Universal Vacuum, and a New Passive for Mag

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Dirac String
Mag gets a boost to all stats based on the distance from where she last touched the ground. Every meter adds 1% to all stats.

A Dirac String is a concept proposed by a physicist by that name. It's an idea that allows for the existence of magnetic monopoles through separation of the end points. It's also a big question in physics because monopoles should exist but we can't find them. Well let's just say Mag has a little more insight on magnetism than the scientists of our day.

In practical application, this would register the point where you've last touched the ground, and upon leaving the ground (mostly via jumping) you build up a boost based on your distance from that anchor point. All stats would be boosted from HP, Shields, Armor, to Ability Stats; the only ones that wouldn't get boosted would be mid-air jump count and aim-glide duration. There are already natural limitations to this, so it wouldn't need a built-in limitation. For example, to get +100% boost, you'd need to travel 100m from your anchor point. That's not impossible, but it would require some effort, environment, and preparation.

The boost reset when you touch the ground, but not the walls, so if you're really good at parkour then it might be possible to create a massive boost to your stats. I'd love to see the extremes that skilled players take this to.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Silent Gear
Stealth Kills grant Mag +5% Ammo Efficiency, Heavy Attack Efficiency, or Ability Efficiency for remainder of mission.

It's been a while! So this Passive idea is based on the concept of frictionless gears using permanent or electromagnets. It allows for force multiplication without physical contact, thus allowing for smaller movements to produce in increasing speeds. Testing shows it's especially effective if the change is gradual because there are no physical "teeth" to prevent skipping (not making it the best for things like vehicle transmissions). The way I'm applying the concept to Mag though is more thematic than literal. (Obviously Mag doesn't have any room beneath that latex to fit a transmission) As Mag performs "silently," she would be gradually building up her performance to maximum efficiency. In terms of an in-universe explanation, we could just say that she's constructing an internal force-multiplying magnetic field that increases in rotation speed which each successful silent action. Once built, she can use that field to enhance her combat efficiency.

Now for the practical:

• Stealth Melee Kills add 5% Permanent Starting Heavy Attack Efficiency
• Stealth Range Kills add 5% Permanent Starting Ammo Efficiency
• Stealth Kills after Maximum Efficiency in either Melee/Range add 5% Ability Efficiency
• Resets on Death

Some scenarios:

• To get to 175% Ability Efficiency without Mods, you'd need to get 35 Melee Stealth Kills (Heavy Attack Efficiency would cap at 20, the remaining 15 would max Ability)
• If you for 40 Stealth Kills, but 20 of them were Melee and 20 of them were Range, then you wouldn't get any Ability Efficiency until making more kills.

And finally, I'll make an argument for why I think this fits with Mag and is not overpowered.

• It fits with Mag because she's a starter frame, and the beginning missions are much more "stealthy" than end-game content
  • You don't get room nuking frames and weapons until later
  • You don't get the power to blitz content in the form of Forma and Mod (and Endo) until later
  • This would let you compensate for a lack of coverage and power by teaching you precision, skill, and positioning
  • This could give new players a "power fantasy" feel early on, which would help cement their interest in the rest of the game
• It's not OP because (quite simply) the bar is already too high
  • A permanent 100% Efficiency to Ammo and Heavy Attacks (and+75% to Abilities) is great of course, but there are plenty of damage and energy options already
  • Those other options are available the moment you start the mission
  • This, on the other hand, requires Stealth Kills, which are hard to get solo and impossible to get in a squad
  • Not many missions have situations where you can get Stealth Kills, and less so are the missions where it would be worth spending the time to get a lot.

I think it would go very well with endless missions, but you'd need a way to get stealth kills first. Could synergize with Rest and Range maybe. I'm sure it would be a beast of a passive after get it spun up though. Just imagine a Tenet Arca Plasmor with 100% Ammo Efficiency or the Glaive Prime with 100% Heavy Attack Efficiency.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Resonating Wavelengths
The Status Chance for Mag's Abilities are the sum total of her Equipment's Status Chance plus her Ability Strength.

Not really any fancy Science trivia for this one, it's just based on the general phenomenon of resonance that can affect many different waveform systems. In terms of practicality it's also quite simple:

• Mag's Primary, Secondary, Melee, Companion Weapon, and Archgun all contribute to the Status Chance of her Abilities
• Mag's Ability Strength is the starting value of her Ability's Status Chance
• Status evaluated per Damage Tick:
  • Pull - 1 Magnetic (Immediate)
  • Magnetize (Tap)
    • 2/Sec Magnetic (After Damage absorbed in bubble)
    • 1 Blast (When bubble pops, target must be dead)
  • Magnetize (Held) - 1 Blast (When the fus ro dah happens)
  • Polarize (Wave)
    • 1 Magnetic (On contact with wave)
    • 1 Magnetic (From shield/armor shatter of nearby targets)
  • Polarize (Shards)
    • x/Sec Slash (When shards continue to make contact with enemy)
    • x/Sec Puncture (Same as Slash)
  • Crush - 3 Magnetic (Ability is a 3-hit combo)
• So as an example:
  Let's say your equipment has a sum total of 300% Status Chance, and Mag has 200% Ability Strength. If she cast Crush, then it would be 3 hits at 500% Status Chance, meaning she would apply 15 Magnetic Procs to all targets hit by the full attack (maxing out at 10 stacks).

