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The upcoming changes for Zephyr won't do anything.


ScytodiDaedalus

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The proposed changes for Zephyr on Devstream #151 will not be any reasonable improvement to her.

This update will not fix Zephyr's kit issues, the abilities do not need numerical value increases to be better or a few buffs, they don't require an exceptional overhaul and absolute rework either.
Allow me to quickly review each ability, the currently proposed changes and what I believe would truly improve Zephyr.

  1. Tail Wind:
    -The biggest flaw of this ability is it's unusable state when it comes to being a mobility ability.
    -It's energy cost reduction "synergy" when in the air is, to put is simply, a joke. There's no exclusive interaction within Zephyr's or any kit whatsoever that "synergizes" with this, it is simply a jump so you don't have doubled costs on this ability, the same goes for Airburst.
    -Divebomb damage is, as also mentioned, negligible even with the setup.
    -The hold mechanic that places Zephyr statically, which is being addressed.

    Currently Proposed Changes:
    -Increase divebomb's damage significantly.
    -Allow Zephyr to use the Hold mechanic to hover while in the air at will, which is still static so it doesn't quite hit the spot, honestly.

    Opinions and Suggestions:
    -While Increasing Divebomb's damage sounds like a good idea, it still will be as negligible as always or it will be so major that the only mechanic to constantly nuke enemies will be to aim up, press 1, aim down, press 1, repeat.
    -Putting use to the hold mechanic is a good idea, however I do not think that it's "static" use has any relevance in the game and personally I'd much rather see this option vanish completely.
    -Suggestion: Absolutely scrap Divebomb from Tail Wind, and have Zephyr's Tail Wind be only an ability for maneuvering.
    -Suggestion: This is a must, either change how Tail Wind functions, maneuvers, controls or is used so that it allows Zephyr to mobilize quickly through any space or go for the simplest solution, allow Tail Wind to be immediately cancelled by pressing 1 again while keeping all momentum or causing Zephyr to perform a small leap such as when Nezha teleports to his Chakram.
    -Suggestion: Please, by all means simply reduce the energy cost to 12.5, a static or to the respective value. Remove the "while on the air" cost reduction completely.
     
  2. Airburst:
    -While previously it was really slow it is still not really fast.
    -The damage it provides isn't very flashy if you want to use this while airborne.

    Currently Proposed Changes:
    -Increase the pull effect as a lingering "vortex",


    Opinions and Suggestions:
    -It's good, this could perhaps also be added to the push effect to also make it lingering.
    -Suggestion: Additionally to all Airbust provides, turn it into a "Divebomb projectile" to allow Zephyr to drop aerial strikes with the benefit of being able to deal more damage the farther she is from enemies, thus she can "continually divebomb" without having to expend the setup for it.
    -Suggestion: Make Airbust accelerate while on-flight so it reaches targets faster, also Increase it's max travel distance to 150m.
    -Suggestion:
    Please, by all means simply reduce the energy cost to 25. Remove the "while on the air" cost reduction completely.
     
  3. Turbulence:
    -Zephyr's best known ability for virtually negating all damage she can take.
    -However, I believe this to be overtuned and to a certain extent mostly unnecesary, due to how enemy Accuracy is calculated based on movement and Zephyr's playstyle. In the end, Zephyr's best way to stay out of enemy fire is to simply stay on the air.

    Opinions and Suggestions:
    -Suggestion: While this is something I'm uncertain of, I'd like to see Turbulence have about half duration for half the cost (also halve the cast animation time). The reasoning being, on the times that Zephyr needs a quick defense ability, she can easily escape it after using turbulence briefly, having it last 20 seconds when you just need it for a few instants feels like a waste of energy. But again, this is something I'm not quite certain of.
     
  4. Tornado:
    -The pull radius is actually rather small and I have seen enemies just walk by tornadoes unaffected.
    -How tornadoes have enemies hanging on it's sides is rather jarring visually, I'd much rather see them clumped into a ball at the top of the tornado, however this probably would interfere with how Airburst deals it's damage.
    -Tornadoes are unpredictable, you can try to aim but a tornado is almost always never going to spawn where you want it, if you wish to move them they move slowly and if you held the cast they will just wander off again.

