Banshee Prime was the lowest used Prime of 2020 for very clear reasons.

[garbenzine]

It didn't help any that the melee rework at the end of 2019 came with some ninja nerfs/bugs that hurt her quasi-stealth game.  

[AuroraSonicBoom]

34 minutes ago, garbenzine said:

It didn't help any that the melee rework at the end of 2019 came with some ninja nerfs/bugs that hurt her quasi-stealth game.  

There's no real stealth in warframe. Slapping on invisibility and turning off enemy AI while you slaughter them is just about as far removed from getting the same kind of rewards for slow and strategic sneaking and killing as you can be. I've resigned myself to never seeing slower gameplay being rewarded in warframe, despite them having wanted to implement that way back when they came out of beta.

Abilities aside, I think a another big part of why Banshee's so unpopular despite her rather big damage and decent CC potential is her kit having absolutely no polish to it. I said before, DE virtually left her untouched, and with how clunky her animations feel to cast when you are encouraged to always stay moving, it makes the play experience just grating. Having to jump every time you want to cast an ability in order not to come to a halt is a workaround, but it still doesn't 'feel' good when you have to keep doing it over and over. I completed steelpath entirely on banshee, and while damage was obviously never an issue, and survivability neither(3 umbra forma), her kit just feels bland and clunky.

If anything, she deserves to have her 1,2 and 3 ability cast animations updated so she can keep running. I know that such a change usually comes along whenever a frame has gotten a rework, so chances are that's not going to happen either.

[kgabor]

8 hours ago, Surbusken said:

Though I am not sure banshee fills a niche lol...

Banshee's niche currently is carrying newbs with trash weapons through Hydron and ESO.

Nobody does it better.

 

5 hours ago, KittySkin said:

Oh, I dont justify it. She needs a rework so bad. At least she needs a real way to survive. Her 1 its a generic useless first ability, I can get it, her 2 its actually ok if her 3 and 4 where actually useful. Like, IDK, silence stun last twice as long and can be recast to refresh duration, her ult leaves a trembling field for a set duration, so you can use 4 to "freeze" enemies to shot them, or spam her 3 to keept them in place. Some way of consistent crowd control to allow her to do other stuff outside of spam 2 and die. Better damage reduction? Get shield back for every kill inside her silence radious? Her 2 its not that bad, her lack of resources is. Give her some resources to avoid death and she can work just well,like mesa does.

My idea for survivability was replacing Sound Quake with an exalted sniper with short invis on weakspot hits, would be on theme with Banshee, being a frame inspired by a type of ghost and would still require skill to survive while not being a complete copy paste of already existing dr. abilities.

Sonic Boom would suddenly become a great ability with the Sonic Fracture augment built into the main ability without the need of an augment.

Maybe make it work with all sorts of damage resistances instead of just armor to be properly up to date.

Silence just needs a precise slider imo. so that we could set its range if it's needed any time.

I would build Savage Silence into the main ability also, its effect is way too useful even when you're not using it for the finishers, it affects all enemies under the stun's effect.

[Veridian]

5 hours ago, kgabor said:

replacing Sound Quake with an exalted sniper

That's a good start.

Her theme is all over the place, 1 and 4 promote a caster play style.

2 a glass cannon weapon platform.

3 and passive - stealth.

Her kit can be split into 2 different frames.

It also doesn't help that 4 was nerfed to oblivion, there is no actual use for stealth in the game and as stated by others the enemies on which sonar works don't need the extra damage.

Which ends up in a beautiful mess of abilities, strong on theory and horrible in practice.

Pushing her towards a sniper frame is something I'd enjoy and she might turn out very enjoyable on open worlds or vs bosses.

[Tiltskillet]

8 hours ago, kgabor said:

My idea for survivability was replacing Sound Quake with an exalted sniper with short invis on weakspot hits

That's a really cool idea.  It reminds me of one of my favorite Black Widow skills from Marvel Heroes.

It's just much easier to imagine DE using a completely new gimmick like that on a new frame, and keeping Sound Quake in some form on Banshee. 

[Isokaze_BestKaze]

Right now, with Helminth, you can make Banshee works. It requires Helminth which is not ideal AT ALL, but it exists.

I replaced her 4 with Defensive Pillage from Hildryn on mine. She gets absurds amount of shields from it. Combined with augment for 1 and sonar, rest is almost exclusively duration and just enough power for 100% armor strip from her 1.

It works. It's a very specific build, I'm not gonna argue about that. The fact she need Helminth is also a problem, she really shouldn't. But with this build she's absolutely able to tackle any Steel Path mission without any danger of dying whatsoever.

