Balance pass going over all Helminth abilities:

[Traumtulpe]

While the Helminth is a great addition to the game, it suffers from wild imbalance regarding the available abilities - severely limiting variety and player enjoyment. Seeing how DE is unable or unwilling to spend the time needed to properly consider their balance, I thought I'd do it in 10 minutes:

〇 Shuriken: Now strips armor (as per augment) by default, both shuriken will home in on the target being aimed at (if any).

〇 Pertify: Fixed the bug where Petrify does not respect the players aim (instead apparently going where the warframes head points), 20% of damage bypasses targets armor.

〇 Silence: No change.

〇 Lull: The augment is now baseline part of the ability.

〇 Sentient Wrath: Changed the cast animation to be one handed, faster, and not force the warframe to the ground.

〇 Fractured Blast: Reverted the Helminth specific nerf. All it does is drop orbs, dude, chill it with the nerfbat.

〇 Elemental Ward: Reverted the Toxin variety to scale with duration instead of strength (including the damage buff), made the buff multiplicative instead of base damage.

〇 Fire Blast: Uncapped the armor strip - can now reach 100% via sufficient ability strength.

〇 Rest and Rage: No change.

〇 Radial Blind: No change.

〇 Ice Wave: The augment is now part of the ability by default.

〇 Spectrorage: Is now centered on the player and moves with him.

〇 Blood Altar: Every enemy killed within range gives allies 100 overguard (including the coming 0.5 second "overguard gate").

〇 Thermal Sunder: Added a 1 second cast delay to dissuade overly aggressive spamming, slightly toned down the sound effect.

〇 Nourish: Extra energy is now +75% regardless of ability strength, retaliation always procs 1x viral (even for Grendel).

〇 Coil Horizon: Reduced the spheres weight so it can be thrown upwards too!

〇 Condemn: No change.

〇 Pillage: No change.

〇 Tempest Barrage: Now strips both armor and shields by default, removed the augment.

〇 Dissication: Increased the healing to 50 per second while enemies are affected, modified by ability strength.

〇 Quiver: Tap to cast Stealth Arrow as normal, hold to stick the arrow into yourself. People already do this with a sentinel, but it's clunky as eff.

〇 Ensnare: Added a mild (really mild!) line of sight check (ensnaring enemies through walls is actually a bit of a nuisance).

〇 Wrathful Advance: Now +100% crit by default, Helminth range nerf reverted (ability is identical both on Kullervo and in Helminth).

〇 Vial Rush: Adds a movement speed + cold damage buff after the ability is done casting.

〇 Banish: Banished enemies can still be damaged from outside the rift.

〇 Decoy: Added a 5 second invunerability / charge up phase, his shots now deal scaling damage in ralation to damage absorbed (think Mallet).

〇 Pull: Reverted the Helminth specific nerf. Greedy Pull is now an exilus mod.

〇 Shooting Gallery: No change.

〇 Eclipse: Removed the damage reduction part entirely, now only buffs damage at the reduced Helminth value (even for Mirage herself). 75% DR sometimes is useless.

〇 Terrify: No change.

〇 Fire Walker: Now offers 100% status immunity while active (I think it's supposed to, but it actually doesn't work reliably).

〇 Larva: Reverted the Helminth specific nerf.

〇 Null Star: No longer passively uses up particles, the augment Neutron Star is now part of the ability by default. Inceased energy cost to 50.

〇 Mind Control: Mind controlled enemies now have higher aggro rating.

〇 Smite: Projectiles now explode in a 5m radius (for the same damage).

〇 Resonator: No change.

〇 Dispensary: Reverted the Helminth specific nerf.

〇 Reave: No change.

〇 Roar: Now 35% damage increase (even on Rhino), costs 50 energy and has the augment Piercing Roar by default.

〇 Molt: The augment is now part of the base ability, also fixed the bug where the healing buff stops actually healing when Molt explodes.

〇 Gloom: Maximum slow is 80%, reduced energy cost.