    Currently Proposed Changes:
    -Increase the pull radius and strength.
    -Reduce the number of tornadoes to 3


    Opinions and Suggestions:
    -Increasing the pull radius and it's strength is fine. I believe the point on which tornadoes suspends enemies should be taken into account.
    -Reducing the number of tornadoes won't change much of the current unpredictability problem.
    -Suggestion: Change the base energy cost of Tornado to 50. Instead of spawning 3 tornadoes, the tap cast should spawn a single larger tornado with it's base spawning on the target reticle, while holding cast should spawn the 3 moving tornadoes for 100 energy, to keep both alternatives available.
    -Suggestion: Remove the synergy with Airburst increasing the tornado's size. It never did much.
     
  5. Last but not least the Passive:
    -The slowfall is a nuisance when first playing with her, but it's actually fine, the problem is that there is no way to opt out mid-misison.
    -The increased midair movement is noticeable, however it still doesn't feel like there's much additional control after Bullet Jumps or Tail Wind's excessive momentum.

    Currently Proposed Changes:
    -Add a increasingly stacking crit chance buff while Zephyr is in the air.


    Opinions and Suggestions:
    -Personally, I believe this change is unnecesary and simply a form of band-aid to increase usage on Zephyr. While I would welcome free buffs, there's hardly a reasoning to this knowing the rest of abilities are not yet in a good state.
    -Suggestion: Allow Zephyr to fall down at regular speed when holding the Crouch key, except when Aim-gliding.
    -Suggestion: Alternatively, if the Hold mechanic on Tail Wind, allow Zephyr to disable or enable the slow-fall passive by holding 1.
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I, on the other hand, am genuinely optimistic for these to see how they turn out.

The listed changes by DE are rarely ever as complete or the final changes to the frame until they actually demonstrate them (and even then some changes never come to pass). So I'm going to wait until I see these changes for once.

I'm optimistic for the Hover anywhere as a means for reigning in Tailwind so that we can have Mobility in the air. I'm optimistic for better damage on Dive Bomb, even if it only means that the meme-build with Target Fixation is better (since I was able to scale that up to level 300 in the Kuva Fortress when I tried it).

I'm optimistic for the change to Air Burst because it means that grouping enemies can be done for casting Stationary Tornado on them (more guaranteed placement of the funnels) in order to capture them for longer and pump damage into the funnel for quicker kills.

I'm surprisingly optimistic for the better draw on Tornado itself, because of the same combo idea, but also because it means we can do things to gather enemies into existing funnels better. Being able to actually use Tornado for the damage distribution function a little more easily is definitely a good thing in my book.

I think these changes will be a definite improvement to the frame.

I'm not, however, sure how much of an improvement.

I'm just going to take what I can get, because I've not had anything more than crumbs for years, so even just slightly larger crumbs would still be an improvement.

...

...

Of course, if these things are done wrong, or are actively detrimental?

I will unleash heck on DE Scott, because it's him that doesn't want to let Zephyr have any real, functional, power.

I hold him personally responsible over the years, and I will be... Upset.

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It would need to be at least a 100% crit chance increase to even tempt me to play her over some other frames. Like literally any other frame. Her abilities are shocking to the point where she is the only prime I have ever deleted to make room for another one instead of buying a slot. Tail wind and dive bomb are literal memes, the tornados are the most situational and add exclusive ult in the game, and her DR only works against projectiles. Why on earth would anyone choose to suffer this.

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5 hours ago, (PSN)FK2P said:

It would need to be at least a 100% crit chance increase to even tempt me to play her over some other frames. Like literally any other frame. Her abilities are shocking to the point where she is the only prime I have ever deleted to make room for another one instead of buying a slot. Tail wind and dive bomb are literal memes, the tornados are the most situational and add exclusive ult in the game, and her DR only works against projectiles. Why on earth would anyone choose to suffer this.

