Yulfan Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 (edited) Disclaimer: this essay about the state of Sevagoth is quite long. I tried my best to be as much in depth as possible but even with all my proofreading, I do not rule out the possibility of oversights or errors still being present in this document. I'm welcoming everyone to point them out and if there are subjects or details you are curious about, I would be more than happy to discuss about it. Enjoy the read 🤓 ____________________ With the coming release of Sevagoth's deluxe skin in the Whispers in the Walls update, we can expect an increase of Sevagoth's interest from the player base. After all, there is a lot of really nice things planned for this bundle: new skins both for Sevagoth and his Shadow, a new skin for his tombstone (maybe a decoration for the Orbiter on top of that), the Gillychap shoulder armor, a new version of "Sleeping in the Cold Below" for the Somachord and the cherry on top: this very same music playing during gameplay when switching to Sevagoth's Shadow. Our own freaking battle theme! Really a very generous and exciting bundle. But as much as I love this frame (it's my second most played), let's be honest: there are many criticisms to be made on Sevagoth. There is a lot of very frustrating facts about this warframe that can be a hard pass for many. So, I wanted to list and explain all the issues I have with Sevagoth, to raise awareness about it with the hope some changes could be made before he is put under the spotlights with the next update. This review will not really be about numbers, but more about bugs (obviously), as well as behaviors, game feels and usability. Because I believe the crux of Sevagoth's problems lies in these considerations. And I’m convinced that it is quite easy to come up with solutions: all Sevagoth needs is touch-ups and QoL, with only one ability needing a proper rework (guess which one?). But before getting into the meat of it, let’s talk about: Acquisition To be totally honest, I didn't have that much of struggles with the farm because, even if I farmed his parts for Helminth, I bought my first copy with his bundle when released. Because I was THAT hyped for this edgy boi. Thus, I was able to do the subsequent farm at a leisurely pace. On top of that, since it was during the release period, a lot of people was playing Railjack missions, so getting on board with players determined to squeeze dry the rewards pool was a lot easier. It's been 2 years now since Call of the Tempestarii, and I must acknowledge and shed some light on the frequent and recurring complaints by players about his ties with Void Storm missions. Being able to get his parts only as bonus rewards at a mere 10% chances clearly make farming Sevagoth a frustrating slog for many players. This problem really should be addressed, especially since DE is currently in the process of simplifying the progression path of older content. One of the most requested and obvious solution is to do the same thing as with Lua's Prey and Citrine's Last Wish updates and add a guaranteed currency to passively farm to buy the parts in a store. And this should be the de facto process for each older content that is well past its peak popularity and engagement, and for which aggressive farming is no longer justified. With this out of the way, let's begin with: The Death Well This is the first thing we are confronted with when playing Sevagoth. The Death Well is a gauge which is filled when enemies affected by Reap or Sow are killed (+5%/kill) and passively when enemies are inside the Gloom area (+0.1%/s), while slowly consumed when using the Shadow (-1%/sec). A minimum filling of 75% is required to switch to the Shadow, it can't be filled in any way when using the Shadow and once the gauge empty, we are forced to switch back to Sevagoth. There is no buff or mechanics or anything tied to this gauge. It's just a second "energy bar" whose sole function is to limit the Shadow usage and straight off the bat, it's a bad way to do it. The 75% limitation is the worst offender since we can get screwed over very often because of it. While it's easy to fill the gauge in SP missions densely populated with enemies, it can be a real pain in early/mid game non-SP missions. And even with a steady stream of enemies, we can often get caught off-guard if we need or are forced to go back to Sevagoth. The most blatant example is when switching back and forth to the Operator: the Shadow is always cancelled because of that and bring us back to Sevagoth instead. And with the 75% limitation, we often get screwed up because of that. This is a long-lasting oversight from DE that never been addressed, and which can be very frustrating. Really, the Death's Well limitation is crippling the core concept of this warframe and create very frustrating moment-to-moment gameplays. The availability of the Shadow never was a problem to begin with, since the Death's Well is consumed while using the Shadow. Without this limitation, if we switch to the Shadow at 10% capacity, we can only use it for 10 seconds. No need to restrain something that already balance itself. But overall, there is no use or incentive to switch back and forth between the two, other than filling the Death's Well when empty. There is absolutely no synergy between Sevagoth and his Shadow beside Gloom staying active. Even Sevagoth's Aura get deactivated when switching to the Shadow, when it could have been a unique and cool trait for him. But no: for the Shadow, Sevagoth is a mere Gloom turret and nothing more. The Death's Well could be way more engaging if it was the catalyst of a meaningful synergy between Sevagoth and his Shadow. For example, forget this stupid 75% infill requirement and play around with it: filling the Death's Well as Sevagoth could give bonuses to the Shadow and consume the Death's Well as the Shadow give bonuses to Sevagoth. It would be then up to the player to weigh the gains and switch from on to another depending on his needs. It would need to review filling values for the Death's Well but at least we would have a real symbiosis, true to his theme. But that's just hopium at that point. I would already be satisfied if the anti-fun 75% could be removed. Anyway, next point: Reap Sevagoth's first ability. In short: Launch his Shadow forward, doing one instance of radiation damages on all enemies on his path and debuffing them with the Death's Harvest effect (vulnerability + crit chances if augment equipped). If we aim, we can guide the Shadow and if we hold when casting, the Shadow fly faster. Killing affected enemies fill the Death Well (5%/kill). To begin with, the hold mechanic is useless. It's not like the effects are stronger or last longer, with an altered energy cost or whatever, or the Shadow has a better steering or anything. There is literally no strategic use to be made of it. Not holding it is just straight up worst, period. The only reason this mechanic exist is because when Sevagoth's release, we complained about the sluggish movement speed, and this bandaid was added when it should have been by default. Reap’s Shadow NEED to be fast, since the whole point of this ability is to be ahead of the players so we can debuff enemies facing us. Other problem: the Death's Harvest (DH) debuff don't refresh. Whether we keep Shadow in one place or recast Reap, if enemies are already under DH effect, it cannot be refreshed and need to run out first. But it cannot be directly reapplied either, since an enemy whose DH effect is running out will not get a new one if the Shadow is already over him. The enemy need to be outside of the Shadow range to be eligible for a new DH application. And we must add that the DH effect lasts longer than the Shadow's lifetime. It is therefore even more complicated to track the effects lifespan. There is a visual effect meant to do that (the black tendrils rotating around affected enemies), but it's way too tame to be properly noticeable during real gameplay. It makes Reap inconsistent and counterintuitive and once again, we can get bamboozled since DH effect can disappear without able to control anything. And with the new augment, it's even more frustrating to see the effect suddenly vanishing. On this subject, let’s talk about Reap’s augment: Shadow Haze This augment does 2 things: It gives an additional effect to the DH debuff on top of the increased vulnerability: enemies affected by DH are receiving attacks FROM ANY SOURCES with increased critical chances. It’s a flat buff so with a Power Strength oriented build, you can outsource all your weapons’ crit chances with this. Truly an awesome effect making the augment mandatory. Enemies affected are spawning additional Shadows (max 3) when killed. Those Shadows are the very same than the one from Reap but can't be controlled while aiming and will automatically seek enemies unaffected by DH instead. It helps a lot for spreading the debuff. And one nice detail: this augment is affecting not only Sevagoth's 1 "Reap" but also Shadow's 3 "Death's Harvest", the second source of the DH debuff. However, this augment is bugged with Shadow Claws, the Shadow's exclusive melee weapon. When switching to the Shadow, attacking enemies under DH effect with Shadow Claws (his only weapon) does not provide the critical chances increase. And it's the case for both sources: If we apply DH with Sevagoth's Reap first, then switch to the Shadow, it doesn't work. We only get the vulnerability debuff and additional Shadows still spawn from killed enemies. If we apply DH directly with Shadow's Death's Harvest, it doesn't work either. Once again, we only get the vulnerability debuff and additional Shadows still spawn from killed enemies. And that’s why this problem makes no sense and is so mindboggling: since DH applied with Shadow's 3 can also spawn additional Shadows, even if the augment is equipped on Sevagoth, it clearly means that the augment is not tied directly to the Reap ability but to the Death's Harvest debuff itself. But for unknown reasons, only the critical chances part of the augment is ignored. Unfortunately, in the current state, the only effect this augment offer to the Shadow is to spawn additional Shadows when killing debuffed enemies. But the Shadow doesn't need the spread as much as Sevagoth since Shadow's 3 can, unlike Reap, be RECASTED and thus REFRESHING/REAPPLYING AT WILL the DH effect on a large radius. So, if we want to enjoy the critical chances effect, we absolutely must not use the Shadow, which is completely absurd. This augment is antagonistic with the Shadow and is crippling the main feature of this warframe. Sow Now, onto Sevagoth's 2. It's very simple: all enemies in range receive True Damages as DoT for the duration of the ability. There is a damage falloff at half range and killed enemies under Sow's effect fill the Death Well (5%/kill). But the catch is: we can't recast it, and that's the problem with Sow. Again, let's break it down. Sow has three purposes: The first is to fill the Death Well. Mark enemies, if they die under the Sow effect, it fills the Death Well. Problem: Since we can't recast Sow, it's all or nothing: we must kill everyone affected because if there is at least a single enemy remaining with the mark, we can't apply it on more enemies before the end of the duration, thus we can't fill the DW. Depending on the level design of the area and/or the enemy density, this can put a hard stop on the filling, and so to Shadow's availability. The second is to heal yourself. Thank to Gloom's life steal, each tick of Sow gives health back to us. Problem: Since we can't recast Sow, DoT's ticks are always synchronized. This means that with each tick of each enemy, we regain way too much health (which is completely wasted), and between ticks, we regain nothing at all. And since enemy fire (both from outside Gloom and inside, even if slowed) can damage us anytime, we can get killed between ticks. And if only very few marked enemies remain, then even heal ticks become too low for this purpose. The third is to do damages. The dot affects all enemies in range, and True damages has the advantage to bypass armors and shields. However, Sow damages are unfortunately too low to be meaningful as a damaging ability. But Sow possess an additional effect when used in tandem with Reap: when enemies under Sow's effect enter Reap's Shadow(s) range, they receive a second instance of Radiation damages and detonate, dealing 25% of their current health as Blast damage to all enemies in a 4-meter radius (not affected by mods). Problem 1: The "current health" scaling is problematic because it meant that a single enemy surviving the 2 instances of Radiation damages can't be killed by the detonation (which is very common in high-level missions). We need to overlap the small aoes of A LOT of enemies