Eximus Reborn: Dev Workshop

[Marcooose]

April 20th, 5:30pm - Updates to information on Overguard, Limbo's Rift & Cataclysm, Banshee's Silence, and Guardian Eximus AOE resistance.
April 22nd, 4:30pm - Clarified information on Limbo's powers and Eximus interactions with the Rift

Tenno,

As seen briefly on Devstream #160 and #161, we are re-working one of our oldest foes in the game: Eximus units! Introduced in Update 12, Eximus units were added as ‘Enemy Leaders,’ meant to bolster their allies with improved stats and support abilities. While that core design intention still rings true, we felt it was time they were given a refresh to bring them up to speed both in terms of their gameplay and their appearance in-game. Dress for success, especially when you’re a top enemy in the field. 

We’ve also put together a handy Dev Workshop video that provides a broad overview of the changes listed here, check it out to get a feel for all the changes coming! 

The main objective of this Eximus Rework is to make them stand out more in battle, both in how they function and in how formidable they are to face against. We aim to achieve this in 2 ways: 

1. Amplify their threat with increased time-to-kill - accompanied with justifying rewards!
2. Enhancing their visual and mechanical functions to be more identifiable in combat.

These two shifts for Eximus units should make them more challenging to kill, but also make their specific threats easier to identify, giving players a more tactical way to evade them. 

To amplify the Eximus threat and increase the time-to-kill we’ve made tweaks to their:

• Warframe power resistances - which we are calling Overguard
• Health, Shield, & Armor scaling

Currently, the different Eximus types have slightly different resistances and combat advantages. For instance, Arson Eximus will reduce Fire Damage taken; Leech Eximus will add extra Puncture Damage to its damage dealt. These stat changes are invisible to a player and don’t really have any noticeable impact on gameplay. Instead of keeping unique but forgettable specific resistances to Eximus units, we’re adding a new universal type of Eximus resistance and tweaking the way their Health, Shields & Armor scale across the board to turn them into more formidable adversaries. 

Warframe Power Resistance: Introducing Overguard
As seen on Devstream #161, Eximus units will now have a new kind of defense called Overguard, which is a new Health pool on top of their regular stats that a) must be removed before players can take down their Health/Shields, and b) offers additional immunities to the Eximus, making them a priority target in-missions.

While Overguard is active, it will keep Eximus units immune to Warframe crowd control abilities and anything that will stagger, knockdown, stun, mind control, ragdoll, and blind. Additionally, Overguarded enemies will be unaffected by Radiation Status Effects and will be susceptible to a maximum of 4 Cold Status Effects at one time. However, Overguard is particularly susceptible to Void damage, which will overall improve the flow and synergy between Warframe and Operator combat flow when engaging with Eximus units. This will encourage you to engage with them more interactively as opposed to easily overpowering them with abilities alone. It should shift the focus of fighting Eximus units to using a mixture of weapons and teamwork, and make Eximus units feel like more of a true threat to Warframes. 

Overguard is an additive amount independent of Enemies Health/Shield scaling, and is indicated with a bar overtop of their existing Health/Shields. With the goal of making Eximus units more consistent in terms of difficulty, Overguard will scale by level but will be the same amount across all Eximus enemy types. 

Once an Eximus has their Overguard taken out, they will be fully susceptible to crowd control abilities. Once taken out, Overguard does not regenerate! An important note for Hound Companions Null Audit functionality: Hounds will now copy Eximus Auras, as opposed to stealing. If an Eximus with active Overguard is struck by a Hound wielding a copied Eximus ability, they will strip the Eximus’ Overguard by 50%.

Overguard was introduced as a means to make Eximus units feel more formidable, while also providing Tenno a way to crush their defenses with some solid teamwork and concentrated firepower. 

