Suggested changes to Frost

[Atlas_II]

Some suggestions for changes to Frost's kit;

 

His 1 FREEZE: change to freeze a single target for a period of time making them a static non-threat and applying an ice shatter mechanic. Deal damage to a frozen enemy up to a threshold, then the ice shatters doing large damage to the frozen target and any targets in an aoe around it.

His 2 ICE WAVE: operate similarly to how it does now, but change to dealing minimal damage on cast but leaving behind a slowing field on the ground that ramps into an outright freeze with the same shatter mechanic as his 1.

His 3 SNOW GLOBE: should be left as is, reasonably effective static area defense augmentable to also freeze enemies.

His 4 AVALANCHE: change to operate as a detonate ability. On cast, shatters the ice on any frozen enemies in a large aoe dealing all shatter damage simultaneously.

 

Frost's abilities tend to be fairly unimpactful and lack synergy. His most useful ability, snow globe, works as intended but static area defense is seldom that important.

With these changes Frost's mechanical gameplay loop would be to freeze individual enemies and place slow/freeze fields in choke points to freeze multiple enemies taking enemies out of the fight for an extended period, then using his 4 to detonate all frozen enemies dealing large damage that scales based on the number of frozen enemies detonated. Even without using avalanche as a mass detonate, frozen enemies can act as aoe clear by strategically freezing enemies in groups, or freezing enemies then luring other enemies closer, then using weapon damage to shatter the frozen enemy damaging the entire group.

 

I think these changes would make Frost stronger, more fun, and give him an enjoyable and powerful gameplay loop within missions. 

Final note, I wanted to describe changes in the simplest terms that would have the biggest impact. There are lots of finer details that could use adjusting, but this is the idea in terms of gameplay. Less is more.

[Zhoyzu]

2 hours ago, Atlas_II said:

Frost's abilities tend to be fairly unimpactful and lack synergy. His most useful ability, snow globe, works as intended but static area defense is seldom that important.

 

I think you need to play frost more before making such an assumption.

[(PSN)OmegAmorbis]

2 hours ago, Atlas_II said:

His 1 FREEZE: change to freeze a single target for a period of time making them a static non-threat and applying an ice shatter mechanic. Deal damage to a frozen enemy up to a threshold, then the ice shatters doing large damage to the frozen target and any targets in an aoe around it.

I like this mechanic quite a bit, though I think giving it to Ice Wave as well will just make Freeze completely useless. Clearly, something needs to change with one or both of those skills, but in a way that they can fill more distinct roles.

 

2 hours ago, Atlas_II said:

His 3 SNOW GLOBE: should be left as is, reasonably effective static area defense augmentable to also freeze enemies.

Snow Globe needs a way to scale better into higher levels. Having to spam them just to get a decent amount of health is a bad workaround, even more so given Frost's low base energy. Perhaps killing frozen targets near one could add a portion of their health to it?

 

2 hours ago, Atlas_II said:

His 4 AVALANCHE: change to operate as a detonate ability. On cast, shatters the ice on any frozen enemies in a large aoe dealing all shatter damage simultaneously.

I like this a lot. Avalanche is a solid ability as is, but it largely renders his first 2 abilities moot, and this seems like a good fix to that.

[Azamagon]

To me, a problem with Frost (like many older frames, like Ember and Ash) - he has too much kit overlap and redundancy. His 1, 2 and 4 freezes and/or slow enemies down along with flat damage, while his 3 ALSO slows down enemies alongside its protection. I'd make the shatter either occur on freeze's expiration or on reaching that damage treshold.

I like what you did to Freeze, I'd definitely go with that shatter-idea, and make its nuke-damage scale with enemy levels or something, so it stays decently relevant for longer. I'd also make it freeze everything in its entire AoE, and leave the slowdown field (now made more like a "sphere", than just a patch on the ground), regardless if it hits enemies or environment. I also think the shatter-nuke should occur either on hitting the treshold OR when the freeze-duration expires.

Making the augment baseline for Ice Wave is nice, but I'd not make it freeze things, so it stays different from Freeze and Avalanche. I'd maybe add a bit raw damage to it via a slashproc (considering it's supposed razorsharp ice, as per its description), and also give it an impact-proc to give it some brief hard CC for safety. Maybe make it deal more damage to frozen targets as well? I'd love to buff it more, but it's also his Subsume-ability, so care needs to be taken here.
What would replace its augment though?

Snow Globe has a bit too much immediate offensive power for my tastes imo, with its pushback effect. The pushback seems like it could easily be moved elsewhere in his kit (more to that on Avalanche). I'd change its interactivity a bit too:

• Casting Freeze on the outside of the globe still detonates it, but this instantly causes Freeze's shatter-effect on all enemies inside ot it! - Offensive synergy
• Holdcasting Snow Globe while inside a Snow Globe gently collapses the globe, giving a portion of the Globe's health to Frost and nearby allies (split evenly among affected allies). - Defense-on-the-move option.