Okay so for the justification, I think it's multifaceted:

• Mag should be applying Magnetic Status, I mean c'mon...
• Magnetic Status isn't that great on its own, and it maxes out at 10 stacks
• Polarize (Shards) already create an obscene amount of Slash Procs
  • To be fair though, this would increase the Slash count by a significant margin
  • To be fair(er) though, Polarize could definitely do for a power boost these days
• You might be able to do something with the Magnetize Blast Damage
  • You'd need to build for it specifically, putting a lot of Status Chance into your weapons
  • With the right builds (that are already optional), the Magnetize explosion can destroy most enemies in one hit anyway

So while I do think there are some strategies to get some ridiculous numbers, it's not like that's new to Warframe (or even to Mag). The big thing here though is that Mag should be able to quickly apply many Magnetic procs on enemies. She's Mag after all.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Steady Oersted
Every minute for 15 minutes Mag's Shield's Damage Reduction get's multiplied by 1.04, and her Base Armor get multiplied by 1.08.

I wrote all this out a while ago and then it turned out that I wasn't logged on and my write-up was completely destroyed. Usually that doesn't happen because this website has the rather nifty feature of saving your posts and restoring them when you log in. But this time it failed and I just didn't want to redo it for a while. But that while has expired!

So an Oersted is an interesting measurement of magnetism. Rather than measuring the strength of the field, this metric instead refers to the durability of the field. It's how much force is required to disrupt a magnetic alignment and break the field. (It's more complicated than that and I'm not going to pretend that I'm a physicist, but from what I'm seeing it's like gauss is used to measure the field while oersted is used to measure the material) One obvious application then would be things like magnetic tape used in cassettes (if you don't know what those are, please don't remind me of how old I am). Well, long story short, forces are applied to materials at all times, but Mag retains her magnetism without expending energy, so it would seem the only logical physical explanation would be that Mag's oersted measurement reflexively and perpetually rises to counter environmental stressors. Maybe that's not a "long story short," actually... I'll rephrase: Nothing reduces Mag's magnetism, which means it must be passively adapting.

The practical application to that could be on any number of things. Her Ability stats for example, or how her weapons behave, but I'm limiting the interpretation to her body. Her Shields get more durable and her armor gets tougher. This would have a compound interest effect. So the math would work out this way:

• Mag
  • Shield Damage Reduction (%)
    • Minute zero: 50
    • Minute one: * 1.04 = 52
    • Minute two: * 1.04 = 54.08
    • ... (* 1.04 every minute)
    • Minute 15: ~90%
  • Armor Density (Base Armor)
    • Minute zero: 105
    • Minute one: * 1.08 = 113.4
    • Minute two: * 1.08 = 122.472
    • ... (* 1.08 every minute)
    • Minute 15: ~333 Base Armor
• Mag Prime
  • Shield Damage Reduction - Same as Mag
  • Armor Density (Base Armor)
    • Minute zero: 135
    • Minute one: * 1.08 = 145.8
    • Minute two: * 1.08 = 157.464
    • ... (* 1.08 every minute)
    • Minute 15: ~428 Base Armor

So after 15 minutes, Mag/Prime would have 90% Damage Reduction on her shields and her Base Armor would be around 3.172x higher. This would give Mag an unmodded EHP of roughly 6,140. (Mag Prime would be about 6,447) And to be fully transparent looking at the Warframe Comparison Chart, yes that would put Mag in 1st place for base EHP.

But before you go claiming that's excessive, I'd like to plead my case here on why in practice it wouldn't be. For starters when comparing Non-Prime Frames, Inaros has the highest base EHP right now with 4,158. If Mag were to be using this passive, she wouldn't be able to take the first spot until the14th minute into the mission. If we're instead looking at Primes, the Hildryn Prime is #1 at 4,518.5 base EHP. Mag Prime would likewise need to get to the 14th minute to reach first in the Primes category. Mag would have to go 6 minutes before making it into the top 10 of her category, and Mag Prime would have to go 3 minutes. I can't find any concrete data on average mission times, but anecdotally it would seem like it's less than 5 for Captures and less than 10 for pretty much everything else. So Mag would only ever take first place in base EHP on endurance runs or Duviri Circuit.

Secondly, base EHP isn't the sole factor for survivability. Abilities, Mods, and Aranes play a much more significant role. It would be much harder to objectively compare survivability once those other factors are added in. Frames that can endlessly self-revive or frames that can constantly maintain invulnerability would make the comparison moot. And finally game modes that disable shields and/or abilities muddy the waters even more. So while I think this would greatly increase Mag's survivability, I don't think it would shake up the "meta" as we know it.

[3xt1inct]

Yeesh OP has an obsession with mag.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

3 hours ago, 3xt1inct said:

Yeesh OP has an obsession with mag.

It's true! My obsession goes beyond just being a "Mag Main."

Obviously I'm not going to claim that my perspective is a shining example of objectivity. But I do believe that, when it comes to playing as Mag, I can speak with experience.