〇 Tharros Strike: No change.

〇 Spellbind: The augment Spellbound Harvest is now part of the ability by default.

〇 Well of Life: The augment Pool of Life is now part of the ability by default.

〇 Warcry: Reverted the Helminth nerf.

〇 Tesla Nervos: Tesla Bank now deals true damage.

〇 Shock: Enemies affected by Shock have a 20% chance to drop an energy orb.

〇 Lycath's Hunt: Reverted the Helminth nerf. It drops orbs my dude, this doesn't break the game.

〇 Breach Surge: No change.

〇 Defy: Armor bonus increased to maximum 3000, decaying over time.

〇 Xata's Whispers: No change.

〇 Aquablades: Now also procs Cold and Puncture, in addition to Slash.

〇 Airburst Rounds: Changed the augment Airburst Rounds to be multiplicative instead of base damage, with a cap of 250%.

As a bonus:

〇 Rebuild Shields: Now also gives an equal amount of overguard and clears status effects.

〇 Marked for Death: Now identical to the Stalker version.

〇 Masters Summons: Now revives completely dead pets, including sentinels.

 

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

Honestly speaking, you really like to bash DE while introducing a version of power creep that showcases why there were corrections in the first place. Applying 3K armor, energy orb drops from shock and true damage, while also stacking all of the supplemental damage/protections that vet players currently use, would trivialize SP and make the standard chart boring. 

Is this what players are really asking for: A non meme version of press 4 to win? That sounds incredibly boring.

The game needs more than just big damage numbers without any type of drawbacks. The right subsume already can greatly change the dynamics of frames (such as a fire blast Loki with iradiant disarm = an invincible SP Circuit defense monster). Adding even more power/benefits...on top of the augments(!!!) is just freakin silly. 

Don't get me wrong. Some of your ideas are cool (such as your Master's Summon idea), but the great majority are just silly. 

[Voltage]

I can see the goal with this post is to bring up the bar on several underused abilities, but I think fundamentally, the point of Helminth is flawed and needs to be heavily reconsidered from the ground up.

Helminth has lead to 3 major issues that are not mentioned in this post, most discussions on Helminth, Dev conversations, but frankly need to be addressed:

1. "Practicality Stagnation" from new Warframe abilities
   • The themes and abilities themselves still have value as eye candy and a new toy, but the Warframe's usability rarely outlives the honeymoon phase of their release. This is because the existing roster has morphed into "one-man-army Arsenal configs", and for new Warframes to "compete" as a compelling choice, they end up having very "same-y" performance baselines that we've seen way too often now. Maybe this is natural due to the bloated amount of gear in Warframe, but I think if Helminth weren't around, Gloom would actually make Sevagoth a more compelling choice, not the reason to ignore him for most missions. This feeds into point 2.
2. Corrosion of Warframe kit identity
   • The whole point of stripping Armor from an ability is to give that one Warframe a debuff that makes them worth choosing. The point of Mirage is to be a glass cannon, and Chroma to have several team support abilities. They aren't meant to be completely outclassed by Volt Prime and Wisp because those Warframes get the luxury of sustainability and the ability to rob an unrelated Warframe of power that also stacks on top of the new "host" of the ability with their own abilities. DE thought the solution was nerfing the magnitude of power offered from an ability. Unfortunately, Warframe has so much power creep that the magnitude of power has to be unbearably low to become not worth using. This feeds into point 3:
3. Changing and Nerfing Warframes because an ability was imbalanced when used on a different Warframe
   • I'm a Nova Prime player. It's my most used Warframe at 23.3% across my 10,000+ play time hours. She's incredibly fun. Unfortunately, Helminth has nerfed her not once, but twice. It's absolutely stupid that the effectiveness of Neutron Star has been terrible for years, finally given a buff that makes it competitive to things as absurd as Thermal Sunder Razorwing Blitz Titania, and it gets nerfed ... because of Limbo and Harrow? Seriously? "Oh yeah, this ability was too effective on an energy-sustaining Warframe so we nerfed the entire augment". Thank you for that. It's not like Nova Prime already has her own energy economy to manage that can become expensive depending on how often you use Wormhole, never mind her other 3 abilities. Let's also not forget that the Damage Reduction got capped on Null Star because of ... Arcane Aura Helmet for Trinity? Really? You know, atleast just cap the Damage Reduction for Helminth and let Nova Prime enjoy 95%. It's expensive to mod for, it decays, and it's not full immunity like Shield Gating. It isn't overpowered for Nova Prime exclusively, only when it's applied to a separate Warframe. This way of thinking and being reactionary to creativity that butchers the base Warframe is just annoying. This then compounds when the base Warframe is balanced, but they can make subsume choices that results in unbalanced behavior. It's corrosive to the roster of Warframes and how content is approached lately if I'm being honest.

