Polishing Sevagoth

[TTraw]

Sevagoth has one of my favourite themes released yet throughout the years of my playtime on Warframe. The guy looks badass, his vfx effects are sharp, his story quest was memorable, and the gimmick of playing 2 different warframes at the same time is such an appealing idea for me that it was the first Warframe I have actually purchased with platinum.

Unfortunately the Sevagoth’s experience wasn’t as enjoyable as I would have hoped for. He definitely can clear a lot of the content, mostly to 1 ability, but I feel like there’s some kind of missed opportunity to make his abilities work with eachother even better. 

While becoming a slow station for your Exalted Shadow is a good design idea, the clunkiness of the Shadow made this frame quite uneasy on me. In the end, Sevagoth’s viability all lies in his 3rd ability and with 4 working as it is I’ve been more and more inclined to replace it with another ability, which significantly improved my experience once I did but left me with 1 overpowered ability, and 2 lackluster ones.

As a result I decided to compile list of all issues I have with Sevagoth (QoL or functinal), as well as solutions and as much synergies I could possibly think of. Think of it as a “rework” of some sort. In theory his abilities are roughly the same, but hopefully they make his kit way more intuitive and cohesive.

_{Note: As always with game design suggestions, numbers are arbitrary. It’s all about the idea and should be treated as such to an extend. And of course, not everything needs to be introduced into the game.}

 

Without further ado:

Reap

• My issues:

  1. Has the gimmick of following your crosshair, but no real reason to actually use it because vulnerability + dmg happen upon activation

  2. Described as if it was an indirect version of his Exalted’s 3 but they don’t work similarly at all? (addressed later)

• My Solutions:

  1. Now can have its tap/hold functionality inverted in Options menu

  2. Ghost duration increased 6 → 15s

  3. Damage vulnerability duration reduced 10 → 5s

  4. In addition to detonating Sow upon cast, Reap will continuously detonate Sow every 1.5s if enemies are in 8m range of Reap (same range as the vulnerabilty reach)

Solution 1. is imo a necessary QoL that adds to customization between players. Solutions 2, 3 and 4 are meant to encourage the aim gimmick to continuously manoeuvre in order to apply that consistent vulnerability. Solution 4 is especially logical because while way worse than just spamming Reap all over again, it allows you to multitask easier and is more energy efficient.

2.  Sow

   • My issues

     • Clunky

     • Plants a “seed”, but doesn't really grow anything?

   • My solutions:

     1. Now can be recast, but only plants seed on previously unaffected enemies

     2. Increase duration 10 → 15s

     3. Damage increases over time, up to 200% of initial value. Enemies that endure Sow for its full duration will spawn an eerie Lotus flower on death. Picking the Blossom fills Exalted Shadow gauge to full.

Solution 1. adds so much needed QoL to this ability. 2. Is here to make it more convenient to use with the new 1, while 3. gives sense for the "seed" theme the ability has going for. Also, 3. suggestion creates a very interesting low duration build for him.

2. Gloom

   • My issues:
     1.  Pretty Overpowered ability. Incredibly strong and for some reason has way higher cap than other sources of slow in the game. Because of this, his other abilities were balanced to feel lackluster
     2. Despite this, Sevagoth himself feels pretty irrelevant because its his subsumable ability, meaning everyone has access to his best strength and most of the warframes benefit from it more than Sevagoth himself.
     3. Anti synergies. While you want to use Gloom to become your Shadow's Slowing station, you also don't want to use it because you lose 2 of the ways of generating energy while gloom is active - picking up energy orbs and Hunter's recovery all are disabled for obvious reasons. Subsuming my Shadow made the energy management go from very hard to incredibly easy, and it imo should be adressed
   • My solutions:
     1. Reduced the slow cap 95 → 80%
     2. Increased the base slow (Sevagoth-only) 35 → 40%
     3. Reduced the base slow (subsume-only) 35 → 30%
     4. While Exalted Shadow is active, energy drain of Gloom is reduced by 50%

Solution 1. intends to reduce the overall power of this ability, while also allowing Sevagoth for better build variety (you wont be forced into so much power strength, combined with not being forced in so much duration due to Reap and Sow chagnes). 2. addresses this as well, and makes it so that, along with solution 3., Sevagoth benefits from Gloom more than other frames. 4 is a synergy that should alleviate the energy problem of using his abilities together.