That said, I have no qualms about offering suggestions that favor Mag, even if I know there are other frames out there that probably need more attention right now.*

* You know, I'll tell you my thought process right now and then why I'm stuck. Where I just said "other frames" I was going to make that a hyperlink to whatever frame most needed a rework right now. So I went to YouTube and looked through a Tier List. But then I thought: "I shouldn't just trust the first opinion I find..." So I looked at another, and another, and at this is what I've found:

Bottom of the barrel Warframes according to...

• Brozime:
  Caliban, Limbo
• iFlynn:
  Caliban, Grendel, Lavos, Oberon, Vauban, Yareli
• KnightmareFrame:
  Inaros
• ZcriptureZ:
  Baruuk, Caliban, Inaros, Ivara, Loki, Nidus, Trinity
• kyaii:
  Ivara, Trinity

So based on these content creators, it looks like the worst frame is... up for debate. No frame got more than two votes between the 5 lists. If I include Overframe's Tier List though then Caliban takes the "win" of being the most in need of a rework. (But Overframe's opinions are quite often chided) But if we also add the Warframe 2023 Stats then Trinity ties it up, so yeah I really don't think I can find a "worst" frame.

-EDIT- I was wrong about Brozime's list, I didn't see the D Tier. That does make Caliban the most voted.

Kind of a rabbit hole, sorry. Long story short, I know there are other frames that need a rework, but you're right in that I'm obsessed with Mag and want her to be perfected and elevated.

Edited July 18 by Probably_Asleep

[3xt1inct]

37 minutes ago, Probably_Asleep said:

It's true! My obsession goes beyond just being a "Mag Main."

 

Ok no doubt that is an achievement, for which i congratulate you, but the only other possible starter (assuming they mean the true starter pool from the original (beta) release) to do it on is Volt, as we all know Excal has a lot of difficulty with keeping up with scaling levels. You gave yourself a little of a tougher start, but that grew exponentially as time and levels progress.

I do however have some questions/notes with a few of the stated rules and claims, especially when laid next to the evidence you provided. Not trying to rain on your parade, just trying to get some clarification and possibly help you make the claim to fame solid. So I'll be zooming in on technicalities and inconsistencies, as a trigger warning.

1. The DE plaque states "the first to complete the game with the original characters", meaning that they state no-one can do it again, even with Volt or Excal. Another note is that the original characters in the beta were Excalibur, Loki, Volt, Rhino, Ash, Mag, Ember and Trinity. This implies you could have used all 8 of them instead of only 1 and that title could actually have been achieved before, but not claimed. Thus the plaque is in direct contention with your first rule of the challenge.
2. You claim "I have finally done it; I've made Warframe history. My account is the first to have achieved the True Master Rank while playing as only one type of frame (Mag/Prime).", People could argue that mag prime (or any of the primes) is not an original frame. This means the plaque provides more confusion around the achievement as the title does not resemble the rules or the goal of the challenge at all.
3. There have been 4 starter frames, Loki should be included as a possibility, P.E. i have friends who started playing the tutorial, picked up Loki, ended the tutorial and decided that this was not their game. I could pick up that account and do the same challenge for Loki (although in that case i should ask support for permission as it would fall under "account sharing").
4. The rule to solo every kind of mission and boss, is not specific enough imo, does this include all Steel Path nodes (they are no longer necessary for True master rank)? To what extent do you need to solo everything, as in are you allowed trading with others, using others and their full arsenal access for your cause? You said you called up your wife to help relic/ducat farming, but was that in a mission with you? Was she opening relics solo as well, or in a squad of 4? How many people are allowed to help gather relics and ducats? Those things are important as it could lead to this stuff becoming a speedrun thing for warframe and people with big clans helping them will have an advantage this way.
5. To what extent do you need game completion? mr30 is obvious, but you mention collecting the archimedean eye sumdali from EDA, the question being, do you need to unlock all possible rewards or was that just a fun sidequest?
6. To what extent may you spend actual money buying plat?
7. I'dd argue that subsumes do impact playstyle and frames capabilities massively, especially abilities like nourish. This feels like swapping out the weaknesses of the kit you chose to challenge yourself with and thus is playing 1/5th of another frame (4 abilities and passive).
8. It is a good thing you did not use any other frame in circuit, if you have the frame built and play it in circuit, you gain mastery and stats on it (yes i tried).
9. Nightwave and halls of ascension fall under the "What needs to be completed?" argument. If the goal is mr30 than the challenges should not matter.
10. Another one for the plaque and proper title, "First to ever beat the game with the original characters", what constitutes beating the game? Whether that is completing all available content, getting to mr30, doing all challenges the game throws at you or having done everything succesfully at least once. It should be clear. There is someone possibly waiting for the title "First to ever beat the game", if the requirement is the first to reach mr30. 
11. Does The title get taken away when there is a new mission type, or if someone on the same course beats you to playing the new mission type first?

Other than those things, congrats, hope you will find as much enjoyment in other things as you do in warframe!

[AsffluffyZ]

20 hours ago, Probably_Asleep said:

It's true! My obsession goes beyond just being a "Mag Main."