The problem isn't that there are tons of underused abilities, it's that Helminth has created a scenario where the player is pushed towards Warframe and Helminth choices that overshadow kit functionality that the original Warframe never had, and honestly shouldn't. The more power you allow into the top choices, the less compelling the middle of the pack are to play.

Most Warframes are in "okay" shape. They aren't crazy, and they certainly aren't terrible, but when there are such power-house choices around due to "having it all" with just the right set of subsumes, it really degrades from what makes some abilities and Warframes special. Mirage, Sevagoth, Gauss, Ember, and Grendel are probably the most notable options as these are the Warframes you see infrequently in matchmaking, but you see a massive amount of usage with Eclipse, Gloom, Thermal Sunder, Fire Blast, and Nourish.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Voltage

[Tiltskillet]

These look  very good, as far as it goes, especially on the abilities that needed baseline buffs. 

Although as you know I would go more the other direction, and have all injectable abilities be superior on their native frames, at least on paper.  The crazy thing to me isn't that DE nerfed Lycath's Hunt on other frames, it's that they haven't finally gone back and done the same to Gloom and Breach Surge.

[AntifreezeUnder0]

I would just rework helminths all together. It be ridiculous that abilities work on othr frames bettr than original.

Like gloom gets removed from pool or removed the slowing down enemies, so sevagoth gets atleast some edge.

Nourish only give viral buff and pulse, energy is grendel only bonus, since he atleast needs to eat enemies to cast it. Not like now subsumed is better than using on grendel cause one needs first be bale to have atleast 1 enemy in gut to cast, and hope that party member isnt there with his nourish which blocks my... 

But Master summons change is welcomed, since for normal pets its great, sentinels would help a lot, but then we remove the spare parts from sentinels! or change it to not fell into abuse of that mechanic.

[Traumtulpe]

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

Let's also not forget that the Damage Reduction got capped on Null Star because of ... Arcane Aura Helmet for Trinity?

It got capped because you could get literally 100% damage reduction via Invigoration or new arcanes. As far as the Helminth is concerned, I'm looking at this from a "fun" perspective - throwing around fancy concepts like "Corrosion of Warframe kit Identity" is nice and all, but putting cool abilities that you enjoy on warframes you like, and customization in general is just fun. And the game is struggling on a very basic level, we can worry about concepts like that when the basics are working.

3 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

Honestly speaking, you really like to bash DE while introducing a version of power creep that showcases why there were corrections in the first place. Applying 3K armor, energy orb drops from shock and true damage, while also stacking all of the supplemental damage/protections that vet players currently use, would trivialize SP and make the standard chart boring.

Right now you can put Gloom on a warframe and nothing moves anymore. The AI just gets turned off. That's bad, and my suggestion would change it. Having 3k armor (that decays over time, as I wrote) is a lot worse than shield gating - when was the last time you saw anybody play Valkyr? She has 3k armor with an Umbral set and Warcry, and this is not something players see as worth playing. Also you still die to a single slash tick with 3k armor.

