Whips : Waiting

[CrownOfShadows]

You forgot whips existed did you? Haha! No primes, no kuva, no sister, no incarnons, zilch for whips - which is fine I guess because they need a lot more help in general than that.

I went to find and bump my previous whip article but it's archived, alas! Such is the longevity of this crusade. Well here's a fresh and more condensed version:

• Whip stances SUCK, (not so much for multipliers but for basic animation movement) please overhaul / patch / fix / help
  • Faster - they're way too slow (even with all 3 speed mods, which is ridiculous). IMO whips should be faster and have better range than all other melee at some dmg cost.
  • Wider - they should have wide swinging arcs, less focus on single targets straight ahead, more on swaths of enemies on all sides. Attacking a single target is so rare that it's better to make the animations service the usual.
  • Movement - don't step through the target, its godawful. Don't force a dead stop, it's godawful. Smooth continuous efficient sweeping attacks is what we need.
  • Glide attacks - impossible to see
  • Heavy attacks - lackluster
• Bring us Sister / Kuva / Prime / Incarnon whips?
• Bring us Dual Whips? Pleeeeeaaaaaseeeee 🥹
• Flagrum / Cat-o-Nine-Tails style whips and Dual Cats (multi-tailed whips)
• Whip visuals should be improved (they are very thin and nearly invisible against crushes of enemies, elementals could be shown more clearly as an option, i.e. where are my glowing fire whips?)
• Whip sounds should be improved (hissing, cracking, wuthering, slithering, screeching, howling - in more dynamic fashion, it sounds very repetitive and basic currently, whips really make some awesome sounds)
• Whip physics could be improved (specifically the way whips naturally move in long trailing, beautiful, serpentine patterns after themselves, something that would be much appreciated in coordination with better visuals)
• Chain whips / razor whips / blade whips (segmented articulating weapons basically like whips with blades attached to them) can also find nice homes here with little effort.

Suggest giving whips a more unique niche if possible. This could be done for example by making their heavy attacks grab susceptible victims and either bind them, bring them back to you, bring you to them, or fling them. Glide attacks or wall-dash attacks could be used to latch to the environment at extended range like Valkyr, thus providing a unique utility to set them apart, or whatever else you dream up, just something to give them their own flavor would be good.

[BatVenomPL]

They're actually adding a new whip with the October update as a signature weapon for Dagath, and that same update is going to bring a bunch of QoL changes

[BroDutt]

Agree with the stances. If logically whips didn't have big physical damage (that should be Whips&Blade) then it should had bigger elemental damage. And the Heavy Attack should be strangling an enemy and pull them near. Add a big chance to Mercy kill enemy after being pull. 

[PublikDomain]

2 minutes ago, BatVenomPL said:

They're actually adding a new whip with the October update as a signature weapon for Dagath, and that same update is going to bring a bunch of QoL changes

It's a blade whip, so kinda sorta.

[BroDutt]

3 minutes ago, BatVenomPL said:

They're actually adding a new whip with the October update as a signature weapon for Dagath

That's Whip & Blade type weapon not Whip

[(PSN)IdoThea]

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

no sister

Tenet Galvacord or Tenet Lecta would be nice. Secura Lecta is pretty good and has that credit booster in it.

I think Tenet Galvacord would be better option since Lecta has already better variant while Galvacord doesn't.

[quxier]

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

You forgot whips existed did you? Haha! No primes, no kuva, no sister, no incarnons, zilch for whips - which is fine I guess because they need a lot more help in general than that.

Secura lecta, Perrin version that gives you credits

Verdilac, archon version that has unique block combo that shoot projectile

Just sayin

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Whip stances SUCK, (not so much for multipliers but for basic animation movement) please overhaul / patch / fix / help

• Faster - they're way too slow (even with all 3 speed mods, which is ridiculous). IMO whips should be faster and have better range than all other melee at some dmg cost.
• Wider - they should have wide swinging arcs, less focus on single targets straight ahead, more on swaths of enemies on all sides. Attacking a single target is so rare that it's better to make the animations service the usual.

 

IMHO, it should have wide attacks but not fast. You slap that giant whip around you with the same speed as dagger? Nah.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• •  
• Bring us Sister / Kuva / Prime / Incarnon whips?

Incarnon whip that on heavy attack expand at infinitum (or just e.g. 50 meters).

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

•  
• Bring us Dual Whips? Pleeeeeaaaaaseeeee 🥹

Someone want to have usable Caliban's Razor gyre without using Caliban. :D

I'm not complaining.