 

4. Exalted Shadow

   • My Issues:

     • With Reap active, there's 2 Shadows active. Not only it looks out of place, Reap also gets overwritten by Shadow's 3 anyway.

     • Overall Shadow is quite clunky but rest of issues will be answered in the respective ability sections

   • My solution:

     • When Reap is active, Exalted Shadow will spawn in its location instead, and Reap disappears. Leftover duration moves to his 3 (explained later)

Obvious and intuitive solution that could make Sevagoth so much more fun as well.

1. Embrace

   • My issues:

     1. Takes ages to pull an enemy at longer ranges

     2. Enemies get stuck behind walls, slowing down the killing process

   • My solutions:

     1. Increase the pull speed by 50%

     2. No longer pulls through walls

Self explanatory solutions.

2. Consume

   • My issues:

     1. Very hard to move around, gets stuck on everything and everyone

   • My solutions:

     1. Shadow can rotate while using this ability

     2. If not activated via Sevagoth's passive, it pierces through enemies

     3. Recasting this ability will cancel it midway

 

3.  Death’s Harvest

   • My issues:

     1. Recasting it over and over feels like a ridiculous chore, slowing down the kill potential

     2. Is meant to be manual version of Sevagoth's 1, but doesn't feel similar enough

   • My solutions:

     1. When activated, now creates 15s 8m aura that applies 5s Damage Vulnerability to enemies that come close

     2. Every 1.5s of Death’s Harvest will also detonate the Sow seed on all enemies that come within the aura range, just like Reap.

     3. Leftover Reap duration will automatically be moved to Death’s Harvest, activating it, upon entering Exalted Shadow

4. Reunite

   • Hold the ability to return to Sevagoth’s original location

I feel this is one of additional QoL things that could improve Sevagoth's  gameplan while make him way more balanced.

Anyway, would love to hear opinions, negative or not, to form  an open discussion. Expect me to defend my points though, I like designing stuff from time to time as a hobby so I wont fall so easily!

[quxier]

2 hours ago, TTraw said:

Reap

2 hours ago, TTraw said:

Sow

Those abilities seems to be one.

 

2 hours ago, TTraw said:

My solutions:

1. Reduced the slow cap 95 → 80%
2. Increased the base slow (Sevagoth-only) 35 → 40%
3. Reduced the base slow (subsume-only) 35 → 30%
4. While Exalted Shadow is active, energy drain of Gloom is reduced by 50%

Reducing slightly cap (-15%) is ok. Increasing base slow is good (I suggested this as well).

However reducing slowness of of this ability for other frames would make it bad. You would have to either put lot of strength or not use this ability at all. IMHO, 35% is good but 40% (for all frames!) would be the best. What we can reduce are 2 things:

- range - range makes huge field of "you can't touch me" zone (unless you are cheater like some "harpoon guys"). Caping it at some, let's say 120% would be ok, imho. Or it could have reduced range, like 75%.

- energy economy - this ability has great energy economy but as with all things you can cheese stuffs. For my usage, without mods and only Energize 5/6 it was good - if I'm efficient with killing I keep my Gloom for a long time. I talked about that you could have infinite energy (maintaining Gloom ad infinitum) with Protea's Dispensary & mods. First I would disallow Dispensary & Gloom in same build. Secondly I would increase energy drain or enemy cap, let's say, by 25%.

 

This 2 stuffs (range and/or energy economy) would allow Infused-Gloom to be usable but have some downsides (if you really need them...).

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

Embrace

• 1. Increase the pull speed by 50%

I'm not sure if it was like Mag's pull where it "shoot" enemies around you, not to your feet/body. If that's not the case with Embrace - why not.