Avalanche is quite decent, imo. I'd really not want it to be a "detonator", as it's his main CC-ability, which I'm personally quite fond of. Maybe raise its armorstrip a tiny bit (from 40% to 50%) would be in order though. I could see it pushing enemies away a bit (though not particularly violently), instead of Snow Globe - I mean, it's called Avalanche after all. Alternatively, the pushback could be given to Ice Wave (but I'd only make it push back FROZEN enemies), perhaps?

His passive needs a mention too. Something simple like a slight slowdown (25%?) on enemies within 4 meters of Frost would be a nice, simple, reliable and decently effective anti-melee defense.

I'd also make Cold-procs a bit more relevant. Such as; On top of the slowdown, also increase the damage taken by the target by 15% + 5% per additional proc (for a max of 60% damageboost). Not huge, but not nothing either.

 

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

👌

[TARINunit9]

@Atlas_IIyour text doesn't work in the forum dark mode. It's light grey highlighted white

[Venus-Venera]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Atlas_II:

Some suggestions for changes to Frost's kit;

 

His 1 FREEZE: change to freeze a single target for a period of time making them a static non-threat and applying an ice shatter mechanic. Deal damage to a frozen enemy up to a threshold, then the ice shatters doing large damage to the frozen target and any targets in an aoe around it.

His 2 ICE WAVE: operate similarly to how it does now, but change to dealing minimal damage on cast but leaving behind a slowing field on the ground that ramps into an outright freeze with the same shatter mechanic as his 1.

His 3 SNOW GLOBE: should be left as is, reasonably effective static area defense augmentable to also freeze enemies.

His 4 AVALANCHE: change to operate as a detonate ability. On cast, shatters the ice on any frozen enemies in a large aoe dealing all shatter damage simultaneously.

 

Frost's abilities tend to be fairly unimpactful and lack synergy. His most useful ability, snow globe, works as intended but static area defense is seldom that important.

With these changes Frost's mechanical gameplay loop would be to freeze individual enemies and place slow/freeze fields in choke points to freeze multiple enemies taking enemies out of the fight for an extended period, then using his 4 to detonate all frozen enemies dealing large damage that scales based on the number of frozen enemies detonated. Even without using avalanche as a mass detonate, frozen enemies can act as aoe clear by strategically freezing enemies in groups, or freezing enemies then luring other enemies closer, then using weapon damage to shatter the frozen enemy damaging the entire group.

 

I think these changes would make Frost stronger, more fun, and give him an enjoyable and powerful gameplay loop within missions. 

Final note, I wanted to describe changes in the simplest terms that would have the biggest impact. There are lots of finer details that could use adjusting, but this is the idea in terms of gameplay. Less is more.

it would be much better to post it in the feedback forum. contributions are taken seriously there.🙃

[(PSN)Unstar]

31 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

@Atlas_IIyour text doesn't work in the forum dark mode. It's light grey highlighted white

It's actually got nothing to do with the mode, it's a literal screen-capture of grey text highlighted in white, haha

[(PSN)Unstar]

5 hours ago, Atlas_II said:

Some..

I think this is the section of the forum you're looking for: https://forums.warframe.com/forum/1219-feedback/

[(PSN)robotwars7]

17 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

@Atlas_IIyour text doesn't work in the forum dark mode. It's light grey highlighted white

IKR? I HATE it when people do this:  I mean why? you don't need to make the text a certain color because default text changes to be white for Dark theme and Black for regular theme, so DON'T FIDDLE WITH TEXT COLOURS!

as for frost, it's mainly an issue with his kit being too specialized on defensive combat when most Ice-wielding characters I've used in other games put Ice to offensive use. a few ideas for him:

- new passive: Cold Armour. allies within Frost's affinity range gain a protective ice layer that increases armor. also applies to allies on Winter's Ground (read on for more on that)

- Freeze now has an AoE, deals additional impact damage, and keeps an enemy frozen in one spot. hitting them deals 3x damage. if the enmey is shattered, they drop an Icicle Shard, which converts Frost's next cast of Freeze to launch Icicles at the enemy, which will not freeze enemies, but will deal massive Slash and Puncture damage.

- Ice Wave replaced with Winter's Ground: Frost makes the area around him an Ice rink, slowing down all enemies within it's range. castings again whilst on Winter's Ground causes Ice Spikes to rise up and impale any enemies on the ground, dealing massive damage.

- Snow Globe acts as it does now, but the player can hold the cast to create a moving bubble (like the ones used by Arctic Eximus units). it has less durability and is smaller, but frost and his allies can huddle up and fight as a unit, and allies within the globe can be given a cold damage boost. 

- Avalanche: works as before, but holding to cast could now create a whirling blizzard that can slow enemies and  eventually freeze them if they can't escape within a few seconds. if the Blizzard is cast onto a Snowglobe, the globe is destroyed, sending ice shards flying in all directions.