Could a Warframe that drains melee Combo count work?

[ChiefWolfZ]

So we have Shield drain frames (Hildryn & Valkyr paralyze), Health Drain Frames (Nekros w augment & Garuda Bloodletting), passive drain frames (Nidus, Baruuk, Sevagoth - kinda), and a Cool down based Frame (Lavos). As the title states, would a Frame who's abilities run off of melee Combo count work? You can get 12x Combo count (13 with Venka Prime) and if the abilities drain 3, 4, 5, 6 combo count (reduced by efficiency of course) and do some pretty cool interactions could it work? Also with a passive similar to the Xoris where Combo count doesn't passively drain out of combat. This could allow for gun play, but also require melee play. It seems it could be a well rounded kit. Only downside is that i could see Heavy attack builds not being ideal for this Warframe as they would counteract your warframes abilities. 

[Lutesque]

Considering how Heavy Attacks work...what would be the point ? 🤔

In between Combos Resetting and and Heavy Attacks draining the entirety of your Combo instead of just a portion.... I can't imagine a Warframe built around the idea....

Just so we're clear.... I think your Idea is cool.... Kudos and showing more Creativity than DE.... I just think DE won't do it because they would first have to fix the issues with Melee first.

 

[quxier]

39 minutes ago, Finale said:

Also with a passive similar to the Xoris where Combo count doesn't passively drain out of combat.

This was my first problem - you need to attack in order for combo not disappearing.

You said unlimited duration like Xoris but there exist things like heavy attack efficiency (mods and/or Zenurik) or slow drain of another school.

Unlimited combo sounds nice but... I don't think it would happen. You would give every weapon unlimited  12x combo and as we learnt from Xoris nerf it's not good.

In my opinion some slow drain (affected by efficiency) would be ok.

 

45 minutes ago, Finale said:

if the abilities drain 3, 4, 5, 6 combo count

This would be too much, especially 1st and maybe 2nd ability. It would either require weapons that can gain combo very quickly (e.g. Stropha) or this frame should help in gaining combos somehow (e.g. every enemy hit gives you +100% combo chance).

 

If you couldn't get enough combo then you wouldn't even get a chance to play a frame.

So in my opinion first few abilities (e.g. 1 & 2) should have very low cost but those abilities could be used many times (e.g. spammable).

Cost shouldn't be in combo multiplier but combo count (combo multiplier: 1-13x; combo count: 0-220). First abilities could drain e.g. 10 & 20 combo count. This would allow you to use them. You just need to be careful not to overuse them.

 

4th ability on the other hand requires a lot of combo. However if you want to use other abilities as well then you need to gain a lot more combo. In your example (3x, 4x, 5x, 6x) I would need 9x combo. It may force us to gain that much combo without using his abilities. So abilities should make something for a long time or abilities should have very low cost. That would be easy but...

... we could separate combo from abilities' energy. 4th may have "meter" that fills when you sustain some combo (e.g. 4x) for some time. Something like Gaus' "speed meter" - some abilities fills it, some abilities drains from it. In case of "Combo frame" only 4th would drain it (e.g. 10% of that meter). This would allow you to use 4th more than just once "half a hour". Of course "the school that drains combo" would need some lower "meter gain".

 

 

1 hour ago, Finale said:

It seems it could be a well rounded kit.

The thing is... what this frame would do?

I guess it would be melee oriented (that allows some gunplay) but what's more. Ideas:

- buffing damage (meh)

- buffing range (interesting)

- combo gain chance (not just flat +100% but it should require some work)

- Exalted weapon (not something boring as Sevagoth's Shadow's Claws!).

- new effects for melee (effects on different action like slide, aim glide + strike, slam attack etc); something that improve melee's "feel"

- Sarpa prime/vandal/prisma (just kidding).

 

 

To sum up:

It could work but it requires a lot of thoughts.

[(PSN)Unstar]

Technically, they can do anything they want, so it could work.  Though personally I wouldn't want this because I'm hoping combo count is removed, and coupling it with a Warframe would make that much harder to do.

[-Krism-]

So this would be a melee based frame

I'm sure they could find something to make it work, afterall , the three last frames we got, Xaku, Lavos, & Sevagoth, are all very good. Lavos especially with his cooldown mechanic

[(XBOX)Ampathetiic]

Just now, quxier said:

Unlimited combo sounds nice but... I don't think it would happen. You would give every weapon unlimited  12x combo and as we learnt from Xoris nerf it's not good.

Keep in mind Xoris was only an issue because of the interactions with exalted weapons and pseudo-exalted abilities. If this combo frame doesn't have those interactions (or is balanced around those interactions), we wouldn't have that issue. We'd still have unlimited combo, which is effectively what Naramon already does, but without even the small amount of maintenance that Naramon demands.