With the addition of Overguard, we’ve updated the scope of which abilities are considered to be crowd control. Note that these abilities will still do their intended damage -- it is only the crowd-control effect of the abilities that won’t apply while Overguard is present

• Sevagoth’s Gloom
• Chroma’s Effigy: Sentry
• Xaku’s Gaze
• Garuda’s Seeking Talons
• Mirage’s Sleight of Hand
• Mirage’s Prism
• Khora’s Ensnare 
• Volt’s Discharge 
• Baruuk’s Lull
• Harrow’s Condemn
• Excalibur’s Radial Blind 
• Ivara’s Quiver: Sleep arrow
• Revenant’s Reave
• Revenant’s Mesmer Skin
• Inaros’ Desiccation 
• Yareli’s Sea Snares
• Limbo's Banish
  • Eximus ignore the knockdown effect of Banish while Overguard is active, however they can still be sent to the Rift plane regardless of Overguard 
• Limbo’s Stasis

Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive to all Warframe abilities that Overguard is resistant to, simply ones that we are now considering Crowd Control. 

Limbo’s Rift & Eximus
Limbo can still send Eximus to the Rift plane where their damage will be avoided, but Eximus Abilities will now ignore the Rift plane. 

• Originally this Workshop listed ‘Limbo's Rift & Cataclysm’ to now be considered CC, but this was not an accurate description. Limbo can still send Eximus to the Rift plane while Overguard is active.

Overguard: Banshee's Silence
Banshee's Silence will now negate any active Eximus abilities and prevent any Eximus abilities from being cast while it is active. Guardian Eximus Shields (and their AOE resistance), Toxin Clouds from Venomous Eximus, or the Arctic Dome from the Arctic Eximus will all be disabled.

• Note: the friendly 90% damage reduction Aura from Guardian Eximus, and the Arctic Eximus slow aura will not be disabled by Silence (This may be subject to change!) 

Overguard: Ancient Healers
Currently, Ancient Healers provide a 90% damage reduction to their allies in range and increased resistance to crowd control abilities. Visually, this is only indicated by a pulsing glow on buffed enemies in range. This is often confusing if you don’t already know that the crowd control resistance and damage reduction is being applied from Ancient Healers. 

We have changed Ancient Healers to provide allies in range with Overguard that is applied at 9x their overall Health.  This value simply matches the current level of damage reduction and crowd control resistance provided by Ancient Healers, but with Overguard it will now provide a clear visual indicator that the enemies are being boosted by their Ancient ally!

Overguard can be taken out on enemies bolstered by Ancient Healers through a few different ways: 

• Dealing damage to Overguard 
• Killing the Ancient Healer providing Overguard
• Drawing them out of range from the Ancient Healer
  • Currently, any enemy that receives an Overguard buff from an Ancient Healer is one time only, they cannot receive Overguard again when back in range or from a new enemy Healer

Unlike Ancient Healer Eximus, non-Eximus Ancient Healers provide Overguard to allies in range but do not have it themselves. Overguard from Ancient Healers will not apply and stack with innate Eximus Overguard. Also, friendly Ancient Healers (such as Specters) will not be providing Overguard on players in this rework, but this functionality may come in a future update! 

Health, Shield & Armor scaling
Health, Shields, and Armor for Eximus now all scale faster at higher levels up to a point, where it eventually flattens out and doesn’t scale exponentially, giving them a boost to their overall tankiness. Our intent here is to give a slight boost to enemies like Butchers more than Heavy Gunners, and to make difficulty more consistent across enemy types. A Heavy Gunner will still be tougher than a Butcher might be, but the gap between the two will be much closer than if it was affected by a traditional flat multiplier. Across the board, this should make the difficulty of any given Eximus more consistent regardless of enemy type. Note these changes are only for Eximus units, their regular counterparts will retain the same scaling tech. 

Armor will also have a similar method of scaling, by boosting low-armored enemies more than high-armored enemies it will help close that difficulty gap between enemy types. For enemies without Armor, they will get additional Health and Shields outside of the regular Eximus scaling to compensate. 

As a result, Eximus overall should feel beefier, scale faster at a higher level, and be more consistent across different enemy types.
 

Visual & Mechanical Enhancements: 
We also want to make Eximus stand out more, so we gave unique visual identifiers for each type of Eximus! They now each have their own blend of distinct audio and visual FX that will help you identify them more easily in combat, and also give you a better way to recognize their Eximus type and tactically evade their abilities. 