But honestly, I feel like she's underrated. IMO she really doesn't deserves to be one of the least played frame of the game.

(Honestly, Defensive Pillage is bonker. I also put it on Harrow and it's ridiculous how busted it is on him.)

[freeformline]

I think the three main reasons Banshee (Prime) isn't played a lot are that her best playstyles aren't immediately obvious when you read her powers, that she has a relatively slow combat pattern that doesn't play well with room-clearing pubs (much like bows or stealth/sleep builds), and that her strengths apply mostly to high-end missions that (probably, I haven't checked) make up a small minority of the community's play time.

That said, Banshee is one of my favorite frames, and I use her in a lot of solo content. I almost entirely stopped using her after the enemy scaling nerf and loss of the old Void endless missions (I almost stopped using my Saryn too, with no enemies worth using my good stuff on), then picked her back up again with the introductions of lich hunting and the Steel Path. Arcane Ultimatum and Adaptation let Banshee be a functional (but not reckless) tank, and the Resonance + Savage Silence + Marked for Death combo lets you kill anything and everything as you please.

The only reasonable Banshee buff I could imagine asking for would be buffs to the speed of melee finishers, and buffs to the finisher multiplier of some weapon classes (like daggers). Anything else would be really out of line.

[-Vahagn-]

On 2021-01-30 at 2:04 AM, (PSN)FK2P said:

Brozime eloquently cut her in his latest 2021 tier list,

To be honest Brozime's tier lists are often very biased. If he personal dislikes a frame he won't give them a chance. While if the frame can AOE spam mobs its A tier.

 

He often views frames in the context of them having only one build.

[kgabor]

39 minutes ago, freeformline said:

The only reasonable Banshee buff I could imagine asking for would be buffs to the speed of melee finishers, and buffs to the finisher multiplier of some weapon classes (like daggers). Anything else would be really out of line.

Especially considering even hammers and rapiers got better multipliers for finishers and back finishers.

Being stealthy and backstabbing unaware enemies is neither particularly brutish nor gentlemanly, which makes it weird these weapon types got the highest multipliers incentivizing these playstyles while daggers are left in the dust long after the Covert Lethality nerf.

[(PSN)Lake_Mungo]

Banshee is least played because she is so incredibly fragile, and tedious to play. People are bringing up the argument that you can just use her abilities to keep her alive, or you can "play smart".  These people need to acknowledge the fact that players do not want to constantly be spamming abilities JUST to stay alive.  I personally don't want to be sonic booming every 2 seconds, or using silence every single time it is off cooldown, or sound-quaking because I'm inevitably going to almost die every 5 seconds of playing her.  She is simply not fun to play because you are always going to be worrying about dying.  That is why wukong, mesa, chroma, and so many other frames are used over her, like OP originally said, these other frames can double dip as far as not having to worry about dying always while also being able to buff their own damage.  And if anyone decided to say, "just use arcane grace or arcane guardian" or "there is shield-gating in the game", yes there is, thank you for giving me ways to survive 2 seconds longer and then inevitably die right after.  

[Galuf]

The frame is everything but fragile. Yes with basic new player territory gear and understanding of the game she is squishy as hell, borderline unplayable but actually banshee is one of the frames that benefit the most from arcanes for health tanking(because she can easily sustain ultimatum) and is a great shield tank as well(dragon key sheananingans or not). CC wise Silence is one of the best CC in the game, you just have to refresh it and be precise in your movements, in mobile missions it is imho underrated as hell compared to the rest, because it cost you nothing casting it,  you can cast it when you want, and you will maybe just have to cast it once or twice anyway. The frame is actually one of the best Steel Path corridor farming candidate and as she provides the biggest damage buff of the roster she will never be out the meta.

We don't play banshee because we don't have to, but if the spongeness level keeps increasing, be sure that i'll be playing her a lot and I won't be alone.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

On 1/30/2021 at 1:53 AM, Nebu4 said:

The least used warframe is grendel. Banshee has only one issue, and that's her 4th ability. Also the fact tht you're basing your statements off of brozime tierlist is kinda :| 

His tier list already makes zero sense, he literally placed inaros, the worst tank out of all frames above Revenant and a lot of other frames meanwhile inaros is just a walking health bar with no abilities. She's in no way a failed dps warframe, you can reach big numbers easily with her.

Her cc is usually enough to stay alive, and even if you get hit, you still have shieldgating so you're pretty much immune to getting oneshot.

Also with the current weapons and all what we have, I don't see why it should affect bosses. I'd agree when it comes down to acolytes, but it already affects demolishers.

