Ash needs fixes

[Petergeist00]

Hello, after the recent update i noticed something wrong with bladestorm and after some testings i discovered that my fears have became reality:
basically every melee mod that used to influence Bladestorm damage has stopped working, with the exception of attack speed mods (Fury and Riven mods with attack speed%, they cap at 50% as intended)
also incarnon weapons (like innodem passive attack speed) do not influence bladestorm anymore.

this has result in a huge damage drop of bladestorm that was already a struggling ability.

from my testing those are the mods that used to work and now don't anymore:

Finisher damage mods: Covert Lethality, Finishing touch.
Base damage mods: Primed Pressure point, Spoiled strike, Riven mods with dmg%.
Elemental mods and Condition Overload.
Crit damage mods.
Faction Mods

I don't know if this was intended or not, but please think of reverting this change or fixing it (if it is a bug), Bladestorm is a really slow ability that is capable of dealing GREAT damage sure, but it doesn't matter if everything dies instantly because everything used by teammates (or yourself) is faster at the job. i don't think it deserve this giant nerf.
 

Edited January 26 by Petergeist00

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

You could argue pressure point and damage mods affecting bladestorm was the bug itself. It was not like this for years and was removed because it was not intentional. Better communication from DE would have been good though.

[Petergeist00]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Better communication from DE would have been good though.

this^

it has been like that for months, even only declaring that it was a bug (if it was) would've been nice, people wouldn't have made new builds only for that. You could had a lot of flexability in your build by using strenght as a dump stat and compensating that with a dedicated melee weapon (i mean, there are a lot of pseudo-exalted in game that works exactly like that), this year was the first year you could build for all the Ash abilities and use them at the same time in mission, it was very nice...

welp i guess back to arcane trickery we go.

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Better communication from DE would have been good though.

Yup.  AFAICT we didn't even get a patch note that this was fixed.  That should be the barest minimum.

I never tried took advantage of the bug (I'm just not that interested in Blade Storm.) but I know a lot of people thought it made Ash more interesting, and modernized him a bit for the current game.  And some of these people really wanted to believe that it was a Pablo refresh that got accidentally released early and without documentation. 

Anyway, document better, DE.

[DarkSkysz]

On 2024-01-05 at 12:20 AM, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

removed because it was not intentional.

Giant blade skins was not supposed to happen, but now they are a feature.

Things can change.

At least finisher mods should work on bladestorm. Since finisher dmg buffing skills also works.

[Petergeist00]

So Space Mom said it's my turn to post about Ash today, before talking about his problems and possible fixes, some premises:

Who am i? i am an Ash main that started playing Warframe in 2013, i played Ash in many Eras of the game and in many metas and even when i switched to PC to a new account in 2017 i kept playing Ash (with some breaks because i've tried many frames in the years ofc and found other favorites too that i play alongside Ash). 

Do i think that Ash deserve more attention or should be fixed/buffed/reworked before other Frames or that he must have some sort of priority? NO, DE decides those kind of things and i can only talk about what i really know, this means that i will not take in consideration if Inaros (used him as example) requires or not more attention, i will just write my Feedback on Ash and what I think is necessary for him at this stage of the game.

now let's begin:

-Shuriken

What is problematic about it?

1. Without its augment mod Seeking Shuriken, this ability is useless;
    
2. building Ash for using this ability means that you are probably just gonna ignore Bladestorm, for two reasons:

          - This augment has the same role of Bladestorm, helping you against Heavy armored units;

          - The build required to run Seeking Shuriken ends being totally different from the one that focuses on Bladestorm, making you choice between using Shuriken and Smoke Screen (Duration/Strenght build with many augments)  OR Teleport and Bladestorm (Range/Strenght build), you will never use all Ash abilities in the same build efficiently;

      3.  Even the augment doesn't bring Shuriken in line with the other abilities of Armor Stripping in the game because:

            - Most of the Armor Stripping abilities in the game are permanent while the Armor Stripping from Seeking Shuriken has a Duration (that scales with power duration);

            - It is single target;

            - Removes only the Armor of the targets;

This is a problem of constistency in the game and could be also unintuitive for a new player approaching the game, having all the abilities of a category (that does fundamentally the same thing) in line would help someone learning the game massively.

