"Glass Cannon" Warframes fundamentally can't work without scaling abilities

[Karonuva]

Maybe there's something I've been missing that mitigates this, but my experience is the concept of a glass cannon frame is fundamentally flawed and can't work when their abilities only do a fraction of what weapons do even if you put nothing but ability damage mods on them. Especially when you add hurdles like all the magnetic proc and ability immune enemies. It feels like you're just playing a warframe without any EHP mods or abilities. A warframe focused on their abilities gets sapped of any fun when those abilities all feel useless or not worth bothering with. It feels especially important in a game where enemies can vary wildly in strength to have abilities with some sort of % component to it, to keep balance in check at lower levels whiling giving certain ability focused warframes a chance to stay relevant at levels past 20.

It's frustrating when the majority of content is higher than lv20 yet a lot of balancing feels like it doesn't consider anything past that point by only giving low flat values to stats.

[LupoDWolf]

Nova?

[Karonuva]

7 minutes ago, LupoDWolf said:

Nova?

Nova what? I'm talking about frames on their own not paired with a Nova. Nova herself has 90% damage reduction with her 1, her 2 scales with weapon damage, and her 4 is universally useful because of the speed debuff and a percentage increase to damage on affected targets. She puts the cannon in glass cannon. (Which you can argue if she truly is with the damage reduction she has)

[(PSN)Svenx13]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Karonuva:

Maybe there's something I've been missing that mitigates this, but my experience is the concept of a glass cannon frame is fundamentally flawed and can't work when their abilities only do a fraction of what weapons do even if you put nothing but ability damage mods on them. Especially when you add hurdles like all the magnetic proc and ability immune enemies. It feels like you're just playing a warframe without any EHP mods or abilities. A warframe focused on their abilities gets sapped of any fun when those abilities all feel useless or not worth bothering with. It feels especially important in a game where enemies can vary wildly in strength to have abilities with some sort of % component to it, to keep balance in check at lower levels whiling giving certain ability focused warframes a chance to stay relevant at levels past 20.

It's frustrating when the majority of content is higher than lv20 yet a lot of balancing feels like it doesn't consider anything past that point by only giving low flat values to stats.

Pls Make list what you declare as glass cannon. 

We have nearly 50 warframes and I can take every frame for sorties (lv 100)

 

[Nira]

Absolutely.

Just look at what happened to Xaku. His second ability (the floating Void guns) basically scales endlessly due to their damage scaling off enemy level. I've gone 3+ hours in a solo kuva survival on Steel Path and they still go like a hot knife through butter, with his armor stripping active of course.

Heck even Vauban can kind of put out some decent numbers with his offensive abilities when they added scaling.

With Gyre I think there could be some scaling due to her abilities able to crit, but they're still capped at 300% crit chance and electricity falls off super hard vs armor. She also has basically zero defensive capabilities besides her crowd control. Haven't tested yet but I suspect she's gonna suffer big time at Steel Path level.

[ThatSilvally]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb Nira:

She also has basically zero defensive capabilities besides her crowd control. Haven't tested yet but I suspect she's gonna suffer big time at Steel Path level.

Correct. She easily shreds through everything up to Level 100, above that she will struggle without resorting and relying on the usual suspects (Bramma, Zarr, etc...) and you'll need to make good use of Rolling Guard to not die even on the Zariman, thanks to the Eximus and Thrax units mostly being immune to the stunlock she relies on.

[Venus-Venera]

u cant play glass cannon right now. vaz dash has huge delay and u will DIE!

its much easier to play with tanks who deal huge damage. and 1-2 mil crits on sp with aoe weapon against specific faction is nothing special!

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

1 minute ago, FishMcCool said:

Grendel utterly erases SP. Because of his mad scaling toxin.

Absolutely. OP does not know what they're talking about.

[FishMcCool]

5 minutes ago, (PSN)LoisGordils said:

Absolutely. OP does not know what they're talking about.

Indeed, but not this OP, you replied to the wrong thread. 😉

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

35 minutes ago, FishMcCool said:

Indeed, but not this OP, you replied to the wrong thread. 😉

Omg how'd that happen? xD

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

7 hours ago, LupoDWolf said:

Nova?

She has a DR ability.

[Karonuva]

11 hours ago, (PSN)Svenx13 said:

Pls Make list what you declare as glass cannon. 