Because other players may actually have an imagination or just want to play a different way. We're not tailoring every frame to your liking. 

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21 hours ago, (PSN)FK2P said:

It would need to be at least a 100% crit chance increase to even tempt me

What if, and I'm just suggesting, it was Additive? So regardless of mods, you gain something like 15% Crit Chance flat. It doesn't sound like much, but that's honestly more than a lot of mods will add to your weapons if the weapon has a very low Crit Chance to begin with.

Weapons that are older, like the Braton Prime that (and yes, I have a god-roll Riven for it with 198.1% Crit Chance) reaches about 54% Crit Chance with the Riven and Point Strike, so works most of the time, but would definitely be better with... wait for it... 69% Crit Chance. (Eh? Eh?)

I mean, there's ways that a low percentage actually works. Rhino's damage multiplier number is lower than other frames, but is functionally better because it's additive to the total damage you deal, not multiplicative on the base damage like most other ability bonuses.

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2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

What if, and I'm just suggesting, it was Additive? So regardless of mods, you gain something like 15% Crit Chance flat. It doesn't sound like much, but that's honestly more than a lot of mods will add to your weapons if the weapon has a very low Crit Chance to begin with.

Weapons that are older, like the Braton Prime that (and yes, I have a god-roll Riven for it with 198.1% Crit Chance) reaches about 54% Crit Chance with the Riven and Point Strike, so works most of the time, but would definitely be better with... wait for it... 69% Crit Chance. (Eh? Eh?)

I mean, there's ways that a low percentage actually works. Rhino's damage multiplier number is lower than other frames, but is functionally better because it's additive to the total damage you deal, not multiplicative on the base damage like most other ability bonuses.

I mean sure, additive works. It needs to be considerable though, she needs something that’s going to push her a long way, her kit is basically riding on this. The bigger the number the higher up in the tiers she will go. She might even become an actual viable damage choice for events and operations. Imagine Zephyr in A rank because she can damage things like an attack chopper LOL what a fresh and fun archetype that would be. She will already be infinitely better than Titania because her weapon is exhalted *ew* 

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2 hours ago, (PSN)FK2P said:

she needs something that’s going to push her a long way, her kit is basically riding on this

I wouldn't say so.

See, the problem with Zephyr's kit is the reliability, not the actual damage. Zephyr has the kit that can, if you force it to do the things it should be doing, literally nuke at almost any level.

But even without that forced reliability, if these changes allow us to do a similar amount of reliable functions, she'll last quite a while even without the augment nuke.

(By the way, try that one out, you use Whipclaw for CC to drag enemies together, cast Funnel Clouds on them so that the 'spawn on enemies' function forces multiple funnels into the right area, and then hit the funnels with a pure Electric damage weapon, modded for more Electric, crit and status, enemies explode. The Fulmin works well because of the ball meaning you don't have to be as precise and it has decent status and crit chance when modded. The Status from Electric creates multiplied damage because the formula takes into account the base damage, plus a bonus of the Electric mods that are on your weapon, meaning the resulting Status damage is higher than your base damage. This, with the fact that Tornado doubles Crit Damage, means that the status from the first shot makes the enemies spark radially, feeding damage back into Tornado, creating a loop that explodes all enemies in contact with the funnels. It's a set-up nuke, but a nuke nonetheless ^^)

Anyway, the point of these changes is to give her a certain amount of reliability.

Whether DE succeed or not? That's to be determined. I'm waiting to see.

But if we can use Air Burst for a radial grouping tool, cast Tornado on the grouped enemies for a 'greater suck' (as DE put it) that will actually hold onto the enemies... we could then reliably use this as a sustained CC that turns all of our weapons, into radial damage dealers. We can take advantage of the mechanical damage boosting, even without the crit chance boost of her new Passive, and be a more reliable weapons platform for scaling up both our damage and our team's damage.

My personal hope is that, with DE claiming they want to add 'meaningful' damage to Dive Bomb, that it features some sort of combo proc or defense strip that means Zephyr can use the more reliable CC to get a guaranteed result within her kit, without needing to rely so much on her weapons.