      4. Ash throws 2 Shurikens, the first one goes where you aim so nothing bad... but the second one goes randomly.

 

What are my suggestion?

1) Make Seeking Shuriken armor stripping basekit, with this change we aim at making Shuriken useful as an ability and not something to just ignore until you build for it;
2) Rework the Augment Seeking Shuriken, having armor stripping basekit would require a rework of the augment, my suggestion a new functionality with a HOLD/TAP mechanic:

TAP: Nothing changes, you throw as usual your 2 shurikens that armor strips

HOLD: Ash enters in a marking mechanic, every Enemy looked at will be marked, after releasing the ability Ash throws a single Shuriken at each enemy, Ash can apply only 1 mark to each enemy. (each enemy will make the ability cost more energy)

Also the new augment will make armor stripping permanent and will be able to strip Shields (shields stripping will NOT be permanet tho).

This will fix all Ash's problems with Shuriken, the ability will be viable and not requiring an Augment (helps build flexability). The Augment will be a not so drastic change of playstyle and would enhance the ability and will also bring Shuriken in line with the others armor stripping abilities that are permanent, AoE and some of them remove Shields and Armor (Pillage and Tharros)

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-Smoke Screen

This ability is fundamentally fine in my opinion, buffing just a little bit base duration would help massively build flexability since you will not require to build a lot of duration and you can focus on building for Bladestorm (Bladestorm is the main appeal of Ash, so i think it should be also the main build to take in consideration)

At the moment Smoke Screen is being ignored by Ash players, People prefer using Arcane Trickery because building for Smoke Screen is not worth it BUT Ash needs invisibility for survivability.

Requiring an Arcane to fundamentally work at high levels... is wrong in my opinion, a Warframe should be able to use all of his abilities in a Main build and being forced in a precise Arcane is also not cool and hurts build flexability.

Also new players will have a really miserable experience, because most of them ofc will not be able to get their hand on a fully maxed Arcane.

But why am i worrying about new players? Because Ash is cool, he IS the space ninja and a lot of players will see him in the codex and just wanted to try him because he is just that cool.

so my Suggestion?

Just give Smoke Screen a small duration buff. so people will have a choice to run Arcane Trickery or not and will not feel forced to have it or use it.

 

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-Teleport

This one is really strong in a Bladestorm build, but completely useless in others.

Solution? Just make it like Kullervo's Wrathful Advance, Hold the ability to teleport where you want, that's it. with this little change you make the ability Evergreen. also in Conclave i heard it works already like this, if this is true why can't we have it in PvE?

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-Bladestorm

Oh boy here we go

Bladestorm is maybe the most problematic and outdated part of Ash's kit, i think it is the most hard hitting ability in the game, capable of reaching MILLIONS of True Damage, so where is the problem about it?

The problem is that it has no use at this stage of the game, you can't use it on meaningful bosses and using it on normal enemies is frustrating because of the Marking System. you waste time marking all the enemies you can but then a teammate comes with almost any weapon or frame, does 1/6 of your damage and kills everything before you even finish to cast the ability. Why wasting time marking enemies when Torid, Glaive, Arca Plasmon etc etc can just do the job better by clicking 1 time your mouse? an entire group of Steel Path enemies can just be deleted in a fraction of a second by those weapons that almost every player has.

And the players that do not have those weapons? Mesa, Hydroid, Kullervo and the list goes on. it is a problem in many levels of the game, steel path or normal star chart, every Ash player of every Mastery Rank will encounter.

What all those things have in common? they do much more less damage than Ash but they all are faster at the job and easier to use. making the Ash player that wants to play with his warframe forced to play Solo, Ash never was intended for a SOLO player warframe, in the beginning he had a lot of synergies with his team and was Nekros' best friend! (Bladestorm used to cut enemies in half, helping Nekros with desecrate). 

