It's time to nerf Wukong

[Erasculio]

Take a look at the Warframe: 2020 Year in Review post. Wukong Prime is the most used waframe in the game; on PC, it's used twice more often than the third warframe in the list (which just happens to be Excalibur, a starting frame), and it only increases down from there. This is often reflected in game: it's not unusual to be in random squads with more than one Wukong Prime.

Usually there's a reason for something to be used so much more than everything else. See the Kuva Nukor, that as seen in the same page was used a lot more often than the other secondary weapons, and was deemed to be too strong by DE, getting a very earned nerf.

Wukong (Prime) has the same issues: it's an outlier that deserves a nerf. It has two main issues:

• The first ability is too passive. It's basically a permanent turret that allows a player to be AFK most of the time, while the Celestial Twin kills stuff.
• The second ability makes movement too easy. People can just cloud across the map, while avoiding all content there.

Between those two points, and to a lesser degree Wukong's passives (which basically allows an AFK player to be killed a few times without any repercussion), Wukong is perfect for degenerate gameplay: stay AFK while other players do stuff, moving very once in a while, and then cloud to extraction when people have done all the work for you.

This is made worse by how Warframe protects AFKers. There's not even a report option for those players.

And, this has also been made worse by the recent limits on the Ignore List. Before, we could simply ignore all Wukong Prime AFKers. But there are far, far more than 100 of those players.

Therefore, I would suggest DE to deal with this issue. And while there were some other ways to fix this (increase the ignore list limit, for example), those wouldn't be dealing with the root cause. So I propose two changes to Wukong's abilities:

1. Celestial Twin: summons a Celestial Twin that attacks your current target with your currently equipped weapon. Lasts for 5 second or until the enemies dies, whichever comes first.

The ability then goes from a very "fire and forget" position (it's the ultimate "f&f" ability in the game) to something far more active. Notice how it requires an enemy to be used.

2. Cloud Walker: turns into an invunerable cloud while healing yourself. You cannot move while this ability is in effect; trying to move cancels the effect.

No more clouding around to skip the game. The ability becomes a defensive tool with a nice self heal, nothing more.

Those two changes would solve the current issues with Wukong.

[sunderthefirmament]

4 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

1. Celestial Twin: summons a Celestial Twin that attacks your current target with your currently equipped weapon. Lasts for 5 second or until the enemies dies, whichever comes first.

The ability then goes from a very "fire and forget" position (it's the ultimate "f&f" ability in the game) to something far more active. Notice how it requires an enemy to be used.

2. Cloud Walker: turns into an invunerable cloud while healing yourself. You cannot move while this ability is in effect; trying to move cancels the effect.

No more clouding around to skip the game. The ability becomes a defensive tool with a nice self heal, nothing more.

Those two changes would solve the current issues with Wukong.

Ick.  No.

 

How about instead of nerfing Wukong (who is enjoyable to play and useful without being overpowered or breaking any content) we give some love and attention to frames that are useless, outdated, underbaked, or any combination of the three?  Ahem, Yareli.  Cough cough, Hydroid.

 

If making changes to existing frames is so taxing on developer resources that they haven't even bothered to think that Hydroid might need some attention, then let's not tax anyone overmuch by making changes to Wukong.  Again, he's fun to play and useful.  He doesn't break any content.

[Leqesai]

14 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

And, this has also been made worse by the recent limits on the Ignore List. Before, we could simply ignore all Wukong Prime AFKers. But there are far, far more than 100 of those players.

 

This sounds a lot like it might be a problem with how you play the game, my dude. 

Why are you spending so much time focused on what others are doing instead of just playing the game. If a wukong player is AFK that's on them. At least the clone kills stuff unlike when people go AFK with other frames.

Wukong is in a solid place right now. I'm not sure why you've got a chip on your shoulder because of Wukong players but it would be healthy to move on. 

