Warframe that need to be rework and what kind of ability should they have?

[Sahansral]

Equinox: Her kit should encourage more fluid switching between her forms and reward players for using her seven abilities. The augments try to do that somewhat but in the end you only use a subset of her abilities or find out that the result isn't worth the effort.
She's not a bad frame, but she doesn't deliver her promise of being flexible. She probably needs only a small push, one or two tweaks.
 

[SteveCutler]

1 hour ago, SteveCutler said:

In need of an actual rework (i.e. multiple bad/useless abilities):

• Hydroid, Frost*, Inaros.

In need of number buffs or minor ability tweaks (i.e. kit is mostly good, but still subpar or frustrating in some way):

• Chroma, Oberon, Trinity, Loki, Limbo.

I'll expand on this a bit:

Hydroid: Just completely bad. Needs a complete overhaul.

Inaros: Just completely bad. Needs a complete overhaul.

Frost:

• His passive is useless.
• His 1 (Freeze) is useless without the augment (which you have no mod space for), only really serving as a band-aid way of taking down his bubbles.
• His 2 (Ice Wave) is useless (even with the augment), as his 4 does the same thing better.
• His 3 (Snow Globe) is useless as it gets shredded instantly on Steel Path and blocks gunfire from yourself and allies.
• His 4 (Avalanche) is good, but requires two mandatory band-aid augments.
• Frost has definitely gotten better over time thanks to various buffs adding up and his band-aid augments, but he still needs a rework. He basically has only one ability (Avalanche) at the moment, needs two augments to properly function, and wants every stat when he's already tight on mod slots. While he's certainly capable now, having just one ability shouldn't be considered acceptable.

Chroma:

• His 1 (Spectral Scream) is useless, outside of letting you select your Elemental Ward color. That really should just be a function built into Elemental Ward itself, to be consistent with other multi-function abilities like Vauban's Minelayer, Wisp's Reservoirs, and Titania's Tribute. The only reason they put this on his 1 is just for a forced "synergy".
• His 4 (Effigy) is also useless outside of a single niche almost-exploit with the Profit Taker.
• His 2 (Elemental Ward) is fine, but needs to be recastable while active.
• His 3 (Vex Armor) is strong, but clunky and has been unintentionally side-effect nerfed over time. The Merciless/Deadhead gun arcanes increased our weapon base damage, and thus nerfed Vex Armor's damage buff as it stacks additively with those and you then get diminishing returns. Vex Armor is extremely slow, clunky, and frustrating to build up: you have to just stand around in a horde of enemies with braindead AI, watching as they stumble around mindlessly, hoping they hit you enough to get through your shields and shield gate, and hoping that your squad mates won't just mow them down first. Once you finally stack it up, you need to micromanage the buff by constantly refreshing it with its awful duration. If you get a power strength increase from Molt Augmented or Power Drain, you have no way to make use of that other than waiting out the duration, letting it fall off and expire, then starting all over again from scratch.
• His 3 and 4 are also supposed to be support abilities, applying to squad mates, but Chroma's tight stats necessitate crashing his range into the ground making him actually a selfish frame. Plus Heat Elemental Ward doesn't even work properly on allies anyway if they enter and leave the aura multiple times.

Oberon:

• His kit is actually mostly good: all abilities have a place. But some changes are still needed.
• His 2 (Hallowed Ground) needs a substantial range buff, at least to the angle portion. You shouldn't need 234% range for a full circle. I think the cone angle part should just be removed, and it should always be a full circle.
• His 3 (Renewal) needs a lower energy drain, and must be changed to either be an aura around Oberon, or a marked zone like Dispensary/Reservoirs. Currently, it's an invisible zone in a fixed location, and squad mates will have absolutely no idea where it is unless you mark it yourself with a waypoint! I'd prefer making it an aura, which is what fits the paladin theme, and is how most players mistakenly think it works already.
• His 4 (Reckoning) needs the "standing on Hallowed Ground" mechanic for armor strip removed. It's a pointless, clunky mechanic there only for the purpose of a forced "synergy". More importantly, the detection is very janky, making the armor strip very unreliable. Sometimes I have to cast Reckoning five times in a row before the enemy finally gets armor stripped! I also think this could benefit from making affected enemies drop health orbs, instead of only killed enemies, as it's extremely unlikely to kill enemies directly.

