Revenant Tweaks and Nyx Rework

[Fenr3r]

With the release of Revenant Prime I thought this be the perfect time to address the conflicts between him and Nyx, especially with [DE]Rebecca's fondness for Nyx and hand in Revenant's creation, while also coming up with some ideas for a more extensive rework of Nyx.

Revenant, I think is in pretty good place at the moment with the staggered invulnurability after the loss of each oh his Mesmer charges. My proposed changes for him are more minute, as I wouldn't really touch his 3rd or 4th abilities at current.

• Sentient Bolts - Ethrall removed and replaced With Nyx's current Psychic Bolts, the mind controll behaviour of it was a remnant of Revenant/Vlad's orginal desing as a vampire frame. but remained after the shift of his design into a Corrupted Sentient Eidolon frame after the community's reaction to him. Removing the remaing vestiges of this vampire origin, this element of his kit not making quite as much sense with the pure Eidolon theming, with Garuda now better carrying the mantle as the sudo vampire frame. Psychic Bolt's defense stripping aligning quite well with sentient's ability to disable enemy defenses as well as comboing quite well with Dance Macabre's adaptive damage.
• Mesmer Skin - the far less drastic proposed change, Mesmer Skin would keep all of it's current behaviour but now instead having the small added niche where robotic enemies affected by the sleep are instead enthralled automaticlly up to the cap of seven. The enthralling mechanic while not observed amognst eidolons, is present among sentients but only applicable to robotic entities and advanced technology. Mesmer Skin maintaing that element of Revenant's current kit as a small added niche but now more themematically in line.

Now onto the the big part, Nyx's rework. When I first started playing Nyx was amongst one of my first frames, and with my fondness for RTS's and minion controll, she became one of my favorites. I even crafted a second copy after selling the first to save on slots in the hopes that I could later claim her while I saved up on plat.  Her Prime now sits unused in my inventory, and while I understand the changes to Psychic/Pacifying Bolts and Mind Controll's initial charge up damage have given her added strength; the flaws in her design still prevent me from using her. Where in if I want the defense stripping of bolts; I could switch to Ash with Seeking Shuriken without a cap on recasting and have the added benefit of Blade Storm. Should I wish to command an army, Revenant or Nekros surpass her in this. Thus I put foward this:

• Mind Controll - with the removal of Enthrall this now leaves Mind Control as the definitive enemy controll ability receiving the raised enemy cap. However having to cast on each individual enemy to reach the cap, with an added hold mechanic where targeting an enemy repalces the oldest Mind Control target.
  • Mind Freak - the current damage boost could remain or be rolled into the base ability, the real change being the added mechanic of Enthall in which enemies attacked by Mind Controll targets are are also hypnotised if currently below the target cap. Similar to how a crowd is pitched into a mob, a posse of enraged villagers.
• Facade - this is a change I saw proposed on another post which I quite liked. Nyx can now obscure her appearence causing enemies to perceive her as another ally. She would receive added finisher damage and would receive reduced threat level, shoring up a weakness of Chaos in where enemies could still end up targetting her.
• Chaos - this is one where I don't have any real concrete ideas, changes from a single cast duration ability to a constant channeled effect, this being through any augments or changes to the base functionality. Otherwise it could remain as is, merely benefitting from the changes to the rest of Nyx's kit, but If you have any more creative ideas for this I'd love to hear them.
• Psychosis - replacing the current Absorb. This would see Nyx's sending a mental shockwave damaging enemies in a radius, surviving enemies being blinded or receiving reduced accuracy depending on the distance from Nyx. Enemies afflicted by Chaos receiving increased damage, akin to Saryn's Miasma synergy with Spores, serving as a finisher to Chaos to resolve the issues of enemy vs enemy combat.
  • Assimilate/Singularity - Absorbs current bahaviour could then reside in it's current augments to maintain it for those who would preferr it even possibly merged into one. Otherwise Singularity having the added behaviour of being able to fly around akin to Zephyr's hovering while using Tail Wind.
• Passive - no changes.

I tried to pull from elements already present in the game so the struggle to implement them would hopefully presumably be lessend. However, these are just merely a few of my ideas but if you have any alternate changes I'd love to hear them. Would also appreciate any balaced values for these, as stat balance isn't really my strength.