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

 

2. Consume

   • My issues:

     1. Very hard to move around, gets stuck on everything and everyone

   • My solutions:

     1. Shadow can rotate while using this ability

     2. If not activated via Sevagoth's passive, it pierces through enemies

     3. Recasting this ability will cancel it midway

1. I assume you mean rotating by mouse? Things like Vial'rush steering is BAD.

2. Is it still bounce over some stuffs (e.g. walls) or just travels from point A to point B through some enemies? And if it doesn't bounce from walls (good!) will it still stuck at walls for some time (e.g. like Grendel's ball)? It should just finish animation when it meet walls.

3. Make it on-hold => holding a button will make it do Consume, you release - it deactivates. Holding is better for such things (I'm looking at you Lavos - Vial rush).

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

 Death’s Harvest

• My issues:

  1. Recasting it over and over feels like a ridiculous chore, slowing down the kill potential

  2. Is meant to be manual version of Sevagoth's 1, but doesn't feel similar enough

• My solutions:

  1. When activated, now creates 16s 8m aura that applies 5s Damage Vulnerability to enemies that come close

  2. Every 1.5s of Death’s Harvest will also detonate the Sow seed on all enemies that come within the aura range, just like Reap.

  3. Leftover Reap duration will automatically be moved to Death’s Harvest, activating it, upon entering Exalted Shadow

Is it even doing "something"? /joke

When I've been talking about this ability it seems that there are maybe only few cases where it helps. Damage buff (or whatever) should be calculated so we can see it in any mission only only for certain enemies.

I'm not sure how those changes... changes anything.

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

Reunite

• Hold the ability to return to Sevagoth’s original location

Interesting. It makes fighting/doing 2 things easier. For example you put Gloom around Excavator and then you send Shadow to pick "Energies". You hold a  key and go back. Similar style with Protea.

Of course to make it work you should be able to activate/deactivate it any time not only at the "fullest" meter.

[TTraw]

On 2021-08-08 at 10:46 PM, quxier said:

Those abilities seems to be one.

Idk what u mean by that sentence.

On 2021-08-08 at 10:46 PM, quxier said:

Reducing slightly cap (-15%) is ok. Increasing base slow is good (I suggested this as well).

However reducing slowness of of this ability for other frames would make it bad. You would have to either put lot of strength or not use this ability at all. IMHO, 35% is good but 40% (for all frames!) would be the best. What we can reduce are 2 things:

The difficulty in building up gloom lies in making it energy efficient while having good enough slow and range. A lot of other frames have the "efficiency" part done incredibly easily (Trin, Garuda, Protea) so they can focus on Strength and range only, making gloom significantly better than on sevagoth.

Protea is especially notable with her 100% power strength passive, meaning she needs 172% power strength to cap the slow, has OP energy economy. She can build pretty much max range max slow gloom with good energy economy.

This change moves the strength required from 272% to 266%, with 80% cap only. Meanwhile Sevagoth would only need 200% strength which means he can build for other stuff and make the ability useful as well.

But all in all, the cap reduction was more so to move power from his 3 to his 1,2 and 4.

On 2021-08-08 at 10:46 PM, quxier said:

- range - range makes huge field of "you can't touch me" zone (unless you are cheater like some "harpoon guys"). Caping it at some, let's say 120% would be ok, imho. Or it could have reduced range, like 75%.

- energy economy - this ability has great energy economy but as with all things you can cheese stuffs. For my usage, without mods and only Energize 5/6 it was good - if I'm efficient with killing I keep my Gloom for a long time. I talked about that you could have infinite energy (maintaining Gloom ad infinitum) with Protea's Dispensary & mods. First I would disallow Dispensary & Gloom in same build. Secondly I would increase energy drain or enemy cap, let's say, by 25%.

Disallowing Dispensary & Gloom makes very little sense.  You could technically make it so that frame can only have 1 healing ability per warframe, but making such specfic intercation would be very confusing.

Increasing drain is fine as well, I guess. But that still doesnt adress the issue of frames that can produce incredibly amounts of energy.

On 2021-08-08 at 10:46 PM, quxier said:

I'm not sure if it was like Mag's pull where it "shoot" enemies around you, not to your feet/body. If that's not the case with Embrace - why not.