My Suggestions for Bladestorm?

-Remove the Marking System, move it to Shuriken, it only slows down the player that wants to use Bladestorm it would be a lot less frustrating if someone kills your target then because you did not waste time, make it work that you click Bladestorm on an enemy and then all the enemies in a radius are automatically marked for it and the clones start instantly without needing to recast.  this little change would help so much, in new tilesets the Marking System struggle to work properly, there are so many little objects that do not hide the enemies but somewhat breaks the LoS of the ability, making you unable to mark targets. the energy used would be based on how many enemies marked, nothing would change it would only become faster and easier to use.

-Make Bladestorm able to cut enemies in half as it used to do, why do enemies get vaporized by Bladestorm? it makes no sense to me, and Ash would also re-become a reliable choice to farm in a team with a Nekros.

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So those are my takes on Ash, Thank you for reading, recently i've seen many Ash posts, it makes me happy that people wants Ash to be relevant again in every content of the game and not only in endurance run against level cap enemies. it is the proof that people still like the Warframe and that maybe even Ash deserves to be modernized a little.

Edited January 11 by Petergeist00

[(XBOX)TagDatFatCat]

I admittedly haven't played Ash yet, but from what I've heard and seen you seem to hit the mark on his issues quiet right. 

I was also wondering why you're only able to throw two shuriken for his 1st instead of a fan of shuriken. I would love to have it in similar fashion to how you can charge Vauban's 1st to throw four charges instead of one. 

I'd even suggest that instead of marking targets one by one, you could just tab the button to target the enemy you aim at and the two closest to you (basically in a AoE cone shape expanding away from you) and when you charge the ability you could increase the number to 6 on half charge and 9 on full charge (sounds a bit weird, but it's solely for flexibility, since the battlefield might change and so you can get aways and at least throw 6 shuriken and not have the charge go to waist when you need to dodge etc. like it was the issue with Hydroid's abilities) 

And I'd also advocate your idea for a similar mechanic for Bladestorm by going for an aimed AoE. 

Yet I think it needs to be experimented, if it's better to have it placed like with Hydroid 1st and 4th for example, which would be more usefull for high priority targets, or executed similarly to Dagath's 4th, which would be simpler to use and good for decimating numbers and singleing out priority targets. 

I think "style wise" both would be cool, but just Imagine your clones mowing down a horde of enemies from inside out, starting with the target of the center where you aimed at... but yeah, the bodies need to remain, lol

 

Overall good feedback imo and a reasonable stance on the matter, hope the DE takes notes here! 

[Doctorevil1991prime]

This. Ash is my main and it felt great he was relevant again. Bladestorm was perfectly balanced before the "fix" even if it was a bug they should of left it as was. Please DE bring it back. It made bladestorm balanced not OP

[(PSN)CoNsTaNt1nE-UK]

It was definitely op and unintentional. I'm a 40% ash main at 3k hours and his bladestorm never needed or will need melee dmg/finisher mods on the weapon to improve his 4. Its stronggg as is! 

U had 40% ash strength builds hitting 200% strength numbers (prior to bug) which is common sense that it was a bug tbh 😂

His shuriken however is useless without an augment. Also the teleport could be improved to something similar along the lines of wrathful advance.

