Zephyr's Passive: Some Numbers

[MrFrog9]

Some math to give an idea of how Zephyr's passive affects the damage of a random crit weapon I use somewhat frequently, since crit numbers are kind of arcane

Opticor Vandal base critical chance: 24%
Opticor Vandal base crit mult: 2.6x

expected power multiplier: 1 + (.24 * (2.6 - 1)) = 138%

Opticor Vandal crit chance w/ maxed Point Strike: 24% + 36% = 60%
Opticor Vandal crit chance w/ maxed Vital Sense: 2.6x + 3.12x = 5.72x

expected power multipier: 1 + (.6 * (5.72 - 1)) = 383.2%

Opticor Vandal crit chance w/ maxed Point Strike, and Zephyr's passive: 24% + 36% +36% = 96%
Opticor Vandal crit chance w/ maxed Vital Sense: ''

expected power multiplier: 1 + (.96 * (5.72-1)) = 553.12%

effective power multiplier from Zephyr's passive: 553.12% / 383.2% = 144.34%

With my Opticor Vandal equipped with a maxed Point Strike and Vital Shot, Zephyr can expect to inflict 44.34% more damage in the air (not counting the additional damage from critical headshots)

counting the damage from critical headshots (assuming perfect accuracy):

without the passive: 1 + (.6 * (11.44 - 1)) = 786.4%

with the passive: 1 + (.96 * (11.44 - 1)) = 1198.24%

effective multiplier: 1198.24% / 786.4% = 152.37%

Assuming perfect headshots, Zephyr can expect to inflict 52.37% more damage in the air.

Notes:
These numbers are roughly similar to that of Rhino's Roar at base strength, although obviously it's not a team buff and Zephyr must be in the air. For a primary weapon equipped with Point Strike and Vital Sense I would expect the boost to asymptotically approach +60% as the weapon's base critical chance and critmult increases. So, it won't get much stronger than Roar at base strength.
It's worth noting that since this is a passive Zephyr can mix it with a damage boosting ability from the Helminth, such as Eclipse or Roar.
Obviously, the exact numbers will vary based on the weapon's individual crit stats and which mods you have on. In particular, the less crit chance is being added from mods, the more Zephyr's passive matters. Secondaries and especially shotguns will presumably benefit more due to their weaker crit chance mods, although they also have weaker critmult mods and I'm too lazy to run the numbers there.
This is not remotely close to an optimised build, obviously; it's just a random crit weapon I had in my inventory.

I was expecting the boost to be much more prominent but I think this is actually fairly reasonable, although I am somewhat concerned about its interaction with Eclipse/etc.. That said, Zephyr needs to be airborne to do this which adds either a skill gate (aiming while jumping) or a resource gate (energy to cast Tornado or a mod slot for Aero Vantage). Explosive weapons such as the Tonkor or Corinth Prime seem like an even stronger choice than usual here, since Zephyr is good at floating out of their blast zone and you don't really need to aim them.

[Leqesai]

You expected this to be a larger DPS boost?

Already this passive is bonkers. Just crazy that she is able to stay in the air permanently, retain near total immunity with turbulence and additional crit damage potential with tornados. 

IMO this buff to Zephyr is a little more than she should have received. Zephyr in the air is completely over-tuned.

[Birdframe_Prime]

It's one of those oddly balanced things. It adds a lot to weapons that already have a lot, but adds very little to weapons that don't.

[Famecans]

I trust this frame now, it is just waiting for the ideal set. I suspect that there is some "secret" in the saxum mod set + hemorrhage mod.

I don't have a hemorrage mod to try but I have a good zephyr build awaiting the brainstorm

[BiancaRoughfin]

16 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

IMO this buff to Zephyr is a little more than she should have received. Zephyr in the air is completely over-tuned.

Tell that to the face of a Wukong junkie. Near immortality, clone that deals double damage and is nearly immortal, cloud ability that grants him full immunity to anything wile giving absurd speed boost and an exalted skill with massive range and damage that even his clone can use.

