Steel Path problem - Mania

[Zilotz]

Hello!

There is a big problem with one specific Akolyte on Steel Path - Mania can lift your warframe and keep it lifted and fully helpless until death.

Not only Mania deals insane amount of damage(kills full health Inaros with fully charged 4th and 3 Blood Altars around in 2 combos)  but it also keeps warframe disabled so you cannot do anything at all.

I see two possible solutions for the problem - or make Sure Footed give resistance to Lifted status or remove Lifted status from Mania's attacks.

All other Akolytes are okay(if we don't count the fact they see thru invisibility which breaks core game logic).

[Lutesque]

20 minutes ago, Zilotz said:

All other Akolytes are okay(if we don't count the fact they see thru invisibility which breaks core game logic).

They also damage you in Void Mode...

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Maybe that means you're not supposed to get close? If only there was an amazing movement system you could take advantage of....

[Pizzarugi]

4 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Maybe that means you're not supposed to get close? If only there was an amazing movement system you could take advantage of....

So players who prefer close range can get wrecked, I guess?

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

5 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Maybe that means you're not supposed to get close? If only there was an amazing movement system you could take advantage of....

If you get more than ~15 meters away he will teleport you to him (like Stalker) and apply a short stun, which is typically enough time to apply lifted and then kill you. He also spams a stronger version of Dispel that has a duration and removes everything (positive) affecting you, even things that aren't normally nullified, and even prevents entering operator mode (which is the only way to avoid the Lifted one-shot).

He is, by far, the most overtuned of the acolytes. Most of the rest are either good with a niche (like the one with the Opticor, or the Mesa-based one), or overly weak (like the Valkyr-based one), but Mania has too many good tools at the same time.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

So players who prefer close range can get wrecked, I guess?

No, they can adjust their playstyle for 2 seconds. So players conveniently now have a rule that they can never shoot or never create distance in a fight huh?

And we don't get wrecked.....we use a vazarin void dash and go hit him..

And if I don't use vazarin....I bullet jump in the air/away and shoot down at him and he dies as I'm landing....

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

4 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

If you get more than ~15 meters away he will teleport you to him (like Stalker) and apply a short stun, which is typically enough time to apply lifted and then kill you. He also spams a stronger version of Dispel that has a duration and removes everything (positive) affecting you, even things that aren't normally nullified, and even prevents entering operator mode (which is the only way to avoid the Lifted one-shot).

He is, by far, the most overtuned of the acolytes. Most of the rest are either good with a niche (like the one with the Opticor, or the Mesa-based one), or overly weak (like the Valkyr-based one), but Mania has too many good tools at the same time.

I'd be in favor of loosening the teleport range.

 

[Pizzarugi]

4 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

No, they can adjust their playstyle for 2 seconds. So players conveniently now have a rule that they can never shoot or never create distance in a fight huh?

And we don't get wrecked.....we use a vazarin void dash and go hit him..

And if I don't use vazarin....I bullet jump in the air/away and shoot down at him and he dies as I'm landing....

So "play my way or get wrecked" then?

RIP close range players.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 minute ago, Pizzarugi said:

So "play my way or get wrecked" then?

RIP close range players.

Grendel can withstand it, so can Revenant and probably inaros (wouldn't known I don't use inaros).

There's ways around it, I was giving you one example. 

There's enough stuff in the game that anyone with an imagination can make it work. 

The steel path is for experienced players after all, not newer people that are gonna ask for nerfs to everything.

[SpicyDinosaur]

It's SP, it is suppose to provide, you know, a challenge.

 

Are close range players the new term for casuals? I didn't even know that was a thing. If it's a problem, adapt.

[Kainosh]

Warframes should be able to break Lifted status by dodging out of it.   It should be like knockdown.

 

 

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

26 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Grendel can withstand it, so can Revenant and probably inaros (wouldn't known I don't use inaros).

There's ways around it, I was giving you one example. 

There's enough stuff in the game that anyone with an imagination can make it work. 

The steel path is for experienced players after all, not newer people that are gonna ask for nerfs to everything.

I'm not sure how Grendel withstands it, Revenant is 100% dead if Mania decides to spam Dispel, and the OP just said that Inaros dies before the lifted status wears off.

Also, fun fact, Lifted is not a status that Rapid Resilience can shorten, for some reason. And when Mania uses it, it ignores all forms of status immunity.

The only frame I know of that can sometimes tank it is Hildryn, and only if she has overshields. The overshield gate triggers and blocks the first part of the attack, and then the main shield gate triggers and gives her enough time for the lifted status to wear off.