We have nearly 50 warframes and I can take every frame for sorties (lv 100)

 

I'm not talking about my declaration of any frame as a glass cannon, I'm talking about DE's balancing mindset of making ability-focused warframes that they want you to play in a "best defense is only offense" way, yet that have abilities that only are effective against lv20 enemies because of their low flat damage stats. (Also being able to bring any frame into sorties isn't really a measure of their kit effectiveness)

[sunderthefirmament]

3 hours ago, Karonuva said:

I'm not talking about my declaration of any frame as a glass cannon, I'm talking about DE's balancing mindset of making ability-focused warframes that they want you to play in a "best defense is only offense" way, yet that have abilities that only are effective against lv20 enemies because of their low flat damage stats. (Also being able to bring any frame into sorties isn't really a measure of their kit effectiveness)

Then I agree.  I haven't delved much into Gyre beyond realizing that, yeah, she struggles on Steel Path.  Most nukers do, as their nukes often become more utility and fuel for Condition Overload than anything else.  But I think this is bigger than just "glass cannon warframes."  I think it's about scaling in general.

 

Scaling can take many forms, but for me it means that the ability remains relevant and useful into very high level content.  The damage can build infinitely, like with Saryn or Gara.  Or the ability could nullify defenses, like with Caliban and Nyx.  The damage could also depend on the enemies' health and level, like Xaku, Vauban, and I guess Chroma's toxin ward.  There are other examples.

 

For me, again admitting that I haven't invested a ton of time into Gyre yet, she gains utility and lasting relevance due to the interplay of her powers and guns.  But you're not going to find that relevance on Yareli, another fairly recent frame with a focus on damaging abilities.  Yareli's damage scales from the amount of enemies, but that isn't enough for her to stay useful.

 

I just don't think DE should be introducing damaging powers without accounting for scaling in some way.

[Karonuva]

4 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

snip

Yeah pretty much, I feel like even if you dont account for Steel Path, giving warframes percentage scaling still makes sense since enemy levels vary across the starchart and warframe mods can only do so much. I'm not sure why they're so hesitant to do it, it's not like endurance runs in endless missions have infinitely multiplying rewards the further you survive.

As for Gyre, it just feels like there's a pretty big disconnect to nerf her damage dealing when DE JUST introduced new anti-ability enemies, it feels like whoever's balancing is just looking at a spreadsheet and not actually paying attention to the game as it's being played.

[(PSN)Svenx13]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb Karonuva:

Yeah pretty much, I feel like even if you dont account for Steel Path, giving warframes percentage scaling still makes sense since enemy levels vary across the starchart and warframe mods can only do so much. I'm not sure why they're so hesitant to do it, it's not like endurance runs in endless missions have infinitely multiplying rewards the further you survive.
 

If every warframe has percentage scaling abilities, then whole level system is useless. Ever thought about that? 

Oberons smite is a percentage scaling ability and I don't think it will help the Glass cannons much if I helminth that ability on them

In my opinion we need a primary/secondary weapons stat sticks system for abilities like Embers fireball, Volts shock, etc.

[Sojufueled]

I think the OP just worded his point poorly. Basically the gulf between weapon and ability scaling means abilities without some clever internal scaling mechanic (ramp up on Saryn spores for instance) are losing their place in the modern game. Volt's 1 or Frost's 2's aren't useless, but you're not using them for their damage anymore. DE is aware of this and has gotten wiser with its modern frame design, but without some big systemic change, or a refresh of older frames, they're going to languish.

[sunderthefirmament]

13 minutes ago, (PSN)Svenx13 said:

In my opinion we need a primary/secondary weapons stat sticks system for abilities like Embers fireball, Volts shock, etc.

Statsticks are the murkiest system in Warframe.  Each statstick ability has its own set of rules- what works, what doesn't.  You basically have to check the wiki and do additional research outside of that if you want to set up a statstick build.  And statsticks inevitably lead to you killing a piece of your loadout for normal use if you try to optimize it as a statstick.  The ideal melee for Khora, Gara, or Atlas is basically useless even at sortie level, for example.

 

No more statsticks, please.  DE should rework the ones we have for the problems mentioned above, and because they often lead to scaling that is so discordant with the rest of the game that it further contributes to DE's problems with balance.  I'd love all damaging abilities to have at least some sort of scaling or relevance (utility?) going into high level areas, but I think there are better ways to achieve this than through statsticks.  Take Caliban's 4, for instance.  The damage falls off really fast, but the defense strip ensures that it stays useful.

[Karonuva]

37 minutes ago, (PSN)Svenx13 said:

If every warframe has percentage scaling abilities, then whole level system is useless. Ever thought about that? 