[(XBOX)SweatyPick3L]

On 2024-01-03 at 10:38 PM, Petergeist00 said:

Hello, after the recent update i noticed something wrong with bladestorm and after some testings i discovered that my fears have became reality:
basically every melee mod that used to influence Bladestorm damage has stopped working, with the exception of attack speed mods (Fury and Riven mods with attack speed%, they cap at 50% as intended) and crit chance mods (with the exception of blood rush, expected since this mod didn't work from the beginning).

also incarnon weapons (like innodem passive attack speed) do not influence bladestorm anymore.

this has result in a huge damage drop of bladestorm that was already a struggling ability.

from my testing those are the mods that used to work and now don't anymore:

Finisher damage mods: Covert Lethality, Finishing touch.
Base damage mods: Primed Pressure point, Spoiled strike, Riven mods with dmg%.
Elemental mods and Condition Overload.
Crit damage mods.
Faction Mods

I don't know if this was intended or not, but please think of reverting this change or fixing it (if it is a bug), Bladestorm is a really slow ability that is capable of dealing GREAT damage sure, but it doesn't matter if everything dies instantly because everything used by teammates (or yourself) is faster at the job. i don't think it deserve this giant nerf.
 

Nah Ash still has no issues. 

no combo multiplier x silence > 140 Sp Heavies. 

[Petergeist00]

On 2024-01-24 at 7:34 AM, (XBOX)YoungGunn82 said:

Nah Ash still has no issues

Hard disagree, the problem never was the damage as i explained in another comment (and thread). The problem is build flexability (dependancy on Arcane Trickery, because you can't build for smoke screen in a bladestorm build) and its dependancy on silence. Both of those things were fixed by allowing bladestorm to be a pseudo exalted.

Immagine if they rework banshee one day, boom, bladestorm would stop to deal damage too. 👀

On 2024-01-23 at 7:58 PM, (PSN)CoNsTaNt1nE-UK said:

It was definitely op and unintentional. I'm a 40% ash main at 3k hours and his bladestorm never needed or will need melee dmg/finisher mods on the weapon to improve his 4. Its stronggg as is! 

U had 40% ash strength builds hitting 200% strength numbers (prior to bug) which is common sense that it was a bug tbh 😂

His shuriken however is useless without an augment. Also the teleport could be improved to something similar along the lines of wrathful advance.

I agree with pretty much all you said but i don't think It was op. Because it allowed you to play all of Ash's kit for the first time in years, using strenght as a dump stat allowed you to have more in your build, using smoke screen as first choice invisibility instead of being almost forced to use arcane Trickery felt normal.

[MarakViri]

16 minutes ago, Petergeist00 said:

I agree with pretty much all you said but i don't think It was op. Because it allowed you to play all of Ash's kit for the first time in years, using strenght as a dump stat allowed you to have more in your build, using smoke screen as first choice invisibility instead of being almost forced to use arcane Trickery felt normal.

Having a single build being able to provide the best results for every single skill is not a good design. Having to choose which ability you build around as your focus is kind of a key point to the game.

You seem to think that you should be able to effectively MinMax all four abilities of a frame with a single build, which is just ... wrong.

Frames that do that by design, such as Gauss and Nova, still have various ways to play the frame and have tangibly different results.

But, being able to have a Strength Dump Ash deal the same level of damage as a dedicated [Bladestorm] Ash ... seems silly. And sure, the damage of the latter is still "technically" higher, but the bug made it pointless to ever build for that, because the damage scaled high enough even for endurance content without it. 

And nobody is forcing you to run Arcane Trickery. It's just the most effective method. You can make a Health Tank Ash if you want, and that still works really well until the levels get to the 6000s or so, with intermittent use of [Smoke Screen], on a Dump Duration build.

It comes down to a balance of "Do I want to trade my invisibility for a 70% increase in KPS". 

Besides, having to mod a melee weapon as a pseudo-stat stick versus equipping a single Arcane... honestly, the Arcane seems like a more reasonable choice, even though neither are necessary unless you, like I said, want to MinMax something.

Quote

Hard disagree, the problem never was the damage as i explained in another comment (and thread). The problem is build flexability (dependancy on Arcane Trickery, because you can't build for smoke screen in a bladestorm build) and its dependancy on silence. Both of those things were fixed by allowing bladestorm to be a pseudo exalted.