Supported Eximus Type per Faction:
We’ve made changes to widen the eligibility pool of certain Eximus types - all with supporting casting animations:

General Pool for all Factions: Arctic, Blitz, Energy Leech, Leech, and Shock
Corpus Specific: Guardian
Grineer Specific: Arson
Infested Specific: Venomous

Corrupted versions will use the same pools as their original faction (so Corrupted Ancients could use Venomous, and Corrupted Lancer could use Arson).

Archwing Eximus
Archwing Eximus units will not receive Overguard. It is mainly being excluded because Archwing combat is more limited in the ways that you’d be able to take out Overguard. Archwing gear itself does slightly less damage than its ground counterpart and has a smaller pool of crowd control abilities. Overall, we believe it to be a better fit to simply update the Eximus abilities and effects, but leave Overguard for the ground Eximus.

New Eximus Mercy Functionality
As a part of the Eximus Rework, we have also updated the condition to Mercy Kill certain Eximus that did not have this in the past! 

Here is a list of the new Eximus types that can be finished with Mercy Kills: 

• Mutalist MOA’s
• Amalgam MOA’s
• Deimos Carnis
• Crawlers
• Nox
• Embattor MOA’s
• Amalgam Heqit 
• Amalgam Machinist 

In addition, we have fixed all Crawler Eximus units so they can now cast their respective Eximus abilities! Watch out for your toes, Tenno. 

Below is a list of each Eximus type and a comparison of their current vs reworked versions:

BLITZ / VOLATILE 

Current
A Seismic Shockwave knockdown with short range.

NEW
Blitz Eximus units now summon a frontal chain Blast attack by slamming their fist into the ground, applying a knockdown and Blast Status Effect. This Blast attack is signaled by an audio cue and FX of the oncoming Blast erupting from below.

Visual Changes
Blitz Eximus units are now covered in crackling energy, with the addition of small staggered explosions coming from their limbs.

 

ENERGY LEECH / PARASITIC 

Current
An invisible aura that drains Energy over time.

NEW
Energy Leech and Parasitic Eximus units now periodically spawn an Energy Leech Zone near the player. The Energy Leech Zone is detonated within seconds, draining a large amount of Energy if not tactically avoided. This Zone is identified by an expanding energy zone and audible cue on placement & detonation.

Visual Changes
Energy Leech and Parasitic Eximus units now appear shrouded in Void-like energy, manifesting in short tendrils swirling from their body. The Energy Leech Zone spawns with a matching energy style and appearance before imploding in a burst.  

 

ARSON / CAUSTIC 

Current
A concussive Fire Blast attack that knockdowns and damages enemies caught in its wake.

NEW
Arson Eximus units maintain a Fire Blast attack, but you can now counter the Fire Blast by simply rolling through it to negate its oncoming effect. However, Damage is now higher along with a forced Heat Status Effect when struck.

Visual Changes
Arson Eximus units are now completely engulfed in roaring flames. They occasionally send out these deadly flames in all directions as a slow rolling burst. The Fire Blast attack has been visually refreshed to not only match the fire FX engulfing the Eximus unit, but also to represent a “roaring wave” of fire as opposed to a blinding wall.

 

GUARDIAN

Current
A radial shield charge pulse for allied enemies in range. 

NEW
Guardian Eximus now provide significant damage reduction to its allies (your enemies!), which is indicated by a collection of smaller shields circling around them.The Guardian Eximus units have 3 rotating shields that fully block incoming damage on themselves, and also create a similar visual effect on nearby allies that applies a Damage Reduction buff on them. This damage reduction does not affect VIP enemies such as Demolysts, Capture targets, or Bosses, and does not stack with other friendly Guardian Eximus. However, it will affect other Eximus units within a range!  

Important Note on Guardian Eximus related to AOE attacks:

On 2022-04-20 at 5:35 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

Guardian Eximus Shields are immune to punch through, and Guardians have very high resistance to AOE damage for themselves.  Units protected by the Guardian's aura are not immune to punch through nor do they have any special resistance to AOE, just the generic 90% resistance to everything.

Visual Changes
Guardian Eximus units now exhibit 3 large blue rotating shields. These shields have visible gaps between them, offering multiple opportunity windows to shoot your foe. Allies with Overguard applied now display a simpler version of the shields with similar rendering but with a different shape to avoid confusion. The smaller shields on buffed allies do not physically block damage like their Eximus counterpart, but act as a visual indicator that Damage reduction is being applied. 