Edit:

Also.... Don't you ever talk bad about celestial twin!! It is so fun to use! 😁

I'd love to see an augment that turned it into an ability like you described, however. Something that works kind of like ash's blade storm (lots of twins popping up to do damage). It would fit the wukong mythology a bit more than one static friend.

[Erasculio]

Just now, sunderthefirmament said:

Again, he's fun to play and useful.  He doesn't break any content.

Wukong is pretty useless.

He deals no damage in comparison to the damage-dealing warframes (Ember, Saryn, etc).

He offers no party support.

He cannot heal allies.

He cannot debuff enemies.

He offers very little crownd control.

And, to make it worse, he breaks content by being the perfect AFKer tool.

3 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

This sounds a lot like it might be a problem with how you play the game, my dude. 

Why are you spending so much time focused on what others are doing instead of just playing the game. If a wukong player is AFK that's on them.

Ah, yes.

I'm asking DE to nerf the most used warframe in the game. Of course a lot of players are not going to like this. Imagine someone pre-nerf asking DE to nerf the Kuva Nukor - were this reddit, that post would have been downvoted to oblivion.

And wukong was another issue - AFKers, leechers and exploiters are not going to want DE to nerf it. Since it's the perfect tool for leeching, of course leechers won't want to lose it. So it's no surprise that I'll get answers like "just let people be AFK" or "just let people leech".

[krc473]

18 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

This is made worse by how Warframe protects AFKers. There's not even a report option for those players.

There absolutely is an option to report AFK people. You need to get your evidence they are AFK and send it to support. The I’m-game options are only for chat behaviour.

 

Neither the clone or cloud walker are a problem. Wukong is relatively fun as you can move quickly and get a permanent specter. There is no reason to change or nerf these abilities. The frame is not overpowered. You could explain the extra usage by it being a fun frame. DE would do much better to focus on improving the bad frames so people actually want to play them.

• You mention Excalibur is the third most used - how interesting is he to play? Personally, I am not really a fan.

 

Edit: you should let people leech, it can often be beneficial. It’s pretty easy for one or two people to kill the extra enemies you get from a few leechers. Do report AFK behaviour if it bothers you, but don’t pretend like Wukong is the reason - people will do it with any frame.

[sunderthefirmament]

5 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

Wukong is pretty useless.

He deals no damage in comparison to the damage-dealing warframes (Ember, Saryn, etc).

He offers no party support.

He cannot heal allies.

He cannot debuff enemies.

He offers very little crownd control.

And, to make it worse, he breaks content by being the perfect AFKer tool.

 

He's a fantastic generalist who has the added bonus of moving through levels very quickly and not dying.  These are two things I really like to see in my allies.  As someone who spends most of their time in public sorties waiting at extraction or friendship doors, I love when there's a Wukong (or a 2kong?) on the team.

 

And why are you complaining about how useless he is while also clamoring for nerfs to him?  None of this makes sense.

[Leqesai]

3 minutes ago, krc473 said:

• You mention Excalibur is the third most used - how interesting is he to play? Personally, I am not really a fan.

Same goes for me. Excalibur is about as boring as it gets IMO. 

He does look really cool with the umbra variant but the ability-set is boring.

Also, I think it should also be noted that wukong has incredibly high usage rate partially because it is the fastest frame in the game (for clearing missions). People speed-clear with wukong. If you were to nerf his cloud walker they'd just move on to the next fastest frame and that would spike in usage regardless of whether or not the frame is actually good.

All things considered, I would say Wukong is a solid mid-tier frame but he is certainly not S-tier like Nova or Ivara.

[krc473]

1 minute ago, Leqesai said:

If you were to nerf his cloud walker they'd just move on to the next fastest frame and that would spike in usage regardless of whether or not the frame is actually good.

My concern with this point is what the next fastest would be. I can imagine we would see an increase in Volt speed buff usage. And that’s far more annoying than Wukong can ever be.

[iHeuksal]

I cannot understand the people always demanding a nerf to everything, no matter if they play the content they want to be nerfed (more likely never going to happen in this context) or not, instead of buffing everything else.

