is better in bursts but bursts is all you ever get to use Necramechs for.

I've tried Extend. I still find myself swinging at an enemy, not hitting them (as Ironbride has less range than polearms for some reason) and then waiting for the slow animation to complete before I can lumber towards them and try again.

I think Ironbride needs more base speed, more range (base 5m at least), cancelable animations or at least fluid ones like most stances - it needs at least one combo where you move forward. I'd either make it cost more on hit but use nothing while active otherwise, or I'd make it much faster to switch on/off so that I can swipe, shoot, swipe.

Outside of an event that forces you to use it I don't get it - my frame and operator are already OP, necramechs need to be even more OP to be worth it. Given how hard Bonewidow has been to acquire and max out with forma (though it did get me to MR30) why would I use it?

[motorfirebox]

9 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Thanks for the advice, missing Orphix Venom updates makes sense, though it making enought of a difference? Voidrig is better in bursts but bursts is all you ever get to use Necramechs for.

I've tried Extend. I still find myself swinging at an enemy, not hitting them (as Ironbride has less range than polearms for some reason) and then waiting for the slow animation to complete before I can lumber towards them and try again.

I think Ironbride needs more base speed, more range (base 5m at least), cancelable animations or at least fluid ones like most stances - it needs at least one combo where you move forward. I'd either make it cost more on hit but use nothing while active otherwise, or I'd make it much faster to switch on/off so that I can swipe, shoot, swipe.

Outside of an event that forces you to use it I don't get it - my frame and operator are already OP, necramechs need to be even more OP to be worth it. Given how hard Bonewidow has been to acquire and max out with forma (though it did get me to MR30) why would I use it?

Possibly. For melee movement, I've gotten in the habit of doing jump slams to my next target. But part of the reason mechs only get used in bursts is the low survivability and the energy economy. Bonewidow resolves both of those issues in tandem, which means you can keep her out for a lot longer.

I haven't done much with the mechs outside the event, so I'm not sure I can say how useful they are generally. They certainly do the job against the Sentients in the event, and for the most part I barely even pay attention to the (very, very large) crowds of non-Sentient mobs except when I'm looking for a meathook target—they simply don't do enough damage to be worth the minimal effort it takes to kill them, for the most part. Because of the nature of the event, it's hard to stay in your frame long enough to do a comparison. There've been a couple runs where I noticed a Saryn killing a lot of non-Sentient mobs in the early parts, but I don't recall them continuing to do so in later stages.

It would be interesting if DE ran the event again without the anti-Warframe fields, just to compare how mechs stand up. Probably the usual Mesa-Limbo combo would still dominate, because it's hard to beat invincible fire-and-forget powers. Short of that, though, I think mechs would do okay in comparison.

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

Bonewidow wont be able to heal themselves for very long supposedly due to some upcoming changes. 

[parttimeparty]

8 hours ago, (XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK said:

Bonewidow wont be able to heal themselves for very long supposedly due to some upcoming changes. 

Care to elaborate?

[Nichivo]

8 hours ago, (XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK said:

Bonewidow wont be able to heal themselves for very long supposedly due to some upcoming changes. 

Making them even less fun to play with seems like a bad idea. My biggest complaint with Bonewidow is them treating her like a warframe and having Iron brideget nullifier bubbled away, nothing like using a melee weapon and not being able to melee because it's treated like a warframe power.

[ghoti0315]

Honestly I am okay with the shield, except for that !@#$ regen time. Also efficiency of Bonewidow is 2x that of voidrig, which means you can use your ironbride longer.