Obviously I'm not going to claim that my perspective is a shining example of objectivity. But I do believe that, when it comes to playing as Mag, I can speak with experience.

That said, I have no qualms about offering suggestions that favor Mag, even if I know there are other frames out there that probably need more attention right now.*

* You know, I'll tell you my thought process right now and then why I'm stuck. Where I just said "other frames" I was going to make that a hyperlink to whatever frame most needed a rework right now. So I went to YouTube and looked through a Tier List. But then I thought: "I shouldn't just trust the first opinion I find..." So I looked at another, and another, and at this is what I've found:

Bottom of the barrel Warframes according to...

• Brozime:
  Caliban, Limbo
• iFlynn:
  Caliban, Grendel, Lavos, Oberon, Vauban, Yareli
• KnightmareFrame:
  Inaros
• ZcriptureZ:
  Baruuk, Caliban, Inaros, Ivara, Loki, Nidus, Trinity
• kyaii:
  Ivara, Trinity

So based on these content creators, it looks like the worst frame is... up for debate. No frame got more than two votes between the 5 lists. If I include Overframe's Tier List though then Caliban takes the "win" of being the most in need of a rework. (But Overframe's opinions are quite often chided) But if we also add the Warframe 2023 Stats then Trinity ties it up, so yeah I really don't think I can find a "worst" frame.

-EDIT- I was wrong about Brozime's list, I didn't see the D Tier. That does make Caliban the most voted.

Kind of a rabbit hole, sorry. Long story short, I know there are other frames that need a rework, but you're right in that I'm obsessed with Mag and want her to be perfected and elevated.

That's a hilarious reward to get.

Also I fully disagree that Oberon is a bad warframe (going against the content creators claim) especially now that arcane battery exists and he is the only support who can realistically increase the squads armor values and grant death protection to the squad.

I say this as a Mag/Oberon main.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

9 hours ago, AsffluffyZ said:

That's a hilarious reward to get.

Also I fully disagree that Oberon is a bad warframe (going against the content creators claim) especially now that arcane battery exists and he is the only support who can realistically increase the squads armor values and grant death protection to the squad.

I say this as a Mag/Oberon main.

Support armor, that's interesting. I've been wondering about uses for Arcane Battery. A TF Azure Archon Shard gets up to 225 Armor, which creates 67.5 Energy Max through this arcane. And that's not bad considering the Energy Max option only gives 75 for the same shard (without granting extra armor). That could probably pair really well with Quick Thinking. I'll have to test some builds for that!

Also I always love when people find hidden value in characters/equipment. Something about it feels so antiestablishment and satisfying. (Even though I'm sure "the man" probably doesn't care at all about gamers finding a new use for a Penta)

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Refunded Permeation
If Mag is within Affinity Range, then Enemies/Objects that avoid Squad's Abilities due to Line-of-Sight restrictions refund 5 Energy to caster.

Currently there is no known material or force that can stop magnetic fields. Even "magnetic shielding" just attempts to redirect the magnetic field lines (even black holes seem to fit this rule). So there shouldn't be any LOS restrictions on Mag's abilities, especially from just normal objects and walls on the field. The concept behind this passive would then be a compensation for when that basic truth of physics gets disregarded for the sake of game balance (and that compensation would benefit the other squad members).

To be fair, Pull is the only thing that actually applies to Mag specifically. Her Magnetize, Polarize, and Crush abilities do actually permeate objects. (Magnetize--while active--permeates, but the concluding explosion does not) So this would probably help other squad mates more than Mag specifically. But when Mag's using Pull (especially Greedy Pull), it should be easy for her to generate energy using this system. Even at 100% efficiency, Mag would only need 6 enemies within the cone (but with LOS blocked) to get a net-gain of 5 energy per cast. If there were, say 15 enemies, then Mag would be able to recharge her Energy reserves pretty quickly. Also, if she has a high enough range, then her Magnetize explosion could refund the cost of the bubble as long as 10 or more enemies are within the explosion radius (but shielded from the actual explosion itself).

(In case it hasn't been evident by now my format for these has organically formed into three parts: Lore, Mechanics, and Justification; this is the third part) Mag really needs some form of built-in energy generation to complete her kit. Fluctuating drop rates, sparse enemies, or simple trigger-happiness can leave Mag with absolutely no way to use her abilities. For other frames that might be okay, but Mag is a casting frame, so it's really quite unfair to build her with such a contradiction in the first place. Later on this can easily be mitigated with efficiency, Zenurik, Arcanes, and more, but the beginning of the game is particularly unforgiving (especially to the introverted players that don't engage in trading). And guess what? Mag is most often used at the early levels (despite my adamant insistence that she should be used more often by everyone at end game, but that's beside the point). Also, this would be a good way to make up for the outrage over the Greedy Pull nerf. I know it's been a hot minute since that happened, but people are still sour about that. This would let you turn Greedy Pull into an absolute Energy Beast. If there are a lot of drops lying around but they are out of sight of Mag, then her Pull could very easily fill her Energy Reserves with just one cast of Pull. Greedy Pull would once again have a very good use case.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Acceleration
Half of Mag's Ability Strength Percentage is added Mobility Mods Effects.