Steel path is already trivial and normal is already boring (and always has been). The goal of this post wasn't to change that (and changes to the Helminth can't possibly do that), it was to make the Helminth more fun by adding a semblance of balance.

1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

Although as you know I would go more the other direction, and have all injectable abilities be superior on their native frames, at least on paper.  The crazy thing to me isn't that DE nerfed Lycath's Hunt on other frames, it's that they haven't finally gone back and done the same to Gloom and Breach Surge.

But that would be no fun. A lot of warframes have bugged garbage abilities, let me replace at least one of those garbage abilities with a fun one that isn't nerfed by 50%.

Let's all be real here for a second; Nobody is going to use Fire Blast when Terrify exists (75% armor stip max, line of sight), having a decaying 3k armor from an ability (you can get roughly the same with 2 Arcanes!) doesn't break the game and neither do health / energy orbs.

You can't just present a player with a choice between A) and B), when they do the exact same thing except B) is just clearly inferior in every way. That's not how choice works.

[ReddyDisco]

6 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

〇 Xata's Whispers: No change.

Change it to not have the infested goop on you, primary reason i never used it. fashion is more important!

[Traumtulpe]

1 minute ago, ReddyDisco said:

Change it to not have the infested goop on you, primary reason i never used it. fashion is more important!

That's a fair point, but I actually think the ability is bugged and not supposed to have that goop in the first place. It's literally copy pasted from Nidus, and if I recall correctly, Xata's Whisper didn't have the goop on release.

[Tiltskillet]

30 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

But that would be no fun. A lot of warframes have bugged garbage abilities, let me replace at least one of those garbage abilities with a fun one that isn't nerfed by 50%.

I have no problem at all with weaker  options being buffed, like Decoy and Shock, which is why I praised your suggestions overall.

I just want Decoy and Shock to end up even better for Loki and Volt than for rando- frame.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Tiltskillet

[Traumtulpe]

3 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

I just want Decoy and Shock to end up even better for Loki and Volt than for rando- frame.

That can be done without issue via ability synergy - just as Wisp can teleport to her nodes via Breach Surge (and benefit from the augment) while other frames can't.

If you just nerf an ability by 50% it's either too strong on the original frame, or too weak in the Helminth.

[Tiltskillet]

8 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

That can be done without issue via ability synergy - just as Wisp can teleport to her nodes via Breach Surge (and benefit from the augment) while other frames can't.

That's one way.  Another way is to just give the ability better stats out of the box on the frame it belongs to.

I know we're not going to agree on this. :P

 

9 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

If you just nerf an ability by 50% it's either too strong on the original frame, or too weak in the Helminth.

Yeah, 50% is way too much in almost all cases.   

[Traumtulpe]

5 hours ago, Voltage said:

Mirage, Sevagoth, Gauss, Ember, and Grendel are probably the most notable options as these are the Warframes you see infrequently in matchmaking, but you see a massive amount of usage with Eclipse, Gloom, Thermal Sunder, Fire Blast, and Nourish.

I'd like to pose the exact opposite point of view, Mirage would be a very popular warframe if you could give her the suggested Quiver or Defy, and Eclipse was a damage buff only. The 2 reasons people don't play her is her lack of survivability and reliability, many people in fact love her theme and style.

Gloom and Nourish are just completely overpowered abilities, and if you've ready my OP you'd see I suggested reasonable nerfs.

And Thermal Sunder is weird, so I'll skip that one (I could write an entire page on this ability). But Gauss is actually fairly popular himself.

I've never actually seen anybody use Fire Blast, ever. I'd have definitely noticed by enemies getting knocked away (or the huge wall of fire). And I see no reason to use this ability, ever, myself. So I'll need you to explain this one to me.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Traumtulpe

[(PSN)robotwars7]

14 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

While the Helminth is a great addition to the game, it suffers from wild imbalance regarding the available abilities

> talks about wild imbalance

> makes helminth versions of most abilities even more powerful than the standard version on their intended frame, often removing the Helminth nerf and/or making the augments part of the ability by default.