Immagine if they rework banshee one day, boom, bladestorm would stop to deal damage too

Well, yeah. That's what happens when you MinMax an ability on a frame with diverse build options. It's called specialising. That's like saying that you can't be a pilot tomorrow because you trained to be an architect instead. You are sacrificing your Duration for increased KPS, sacrificing your Helminth slot for increased KPS, with the trade-off of sacrificing an Arcane Slot for increased survivability. And, like I said, with the bug, you're also choosing to sacrifice mod slots on your Melee weapon.

 

Now, here's the thing. I actually AGREE that Finisher Damage should apply to Bladestorm, whoch is odd because I hate pseudo-exalted weapons. I don't think It NEEDS it, but it is a finisher. At least, when Ash himself is a part of the Bladestorm, but if it did so, you'd need to balance it. [DE] didn't balance it, because it was unintended (as far as I can tell). 

And Banshee would benefit from a rework.

Honestly, the most accurate thing I've seen here is that more communication over the issue would have gone a long way

Edited January 24 by MarakViri

[Petergeist00]

27 minutes ago, MarakViri said:

You seem to think that you should be able to effectively MinMax all four abilities of a frame with a single build, which is just ... wrong.

With respect, you are making a mistake in your logic. minmaxing is when all abilities are useful and could be stronger with the right build. but you still would use all the 4 abilities, some more than others but still.

in Ash's case 2 abilities can become completely useless by using a build or another, leaving the frame with only 2 useable abilities in every build. that's a design flaw.

i did another thread where i explain better and with more details, if you want you can open my profile and search it.

 

 

30 minutes ago, MarakViri said:

And nobody is forcing you to run Arcane Trickery. It's just the most effective method. You can make a Health Tank Ash if you want, and that still works really well until the levels get to the 6000s or so, with intermittent use of [Smoke Screen], on a Dump Duration build.

health tanking? past levels 1k? that's sounds more like you are using shield gating tbh. i do pretty often level cap runs and i can't see a way to health tank with Ash.

screen shot to give some proofs that i do level cap runs

Spoiler

 

[MarakViri]

1 hour ago, Petergeist00 said:

With respect, you are making a mistake in your logic. minmaxing is when all abilities are useful and could be stronger with the right build. but you still would use all the 4 abilities, some more than others but still.

"MinMax" is when you run with minimal capability in one or multiple regards to maximise your potential output in a different regard.

So, with the general [Bladestorm] Build, you need [Fleeting Expertise] to help counteract the efficiency offset for [Blind Rage], so that the damage potential of [Bladestorm] meets the damage requirements you set.

You also sacrifice the flexibility of your Helminth slot and a mod slot for the [Savage Silence] multiplier, because you want to maximise the Kills Per Cast of [Bladestorm].

That is why I referred to it as a MinMax. If you run a higher duration (swapping [Fleeting Expertise] and [Blind Rage] out for possibly [Narrow Minded] and something else (I don't know your exact build, and playstyles differ)), you might need two additional casts of [Bladestorm] to get the same result, but the energy makes itself back due to the inate synergy with [Smoke Screen] reducing the cost of marking, paired with its own extended duration meaning less re-casting of that ability.

But it ultimately comes down to playstyle and, as I'm not an Ash main and rarely do Level Cap (I usually get bored or stop enjoying myself around level 5k), I don't really play him like an Ash.

1 hour ago, Petergeist00 said:

health tanking? past levels 1k? that's sounds more like you are using shield gating tbh. i do pretty often level cap runs and i can't see a way to health tank with Ash.

Yeah, it was a really weird combination, and it was an Invigoration build (+200% Strength and +1000 Health) paired with [Parasitic Armor] in place of [Shuriken].

I can't remember the exact build I was using, but I know I  had [Growing Power], [Narrow Minded], [Rolling Guard], [Adaptation], [Primed Vigor], [Redirection], and [Primed Flow], and I think double Umbral (Intesify Vitality) as well as [Arcane Ultimatum] and [Arcane Fury], with [Exodia Might] and [Shattering Impact] on my melee.

I know I was running Unairu ([Stone Skin] for extra armor and [Caustic Strike] to remove it), with [Magus Lockdown] and [Magus Repair].