Buuuut... that's a long shot to hope for.

Honestly, Crit Chance is fine as an addition to her passive, but it definitely does not make or break the frame.

Reliability makes or breaks a frame.

If Vauban's Vortex wandered off around the map, orspawned up to 25m away from where you threw it, then it would be unreliable and the ability would be significantly less powerful too. That's the kind of comparison I draw, because Zephyr's key kit has RNG on it. If it didn't, if we could make it as reliable of a CC as Vauban, then Zephyr's other mechanics tied with the CC would actually be pretty damn good.

Again, waiting to see, we've got a month.

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21 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Because other players may actually have an imagination or just want to play a different way. We're not tailoring every frame to your liking. 

You know it’s possible to have a cohesive roster of different frames that synergize with the design space right? Like in there own different way. Remember when Nyx could actually mind control raid bosses? Remember when that was an actual choice? simply implementing what they say they will do in their description is enough. Most frames are well designed, it’s their implementation and lack of reliability which ruins the bottom of the pile.

The top of the pile is basically just the frames people don’t ever have to stop playing for whatever reason. 

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25 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I wouldn't say so.

See, the problem with Zephyr's kit is the reliability, not the actual damage. Zephyr has the kit that can, if you force it to do the things it should be doing, literally nuke at almost any level.

But even without that forced reliability, if these changes allow us to do a similar amount of reliable functions, she'll last quite a while even without the augment nuke.

(By the way, try that one out, you use Whipclaw for CC to drag enemies together, cast Funnel Clouds on them so that the 'spawn on enemies' function forces multiple funnels into the right area, and then hit the funnels with a pure Electric damage weapon, modded for more Electric, crit and status, enemies explode. The Fulmin works well because of the ball meaning you don't have to be as precise and it has decent status and crit chance when modded. The Status from Electric creates multiplied damage because the formula takes into account the base damage, plus a bonus of the Electric mods that are on your weapon, meaning the resulting Status damage is higher than your base damage. This, with the fact that Tornado doubles Crit Damage, means that the status from the first shot makes the enemies spark radially, feeding damage back into Tornado, creating a loop that explodes all enemies in contact with the funnels. It's a set-up nuke, but a nuke nonetheless ^^)

Anyway, the point of these changes is to give her a certain amount of reliability.

Whether DE succeed or not? That's to be determined. I'm waiting to see.

But if we can use Air Burst for a radial grouping tool, cast Tornado on the grouped enemies for a 'greater suck' (as DE put it) that will actually hold onto the enemies... we could then reliably use this as a sustained CC that turns all of our weapons, into radial damage dealers. We can take advantage of the mechanical damage boosting, even without the crit chance boost of her new Passive, and be a more reliable weapons platform for scaling up both our damage and our team's damage.

My personal hope is that, with DE claiming they want to add 'meaningful' damage to Dive Bomb, that it features some sort of combo proc or defense strip that means Zephyr can use the more reliable CC to get a guaranteed result within her kit, without needing to rely so much on her weapons.

Buuuut... that's a long shot to hope for.

Honestly, Crit Chance is fine as an addition to her passive, but it definitely does not make or break the frame.

Reliability makes or breaks a frame.

If Vauban's Vortex wandered off around the map, orspawned up to 25m away from where you threw it, then it would be unreliable and the ability would be significantly less powerful too. That's the kind of comparison I draw, because Zephyr's key kit has RNG on it. If it didn't, if we could make it as reliable of a CC as Vauban, then Zephyr's other mechanics tied with the CC would actually be pretty damn good.

Again, waiting to see, we've got a month.

Well I mean if your selling reliability your selling it to the wrong person because I believe the absolute downfall of this game is infact it’s lack of reliability. Cannot possibly agree more. For me- having amazing critical in the air would just be such a liberation for zephyr that it would largely set back the issues with her kit forever because they would simply become movement abilities that enable her air time, her current abilities’ attributes would nearly be thought of as add ons and gimmicks, mostly for fun. Giving her that self buffing damage really hit home for me and really made my ears prick up when I was watching the devstream  and I was thoroughly impressed.