to expect killing them and as I said before, we can only rely on enemy density in high-level SP missions to do that. And even then, they still survive more often than not. The only way to make the Reap/Sow combo reliable to kill things is by adding armors stripping into the mix, usually by subsuming another ability (and the usual choice is on Sevagoth's 4, cutting completely the Shadow out of the gameplay. I will explain why later). Problem 2: The damage falloff starting at half-range make Sow even less potent than it already is. On top of that, since Sow is working through walls, those enemies can be unreachable for our weapons and Reap's Shadow, thus avoiding all the damages previously explained. Killing a distant enemy who is keeping the last mark on him become even more annoying as a result, hindering everything else. Really, this falloff has no reason to exist. In the end, Sow is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Filling the Death Well and healing through Gloom can be done with Reap and weapons alone, and Sow's True Damages are too weak to be useful at killing enemies. Its only purpose is the serve as enabler for his combo with Reap, which is lackluster by itself. We really need to build around this combo with a mandatory subsumed ability to make it kill things. For example, I have 2 builds like this: one Pillage Sevagoth with 400% Strength for full armors strip which makes Reap/Sow my main source of damages, and a Breach Surge Sevagoth with 350% Strength where I still need to attack with my weapons, but the stacking of damages enhancements makes it easier. But other than dedicating absolutely everything to this combo, we can't take it very far. But ok: if Sow's purpose is simply to be a combo enabler (as healing tool with Gloom and damaging tool with Reap), then being able to recast the ability at will would be at the very least a very needed QoL change so that Sow can be a bit more effective in this role. Currently, the inability to recast Sow is a frustrating flaw that hinder the gameplay for no good reason. The current workaround is to run Sevagoth with relatively low duration (not too low to keep a manageable drain for Gloom) so that Sow's duration can dissapear faster. But it shouldn't be like that. Modding shouldn't be done to circumvent flaws in the ability's design, but a thoughtful choice based on a strategic use of this ability. Gloom … ah, no. It's all good. Gloom is a very VERY good ability. So good that, being his subsumable ablity, Sevagoth stayed in the shadows (🥁) for a very long time. Well, this ability can be a bit annoying at time when enemies are caught behind walls or with elevated levels, things like that. But here it is only a question of positioning and is very easily adjustable. Alright, next! Now, let's tackle the Shadow, the edgy JoJo reference. And the first point I want to address is: Movement feel Few weeks ago, I had an Invigoration for Sevagoth giving me +100% range (neat), but above all a 75% sprint speed increase. And it was a revelation! I can understand Sevagoth having under average sprint speed. He is the caster side of the warframe after all. But the Shadow, a freaking GHOST, the "SPECTER of Death" as his description say!? It's A SLUG!!!! Why his movement speed is so slow, especially when being melee only!? It was SO GOOD to roam around as the Shadow with this sprint speed bonus but now it feels so bad it makes me insane! When it comes to moving around, kind of the same way as Wisp ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), the sprint animation is the highlight of the Shadow. The Shadow moving animation is truly unique: it’s really satisfying to watch the Shadow moving with his big and long arms dragging behind his ethereal body. We should be incentivized to move around like this, but its slowness is ruining the feel. The alternative to move is by Bullet Jumping but as the Shadow, it feels terrible: while the animations feel fluid and connected as a whole with other warframes, seeing the Shadow's big body twisting and rolling look goofy and silly. Also, since we must hold block to glide, the Shadow look plain stupid with his arms crossed in front of him. Even worst: while gliding, if we hold Forward (W) and CTRL to do a fly kick, the Shadow ends up with both arms outstretched in front of him like bootleg Superman or as if he was going to make a flat landing in the swimming pool… -_- For real: the Shadow would feel so much better with a substantial buff of his sprint speed. The 75% sprint speed increase I’ve experienced felt very nice, and I don’t think at all it would be a game breaking buff. But if balancing seems needed nonetheless, then it can be done so the buff work only inside Sevagoth's Gloom. It would make a synergetic interaction between Sevagoth and his Shadow (for once). And the Shadow doesn't have any passive currently, so the spot is open. Because clearly, the intended way to play the Shadow is within Sevagoth’s Gloom. The Shadow even have his 1 “Embrace” to group and drag enemies in front of him inside their territory. We can still use the Shadow outside of it (and there are cases where it’s needed), but we must deal with the drawbacks. It reminds me Kal’tsit and Mon3tr in Arknights (tl;dr: gacha game, hero-based tower defense, characters with rarities and abilities. Nice stories and musics btw). She is a healer/dps who summon her big scary monster, and it’s him who is attacking at melee range while she heals him and give commands from a ranged position. And the thing is, while the summon can be dropped anywhere on the field, his defenses are reduced to 0 if not inside his master’s range (on top of being out of reach of his master’s healing). It’s up to us then to place them strategically to fit our needs. I can't help but see the similarities ^^ Shadow Claws They are Shadow’s exalted melee weapon and, well, there is not much to say about it: they are strong, fast, its “Ravenous Wraith” stance is cool and efficient with very satisfying animations. Overall, the Shadow Claws are stupidly fun to use. And on top of that, they do benefit from the combo counter, which is neat because we can do a Heavy Attack build if we want to. However, 2 bugs are hindering this last point: The first one is about Primary and Secondary Dexterity. These arcanes should give +7.5s combo duration on all melee weapons, but it doesn't work on Shadow Claws. It works with all other exalted weapons for which combo duration do increase accordingly, but the Shadow Claws remains stuck at 5 seconds. The second bug is about Naramon’s combo counter decay trait that doesn't work either with Shadow Claws, while all other exalted weapons are receiving it correctly. These 2 bugs are quite detrimental for the only weapon the Shadow possess. Ok but now, here come the hot take: The Shadow by itself is technically useless Don’t get me wrong: the Shadow is powerful and fun… well to be exact, his Shadow Claws are. They can melt everything, including Acolyte, with ease. But let’s be honest: everything can do that nowadays. Shadow Claws are not that special. There were already melee weapons that could do as much (or more) damages, and the addition of the Incarnons versions only reinforced that fact. And it's not just his exclusive weapon that can be easily replaced. His abilities too are redundant: Death's Harvest The first I want to talk about is Shadow’s 3 “Death's Harvest”, which is basically Reap but without Radiation damages. To be precise, the way Reap work is basically Sevagoth summoning the Shadow, and it’s the Shadow who is spamming Death’s Harvest around him for Reap’s duration. Thus, Shadow’s 3 is the debuff Death's Harvest alone, but with range and duration affected by Shadow’s mods instead. Of course, the way the debuff is applied differ, but it doesn't make that much difference. As i said before, even with Reap’s augment who can increase the effective range way past the modded value, the Shadow never struggled to spread the DH effect to begin with. The only advantage of Shadow’s 3 is, as previously mentioned, that it can be refreshed and reapplied at will. But it’s only due to the flaws in Reap design I explained earlier. It should not be counted as a legitimate difference. However, remember the combo between Sow and Reap, where enemies affected by Sow are receiving a new Radiation damage instance and detonate with Blast damages? Well, the Shadow can't take advantage of that. If you use Sow and then switch to the Shadow to use Death's Harvest, nothing happens. That on the other hand is a clear advantage of Reap over Death's Harvest. Consume Next is Shadow’s 2 “Consume”. The Shadow lunge forward and if an enemy was targeted, he takes Radiation damages and CC while the Shadow heal itself based on the damages dealt. And for this one, the verdict is immediate: this ability is hot garbage, as well as the revive mechanics based on it. Ah, yes: I have absolutely no sympathy for this ability. It has absolutely no redeeming quality whatsoever. It’s so excruciatingly bad that, if I had no choice but to change only one thing in Sevagoth, I would choose Consume without any hesitation. This ability is conceptually all over the place. Let’s break it down: The damages are crap, even when buffed with Death’s Harvest. There is just no better way to put it. And it is single target so clearly, we will never use this ability to kill things in regular gameplay. The visual effect is misleading. Seeing the astral projection of the enemy flying away is cool and all, but it’s confusing when the real one is crawling at our feet, especially since we can’t see him very well because of the Shadow’s large body. The CC is completely useless. There is already no point to CC a single regular enemy among hundreds of them, especially since it has no effect on elite mob and bosses, but the effects are laughable anyway: a mere knockdown quickly recovered and a Confusion state lasting barely 2 seconds. It’s not even a proper Radiation proc, just the Confusion effect being briefly forced on the target. On top of that, this Confusion effect is in fact harmful to us because having the enemy at our feet drawing aggro from everything around simply put us in even more danger and can easily get us killed. The healing is redundant and clunky. Really, what’s the point when we already have a very strong life's steal effect with Gloom? The fact that Gloom keeps working when we switch to the Shadow is precisely meant to use the Shadow inside! And why bother healing with Consume which has a travel animation and a recovery animation SLOW AS HELL (even with Natural Talent) when we can simply melee things to death? Not to mention that during the entire execution of the skill, the Shadow is completely locked in the animation but is still vulnerable to damage… So, we can still get killed while we are kissing walls. Really, the healing effect is redundant, impractical, and artificially bloat the ability. And about walls, here is the worst of the worst: the controls are dogS#&$!! I hate it so much!! This is certainly THE MOST FRUSTRATING AND ENRAGING THING I’VE EVER EXPERIENCED IN A VIDEO GAME!! RAAAAAAAAAH!!!! If our goddamn aiming reticle is not PIXEL PERFECT on the target, we’ll get yetted at the other side of the rooms as a result. The ability doesn't have any aim assist, and even if the wiki say that the Shadow is homing during the travel animation, it's way too weak to be noticeable, much less to be reliable, and always result in a miss. We can reasonably expect a hit with Consume only on a perfectly still target or if the enemy is literally right in front us. But during real gameplay, enemies are not sitting ducks! They move, run and keep strafing around us when we try to aim at them, and even a tiny little step on the side can easily result in a miss, thus in our death if we are bleeding out. Because yes, let’s talk about the revive mechanic. Instead of dying, we are forced to switch to the Shadow with the goal to kill 5 enemies only with Consume to revive ourselves. Certainely, Consume in Tombstone mode is granted a modifier to one-hit KO any regular enemy. But seriously, what a pain to execute! Same deal as Inaros: if not enough enemies are around (non-SP missions, already explained earlier) and with this godforsaken ability on top of that, we are screwed! Same if we have the misfortune of being surrounded by Eximus: they are completely untargetable by Consume. And not only Eximus, but regular enemies too if there is an Ancient Healer around to give them all Overguard. And since all attacks and abilities other than Consume are disabled, we can't destroy the Overguard beforehand like we could do outside of Tombstone mode. Well, to be completely transparent, you can still use Heavy Attacks during Tombstone mode so if you manage to remove the Overguard with it, you can