The 2023 usage stats are out: Revenant on the nerfing block

[Kaiga]

For 2023, revenant prime slightly beats out wukong prime to be the most used frame, with those two taking a commanding lead ahead of the other most-used frames. 

Wukong held the top spot previously, in addition to his powerful passive, mobility, and good stats, his 1 provided attention-free, consistent DPS, making the game much easier than it normally would be (though since the nerf, the AI of his clone suffers from numerous targeting bugs like ignoring being shot at, but that's another thread)

And revenant, since his buff has now reached this level of trivialization- a single cast of his mesmer skin with sufficient strength can be made to last an entire mission, even more unkillable than wukong, and frees up enough mod space to be even stronger of a helminth buff tank.

 

So the question is- is revenant next to be given the nerf hammer, for making the game too easy?

The top usage items are generally considered to be up for changes. DE balances around equip rates, with popular weapons getting dispo hammered every mainline, is revenant due for a rebalance?

Edited February 1 by Kaiga

[quxier]

7 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

And revenant, since his buff has now reached this level of trivialization- a single cast of his mesmer skin with sufficient strength can be made to last an entire mission,

If mission is easy enough or short

12 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

For 2023, revenant prime slightly beats out wukong prime to be the most used frame, with those two taking a commanding lead ahead of the other most-used frames. 

12 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

The top usage items are generally considered to be up for changes. DE balances around equip rates, with popular weapons getting dispo hammered every mainline, is revenant due for a rebalance?

Compare it to previous 2 years. Wukong were 1st. It had 9-10% usage while the 2nd and below had ~4-5% and bellow. That's ~2x  more usage. They nerfed him that time.

Now look at 2023 and you wil see difference is smaller. So I wouldn't call for nerf hammer.

 

[DrivaMain]

I suspected Revenant usage goes up because of how easy it is to get the prime version compared to its regular variant. Unlike Wukong, Revenant isn't too disruptive to the gameplay of other players in my experience encountering its users in public games; it can't nuke that well (Danse Macabre falls off short in Steel Path), compared to Wukong where you can give the clone a 10-meter AoE infinite ammo funny boom gun while you stand there doing nothing (this was before the Nerf of course). 

DE doesn't seem to be triggered to easy immortality due to how many tools we have to reach Revenant's mesmer skin levels. But if Revenant can clear rooms effortlessly thus ruining other people's horde-clearing experience? Yeah, that will get it on the chopping block for sure.

Edited February 1 by DrivaMain

[Pakaku]

Revenant still can't summon a clone to play the game for him, so I'm skeptical. Being able to take a bunch of hits like any tank isn't really saying much

[Lord_Chibi]

13 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

 

DE doesn't seem to be triggered to easy immortality due to how many tools we have to reach Revenant's mesmer skin levels. But if Revenant can clear rooms effortlessly thus ruining other people's horde-clearing experience? Yeah, that will get it on the chopping block for sure.

Dagath, Voruna, Protea seem to disagree lol...

 

But seriously, if Voruna 4 is triggered by the pet dying, why can't you recast the 4 to revive it? It wouldn't be *that* op anyways...

41 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

For 2023, revenant prime slightly beats out wukong prime to be the most used frame, with those two taking a commanding lead ahead of the other most-used frames. 

Wukong held the top spot previously, in addition to his powerful passive, mobility, and good stats, his 1 provided attention-free, consistent DPS, making the game much easier than it normally would be (though since the nerf, the AI of his clone suffers from numerous targeting bugs like ignoring being shot at, but that's another thread)

And revenant, since his buff has now reached this level of trivialization- a single cast of his mesmer skin with sufficient strength can be made to last an entire mission, even more unkillable than wukong, and frees up enough mod space to be even stronger of a helminth buff tank.

 

So the question is- is revenant next to be given the nerf hammer, for making the game too easy?

The top usage items are generally considered to be up for changes. DE balances around equip rates, with popular weapons getting dispo hammered every mainline, is revenant due for a rebalance?

