Low range tornado Zephyr

[FU2921]

So I decided to focus more on Zephyr because she's so left out and few people use it and I started to think about her potentials. I've seen so many people say that other frames can do what she does but better and in fact thats a truth. But, as a person who likes to use frames that no one uses I decided to explore her. 

I did my researches online and tests on simulacrum and found something interesting. Her tornadoes, not only does 2x critical damage multiplier, but also does addicional damage per tornado affecting the enemy. What I mean by this is imagine if one enemy is pulled/affected by 2 or more tornadoes, if you hit those tornadoes with 1 projectile , all of the hit tornadoes will proc your weapon damage or your weapon damage is multiplied by the number of the tornadoes affecting the enemy.

Then I came with an idea of low range zephyr, where you reduce the tornado's spawn radius to the extreme to make it easier to hit with 1 projectile, multiplying the damage output. Moreover, with helminth system I can get more damage multipliers from other abilities making it good for dps.

And heres my idea.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Hi, I'm... well, you can read my name ^^

What you've hit on is something that came about with the discovery of what happens with the new Status changes when you combine them with the Subsumed abilities. It was a surprise to find it, to be sure, but you may want to give it a try.

So, the basic gist is to use this lovely build:

Growing Power, Primed Continuity and Flow, Umbral Intensify, Transient Fortitude, Constitution, Augur Message and Streamline (with your choice of Exilus, I happen to like a little more Range with Cunning Drift, but that's pure preference. You slap your last mod-slot with Funnel Clouds because that creates the multiple funnels you will want for exactly the effect you mentioned.

Next, subsume Khora's Ensnare onto Zephyr's 2.

Then what you'll need is a weapon that deals pure Electric damage, I like the Fulmin because of the large projectiles. Build it for maximising that Electric damage, with as much Crit and Status is reasonable.

All you do here is simple: You use Ensnare to pull all of the enemies you can together, then you cast Funnel Clouds. Whether you make the stationary or not doesn't matter, because multiple will spawn in the clump of enemies for preference as part of their calculation for 'enemies in range of the casting point'. If you make them stationary, though, you can pull enemies into the funnels again using Ensnare, but if you make them moving you can be opportunistic and snare enemies to make the funnels path to them instead.

Shoot the funnels, not the enemies, with that Electric damage and the weapon damage, plus the fact that enemies with the 'Electrocuted' status effect also spark damage radially... it creates a feedback loop of damage going from the funnels to the enemies, the enemies radially to each other and back to the funnels, back to the enemies again.

Nukes groups at fairly hefty levels if you have the care to play the frame cautiously enough to survive. The range being only 115% means more funnels will spawn in the area you want them to, and Ensnare's propogation means that you can still catch large groups with it even without high range, meanwhile Turbulence is still able to protect you a little better for the time it has.

Play around with the stats as you please, the build is a jumping off point to try, and you can even use it for something like a Jet Stream build to help with shotguns and going really fast ^^

But you'll be surprised at the results.

[(PSN)BMWWOW]

3 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

 

Growing Power, Primed Continuity and Flow, Umbral Intensify, Transient Fortitude, Constitution, Augur Message and Streamline (with your choice of Exilus, I happen to like a little more Range with Cunning Drift, but that's pure preference. You slap your last mod-slot with Funnel Clouds because that creates the multiple funnels you will want for exactly the effect you mentioned.

Next, subsume Khora's Ensnare onto Zephyr's 2.

 

All I can say is: Word.  🙂
OP - take this person's suggestions to heart.

[Berzerkules]

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Hi, I'm... well, you can read my name ^^

What you've hit on is something that came about with the discovery of what happens with the new Status changes when you combine them with the Subsumed abilities. It was a surprise to find it, to be sure, but you may want to give it a try.

So, the basic gist is to use this lovely build:

Growing Power, Primed Continuity and Flow, Umbral Intensify, Transient Fortitude, Constitution, Augur Message and Streamline (with your choice of Exilus, I happen to like a little more Range with Cunning Drift, but that's pure preference. You slap your last mod-slot with Funnel Clouds because that creates the multiple funnels you will want for exactly the effect you mentioned.

Next, subsume Khora's Ensnare onto Zephyr's 2.

Then what you'll need is a weapon that deals pure Electric damage, I like the Fulmin because of the large projectiles. Build it for maximising that Electric damage, with as much Crit and Status is reasonable.