De was suppose to make him Good, not godly. Now its almost impossible to see a mission that doesnt have 1 or 2 in it, also the fact that Wukong mains basically just skip the whole map with his cloud form.

[DrivaMain]

13 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

It's one of those oddly balanced things. It adds a lot to weapons that already have a lot, but adds very little to weapons that don't.

It would be better if the crit gains are additive like Arcane Avenger. It’s easier to balance Zephyr with those values and gives low crit chance weapon some extra oomph.

[BiancaRoughfin]

1 minute ago, DrivaMain said:

It would be better if the crit gains are additive like Arcane Avenger. It’s easier to balance Zephyr with those values and gives low crit chance weapon some extra oomph.

That would be ludicrously OP, her passive grants +150% Multiplicative which is more than good enough for majority of weapons to have their oomph.

[DrivaMain]

12 minutes ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

That would be ludicrously OP, her passive grants +150% Multiplicative which is more than good enough for majority of weapons to have their oomph.

Of course the value has to be nerfed, not at 150% additive crit chance. 30-45% seems reasonable.

[Leqesai]

1 hour ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Tell that to the face of a Wukong junkie. Near immortality, clone that deals double damage and is nearly immortal, cloud ability that grants him full immunity to anything wile giving absurd speed boost and an exalted skill with massive range and damage that even his clone can use.

De was suppose to make him Good, not godly. Now its almost impossible to see a mission that doesnt have 1 or 2 in it, also the fact that Wukong mains basically just skip the whole map with his cloud form.

I mean... wukong is actually a god though right? lol

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

2 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Tell that to the face of a Wukong junkie. Near immortality, clone that deals double damage and is nearly immortal, cloud ability that grants him full immunity to anything wile giving absurd speed boost and an exalted skill with massive range and damage that even his clone can use.

De was suppose to make him Good, not godly. Now its almost impossible to see a mission that doesnt have 1 or 2 in it, also the fact that Wukong mains basically just skip the whole map with his cloud form.

I’m sorry what? Iron Staff is the worst exalted melee in the game. It’s actively weaker than most normal melee weapons.

the whole reason people use Wukong is because his other abilities are just generally good and he’s extremely easy to get.

[MrFrog9]

4 hours ago, Leqesai said:

You expected this to be a larger DPS boost?

Already this passive is bonkers. Just crazy that she is able to stay in the air permanently, retain near total immunity with turbulence and additional crit damage potential with tornados. 

IMO this buff to Zephyr is a little more than she should have received. Zephyr in the air is completely over-tuned.

Oh no, you misunderstand me. What I meant was that I'm bad at mental math and the +150% critical chance looked completely absurd to me but when I actually crunched the numbers it wasn't as crazy as I assumed. I'm usually one of the first people to whine when DE overtunes something just to get people to play it. The purpose of the OP wasn't to complain so much as to inform people and offer a bit of commentary and analysis of my own.

I do agree that Zeph feels kind of easymode now lol; it's funny how just making Tornado and Airburst work more reliably make her much stronger just by itself even ignoring the weapon DPS boost. You can just sit on top of a mobile defense objective right now and AFK; nothing will touch you.

4 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Tell that to the face of a Wukong junkie. Near immortality, clone that deals double damage and is nearly immortal, cloud ability that grants him full immunity to anything wile giving absurd speed boost and an exalted skill with massive range and damage that even his clone can use.

De was suppose to make him Good, not godly. Now its almost impossible to see a mission that doesnt have 1 or 2 in it, also the fact that Wukong mains basically just skip the whole map with his cloud form.

funny you should bring up wukong since his rework came alongside both a prime and deluxe skin and was very blatantly overtuned in order to sell both; I suspect DE might have erred high on the zephyr's crit rate for a similarly-cynical reason. Wukong himself has since seen a few nerfs (some definitely intentional, some possibly not intentional) once the hype died down so I expect we might see the same for Zephyr in about 6 months if the critical chance proves too overwhelming.