If Revenant gets nerfed then everyone will hop back to Inaros anyways...

That's who everyone used before the introduction of Revenant Prime/Revenant's Mesmer Skin buff.

Edited February 1 by Lord_Chibi

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Wukong was due to lazy afk players. 

Revenant can die if you aren't paying attention. 

And we also have nezha, rhino, vazarin, operator with magus repair and literally hundreds of other options. 

So another doom and gloom thread.

[Numerounius]

I don't think so. He is a good frame at many areas of content but he isn't polarizing in any one area. It seems there is a rotating trend of best Warframe with a prime area up in the usage stats since they are the cheapest to obtain at less than 50p making them an easy choice to pick up for a wide variety of players. It is particularly why Wukong was so high up for a while.

Side-note, now that people are starting to talk about usage stats I wish we could have gotten a more comprehensive list. We know helminth is being tracked yet we don't have stats for them. That I feel like is more ripe for what should be nerfed since we know eclipse is on the chopping block so this can help us determine which abilities from which frames need help in either direction.

When Wukong got nerfed it was because of the clear over-usage of the twin even though his other abilities are high up in utility as well. I expect the same thing with Revenant if they do decide to go after him they'll target Mesmer Skin and not as much the other aspects of his kit.

[Berzerkules]

I've always been surprised there hasn't been a nerf Rev bandwagon with how hard people pushed against shield gating. Refreshable 1.3 sec invulnerability phase is game breaking OP while Rev just prance around near unkillable. 

I find his no risk no reward playstyle boring so he gets very little play time from me I just find it weird.

 

Edited February 1 by Berzerkules

[Tiltskillet]

42 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

The top usage items are generally considered to be up for changes. DE balances around equip rates,

When its overwhelming.  They also balance around power to an extent.  And things that ruin the game for other players.  And things that can be easily exploited for afk destruction.   And things that don't work as they intended.

I think Mesmer Skin is bad design, but Rev doesn't really fit any of those criteria other than usage.  And let's not kid ourselves, other than Mesmer, Revenant isn't that special.

[KitMeHarder]

12 hours ago, Kaiga said:

So the question is- is revenant next to be given the nerf hammer, for making the game too easy?

• He barely has a the "top spot" and typically only items with large margins of top usage are addressed
• With combined prime/normal he's only 5th iirc
• He's not even the most used frame at LR3

He also doesn't directly (nor does he promote playstyles that) disrupt other players. Not to mention that his tankiness is overrated, in the same way Inaros' is underrated. (You can see it in the change in Inaros' usage stats at high MRs between 2022 and 2023.) IMO that's what a bandwagon of memes and parroted opinions will do to a frame (the both of them).

Rev is great at consolidating tanking and weapon buffing, but he is a victim of blind popularity (among other things).

Edited February 1 by KitMeHarder

[RichardKam]

Actually I was pretty surprise to see Revenant being one of the most used frame in 2023. Him being even more popular than wuclone was crazy.

Revenant was my second most used frames (only because I was lazy to learn new frames between MR10 to 20) and tbh I do not understand his appeal. Yes he is immortal, just like 10+ other frames in the game. Why him?

He has no armor strip. He has no nuke. He has no damage buff. His so-called CC is underwhelming. His 3 one-shot requires setup. He has nothing to offer to his team. 

I understand he was useful in archon hunt but com'on, archon hunt? Just because there is a "no revive" condition and everyone cannot live without Revenant?

And I do not think Revenant deserves a nerf because, if you ask me, his kit is not particularly good already. The most I can do is to reduce his mesmer skin window from 1s to 0.5s.  

[trst]

If DE doesn't nerf Revenant Mesmer Skin then they'll have to make other decisions later that'll only upset more players.

Considering things like full/partial status immunity, ability adaptation, and damage attenuation crept into the game as a response to damage powercreep it's inevitable for DE to have to tackle survivability powercreep at some point. Which is already a potential concern since the secret boss added in with Whispers has a counter specifically for that with an attack that nullifies all abilities. But that point might be delayed if DE went and just nerfed/reworked Revenant first.