ARCTIC /  FROZEN

Current
A large protective globe of ice. 

NEW
No changes.

Visual Changes
The globe does the job already!
 

LEECH / SANGUINE
https://gfycat.com/limitedangelickouprey

Current
Life steal from player on damage, but this is negligible due to the scale of Player vs enemy Health.

NEW
Similar to their Energy counterparts, Leech Eximus now spawn Health Leech Zones which tick away at your Health shortly after spawning, healing nearby enemies. Players need to avoid the Zones to avoid the effect!

Visual Changes
Leech Eximus units glow red with a pulsing vortex of energy generated from its core. The Eximus sends out a small zone of the same energy which quickly pulses as it drains a portion of your Health. Killing the Eximus or downing it into a Mercy state will disrupt any active health leech zones.

 

SHOCK / BIO-ELECTRIC (new) 

We have added a new Eximus variant by allowing Infested enemies to now become imbued with electric energy! Introducing: Bio-Electric Eximus, the newest Infested Eximus threatens to shock any Tenno to their senses if they fail to evade the Infested Eximus or their lethal homing electric orbs. 

Current
A small electrical Damage Over Time area. This is difficult to notice until hit with an Electric Status Effect. 

NEW
Shock Eximus/Bio-Electric Eximus spawn 3 electrical orbs that will hover in place for a few seconds, dealing increasing electrical damage around the Eximus before being released and homing in on the Player. The damage from these electrical orbs scale with level. Killing the Eximus or putting it into a Mercy state will destroy any active Orbs. 

Visual Changes
Shock Eximus have mini versions of the electrical orbs orbiting around them, while they also appear to be covered and crackling with electricity.

 

VENOMOUS 

Current
A small Toxin area. Similar to shock Eximus, but Toxin damage is more lethal since it lingers on players. 

NEW
Venomous Eximus units become surrounded by a swirling volume of Toxic gas upon being alerted. Coming into contact with the gas will inflict a Toxin Status Effect. Now, only enemy melee units can become venomous Eximus units. Stay clear of their impending noxious fumes! 

Visual Changes
Venomous Eximus are tightly shrouded in toxic fumes. Upon being alerted, these fumes expand into a zone surrounding the Eximus in a deadly haze. 

 

REWARDS
To accompany the increased threat from Eximus units, we’ve further boosted the Affinity gained from killing them by +200%. Additionally, Eximus units now drop Credits and Endo at an increased rate. This will consistently scale as well for their Steel Path counterparts on top of the usual rare chance of a Riven Sliver! 

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Considering Eximus enemies are now more formidable, that strength is amplified when encountering Eximus units in a pack. To help counter that in different parts of Warframe we’ve made the following changes: 

• There will be 50% less Eximus on ‘Eximus Stronghold’ Sortie conditions
• Syndicate Death Squad/Platoon sizes have been reduced:
  • -1 of disfavor Squads reduced from 5-10 to 3-5 
  • -2 of disfavor Platoons reduced from 10-15 to 5-7
    • The drop chances for Eximus Specter Blueprints have been increased to compensate for the smaller Syndicate Death Squad size
• Warden Eximus units in Rescue missions have not received these new Eximus upgrades, to ensure they are just as easy to stealthily remove as before.

Thank you all for reading this lengthy Developer Workshop! We hope you enjoy the refresh on Eximus units and their new host of updated abilities and effects. While this Dev Workshop can provide a glimpse into the changes, the best way to experience them will be taking on the new Eximus in the field once Angels of the Zariman has gone live!

Caution Tenno, there’s a heavy unit approaching... 

[Taiepii]

The whole change look amazing for the gameplay it will offer. 
The new resistance system, visual FX, force engagement and so on. No doubt it will be a great update and make the Eximus an interesting foe to attack.

However I'm a bit concern about the reward part.  

REWARDS
To accompany the increased threat from Eximus units, we’ve further boosted the Affinity gained from killing them by +200%. Additionally, Eximus units now drop Credits and Endo at an increased rate. This will consistently scale as well for their Steel Path counterparts on top of the usual rare chance of a Riven Sliver! 