  E:

4 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

It would be better if the crit gains are additive like Arcane Avenger. It’s easier to balance Zephyr with those values and gives low crit chance weapon some extra oomph.

kuva nukor says hi

[Birdframe_Prime]

15 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

Of course the value has to be nerfed, not at 150% additive crit chance. 30-45% seems reasonable.

Well, 'seems' yes, but actually no.

Harrow's 4 caps out at 50% Additive Crit Chance, and it makes many weapons functionally insane. It was already a meme when it was released to do it to the original Nukor, because the insane Crit Multiplier on that gun resulted in melting things. Then the Kuva Nukor actually had some base Crit Chance and... yeah.

Considering there's a Warframe that needs a whole 4th ability to charge up using enemy damage to reach only a few percent more than you're suggesting there, and it's a genuinely crazy ability when used and maintained for weapon play...

The number seems reasonable, but actually isn't.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

speaking of damage numbers and potential DPS

has anyone tried testing Zephyr's torandos to boost the damage of her weapons against profit taker?

 

yes i'm trying to solo Profit taker with Zephyr.

asking for a guide

[Birdframe_Prime]

16 hours ago, (PSN)Hopper_Orouk said:

yes i'm trying to solo Profit taker with Zephyr.

Wait... you couldn't before?

No, I haven't tried the Tornado boosting damage. But I have previously done Profit Taker solo with Zephyr. Wasn't easy, but was do-able. Now with her new Crit-boosting Passive (rather than the Tornado boosting), I think she'll do alright.

[quxier]

21 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Well, 'seems' yes, but actually no.

Harrow's 4 caps out at 50% Additive Crit Chance, and it makes many weapons functionally insane. It was already a meme when it was released to do it to the original Nukor, because the insane Crit Multiplier on that gun resulted in melting things. Then the Kuva Nukor actually had some base Crit Chance and... yeah.

Considering there's a Warframe that needs a whole 4th ability to charge up using enemy damage to reach only a few percent more than you're suggesting there, and it's a genuinely crazy ability when used and maintained for weapon play...

The number seems reasonable, but actually isn't.

I think it would be "reasonable" if they increase Crit chance by the amount of time she spend in the air (I heard that was what they wanted to do).

On 2021-03-23 at 4:36 AM, MrFrog9 said:

Oh no, you misunderstand me. What I meant was that I'm bad at mental math and the +150% critical chance looked completely absurd to me but when I actually crunched the numbers it wasn't as crazy as I assumed. I'm usually one of the first people to whine when DE overtunes something just to get people to play it. The purpose of the OP wasn't to complain so much as to inform people and offer a bit of commentary and analysis of my own.

And thanks for that. I'm not into whole WF math, how Multiplicative and Additive works etc. Simple "+40%" boost is enough for me.

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, quxier said:

I think it would be "reasonable" if they increase Crit chance by the amount of time she spend in the air (I heard that was what they wanted to do).

They obviously decided against that because it would punish players for landing after they gained the passive. Whether it drained or just ended, you would be punished for doing literally anything, like hacking a console, being in an elevator/lift, reviving a pet or team member, going to pick up objects like the Datamass/coolant/ayatan stars, dozens of things we do on the ground would be punished by causing Zephyr to be unable to maintain that passive.

So, a universal effect that's easily predictable on all weapons (since it's just a Point Strike mod situationally), and you can access the effects of at all times, just like all the other Passive functions in the game.

All bar one. Volt's passive. And Volt's passive sucks. Don't try to give even part of those mechanics to Zephyr.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

They obviously decided against that because it would punish players for landing after they gained the passive. Whether it drained or just ended, you would be punished for doing literally anything, like hacking a console, being in an elevator/lift, reviving a pet or team member, going to pick up objects like the Datamass/coolant/ayatan stars, dozens of things we do on the ground would be punished by causing Zephyr to be unable to maintain that passive.

So, a universal effect that's easily predictable on all weapons (since it's just a Point Strike mod situationally), and you can access the effects of at all times, just like all the other Passive functions in the game.