 

[BiancaRoughfin]

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

You forgot whips existed did you?

Kinda impossible for old timers to forget, the Atterax/Maiming Strike meta left a very bad taste in the community and Devs to the point even they admitted live in DevStream regretting making the Mod.

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Whip stances SUCK, (not so much for multipliers but for basic animation movement) please overhaul / patch / fix / help
  • Faster - they're way too slow (even with all 3 speed mods, which is ridiculous). IMO whips should be faster and have better range than all other melee at some dmg cost.
  • Wider - they should have wide swinging arcs, less focus on single targets straight ahead, more on swaths of enemies on all sides. Attacking a single target is so rare that it's better to make the animations service the usual.
  • Movement - don't step through the target, its godawful. Don't force a dead stop, it's godawful. Smooth continuous efficient sweeping attacks is what we need.
  • Glide attacks - impossible to see
  • Heavy attacks - lackluster

I dont mind Whips hitting everyone in front of them at every strike tho the damage should decrease the more enemies there are and the further they are.

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Bring us Dual Whips? Pleeeeeaaaaaseeeee 🥹

No thanks, do you have any idea how inefficient this is?

6 hours ago, BatVenomPL said:

They're actually adding a new whip with the October update as a signature weapon for Dagath, and that same update is going to bring a bunch of QoL changes

Blade & Whip, not the same weapon category, works completely different and has its own stance type.

[BatVenomPL]

9 hours ago, BroDutt said:

That's Whip & Blade type weapon not Whip

Oh, sorry about that then

[CrownOfShadows]

12 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

No thanks, do you have any idea how inefficient this is?

HA! If this some kind of real-world argument pffffft bruh, whips have no place in any serious combat period, once someone closes the distance or catches the whip you're done. In addendum, dual whips are perfectly efficient compared to a single whip if you know what you're doing, check out youtube videos of people using two bull whips - queensland crossover etc, and in theory even better, because if someone catches one whip you can hit them with the other one instead of being helpless, plus just in general twice the amount of strikes.

Also, other games have done some cool things with dual whips like have elements imbued into each. Like you could have a corrosive whip and a viral whip, or a heat whip and a toxin whip, etc, if you really wanted to push the whips-as-status-monsters style, which could be pretty awesome looking in addition (i.e. Teshin New War).

If you think that's impractical... wait til you hear my other whip ideas:

Whip gunblades - gunblades with whips attached, that's right, so you can entangle someone with your whip, shoot them, then drag them toward you and stab them.

Whip saws - whips with spinning saw blades at their tips or even all along their length (although this might be more of a kyoketsu-shoge type weapon)

Quadruple whips - long handles with whips attached to both ends, one in each hand, constant whirlwind of death

Finger whips - a retractable razor whip attached to each finger, acting as super long shredder claws

Warfan whips - warfans with whips attached to each fan section, basically creating an outer zone of delayed fan damage

Tentacle whips - half tentacle, half whip, these multi-whips always wrap around victims in range, capturing a new one with each attack, damaging all captured enemies with each attack, and don't let go until you heavy attack which deals heavy damage to all captured enemies before releasing them, or until you switch weapons.

 

 

 

[quxier]

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

 

Whip gunblades - gunblades with whips attached, that's right, so you can entangle someone with your whip, shoot them, then drag them toward you and stab them.

That's... decent idea but more for whip and.. gunblade style. With addition of gunblades instead of normal blade.

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

 

Whip saws - whips with spinning saw blades at their tips or even all along their length (although this might be more of a kyoketsu-shoge type weapon)

Atterax?

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

 

Warfan whips - warfans with whips attached to each fan section, basically creating an outer zone of delayed fan damage

How it would work?

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

If you think that's impractical... wait til you hear my other whip ideas:

Always it's pleasure to hear such wild (& great) ideas about melee (combat in games).

[Fred_Avant_2019]

I'm not gonna count the basic Lecta in this.

With only a grand total of 5 unique whips, I can't say there's a whole lot of choice to explore.

• Atterax, decent IPS setup, good crit chance, crit damage and status, low base damage.
• Galvacord, okay-ish IPS setup, low on crits, high on status, adds up electric, which is both good and bad, because you get another proc type but can't get viral heat for example, decent base damage, awful speed.
• Scoliac, High speed, low crit, high status, funky gimmick, good IPS setup, average base damage.
• Secura Lecta, High speed, low crit, high status, funny gimmicks, average base damage, missing Impact which is bad for CO but you have it in the stance, same elemental "issues" as Galvacord.
• Verdilac, decent speed, highest range, good with crits, good status, good gimmick, good ips, highest base damage of all whips.