Oh right, it is easier to nerf few things than buffing literally everything else.

[Incongruous]

Just add self-damage back into the game and the population of Wukongs would plummet, lol.

[Leqesai]

3 minutes ago, krc473 said:

My concern with this point is what the next fastest would be. I can imagine we would see an increase in Volt speed buff usage. And that’s far more annoying than Wukong can ever be.

Most likely it would be titania. She is far faster than volt and has much better vertical mobility. Volt would be next after her then Gauss then Nova.

[Leqesai]

1 minute ago, Incongruous said:

Just add self-damage back into the game and the population of Wukongs would plummet, lol.

Uh... why?

Celesital Twin has never caused damage to the controlling wukong as far as I know... Specters in general have never been able to damage players.

[sunderthefirmament]

1 minute ago, Leqesai said:

Most likely it would be titania. She is far faster than volt and has much better vertical mobility. Volt would be next after her then Gauss then Nova.

This is lube Nezha erasure, and I won't stand _{^{(or slide)}} for it.

[Leqesai]

4 minutes ago, iHeuksal said:

I cannot understand the people always demanding a nerf to everything, no matter if they play the content they want to be nerfed (more likely never going to happen in this context) or not, instead of buffing everything else.

Oh right, it is easier to nerf few things than buffing literally everything else.

I believe people do this because they see people doing something that they feel impacts their ability to play the game the way they expect it to be played, without their expectation being consistent with how the game is actually played.

Pretty typical human behavior, all things considered. People generally project expectations of others that are reflective of their own biases/experiences and have trouble accepting alternatives to their viewpoint.

[(PSN)Boomstickman98]

How about no. I don't even play Wukong as a main and this pisses me off. So a frame that already isn't overpowered should be nerfed into the ground because why? Maybe 10% of Wukong players you have seen abuse his celestial twin in order to go AFK. I hardly see that as an actual issue. You are quite making a mountain out of a molehill.

15 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

2. Cloud Walker: turns into an invunerable cloud while healing yourself. You cannot move while this ability is in effect; trying to move cancels the effect.

Also, how does that fix anything? all it does is encourage players to occasionally press wukong's 2 and be done with it. While I do agree that the passive is a bit busted, it isn't at the same time, as it brings you back at half health and makes the player panic use their 2. As the 2 currently stands however you have to move to get benefit from it.

Assuming every player that uses Wukong is an AFK Leech though is entirely disingenuous, and you may need to rethink your priorities instead of needlessly bashing on the playerbase.

8 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

I'm asking DE to nerf the most used warframe in the game. Of course a lot of players are not going to like this. Imagine someone pre-nerf asking DE to nerf the Kuva Nukor - were this reddit, that post would have been downvoted to oblivion.

Ah yes, comparing apples to oranges. Lets clear this up for you, the Kuva Nukor could clear crowds at a time from a distance due to the way the chaining worked. Wukong does not have that power. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that both Wukong and the Kuva Nukor are enjoyable to an extent.

 

[Leqesai]

Just now, sunderthefirmament said:

This is lube Nezha erasure, and I won't stand _{^{(or slide)}} for it.

Yeah I forgot Nezha. Nezha would be up there as well.

[-Kittens-]

20 minutes ago, sunderthefirmament said:

useful without being overpowered or breaking any content

Objectively false.

21 minutes ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Ahem, Yareli.  Cough cough, Hydroid.

Because no one plays them and DE isn't going to pay a main designer to normalize legacy content when they can make you pay 200 dollars or more for sidegrades.

 

This is a vanity project, not a game. It's also a business, and you ignoring those facets of production doesn't mean they stop existing.

[Leqesai]

Just now, (PSN)Boomstickman98 said:

Ah yes, comparing apples to oranges. Lets clear this up for you, the Kuva Nukor could clear crowds at a time from a distance due to the way the chaining worked. Wukong does not have that power. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that both Wukong and the Kuva Nukor are enjoyable to an extent.

