The Sniper Warframe

[3mptylord]

While playing Kullervo, I found myself conceptualizing what a Warframe that interacts with Shot Combo might look like - i.e. a Sniper Warframe.

Now I've done Sniper before. I originally created this moodboard to accompany my suggestion for a Sniper Necramech. But I think that The Sniper is such a good archetype/Power Fantasy for a "playable character" in Warframe that the theme is worth exploring twice, and I didn't explore Shot Combo in the Necramech. Both my suggestions share the "integrated rifle" signature ability - but they otherwise have distinct kits. "Integrated rifle" refers to the shoulder mounted gun-barrel that is present within the moodboard - I want firing this weapon to have a dramatized firing animation to really sell the one-shot-one-kill/one-in-the-chamber fantasy,

The first thing I came up with was a passive or self-buff ability that gives you the ability to perform Finishers while looking through a Scope.

But I thought the mechanic was too solid of a feature to be exclusive to a single Warframe - so I suggested it separately:

While drafting the kit, I decided to give the concept a proper noun so that I could stop writing in second person. In the spirit of Warframe's existing naming schema of gods, mythology and Sanskrit - I looked up a list of Gods of the Hunt. I saw one that started with the letter U and thought "that checks off another of Rebecca's A-to-Z of Warframes"... so, meet:

Ullr
The Hunter. The Sharpshooter. The Sniper. The Executioner.

TL;DR: A mix of Ash and Kullervo mechanics but with a Sniper flavour instead of a Blade flavour. A different kind of assassin. 

Passive
Your Shot Combo Counter is always visible. Gain +10 second Shot Combo Duration, 4x Shot Combo Counter on Headshots and 50% chance not to lose 1 Shot Combo Counter on-miss.

[1] Hipshot
Tap to land an easy headshot on the target enemy. Drain 🗲25. Refund ▲[5 / 20 / 35 / 50]% on a kill.
Augment - Tripshot: Hold to deploy a drone that projects a laser-sight in the target direction that automatically casts Hipshot on the next ◔[3 / 4 / 5 / 6] enemies that cross its sights.
Augment - Killshot: The shot now deals Finisher Damage with [25 / 50 / 75 / 100%] bonus Finisher Damage. 

[2] Disengage
Tap to Wall Latch to target vertical surface within ➲[20 / 22 / 23 / 25]m. Drain 🗲25.
Hold to focus, gaining ▲[15 / 30 / 45 / 60]% Ammo Efficiency and 60% Accuracy/-60% Spread/-60% Weapon Recoil. Wall Latch duration is paused while focusing. Drain 🗲◔25 + 10 (+0.5/s) /s.

[3] Infrared Sights
Tap to gain Codex Vision of all units within ➲[40 / 44 / 46 / 50]m for the next ◔[10 / 15 / 20 / 25]s. Drain 🗲75. Revealed enemies are opened to Ranged Finishers.
This is Ullr's Subsumed and Tactical ability. 

[4] Severance
Tap to take aim with your integrated rifle and fire a shot that devastates everything in the target direction. Drain 🗲100. This shot instantly (hitscan) deals 3 instances of ▲[800 / 1200 / 1600 / 2000] Finisher Damage with guaranteed Slash status to all enemies in a given direction irrelevant of any and all obstructions. ➲0.5m radius beam. On a kill gain [10 / 15 / 20 / 25]% Ability Efficiency on Severance for ◔2s.
Exilus Augment - Quiet Quitting: Severance is now a Silent weapon. Max rank 0.

Severance could be a fully configurable Exalted Weapon, a Pseudo-Exalted (i.e. uses a stat-stick) or a Exalted-In-Name-Only - but it is my intent that it would have the gameplay of an In-Name-Only and never be fully wieldable. Like Kullervo, I think it's important that a weapon-class focused Warframe uses (and is good at using) weapons from that class - rather than being encouraged to toggle an Exalted weapon that overrules your Arsenal. 

Example augments follow the original design philosophy of augments that they should be optional, and the trick to making stuff feel optional is (a) multiple options and (b) not competing with power. 

 

Edited January 3 by 3mptylord
Fixed a few typos

[Tiltskillet]

Neat ideas!

9 minutes ago, 3mptylord said:

While playing Kullervo, I found myself conceptualizing what a Warframe that interacts with Shot Combo might look like

I imagine you know, but it's so fun it's worth repeating for anybody who doesn't...Collective Curse does affect sniper combo accumulation. Some of the ideas I have in the back of my mind for augments would build on that.

[3mptylord]

17 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Neat ideas!

I imagine you know, but it's so fun it's worth repeating for anybody who doesn't...Collective Curse does affect sniper combo accumulation. Some of the ideas I have in the back of my mind for augments would build on that.

Good old Collective Curse!

... and thanks for the praise!