use Consume on an Eximus. But this is certainly an oversight by DE and, on top of being quite slow, we cannot count on it to destroy the Overguard without risking killing the enemy at the same time (either if the Eximus is too weak or because subsequent Slash procs). And we have no other choice but to use it! We are prohibited from using Operator’s Last Gasp which is an infinitely better way to revive ourselves. In addition, the Shadow is still vulnerable and can get killed, finishing the bleed out timer prematurely. That’s also the case with the Operator, but at least we keep our full kit, including Void Mode. But with Sevagoth, this reviving tool is a complete downgrade and a real handicap during gameplay. Consume doesn’t hold even as a meme way to travel since can’t keep the momentum at the end of the animation and hard stop us instead! It's so annoying! Why, DE!? So let that sink in: Shadow’s Consume is useless in every imaginable way and Sevagoth’s revive mechanics is not enjoyable at all and make this warframe gaming experience worst. In conclusion, Consume is the ability that need a rework the most for this warframe. Not just some fixes or touch-ups like the other abilities but a proper rework. Alright, onto the last ability: Embrace Shadow’s 1 “Embrace” is a grouping ability coupled with a CC effect. All enemies in a conical area in front of the Shadow are lifted, dragged toward us, and keep floating into a cluster for some time. Embrace is an extremely good ability. It has a good range and affect a wide area. The CC effect is more than welcome with a good duration and is adding one more status for CO thank to the Lifted effect (and melee attacks don’t break the Lifted state). It’s quite spammable and can be refreshed. Oh, and it also looks cool as hell 🤩 And that’s why the problems about this ability are even more frustrating: Embrace usefulness is cripple by how the game work. When the enemies affected are dragged toward us, the floating effect break their pathfinding tech and they stop being recognized by doors, which then closes immediately and block the passage of enemies. Because of this, doors are now annoying obstacles and since we come across them all the time in all tilesets, it’s a constant problem to deal with. Embrace going through walls is also a problem. Affected enemies can get stuck inside elements quite easily and remain floating there for a while, defeating the ability purpose. One quick solution would be to add LoD, but it can become a nerf in some cases. A way better one would be to apply the Reap pathfinding tech to the floating enemies. The way the Shadow(s) automatically move around elements in the levels is truly impressive and very effective. It was even one of the selling points of the ability when it was showcased in a devstream. So, yeah, this tech could be very beneficial for Embrace. And while we are at it, I think that many CC abilities across all warframes could also benefit from it. But as it is right now, Embrace is heavily hindered by these problems. And this is why I said earlier that the Shadow is useless: with more and more regular melee weapons able to compete without struggle with his exalted Shadow Claws, Consume being totally useless and Death’s Harvest being easily replaced by Reap, it's better at this point to simply subsume another grouping ability on Sevagoth's 4 for achieving the same result as Embrace but with way less struggles and micro-managements. And it really pains me to reach this conclusion… And finally, on last point to tackle: Customization The problem with Shadow appearance customization is about the choice of energy colors. Shadow’s customization menus don’t have the usual Energy Colors space. You can change the Emissive Colors, but the Energy is copying Sevagoth’s instead. I understand DE wanted to create a kind of tie between Sevagoth and his Shadow by doing this. But in the end, it’s removing customization freedom to the players, and it’s very annoying. Whether the players want to give them the same or completely different energy colors, it’s their choice to do so. What’s the problem with the little edge of the Shadow’s cloak not being the same colors as Sevagoth’s abilities? Restricting our customization freedom simply for a detail like that is just ridiculous, especially when there already are literally millions of eye-melting fashion frames already roaming around in this game. And in the end, this restriction is so botched that we can still change the energy colors as we want anyway. Because it’s not like the Energy Colors option is really gone. It’s still there, but hidden. Thus, the roundabout way is to simply give Sevagoth the energy colors that we want on the Shadow, and then use the Copy Main Colors option on the Shadow to apply these colors to it. Same deal for Shadow’s Ephemera: we copy the wanted colors to the Shadow, then use copy again on the accessory customization menu. After that, revert Sevagoth’s energy colors as you want. But we shouldn't have to do that to be able to customize the Shadow to our preference. Please DE: just bring back the option. It's about our tastes, not yours. Conclusion Thank you for making it this far. When I started writing this doc, i didn't expect it to be that long! But I really hope I was able to shed some light on Sevagoth’s state. To DE’s devs: I'm sure you guys understand that it's in everyone best interest that you spend some time on Sevagoth’s case before the Whispers in the Walls update drop. He is absolutely not broken but as you can see, almost everything about him is riddled with small but extremely annoying bugs and restrictions. But outside of Consume, Sevagoth only needs little attentions and touch-ups to be truly perfect and be ready to appear in his best light when his deluxe skin comes out. So please, please, PLEASE: give him some love. Just a little bit. You’ll not regret it. Edited November 12, 2023 by Yulfan Typo + corrections and additions 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvelous_A Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 Sevagoth experience in 1 sentence: Double the effort for half the damage output 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunderthefirmament Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 42 minutes ago, Yulfan said: Next is Shadow’s 2 “Consume”. The Shadow lunge forward and if an enemy was targeted, he takes Radiation damages and CC while the Shadow heal itself based on the damages dealt. And for this one, the verdict is immediate: this ability is hot garbage, as well as the revive mechanics based on it. Your entire post is thorough, accurate, and educational. I hope DE takes the time to read through it. If they can only fix a few things, I do hope they focus on both Sevagoth and his Shadow's second abilities. Both are extremely clunky and unsatisfying for reasons you spell out in your post. That said, if we haven't already heard that Sevagoth is getting some touchups, I wouldn't get my hopes up for any changes. I think that DE has decided that Sevagoth is "good enough." And honestly, I agree. Should he be improved? Absolutely. But he's not in as dire of a situation as many other frames. I think the biggest reason we don't see Sevagoths in every other mission (or even once a month in public matchmaking) is that Gloom is just too good as a Helminth ability. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 (edited) How I would buff Sevagoth's shadow: 1 is fine imo, maybe fix the door problem. 2 should instakill enemies like during the revive phase. For the sake of my sanity please make it affect eximus unless this has already been fixed. 3 should probably get buffed. Personally I think it should be made cheaper. The claws should get that cc from the augment. And the self revive, as I already said, they need to fix it so it applies through overguard because it's impossible to revive when you're getting butchered by high level enemies that you literally cannot even fight back against. 2 hours ago, Yulfan said: Disclaimer: this essay about the state of Sevagoth is quite long. I tried my best to be as much in depth as possible but even with all my proofreading, I do not rule out the possibility of oversights or errors still being present in this document. I'm welcoming everyone to point them out and if there are subjects or details you are curious about, I would be more than happy to discuss about it. Enjoy the read 🤓 ____________________ With the coming release of Sevagoth's deluxe skin in the Whispers in the Walls update, we can expect an increase of Sevagoth's interest from the player base. After all, there is a lot of really nice things planned for this bundle: new skins both for Sevagoth and his Shadow, a new skin for his tombstone (maybe a decoration for the Orbiter on top of that), the Gillychap shoulder armor, a new version of "Sleeping in the Cold Below" for the Somachord and the cherry on top: this very same music playing during gameplay when switching to Sevagoth's Shadow. Our own freaking battle theme! Really a very generous and exciting bundle. But as much as I love this frame (it's my second most played), let's be honest: there are many criticisms to be made on Sevagoth. There is a lot of very frustrating facts about this warframe that can be a hard pass for many. So, I wanted to list and explain all the issues I have with Sevagoth, to raise awareness about it with the hope some changes could be made before he is put under the spotlights with the next update. This review will not really be about numbers, but more about bugs (obviously), as well as behaviors, game feels and usability. Because I believe the crux of Sevagoth's problems lies in these considerations. And I’m convinced that it is quite easy to come up with solutions: all Sevagoth needs is touch-ups and QoL, with only one ability needing a proper rework (guess which one?). But before getting into the meat of it, let’s talk about: Acquisition To be totally honest, I didn't have that much of struggles with the farm because, even if I farmed his parts for Helminth, I bought my first copy with his bundle when released. Because I was THAT hyped for this edgy boi. Thus, I was able to do the subsequent farm at a leisurely pace. On top of that, since it was during the release period, a lot of people was playing Railjack missions, so getting on board with players determined to squeeze dry the rewards pool was a lot easier. It's been 2 years now since Call of the Tempestarii, and I must acknowledge and shed some light on the frequent and recurring complaints by players about his ties with Void Storm missions. Being able to get his parts only as bonus rewards at a mere 10% chances clearly make farming Sevagoth a frustrating slog for many players. This problem really should be addressed, especially since DE is currently in the process of simplifying the progression path of older content. One of the most requested and obvious solution is to do the same thing as with Lua's Prey and Citrine's Last Wish updates and add a guaranteed currency to passively farm to buy the parts in a store. And this should be the de facto process for each older content that is well past its peak popularity and engagement, and for which aggressive farming is no longer justified. With this out of the way, let's begin with: The Death Well This is the first thing we are confronted with when playing Sevagoth. The Death Well is a gauge which is filled when enemies affected by Reap or Sow are killed (+5%/kill) and passively when enemies are inside the Gloom area (+0.1%/s), while slowly consumed when using the Shadow (-1%/sec). A minimum filling of 75% is required to switch to the Shadow, it can't be filled in any way when using the Shadow and once the gauge empty, we are forced to switch back to Sevagoth. There is no buff or mechanics or anything tied to this gauge. It's just a second "energy bar" whose sole function is to limit the Shadow usage and straight off the bat, it's a bad way to do it. The 75% limitation is the worst offender since we can get screwed over very often because of it. While it's easy to fill the gauge in SP missions densely populated with enemies, it can be a real pain in early/mid game non-SP missions. And even with a steady stream of enemies, we can often get caught off-guard if we need or are forced to go back to Sevagoth. The most blatant example is when switching back and forth to the Operator: the Shadow is always cancelled because of that and bring us back to Sevagoth instead. And with the 75% limitation, we often get screwed up because of that. This is a long-lasting oversight from DE that never been addressed, and which can be very frustrating. Really, the Death's Well limitation is crippling the core concept of this warframe and create very frustrating moment-to-moment gameplays. The availability of the Shadow never