Magnetic Acceleration is certainly less mysterious than some of the other phenomenon/applications relating to Magnetics, but I think it's common and intuitive enough that it should be considered as the basis for her passive. Rather than Gauss who has movement augmenting his abilities, Mag would reverse that.

The mechanics would be fairly simple to understand as well. Any Mod that affects mobility, like:

• Movement/Sprint Speed
• Parkour/Roll Velocity
• Jump/Double-Jump Height
• Friction/Gravity Decrease
• Aim Glide/Wall Latch Duration Increase
• etc.

These Mods would add 50% of Mag's Ability Strength to their value, based on their value. So for example, Rush adds 30% to Sprint Speed, so if Mag had 100% Ability Strength, then Rush would be 45% instead. Amar's Anguish is 15% Sprint, 15% Parkour, so if Mag had 40% Ability Strength (from using Overextended), then Amar's Anguish would instead be 18% Sprint/Parkour. The Mag on that would be (40% * 0.5 + 1) * 15% = 18%

There are obviously some extremes that this could get to. It looks like there is 112% additional Sprint Speed you can get through Mods (not counting Runtime). So if you got Mag up to 300% Ability Strength then it would be a total of (300% * 0.5 + 1) * 112% = 280% additional Sprint Speed (or 3.8 in the stats box). Praedos would bump that up to an even 4.0x Sprint Speed. But that doesn't actually compete with Volt if he's equipped with the same stats and uses his Speed ability. So it wouldn't make Mag the first in natural Mobility, and it would still come at the cost of Mod Space and having to build for Ability Strength, But it would give some more build options, and the increased speed would make the early game more entertaining.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Contact Repulse
Jump Kicks cause enemies to drop items or unique power ups.

There's this thing called the "stroke method" where you can magnetize something by stroking it with a permanent magnet. It seems to be for establishing a relatively weak magnetic charge and I don't see much high-powered uses; it doesn't create a stronger magnet than the source after all. A very common example is magnetizing a needle with this method to make a homemade compass. So the concept I'm going with here is that Mag could give enemies a monopolarity charge when she strikes them with her body. Same polarities obviously repel each other, so enemies with this condition would have all their possessions wanting to jump away from their bodies. Things like loot, ammunition, weapons, clothing, and so on would all want to fly away. And the most universally available way for Mag to strike them with her body is with a Jump Kick.

Though I think there's be a good argument for disarming, or at least causing enemies to lose their current magazine and need to reload their weapon, that's not what I'm going for here. The mechanics of this passive would instead work like this:

• When Mag lands a Jump Kick on an Enemy without Overguard, they'll drop something
  • Resource
  • Ammunition
  • Health Orb
  • Energy Orb
  • Unique Power Up
• Each kick halves the chance of an additional kick causing a drop (100% > 50% > 25% >12.5% > 6.25%), and any kick after the 5th kick will be 0%
• Only one of each kind of drop can drop (so you won't get a second Energy Orb from the same enemy)
• The enemy must live through the kick
• Unique Power Ups will show up as: "+{ELEMENT} Orb" like "+Electric Orb" or "+Impact Orb"
  • +Element's are like Ayatan Stars, they are unaffected by Vacuum and must be manually picked up
  • +Element's add 25% of that Element to...
    • All remaining rounds in the current magazine of the currently equipped ranged weapon (Primary/Secondary)
    • Melee attacks if the Combo Counter is greater than 1
  • Reloading a ranged weapon dismisses the +Element effect on that Ranged weapon
  • Losing Combo (via Heavy Attack or timeout) dismisses the +Element effect a Melee weapon
  • +Element's can stack up to 10 times (+250%)
  • +Element's will only spawn as elements that are not modded/innate on the currently equipped weapon
    • So if your Braton has IPS and Viral/Heat, then only Cold/Electric/Toxin/Blast/Radiation/Gas/Magnetic/Corrosive will show
    • Swapping to another weapon without those elements will make them possible to spawn
    • Swapping back after you get it to spawn will allow you to get the element
  • Physical +Element Orbs (Impact/Puncture/Slash) will add that damage type to the weapon in the same formula as elemental mods
  • +Element Orbs disappear if go more than 30 meters away from them
  • Allies can pick up +Element Orbs as well
  • Actions that recharge magazine without reload will not reset +Element effect (so battery weapons or mods like Synth Charge will not reset it)
• Drops do not affect final drops of enemy upon defeat

This may all seem complicated, but it's really not; apart from a few arbitrary settings the majority of these rules should be intuitive. The basic play style cycle would be to Jump Kick enemies a lot more to get things like extra loot and Health/Energy Orbs. Assuming you're only kicking each enemy once, then 20% of the time you'll get something to enhance your damage output by adding more elements.