I'll admit that in some cases, augments should be made part of a base ability, mainly in the case where people will run the augment 99% of the time anyway; a good example of this is Nekros, where the vast majority - myself included - will run Both Despoil and Shield of Shadows. these augments should be part of how the ability works, that way the augments can be made into more interesting versions of the powers, e.g. Shield of Shadows becomes part of the base ability, the augment now converts the shadows into a single, powerful shadow clone of Nekros that uses your weapons and delivers more damage support at the cost of not drawing as much agro. 

undoing helminth nerfs isn't the answer, and DE need to actually examine Helminth in more detail; sadly I wouldn't expect a balance pass any time soon, and as more frames and their abilities are added to the system, the prospect of a balance pass drifts even further away.. 

[Traumtulpe]

5 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

makes helminth versions of most abilities even more powerful than the standard version on their intended frame

No, you completely misunderstood. In my suggestion Helminth abilities are completely identical to their base versions, with very few exceptions (like Quiver, and Petrify not generating rubble).

Also you may have noticed that I have suggested nerfs for the most powerful helminth abilities (within reason, unlike DE who tend to completely axe and bury anything they nerf), while suggesting numerous improvements to helminth abilities nobody ever uses or will even consider (because they objectively suck).

The aim is to increase player choice by narrowing the gap between abilties.

[SneakyErvin]

Wanting to nerf things like Thermal Sunder and Nourish across the board just seems utterly silly, just as removing specific frame synergies like uncapping Fire Blast for Helminth.

Also lol, adding overguard to Blood Altar along with adding the coming Kullervo specific invulnerability? As if Garuda isnt indestructible and invulnerable on demand enough as it is? Imagine how #*!%ing silly that ability would be on frames like Saryn or Xaku, or any other high range high KPM frame. Two sculptures of flesh acting as constant OG batteries while keeping the frame invulnerable 24/7 due to the gate. No, just no.

[Traumtulpe]

Thermal Sunder will get nerfed, and it will be worse than my suggested 1 second cast delay. Mark my words (apparently people started using it to bot the game).

Uncapping the armor strip on Fire Blast is the exact opposite of silly. Terror can already do that without LoS, and is also available in the Helminth.

Currently there is no point in using Blood Altar when you can use Gloom instead. Even Garuda herself vastly prefers Gloom. The point you missed is that Blood Altar is a static object, you won't get 2 kills per second by standing in one place.

And Nourish is stupid overpowered. It shouldn't give you 500% energy period.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Traumtulpe

[Turboameeba]

I absolutely agree with this. We live in 2023 now. So many systems in Warframe are getting outdated, and unused. Over half of the Helminth abilities nobody uses. This is an extremely important system for modern power creep, and enemy levels.. Even base Steel Path is now considered lower level side enemies.. Helminth is yet another system that needs rebalancing..

 

But will DE do it? No.

 

The game is already riddled with problems about old outdates game modes and systems. The amount of them will only grow, and that will most likely also cause the downfall of this game. This is sad, because this game could easily have another decade ahead of it..

 

But at this rate, it will not. It will kill itself, due to old outdated systems never being brought bad to modern Warframe standards. Most likely they iwll just nerf them more. This ist he impression I have, and so has half of the community. For a reason.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

2 hours ago, Turboameeba said:

I absolutely agree with this. We live in 2023 now. So many systems in Warframe are getting outdated, and unused

I wish people would stop this. There are  abilities and systems, old and new, that are not useful in some missions but are highly useful in other mission types. You guys could be spitting on players who don't play like you and have builds specifically made the exact opposite of you. 

[Traumtulpe]

1 hour ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

There are  abilities and systems, old and new, that are not useful in some missions but are highly useful in other mission types.

Archmelee isn't useful. Deploying an archgun in normal missions isn't useful. K-Drives aren't useful. Dragon Breath isn't useful. Wanna dispute any of these?