was a problem to begin with, since the Death's Well is consumed while using the Shadow. Without this limitation, if we switch to the Shadow at 10% capacity, we can only use it for 10 seconds. No need to restrain something that already balance itself. But overall, there is no use or incentive to switch back and forth between the two, other than filling the Death's Well when empty. There is absolutely no synergy between Sevagoth and his Shadow beside Gloom staying active. Even Sevagoth's Aura get deactivated when switching to the Shadow, when it could have been a unique and cool trait for him. But no: for the Shadow, Sevagoth is a mere Gloom turret and nothing more. The Death's Well could be way more engaging if it was the catalyst of a meaningful synergy between Sevagoth and his Shadow. For example, forget this stupid 75% infill requirement and play around with it: filling the Death's Well as Sevagoth could give bonuses to the Shadow and consume the Death's Well as the Shadow give bonuses to Sevagoth. It would be then up to the player to weigh the gains and switch from on to another depending on his needs. It would need to review filling values for the Death's Well but at least we would have a real symbiosis, true to his theme. But that's just hopium at that point. I would already be satisfied if the anti-fun 75% could be removed. Anyway, next point: Reap Sevagoth's first ability. In short: Launch his Shadow forward, doing one instance of radiation damages on all enemies on his path and debuffing them with the Death's Harvest effect (vulnerability + crit chances if augment equipped). If we aim, we can guide the Shadow and if we hold when casting, the Shadow fly faster. Killing affected enemies fill the Death Well (5%/kill). To begin with, the hold mechanic is useless. It's not like the effects are stronger or last longer, with an altered energy cost or whatever, or the Shadow has a better steering or anything. There is literally no strategic use to be made of it. Not holding it is just straight up worst, period. The only reason this mechanic exist is because when Sevagoth's release, we complained about the sluggish movement speed, and this bandaid was added when it should have been by default. Reap’s Shadow NEED to be fast, since the whole point of this ability is to be ahead of the players so we can debuff enemies facing us. Other problem: the Death's Harvest (DH) debuff don't refresh. Whether we keep Shadow in one place or recast Reap, if enemies are already under DH effect, it cannot be refreshed and need to run out first. But it cannot be directly reapplied either, since an enemy whose DH effect is running out will not get a new one if the Shadow is already over him. The enemy need to be outside of the Shadow range to be eligible for a new DH application. And we must add that the DH effect lasts longer than the Shadow's lifetime. It is therefore even more complicated to track the effects lifespan. There is a visual effect meant to do that (the black tendrils rotating around affected enemies), but it's way too tame to be properly noticeable during real gameplay. It makes Reap inconsistent and counterintuitive and once again, we can get bamboozled since DH effect can disappear without able to control anything. And with the new augment, it's even more frustrating to see the effect suddenly vanishing. On this subject, let’s talk about Reap’s augment: Shadow Haze This augment does 2 things: It gives an additional effect to the DH debuff on top of the increased vulnerability: enemies affected by DH are receiving attacks FROM ANY SOURCES with increased critical chances. It’s a flat buff so with a Power Strength oriented build, you can outsource all your weapons’ crit chances with this. Truly an awesome effect making the augment mandatory. Enemies affected are spawning additional Shadows (max 3) when killed. Those Shadows are the very same than the one from Reap but can't be controlled while aiming and will automatically seek enemies unaffected by DH instead. It helps a lot for spreading the debuff. And one nice detail: this augment is affecting not only Sevagoth's 1 "Reap" but also Shadow's 3 "Death's Harvest", the second source of the DH debuff. However, this augment is bugged with Shadow Claws, the Shadow's exclusive melee weapon. When switching to the Shadow, attacking enemies under DH effect with Shadow Claws (his only weapon) does not provide the critical chances increase. And it's the case for both sources: If we apply DH with Sevagoth's Reap first, then switch to the Shadow, it doesn't work. We only get the vulnerability debuff and additional Shadows still spawn from killed enemies. If we apply DH directly with Shadow's Death's Harvest, it doesn't work either. Once again, we only get the vulnerability debuff and additional Shadows still spawn from killed enemies. And that’s why this problem makes no sense and is so mindboggling: since DH applied with Shadow's 3 can also spawn additional Shadows, even if the augment is equipped on Sevagoth, it clearly means that the augment is not tied directly to the Reap ability but to the Death's Harvest debuff itself. But for unknown reasons, only the critical chances part of the augment is ignored. Unfortunately, in the current state, the only effect this augment offer to the Shadow is to spawn additional Shadows when killing debuffed enemies. But the Shadow doesn't need the spread as much as Sevagoth since Shadow's 3 can, unlike Reap, be RECASTED and thus REFRESHING/REAPPLYING AT WILL the DH effect on a large radius. So, if we want to enjoy the critical chances effect, we absolutely must not use the Shadow, which is completely absurd. This augment is antagonistic with the Shadow and is crippling the main feature of this warframe. Sow Now, onto Sevagoth's 2. It's very simple: all enemies in range receive True Damages as DoT for the duration of the ability. There is a damage falloff at half range and killed enemies under Sow's effect fill the Death Well (5%/kill). But the catch is: we can't recast it, and that's the problem with Sow. Again, let's break it down. Sow has three purposes: The first is to fill the Death Well. Mark enemies, if they die under the Sow effect, it fills the Death Well. Problem: Since we can't recast Sow, it's all or nothing: we must kill everyone affected because if there is at least a single enemy remaining with the mark, we can't apply it on more enemies before the end of the duration, thus we can't fill the DW. Depending on the level design of the area and/or the enemy density, this can put a hard stop on the filling, and so to Shadow's availability. The second is to heal yourself. Thank to Gloom's life steal, each tick of Sow gives health back to us. Problem: Since we can't recast Sow, DoT's ticks are always synchronized. This means that with each tick of each enemy, we regain way too much health (which is completely wasted), and between ticks, we regain nothing at all. And since enemy fire (both from outside Gloom and inside, even if slowed) can damage us anytime, we can get killed between ticks. And if only very few marked enemies remain, then even heal ticks become too low for this purpose. The third is to do damages. The dot affects all enemies in range, and True damages has the advantage to bypass armors and shields. However, Sow damages are unfortunately too low to be meaningful as a damaging ability. But Sow possess an additional effect when used in tandem with Reap: when enemies under Sow's effect enter Reap's Shadow(s) range, they receive a second instance of Radiation damages and detonate, dealing 25% of their current health as Blast damage to all enemies in a 4-meter radius (not affected by mods). Problem 1: The "current health" scaling is problematic because it meant that a single enemy surviving the 2 instances of Radiation damages can't be killed by the detonation (which is very common in high-level missions). We need to overlap the small aoes of A LOT of enemies to expect killing them and as I said before, we can only rely on enemy density in high-level SP missions to do that. And even then, they still survive more often than not. The only way to make the Reap/Sow combo reliable to kill things is by adding armors stripping into the mix, usually by subsuming another ability (and the usual choice is on Sevagoth's 4, cutting completely the Shadow out of the gameplay. I will explain why later). Problem 2: The damage falloff starting at half-range make Sow even less potent than it already is. On top of that, since Sow is working through walls, those enemies can be unreachable for our weapons and Reap's Shadow, thus avoiding all the damages previously explained. Killing a distant enemy who is keeping the last mark on him become even more annoying as a result, hindering everything else. Really, this falloff has no reason to exist. In the end, Sow is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Filling the Death Well and healing through Gloom can be done with Reap and weapons alone, and Sow's True Damages are too weak to be useful at killing enemies. Its only purpose is the serve as enabler for his combo with Reap, which is lackluster by itself. We really need to build around this combo with a mandatory subsumed ability to make it kill things. For example, I have 2 builds like this: one Pillage Sevagoth with 400% Strength for full armors strip which makes Reap/Sow my main source of damages, and a Breach Surge Sevagoth with 350% Strength where I still need to attack with my weapons, but the stacking of damages enhancements makes it easier. But other than dedicating absolutely everything to this combo, we can't take it very far. But ok: if Sow's purpose is simply to be a combo enabler (as healing tool with Gloom and damaging tool with Reap), then being able to recast the ability at will would be at the very least a very needed QoL change so that Sow can be a bit more effective in this role. Currently, the inability to recast Sow is a frustrating flaw that hinder the gameplay for no good reason. The current workaround is to run Sevagoth with relatively low duration (not too low to keep a manageable drain for Gloom) so that Sow's duration can dissapear faster. But it shouldn't be like that. Modding shouldn't be done to circumvent flaws in the ability's design, but a thoughtful choice based on a strategic use of this ability. Gloom … ah, no. It's all good. Gloom is a very VERY good ability. So good that, being his subsumable ablity, Sevagoth stayed in the shadows (🥁) for a very long time. Well, this ability can be a bit annoying at time when enemies are caught behind walls or with elevated levels, things like that. But here it is only a question of positioning and is very easily adjustable. Alright, next! Now, let's tackle the Shadow, the edgy JoJo reference. And the first point I want to address is: Movement feel Few weeks ago, I had an Invigoration for Sevagoth giving me +100% range (neat), but above all a 75% sprint speed increase. And it was a revelation! I can understand Sevagoth having under average sprint speed. He is the caster side of the warframe after all. But the Shadow, a freaking GHOST, the "SPECTER of Death" as his description say!? It's A SLUG!!!! Why his movement speed is so slow, especially when being melee only!? It was SO GOOD to roam around as the Shadow with this sprint speed bonus but now it feels so bad it makes me insane! When it comes to moving around, kind of the same way as Wisp ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), the sprint animation is the highlight of the Shadow. The Shadow moving animation is truly unique: it’s really satisfying to watch the Shadow moving with his big and long arms dragging behind his ethereal body. We should be incentivized to move around like this, but its slowness is ruining the feel. The alternative to move is by Bullet Jumping but as the Shadow, it feels terrible: while the animations feel fluid and connected as a whole with other warframes, seeing the Shadow's big body twisting and rolling look goofy and silly. Also, since we must hold block to glide, the Shadow look plain stupid with his arms crossed in front of him. Even worst: while gliding, if we hold Forward (W) and CTRL to do a fly kick, the Shadow ends up with both arms outstretched in front of him like bootleg Superman or as if he was going to make a flat landing in the swimming pool… -_- For real: the Shadow would feel so much better with a substantial buff of his sprint speed. The 75% sprint speed increase I’ve experienced felt very nice, and I don’t think at all it would be a game breaking buff. But if balancing seems needed nonetheless, then it can be done so the buff work only inside Sevagoth's Gloom. It would make a synergetic interaction between Sevagoth and his Shadow (for once). And the Shadow doesn't have any passive currently, so the spot is open. Because