To justify this. Mag used to have an added effect on her Pull that made Energy Orbs drop more often from enemies killed during that ability. This was an acknowledgement of how Energy-thirsty Mag is. Of course in late game Pull never kills anyone, so it was purely an early game assist, which is what this passive would initially be helping with. I doubt this would change the Farming Meta all that much, but I'm not going to speak to that because it's not my thing. I just play and usually have the resources I need naturally (except for things like Hepit research). There is potential to really boost Mag's damage output here. If you got a weapon with only 1 damage type (like the Gotva Prime) then you could add 2,750% damage by maxing out every other damage type. (3000% if you swapped to something like the Tenet Cycron to get the missing +Puncture Orbs) And that sounds absolutely OP, yes, but consider just how difficult that would actually be! If you kicked an enemy 5 times, there's only about a 34% chance if you getting a +Element Orb. Meaning you'd need to land over 1,757 kicks just to get enough Orbs to max out your damage. But that wouldn't even work, right? Because a lot of those orbs would be useless after you get 10 of that type. After your 108th orb you'd be guaranteed to start getting orbs for damage types you've already maxed out. (And it could happen before that) With each 10-orb max, your orb-farm would get less and less efficient. By the time you're down to farming your last element, 5 kicks on one enemy would only give you a 2.85% chance of getting the orb you're looking for. So while it's not impossible to get to 30x bonus damage, you'd need to have tortured hundreds of enemies with thousands of Jump Kicks. And if you accidentally spend your whole magazine and trigger a reload (or just accidentally press the reload button), then you'd lose all that progress. So no, I don't think it's OP. But I think it would be fun and offer some potentially useful advantages!

Edited August 2 by Probably_Asleep

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Pervasive Influence
Abilities have a 25% chance of affecting CC-Immune enemies; failure will instead damage CC-Protection by 25% of its max value.

This has been covered before, but there's nothing that can actually stop magnetism. The only options is redirect the field lines with enough material that is highly susceptible to magnetization, or by creating a corresponding magnetic field. (Both are basically doing the same thing, just creating a new--more preferable--path for the magnetic field lines) There's also bending spacetime, but that's not technically redirecting anything (the one traveling through bent space believes it is still straight). The underlying point though is that magnetism is unstoppable; you can try to deflect it, but it will likely cost you the same energy you would have otherwise used to resist the force in the first place. It makes sense for things like electronics, where you can protect a sensitive region by spending energy in surrounding regions. But against a fantasy being that can alter reality according to her own idea of the meaning of magnetism, there's really nothing you could do from a purely scientific method. Because of this, Mag's abilities should not be able to be shielded against.

Rather than going all in on the "make it make sense" route, this passive compromises and says that Mag has a 1/4th success rate on bypassing defenses. When that fails, then whatever is resisting her abilities take damage. There are three categories of enemy CC-Immunity that need to be accounted for:

• Nullifiers
  • If the ability is just cast/hit, then the hit the enemies inside 25% of the time, and hurt the bubble the other 75% of the time
  • If the ability lingers (like Magnetize/Aquablades/etc.). Each "tick" of damage is a new assessment:
    • There's a 25% chance for it to hit the enemies inside; the ability is not cancelled even if it's touching bubble during this tick
    • A failure instead damages the Nullifier bubble; if the bubble and the ability are intersecting, then the ability deactivated
  • If the ability is a self-buff (like Perspicacity), then there's a 25% chance to keep it when passing through bubble, losing it damages the bubble
  • When the bubble is damaged, it loses 25% of its maximum radius; if at or below a fourth of its maximum, then the bubble pops
• Overguard
  • (Much more simple than Nullifiers) Overguarded enemies have a 25% chance of getting affected by abilities
  • If the effect fails, then Overguard is cut by 1/4th of its maximum
• Other Immunity - Bosses and special enemies are left as is

I know this has been debated elsewhere, but CC has been indisputably attacked by recent updates. Eximus enemies began as a sort of "field boss," and it was understandable that something had to change because CC abilities rendered them laughably useless. I remember having fun with using Mag's original Pull to just yank all visible enemies (Eximus included) into a pit and watch them die instantly. So Eximus were then given Overguard, which offered some protection against CC and made it so you had to pay individual attention to them. But with CC abilities getting indirectly nerfed, players focused more on raw killing power, which exacerbated the already-bad power creep situation. In response to this, new game modes just kept adding in more and more Eximus units to try to resist the insane killing power being wielded by players. At this point, Eximus units can occupy even as much as half of the enemies on the field, making CC focused frames and playstyles almost entirely useless. It all stems from the original concern that CC is was too powerful.

But CC was never powerful. It could stop enemies from attacking, which allowed for defending targets and gathering loot/drops, but it didn't often kill the enemies. It allowed players to manage the pace of enemy spawn rates and open the way for teammates (or themselves) to kill enemies even with weaker equipment. With CC being so thoroughly devastated, the only option now is for everyone to conform to a single playstyle of high-damage, AoE, defense-bypassing, KPM-focused slaughter. It's mattering less and less what character you play with, and more and more on what damage output you can slap together. And as soon as someone finds a new, higher damage output, everyone has to abandon their current loadout just to keep up. I realize this isn't solely a CC problem. It's also a general power-creep problem as well as a natural consequence of a live service game existing for over a decade. I believe that's why they didn't care too much about the recent armor-cap; even with a worry that enemies would be weaker with the new update, who cares at this point? Crowd-Control would make for a great remedy to this troubling trend though. CC allows the player to think about what they're doing, which has greater long-term entertainment value than chasing higher and higher numbers.