That's one frame. Out of 47. You claim Grendel can also survive it. That makes two out of 47.

If Mania didn't have Dispel, I would be fine with everything else he has. Sure, he deals a lot of damage, so be careful, but you can use your abilities to keep him back, resist the teleport or have enough survivability to tank it. With him having Dispel and Lifted at his disposal, and a guaranteed stun, he is impossible to play around unless you get lucky and his AI doesn't do the combo right.

I'll put it this way: DE has been running the "Stalker Mode" game mode at Tennocon for the last few times it's been in-person. You get to play as pre-Second Dream Stalker. From what I've seen of it, against a decent team he has a pretty low chance of winning. Even against a single player it tends to be 50/50 if the defending player is skilled.

If you could use Mania instead, then it would be a guaranteed kill against a single target, and a good chance for a kill against a team, especially since you can teleport one of them to you instead of engaging all of them at once. Because if you use his abilities in the right order (Dispel is only LoS, no range limit, and his Teleport only has a minimum range, no max range, no LoS, so Dispel > Teleport > Lifted combo) then it would be a guaranteed kill against almost any frame. The only reason that doesn't happen every time in Steel Path is because the AI isn't smart enough to do that exact combo every time.

If the only reason you aren't dying to an enemy is because you equipped one exact frame, or because the AI derped, then it's not a good enemy design. The idea behind Warframe is that you can have build and gameplay diversity. Having some frames not be able to do Steel Path is fine. Being forced to run one of a very small list of frames due to enemy design is not.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

9 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

I'm not sure how Grendel withstands it, Revenant is 100% dead if Mania decides to spam Dispel, and the OP just said that Inaros dies before the lifted status wears off.

Also, fun fact, Lifted is not a status that Rapid Resilience can shorten, for some reason. And when Mania uses it, it ignores all forms of status immunity.

The only frame I know of that can sometimes tank it is Hildryn, and only if she has overshields. The overshield gate triggers and blocks the first part of the attack, and then the main shield gate triggers and gives her enough time for the lifted status to wear off.

That's one frame. Out of 47. You claim Grendel can also survive it. That makes two out of 47.

If Mania didn't have Dispel, I would be fine with everything else he has. Sure, he deals a lot of damage, so be careful, but you can use your abilities to keep him back, resist the teleport or have enough survivability to tank it. With him having Dispel and Lifted at his disposal, and a guaranteed stun, he is impossible to play around unless you get lucky and his AI doesn't do the combo right.

I'll put it this way: DE has been running the "Stalker Mode" game mode at Tennocon for the last few times it's been in-person. You get to play as pre-Second Dream Stalker. From what I've seen of it, against a decent team he has a pretty low chance of winning. Even against a single player it tends to be 50/50 if the defending player is skilled.

If you could use Mania instead, then it would be a guaranteed kill against a single target, and a good chance for a kill against a team, especially since you can teleport one of them to you instead of engaging all of them at once. Because if you use his abilities in the right order (Dispel is only LoS, no range limit, and his Teleport only has a minimum range, no max range, no LoS, so Dispel > Teleport > Lifted combo) then it would be a guaranteed kill against almost any frame. The only reason that doesn't happen every time in Steel Path is because the AI isn't smart enough to do that exact combo every time.

If the only reason you aren't dying to an enemy is because you equipped one exact frame, or because the AI derped, then it's not a good enemy design. The idea behind Warframe is that you can have build and gameplay diversity. Having some frames not be able to do Steel Path is fine. Being forced to run one of a very small list of frames due to enemy design is not.

That lifted status comes from his scythe...the same ones we use. You got used to fighting easy fodder with machetes and are now dealing with a taste of your own medicine. 

You're limited to a few frames if you want to melee only like someone else suggested. But otherwise you have many ways (there was only a massive gun update, no big deal I guess)

So yea, if you want to trivialize what's supposed to be a major boss then you'll have to deal with the consequences.

You have plenty of build diversity when you realize the game isn't catering to you meleeing 24/7 with no drawback. It's probably there intentionally to prevent it. It's really common for inexperienced players to just try to remove whatever challenges them: nullifiers, acolytes, slow kuva acquisition, wanting to use abilities in eidolons etc.

This isn't even a discussion with 2 or more players, so the OP basically wants to solo and have no resistance so he can continue to slash through enemies like butter with the most powerful melee.