All bar one. Volt's passive. And Volt's passive sucks. Don't try to give even part of those mechanics to Zephyr.

They could do Wisp hybrid and gradually increasing/decreasing crit chance with different speed. 

You start with 0 Crit chance. Every second in the air increase your Crit chance by 5%. When you are on the ground for <= 1 second (like with Wisp) your Crit chance doesn't change. When you are longer on the ground your Crit chance decrease by 2% per second.

By picking right number you can make it:

- not too hard to to gain

- not too punishing for staying on the ground

- more rewarding for low crit weapons (they could add some multiplicative bonus as well to make both weapons better)

 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

59 minutes ago, quxier said:

By picking right number

Except you're going to get to the problem that I pointed out before this;

If you put on 20% additive, that might work. If you put on 30-50% additive, then you're rivalling a charged Harrow. Harrow, who has to spend 100 energy at base, then charge up his bonus from enemy damage, and Zephyr would get that for free. Or she would be able to maintain that for around 6-10 minutes at a time if she were on a mission with any kind of stationary objective (which, last I checked, is about a third of them) thanks to the incredibly low drain on her Hover.

But, if you only put on 20%, then the number gain over time would either be as long as 10 seconds (in order to keep the percentage gain higher than the drain), or even lower. You could get 20% for 4 seconds in air and then lose it in 10.

It's more than just how fast it would gain or drain, it's a matter of cost when compared to the exact same effect on another frame. Having two abilities do something similar is fine, if one does the same thing but differently to the other, and they each have individual drawbacks that make them comparable. Take Invisibility vs Smoke Screen. One is shorter, but can be cast as a one-handed animation, stuns enemies and also combos with their 4th ability to reduce costs, meanwhile the other is longer, has an interrupting animation and has no other benefits.

So if the Crit Chance bonus on Zephyr were an ability, something you gained by using her 1, rather than passively? There might be some balance you could achieve there, in terms of cost, time investment, requirement for different movement, no team buffs or invincibility etc.

As a passive? It's way more balanced to leave it as a copy of a base mod. That, at least, DE can account for across all weapons because they just add the percentage to the cap of whatever their damage calculations are for base DPS. Leave the additive functions to actual abilities.

[quxier]

15 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

...

There are many ways to balance her "crit increase". You don't have to use any of her abilities to do that.

Wisp is beautiful example what we can do without relying on abilities to balance her invisibility. Even energy usage can play factor in balancing Crit increase.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Wisp is beautiful example what we can do without relying on abilities to balance her invisibility.

Yes, but let's take a look at the balance for Wisp's invisibility: It ends the second you do anything. Land for longer than it takes to bunny hop, use anything that requires 'press X', fire a weapon, anything. Anything besides casting one or two of her abilities ends Wisp's passive invisibility.

Do you want that kind of Balance for Zephyr's crit increase? I mentione Volt, that builds up to an increase, but immediately discharges it. That's the kind of thing I mean. When the balance for a powerful passive is immediately losing it.

I'm not saying that your idea isn't a good one, I'm saying that I do not think it's a good idea with the way DE handles actual power in this game.

The more powerful the passive, the more that you're required to either make sacrifices by not doing things, or make balance functions by using the active abilities to actually make it work.

So yes, the 150% stacking Crit Chance isn't the strongest, and it isn't universally applicable for all weapons due to the balance of those weapons' base crit chance.

It does, however, make her a force multiplier in the right setup, just like many other frames are, and it can have some surprising effects depending on those 'right' setups.

Being limited to a certain type of weapon for the passive isn't a new thing, and her 'limit' is far more broad than, say, Excal's passive.

I'm taking what I've got, and if they decide to make it more powerful, I'm praying that it doesn't come with the costs that DE always puts on these functions.

[quxier]

7 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I'm not saying that your idea isn't a good one, I'm saying that I do not think it's a good idea with the way DE handles actual power in this game.

7 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I'm taking what I've got, and if they decide to make it more powerful, I'm praying that it doesn't come with the costs that DE always puts on these functions.

Oh! Make sense... a lot.