Trinity:

• Her kit is actually mostly good. But some changes are still needed.
• Duration, duration, duration, duration! Trinity needs a duration buff to her abilities, especially Link and Blessing. The base durations are abysmally low, which makes Trinity extremely frustrating to play, especially considering the Champion's Blessing augment. Trinity must be modded for absolutely max duration, using corrupted mods and Archon Shards, just to reach the bare-minimum comfortable level; and doing so really punishes her other stats, as she is already on tight mod space.
• Her 1 (Well of Life) and its augment are okay. They're not really bad, but kind of redundant when she has other abilities that do the same thing better (Blessing and Energy Vampire).
• Her 3 (Link) could do with a buff in some way. Either make Abating Link built-in without needing an augment slot, or increase the number of links, or make the armor strip an aura around linked enemies. A temporary armor strip on only three enemies is not enough, especially when you can't even pick who those three enemies are. It's not at all competitive with other armor strips in the game.
• Her 4 (Blessing) currently has a quirk where its damage reduction is temporarily removed, in the time between starting the cast and ending the cast. This can easily get people killed in Steel Path. It should be tweaked so the damage reduction does not get removed if you recast it while it's still active.
• Her Champion Blessing augment is decent, but very frustrating to build up (especially considering players using shield gating and/or Overguard), and then requires micromanagement to keep active, or it's completely lost. It's basically the same problem as Chroma has with Vex Armor, but even worse. It also only works on guns for some reason; I don't see why it couldn't apply to melee too, especially considering melee is already underpowered compared to guns. Considering that the base ability, Blessing, restores both health and shields, surely the augment could be changed to also stack when restoring shields instead of only health? Really, I think this augment should just be her passive, in line with frames like Zephyr, Yareli, and Citrine.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by SteveCutler

[(PSN)MYKK678]

3 hours ago, Skoomaseller said:

i really hope caliban gets some help soon. fusion strike is so cool.

and i agree. i feel that whoever was behind designing him didn't really put much thought into his kit. which is unfortunate because the whole sentient warframe hybrid theme is awesome

Me too. Right now after Tennocon I'm "cautiously optimistic" about Hydroid. They did say he's only getting 1 new power and a new passive, but that might also mean they found a way to make 3 powers work with the new one.

 

Caliban for now though remains a dumpster fire. Really good concept but just doesn't work as-is. Why he was based on "Lifted status" still evades me. Still though, I'm not quite arrogant enough to think the fix I suggested is "perfect". Maybe in 10-15 years when he gets his rework they'll find a different way to make him useful.

[sunderthefirmament]

35 minutes ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

Me too. Right now after Tennocon I'm "cautiously optimistic" about Hydroid. They did say he's only getting 1 new power and a new passive, but that might also mean they found a way to make 3 powers work with the new one.

It also depends on what DE means by "new ability."  When Wukong got his rework, was Defy technically a "new ability"?  For all intents and purposes, Defy is very much a new ability compared to what it used to be (channel, save from death).  I'm hoping all of Hydroid's abilities feel as different as the shift from passive Defy to the more active one we have now, even if names and some aesthetics are preserved.

 

Every aspect of his kit deserves polish.  There's nothing about his abilities and passive that DE should just leave as is.

[Hexerin]

3 hours ago, Duality52 said:

Gyre's Cathode Grace. Kills add to the Duration, but use it mindlessly and you have a hefty cooldown to manage.

You massively overestimate Cathode Grace. The literal only time you'll see that cooldown, is if you activate it and then a teammate casts a board wipe before you can tag something. One hit on a single enemy in a group, and you've maxed out your 60 second duration, further hits on other groups continue holding it up at max. It's pretty much impossible for it to fall off once you've tapped that first enemy.

2 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Trinity:

• Her kit is actually mostly good. But some changes are still needed.
• Duration, duration, duration, duration! Trinity needs a duration buff to her abilities, especially Link and Blessing. The base durations are abysmally low, which makes Trinity extremely frustrating to play, especially considering the Champion's Blessing augment. Trinity must be modded for absolutely max duration, using corrupted mods and Archon Shards, just to reach the bare-minimum comfortable level; and doing so really punishes her other stats, as she is already on tight mod space.
• Her 1 (Well of Life) and its augment are okay. They're not really bad, but kind of redundant when she has other abilities that do the same thing better (Blessing and Energy Vampire).
• Her 3 (Link) could do with a buff in some way. Either make Abating Link built-in without needing an augment slot, or increase the number of links, or make the armor strip an aura around linked enemies. A temporary armor strip on only three enemies is not enough, especially when you can't even pick who those three enemies are. It's not at all competitive with other armor strips in the game.
• Her 4 (Blessing) currently has a quirk where its damage reduction is temporarily removed, in the time between starting the cast and ending the cast. This can easily get people killed in Steel Path. It should be tweaked so the damage reduction does not get removed if you recast it while it's still active.
• Her Champion Blessing augment is decent, but very frustrating to build up (especially considering players using shield gating and/or Overguard), and then requires micromanagement to keep active, or it's completely lost. It's basically the same problem as Chroma has with Vex Armor, but even worse. It also only works on guns for some reason; I don't see why it couldn't apply to melee too, especially considering melee is already underpowered compared to guns. Considering that the base ability, Blessing, restores both health and shields, surely the augment could be changed to also stack when restoring shields instead of only health? Really, I think this augment should just be her passive, in line with frames like Zephyr, Yareli, and Citrine.

All of the following are mixtures of suggestions/concepts I've seen others put forth, and my own. All assume rank 3 ability stats, for simplicity.

Well of Life [1]:

• Merge this ability into Energy Vampire [2]

Energy Vampire [2]:

• Merge Well of Life [1] into this ability
• Change base duration to 20 seconds (see: Garuda Blood Altar)
• Change base effect radius to 20m
• Change to pulse once every 2 seconds, with one pulse emitted instantly upon impact
• Remove pulse cap, so that duration of ability doesn't punish the player
• Add new effect to pulses: Deal void damage to all enemies in range of the pulse, equal to the damage taken by the main target that pulse
• New effect does not damage the main target, main target only takes the true damage each pulse
• New effect ignores walls, and has no dropoff, in line with modern ability design

Link [3]:

• Merge this ability into Blessing [4]

Blessing [4]:

• Merge Link [3] into this ability
• Change base duration to 15 seconds
• Change Link effect base range to 30m
• Remove damage reduction from Link effect
• Change Link effect link quantity to 6 links, affected by ability strength
• Add new effect: If an enemy is affected by Energy Vampire, an extra link is generated for that enemy
• New effect's link is in addition to the link cap, so at baseline would be a 7th link
• New effect's link is otherwise identical in behavior to normal links
• Change Blessing damage reduction cap to 90%

Pool of Life augment [1]:

• Remove this augment

Vampire Leech augment [2]:

• Change to 100% of excess energy converted to shields/overshields
• Change to have ability strength affect conversion percentage (200% = 200% excess energy converted)
• Add new effect: Any conversion that exceeds overshield cap, is then converted to overguard
• Add new effect: Each pulse causes target to drop 1x Universal Orb, affected by ability strength (200% = 2x orbs)

Ablating Link augment [3]:

• Merge this augment into Champion's Blessing augment [4]

Champion's Blessing augment [4]:

• Merge Ablating Link augment [3] into this augment
• Change to grant 100% critical chance bonus baseline, no conditions
• Add new effect: Grants 25% critical chance bonus per enemy linked
• Add new effect: Allies affected by Blessing, now also receive the baseline 100% crit chance bonus (but do not receive linked enemy bonuses)

After all this, DE just has to come up with two new abilities to fill the now empty [1] and [3] slots.

[(PSN)MYKK678]

3 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

It also depends on what DE means by "new ability."  When Wukong got his rework, was Defy technically a "new ability"?  For all intents and purposes, Defy is very much a new ability compared to what it used to be (channel, save from death).  I'm hoping all of Hydroid's abilities feel as different as the shift from passive Defy to the more active one we have now, even if names and some aesthetics are preserved.

 

Every aspect of his kit deserves polish.  There's nothing about his abilities and passive that DE should just leave as is.

Oh yeah don't get me wrong, I don't mean they're just going to leave 3 of Hydroids powers as what they currently are. Probably could have explained better. I mean that 3 powers will stay as what they are and what they do but just have adjustments to speed and power use etc. Maybe they found a way to take one power out and have 3 current ones work better because of the new 4th power. Who knows though, we'll just have to see on Sept Devstream.

As for the Wukong power question, sounds a lot like the Theseus Paradox/Thought Experiment. Is a boat still the same boat if all of its parts are replaced slowly over time etc. We could end up debating that one for weeks lol.