clearly, the intended way to play the Shadow is within Sevagoth’s Gloom. The Shadow even have his 1 “Embrace” to group and drag enemies in front of him inside their territory. We can still use the Shadow outside of it (and there are cases where it’s needed), but we must deal with the drawbacks. It reminds me Kal’tsit and Mon3tr in Arknights (tl;dr: gacha game, hero-based tower defense, characters with rarities and abilities. Nice stories and musics btw). She is a healer/dps who summon her big scary monster, and it’s him who is attacking at melee range while she heals him and give commands from a ranged position. And the thing is, while the summon can be dropped anywhere on the field, his defenses are reduced to 0 if not inside his master’s range (on top of being out of reach of his master’s healing). It’s up to us then to place them strategically to fit our needs. I can't help but see the similarities ^^ Shadow Claws They are Shadow’s exalted melee weapon and, well, there is not much to say about it: they are strong, fast, its “Ravenous Wraith” stance is cool and efficient with very satisfying animations. Overall, the Shadow Claws are stupidly fun to use. And on top of that, they do benefit from the combo counter, which is neat because we can do a Heavy Attack build if we want to. However, 2 bugs are hindering this last point: The first one is about Primary and Secondary Dexterity. These arcanes should give +7.5s combo duration on all melee weapons, but it doesn't work on Shadow Claws. It works with all other exalted weapons for which combo duration do increase accordingly, but the Shadow Claws remains stuck at 5 seconds. The second bug is about Naramon’s combo counter decay trait that doesn't work either with Shadow Claws, while all other exalted weapons are receiving it correctly. These 2 bugs are quite detrimental for the only weapon the Shadow possess. Ok but now, here come the hot take: The Shadow by itself is technically useless Don’t get me wrong: the Shadow is powerful and fun… well to be exact, his Shadow Claws are. They can melt everything, including Acolyte, with ease. But let’s be honest: everything can do that nowadays. Shadow Claws are not that special. There were already melee weapons that could do as much (or more) damages, and the addition of the Incarnons versions only reinforced that fact. And it's not just his exclusive weapon that can be easily replaced. His abilities too are redundant: Death's Harvest The first I want to talk about is Shadow’s 3 “Death's Harvest”, which is basically Reap but without Radiation damages. To be precise, the way Reap work is basically Sevagoth summoning the Shadow, and it’s the Shadow who is spamming Death’s Harvest around him for Reap’s duration. Thus, Shadow’s 3 is the debuff Death's Harvest alone, but with range and duration affected by Shadow’s mods instead. Of course, the way the debuff is applied differ, but it doesn't make that much difference. As i said before, even with Reap’s augment who can increase the effective range way past the modded value, the Shadow never struggled to spread the DH effect to begin with. The only advantage of Shadow’s 3 is, as previously mentioned, that it can be refreshed and reapplied at will. But it’s only due to the flaws in Reap design I explained earlier. It should not be counted as a legitimate difference. However, remember the combo between Sow and Reap, where enemies affected by Sow are receiving a new Radiation damage instance and detonate with Blast damages? Well, the Shadow can't take advantage of that. If you use Sow and then switch to the Shadow to use Death's Harvest, nothing happens. That on the other hand is a clear advantage of Reap over Death's Harvest. Consume Next is Shadow’s 2 “Consume”. The Shadow lunge forward and if an enemy was targeted, he takes Radiation damages and CC while the Shadow heal itself based on the damages dealt. And for this one, the verdict is immediate: this ability is hot garbage, as well as the revive mechanics based on it. Ah, yes: I have absolutely no sympathy for this ability. It has absolutely no redeeming quality whatsoever. It’s so excruciatingly bad that, if I had no choice but to change only one thing in Sevagoth, I would choose Consume without any hesitation. This ability is conceptually all over the place. Let’s break it down: The damages are crap, even when buffed with Death’s Harvest. There is just no better way to put it. And it is single target so clearly, we will never use this ability to kill things in regular gameplay. The visual effect is misleading. Seeing the astral projection of the enemy flying away is cool and all, but it’s confusing when the real one is crawling at our feet, especially since we can’t see him very well because of the Shadow’s large body. The CC is completely useless. There is already no point to CC a single regular enemy among hundreds of them, especially since it has no effect on elite mob and bosses, but the effects are laughable anyway: a mere knockdown quickly recovered and a Confusion state lasting barely 2 seconds. It’s not even a proper Radiation proc, just the Confusion effect being briefly forced on the target. On top of that, this Confusion effect is in fact harmful to us because having the enemy at our feet drawing aggro from everything around simply put us in even more danger and can easily get us killed. The healing is redundant and clunky. Really, what’s the point when we already have a very strong life's steal effect with Gloom? The fact that Gloom keeps working when we switch to the Shadow is precisely meant to use the Shadow inside! And why bother healing with Consume which has a travel animation and a recovery animation SLOW AS HELL (even with Natural Talent) when we can simply melee things to death? Not to mention that during the entire execution of the skill, the Shadow is completely locked in the animation but is still vulnerable to damage… So, we can still get killed while we are kissing walls. Really, the healing effect is redundant, impractical, and artificially bloat the ability. And about walls, here is the worst of the worst: the controls are dogS#&$!! I hate it so much!! This is certainly THE MOST FRUSTRATING AND ENRAGING THING I’VE EVER EXPERIENCED IN A VIDEO GAME!! RAAAAAAAAAH!!!! If our goddamn aiming reticle is not PIXEL PERFECT on the target, we’ll get yetted at the other side of the rooms as a result. The ability doesn't have any aim assist, and even if the wiki say that the Shadow is homing during the travel animation, it's way too weak to be noticeable, much less to be reliable, and always result in a miss. We can reasonably expect a hit with Consume only on a perfectly still target or if the enemy is literally right in front us. But during real gameplay, enemies are not sitting ducks! They move, run and keep strafing around us when we try to aim at them, and even a tiny little step on the side can easily result in a miss, thus in our death if we are bleeding out. Because yes, let’s talk about the revive mechanic. Instead of dying, we are forced to switch to the Shadow with the goal to kill 5 enemies only with Consume to revive ourselves. And seriously, what a pain to execute! Same deal as Inaros: if not enough enemies are around (non-SP missions, already explained earlier) and with this godforsaken ability on top of that, we are screwed! And we have no other choice but to use it! We are prohibited from using Operator’s Last Gasp which is an infinitely better way to revive ourselves. In addition, the Shadow is still vulnerable and can get killed, finishing the bleed out timer prematurely. That’s also the case with the Operator, but at least we keep our full kit, including Void Mode. But with Sevagoth, this reviving tool is a complete downgrade and a real handicap during gameplay. Consume doesn’t hold even as a meme way to travel since can’t keep the momentum at the end of the animation and hard stop us instead! It's so annoying! Why, DE!? So let that sink in: Shadow’s Consume is useless in every imaginable way and Sevagoth’s revive mechanics is not enjoyable at all and make this warframe gaming experience worst. In conclusion, Consume is the ability that need a rework the most for this warframe. Not just some fixes or touch-ups like the other abilities but a proper rework. Alright, onto the last ability: Embrace Shadow’s 1 “Embrace” is a grouping ability coupled with a CC effect. All enemies in a conical area in front of the Shadow are lifted, dragged toward us, and keep floating into a cluster for some time. Embrace is an extremely good ability. It has a good range and affect a wide area. The CC effect is more than welcome with a good duration and is adding one more status for CO thank to the Lifted effect (and melee attacks don’t break the Lifted state). It’s quite spammable and can be refreshed. Oh, and it also looks cool as hell 🤩 And that’s why the problems about this ability are even more frustrating: Embrace usefulness is cripple by how the game work. When the enemies affected are dragged toward us, the floating effect break their pathfinding tech and they stop being recognized by doors, which then closes immediately and block the passage of enemies. Because of this, doors are now annoying obstacles and since we come across them all the time in all tilesets, it’s a constant problem to deal with. Embrace going through walls is also a problem. Affected enemies can get stuck inside elements quite easily and remain floating there for a while, defeating the ability purpose. One quick solution would be to add LoD, but it can become a nerf in some cases. A way better one would be to apply the Reap pathfinding tech to the floating enemies. The way the Shadow(s) automatically move around elements in the levels is truly impressive and very effective. It was even one of the selling points of the ability when it was showcased in a devstream. So, yeah, this tech could be very beneficial for Embrace. And while we are at it, I think that many CC abilities across all warframes could also benefit from it. But as it is right now, Embrace is heavily hindered by these problems. And this is why I said earlier that the Shadow is useless: with more and more regular melee weapons able to compete without struggle with his exalted Shadow Claws, Consume being totally useless and Death’s Harvest being easily replaced by Reap, it's better at this point to simply subsume another grouping ability on Sevagoth's 4 for achieving the same result as Embrace but with way less struggles and micro-managements. And it really pains me to reach this conclusion… And finally, on last point to tackle: Customization The problem with Shadow appearance customization is about the choice of energy colors. Shadow’s customization menus don’t have the usual Energy Colors space. You can change the Emissive Colors, but the Energy is copying Sevagoth’s instead. I understand DE wanted to create a kind of tie between Sevagoth and his Shadow by doing this. But in the end, it’s removing customization freedom to the players, and it’s very annoying. Whether the players want to give them the same or completely different energy colors, it’s their choice to do so. What’s the problem with the little edge of the Shadow’s cloak not being the same colors as Sevagoth’s abilities? Restricting our customization freedom simply for a detail like that is just ridiculous, especially when there already are literally millions of eye-melting fashion frames already roaming around in this game. And in the end, this restriction is so botched that we can still change the energy colors as we want anyway. Because it’s not like the Energy Colors option is really gone. It’s still there, but hidden. Thus, the roundabout way is to simply give Sevagoth the energy colors that we want on the Shadow, and then use the Copy Main Colors option on the Shadow to apply these colors to it. Same deal for Shadow’s Ephemera: we copy the wanted colors to the Shadow, then use copy again on the accessory customization menu. After that, revert Sevagoth’s energy colors as you want. But we shouldn't have to do that to be able to customize the Shadow to our preference. Please DE: just bring back the option. It's about our tastes, not yours. Conclusion Thank you for making it this far. When I started writing this doc, i didn't expect it to be that long! But I really hope I was able to shed some light on Sevagoth’s state. To DE’s devs: I'm sure you guys understand that it's in everyone best interest that you spend some time on Sevagoth’s case before the Whispers in the Walls update drop. He is absolutely not broken but as you can see, almost everything about him is riddled with small but extremely annoying bugs and restrictions. But outside of Consume, Sevagoth only needs little attentions and touch-ups to be truly perfect and be ready to appear in his best light when his deluxe skin comes out. So please, please, PLEASE: give him some love. Just a little bit. You’ll not regret it. You forgot to mention the self revive having the issue where it doesn't bypass overguard, which means that you cannot revive off of or fight back against eximus enemies (unless this was *finally* fixed, and I didn't know). Also maybe mention that consume instakills enemies during the revive phase as well. All in all though, this was a really good analysis on why Sevagoth is in need of some touch ups. Edited November 12, 2023 by (XBOX)Upl0rdYT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(PSN)robotwars7 Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 for the most part, I think a lot of Sevagoth's flaws have been brought to light more recently since Dagath released: let's face it, Dagath basically does the same thing as Sevagoth with regards to the one-two synergy, but better since hers spreads outwards across an area, while Sevagoth's shadow can only go in a line. that being said, I agree he could use some improvements: - Reap and Sow should have a wider affect radius, or an augment that converts it to work in a 360 degree AoE. it'd probably end up as an augment, but I'd be fine with that. - Gloom should be improved on Sevagoth specifically, maybe with even higher base range and strength, so that it isn't outclassed by the helminth version. - Sevagoth's Shadow could use a base speed increase, definitely; you'd think being able to go as fast as you'd like would be one of the main benefits of a non-corporeal form.. otherwise, I'd say the rest of his kit works pretty well, and I think DE feels the same, since they've not announced they're tweaking him with his Deluxe. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(PSN)Pablogamer585 Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 hace 4 horas, Yulfan dijo: Add a guaranteed currency to passively farm to buy the parts in a store. Soo... Corrupted Holokeys? Sevagoth's parts and Corrupted Holokeys belong on the exact same loot table, could add 15% more drop chance to them and spread the other 15% Sevagoth's parts take among the other rewards. hace 4 horas, Yulfan dijo: The Death's Well could be way more engaging if it was the catalyst of a meaningful synergy between Sevagoth and his Shadow. In general, Death's Well serves no purpose for Sevagoth as a whole besides restricting access & duration of Shadow form. I would like having more ways to spend the it than just with the Shadow, which is so disappointing, I replaced it on my most effective Sevagoth build for Pillage, like you.* Allowing for stronger effects on hold-cast of Reap & Sow by draining a certain percentage of the Death well would be a nice start. For example, Sow dealing a higher % of a target's max health in a larger AoE instead, or for Reap to give a higher damage debuff instead of "higher flight speed"*, or even making it so Gloom doesn't require as much strength to reach its maximum potential slowdown. Gloom precisely, instead of gaining 0.1% Death Well per second for each enemy, could do the opposite and drain by that same amount so that you're forced to upkeep the drain with your other abilities. *Though you could run only 328% strength if you used Corrosive Projection, <25% shield left on enemies shouldn't be an issue to deal with. *Which is impossible to handle comfortably on a controller hace 4 horas, Yulfan dijo: Truly an awesome effect making the augment mandatory. Not really. It is definitively much better with it, I don't deny it, can't since I use it myself, but I wouldn't call it mandatory to make Reap good. hace 4 horas, Yulfan dijo: Because clearly, the intended way to play the Shadow is within Sevagoth’s Gloom. The Shadow even have his 1 “Embrace” to group and drag enemies in front of him inside their territory. Yes, 80º in 20 meters of enemies in front of us get pulled in, so is it really a problem for the big guy to be slow when enemies will be at breathing range? If we're meant to play within the embrace of Gloom, then it doesn't really matter if we aren't the fastest when instead of going towards enemies we can drag them in. hace 5 horas, Yulfan dijo: That on the other hand is a clear advantage of Reap over Death's Harvest. Correct, Reap has synergy with one ability of Sevagoth, but Sevagoth's Shadow, doesn't. Since they are treated as two frames, it makes sense that Sowed enemies are not affected by Death's Harvest, although from the name, one would think they should. Although it has no direct synergy with the other abilities, Death Harvest pairs perfectly with Embrace since it is on an AoE around the user, instead of a "guided projectile". Each kill of an enemy affected by Death Harvest serves to refill the Death's Well by 5% per kill, upkeeping the Shadow form, but Sevagoth is stronger than his Shadow so there isn't really that much of a reason to stay on it for long. To be fair, this ability should change to be like Gloom, but instead of an AoE slow, an AoE debuff that constantly drains Death's Well. Killing would still grant more Death Well, so staying in Shadow shouldn't be an issue, were there to be an incentive to do so... hace 5 horas, Yulfan dijo: And for this one, the verdict is immediate: this ability is hot garbage, as well as the revive mechanics based on it. Ah, yes: I have absolutely no sympathy for this ability. It has absolutely no redeeming quality whatsoever. It’s so excruciatingly bad that, if I had no choice but to change only one thing in Sevagoth, I would choose Consume without any hesitation. Absolutely! Dagath's release was an slap to the face when her 3rd can do the same thing without limiting the player to a poorly controllable ability, even though it has a cooldown. Regardless of that, the Shadow should be able to use his abilities and claws to revive, not Consume which should be replaced by another ability, moreover when you can just put a healing mod on the claws ¬-¬ Honestly, as Robo mentioned Dagath does all that Sevagoth does (& needs to do) better, even has "Shadow Haze" by default. Sort of. And without any limitations or shadow meters or whatever. She's super dynamic and easy to play. hace 5 horas, Yulfan dijo: And this is why I said earlier that the Shadow is useless. At the end of the day, the Shadow does the same as Sevagoth but worse, with the only difference being Embrace & Sow. So, if you think of them as two frames, Sevagoth is nice on his own, while Shadow isn't, and feels like a waste of an ability, therefore replacing it for a subsume like Pillage, ultimately makes Sevagoth be the best he can be, turning him into a very strong squad-wide DPS booster, healer, and CCer. I have spent close to 20 Forma on Sevagoth, his claws and Shadow, and he's one of my top favourite frames alongside Atlas & Gauss (which only have 1-2 lmao). Speaking of his claws & shadow, I think you forgot to bring up two small little details about them: Their range is terrible, and the Shadow has very meh health despite having more armour. 1.5m when the shadows arms are almost as long as Sevagoth himself? This could be countered with the same argument I made with movement speed not being that much of a problem on the Shadow since you can drag enemies in, but poor range doesn't really feel correct even if that is true. And why have also the same amount of health but 60% the shields? Wryyyyyy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yulfan Posted November 12, 2023 Author Share Posted November 12, 2023 (edited) Il y a 5 heures, Marvelous_A a dit : Sevagoth experience in 1 sentence: Double the effort for half the damage output Hahahahaha! Such an on point summary of an 5,400+ words essay xD Il y a 4 heures, sunderthefirmament a dit : Your entire post is thorough, accurate, and educational. I hope DE takes the time to read through it. If they can only fix a few things, I do hope they focus on both Sevagoth and his Shadow's second abilities. Both are extremely clunky and unsatisfying for reasons you spell out in your post. Thank you! And yes, I agree: Consume and Sow are the weakest links in Sevagoth's kit. Consume is completely irrelevant and, Sow by being so essential for synergies and combos makes its problems even more blatant. Il y a 3 heures, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT a dit : How I would buff Sevagoth's shadow: 1 is fine imo, maybe fix the door problem. 2 should instakill enemies like during the revive phase. For the sake of my sanity please make it affect eximus unless this has already been fixed. 3 should probably get buffed. Personally I think it should be made cheaper. The claws should get that cc from the augment. And the self revive, as I already said, they need to fix it so it applies through overguard because it's impossible to revive when you're getting butchered by high level enemies that you literally cannot even fight back against. You forgot to mention the self revive having the issue where it doesn't bypass overguard, which means that you cannot revive off of or fight back against eximus enemies (unless this was *finally* fixed, and I didn't know). Also maybe mention that consume instakills enemies during the revive phase as well. All in all though, this was a really good analysis on why Sevagoth is in need of some touch ups. Indeed, I forgot to mention the one-hit KO when using Consume during Tombstone mode! 🫢 However, instakill for regular Consume seems way too broken and it doesn't fix any usability issues. Buffing this ability's stats will no fix its uselessness. Really, Consume need a complete rework for something totally different with a whole different purpose. And I don't think Death's Harvest need a cheaper energy cost either, especially with all the means to restore energy we possess nowadays. I'm running a 45% efficiency build on my Shadow (because of Blind Rage) and I don't have any problem because i've outsourced most of my energy economy. I'm using Equilibrium both on Sevagoth and his Shadow, and Diriga with Arc Coil and Synth Deconstruct for generating health orbs. It already worked quite well before, and the companions rework only made it better. But you are pointing out something very important: Overguard make enemies completely untargetable by Consume. And not only Eximus, but also regular enemies receiving Overguard if there is an Ancient Healer around. And since all attacks and abilities other than Consume are disabled, we can't destroy the Overguard beforehand like we could do outside of Tombstone mode. Well, to be completely transparent, you can still use Heavy Attacks during Tombstone mode so if you manage to remove the Overguard with it, you can use Consume on an Eximus. But this is certainly an oversight by DE and, on top of being quite slow, we cannot count on it to destroy the Overguard without risking killing the enemy at the same time (either if the Eximus is too weak or because subsequent Slash procs). I'll add all of that, thank you! 