 

1 hour ago, Finale said:

Also with a passive similar to the Xoris where Combo count doesn't passively drain out of combat

 I tried designing Valkyr around the combo counter, and one of the ideas I thought was useful was, along with a built in Naramon Power Counter, having an effect trigger when the combo expires, such as a shield restore (cooldown need in that case to prevent shield gate abuse), or a stunning

Unlimited combo (or an alternative that achieves the same effect) shouldn't be the passive imo, for the same reason Lavos' status duration passive isn't his main passive, and Nidus' Mutation stacks aren't his main passive. It's something that needs to be part of the kit for the kit to function properly.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

That could "easily" work if that frame was forced into using only one melee weapon that was exclusive to them. Basically imagine Garuda was only allowed to use her claws as melee weapon or Sevagoth shadow already is in a situation like this. This way you would avoid potentially breaking the rest of the game. Ultimately this frame would be kind of like a WoW rogue. Melee, melee, melee, finisher (ability cast). You could even take it a step further and let abilities do different things or let them scale or have increased duration depending on how much combo you've built to spend.

[Aldain]

Too clunky imo, also Corrupt Charge would basically make it a non-issue.

[Teridax68]

I personally think draining the combo counter could be how Excalibur's Radial Javelin could get fixed. If it acted as a heavy attack and drained Excal's melee combo counter to multiply its damage (and perhaps dealt some better base damage as well), it would be worth using as an occasional nuke without risking it becoming spammy. There are likely plenty of other ways to implement this sort of effect on melee-themed frames, so yes, I absolutely do think it's possible for warframes to have abilities that drain their combo counter.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, Aldain said:

Corrupt Charge would basically make it a non-issue.

CC changes.. what?

[Spoldozer]

4 minutes ago, quxier said:

CC changes.. what?

Gives you a +30 start combo, but it makes said combo last half as long (at max rank)

[(PSN)Unstar]

7 minutes ago, Spoldozer said:

Gives you a +30 start combo, but it makes said combo last half as long (at max rank)

This is a semantic nitpick just to make sure the idea is communicated clearly, but if Corrupt Charge is equipped, your combo will never fall below 30; it's only combo above 30 that will be lost if you don't keep hitting enemies with your now-reduced combo duration.

Because of this, as long as an ability cost below 30 combo units, you'd never have to stop casting it.

[Berzerkules]

I don't think there would be enough enemy spawns on normal star chart to maintain combo count if you were using combo as your energy pool. With the extra enemy spawns in SP it could work but, DE can't really release a frame that only functions in SP.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Spoldozer said:

Gives you a +30 start combo, but it makes said combo last half as long (at max rank)

Ah, you mean this:

1 hour ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Because of this, as long as an ability cost below 30 combo units, you'd never have to stop casting it.

Good thing to keep in mind.

I guess we can:

- disable +N initial combo

- make ability not to powerful bot worth frequent use (e.g. in my opinion Inaros's subsumable ability is fast & cheap)

- other...

[BRZZAFK]

It will be pointless. You only need 2 or 3 sec to max combo in right melee build. It will be trivial mechanic that player either cheese it or get annoy by it.

[0_The_F00l]

I actually like this idea and i think it could work,

Kinda wish that excalibur had this as a thing cause he is the blade boy, but i can see a berserker type frame use it as well.

but first let us differentiate between Combo count and combo multiplier.

Combo count: Number of attacks that connected/ avoided with melee

Combo multiplier: which is what affects the acolyte mods like bloodrush and weeping wounds, Combo multiplier= floor(Combo count/20)

we can have abilities cost 25 , 50 , 100 , all combo count to provide certain effects.

One can only have 220 counts (240 with venkas passive) so you cant spam , but you can relatively easily get maxed count in a short time.

If the passive is something like Naramon or xoris that would be a minor issue, i am leaning towards naramon in addition to have a permanent 50% chance to gain additional combo count.

yeah , will need to think what to do with the abilities but i am thinking "master at arms" able to switch between a hammer , sword and polearm and perform various abilities depending on which weapon is currently selected (3 exalted weapons that are fueled by combo counter instead of energy)

1 ability to switch between weapon type (hold to perform throw like exodia contagion),

2 ability performing action based on weapon (hammers create quake causing impact stun making enemies drop stuff , polearms is thrown doing damage in a line puncturing and when returning will give armor  , sword will do radial attack with guaranteed slash) the stats will depend on combo multiplier before ability is cast.

3 ability giving self buffs , hammer would make you immune to stagger/status , polearm would give damage bonus, sword would give speed,  stats will depend on combo multiplier before ability is cast.