 

The thing is, while all those whips are different enough in terms of stats, they're all plagued by the same issues :

• Kind of horrible hitboxes for the stances.
• Uninteresting forced procs from the stances.
• Awful Follow Through stat.
• Low overall base damage when compared to weapons with similar range and follow through stats.

 

The weapon type is so dead that the only one that's any close to a "signature" weapon is the Verdilac, as it's an archon weapon. No frames were ever released with one. Funny how we have a frame that revolves around spamming the heck out of one though! (Whips suck and this is most likely why Khora's 1 was never even thought of as a candidate for exalted weapons)

Whip range feels awkward, and the follow through stat just cuts damage in half per enemy hit. Only the Verdilac with the gimmick can do significant AoE damage, which is otherwise a base feature of any decent melee. It'll take some Follow Through stat revisits to make whips anywhere close to worth using over, say, a rivenless Amphis.

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

That's... decent idea but more for whip and.. gunblade style. With addition of gunblades instead of normal blade.

Ah yeah fair point, that's more of a blade & whip possibility, or even a straight-up gunblade variant I suppose, hm... depends on how important the whip part is I guess.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Atterax?

Something more like this: (sorry for my art, MidJourney failed me)

1 hour ago, quxier said:

How it would work?

As for the warfan whips (again, art apologies):

The whips trail behind at extended range, so that you use the warfans as blades to attack anyone close and whips to attack anyone further away, at least that's the general concept.

[BiancaRoughfin]

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

HA! If this some kind of real-world argument pffffft bruh, whips have no place in any serious combat period, once someone closes the distance or catches the whip you're done. In addendum, dual whips are perfectly efficient compared to a single whip if you know what you're doing, check out youtube videos of people using two bull whips - queensland crossover etc, and in theory even better, because if someone catches one whip you can hit them with the other one instead of being helpless, plus just in general twice the amount of strikes.

Seriously, those videos are just for Show, there is no real combat situation where wielding two whips would be actually efficient in combat, the chances of them being entangled in one another, in obstructions or just serving as tug rope for your opponent to draw you in closer are absurd.

Find me a real example where someone dual-wielding a whip in actual combat existed and came out alive.

54 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Spoiler

This is more like a Glaive & Chain, the moment you swing this, one of two things will happen, it will either fly off out of your hands which at that point you better hope it hits an enemy or it will swing back at you and slice you in half.

56 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Also not a Whip, more of a Fan & Chains, unlikely that even if those lines are sharp that they would manage to slice through something, more like flesh wounds and possibly swinging back on to your own hand depending on the length.

Theres a reason most weapon designs and concepts never make it to mass production, they are either too inefficient or their creator got killed in the process of demonstrating them. Which one are you?

[CrownOfShadows]

10 minutes ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Seriously, those videos are just for Show, there is no real combat situation where wielding two whips would be actually efficient in combat, the chances of them being entangled in one another, in obstructions or just serving as tug rope for your opponent to draw you in closer are absurd.

Find me a real example where someone dual-wielding a whip in actual combat existed and came out alive.

This is more like a Glaive & Chain, the moment you swing this, one of two things will happen, it will either fly off out of your hands which at that point you better hope it hits an enemy or it will swing back at you and slice you in half.

Also not a Whip, more of a Fan & Chains, unlikely that even if those lines are sharp that they would manage to slice through something, more like flesh wounds and possibly swinging back on to your own hand depending on the length.

Theres a reason most weapon designs and concepts never make it to mass production, they are either too inefficient or their creator got killed in the process of demonstrating them. Which one are you?

SMH

[quxier]

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

7 hours ago, quxier said:

Atterax?

Something more like this: (sorry for my art, MidJourney failed me)

Well... I guess similar to Atterax. Atterax being more mechanical saw.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

7 hours ago, quxier said:

That's... decent idea but more for whip and.. gunblade style. With addition of gunblades instead of normal blade.

Ah yeah fair point, that's more of a blade & whip possibility, or even a straight-up gunblade variant I suppose, hm... depends on how important the whip part is I guess.

Yeah, it my be gunblade variant like "block combo use whip to pull enemies closer" or something.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

The whips trail behind at extended range, so that you use the warfans as blades to attack anyone close and whips to attack anyone further away, at least that's the general concept.

That's similar to existing part of warfans with heavy attack gimmick (sadly not feature): Arum spinosa and Quassus. There might be differences but they would be less evident. Still as melee concept it's nice.