It's still a team based game, especially in this area of the game meant to be more difficult and force you to use a friend or two or not use casual builds made for relic fissures. 

 

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

52 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

That lifted status comes from his scythe...the same ones we use. You got used to fighting easy fodder with machetes and are now dealing with a taste of your own medicine. 

You're limited to a few frames if you want to melee only like someone else suggested. But otherwise you have many ways (there was only a massive gun update, no big deal I guess)

So yea, if you want to trivialize what's supposed to be a major boss then you'll have to deal with the consequences.

You have plenty of build diversity when you realize the game isn't catering to you meleeing 24/7 with no drawback. It's probably there intentionally to prevent it. It's really common for inexperienced players to just try to remove whatever challenges them: nullifiers, acolytes, slow kuva acquisition, wanting to use abilities in eidolons etc.

This isn't even a discussion with 2 or more players, so the OP basically wants to solo and have no resistance so he can continue to slash through enemies like butter with the most powerful melee.

It's still a team based game, especially in this area of the game meant to be more difficult and force you to use a friend or two or not use casual builds made for relic fissures. 

 

Let me go through your points:

1. Mania uses a Blade and Whip, not a Scythe. Misery is the one who uses a Scythe. I actually like Blade and Whip weapons.
2. The "Major Gun Update" mainly involves getting kills (so not applicable against any acolytes except Misery, since he summons Shades) and dealing Status Effects. The acolytes have a status effect cap, like most other boss enemies. So the weapon types that were least served by said gun update (fast-firing crit weapons or slower AoE crit weapons) are the ones that do best against the Acolytes.
3. If the game is summoning one every 5 minutes, it isn't a Major Boss. It's a field boss at best.
4. It's very hard to fight a melee-focused enemy with non-melee weapons, because they constantly try to close the gap. When you are inside of his teleport range, he can dash or roll to be right next to you, and many good ranged weapons can't deal with that. Beam weapons require constant connection to the target to prevent losing their damage ramp, fast-firing non-AoE require precision to land hits, and slower AoE crit weapons have a large AoE self-stagger, which opens you up to his one-shot. If we could stay 30+ meters away he would be an easy kill, but his teleport ability prevents that.
   Also, I am fine with Nullifiers and other dispel abilities most of the time. I think there are some things that should decay instead of instantly disappearing, but otherwise they are fine. My problem with Mania is that his dispel lasts about 5 seconds, with no way to end that early. If you walk into a Nullifier's bubble, you can leave it or kill them to remove the null effect. If you get hit by a Comba/Scrambus, you can leave the AoE to get your abilities back. In both cases, you can break something (Nullifier's Shield Drone, Comba/Scrambus' helmet) to prevent it before it affects you. There is no counter-play to the acolyte's Dispel.
   And I am not an inexperienced player. I am MR30, have thousands of hours played, have done Tridolons, Orbs, Iso Vaults, Steel Path boss nodes, Raids (when they were still a thing) and other sorts of content with nary an issue. Mania is the only thing in this game that can regularly kill me, and by a much larger margin than anything else I have seen in this game.
   EDIT: According to the Wiki, he can also use Turbulence to shield himself from gunfire and turn projectiles away. So you can only hit him reliably with AoE weapons aimed near him. This explains a large part of why I find him so annoying that I didn't understand before.
5. Most Steel Path nodes have no multiplayer available unless it's one of the daily missions, and even then it can be hard to get a match if the mission type is one that many people prefer to solo, such as capture, spy, or exterminate. Also, as I said in my previous post, Mania could easily get a single kill and leave in a group setting if the AI was better, and again, winning or losing being based on the AI's goodwill is not good game design.

[Zilotz]

34 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

You got used to fighting easy fodder with machetes and are now dealing with a taste of your own medicine.

Nope, just having a broken mechaincs enemy. That's a bit different.

This one has shields/armor/more health than any warframe, partial status imunity, high DPS, dispel, ability to see invisible warframes and thing to disable warframe for enough time to kill.

38 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

there was only a massive gun update, no big deal I guess

What did it bring?

A little bit of added damage from arcanes that are not so easy to trigger on steel path for most of weapons.

Much bigger deal was a huge shotgun 100% status nerf, unlike weapon arcane buffs it actually did affect the gameplay.

42 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

You have plenty of build diversity when you realize the game isn't catering to you meleeing 24/7 with no drawback.

You have a plenty of build diversity outside of steel path. Inside it you have just a few builds that work.