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

1 hour ago, Traumtulpe said:

Archmelee isn't useful. Deploying an archgun in normal missions isn't useful. K-Drives aren't useful. Dragon Breath isn't useful. Wanna dispute any of these?

Absolutely!

1) Archmelee's autolock makes space attacks easier, reduces damage taken and, with the scan mod, makes codec gains simple. There is zero need to modify it because it is not used anywhere outside of space combat. Even the general descriptions of arch melee simplifies the reasoning for how it's used.

2) Archguns are INSANELY useful and players have demonstrated their usefulness many times. Eidolons and PT aside, their functionality is nuts, such as near infinite chaining, infinite punch through, extremely long range flamethrowers, powerful alt fires, stupidly powerful shotgun pellets that also punch through. Dude, what? 😂

K-Drives are a fun alternative and, despite what the meta cult says, players do use them and have competitions with them...and that's yet another point you guys are missing. DE's focus of intent is MUCH wider than the forums.

Dragon Breath has guaranteed procs and Chroma can melee while using it...aka instant CO buffer and CC ability. That said, it's one of the few abilities I agree needs something different. I vote for it to be selectable splash projectiles, using Frost and Ember's projectile models.

Again, you are a vet who is only thinking about yourself and not the playtime ranges of everyone else. A non SP player looks at abilities significantly differently than you do and may be wondering why an already invincible Wukong suddenly needs 3K more armor against level 30-60 enemies...aka the normal star chart...aka the standards of which the balance of power lives. DE does not and should not cater to SP players. It is our job to find a way to level cap and, if level cap isn't what you need all of this extra power and defense for then I'm deeply confused as to what this extra firepower in your ideas are for.

[Traumtulpe]

5 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

the normal star chart...aka the standards of which the balance of power lives

There is zero balance in normal star chart. None whatsoever. Not even a scintilla.

The only balance there is that you can oneshot enemies with any weapon - you might deal 1x, 10x, 100x, 1000x, or 10000x their entire health pool with that hit though. Also you can be invincible with any warframe.

Dragon Breath... in theory you are right, being able to use it with melee seems interesting at first, but if you try it you quickly realize that it's not at all. First of all the ability aims where the warframes head points - if you're like me and like strafing, this is almost never at the enemies. Unless you aim, but that interferes with melee. But much worse, it very slowly procs 1 status type in a very small cone - a random gun (which Dragon Breath replaces) could do better than that, at zero energy cost. And if you have something like the Epitaph, the difference is just comical, they're not even in the same universe.

As such Dragon Breath is always a downside to use. You are always better off ignoring it. Nice try trough.

Fun is subjective, I experience precisely zero fun engaging with K-Drives. If I wanted to play any form of racing or skating, I'd play another game. Seriously.

Archguns deal more damage than archmelee, a lot, a lot more. Like 100 times more (maybe 1000, I'm not going to check). I agree that archmelee is nice in theory, but they just don't work - unless maybe you're in the starchart, where it doesn't matter if you deal 1x or 1000x damage - but even then a rapid fire gun is just obviously better.

Archguns same issue, normal guns are more effective (vastly so), have no cooldown, don't hamper movement, and don't require a lengthy summoning animation. I have to give you the infinite punch through though, which is very very rarely something you might consider (and then not bother with after all).

So out of the things I mentioned, you have 1 theoretical point of usefulness (I didn't ask if you think K-Drives are fun), which is it might be possible to cheese some missions thanks to the infinite punch through of certain archguns.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Traumtulpe

[SneakyErvin]

18 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

Thermal Sunder will get nerfed, and it will be worse than my suggested 1 second cast delay. Mark my words (apparently people started using it to bot the game).

Uncapping the armor strip on Fire Blast is the exact opposite of silly. Terror can already do that without LoS, and is also available in the Helminth.

Currently there is no point in using Blood Altar when you can use Gloom instead. Even Garuda herself vastly prefers Gloom. The point you missed is that Blood Altar is a static object, you won't get 2 kills per second by standing in one place.