That's enough ranting from me. I think a passive like this would be very helpful in bringing back value to Mag's Polarize ability, as well as improve the game experience without ruining the balance. (Or what's left of the balance)

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Zeeman Eye
Mag sees additional information when looking directly at objects and enemies, increasing her abilities as she understands more.

Okay so there's this cool phenomenon called the "Zeeman Effect" that, in a practical sense, energizes or deenergizes light sources in a way that changes their resulting color. Two practical uses for this are MRI machines and astronomy. MRI's get their information by upgrading electrons to higher shells to get more intense energy bursts and with it more detail. (I'm probably butchering that explanation) Whereas astronomy has to account for how light may have been shifted on the spectrum to get an accurate idea of what elements are emitting light. In a Warframe sci-fi-fantasy flavor, Mag would be using her innate electromagnetic understanding and nature to see more information than other frames when she concentrates on something.

Practical application would be played out as follows:

• When crosshairs are on an enemy
  • Numerical HP / Shields are immediately visible
  • After 1 second, Current Armor and Overguard values are shown
  • After 2 seconds, Remaining scans needed for Codex are shown, and weak-points are highlighted
  • After 3 seconds: "Understanding" is obtained
    • A little card icon will appear in the buff bar, with a number showing how many enemies you've seen through
    • In the pause menu, Mag will have a menu option to view the cards
    • Cards have live data on all targets seen (obviously they won't update if the target has died)
    • Scroll through the cards to see all kinds of data you might want to know
      • Elemental weaknesses
      • Buffs/Debuffs
      • Attacks they can do
      • Alert status
      • Coordinates (N/A if dead)
      • Weapons equipped
      • Max health values
      • EHP with multipliers explained
      • etc.
  • Enemies fully understood are always visible on minimap even if out of Enemy Radar range
• When crosshairs are on an object
  • Similar to enemies with HP being visible immediately
  • "Understanding" is obtained after only 2 seconds because Armor/Overguard doesn't exist on objects (I think...)
• The amount of "Understanding" you have obtained in a mission increases Mag's Abilities by 1% in a rotating distribution
  • Scans 1, 5, 9... increase Mag's Ability Duration
  • Scans 2, 6, 10... increase Mag's Ability Efficiency
  • Scans 3, 7, 11... increase Mag's Ability Range
  • Scans 4, 8, 12... increase Mag's Ability Strength
  • Maximum +75% increase (300 scans total to max everything)
  • Resets on death
• 300 Cards Maximum per mission

The boost probably wouldn't contribute much to a mission since we're talking a pretty tedious exercise of maintaining an eye on 300 objects for 2 to three seconds each. If you were really good had a lot of objects then the theoretical minimum would be 10 minutes, but it would be more likely to be 15 minutes of looking at enemies. Where this passive WOULD shine, however, is in research. Getting to know exactly how energy and damage scales with each enemy and level, as well as getting clear numerical data on the effectiveness of weapons and abilities, would make the Zeeman Eye a valuable ability for players that really want to dig into the deep details of Warframe's inner mechanics.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Magnetic Personality
Mag gains standing across all active Syndicates, can see/retrieve all medallions, and can equip Conclave Mods.

No science(ish) explanation here. This passive would just mean that there's something about Mag that all the NPC's love. Maybe it's her petite size, her modest dimensions, her unassuming fashion sense, her underdog beginnings, her form-fits-function professionalism, her astronaut helmet face, or her mysterious bidents. Or maybe it's her potential to become the most well-rounded goddess of death ever to be seen in the Origin and Tau systems. Whatever it is, NPC's get it.

The way it would play out mechanically though falls into 4 categories:

• Standing
  • Every active Syndicate gives standing for each mission you complete as Mag
  • "Active" here means that you've done whatever quest or interaction needed to be aware of that Syndicate
  • Standing gain is a fixed amount of Mag's Level multiplied by your Mastery Rank (Max of 900 per Syndicate per mission).
  • Cannot accumulate beyond the Maximum Standing for each Syndicate
• Syndicate Alerts
  • Syndicate Medallions are visible to Mag and can be picked up for the entire Squad
  • This even applies to missions where Mag has a negative standing with the current Syndicate (as in, a Squadmate asked you to help with their Syndicate Alert)
  • Completing a Syndicate Alert as Mag will still award the bonus Standing for that Syncidate even with a currently negative Standing towards that Syndicate
• Conclave Mods
  • Mag is able to equip Conclave Mods into her Mod screen, even mods for Weapons
  • Mods will be excluded if they cannot have an effect (like the "Tear Gas" Mod that augments Ash's non-Helminth ability)
  • Mods must have the Conclave Icon
  • Melee Stance Mods will not work, and Specific Weapon Augment Mods will have no effect if that weapon is not equipped
  • Energy Drain Mods remove that percentage of Overguard/Shields from enemies and converts it to energy
• Interactions
  • NPC's who are usually rude to you will be less rude
  • Little Duck will instead apologize that she can't make an exception for you
  • Rude Zuud has different dialog for Mag
  • Baro Ki'Teer treats you like a Prime frame
  • The Business and Son will not lecture you if you accidentally kill wildlife (instead acting like it was, in fact, an accident)
  • etc. (There's a lot of interactions that could be looked at)

Now for the justification! So there might be some overpowered combinations of Mods, I'm not going to sugarcoat that. This would in essence add some extra Mod space to weapons. I'm of the opinion that it probably would be okay though because it would come at the cost of Mod space on Mag and Conclave Mods are specifically designed to be less powerful. But there are far too many combinations and thresholds for me to speculate off the top of my head how it will go.