44 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

It's really common for inexperienced players to just try to remove whatever challenges them: nullifiers, acolytes, slow kuva acquisition, wanting to use abilities in eidolons etc.

I don't know how much experience you need to see someone as experienced if the person does not agree with you.

But if we look back into warframe history.... Nullies were created to counter one specific warframe that was nuking absolytely everyting on some maps. That does not happen anymore since years but nullies did stay to bore us. They are not a challenge, just an annoyance.

Slow kuva was fixed already(in several ways including Teshin's shop and rewards in Nightwaves) so no need to discuss it anymore.

Abilities on eideolons would be nice to speed up the runs and allow more build diversity for eidolon hunting.

Acolytes should not be removed, just fixed a bit to bring them to more normal behavior to allow more build diversity against them.

Actually after fixing their unsual behavior(dispels/seeing invisible/damaging thru void/lifting for Mania) i would increase their spawn rate like 2 times.

[Uhkretor]

2 hours ago, Pizzarugi said:

RIP close range players.

Depends on the player though...

 

... I kindly 3-hit it with Melee and move on to the next Acolyte....

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 hour ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

 

1. Some weapons and/or their stances have certain status affects. You should know this as a player that uses the same weapons to slaughter mindless fodder. Since an enemy that is not a mindless fodder has now given you a reason to be careful, it doesn't matter what type of boss you think it is. It's the Stalkers right hand men..  they're supposed to be dangerous. They were already nerfed once and shouldn't be touched anymore because the steel path is for those that are ready.

Another tactic you can use is timing your rolling guard. Once again, not telling anyone how to play, just letting you know the other 739th way to use the tools available in the game.

2. The steel path has increased spawns....every time an acolyte flashes, there are enemies around for me to initiate my gun buffs if they've falling off.

There are already many videos of players using their imaginations to kill acolytes with guns. We have the forums, youtube, and in game chats if you need advice or tips for killing acolytes faster.

3. The game gives you plenty of space and movement to move around tilesets and avoid acolytes. Part of experience is knowing these scripted attacks and how to handle them. Acolytes can still be slowed and CCed.....so you can beam them no problem....there's a video of a Loki using aim glide mods to float in front of an acolyte and hold a weapon trigger on it....it's already been done.....

5. You're boasting about experience and play time....and using the "but my empty nodes" excuse? We have a recruit channel, and the ability to simply ask another player "hello, would you mind doing 30min in steel path with me? I'll be octavia for a nice weapon buff."

And this is the steel path....the entire demographic isn't gonna have access to it because it's meant to be worked up to....you're gonna have to give the bottom 30% of players some time to catch up....the steel path was never meant for all players.

6. And the AI isn't better....so that doesn't matter....the entire game would be harder with better AI....the better AI isn't in the game...so this is a non issue.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, Zilotz said:

 

"But if we look back into warframe history.... Nullies were created to counter one specific warframe that was nuking absolytely everyting on some maps. That does not happen anymore since years but nullies did stay to bore us. They are not a challenge, just an annoyance."

I just want to clarify what you're saying....

You're saying people don't nuke anymore....so we don't need nullifiers...because they were for 1 single frame back in the day....but people don't nuke anymore so everything's fine....

Is that what you're saying? Just want to make sure. 

[Graavarg]

Maybe, just maybe, we are actually not supposed to be able to easily and simply kill each and every boss or mini-boss we encounter?

And also, maybe just getting close and whacking on them with our super-duper weapons shouldn't always be an automatic win?

Just like the other acolytes Mania is beatable, if you know his abilities and can handle your own. And "knowing his abilities" does not seem to be the case here: Mania uses Lacera (high status electric Blade and Whip, with a pull & ragdoll effect I think), it is Violence that uses Silence (preventing abilities if you are too close), Mania also uses Loki's Switch Teleport (he is actually switching place with you, not teleporting you close) etc. etc.

[Zilotz]

On 2021-11-28 at 9:12 PM, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

"But if we look back into warframe history.... Nullies were created to counter one specific warframe that was nuking absolytely everyting on some maps. That does not happen anymore since years but nullies did stay to bore us. They are not a challenge, just an annoyance."

I just want to clarify what you're saying....

You're saying people don't nuke anymore....so we don't need nullifiers...because they were for 1 single frame back in the day....but people don't nuke anymore so everything's fine....

Is that what you're saying? Just want to make sure. 

I'm saying that ability that did nuke whole map in a fingersnap does exist anymore so nullies are not required.

People do nuke but at much smaller scale now(they would nuke more if it was possible but it is not).