The tornados are always going to be terrible no matter what they do. Compared to the effectiveness of other frame’s ults it pales in comparison. The only ult similar in power is hydroid’s and that barely has use outside farming. 
 

When I play zephyr I’m going to use her as a kind of aerial stealth bomber, launching weapons from the sky, I don’t care if the enemies get caught or not, because I’m simply too much of an A10 warthog to care.

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13 minutes ago, (PSN)FK2P said:

You know it’s possible to have a cohesive roster of different frames that synergize with the design space right? Like in there own different way. Remember when Nyx could actually mind control raid bosses? Remember when that was an actual choice? simply implementing what they say they will do in their description is enough. Most frames are well designed, it’s their implementation and lack of reliability which ruins the bottom of the pile.

The top of the pile is basically just the frames people don’t ever have to stop playing for whatever reason. 

Synergize with the design space? Can you elaborate on that. Seems extremely vague.

The roster seems pretty cohesive, as I can complete multiple missions with multiple frames with no issues whatsoever. I can actually use frames in multiple different ways, already. So what exact "different way" are you referring to? 

If you're not aware, bosses are a different tier of enemy than the rest. Nyx being able to treat a boss like a fodder enemy shouldn't make nor break your experience. Maybe you should handle a boss within it's own mechanics like everyone else. Do you think you should be able to bypass a bosses invulnerability period just because it's your "actual choice"? Do you think you should be able to disregard all enemy mechanisms because it's your choice?

 

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On 2021-02-11 at 3:59 PM, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

People who don't use Tailwind and divebomb for Trash mob damage are missing out on huge amounts of fun.

petty everyone forgot what's fun in this game.

Except these abilities were fun to use when the movement they offered weren't deathly stiff, the "distance" they helped you move wasn't all that great, but the potential for maneuver was amazing. The moment they changed how Tailwind actually propelled Zephyr and forced Divebomb casts on downward Tail Winds with a pretty long landing animation this fun was no more.

Petty they changed this and everyone forgot how fun it was.

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3 hours ago, (PSN)thegarada said:

I do not think the changes are bad, they just do not do much for her in terms of damage. It have modifiers for melee or range. No armour stripping. No nuking.
Grouping enemies and some CCs are nice; but, not enough.

You can lower armor with corrosive and heat, and every frame doesn't have to nuke and you shouldn't expect them to.

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4 hours ago, (PSN)thegarada said:

I do not think the changes are bad, they just do not do much for her in terms of damage. It have modifiers for melee or range. No armour stripping. No nuking.
Grouping enemies and some CCs are nice; but, not enough.

Tornadoes can AoE apply Elemental Status, that covers pretty much everything all at once, shrug.

 

Zephyr already has Damage anyways, but that's shhhh.

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7 hours ago, -ODIN-hugeblackdude said:

zeph should just have a channeled flight ability like titania instead of jet propulsion in a straight line. shes a bird, give her some wings

She's an air caster, not a bird, and look at my name before you try to come back on that one.

It's the same as Valkyr having all these cat themed visuals, but being the Berserker frame in practice, because even though her visuals make her look one way, her abilities sure as heck make her the other.

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3小时前 , Birdframe_Prime 说:

She's an air caster, not a bird, and look at my name before you try to come back on that one.

She's described as the warframe that specializes in air attacks and dominates from above according her in-game description. That sounds more like a fighter or an attack helicopter than an air caster to me.

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4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

She's an air caster, not a bird, and look at my name before you try to come back on that one.

 

1 hour ago, yles9056 said:

She's described as the warframe that specializes in air attacks and dominates from above according her in-game description. That sounds more like a fighter or an attack helicopter than an air caster to me.

exactly, even aircasters can fly, or at least glide around for some time(ex: Red Tornado from DC comics, Aang from avatar the last airbender), whereas zeph launches in a straight line or hovers in 1 place, unable to freely move around

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12 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

You can lower armor with corrosive and heat, and every frame doesn't have to nuke and you shouldn't expect them to.

