Ideas to make Banshee useful

[Liv.Somik]

Banshee is arguably THE WORST Warframe and it's been true for years. On paper her abilities(excluding ult) should allow her to be a top tier frame, however, for some reason she's just unplayable to most. That's why I want to explore what her problems are, in order to find ways to fix her. 

 

Problems:

1.  Since her passive already silences her weapons, it really makes no sense that her 3 is Silence. Also, stunning once is really a pain because all her other abilities require large range while range kills this ability. 

2. Almost every single frame has a defensive ability, Banshee has none.

3. Her ult Sound Quake almost do no damage with and without the augment, and staggering enemies while you can't do anything is literally useless. 

 

Suggestions:

1. Instead of stunning enemies in the radius once, Silence should emit sound waves periodically to stun enemies. 

2. Give her ult synergy with her other abilities. Maybe like "it sets the frequency of the Sound Quake". For example: 

 - cast Sonic Boom then ult, her ult now shatter enemies' armor and slam them on the ground repeatedly

 - cast Sonar then ult, her ult now cause enemies to hallucinate and attack each other or walk toward the centre of the casting point

 - cast Silence then ult, her ult now emit solid sound waves that cut through enemies

etc. And remove the continuous casting.

 

[Lutesque]

30 minutes ago, Liv.Somik said:

Banshee is arguably THE WORST Warframe and it's been true for years.

I thought the Arcane Ultimatum Build Made her Decent Again... ? 🤔

32 minutes ago, Liv.Somik said:

Since her passive already silences her weapons, it really makes no sense that her 3 is Silence. Also, stunning once is really a pain because all her other abilities require large range while range kills this ability. 

Others have gotten around this problem by drastically lowering her Duration thus  making it it work like Radial Blind without the Line Of Sight Requirement.

34 minutes ago, Liv.Somik said:

Almost every single frame has a defensive ability, Banshee has none.

On the surface that's true... Hence why I mentioned the Arcane Ultimatum Build.... It effectively turns Silence into her Survival Ability.

 

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Liv.Somik said:

1.  Since her passive already silences her weapons, it really makes no sense that her 3 is Silence. Also, stunning once is really a pain because all her other abilities require large range while range kills this ability. 

A better passive would be nice, although I wouldn't put it on a list of things that make her "unplayable to most".  [spoiler: she's not unplayable, just relatively challenging to play compared to most other frames.]

Silence suppresses a lot of enemy abilities, so it's very good with average or high range.   Negative range can be fun, but needs very active play to make work, and like you said, really hampers her other abilities.  So...yeah, I'd like to see Silence's place in her kit improved.    To me though, the best way to do this would be pretty small improvements and/or more synergy with her other abilities.

1 hour ago, Liv.Somik said:

Almost every single frame has a defensive ability, Banshee has none.

She's got three, actually.  😜  Although Sonic Boom is on the weak side, Sound Quake is pretty terrible, and Silence is hard for people to understand.  So yeah, there's room for improvement. 

 

1 hour ago, Liv.Somik said:

Her ult Sound Quake almost do no damage with and without the augment, and staggering enemies while you can't do anything is literally useless. 

Worst base ult in the game, afaic, and would be even if it did ridiculo amounts of scaling health damage.    Although it's much better with the augment.  Not great, but not a travesty either.  Unless you're looking for an actual nuke, where it's still bad past low levels.

I'd love to see Quake replaced completely, honestly.  Although switching the base ability with the augmented one, re-tuning both for 2021, and adding a gimmick or synergy could be tolerable.

 

I do like this suggestion:

1 hour ago, Liv.Somik said:

cast Sonic Boom then ult, her ult now shatter enemies' armor and slam them on the ground repeatedly

...although the armor removal is redundant with Sonic Fracture. 

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

1 hour ago, Liv.Somik said:

Since her passive already silences her weapons, it really makes no sense that her 3 is Silence. Also, stunning once is really a pain because all her other abilities require large range while range kills this ability. 

Others have gotten around this problem by drastically lowering her Duration thus  making it it work like Radial Blind without the Line Of Sight Requirement

That was my first really involved Banshee build.  😎  It didn't really work though.  Partly it was too energy hungry, although I could get around that better now.  But the essential issue to me was: too much time casting, not enough time doing anything else.  Long duration / short range has its issues, but jumping around like a maniac is at least fun.

[NinjaZeku]

Just make Silence recastable while active, including dishing out the mass stun again.

Like, there's plenty other mass CC abilities that can chain stun enemies, and often even deal damage at the same time,
I never quite understood why non-damage abilities like Silence or Chaos aren't allowed to lock down enemies similarly well.

For Sonic Boom, I see some options:

- make the Armor removal from Sonic Fracture part of the base ability
- have enemies impacting walls etc take % Health damage like Frost's Snow Globe push does
- increase the range & damage already so it's about on par with Pull at least

If nothing else were to change, that last one there at least should happen, pretty please.

Her 4 ... yeah it's kinda not great, so here's a random idea for a replacement,
what if you had Banshee enter a kind of "assault mode" where kills give a portion of (Over)Shields, some Energy, and turn her invisible for a few seconds?

That'd help with the whole squish aspect / issue, and her generally Energy-hungry kit.
Plus, because I always appreciate more Squad support options, have the Shield and Energy gains be shared with the Squad.

If that's not "ultimate ability" enough, maybe slap some kind of weapon damage buff on top of it all,
like a flat (small-ish) Crit Chance & Damage boost, or just raw +Damage while invisible / undetected, something like that.

[Lutesque]

4 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

That was my first really involved Banshee build.  😎  It didn't really work though

Aha !!! I thought as much.... I knew it was too good to be true ,😝 !!!