Oberons smite is a percentage scaling ability and I don't think it will help the Glass cannons much if I helminth that ability on them

In my opinion we need a primary/secondary weapons stat sticks system for abilities like Embers fireball, Volts shock, etc.

How would percentage scaling make the level system useless? It's not like 4% health damage on an ability means you suddenly invalidate higher level content, it literally is just base damage that keep abilities to maintain a base level of relevancy when the flat numbers stop doing anything. You'd still need to have highly geared up weapons to complement your loadout in higher level content. Enemies would still deal more damage, have more health, more armor (whatever stats the abilities don't account for) etc as they level that you'd have to account for with your weapons, claiming that the whole level system would be useless is an inane statement.

And obviously subsuming smite onto glass cannons won't do anything because smite isn't some magical nuking ability that seamlessly blends into every other warframes kit. How is a stat stick system in any way a better suggestion? You want people's weapon slots to be useless just so mediocre abilities (which have restrictions that weapons don't) will be somewhat usable? 

And that's ignoring the fact that you claim percentage scaling will invalidate the level system, while in the next sentence admitting Oberon's smite isn't insanely overpowered because of scaling, proving my point.

[Gavrain]

Cast on critical hit is another choice. Use weapon with much multi hit or area hit, warframe's ability can do more than now.

[(PSN)Svenx13]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb sunderthefirmament:

Statsticks are the murkiest system in Warframe.  Each statstick ability has its own set of rules- what works, what doesn't.  You basically have to check the wiki and do additional research outside of that if you want to set up a statstick build.  And statsticks inevitably lead to you killing a piece of your loadout for normal use if you try to optimize it as a statstick.  The ideal melee for Khora, Gara, or Atlas is basically useless even at sortie level, for example.

 

No more statsticks, please.  DE should rework the ones we have for the problems mentioned above, and because they often lead to scaling that is so discordant with the rest of the game that it further contributes to DE's problems with balance.  I'd love all damaging abilities to have at least some sort of scaling or relevance (utility?) going into high level areas, but I think there are better ways to achieve this than through statsticks.  Take Caliban's 4, for instance.  The damage falls off really fast, but the defense strip ensures that it stays useful.

I agree with you the main problem with stat sticks that all attributes  are hidden.

The values of stat stick abilities should be seen on the modding screen.

But if I look at abilities like fireball or shock which is essentially shooting, I always think why should I waste time shooting fireballs, my primary weapon is stronger.

Imagine a fireball ability with multishot and heavy caliber for me it sounds fun.

You don't need a perfect stat stick. Look at it more practical what mods are you using in stat sticks and what mods you normally  use in primary weapons

Calibans 4 is against infested or corpus pretty much useless in higher lvs

 

[sunderthefirmament]

14 minutes ago, (PSN)Svenx13 said:

I agree with you the main problem with stat sticks that all attributes  are hidden.

The values of stat stick abilities should be seen on the modding screen.

But if I look at abilities like fireball or shock which is essentially shooting, I always think why should I waste time shooting fireballs, my primary weapon is stronger.

Imagine a fireball ability with multishot and heavy caliber for me it sounds fun.

You don't need a perfect stat stick. Look at it more practical what mods are you using in stat sticks and what mods you normally  use in primary weapons

Calibans 4 is against infested or corpus pretty much useless in higher lvs

 

Fireball and Shock are both fairly awful abilities and should be reworked to have more utility instead of statstick functionality.  When you compare Volt's 1 to Gyre's 1, it's just laughable.  Fireball and Shock only really gain relevance through their augments.  That's one way to make an ability "scale," or at least stay useful, but I don't like it when an ability is dependent on its augment to be functional in most levels of play.

 

Caliban's 4 might not be great against star chart infested, as they never really have much in the way of armor.  But steel path Corpus do gain a lot of their survivability from their shields.  And if you'd rather not switch to toxin to bypass the shields, Caliban's 4 is a very useful ability.  Also, there are Corpus units with armor.

[(PSN)Svenx13]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Karonuva:

How would percentage scaling make the level system useless? It's not like 4% health damage on an ability means you suddenly invalidate higher level content, it literally is just base damage that keep abilities to maintain a base level of relevancy when the flat numbers stop doing anything. You'd still need to have highly geared up weapons to complement your loadout in higher level content. Enemies would still deal more damage, have more health, more armor (whatever stats the abilities don't account for) etc as they level that you'd have to account for with your weapons, claiming that the whole level system would be useless is an inane statement.