All you do here is simple: You use Ensnare to pull all of the enemies you can together, then you cast Funnel Clouds. Whether you make the stationary or not doesn't matter, because multiple will spawn in the clump of enemies for preference as part of their calculation for 'enemies in range of the casting point'. If you make them stationary, though, you can pull enemies into the funnels again using Ensnare, but if you make them moving you can be opportunistic and snare enemies to make the funnels path to them instead.

Shoot the funnels, not the enemies, with that Electric damage and the weapon damage, plus the fact that enemies with the 'Electrocuted' status effect also spark damage radially... it creates a feedback loop of damage going from the funnels to the enemies, the enemies radially to each other and back to the funnels, back to the enemies again.

Nukes groups at fairly hefty levels if you have the care to play the frame cautiously enough to survive. The range being only 115% means more funnels will spawn in the area you want them to, and Ensnare's propogation means that you can still catch large groups with it even without high range, meanwhile Turbulence is still able to protect you a little better for the time it has.

Play around with the stats as you please, the build is a jumping off point to try, and you can even use it for something like a Jet Stream build to help with shotguns and going really fast ^^

But you'll be surprised at the results.

Did a little testing with electric damage on Zephyr and was pleasantly surprised. I look forward to seeing how far I can take that.

Thanks for the tip.

[Bobby0097]

Whats the purpose of strength in that build.

I had a familiar build using Amprex but with high range/low strength instead.

Since Zephyr only has 1 ability to help survive, i went with brief respite, rolling guard, vitality instead.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, (NSW)bobby00 said:

Whats the purpose of strength in that build.

I don't get it as well as:

Quote

Critical damage dealt to enemies over a Tornado is multiplied by 200%. This multiplier is not affected by mods and applied after any weapon mods.

and

Quote

Each tornado inflicts 50 / 75 / 100 / 120 damage per tick to all enemies within its grasp; damage ticks occur at a rate of 4 per second.

• Damage per tick is affected by Ability Strength.
  • Damage per tick is distributed between Impact, Puncture, and Slash physical damage types with a high chance to proc status from all damage types. Damage diminishes with distance from the center of the tornado.

so even with 200% strength it will just deal 60 damage per second (240 per 4 seconds).

 

 

[FU2921]

7 hours ago, (NSW)bobby00 said:

Whats the purpose of strength in that build.

I had a familiar build using Amprex but with high range/low strength instead.

Since Zephyr only has 1 ability to help survive, i went with brief respite, rolling guard, vitality instead.

 

18 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Hi, I'm... well, you can read my name ^^

What you've hit on is something that came about with the discovery of what happens with the new Status changes when you combine them with the Subsumed abilities. It was a surprise to find it, to be sure, but you may want to give it a try.

So, the basic gist is to use this lovely build:

Growing Power, Primed Continuity and Flow, Umbral Intensify, Transient Fortitude, Constitution, Augur Message and Streamline (with your choice of Exilus, I happen to like a little more Range with Cunning Drift, but that's pure preference. You slap your last mod-slot with Funnel Clouds because that creates the multiple funnels you will want for exactly the effect you mentioned.

Next, subsume Khora's Ensnare onto Zephyr's 2.

Then what you'll need is a weapon that deals pure Electric damage, I like the Fulmin because of the large projectiles. Build it for maximising that Electric damage, with as much Crit and Status is reasonable.

All you do here is simple: You use Ensnare to pull all of the enemies you can together, then you cast Funnel Clouds. Whether you make the stationary or not doesn't matter, because multiple will spawn in the clump of enemies for preference as part of their calculation for 'enemies in range of the casting point'. If you make them stationary, though, you can pull enemies into the funnels again using Ensnare, but if you make them moving you can be opportunistic and snare enemies to make the funnels path to them instead.

Shoot the funnels, not the enemies, with that Electric damage and the weapon damage, plus the fact that enemies with the 'Electrocuted' status effect also spark damage radially... it creates a feedback loop of damage going from the funnels to the enemies, the enemies radially to each other and back to the funnels, back to the enemies again.

Nukes groups at fairly hefty levels if you have the care to play the frame cautiously enough to survive. The range being only 115% means more funnels will spawn in the area you want them to, and Ensnare's propogation means that you can still catch large groups with it even without high range, meanwhile Turbulence is still able to protect you a little better for the time it has.

