Idea For A Sound Quake Replacement + A Few Other Tweaks

[(PSN)OmegAmorbis]

Banshee is a bit of a mixed bag atm. She can still put in work with decent cc, a cheap armor strip with the Sonic Fracture augment, and the ludicrous damage of Sonar, but overall she could still use some touchups. We'll start with the new ult, since it has interactions with some of her other skills.

 

New 4th ability: Wail (100 energy; useable in air)
Banshee lets out a keening cry which causes enemies in range to violently resonate with sound, slowing them. Killing affected targets causes them to release a small radial shockwave which staggers and deals high damage to anyone in range when they die. 

Duration: 14/18/24/30 seconds
Range: 12/14/16/18 meters (Wail range)
            3/4/5/6 meters (shockwave range)
Strength: 100/150/200/250 Impact (initial damage)
                150/250/350/500 Blast + 20/30/45/60% of enemy max health (shockwave damage)
                10/15/20/25% slow

Note: Wail is certainly thematically fitting, but more critically it doesn't lock her down like Sound Quake, and adds a bit to her survivability while providing another solid source of damage.

Sonic Boom
Now knocks down enemies instead of ragdolling them, and debuffs their accuracy for a time thereafter.

Duration: 10/12/15/18 seconds (debuff time)
Strength: 20/30/40/50% accuracy debuff

Note: Knocking enemies back is more useful in some niche situations, but I think a knockdown would be better overall. The debuff gives Sonic Boom more innate utility.

Sonar
Casting Sonar on targets affected by Wail will generate an additional weak point per cast.

Strength: 1 additional weak point generated

Note: Sonar is already a great ability, and the synergy with Wail allows it to be even more efficient.

Silence
Now stuns enemies once every 5 seconds throughout its duration. Renders Wail's explosions silent, provided they are within Silence's radius.

Note: The fact that Silence's stun generally only applies once has always been confounding to me. Having it now be periodic will benefit high duration builds, rather than punishing them.

 

Honestly, Banshee is not even a frame I use very much, but the challenge of figuring out a new ultimate for her was an enjoyable one. Initially I was going to rework Sound Quake rather than replace it, but then the idea for Wail took hold and I found it more appealing, so I ran with it. Suggestions or critiques are welcome, and thanks for reading.
 

[Tiltskillet]

I don't know about the numbers, but I love that new Ult.

Honestly, I'm skeptical about the other changes though. 

Sonic Boom needs something, and I bet your proposal would make it more popular.  But I can't help it-- I'm hooked on the ragdoll.

The Sonar/Wail synergy isn't bad, but I don't think Sonar needs to be more efficient, exactly.  

I think your proposal for Silence is too strong--especially as a subsume--if it's keeping its ongoing ability suppression.  If it's not keeping that, then I think I prefer the current version. (Although yours would still be very powerful for Savage builds because of the "stealth" damage bonus.)

44 minutes ago, (PSN)OmegAmorbis said:

The fact that Silence's stun generally only applies once has always been confounding to me. Having it now be periodic will benefit high duration builds, rather than punishing them.

I think the idea is to leverage the stun with mobility and lethality.  Get in--wreak carnage--get out.  That's what works for me, anyway... except when it doesn't. 😉 But all part of the fun, IMO.

[Zhoyzu]

the new ult is just one of her ults past iterations.

 

The internal synergies are a nice touch and no, sonic boom needs the ragdoll.

[(PSN)OmegAmorbis]

3 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

The Sonar/Wail synergy isn't bad, but I don't think Sonar needs to be more efficient, exactly.  

I don't disagree with that, but I do like anything that saves me energy and especially button presses

3 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

I think your proposal for Silence is too strong--especially as a subsume--if it's keeping its ongoing ability suppression.  If it's not keeping that, then I think I prefer the current version.

The ability suppression is something I always forget that Silence has. As for whether it should stay..I don't know, honestly. Hard to know if it would all be too strong in practice.

4 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

I think the idea is to leverage the stun with mobility and lethality.  Get in--wreak carnage--get out.  That's what works for me, anyway... except when it doesn't. 😉 But all part of the fun, IMO.

Interesting to see someone who feels this way, because I'm the exact opposite. You may be right about how it was intended to be used, but in practice I've always disliked it.

3 hours ago, Zhoyzu said:

the new ult is just one of her ults past iterations.

Is it? I don't remember Sound Quake ever being like this, but maybe that was before my time.