 

Inaros is so highly valued because of how brain dead he is to use and mod. He gets to ignore status effects and takes next to no effort to mod. 

Revenant theoretically being the best tank doesn't really matter when the content people actually play isn't going to demand that level of min maxing. 

Also your final statement about weapons is side stepping the point instead of actually discussing it. It doesn't matter if we can kill bosses without the need of damage amping abilities. 

Damage is the only thing banshee brings to the table. And it is inconsistent due to how the game has evolved. No one is arguing wether or not Banshee can perform. It's an argument about design itself. 

Pretty much every hardcore banshee player I've seen posted here has directly stated that the game design changing is what has made older frames obsolete. And they dislike this because it's gotten frames to be changed to fit the games current design. Ember is a prime example of this. 

DE is well aware that one tricks don't really work in the game anymore and that's why for awhile now we see frames being self sufficient and capable of working in multiple formats. Where as a perfectly good frame like Trinity gets left in the dust.

If you want to argue that she shouldn't be changed to fit the current game because you like how she is currently than argue from that point. Don't try to argue like she's fine and people just suck with her. Don't wash away a problem because you don't take issues with it. 

[Tiltskillet]

3 hours ago, freeformline said:

The only reasonable Banshee buff I could imagine asking for would be buffs to the speed of melee finishers, and buffs to the finisher multiplier of some weapon classes (like daggers).

I think she needs more than that, but dang, I'd love for finishers to be faster, better balanced between weapon types, and more consequential.    They really should provide short buffs inherently.  The finisher triggered Arcanes / Parazon mods would be on top of that.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

I really like her 3rd ability. I use her 4 when an objective has lost quite a bit of health or when there's lots of enemies by a defense objective. I use her 2 as support for allies, and I rarely use her 1. I mainly have her 3 running, and maybe her 2 as well. That's how I play her.

[ReddyDisco]

3 hours ago, (PSN)MesonicDevotee6 said:

She is simply not fun to play because you are always going to be worrying about dying.  

that's what makes her fun

[freeformline]

1 hour ago, ReddyDisco said:

that's what makes her fun

I'll second this. A lot of what originally got me into playing Banshee was realizing that if I played well, I could kill anything and never take damage, but I'd get popped if I messed up. It makes for rewarding, high-tension play with lots of instant feedback.

[ReddyDisco]

20 minutes ago, freeformline said:

I'll second this. A lot of what originally got me into playing Banshee was realizing that if I played well, I could kill anything and never take damage, but I'd get popped if I messed up. It makes for rewarding, high-tension play with lots of instant feedback.

 most 'squishy' frames require to be active and alert and when you get downed its mostly your own mistake, retracing your steps to find out what you did wrong makes me keep playing them

[Marvelous_A]

I don't like her style and cosmetics. Can't seem to find a spot for her to fit in, her damage potential is not required for 99% of meaningful content and there are many other choices for just enough DPS but with much better survivability. As deep as her DPS potential is that's just not what we need in Warframe. Dealing 1000 damage to 10 targets are much more useful than dealing 10000 damage to 1 target.

[(PSN)Jacobivan]

On 31.01.2021 at 6:00 AM, (XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA said:

Soundquake is just bad. Period. I cant think of a single situation ever where sound quake is worth using. Anything it "can" do is eclipsed by other abilities. 

Interception (arbitrations or steel path) cheese. 

Requires a teammate to pop nully bubbles and arbitrations drones, though. Specific setup, but no other frame can lock down the map indifenitely. 

[stormy505]

On 2021-01-29 at 11:53 PM, Nebu4 said:

Also the fact tht you're basing your statements off of brozime tierlist is kinda :| 

Brozime's point about banshee was accurate though. In the few, and I can't stress this enough, FEW, situations where we want damage buffs against enemies, DE just says "no" to her damage buff meanwhile rhino and chroma can apply there damage buffs just fine.

 

 

On 2021-01-30 at 1:01 AM, Nebu4 said:

Mesa, wukong, limbo, loki, frost, etc... also should get buffed because they don't have their own damage buffers.

That's a leap in logic, banshee is bad because the one niche she has is often denied by DE because of their weird debuff application rules on enemies. The warframes you listed have their own niches and uses. Banshee doesn't.

 

[stormy505]

On 2021-01-30 at 10:31 AM, Pizzarugi said:

Okay, that's just sad. Revenant is the absolute god of all tanks thanks to Mesmer Skin, with an ability that can let him 1shot almost any enemies in the game, but he gets a lower rank than a frame whose skills are largely worthless and is only valued for having 100k+ EHP?

