Lavos tweaks to make him less clunky

[IdrisQe]

So I got Lavos recently and I like him, but his playstyle feels REALLY clunky, mostly due to the way his cooldowns are implemented (TP being his main status spreader for Catalyze, but being best used AFTER Catalyze, and also being his 2nd longest cooldown) and the way his infusions work, as well as how his status spreading is kind of not great without the Cedo or more status weapons, and some ability jank.

So I came up with some relatively simple tweaks that would make him much more pleasant to use.

COOLDOWN-REDUCTION VARIETY, LESS STRICT "OPTIMAL" ABILITY USE ORDER:

-Lavos additionally removes 2s from the cooldown of each ability on picking up an energy/universal orb (only obtainable every 5s due to his passive's pickup cooldown anyway; this cannot be bypassed with Synth Fiber on Universal Orbs).

-Every ability will remove cooldown from itself and other abilities, making efficiency more pleasant to build for, the following being a rough guesstimate at 100% efficiency:

OB: 0.2s per ability per enemy hit, 0.5s per ability per 200 health restored.
VR: 0.05s per ability per meter travelled (without hitting a wall, cancelling early, etc), 1s per ability per direct enemy hit with a vial
TP: 0.3s per ability per enemy hit
CA: 0.1s per enemy hit
Each ability only being able to reduce its own cooldown to a minimum of 3s.

This would encourage rotating his abilities (which the cooldown playstyle already seems to try, but with the cooldowns as they are, it doesn't feel quite right)

INFUSION QUALITY OF LIFE FOR LESS FINGER STRAIN:

-When Lavos uses an elementally-infused ability, the UI element will turn grey, allowing it to be overwritten by any new infusion button-hold, but if it isn't overwritten, it will continue to apply to any abilities he uses so you don't need to re-infuse EVERY ability if you want to use the same elemental type each time. This would make two-element infusions much more viable on a controller and for people with finger mobility issues.

If this is deemed too much Quality of Life, it could be limited to the next 4 casts, indicated by dots on each corner of the infusion diamond UI or something.

STATUS SPREADING WITH ABILITIES OTHER THAN 3 MADE EASIER:

-Make Vial Rush and Ophidian Bite more useful for actually spreading statuses for Catalyze to use:
Currently Transmutation Probe is his best status spreader for Catalyze to make use of due to its range, but it also is mainly meant to be used AFTER Catalyze to lower its cooldown. The above fixes that, but it still doesn't change that his other abilities are awkward to spread status, with Ophidian Bite having a (relatively) small cone of effect and Vial Rush being nearly impossible to accurately aim unless you just group enemies up against a wall and slam headfirst into it:

OB: Each hit enemy will emit a 3m-base wave which applies the default Toxin and Infused status to each other enemy hit by the wave, only if Lavos is on max health already.
VR: While in use, Lavos has a chilling aura (affected by range) around him that will apply the Infused status and Cold status to any enemy he passes by or impacts.
CA: The Heat from Catalyze and its Infused element will count toward the damage increase if the enemy isn't immune to heat procs, since the status will be applied. (Basically just fixing the issue where it doesn't count toward its own bonus because the status is technically applied after the damage is done, despite being his best radial ability)

ABILITY QUALITY OF LIFE:

-Give Transmutation Probe basic pathfinding like Sevagoth's Reap so it doesn't get uselessly stuck on objects so often. Maybe make it follow the cursor as well like with Reap when you're aiming. The straight-line thing is really limiting its use as a status spreader, damage, or even its utility as a transmuter.

-Catalyze will visibly leak a stream of the burning gel under each Catalyst Probe, giving the ability the vertical reach it desperately is missing so long as you cast it high up. The leaking gel will not pass through walls. It will additionally deal 1.25x damage to an enemy for each status effect they are immune to, making it still useful as damage against status-immune or partially-status-immune enemies.

 

So yeah here's my less-of-a-rework-more-just-refactoring-what-his-kit-already-is Lavos tweaks.
^{And yes I know DE isn't looking into doing frame reworks any time soon but given we got pseudo-bulletjumping for Yareli's Merulina most of this should be easily doable.}

[(XBOX)maledicus GER]

I played him again after a while and clunky is a bit nice, on console i would say he's nearly unplayable .. it begins with secondary firemodes with controller gameplay to use the Cedo right and ends with the micromanagement of Lavos abilities.

It would help alot if the chosen elements just stays active until we load up another, but loading up new elements after every use of an ability is killing all QoL alone.

I would really love to play him,because i like his visuals & kit & theme, but i'm an older gamer and all this pressing down the right stick ( paddles of scuf or elite controller do not really help in this case ) just to fire the Cedo secondary is killing my thumb on top his micromanagement with controller.

I hope DE sees reason to change something here.

 

[Teridax68]

I can agree with a lot of this: Lavos I think will forever be clunky so long as he continues to rely on cooldowns, but allowing him to reduce them could help matters. I also very much support making his infusions persistent, as having to re-infuse an element into every ability cast is genuinely RSI-inducing. I'd also like to add the following to the above:

• Change Lavos's abilities so that they can work at an angle from the ground. Allow Ophidian Bite to be actually aimed, instead of always angling the cone parallel to the ground, allow Vial Rush to give Lavos a burst of momentum in the direction of the cursor instead of dragging him across the floor, allow Transmutation Probe to also travel in a line and float, rather than hover above the ground, and have Catalyze spread out in a sphere. Warframe is a 3D game, so it makes no sense to have a frame whose abilities only work in 2D.