It works more like a invisible frontal Nidus' Larva rather than Mag's pull

On 2021-08-08 at 10:46 PM, quxier said:

1. I assume you mean rotating by mouse? Things like Vial'rush steering is BAD.

2. Is it still bounce over some stuffs (e.g. walls) or just travels from point A to point B through some enemies? And if it doesn't bounce from walls (good!) will it still stuck at walls for some time (e.g. like Grendel's ball)? It should just finish animation when it meet walls.

3. Make it on-hold => holding a button will make it do Consume, you release - it deactivates. Holding is better for such things (I'm looking at you Lavos - Vial rush).

I dont play Lavos so I cant comment on its steering. But I want this ability to feel way more fluid and not cancel itself when it hits enemies. Your Hold-release function might be better idea, too.

On 2021-08-08 at 10:46 PM, quxier said:

Is it even doing "something"? /joke

When I've been talking about this ability it seems that there are maybe only few cases where it helps. Damage buff (or whatever) should be calculated so we can see it in any mission only only for certain enemies.

I'm not sure how those changes... changes anything.

Basically, currently you debuff enemies for X seconds, then when new enemy appears, you need to debuff them again. My changes make it so that all enemies that will enter your 8m range over the next 15s will be debuffed so you dont need to apply it over and over, only every 15s. Basically it works exactly as Sevagoth's 1, only around the Shadow.

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I like the idea for deaths harvest. I rarely find myself using it. But making it a persistent aura that lasts for a short duration would be very beneficial. Maybe your proposed duration is a bit to high. Because given the potential damage boost it gives I think it would be far more balanced out by being a short duration ability.

I think your reap and sow interaction changes are too strong. Having the explosions be able to consistently go off would decimate literally anything.

Sow should be recastable, but it should work like Nyx’s 2 does when recasting. And it doesn’t need a damage increase. It just needs to have its pointless damage falloff removed.

No gloom nerfs >:(

I wholly agree with the change for reunite. Being able to return back to where you left Sevagoth would be very useful for things like interception.

I don’t know If I’m repeating exactly what you want for Consume. But my idea was to keep it a straight line, and give it an active AOE around shadow when it dashes forward so it can hit more than just the enemy it’s targeting.

 

[quxier]

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

Idk what u mean by that sentence.

I meant that I use Sevagoth's first 2 abilities as one. When I want to use, for example, Gloom I can just turn it on (press 3). I rarely used only 1st or only 2nd ability. Those 2 abilities should be 1 ability.

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

Protea is especially notable with her 100% power strength passive, meaning she needs 172% power strength to cap the slow, has OP energy economy. She can build pretty much max range max slow gloom with good energy economy.

Just because some abilities can be make very powerful doesn't mean they should be nerfed. Not everyone uses "the best" gear. Like Dispensary. Without specific mod/arcanes it's not good. Add some stuffs and (I heard) you can support max-enemy-cap Gloom ad infinitum.

However if I don't use such setup then what? I'm forced to one and only way, which I hate.

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

Disallowing Dispensary & Gloom makes very little sense.  You could technically make it so that frame can only have 1 healing ability per warframe, but making such specfic intercation would be very confusing.

It make sense from power perspective. It's like Xata's whisper (Xaku) has reduced buffs just because it adds some damage.

3 hours ago, TTraw said:

Increasing drain is fine as well, I guess. But that still doesnt adress the issue of frames that can produce incredibly amounts of energy.

That's why I mentioned Dispensary. No Dispensary => less energy.

4 hours ago, TTraw said:

It works more like a invisible frontal Nidus' Larva rather than Mag's pull

I guess it will be fine.

4 hours ago, TTraw said:

Basically, currently you debuff enemies for X seconds, then when new enemy appears, you need to debuff them again. My changes make it so that all enemies that will enter your 8m range over the next 15s will be debuffed so you dont need to apply it over and over, only every 15s. Basically it works exactly as Sevagoth's 1, only around the Shadow.

Sure, but if it doesn't do anything for most enemies then it doesn't matter.

[DevilYouKnow89]

They also need to buff Shadow's base speed. Shadow is unbearably slow when SPRINTING.