Hopefully that does not end up like the Steel path first release where player decided to do Survival camp due to the advantage it had in term of Eximus spawn and so Steel Essence farm when back in the days Steel Essence was Eximus drop. 

[-Gwanox]

awsm conclave eximus when?

[Voltage]

Nice to see. Hope this goes smoothly. The qualification of Crowd Control does seem weird though.

EDIT: I should have clarified my intention with this part of my comment. I didn't mean to make it sound like I had not read the post. My concern is that this damages endurance based resource farming as Molecular Prime, Pilfering Strangledome/Swarm, and Equinox's Rage all affect enemies that may be considered "CC". While on paper this might not sound like a big deal, you're indirectly hurting Hema research progress (which is fine as is and doesn't need to be worsened), rare resource farms, etc. 

The Void Damage note is cool, but please foresee that this will just encourage more usage of Xata's Whisper, a subsume ability rather than the Operator in many cases. This highlights why Helminth undermines specific Warframe kit identity (instead of one niche for Xaku, it's every Warframe's ability) in some cases or here where it undermines the intention to make Operators have a better role in practical combat.

EDIT: I want to add with the edit  to Silence that this concern applies yet again. This encourages more people to use Silence rather than Banshee herself, just like how Void Damage encourages using the ability itself rather than choosing Xaku (or the Operator in that case).

Any consideration on if/how Eximus will be affected by AoE? The Kuva Zarr/Bramma/etc. situation with either Celestial Twin, On Call Crew, crafted Specters or just spamming as a player has been plaguing the game for quite a while now. Engaging with enemies is undermined by letting AI play for you or shooting through geometry. Looking at optimized Arbitrations or how Fissures play. These changes look like a step in the right direction, but they don't seem to make any practical difference with how they are dealt with or encountered.

On a side note, Archwing gear dealing "slightly less damage" is a bit misguided. Furor still gives a terrible attack speed percentage for Archmelee, Archguns can only get Faction Damage from a Riven Mod (making it an exclusive multiplier), and modding in general is considerably weaker (Multishot being one of these underwhelming stats). Archwing could use some desperate TLC to bring it up to other weapon archetypes and allow for more changes to enemies. Railjack sidelined Archwing improvement, and it's starting to show age with inconsistencies, issues, and appeal creating falloff of engagement and little reason to use them outside forced usage which are areas both of which that have these new Eximus coming (Orphix and Profit-Taker).

[JimmuTanno88]

uhhh..this is kind of cool, but I can really really not understand the logic for nerfing CC frames/powers and leaning even more heavily into an already really really damage-nuke heavy meta?
Although if that list is any indication, any ability that "affects" an enemy is CC by DE's standards...
I do like the overall idea I just think this could be really bad for the use of already "unpopular" frames, especially in higher difficulty content like arbis terrorized infested arbi screaming 👀'

[Lord_Khaavren]

How will Overguard interact with Banshee’s Silence that had the ability to nullify eximus auras as one of its specific functions?

[Numerounius]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

Overguard: Ancient Healers
Currently, Ancient Healers provide a 90% damage reduction to their allies in range and increased resistance to crowd control abilities. Visually, this is only indicated by a pulsing glow on buffed enemies in range. This is often confusing if you don’t already know that the crowd control resistance and damage reduction is being applied from Ancient Healers. 

We have changed Ancient Healers to provide allies in range with Overguard that is applied at 9x their overall Health.  This value simply matches the current level of damage reduction and crowd control resistance provided by Ancient Healers, but with Overguard it will now provide a clear visual indicator that the enemies are being boosted by their Ancient ally!

Overguard can be taken out on enemies bolstered by Ancient Healers through a few different ways: 

• Dealing damage to Overguard 
• Killing the Ancient Healer providing Overguard
• Drawing them out of range from the Ancient Healer
  • Currently, any enemy that receives an Overguard buff from an Ancient Healer is one time only, they cannot receive Overguard again when back in range or from a new enemy Healer

Unlike Ancient Healer Eximus, non-Eximus Ancient Healers provide Overguard to allies in range but do not have it themselves. Overguard from Ancient Healers will not apply and stack with innate Eximus Overguard. Also, friendly Ancient Healers (such as Specters) will not be providing Overguard on players in this rework, but this functionality may come in a future update! 