5 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

8 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

HA! If this some kind of real-world argument pffffft bruh, whips have no place in any serious combat period, once someone closes the distance or catches the whip you're done. In addendum, dual whips are perfectly efficient compared to a single whip if you know what you're doing, check out youtube videos of people using two bull whips - queensland crossover etc, and in theory even better, because if someone catches one whip you can hit them with the other one instead of being helpless, plus just in general twice the amount of strikes.

Seriously, those videos are just for Show, there is no real combat situation where wielding two whips would be actually efficient in combat, the chances of them being entangled in one another, in obstructions or just serving as tug rope for your opponent to draw you in closer are absurd.

Find me a real example where someone dual-wielding a whip in actual combat existed and came out alive.

"Just for show" has combat value as well. I'm not martial artist. When I see someone using 2 whips at the same time I would think twice before attacking. Same for Nunchakus They are bad weapon that require A LOT of efforts. Chances of failure is high.

Still, we are adapting those stuffs to superhumans so it MAY works for them. Although some option would be just much better.

5 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

This is more like a Glaive & Chain, the moment you swing this, one of two things will happen, it will either fly off out of your hands which at that point you better hope it hits an enemy

Combat is not only "hit target = good" & "miss target = bad" situations. In this game there are not many such situation but in other scenarios I can see "glaive hit wall, chain creates obstruction" to be kind of advantages to user. Far from perfect but still useful.

5 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

or it will swing back at you and slice you in half.

The same can be said about other weapons. Nunchaks are good... at hiting yourself. Warhammers: when you swing downwards (from head towards feet) you have to pay attention to not hit yourself.

You can avoid and continue attacks, potentially attacking from different angles (e.g. from your back), which is hard or nearly impossible for other weapons.

5 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Also not a Whip, more of a Fan & Chains, unlikely that even if those lines are sharp that they would manage to slice through something, more like flesh wounds and possibly swinging back on to your own hand depending on the length.

They might be for puncture. Even shallow wound can be dangerous.

5 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

Theres a reason most weapon designs and concepts never make it to mass production, they are either too inefficient or their creator got killed in the process of demonstrating them. Which one are you?

That's why in real life melee combat get changed to bows and later to guns. Why bother using melee when you can shoot someone from distance and not get hit? There are not many reasons. Not even in fantasy setting.

However when we are talking about improvisation or combat situation where melee is needed (e.g. high explosive place) then lots of melees are good enough. And those limitation applies to human (e.g. with current technology) it may not applies to other (fictional) species or technologies. For example it's easy to hit yourself with Nunchaku (one part of Nunchaku can bounce over enemy, hitting you) but if your weapon can phase through your body (like ghost) then all of sudden Nuchakus could be much more efficient.

 

[Famecans]

Warframe 2014 mechanics: Spin-to-win; 20 meter hits; hits through walls; Infinite combo counter, maiming strike working... all of these killed the whips mechanics.

DE showed us melee v2.9 putting new stat numbers in each melee interface but didn't give us new modifiers to increase these numbers, we can't expand those numerical branches.

the heavy attack must be special for each melee class, in the case of whips heavy hit 12x can hit 12 meters of area with guaranteed posture status or group enemies close to 12 meters and apply 12 stacks of any elemental status effects.👍

Edited August 31, 2023 by Famecans

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Il y a 20 heures, CrownOfShadows a dit :

Ah yeah fair point, that's more of a blade & whip possibility, or even a straight-up gunblade variant I suppose, hm... depends on how important the whip part is I guess.

Something more like this: (sorry for my art, MidJourney failed me)

As for the warfan whips (again, art apologies):

The whips trail behind at extended range, so that you use the warfans as blades to attack anyone close and whips to attack anyone further away, at least that's the general concept.

Sunflower of steel, yes sir I like it. Kind of looks like your weeb shuriken on a string, which could definitely have its place in a space NINJA game.

The warfan though? Eeeeh? Not quite sure. It looks like you saw a weapon rack, and when the shopkeeper asked how many of them you wanted to buy, all you had to say for yourself was "Yes." and bought the prop with it.

 

Kuva Tri-Grakata on a whip, or riot.

[CrownOfShadows]

2 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

It looks like you saw a weapon rack, and when the shopkeeper asked how many of them you wanted to buy, all you had to say for yourself was "Yes."

Lol, all of these concepts were more or less poking fun at BiancaRoughfin taking irl whip combat waaaay too seriously. I'm really just here for better whip play.

2 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

Sunflower of steel, yes sir I like it. Kind of looks like your weeb shuriken on a string, which could definitely have its place in a space NINJA game.