😉 But clearly, this only reinforces the fact that the revive mechanic is a mess. Il y a 3 heures, (PSN)robotwars7 a dit : for the most part, I think a lot of Sevagoth's flaws have been brought to light more recently since Dagath released: let's face it, Dagath basically does the same thing as Sevagoth with regards to the one-two synergy, but better since hers spreads outwards across an area, while Sevagoth's shadow can only go in a line. that being said, I agree he could use some improvements: - Reap and Sow should have a wider affect radius, or an augment that converts it to work in a 360 degree AoE. it'd probably end up as an augment, but I'd be fine with that. - Gloom should be improved on Sevagoth specifically, maybe with even higher base range and strength, so that it isn't outclassed by the helminth version. - Sevagoth's Shadow could use a base speed increase, definitely; you'd think being able to go as fast as you'd like would be one of the main benefits of a non-corporeal form.. I haven't tried Dagath yet, so I don't know how her kit perform :/ I think Reap and Sow radius are fine. Reap has a base 8 meters radius and can be moved around, on top of having additionals Shadows with the augment that automatically track unaffected enemies, so it's quite efficient for spreading the DH debuff. And Sow has conveniently the same radius as Gloom. Only the detonate area when the combo kicks in can be a bit lackluster, since it's only a 4 meters radius not affected by mods. I don't mind the fixed radius, but base 4 meters is too small for producing satisfying chain reactions. Gloom is a tight rope to walk on. It's so meta that any change deserve a thoughtful scrutiny. But yes, being Sevagoth's subsumed ability without having any trait exclusive to him really tanked his popularity potential. But at this point, I doubt any changes can be made directly to the ability. The only thing we can hope for is an augment that only works with him, much like the Hildryn's Pillage's augment. And yes, totally my though about the Shadow. A freaking ghost not being able to swiftly haunt his way around seems so strange to me. Il y a 3 heures, (PSN)robotwars7 a dit : otherwise, I'd say the rest of his kit works pretty well, and I think DE feels the same, since they've not announced they're tweaking him with his Deluxe. Il y a 4 heures, sunderthefirmament a dit : That said, if we haven't already heard that Sevagoth is getting some touchups, I wouldn't get my hopes up for any changes. I think that DE has decided that Sevagoth is "good enough." And honestly, I agree. Should he be improved? Absolutely. But he's not in as dire of a situation as many other frames. I think the biggest reason we don't see Sevagoths in every other mission (or even once a month in public matchmaking) is that Gloom is just too good as a Helminth ability. To my knowledge, no: DE has not expressed the desire to tweak Sevagoth. And yes, I totally agree that Sevagoth is in a way better place than some other warframes (looking at you, Inaros). That's why I insist a lot at the beginning and the end of my initial post that what Sevagoth's need is only some little changes. But it's also true that Sevagoth is very rough around the edges, and it will be all the more obvious when more people will get their hands on it because of the Deluxe bundle. That's the carrot that I hold out in front of the devs at the beginning of my post xD I'm pragmatic. This may seems cold to those waiting for other frames to be reworked, but DE has never prioritized chronological order for their reworks. Changes of this kind have always been motivated first by Pablo's *cough* the devs inspiration, then by the needs of the time. Completely reworking a characters needs a lot of time and testing, even if they are using the numerous suggestions and feedbacks of the dedicated fans as guidelines. Meanwhile, tweaking the behaviors and the numbers of an already "alright" warframe is way easier to do. But despite this, I have little hope of seeing any changes made to Sevagoth for the next update. Whispers of the Walls seems so massive as an update that they don't seems to have any time to dedicate to something else. But hey: we are fueled by "Who knows?" in this forum. So here we go: Who knows? xD EDIT: Sorry Pablogamer585. Just saw your post when I was completing the writing of this one, but i have to go right now. I'll read and respond later🙏 Edited November 12, 2023 by Yulfan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waeleto Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 3 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said: for the most part, I think a lot of Sevagoth's flaws have been brought to light more recently since Dagath released: let's face it, Dagath basically does the same thing as Sevagoth with regards to the one-two synergy, but better since hers spreads outwards across an area, while Sevagoth's shadow can only go in a line. that being said, I agree he could use some improvements: - Reap and Sow should have a wider affect radius, or an augment that converts it to work in a 360 degree AoE. it'd probably end up as an augment, but I'd be fine with that. - Gloom should be improved on Sevagoth specifically, maybe with even higher base range and strength, so that it isn't outclassed by the helminth version. - Sevagoth's Shadow could use a base speed increase, definitely; you'd think being able to go as fast as you'd like would be one of the main benefits of a non-corporeal form.. otherwise, I'd say the rest of his kit works pretty well, and I think DE feels the same, since they've not announced they're tweaking him with his Deluxe. Agreed, people think sevagoth is weak or bad just because they don't want to invest too much into him, i'd say the best thing DE could do to him is buff the mobility of the shadow otherwise he's really fine 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quxier Posted November 12, 2023 Share Posted November 12, 2023 2 hours ago, Yulfan said: Acquisition To be totally honest, I didn't have that much of struggles with the farm because, even if I farmed his parts for Helminth, I bought my first copy with his bundle when released. Because I was THAT hyped for this edgy boi. Thus, I was able to do the subsequent farm at a leisurely pace. On top of that, since it was during the release period, a lot of people was playing Railjack missions, so getting on board with players determined to squeeze dry the rewards pool was a lot easier. It's been 2 years now since Call of the Tempestarii, and I must acknowledge and shed some light on the frequent and recurring complaints by players about his ties with Void Storm missions. Being able to get his parts only as bonus rewards at a mere 10% chances clearly make farming Sevagoth a frustrating slog for many players. This problem really should be addressed, especially since DE is currently in the process of simplifying the progression path of older content. One of the most requested and obvious solution is to do the same thing as with Lua's Prey and Citrine's Last Wish updates and add a guaranteed currency to passively farm to buy the parts in a store. And this should be the de facto process for each older content that is well past its peak popularity and engagement, and for which aggressive farming is no longer justified. Sevagoth, Sisters, Tenet melees (+1 gun) are just forcing players to play RJ. They made some parts hard to get (e.g. Tenets) so people will play that node. Yeah, I'm not going to do this. I don't see any big changes. It was mentioned probably a lot about acquisitions of Holokeys. Just give us guaranteed holokeys per missions (e.g. 1 per lowest, 3 per hardest). Then roll for additional stuff (e.g. more holos or other stuff). There weren't such changes. In order to have guaranteed Tenet melee (40 holokeys) you need farm Sister. Sister gives you 1 Holokey. So 10 Sister for team and.... 40 Sister for solo player. No plat way. That's the way to force player to play certain content... ad infinitum. Same for Duviri adapters... oh, let us give you some random meh adapters but rest you have to farm.... They forces some content (Duviri, RJ) while other is just fine (Citrine, Voruna or Dagath). So I doubt anything will change. 2 hours ago, Yulfan said: The Death's Well could be way more engaging if it was the catalyst of a meaningful synergy between Sevagoth and his Shadow. For example, forget this stupid 75% infill requirement and play around with it: filling the Death's Well as Sevagoth could give bonuses to the Shadow and consume the Death's Well as the Shadow give bonuses to Sevagoth. It would be then up to the player to weigh the gains and switch from on to another depending on his needs. It would need to review filling values for the Death's Well but at least we would have a real symbiosis, true to his theme. But that's just hopium at that point. I would already be satisfied if the anti-fun 75% could be removed. Anyway, next point: 75% requirement is horrible. They could remove it (like Baruk's 4th) and maybe they can spice things up with percentages of Death's well give bonuses to Shadow (part of what you said). This would incentivize playing as Sevagoth but won't force it. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: It makes Reap inconsistent and counterintuitive and once again, we can get bamboozled since DH effect can disappear without able to control anything. And with the new augment, it's even more frustrating to see the effect suddenly vanishing. What about weak buff of Reap? Without moding for Strength Reap & Sow are basically "fill my Death well" useless abilities. Augment changes it but it should be build-in. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: Problem 2: The damage falloff starting at half-range make Sow even less potent than it already is. On top of that, since Sow is working through walls, those enemies can be unreachable for our weapons and Reap's Shadow, thus avoiding all the damages previously explained. Killing a distant enemy who is keeping the last mark on him become even more annoying as a result, hindering everything else. Really, this falloff has no reason to exist. In the end, Sow is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Filling the Death Well and healing through Gloom can be done with Reap and weapons alone, and Sow's True Damages are too weak to be useful at killing enemies. Its only purpose is the serve as enabler for his combo with Reap, which is lackluster by itself. We really need to build around this combo with a mandatory subsumed ability to make it kill things. For example, I have 2 builds like this: one Pillage Sevagoth with 400% Strength for full armors strip which makes Reap/Sow my main source of damages, and a Breach Surge Sevagoth with 350% Strength where I still need to attack with my weapons, but the stacking of damages enhancements makes it easier. But other than dedicating absolutely everything to this combo, we can't take it very far. The biggest problem is range. You could work around damage (e.g. Viral, armor strip etc) but very small range makes it horrible ability as there is no visible effect. Subsume grouping abilities and all of sudden those 2 abilities can kill even corrupted heavy gunner ~150 level (before augment). They should increase range and/or make 2nd group enemies. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: Modding shouldn't be done to circumvent flaws in the ability's design, but a thoughtful choice based on a strategic use of this ability. DE has imho different opinion on that topic. Augments are not for, like name suggest, augmenting stuff but for making you use slots. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: I can understand Sevagoth having under average sprint speed. He is the caster side of the warframe after all. But the Shadow, a freaking GHOST, the "SPECTER of Death" as his description say!? It's A SLUG!!!! Why his movement speed is so slow, especially when being melee only!? It was SO GOOD to roam around as the Shadow with this sprint speed bonus but now it feels so bad it makes me insane! Well, you can Embrace it. *ba dum tss*, I will walk myself out. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: Shadow Claws They are Shadow’s exalted melee weapon and, well, there is not much to say about it: they are strong, fast, its “Ravenous Wraith” stance is cool and efficient with very satisfying animations. Cool looking isn't everything. IMHO Claws stance is bad. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: The Shadow by itself is technically useless Don’t get me wrong: the Shadow is powerful and fun… well to be exact, his Shadow Claws are. They can melt everything, including Acolyte, with ease. But let’s be honest: everything can do that nowadays. Shadow Claws are not that special. There were already melee weapons that could do as much (or more) damages, and the addition of the Incarnons versions only reinforced that fact. And it's not just his exclusive weapon that can be easily replaced And that's how I feel about Claws: other melees can do it better with more different stuff. Only pro of Claws are that they are strong. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: Death's Harvest The first I want to talk about is Shadow’s 3 “Death's Harvest”, which is basically Reap but without Radiation damages. Wait, it does something useful? I haven't seen that. *laughs* 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: The damages are crap, even when buffed with Death’s Harvest. There is just no better way to put it. And it is single target so clearly, we will never use this ability to kill things in regular gameplay. It's meant for healing so... it doesn't need kill. You have Claws for that... 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: The healing is redundant and clunky. Really, what’s the point when we already have a very strong life's steal effect with Gloom? The fact that Gloom keeps working when we switch to the Shadow is precisely meant to use the Shadow inside! Not everyone likes slowness so not everyone uses Gloom. And with whole 75% (mentioned by you) I like to go out with Shadow faaaar beyond Gloom reach. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: If our goddamn aiming reticle is not PIXEL PERFECT on the target, we’ll get yetted at the other side of the rooms as a result. This is why this ability is horrible. Like... cannot it just stop at enemy? Sometimes it bounces over some enemy in random direction. Like... why? Is it part of "annoying design"? I guess so. 3 hours ago, Yulfan said: Customization The problem with Shadow appearance customization is about the choice of energy colors. Shadow’s customization menus don’t have the usual Energy Colors space. You can change the Emissive Colors, but the Energy is copying Sevagoth’s instead. I understand DE wanted to create a kind of tie between Sevagoth and his Shadow by doing this. But in the end, it’s removing customization freedom to the players, and it’s very annoying. Whether the players want to give them the same or completely different energy colors, it’s their choice to do so. What’s the problem with the little edge of the Shadow’s cloak not being the same colors as Sevagoth’s abilities? Restricting our customization freedom simply for a detail like that is just ridiculous, especially when there already are literally millions of eye-melting fashion frames already roaming around in this game. And in the end, this restriction is so botched that we can still change the energy colors as we want anyway. Because it’s not like the Energy Colors option is really gone. It’s still there, but hidden. Thus, the roundabout way is to simply give Sevagoth the energy colors that we want on the Shadow, and then use the Copy Main Colors option on the Shadow to apply these colors to it. Same deal for Shadow’s Ephemera: we copy the wanted colors to the Shadow, then use copy again on the accessory customization menu. After that, revert Sevagoth’s energy colors as you want. But we shouldn't have to do that to be able to customize the Shadow to our preference. Please DE: just bring back the option. It's about our tastes, not yours. *Meanwhile Helminth trying to stab Shadow*: "Helminth doesn't understand. Helminth want to give but Shadow doesn't want to take" Same for Claws, you describe how stuff "looks or doesn't look great" but you overlook worse issues. I don't like it. Not a tiny bit. 1 hour ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said: for the most part, I think a lot of Sevagoth's flaws have been brought to light more recently since Dagath released: let's face it, Dagath basically does the same thing as Sevagoth with regards to the one-two synergy, but better since hers spreads outwards across an area, while Sevagoth's shadow can only go in a line. Dagath indeed does better but it's still faaaar from perfect. 1 hour ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said: 6 hours ago, Yulfan said: Add a guaranteed currency to passively farm to buy the parts in a store. Soo... Corrupted Holokeys? Holokeys is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from guaranteed currency. Unless you count "slap in the face 1 holokey per Sister", otherwise some people goes days without drops. 1 hour ago, Waeleto said: Agreed, people think sevagoth is weak or bad just because they don't want to invest too much into him, i'd say the best thing DE could do to him is buff the mobility of the shadow otherwise he's really fine What's kind of investment? ~15 forma. Pffft! It's laughable small amount. I've bought 1 Sevagoth, Helminthed him. I've farmed and few times forma every thing (~3 forma, ~9 forma total). I could easily do more forma... but It's not great frame. Some part of Sevagoth or Shadow are bad or weak. Look at OP's issues. I could write some more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaShark Posted December 5, 2023 Share Posted December 5, 2023 (edited) So I'm also a Sevagoth main with considerable time using him and I agree with many of your sentiments if not all of them. I have gotten by with the "movement feel" by putting 2 yellow tau forged shards on Sevagoth and using the cast speed increase to switch back and forth to Shadow for spamming consume for the movement. Literally nothing else for that ability as you have made clear, it's the only half-redeeming quality it has. I wish it gave a sort of temporary flight pattern at high speed where passing through enemies dealt damage to them instead of this weird...head on collision he does. I did not see you mention the infuriating bug Sevagoth has that results in blast damage from reap and sow not working when he is not the host and I feel this is a MAJOR missed point. It effectively cuts the synergy from his main 2 abilities into practically just using reap because of the bug and limitations you described. Your mention of the death well was important but I want to mention a few other details about the Shadow and it's Death Claws. They don't WORK WITH ANYTHING! Naramon focus? Not even a little. Dexterity arcanes? I wish. Want to extend the combo counter in any way possible? Nope, your only build variety is heavy attacks with corrupt charge. It infuriates me that he is treated like an exalted weapon but with several more limitations than would be normal. A note about Shadow Haze, I believe its a design choice that it doesn't work with Shadow and I agree it works against the synergy with rest of his kit. A good reason to believe this is because if you switch to your OPERATOR you still get the crit chance increase! I know he came out during the pandemic, but can my main get fixed please? Edited December 5, 2023 by DaShark typo correction Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(PSN)Tdoggityrexdini Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 I've been using Sevy for the last two years. He is undoubtedly my main, and 19 forma later it has been a long but fun, as well as fulfilling Journey. However, it was so frustrating to see his full potential squandered by a plethora of poor ability design choices that blatantly lowered his overall consistency/potency as a frame. To see my all my joys, wishes, and issues centered around Sevagoth beautifully written and summarized before my eyes only adds fuel to the fire. It's so refreshing to visually see that I am not alone in regards to wanting a slight push to Sevagoth's performance. If DE would implement half of your changes, Sevy would be in dramatically better shape. I hope they see this post and act accordingly. On behalf of all the bright eyed Sevagoth mains, please DE. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(XBOX)K1jker Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 Wrong forum section though.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvelous_A Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 (edited) 2 hours ago, (PSN)Tdoggityrexdini said: I've been using Sevy for the last two years. He is undoubtedly my main, and 19 forma later it has been a long but fun, as well as fulfilling Journey. However, it was so frustrating to see his full potential squandered by a plethora of poor ability design choices that blatantly lowered his overall consistency/potency as a frame. To see my all my joys, wishes, and issues centered around Sevagoth beautifully written and summarized before my eyes only adds fuel to the fire. It's so refreshing to visually see that I am not alone in regards to wanting a slight push to Sevagoth's performance. If DE would implement half of your changes, Sevy would be in dramatically better shape. I hope they see this post and act accordingly. On behalf of all the bright eyed Sevagoth mains, please DE. Good news is Sevagoth Prime will probably come out in next year so you might actually see some changes on him if you stick to the game. I think Sevagoth is indeed in a very usable state but the whole shadow thing just really isn't that attractive especially with the harsh ability limitation, and also the fact that Embrace (which is essentially Pull) and the innate bleed proc on the heavy claws attack are pretty much the only nice things of it IMO. Put Pull over Shadow with Helminth, use Venka Prime and tada you pretty much combine 2 of them in 1 warframe and have no reason to ever switch to the shadow. Edited December 7, 2023 by Marvelous_A 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aruquae Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 2 hours ago, Marvelous_A said: Good news is Sevagoth Prime will probably come out in next year so you might actually see some changes on him if you stick to the game. I think Sevagoth is indeed in a very usable state but the whole shadow thing just really isn't that attractive especially with the harsh ability limitation, and also the fact that Embrace (which is essentially Pull) and the innate bleed proc on the heavy claws attack are pretty much the only nice things of it IMO. Put Pull over Shadow with Helminth, use Venka Prime and tada you pretty much combine 2 of them in 1 warframe and have no reason to ever switch to the shadow. Wait, next year? It’s already been almost 4 years since his release? My beautiful Sevagothgirl is getting primed soon. Yay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimsonspartan1 Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 Sevagoth shares the same issue as Grendel where their best ability can be used on just about any frame through helminth. Sevagoth's gloom is a very powerful CC + Survivability ability that slows enemies and provides life-steal while Grendel's nourish does lose it's instant-heal upon cast when used on other frames, but it's added viral damage, ability to proc viral on enemies around the user and boosts energy gains still makes it one of the best helminth abilities, plus it can be casted freely whereas Grendel needs to have an enemy in his stomach to even use it. At least with some abilities like Rhino's Roar which is just a straight up damage boost get a slight nerf when used on frames other than the original user (Roar is still a frequently used ability, and can't really deny that roar being subsumable does mean Rhino gets rendered irrelevant a bit even despite the reduced effect on other frames), Gloom and Nourish (minus the heal on cast) are still just as powerful as their original counterparts and generally makes any other frame who uses them much more powerful and the cc, survivability and utility those abilities provide are difficult to simply ignore. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrodgrim Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 I would rework the Death Well thing entirely and untether the shadow from the Death Well completely, letting you use the shadow as long as you want for no cost. Instead have the Death Well provide some kind of scaling or consumable buff to Sevagoth and a different buff for the Shadow. Shadow's buff should definitely be something to speed him up. Also, everyone seems to agree on being able to re-case Sow. It feels awful to use without recast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaShark Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 2 hours ago, Hrodgrim said: I would rework the Death Well thing entirely and untether the shadow from the Death Well completely, letting you use the shadow as long as you want for no cost. Instead have the Death Well provide some kind of scaling or consumable buff to Sevagoth and a different buff for the Shadow. Shadow's buff should definitely be something to speed him up. Also, everyone seems to agree on being able to re-case Sow. It feels awful to use without recast. All warframe abilities usually have some cost involved. Sevagoth's Shadow is just souls which aren't really hard to get, but tedious to get a lot of. If it was between the souls or energy, I am fine using souls for now. Gloom already takes almost too much energy as it is right now. Uncapping the minimum required souls to cast Shadow would most definitely fix the issue, but it would definitely help if it scaled something like DR the more souls he has (Not unlike Baruuk) as to incentivize bouncing between forms but not severely punishing players for staying in Shadow form too long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrodgrim Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 27 minutes ago, DaShark said: All warframe abilities usually have some cost involved. Sevagoth's Shadow is just souls which aren't really hard to get, but tedious to get a lot of. If it was between the souls or energy, I am fine using souls for now. Gloom already takes almost too much energy as it is right now. Uncapping the minimum required souls to cast Shadow would most definitely fix the issue, but it would definitely help if it scaled something like DR the more souls he has (Not unlike Baruuk) as to incentivize bouncing between forms but not severely punishing players for staying in Shadow form too long. You shouldn't be punished for using the Shadow at all. All it does is switch your stats and move set. You're already punished, in a sort of roundabout way, by precluding the Shadow from using guns. As far as a cost goes for maintaining the Shadow, I can see the Death Well still being used for this if the Shadow itself can also add to its own Death Well. This would stop it from being an artificial timer, but you wouldn't get away with abusing it forever if you can't properly do your job with it. Lol also the 75% requirement needs to be dropped entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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