What about shields though? This is a nerf not a change to make it "Consistent"

 

 

On the ancient healing specters if this change was made to apply to them: It also nerfs healing effects so now magus elevate would be worse off since it only heals for a 9th of the effective health whereas before you get the full heal and the damage reduction that would have came with that health value.

 

Can we please get some more clarification on ancient healer specters? Will all their current functionality remain the same or will their 90% damage reduction be completely removed for good once Angels launches? Since it mentions they won't have overguard on launch.

This specter is one of the most commonly used ones so getting changes mentioned about it that aren't 100% clear what the end goal of the changes are in a dev workshop post makes me confused and hopes that it gets cleared up so that we are not in for a shock when the update launches.

[(PSN)palebluelight]

Wow DE way to make enemies that are more insufferable than champions in destiny. Overguard needs to be nuked what’s the point of all of the investment in cc warframes. Invulnerable enemies will always and forever be considered bs cheap artificial difficulty. Update doa. 

[PublikDomain]

I don't think the over-health bars will do all that much in the scheme of things, but the visibility to Eximus units and new gameplay looks great. Question though:

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

1. Amplify their threat with increased time-to-kill - accompanied with justifying rewards!

Maybe I'm blind, but the rewards being...?

Edit: I was blind, found it:

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

REWARDS
To accompany the increased threat from Eximus units, we’ve further boosted the Affinity gained from killing them by +200%. Additionally, Eximus units now drop Credits and Endo at an increased rate. This will consistently scale as well for their Steel Path counterparts on top of the usual rare chance of a Riven Sliver! 

[Numerounius]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

Archwing Eximus
Archwing Eximus units will not receive Overguard. It is mainly being excluded because Archwing combat is more limited in the ways that you’d be able to take out Overguard. Archwing gear itself does slightly less damage than its ground counterpart and has a smaller pool of crowd control abilities. Overall, we believe it to be a better fit to simply update the Eximus abilities and effects, but leave Overguard for the ground Eximus.

Wow, a bit surprised that archwing was mentioned here!

[(PSN)TEAINSHENNON]

This is just more nerf to players to add un needed,wanted grind to a already overly grindy game to add simulated difficulty with surprise..bullet sponge enemy's terrible idea tbh 

[I.V.A.R.A]

Are you kidding me? Now you're nerfing Ancient Healers. Do you have any idea how many times I've helped new players trying to level stuff and constantly dying? This after all the healing nerfs when Scarlet Spear came out. I don't understand why. Especially because Lich's and Acolytes do so much damage to the defense objectives and throwing a healer out was the only way to save the mission. 

 

Let's also talk about how I don't see any Ancient Disruptor changes. Please, do a mission in Steel Path on stream in an infested map without something like Nezha. It is impossible to use any abilities or have energy. But good plan, let's nerf healers instead. 

[(NSW)Cion]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

While Overguard is active, it will keep Eximus units immune to Warframe crowd control abilities

And this is the part where people are gonna complain. Oh boi.

[Numerounius]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

With the addition of Overguard, we’ve updated the scope of which abilities are considered to be crowd control. Note that these abilities will still do their intended damage -- it is only the crowd-control effect of the abilities that won’t apply while Overguard is present

• Sevagoth’s Gloom
• Chroma’s Effigy: Sentry
• Xaku’s Gaze
• Garuda’s Seeking Talons
• Mirage’s Sleight of Hand
• Mirage’s Prism
• Khora’s Ensnare 
• Volt’s Discharge 
• Baruuk’s Lull
• Harrow’s Condemn
• Excalibur’s Radial Blind 
• Ivara’s Quiver: Sleep arrow
• Revenant’s Reave
• Revenant’s Mesmer Skin
• Inaros’ Desiccation 
• Yareli’s Sea Snares

Seeing Volt and Mirage on that list. And with how many eximus units are in ESO I hope that these changes don't ruin ESO moving forward.

[Snowman835]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

Overguard is particularly susceptible to Void damage

Happy Xaku noise.

