Limbo Mini-Rework (Wall of Text warning)

[Azchenon]

Hello everyone, 

today, we're reworking Limbo.

The poor rift magician is quite unpopular these days. His kit, when used properly, offers a lot of variety in tactics, but the gist of it is always the same : Setup (lengthy) by rifting your enemies and using stasis, then kill them all individually, potentially with the damage buff from Rift Torrent. While reasonably effective, this game plan is extremely repetitive, slow, and somewhat frustrating, as nullifiers and Eximus units pose a significant threat at higher levels, while undermining Limbo's Fantasy and Identity.

The Eximus rework of the Angels of the Zariman update is often quoted as the reason Limbo has become more and more forgotten. The new crowd control immunity and enemy abilities are indeed very problematic for Limbo's game plan : Overguard means he is unable to perform against the strongest units, and Eximus abilities, just like warframe abilities, affect both the rift and the normal plane at the same time. In the wiki, the sentence in the Rift plane page

• Auras produced by Ancients and Eximus enemies will not affect targets in the other plane.

is a complete and utter lie. Blitz eximus WILL kill you. Often.

Another problem of Limbo that is frequently brought up is one of clarity and quality of life. Many complain about having a Limbo on their team, because of the frustration of shooting an enemy that is actually rifted and therefore won't take damage. The problem here is that the effect that is supposed to indicate whether or not an enemy is rifted is very faint, and does not change with energy color. It always remains at a brownish gray that happens to blend very well with the decor in a lot of tilesets (especially the darker/ less lit ones, but all the others too, really).

The last problem that Limbo has, in my opinion, is also arguably his best part : the fact that his kit is so complex. Specifically, the rift properties, and the mechanics of (probably) the weirdest ability in the entire game : Rift Surge. This ability is used to spread the rift's influence by : 

- Rifting (Cataclysm or Banish) a group of enemies.

- Rift Surge to mark them

- Hold Banish to "Dispell" (kick everyone but limbo out of the rift)

- Marked enemies that exit the rift banish themselves back into the rift, along with nearby enemies

- Repeat steps 2 and 3

What's strange to me with this ability is that it does in a very slow, setup heavy way something that cataclysm does instantly : putting enemies in the rift. That said, I absolutely love the idea of spreading the rift through Rift Surge alone. For this rework, I wanted at one point to remove Cataclysm to make that the main game plan, but ultimately decided against it, because the ability is just too iconic.

What really bothers me about Rift Surge is the second component of it, which in my opinion has a major design flaw. Killing a marked enemy spreads the mark to another enemy in the opposite plane in a small radius. So, you mark a rifted enemy, kill it, and now you have a normal plane-bound enemy that has a mark on it. Only, that mark is UTTERLY useless, wasted even, as the only effect it has is banishing nearby targets when the marked enemy EXITS the rift. Meaning, a normal plane-bound enemy has to enter, then RE-EXIT the rift in order for that mark to be useful. This achieves nothing.

 

My Rework of Limbo includes buffs to Rift Surge to make it more reliable and give it a proper purpose beyond spreading the rift, because Cataclysm has already got that covered. I believe that both banish and stasis are functionnal in the kit, and I will not change them. I will also include quality of life changes to make Limbo less frustrating to play with and as.

I have chosen not to change Limbo's interactions with overguarded enemy units. Frustrating as they are, they are consistent with the rest of the game.

PROPOSED CHANGES:

Rifted enemies now have a visible, diamond shaped mark over them. The mark is similar to the one applied by the Zenith Rifle's "WallHack" feature. (But it doesn't provide wallhack). 

Diamond shape Matches energy color. (Or, let it be fixed, but please fix it to a bright orange or red, because gray won't cut it). The little smoke-y effect near rifted-enemy units feet also matches that color.

Rift Surge Buffs :

-Rift surge Mark spreads to all nearby enemies instead of just those who are on the opposite plane on Marked enemy kill.

-Rift Surge Radial Banish effect now activates when the marked unit is outside the rift. If a non-rifted enemy recieves the mark from a marked enemy dying near them, this enemy recieves the mark and it is immediately expended to perform the radial banish.

New effect : Rift Tension Glitch !

If 10 + Marks disappear from the rift at the same time, a Ghost of Limbo is summoned. The Ghost is a permanently Rifted ally that uses Limbo's current loadout, dealing 200% (fixed) damage.

Cap of 2 active Ghosts at the same time. The Ghosts Stay near Limbo, Focus priority targets, draw enemy aggro, and benefit from the Rift Torrent Augment.

The Ghosts' health decay over a base duration of 16 seconds (at rank 30) scaling with duration. Causing another Rift Tension Glitch causes the duration to be reset for all active Ghosts and summons 1 Ghost if the cap of active Ghosts is not reached. All other properties are the same as Equinox's Duality Augment Specter.

For clarification : The Rift Tension Glitch occurs when 10 Rift Surge marks disappear from the rift at once. That means : you need to rift 10 enemies (easy with Cataclysm), then Mark them all (Just press three), then either kill them ALL in one hit OR Dispell (Hold banish).

Credit where credit is due, the idea of rift surge summoning allies was inspired from @(XBOX)CaligulaTwily's earlier proposal for a Limbo Rework and the fact that it would be a Limbo Ghost is inspired by @Hrivolos's Rift Specter Skin (which I really like and would love to see used for this rework)

 

Thanks for reading, what are your thoughts on this ? Fellow Limbo players, do you agree with the problems that Limbo has ?

[(XBOX)CaligulaTwily]

Huh?

Cool, interesting! I like the wallhack idea ngl. I like the limbo ghosts and rift surge ease of use. However, I worry about it being easier to radial banish and rift many enemies, it'll also make it easier for Limbo to stall missions. Unless the Limbo ghost clones are very good at sweeping up frozen enemies 

[Azchenon]

il y a une heure, (XBOX)CaligulaTwily a dit :

it'll also make it easier for Limbo to stall missions.

I see the concern about Limbo's grief potential. It is a problem that I have not tackled, but it is true that some players are not good willing and will intentionnally sabotage missions using limbo's .. peculiar... interactions.

I've personally never encountered such a player, and I think my rework keeps the aspect of complexity to Limbo's kit that compells new players to play him well/research builds, guides combos with the intent of not being a hindrance to a random squad. You are very right to point out the grief problem tho. I personally do not see how to fix it directly without getting rid of the rift entirely, which is not a change I'm willing to do ! :) And for when griefs do happen, I'd argue that it's not very hard to counter : there is no reason not to leave a mission where a player is being problematic and report them when it happens, which is extremely rare in my experience

[KovakAizek]

To be honest, I fail to see why Stasis wouldn't become either scrapped in a place for less "game halting" ability, OR basekit, since ther is no world where you want enemies in the rift with you and not frozen.