Nekros "Mini Rework" Concept 2.0

[-SilverWolfPrime-]

Nekros "Mini Rework" Concept:

The purpose of this concept is simple. Currently, Nekros has one very clear purpose; Desecrate. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, and he can make a few interesting builds revolving around it, it makes his playstyle with ability use more shallow; press 3, maybe press 4 when you need to tank, ignore his other two abilities seem to be a general trend. The point of this mini rework is to shine some light on some of Nekros' less used abilities, and turn him into something more than just "press 3 to loot" without completely overhauling him.

I'd like to point out that I am by no means an expert on game design, so I don't expect this to be the "absolute" way to give Nekros some buffs. I would also like to mention that I don't believe Nekros needs some help right now; Desecrate alone will always make Nekros relevant and I simply wanted to write down some ideas that improve my all time favorite Warframe.

2.0 EDIT:
This version is an update to the post that I made a little while back. I have decided to update some ideas and give it a bit more polish. This revised version is a bit of a bigger rework than the previous one, but it should make Nekros much more than a "Press 3 to loot" frame, turning him into a sort of jack of all trades frame with a focus in tanking and looting.

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Passive(s):

Spoiler

Soul Harvest: Nekros gains strength from the essence of the souls he harvests, restoring 5 Health with every enemy death within 15m

• Nearly the same as before, with a new name
• No increase to health gain as gaining anymore than that might make Despoil too powerful and maybe(?) make Hunter Adrenline harder to proc?
• Small increase in range to make it more noticeable

(NEW) Purgatory: Nekros makes a count of all the souls he has harvested, shown as a ghastly counter above his energy bar and abilities. 4/5/6/7 orbs surround the counter, representing the current health of all current Shadows.

• This mechanic is sort of a thing already; Shadow's of the Dead will summon 7 of Nekros' most defeated enemies. If he has not killed at least 7 enemies prior to casting, he will summon shadows = the amount of enemies he has killed. This counter serves as a way to help players know the right time to cast Shadows of the Dead, keep track of the health of their Shadows without scrolling over to their individual health bars, and serves as a sort of buff to Nekros' 4, since it now records all of Nekros' kills instead of only remembering the latest 20 kills.
• The kill counter is mainly used for Shadows of the Dead shadows', but can be used for a few other things as discussed later.
• Orbs surrounding the counter will only record 7 souls max. If a Shadow is summoned that can spawn more allied shadows, the newly summoned ally shadows will not have their health shown by any of the 7 orbs.

1st Ability:

Spoiler

(NEW) Soul Punch: Nekros punches a foe so powerfully, their very soul is ejected from their body. The target hit will stagger in place and be Marked for Harvest, and their soul will fly in the direction of the ability cast, dealing damage to all enemies hit by the flying soul.

• 100/200/350/500 initial cast Impact damage depending on Rank, 50/100/150/200 soul projectile Slash damage depending on Rank
• If the target is below 25% health, the target is executed and becomes a Shadow, but their soul will still fly out and damage nearby enemies.
• The initial cast will keep the target in place, instead of ragdolling the enemy. The soul projectile, however, WILL send enemies flying.
• Marked for Harvest only applies to the initial target.
• As it stands right now, Soul Punch is kinda garbage; it is a weak ragdoll ability with an impractical niche effect, and I find that people often Helminth this off in favor of a better ability. This revised version of the ability makes it more akin to the Nekros Prime trailer; literally punching the soul out of someone as a makeshift projectile. This would also allow the Marked for Harvest effect to be a bit more reliable by keeping the target in place rather than finding him among the heaps of slain enemies, making it a slightly cheaper method of healing your Shadows at max or spawning new ones.
  
  I also want to mention here something I didn't in the previous post I made; although this is an upgrade to his 1, I purposely made this so that it would STILL be the choice to subsume if you so decide to utilize the Helminth. I think having Soul Punch be the ability to replace isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the Helminth system offers a lot of options and build diversity that Nekros can easily access. This just makes it so that the REASON for subsuming it would be different; to focus on playing to your strategies or preferencies rather than getting rid of a useless ability.

(NEW) Soul Charge: Holding the ability will cause Nekros to use his harnessed souls and incorporate it into his Void energy, empowering one of his abilities when it is cast next, with more dramatic visual effects. An icon will appear to let players know an ability is empowered.

• Consumes 4 Souls from Nekros' Purgatory counter.
• The next ability Nekros casts will be empowered:
  • Soul Punch: The next 3 casts of Soul Punch will instantly execute an enemy, the soul projectile deals slightly more damage. A counter will appear on Soul Punch letting you know how many more charges you have. If Soul Survivor is used while this ability is empowered, Nekros loses no energy for reviving an ally.
  • Terrify: Armor Reduction will instead be 10%/20%/30%/50%
  • Desecrate: Radius increases to 20/25/30/35 meters for a small amount of time, and lifesteal/damage vulnerability bonuses are doubled for as long as the toggle remains in effect.
  • Shadows of the Dead: Attack power and armor stats are increased for the Shadows. This effect wears off when Shadows of the Dead is recast.
• This is a bit of an oddball addition from feedback of the previous post; this ability allows for some added synergy to Nekros' kit. I'm not sure if I'm entirely satisfied with the idea, but I decided to get this written down to emphasize a sort of Oberon-type frame where Nekros can fulfill many other roles.

(Augment) Soul Survivor: Remains the same.

2nd Ability:

Spoiler

(NEW) Terrify: Nekros strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies, causing them to run away. Enemies affected by Terrify will have some of their life force siphoned away from them, reducing their armor and having a chance to drop additional Health Orbs.