 

Beyond that though I don't think a Revenant change is that likely without forcing it for the above reason. As while he is the most used it's not by such a massive margin and he lacks the other criteria DE uses to make nerfs of being disruptive to the game/other players.

[0_The_F00l]

Mmmm Ahctually .... Revenant Prime is most used if you seperate the primes and regulara, but combining the primes and regulars volt is the most used, followed by wukong ,then excalibur (and umbra) and then revenant (I might be off by a little) .

 

And while revenant is definitely the next easy frame after wukong (hard to beat functional immortality) I don't think it goes against three principles that qualified wukong for the nerf , disruptive , dominant and does the work for you.

Edited February 1 by 0_The_F00l

[sunderthefirmament]

1 hour ago, Kaiga said:

The top usage items are generally considered to be up for changes. DE balances around equip rates, with popular weapons getting dispo hammered every mainline, is revenant due for a rebalance?

DE: Let's implement some more high level game modes where death is excessively penalized and many of the enemies will be completely immune to Warframe abilities.

Also DE: Why is everyone using Revenant more?

[Voltage]

4 minutes ago, sunderthefirmament said:

This is more the reaction of adding something as strong as old Defy to a different Warframe with an augment that lets you share it within Affinity Range, Priming said Warframe, and then being surprised the usage is that high.

[Pakaku]

2 hours ago, RichardKam said:

Revenant was my second most used frames (only because I was lazy to learn new frames between MR10 to 20) and tbh I do not understand his appeal. Yes he is immortal, just like 10+ other frames in the game. Why him?

Because when they buffed Mesmer skin, that got a lot of attention, and a lot people only go by what the popular youtuber talks at them about rather than deciding for themselves

[Slayer-.]

3 hours ago, Kaiga said:

For 2023, revenant prime slightly beats out wukong prime to be the most used frame, with those two taking a commanding lead ahead of the other most-used frames. 

Wukong held the top spot previously, in addition to his powerful passive, mobility, and good stats, his 1 provided attention-free, consistent DPS, making the game much easier than it normally would be (though since the nerf, the AI of his clone suffers from numerous targeting bugs like ignoring being shot at, but that's another thread)

And revenant, since his buff has now reached this level of trivialization- a single cast of his mesmer skin with sufficient strength can be made to last an entire mission, even more unkillable than wukong, and frees up enough mod space to be even stronger of a helminth buff tank.

 

So the question is- is revenant next to be given the nerf hammer, for making the game too easy?

The top usage items are generally considered to be up for changes. DE balances around equip rates, with popular weapons getting dispo hammered every mainline, is revenant due for a rebalance?

Have you played Revenant in high level content I've tried and find it easier to play with others frames, I can hold 16 mesmur stacks and in high level Steel Path content they are gone in an instance with that many bullets coming at you, this 1 second protection only makes it slightly better, I seem to spend all my time using the 2nd skill constantly.

Only time I use Revenant is for Archon Hunts.

[ReddyDisco]

When mesmer skin was buffed to give short invulnerability this high usage was inevitable, at the end of the day it's upto players to find fun in the game. I personally find revenant extremely boring and don't play him at all

[Slayer-.]

Just now, ReddyDisco said:

When mesmer skin was buffed to give short invulnerability this high usage was inevitable, at the end of the day it's upto players to find fun in the game. I personally find revenant extremely boring and don't play him at all

#me too

[Hexerin]

I see absolutely no reason to nerf Revenant. Mesmer Skin might need a slight adjustment so it isn't just infinite uptime free invulnerability with no interaction, but the rest of his kit is pretty average/mid overall. Danse Macabre could use some bugfixing and/or updating though, as it's fairly janky and to my understanding is Helminth'd off by most people.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Not necessarily no, but potentially sure. You have to consider context. I mean Kuva Nukor is still the most used Secondary, so thats definitely getting nerfed too right? Incarnons were a failure? Well again, not necessarily. Depending on how you measure usage, as far as, how you consider Prime and non Primes, or mix some together, by some metrics Revenant isn't even most used. Then even as far as the way you can compare as far as all of that separated, Revenants Prime percentage and relative popularity, is relatively healthy as far as variety sake. There is one or two percentage point between them and quite a few other Warframe. Compare that to Wukong in past years, who was almost double the percentage points ahead of their next highest used Warframe. Likewise Kuva Nukor my first example, isn't anywhere as solely wide spread. 