 

I mean... to be fair... a wukong clone with kuva nukor would do this better than a player... :P

[(PSN)Boomstickman98]

Just now, Leqesai said:

I mean... to be fair... a wukong clone with kuva nukor would do this better than a player... :P

True, true XD.

[sunderthefirmament]

1 minute ago, -Kittens- said:

Objectively false.

Because no one plays them and DE isn't going to pay a main designer to normalize legacy content when they can make you pay 200 dollars or more for sidegrades.

 

This is a vanity project, not a game. It's also a business, and you ignoring those facets of production doesn't mean they stop existing.

I'm going to assume you mean that Hydroid is legacy content, not Yareli.  She dropped just over a month ago, and is still boiled garbage.

[Incongruous]

5 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Uh... why?

Celesital Twin has never caused damage to the controlling wukong as far as I know... Specters in general have never been able to damage players.

Because most Wukongs I saw were using some high-AoE weapons and many of them just Bramma'd their feet after running into a crowd of enemies. Wukong users are prone to using AoE weapons, even more than most other players, so returning self-damage to it's former glory would decimate their population _{^{because as we all know - monkeys can't aim}}. 

[Leqesai]

1 minute ago, Incongruous said:

Because most Wukongs I saw were using some high-AoE weapons and many of them just Bramma'd their feet after running into a crowd of enemies. Wukong users are prone to using AoE weapons, even more than most other players, so returning self-damage to it's former glory would decimate their population _{^{because as we all know - monkeys can't aim}}. 

Did you read my entire response?

Celestial Twin and specters have never caused damage to players with AOE... Reinstituting AOE self damage would not change this whatsoever. Furthermore it would likely encourage people to let their twin use the big boom AOE weapons because they would not be at risk of dying if they let the clone do the work.

[(PSN)Boomstickman98]

3 minutes ago, Incongruous said:

Because most Wukongs I saw were using some high-AoE weapons and many of them just Bramma'd their feet after running into a crowd of enemies. Wukong users are prone to using AoE weapons, even more than most other players, so returning self-damage to it's former glory would decimate their population _{^{because as we all know - monkeys can't aim}}. 

Meanwhile, me having just coming out of a arbitration survival as Wukong using no AoE weapons because I was bored: Sup? 

[Duality52]

23 minutes ago, Erasculio said:

Wukong is pretty useless.

He deals no damage in comparison to the damage-dealing warframes (Ember, Saryn, etc).

He offers no party support.

He cannot heal allies.

He cannot debuff enemies.

He offers very little crownd control.

And, to make it worse, he breaks content by being the perfect AFKer tool

Just because Wukong can't do all of this doesn't mean he's "useless". It will make the game very monotone if all frames get to do all of these effects.

His support isn't perfect, but Celestial Stomp (effectively Rhino's Stomp for the Twin) and Enveloping Cloud offers that support role for Wukong. While I can agree that Wukong is really easy to use, his rework makes his kit and character more in line with the famed Sun Wukong from the Journey to the West.

1 minute ago, (PSN)Boomstickman98 said:

Meanwhile, me having just coming out of a arbitration survival as Wukong using no AoE weapons because I was bored: Sup? 

I mainly use Wukong Prime's weapons (Zhuge Prime and Ninkondi Prime). It's more interesting and satisfying to use him with more obscure weapons than the more popular weapons.

[Incongruous]

4 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Did you read my entire response?

Celestial Twin and specters have never caused damage to players with AOE... Reinstituting AOE self damage would not change this whatsoever. Furthermore it would likely encourage people to let their twin use the big boom AOE weapons because they would not be at risk of dying if they let the clone do the work.

 

2 minutes ago, (PSN)Boomstickman98 said:

Meanwhile, me having just coming out of a arbitration survival as Wukong using no AoE weapons because I was bored: Sup? 

You're taking those posts and this thread way too seriously. These are just pixels on your screen and nobody is taking away your toys. Relax.

Nobody is going to nerf our resident monke simply because it brings too much money and player engagement to DE in it's current state. This thread while valid is not going to change that.