[DeadVoid118]

Revenant doesn't need changes, and I don't want him to be nerfed this badly. This is a nerf, Enthrall is a big part of his kit and some defense stripping as a replacement is laughable. Enthrall allows Reave to kill enemies in a single hit, and without it Reave's only real purpose is mobility unless you have a ridiculous amount of ability strength combined with a viral setup. Reave isn't overpowered, it's not getting rid of overguard that easily and doesn't work on many bosses so its only purpose is chewing up random mooks instantly. Enthrall also combos with Danse Macabre.

Even just narrowing it to robots only is a huge nerf. Suddenly, only the Corpus are at a huge disadvantage, and any other faction literally doesn't care.

There's no issue with frames having a little bit of overlap. Revenant is still worse at mind control than Nyx. Nyx creates a single, invincible ally that can grow stronger off your damage. Enthrall has a limit of 7 affected, Nyx has Chaos which has no limit. Nyx is much better than Revenant at making enemies fight each other, though a true madlad could just bring a radiation status gun. These changes are terrible to me.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Every frame doesn't need to be a nuke. 

Changes to the existing kit are fine but trying to make Nyx a completely different frame isn't feasible anyways since DE already stated they aren't doing reworks due to resource and time restraints.

If you want an ability like Miasma...then use Saryn...

[Pizzarugi]

Please stop trying to turn everything into nuke cheese. If anything, we need less of it.

Enthrall is in a really good state ever since the eximus rework, because distraction remains the only form of CC thay're still vulnerable to. Nevermind teammates killing them, you have Mesmer Skin, spamming your 1 is easy if you wait for enemies to knock themselves out.

[Fenr3r]

5 minutes ago, DeadVoid118 said:

Revenant doesn't need changes, and I don't want him to be nerfed this badly. This is a nerf, Enthrall is a big part of his kit and some defense stripping as a replacement is laughable. Enthrall allows Reave to kill enemies in a single hit, and without it Reave's only real purpose is mobility unless you have a ridiculous amount of ability strength combined with a viral setup. Reave isn't overpowered, it's not getting rid of overguard that easily and doesn't work on many bosses so its only purpose is chewing up random mooks instantly. Enthrall also combos with Danse Macabre.

Even just narrowing it to robots only is a huge nerf. Suddenly, only the Corpus are at a huge disadvantage, and any other faction literally doesn't care.

There's no issue with frames having a little bit of overlap. Revenant is still worse at mind control than Nyx. Nyx creates a single, invincible ally that can grow stronger off your damage. Enthrall has a limit of 7 affected, Nyx has Chaos which has no limit. Nyx is much better than Revenant at making enemies fight each other, though a true madlad could just bring a radiation status gun. These changes are terrible to me.

The synergy with Reave then could be moved to bolts then? Revenant's thrall's never seem all that relevant with their vulnarablity just ending with you or your squad mates killing them.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

6 minutes ago, Fenr3r said:

The synergy with Reave then could be moved to bolts then? Revenant's thrall's never seem all that relevant with their vulnarablity just ending with you or your squad mates killing them.

"On death, alpha thralls leave behind an Eidolon energy pillar that lasts for 10 seconds. Each energy pillar continuously inflicts 250 / 500 / 750 / 1,000  Puncture damage per second to all enemies within a 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 / 2 meter radius; additionally, pillars generate homing energy projectiles that seek out nearby enemies within a range of 10 meters, exploding on impact to deal 250 / 500 / 750 / 1,000  Impact damage in a ? meter area with a 100% chance to stagger and a 100% chance to convert enemies hit"

 

Depends on your mission. Revenant is great for longer runs or solo runs. If you're doing quick speed runs concentrating on thralls is wasted time.

Thralls also give 500+ primary weapon damage with the augment....once again, making him great for longer or solo missions.

[Fenr3r]

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

Every frame doesn't need to be a nuke. 

Changes to the existing kit are fine but trying to make Nyx a completely different frame isn't feasible anyways since DE already stated they aren't doing reworks due to resource and time restraints.

If you want an ability like Miasma...then use Saryn...

Then it doesn't have to be a nuke, there's alot you could pull from psychis theming from the over the top telekenesis route to a more simplistic mentalist angle. I just came at from an AoE stand point as I thought that more appeal to the current meta and the weakness of pure CC frames. I mean technically Absorb already has a damage element, but it's more so used with Assimilate for the invulnarability. Anyway, I know about plans for reworks being postponed, but with the tweaks to the starkers and recent news of Pablo working on Grendel and Yareli; I thought there could be some movement on this stance. What would your changes be for her?