To be clear, this doesn't mean nerfs won't be coming, but nerfs could come to any Warframe for a variety of reasons. 

In a relative comparative sense, 2023 stats are a lot more healthy diversity/variety wise than immediate past years. Everything's a little closer and tighter. If anything though, that in itself is almost a little unusual, but there have also been a lot of different types of changes made to the game, with different ramifications. Like Archon Hunts were added, but so were Shards, and then we had two big updates, also big waves of new Incarnons, plus shield changes... Many different variables are in flux, the ability to avoid perma death in game modes with prized rewards will make a Warframe like Revenant popular. Shards that can indirectly buff Warframes like Saryn and Mesa, could make them even more popular. Certain melee Incarnon's influence on certain Warframe abilities could see them prosper, melee Arcanes and Tennokai, could mean Melee category usage next year looks different... 

There is a lot of context to sift through. 

[Kaiga]

4 hours ago, Slayer-. said:

Have you played Revenant in high level content I've tried and find it easier to play with others frames, I can hold 16 mesmur stacks and in high level Steel Path content they are gone in an instance with that many bullets coming at you, this 1 second protection only makes it slightly better, I seem to spend all my time using the 2nd skill constantly.

Only time I use Revenant is for Archon Hunts.

Actually yes. Using the augment plus a lot of strength gets you around 21 charges- if you're killing fast enough and not standing around, this will last you a very long time, the entire length of short to medium missions, even in the netracells 

Edited February 1 by Kaiga

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

8 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

I suspected Revenant usage goes up because of how easy it is to get the prime version compared to its regular variant. Unlike Wukong, Revenant isn't too disruptive to the gameplay of other players in my experience encountering its users in public games; it can't nuke that well (Danse Macabre falls off short in Steel Path), compared to Wukong where you can give the clone a 10-meter AoE infinite ammo funny boom gun while you stand there doing nothing (this was before the Nerf of course). 

DE doesn't seem to be triggered to easy immortality due to how many tools we have to reach Revenant's mesmer skin levels. But if Revenant can clear rooms effortlessly thus ruining other people's horde-clearing experience? Yeah, that will get it on the chopping block for sure.

If DE wants to nerf Mesmer Skin but buff everything else about Revenant I'll gladly take it. I just hope they don't do the whole Wukong Clone sort of nerf, it did need to be changed, but making it this odd ammo gimmick we got is overkill. You could've easily just kneecapped the damage and made it so the Clone has to reload so there's actual downtime.

Make it so Mesmer has a lot fewer charges, make Eximus just ignore it so he's not immune to literally everything, there's a lot you can do really.

[Genitive]

Wukong automated the gameplay with little to no effort. Being just unkillable isn't as impressive, in my opinion. You still have to play the game yourself. He is still strong, but not that strong.

On top of that, the difference between Revenant and the other frames isn't as big as it was between Wukong and the others in the previous years. If there ever is a massive gap, then that's another story.

[Slayer-.]

2 hours ago, Kaiga said:

Actually yes. Using the augment plus a lot of strength gets you around 21 charges- if you're killing fast enough and not standing around, this will last you a very long time, the entire length of short to medium missions, even in the netracells 

I get 19.44 charges with 324% strength at base after looking, shows how much I play him and depends on which config I'm using, without the augment figured into it.

I don't stand around, though I know what you mean I've seen it first hand :) I just seem to lose them while flying through the air like spiderman on crack, the enemy's shooting has gotten really good of late.