For the standing, this would allow for maxing out all 6 of your "warring Syndicates" simultaneously The key would be to not pledge toward a particular Syndicate and then just level them all evenly. But there's an obvious downside there! At rank 30 for instance, the Standing limit is 31,000. That means you'd only be able to get 5,166 Standing for each warring Syndicate per day (unless some of them were maxed out). To get to 132,000 for all 6, you'd need to do 35 missions every day for 25 days. That might be nice in End Game, but early on you'll probably be better served just focusing on one pledged Syndicate at a time.

Where this would really come in handy though would be Conclave. This passive would give people a way to gain Conclave Standing even without support in their region (which is all but a foregone conclusion at this point). This would, in turn, give people an avenue to obtain the rewards available through Teshin like skins, scenes, and fashion that would normally be impossible to get. At MR 30 with a fully leveled Mag, you'd need 35 missions to max out the Conclave standing for that day. That's a lot of work, but it's not impossible (whereas getting people to join PvP is impossible) I think that's where this Passive would be talked about the most. People that want those collectibles can simply play as Mag to get them, and then go back to their favored frame when they're done.

Finally, there are several other syndicates like Ostron, Entrati, and so on that can be tedious to farm standing for. This would prove to be a nice alternative to going through with those specific game modes. You could, for instance, be do all your Steel Path Incursions, Sortie Missions, an Arbitration, five Relic Fissures, five Kuva Siphon missions, and 1 weekly mission like Maroo's Sculpture Run or a Netracell (about 21 missions), and through that routine generate 18,900 Standing for each of your Syndicates (roughly the equivalent of 3 Bounties/Missions for each of the various Syndicates). Do that routine for a week and you'd be able to get all 132,000 Standing for all of your Syndicates and go on a spending spree each weekend. I guess there might need to be some balancing there (running 21 missions to get 60 free mission completions does seem a bit much), but I think the underlying principle has potential. And even with those "free completions" you're still not getting the resources or Affinity/Focus you'd otherwise get if you actually played them.

[(NSW)Probably_Asleep]

On 2023-02-23 at 12:13 PM, (NSW)Probably_Asleep said:

Featured Passive Replacement for Mag:
Pulsus Imperium
Mag has a visual guide for easier and more powerful headshots.

The formula for momentum is P=M*V, and I was curious why "momentum" is represented with a "p." Turns out it's an abbreviation of the Latin "pulsus" (pulse). I then played around with Google Translate to see if there as a catchy phrase that could imply a change in momentum. I'm by no means a Latin expert, so my rule for a decent translation is that the results don't change when you swap the direction. "Pulse Control" returns "Pulsus Imperium," and "Pulsus Imperium" returns "Pulse Control," so I call that a win. The word "imperium" is just authority, so putting it all together, this passive would be "Control of Momentum."

Momentum itself is a physics concept. (I was going to say "grade school physics concept," but I can't actually find any confirmation that schools teach it to grade schoolers; it's looking like a high school thing. Either the education system has degraded, or my grade school teachers were sadistic) It's just a object's linear motion that should remain constant until a force acts upon it to change its velocity or direction. One of those forces could of course be electromagnetism, so in this case Mag, the authority over that force, would have control over the direction of a moving body. Mag would use this to bend bullet trajectories toward their intended target, and that alteration of momentum would have an added benefit in cases where her aim was already exact. (As in, the force that would be correcting the bullet trajectory is instead accelerating it)

 

The practical application though is very simple. When mag is aiming, and her cross-hairs go over an enemy, she'll see an aim-assist reticle showing her where to shoot to get a headshot. (Similar to what you see in Archwing missions while aiming) The reticle itself will would be a dot in a circle that's in another circle:

1. Outer Circle: Wouldn't qualify as a headshot, but very close; Mag gets 2x headshot multiplier instead of the 3x
2. Inner Circle: Actual headshot zone, so a standard 3x multiplier
3. Exact Dot: The center of the headshot zone; nailing this gets a 4x headshot multiplier

The aim-assist reticle would change color depending on where you're aiming: Red for outer circle, Yellow for inner circle, and green for the exact dot.

 

This would be a nice training mechanic for knowing where to aim and getting some feedback on how precise you are. That of course would be a good system for new players. Then for the end-game players, having a means to get higher damage would be desirable. The exact dot would be difficult to hit in an active playthrough, so I don't think that would be OP. The outer circle would be double the radius of the inner circle, so this would represent a region 3 times larger than the normal headshot zone. In practice though players would still need to be aiming in the middle of combat, and Mag usually has to move around a lot for survival. So I think this would be great training without granting too much extra power.