Play around with the stats as you please, the build is a jumping off point to try, and you can even use it for something like a Jet Stream build to help with shotguns and going really fast ^^

But you'll be surprised at the results.

Thanks for the tips, I'll play around more with this frame and see what I can build.

What I though of was a high duration and strength Zephyr, where u change her 2nd ability to Eclipse, to get that sweet weapon damage boost(affected by strength), using tail wind to get out of bad situations and her 3rd ability to be tankier. And a really low range with Narrow Minded to reduce the tornados spawn radius to make it easy to hit projectiles with punch through so I can get that damage multiplier per tornado the enemy is dragged into( so without the funnel clouds I do 100% of my weapon damage x4 because thats the quantity of tornadoes that affects the enemy , if with really low range and if my tornadoes dont target other enemies which might happen). The thing is if I change tornadoes with funnel clouds I lose the crowd control which can be handy in some situations. And I can apply the properties of electrocuted status to increase my tornado's dps(where strength once again, takes part), making this frame good at dps and giving her a decent survivability.

I'll use a hybrid weapon build where I have decent crit chance and status chance so I can take the most from the crit damage boost and tornado's damage 

[Birdframe_Prime]

12 hours ago, (NSW)bobby00 said:

Whats the purpose of strength in that build.

11 hours ago, quxier said:

so even with 200% strength it will just deal 60 damage per second (240 per 4 seconds)

I can see where you'd be confused. After a lot of testing I came up with a simple result: with negative Strength I was getting more diminishing returns earlier on higher level enemies with armour, positive Strength gave me much more nuke-like results for longer than my personal skill could actually keep me alive.

Don't worry, I know that DE would never give Zephyr something non-gimmicky, like actual meaningful damage scaling on the ability itself... that would be getting my hopes up.

It's either one of two parts that the Strength actually effects; either the damage after the initial shot, the Status or looped effects of, are actually adjusted by Strength (since the funnels count as an object that is dealing damage), or the interaction between the funnels themselves (the multiplier OP and I found) is modified by Strength.

In either case, adding Strength gave me a lot more consistency across the board.

There is one other reason for Strength on the build... And it's the other Augments, actually. I'm future-proofing the build for OP in case they want to try them out.

Strength on Zephyr is only really useful for those, with the damage and multiplier on Target Fixation ramping up far more consistently for the memes (I was working in a squad and blitzing Steel Path enemies before the end of regular length survivals, defenses and mobile defenses). And Jet Stream is just the most joyous thing for Shotguns and projectile weapons that DE ever invented. You can take a weapon like the Staticor and snipe Dargyns out of the sky on the plains, it's a great way to appreciate a mechanic that other frames just don't have, meanwhile you can be a fairly good discount Volt with the ability to steer around corners in mid-air and jump over obstacles that other speed frames have to run around.

Finally:

5 hours ago, FU2921 said:

he thing is if I change tornadoes with funnel clouds I lose the crowd control which can be handy in some situations.

That's why you use Ensnare, that's your Crowd Control now ^^ And it's genuinely better, more reliable, than anything Zephyr actually has for the job.

As a point, never go below 100% range with Zephyr, it makes Turbulence easy to 'penetrate' with projectiles. Rockets, especially, are not fun because you could deflect them into the floor at your feet instead of away with a low range. And the new Elite Corpus Crewmen with their new explosive-round Supras, those are genuinely not healthy for Zephyr overall, but worse if you go below neutral range.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I can see where you'd be confused. After a lot of testing I came up with a simple result: with negative Strength I was getting more diminishing returns earlier on higher level enemies with armour, positive Strength gave me much more nuke-like results for longer than my personal skill could actually keep me alive.

Don't worry, I know that DE would never give Zephyr something non-gimmicky, like actual meaningful damage scaling on the ability itself... that would be getting my hopes up.

It's either one of two parts that the Strength actually effects; either the damage after the initial shot, the Status or looped effects of, are actually adjusted by Strength (since the funnels count as an object that is dealing damage), or the interaction between the funnels themselves (the multiplier OP and I found) is modified by Strength.

Interesting. Thank you. I haven't see it in the wiki. I think you should write something in the wiki.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

Oh i knew about this too.

But i used it to multiply Tailwind's damage because i'm weird.

Simply do everything that @Birdframe_Prime said except when you finally group them up, Keep dive bomb them with target fixation, you'll also get some interesting results (probably more surprising results since tailwind is considered weak)