• Armor Reduction stays at 5%/10%/15%/20% depending on Rank, scales with Ability Strength
• 50%/65%/80%/100% Health Orb drop chance that does NOT scale with Ability Strength
• 20%/25%/30%/35% Energy Orb drop chance that does NOT scale with Ability Strength
• Terrify can still be recast. Enemies already affected with Terrify will have slightly reduced odds of dropping Health/Energy Orbs
• Energy cost reduced from 75 to 50.
• Honestly, I'm not sure what I would make this ability better, and this is probably my weakest idea when coming up for a rework. Stack-able armor reduction scaling with Ability Strength and a neat form of CC is a nice to have, but I always find myself struggling to place this is in alongside the rest of his abilities due to the high energy cost (I usually run 100% Efficiency) and while neat, I'm not too huge on the form of CC. For this reason, this rework serves as a way to give Nekros a form of self healing that isn't entirely reliant on his passive or Health Orbs dropped by Desecrate. Having the ability drop Health Orbs would pair well with a lot of what Nekros would normally run anyway (Health Conversion, Equilibrium, etc.), and be a great way to keep the cost of Desecrate in check.

(NEW) (Augment) Halting Terrify: Enemies affected by Terrify will instead be petrified for the duration of the ability, instead of running away.

• Enemies within Terrify radius are feared still in the same way Soul Punch does, lasting for the duration of the ability.
• This updated augment is more or less a way to move it's previous effect to another ability that utilizes it much better, but I figured a nice little bit of CC wouldn't hurt if one decided to use.

3rd Ability:

Spoiler

(NEW) Desecrate: Nekros corrupts the battlefield around him, causing a multitude of different effects. The battlefield becomes scarred with the essence of the damned, bolstering allies and hindering enemies.

• 22.5%/32%/42.5%/54% chance to reroll enemy drop tables on a dead enemy, in a 10/15/20/25 meter radius.
• Using Slash procs on an enemy to cleave them in half with result in two distinct corpses for the rerolls
• Cost changed from 10 Energy per second to 10 Health per second.
• VFX update to more easily tell the radius of Desecrate in game. Imagine a more subtle version of Sevagoth's Gloom with the effects of enemies affected by Terrify, something that personifies the decay and rot that essentially occurs with Desecrate's effect.
• Nekros, his allies, his Shadows, and other allied groups such as NPCs and Specters become bolstered from the essence of collected souls, granting them additional bonus effects.
  • All allies in the radius are granted 1%/2%/3%/5% lifesteal, which scales with Ability Strength
  • Shadows that die in Desecrate's radius will be rerolled for drops, corresponding to the enemy they were animated as. Shadows are also given the lifesteal bonus, which heal Nekros instead of themselves.
• Enemies within Desecrate's radius are hindered in fear from the death and decay, receiving 25%/35%/45%/55% damage vulnerability while they are in radius.
• At first I thought that Desecrate was a perfect ability, and while it is due to its infinite loot potential, there's not really much that can be said about it other than that. What's lacking in this ability is the ACTIVE effects of it. There are none. It only gives additional loot. This was something pointed out to me in the previous post, so I decided to give Desecrate a bit more flair in what it can do. This rework of Desecrate is HEAVILY inspired by Sevagoth's Gloom, not only because I'm KINDA biased favorably towards it, but I honestly believe THAT ability possesses a lot of what Nekros would really like. Here, lifesteal and damage vulnerability are utilized in the ability radius, which focuses on Nekros' survivability and gives him a more offensive boost. The Despoil augment effect is also the new cost here; it's more often than not a commonly run ability, and having the cost be here removes a mod slot from Nekros' already tight space of Mods to choose from.

(NEW) (Augment) Creeping Despoil: Enemies within Desecrate's radius will receive 30%/40%/50%/60% reduced movement speed.

• And speaking of clearing up mod space, this is Terrify's old augment ability on something that can utilize it better. I feel as though slows are important for Nekros to have to make Terrify a more capable ability and make Soul Punch easier to aim, but it's kinda hard to fit in the old Creeping Terrify in a mod list when you would normally be running both Despoil and Shield of Shadows already.

4th Ability:

Spoiler

Shadows of the Dead: Nekros summons shadows versions of fallen enemies to fight alongside him.

• Summons 4/5/6/7 shadows to his side, taking away the appropriate amount of souls from his Purgatory counter. Shadows will still prioritize High priority enemies in the summoning process.
• When Shadows are summoned this way, the 4/5/6/7 orbs around the Purgatory counter will light up, and slowly lower in light at the same rate of decreasing health from the Shadows. Recasting Shadows of the Dead to heal the shadows will also refresh the light of the orbs. (Keeps track of Shadow current health)
• Enemies that are able to spawn additional shadows outside of the initial 4/5/6/7 orbs will NOT have additional orbs in the Purgatory counter for the Shadow-spawned shadows.
• Shadows will now lose 1% of health per second as opposed to 3% health per second.
• Enemies killed with a Marked for Harvest proc will turn into a Shadow, lighting up one of the Orbs on the Purgatory counter, but will NOT add to the Purgatory enemy count (since it is already being used to make a Shadow). If the max amount of Shadows has been reached and an enemy is killed with a Marked for Harvest proc, all current shadows will be restored to full health.
• This ability remains roughly the same as before, but this time with a minor buff and some consistency with the proposed passive from before. I love this ability a lot, personally.

{Augment) Shield of Shadows: Remains the same.