I do feel like this one has potential though. Hmm yeah they could even collapse for portability, so that it looks like a single blade and then unfolds into a full saw, or perhaps it could 'evolve' into saw form via incarnon or via combo multiplier or heavy attack. Awww that's one thing I forgot to mention in my original post - it's so incredibly bad trying to build combo with whips. But yeah I kinda like this variant - it definitely feels and looks like a scary weapon that would do significant damage.

[Kaggelos]

And here i am desperately trying to make my Galvacord be SP viable, but fail to do so because its one of my favorite weapons :'(

_{Any suggestions pls?}

[Harutomata]

Verdilac would be pretty good but it's been nearly 2 years and DE still didn't fix the emissive and energy colors on it.
Whip stances could use a bit higher damage multipliers (or the weapons could have higher damage) and more slash procs.

2 hours ago, Kaggelos said:

And here i am desperately trying to make my Galvacord be SP viable, but fail to do so because its one of my favorite weapons :'(

_{Any suggestions pls?}

Not much stat weight towards slash on the weapon but maybe it'd be worth it making the weapon lean more towards it with more status chance? Both whip stances do forced slash procs which is something you could probably also benefit from. It'd help if DE added more slash procs on combos as the weapon's base stats don't seem easy to work with. It has a high riven disposition so finding a decent one for it would also make it a lot better.
I have multiple whips upgraded but Galvacord is not one of them so not sure what to suggest besides that.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Il y a 3 heures, Kaggelos a dit :

And here i am desperately trying to make my Galvacord be SP viable, but fail to do so because its one of my favorite weapons :'(

_{Any suggestions pls?}

Firstly, you're gonna need yourself a riven, to abuse the sky high dispo. Your riven could be alot of things, but I'd suggest things like attack speed, status chance, cold + toxin both at once on your riven or extra range.

Condition Overload is a no brainer imo, the base status chance is pretty good so Weeping Wounds makes sense.

Blood Rush + Organ Shatter can be a little more complicated to justify, unless your riven mod also brings crit damage.

A source of attack speed is absolutely mandatory, but what you use is up to you, you can use Arcane Strike if your warframe build allows it, Wisp Motes if you're, well, playing Wisp, Volt's speed boost, Valkyr's subsumable Warcry. Otherwise, as for mods, you can use Quickening and Berserker Fury/Primed Fury, or have it come from your Riven, or all previous sources.

You can use Primary Dexterity and Secondary Dexterity arcanes to have a source of combo duration, though I doubt you'd run out of enemies to kill quickly enough to lose any combo.

Lastly, a source of range would be recommended, despite the awful follow through stat, in order to have a better time at hitting targets instead of just falling short.

 

Regardless of how hard you try to build it, it's still going to struggle much more than anything standard, as having base electric is both a blessing and a curse, you can't abuse corpus units' severe weakness to toxin with just slapping Primed Fever Strike on, and it further dilutes IPS so you might not always have the necessary amount of slash required to destroy armor targets quickly.

 

If by any chance your Warframe of choice to use the Galvacord on would be using an ability that armor strips, you'll have a far better time, but that doesn't really mean the Galvacord can hold itself on its own two legs, though, if you do armor strip, you can always then mod for gas, in which case, you could also bring Lasting Sting to amplify the duration of the gas clouds.

 

I wish you the best of luck. I do not yet have the patience or resources to push such a weak weapon type to its limits.

[Amolistic.]

It kinda reminds me of staves, the only prime that staves have is Tipedo Prime, it is very very good, because clashing forest is so fluid and well designed and possibly the only stance that all kinds of combo have headshot areas, even his air combo can stab you in head too...but since then, tipedo is just there alone, for years, not a new staves melee can be seen except zaws...And because of this, tipedo not only have sky high dispo, the dmg went so nuts to the point you can bring no primer, no bane, cast only roar to kill everything with ease and fashion.

at least I get the benefit of it kekw

Edited September 10, 2023 by Amolistic.

[CrownOfShadows]

A couple more whip points, while I'm at it, twimc:

1. Stealth Attacks: are also lackluster, they seem mostly borrowed from another weapon type. Would suggest a stealth attack specific to whips (such as strangling the enemy with the cord).
2. Blocking: with whips feels quite odd. Without introducing a shield and whip, I'm not sure what might be done about this, but perhaps to help set whips apart we could sacrifice this mechanic and replace it with something unique (bullet absorption for dmg/energy/attack speed/range/ammo/hp as an example).