His survivability not being tied to an ability means he's not cucked by host migration turning off your abilities while enemies shoot you, a lot of players value this. His 1 is actually pretty good cc, goes through walls with solid range, gives inaros access to finishers which means he can 1-shot any enemy open to finishers while also healing himself for 20% for each finisher, immune to status effects and more importantly knock downs with his 4 + augment which you can fit easily do to how few mods he actually wants.

He's the 4th most used frame in the higher MR brackets for a good reason, and the only 'tank' frame above him in pickrate is wukong.

[(XBOX)Calliber]

Banshee puts in work on OV though.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

5 hours ago, stormy505 said:

His survivability not being tied to an ability means he's not cucked by host migration turning off your abilities while enemies shoot you, a lot of players value this. His 1 is actually pretty good cc, goes through walls with solid range, gives inaros access to finishers which means he can 1-shot any enemy open to finishers while also healing himself for 20% for each finisher, immune to status effects and more importantly knock downs with his 4 + augment which you can fit easily do to how few mods he actually wants.

He's the 4th most used frame in the higher MR brackets for a good reason, and the only 'tank' frame above him in pickrate is wukong.

On console at least, a host migration makes you immune for a short time. 

The only way you would die is if you were just continuing to stand there. Warframe's movement is a part of the game and factors into survivability for every frame, even Inaros. This is why Brozime was one shotted, as inaros. 

And if you're even participating in an endurance long enough to where an actual one shot is more likely, doing that in a pug where the host could randomly disconnect after 2 hours just isn't a very smart thing to do. 

Seems like a massive cop out that people are choosing Inaros "just in case of host migration". They're most likely choosing him because he's just easier for casual players that can't actually move around and play actively.

[AuroraSonicBoom]

On 2021-02-01 at 5:18 PM, stormy505 said:

Brozime's point about banshee was accurate though. In the few, and I can't stress this enough, FEW, situations where we want damage buffs against enemies, DE just says "no" to her damage buff meanwhile rhino and chroma can apply there damage buffs just fine.
 

Brozime reduces her like most people in this thread to one and only one quality: Damage. Now, that's not only his fault for doing that, but the game's combat being fundamentally built around the primitive concept of "apply enough damage anywhere -> win" Since the devs have not shown to want to diversity how damage is applied outside of some gimmick units like nox and bursas, it'll remain as dead simple as it is for the foreseeable future. Still, Banshee by design does other things that could be valuable as well. CC is one of them, and to a small degree shutting down enemies as well.

At their core, all of her abilities, quake included, are well designed, but since they virtually haven't been touched in half a decade, they've accumulated a lot of dust. That a banshee can still wreck the highest levels of steel path doesn't express how little she needs to be looked at, but how strong her base abilities are. Granted, I'm taking augments into account here, as without them, she really only has one ability viable for general use, and one for situational usage.

My point is that she could be fun and satisfying to play with the right kind of updates to her abilities, that do not remove or replace the core of what these abilities are(especially not one of the few stationary ults we have left in the game). Each ability has the potential to be made useful in more than just one way through organic synergies with her other abilities, and outside of quake, such changes would require very minimal effort to be implemented. 

[CortexKiller]

-Laughs in Banshee Main-  I started game with Mag and built Banshee as my 2nd frame and never really looked back.

Not every frame is viable for every job - or are Tenno about to argue that Loki should be good at taking out Exploiter/Profit Orbs?  Same goes for the Boss argument - it's less than 5% of game content.  The one thing I'll agree on is that her 4 is useless and I never used apart to the occasional "oh poop" moment, allowing for team mates to clear/rez or whatever needs doing.  Furthermore, seems folks are not familiar with how 3 actually functions or why it's good.  Sonar does not require the augment unless you are building with low efficiency build. 1 isn't a dps thing - it's a quick "get away from me" when enemies get too close or you need a moment to reload a slow reloading weapon.

Now, is she a Frame made perfect no? Should she be? I'm uncertain.  I've always loved my little glass cannon.  Since we're talking other frames... Inaros could just use a whole rework in comparison.  Brozime's opinion is neither here nor there for ANY frame in my opinion.  You want good banshee stuff? Look at folks more akin to Relentless Zen for your build synergies.  I don't play this game to hide/camp in a corner n still kill all the things and Banshee fulfills my need to keep mobile, keep casting and keep killing.  This is described by some as "tedious", whereas I prefer the ABC frames with synergy (Always Be Casting).  Or are folks going to argue that Lavos is no good either?

There are now a plethora of frames to choose from with a variety of playstyles, choose one(s) which fit your style of game  but kindly leave the salt at point of entry.