The ballistica prime gimmick

[Schrimmseschrammse666]

Hi

the ballistica prime is one of my favourite secondaries. and that is not because of its stats or anything. if anything the weapon is really rather underwhelming

no, the reason i am using it is because of its unique feature. which is ghosts appear. as in: you kill an enemy and a spectral version of this enemy appears for like 5 seconds

this is so awesome and cool that i use it semi frequently. hoooowever. the ghosts hardly last long enough to really ever do much of anything. like, they walk around or just stand around confused often enough and then they just kind of dissapear without doing anything. now it is noteworthy that they do not deal any more damage than their living precursors so even when they manage to attack enemies (which also alarms them which makes ballistica prime a silent not silent weapon) their damage output is rather sad. now, the low damage output is fine but i would like the duration of the effect to be longer. so the ghosts can serve as some kind of distraction or support / "meat" shields which would be a functionality unique and quite special to the ballistica prime. (it is a bit strange this weapon can do this in the first place if anything)

one idea i had was to tie it to ability duration somehow. would be a first that a weapon effect is tied to warframe mods? unless status effect duration on the weapon itself impacts the ghost duration

furthermore while i am unsure how the weapon ought to have some kind of synergy with nekros. nekros is all about ghosts and the dead and making ghosts fight for him. to me it only makes sense there'd be some kind of synergy with him or his abilities.

additionally the way the ghosts expire could be changed, you would not want permanent ghosts, as funny as that might be, cause a hundred ghosts at the same time would probably be problematic. though, if they had health drain like the nekros ghosts and would take bonus damage from enemies that might keep them dying before players flood a level with ghosts. which would still be awesome by the way. a tide of undead spectres slaugthering enemies. bit weird to tie that awesome mechanic to a random prime secondary though rather than a nekros ability or something.

 

also, a ballistica incarnon would be quite sweet. it has no secondary fire, at least the prime variant doesn't so there'd be no problem there right?

[Mr.SpookSpook]

I have a good +dmg +multi -neg riven that allows it to oneshoot high level enemies easily, but the ghosts last for such a short time, they are pretty much useless. They do not act as enough distraction to enemies... 

Their duration should be tied to the shot charging.

Quick shots should spawn them for 5 seconds, charged shots for 10 seconds.

[Famecans]

Imagine if it had punch through 5.0 + specters with 30 seconds duration but 1 HP to not cause immortal crowds + path projectiles to work on pallet reflector bubbles, it would be amazing with Xaku and Mag. some spawned ghosts trigger attack instantly before walking, heavy gunner ghosts punch the ground and knock down nearby enemies.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Ballistica Incarnon could be expected.

Also the Synoid Heliocor does the same thing if you kill your target when using a Heavy Attack.

[Layka_Kiro]

I'm oddly glad I'm not the only one that noticed that the ghosts are literally useless with the current settings... I was levelling it and noticed how bad it was and immediately looked it up in case I was the idiot that didn't know how to use it.

[Tiltskillet]

It's amusing sometimes, but I more often find the gimmick just irritating.  The weapon is silent and the charged shot does a lot of damage, so it's tempting to use it on a stealth frame.  But then you get ghost that basically only last long enough to alert everything, not to do anything useful.

Some of the problem is the duration, but some of it seems to be that the ghost's first action in the middle of a group of enemies is often going to be "take cover".

12 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

Also the Synoid Heliocor does the same thing if you kill your target when using a Heavy Attack.

Those have a much more useful duration though.  30 seconds versus about 7 for Ballistica P.  I guess the latter can have multiple minions at once though, and it's much less restricted on what it can convert.

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2023-08-31 at 2:11 AM, Schrimmseschrammse666 said:

Hi

the ballistica prime is one of my favourite secondaries. and that is not because of its stats or anything. if anything the weapon is really rather underwhelming

no, the reason i am using it is because of its unique feature. which is ghosts appear. as in: you kill an enemy and a spectral version of this enemy appears for like 5 seconds

this is so awesome and cool that i use it semi frequently. hoooowever. the ghosts hardly last long enough to really ever do much of anything. like, they walk around or just stand around confused often enough and then they just kind of dissapear without doing anything. now it is noteworthy that they do not deal any more damage than their living precursors so even when they manage to attack enemies (which also alarms them which makes ballistica prime a silent not silent weapon) their damage output is rather sad. now, the low damage output is fine but i would like the duration of the effect to be longer. so the ghosts can serve as some kind of distraction or support / "meat" shields which would be a functionality unique and quite special to the ballistica prime. (it is a bit strange this weapon can do this in the first place if anything)

one idea i had was to tie it to ability duration somehow. would be a first that a weapon effect is tied to warframe mods? unless status effect duration on the weapon itself impacts the ghost duration

furthermore while i am unsure how the weapon ought to have some kind of synergy with nekros. nekros is all about ghosts and the dead and making ghosts fight for him. to me it only makes sense there'd be some kind of synergy with him or his abilities.

additionally the way the ghosts expire could be changed, you would not want permanent ghosts, as funny as that might be, cause a hundred ghosts at the same time would probably be problematic. though, if they had health drain like the nekros ghosts and would take bonus damage from enemies that might keep them dying before players flood a level with ghosts. which would still be awesome by the way. a tide of undead spectres slaugthering enemies. bit weird to tie that awesome mechanic to a random prime secondary though rather than a nekros ability or something.

 

also, a ballistica incarnon would be quite sweet. it has no secondary fire, at least the prime variant doesn't so there'd be no problem there right?

I've been using it here and there in the circuit, definitely a weapon in need of some help.

Agree with everything you said, but especially about some kind of Nekros synergy - seems like that should be a thing.

Even if the ghosts were permanent I doubt I'd ever have more than like a dozen before the level changed.

[Vortex]

I wish ballistica prime could have around 30~40 seconds to compensate the slow AI of the mobs, would make the weapon amazing and fun.

[Tiltskillet]

1 minute ago, Vortex said:

I wish ballistica prime could have around 30~40 seconds to compensate the slow AI of the mobs, would make the weapon amazing and fun.

It would have to have a severe restriction on number of ghosts in that case.  Probably just one, given what the Synoid Heliocor does.

But I would still prefer that to what we've got now.

[Pakaku]

It never seemed like it was meant to be anything more than a funny effect. It can create tons of specters incredibly fast, so it can’t be too powerful of an effect 

It’s still a decent shotgun-crossbow, and the ghosts are great for confusing teammates, so I don’t really have any major complaints otherwise

Edited September 1, 2023 by Pakaku