[DeadVoid118]

5 minutes ago, Fenr3r said:

The synergy with Reave then could be moved to bolts then? Revenant's thrall's never seem all that relevant with their vulnarablity just ending with you or your squad mates killing them.

Revenant's Enthrall is great for holding down an area, helping your teammates survive, or creating general chaos. It's not useful outside modes like Steel Path, but CC generally isn't when you can tap a button and instantly murder the whole room. There's also the augment which boosts Revenant's weapon damage. Revenant's worst ability is actually his 4 (in my opinion), and it's still pretty decent.

[Fenr3r]

11 minutes ago, DeadVoid118 said:

Revenant's Enthrall is great for holding down an area, helping your teammates survive, or creating general chaos. It's not useful outside modes like Steel Path, but CC generally isn't when you can tap a button and instantly murder the whole room. There's also the augment which boosts Revenant's weapon damage. Revenant's worst ability is actually his 4 (in my opinion), and it's still pretty decent.

The augments damage converted into a deacying stack you receive after each afflicted enemy is killed could work and stengthen his 4.  An yes the spinning lazer can be quite energy hungry, but I didn't really have anything in mind for it given to how evidently fearful of it DE seemed to be when creating it. Maybe you have some ideas for it?

[DeadVoid118]

3 minutes ago, Fenr3r said:

The augments damage converted into a deacying stack you receive after each afflicted enemy is killed could work and stengthen his 4.  An yes the spinning lazer can be quite energy hungry, but I didn't really have anything in mind for it given to how evidently fearful of it DE seemed to be when creating it. Maybe you have some ideas for it?

His 4's rotation/damage tick speed working off casting speed would be good, or (exclusive or, should not have both of these) you could work on buffing the scaling (from enemy damage dealt to Revenant while he's in his 4) by removing the damage decay and just making it reset when you stop casting, giving him a higher threat level when casting, and adding a multiplier to that scaling that scales off ability strength.

If you really want to give him bolts, I would firstly make them more similar to Enthrall's homing projectiles and just go for the nearest enemy without the player directing them (and have each bolt target a different enemy or target an enemy only so long as they aren't affected by bolts/fully stripped if not Infested). I would then say transfer that damage augment and make it a universal damage buff (you can leave it as per enemies affected or change it to be on death for a duration), as well as make it so Reave gets its boosted damage from enemies hit by the bolts. Buff duration to between 20-30 seconds. Add an effect on death where they spawn the pillar (with same 10 second duration) that alpha thralls did when they died. Make the pillar apply a bolt instead of Enthralling. Add a guaranteed radiation proc, and reduce the cost to 25. Also, add in the combo that Enthrall had with Danse Macabre where the pillars would explode when hit and where enemies affected would drop shield boosts on death. If you want a combo with Mesmer Skin, make it so stunned enemies spawn an extra set of bolts (maybe not a full 6).

The bolt stuff sounds like a lot, but Enthrall did a lot and bolts is honestly a pretty weak ability.

[Fenr3r]

1 hour ago, DeadVoid118 said:

His 4's rotation/damage tick speed working off casting speed would be good, or (exclusive or, should not have both of these) you could work on buffing the scaling (from enemy damage dealt to Revenant while he's in his 4) by removing the damage decay and just making it reset when you stop casting, giving him a higher threat level when casting, and adding a multiplier to that scaling that scales off ability strength.

If you really want to give him bolts, I would firstly make them more similar to Enthrall's homing projectiles and just go for the nearest enemy without the player directing them (and have each bolt target a different enemy or target an enemy only so long as they aren't affected by bolts/fully stripped if not Infested). I would then say transfer that damage augment and make it a universal damage buff (you can leave it as per enemies affected or change it to be on death for a duration), as well as make it so Reave gets its boosted damage from enemies hit by the bolts. Buff duration to between 20-30 seconds. Add an effect on death where they spawn the pillar (with same 10 second duration) that alpha thralls did when they died. Make the pillar apply a bolt instead of Enthralling. Add a guaranteed radiation proc, and reduce the cost to 25. Also, add in the combo that Enthrall had with Danse Macabre where the pillars would explode when hit and where enemies affected would drop shield boosts on death. If you want a combo with Mesmer Skin, make it so stunned enemies spawn an extra set of bolts (maybe not a full 6).

The bolt stuff sounds like a lot, but Enthrall did a lot and bolts is honestly a pretty weak ability.

Some very interesting changes, thank you for adding. 🙂