Might as well say: “all frames have skills and weapons, what else do you need?” You know, if you do not have anything to say, no one is forcing you to do so. This is just a poor attempt at trolling.

11 hours ago, taiiat said:

Tornadoes can AoE apply Elemental Status, that covers pretty much everything all at once, shrug.

 

Zephyr already has Damage anyways, but that's shhhh.

All at once you say? You mean casting the tornado, then shooting at the mobs to remove armour then to kill them. Does the tornado effect all mobs too? No? Can I do that while eidolon hunting (or any similar fight)? Also, no? Or maybe I can slap them once with a melee weapon and they all die ALL AT ONCE.

You can keep enjoying role playing Zephyr, but do not try to sell me that these changes are good or that she is a good frame. They do not and she is not.

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19 minutes ago, (PSN)thegarada said:

Can I do that while eidolon hunting (or any similar fight)?

tbf, frame abilities usually dont affect/have minimal effectiveness on bosses, but i do agree that zeph is not a good frame rn, and these changes wont do much to help her. she needs a pablo level rework to put her on the forefront again. if yall have fun with her, fine, but obectively shes a D-tier frame, everything she does, most frames do better

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2 hours ago, -ODIN-hugeblackdude said:

tbf, frame abilities usually dont affect/have minimal effectiveness on bosses, but i do agree that zeph is not a good frame rn, and these changes wont do much to help her. she needs a pablo level rework to put her on the forefront again. if yall have fun with her, fine, but obectively shes a D-tier frame, everything she does, most frames do better

I think she suffers from the same problem as hydroid. There are all these extra steps to effect and kill the trashmobs, when people are otherwise very prepared to take these enemies down regardless. I think the crit in the air is the first in a line of great changes, this new passive expands her design space to fit almost any mission and gives her something to offer while she’s flying. Which is perfect. Tornado needs to be more impressive, bastille is not a meta ultimate, and that’s a 100% cc, tornados are literally taking that dead crowd control and adding randomisation to its effectiveness. 

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7 hours ago, yles9056 said:

That sounds more like a fighter or an attack helicopter than an air caster to me.

5 hours ago, -ODIN-hugeblackdude said:

exactly, even aircasters can fly, or at least glide around for some time

Yes? And... the point about any kind of 'flying animation'?

My friends, removing the animation is better than wasting time custom-generating animation for this. It interferes, it interrupts what she actually wants to do up there.

I can see the desire, just not how it's practical.

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2小时前 , Birdframe_Prime 说:

Yes? And... the point about any kind of 'flying animation'?

My friends, removing the animation is better than wasting time custom-generating animation for this. It interferes, it interrupts what she actually wants to do up there.

I can see the desire, just not how it's practical.

I'm not sure what kind of fancy hovering you are picturing in your head, but Zephyr can already hover, remember? Even though she is not allowed to move while hovering, her other actions are not interfered or interrupted once she's in position. 

And if you are concern about the usefulness of hovering, I can safely tell you it won't do much alone. Because it takes not just one ability but the whole warframe kit to support air attack gameplay style.

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27 minutes ago, yles9056 said:
2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Yes? And... the point about any kind of 'flying animation'?

My friends, removing the animation is better than wasting time custom-generating animation for this. It interferes, it interrupts what she actually wants to do up there.

I can see the desire, just not how it's practical.

I'm not sure what kind of fancy hovering you are picturing in your head, but Zephyr can already hover, remember? Even though she is not allowed to move while hovering, her other actions are not interfere or interrupt once she's in position. 

And if you are concern about the usefulness of hovering, I can safely tell you it won't do much alone. Because it takes not just one ability but the whole warframe kit to support air attack gameplay style.

yea im not sure what you mean, its not like im saying give her wings and interrupt what she does mechanically with her 1, im saying rework her 1 entirely and give her wings that are just visual effects, essentially, id prefer if zeph just had archwing maneuverability like titania, which is far more practical than blasting off in a straight line and doesn't need a whole lot of custom animations(other than the casting animation) since those are already in game

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