I can't remember my actual loadout, or companion either, unfortunately, but I don't recall using them much. I think one was a primer (Epitaph I think) and the other was for the demolist kill. If I did it again I'd probably use Kullervo's shotgun for combo counter though.

The KPS was slower, and it was a more stressful experience, but once I hit the 6k mark or so I just kept dying.

 

Just realise it wasn't a dump Duration build ... oops

Edited January 24 by MarakViri

[Petergeist00]

46 minutes ago, MarakViri said:

So, with the general [Bladestorm] Build, you need [Fleeting Expertise] to help counteract the efficiency offset for [Blind Rage], so that the damage potential of [Bladestorm] meets the damage requirements you set.

This isn't really a good build for bladestorm and that's just "maxing". Blind rage gives too much strenght to that build for an exchange that is not worth it as you wouldn't need that much more strenght, as you are running silence with its augment already.

Because of that you can also not use Fleeting experience. Minmaxing would be using: Transient fortitude, primed continuity, umbral intensify, augur secrets + 3 red archon shards with power duration.

Also even if this is a minmaxed build, because of the base stats of smoke screen, its duration is still too poor to allow a comfortable playstyle. That's the reason i say you are almost forced to use Arcane Trickery.

Efficiency is not a problem since Trickery will trigger Ash passive energy discount on bladestorm, all source of invisibility triggers that.

So see the problem? Smoke screen is basically useless and we can't replace it because we already have replaced shuriken with silence. In every situation you will have 1 ability or more useless on Ash, no matter the minmaxing. This is not a "specialization" in bladestorm. This is a design flaw in his kit, warframes should have a synergetic kit and all 4 abilities should give something to the player to have fun with.

 

Most recent frames like Kullervo teach us that it can work and when it does the warframe is hella fun a do not force you to any helminth or arcane.

 

 

[MarakViri]

10 minutes ago, Petergeist00 said:

So see the problem? Smoke screen is basically useless and we can't replace it because we already have replaced shuriken with silence. In every situation you will have 1 ability or more useless on Ash, no matter the minmaxing. This is not a "specialization" in bladestorm. This is a design flaw in his kit, warframes should have a synergetic kit and all 4 abilities should give something to the player to have fun with.

This is an issue different to the one this thread was about. But you are 100% correct. Ash is a very outdated frame, for one, and his Invisibility has too low a duration to be his main method of survivability.

But most frames have some level of dependence regarding their build if you want good game flow. How many of your frames use [Primed Sure Footed], for example?

But yes, the implementation of Ash's abilities cause conflicts, the actual kit itself is ... passable. Honestly, if [Fatal Teleport] was turned into the default of his ability, and its augment added finisher damage like [Savage Silence] and [Radiant Finish], he'd gain so much more usability. Same goes for [Seeking Shuriken] honestly, but still. 

[Petergeist00]

26 minutes ago, MarakViri said:

This is an issue different to the one this thread was about. But you are 100% correct.

Ehh i kinda think things are related, with BS being a pseudo exalted you could ignore strenght and using mods slots to make viable smoke screen and shuriken (using the augment for shuriken). Also it freed the arcane slot from the Tiranny of Trickery.

But i understand your point, that's why i made a different thread talking about all the Ash's problems in detail.

 

29 minutes ago, MarakViri said:

But most frames have some level of dependence regarding their build if you want good game flow. How many of your frames use [Primed Sure Footed], for example?

I disagree here, Primed sure footed is not required in any build, it can't be compared with Ash and Arcane Trickery in a bladestorm build.

 

30 minutes ago, MarakViri said:

But yes, the implementation of Ash's abilities cause conflicts, the actual kit itself is ... passable. Honestly, if [Fatal Teleport] was turned into the default of his ability, and its augment added finisher damage like [Savage Silence] and [Radiant Finish], he'd gain so much more usability. Same goes for [Seeking Shuriken] honestly, but still. 

I Agree