4 ability would bring out the selected weapon as exalted for a fixed duration , all abilities will cost no combo count until ability is active.

[Galuf]

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Keratinos

Keratinos is a decent weapon wich allows to mindlessly kill anything while moving forward with absurd range through most game content up to steel path if you factor in helminth buffs, however it has a worst farming potential than most strategies and is obviously way weaker than good melee weapons damage wise.

The issue with combo count synergie is that it is bound to using quickening(better than the exodia actually for combo count) and stances that hit a bunch. So my take is that if DE releases spells that consume combo counter it would introduce forced synergies gameplay loops wich are bad design by default and those gameplay loops would be less potent than the actual meta where things already one tap everything without having to rely on other mechanics.

[Shadowbladedeathkiller]

no

[(XBOX)ONI Prowess]

i was always hopeful they would do away with the current incarnation of the combo multiplier when they talked about a devil trigger system.

was thinking of something like devil trigger / wicked weave build gauge (nodes, 1-12 like current combo) that once built would be permanent but drain on trigger / weave usage.

mechanics would be reduce the effectiveness of current scaling mods a bit (blood rush etc.) but have trigger / weave usage be stronger then current scaling mods. 

even better would be to have bonuses other then straight damage applied to trigger / weave usage, like significant increases to melee range, bonuses to parkour velocity, slam range, etc.

this would add another build set to melee weapons:

-heavy attack builds

-traditional scaling combo counter builds

-and builds with mod bonuses that trigger primarily during devil trigger / wicked weave usage

 

current combo duration extenders could be switched over to extending the duration of a trigger weave usage. say if a devil trigger node lasted 5 seconds per activation, and mods extended it by 2 seconds, 3 seconds, etc. other mods could act like corrupted mods, things like further increase trigger / weave range but REDUCE trigger duration, etc. 

 

but thats just wishful thinking. 

[Aldain]

Also, wouldn't people just use the Xoris and bypass the whole thing alltogether for infinite energy?

I mean who cares if you're using a subpar weapon, spam abilities enough and it won't matter (unless you're Hydroid).

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Aldain said:

Also, wouldn't people just use the Xoris and bypass the whole thing alltogether for infinite energy?

I mean who cares if you're using a subpar weapon, spam abilities enough and it won't matter (unless you're Hydroid).

Xoris would make "energy" (combos) not drain. It's not the same as infinite energy. You would still need to gain combos.

Secondly it depends what abilities it would use. As one user said:

12 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

2 ability performing action based on weapon (hammers create quake causing impact stun making enemies drop stuff , polearms is thrown doing damage in a line puncturing and when returning will give armor  , sword will do radial attack with guaranteed slash) the stats will depend on combo multiplier before ability is cast.

You would want to use certain weapon or at least weapon type. Some weapon types would be more useful but... that's whole problem with melee's stances.

12 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

1 ability to switch between weapon type (hold to perform throw like exodia contagion),

Changing between stances would be interesting as well. Well... one weapon would have unique feature (dark split sword as fair I remember).

[0_The_F00l]

9 hours ago, quxier said:

You would want to use certain weapon or at least weapon type. Some weapon types would be more useful but... that's whole problem with melee's stances.

Changing between stances would be interesting as well. Well... one weapon would have unique feature (dark split sword as fair I remember).

Yeah the dark split sword is the reference of what I am proposing.

An "omni " exalted weapon that can switch between weapon types.

I just gave hammer , polearm and sword as an example as they are closest to our IPS elements as well as good reference on range , speed and movement types.

Yeah some weapon types would indeed be better , but that's just a core issue with weapon vareity and balance overall.

 

[kgabor]

If the frame also had a mechanic, like an ability or a passive to speed up the process of gaining higher combo counts.

Ash kind of already does this, with 4.-s augment multiplying the combos and Bladestorm scaling off of combos. (except it doesn't drain your combos)

[quxier]

6 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

I just gave hammer , polearm and sword as an example as they are closest to our IPS elements as well as good reference on range , speed and movement types.

I would just use hammers. Other stances are not interesting in my opinion. ;)

 

3 hours ago, kgabor said:

If the frame also had a mechanic, like an ability or a passive to speed up the process of gaining higher combo counts.

Ash kind of already does this, with 4.-s augment multiplying the combos and Bladestorm scaling off of combos. (except it doesn't drain your combos)

Excal has it as well with his dash ability (not sure if you need augment).

[Aldain]

2 hours ago, quxier said:

Excal has it as well with his dash ability (not sure if you need augment).

You do need the augment, and it isn't that good of an augment, especially with how easy combos are to build these days.

It only doesn't need the augment while you're using Exalted Blade.