[(NSW)But_A_Helgi]

Phew, that's a lot to take in. Let's hit this wall brick at a time;

I'm torn on Overguard. On one, I'm glad Operators are getting some love along with their focus changes - right now there's not much reason to use amps against regular mooks. Will impact pre-Second Dream play a fair bit, please take care of our younger Tenno. On the other, immunity to crowd control stings a little (especially since Healers are going to grant this to nearby enemies). CC continues to be marginalised to my chagrin, placing yet more focus on mass-murder. I'd be fine with this if the current CC frames (Nyx, Limbo, Loki etc) reflected this, which they currently do not. 

So scaling then. After the scaling nerfs took enemies down a peg, it'll be interesting to see Eximus bumped back up slightly. Will have to get hands-on with it to form an opinion (or until I get actual NUMBERS dang it), so I will reserve my judgement on this. 

Finally, the abilities. I have no complaints - these changes are genuinely great and will help steer Eximus towards being skill-based challenges than "pray the Toxic Eximus doesn't pulse while you're off Rolling Guard" or "not being allowed to play because an Energy Leech exists". I hope this design philosophy carries through to other aspects of Warframes combat. Very excited to see these in-game!

And that's just about it, as far as first impressions go. Zariman certainly seems set to introduce some good changes to the base experience. I for one could not be happier with that!

[Vahenir]

1 minute ago, Snowman835 said:

Happy Xaku noise.

Now watch it only being operator void damage like eidolon shields etc. 

[FaR_GogH]

10 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Nice to see. Hope this goes smoothly. The qualification of Crowd Control does seem weird though. Eximus should be immune to Strangledome for example, not just Ensnare.

Any consideration on if/how Eximus will be affected by AoE? The Kuva Zarr/Bramma situation with either Celestial Twin, On Call Crew, crafted Specters or just spamming as a player has been plaguing the game for quite a while now. Engaging with enemies is undermined by letting AI play for you or shooting through geometry. Looking at optimized Arbitrations or how Fissures play. These changes look like a step in the right direction, but they don't seem to make any practical difference with how they are dealt with or encountered.

I think they already consider strangledome a cc ability. This was just a list to show what abilities now officially fall under the scope of a cc ability.

[Jotablau]

I gotta say, the idea of void damage dealing more damage towards Overguard is just sick. I hope overguard gets shield-gating too, for added difficulty in nuking power.

Truly I do not understand tho, why would you want to stop CC frames from doing their job. We'll see how this works out but CC frames already have it hard enough man.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

This is awesome. Will make players switch up their tactics instead of trying to spam in a corner.

It's clear they took advice from players asking for different enemy mechanics so it looks like they're listening to players as well. 

[(PSN)TEAINSHENNON]

Just now, Jotablau said:

I gotta say, the idea of void damage dealing more damage towards Overguard is just sick. I hope overguard gets shield-gating too, for added difficulty in nuking power.

Truly I do not understand tho, why would you want to stop CC frames from doing their job. We'll see how this works out but CC frames already have it hard enough man.

Cuz grindframe

[(NSW)But_A_Helgi]

4 minutes ago, XHADgaming said:

Seeing Volt and Mirage on that list. And with how many eximus units are in ESO I hope that these changes don't ruin ESO moving forward.

That's a good point, come to think... Hope the electric proc still works to stun them. Not terribly happy with CC being shunted further into the abyss for sure. 

[Arthegall]

These changes sound great!! I say buff the eximus effects even more and make them cast their ability more often. Would be really cool if that could scale with their level, other than just armor and health. As you get higher in level the eximus would cast more frequently or the size of their effect increases or both.

[(PSN)AGgammer_IsBack]

How will overguard react with certain abilities that arent just CC? Will the armor strip from vauban still work on them despite them not being affected by the cc? Will they just move around stasis but have their shots frozen midair (much like other units that are immune to it such as juggernauts/sentients) or will they be completely immune to the rift and as such killing off limbo as a frame ?

[Marcooose]

13 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Nice to see. Hope this goes smoothly. The qualification of Crowd Control does seem weird though. Eximus should be immune to Strangledome for example, not just Ensnare.

 

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive to all Warframe abilities that Overguard is resistant to, simply ones that we are now considering Crowd Control. 

This list is simply abilities we might not have considered to be CC in the past, but are now added in specifically for Overguard!