And obviously subsuming smite onto glass cannons won't do anything because smite isn't some magical nuking ability that seamlessly blends into every other warframes kit. How is a stat stick system in any way a better suggestion? You want people's weapon slots to be useless just so mediocre abilities (which have restrictions that weapons don't) will be somewhat usable? 

And that's ignoring the fact that you claim percentage scaling will invalidate the level system, while in the next sentence admitting Oberon's smite isn't insanely overpowered because of scaling, proving my point.

1. more health is pointless because scaling abilities scales with health like you have stated.

Armor is only a problem if you play against grineer, which in my opinion should be reworked or rescaled first. But if you think that is a problem use armor strip abilities 

More damage is pointless because in higher lv content you are using invulnerability abilities like shield gating.

Whenever I play xaku I don't bother about the enemy's level or my weapons. So yes the level system is useless against xaku.

2. With the oberon example I wanted to show you that mindlessly adding scaling mechanics on warframe abilities will not really help the glass cannons, like you have admitted. It proves that scaling mechanic is not the solution  for every frame.

And now we are back to your glass cannon list.

 

 

[(PSN)Svenx13]

vor 24 Minuten schrieb sunderthefirmament:

Fireball and Shock are both fairly awful abilities and should be reworked to have more utility instead of statstick functionality.  When you compare Volt's 1 to Gyre's 1, it's just laughable.  Fireball and Shock only really gain relevance through their augments.  That's one way to make an ability "scale," or at least stay useful, but I don't like it when an ability is dependent on its augment to be functional in most levels of play.

 

Caliban's 4 might not be great against star chart infested, as they never really have much in the way of armor.  But steel path Corpus do gain a lot of their survivability from their shields.  And if you'd rather not switch to toxin to bypass the shields, Caliban's 4 is a very useful ability.  Also, there are Corpus units with armor.

I have some other abilities for you.

Mesa's first ability scales with damage. Hydroids 3 ability scales with time.

How about them? 

I agree with you Caliban's 4 is a great ability, but now compare it to his first with energy scaling ability.

So I don't think scaling is always the solution for this problem 

[sunderthefirmament]

3 minutes ago, (PSN)Svenx13 said:

I have some other abilities for you.

Mesa's first ability scales with damage. Hydroids 3 ability scales with time.

How about them? 

I agree with you Caliban's 4 is a great ability, but now compare it to his first with energy scaling ability.

So I don't think scaling is always the solution for this problem 

Both Mesa's 1 and Hydroid's 1 are also terrible.  This is kind of what I was getting at in my first comment in this thread, that "scaling" in and of itself can take many forms, and that it's more about relevance than scaling.  Basically every damaging ability in the game "scales," at least somewhat, with power strength mods.  But if that's the only scaling the ability has, it probably won't be useful past the star chart.

 

Yareli's 4 scales with how many enemies it sucks up, and with power strength.  But neither of those are anywhere near enough for it to be relevant.

 

And yeah, Caliban's 1 is really really bad.  It's easily one of the worst abilities in the game, with how much it locks you out of and how little it does.  It has terrible QOL as well.  It has some scaling, as you said, but that's nowhere near enough to save it.

 

I address what I think frames need to be considered good and worthwhile in this thread, which I originally wrote after Yareli's release.

[(PSN)Svenx13]

vor 13 Minuten schrieb sunderthefirmament:

Both Mesa's 1 and Hydroid's 1 are also terrible.  This is kind of what I was getting at in my first comment in this thread, that "scaling" in and of itself can take many forms, and that it's more about relevance than scaling.  Basically every damaging ability in the game "scales," at least somewhat, with power strength mods.  But if that's the only scaling the ability has, it probably won't be useful past the star chart.

 

Yareli's 4 scales with how many enemies it sucks up, and with power strength.  But neither of those are anywhere near enough for it to be relevant.

 

And yeah, Caliban's 1 is really really bad.  It's easily one of the worst abilities in the game, with how much it locks you out of and how little it does.  It has terrible QOL as well.  It has some scaling, as you said, but that's nowhere near enough to save it.

 

I address what I think frames need to be considered good and worthwhile in this thread, which I originally wrote after Yareli's release.

I have zero trust in DE. Sometimes they release monsters like sevagoth, xaku and then papertigers like yareli, "gyre"

So never ever tell DE to add mindlessly percentage mechanics on warframe abilitys to balance them. Who knows what they release next. That is the cause why I disagree with the OP. 

Imagine caliban 1 with 50%health true damage.