And Nourish is stupid overpowered. It shouldn't give you 500% energy period.

Then the Helminth version should get nerfed and not the Gauss version, that is my point, same deal with Nourish. But you seem to imply both helminth and baseline should be nerfed, which would pretty much ruin Gauss since being able to spam Thermal Sunder is tied to his redline uptime aswell. And I'm not talking about the energy gain from Nourish as much as the unique 10x viral stacks that are specific to Grendel. edit: And even if Helminth Thermal Sunder was to get nerfed, it would be a heavy handed nerf in the end, since it would really tackle the issues rooted in a single frame with baseline damage increase along with infinite energy, namely Garuda.

And if you uncap the Fire Blast strip, what bonus would Ember get in return? Terrify alone has its downside unless you also augment it, since it sends mobs running all over the place. It works on a few select frames that have good damage and require no LoS. In most other cases it just kills your KPM.

A static Blood Altar doesnt matter, since yes, you can very much stay in the area(s) very easily and rack up the kills. Since we see that as the very playstyle for frames like Xaku, that pretty much build a killing floor, which would also apply to the 3x altars you can spread. And there are many healing skills that arent used since Gloom is available, that means more that Gloom needs a huge nerf for the Helminth version and not the opposite. We dont exactly need more powercreep. And if Altar got OG/kill with .5 sec immunity, then Gloom would get replaced and very likely shield gate cheese would change to Altar cheese. Should then Gloom get buffed or where would it end?

Edited July 20, 2023 by SneakyErvin

[Traumtulpe]

A one second cast delay doesn't hurt Gauss.

Getting 10x viral on everything passively without doing anything and getting 500% energy from all sources and staggering enemies and buffing your weapons with the best damage type in the game all from one ability is just dumb. It's just completely stupid. And DE did this because nobody plays Grendel, and they have some sort of burning, misguided, need to balance usage stats - but overpowered abilities don't change the fact that Grendel isn't a prime, is a fat dude, and the missions to get him are expensive, late game, and unfun.

Ember doesn't need to get anything in return.

Currently Blood Altar is useless and unused, even by the frame it originates from. Your suggestion to keep it useless, to do nothing, and this is in any case worse than trying to fix the issue. Worst case scenario the change could always get reverted, but again, you do not get 2 kills per second by standing still. You do not.

[SneakyErvin]

Adding a 1 second CD to Sunder would completely screw up his battery growth for that skill and the whole system would need a rework.

So it is OK that a pet can do it for every single frame but having 1 single frame being able to do it for himself is uhm somehow wrong? And it isnt like Saryn doesnt exsist that does the exact same with corrosive through spores. Also, lol what does Grendel not being a prime have to do with anything? I mean, I'd get your point if Nourish could actually kill, but you still need to very actively play the frame in order to do anything worthwhile. Which makes Nourish even more similar to spores, since well you have to be active in both cases. Panzer is probably a bigger offender since it can speard its own viral and kill with it.

Sure she does.

It is "useless" in comparison to Gloom, which is imbalanced to say the least. Not a reason to buff other things to compete with it when Gloom can just as well be nerfed. And yes you do get 2 kills per second by standing still. And since your wording implies it will work like Xaku's 3, racking up kills and absurd amounts of OG would be simple, since you'd use altar like Xaku's 3 to make choke points the enemy moves through as they die. And even if made to require the frame to be in the circle to benefit from it, it would turn melee fully immortal more or less since you'd constantly replenish OG and would in that case end up with a permanent .5 sec invulnerability. I could see getting OG from it as a sensible thing if we leave out the .5 sec invulnerability.

[baked]

On 2023-07-20 at 8:24 AM, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

DE does not and should not cater to SP players.

I agree with most of what you said but this just isn't true. They keep adding more and more to Steel Path and balancing grinds around it now (Lua's Prey, Citrine, Steel Path Circuit).